“Oh,” Olive said, “if you let Margot run your affairs you’ll have strange creatures from darkest Chelsea mounting all your plays and flappers who’ve acted twice in a charity show playing Monna Vanna. She made my poor husband buy a cubist portrait of Winston Churchill some pal of hers painted. When he found it was meant to be Churchill he took to his bed.” “Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Williams,” said the butler against Mark’s swift, “Ask ’em to go to the drawing room. ’Xcuse me, Olive. Got to go talk strike a minute.” She looked about the sinless library with its severe panels and blue rug then at Mark’s patron--an exhumed Pharaoh, his yellow hawk face and bloodless hands motionless, the cigarette smoking in a corner of his mouth. He had just the pathos of oncoming death. He squeaked, “Mark’s busy as a pup with fleas. Actors strikin’! The lazy hounds! It’s enough to make Gus Daly turn in his grave!” “You’ve no sympathy with them?” “Not a speck! The show business is war and war’s hell. Here’s this Boyle onion Mark was married to, Bill Loeffler sends for her to come back from England and get a thousand a week to play in a French piece. Pays her passage. Then what? Minute she sets foot on land she grabs a movie contract and pikes off to California. She’s a hot baby, she is! Actors!” “I hear that Mark’s engaged her husband.” “That slimjim sissy from Ioway? Not much!” “Is Rand an American?” “He-ell, yes! He’s old Quincy Rand’s Son that used to run the Opera House in Des Moines. He run off with a stock comp’ny that played Montreal and got to talkin’ English. I told Margot that and she was mad enough to bust.--Say, you British are cracked, lettin’ a pack of actors loose in your houses like they was human--” He fell asleep. The nurse came to take the cigarette from his lips. Olive strolled off to examine the shelves packed tightly with books. Here was the medley of Mark’s brain--volumes of Whyte Melville mingled with unknown American novels, folios on decoration, collected prints from the European galleries. A copy of “Capital” surprised her but she found Gurdy’s signature dated, “Yale College, November, 1916,” on the first page. Gurdy came up the white stairway and saw the black gown with relief. Lady Ilden could be a buffer between Margot and himself. There would be less need of visits to the seashore house. He led the Englishwoman into the broad hall. “Something odd has just happened, Gurdy.” “Mr. Carlson swear at you?” “Before, not at. But he tells me that Mark did not send for Cosmo Rand to act in something over here whereas Ronny Dufford most distinctly told me that Mark did. It interested me because Mark’s so coy about his old wife and it seemed queer that he’d cable for her husband.”