“She doesn't know that she has told me much of anything. But she has talked her work and prospects. And the real story comes through. Just this afternoon since I left her, it has been piecing itself together. She is frank, you know.” Peter suppressed a groan. She was frank! “Zanin is in love with her. He has been for a year or more. He wrote _Any Street_ for her, incorporated some of her own ideas in it. He has been tireless at helping her work up her dancing and pantomime. Why, as near as I can see, the man has been downright devoting his life to her, all this time. It's rather impressive. But then, Zanin _is_ impressive.” Peter broke out now. “Does he expect to marry her--Zanin?” “Marry her? Oh, no.” “'Oh, no!' Good God then--” “Oh, come, Pete, you surely know Zanin's attitude toward marriage. He has written enough on the subject. And lectured--and put it in those little plays of his.” “What _is_ his attitude?” “That marriage is immoral. Worse than immoral--vicious. He has expounded that stuff for years.” “And what does she say to all this?” This question came from Hy, for Peter was speechless. “Simply that he doesn't rouse any emotional response in her. I'm not sure that she isn't a little sorry he doesn't. She would be honest you know. And that's the thing about Sue--my guess about her, at least--that she won't approach love as an experiment or an experience. It will have to be the real thing.” He tried again, in his slow calm way, to hang a smoke ring on the brass hook. “Proceed,” said Hy. “Your narrative interests me strangely.” “Well,” said the Worm slowly, “Zanin is about ready to put over his big scheme. He has contrived at last to get one of the managers interested. And it hangs on Sue's personality. The way he has worked it out with her, planning it as a concrete expression of that half wild, natural self of hers, I doubt if it, this particular thing, could be done without her. It _is_ Sue--an expressed, interpreted Sue.” “This must be the thing he is trying to get Pete in on.” “The same. Zanin knows that where he fails is on the side of popularity. He has intelligence, but he hasn't the trick of reaching the crowd. And he is smart enough to see what he needs and go after it.” “He is going after the crowd, then?” “Absolutely.” “And what becomes of the noble artistic standards he's been bleeding and dying for?”