“Just at this minute you don’t particularly care about sitting on a wooden chair in a cabin away out in the wilderness, hearing coyotes howl on a hill and your saddle horses champing hay in a sod-roofed stable, and you thinking how it’s miles to the nearest neighbor--and an audience! You’ve reached the point, Gary, where a little mental surgery is absolutely necessary to your future mental health. I can see that your soul is beginning to show symptoms of going a tiny bit flabby. And I simply _loathe_ flabby-souled men with handsome faces and shoulders as broad as yours!” That was like jabbing Gary in the back with a hatpin. He sat up with a jerk. “Flabby-souled! Good Lord, Pat! Why pile up the insults? This is getting good, I must say!” He leaned back in the chair again, the first effect of the jab having passed. “I can stand all this knocking the movie game--I’m used to it, heck knows. I might just point out, however, that making a living by expressing the emotions of men in stories is no worse than pounding a typewriter for a living. What’s the difference whether you sell your profile or your fingers? And what do you think----” “I think it’s ten o’clock, Gary Marshall, and I’ve said what I have to say and there’s no argument, because I simply won’t argue. I suppose you’ll need sleep if you still have to be at the studio at seven o’clock in the morning so that you can get into your painted eyebrows and painted eyelashes and painted lips for the day’s smirk.” Gary heaved himself out of his chair and reached for his hat, forgetting to observe subconsciously how effectively he did it. Patricia’s mental surgery had driven the lance deep into his pride and self-esteem, which in a handsome young man of twenty-four is quite as sensitive to pain as an eyeball. Patricia had omitted the mental anesthetic of a little flattery, and she had twisted the knife sickeningly. Painted eyelashes and painted lips nauseated Gary quite suddenly; but scarcely more than did the thought of that ranch of a hundred cattle in a Nevada desert, which Patricia had beggared herself to buy. “Well, good night, Pat. I must be going. Awfully pleasant evening--great little dinner and all that. I wish you all kinds of luck with your cattle ranch. ’Bye.” Patricia did not believe that he would go like that. She thought he was merely bluffing. She did not so much as move a finger until he had shut the door rather decisively behind him and she heard his feet striking firmly on the cement walk that led to the street. A slight chill of foreboding quivered along her spine as the footsteps sounded fainter and fainter down the pavement. She had known Gary Marshall for three years and had worn a half-carat diamond for six months. She had argued with him for hours; they had quarreled furiously at times, and he had registered anger, indignation, arrogance and hurt pride in several effective forms. But she had never before seen him behave in just this manner.