New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Kedzie's movie fame was unknown to Dyckman's crowd. She was treated,
accordingly, as some exquisite chorus-girl or cabaret-pony that he had
selected as a running-mate.
Dyckman could not openly resent what was subtly implied, but it touched
his chivalry, and since he was engaged to Kedzie he felt that he ought
at least to announce the fact. He was getting the game without the name,
and that seemed unfair to Kedzie.
Kedzie felt the same veiled scorn, and it alarmed her; yet when Dyckman
proposed the publication of their troth she forbade it vigorously. She
writhed at the worse than Tantalus fate that compelled her to push from
her own thirsty lips the grapes of felicity.
She had no intention of committing bigamy, even if she had been
temptable to such recklessness. The inevitable brevity of its success
was only too evident. A large part of the fun of marrying Dyckman would
be the publication of it, and that would bring Gilfoyle back. She never
before longed so ardently to see her husband as now.
She finally wrote him a letter begging him to return to New York for a
conference. She couched it in luringly affectionate tones and apologized
lavishly for scratching his face when he called. She addressed the
appeal to the General Delivery in Chicago, as he had directed in the
letter he wrote as a blind.
She neglected, as usual, to put her own address on the envelope or
inside on the letter, which she signed with a mere “Anita.” Gilfoyle
did not call for the letter in Chicago, since he was in New York. It was
held in Chicago for the legal period and then it was sent to the Dead
Letter Office, where a clerk wasted a deal of time and ingenuity in an
effort to trace the sender or the addressee.
Kedzie meanwhile had watched for the postman and hunted through her
mail with frenzy. There was a vast amount of mail, for it is one of the
hardships of the movie business that the actors are fairly showered with
letters of praise, criticism, query, and flirtation.
But there was no letter ever from Gilfoyle.
Yet Gilfoyle was constantly within hailing distance. With the aid of his
friend Connery he had concocted a scheme for keeping Kedzie and Dyckman
under espionage. They had speedily learned that Dyckman was in constant
attendance on Kedzie, and that they were careless of the hours alone,
careless of appearances.
Gilfoyle never dreamed that the couple was chaperoned doubly by a
certain lukewarmth of emotion and by an ambition to become man and
wife. Gilfoyle imagined their relations to be as intimate as their
opportunities permitted. He suffered jealous wrath, and would have
assaulted Dyckman in public if Connery had not quelled him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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