Justin was accorded a place of honor at the foot of the table, while Celestine presided from the head. The meal went swimmingly. Justin had never spent a busier hour in his life. What with discreetly wolfing every scrap he could entice onto his plate, and at the same time relating to an enthralled audience the first chapter of the story of his life, his jaws, if not his mind, were most actively engaged.
After dinner they exited to the drawing room. There, buoyed up by the feeling of well-being that accompanies a full stomach, Justin continued with the second chapter of his vocal memoirs — there was, in fact, an inexhaustible supply of chapters. His actor’s instinct told him that he’d been an instant success, that he was already adored. Florence Talbot’s smile grew ever wider as she beheld him. Madeline Howard fetched the most genuine, audible sighs. Alicia Allen’s grin was strictly of appreciation. Blanche Norton’s stolid, attentive stare could be interpreted as a tribute. Even Beatrice Raymond’s witch-like hardness softened under the merry sun of Justin Gravelle.
The Carter sisters were more reserved, of course. Justin didn’t mind. He had never expected the theatre management to applaud his efforts, only to reward them financially. They sat together in a far corner, rather obviously auditioning him, and then just as obviously signing him up for a long run.
The evening winged by swiftly. But perhaps its high point occurred when Alicia Allen slipped out of the room, then returned a moment later like a Greek, bearing a gift. She brought it across the room, a box that seemed too large and heavy for her tiny, wrinkled hands. Then she held it out in front of him, her thin wrists almost visibly bending under the huge weight.
“Do you smoke cigars, Mr. Gravelle?” she chirped.
Did he smoke cigars! He accepted the box with voluble thanks. Then, as the ladies watched with breathless attention, he proceeded to unwrap one of the cigars, thrust it into his mouth, and search in his pockets for a match. That is, until the horrible thought hit him.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” he mumbled despairingly, “but I didn’t think to ask...”
“Please go ahead and smoke,” Beatrice Raymond told him. “We all had husbands once, you know. We miss the smell so.”
The circle of heads bobbed in affirmation. Even the two Carter heads nodded, though with more gravity. Blanche Norton picked a silver lighter off the coffee table — odd that it should be there, he thought — and ignited the cigar for him. Then as he blew out great fragrant clouds of smoke, the circle sighed with contentment.
When the festivities halted at ten, he took the box of cigars upstairs with him. But the moment he was inside his own room, the question came back to him. The food was excellent. The ladies were an appreciative audience. There would probably be more little extras from time to time, like the cigars. Then why — oh why on earth — had the former occupant of this room departed?
Life had perhaps never been quite as pleasant for Justin Gravelle, even in the heyday of his stage career, as it was during those beginning weeks at The Carter House. He had never, even at his zenith, had anything close to top billing. But now he was the star.
He had wondered at first what he was going to do for spending money. But he needn’t have worried. The cigars were only the beginning. All of the ladies seemed to have funds. He was showered with gifts, cigars, cigarettes, pipes, pipe tobacco, shaving supplies, shirts, ties, handkerchiefs, socks, mufflers, tie clasps, cuff links — even gift bonds, which he used for a new suit and a new pair of shoes. Finally, to overflow the cup, there were passed to him little sums in cash, for necessities such as hail cuts, manicures, and yes — Justin was a shrewd diplomat — nominal little gifts for his benefactresses.
And he waxed fat too. Not only from the good food served up by the Carter sisters, but also from the special concoctions which all the ladies — each anxious to prove her culinary skill — prepared. The guests, it seemed, had the run of the kitchen whenever they desired. The place hummed with activity, and out of it poured tea and lemonade, cookies and biscuits, jams and jellies, rolls and cakes, fudges and puddings, soft things and hard things, sweet things and spicy things, appetizers and snacks and desserts, till at last even Justin Gravelle’s starved capacity could hold no more — till he started hiding tins and boxes in his room, and then sneaked them out of the house under his overcoat to pass on to some startled little boy on the street.
It was a contest, of course. A battle, stealthy as it was obvious, for his special favor. He gloried in it, but it did present difficulties. Five ladies, each wanting individual attention, can become something of a burden. To be charming ten to sixteen hours a day — depending upon how often and how long he could escape from the house — was at first a challenge, then a job, next a bore, and finally a torture.
The strain began to tell on Justin. He must not be cross, but often he was weary. And on those occasions when he failed as the perfect cavalier, the slighted lady pouted or scolded, according toiler temperament. Mindful of the warning of the Carters against favoritism, he tried to divide these failures evenly among his five charges. But he was no Solomon. As his failures became more frequent and the difficulties multiplied, he became more desperate. But desperation bred even more failures, and vice versa. It was a vicious circle.
Rescue, however, came in the wispy, willowy, wistful form of Madeline Howard. She had specialized in gifts of English briar pipes, aromatic Turkish tobacco, a peculiarly delicious fudge which he had never given away to a passerby on the street, and ever larger cash offerings. He was ripe therefore for Madeline’s overtures.
She intercepted him as he returned from an afternoon walk and steered him past the house. She needed a bit of exercise too, she explained. It was a new bit of strategy. None of the ladies had ever before tried to extend the battleground beyond the house, the porch, and the garden.
Madeline, for all her dreamy gazes and abstracted manner, came rather briskly to the point. “You’ve told us so much about your stage career, Mr. Gravelle, but you’ve never talked much of your personal life.”
“An actor doesn’t have a personal life,” he answered with automatic, romantic sadness. “He’s always on the stage or otherwise in public view.”
“You traveled about constantly.”
“Oh, yes indeed.”
“You never had a permanent home then?”
“Never after I joined up with the traveling troupe that came through our town.”
“Were you ever married?”
“Never. Never had time to settle down.”
“But now that you’ve retired from the stage” — what delicacy of expression Madeline had — “have you ever considered marriage?”
He maintained his romantic pose and affectations. “Alas, by the time I retired and could consider domesticity, I had nothing to offer a woman except my glamorous past.”
“But that would make no difference, would it,” Madeline pursued calmly, “if the woman of your choice had the necessary financial resources?”