“No longer—nor ever was.” Seeing his shock, she added, “I thought he was, but it seems that I was mistaken.” She looked into her glass which was still half full and twisted it by the stem. “He was a sweet man,” she said in an unforced, worldly way that both shocked Leon again and thrilled him. “Weak, I suppose, but charming and handsome too. We were happy. It was really so romantic and exciting for me at first.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Without being a very good actor himself—he hadn’t the temperament to rise to the top of the profession, and that counts for more than native talent or learned skills, I have come to believe—he was a remarkably good teacher. He showed me how to stand and move, how to use my voice, how to accommodate myself to other actors in a scene—and that is very important… not to lose yourself, but to use what they are doing, and even to help them, in an interesting way.”

“You are serious about acting, about it—all.” He laughed. “I sound absurd even to myself.”

She slapped his hand lightly. “Never—you must never again call yourself absurd. People take us so much at our own evaluation. Yes, I’m serious about it, because it is the way I earn my living. What else can I do?”

“Come home,” he said impulsively, covering her hand with his. “There is a place for you at Beulah Land.”

“No,” she said consideringly, “although you are kind to ask me.”

“Are you ambitious then to become a—well, a great and famous actress?”

She frowned and gripped the hand he had left on hers with brief intensity before withdrawing hers. “I don’t think so. I do have the temperament. I could be anything I really wanted to.” She smiled at herself. “But that is the trouble. I don’t want very hard to be anything. I am more important to me than are any ambitions.”

“What happened to you and Mr. Savage?”

Deliberately taking the question another way, she said, “We went, after we were married, to Baltimore, where Douglas found a place in a new acting company that was just forming there. After a time the company traveled north, not playing in the big cities, because they had available more famous companies than his, but playing in the smaller cities that were yet large enough to provide considerable patronage. I did not act—other than in private with Douglas, as he taught me some of the things he knew. We traveled through Pennsylvania and New York State, and east from there. I began to act in occasional performances, matinees usually, when someone was ill and unable to play—or drunk.”

When his eyes went automatically to her glass, she laughed. “Don’t worry. Not I. I like the taste of wine and the way it ‘unknots’ me, if you understand that.”

“I do, very well.”