“Yes. You asked about her marriage. It is difficult even to guess why she married Alfred Meyer. Not because he is the big noise in Incorporated Playhouses. Carolyn had no need of that sort of pull. She had arrived. Perhaps she married him because he was so essentially commonplace. As a kind of set-off to her own temperament. She has the true artistic temperament.”

The tall man winced. Hambledon had made use of a phrase that he detested.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Hambledon continued very earnestly. “Alf is a good fellow. He’s very much liked in the business. But—well, he has never been a romantic figure. He lives for the firm, you know. He and George Mason built it between them. I’ve played in I.P. productions for twelve years now. Eight pieces in all and in five of them I’ve played opposite Carolyn.”

He had the actor’s habit of giving full dramatic value to everything he said. His beautiful voice, with its practised inflexions, suggested a romantic attachment.

“She’s rather a wonderful person,” he said.

“He means that,” thought his companion. “He is in love with her.”

His mind went back to the long journey in the ship with Carolyn Dacres very much the star turn, but not, he had to admit, aggressively the great actress. She and her pale, plump, rather common, rather uninteresting husband, had sat in deck chairs, he with a portable typewriter on his knees and she with a book. Very often Hambledon had sat on the other side of her, also with a book. They had none of them joined in the all-night poker parties with young Courtney Broadhead, Liversidge and Valerie Gaynes. Thinking of these three he turned to look up the dim carriage. There was young Broadhead, still awake, still staring at the blind window-pane with its blank reflections. As if conscious of the other’s gaze he jerked his head uneasily and with an abrupt movement rose to his feet and came down the carriage. As he passed them he said:

“Fresh air. I’m going out to the platform.”

“Young ass,” said Hambledon when he had gone through the door. “He’s been losing his money. You can’t indulge in those sorts of frills, on his salary.”

They both looked at the glass door. Broadhead’s back was against it.

“I’m worried about that boy,” Hambledon went on. “No business of mine, of course, but one doesn’t like to see that kind of thing.”

“They were playing high, certainly.”

“A fiver to come in last night, I believe. I looked into the smoke-room before I went to bed. Liversidge had won a packet. Courtney looked very sick. Early in the voyage I tried to tip him the wink, but he’d got in with that bear-leader and his cub.”

“Weston and young Palmer, you mean?”