He led the way into the lobby. She was intensely disturbed, but she could not find the courage to quarrel with him in the presence of the hall-boys. Those who had   
suites of rooms were permitted to receive guests in them. Reben was the first man that had come alone to Sheila’s rooms, and she felt that the elevator-boy was trying 
 
to disguise his cynical excitement.
 
What could she say to him? how rebuke an unexpressed comment? She hoped that Pennock would be there or would come along speedily to save the situation. She was angry 
 
and discomfited as she unlocked her door, switched on the lights, and offered Reben a chair in her little parlor.
 
Sheila saw that Reben’s eyes were eagerly searching the apartment for signs of a third person. She was tempted to go to Pennock’s room and call some message to her 
 
imaginary presence. But she resented her own cowardice and her need of a duenna. She laid off her hat, seated herself with smiling hospitality, and waited for Reben to 
 
say his say.
 
He indicated his cigar with a querying lift of the eyebrows, and she nodded her consent.
 
Then the business man of him began at the beginning as if he had much to say in a short time and did not want to lose the momentum of his emotion:
 
“Sheila, you’re a wonderful girl. If you weren’t I shouldn’t be taking you up from the army of actresses that are just as ambitious as you are. I’d be very blind 
 
not to see what the whole public sees and not to feel what everybody feels.
 
“This cub Vickery felt your fascination when you were a child. He never forgot you. He’s trying to put something of you into his play. That other fellow he told you 
 
about has made a vow to get to you. You have draught, and all that it means.
 
“But the brighter the light, the firmer its standard must be. The farther your lantern shines, the bigger and stronger and taller a lighthouse it needs. You know 
 
there’s such a thing as hiding a light under a bushel.
 
“Now, I’m already as big a manager as you’ll ever be a star. I can give you advantages nobody else can give you. I’ve given you some of them already. I can give 
 
you more. In fact, nobody else can give you any, for I’ve got you under a contract that makes it possible for me to keep anybody else from exploiting you. But I’m 
 
willing and anxious to do everything I can for you. The question is, what are you willing to do for me?”
 
Sheila knew what he meant, but she answered in a shy voice: “Why, I’ll do all I can—of course. I’ll work like a slave. I’ll try to make you all the money I’m 
 
able to.”
 
“Money? Bagh!” he sneered. “What’s money to me? I love it—as a game, yes. But I don’t mind losing it. You’ve known me to drop forty or fifty thousand at a throw 
 
and not whimper, haven’t you?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“You’ll do all you can, you say. But will you? There’s something in life besides money, Sheila. There’s—there’s—” He tried to say “love,” but it was an 
 
impossible word to get out at once. Instead he groped for her hand and took it in his hot clench.
 
She drew her cold, slim fingers away with a petulant, girlish, “Don’t!”
 
He sighed desperately and laughed with bitterness. “I knew you’d do nothing for me. You’d let me work for you, and make you famous and rich, and squander fortunes 
 
on your glory, and you’d let me die of loneliness. You’d let me eat my heart out like a love-sick stage-door Johnny and you wouldn’t care. But I tell you, Sheila, 
 
even a manager is a man, and I can’t live on business alone. I’ve got to have some woman’s companionship and tenderness and devotion.”
 
Sheila could not refrain from suggesting, “I thought Mrs. Rhys—”
 
“Mrs. Rhys!” he snarled. “That worn-out, burned-out volcano? She’s an old woman. I want youth and beauty and—Oh, I want you, Sheila.”
 
“I—I’m sorry,” she almost apologized, trying not to insult such ardor.
 
“Oh, I know I’m not young or handsome, but I’ll surround you with youth. I’ll buy that play of your friend Vickery’s; I’ll get the biggest man in the country to 
 
whip it into shape; I’ll give it the finest production ever a play had; I’ll make the critics swallow it; I’ll buy the ones that are for sale, and I’ll play on the 
 
vanity of the others. If it fails, I’ll buy you another play and another till you hit the biggest success ever known. Then I’ll name a theater after you. I’ll 
 
produce you in London, get you commanded to court. I’ll make you the greatest actress in the world. These young fellows may be pretty to play with, but what can they 
 
do for you except ruin your career and interfere with your ambition and make a toy of you? I can give you wealth and fame and—immortality! And all I ask you to give 
 
me is your—your”—now he said it—“your love.”
 
“I—I’m sorry,” Sheila mumbled.
 
“You mean you won’t?” he roared.
 
“How can I?” she pleaded, still apologetic. “Love isn’t a thing you can just take and give to anybody you please, is it? I thought it was something that—that 
 
takes you and gives you to anybody it pleases. Isn’t that it? I don’t know. I’m not sure I know what love is. But that’s what I’ve always understood.”
 
He grunted at the puerility of this, and said, brusquely, “Well, if you can’t give me love, then give me—you.”
 
“How do you mean—give you me?”
 
“Oh, you’re no child, Sheila,” he snarled. “Don’t play the ingenue with me. You know what I mean.”
 
Her voice grew years older as she answered, icily: “When you say I’m no child, it makes me think I understand what you mean. But I can’t believe that I do.”
 
“Why?”
............