She had good reason for concern. I’d done the most foolish in a series of foolish acts. Molly had urged me to direct a play she’d found by Paul Vincent Carroll, and although I didn’t favor the play, in an effort to please her and make up for my recent neglect of her as a wife, as well as to deflect any possible suspicion before there was a suspicion, I’d agreed to take it on. Then I scooted off the end of the pier of good sense. The other reason I’d been moved to direct the play was that it had a part for Constance, the best part she was ever to play in the theatre.

It is customary, in our world, that when a man of some power in the performing arts attaches a young woman to himself, he will see to it that his darling is, in good time, offered certain professional benefits. Which is what I did. I gave her a part in the play, the play that my wife was still working on with the producer and the author. I was doing the play for Molly; I was doing it for Constance. In an act of personal and professional idiocy, I was trying to hold on to two women who were competing with each other, one of whom had no idea that she was competing, the other of whom was daily gaining confidence.

It was inevitable that people less innocent and pure in heart than Molly would soon realize what was happening, if for no other reason than by the look on my face when I was talking to Constance about her role. Gossip began to inundate rehearsals and leak through the theatre community. I knew that was happening and belatedly tried to control the manifestations of my fervor. But in our world, once “talk” starts there’s no way to stop it. People are hungry for this kind of report about one another; it eases everyone else’s conscience.