existed for him but the beetle-browed giant who shook hands all around and then, with easy possessiveness, slipped into the chair next to Mara Gay’s and began to talk softly to her.
To Ellery it was faintly amusing. The reporters buzzing about; Djuna’s speechless worship; the cool self-possession of Kit Horne and Mara Gay’s supercilious condescension toward her; Julian Hunter’s smiling silence and tight lips; Mars’s nervous watch on the jammed bowl; Black’s fluid movements and snaky gestures—as usual when a group of personalities gathered, Ellery reflected, there were undercurrents and crosscurrents; and he wondered what made Hunter smile so tightly and what made Kit Horne so suddenly silent. But most of all he wondered what was the matter with Mara Gay. This darling of Hollywood, one of the most highly paid screen personalities in the world, was something less than the pure and glamorous beauty she appeared on the magic screen. Yes, she was daringly dressed, as usual, and her eyes were also as extraordinarily bright as they always seemed in her films; but there was a thinness, an emaciation about her features that he had never been conscious of before; and her large eyes did not seem quite so large. Besides, here—where her gestures where unschooled by a watchful director—she was vividly nervous, almost quicksilver-ish. A thought came to him, and he studied her without seeming to do so.
There was polite conversation.
And Djuna, his heart big in his throat, jerked his head from side to side as the celebrities gathered in surrounding boxes. And then, of course, things began to happen in the arena; and from that instant he was insensible to the coarser realities and devoted his whole earnest attention to the spectacle below.
The bowl was packed with a boisterous, good-natured crowd. Society was out en masse, rimming the rail above the arena with an oval panel studded with glittering jewels. In the arena there was flashing activity; from the smaller entrances horsemen had appeared, each a whirling smear of color—red bandanas, leathery chaps, fancy vests, dun sombreros, checkered shirts, silvery spurs. There was roping and thunderous riding, and the steady crackle of pistol-shots. The cameramen were busy on their platform. The whole bowl was filled with a prodigious drumming of horses’ hooves on the tanbark. …A tall slender young man gayly caparisoned in cowboy regalia stood in the center of the arena. The overhead arcs gleamed on his curly hair. Little puffs of smoke surrounded him. He operated a catapult with his foot and with nonchalant skill caused little glass balls to disappear as he twirled his long-barreled revolver. A shout went up. “That’s Curly Grant!” He bowed, doffed his Stetson, caught a brown horse, vaulted lightly into the saddle, and began to trot across the arena toward the Mars box.
Ellery had moved his chair closer to Kit Horne, leaving Mara Gay with Tommy Black, while Hunter sat quietly by himself in the rear of the box. Mars had vanished.
“You’re fond of your father, I take it,” murmured Ellery as he noted her eyes roving about the arena.
“He’s so darned—Oh, it’s hard to explain those things.” She smiled, and her straight brows came together in a solemn way. “My affection for him is—well, perhaps greater because he’s not really my father, you know; he adopted me when I was a kid-orphan. He’s been everything the best father could be to me—”
“Oh! I beg your pardon. I didn’t know—”
“You needn’t be apologetic, Mr. Queen. You’ve committed no social error. I’m really very proud. Perhaps,” she sighed, “I haven’t been the best daughter in the world. I see Buck so very seldom these days. The rodeo is bringing us together for the first time in more than a year—closely, I mean.”
“Naturally, with you in Hollywood and Mr. Horne on his ranch—”
“It’s not easy. I’ve been busy on location in California almost without