...' Well, Sprague?"
Sprague wiped his perspiring hands on his handkerchief. "I know it
sounds--odd, under the circumstances," he admitted desperately, "but
listen, Dundee, and I'll try to make that damned note as clear as
possible to a man who doesn't know his Broadway.... Why, man, it isn't
even a love letter! Everybody on Broadway talks and writes to each other
like that, without meaning a thing!... As I told you, Nita Leigh, or
Mrs. Selim, remembered some little kindnesses I had done her on the
Altamont lot, when they got her to take up that Little Theater work Mrs.
Dunlap is interested in, and found that the Chamber of Commerce was
interested in putting Hamilton into the movies, in a big booster
campaign. She wired me and I thought it looked good enough to drop
everything and come.... Of course Nita and I got to be closer friends,
but I swear to God we were just friends--"
"And what was the 'friendly' row about last night, Sprague?"
"There wasn't a row, really," Sprague protested with desperate
earnestness. "It was merely that Nita insisted on my casting her for the
heroine of the movie--a thing I knew would alienate the whole crowd
that's been so kind to us--"
"Why--since she was a professional actress?" Dundee demanded.
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