Actorviews (1923)

The Double Life of Ina Claire HERE was a tap on our living-room door, followed by the warning voice of mother : “It’s Ina Claire; wipe the egg off your chin!” I had failed to find Miss Claire at the Ambassador, so she found me at the Virginia. “I’ve come,” she said, “to have my interview taken” — and handed me her Malacca walking stick, unsilvered, while she permitted me to aid her out of her long outsloping leopard coat. “This is friendly of you,” I said, buttoning the top button of my waistcoat and restoring the stick. “I know that a little kindness goes a long way with a drama critic, having one in my own family,” not unproudly (I thought) said she, who is known on the marriage register at Wheaton, 111., as Mrs. James Whittaker. “How is the delightful dog?” said I. “Jimmie,” she imparted, “is swollen with health and a new fur coat he purchased in Paris ; he looks like a doubtful banker. I suppose you know that the Shuberts have barred him from all their New York theaters for saying in the New York Daily News that one of them — I forget which one — was a mausoleum?” “Yes, I know. Now he can count on a couple of free nights every week.” “I wonder,” she speculated, “what a barred critic does with his free nights — when his wife is out of town?”