Free Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes

mustn’t lose the common touch, Mike. You can’t sit on Olympus and direct the American street scene.”
    “I thought you were planning to sit on the Schwarzhorn.”
    “Don’t quibble.”
    The steward didn’t know Vivien Spender. The steward was a small man, suave, impersonal. He said, “Two? This way.” The table to which he led them was already occupied by a middle-aged couple, facing forward. Mike slid into the window seat, Spender sat beside her. He’d asked for the common touch; he’d accept it gracefully, dining backwards opposite the dullness of strangers.
    Gratia’s face was framed for him through the intervening heads. He was gratified that she didn’t seem a part of her group. She smiled when their laughter rattled but she was silent otherwise, careless of Les Augustin at her side, watching Kitten and the man across the table. She didn’t see Viv Spender, she wasn’t looking in his direction. There was a table separating this table from that of Kitten’s party.
    The man across from Viv leaned forward confidentially. “That’s Kitten Agnew back there,” he said.
    Viv nodded. “Yes, I know.” He made himself look and sound interested.
    The woman beside the man, the woman in the dowdy, expensive dress, smiled complacently. “She’s Dad’s favorite actress.”
    “What I like about her,” the man defended, “is she’s a real American girl.” He went on about it in many words. The look on Viv’s face was a listening one. He supplied a variety of sounds when the monologue demanded it. God, the public really believed that stuff! The publicity department had told Viv so but he’d never quite credited it. One look at Kitten and you knew her beginnings and her probable end if she lived to that end. But the public wasn’t as discerning as Viv Spender.
    And how would the public accept Kitten’s death before the end? They wouldn’t like it. How would they accept her producer going on to New York, making sure the show would go on as Kitten wanted it to go on? They’d accept it; they’d accept it because the whole sticky sweet mess would be spoon fed them by the boys in Publicity. He had no intention of missing the premiere. His fingers tightened and he said, “Yes indeed,” to the man across the table.
    “Did you see her in Fancy That?” The garrulous fellow was launched again. He was even humming tunelessly the theme song, “Fancy That.” Kitten had done it well. It had been a good picture, a picture she could do. The story of a girl who wanted to be a successful singer, who almost got there, but who decided she didn’t really want it after all. Who turned her back on fame and fortune when it was within her grasp. Who chose instead the boy she loved and a little rose-covered cottage. Pure hoke and the public loved it. As far from Kitten’s nature as simple goodness and the public loved her.
    The picture had grossed a mint. Kitten could go on doing that sort of thing until she became a character actress and keep on grossing six figures. If she only had brains enough to realize that hoke was her fortune, not want to mangle Clavdia Chauchat. He’d made a mistake thinking she was Clavdia; he admitted it, why couldn’t she? He wouldn’t have dropped Kitten if she’d been reasonable. He’d have kept her on; she could have remained right there at the top for years to come.
    It was too late now. She’d refused reason; she’d threatened. And she’d mouthed the unforgivable insult, she’d demanded marriage.
    Mike touched his arm. “What are you ordering, Viv?”
    He looked at the menu, quieting the twitch of his hands. It might have been that Mike knew his mind. He smiled secretly. She couldn’t this time. He hadn’t told her anything. She didn’t know anything about Gratia Shawn, nothing except the dictation she’d taken this afternoon, the announcement that Gratia Shawn would play the part of Clavdia Chauchat in Vivien Spender’s production. Mike hadn’t even seen the girl. He’d