THE LEADING LADY The LEADING LADY By GERALDINE BONNER AUTHOR OF To-morrow’s Tangle, The Pioneer, Rich Men’s Children, The Book of Evelyn INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1926 By The Bobbs-Merrill Company Printed in the United States of America PRINTED AND BOUND BY BRAUNWORTH & CO., INC. BROOKLYN, NEW YORK Copyright, 1926 By The Bobbs-Merrill Company The LEADING LADY [Pg 11] [Pg 11] PROLOGUE One of the morning trains that tap the little towns along the Sound ran into the Grand Central Depot. It was very hot in the lower levels of the station and the passengers, few in number—for it was midsummer and people were going out of town, not coming in—filed stragglingly up the long platform to the exit. One of them was a girl, fair and young, with those distinctive attributes of good looks and style that drew men’s eyes to her face and women’s to her clothes. One People watched her as she followed the porter carrying her suit-case, noting the lithe grace of her movements, her delicate slimness, the froth of blonde hair that curled out under the brim of her hat. She appeared oblivious to the interest she aroused and this indifference had once been natural,[Pg 12] for to be looked at and admired had been her normal right and become a stale experience. Now it was assumed, an armor under which she sought protection, hid herself from morbid curiosity and eagerly observing eyes. To be pointed out as Sybil Saunders, the actress, was a very different thing from being pointed out as Sybil Saunders, the fiancée of James Dallas of the Dallas-Parkinson case.