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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Light of the Star, by Hamlin Garland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Light of the Star
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Hamlin Garland
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2009 [EBook #28492]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT OF THE STAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Yingling, Matt Whittaker, Bethanne M.
+Simms, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+***********************************************************************
+* Transcriber's Note: Typo "gantlet" was replaced with "gauntlet" but *
+* all other spelling was retained as it appeared in the original text.*
+***********************************************************************
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "HE WAS A NOTICEABLY HANDSOME FIGURE AS HE SAT ALONE IN
+THE BOX"
+
+[_See p. 31_]
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+LIGHT OF THE STAR
+
+
+A Novel
+
+
+BY
+
+HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+AUTHOR OF "HESPER"
+
+"THE CAPTAIN OF THE GRAY-HORSE TROOP"
+
+ETC. ETC.
+
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+PUBLISHERS:: MCMIV
+
+
+
+
+THE LIGHT OF THE STAR
+
+Published May, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+THE LIGHT OF THE STAR
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+After the appointment with Miss Merival reached him (through the hand of
+her manager), young Douglass grew feverishly impatient of the long days
+which lay between. Waiting became a species of heroism. Each morning he
+reread his manuscript and each evening found him at the theatre, partly
+to while away the time, but mainly in order that he might catch some
+clew to the real woman behind the shining mask. His brain was filled
+with the light of the star--her radiance dazzled him.
+
+By day he walked the streets, seeing her name on every bill-board,
+catching the glow of her subtle and changeful beauty in every window.
+She gazed out at him from brows weary with splendid barbaric jewels, her
+eyes bitter and disdainful, and hopelessly sad. She smiled at him in
+framework of blue and ermine and pearls--the bedecked, heartless
+coquette of the pleasure-seeking world. She stood in the shadow of gray
+walls, a grating over her head, with deep, soulful, girlish eyes lifted
+in piteous appeal; and in each of these characters an unfathomed depth
+remained to vex and to allure him.
+
+Magnified by these reflections on the walls, haloed by the teeming
+praise and censure of the press, she seemed to dominate the entire city
+as she had come to absorb the best of his own life. What her private
+character really was no one seemed to know, in spite of the special
+articles and interviews with her managers which fed the almost universal
+adulation of her dark and changeful face, her savage and sovereign
+beauty. There was insolence in her tread, and mad allurement in the
+rounded beauty of her powerful white arm--and at his weakest the young
+playwright admitted that all else concerning her was of no account.
+
+At the same time he insisted that he was not involved with the
+woman--only with the actress. "I am not a lover--I am a playwright,
+eager to have my heroine adequately portrayed," he contended with
+himself in the solitude of his room, high in one of the great apartment
+buildings of the middle city. Nevertheless, the tremor in his nerves
+caused him thought.
+
+Her voice. Yes, that, too, was mysterious. Whence came that undertone
+like the moan of a weary wastrel tortured with dreams of idyllic
+innocence long lost? Why did her utterance, like her glorious face,
+always suggest some inner, darker meaning? There were times when she
+seemed old--old as vice and cruelty, hoarse with complaints, with
+curses, and then again her lips were childishly sweet, and her voice
+carried only the wistful accents of adolescence or the melody of girlish
+awe.
+
+On the night before his appointment she played _The Baroness Telka_, a
+lurid, lustful, remorseless woman--a creature with a vampire's heart and
+the glamour of Helen of Troy--a woman whose cheeks were still round and
+smooth, but whose eyes were alight with the flame of insanity--a
+frightful, hungry, soulless wretch. And as he sat at the play and
+watched that glittering, inexplicable woman, and thought of her roles,
+Douglass asked himself: "How will she meet me to-morrow? What will be
+the light in her eyes when she turns them upon me? Will she meet me
+alone--haughty, weary with praise, or will she be surrounded by those
+who bow to her as to a queen?" This latter thing he feared.
+
+He had not been without experience with women--even with actresses; but
+no woman he had ever met had appealed to his imagination beyond the
+first meeting. Would it be so with Helen Merival? He had loved twice in
+his life, but not well enough to say so to either of his sweethearts.
+Around Myra's name clung the perfume and moonlight of summer evenings in
+the far-off mid-continent village where he was born, while Violet
+recalled the music, the comfort, and the security of a beautiful Eastern
+home. Neither of these sweet and lovely girls had won his heart
+completely. How was it that this woman of the blazoning bill-boards had
+already put more of passion into his heart than they of the pure and
+sheltered life?
+
+He did not deceive himself. It was because Helen could not be understood
+at a glance. She appealed to his imagination as some strange bird--alien
+voyager--fled from distant islands in dim, purple seas. She typed the
+dreams of adventuring youth seeking the princesses of other and more
+romantic lands.
+
+At times he shuddered with a fear that some hidden decay of Helen
+Merival's own soul enabled her to so horrify her audience with these
+desolating roles, and when the curtain fell on _The Baroness_, he was
+resolved to put aside the chance of meeting the actress. Was it worth
+while to be made ashamed and bitter? She might stand revealed as a
+coarse and selfish courtesan--a worn and haggard enchantress whose
+failing life blazed back to youth only when on the stage. Why be
+disenchanted? But in the end he rose above this boyish doubt. "What does
+it matter whether she be true or false? She has genius, and genius I
+need for my play--genius and power," and in the delusion he rested.
+
+He climbed to his den in the tower as physically wearied as one
+exhausted with running a race, and fell asleep with his eyelids
+fluttering in a feverish dream.
+
+The hour of his appointment with her fell upon Sunday, and as he walked
+up the street towards her hotel the bells in a church on a side street
+were ringing, and their chimes filled his mind with memories of the
+small town from which he came. How peaceful and sweet the life of
+Woodstock seemed now. The little meeting-house, whose shingled spire
+still pointed at the stars, would always be sweet with the memory of
+Myra Thurber, whose timid clasp upon his arm troubled him then and
+pained him now. He had so little to give in return for her
+devotion--therefore he had given nothing. He had said good-bye almost
+harshly--his ambition hardening his heart to her appeal.
+
+Around him, in his dream of those far-off days, moved other agile
+forms--young lovers like Myra and himself, their feet creaking on the
+glittering snow. They stepped slowly, though the bells called and
+called. The moonlight was not more clear and untouched of baleful fire
+than Myra's sweet eyes looking up at him, and now he was walking the wet
+pavement of the great metropolis, with the clang and grind of cars all
+about him, on his way to meet a woman whose life was spent in simulating
+acts as destructive as Myra's had been serene and trustful. At the
+moment he saw his own life as a thread in some mysterious drama.
+
+"To what does it lead?" he asked, as he drew under the overhanging
+portal of the great hotel where the star made her home. It was to the
+man of the West a splendid place. Its builders had been lavish of highly
+colored marbles and mosaics, spendthrift of light and gilding; on every
+side shone the signs and seals of predatory wealth. Its walls were like
+costly confectionery, its ornaments insolent, its waste criminal. Every
+decorative feature was hot, restless, irreverent, and cruel, quite the
+sort of avenue one might expect to find in his walk towards the
+glittering woman of the false and ribald drama.
+
+"She chose her abode with instinctive bad taste," he said, bitterly; and
+again his weakness, his folly turned him cold; for with all his physical
+powers he was shy to the point of fear.
+
+He made a sober and singular spot in the blaze of the rotunda. So sombre
+was his look, so intent his gaze. Youths in high hats and shining
+shirt-fronts stood in groups conversing loudly, and in the resplendent
+dining-hall bediamonded women and their sleek-haired, heavy-jewelled
+partners were eating leisurely, attended by swarms of waiters so eager
+they trod upon one another's feet.
+
+The clerk eyed him in impassible silence as he took out his worn
+card-case, saying: "Please send my card to Miss Merival."
+
+"Miss Merival is not receiving any one this evening," the clerk
+answered, with a tone which was like the slap of a wet glove in the
+face.
+
+Douglass faced him with a look which made him reflect. "You will let her
+be the judge of that," he said, and his tone was that of one accustomed
+to be obeyed.
+
+The little man bowed. "Oh, certainly, Mr. Douglass, but as she left
+orders--"
+
+When the boy with his card had disappeared into the candy-colored
+distances, the playwright found himself again studying the face of his
+incomprehensible sorceress, who looked down upon him even at that moment
+from a bulletin-board on the hotel wall, Oriental, savage, and
+sullen--sad, too, as though alone in her solitary splendor. "She can't
+be all of her parts--which one of them will I find as I enter her room?"
+he asked himself for the hundredth time.
+
+"Miss Merival will see Mr. Douglass," said the bell-boy. "This way,
+sir."
+
+As he stepped into the elevator the young man's face grew stern and his
+lips straightened out into a grim line. It was absurd to think he should
+be so deeply moved by any woman alive, he who prided himself on his
+self-possession.
+
+Down a long hall on the tenth floor the boy led him, and tapped at a
+door, which was opened after a pause by a quiet woman who greeted him
+with outstretched hand, kindly cordial.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Douglass? It is very good of you to come," she said,
+with the simplest inflection.
+
+"This must be an elder sister," he thought, and followed her into a
+large sitting-room, where a gray-haired woman and a young man were
+sipping after-dinner coffee.
+
+"Mother, this is Mr. Douglass, the author of _The Modern Stage_, the
+little book of essays we liked so well." The elderly lady greeted him
+cordially, but with a timid air. "And this is my brother Hugh," the
+young man gave Douglass's hand a firm and cordial grip.
+
+"Sit down, please--not there--over here, where the light will fall on
+you. I want to see how you look," she added, in smiling candor; and with
+that smile he recognized in his hostess the great actress.
+
+He was fairly dazed, and for the moment entirely wordless. From the very
+moment the door had opened to him the "glittering woman" had been
+receding into remote and ever remoter distances, for the Helen Merival
+before him was as simple, candid, and cordial as his own sister. Her
+voice had the home inflection; she displayed neither paint nor powder;
+her hair was plainly brushed--beautiful hair it was, too--and her dress
+was lovely and in quiet taste.
+
+Her face seemed plain at first, just as her stature seemed small. She
+was dark, but not so dark as she appeared on the stage, and her face was
+thinner, a little careworn, it seemed to him; and her eyes--"those
+leering, wicked eyes"--were large and deep and soft. Her figure was
+firm, compact, womanly, and modest in every line. No wife could have
+seemed more of the home than this famous actress who faced him with
+hands folded in her lap.
+
+He was stupefied. Suddenly he perceived the injustice and the crass
+folly of his estimate of her character, and with this perception came a
+broader and deeper realization of her greatness as an actress. Her real
+self now became more complex than his wildest imagined ideal of her.
+That this sweet and reflective girl should be the actress was as
+difficult to understand as that _The Baroness_ should be at heart a good
+woman. For five minutes he hardly heard what she said, so busy was his
+mind readjusting itself to this abrupt displacement of values. With
+noiseless suddenness all the lurid light which the advertiser had
+thrown around the star died away. The faces which mocked and mourned,
+the clutching hands, the lines of barbaric ornaments, the golden goblets
+of debauchery, the jewelled daggers, the poison phials--all those
+accessories, designed to produce the siren of the posters, faded out,
+and he found himself face to face with a human being like himself, a
+thoughtful, self-contained, and rather serious American girl of
+twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age.
+
+Not merely this, but her attitude towards him was that of a pupil. She
+lifted eyes to him as to one occupying an intellectual height. She began
+to tell him how much she enjoyed his little book on the drama, which a
+friend had recommended to her, but as soon as he had fairly recovered
+himself he led her away from his own work. "I am supposed to be an
+architect," he explained. "I write of the stage because I love it--and
+because I am a failure in my profession. My book is a very slight and
+unambitious attempt."
+
+"But you know the stage and its principles," she insisted; "and your
+view of the future is an inspiration to those of us who wish to do good
+work. Your letter was very helpful to me, for I am deeply discouraged
+just now. I am disgusted with the drama in which I work. I am weary of
+these unwholesome parts. You are quite right, I shall never do my best
+work so long as I am forced to assume such uncongenial roles. They are
+all false, every one of them. They are good acting roles, as acting
+goes; but I want plays that I can live as well as act. But my manager
+tells me that the public will not have me in anything else. Do you think
+they would? Is he right?" She ended in appeal.
+
+"I think the public will take you at your best in anything you do," he
+replied, with grave gallantry. "I don't know that managers are
+omniscient. They are only men like the rest of us."
+
+She smiled. "That is high treason; but I'm very much inclined to believe
+it is true. I am willing to concede that a theatre must be made to pay,
+but I am not content to think that this splendid art is always to be
+measured by the number of dollars which fall into the box-office. Take
+Westervelt as a type. What ideals has he? None whatever, save to find a
+play that will run forever and advertise itself."
+
+She had dreams, too, it seemed. She glowed with her plans, and as she
+timidly presented them Douglass perceived that the woman was entirely
+unconscious of the false glamour, the whirling light and tumult, which
+outsiders connected with her name. At the centre of the illumination she
+sat looking out upon the glorified bill-boards, the gay shop windows,
+the crowded auditoriums, a wholesome, kindly, intelligent woman, subject
+to moods of discouragement like himself, unwilling to be a slave to a
+money-grubber. Something in his face encouraged the story of her
+struggles. She passed to her personal history while he listened as one
+enthralled.
+
+The actress fled, and the woman drew near. She looked into the man's
+eyes frankly, unshrinkingly, with humor, with appeal. She leaned towards
+him, and her face grew exquisitely tender and beautiful. "Oh, it was a
+struggle! Mother kept boarders in order that Hugh and I might go to
+school--didn't you, dear old muz?" She laid her hand on her mother's
+knee, and the mother clasped it. "Father's health grew worse and worse,
+and at last he died, and then I had to leave school to help earn our
+living. I began to read for entertainments of various sorts. Father was
+a Grand Army man, and the posts took an interest in my reading. I really
+earned a thousand dollars the second year. I doubled that the next year,
+and considered myself a great public success." She smiled. "Mother, may
+I let Mr. Douglass see how I looked then?"
+
+The mother nodded consent, and the great actress, after a few moments'
+search, returned with a package of circulars, each bearing a piquant,
+girlish face.
+
+"There," she said, as she handed them to Douglass, "I felt the full
+ecstasy of power when that picture was taken. In this I wore a new gown
+and a new hat, and I was earning fifty dollars at each reading. My
+success fairly bewildered me; but oh, wasn't it glorious! I took mother
+out of a tenement and put her in a lovely little home. I sent Hugh to
+college. I refurnished the house. I bought pictures and rugs, for you
+know I continued to earn over two thousand a year. And what fun we had
+in spending all that money!"
+
+"But how did you reach the stage?" he asked.
+
+She laughed. "By way of 'the Kerosene circuit,' if you know what that
+means."
+
+"I've heard the phrase," he answered; "it corresponds to the old-time
+'barn-storming,' doesn't it?"
+
+"It does."
+
+Hugh interposed. "I wouldn't go into that, sis."
+
+"Why not? It's great fun--now. I used to think it pretty tragic
+sometimes. Yes, I was nineteen when I went on the New England rural
+circuit--to give it a better name. Oh, I've been through all the steps!
+As soon as I felt a little secure about mother, I ventured to New York
+in answer to advertisements in _The Reflector_, and went out 'on the
+road' at 'fifteen per.'" These slang phrases seemed humorous as they
+came from her smiling lips, but Douglass knew some little part of the
+toil and discomfort they stood for.
+
+Her eyes danced with fun. "I played _The Lady of Lyons_ in a 'kitchen
+set,' and the death-scene in _East Lynne_ before a 'wood drop.' And my
+costumes were something marvellous, weren't they, mother? Well, this
+lasted two seasons--summer seasons; while I continued to read in winter
+in order to indulge my passion for the stage in summer and early autumn.
+Then I secured a small part in a real company, and at a salary that
+permitted me to send some money home. I knocked about the country this
+way two seasons more--that makes me twenty-two. I knew the office of
+every manager in New York by this time, but had been able to reach an
+audience with but one or two. They were kind enough, but failed to 'see
+anything' in me, as the phrase goes; and I was quite disheartened. Oh,
+'the Rialto'!" Her face clouded and her voice softened. "It is a
+brilliant and amusing place to the successful, but to the girl who walks
+it seeking a theatrical engagement it is a heartless and cruel place.
+You can see them there to-day--girls eager and earnest and ready to work
+hard and conscientiously--haunting the agencies and the anterooms of the
+managers just as I did in those days--only five years ago."
+
+"It seems incredible," exclaimed Douglass. "I thought you came here from
+a London success."
+
+"So I did, and that is the miraculous chapter of my story. I went to
+London with Farnum--with only a little part--but McLennan saw me and
+liked my work, and asked me to take the American adventuress in his new
+play. And then--my fortune was made. The play was only a partial
+success, but my own position was established. I continued to play the
+gay and evil-minded French and Russian woman of the English stage till I
+was tired of them. Then I tried _Joan of Arc_ and _Charlotte Corday_.
+The public forced me back to _The Baroness Telka_, and to wealth and
+great fame; and then I read your little book, which seemed directed
+straight to me, and I asked Hugh to write you--now you have the 'story
+of me life.' I have had no struggle since--only hard work and great
+acclaim." She faced her mother with a proud smile. Then her face
+darkened. "But--there is always a but--I want New York to know me in
+some better way. I'm tired of these women with cigarettes and spangled
+dinner-gowns."
+
+She laid her hand again on her mother's knee, and the gentle old fingers
+closed around the firm, smooth wrist.
+
+"I've told mother that I will cut these roles out. We are at last in a
+position to do as we please. I am now waiting for something worth while
+to come to me. That is my present situation, Mr. Douglass. I don't know
+why I've been so frank. Now let me hear your play."
+
+He flushed a little. "To tell the truth, I find it rather hard to begin.
+I feel as though I were re-enacting a worn-out scene in some way. Every
+other man in the car writes plays nowadays and torments his friends by
+reading to them, which, I admit, is an abominable practice. However, as
+I came here for that express purpose, I will at least outline my
+scenario."
+
+"Didn't you bring the play itself?"
+
+"Yes; but, really, I hesitate. It may bore you to death."
+
+"You could not write a play that would bore me--I am sure of that."
+
+"Very well," he soberly answered, and drew forth his manuscript. As if
+upon signal, the mother and her son rose to withdraw. "You are entirely
+justified," said Douglass, with some humor. "I quite understand your
+feelings."
+
+"We should like very much to hear it, but--"
+
+"No excuses, I beg of you. I wonder at Miss Merival's hardihood. I am
+quite sure she will live to repent her temerity."
+
+In this spirit of banter the playwright and the star were left alone
+with the manuscript of the play. As he read on, Douglass was carried out
+of his own impassivity by the changes in the face before him. It became
+once more elusive, duskily mysterious in its lines. A reflective shadow
+darkened the glorious eyes, veiled by drooping lids. Without knowing it,
+the actress took on from moment to moment the heart-trials of the woman
+of the play. In a subconscious way even as he read, Douglass analyzed
+and understood her power. Hers was a soul of swift and subtle sympathy.
+A word, a mere inflection, was sufficient to set in motion the most
+complicate and obscure conceptions in her brain, permitting her to
+comprehend with equal clarity the Egyptian queen of pleasure and the
+austere devotee to whom joy is a snare. From time to time she uttered
+little exclamations of pleasure, and at the end of each act motioned him
+to proceed, as if eager to get a unified impression.
+
+It was after eleven o'clock when he threw down the manuscript, and,
+white with emotion, awaited her verdict. She was tense with the strain,
+and her lashes were wet with tears, but her eyes were bright and her
+mind alert. She had already entered upon a new part, having been swept
+up into a region of resolution as far away from the pleasant hostess as
+from the heartless adventuress whose garments she had worn but the night
+before. With hands clasped between her knees, and shoulders laxly
+drooping, she brooded on the sorrows of his mimic world.
+
+"I will do your play," she said at last. "I will do it because I believe
+in its method and because I think it worthy of my highest powers."
+
+The blood rushed to the playwright's throat and a smarting heat dimmed
+his eyes. He spoke with difficulty. "I thank you," he said, hoarsely.
+"It is more than I expected; and now that you have promised to do it, I
+feel you ought not to take the risk." He could say no more, overcome by
+the cordial emphasis of her decision.
+
+"There is a risk, I will be frank with you; but your play is worth it. I
+have not been so powerfully moved in years. You have thrilled me. Really
+I cannot tell you how deeply your theme has sunk into my heart. You have
+the Northern conscience--so have I; that is why I rebel at being merely
+the plaything of a careless public. Yes, I will do your play. It is a
+work of genius. I hope you wrote it in a garret. It's the kind of thing
+to come from a diet of black bread and water."
+
+He smiled. "I live in a sort of garret, and my meals are frequently
+beans and brown bread. I hope that will do."
+
+"I am glad the bread is at least brown.... But you are tired. Leave the
+manuscript with me." He rose and she moved towards him with a gesture
+of confidence which made words impossible to him. "When we meet again I
+want you to tell me something of yourself.... Good-night. You will hear
+from me soon." She was regal as she said this--regal in her own proper
+person, and he went away rapt with wonder and admiration of the real
+Helen Merival as she now stood revealed to him.
+
+"She is greater than my dreams of her," he said, in a sort of rapture as
+he walked the street. "She is greater than she herself can know; for her
+genius is of the subtle, unspeakable deeps--below her own consciousness,
+beyond her own analysis. How much greater her art seems, now that I have
+seen her. It is marvellous! She will do my play, and she will
+succeed--her power as an actress would carry it to a success if it were
+a bad play, which it is not. My day has dawned at last."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Helen went to bed that night with a consciousness that something new and
+powerful had come into her life. Not merely the play and her
+determination to do it moved her--the man himself profoundly impressed
+her. His seriousness, his decision and directness of utterance, and the
+idealism which shone from his rugged, boyish face remained with her to
+the verge of sleep. He was very handsome, and his voice singularly
+beautiful, but his power to charm lay over and beyond these. His sincere
+eyes, his freedom from flippant slang, these impressed her with a sense
+of his reliability, his moral worth.
+
+"He is stern and harsh, but he is fine," she said to her mother next
+morning, "and his play is very strong. I am going to do it. You will
+like the part of _Lillian_. It has the Scotch sense of moral
+responsibility in it."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Douglass rose next morning with a bound, as if life had somehow become
+surcharged with fresh significance, fresh opportunity. His professional
+career seemed dull and prosaic--his critical work of small avail. His
+whole mind centred on his play.
+
+His was a moody, sensitive nature. Stern as he looked, and strong as he
+really was, he could be depressed by a trifle or exalted by a word. And
+reviewing his meeting with Helen in the light of the morning, he had
+more than a suspicion that he had allowed himself to talk too freely in
+the presence of the brother and mother, and that he had been
+over-enthusiastic, not to say egotistic; but he was saved from dejection
+by the memory of the star's great, brown-black eyes. There was no
+pretence in them. She had been rapt--carried out of conventional words
+and graces by something which rose from the lines he had written, the
+characters he had depicted.
+
+The deeper his scrutiny went the more important she became to him. She
+was not simple--she was very complex, and an artist of wonderful range,
+and certainty of appeal. He liked the plain and simple (almost angular)
+gestures and attitudes she used when talking to him. They were so
+broadly indicative of the real Helen Merival, and so far from the
+affectations he had expected to see. Of course, she was the actress--the
+mobility of her face, her command of herself, was far beyond that of any
+untrained woman, no matter how versatile; but she was nobly the actress,
+broadened and deepened by her art.
+
+He was very eager to see her again, and as the day wore on this desire
+grew to be an ache at his heart most disturbing. He became very restless
+at last, and did little but walk around the park, returning occasionally
+as the hour for the postman came. "I don't know why I should expect a
+letter from her. I know well the dilatory methods of theatrical
+people--and to-day is rehearsal, too. I am unreasonable. If I hear from
+her in a week I may count myself lucky."
+
+A message from the dramatic editor of _The Blazon_, asking him to do a
+special study of an English actor opening that night at the Broadway,
+annoyed him. "I can't do it," he answered. "I have another engagement."
+And recklessly put aside the opportunity to earn a week's board, so
+exalted was he by reason of the word of the woman.
+
+At dinner he lacked appetite entirely, and as he had taken but an egg
+and a cup of coffee for breakfast, and had missed luncheon altogether,
+he began to question himself as to the meaning of his ailment, with sad
+attempt at humor. "It isn't exactly as serious as dying. Even if she
+reconsiders and returns my play, I can still make a living." He would
+not admit that any other motive was involved.
+
+He had barely returned to his room before a knock at the door announced
+a boy with a note. As he took it in his hand his nerves tingled as
+though he had touched the wondrous woman's hand. The note was brief, yet
+fateful:
+
+     "I enclose a ticket for the manager's box. I hope you can come. I
+     want to talk about your play. I will send my brother to bring you
+     in back to see me. I have been rehearsing all the afternoon, but I
+     re-read the play this morning while in bed. I like it better and
+     better, but you can do more with it--I feel that you have
+     suppressed the poetry here and there. My quarrel with you realists
+     is that you are afraid to put into your representations of life the
+     emotions that make life a dynamic thing. But it is stirring and
+     suggestive as it is. Come in and talk with me, for I am full of it
+     and see great possibilities in the final act."
+
+His hands were tremulous and his eyes glowing as he put the note down
+and faced himself in the glass. The pleasure of meeting her again under
+such conditions made him forget, for the moment, the role she was to
+play--a part he particularly detested. Truly he was the most fortunate
+and distinguished of men--to be thus taken by the hand and lifted from
+nameless obscurity to the most desired position beside a great star.
+
+He dressed with unusual care, and was a noticeably handsome figure as he
+sat alone in the box; and elated, tense, self-conscious. When she came
+on and walked close down to the foot-lights nearest him, flashing a
+glance of recognition into his eyes, his breath quickened and his face
+flushed. A swift interchange of light and fire took place at the moment,
+her eyelids fell. She recoiled as if in dismay, then turned and
+apparently forgot him and every one else in the fervor of her art.
+
+A transforming readjustment of all the lines of her face took place. She
+became sinister, mocking, and pitiless. An exultant cruelty croaked in
+her voice. Minute, repulsive remodellings of her neck and cheeks changed
+her to a harpy, and seeing these evidences of her great genius Douglass
+grew bitterly resentful, and when she laughed, with the action of a
+vulture thrusting her head forward from the shoulders, he sickened and
+turned away. It was marvellous work, but how desecrating to her glorious
+womanhood. Coming so close on that moment of mystic tenderness it was
+horrible. "My God! She must not play such parts. They will leave their
+mark upon her."
+
+When the curtain fell he did not applaud, but drew back into the shadow,
+sullen, brooding, sorrowful. In the tableau which followed the recall,
+her eyes again sought for him (though she still moved in character),
+and the curtain fell upon the scene while yet she was seeking him.
+
+Here now began a transformation in the man. He had come to the theatre
+tremulous with eagerness to look upon her face, to touch her hand, but
+when her brother entered the box, saying, "Mr. Douglass, this is the
+best time to see my sister," he rose slowly with a curious reluctance.
+
+Through devious passages beneath the theatre, Hugh led the way, while
+with greater poignancy than ever before the young playwright sensed the
+vulgarity, the immodesty, and the dirt of the world behind and below the
+scenes. It was all familiar enough to him, for he had several friends
+among the actors, but the thought of one so sovereign as Helen in the
+midst of a region so squalid stung him. He was jealous of the actors,
+the scene-shifters, who were permitted to see her come and go.
+
+He was reserved and rather pale, but perfectly self-contained, as he
+entered the little reception-hall leading to her dressing-room. He
+faced her with a sense of dread--apprehensive of some disenchantment.
+She met him cordially, without the slightest reference to her make-up,
+which was less offensive than he had feared; but he winced,
+nevertheless, at the vulgarity of her part so skilfully suggested by
+paint and powder. She gave him her hand with a frank gesture. "You
+didn't applaud my scenes to-night," she said, with a smile as enigmatic
+as the one she used in _The Baroness_.
+
+His voice was curt with emotion as he replied, "No, I did not; I
+couldn't. They saddened me."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked, with a startled, anxious paling beneath
+her rouge.
+
+His voice was low, but fiercely reproachful in answer. "I mean you
+should treat your beautiful self and your splendid art with greater
+consideration."
+
+"You mean I should not be playing such women? I know it--I hate them.
+But no one ever accused me of taking my art lightly. I work harder on
+these uncongenial roles than upon any other. They require infinitely
+more effort, because I loathe them so."
+
+"I mean more than that. I am afraid to have you simulate such passions.
+They will leave their mark on you. It is defilement. Your womanhood is
+too fine, too beautiful to be so degraded."
+
+She put her hand to her bosom and looked about her restlessly. His
+intensity scared her. "I know what you mean, but let us not talk of that
+now; let us discuss your play. I want to suggest something for your
+third act, but I must dress now. You will wait, won't you? We will have
+a few minutes before I go on. Please sit here and wait for me."
+
+He acquiesced silently, as was his fashion. There was little of the
+courtier about him, but he became very ill at ease as he realized how
+significant his waiting must seem to those who saw him there. Deeply in
+the snare as he was, this sitting beside an actress's dressing-room door
+became intolerable to his arrogant soul, and he was about to flee when
+Hugh came back and engaged him in conversation. So gratified was
+Douglass for this kindness, he made himself agreeable till such time as
+Helen, in brilliant evening-dress, came out; and when Hugh left them
+together he was less assertive and brusque in manner.
+
+She was so luminous, so queenly, she dissipated his cloud of doubts and
+scruples, and the tremor of the boyish lover came back into his limbs as
+he turned to meet her. His voice all but failed him as he answered to
+her question.
+
+For some ten minutes from behind her mask she talked of the play with
+enthusiasm--her sweet eyes untouched of the part she was about to
+resume. At last she said: "There is my cue. Good-bye! Can you breakfast
+with us to-morrow, at eleven-thirty? It's really a luncheon. I know you
+are an early riser; but we will have something substantial. Will you
+come?"
+
+Her smooth, strong fingers closed cordially on his hand as she spoke,
+and he answered, quickly, "With the greatest pleasure in the world."
+
+"We can talk at our leisure then. Good-bye!" and as she opened the
+canvas door in the "box-scene" he heard her say, with high, cool,
+insulting voice, "Ah, my dear Countess, you are early." She was _The
+Baroness_ again. After the fall of the curtain at the end, Douglass
+slipped out upon the pavement, his eyes blinded by the radiant picture
+she made in her splendid bridal robes. It was desolating to see her
+represent such a role, such agony, such despair; and yet his feet were
+reluctant to carry him away.
+
+He was like a famishing man, who has been politely turned from the
+glittering, savory dining-room into the street--only his hunger,
+immaterial as light, was a thousand times keener than that of the one
+who lacks only bread and meat. He demanded her face, her voice, as one
+calls for sunlight, for air. He knew that this day, this night, marked a
+new era in his life. Old things were passed away--new things, sweet,
+incredible things, were now happening.
+
+Nothing like this unrest and deep-seated desire had ever come into his
+life, and the realization troubled him as a dangerous weakness. It
+enslaved him, and he resented it. He secured a new view on his play,
+also, with its accusing defiance of dramatic law and custom. In this
+moment of clear vision he was permitted a prevision of Helen struggling
+with the rebellious critics. Now that he had twice taken her hand he was
+no longer so indifferent to the warfare of the critics, though he knew
+they could not harm one so powerful as she.
+
+In the end of his tumult he wrote her a letter, wherein he began by
+begging her pardon for seeming to interfere in the slightest degree with
+her work in the world. His letter continued:
+
+     "I have back of me the conscience of my Scotch forebears, and
+     though my training in college and in my office has covered my
+     conscience with a layer of office dust it is still there. Of course
+     (and obviously) you are not touched by the words and deeds of the
+     women you represent, but I somehow feel that it is a desecration of
+     your face and voice to put them to such uses. That is the reason I
+     dreaded to go back and see you to-night. If you were seeking praise
+     of your own proper self, the sincerity of this compliment is
+     unquestionable. I ought to say, 'I hope my words to-night did not
+     disturb you,' but I will not, for I hope to see you speedily drop
+     all such hideous characters as _The Baroness Telka_. I felt as an
+     artist might upon seeing a glorious statue befouled with mire. I
+     say this not because I wish you to do _Lillian_. In the light of
+     last night's performance my own play is a gray autumn day with a
+     touch of frost in the air. It is inconceivable that you should be
+     vitally interested in it. I fear no play that I care to write will
+     please a sufficient number of people to make its production worth
+     your while. I release you from your promise. Believe me, I am
+     shaken in my confidence to-night. Your audience seemed so
+     heartless, so debased of taste. They applauded most loudly the
+     things most revolting to me. Since I have come to know you I cannot
+     afford to have you make a sacrifice of yourself to produce my play,
+     much as I desire to see you in new characters."
+
+As he dropped this letter into the box a storm-wave of his former
+bitterness and self-accusation swept over him.
+
+"That ends another attempt to get my play staged. Her manager will
+unquestionably refuse to consider it."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Helen read Douglass's letter next morning while still in bed, and its
+forthright assault made her shiver. She did not attempt to deceive
+herself. She acknowledged the singular power of this young man to shake
+her, to change her course of action. From the first she acknowledged
+something almost terrifying in the appeal of his eyes, a power which he
+seemed unconscious of. His words of condemnation, of solicitude,
+troubled her as the praise of no other man in all her life had done. He
+had spoken to her soul, making her triumph over the vast audience
+loathsome--almost criminal.
+
+He was handsome--a manly man--but so were dozens of others of her wide
+acquaintance. His talent was undeniable, but he was still obscure,
+undeveloped, a failure as an architect, unambitious as a critic, though
+that was his best point. His articles in _The Blazon_ possessed unusual
+insight and candor. Beyond this she knew as little of him as of any
+other of the young newspaper men who sought her acquaintance, and yet he
+had somehow changed her world for her in these two meetings.
+
+She let the letter fall on her breast, and lay with her eyes fastened
+upon a big rose in a pot on the window-sill--the gift of another
+admirer. "I do know more of him. I know that he is strong, sincere. He
+does not flatter me--not even to win me to his play. He does not hasten
+to send me flowers, and I like him for that. If I were to take his point
+of view, all my roles and half my triumphs would drop from me. But _is_
+there not a subtle letting-down, a disintegration? May he not be right,
+after all?"
+
+She went over once more the talk of the few moments they had spent
+together, finding each time in all his words less to criticise and more
+to admire. "He does not conceal his hate," she said; and she might have
+added, "Or his love," for she was aware of her dominion, and divined,
+though she did not whisper it even to herself, that his change of
+attitude with regard to her roles came from his change of feeling
+towards her. "He has a great career. I will not allow him to spoil his
+own future," she decided, at length, in her own large-minded way. And
+there were sweet, girlish lines about her mouth when her mother came in
+to inquire how she felt.
+
+"Very much like work, mamma, and I'm going to catch up on my
+correspondence. Mr. Douglass is coming to take breakfast with us, to
+talk about his play. I wish you would see that there is something that a
+big man can eat."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The note she sent in answer to his was like herself--firm, assured, but
+gentle:
+
+     "MR. DOUGLASS,--'What came you out for to see--a reed shaken with
+     the wind?' I know my own mind, and I am not afraid of my future. I
+     should be sorry to fail, of course, especially on your account, but
+     a _succes d'estime_ is certain in your case, and my own personal
+     following is large enough--joined with the actual lovers of good
+     drama--to make the play pay for itself. Please come to my
+     combination breakfast and luncheon, as you promised, and we can
+     arrange dates and other details of the production, for my mind is
+     made up. I am going to do your play, come what will. I thank you
+     for having started all my dormant resolutions into life again. I
+     shall expect you at twelve-thirty."
+
+Having despatched this note by special messenger, she serenely set to
+work on less important matters, and met him in modish street dress--trim
+and neat and very far from the meretricious glitter of _The Baroness_.
+He was glad of this; he would have disliked her in negligee, no matter
+how "artistic."
+
+Her greeting was frank and unstudied. "I'm glad you've come. There are
+oceans of things to talk over."
+
+"There was nothing else for me to do but come," he replied, with a
+meaning light in his eyes. "Your letter was a command."
+
+"I'm sorry it takes a command to bring you to breakfast with us. True,
+this is not the breakfast to be given in your honor--that will come
+later."
+
+"It would be safer to have it before the play is produced," he replied,
+grimly.
+
+Helen turned to her brother. "Hugh, we have in Mr. Douglass a man not
+sanguine of the success of his play. What does that argue?"
+
+"A big hit!" he promptly replied.
+
+The servants came and went deftly, and Douglass quite lost sight of the
+fact that the breakfast-room was high in a tower-like hotel, for Helen's
+long engagement in the city had enabled her to make herself exceedingly
+comfortable even amid the hectic color and insistent gilt of the Hotel
+Embric. The apartment not only received the sun, a royal privilege in
+New York, but it was gay with flowers, both potted and in vases, and the
+walls were decorated with drawings of her own choosing. Only the
+furniture remained uncompromisingly of the hotel tone.
+
+"I did intend to refurnish, but mother, who retains a little of her old
+Scotch training, talked me out of it," Helen explained, in answer to a
+query. "Is there anything more hopelessly 'handsome' and shining than
+these chairs? There's so little to find fault with, and so little to
+really admire."
+
+"They're like a ready-made suit--unobjectionable, but not fit."
+
+"They have no soul. How could they have? They were made by machines for
+undistinguished millions." She broke off this discussion. "I am eager
+for a run through the park. Won't you go? Hugh is my engineer. Reckless
+as he looks, I find him quite reliable as a tinker, and you know the
+auto is still in the tinkery stage."
+
+"I have a feeling that it is still in the dangerous stage," he said.
+"But I will go." He said this in a tone of desperation which amused them
+all very much.
+
+It was impossible for him to remain glum in the midst of the good cheer
+of that luxurious little breakfast with the promise of a ride in the
+park in prospect. A few moments later a young girl, Miss Fanny Cummings,
+came in with a young man who looked like an actor, but was, in fact,
+Hugh's college-mate and "advance man" for Helen, and together they went
+down to the auto-car.
+
+There was a well-defined sense of luxury in being in Helen Merival's
+party. The attendants in the hotel were so genuinely eager to serve her,
+and the carefully considered comfort of everything she possessed was
+very attractive to a man like George Douglass, son of a village doctor,
+who had toiled from childhood to earn every dollar he spent. To ride in
+such swift and shining state with any one would have had extraordinary
+interest, and to sit beside Helen in the comparative privacy of the rear
+seat put a boyish glow of romance into his heart. Her buoyant and sunny
+spirit reacted on his moody and supersensitive nature till his face
+shone with pleasure. He forgot his bitter letter of the night before,
+and for the moment work and worry were driven from his world. He entered
+upon a dreamland--the city of menace disappeared.
+
+The avenue was gay with promenaders and thick with carriages. Other
+autos met them with cordial clamor of gongs, and now and then some
+driver more lawless than Hugh dashed past them in reckless race towards
+the park. The playwright had never seen so many of New York's glittering
+carriages, and the growing arrogance of its wealth took on a new aspect
+from his newly acquired viewpoint. Here were rapidly centring the great
+leaders of art, of music, of finance. Here the social climbers were
+clustering, eager to be great in a city of greatness. Here the chief
+ones in literature and the drama must come as to a market-place, and
+with this thought came a mighty uplift. "Surely success is now mine," he
+thought, exultantly, "for here I sit the favored dramatist of this
+wondrous woman."
+
+There was little connected conversation--only short volleys of jests as
+they whizzed along the splendid drives of the park--but Douglass needed
+little more than Helen's shining face to put him at peace with all the
+world. Each moment increased their intimacy.
+
+He told her of his stern old father, a country doctor in the West, of
+the way in which his brother and sisters were scattered from North to
+South, and how he came to set his face Eastward while all the others
+went West.
+
+"How handsome he is," thought Helen.
+
+"How beautiful you are," his glances said in answer, and both grew
+young beneath the touch of love.
+
+When they were once more in the hotel Helen cried out:
+
+"There! Isn't your brain washed clear of all doubts? Come, let's to work
+at the play."
+
+He looked down at her with eyes whose glow made her eyelids fall in
+maidenly defence. "I am capable of anything you ask," he said, with
+quiet power.
+
+After a long and spirited discussion of the last act she said: "Well,
+now, we'll put it in rehearsal as soon as you feel that it is ready. I
+believe in doing a part while the spell of its newness is on me. I shall
+put this on in place of the revival of _Rachel Endicott_." She rose on
+the wave of her enthusiasm. "I feel the part taking hold of me. I will
+make _Lillian's Duty_ the greatest success of my life, and the lion's
+share of both honor and money shall be yours."
+
+He left the hotel quite as exalted as he had been previously depressed.
+The pleasure of sitting by her side for four blessed hours enriched him
+to the point of being sorry for all the rest of the world. The Prince of
+Wales had been denied an introduction to her, he had read; therefore the
+Prince was poor.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The reading of the play took place on the Monday morning following, and
+was an exceedingly formal and dignified function. The principal players
+came prepared to be politely interested, while some of the lesser minds
+were actually curious to taste the quality of the play as a piece of
+writing.
+
+As there was no greenroom in the Westervelt, the reading took place on
+the open stage, which was bleak and draughty. The company sat in a
+funereal semicircle, with the author, the star, and the manager in a
+short line facing them. All the men retained their overcoats, for the
+morning was miserably raw, and at Helen's positive command kept their
+heads covered; and the supernumerary women sat shivering in their
+jackets. Helen was regal in a splendid cloak of sable, otherwise there
+was little of the successful actress in her dress. At her suggestion a
+box-scene was set around them to keep off at least a part of the
+draught, and under these depressing conditions the reading proceeded.
+
+Douglass was visibly disheartened by the surroundings, but set manfully
+to work, and soon controlled the attention of all the players except
+two, who made it a boast that they had never read a play or listened to
+one. "I am interested only in me lines, me boy," said one of them.
+
+"And your acting shows it," replied Douglass, with quiet sarcasm, and
+proceeded to the second act.
+
+"You read that with greater power here than to me," said Helen. "I wish
+we could give it the same unity and sweep of expression as we act it."
+She addressed the company in her calm, clear voice: "I hope you will all
+observe carefully Mr. Douglass's reading. He is giving us most valuable
+advice in every inflection."
+
+Her attitude towards her company was admirable in its simplicity and
+reserve. It was plain that she respected their personalities and
+expected the same high courtesy from them. Some of the men were of the
+kind who say "My deah" to every woman, and "My deah boy" to the most
+casual acquaintance--vain, egotistical, wordy, and pompous; but one
+glance from Helen was sufficient to check an over-familiar hand in
+mid-air. The boldest of them did not clap her on the shoulder but once.
+
+The reading passed to a rather enthusiastic finish, and Douglass then
+said: "I have read the play to you carefully, because I believe--_I
+know_--that an intelligent rendition of your individual parts is
+impossible without a clear knowledge of the whole drama. My theories of
+a play and its representation are these: As an author, I see every
+detail of a scene as if it were a section of life. I know where all my
+people are at each moment of time, and their positions must be
+determined by the logic of the picture without any reference to those
+who wish to hold the centre of the stage. In a certain sense you are
+only different-colored pigments in my hands, to be laid on to form a
+unified painting. You must first of all learn to subordinate yourselves
+to the designs of the author. I know this sounds harsh--seems to reduce
+you to a very low level of intelligence; but, as a matter of fact, the
+most highly gifted of our actors to-day are those who are able to do
+this very thing--to carry in their minds a conception of the unity of a
+scene, never thrusting their personalities through it or out of it. I
+mention these points because I intend to assist in the rehearsals, and I
+don't want to be misunderstood."
+
+Helen interposed a word: "I need not say that I consider this a very
+powerful play--with that opinion you all agree, I am sure--but I want
+to say further that Mr. Douglass has the right to demand of each of us
+subordination to the inner design of his work. I am personally very glad
+always to avail myself of the author's criticism and suggestion. I hope
+you will all feel the same willingness to carry out Mr. Douglass's
+scenes as he has written them. Mr. Saunders, will you please give out
+the parts and call a rehearsal for to-morrow at ten o'clock sharp?"
+
+At this point all rose. Saunders, a plain little man, highly pleased
+with his authority, began to bustle about, bellowing boisterously: "Here
+you are now--everybody come letter-perfect to-morrow. Sharp at ten. No
+lagging."
+
+The players, accustomed to his sounding assumption of command, paid no
+attention other than to clutch their rolls of type-written manuscript.
+Each withdrew into the street with an air of haste.
+
+As Helen received her portion Saunders said: "Here, Miss Merival, is a
+fat part--must be yours. Jee-rusalem the golden! I'd hate to tackle that
+role."
+
+Douglass was ready to collar the ass for his impudent tone, but Helen
+seemed to consider it no more than the harmless howl of a chair sliding
+across the floor. She was inured to the old-time "assistant
+stage-manager."
+
+Turning to Douglass, she said, "Do you realize, Mr. Author, that we are
+now actually begun upon your play?"
+
+"No, I do not. I confess it all seems a make-believe--a joke."
+
+"You'll not think it a joke at the end of the week. It's terribly hard
+work to put on a big piece like this. If I seem apathetic in my part I
+beg you not to worry. I must save myself all I can. I never begin to act
+at rehearsal till I have thought the business all out in my mind. But
+come, you are to lunch with us in honor of the first rehearsal, and it
+is late."
+
+"It seems a deplorable thing that you must come every morning to this
+gloomy and repellent place--"
+
+"Ah! this is a part of our life the public knows nothing of. They all
+come to it--the divine Sarah, Duse--none are exempt. The glamour of the
+foot-lights at night does not warm the theatre at eleven of the
+morning."
+
+"I see it does not," he answered, lightly; but in reality he felt that
+something sweet and something regal was passing out of his conception of
+her. To see her even seated with these commonplace men and women
+detracted even from her glory, subjected her to the same laws. It was a
+relief to get out into the gay street--to her carriage, and to the hotel
+where the attendants hovered about her as bees about their queen.
+
+She was in high spirits all through the luncheon, and Douglass was
+carried out of his dark gravity by her splendid vitality, her humor, and
+her hopefulness.
+
+"All you need is a hearing," she said. "And you shall have that. Oh, but
+there is a wilderness of work before us! Can you design the scenes? I
+like to do that. It's like playing with doll-houses. I'll show you how.
+We'll leave the financial side of it to you, Hugh," she said, to her
+brother. "Come, Mr. Playwright," and they set to work with paste and
+card-board like a couple of children, and soon had models of all the
+sets. They seemed childish things indeed, but Helen was mistress of even
+the mechanical side of the stage, and these paste-pot sketches were of
+the greatest value to the scene-painter and the carpenter.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+These three weeks of rehearsal formed the happiest time Douglass had
+ever known, for all things conspired to make each day brim with mingled
+work and worship. First of all, and above all, he was permitted to meet
+Helen each day, and for hours each day, without fear of gossip and
+without seeking for an excuse.
+
+Each morning, a little before ten, he left his room and went directly to
+the theatre to meet the company and the manager. The star, prompt as a
+clock, arrived soon after, and Douglass, beforehand, as a lover, was
+always there to help her from her carriage and to lead the way through
+the dark passage to the stage, where the pompous little Saunders was
+forever marshalling his uneasy vassals in joyous exercise of
+sovereignty.
+
+Helen was happy as a child during these days, and glowing with new ideas
+of "business" and stage-setting. "We will spare no work and no expense,"
+she said, buoyantly, to Mr. Westervelt, her manager. "We have a drama
+worthy of us. I want every one of Mr. Douglass's ideas carried out."
+
+The manager did not know, as Douglass did, that some of the ideas were
+her own, and so took a melancholy view of every innovation.
+
+"You can't do that," he gloomily repeated. "The public won't stand for
+new things. They want the old scenes rehashed. The public don't want to
+think; it wants to laugh. This story is all right for a book, but won't
+do for a play. I don't see why you quit a good thing for a risk like
+this. It is foolish and will lose money," he added, as a climax.
+
+"Croak, you old raven--you'll be embarrassed when we fill your
+money-box," she replied, gayly. "You should have an ideal, Mr.
+Westervelt."
+
+"An ideal. What should I do with that?"
+
+Like most men, Douglass knew nothing about gowns in their constituent
+parts, but he had a specially keen eye for the fitting and beautiful in
+a woman's toilet, and Helen was a constant delight to him because of the
+distinction of her dresses. They were refined, yet not weakly
+so--simple, yet always alluring. Under the influence of her optimism
+(and also because he did not wish to have her apologize for him) he drew
+on his slender bank-account for funds to provide himself with a
+carefully tailored suit of clothes and a new hat.
+
+"How well you are looking!" she said, in soft aside, as he met her one
+morning soon after. "Your hat is very becoming."
+
+"I am made all over new _inside_--so I hastened to typify the change
+exteriorly. I am rejoiced if you like me in my 'glad rags,'" he
+replied.
+
+"You are really splendid," she answered, with admiring fervor. "Let us
+hurry through to-day; I am tired and want a spin in the park."
+
+"That is for you to say," he answered.
+
+"You are never tired," she sighed. "I wish I had your endurance."
+
+"It is the endurance of desperation. I am staking all I have on this
+venture." Then, in low-toned intensity, he added: "It hurts me to have
+you forced to go over and over these lines because of the stupidity of a
+bunch of cheap little people. Why don't you let me read your part?"
+
+"That would not be fair," she answered, quickly--"neither to them nor to
+you. No, I am an actress, and this is a part of my life. We are none of
+us exempt from the universal curse."
+
+"Royleston is our curse. Please let me kick him out the stage-door--he
+is an insufferable ass, and a bad actor besides."
+
+"He is an ass, but he can act. No, it's too late to change him now.
+Wait; be patient. He'll pull up and surprise you at the final
+rehearsal."
+
+At four o'clock they were spinning up Fifth Avenue, which resounded with
+the hoof-strokes of stately horses, and glittered with the light of
+varnished leather. The rehearsal was put far behind them. The day was
+glorious November, and the air sparkling without being chill. A sudden
+exaltation seized Helen. "It certainly is a beautiful world--don't you
+think so?" she asked.
+
+"I do now; I didn't two weeks ago," he replied, soberly.
+
+"What has brought the change?"
+
+"You have." He looked at her steadily.
+
+She chose to be evasive. "I had a friend some years ago who was in the
+deeps of despair because no one would publish her book. Once she had
+secured the promise of a real publisher that he would take it she was
+radiant. She thought the firm had been wondrously kind. They made thirty
+thousand dollars from the sale of her book. I am selfish--don't you
+think I'm not--I'm going to make fame and lots of money on your play."
+
+"I hope you may, for am I not to share in all your gold and glory? I
+have greater need of both than you. You already have all that mortal
+could desire. I don't believe I've told you what I called you before I
+met you--have I?"
+
+"No; what was it?" Her eyes widened with interest.
+
+"'The glittering woman.'"
+
+She looked puzzled. "Why that?"
+
+"Because of the glamour, the mystery, which surrounded your name."
+
+"Even now I don't see."
+
+He looked amused and cried out: "On my life, I believe you don't! Being
+at the source of the light, you can't see it, of course. It's like
+wearing a crown of electric lamps--others see you as a dazzling thing;
+you are in the dark. It is my trade to use words to express my meaning,
+but I confess my hesitation in trying to make you see yourself as I saw
+you. You were like a baleful, purple star, something monstrous yet
+beautiful. Your fame filled the world and fell into my garret chamber
+like a lurid sunrise. With your coming, mysterious posters bloomed and
+crimson letters blazed on street-walls. Praiseful paragraphs appeared in
+the newspapers, gowns and hats (named after you) and belt-buckles and
+shoes and cigarettes arranged themselves in the windows, each bearing
+your name."
+
+"What a load of tinsel for a poor little woman to carry around! How it
+must have shocked you to find me so commonplace! None of us escape the
+common fates. It is always a surprise to me to discover how simple the
+men of great literary fame are. A friend of mine once spent a whole
+evening with a great novelist without discovering who he was. She said
+to him when she found him out, 'I couldn't believe that any one I could
+meet could be great.' Really, I hope you will forgive me for not being
+as superhuman as my posters. It was the mystery of the unknown. If you
+knew all about me I would be entirely commonplace." She was more
+concerned about his opinion of her than she expressed in words. Her
+eagerness appeared in her voice.
+
+"I found you infinitely more womanly than I had supposed, and simpler.
+Even yet I don't see how you can carry this oppressive weight of
+advertising glory and still be--what you are."
+
+"You seem to hesitate to tell me what I am."
+
+"I do," he gravely answered, and for a moment she sat in silence.
+
+"There's one objection to your assisting at rehearsals," she said,
+irrelevantly. "You will lose all the intoxication of seeing your play
+freshly bodied forth. It will be a poor, old, ragged story for you at
+the end of the three weeks."
+
+"I've thought of that; but there are other compensations."
+
+"You mean the pleasure of having the work go right--"
+
+"Yes, partly that--partly the suggestion that comes from a daily study
+of it."
+
+But the greatest compensation of all--the joy in her daily
+companionship--he did not have the courage to mention, and though she
+divined other and deeper emotions she, too, was silent.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+In the wearisome grind of rehearsal, Douglass was deeply touched and
+gratified by Helen's efforts to aid him. She was always willing to try
+again, and remained self-contained even when the author flung down the
+book and paced the stage in a breathless rage. "Ah, the stupidity of
+these people!" he exclaimed, after one of these interruptions. "They are
+impossible. They haven't the brains of a rabbit. Take Royleston; you'd
+think he ought to know enough to read a simple line like that, but he
+doesn't. He can't even imitate my way of reading it. They're all so
+absorbed in their plans to make a hit--"
+
+"Like their star," she answered, with a gleam in her eyes, "and the
+author."
+
+"But our aims are larger."
+
+"But not more vital; their board and washing hang on their success."
+
+He refused to smile. "They are geese. I hate to have you giving time and
+labor to such numskulls. You should give your time to your own part."
+
+"I'm a quick study. Please don't worry about me. Come, let's go on;
+we'll forget all about it to-morrow," and with a light hand on his arm
+she led him back to the front of the stage, and the rehearsal proceeded.
+
+It was the hardest work he ever did, and he showed it. Some of the cast
+had to be changed. Two dropped out--allured by a better wage--and all
+the work on their characterizations had to be done over. Others were
+always late or sick, and Royleston was generally thick-headed from
+carousal at his club. Then there were innumerable details of printing
+and scenery to be decided upon, and certain overzealous minor actors
+came to him to ask about their wigs and their facial make-up.
+
+In desperation over the small-fry he took the stage himself, helping
+them in their groupings and exits, which kept him on his feet and keyed
+to high nervous tension for hours at a time, so that each day his limbs
+ached and his head swam at the close of the last act.
+
+He marvelled at Helen's endurance and at her self-restraint. She was
+always ready to interpose gently when hot shot began to fly, and could
+generally bring about a laugh and a temporary truce by some pacific
+word.
+
+Hugh and Westervelt both came to her to say: "Tell Douglass to let up.
+He expects too much of these people. He's got 'em rattled. Tell him to
+go and slide down-hill somewhere."
+
+"I can't do that," she answered. "It's his play--his first
+play--and--he's right. He has an ideal, and it will do us all good to
+live up to it."
+
+To this Hugh replied, with bitterness, "You're too good to him. I wish
+you weren't quite so--" He hesitated. "They're beginning to talk about
+it."
+
+"About what?" she asked, quickly.
+
+"About his infatuation."
+
+Her eyes grew steady and penetrating, but a slow, faint flush showed her
+self-consciousness. "Who are talking?"
+
+"Westervelt--the whole company." He knew his sister and wished he had
+not spoken, but he added: "The fellows on the street have noticed it.
+How could they help it when you walk with him and eat with him and ride
+with him?"
+
+"Well?" she asked, with defiant inflection. "What is to follow? Am I to
+govern my life to suit Westervelt or the street? I admire and respect
+Mr. Douglass very much. He has more than one side to him. I am sick of
+the slang of the Rialto and the greenroom. I'm tired of cheap witticisms
+and of gossip. With Mr. Douglass I can discuss calmly and rationally
+many questions which trouble me. He helps me. To talk with him enables
+me to take a deep breath and try again. He enables me to forget the
+stage for a few hours."
+
+Hugh remained firm. "But there's your own question--what's to be the end
+of it? You can't do this without getting talked about."
+
+She smiled, and the glow of her humor disarmed him. "Sufficient unto the
+end is the evil thereof. I don't think you need to worry--"
+
+Hugh was indeed greatly troubled. He began to dislike and suspect
+Douglass. They had been antipathetic from the start, and no advance on
+the author's part could bring the manager nearer. It was indeed true
+that the young playwright was becoming a marked figure on the street,
+and the paragrapher of _The Saucy Swells_ spoke of him not too obscurely
+as the lucky winner of "our modern Helen," which was considered a smart
+allusion. This paragraph was copied by the leading paper of his native
+city, and his father wrote to know if it were really true that he was
+about to marry a play-actress.
+
+This gave a distinct shock to Douglass, for it made definite and very
+moving the vague dreams which had possessed him in his hours of
+reflection. His hands clinched, and while his heart beat fast and his
+breath shortened he said: "Yes, I will win her if I can"; but he was not
+elated. The success of his play was still in the future, and till he had
+won his wreath he had no right to address her in any terms but those of
+friendship.
+
+In spite of the flood of advance notices and personal paragraphs, in
+spite of envious gossip, he lived on quietly in his attic-room at the
+Roanoke. He had few friends and no intimates in the city, and cared
+little for the social opportunities which came to him. Confident of
+success, he gave up his connection with _The Blazon_, whose editor
+valued his special articles on the drama so much as to pay him
+handsomely for them. The editor of this paper, Mr. Anderson, his most
+intimate acquaintance, was of the Middle West, and from the first
+strongly admired the robust thought of the young architect whose
+"notions" concerning the American drama made him trouble among his
+fellow-craftsmen.
+
+"You're not an architect, you're a critic," he said to him early in
+their accidental acquaintance. "Now, I want to experiment on you. I want
+you to see Irving to-night and write your impressions of it. I have a
+notion you'll startle my readers."
+
+He did. His point of view, so modern, so uncompromising, so unshaded by
+tradition, delighted Anderson, and thereafter he was able to employ the
+young playwright regularly. These articles came to have a special value
+to the thoughtful "artists" of the stage, and were at last made into a
+little book, which sold several hundred copies, besides bringing him to
+the notice of a few congenial cranks and come-outers who met in an old
+tavern far down in the old city.
+
+These articles--this assumption of the superior air of the critic--led
+naturally to the determination to write a play to prove his theories,
+and now that the play was written and the trial about to be made his
+anxiety to win the public was very keen. He had a threefold reason for
+toiling like mad--to prove his theories, to gain bread, and to win
+Helen; and his concentration was really destructive. He could think of
+nothing else. All his correspondence ceased. He read no more; he went no
+more to his club. His only diversions were the rides and the lunches
+which he took with Helen.
+
+With her in the park he was a man transformed. His heaviness left him.
+His tongue loosened, and together they rose above the toilsome level of
+the rehearsal and abandoned themselves to the pure joy of being young.
+Together they visited the exhibitions of painting and sculpture, and to
+Helen these afternoons were a heavenly release from her own world.
+
+It made no difference to her who objected to her friendship with
+Douglass. After years of incredible solitude and seclusion and hard work
+in the midst of multitudes of admirers and in the swift-beating heart of
+cities, with every inducement to take pleasure, she had remained the
+self-denying student of acting. Her summers had been spent in England or
+France, where she saw no one socially and met only those who were
+interested in her continued business success. Now she abandoned this
+policy of reserve and permitted herself the joys of a young girl in
+company with a handsome and honorable man, denying herself even to the
+few.
+
+She played badly during these three weeks, and Westervelt was both sad
+and furious. Her joyous companionship with Douglass, her work on his
+sane and wholesome drama, their discussions of what the stage should be
+and do unfitted her for the factitious parts she was playing.
+
+"I am going to drop all of these characters into the nearest abyss,"
+she repeated each time with greater intensity. "I shall never play them
+again after your drama is ready. My contract with Westervelt has really
+expired so far as his exclusive control over me is concerned, and I will
+not be coerced into a return to such work."
+
+Her eyes were opened also to the effect of her characters on the
+audiences that assembled night after night to hear her, and she began to
+be troubled by the thousands of young girls who flocked to her matinees.
+"Is it possible that what I call 'my art' is debasing to their bright
+young souls?" she asked herself. "Is Mr. Douglass right? Am I
+responsible?"
+
+It was the depression of these moods which gave her corresponding
+elation as she met her lover's clear, calm eyes of a morning, and walked
+into the atmosphere of his drama, whose every line told for joy and
+right living as well as for serious art.
+
+Those were glorious days for her--the delicious surprise of her
+surrender came back each morning. She had loved once, with the sweet
+single-heartedness of a girl, shaken with sweet and yielding joy of a
+boyish face and a slim and graceful figure. What he had said she could
+not remember; what he was, no longer counted; but what that love had
+been to her mattered a great deal, for when he passed out of her life
+the glow of his worship remained in her heart, enabling her to keep a
+jealous mastery of her art and to remain untouched by the admiration of
+those who sought her favor in every city she visited. Douglass was
+amazed to find how restricted her social circle was. Eagerly sought by
+many of the great drawing-rooms of the city, she seldom went to even the
+house of a friend.
+
+"Her art is a jealous master," her intimates were accustomed to say,
+implying that she had remained single in order that she might climb
+higher on the shining ladder of fame, and in a sense this was true; but
+she was not sordid in her ambitions--she was a child of nature. She
+loved rocks, hills, trees, and clouds. And it was this elemental
+simplicity of taste which made Douglass the conquering hero that he was.
+She felt in him concrete, rugged strength and honesty of purpose, as
+wide as the sky from the polished courtesy and the conventional evasions
+of her urban admirers.
+
+"No, I am not a bit in society," she confessed, in answer to some remark
+from him. "I couldn't give up my time and strength to it if I wished,
+and I don't wish. I'd rather have a few friends in for a quiet little
+evening after the play than go to the swellest reception."
+
+During all this glorious time no shadow of approaching failure crossed
+their horizon. The weather might be cold and gray; their inner sky
+remained unspotted of any vapor. If it rained, they lunched at the
+hotel; if the day was clear they ran out into the country or through the
+park in delightful comradeship, gay, yet thoughtful, full of brisk talk,
+even argument, but not on the drama. She had said, "Once for all, I do
+not intend to talk shop when I am out for pleasure," and he respected
+her wishes. He had read widely though haphazardly, and his memory was
+tenacious, and all he had, his whole mind, his best thought, was at her
+command during those hours of recreation.
+
+He began to see the city from the angle of the successful man. It no
+longer menaced him; he even began to dream of dominating it by sheer
+force of genius. When at her side he was invincible. Her buoyant nature
+transformed him. Her faith, her joy in life was a steady flame; nothing
+seemed to disturb her or make her afraid. And she attributed this
+strength, this joyous calm, to his innate sense of power--and admired
+him for it. That he drew from her, relied upon her, never entered her
+conception of their relations to each other.
+
+Nevertheless, as the play was nearing its initial production the critics
+loomed larger. Together they ran over the list. "There is the man who
+resembles Shakespeare?" she asked.
+
+"He will be kindly."
+
+"And the fat man with shifty gray eyes?"
+
+"He will slate us, unless--"
+
+"And the big man with the grizzled beard?"
+
+"We'll furnish him a joke or two."
+
+"And the man who comes in on crutches?"
+
+"He'll slaughter us; he hates the modern."
+
+"Then the man who looks like Lincoln?"
+
+"He is on our side. But how about the man with the waxed mustache?"
+
+"He'll praise me."
+
+"And slit the playwright's ears. Well, I will not complain. What will
+the 'Free Lance' do--the one who accepts bribes and cares for his
+crippled daughter like an angel--what will he do?"
+
+"Well, that depends. Do you know him?"
+
+"I do not, and don't care to. That exhausts the list of the notables;
+the rest are bright young fellows who are ready to welcome a good
+thing. Some of them I know slightly, but I do not intend to do one
+thing, aside from my work, to win their support."
+
+"That is right, of course. Westervelt may take a different course." And
+in this confident way they approached the day of trial.
+
+Westervelt, watching with uneasy eyes the growing intimacy of his star
+and her playwright, began to hint his displeasure to Hugh, and at last
+openly to protest. "What does she mean?" he asked, explosively. "Does
+she dream of marrying the man? That would be madness! Death! Tell her
+so, my boy."
+
+Hugh concealed his own anxiety. "Oh, don't worry, they're only good
+comrades."
+
+Westervelt grunted with infinite contempt. "Comrades! If he is not
+making love to her I'm a Greek."
+
+Hugh was much more uneasy than the manager, but he had more sense than
+to rush in upon his famous sister with a demand. He made his complaint
+to the gentle mother. "I wish she would drop this social business with
+Douglass. He's a good fellow, but she oughtn't to encourage him in this
+way. What's the sense of having him on the string every blessed
+afternoon? Do you imagine she's in earnest? What does she mean? It would
+be fatal to have her marry anybody now--it would ruin her with the
+public. Besides, Douglass is only a poor grub of a journalist, and a
+failure in his own line of business. Can't we do something?"
+
+The mother stood in awe of her shining daughter and shook her head. "She
+is old enough to know her own mind, Hugh. I darena speak to her.
+Besides, I like Mr. Douglass."
+
+"Yes, he won you by claiming Scotch blood. I don't like it. She is
+completely absorbed in him. All I can hope is it won't last."
+
+"If she loves him I canna interfere, and if she doesna there is no need
+to interfere," replied Mrs. MacDavitt, with sententious wisdom.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+At the last moment, when face to face with the public, young Douglass
+lost courage. The stake for which he played was so great! Like a man who
+has put his last dollar upon the hazard, he was ready to snatch his gold
+from the boards. The whole thing seemed weakly tenuous at
+dress-rehearsal, and Royleston, half-drunk as usual, persistently
+bungled his lines. The children in the second act squeaked like nervous
+poll-parrots, and even Helen's sunny brow was darkened by a frown as her
+leading man stumbled along to a dead halt again and again.
+
+"Mr. Royleston," she said, with dismay and anger in her voice, "I beg of
+you to remember that this is a most serious matter."
+
+Her tone steadied the man, for he was a really brilliant and famous
+actor beginning to break. He grew courtly. "Miss Merival, I assure you I
+shall be all right to-night."
+
+At this Douglass, tense and hot, shouted an angry word, and rushed into
+the semi-darkness of the side aisle. There Helen found him when she came
+off, his face black with anger and disgust. "It's all off," he said.
+"That conceited fool will ruin us."
+
+"Don't take things too seriously," she pleaded. "Royleston isn't half so
+hopeless as he seems; he will come on to-night alert as a sparrow and
+astonish you. We have worked very hard, and the whole company needs rest
+now rather than more drill. To show your own worry would make them worse
+than they are."
+
+In the end he went back to his seat ashamed of his outburst of temper,
+and the rehearsal came to an end almost triumphantly, due entirely to
+the spirit and example of the star, who permitted herself to act for the
+first time.
+
+It was a marvellous experience to see her transformed, by the mere
+putting aside of her cloak, from the sweet-faced, thoughtful girl to the
+stern, accusing, dark, and tense woman of the play. Her voice took on
+the quivering intonation of the seeress, and her spread hand seemed to
+clutch at the hearts of her perfidious friends. At such moments Douglass
+sat entranced, afraid to breathe for fear of breaking the spell, and
+when she dropped her role and resumed her cloak he shivered with pain.
+
+It hurt him, also, to have her say to Royleston: "Now, to-morrow night I
+shall be here at the mirror when you enter; I will turn and walk towards
+you till I reach this little stand. I will move around this to the
+right," etc. It seemed to belittle her art, to render it mechanical, and
+yet he admitted the necessity; for those who were to play with her were
+entitled to know, within certain limits, where to find her in the
+scene. He began to regret having had anything to do with the rehearsal.
+It would have been so much more splendid to see the finished product of
+her art with no vexing memory of the prosaic processes of its
+upbuilding.
+
+She seemed to divine his feelings, and explained: "Up to a certain point
+every art is mechanical; the outlines of my acting are fixed, but within
+those limits I am guided by impulse. Even if I dared to rely on the
+inspiration of the moment my support cannot; they must know what I am
+going to do. I sincerely wish now that you had left us to our struggle;
+and yet we've had a good time, haven't we?"
+
+"The best of my whole life," he answered, fervently.
+
+"Now, let's rest. Let's go to the opera to-night, for to-morrow I cannot
+see you--no, nor Monday, either. I shall remain in seclusion all day in
+a darkened room. I must think my part all out alone. There in the dark
+I shall sleep as much as possible. Helen's 'unconscious cerebration'
+must now get in its work," she ended, laughingly.
+
+They all dined together at her table, and sat together in the box, while
+the vast harmonies of _Siegfried_ rose like sun-shot mist from beneath
+them.
+
+Helen was rapt, swept out of herself; and Douglass, with delicate
+consideration, left her alone with her musings, whose depth and
+intensity appeared in the lines of her sensitive face. He had begun to
+understand the sources of her power--that is to say, her fluid and
+instant imagination which permitted her to share in the joy of every
+art. Under the spell of a great master she was able to divine the
+passion which directed him. She understood the sense of power, the
+supreme ease and dignity of Ternina, of De Reszke, just as she was able
+to partake in the pride of the great athlete who wrestled upon the mat.
+She touched life through her marvellous intuition at a hundred points.
+
+He was not discouraged, therefore, when, as they were going out, she
+said, with a quick clasp of her hand on his arm, "This matchless music
+makes our venture seem very small." He understood her mood, and to a
+lesser degree shared it.
+
+"I don't want to talk," she said at the door of her carriage. "Good-bye
+till Monday night. Courage!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Deprivation of Helen's companionship even for a day produced in Douglass
+such longing that his hours were misery, and, though Sunday was long and
+lonely, Monday stretched to an intolerable length. He became greatly
+disturbed, and could neither work nor sit still, so active was his
+imagination. He tried to sleep, but could not, even though his nerves
+were twitching for want of it; and at last, in desperate resolution, he
+set himself the task of walking to Grant's tomb and back, in the hope
+that physical weariness would benumb his restless brain. This good
+result followed. He was in deep slumber when the bell-boy rapped at his
+door and called, "Half-past six, sir."
+
+He sprang up, moved by the thought, "In two hours Helen will be entering
+upon that first great scene," and for the first time gave serious
+consideration to the question of an audience. "I hope Westervelt has
+neglected nothing. It would be shameful if Helen played to a single
+empty seat. I will give tickets away on the sidewalk rather than have it
+so. But, good Heavens, such a condition is impossible!"
+
+After dressing with great care, he hastened directly to the theatre. It
+was early, and as he stepped into the entrance he found only the
+attendants, smiling, expectant, in their places. A doubt of success
+filled him with sudden weakness, and he slipped out on the street again,
+not caring to be recognized by any one at that hour. "They will laugh at
+my boyish excitement," he said, shamefacedly.
+
+Broadway, the chief thoroughfare of the pleasure-seekers of all
+America, was just beginning to thicken with life. The cafes were sending
+forth gayly dressed groups of diners jovially crowding into their
+waiting carriages. Automobiles and cabs were rushing northward to meet
+the theatre-goers of the up-town streets, while the humbler patrons of
+the "family circles" and "galleries" of the play-houses lower down were
+moving southward on foot, sharing for a few moments in the brilliancy
+and wealth of the upper avenue. The surface cars, clamorous, irritable,
+and timid, jammed at the crossings like sheep at a river-ford, while
+overhead the electric trains thundered to and fro, crowded with other
+citizens also theatre-bound. It seemed that the whole metropolis, alert
+to the drama, had flung its health and wealth into one narrow stream,
+and yet, "in all these thousands of careless citizens, who thinks of
+_Lillian's Duty_?" thought the unnerved playwright.
+
+"What do these laughing, insatiate amusement-seekers care about any
+one's duty? They are out to enjoy life. They are the well-to-do, the
+well-fed, the careless livers. Many of them are keen, relentless
+business-men wearied by the day's toil. They are now seeking relaxation,
+and not at all concerned with acquiring wisdom or grace. They are,
+indeed, the very kind of men to whom my play sets the cold steel, and
+their wives, of higher purpose, of gentler wills, are, nevertheless,
+quite as incapable of steady and serious thought. Not one of them has
+any interest in the problem I have set myself to delineate."
+
+He was saved from utter rout by remembrance of Helen. He recalled the
+Wondrous Woman as she had seemed to him of old, striving to regain his
+former sense of her power, her irresistible fascination. He assured
+himself that her indirect influence over the city had been proven to be
+enormous, almost fantastic, though her worshippers knew the real woman
+not at all, allured only by the aureoled actress. Yes, she would
+triumph, even if the play failed, for they would see her at last in a
+congenial role wherein her nobility, her intellectual power would be
+given full and free expression. Her appeal to her worshippers would be
+doubled.
+
+When he returned to the theatre a throng of people filled the
+entrance-way, and he was emboldened to pass in--even bowed to the
+attendants and to Hugh, who stood in the lobby, in shining raiment, a
+_boutonniere_ in his coat, his face radiating confidence and pride.
+
+"We've got 'em coming," he announced, with glee. "We are all sold
+out--not a seat left, and only the necessary 'paper' out. They're
+curious to see her in a new role. You are made!"
+
+"I hope so," replied the playwright, weakly. "Tuesday night tells the
+story."
+
+Hugh laughed. "Why, man, I believe you're scared. We're all right. I can
+sniff victory in the air."
+
+This confidence, so far from inspiriting Douglass, still further
+depressed him, and he passed in and on up into the second gallery,
+where he had privately purchased a reserved seat with intent to sense
+for himself the feeling of the upper part of the house during the first
+act. Keeping his muffler pinned close so that his evening dress escaped
+notice, he found his way down to the railing quite secure from
+recognition by any one at the peep-hole of the curtain or in the boxes,
+and there took his seat to watch the late-comers ripple down the aisles.
+He was experienced enough to know that "first-nighters" do not always
+count and that they are sometimes false prophets, and yet he could not
+suppress a growing exaltation as the beautiful auditorium filled with
+men and women such as he had himself often called "representative," and,
+best of all, many of the city's artists and literarians were present.
+
+He knew also that the dramatic critics were assembling, jaded and worn
+with ceaseless attendance on worthless dramas, a condition which should
+have fitted them for the keener enjoyment of any fresh, original work,
+but he did not deceive himself. He knew from their snarling onslaughts
+on plays he had praised that they were not to be pleased with
+anything--at least not all of them at the same time. That they were
+friendly to Helen he knew, that they would praise her he was assured,
+but that they would "slate" his play he was beginning to find
+inevitable.
+
+As the curtain rose on the first scene he felt the full force of Helen's
+words, "You won't enjoy the performance at all." He began now to pay for
+the joy he had taken in her companionship. He knew the weakness of every
+actor, and suffered with them and for them. Royleston from the first
+tortured him by mumbling his lines, palpably "faking" at times. "The
+idiot, he'll fail to give his cues!" muttered Douglass. "He'll ruin the
+play." The children scared him also, they were so important to Helen at
+the close of the act.
+
+At last the star came on--so quietly that the audience did not at the
+moment recognize her, but when those nearest the stage started a
+greeting to her it was taken up all over the shining house--a
+magnificent "hand."
+
+Never before had Helen Merival appeared before an audience in character
+so near her own good self, and the lovely simplicity of her manner came
+as a revelation to those of her admirers who had longed to know more of
+her private character. For several minutes they applauded while she
+smilingly bowed, but at last the clapping died away, and each auditor
+shrugged himself into an easy posture in his chair, waiting for the
+great star to take up her role.
+
+This she did with a security and repose of manner which thrilled
+Douglass in spite of his intimate knowledge of her work at rehearsals.
+The subtlety of her reading, the quiet, controlled precision and grace
+of her action restored his confidence in her power. "She has them in her
+hand. She cannot fail."
+
+The act closed triumphantly, though some among the audience began to
+wince. Helen came before the curtain several times, and each time with
+eyes that searched for some one, and Douglass knew with definiteness
+that she sought her playwright in order that she might share her triumph
+with him. But a perverse mood had seized him. "This is all very well,
+but wait till the men realize the message of the play," he muttered, and
+lifted the programme to hide his face.
+
+A buzz of excited comment rose from below, and though he could not hear
+a word beyond the water-boy's call he was able to imagine the comment.
+
+"Why, how lovely! I didn't suppose Helen Merival could do a sweet,
+domestic thing like that."
+
+"Isn't her gown exquisite? I've heard she is a dainty dresser in real
+life, quite removed from the kind of thing she wears on the stage. I
+wish she were not so seclusive. I'd like to know her."
+
+"But do you suppose this is her real self?"
+
+"It must be. She doesn't seem to be acting at all. I must say I prefer
+her in her usual parts."
+
+"She's wonderful as _The Baroness_."
+
+"I never let my daughters see her in those dreadful characters--they are
+too bold; but they are both here to-night. I understood it was to be
+quite a departure."
+
+Douglass, knowing well that Hugh and the manager were searching for him,
+sat with face bent low until the lights were again lowered. "Now comes
+the first assault. Now we will see them wince."
+
+The second act was distinctly less pleasing to those who sat below him
+in the orchestra and dress circle. Applause was still hearty, but it
+lacked the fervor of the first act. He could see men turn and whisper to
+one another now and then. They laughed, of course, and remarked each to
+the other, "Brown, you're getting a 'slat' to-night."
+
+"They are cheering the actress, not the play," observed the author.
+
+The gallery, less sensitive or more genuinely patriotic, thundered on,
+applauding the lines as well as the growing power of Helen's
+impersonation. Royleston was at last beginning to play, the fumes of his
+heavy dinner having cleared away. He began to grip his lines, and that
+gave the star her first opportunity to forget his weakness and throw
+herself into her part. All in all, only a very discriminating ear could
+have detected a falling-off of favor in this act. The curtain was lifted
+four times, and a few feeble cries for the author were heard, chiefly
+from the first balcony.
+
+Here was the point whereat his hoped-for triumph was to have begun, but
+it did not. He was touched by an invisible hand which kept him to his
+seat, though he knew that Helen was waiting for him to receive,
+hand-in-hand with her, the honors of the act.
+
+Some foreknowledge of defeat clarified the young author's vision, and a
+bitter melancholy crept over him as the third act unrolled. "They will
+go out," he said to himself, "and they will not come back for the last
+act. The play is doomed to disaster." And a flame of hatred rose in his
+heart against the audience. "They are brutes!" he muttered.
+
+The scenes were deeply exciting, the clash of interest upon interest was
+swift, novel in sequence, and most dramatic in outcome, but the applause
+was sharp and spasmodic, not long continued and hearty as before. Some
+of the men who had clapped loudest at the opening now sat gnawing their
+mustaches in sullen resentment.
+
+Douglass divined their thought: "This is a confidence game. We came to
+be amused, and this fellow instructs in sociology. We didn't cough up
+two dollars to listen to a sermon; we came to be rested. There's trouble
+enough in the street without displaying it in a place of amusement. The
+fellow ought to be cut out."
+
+Others ceased to cheer because both acting and play had mounted beyond
+their understanding. Its grim humor, its pitiless character-drawing,
+wearied them. Audience and play, speaking generally, were at
+cross-purposes. A minority, it was true, caught every point, shouting
+with great joy, and a few, who disapproved of the play, but were most
+devoted admirers of Helen's art, joined half-heartedly in their
+applause. But the act closed dismally, notwithstanding its tremendous
+climax. A chill east wind had swept over the auditorium and a few
+sensitive souls shivered. "What right has Helen Merival to do a thing
+like this? What possesses her? It must be true that she is infatuated
+with this young man and produces his dreadful plays to please him."
+
+"They say she is carried away with him. He's very handsome, they tell
+me. I wish they'd call him out."
+
+A buzz of complaining talk on the part of those aggrieved filled in the
+interlude. The few who believed in the drama were valiant in its
+defence, but their arguments did not add to the good-will of those who
+loved the actress but detested the play.
+
+"This won't do," said the most authoritative critic, as a detachment
+lined up at the bar of the neighboring saloon. "Merival must lop off
+this young dramatist or he'll 'queer' her with her best friends. She
+mustn't attempt to force this kind of thing down our throats."
+
+"He won't last a week," said another.
+
+Their finality of tone resembled that of emperors and sultans in
+counsel.
+
+Douglass, sitting humped and motionless among his gallery auditors, was
+clearly aware that Helen was weary and agitated, yet he remained in his
+seat, his brain surging with rebellious passion.
+
+His perverse pride was now joined by shame, who seized him by the other
+arm and held him prisoner. He felt like fleeing down the fire-escape.
+The thought of running the gauntlet of the smirking attendants, the
+possibility of meeting some of the exultant dramatic critics, most of
+whom were there to cut him to pieces, revolted him. Their joyous grins
+were harder to face than cannon, therefore he cowered in his place
+during the long wait, his mind awhirl, his teeth set hard.
+
+There were plenty of empty seats in the orchestra when the curtain
+lifted on the last act. Several of the critics failed to return. The
+playwright dared not look at his watch, for the scenes were dragging
+interminably. His muscles ached with the sort of fatigue one feels when
+riding in a slow train, and he detected himself pushing with his feet as
+if to hurry the action. The galleries did not display an empty bench,
+but he took small comfort in this, for he was not a believer in the
+old-time theory of pleasing the gallery. "In this city the two-dollar
+seats must be filled," he said. "Helen is ruined if she loses them."
+
+He began to pity her and to blame himself. "What right had I to force my
+ferocious theories upon her?" he asked himself, and at the moment it
+seemed that he had completely destroyed her prestige. She was plainly
+dispirited, and her auditors looked at one another in astonishment.
+"Can this sad woman in gray, struggling with a cold audience and a group
+of dismayed actors, be the brilliant and beautiful Helen Merival?"
+
+That a part of this effect--most of it, in fact--lay in the role of
+_Lillian_ they had not penetration enough to distinguish; they began to
+doubt whether she had ever been the very great success and the powerful
+woman they had supposed her to be.
+
+The play did not really close, the audience began to dribble out before
+the last half of the act began, and the curtain went down on the final
+scene while scores of women were putting on their wraps. A loyal few
+called Helen before the curtain, and her brave attempt to smile made
+every friendly heart bleed.
+
+Douglass, stiff and sore, as one who has been cudgelled, rose with the
+crowd and made his way to one of the outside exits, eager to escape
+recognition, to become one of the indistinguishable figures of the
+street.
+
+A couple of tousled-headed students going down the stairway before him
+tossed him his first and only crumb of comfort. "It won't go, of
+course," said one, in a tone of conviction, "but it's a great play all
+the same."
+
+"Right, old man," replied the other, with the decision of a master.
+"It's too good for this town. What New York wants is a continuous
+variety show."
+
+Douglass knew keenly, deeply, that Helen needed him--was looking for
+him--but the thought of those who would be near at their meeting made
+his entrance of the stage door impossible. He walked aimlessly, drifting
+with the current up the street, throbbing, tense, and hot with anger,
+shame, and despair. At the moment all seemed lost--his play, his own
+position, and Helen. Helen would surely drop him. The incredible had
+happened--he had not merely defeated himself, he had brought battle and
+pain and a stinging reproof to a splendid, triumphant woman. The
+enormous egotism involved in this he did not at the moment apprehend. He
+was like a wounded animal, content merely to escape.
+
+He longed to reach her, to beg her pardon, to absolve her from any
+promise, and yet he could not face Westervelt. He revolted at the
+thought of meeting Royleston and Miss Carmichael and Hugh. "No; it is
+impossible. I will wait for her at the hotel."
+
+At this word he was filled with a new terror. "The clerks and the
+bell-boys will have learned of my failure. I cannot face them to-night."
+And he turned and fled as if confronted by serpents. "And yet I must
+send a message. I must thank Helen and set her free. She must not go
+through another such night for my sake."
+
+He ended by dropping into another hotel to write her a passionate note,
+which he sent by a messenger:
+
+     "Forgive me for the part I have played in bringing this disaster
+     upon you. I had no idea that anything I could say or do would so
+     deeply injure you--you the Wondrous One. It was incredible--their
+     disdain of you. I was a fool, a selfish boaster, to allow you to go
+     into this thing. The possible loss of money we both discussed, but
+     that any words of mine could injure you as an artist never came to
+     me. Believe me, my dearest friend, I am astounded. I am crushed
+     with the thought, and I dare not show my face among your friends. I
+     feel like an assassin. I will call to-morrow--I can't do it
+     to-night. I am bleeding at the heart because I have made you share
+     the shame and failure which I feel to-night are always to be mine.
+     I was born to be of the minority. Please don't give another thought
+     to me or my play. Go your own way. Get back to the plays that
+     please people. Be happy. You have the right to be happy, and I am a
+     selfish, unthinking criminal whom you would better forget. Don't
+     waste another dollar or another moment on my play--it is madness.
+     I am overwhelmed with my debt to you, but I shall repay it some
+     day."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Helen was more deeply hurt and humiliated by her playwright's flight
+than by the apparent failure of the play, but the two experiences coming
+together fairly stunned her. To have the curtain go down on her final
+scenes to feeble and hesitating applause was a new and painful
+experience. Never since her first public reading had she failed to move
+and interest her audience. What had happened? What had so swiftly
+weakened her hold on her admirers? Up to that moment she had been sure
+that she could make any character successful.
+
+For a few moments she stood in the middle of the stage stifling with a
+sense of mortification and defeat, then turned, and without a word or
+look to any one went to her dressing-room.
+
+Her maid was deeply sympathetic, and by sudden impulse stooped and
+kissed her cheek, saying, "Never mind, Miss Merival, it was beautiful."
+
+This unexpected caress brought the tears to the proud girl's eyes.
+"Thank you, Nora. Some of the audience will agree with you, I hope."
+
+"I'm sure of it, miss. Don't be downcast."
+
+Hugh knocked at the door. "Can you come out?"
+
+"Not now, Hugh. In a few moments."
+
+"There are some people here to see you--"
+
+She wanted to say, "I don't want to see them," but she only said,
+"Please ask them to wait."
+
+She knew by the tone of her brother's voice that he, too, was choking
+with indignation, and she dreaded the meeting with him and with
+Westervelt. She was sustained by the hope that Douglass would be there
+to share her punishment. "Why had he not shown himself?" she asked
+again, with growing resentment.
+
+When she came out fully dressed she looked tired and pale, but her head
+was high and her manner proudly self-contained.
+
+Westervelt, surrounded by a small group of depressed auditors, among
+whom were Mrs. MacDavitt, Hugh, and Royleston, was holding forth in a
+kind of bellow. "It proves what? Simply that they will not have her in
+these preachy domestic parts, that's all. Every time she tries it she
+gets a 'knock.' I complain, I advise to the contrary. Does it do any
+good? No. She must chance it, all to please this crank, this reformer."
+
+The mother, reading the disappointment and suffering in Helen's white
+face, reached for her tremulously and drew her to her bosom. "Never
+mind what they say, Nellie; it was beautiful and it was true."
+
+Even Westervelt was awed by the calm look Helen turned on the group.
+"You are very sure of yourself, Mr. Westervelt, but to my mind this
+night only proves that this audience came to hear me without intelligent
+design." She faced the silent group with white and weary face.
+"Certainly Mr. Douglass's play is not for such an audience as that which
+has been gathering to see me as _The Baroness_, but that does not mean
+that I have no other audience. There is a public for me in this higher
+work. If there isn't, I will retire."
+
+Westervelt threw his hands in the air with a tragic gesture. "Retire! My
+Gott, that would be insanity!"
+
+Helen turned. "Come, mother, you are tired, and so am I. Mr. Westervelt,
+this is no place for this discussion. Good-night." She bowed to the
+friends who had loyally gathered to greet her. "I am grateful to you for
+your sympathy."
+
+There was, up to this time, no word of the author; but Hugh, as he
+walked by her side, broke out resentfully, "Do you know that beggar
+playwright--"
+
+"Not a word of him, Hugh," she said. "You don't know what that poor
+fellow is suffering. Our disappointment is nothing in comparison with
+his. Think of what he has lost."
+
+"Nonsense! He has lost nothing, because he had nothing to lose. He gets
+us involved--"
+
+"Hugh!" There was something in her utterance of his name which silenced
+him more effectually than a blow. "I produced this play of my own free
+will," she added, a moment later, "and I will take the responsibility of
+it."
+
+In the carriage the proud girl leaned back against the cushions, and
+pressed her two hands to her aching eyes, from which the tears streamed.
+It was all so tragically different from their anticipations. They were
+to have had a little supper of jubilation together, to talk it all
+over, to review the evening's triumph, and now here she sat chill with
+disappointment, while he was away somewhere in the great, heartless city
+suffering tortures, alone and despairing.
+
+The sweet, old mother put her arm about her daughter's waist.
+
+"Don't cry, dearie; it will all come right. You can endure one failure.
+'Tis not as bad as it seems."
+
+Helen did not reply as she was tempted to do by saying, "It isn't my
+defeat, it is his failure to stand beside me and receive his share of
+the disaster." And they rode the rest of the way in sad silence.
+
+As she entered her room a maid handed her a letter which she knew to be
+from Douglass even before she saw the handwriting, and, without opening
+it, passed on into her room. "His message is too sacred for any other to
+see," she said to herself, with instant apprehension of the bitter
+self-accusation with which he had written.
+
+The suffering expressed by the scrawling lines softened her heart, her
+anger died away, and only big tears of pity filled her glorious eyes.
+"Poor boy! His heart is broken." And a desire to comfort him swelled her
+bosom with a passion almost maternal in its dignity. Now that his pride
+was humbled, his strong figure bowed, his clear brain in turmoil, her
+woman's tenderness sought him and embraced him without shame. Her own
+strength and resolution came back to her. "I will save you from
+yourself," she said, softly.
+
+When she returned to the reception-room she found Westervelt and Hugh
+and several of the leading actors (who took the evening's "frost" as a
+reflection on themselves, an injury to their reputations), all in
+excited clamor; but when they saw their star enter they fell silent, and
+Westervelt, sweating with excitement, turned to meet her.
+
+"You must not go on. It is not the money alone; it will ruin you with
+the public. It is not for you to lecture the people. They will not have
+it. Such a failure I have never seen. It was not a 'frost,' it was a
+frozen solid. We will announce _The Baroness_ for to-morrow. The
+pressmen are waiting below. I shall tell them?" His voice rose in
+question.
+
+"Mr. Westervelt, this is my answer, and it is final. I will not take the
+play off, and I shall expect you to work with your best energy to make
+it a success. One night does not prove _Lillian_ a failure. The audience
+to-night was not up to it, but that condemns the auditors, not the play.
+I do not wish to hear any more argument. Good-night."
+
+The astounded and crestfallen manager bowed his head and went out.
+
+Helen turned to the others. "I am tired of this discussion. One would
+think the sky had fallen--from all this tumult. I am sorry for you, Mr.
+Royleston, but you are no deeper in the slough than Miss Collins and the
+rest, and they are not complaining. Now let us sit down to our supper
+and talk of something else."
+
+Royleston excused himself and went away, and only Hugh, Miss Collins,
+Miss Carmichael, and the old mother drank with the star to celebrate the
+first performance of _Lillian's Duty_.
+
+"I have had a letter from Mr. Douglass," Helen said, softly, when they
+were alone. "Poor fellow, he is absolutely prostrate in the dust, and
+asks me to throw him overboard as our Jonah. Put yourself in his place,
+Hugh, before speaking harshly of him."
+
+"I don't like a coward," he replied, contemptuously. "Why didn't he face
+the music to-night? I never so much as set eyes on him after he came in.
+He must have been hiding in the gallery. He leads you into this crazy
+venture and then deserts you. A man who does that is a puppy."
+
+A spark of amusement lit Helen's eyes. "You might call him that when you
+meet him next."
+
+Hugh, with a sudden remembrance of the playwright's powerful frame,
+replied, a little less truculently: "I'll call him something more fit
+than that when I see him. But we won't see him again. He's out of the
+running."
+
+Helen laid her cheek on her folded hands, and, with a smile which
+cleared the air like a burst of sunshine, said, laughingly: "Hugh,
+you're a big, bad boy. You should be out on the ice skating instead of
+managing a theatre. You have no more idea of George Douglass than a bear
+has of a lion. This mood of depression is only a cloud; it will pass and
+you will be glad to beg his pardon. My faith in him and in _Lillian's
+Duty_ is unshaken. He has the artistic temperament, but he has also the
+pertinacity of genius. Come, let's all go to bed and forget our hurts."
+
+And with this she rose and kissed her mother good-night.
+
+Hugh, still moody, replied, with sudden tenderness: "It hurt me to see
+them go out on your last scene. I can't forgive Douglass for that."
+
+She patted his cheek. "Never mind that, Hughie. 'This, too, shall pass
+away.'"
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+At two o'clock, when Douglass returned to his hotel, tired and reckless
+of any man's scorn, the night clerk smiled and said, as he handed him a
+handful of letters, "I hear you had a great audience, Mr. Douglass."
+
+The playwright did not discover Helen's note among his letters till he
+had reached his room, and then, without removing his overcoat, he stood
+beneath the gas-jet and read:
+
+     "MY DEAR AUTHOR,--My heart bleeds for you. I know how you must
+     suffer, but you must not despair. A first night is not conclusive.
+     Do not blame yourself. I took up your play with my eyes open to
+     consequences. You are wrong if you think even the failure of this
+     play (which I do not grant) can make any difference in my feeling
+     towards you. The power of the lines, your high purpose, remain.
+     Suppose it does fail? You are young and fertile of imagination. You
+     can write another and better play in a month, and I will produce
+     it. My faith in you is not weakened, for I know your work is good.
+     I have turned my back on the old art and the old roles; I need you
+     to supply me with new ones. This is no light thing with me. I
+     confess to surprise and dismay to-night, but I should not have been
+     depressed had you been there beside me. I was deeply hurt and
+     puzzled by your absence, but I think I understand how sore and
+     wounded you were. Come in to see me to-morrow, as usual, and we
+     will consider what can be done with this play and plan for a new
+     one. Come! You are too strong and too proud to let a single
+     unfriendly audience dishearten you. We will read the papers
+     together at luncheon and laugh at the critics. Don't let your
+     enemies think they have driven you into retirement. Forget them in
+     some new work, and remember my faith in you is not shaken."
+
+This letter, so brave, so gravely tender and so generous, filled him
+with love, choked him with grateful admiration. "You are the noblest
+woman in the world, the bravest, the most forgiving. I will not
+disappoint you."
+
+His bitterness and shame vanished, his fists clinched in new resolution.
+"You are right. I can write another play, and I will. My critics shall
+laugh from the other side of their mouths. They shall not have the
+satisfaction of knowing that they have even wounded me. I will justify
+your faith in my powers. I will set to work to-morrow--this very
+night--on a new play. I will make you proud of me yet, Helen, my queen,
+my love." With that word all his doubts vanished. "Yes, I love her, and
+I will win her."
+
+In the glow of his love-born resolution he began to search among his
+papers for an unfinished scenario called _Enid's Choice_. When he had
+found it he set to work upon it with a concentration that seemed uncanny
+in the light of his day's distraction and dismay. _Lillian's Duty_ and
+the evening's bitter failure had already grown dim in his mind.
+
+Helen's understanding of him was precise. He was of those who never
+really capitulate to the storm, no matter how deeply they may sink at
+times in the trough of the sea. As everything had been against him up to
+that moment, he was not really taken by surprise. All his life he had
+gone directly against the advice and wishes of his family. He had
+studied architecture rather than medicine, and had set his face towards
+the East rather than the West. Every dollar he had spent he had earned
+by toil, and the things he loved had always seemed the wasteful and
+dangerous things. He wrote plays in secret when he should have been
+soliciting commissions for warehouses, and read novels when he should
+have been intent upon his business.
+
+"It was impossible that I should succeed so quickly, so easily, even
+with the help of one so powerful as Helen Merival. It is my fate to work
+for what I get." And with this return of his belief that to himself
+alone he must look for victory, his self-poise and self-confidence came
+back.
+
+He looked strong, happy, and very handsome next morning as he greeted
+the clerk of the Embric, who had no guile in his voice as he said:
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Douglass. I hear that your play made a big hit last
+night."
+
+"I reckon it hit something," he replied, with easy evasion.
+
+The clerk continued: "My wife's sister was there. She liked it very
+much."
+
+"I am very glad she did," replied Douglass, heartily. As he walked over
+towards the elevator a couple of young men accosted him.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. Douglass. We are from _The Blazon_. We would like to
+get a little talk out of you about last night's performance. How do you
+feel about the verdict."
+
+"It was a 'frost,'" replied Douglass, with engaging candor, "but I don't
+consider the verdict final. I am not at all discouraged. You see, it's
+all in getting a hearing. Miss Merival gave my play a superb production,
+and her impersonation ought to fill the theatre, even if _Lillian's
+Duty_ were an indifferent play, which it is not. Miss Merival, in
+changing the entire tone and character of her work, must necessarily
+disappoint a certain type of admirer. Last night's audience was very
+largely made up of those who hate serious drama, and naturally they did
+not like my text. All that is a detail. We will create our own
+audience."
+
+The reporters carried away a vivid impression of the author's youth,
+strength, and confidence, and one of them sat down to convey to the
+public his admiration in these words:
+
+     "Mr. Douglass is a Western man, and boldly shies his buckskin into
+     the arena and invites the keenest of his critics to take it up. If
+     any one thinks the 'roast' of his play has even singed the author's
+     wings, he is mistaken. He is very much pleased with himself. As he
+     says, a hearing is a great thing. He may be a chopping-block, but
+     he don't look it."
+
+Helen met her playwright with an anxious, tired look upon her face, but
+when he touched her fingers to his lips and said, "At your service, my
+lady," she laughed in radiant, sudden relief.
+
+"Oh, but I'm glad to see you looking so gay and strong. I was heart-sore
+for you last night. I fancied you in all kinds of torture."
+
+His face darkened. "I was. My blue devils assailed me, but I vanquished
+them, thanks to your note," he added, with a burning glance deep-sent,
+and his voice fell to a tenderness which betrayed his heart. "I think
+you are the most tolerant star that ever put out a hand to a poor
+author. What a beast I was to run away! But I couldn't help it then. I
+wanted to see you, but I couldn't face Westervelt and Royleston. I
+couldn't endure to hear them say, 'I told you so.' You understood, I'm
+sure of it."
+
+She studied him with admiring eyes. "Yes, I understood--later. At first
+I was crushed. It shook my faith in you for a little while." She put off
+this mood (whose recollected shadows translated into her face filled
+Douglass's throat with remorse) and a smile disclosed her returning
+sense of humor. "Oh, Hugh and Westervelt are angry--perfectly purple
+with indignation against you for leading me into a trap--"
+
+"I feared that. That is why I begged you to throw my play--"
+
+She laid a finger on her lips, for Mrs. MacDavitt came in. "Mother, here
+is Mr. Douglass. I told you he would come. I hope you are hungry. Let us
+take our places. Hugh is fairly used up this morning. Do you see that
+bunch of papers?" she asked, pointing at a ragged pile. "After
+breakfast we take our medicine."
+
+"No," he said, firmly. "I have determined not to read a line of them. To
+every word you speak I will listen, but I will not be harrowed up by a
+hodgepodge of personal prejudices written by my enemies before the play
+was produced or in a hurried hour between the fall of the curtain and
+going to press. I know too much about how these judgments are cooked up.
+I saw the faults of the play a good deal clearer than did any of those
+sleepy gentlemen who came to the theatre surfeited and weary and
+resentful of your change of programme."
+
+She looked thoughtful. "Perhaps you are right," she said, at last. "I
+will not read them. I know what they will say--"
+
+"I thought the play was very beautiful," said Mrs. MacDavitt. "And my
+Nellie was grand."
+
+Helen patted her mother's hand. "We have one loyal supporter, Mr.
+Douglass."
+
+"Ye've many more, if the truth were known," said the old mother,
+stoutly, for she liked young Douglass.
+
+"I believe that," cried Helen. "Did you consider that as I change my
+roles and plays I must also, to a large extent, change my audience? The
+people who like me as _Baroness Telka_ are amazed and angered by your
+play. They will not come to see me. But there are others," she added,
+with a smile at the slang phrase.
+
+"I thought of that, but not till last night."
+
+"It will take longer to inform and interest our new public than any of
+us realized. I am determined to keep _Lillian_ on for at least four
+weeks. Meanwhile you can prune it and set to work on a new one. Have you
+a theme?"
+
+"I have a scenario," he triumphantly answered. "I worked it out this
+morning between two o'clock and four."
+
+She reached her hand to him impulsively, and as he took it a warm flush
+came into her face and her eyes were suffused with happy tears.
+
+"That's brave," she said. "I told them you could not be crushed. I knew
+you were of those who fight hardest when closest pressed. You must tell
+me about it at once--not this minute, of course, but when we are alone."
+
+When Hugh came in a few minutes later he found them discussing a new
+automobile which had just made a successful trial run. The play became
+the topic of conversation again, but on a different plane.
+
+Hugh was blunt, but not so abusive as he had declared his intention to
+be. "There's nothing in _Lillian_," he said--"not a dollar. We're
+throwing our money away. We might better close the theatre. We won't
+have fifty dollars in the house to-night. It's all right as a story, but
+it won't do for the stage."
+
+Douglass kept his temper. "It was too long; but I can better that in a
+few hours. I'll have a much closer-knit action by Wednesday night."
+
+As they were rising from the table Westervelt entered with a face like a
+horse, so long and lax was it. "They have burned us alive!" he
+exclaimed, as he sank into a chair and mopped his red neck. He shook
+like a gelatine pudding, and Helen could not repress a smile.
+
+"Your mistake was in reading them. We burned the critics."
+
+The manager stared in vast amaze. "You didn't read the papers?"
+
+"Not one."
+
+"Well, they say--"
+
+She stopped him. "Don't tell me what they say--not a word. We did our
+best and we did good work, and will do better to-night, so don't come
+here like a bird of ill-omen, Herr Westervelt. Go kill the critics if
+you feel like it, but don't worry us with tales of woe. Our duty is to
+the play. We cannot afford to waste nervous energy writhing under
+criticism. What is said is said, and repeating it only hurts us all."
+Her tone became friendly. "Really, you take it too hard. It is only a
+matter of a few thousand dollars at the worst, and to free you from all
+further anxiety I will assume the entire risk. I will rent your
+theatre."
+
+"No, no!" cried Hugh. "We can't afford to do that."
+
+"We can't afford to do less. I insist," she replied, firmly.
+
+The manager lifted his fat shoulders in a convulsive shrug. His face
+indicated despair of her folly. "Good Gott! Well, you are the doctor,
+only remember there will not be one hundred people in the house
+to-night." He began to recover speech. "Think of that! Helen Merival
+playing to empty chairs--in _my_ theatre. Himmel!"
+
+"It is sad, I confess, but not hopeless, Herr Westervelt. We must work
+the harder to let the thoughtful people of the city know what we are
+trying to do."
+
+"Thoughtful people!" Again his scorn ran beyond his words for a moment
+and his tongue grew German. "Doughtful beople. Dey dondt bay dwo tollors
+fer seats! _Our_ pusiness iss to attract the rich--the gay
+theatre-goers. Who is going to pring a theatre-barty to see a sermon on
+the stage--hay?"
+
+"You are unjust to _Lillian's Duty_. It is not a sermon; it is a
+powerful acting play--the best part, from a purely acting standpoint, I
+have ever undertaken to do. But we will not discuss that now. The
+venture is my own, and you will be safe-guarded. I will instruct my
+brother to make the new arrangement at once."
+
+With a final, despairing shrug the manager rose and went out, and Helen,
+turning an amused face to Douglass, asked, humorously: "Isn't he the
+typical manager?--in the clouds to-day, stuck in the mud to-morrow.
+Sometimes he is excruciatingly funny, and then he disgusts me. They're
+almost all alike. If business should be unexpectedly good to-night he
+would be a man transformed. His face would shine, he would grasp every
+actor by the hand, he would fairly fall upon your neck; but if business
+went down ten dollars on Wednesday night then look for the 'icy mitt'
+again. Big as he is he curls up like a sensitive plant when touched by
+adversity. He can't help it; he's really a child--a big, fat boy. But
+come, we must now consider the cuts for _Lillian_; then to our
+scenario."
+
+As the attendants whisked away the breakfast things Helen brought out
+the original manuscript of _Lillian's Duty_, and took a seat beside her
+playwright. "Now, what is the matter with the first act?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"I agree. What is out in the second?"
+
+"Needs cutting."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here and here and here," he answered, turning the leaves rapidly.
+
+"I felt it. I couldn't hold them there. Royleston's part wants the knife
+badly. Now, the third act?"
+
+"It is too diffuse, and the sociologic background gets obstinately into
+the foreground. As I sat there last night I saw that the interest was
+too abstract, too impersonal for the ordinary play-goer. I can better
+that. The fourth act must be entirely rewritten. I will do that this
+afternoon."
+
+She faced him, glowing with recovered joy and recovered confidence. "Now
+you are Richard once again upon his horse."
+
+"A hobby horse," he answered, with a laugh, then sobered. "In truth, my
+strength comes from you. At least you roused me. I was fairly in the
+grasp of the Evil One when your note came. Your splendid confidence set
+me free. It was beautiful of you to write me after I had sneaked away
+like a wounded coyote. I cannot tell you what your letter was to me."
+
+She held up a finger. "Hush! No more of that. We are forgetting, and you
+are becoming personal." She said this in a tone peculiarly at variance
+with the words. "Now read me the scenario of the new play. I am eager to
+know what has moved you, set you on high again."
+
+The creative fire began to glow in his eyes. "This is to be as
+individual, as poetic, as the other was sociologic. The character you
+are to play is that of a young girl who knows nothing of life, but a
+great deal of books. _Enid's_ whole world is revealed by the light which
+streams from the window of a convent library--a gray, cold light with
+deep shadows. She is tall and pale and severe of line, but her blue eyes
+are deep and brooding. Her father, a Western mine-owner, losing his
+second wife, calls on his daughter to return from the Canadian convent
+in which she has spent seven years. She takes her position as an heiress
+in his great house. She is plunged at once into the midst of a
+pleasure-seeking, thoughtless throng of young people whose interests in
+life seem to her to be grossly material. She becomes the prey of
+adventurers, male and female, and has nothing but her innate purity to
+defend her. Ultimately there come to her two men who type the forces at
+war around her, and she is forced to choose between them."
+
+As he outlined this new drama the mind of the actress took hold of
+_Enid's_ character, so opposite in energy to _Lillian_, and its great
+possibilities exalted her, filled her with admiration for the mind which
+could so quickly create a new character.
+
+"I see I shall never want for parts while you are my playwright," she
+said, when he had finished.
+
+"Oh, I can write--so long as I have you to write for and to work for,"
+he replied. "You are the greatest woman in the world. Your faith in me,
+your forgiveness of my cowardice, have given me a sense of power--"
+
+She spoke quickly and with an effort to smile. "We are getting personal
+again."
+
+He bowed to the reminder. "I beg your pardon. I will not offend again."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Helen's warning was not as playful as it seemed to her lover, for
+something in the glow of his eyes and something vibrant in the tones of
+his voice had disturbed her profoundly. The fear of something which he
+seemed perilously near saying filled her with unrest, bringing up
+questions which had thus far been kept in the background of her scheme
+of life.
+
+"Some time I shall marry, I suppose," she had said to one of her
+friends, "but not now; my art will not permit it. Wedlock to an
+actress," she added, "is almost as significant as death. It may mean an
+end of her playing--a death to her ambitions. When I decide to marry I
+shall also decide to give up the stage."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," replied the other. "There are plenty who do not. In
+fact, Mary Anderson is the exception. When the conquering one comes
+along you'll marry him and make him your leading man, the way so many
+others do."
+
+"When 'the conquering one' comes along I shall despise the stage,"
+retorted Helen, with laughing eyes--"at least I'm told I will."
+
+"Pish! You'd give a dozen husbands for the joy of facing a big
+first-night audience. I tell Horace that if it comes to a matter of
+choice for me he'll have to go. Gracious goodness! I could no more live
+without the applause of the stage--"
+
+"How about the children?"
+
+"The children! Oh, that's different. The dear tots! Well, luckily,
+they're not absolutely barred. It's hard to leave the darlings behind.
+When I go on the road I miss their sweet little caresses; but I have to
+earn their bread, you see, and what better career is open to me."
+
+Helen grew grave also. "I don't like to think of myself as an _old_
+actress. I want to have a fixed abiding-place when I am forty-five. Gray
+hairs should shine in the light of a fireside."
+
+"There's always peroxide," put in the other, and their little mood of
+seriousness vanished.
+
+It was, indeed, a very unusual situation for a young and charming
+actress. The Hotel Embric stood just where three great streams of wealth
+and power and fashion met and mingled. Its halls rustled with the spread
+silks of pride and glittered with the jewels of spendthrift vanity, and
+yet few knew that high in the building one of the most admired women of
+the city lived in almost monastic seclusion. The few men who recognized
+her in the elevator or in the hall bowed with deferential admiration.
+She was never seen in the dining-rooms, and it was known that she
+denied herself to all callers except a very few intimate friends.
+
+This seclusion--this close adherence to her work--added to her mystery,
+and her allurement in the eyes of her suitors increased as they sought
+vainly for an introduction. It was reported that this way of life was
+"all a matter of business, a cold, managerial proposition," a method of
+advertising; but so far as Helen herself was implicated, it was a method
+of protection.
+
+She had an instinctive dislike, almost a fear, of those who sought her
+acquaintance, and when Westervelt, with blundering tactlessness or
+impudent design, brought round some friends, she froze them both with a
+single glance.
+
+Furthermore, by denying herself to one she was able to escape the other,
+and thus save herself for her work; for though she had grown to hate the
+plays through which she reached the public, she believed in the power
+and the dignity of her art. It was a means of livelihood, it gratified
+her vanity; but it was more than this. In a dim way she felt herself in
+league with a mighty force, and the desire to mark an epoch in the
+American drama came to her. This, too, was a form of egotism, but a high
+form.
+
+"I do not care to return to the old," she said. "There are plenty of
+women to do _Beatrice_ and _Viola_ and _Lady Macbeth_. I am modern. I
+believe in the modern and I believe in America. I don't care to start a
+fad for Ibsen or Shaw. I would like to develop our own drama."
+
+"You will have to eliminate the tired business-man and his fat wife and
+their late dinners," said a cynical friend.
+
+"All business-men are not tired and all wives are not fat. I believe
+there is a public ready to pay their money to see good American drama. I
+have found a man who can write--"
+
+"Beware of that man," said the cynic, with a twofold meaning in his
+tone. "'He is a dreamer; let him pass.'"
+
+"I do not fear him," she replied, with a gay smile.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Douglass now set to work on his second play with teeth clinched. "I will
+win out in spite of them," he said. "They think I am beaten, but I am
+just beginning to fight." As the days wore on his self-absorption became
+more and more marked. All his morning hours were spent at his writing,
+and when he came to Helen he was cold and listless, and talked of
+nothing but _Enid_ and her troubles. Even as they rode in the park his
+mind seemed forever revolving lines and scenes. In the midst of her
+attempt to amuse him, to divert him, he returned to his theme. He
+invited her judgments and immediately forgot to listen, so morbidly
+self-centred was he.
+
+He made no further changes in the book of _Lillian's Duty_, but put
+aside Westervelt's request with a wave of his hand. "I leave all that to
+Miss Merival," he said. "I can't give it any thought now."
+
+From one point of view Helen could not but admire this power of
+concentration, but when she perceived that her playwright's work had
+filled his mind to the exclusion of herself she began to suffer. Her
+pride resented his indifference, and she was saved from anger and
+disgust only by the beauty of the writing he brought to her.
+
+"The fury of the poet is on him. I must not complain," she thought, and
+yet a certain regret darkened her face. "All that was so sweet and fine
+has passed out of our intercourse," she sadly admitted to herself. "I am
+no longer even the great actress to him. Once he worshipped me--I felt
+it; now I am a commonplace friend. Is the fault in me? Am I one whom
+familiarity lessens in value?"
+
+She did not permit herself to think that this was a lasting change, that
+he had forever passed beyond the lover, and that she would never again
+fill his world with mystery and light and longing.
+
+And yet this monstrous recession was the truth. In the stress of his
+work the glamour had utterly died out of Douglass's conception of Helen,
+just as the lurid light of her old-time advertising had faded from the
+bill-boards and from the window displays of Broadway. As cold, black,
+and gray instantaneous photographs had taken the place of the gorgeous,
+jewel-bedecked, elaborate lithographs of the old plays, so now his
+thought of her was without warmth.
+
+Helen became aware, too, of an outside change. Her friends used this as
+a further warning.
+
+"You are becoming commonplace to the public," one said, with a touch of
+bitterness. "Your admirers no longer wonder. Go back to the glitter and
+the glory."
+
+"No," she replied. "I will regain my place, and with my own unaided
+character--and my lines," she added, with a return to her faith in
+Douglass.
+
+And yet her meetings with him were now a species of torture. Her
+self-respect suffered with every glance of his eyes. He resembled a man
+suffering from a fever. At times he talked with tiresome intensity about
+some new situation, quoting his own characters, beating and hammering at
+his scenes until Helen closed her eyes for very weariness. Only at wide
+intervals did he return to some dim realization of his indebtedness to
+her. One day he gratified her by saying, with a note of tenderness in
+his voice: "You are keeping the old play on; don't do it. Throw it away;
+it is a tract--a sermon." Then spoiled it all by bitterly adding, "Go
+back to your old successes."
+
+"You used to dislike me in such roles," she answered, with pain and
+reproach in face and voice.
+
+"It will only be for a little while," he replied, with a swift return to
+his enthusiasm. "In two weeks I'll have the new part ready for you." But
+the sting of his advice remained long in the proud woman's heart.
+
+He went no more to the theatre. "I can't bear to see you playing to
+empty seats," he declared, in explanation, but in reality he had a
+horror of the scene of his defeat.
+
+He came to lunch less often, and when they went driving or visiting the
+galleries all the old-time, joyous companionship was gone. Not
+infrequently, as they stood before some picture or sat at a concert, he
+would whisper, "I have it; the act will end with _Enid_ doing
+so-and-so," and not infrequently he hurried away from her to catch some
+fugitive illumination which he feared to lose. He came to her
+reception-room only once of a Saturday afternoon, just before the play
+closed.
+
+"How is the house?" he asked, with indifference.
+
+"Bad."
+
+"Very bad?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"I must work the harder," he replied, and sank into a sombre silence. He
+never came inside again.
+
+Helen was deeply wounded by this visit, and was sorely tempted to take
+him at his word and end the production, but she did not. She could not,
+so deep had her interest in him become. Loyal to him she must remain,
+loyal to his work.
+
+As his bank account grew perilously small, Douglass fell into deeps of
+black despair, wherein all imaginative power left him. At such times the
+lack of depth and significance in his work appalled him. "It is
+hopelessly poor and weak; it does not deserve to succeed. I've a mind to
+tear it in rags." But he resisted this spirit, partly restrained by some
+hidden power traceable to the influence of Helen and partly by his
+desire to retrieve himself in the estimation of the world, but mainly
+because of some hidden force in his own brain, and set to work each time
+filing and polishing with renewed care of word and phrase.
+
+Slowly the second drama took on form and quality, developing a web of
+purpose not unlike that involved in a strain of solemn music, and at the
+last the author's attention was directed towards eliminating minute
+inharmonies or to the insertion of cacophony with design to make the
+_andante_ passages the more enthrallingly sweet. As the play neared
+completion his absorption began to show results. He lost vigor, and
+Helen's eyes took anxious note of his weariness. "You are growing thin
+and white, Mr. Author," she said to him, with solicitude in her voice.
+"You don't look like the rugged Western Scotchman you were when I found
+you. Am I to be your vampire?"
+
+"On the contrary, I am to destroy you, to judge from the money you are
+losing on my wretched play. I begin to fear I can never repay you, not
+even with a great success. I have days when I doubt my power to write a
+successful drama."
+
+"You work too hard. You must not ruin your health by undue haste. A week
+or two will not make a killing difference with us. I don't mind playing
+_Lillian_ another month, if you need the time. It is good discipline,
+and, besides, I enjoy the part."
+
+"That is because you are good and loyal to a poor writer," he answered,
+with a break to humble appreciation of her bounty and her bravery. "Be
+patient with me," he pleaded. "_Enid_ will recoup you for all you have
+suffered. It will win back all your funds. I have made it as near pure
+poetry as our harsh, definite life and our elliptical speech will
+permit." And straightway his mind was filled with dreams of conquering,
+even while he faced his love, so strangely are courtship and ambition
+mingled in the heart of man.
+
+At last he began to exult, to boast, to call attention to the beauty of
+the lines spoken by _Enid_. "See how her simplicity and virginal charm
+are enhanced by the rugged, remorseless strength, and by the
+conscienceless greed of the men surrounding her, and yet she sees in
+them something admirable. They are like soldiers to her. They are the
+heroes who tunnel mountains and bridge cataracts. When she looks from
+her slender, white hands to their gross and powerful bodies she shudders
+with a sort of fearsome admiration."
+
+"Can all that appear in the lines?"
+
+"Yes. In the lines and in the acting; it _must_ appear in your acting,"
+he added, with a note of admonition.
+
+Her face clouded with pain. "He begins to doubt my ability to delineate
+his work," she thought, and turned away in order that he might not know
+how deeply he had wounded her.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Helen's pride contended unceasingly with her love during the weeks of
+her lover's alienation; for, with all her sweet dispraise of herself,
+she was very proud of her place in the world, and it was not easy to bow
+her head to neglect. Sometimes when he forgot to answer her or rushed
+away to his room with a hasty good-bye, she raged with a perfectly
+justifiable anger. "You are selfish and brutal," she cried out after him
+on one occasion. "You think only of yourself. You are vain, egotistical.
+All that I have done is forgotten the moment you are stung by
+criticism," and she tried to put him aside. "What do his personal
+traits matter to me?" she said, as if in answer to her own charge. "He
+is my dramatist, not my husband."
+
+But when he came back to her, an absent-minded smile upon his handsome
+lips, holding in his hands some pages of exquisite dialogue, she humbled
+herself before him. "After all, what am I beside him? He is a poet, a
+creative mind, while I am only a mimic," and straightway she began to
+make excuses for him. "Have I not always had the same selfish, desperate
+concentration? Am I always a sweet and lovely companion? Certainly the
+artistic temperament is not a strange thing to me."
+
+Nevertheless, she suffered. It was hard to be the one optimist in the
+midst of so many pessimists. The nightly performance to an empty house
+wore on her most distressingly, and no wonder. She, who had never
+hitherto given a moment's troubled thought to such matters, now sat in
+her dressing-room listening to the infrequent, hollow clang of the
+falling chair seats, attempting thus to estimate the audience straggling
+sparsely, desolately in. To re-enter the stage after an exit was like an
+icy shower-bath. Each night she hoped to find the receipts larger, and
+indeed they did from time to time advance suddenly, only to drop back to
+desolating driblets the following night. These gains were due to the
+work of the loyal Hugh as advertising agent, or to some desperate
+discount sale to a club on the part of Westervelt, who haunted the front
+of the house, a pale and flabby wraith of himself, racking his brain,
+swearing strange, German oaths, and perpetually conjuring up new
+advertising devices. His suffering approached the tragic.
+
+His theatre, which had once rustled with gay and cheerful people, was
+now cold, echoing, empty, repellent. Nothing came from the balcony,
+wherein Helen's sweet voice wandered, save a faint, half-hearted
+hand-clapping. No one sat in the boxes, and only here and there a man
+wore evening-dress. The women were always intense, but undemonstrative.
+Under these sad conditions the music of the orchestra became factitious,
+a brazen clatter raised to reinforce the courage of the ushers, who
+flitted about like uneasy spirits. There were no carriages in waiting,
+and the audience returned to the street in silence like funeral guests
+from a church.
+
+Hugh remained bravely at his post in front. Each night after a careful
+toilet he took his stand in the lobby watching with calculating eye and
+impassive face the stream of people rushing by his door. "If we could
+only catch one in a hundred?" he said to Westervelt. "I never expected
+to see Helen Merival left like this. I didn't think it possible. I
+thought she could make any piece go. To play to fifty dollars was out of
+my reckoning. It is slaughter."
+
+Once his disgust topped all restraint, and he burst forth to Helen:
+"Look at this man Douglass. He bamboozles us into producing his play,
+then runs off and leaves us to sink or swim. He won't even change the
+lines--says he's working on a new one that will make us all 'barrels of
+money.' That's the way of these dramatists--always full of some new
+pipe-dream. Meanwhile we're going into the hole every night. I can't
+stand it. We were making all kinds of money with _The Baroness_. Come,
+let's go back to it!" His voice filled with love, for she was his ideal.
+"Sis, I hate to see you doing this. It cuts me to the heart. Why, some
+of these newspaper shads actually pretend to pity you--you, the greatest
+romantic actress in America! This man Douglass has got you hypnotized.
+Honestly, there's something uncanny about the way he has queered you.
+Brace up. Send him whirling. He isn't worth a minute of your time,
+Nellie--now, that's the fact. He's a crazy freak. Say the word and I'll
+fire him and his misbegotten plays to-night."
+
+To this Helen made simple reply. "No, Hugh; I intend to stand to my
+promise. We will keep _Lillian_ on till the new play is ready. It would
+be unfair to Mr. Douglass--"
+
+"But he has lost all interest in it himself. He never shows up in front,
+never makes a suggestion."
+
+"He is saving all his energy for the new play."
+
+Hugh's lips twisted in scorn. "The new play! Yes, he's filled with a lot
+of pale-blue moonshine now. He's got another 'idea.' That's the trouble
+with these literary chaps, they're so swelled by their own notions they
+can't write what the common audience wants. His new play will be a worse
+'frost' than this. You'll ruin us all if you don't drop him. We stand to
+lose forty thousand dollars on _Lillian_ already."
+
+"Nevertheless, I shall give the new play a production," she replied, and
+Hugh turned away in speechless dismay and disgust.
+
+The papers were filled with stinging allusions to her failure. A shrewd
+friend from Boston met her with commiseration in her face. "It's a good
+play and a fine part," she said, "but they don't want you in such work.
+They like you when you look wicked."
+
+"I know that, but I'm tired of playing the wanton adventuress for such
+people. I want to appeal to a more thoughtful public for the rest of my
+stage career."
+
+"Why not organize a church like Mrs. Allinger?" sneered another less
+friendly critic. "The stage is no place for sermons."
+
+"You are horribly unjust. _Lillian's Duty_ is a powerful acting drama,
+and has its audience if I could reach it. Perhaps I'm not the one to do
+Mr. Douglass's work, after all," she added, humbly.
+
+Deep in her heart Helen MacDavitt the woman was hungry for some one to
+tell her that he loved her. She longed to put her head down on a strong
+man's breast to weep. "If Douglass would only open his arms to me I
+would go to him. I would not care what the world says."
+
+She wished to see him reinstate himself not merely with the public but
+in her own estimate of him. As she believed that by means of his pen he
+would conquer, she comprehended that his present condition was fevered,
+unnatural, and she hoped--she believed--it to be temporary. "Success
+will bring back the old, brave, sanguine, self-contained Douglass whose
+forthright power and self-confidence won my admiration," she said, and
+with this secret motive to sustain her she went to her nightly
+delineation of _Lillian_.
+
+She had lived long without love, and her heart now sought for it with an
+intensity which made her art of the highest account only as served the
+man she loved. Praise and publicity were alike of no value unless they
+brought success and happiness to him whose eyes called her with growing
+power.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+At last the new play was finished and the author brought it and laid it
+in the hands of the actress as if it were a new-born child, and her
+heart leaped with joy. He was no longer the stern and self-absorbed
+writer. His voice was tender as he said, "I give this to you in the hope
+that it may regain for you what you have lost."
+
+The tears sprang to Helen's eyes, and a word of love rose to her lips.
+"It is very beautiful, and we will triumph in it."
+
+He seemed about to speak some revealing, sealing word, but the presence
+of the mother restrained him. Helen, recognizing the returning tide of
+his love, to which she related no self-seeking, was radiant.
+
+"Come, we will put it in rehearsal at once," she said. "I know you are
+as eager to have it staged as I. I will not read it. I will wait till
+you read it for the company to-morrow morning."
+
+"I do not go to that ordeal with the same joy as before," he admitted.
+
+The company met him with far less of interest in this reading of the
+second play, and his own manner was distinctly less confident. Hugh and
+Westervelt maintained silence, but their opposition was as palpable as a
+cold wind. Royleston's cynical face expressed an open contempt. The
+lesser people were anxious to know the kind of characters they were to
+play, and a few were sympathetically eager to hear the play itself.
+
+He read the manuscript with some assurance of manner, but made no
+suggestion as to the stage business, contenting himself with producing
+an effect on the minds of the principals; but as the girlish charm of
+_Enid's_ character made itself felt, the women of the company began to
+glow.
+
+"Why, it's very beautiful!" they exclaimed.
+
+Hugh, on the scent for another "problem," began to relax, and even
+Westervelt grunted a few words of approval, qualified at once by the
+whispered words, "Not a cent in it--not a cent." Royleston, between his
+acts, regarded the air with dreamy gaze. "I don't see myself in that
+part yet, but it's very good--very good."
+
+The reading closed rather well, producing the desired effect of "happy
+tears" on the faces of several of the feminine members of the cast, and
+Helen again spoke of her pleasure in such work and asked them to "lend
+themselves" to the lines. "This play is a kind of poem," she said, "and
+makes a direct appeal to women, and yet I believe it will also win its
+way to the hearts of the men."
+
+As they rose Douglass returned the manuscript to Helen with a bow. "I
+renounce all rights. Hereafter I am but a spectator."
+
+"I think you are right in not attempting rehearsals. You are worn and
+tired. Why don't you go away for a time? A sea voyage would do you
+good."
+
+"No, I must stay and face the music, as my father used to say. I do not
+wish to seem to run away, and, besides, I may be able to offer a
+suggestion now and then."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean to have you miss the first night. You could come back
+for that. If you stay we will be glad of any suggestion at any
+time--won't we, Hugh?"
+
+Hugh refused to be brought into any marked agreement. "Of course, the
+author's advice is valuable, but with a man like Olquest--"
+
+"I don't want to see a single rehearsal," replied Douglass. "I want to
+have the joy this time of seeing my characters on the opening night
+fully embodied. If the success of the play depended upon my personal
+supervision, the case would be different, but it doesn't. I trust you
+and Olquest. I will keep away."
+
+Again they went to lunch together, but the old-time elation was sadly
+wanting. Hugh was silent and Douglass gloomy. Helen cut the luncheon for
+a ride in the park, which did them good, for the wind was keen and
+inspiriting and the landscape wintry white and blue and gold. She
+succeeded in provoking her playwright to a smile now and then by some
+audacious sally against the sombre silence of her cavaliers.
+
+They halted for half an hour in the upper park while she called the
+squirrels to her and fed them from her own hands--those wonderful hands
+that had so often lured with jewels and threatened with steel. No one
+seeing this refined, sweet woman in tasteful furs would have related her
+with the _Gismonda_ and _Istar_, but Douglass thrilled with sudden
+accession of confidence. "How beautiful she will be as _Enid_!" he
+thought, as, with a squirrel on her shoulder, she turned with shining
+face to softly call: "This is David. Isn't he a dear?"
+
+She waited until the keen-eyed rascals had taken her last nut, then
+slowly returned to the carriage side. "I like to win animals like that.
+It thrills my heart to have them set their fearless little feet on my
+arm."
+
+Hugh uttered a warning. "You want to be careful how you handle them;
+they bite like demons."
+
+"Oh, now, don't spoil it!" she exclaimed. "I'm sure they know me and
+trust me."
+
+Douglass was moved to their defence, and strove during the remainder of
+the ride to add to Helen's pleasure; and this effort on his part made
+her eyes shine with joy--a joy almost pathetic in its intensity.
+
+As they parted at the door of his hotel he said: "If you do not succeed
+this time I will utterly despair of the public. I know how sweet you
+will be as _Enid_. They must bow down before you as I do."
+
+"I will give my best powers to this--be sure nothing will be neglected
+at rehearsal."
+
+"I know you will," he answered, feelingly.
+
+She was better than her promise, laboring tirelessly in the effort to
+embody through her company the poetry, the charm, which lay even in the
+smaller roles of the play. That one so big and brusque as Douglass
+should be able to define so many and such fugitive feminine emotions was
+a constant source of wonder and delight to her. The discovery gave her
+trust and confidence in him, and to her admiration of his power was
+added something which stole into her mind like music, causing foolish
+dreams and moments of reckless exaltation wherein she asked herself
+whether to be a great actress was not, after all, a thing of less profit
+than to be a wife and mother.
+
+She saw much less of him than she wished, for Hugh remained coldly
+unresponsive in his presence, and threw over their meetings a restraint
+which prevented the joyous companionship of their first
+acquaintanceship.
+
+More than this, Helen was conscious of being watched and commented upon,
+not merely by Hugh and Westervelt, but by guests of the hotel and
+representatives of the society press. Douglass, in order to shield her,
+and also because his position in the world was less secure than ever,
+returned to his self-absorbed, impersonal manner of speech. He took no
+part in the rehearsals, except to rush in at the close with some changes
+which he wished embodied at once, regardless of the vexation and
+confusion resulting. His brain was still perilously active, and not only
+cut and refined the dialogue, but made most radical modifications of the
+"business."
+
+Helen began to show the effects of the strain upon her; for she was not
+merely carrying the burden of _Lillian's Duty_, and directing rehearsals
+of the new piece--she was deeply involved in the greatest problem than
+can come to a woman. She loved Douglass; but did she love him strongly
+enough to warrant her in saying so--when he should ask her?
+
+His present poverty she put aside as of no serious account. A man so
+physically powerful, so mentally alert, was rich in possibilities. The
+work which he had already done entitled him to rank above millionaires,
+but that his very forcefulness, his strong will, his dominating idealism
+would make him her master--would inevitably change her relation to the
+world--had already changed it, in fact--she was not ready to
+acknowledge.
+
+Up to this time her love for the stage had been single-minded. No man
+had touched her heart with sufficient fire to disturb her serenity, but
+now she was not merely following where he led, she was questioning the
+value and morality of her avocation.
+
+"If I cannot play high roles, if the public will not have me in work
+like this I am now rehearsing, then I will retire to private life. I
+will no longer be a plaything for the man-headed monster," she said one
+day.
+
+"You should have retired before sinking your good money in these
+Douglass plays," Hugh bitterly rejoined. "It looks now as though we
+might end in the police station."
+
+"I have no fear of that, Hugh; I am perfectly certain that _Enid_ is to
+regain all our losses."
+
+"I wish I had your beautiful faith," he made answer, and walked away.
+
+Westervelt said little to her during these days; he only looked, and his
+doleful gestures, his lugubrious grimaces, were comic. He stood to lose
+nothing, except possible profits for Helen. She was paying him full
+rental, but he claimed that his house was being ruined. "It will get the
+reputation of doing nothing but failures," he said to her once, in a
+last despairing appeal, and to this she replied:
+
+"Very well. If at the end of four weeks _Enid_ does not pull up to
+paying business I will release you from your contract. I will free your
+house of Helen Merival."
+
+"No, no! I don't want that. I want you, but I do not want this crazy man
+Douglass. You must not leave me!" His voice grew husky with appeal.
+"Return to the old plays, sign a five-year contract, and I will make you
+again rich."
+
+"There will be time to consider that four weeks hence."
+
+"Yes, but the season is passing."
+
+"Courage, mein Herr!" she said, with a smile, and left him almost in
+tears.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+As the opening night of _Enid's Choice_ drew near, Douglass suffered
+greater anxiety but experienced far less of nervous excitement than
+before. He was shaking rather than tense of limb, and did not find it
+necessary to walk the streets to calm his physical excitement. He was
+depressed by the knowledge that a second defeat would leave him not
+merely discredited but practically penniless. Nevertheless, he did not
+hide; on the contrary, he took a seat in one of the boxes.
+
+The audience he at once perceived was of totally different character and
+temper from that which greeted _Lillian_. It was quiet and moderate in
+size, rather less than the capacity of the orchestra seats, for Helen
+had asked that no "paper" be distributed. Very few were in the gallery,
+and those who were had the quietly expectant air of students. Only three
+of the boxes were occupied. The fashionables were entirely absent.
+
+Plainly these people were in their seats out of interest in the play or
+because of the known power of the actress. They were not flushed with
+wine nor heavy with late dinners.
+
+The critics were out again in force, and this gave the young author a
+little satisfaction, for their presence was indisputable evidence of the
+interest excited by the literary value of his work. "I have made a
+gain," he said, grimly. "Such men do not go gunning for small deer." But
+that they were after blood was shown by the sardonic grins with which
+they greeted one another as they strolled in at the door or met in the
+aisles. They expected another "killing," and were resolute to be
+thorough.
+
+From the friendly shelter of the curtain Douglass could study the house
+without being seen, and a little glow of fire warmed his heart as he
+recognized five or six of the best-known literary men of the city seated
+well down towards the front, and the fifteen minutes' wait before the
+orchestra leader took his seat was rendered less painful by his pride in
+the really high character of his audience; but when the music blared
+forth and the curtain began to rise, his blood chilled with a return of
+the fear and doubt which had assailed him at the opening of _Lillian's
+Duty_. "It is impossible that I should succeed," was his thought.
+
+However, his high expectation of pleasure from the performance came
+back, for he had resolutely kept away from even the dress rehearsal, and
+the entire creative force of his lines was about to come to him. "In a
+few moments my characters will step forth from the world of the
+disembodied into the mellow glow of the foot-lights," he thought, and
+the anticipated joy of welcoming them warmed his brain and the chill
+clutch of fear fell away from his throat. The dignity and the glow, the
+possibilities of the theatre as a temple of literature came to him with
+almost humbling force.
+
+He knew that Hugh and the actors had worked night and day towards this
+event--not for him (he realized how little they cared for him), but for
+Helen. She, dear girl, thought of everybody, and forgot herself in the
+event. That Westervelt and Hugh had no confidence in the play, even
+after dress rehearsal, and that they had ignored him as he came into the
+theatre he knew, but he put these slights aside. Westervelt was busy
+incessantly explaining to his intimates and to the critics that he no
+longer shared in Merival's "grazy schemes. She guarantees me, orderwise
+I would glose my theatre," he said, with wheezy reiteration.
+
+The first scene opened brilliantly in the home of Calvin Wentworth, a
+millionaire mine-owner. Into the garish and vulgarly ostentatious
+reception-room a pale, sweet slip of a girl drifted, with big eyes
+shining with joy of her home-coming. Some of the auditors again failed
+to recognize the great actress, so wonderful was her transformation in
+look and manner. The critics themselves, dazed for a moment, led in the
+cheer which rose. This warmed the house to a genial glow, and the play
+started with spirit.
+
+Helen, deeply relieved to see Douglass in the box, advanced towards him,
+and their eyes met for an instant in a lovers' greeting. Again that
+subtle interchange of fire took place. She looked marvellously young and
+light-hearted; it was hard to believe that she was worn with work and
+weakened by anxiety. Her eyes were bright and her hands like lilies.
+
+The act closed with a very novel piece of business and some very unusual
+lines passing between _Enid_ and _Sidney_, her lover. Towards this
+passage Douglass now leaned, uplifted by a sense of power, exulting in
+Helen's discernment, which had enabled her to realize, almost perfectly,
+his principal characters. He had not begun to perceive and suffer from
+the shortcomings of her support; but when _Enid_ left the stage for a
+few minutes, the fumbling of the subordinate actors stung and irritated
+him. They had the wrong accent, they roared where they should have been
+strong and quiet, and the man who played _Sidney_ stuttered and drawled,
+utterly unlike the character of the play.
+
+"Oh, the wooden ass!" groaned Douglass. "He'll ruin the piece." A
+burning rage swept over him. So much depended on this performance, and
+now--"I should have directed the rehearsals. I was a fool to neglect
+them. Why does she keep the sot?" And part of his anger flowed out
+towards the star.
+
+Helen, returning, restored the illusion, so complete was her assumption
+of the part, and the current set swiftly towards that unparalleled
+ending, those deeply significant lines which had come to the author only
+late in the week, but which formed, indeed, the very key to _Sidney's_
+character--they were his chief enthusiasm in this act, suggesting, as
+they did, so much. Tingling, aching with pleasurable suspense, the
+author waited.
+
+The curtain fell on a totally different effect--with _Sidney_ reading
+utterly different lines!
+
+For a moment the author sat stunned, unable to comprehend what had
+happened. At last the revelation came. "They have failed to incorporate
+the changes I made. They have gone back to the weak, trashy ending which
+I discarded. They have ruined the scene utterly!" and, looking at two of
+the chief critics, he caught them in the act of laughing evilly, even as
+they applauded.
+
+With face set in rage, he made his way back of the curtain towards
+Helen's room. She met him at the door, her face shining with joy. "It's
+going! It's going!" she cried out, gleefully.
+
+His reply was like a blow in the face. "Why didn't you incorporate that
+new ending of the act?" he asked, with bitter harshness.
+
+Helen staggered, and her hands rose as if to shield herself from
+violence. She stammered, "I--I--I--couldn't. You see, the lines came so
+late. They would have thrown us all out. I will do so to-morrow," she
+added.
+
+"To-morrow!" he answered, through his set teeth. "Why to-morrow?
+To-night is the time. Don't you see I'm staking my reputation on
+to-night? To-night we win or lose. The house is full of critics. They
+will write of what we do, not of what we are _going_ to do." He began to
+pace up and down, trembling with disappointment and fury. He turned
+suddenly. "How about the second act? Did you make those changes in
+_Sidney's_ lines? I infer not," he added, with a sneer.
+
+Helen spoke with difficulty, her bosom heaving, her eyes fixed in wonder
+and pain on his face. "No. How could I? You brought them only yesterday
+morning; they would have endangered the whole act." Then, as the
+indignity, the injustice, the burning shame of his assault forced
+themselves into her mind, she flamed out in reproach: "Why did you come
+back here at all? Why didn't you stay away, as you did before? You are
+cruel, heartless!" The tears dimmed her eyes. "You've ruined my whole
+performance. You've broken my heart. Have you no soul--no sense of
+honor? Go away! I hate you! I'll never speak to you again! I hate you!"
+And she turned, leaving him dumb and staring, in partial realization of
+his selfish, brutal demands.
+
+Hugh approached him with lowering brows and clinched hands. "You've done
+it now. You've broken her nerve, and she'll fail in her part. Haven't
+you any sense? We pick you off the street and feed you and clothe
+you--and do your miserable plays--and you rush in here and strike my
+sister, Helen Merival, in the face. I ought to kick you into the
+street!"
+
+Douglass stood through this like a man whose brain is benumbed by the
+crashing echoes of a thunderbolt, hardly aware of the fury of the
+speaker, but this final threat cleared his mind and stung him into
+reply.
+
+"You are at liberty to try that," he answered, and an answering ferocity
+shone in his eyes. "I gave you this play; it's good work, and, properly
+done, would succeed. Ruin it if you want to. I am done with it and you."
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed the brother, as the playwright turned away. "Good
+riddance to a costly acquaintance."
+
+Hardly had the street door clapped behind the blinded author when Helen,
+white and agitated, reappeared, breathlessly asking, "Where is he; has
+he gone?"
+
+"Yes; I am glad to say he has."
+
+"Call him back--quick! Don't let him go away angry. I must see him
+again! Go, bring him back!"
+
+Hugh took her by the arm. "What do you intend to do--give him another
+chance to insult you? He isn't worth another thought from you. Let him
+go, and his plays with him."
+
+The orchestra, roaring on its _finale_, ended with a crash. Hugh lifted
+his hand in warning. "There goes the curtain, Helen. Go on. Don't let
+him kill your performance. Go on!" And he took her by the arm.
+
+The training as well as the spirit and quality of the actress reasserted
+their dominion, and as she walked out upon the stage not even the
+searching glare of the foot-lights could reveal the cold shadow which
+lay about her heart.
+
+When the curtain fell on the final "picture" she fairly collapsed,
+refusing to take the curtain call which a goodly number of her auditors
+insisted upon. "I'm too tired," she made answer to Hugh. "Too
+heart-sick," she admitted to herself, for Douglass was gone with angry
+lights in his eyes, bearing bitter and accusing words in his ears. The
+temple of amusement was at the moment a place of sorrow, of despair.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Douglass knew before he had set foot upon the pavement that his life was
+blasted, that his chance of success and Helen's love were gone,
+forfeited by his own egotism, his insane selfishness; but it was only a
+half-surrender; something very stark and unyielding rose within him,
+preventing his return to ask forgiveness. The scorn, the contempt of
+Hugh's words, and the lines of loathing appearing for the first time in
+Helen's wonderfully sensitive face burned each moment deeper into his
+soul. The sorrows of _Enid's_ world rose like pale clouds above the
+immovable mountains of his shame and black despair.
+
+He did not doubt for a moment but that this separation was final. "After
+such a revelation of my character," he confessed, "she can do nothing
+else but refuse to see me. I have only myself to blame. I was insane,"
+and he groaned with his torment. "She is right. Hugh is right in
+defending his household against me. My action was that of a fool--a
+hideous, egotistic fool."
+
+Seeking refuge in his room, he faced his future in nerveless dejection.
+His little store of money was gone, and his profession, long abandoned,
+seemed at the moment a broken staff--his place on the press in doubt.
+What would his good friend say to him now when he asked for a chance to
+earn his bread? He had flouted the critics, the dramatic departments of
+all the papers. In his besotted self-confidence he had cast away all his
+best friends, and with these reflections came the complete revelation of
+Helen's kindness--and her glittering power. Back upon him swept a
+realization of the paradise in which he had lived, in whose air his
+egotism had expanded like a mushroom.
+
+Leagued with her, enjoying her bounty and sharing in the power which her
+success had brought her, he had imagined himself a great writer, a man
+with a compelling message to his fellows. It seemed only necessary to
+reach out his hand in order to grasp a chaplet--a crown. With her the
+world seemed his debtor. Now he was a thing cast off, a broken boy
+grovelling at the foot of the ladder of fame.
+
+While he withered over his defeat the electric cars, gigantic insects of
+the dawn, began to howl and the trains on the elevated railway thundered
+by. The city's voice, which never ceases, but which had sunk to a sleepy
+murmur, suddenly awoke, and with clattering, snarling crescendo roar
+announced the coming of the tides of toilers. "I am facing the day," he
+said to himself, "and the papers containing the contemptuous judgments
+of my critics are being delivered in millions to my fellow-citizens.
+This thing I have gained--I am rapidly becoming infamous."
+
+His weakness, his shuddering fear made his going forth a torture. Even
+the bell-boy who brought his papers seemed to exult over his misery, but
+by sternly sending him about an errand the worn playwright managed to
+overawe and silence him, and then, with the city's leading papers before
+him, he sat down to his bitter medicine. As he had put aside the
+judgments of _Lillian's Duty_, with contemptuous gesture, so now he
+searched out every line, humbly admitting the truth of every criticism,
+instructed even by the lash of those who hated him.
+
+The play had closed unexpectedly well, one paper admitted, but it could
+never succeed. It was not dramatic of construction. Another admitted
+that it was a novel and pretty entertainment, a kind of prose poem, a
+fantasy of the present, but without wide appeal. Others called it a
+moonshine monologue--that a girl at once so naive and so powerful was
+impossible. All united in praise of Helen, however, and, as though by
+agreement, bewailed her desertion of the roles in which she won great
+renown. "Our advice, given in the friendliest spirit, is this: go back
+to the twilight of the past, to the costume play. Get out of the garish
+light of to-day. The present is suited only for a kind of crass comedy
+or Bowery melodrama. Only the past, the foreign, affords setting for the
+large play of human passion which Helen Merival's great art demands."
+
+"You are cheating us," wrote another. "There are a thousand little
+_ingenues_ who can play acceptably this goody-goody _Enid_, but the best
+of them would be lost in the large folds of your cloak in _The Baroness
+Telka_."
+
+Only one wrote in almost unmeasured praise, and his words, so well
+chosen, salved the smarting wounds of the dramatist. "Those who have
+seen Miss Merival only as the melodrama queen or the adventuress in
+jet-black evening dress have a surprise in store for them. Her _Enid_
+is a dream of cold, chaste girlhood--a lily with heart of fire--in whose
+tender, virginal eyes the lust and cruelty of the world arouse only pity
+and wonder. So complete was Miss Merival's investiture of herself in
+this part that no one recognized her as she stepped on the stage. For a
+moment even her best friends sat silent." And yet this friend ended like
+the rest in predicting defeat. "The play is away over the heads of any
+audience likely to come to see it. The beringed and complacent wives of
+New York and their wine-befuddled husbands will find little to entertain
+them in this idyl of modern life. As for the author, George Douglass, we
+have only this to say: He is twenty years ahead of his time. Let him go
+on writing his best and be patient. By-and-by, when we have time to
+think of other things than money, when our wives have ceased to struggle
+for social success, when the reaction to a simpler and truer life
+comes--and it is coming--then the quality of such a play as _Enid's
+Choice_ will give its author the fame and the living he deserves."
+
+The tears came to Douglass's eyes. "Good old Jim! He knows I need
+comfort this morning. He's prejudiced in my favor--everybody will see
+that; and yet there is truth in what he says. I will go to him and ask
+for work, for I must get back to earning a weekly wage."
+
+He went down and out into the street. The city seemed unusually
+brilliant and uncaring. From every quarter of the suburbs floods of
+people were streaming in to work or to shop, quite unknowing of any
+one's misfortunes but their own, each intent on earning a living or
+securing a bargain. "How can I appeal to these motes?" he asked himself.
+"By what magic can I lift myself out of this press to earn a living--out
+of this common drudgery?" He studied the faces in the coffee-house where
+he sat. "How many of these citizens are capable of understanding for a
+moment _Enid's Choice_? Is there any subject holding an interest common
+to them and to me which would not in a sense be degrading in me to
+dramatize for their pleasure?"
+
+This was the question, and though his breakfast and a walk on the avenue
+cleared his brain, it did not solve his problem. "They don't want my
+ideas on architecture. My dramatic criticism interests but a few. My
+plays are a proved failure. What is to be done?"
+
+Mingled with these gloomy thoughts, constantly recurring like the dull,
+far-off boom of a sombre bell, was the consciousness of his loss of
+Helen. He did not think of returning to ask forgiveness. "I do not
+deserve it," he repeated each time his heart prompted a message to her.
+"She is well rid of me. I have been a source of loss, of trouble, and
+vexation to her. She will be glad of my self-revelation." Nevertheless,
+when he found her letter waiting for him in his box at the office he was
+smitten with sudden weakness. "What would she say? She has every reason
+to hate me, to cast me and my play to the winds. Has she done so? I
+cannot blame her."
+
+Safe in his room, he opened the letter, the most fateful that had ever
+come to him in all his life. The very lines showed the agitation of the
+writer:
+
+     "MY DEAR AUTHOR,--Pardon me for my harshness last night, and come
+     to see me at once. I was nervous and anxious, as you were. I should
+     have made allowances for the strain you were under. Please forgive
+     me. Come and lunch, as usual, and talk of the play. I believe in
+     it, in spite of all. It must make its own public, but I believe it
+     will do so. Come and let me hear you say you have forgotten my
+     words of last night. I didn't really mean them; you must have known
+     that."
+
+His throat filled with tenderness and his head bowed in humility as he
+read these good, sweet, womanly lines, and for the moment he was ready
+to go to her and receive pardon kneeling. But as he thought of the wrong
+he had done her, the misfortune he had brought upon her, a stubborn,
+unaccountable resolution hardened his heart. "No, I will not go back
+till I can go as her equal. I am broken and in disgrace now. I will not
+burden her generosity further."
+
+The thought of making his peace with Hugh, of meeting Westervelt's hard
+stare, aided this resolution, and, sitting at his desk, he wrote a long
+and passionate letter, wherein he delineated with unsparing hand his
+miserable failure. He took a pride and a sort of morbid pleasure in
+punishing himself, in denying himself any further joy in her company.
+
+     "It is better for you and better for me that we do not meet
+     again--at least till I have won the tolerance of your brother and
+     manager and my own self-respect. The work I have done is honest
+     work; I will not admit that it is wholly bad, but I cannot meet
+     Hugh again till I can demand consideration. It was not so much the
+     words he used as the tone. I was helpless in resenting it. That I
+     am a beggar, a dangerous influence, I admit. I am appalled at the
+     thought of what I have done to injure you. Cast me overboard. Not
+     even your beauty, your great fame, can make my work vital to the
+     public. I am too perverse, too individual. There is good in me, but
+     it is evil to you. I no longer care what they say of me, but I feel
+     every word derogatory of you as if it were a red-hot point of
+     steel. I did not sleep last night; I spent the time in
+     reconstructing myself. I confessed my grievous sins, and I long to
+     do penance. This play is also a failure. I grew cold with hate of
+     myself last night as I thought of the irreparable injury I had done
+     to you. I here relinquish all claim to both pieces; they are yours
+     to do with as you like. Take them, rewrite them, play them, or burn
+     them, as you will.
+
+     "You see, I am very, very humble. I have put my foolish pride
+     underfoot. I am not broken. I am still very proud and, I fear,
+     self-conceited, in spite of my severe lesson. _Enid_ is beautiful,
+     and I know it, and it helps me write this letter, but I have no
+     right to ask even friendship from you. My proved failure as a
+     playwright robs me of every chance of meeting you on equal terms. I
+     want to repay you, I _must_ repay you, for what you have done. If I
+     could write now, it would be not to please myself, but to please
+     you, to help you regain your dominion. I want to see you the
+     radiant one again, speaking to throngs of happy people. If I could
+     by any sacrifice of myself call back the homage of the critics and
+     place you where I found you, the acknowledged queen of American
+     actresses, I would do it. But I am helpless. I shall not speak or
+     write to you again till I can come with some gift in my hand--some
+     recompense for your losses through me. I have been a malign
+     influence in your life. I am in mad despair when I think of you
+     playing to cold and empty houses. I am going back to the West to
+     do sash factories and wheat elevators; these are my _metier_. You
+     are the one to grant pardon; I am the malefactor. I am taking
+     myself out of your world. Forgive me and--forget me. Hugh was
+     right. My very presence is a curse to you. Good-bye."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+This letter came to Helen with her coffee, and the reading of it blotted
+out the glory of the morning, filling her eyes with smarting tears. It
+put a sudden ache into her heart, a fierce resentment. At the moment his
+assumed humbleness, his self-derision, his confession of failure
+irritated her.
+
+"I don't want you to bend and bow," she thought, as if speaking to him.
+"I'd rather you were fierce and hard, as you were last night." She read
+on to the end, so deeply moved that she could scarcely see the lines.
+Her resentment melted away and a pity, profound and almost maternal,
+filled her heart. "Poor boy! What could Hugh have said to him! I will
+know. It has been a bitter experience for him. And is this the end of
+our good days?"
+
+With this internal question a sense of vital loss took hold upon her.
+For the first time in her life the future seemed desolate and her past
+futile. Back upon her a throng of memories came rushing--memories of the
+high and splendid moments they had spent together. First of all she
+remembered him as the cold, stern, handsome stranger of that first
+night--that night when she learned that his coldness was assumed, his
+sternness a mask. She realized once again that at this first meeting he
+had won her by his voice, by his hand-clasp, by the swiftness and fervor
+of his speech; he had dominated her, swept her from her feet.
+
+And now this was the end of all their plans, their dreams of conquest.
+There could be no doubt of his meaning in this letter: he had cut
+himself off from her, perversely, bitterly, in despair and deep
+humiliation. She did not doubt his ability to keep his word. There was
+something inexorable in him. She had felt it before--a sort of blind,
+self-torturing obstinacy which would keep him to his vow though he bled
+for every letter.
+
+And yet she wrote again, patiently, sweetly, asking him to come to her.
+"I don't know what Hugh said to you--no matter, forgive him. We were all
+at high tension last night. I know you didn't intend to hurt me, and I
+have put it all away. I will forget your reproach, but I cannot have you
+go out of my life in this way. It is too cruel, too hopeless. Come to me
+again, your good, strong, buoyant self, and let us plan for the future."
+
+This message, so high, so divinely forgiving, came back to her unopened,
+with a line from the clerk on the back--"Mr. Douglass left the city this
+evening. No address."
+
+This laconic message struck her like a blow. It was as if Douglass
+himself had refused her outstretched hand. Her nerves, tense and
+quivering, gave way. Her resentment flamed up again.
+
+"Very well." She tore the note in small pieces, slowly, with painful
+precision, as if by so doing she were tearing and blowing away the great
+passion which had grown up in her heart. "I was mistaken in you. You are
+unworthy of my confidence. After all, you are only a weak, egotistical
+'genius'--morbid, selfish. Hugh is right. You have proved my evil
+genius. You skulked the night of your first play. You alternately
+ignored and made use of me--as you pleased--and after all I had done for
+you you flouted me in the face of my company." She flung the fragments
+of the note into the fire. "There are your words--all counting for
+nothing."
+
+And she rose and walked out to her brother and her manager, determined
+that no sign of her suffering and despair should be written upon her
+face.
+
+The day dragged wearily forward, and when Westervelt came in with a
+sorrowful tale of diminishing demand for seats she gave her consent to a
+return to _Baroness Telka_ on the following Monday morning.
+
+The manager was jubilant. "Now we will see a theatre once more. I tought
+I vas running a church or a school. Now we will see carriages at the
+door again and some dress-suits pefore the orchestra. Eh, Hugh?"
+
+"I'm glad to see you come to your senses," said Hugh, ignoring
+Westervelt. "That chap had us all--"
+
+She stopped him. "Not a word of that. Mr. Douglass was right and his
+plays are right, but the public is not yet risen to such work. I admire
+his work just as much now as ever. I am only doubting the public. If
+there is no sign of increasing interest on Saturday we will take _Enid_
+off. That is all I will say now."
+
+It seemed a pitiful, a monstrous thing. Hugh made no further protest,
+but that his queenly sister, after walking untouched through swarms of
+rich and talented suitors, should fall a victim to a poor and unknown
+architect, who was a failure at his own business as well as a
+playwright.
+
+Mrs. MacDavitt, who stood quite in awe of her daughter, and who feared
+the sudden, hot temper of her son, passed through some trying hours as
+the days went by. Helen was plainly suffering, and the mother cautioned
+the son to speak gently. "I fear she prized him highly--the young
+Douglass," she said, "and, I confess, I had a kin' o' liking for the
+lad. He was so keen and resolved."
+
+"He was keen to 'do' us, mother, and when he found he couldn't he pulled
+his freight. He could write, I'll admit that, but he wouldn't write what
+people wanted to hear. He was too badly stuck on his own 'genius.'"
+
+Helen went to her task at the theatre without heart, though she
+pretended to a greater enthusiasm than ever. But each time she entered
+upon the second act of the play a mysterious and solacing pleasure came
+to her. She enjoyed the words with which _Enid_ questions the life of
+her richest and most powerful suitor. The mingled shrewdness,
+simplicity, and sweetness of this scene always filled her with a new
+sense of Douglass's power of divination. Indeed, she closed the play
+each night with a sense of being more deeply indebted to him as well as
+a feeling of having been near him. Once she saw a face strangely like
+his in the upper gallery, and the blood tingled round her heart, and she
+played the remainder of the act with mind distraught. "Can it be
+possible that he is still in the city?" she asked herself.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+It was, indeed, the playwright. Each night he left his boarding-place,
+drawn by an impulse he could not resist, to walk slowly to and fro
+opposite the theatre entrance, calculating with agonized eye the meagre
+numbers of those who entered. At times he took his stand near the door
+in a shadowy nook (with coat-collar rolled high about his ears), in
+order to observe the passing stream, hoping, exulting, and suffering
+alternately as groups from the crowd paused for a moment to study the
+displayed photographs, only to pass on to other amusement with some
+careless allusion to the fallen star.
+
+This hurt him worst of all--that these motes, these cheap little boys
+and girls, could now sneer at or pity Helen Merival. "I brought her to
+this," he repeated, with morbid sense of power. "When she met me she was
+queen of the city; now she is an object of pity."
+
+This feeling of guilt, this egotism deepened each night as he watched
+the city's pleasure-seekers pace past the door. It was of no avail to
+say that the few who entered were of higher type than the many who
+passed. "The profession which Helen serves cannot live on the wishes of
+the few, the many must be pleased. To become exclusive in appeal is to
+die of hunger. This is why the sordid, commonplace playwrights and the
+business-like managers succeed while the idealists fail. There is an
+iron law of limitation here."
+
+"That is why my influence is destructive," he added, and was reassured
+in the justice of his resolution to take himself out of Helen's life.
+"Everything I stand for is inimical to her interests. To follow my path
+is to eat dry crusts, to be without comfort. To amuse this great,
+moiling crowd, to dance for them like a monkey, to pander to their base
+passions, this means success, and so long as her acting does not smirch
+her own soul what does it matter?" In such wise he sometimes argued in
+his bitterness and wrath.
+
+From the brilliant street, from the gay crowds rolling on in search of
+witless farce-comedy and trite melodrama, the brooding idealist climbed
+one night to the gallery to overlook a gloomy, empty auditorium.
+Concealing himself as best he could, he sat through the performance,
+tortured by some indefinable appeal in Helen's voice, hearing with cold
+and sinking heart the faint applause from the orchestra chairs which
+used to roar with bravos and sparkle with the clapping of white and
+jewelled hands.
+
+There was something horrifying in this change. In his morbid and
+overwrought condition it seemed murderous. At last a new resolution set
+his lips in a stern line, and when the curtain fell on the last act his
+mind was made up. "I will write one more play for the sensation-loving
+fools, for these flabby business men and their capon-stuffed wives. I
+will mix them a dramatic cocktail that will make them sit up. I will
+create a dazzling role for Helen, one that will win back all her
+old-time admirers. They shall come like a roaring tide, and she shall
+recoup herself for every loss--in purse and prestige."
+
+It was this night, when his face was white with suffering, that Helen
+caught a glimpse of him hanging across the railing of the upper balcony.
+
+He went no more to see her play. In his small, shabby room in a musty
+house on one of the old side streets he set to work on his new plan. He
+wrote now without fervor, without elation, plodding along hour after
+hour, erasing, interlining, destroying, rewriting. He toiled terribly.
+He permitted himself no fancy flights. He calculated now. "I must have a
+young and beautiful duchess or countess," he mused, bitterly. "Our
+democratic public loves to see nobility. She must peril her honor for a
+lover--a wonderful fellow of the middle-class, not royal, but near it.
+The princess must masquerade in a man's clothing for some high purpose.
+There must be a lord high chamberlain or the like who discovers her on
+this mission to save her lover, and who uses his discovery to demand her
+hand in marriage for his son--"
+
+In this cynical mood he worked, sustained only by the memory of "The
+Glittering Woman" whose power and beauty had once dazzled him. Slowly
+the new play took shape, and, try as he might, he could not keep out of
+it a line now and then of real drama--of literature. Each act was
+designed to end with a clarion call to the passions, and he was
+perfectly certain that the curtain would rise again and again at the
+close. At every point was glitter and the rush of heroics.
+
+He lived sparely, seeing no one, going out only at night for a walk in
+the square. To send to his brother or his father for money he would
+not, not even to write his wonder-working drama. His letters home, while
+brief, were studiedly confident of tone. The play-acting business and
+all those connected with it stood very remote from the farming village
+in which Dr. Donald Douglass lived, and when he read from his son's
+letters references to his dramas his mind took but slight hold upon the
+words. His replies were brief and to the point. "Go back to your
+building and leave the play-actors to themselves. They're a poor, uneasy
+lot at the best." To him an architect was a man who built houses and
+barns, with a personal share in the physical labor, a wholesome, manly
+business. The son understood his father's prejudices, and they formed a
+barrier to his approach when in need.
+
+On the morning of the fifteenth day _Alessandra_ went to the
+type-writer, and the weary playwright lifted his head and took a full,
+free breath. He was convinced beyond any question that this melodrama
+would please. It had all the elements which he despised, therefore it
+must succeed. His desire to see Helen now overpowered him. Worn with his
+toil and exultant in his freedom, he went out into the street to see
+what the world was doing.
+
+_Enid's Choice_ was still running. A slight gain at the end of the first
+week had enabled Helen to withhold her surrender to mammon. The second
+week increased the attendance, but the loss on the two plays was now
+very heavy, and Hugh and Westervelt and all her friends as well urged
+her to give way to the imperious public; but some deep loyalty to
+Douglass, some reason which she was not free to give, made her say, "No,
+while there is the slightest hope I am going to keep on." To her mother
+she said: "They are associated in my mind with something sweet and
+fine--a man's aspiration. They taste good in my mouth after all these
+years of rancid melodrama."
+
+To herself she said: "If they succeed--if they win the public--my lover
+will come back. He can then come as a conqueror." And the hope of this,
+the almost certain happiness and honor which awaited them both led her
+to devise new methods of letting the great non-theatre-going public know
+that in George Douglass's _Enid_ they might be comforted--that it was,
+indeed, a dramatic sign of promise. "We will give it a faithful trial
+here, then go on the road. Life is less strenuous in the smaller
+towns--they have time to think."
+
+Hugh and Westervelt counselled against any form of advertising that
+would seem to set the play in a class by itself, but Helen, made keen by
+her suffering, bluntly replied: "You are both wrong, utterly wrong. Our
+only possible chance of success lies in reaching that vast, sane,
+thoughtful public which seldom or never goes to the theatre. This public
+very properly holds a prejudice against the theatrical world, but it
+will welcome a play which is high and poetic without being dull. This
+public is so vast it makes the ordinary theatre-going public seem but a
+handful. We must change all our methods of printing."
+
+These ideas were sourly adopted in the third week, just when a note from
+Douglass reached her by the hand of a special messenger. In this letter
+he said: "I have completed another play. I have been grubbing night and
+day with incessant struggle to put myself and all my ideals aside--to
+give the public what it wants--to win your old admirers back, in order
+that I might see you playing once more to crowded and brilliant houses.
+It will succeed because it is diametrically opposed to all I have
+expressed. It is my sacrifice. Will you accept it? Will you read my
+play? Shall I send it to you?"
+
+Something went out from this letter which hurt Helen deeply. First of
+all there was a certain humble aloofness in his attitude which troubled
+her, but more significant still was his confessed departure from his
+ideals. Her brave and splendid lover had surrendered to the enemy--for
+her sake. Her first impulse was to write refusing to accept his
+sacrifice. But on second thought she craftily wrote: "I do not like to
+think of you writing to please the public, which I have put aside, but
+come and bring your play. I cannot believe that you have really written
+down to a melodramatic audience. What I will do I cannot say till I have
+seen your piece. Where have you kept yourself? Have you been West? Come
+and tell me all about it."
+
+To this self-contained note he replied by sending the drama. "No, I
+cannot come till Hugh and you have read and accepted this play. I want
+your manager to pass on _Alessandra_. You know what I mean. You are an
+idealist like myself. You will condemn this drama, but Westervelt may
+see in it a chance to restore the glitter to his theatre. Ask them both
+to read it--without letting them know who wrote it. If they accept it,
+then I can meet them again on equal terms. I long to see you; but I am
+in disgrace and infinitely poorer than when I first met you."
+
+Over this letter Helen pondered long. Her first impulse was to send the
+play back without reading it, but her love suggested another subterfuge.
+"I will do his will, and if Hugh and Westervelt find the play acceptable
+I will share in his triumph. But I will not do the play except as a last
+resort--for his sake. _Enid_ is more than holding its own. So long as it
+does I will not permit him to lower his splendid powers."
+
+To Hugh she carelessly said: "Here is another play--a melodrama, to
+judge from the title. Look it over and see if there is anything in it."
+
+As plays were constantly coming in to them, Hugh took this one quite as
+a matter of routine, with expectation of being bored. He was a little
+surprised next morning when she asked, "Did you look into that
+manuscript?"
+
+He answered: "No. I didn't get time."
+
+She could hardly conceal her impatience. "I wish you'd go over it this
+morning. From the title it's one of those middle-age Italian things that
+costume well."
+
+"Oh, is it?" he exclaimed. "Well, I'll get right at it." Her interest in
+it more than the title moved him. It was a most hopeful sign of
+weakening on her part.
+
+He came to lunch full of enthusiasm. "Say, sis, that play is a corker.
+There is a part in it that sees the _Baroness_ and goes her one better.
+If the last act keeps up we've got a prize-winner. Who's Edwin Baxter,
+anyhow?"
+
+Helen quietly stirred her tea. "I never heard the name before. A new man
+in the theatrical world, apparently."
+
+"Well, he's all right. I'm going over the whole thing again. Have you
+read it?"
+
+"No, I thought best to let you and Westervelt decide this time. I merely
+glanced at it."
+
+"Well, it looks like the thing to pull us out of our hole."
+
+That night Westervelt came behind the scenes with shining face. "I hope
+you will consent to do this new piece; it is a cracker-jack." He grew
+cautious. "It really is an immensely better piece of work than _The
+Baroness_, and yet it has elements of popularity. I have read it
+hastily. I shall study it to-night. If it looks as big to me to-morrow
+morning as now I will return to the old arrangement with you--if you
+wish."
+
+"How is the house to-night?" she asked.
+
+His face dropped. "No better than last night." He shrugged his
+shoulders. "Oh, ten or fifteen dollars, maybe. We can play all winter to
+two hundred dollars a night with this play. I do not understand such
+audiences. Apparently each man sends just one to take his place. There
+is no increase."
+
+"Well, report to me to-morrow about _Alessandra_, then I will decide
+upon the whole matter."
+
+In spite of herself she shared in the glow which shone on the faces of
+her supports, for the word had been passed to the leading members that
+they were going back to the old drama. "They've found a new play--a
+corking melodrama."
+
+Royleston straightened. "What's the subject?"
+
+"Middle-age Italian intrigue, so Hugh says--bully costumes--a wonder of
+a part for Merival."
+
+"Then we are on velvet again," said Royleston.
+
+The influence of the news ran through the action on the stage. The
+performance took on spirit and gusto. The audience immediately felt the
+glow of the players' enthusiasm, and warmed to both actress and
+playwright, and the curtain went down to the most vigorous applause of
+the entire run. But Westervelt did not perceive this, so engrossed was
+he in the new manuscript. Reading was prodigious labor for him--required
+all his attention.
+
+He was at the hotel early the next morning, impatient to see his star.
+As he waited he figured on a little pad. His face was flushed as if with
+drink. His eyes swam with tears of joy, and when Helen appeared he took
+her hand in both his fat pads, crying out:
+
+"My dear lady, we have found you a new play. It is to be a big
+production. It will cost a barrel of money to put it on, but it is a
+winner. Tell the writer to come on and talk terms."
+
+Helen remained quite cool. "You go too fast, Herr Westervelt. I have not
+read the piece. I may not like the title role."
+
+The manager winced. "You will like it--you must like it. It is a
+wonderful part. The costuming is magnificent--the scenes superb."
+
+"Is there any text?"
+
+Westervelt did not feel the sarcasm. "Excellent text. It is not
+Sardou--of course not--but it is of his school, and very well done
+indeed. The situations are not new, but they are powerfully worked out.
+I am anxious to secure it. If not for you, for some one else."
+
+"Very well. I will read the manuscript. If I like it I will send for the
+author."
+
+With this show of tepid interest on the part of his star Westervelt had
+to be content. To Hugh he complained: "The influence of that crazy
+Douglass is strong with her yet. I'm afraid she will turn down this
+part."
+
+Hugh was also alarmed by her indifference, and at frequent intervals
+during the day asked how she was getting on with the reading.
+
+To this query she each time replied: "Slowly. I'm giving it careful
+thought."
+
+She was, indeed, struggling with her tempted self. She was more deeply
+curious to read the manuscript than any one else could possibly be, and
+yet she feared to open the envelope which contained it. She did not wish
+to be in any sense a party to her lover's surrender. She knew that he
+must have written falsely and without conviction to have made such a
+profound impression on Westervelt. The very fact that the theme was
+Italian, and of the Middle Ages, was a proof of his abandonment of a
+cardinal principle, for he had often told her how he hated all that sort
+of thing. "What kind of a national drama would that be which dealt
+entirely with French or Italian mediaeval heroes?" he had once asked,
+with vast scorn.
+
+It would win back her former worshippers, she felt sure of that. The
+theatre would fill again with men whose palates required the highly
+seasoned, the far-fetched. The critics would rejoice in their victory,
+and welcome Helen Merival to her rightful place with added fervor. The
+bill-boards would glow again with magnificent posters of Helen Merival,
+as _Alessandra_, stooping with wild eyes and streaming hair over her
+slain paramour on the marble stairway, a dagger in her hand. People
+would crowd again behind the scenes at the close of the play. The
+magazines would add their chorus of praise.
+
+And over against this stood the slim, poetic figure of _Enid_, so white
+of soul, so simple, so elemental of appeal. A whole world lay between
+the two parts. All that each stood for was diametrically opposed to the
+other. One was modern as the telephone, true, sound, and revealing. The
+other false from beginning to end, belonging to a world that never
+existed, a brilliant, flashing pageant, a struggle of beasts in robes of
+gold and velvet--assassins dancing in jewelled garters. Every scene,
+every motion was worn with use on the stage, and yet her own romance,
+her happiness, seemed to depend upon her capitulation as well as his.
+
+"If they accept _Alessandra_ he will come back to me proudly--at least
+with a sense of victory over his ignoble enemies. If I return it he will
+know I am right, but will still be left so deeply in my debt that he
+will never come to see me again." And with this thought she determined
+upon a course of action which led at least to a meeting and to a
+reconciliation between the author and the manager, and with the thought
+of seeing him again her heart grew light.
+
+When she came to the theatre at night Westervelt was waiting at the
+door.
+
+"Well?" he asked, anxiously. "What do you think of it?"
+
+"I have sent for the author," she answered, coldly. "He will meet me
+to-morrow at eleven. Come to the hotel and I will introduce him to you."
+
+"Splendid! splendid!" exclaimed the manager. "You found it suited to
+you! A great part, eh?"
+
+"I like it better than _The Baroness_," she replied, and left him
+broad-faced with joy.
+
+"She is coming sensible again," he chuckled. "Now that that crank is out
+of the way we shall see her as she was--triumphant."
+
+Again the audience responded to every line she spoke, and as she played
+something reassuring came up to her from the faces below. The house was
+perceptibly less empty, but the comfort arose from something more
+intangible than an increase of filled chairs. "I believe the tide has
+turned," she thought, exultantly, but dared not say so to Hugh.
+
+That night she sent a note to Douglass, and the words of her message
+filled him with mingled feelings of exultation and bitterness:
+
+"You have won! Westervelt and Hugh are crazy to meet the author of
+_Alessandra_. They see a great success for you, for me, for all of us.
+Westervelt is ready to pour out his money to stage the thing gorgeously.
+Come to-morrow to meet them. Come proudly. You will find them both ready
+to take your hand--eager to acknowledge that they have misjudged you. We
+have both made a fight for good work and failed. No one can blame us if
+we yield to necessity."
+
+The thought of once more meeting her, of facing her managers with
+confident gaze on equal terms, made Douglass tremble with excitement. He
+dressed with care, attempting as best he could to put away all the dust
+and odors of his miserable tenement, and went forth looking much like
+the old-time, self-confident youth who faced down the clerk. His mind
+ran over every word in Helen's note a dozen times, extracting each time
+new and hidden meanings.
+
+"If it is the great success they think it, my fortune is made." His
+spirits began to overleap all bounds. "It will enable me to meet her as
+an equal--not in worth," he acknowledged--"she is so much finer and
+nobler than any man that ever lived--but I will at least be something
+more than a tramp kennelled in a musty hole." His mind took another
+flight. "I can go home with pride also. Oh, success is a sovereign
+thing. Think of Hugh and Westervelt waiting to welcome me--and Helen!"
+
+When he thought of her his confident air failed him, his face flushed,
+his hands felt numb. She shone now like a far-off violet star. She had
+recovered her aloofness, her allurement in his mind, and it was
+difficult for him to realize that he had once known her intimately and
+that he had treated her inconsiderately. "I must have been mad," he
+exclaimed. It seemed months since he had looked into her face.
+
+The clerk he dreaded to meet was off duty, and as the elevator boy knew
+him he did not approach the desk, but went at once to Helen's
+apartments.
+
+She did not meet him at the door as he had foolishly expected. Delia,
+the maid, greeted him with a smile, and led him back to the
+reception-room and left him alone.
+
+He heard Helen's voice, the rustle of her dress, and then she stood
+before him. As he looked into her face and read love and pity in her
+eyes he lost all fear, all doubt, and caught her hand in both of his,
+unable to speak a word in his defence--unable even to tell her of his
+gratitude and love.
+
+She recovered herself first, and, drawing back, looked at him
+searchingly. "You poor fellow, you've been working like mad. You are
+ill!"
+
+"No, I am not ill--only tired. I have had only one thought, one aim
+since I saw you last, that was to write something to restore you to your
+old place----"
+
+"I do not want to be restored. Now listen, Lord Douglass. If I do
+_Alessandra_, it is because we both need the money and the prestige; but
+I do not despair, and you must not. Please let me manage this whole
+affair; will you?"
+
+"I am your slave."
+
+"Don't say such things. I don't want you to be humble. I want you to be
+as brave, as proud as before."
+
+She said this in such a tone that he rose to it. His face reset in lines
+of resolution. "I will not be humble with any other human being but you.
+I worship you."
+
+She stood for a moment looking at him fixedly, a smile of pride and
+tender dream on her lips, then said, "You must not say such things to
+me--not now." The bell rang. "Here comes your new-found admirers," she
+exclaimed, gleefully. "Now, you sit here, a little in the shadow, and I
+will bring them in."
+
+Douglass heard Hugh ask, eagerly, "Is he here?"
+
+"Yes, he is waiting for you." A moment later she re-entered, followed
+closely by Westervelt. "Herr Westervelt, let me introduce Mr. George
+Douglass, author of _Alessandra_, _Lillian's Duty_, and _Enid's
+Choice_."
+
+For an instant Westervelt's face was a confused, lumpy mass of amazement
+and resentment; then he capitulated, quick to know on which side his
+bread was buttered, and, flinging out a fat hand, he roared:
+
+"Very good joke. Ha! ha! You have fooled me completely. Mr. Douglass, I
+congratulate you. You have now given Helen Merival the best part she has
+ever had. You found we were right, eh?"
+
+Douglass remained a little stiff. "Yes, for the present we'll say you
+are right; but the time is coming--"
+
+Hugh came forward with less of enthusiasm, but his wall of reserve was
+melting. "I'm mighty glad to know that you wrote _Alessandra_, Douglass.
+It is worthy of Sardou, and it will win back every dollar we've lost in
+the other plays."
+
+"That's what I wrote it for," said Douglass, sombrely.
+
+Westervelt had no further scruples--no reservations. "Well, now, as to
+terms and date of production. Let's get to business."
+
+Helen interposed. "No more of that for to-day. Mr. Douglass is tired and
+needs recreation. Leave business till to-morrow. Come, let us go to
+mother; she is anxious to see you--and you are to breakfast with us in
+the good old spirit."
+
+It was sweet to sit with them again on the old footing--to be released
+from his load of guilty responsibility. To face the shining table, the
+dear old mother--and Helen! Something indefinably domestic and tender
+came from her hesitating speech and shone in her liquid, beaming eyes.
+
+The room swam in vivid sunshine, and seemed thus to typify the toiler's
+escape from poverty and defeat.
+
+"Don't expect me to talk," he said, slowly, strangely. "I'm too dazed,
+too happy to think clearly. I can't believe it. I have lived two months
+in a horrible nightmare; but now that the business men, the practical
+ones, say you are to be saved by me, I must believe it. I would be
+perfectly happy if only I had won the success on my own lines without
+compromise."
+
+"Put that aside," she commanded, softly. "The fuller success will come.
+We have that to work towards."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Helen insisted that her playwright should go back to the West for a
+month's rest.
+
+"I do not need rest, I need you," he answered, recklessly. "It fills me
+with content merely to see you."
+
+"Nevertheless, you must go. We don't need you here. And, besides, you
+interfere with my plans."
+
+"Is that true?" His eyes searched deep as he questioned.
+
+"I am speaking as the actress to the playwright." She pointed tragically
+to the door. "Go! Your poor old, lonely mother awaits you."
+
+"There are six in the family; she's my stepmother, and we don't get on
+smoothly."
+
+"Your father is waiting to congratulate you."
+
+"On the contrary. He thinks actresses and playwrights akin to 'popery.'"
+
+She laughed. "Well, then, go on my account--on your account. You are
+tired, and so am I--"
+
+"That is why I should remain, to relieve you, to help you. Or, do you
+mean you're tired of me?"
+
+"I won't say that; but I must not see you. I must not see any one. If I
+do this big part right, I must rest. I intend to sleep a good part of
+the time. I have sent for Henry Olquest, and I intend to put the whole
+of the stage end of this play in his hands. Our ideals are not concerned
+in this _Alessandra_, you remember."
+
+His face clouded. "That is true. I wish it were otherwise. But can you
+get Olquest?"
+
+"Yes; his new play has failed. 'Too good,' Westervelt said."
+
+"Oh, what blasphemy! To think Harry Olquest's plays are rejected, and on
+such grounds! You are right--as always. I will go."
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"I am a little frazled, I admit, and a breath of mountain-air will do me
+good. I will visit my brother Walt in Darien. It's hard to go. My heart
+begins to ache already with prospective hunger. You have been my world,
+my one ambition for three months--my incessant care and thought."
+
+"All the more reason why you should forget me and things dramatic for a
+while. There is nothing so destructive to peace and tranquillity as the
+stage."
+
+"Don't I know that? When I was a youth in a Western village I became in
+some way the possessor of two small photographs of Elsie Melville. She
+was my ideal till I saw her, fifteen years later."
+
+Helen laughed. "Poor Elsie, she took on flesh dreadfully in her later
+years."
+
+"Nevertheless, those photographs started me on the road to the stage. I
+used to fancy myself as Macbeth, but I soon got switched into the belief
+that I could write plays. Now that I have demonstrated that"--his tone
+was a little bitter again--"I think I would better return to
+architecture."
+
+She silenced him. "All that we will discuss when you come back
+reinvigorated from the mountains." She turned to her desk. "I have
+something here for you. Here is a small check from Westervelt on
+account. Don't hesitate to take it. He was glad to give it."
+
+"It is the price of my intellectual honesty."
+
+"By no means!" She laughed, but her heart sickened with a sense of the
+truth of his phrase. "It's only a very small part payment. You can at
+least know that the bribe they offer is large."
+
+"Yes"--he looked at her meaningly--"the prize was too great for my poor
+resolution. All they can give will remain _part_ payment. I wonder if
+you will be compassionate enough to complete the purchase--"
+
+"_That_, too, is in the future," she answered, still struggling to be
+gayly reassuring, though she knew, perfectly well, that she was face to
+face with a most momentous decision and that an insistent, determined
+lover was about to be restored to confidence and pride. "And now,
+good-bye." And she gave him her hand in positive dismissal.
+
+He took the hand and pressed it hard, then turned and went away without
+speaking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a hint of spring in the air the afternoon of his leaving. The
+wind came from the southwest, brisk and powerful. In the pale, misty
+blue of the sky a fleet of small, white clouds swam, like ships with
+wide and bellying sails, low down in the eastern horizon, and the sight
+of them somehow made it harder for Douglass to leave the city of his
+adoption. He was powerfully minded to turn back, to remain on the
+ferry-boat and land again on the towering island so heavily freighted
+with human sorrows, so brilliant with human joys, and only a realization
+that his presence might trouble and distract Helen kept him to his
+journey's westward course.
+
+As he looked back at the monstrous hive of men the wonder of Helen's
+personality came to him. That she alone, and unaided (save by her own
+inborn genius and her beauty), should have succeeded in becoming
+distinguished, even regnant, among so many eager and striving souls,
+overwhelmed him with love and admiration.
+
+He wondered how he could have assumed even for an instant the tone of a
+lover, the gesture of a master. "I, a poor, restless, penniless vagabond
+on the face of the earth--I presumed to complain of her!" he exclaimed,
+and shuddered with guilty disgust at thought of that night behind the
+scenes.
+
+In this mood he rode out into the West, which was bleak with winter
+winds and piled high with snow. He paused but a day with his father,
+whom he found busy prolonging the lives of the old people with whom the
+town was filled. It was always a shock to the son, this contrast between
+the outward peace and well-seeming of his native town and the inner
+mortality and swift decay. Even in a day's visit he felt the grim
+destroyer's presence, palpable as the shadow of a cloud.
+
+He hastened on to Darien, that curious mixture of Spanish-Mexican
+indolence and bustling American enterprise, a town wherein his brother
+Walt had established himself some years before.
+
+Walter Douglass was shocked by the change in his brother. "I can't
+understand how fourteen months in New York can reduce a lusty youth to
+the color of a cabbage and the consistency of a gelatine pudding. I
+reckon you'd better key yourself down to my pace for a while. Look at
+me!"
+
+The playwright smiled. "I haven't indulged myself too much. You can't
+hit a very high pace on twelve dollars a week."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. There are cheap brands of whiskey; and you can
+breathe the bad air of a theatre every night if you climb high enough. I
+know you've been too strenuous at some point. Now, what's the meaning of
+it all?"
+
+"I've been working very hard."
+
+"Shouldn't do it. Look at me. I never work and never worry. I play. I
+weigh two hundred pounds, eat well, sleep like a doorknob, make about
+three thousand dollars a year, and educate my children. I don't want to
+seem conceited, but my way of life appeals to me as philosophic; yours
+is too wasteful. Come, now, you're keeping back something. You might as
+well 'fess up. What _were_ you doing?"
+
+The playwright remained on his guard. "Well, as I wrote you, I had a
+couple of plays accepted and helped to produce them. There's nothing
+more wearing than producing a play. The anxiety is killing."
+
+"I believe you. I think the writing of one act would finish me. Yes, I
+can see that would be exciting business; but what's all this about your
+engagement to some big actress?"
+
+This brought the blood to the younger man's cheek, but he was studiedly
+careless in reply. "All newspaper talk. Of course, in rehearsing the
+play, I saw a great deal of Miss Merival, but--that's all. She is one of
+the most successful and brilliant women on the stage, while I--well, I
+am only a 'writing architect,' earning my board by doing a little
+dramatic criticism now and then. You need not put any other two things
+together to know how foolish such reports are."
+
+Walt seemed satisfied. "Well, my advice is: slow down to Darien time.
+Eat and sleep, and ride a bronco to make you eat more and sleep harder,
+and in two weeks you'll be like your old-time self."
+
+This advice, so obviously sound, was hard to follow, for each day
+brought a letter from Helen, studiously brief and very sparing of any
+terms of affection--frank, good letters, kindly but no more--and young
+Douglass was dissatisfied, and said so. He spent a large part of each
+morning pouring out upon paper the thoughts and feelings surging within
+him. He told her of the town, of the delicious, crisp climate--like
+October in the East--of the great snow-peaks to the West, of his rides
+far out on the plain, of his plans for the coming year.
+
+"I dug an old play out of my trunk to-day" (he wrote, towards the end of
+the first week). "It's the first one I ever attempted. It is very
+boyish. I had no problems in my mind then, but it is worth while. I am
+going to rewrite it and send it on to you, for I can't be idle. I
+believe you'll like it. It is a love drama pure and simple."
+
+To this she replied: "I am interested in what you say of your first
+play, but don't work--rest and enjoy your vacation."
+
+A few days later he wrote, in exultation: "I got a grip on the play
+yesterday and re-wrote two whole acts. I think I've put some of the
+glory of this land and sky into it--I mean the exultation of health and
+youth. I am putting you into it, too--I mean the adoration I feel for
+you, my queen!
+
+"Do you know, all the old wonder of you is coming back to me. When I
+think of you as the great actress my nerves are shaken. Is it possible
+that the mysterious Helen Merival is my Helen? I am mad to rush back to
+you to prove it. Isn't it presumptuous of me to say, 'My Helen'? But at
+this distance you cannot reprove me. I came across some pictures of you
+in a magazine to-day, and was thrilled and awed by them. I have not said
+anything of Helen MacDavitt to my people, but of the good and great
+actress Helen Merival I speak copiously. They all feel very grateful to
+you for helping me. Father thinks you at least forty. He could not
+understand how a woman under thirty could rise to such eminence as you
+have attained. Walt also takes it for granted you are middle-aged. He
+knows how long the various 'Maggies' and 'Ethels' and 'Annies' have been
+in public life. He saw something in a paper about us the other day, but
+took it as a joke. If this fourth play of mine comes off, and you find
+it worth producing, I shall be happy. It might counteract the baleful
+influence of _Alessandra_. I began to wonder how I ever did such a
+melodrama. Is it as bad as it seems to me now?...
+
+"I daren't ask how _Enid_ is doing. It makes me turn cold to think of
+the money you are losing. Wouldn't it pay to let the theatre go 'dark'
+till the new thing is ready?...
+
+"I am amazed at my temerity with you, serene lady. If I had not been
+filled with the colossal conceit of the young author, I never would have
+dared to approach--What I did during those mad weeks (you know the ones
+I mean) gives me such shame and suffering as I have never known, and my
+whole life is now ordered to make you forget that side of my character.
+I ask myself now, 'What would Helen have me do?' I don't say this humble
+mood will last. If _Alessandra_ should make a 'barrel of money,' I am
+capable of soaring to such heights of audacity that you will be
+startled."
+
+To this she replied: "I am not working at rehearsal more than is
+necessary. Mr. Olquest is a jewel. He has taken the whole burden of the
+stage direction off my hands. I lie in bed till noon each morning and go
+for a drive each pleasant afternoon. Our spring weather is gone. Winter
+has returned upon us again.... I miss you very much. For all the worry
+you gave us, we found entertainment in you. Don't trouble about the
+money we are losing. Westervelt is putting up all the cash for the new
+production and is angelic of manner--or means to be. I prefer him when
+in the dumps. He attends every rehearsal and is greatly excited over my
+part. He now thinks you great, and calls you 'the American Sardou.' ...
+I have put all our dismal hours behind me. 'All this, too, shall pass
+away.' ... I care not to what audacity you wing your way, if only you
+come back to us your good, sane, undaunted self once more."
+
+In this letter, as in all her intercourse with him, there was restraint,
+as though love were being counselled by prudence. And this was, indeed,
+the case. A foreboding of all that an acknowledgment of a man's
+domination might mean to her troubled Helen. The question, "How would
+marriage affect my plans," beset her, though she tried to thrust it
+away, to retire it to the indefinite future.
+
+Her love grew steadily, feeding upon his letters, which became each day
+more buoyant and manly, bringing to her again the sense of unbounded
+ambition and sane power with which his presence had filled her at their
+first meeting.
+
+"You are not of the city," she wrote. "You belong to the country. Think
+how near New York came to destroying you. You ought not to come back.
+Why don't you settle out there and take up public life?"
+
+His answer was definite: "You need not fear. The city will never again
+dominate me. I have found myself--through you. With you to inspire me I
+cannot fail. Public life! Do you mean politics? I am now fit for only
+one thing--to write. I have found my work. And do you think I could live
+anywhere without hope of seeing you? My whole life is directed towards
+you--to be worthy of you, to be justified in asking you to join your
+life to mine. These are my ambitions, my audacious desires. I love you,
+and you must know that I cannot be content with your friendship--your
+affection--which I know I have. I want your love in return. Not now--not
+while I am a man of words merely. As I now feel _Alessandra_ is a little
+thing compared with the sacrifice you have made for me. I have stripped
+away all my foolish egotism, and when I return to see you on the opening
+night I shall rejoice in your success without a tinge of bitterness. It
+isn't as if the melodrama were degrading in its appeal. It does not
+represent my literary ideals, of course, but it is not contemptible, it
+is merely conventional. My mind _has_ cleared since I came here. I see
+myself in proper relation to you and to the public. I see now that with
+the large theatre, with the long 'run' ideals, a play _must_ be very
+general in its appeal, and with such conditions it is folly for us to
+quarrel. We must have our own little theatre wherein we can play the
+subtler phases of American life--the phases we both rejoice in. If
+_Alessandra_ should pay my debt to you--- you see how my mind comes back
+to that thought--we will use it to build our own temple of art. As I
+think of you there, toiling without me, I am wild with desire to return
+to be doing something. I am ready now to turn my hand to any humble
+thing--to direct rehearsals, to design costumes, anything, only to be
+near you. One word from you and I will come."
+
+To this she replied: "No; on the contrary, you must stay a week longer.
+We have postponed the production on account of some extra scenic effect
+which Hugh wishes to perfect. They profess wonder now at your knowledge
+of scenic effect as well as your eye for costume and stage-setting. Your
+last letter disturbed me greatly, while it pleased me. I liked its tone
+of boyish enthusiasm, but your directness of speech scared me. I'm
+almost afraid to meet you. You men are so literal, so insistent in your
+demands. A woman doesn't know what she wants--sometimes; she doesn't
+like to be brought to bay so roundly. You have put so much at stake on
+_Alessandra_ that I am a-tremble with fear of consequences. If it
+succeeds you will be insufferably conceited and assured; if it fails we
+will never see you again. Truly the life of a star is not all glitter."
+
+This letter threw him into a panic. He hastened to disclaim any wish to
+disturb her. "If you will forgive me this time I will not offend again.
+I did not mean to press for an answer. I distinctly said that at
+present I have no right to do so. I daren't do so, in fact. I send you,
+under another cover, the youthful play which I call _The Morning_. Isn't
+that fanciful enough? It means, of course, that I am now just reaching
+the point in my life where the man of thirty-odd looks back upon the boy
+of eighteen with a wistful tenderness, feeling that the mystery of the
+world has in some sense departed with the morning. Of a certainty this
+idea is not new, but I took a joy in writing this little idyl, and I
+would like to see you do 'the wonderful lady I see in my dreams.' Can
+you find an actor who can do my lad of 'the poetic fancy'?"
+
+She replied to this: "Your play made me cry, for I, too, am leaving the
+dewy morning behind. I like this play; it is very tender and beautiful,
+and do you know I believe it would touch more hearts than your gorgeous
+melodrama. Mr. Howells somewhere beautifully says that when he is most
+intimate in the disclosures of his own feelings he finds himself most
+widely responded to--or something like that. I really am eager to do
+this play. It has increased my wonder of your powers. I really begin to
+feel that I know only part of you. First _Lillian's Duty_ taught me some
+of your stern Scotch morality. Then _Enid's Choice_ revealed to me your
+conception of the integrity of a good woman's soul--that nothing can
+debase it. _Alessandra_ disclosed your learning and your imaginative
+power. Now here I feel the poet, the imaginative boy. I will not say
+this has increased my faith in you--it has added to my knowledge of you.
+But I must confess to you it has made it very difficult for me to go on
+with _Alessandra_. All the other plays are in line of a national drama.
+_Alessandra_ is a bitter and ironical concession. _The Morning_ makes
+its splendor almost tawdry. It hurt me to go to rehearsal to-day.
+Westervelt's presence was a gloating presence, and I hated him. Hugh's
+report of the exultant 'I told you so's' of the dramatic critics
+sickened me--" Her letter ended abruptly, almost at this point.
+
+His reply contained these words: "It is not singular that you feel
+irritated by _Alessandra_ while I am growing resigned, for you are in
+daily contact with the sordid business. Tell me I may come back. I want
+to be at the opening. I know you will secure a great personal triumph. I
+want to see you shining again amid a shower of roses. I want to help
+take your horses from your carriage, and wheel you in glory through the
+streets as they used to do in olden times as tribute to their great
+favorites. I haven't seen a New York paper since I came West. I hope you
+have put _Enid_ away. What is the use wearing yourself out playing a
+disastrous role while forced to rehearse a new one? My longing to see
+you is so great that the sight of your picture on my desk is a sweet
+torture. Write me that you want me, dearest."
+
+She replied, very simply: "You may come. Our opening night is now fixed
+for Monday next. You will have just time to get here. All is well."
+
+To this he wired reply: "I start to-night. Arrive on Monday at Grand
+Central. Eleven-thirty."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Helen was waiting for him at the gate of the station in a beautiful
+spring hat, her face abloom, her eyes dancing, and the sight of her
+robbed him of all caution. Dropping his valise, he rushed towards her,
+intent to take her in his arms.
+
+She stopped him with one outstretched hand. "How well you look!" Her
+voice, so rich, so vibrant, moved him like song.
+
+"And you--you are the embodiment of spring." Then, in a low voice, close
+to her ear, he added: "I love you! I love you! How beautiful you are!"
+
+"Hush!" She lifted a finger in a gesture of warning. "You must not say
+such things to me--here." With the addition of that final word her face
+grew arch. Then in a louder tone: "I was right, was I not, to send you
+away?"
+
+"I am a new being," he answered, "morally and physically. But tell me,
+what is the meaning of these notices? Have you put _The Morning_ on in
+place of _Alessandra_?"
+
+Hugh interposed. "That's what she's done," and offered his hand with
+unexpected cordiality.
+
+"You take my breath away," said Douglass. "I can't follow your reckless
+campaigns."
+
+"We'll explain. We're not as reckless as we seem."
+
+They began to move towards the street, Hugh leading the way with the
+playwright's bag.
+
+Helen laughed at her lover's perplexity and dismay. "You look
+befoozled."
+
+"I am. I can't understand. After all that work and expense--after all my
+toilsome grind--my sacrifice of principles."
+
+She was close to his shoulder as she said, looking up at him with
+beaming, tender eyes:
+
+"That's just it. I couldn't accept your offering. After _The Morning_
+came in, my soul revolted. I ordered the _Alessandra_ manuscript brought
+in. Do you know what I did with it?"
+
+"Rewrote it, I hope."
+
+Her face expressed daring, humor, triumph, but the hand lifted to the
+chin expressed a little apprehension as she replied: "Rewrote it? No, I
+didn't think of that. _I burned it._"
+
+He stopped, unconscious of the streaming crowds. "Burned it! I can't
+believe you. My greatest work--"
+
+"It is gone." The smile died out of her eyes, her face became very grave
+and very sweet. "I couldn't bear to have you bow your head to please a
+public not worthy of you. The play was un-American, and should not have
+been written by you."
+
+He was dazed by the enormous consequences of this action, and his mind
+flashed from point to point before he answered, in a single word:
+"Westervelt."
+
+Thereat they both laughed, and she explained. "It was dreadful. He
+raged, he shook the whole block as he trotted to and fro tearing his
+hair. I think he wished to tear my hair. He really resembled the elder
+Salvini as Othello--you know the scene I mean. I gave him a check to
+compensate him. He tore it up and blew it into the air with a curse. Oh,
+it was beautiful comedy. I told him our interview would make a hit as a
+'turn' on the vaudeville stage. Nothing could calm him. I was firm, and
+_Alessandra_ was in ashes."
+
+They moved on out upon the walk and into the hideous clamor of
+Forty-second Street, his mind still busy with the significance of her
+news. Henry Olquest in an auto sat waiting for them. After a quick
+hand-shake Douglass lifted Helen to her place, followed her with a leap,
+and they were off on a ride which represented to him more than an
+association with success--it seemed a triumphal progress. Something in
+Helen's eyes exalted him, filled his throat with an emotion nigh to
+tears. His eyes were indeed smarting as she turned to say: "You are just
+in time for dress rehearsal. Do you want to see it?"
+
+"No, I leave it all to you. I want to be the author if I can. I want to
+get the thrill."
+
+"I think you will like our production. Mr. Olquest has done marvels with
+it. You'll enjoy it; I know you will. It will restore your lost youth to
+you."
+
+"I hope it will restore some of your lost dollars. I saw by the papers
+that you were still struggling with _Enid_. I shudder to think what that
+means. The other poor little play will never be able to lift that huge
+debt."
+
+"I'm not so sure about that," she gayly answered. "The rehearsals have
+almost resigned"--she pointed at Hugh's back--"him to the change."
+
+"I confess I was surprised by his cordial greeting."
+
+"Oh, he's quite shifted his point of view. He thinks _The Morning_ may
+'catch 'em' on other grounds."
+
+"And you--you are radiant. I expected to find you worn out. You dazzle
+me."
+
+"You mustn't look at me then. Look at the avenue. Isn't it fine this
+morning?"
+
+He took her hint. "It is glorious. I feel that I am again at the centre
+of things. After all, this is our one great city, the only place where
+life is diverse enough to give the dramatist his material. I begin to
+understand the attitude of actors when they land from the ferry-boat,
+draw a long breath, and say, 'Thank God, I'm in New York again.'"
+
+"It's the only city in America where an artist can be judged by his
+peers. I suppose that is one reason why we love it."
+
+"Yes, it's worth conquering, and I'll make my mark upon it yet," and his
+tone was a note of self-mastery as well as of resolution. "It is a city
+set on a hill. To take it brings great glory and lasting honor."
+
+She smiled up at him again, a proud light in her eyes. "Now you are
+your good, rugged self, the man who 'hypnotized' me into taking
+_Lillian's Duty_. You'll need all your courage; the critics are to be
+out in force."
+
+"I do not fear them," he answered, as they whirled into the plaza and up
+to the side entrance of the hotel.
+
+"I've engaged a room for you here, Douglass," said Hugh, and the new
+note of almost comradeship struck the playwright with wonder. He was a
+little sceptical of it.
+
+"Very well," he answered. "I am reckless. I will stay one day."
+
+"Mother will be waiting to see you," said Helen, as they entered the
+hall. "She is your stanch supporter."
+
+"She is a dear mother. I wish she were my own."
+
+Each word he uttered now carried a hidden meaning, and some inner
+relenting, some sweet, secret concession which he dimly felt but dared
+not presume upon, gave her a girlish charm which she had never before
+worn in his eyes.
+
+They took lunch together, seated at the same table in the same way, and
+yet not in the same spirit. He was less self-centred, less insistent.
+His winter of proved inefficiency, his sense of indebtedness to her, his
+all-controlling love for her gave him a new appeal. He was at once
+tender and humorous as he referred again to _Alessandra_.
+
+"Well, now that my chief work of art is destroyed, I must begin again at
+the bottom. I have definitely given up all idea of following my
+profession. I am going to do specials for one of the weeklies. Anderson
+has interceded for me. I am to enter the ranks of the enemy. I am not
+sure but I ought to do a criticism of my own play to-morrow night."
+
+She was thinking of other things. "Tell me of your people. Did you talk
+of me to them? What did they say of me?"
+
+"They all think of you as a kind, middle-aged lady, who has been very
+good to a poor country boy."
+
+She laughed. "How funny! Why should they think me so old?"
+
+"They can't conceive how a mere girl can be so rich and powerful. How
+could they realize the reckless outpouring of gold which flows from
+those who seek pleasure to those who give it."
+
+She grew instantly graver. "They would despise me if they knew. I don't
+like being a mere toy of the public--a pleasure-giver and nothing else.
+Of course there are different ways of pleasing. That is why I couldn't
+do _Alessandra_. Tell me of your brother. I liked what you wrote of him.
+He is our direct opposite, isn't he? Does he talk as well as you
+reported, or were you polishing him a little?"
+
+"No, Walt has a remarkable taste in words. He has always been the
+literary member of our family, but is too lazy to write. He is content
+to grow fat in his little round of daily duties."
+
+"I wonder if we haven't lost something by becoming enslaved to the
+great city! Our pleasures are more intense, but they _do_ wear us out.
+Think of you and me to-morrow night--our anxiety fairly cancelling our
+pleasure--and then think of your brother going leisurely home to his
+wife, his babies, and his books. I don't know--sometimes when I think of
+growing old in a flat or a hotel I am appalled. I hate to keep mother
+here. Sometimes I think of giving it all up for a year or two and going
+back to the country, just to see how it would affect me. I don't want to
+get artificial and slangy with no interests but the stage, like so many
+good actresses I know. It's such a horribly egotistic business--"
+
+"There are others," he said.
+
+"Writers are bad enough, but actors and opera-singers are infinitely
+worse. Mother has helped me." She put her soft palm on her mother's
+wrinkled hand. "Nothing can spoil mother; nothing can take away the home
+atmosphere--not even the hotel. Well, now I must go to our final
+rehearsal. I will not see you again till the close of the second act.
+You must be in your place to-night," she said, with tender warning. "I
+want to see your face whenever I look for it."
+
+"I am done with running away," he answered, as he slowly released her
+hand. "I shall pray for your success--not my own."
+
+"Fortunately my success is yours."
+
+"In the deepest sense that is true," he answered.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+As Douglass entered the theatre that night Westervelt met him with
+beaming smile. "I am glad to see you looking so well, Mr. Douglass." He
+nodded and winked. "You are all right now, my boy. You have them coming.
+I was all wrong."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Didn't she tell you?"
+
+"You mean about the advance sale?--no."
+
+Westervelt grew cautious. "Oh--well, then, I will be quiet. She wants to
+tell you. She will do so."
+
+"Advance sale must be good," thought the playwright, as he walked on
+into the auditorium. The ushers smiled, and the old gatekeeper greeted
+him shortly.
+
+"Ye've won out, Mr. Douglass."
+
+"Can it be that this play is to mark the returning tide of Helen's
+popularity?" he asked himself, and a tremor of excitement ran over him,
+the first thrill of the evening. Up to this moment he had a curious
+sense of aloofness, indifference, as if the play were not his own but
+that of a stranger. He began now to realize that this was his third
+attempt to win the favor of the public, and according to an old boyish
+superstition should be successful.
+
+Helen had invited a great American writer--a gracious and inspiring
+personality--to occupy her box to meet her playwright, and once within
+his seat Douglass awaited the coming of the great man with impatience
+and concern. He was conscious of a great change in himself and his
+attitude towards Helen since he last sat waiting for the curtain to
+rise.
+
+"Nothing--not even the dropping of an act--could rouse in me the
+slightest resentment towards her." He flushed with torturing shame at
+the recollection of his rage, his selfish, demoniacal, egotistic fury
+over the omission of his pet lines.
+
+"I was insane," he muttered, pressing a hand to his eyes as if to shut
+out the memory of Helen's face as she looked that night. "And she
+forgave me! She must have known I was demented." And her sweetness, her
+largeness of sympathy again overwhelmed him. "Dare I ask her to marry
+me?" He no longer troubled himself about her wealth nor with the
+difference between them as to achievement, but he comprehended at last
+that her superiority lay in her ability to forgive, in her power to
+inspire love and confidence, in her tact, her consideration for others,
+her wondrous unselfishness.
+
+"What does the public know of her real greatness? Capable of imagining
+the most diverse types of feminine character, living each night on the
+stage in an atmosphere of heartless and destructive intrigue, she yet
+retains a divine integrity, an inalienable graciousness. Dare I, a
+moody, selfish brute, touch the hem of her garment?"
+
+In this mood he watched the audience gather--a smiling, cheerful-voiced,
+neighborly throng. There were many young girls among them, and their
+graceful, bared heads gave to the orchestra chairs a brilliant and
+charmingly intimate effect. The _roue_, the puffed and beefy man of
+sensual type, was absent. The middle-aged, bespangled, gluttonous woman
+was absent. The faces were all refined and gracious--an audience
+selected by a common interest from among the millions who dwell within
+an hour's travel of the theatre.
+
+Douglass fancied he could detect in these auditors the same feeling of
+security, of satisfaction, of comfort with which they were accustomed to
+sit down of an evening with a new book by a favorite author.
+
+"If I could but win a place like that," he exclaimed to himself, "I
+would be satisfied. It can be done when the right man comes."
+
+A dinner engagement delayed the eminent author, but he came in as the
+curtain was rising, and, shaking hands cordially, presented Mr. Rufus
+Brown, a visiting London critic.
+
+"Mr. Brown is deeply interested in your attempt to do an American play,"
+said the great novelist. "I hope--I am sure he will witness your triumph
+to-night." Thereupon they took seats with flattering promptness in order
+not to miss a word of the play.
+
+Helen, coming on a moment after, was given a greeting almost frenziedly
+cordial, and when she bowed her eyes sought the box in which her lover
+sat, and the audience, seeing the distinguished novelist and feeling
+some connection between them, renewed their applause. Douglass, at the
+back of the box, rose and stood with intent to express to Helen the
+admiration, the love, and the respect which he felt for her. She was,
+indeed, "the beautiful, golden-haired lady" of whom he had written as a
+boy, and a singular timidity, a wave of worship went over him.
+
+He became the imaginative lad of the play, who stood in awe and worship
+of mature womanhood. The familiar Helen was gone, the glittering woman
+was gone, and in her place stood the ideal of the boy--the author
+himself had returned to "the land of morning glow"--to the time when the
+curl of a woman's lip was greater than any war. The boy on the stage
+chanted:
+
+  "Where I shall find her I know not.
+  But I trust in the future! To me
+  She will come. I am not forgot.
+  Out in the great world she's waiting,
+  Perhaps by the shore of the sea,
+  By the fabulous sea, where the white sand gleams,
+  I shall meet her and know her and claim her.
+  The beautiful, stately lady I see in my dreams."
+
+"I dare not claim her," said the man, humbled by her beauty. "I am not
+worthy of her."
+
+The applause continued to rise instant and cordial in support of players
+and play. Auditors, actors, and author seemed in singularly harmonious
+relation. As the curtain fell cries of approval mingled with the
+hand-clapping.
+
+The novelist reached a kindly hand. "You've found your public, my dear
+fellow. These people are here after an intelligent study of your other
+plays. This is a gallant beginning. Don't you think so, Brown?"
+
+"Very interesting attempt to dramatize those boyish fancies," the
+English critic replied. "But I don't quite see how you can advance on
+these idyllic lines. It's pretty, but is it drama?"
+
+"He will show us," replied the novelist. "I have great faith in Mr.
+Douglass. He is helping to found an American drama. You must see his
+other plays."
+
+Westervelt came to the box wheezing with excitement. "My boy, you are
+made. The critics are disarmed. They begin to sing of you."
+
+Douglass remained calm. "There is plenty of time for them to turn
+bitter," he answered. "I am most sceptical when they are gracious."
+
+The second act left the idyllic ground, and by force of stern contrast
+held the audience enthralled. The boy was being disillusioned. _The
+Morning_ had grown gray. Doubt of his ideal beset the poet. The world's
+forces began to benumb and appall him. His ideal woman passed to the
+possession of another. He lost faith in himself. The cloud deepened, the
+sky, overshadowed as by tempest, let fall lightning and a crash of
+thunder. So the act closed.
+
+The applause was unreservedly cordial--no one failed to join in the fine
+roar--and in the midst of it Douglass, true to his promise, hurried back
+to the scenes to find Helen.
+
+She met him, radiant with excitement. "My brave boy! You have won your
+victory. They are calling for you." He protested. She insisted. "No, no.
+It is _you_. I've been out. Hear them; they want the author. Come!"
+
+Dazed and wordless, weak from stage-fright, he permitted himself to be
+led forth into the terrifying glare of the footlight world. There his
+guide left him, abandoned him, pitifully exposed to a thousand eyes,
+helpless and awkward. He turned to flee, to follow her, but the roguish
+smile on her face, as she kissed her fingers towards him, somehow roused
+his pride and gave him courage to face the tumult. As he squared himself
+an awesome silence settled over the house--a silence that inspired as
+well as appalled by its expectancy.
+
+"Friends, I thank you," the pale and resolute author weakly began. "I
+didn't know I had so many friends in the world. Two minutes ago I was so
+scared my teeth chattered. Now I am entirely at my ease--you notice
+that." The little ripple of laughter which followed this remark really
+gave him time to think--gave him courage. "I feel that I am at last face
+to face with an audience that knows my work--that is ready to support a
+serious attempt at playwriting. I claim that a play may do something
+more than amuse--it may _interest_. There is a wide difference, you will
+see. To be an amusement merely is to degrade our stage to the level of a
+Punch-and-Judy show. I am sorry for tired men and weary women, but as a
+dramatist I can't afford to take their troubles into account. I am
+writing for those who are mentally alert and willing to support plays
+that have at least the dignity of intention which lies in our best
+novels. This does not mean gloomy plays or problem plays, but it does
+mean conscientious study of American life. If you like me as well after
+the close of the play"--he made dramatic pause--"well I shall not be
+able to sleep to-night. I sincerely thank you. You have given me a fair
+hearing--that is all I can ask--and I am very grateful."
+
+This little speech seemed to please his auditors, but his real reward
+came when Helen met him at the wings and caught his arm to her side in
+an ecstatic little hug. "You did beautifully! You make me afraid of you
+when you stand tall and grand like that. You were scared though. I
+could see that."
+
+"You deserted me," he answered, in mock accusation. "You led me into the
+crackling musketry and ran away."
+
+"I wanted to see of what metal you were made," she answered, and fled to
+her dressing-room to prepare for the final act.
+
+"Now for the real test," said the novelist, with a kindly smile. "I
+think we could all write plays if it were not for the difficulty of
+ending them."
+
+"I begin to tremble for my climax," Douglass answered. "It is so
+important to leave a sweet and sonorous sound in the ear at the last. It
+must die on the sense like the sound of a bell."
+
+"It's a remarkable achievement, do you know," began the English critic,
+"to carry a parable along with a realistic study of life. I can't really
+see how you're coming out."
+
+"I don't know myself," replied Douglass.
+
+The play closed quietly, with a subjective climax so deep, so true to
+human nature that it laid hold upon every heart. The applause was slow
+in rising, but grew in power till it filled the theatre like some great
+anthem. No one rose, no one was putting on wraps. The spell lasted till
+the curtain rose three times on the final picture.
+
+Douglass could not speak as the critic shook his hand. It was so much
+more affecting than he had dared to hope. To sit there while his ideals,
+his hopes, his best thoughts, his finest conceptions were thus
+gloriously embodied was the greatest pleasure of his life. All his doubt
+and bitterness was lost in a flood of gratitude to Helen and to the
+kindly audience.
+
+As soon as he could decently escape he hurried again to Helen. The stage
+this time was crowded with people. The star was hid, as of old, in a mob
+of her admirers, but they were of finer quality than ever before. The
+grateful acknowledgment of these good people was an inspiration. Every
+one smiled, and yet in the eyes of many of the women tears sparkled.
+
+Helen, catching sight of her lover, lifted her hand and called to him,
+and though he shrank from entering the throng he obeyed. Those who
+recognized him fell back with a sort of awe of his good-fortune. Helen
+reached her hand, saying, huskily, "I am tired--take me away."
+
+He took her arm and turned to the people still crowding to speak to her.
+"Friends, Miss Merival is very weary. I beg you to excuse her. It has
+been a very hard week for her."
+
+And with an air of mastery, as significant as it was unconscious he led
+her to her room.
+
+Safely inside the door she turned, and with a finger to her lips, a
+roguish light in her eyes, she said: "I want to tell you something. I
+can't wait any longer. _Enid's Choice_ ran to the capacity of the house
+last week."
+
+For a moment he did not realize the full significance of this. "What!
+_Enid's Choice_? Why, how can that be? I thought--"
+
+"We had twelve hundred and eighty dollars at the Saturday matinee and
+eleven hundred at night. Of course part of this was due to the knowledge
+that it was the last day of the piece, but there is no doubt of its
+success."
+
+A choking came to his throat, his eyes grew dim. "I can't believe it.
+Such success is impossible to me."
+
+"It is true, and that is the reason I was able to burn _Alessandra_."
+
+"And that is the reason Hugh and Westervelt were so cordial, and I
+thought it was all on account of the advance sale of _The Morning_!"
+
+"And this is only the beginning. I intend to play all your plays in a
+repertoire, and you're to write me others as I need them. And
+finally--and this I hate to acknowledge--you are no longer in my debt."
+
+"That I know is not true," he said. "Everything I am to-night I owe to
+you."
+
+"The resplendent author has made the wondrous woman very proud and yet
+very humble to-night," she ended, softly, with eyelashes drooping.
+
+"She has reared a giant that seeks to devour her." He caught her to his
+side. "Do you know what all this means to you and to me? It means that
+we are to be something more than playwright and star. It means that I
+will not be satisfied till your life and mine are one."
+
+She put him away in such wise that her gesture of dismissal allured.
+"You must go, dearest. Our friends are waiting, and I must dress. Some
+time I will tell you how much--you have become to me--but not now!"
+
+He turned away exultant, for her eyes had already confessed the secret
+which her lips still shrank from uttering.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Light of the Star, by Hamlin Garland
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