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diff --git a/28492.txt b/28492.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c10ae7f --- /dev/null +++ b/28492.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5291 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT OF THE STAR *** + +***** This file should be named 28492.txt or 28492.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/4/9/28492/ + +Produced by David Yingling, Matt Whittaker, Bethanne M. +Simms, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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