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diff --git a/old/60037-0.txt b/old/60037-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index deccffe..0000000 --- a/old/60037-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14921 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Clipped Wings, by Rupert Hughes - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Clipped Wings - -Author: Rupert Hughes - -Release Date: August 1, 2019 [EBook #60037] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLIPPED WINGS *** - - - - -Produced by Alex White & the online Distributed Proofreaders -Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net - - - - - - - - - - - BOOKS BY - RUPERT HUGHES - - - CLIPPED WINGS. Frontispiece. Post 8vo. - WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY? Illustrated. Post 8vo. - THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER. Frontispiece. 16mo. - EMPTY POCKETS. Illustrated. Post 8vo. - - * * * * * - - HARPER & BROTHERS. NEW YORK - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - - CLIPPED WINGS - PUBLISHED SERIALLY AS “THE BARGE OF DREAMS” - - A NOVEL - - - BY - - RUPERT HUGHES - - AUTHOR OF - “WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY?” - “EMPTY POCKETS” ETC. - - - - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK AND LONDON - - - - - CLIPPED WINGS - - * * * * * - - Copyright, 1914, by Harper & Brothers - Printed in the United States of America - Published January, 1916 - - - - - TO - ROBERT H. DAVIS - WITH AFFECTIONATE ADMIRATION - - - - - Clipped Wings - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -The proud lady in the new runabout was homeward bound from a shopping -raid. It was her first voyage down-town alone with the thing. She guided -the old family horse up to her curb in a graceful sweep, but, like a new -elevator-boy, could not come to a stop at the stopping-place. - -She could go forward or back, but she could not exactly negotiate her -own stepping-block. As she blushingly struggled for it she heard the -scream of a child in desperate terror. It inspired an equal terror, for -it came from her own house. - -She had left her two children at home, expecting playmate guests. She -had extracted from them every imaginable promise to be good and to -abstain from danger. But she knew how easily they romped into perils. -She heard the cry again, and clutched her breast in a little death of -fear as she half leaped, half toppled from her carriage and ran up the -walk, leaving the horse to his own devices. - -The poor woman was wondering which of her beloved had fallen on the -shears or into the fire. Which of the dogs had gone mad, and bitten -whom. While she stumbled up the steps she heard the outcry repeated and -she paused. - -That voice was the voice of neither of her own children. The thought -that a neighbor’s child might have perished in her home was almost more -fearful still. As she fumbled at the door-knob she heard the thud of a -little falling body. Then there was a most dreadful silence. - -She hastened to the big living-room. She thrust back the somber hanging, -and stepped on the arm of her own son. - -He was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. He did not move, though -his wrist rolled under her foot. - -She flinched away, sickened, only to behold a yet ghastlier spectacle: -her daughter hung across the arm of a couch, her hair over her face, and -one limp hand touching the floor. At her feet was a young nephew in a -contorted huddle with his head under the table. The son of a neighbor -was stretched out on a chair, his face flung far back and his eyes -staring. - -And on the panther-skin by the fireplace a young girl whom Mrs. Vickery -had never seen before lay sidelong, singularly beautiful in death. - -Before this vision of inconceivable horror the mother stood petrified, -her throat in the grip of such fright that she could not utter a sound. -Then her knees yielded and she sank to the side of her boy, clutched him -to her breast, and cried: - -“Eugene! my little ’Gene!” - -She pressed her palsied lips to his cheek. Thank God, it was still warm. -He moved, he thrust her arms away, and mumbled. She bent to catch the -words: - -“Lea’ me alone! I’m dead!” - -With a sigh of infinite relief she spilled him back to the rug, where he -lay motionless. She called sharply to the girl on the couch: - -“Dorothy! Dorothy!” - -A tremor ran through the child—she seemed to struggle with herself. -From her cataract of curls came a sound as of torn canvas, a sound -dangerously like one of those explosions of snicker that Dorothy -frequently emitted in church during the long prayer. But she did not -look up. - -Half angry, half ecstatic, Mrs. Vickery rose and moved among the -littered corpses, like Edith looking for King Harold’s body on Hastings -field. She passed by her nephew, Tommy Jerrems, and Mrs. Burbage’s boy, -Clyde, and proceeded to the eerie stranger on the panther-skin. - -This child would have looked deader if she had not been breathing so -hard, and if her exquisite face had not been so scarlet in the tangle of -her hair, which was curiously adorned with bottle-straw and excelsior -from a packing-case in the cellar and with artificial flowers from a -last-summer’s hat of Mrs. Vickery’s in the attic. - -Mrs. Vickery bent above the panting ruins, lifted one relaxed hand, and -inquired, “And who are you, little girl?” - -“Don’t touch me, please; I’m all wet!” - -Mrs. Vickery forgot her imagination long enough to expostulate, “Why, -no, you’re not, my dear!” - -And now the eyes opened with the answer: “Oh yes, I am, if you please. -I’ve just drownded myself in the pool here—if you please.” - -“Oh!” Mrs. Vickery assented. “Well, hadn’t you better get up before you -catch cold?” - -The answer to this question was another—a poser. - -“But how can I get up, if you please, until you lower the curtain?” - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Vickery had been a parent often enough and long enough to obey the -solemn behests of children without impertinent whys. She could not -imagine what incantational power might reside in the roller -window-shade, but she hurried to it and pulled it down. - -The little girl scrambled to her feet with a smile of brave regret: -“Thank you ever so much! That’s not a ’maginary curtain, but only a real -one. Still, it will have to do, I s’pose.” Then she addressed the other -victims of fate, all of whom were craning their necks to peek: “Now, -ladies and gent’men, take your curtain calls.” - -On every hand, as at a little local Judgment Day, the dead arose. They -joined hands in a line at her signal. Then she hissed from the side of -her mouth, “Now raise it, please.” The curtain shot up with a slap. -“Thank you. And if you wouldn’t mind applaudin’ a little.” - -The reaction from her terror had rendered Mrs. Vickery almost -hysterical, but she managed to keep her face straight and her hands busy -while the line bowed and bowed. - -Once more the directress whispered to Mrs. Vickery, “Pull the curtain -down a minute, please, and let it go up again.” When this was done she -said, “If you got any flowers handy, they’d be nice.” - -Mrs. Vickery unpinned a small bouquet of violets she had presented -herself with at the florist’s and tossed it at the foot of the swaying -line. - -The directress hissed from the other side of her mouth, “Pick ’em up, -’Gene, and give ’em to me.” - -Eugene stooped so hastily and with such rigidity of knee that an -over-tried button at the back of his knickers shot across the room. -Dorothy, who had not ceased to giggle, whooped with joy at this, and -received a glare of rebuke from the star. This did not silence Dorothy. -But then her parents had tried for nine years to find some way of making -her stop laughing without making her begin to cry. - -Eugene was solemn enough and blushed to his ears as he bestowed the -flowers upon the stranger, who first motioned the others back and then -acknowledged the tribute alone with profound courtesies to Mrs. Vickery -and to unseen and unheard plauditors at the right and left. Her smile -was the bizarre parody of innocence imitating sophistication. Then she -threw off the mien of artifice and became informal and a child again. -The game was evidently over. - -Mrs. Vickery, realizing now that she was the belated audience at a -tragedy, assumed her most lion-hunting manner and pleaded, meekly, -“Won’t somebody please introduce me to Mrs. Siddons!” - -Dorothy gasped with amazement and gulped with amusement at her mother’s -stupidity. But before she could make the presentation the stranger -cried: - -“Oh, how did you know?” - -“Know what, my dear?” - -“That my name was Siddons!” - -“Is it, really? But I was referring to the famous actress. She’s been -dead for a hundred years, I think.” - -“Oh yes, but I’m named after her. My middle name is Mrs. Siddons—of -course I mean just Siddons. I’m a linyural descender from her.” - -Dorothy broke in, seriously enough now: “Why, Sheila Kemble, how you -talk! You know you’re no such thing. Your name is Kemble. Isn’t it, -Clyde?” - -Clyde nodded and Dorothy exclaimed, “Yah!” - -Dorothy had not the faintest idea who Mrs. Siddons might be, save that -she was evidently a person of distinction, but Dorothy had a child’s -ferocious resentment at seeing any one else obtaining prestige under -false pretenses. Sheila regarded her with a grandmotherly pity and -answered: - -“My name is Kemble, yes; but if you know so much, Miss Smarty-cat, you -ought to know that Mrs. Siddons’s name was Miss Kemble before she -married Mr. Siddons.” And now in her turn she added the deadly “Yah!” - -Mrs. Vickery, in the office of peacemaker, tried to change the subject: -“‘Sheila’—what a beautiful name!” she cried. “It’s Irish, isn’t it?” - -“Oh yes, ma’am. My papa says that if you’re a great actor you have to -have a streak of either Irish or Jew in you!” - -“Indeed! And is your father a great actor?” - -“Is he? Ask him!” - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Vickery was tormented with an intuitional suspicion that she was in -the presence of a stage-child. She had never met one on the hither side -of the footlights. It was uncanny to stumble upon it dressed like other -children and playing among them as a child. There was a kind of -weirdness about the encounter as if she had found a goblin or a pixie in -the living-room, or a waif suspected of scarlet fever. - -It was she and not the pixie that felt the embarrassment! The first -defense of a person in confusion is usually a series of questions, and -Mrs. Vickery was reduced to asking: - -“What sort of plays does your father play?” - -“Draw’n-room commerdies mostly. People call ’em Roger Kemble parts.” - -Mrs. Vickery spoke with a sudden increase of respect: - -“So your father is the great Roger Kemble! And is your mother an -actress, too?” - -“Is my mother an actress? Why, Mrs. Vickery, didn’t you ever hear of -Miss Polly Farren?” - -It would have been hard indeed to escape the name of Miss Polly Farren. -It was incessantly visible in newspapers and magazines, and on -bill-boards in letters a yard high, with colossal portraits attached. -Mrs. Vickery had seen Polly Farren act. A girlish, hoydenish thing she -was, who made even the women laugh and love her. Mrs. Vickery felt at -first a pride in meeting any relative of hers. Then a chill struck her. -She lowered her voice lest the children hear: - -“But Miss Farren isn’t your mother?” - -“Indeed and she is! And I’m her daughter.” - -“And Roger Kemble is your father?” - -“Yes, indeedy. We’re all each other’s.” - -Mrs. Vickery turned dizzy; the room began to roll like a -merry-go-round—without the merriment. Sheila, never realizing the whirl -she had started, brought it to a sudden and gratifying stop by her next -chatter. - -“You see, when mamma married papa” (Mrs. Vickery’s relief was audible) -“they wanted to travel as Mr. and Mrs. Kemble, but the wicked old -manager objected. He said mamma’s name was a household word, and she was -worth five hunderd a week as Polly Farren and she wasn’t worth -seventy-five as Mrs. Kemble.” - -Mrs. Vickery, whose husband was proud of his hundred a week, was -awestruck at the thought of a woman who earned five hundred. - -Of course it was wicked money, but wasn’t there a lot of it? She was -reassured wonderfully, and, though a trifle tinged with shame for her -curiosity, she baited the child with another question: - -“And have you been on the stage, too?” - -“Indeed, I have! Oh yes, Mrs. Vickery. I was almost born on the -stage—they tell me. I don’t ’member much about it myself. But I ’member -bein’ carried on when I was very young. They tell me I behaved perf’ly -beau’fully. And then once I was one of the little princes that got -smothered in the Tower, at a benefit, and then once we childern gave a -childern’s performance of ‘The Rivals.’ And I was Mrs. Mallerpop.” - -Mrs. Vickery shook her head over her in pity and sighed, “You poor -child!” - -Sheila gasped, “Oh, Mrs. Vickery!” Her eyes were enlarged with wonder -and protest as if she had been struck in the face. - -Mrs. Vickery hastened to explain: “To be kept up so late, I mean: -and—and—weren’t you frightened to death of all those people?” - -“Frightened? Why, they wouldn’t hurt me. They always applauded me and -said, ‘Oh, isn’t she sweet!’” - -Mrs. Vickery had read much about the woes of factory children and of the -little wretches who toil in the coal-mines, and she had heard of the -agitation to forbid the appearance of children on the stage. The -tradition of misery was so strong that she was blinded for the moment to -the extraordinary beauty, vigor, and vivacity of this example. She felt -sorry for her. - -Sheila had encountered such mysterious pity once or twice before and she -flamed to resent it. But even as eloquence rushed to her lips she -remembered her mother’s last words as she kissed her good-by—they had -been an injunction to be polite at all costs. - -The struggle to defend her mother’s glory and to obey her mother’s -self-denying ordinance was so bitter that it squeezed a big tear out of -each big eye. - -Mrs. Vickery, seeming to divine the secret of her plight, cuddled her to -her breast with a gush of affectionate homage. Reassured by this -surrender, Sheila became again a child. - - * * * * * - -And now Dorothy, with that professional jealousy which actors did not -invent and do not monopolize, that jealousy which is seen in animals and -read of in gods—Dorothy stood aloof and pouted at the invader of her -mother’s lap. Her lip crinkled and she batted out a few tears of her own -till her mother stretched forth an arm and made a haven for her at her -bosom. Then Mrs. Vickery spoke between the two wet cheeks pressed to -hers: - -“And now what was this wonderful game where so many people got killed? -Was it a war or a shipwreck or—or what?” - -Sheila forgot her tears in the luxury of instructing an elder. With -unmitigated patronage, as who in her turn should say, “You poor thing, -you!” she exclaimed: “Why, don’t you know? It’s the last ack of -‘Hamlet!’” - -“Oh, I see! Of course! How perfectly stupid of me!” - -Sheila endeavored to comfort her: “Oh no, it wasn’t stupid a tall, Mrs. -Vickery, if you’ll pardon me for cont’adictin’, but—well, you see, we -got no real paduction, no costumes or scenery or anything.” - -Mrs. Vickery said: “That doesn’t matter; but who was who? You see, I got -in so late the usher didn’t give me a program.” - -Sheila was rejoiced at this collaboration in the game. She explained: -“Oh, the p’ograms didn’t arrive in time from the pwinter, and so we had -a ’nouncement made before the curtain. He’s a most un’liable pwinter and -I sent the usher for the p’ograms and he never came back. ’Gene was -Hamlet and he was awful good. He read the silloloquy out of the book -there. He reads very well. And Dorothy was his mother, the Queen, and -she was awful good, too—very good, indeed, ’ceptin’ for gigglin’ in the -serious parts, and after she was dead.” - -Dorothy giggled and wriggled again, to show how it was done. After this -interruption was quelled Sheila went on: - -“Tommy Jerrems was Laertes and he was awful good. The duel with ’Gene -was terrible. I’m afraid one of your umbrellas was bent—the poisoned -one. Tommy didn’t want to die and I had to hit him with a hassock, and -then he was so long dyin’, he held up the whole paformance. But he was -very good. And Cousin Clyde he was the wicked King, and he was awful -good, but then, o’ course, he comes of our family, and you’d naturally -expeck him to be good.” - -Mrs. Vickery suppressed a gasp of protest from Dorothy, who was -intolerant of self-advertisement, and said: “But you were dead, too, -Sheila. Who were you?” - -“Why, I was Ophelia, o’ course!” - -“Oh! But I thought Ophelia died long before the rest, and was buried, -and Hamlet and Laertes fought in her grave, and—” - -“Oh yes, that’s the way it is in the old book. But I fixed it up so’s -Ophelia only p’tended to die—or, no, I mean they thought she was dead, -and they buried another lady, thinkin’ she was her—and all the while -Ophelia is away in a kind of a—a—insanitarum gettin’ cured up. And she -comes home in the last ack to s’prise everybody, and she enters, -laughing, and says, ‘Well, caitiffs and fellow-countrymen, I’m well -again!’ And she sees everybody lyin’ around dead—and then she goes mad -all over again and drownds herself in the big swimmin’-pool—or I guess -it’s a—a fountain—near the throne.” - -“Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Vickery. “That sounds ever so much better.” - -“Well,” said Sheila, shrugging her impudent little shoulders like any -other jackanapes of a reviser, “as my papa says, ‘It sort of knits -things together better and bolsters up the finish.’ You know it’s kind -of bad to leave the leading lady out of the last ack. It makes the -audience mad, you know.” - -“Yes, I know! And was it you who screamed so at the end of the play?” - -Sheila hung her head and tugged at a button on Mrs. Vickery’s waist as -she confessed: “Well, I did my best. O’ course I’m not very good—yet.” - -Dorothy was so matter-of-fact that she would not tolerate even -self-depreciation. She exploded: - -“Why, Sheila Kemble, you are so! She was wonderful, mamma! And she was -so mad crazy she gave me the creeps. And when finally she plounced down -and died, all us other deaders sat up and felt so scared we fell over -again. She went mad simply lovely.” - -And Tommy Jerrems added his posy: “I bet you could ’a’ heard her holler -for three blocks.” - -“I bet I did!” Mrs. Vickery sighed, remembering the fright she had had -from that edged cry. - -The other children fell into a wrangle celebrating Sheila as a person of -amazing learning, powers of make-believe and command, and Sheila, -throned on Mrs. Vickery’s lap, sat twisting her fingers in the pleasant -confusion of one who is too truthful to deny and too modest to confess a -splendid achievement. Now and then she heaved the big lids from her eyes -and Mrs. Vickery read there rapture, deprecation, appeal for applause, -superiority to flattery, self-confidence, and meekness. And Mrs. Vickery -felt that those eyes were born to persuade, to charm, to thrill and -compel. - - * * * * * - -At last Mrs. Vickery said, mainly for politeness’ sake, “I wish I could -have seen the performance.” - -The hint threw a bombshell of energy into the troupe. The mummers all -began to dance and stamp and shriek, “Oh, let’s do it again! Let’s! Oh, -let’s!” - -Every one shouted but Sheila. Her silence silenced the others at last. -She already knew enough to be silent when others were noisy and to -shriek when others were silent. Then like a leaderless army the children -urged her to take the crown. - -Sheila thought earnestly, but shook her head: “It isn’t diggenafied to -play two a day.” This evoked such a tomblike sigh that she relented a -trifle: “We might call this other one a matinée, though, and call the -other one a evening paformance.” - -This was agreed to with ululation. The children set to gathering up the -disjected equipment, the deadly umbrellas, and the envenomed cup. The -last was a golf prize of Mr. Vickery’s. Dropped from the nerveless hand -of the dying king, it had received a bruised lip and a profound dimple. - -With the humming-bird instinct, the children stood tremulously poised -before one flower only a moment, then flashed to another. It was a -proposal by Tommy Jerrems that called them away now. - -Tommy Jerrems had frequently revealed little glints of financial -promise. He had been a notorious keeper of lemonade-stands, a frequent -bankrupt, a getter-up of circuses, and a zealous impresario of baseball -games in which he did all the work and got none of the play. He was of a -useful but unenviable type and would undoubtedly become in later life a -dozen or more unsalaried treasurers and secretaries to various -organizations. - -Tommy Jerrems proposed that the play of “Hamlet” should be enacted at -his mother’s house as a regular entertainment with a fixed price of -admission. This project was hailed with riotous enthusiasm, and King -Claudius turned a cart-wheel in the general direction of a potted -palm—and potted it. - -There was some excitement over the restoration of this alien verdure, -and Mrs. Vickery was glad that her own home had not been re-elected as -playhouse. She made a mild protest on behalf of Mrs. Jerrems, but she -was assailed with so frenzied a horde of suppliants that she -capitulated; at least she gave her consent that Dorothy and Eugene might -take part. - -There was a strenuous Austrian parliament now upon a number of matters. -Somehow, out of the chaos, it was gradually agreed that there should be -real costumes as well as what Sheila called “props.” She explained that -this included gold crowns, scepters, thrones, swords, helmets, spears, -and what not. - -Suddenly Sheila let out another of those heart-stopping shrieks of hers. -She had been struck by a very lightning of inspiration. She seized Tommy -as if she would rend him in pieces and howled: “Oh, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy! -You ask your mother to have the bath-tub brought down to the back parlor -and filled up and then I can drownd myself in real water.” - -A pack of wolves could not have fallen more noisily on a wounded brother -than the children fell on this. - -Tommy alone was dubious. He was afraid that the bath-tub was too -securely fastened to the bath-room to be uprooted. But he promised to -ask his mother. Sheila, the resourceful, had an alternative ready: - -“Well, anyway, she could have a wash-boiler brought in from the kitchen, -couldn’t she?” - -Tommy thought mebbe she could, but would she? - -Mrs. Vickery did not interfere. She had an idea that Mrs. Jerrems could -be trusted to see to it that Ophelia had an extra-dry drowning. Mrs. -Jerrems was rather fond of her furniture. - -Money to buy gold paper for the crowns, and silver paper to make canes -look like swords and curtain-poles like spears, nearly wrecked the -project. But Tommy thought that by patience and assiduity he could shake -out of the patent savings-bank his father had given him enough dimes to -subsidize the institution, on condition that he might reimburse himself -out of the first moneys that were bound to flood the box-office. - -There was earnest debate over the price of admission. Clyde Burbage -suggested five pins, but Sheila turned up her nose at this; it sounded -amateurish. She said that her father and mother would never play in any -but two-dollar theaters—or “fe-aters,” as she still called them. Still, -she supposed that since the comp’ny was all juveniles they’d better not -charge more than a dollar for seats, and fifty cents for the -nigger-heaven. - -Tommy Jerrems, who had some bitter acquaintance with the ductile -qualities of that community, emitted a long, low “Whew!” He said that -they would be lucky to get five cents a head in that town, and not many -heads at that. This sum was reluctantly accepted by Sheila, and the -syndicate moved to adjourn. - -Sheila put her hand in Mrs. Vickery’s and ducked one knee respectfully. -But Mrs. Vickery, with an impulse of curious subservience, knelt down -and embraced the child and kissed her. - -She had an odd feeling that some day she would say, “Sheila Kemble? Oh -yes, I knew her when she was a tiny child. I always said she would -startle the world.” - -She seemed even now to hear her own voice echoing faintly back from the -future. - -The guests made a quiet exit at the door, but they stampeded down the -steps like a scamper of sheep. Sheila’s piercing cry came back. It was -wildly poignant, though it expressed only her excitement in a game of -tag. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -The house seemed still to quiver after the neighbors’ young had left. -Mrs. Vickery moved about restoring order. And Dorothy bustled after her, -full of talk and snickers. But Eugene curled up in a chair by a window -as solemn as Sophokles. - -Mrs. Vickery was still thinking of Sheila. She asked first of her, “How -did you come to meet this little Kemble girl?” - -Dorothy explained: “Oh, I telephoned Clyde Burbage to come over and -play, and he said he couldn’t, ’cause they had comp’ny; and I said, -‘Bring comp’ny along,’ and he did, and she’s his cousin; her grandma -lives at his house, and her papa and mamma are going to visit there at -Clyde’s for a week. Isn’t Sheila a case, mamma? She says the funniest -things. I wish I could ’member some of ’em.” - -Mrs. Vickery smiled and stared at Dorothy. In the grand lottery of -children she had drawn Dorothy. She saw in the child many of her own -traits, many of the father’s traits. She loved Dorothy, of course, and -had much good reason for her instinctive devotion, and many rewards for -it. And yet the child was singularly talentless, as her father was, as -Mrs. Vickery confessed herself to be. - -She wondered at the strange distribution of human gifts—some dowered -from their cradles with the workaday virtues and commonplace vices, and -some mysteriously flecked with a kind of wildness that is both less and -more than virtue, an oddity that gives every speech or gesture an -unusual emphasis, a rememberable differentness. - -Dorothy was a safe child to have; she would make a reliable, admirable, -good woman. But Mrs. Vickery felt that if Sheila had been her child she -would have been incessantly afraid of the girl and for her, incessantly -uncertain of the future. Yet, she would have watched her, and the -neighbors would have watched her, with a breathless fascination as one -watches a tight-rope walker who moves on a hazardous path, yet moves -above the heads of the crowd and engages all its eyes. - -Little Eugene Vickery had a quirk of the unusual, but it was not -conspicuous; he was a burrower, who emerged like a mole in unexpected -places, and led a silent, inconspicuous life gnawing at the roots of -things. - -His mother found him now, as so often, taciturn, brooding, thinking long -thoughts—the solemnest thing there is, a solemn child. - -“Why are you so silent, Eugene?” she said. - -He smiled sedately and shook his head with evasion. But Dorothy pointed -the finger of scorn at him; she even whittled one finger with another -and taunted him, shrilly: - -“’Gene’s in love with Sheila! ’Gene’s in love with Sheila!” - -“Am not!” he growled with a puppy’s growl. - -“Are so!” cried Dorothy, jubilantly. - -“Well, s’posin’ I am?” he answered, sullenly. “She’s a durned sight -smarter and prettier than—some folks.” - -This sobered Dorothy and crumpled her chin with distress. Like her -mother, she had long ago recognized with helpless regret that she was -not brilliant. - -Mrs. Vickery, amazed at hearing the somber Eugene accused of so -frivolous a thing as a love-affair, stared at him and murmured, “Why, -’Gene!” - -Feeling a storm sultry in the air, she warned Dorothy that it was time -to practise her piano-lesson. Dorothy, whose other name was Dutiful, -made no protest, but began to trudge up and down the scales with a -perfect accuracy that was somehow perfectly musicless and almost -unendurable. - -Mrs. Vickery knew that Eugene would speak when he was ready, and not -before. She pretended to ignore him, but her heart was beating high with -the thrill of that new era in a mother’s soul when she sees the first of -her children smitten with the love-dart and becomes a sort of painfully -amused Niobe, wondering always where the next arrow will come from and -which it will hit next. - -After a long while Eugene spoke, though not at all as she expected him -to speak. But then he never spoke as she expected him to speak. He -murmured: - -“Mamma?” - -“Yes, honey.” - -“Do you s’pose I could write a play as good as that old Shakespeare -did?” - -“Why—why, yes, I’m sure you could—if you tried.” - -Mrs. Vickery had always understood the rarely comprehended truth that -praise creates less conceit than the withholding of it, as food builds -strength and slays the hunger that cries for it. - -Eugene was evidently encouraged, but he kept silence so long that -finally she gave him up. She was leaving the room when he murmured -again: - -“Mamma.” - -“Yes, honey.” - -“I guess I’ll write a play.” - -“Fine!” she said. - -“For Sheila.” - -“Oh!” - -Mrs. Vickery cast up her eyes and stole out, not knowing what to say. -Already the child was turning his affections away from home and her. - -An hour later she almost stepped on him again. He was lying on the rug -by the twilight-glimmering window of the dining-room, whither Dorothy’s -relentless scales had driven him. He was lying on his stomach with his -nose almost touching his composition-book, and he was scrawling large -words laboriously with a nub of pencil so stubby that he seemed to be -writing with his own forefinger bent like a grasshopper’s leg. - -William Shakespeare, Gent., sleeping in Avon church, had no knowledge of -what conspiracy was hatching against his long-enough prestige. And if he -had known, that very human mind of his might have suspected the truth, -that the inspiration of his new rival was less a desire to crowd an old -gentleman from the top shelf of fame than to supplant him in the esteem -of a certain very young woman. - -Shakespeare himself in that same kidnapped play of his called “Hamlet” -complained of the children’s theater that rivaled his own. - -There was complaint now of the new children’s theater in the minor city -of Braywood. Three homes were topsy-turvied by the insatiable, -irrepressible mummers. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -It was less than an hour after Sheila had left Mrs. Vickery’s when Mrs. -Jerrems was on the telephone, plaintively demanding, “Who on earth is -this Kemble child?” - -Mrs. Vickery told her what she knew, and Mrs. Jerrems sighed: “A -stage-child! That explains everything. She’s got Tommy simply -bewitched.” - -Besides the requisition for costumes and accessories that turned every -attic trunk inside out there was an uneasy social complication. - -Mrs. Jerrems and Mrs. Burbage knew each other only slightly and liked -each other something less than that. Yet Tommy and Sheila had arranged -that Mrs. Burbage and her husband and her mother and the strangers -within their gates should all descend upon Mrs. Jerrems and pay five -cents apiece for the privilege of entering her drawing-room. - -Only one thing could have been more intolerable than obeying the -children’s embarrassing demand, and that would have been breaking the -children’s hearts by refusing it. So Sheila’s mother and father, her -grandmother and her aunt, were all browbeaten into accepting the -invitations that Mrs. Jerrems had been browbeaten into extending. - -Sheila assumed that Mrs. Jerrems was as much interested in Mr. -Shakespeare’s success as she was. And she rather took control of the -house, saying a great many “Pleases,” but uprooting the furniture from -the places it had occupied till they had become almost sacred. She had -half of the drawing-room cleared of chairs and the other half packed -with rows of them. She commandeered two of Mrs. Jerrems’s guest-room -sheets (the ones with the deep hemstitching and the swollen initials). -These she pinned upon a rope stretched from two nails driven into the -walls, with conspicuous damage to the plaster, since the first places -chosen did not hold the nails—and came out with them. The rope was the -clothes-line, which was needed in the yard, but which Tommy had calmly -cut down at Sheila’s requisition. He had cut his own finger incidentally -and it bled copiously on the dining-room drugget. He had later nailed -the bandage to the wall and gone overboard with the stepladder, carrying -with him what he could clutch from the mantelpiece _en passant_. - -This was not the only damage; _item_, a wonderful imitation cut-glass -celery-jar used during rehearsals to represent the chalice of poison; -_item_, several gouges in furniture, which Mrs. Jerrems would almost -rather have had in her own flesh than in her mahogany. - -But eventually the evening came and the guests went shyly into the rows -of chairs that made Mrs. Jerrems’s drawing-room look like a funeral. -Mrs. Jerrems was worried, too, by the thought of entertaining not only -the child of stage people, but an actor and an actress too famous to be -disguised. - -She wondered what her preacher would say of it. - -And she could not feel easy about the spectacle of her son standing in -her hallway and collecting money from callers before they were admitted. - -The performance was a torment. The strutting children were so pompous -that it was impossible to watch them without laughter, yet laughter -would have been heinously cruel. The usual relations were reversed: the -children comported themselves with vast reverence for a great work of -art, and the naughty parents sat smothering their snickers. - -The voice of the prompter was loud in the wings (the dining-room and -hall), and the action was suspended occasionally while the actors -quarreled with the prompter as to whose turn it was to speak. The -Sheila-ized Shakespeare had not been written down, and, though the play -was greatly compressed, the company forgot a good deal of what was left. -In her innocence, the editress had also neglected to omit certain -phrases that polite grown-ups suppress. These came forth with appalling -effect. - -Laertes was so enraptured with counting and recounting the box-office -receipts that he had to be sent for on two occasions. Clyde and Eugene -came to blows on a dispute extraneous to the plot, and Dorothy, as the -mother, giggled all through the closet scene and continued to whinny -long after she had quaffed the fatal cup. Her last words were: “Oh -Ha-ha-hamlet, the drink, the d-d-drink! I am poi-hoi-hoi-hoisoned.” -This, combined with the litter of corpses, set the audience into a roar -of laughter. - -Then Sheila entered as the late-returning Ophelia and sobered them -somehow on the instant. - -Sheila won an indisputable triumph. The others were at best children, -and peculiarly childish in the rôles that have swamped all but the -largest hulls. But Sheila, for all her shortcomings and far-goings, had -an uncanny power. Even when she doubled as the Ghost and tripped over -the sheet in which she squeaked and gibbered nobody laughed. Her girlish -treble, trying to be orotund, had moments of gruesome influence. Her -Ophelia was pathetically winsome in the earlier scenes, and in the mania -she struck notes that put sudden ice into the blood. There was no -denying her a dreadful intuition of things she could not know, and a -gift for interpreting what she had never felt. - -The other parents were ashamed of the contrast. As Mrs. Jerrems -whispered to Mrs. Vickery, “One thing is certain, your Dorothy and my -boy Tom will never know how to act.” - -“But,” Mrs. Vickery whispered back, “that doesn’t prove that they won’t -go on the stage.” - - * * * * * - -After the final curtain and innumerable curtain calls the play was ended -and the audience filed back of the sheet to lavish its homage on the -troupe. - -Mrs. Jerrems had resolved to make the best of it, once she was in for -it; and tried to take the curse off the profanation of collecting money -from her guests by entertaining them and the actors at a little supper. -Her son Tommy, always the financier, felt a greater profanation in the -idea of charging five cents admission and then throwing in a supper that -cost fifty cents a head. But Mrs. Jerrems told Tommy to take care of his -end of the enterprise and she would take care of hers. And she reminded -him that the supper would cost him nothing. He consoled himself with the -reflection that “Women got no head for business.” - -The juvenile tragedians ate at a small side-table, and so completely -relaxed the solemnity they had revealed on the boards that the elder -laity chiefly listened and smiled among themselves. - -Mrs. Jerrems studied Roger Kemble and his wife, “Miss” Farren, -surreptitiously, as one would study a Thibetan or a Martian. Knowing in -advance that they were actors, she felt sure that she found in them odd -and characteristic mannerisms, for it is easy to find proofs when we -have the facts. And once a man is known to be an actor it is easy to see -the marks of the grease-paint, though, not knowing it, one is as likely -to think him a preacher or a prize-fighter or whatever else he may -suggest. The talk of Mr. Kemble and Miss Farren was normal; their -manners polished, as became a class with so much leisure and culture. -But Mrs. Jerrems felt that she could see the glamour of the footlights -in everything they said or did. - -She had seen them both in some of their plays. On her excursions to New -York, a visit to their theater was hardly less important, and much more -likely to be accomplished, than a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of -Art. When “Farren and Kemble,” as they were apt to be called, left New -York for a tour they rarely visited Braywood, or if they did the prices -at the opera-house were sure to be advanced and all Braywood put on its -best clothes. - -For one thing, Polly Farren and Roger Kemble were pre-eminently -fashionable. Their plays dealt with the fashionable people of Europe and -America. They were generally English, and Roger Kemble was likely to be -Lord Somebody, and Polly Farren at least an Honorable Miss This-or-That. -Or, if they appeared in an American manuscript, they usually owned -country houses and yachts and had titles for guests. Their clothes were -sure to be a sort of prospectus of the next season’s modes. Roger Kemble -was never a fop, and always kept on the safe side of ostentation, yet he -was always scrupulously a pace ahead of the style and groomed to -flawlessness. He represented Piccadilly patterns and his clock was about -five hours ahead of New York time. Polly was a little braver. She was -beautiful, lithe, and dashing, and she was not afraid of anything that -French taste and caprice might prophesy. - -Everybody knew, too, that Polly Farren and Roger Kemble “went with” the -smartest people. Those who knew they were married knew that their summer -cottage was among the handsomest in the Long Island groups. Their -manners were smart, too, with just the right flippancy and just the -right restraint. It was a school of etiquette to see them enter a -drawing-room or sip tea importantly, or tear a passion to embroidery. - -Polly had made her first sensation in a play in which she was supposed -to have imbibed more champagne than her pretty head could carry. The -critics raved over her demonstration of the fine art of being tipsy in a -ladylike manner. Roger Kemble’s rôles frequently compelled him to be “as -drunk as a lord,” and young men of bibulosity tried to remember him in -their cups. - -So now Mrs. Jerrems, watching the husband and wife at the homely task of -stowing away a small-city supper, seemed to be watching a scene on the -stage. She dreaded them, yet she tried to copy them. Faithful -church-member that she was, she abhorred the stage theoretically, and -practically followed its influence more than the church’s. She kept -taking notes on Polly Farren’s costume and carriage, and her husband -would later be admonished that many, many things he did were pitiably -below the standard of Roger Kemble. - -The Kembles were not unaware of the inspection they underwent. They were -used enough to it, yet it irked them in this small community whither -they had retired during the Holy Week closing of their company. They -were glad to be gone as soon as they could decently take their leave and -carry off their wonder-child. - - * * * * * - -Sheila was so exhausted by her labors as editress, directress, and -actress that she had yawned even in the midst of her prettiest -thank-yous for the praise she battened on. On the way she clung to her -father’s hand in a sleep-walking drowse, and lurched into him until he -caught her into his bosom and carried her home and up the stairs to her -bed. She slept while her mother undressed her, and there was no waking -her to her prayers. Even in her heavy slumbers she fell into an attitude -of such grace that it seemed almost conscious. - -Roger and Polly looked at her and smiled; and shook their heads over -her. - -“She is hopelessly ours,” said Kemble. “I’m afraid there’ll be no -keeping her off the stage when she grows up.” - - * * * * * - -Kemble was in his bath-robe in the bath-room before his wife, who had -not moved from her posture of contemplation, suddenly thought aloud: - -“After all, why not?” - -Kemble paused with the tooth-paste tube above his tooth-brush to query, -“Why not what?” - -“What better chance is there for a woman?” - -Kemble moved close enough to her to nudge her out of her muse and demand -again, “What woman are you talking about?” - -“That one,” said Polly. “That little understudy of life. You say we -sha’n’t be able to keep her off the stage. Why should we try to?” - -“Well, knowing what we do of the stage, my dear,—it isn’t exactly the -ideal place for a girl, now is it?” - -“No, of course not. But where is the ideal place for a girl? Is there -such a thing? We know all too well how much suffering and anxiety and -disappointment and wickedness there is on the stage; but where will you -go to escape it? Look at the society wives and daughters we know, in -town and out in the country. Look at the poor girls in the shops and -factories.” - -“That’s so,” Kemble spluttered across his shuttling tooth-brush. “I -rather fancy a smaller city is better.” - -His wife laughed softly: “You ought to have heard what I’ve been hearing -about this town! You’d think it was the home of all villainy. There’s -enough scandal and tragedy here to fill a hundred volumes. There are -problem-plays here—among busy church-members, too—that make Ibsen read -like a copy of _St. Nicholas_.” - -She put out the light in Sheila’s room and went into her own, lighted -herself a cigarette from the cigar her husband had left in her hair-pin -tray, and sat down before the cold radiator as before a fireplace to -talk about life. People were all rôles to her and their histories were -scenarios that interested her more or less as she saw herself playing -them. - -“When I look around at my old school friends and relatives off the -stage,” she said, “I can’t see that they’ve found any recipe for -happiness. Clara Gaines is a domestic soul and her husband is a -druggist, but he leaves her to be domestic all by herself, and she tells -me he never spends a minute at home that he can spend outside. Ella -Westover has divorced two husbands in Terre Haute already. Marjorie -Cranford tells me that her home town out in—in the Middle West -somewhere—has a fast set that makes the Tenderloin look stupid. -Clarice—What’s her name now?—well, she has married an awfully good -man, but she has to wheedle every cent she gets out of him or cheat him -out of it, and she says she wants to scream at his hypocrisy. She thinks -she’ll run off and leave him any day now.” - -Kemble drew a chair to her side and put his feet on the radiator -alongside hers. He found his cigar out, and relighted it with difficulty -from her cigarette as he laughed: - -“Polly is a bit of a pessimist to-night, eh? Is it the quietness of this -little burg? I was rather enjoying the peace and repose and all that -sort of thing.” - -“So was I. But that’s because it’s a change for us to have an evening -off. Think of the women who never have anything else. They’re not happy, -Roger. You can’t find one of them that will say she is.” - -“You don’t fancy small-town respectability for your daughter, then?” - -“I hope she’ll be respectable. But there’s so little real respectability -in being just dull and bored to death, in just sitting round and waiting -for some man to come home, in having nothing to spend except what you -can steal out of his trousers or squeeze out of an allowance. I’d rather -have Sheila an actress than a toadstool or a parasite on some man. She -has one of those wild-bird natures that I had. The safest thing for her -is the freedom and a lot of work and admiration, and a chance to act. -The stage is no paradise, the Lord knows, but the first woman that ever -knew freedom was the actress. These votes-for-women rebels are all -clamoring now for what we actresses have always had. Would it break your -heart, Roger, if our little Sheila went on the stage?” - -Kemble followed a slow cloud of smoke with the soft words: - -“My mother was an actress.” - -He drew in more smoke and let it curl forth luxuriously as he murmured, -“And my wife is an actress.” - -It would have surprised the Farren-Kemble following to see those -flippant comedians so domesticated and holding a solemn _ante-vitam_ -inquest over the future of their child. But a father is a father and a -mother a mother the world over. - -Polly put out her hand and squeezed Roger’s, and he lifted hers and -touched it to his lips with an old comedy grace. She drew the two hands -back across the little gulf between them and returned the compliment, -then rested her cheek on their conjoined fingers and pondered: - -“We could save Sheila the hardest part of it. She wouldn’t have to hang -round the agencies or bribe any brute with herself, or barnstorm with -any cheap company. And she wouldn’t have to go on the stage by way of -any scandal.” - -Roger growled comfortably: “That’s so. She could step right into the -old-established firm of Farren & Kemble. The main thing for us to see is -that she is a good actress—as her mother was and her two grandmothers -and three of her four great-grandmothers, and so on back.” - -Polly amended: “She mustn’t go on the stage too soon, though—or too -late; and she must have a good education—French and German, and travel -abroad and all that.” - -“Then that’s settled,” Kemble laughed. “And as soon as we’ve got her all -prepared and established and on the way to big success, she’ll fall in -love with some blamed cub who’ll drag her to his home in Skaneateles.” - -“Probably; but she’ll come back.” - -“All right. And now, having written Sheila’s life for her to rewrite, -let’s go to bed. There’ll be no sleeping in this noisy house in the -morning.” - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -That was a tremendous week for the children of Braywood. As some quiet -bayou harbors for a time a few birds of passage restlessly resting -before they fly on into the sky, so the domestic poultry of Braywood was -stirred by the Kemble wild fowl. - -Four generations were gathered at the Burbage home. Sheila’s -great-grandmother was always there at the home of Clyde Burbage, senior, -who had fallen out of the line of strollers, and become a merchant. His -wife’s mother, who was Polly Farren’s mother, too, was there for a -visit. The old lady and the older lady had left the stage and now spent -their hours in regretting the decadence of earlier glories, as their -elders had done before them, and as their children would do in their -turn. - -The Kembles and Farrens and Burbages were all peers in the aristocracy -of the theater, which, like every other world, has its princes and -peasants, its merchants and vagabonds, saints and sinners. - -None of this line dated back, however, to the time when Holy Week was a -period of industry for the churchly actors who prepared their miracles -and moralities for the edification of the people. Nowadays Holy Week is -a time when most of the theaters close, and the others entertain -diminished audiences and troupes whose enthusiasm is diminished by the -halving of their salaries. - -It is a period when so many people desire to be seen in church or fear -to be seen in the playhouse, that the receipts drop off amazingly, -though the same people feel it no sin to crowd the same theater the week -before or the week after the Passion sennight. - -Sometimes a play is strong enough in draught to pack the theater in -spite of the anniversary. This year the Farren-Kemble play was not quite -successful enough to justify the risk of half-filled auditoriums. So -they “rested.” - -But to the children, as to the other animals, there are no holy days, or -rather no unholy days. The children of Braywood made a theatrical week -of it, and Sheila reveled in her opportunity. She had an audience -everywhere she went. - -The other children stood about her and wondered. She fascinated them, -and they were eager to do as she bade, though they felt a certain -uneasiness; as if they had wished for a fairy queen to play with and had -got their wish. - -The other children commanded in their own specialties and in their -turns. At outdoor romps and sports Clyde Burbage led the way, and -endangered future limbs or present lives by his fearless banter. At -household games with dolls and diseases Dorothy had a matronly authority -and Sheila was like a novice. In hospital games, Dorothy, the head -nurse, must show her how babies should be handled, punished, and -medicined. - -It should be set down to Sheila’s credit that she was meek as Moses in -the presence of domestic genius. But it must be added that the things -she learned from Dorothy were likely to be exploited later in some drama -where Sheila took full sway. In Dorothy’s games the dolls always -recovered when Dr. Eugene was called in with his grandmother’s -spectacles on. In Sheila’s dramas the dolls almost always perished in -agony, while the desperate mother clung to the embarrassed doctor, at -the same time screaming to him to save the child and whispering him to -pronounce it dead. - -Roger Kemble happened to be passing Mrs. Vickery’s front yard during one -of these tragedies, and paused to watch it across the fence while Mrs. -Vickery attended from the porch. One of those startling unconscious -scandals in which children’s plays abound was suddenly developed, and -Roger moved on rapidly while Mrs. Vickery vanished into the house. - -All the while the young Shakespeare of Braywood wrought upon his play -for Sheila. But the moment he thought he had it perfected, he would hear -her toss off one of the dramatic principles that she had overheard her -father and mother discussing after some rehearsal. Then Eugene would -blush to realize that his drama had violated this dictum and was -unworthy of the great actress. And he would steal away to unravel his -fabric and knit it up again. - -At last it began to shape itself according to her ideals as he had -gleaned them. He sat up finishing it until he was sent to bed for the -fourth time, then he worked in his room till his mother knocked on his -door and ordered his light out and forbade him to leave his bed again. - -He waited till he knew that his parents were asleep, then he cautiously -renewed his light and, sitting up in bed, wrote with that -grasshopper-legged finger of his till he could keep his eyes ajar no -longer. Then he held one eye open with his left hand till the hand -itself went to sleep. He never knew it when his head rolled over to the -pillow. He knew nothing more till he woke, shivering, to find the -daylight in the room and the light still burning expensively. - -He put out the light and worked till breakfast and his play were ready. -After he had spooned up his porridge and chewed down his second glass of -milk he made haste toward Clyde Burbage’s house. He hesitated at the -nearest corner till he found courage to proceed. He mounted the steps -with his precious manuscript buttoned against his swinging heart. He -rang the bell. Mrs. Burbage came to the door, and he peeled his cap from -his burning head: - -“Is—is Clyde at home, Mis’ Burbage?” - -Mrs. Burbage was surprised at the formality of the visit. Boys usually -stood outside and whistled for Clyde or called “Hoo-oo!” or “Hay, -Clyde—oh, Cly-ud!” till he answered. In fact, he had only recently -answered just such a signal from another boy and slammed the door after -him. - -When Eugene learned that Clyde was abroad he made as if to depart, then -paused and, with a violent carelessness, mumbled, “I don’t suppose -Sheila is home, either?” - -“Sheila? Oh no! She and her father and mother left on the midnight -train.” - -“Is that so?” said Eugene as casually as if he had just learned that all -his relatives were dead or that he had overslept Christmas. - -He tried to make a brave exit, but he was so forlorn that Mrs. Burbage -forgot to smile as grown-ups smile at the big tragedies of the little -folk. She watched him struggling overlong at the gate-latch. She saw him -break into a frantic run for home as soon as he had gained the sidewalk. -Then she went inside, shaking her head and thinking the same words that -were clamoring in the boy’s sick heart: - -“Oh, Sheila! Sheila!” - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -The big young man with the shoulders of a bureau would never have been -taken for a student if he had not been crossing the campus with a too -small cap precariously perched on his too much hair, and if he had not -been swinging a strapful of those thin, weary-worn volumes that look to -be text-books and not novels. The eye-glasses set on his young nose -mainly accented his youth. If he had not depended on them he would have -made a splendid center rush. Instead, he was driven to the ’varsity -crew, where he won more glory than in the class-room. He paused before a -ground-floor window of the oldest of the old dormitories. That -window-seat as usual displayed the slim and gangling form of a young man -who was usually to be found there stretched out on his stomach and -reading or writing with solemn absorption. It was necessary to call him -repeatedly before he came back from the mist he surrounded himself with: - -“Hay! ’Gene! Oh, Vick! ’Gene Vickery! Hay you!” - -“Hay yourself! Oh, hey-o, Bret Winfield, h’are you?” - -“Rotten! Say—you going to the theater to-night?” - -“I usually do. What’s the play?” - -“‘A Friend in Need.’ Ran six months in New York.” - -“All right, I’ll go.” - -“Better get a seat under cover of the balcony.” - -“Why?” - -“Looks like a big night to-night. The Freshmen are going to bust up the -show.” - -“Really? Why?” - -Vickery was only a post-graduate, in his first year at Leroy University. -He had gone through the home-town schools and a preparatory school and a -smaller college, before he had moved on to Leroy to earn a Ph.D. He had -long ago given up his ambitions to replace Shakespeare. So now he asked -in his ignorance why the Freshmen of Leroy must break up the play. And -Winfield answered from his knowledge: - -“Because about this time of year the Freshman class always busts up a -show. It’s one of the sacredest traditions of our dear old Alum Mater. -Last year’s Freshies put a big musical comedy on the blink. Kidnapped -half the chorus girls. This year there’s no burlesque in view, so the -cubs are reduced to pulling down a high comedy.” - -“Won’t the faculty do anything about it?” - -“Faculty won’t know anything about it till the morning papers tell how -many policemen were lost and how much damage was done to the theater. If -you’re going, either take an umbrella or sit under the balcony, for -there will be doings.” - -“I’ll be there, Bret.” - -“I wish I could have you with me, but a gang of us Seniors have taken a -front box together. S’long!” - -“S’long!” - -Vickery went back to his text-book. He was to be a professor of Greek. -He had almost forgotten that he had ever fallen in love with an actress. -He had kept no track of stage history. - -His acquaintance with Bret Winfield had been casual until his sister -Dorothy came on to spend a few days near her brother. Dorothy had grown -up to be the sort of woman her childhood prophesied—big, beautiful, -placid, very noble at her best and stupid at her worst. Her big eyes -were the Homeric “ox-eyes,” and Eugene in the first flush of his first -Greek had called her thence Bo-opis, which he shortened later to “Bo.” - -The bo-optic Dorothy made a profound impression on Bret Winfield, and he -cultivated Eugene thereafter on her account. He had a rival in the -scientific school, Jim Greeley, a fellow-townsman of Winfield’s. -Greeley’s matter-of-fact soul was completely congenial to Dorothy, but -the two young men hated each other with great dignity, and Dorothy -reveled in their rivalry. She was quite forgotten, however, when matters -of real college moment were under way—such as the Freshman assault on -the drama. - -The news of the riot-to-be percolated through the two thousand students -without a word reaching the ears of the faculty or the officers of the -theater. There was no reason to expect trouble on this occasion. There -had been no football or baseball or other contest to excite the -students. They made a boisterous audience before the curtain rose—but -then they always did. They called to each other from crag to crag. They -whistled and stamped in unison when the curtain was a moment late; but -that was to be expected in college towns. Strangely, students have been -always and everywhere rioters. - -The first warning the audience had of unusual purposes came when a round -of uproarious applause greeted a comedian’s delivery of a bit of very -cheap wit which had been left in because the author declined to waste -time polishing the seat-banging part of his first act. In this country -an audience that is extremely displeased does not hiss or boo; it -applauds sarcastically and persistently. The poor actor who had aimed to -hurry past the line found himself held up by the ironic hand-clapping. -When he tried to go on, it broke out anew. - -An actor cannot disclaim or apologize for the lines he has to speak, -however his own prosperities are involved in them. So poor Mr. Tuell had -now to stand and perspire while the line he had begged the author to -delete provoked the tempest. - -Whenever the fuming comedian opened his mouth to speak the applause -drowned him. It soon fell into a rhythm of one-two, one-two-three, -one-two, one-two-three. Tuell could only wait till the claque had grown -weary of its own reproof. Then he went on to his next feeble witticism, -another play upon words so childish that it brought forth cries of, -“Naughty, naughty!” - -The other members of the company gathered in the wings, as uncomfortable -as a band of early martyrs waiting their turns to appear before the -lions. To most of them this was their first encounter with a mutinous -audience. - -Audiences are usually a chaos of warring tastes and motives which must -somehow be given focus and unity by the actors. That was the hardest -part of the day’s work—to get the house together. To-night they must -face a ready-made audience with a mind of its own—and that hostile. - -The actors watched the famous “first old woman,” Mrs. John Vining, sail -out with the bravery of a captive empress marching down a Roman street -in chains. She was greeted with harsh cries of, “Grandma!” and, “Oh, -boys, Granny’s came!” - -Mrs. Vining smiled indulgently and went on with her lines. The applause -broke out and continued while she and Mr. Tuell conducted a dumb-show. -Then an abrupt silence fell just in time to emphasize the banality of -her next speech. - -“You ask of Claribel? Speaking of angels, here she comes now.” - -At the sound of her name the actress summoned clutched the cross-piece -of the flat that hid her from the audience. She longed for courage to -run away. But actors do not run away, and she made ready to dance out on -the stage and gush her brilliant first line: “Oh, auntie, there you are. -I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” - -Sheila had always hated the entrance because of its bustling -unimportance. It was exciting enough to-night. No sooner had Mrs. Vining -announced her name than there was a salvo of joy from the mob. - -“Oh, girls, here comes Claribel!” - -Some one stood up and yelped, “Three hearty cheers and a tigress for -Claribel.” - -Sheila fell back into the wings as the clamor smote her. But she had -been seen and admired. There was a hurricane of protest against her -retreat: - -“Come on in, Claribel; the water’s fine!” “Don’t leave the old farm, -Claribel; we need you!” “Peekaboo! I see You Hiding behind the chair.” - -Each of the mutineers shrieked something that he thought was funny, and -laughed at it without heeding what else was shouted. The result was -deafening. - -Eugene Vickery’s heart was set aswing at the glimpse of Sheila Kemble. -The sight of her name on the program had revived his boyhood memories of -her. He rose to protest against the hazing of a young girl, especially -one whose tradition was so sweet in his remembrance, but he was in the -back of the house and his cry of “Shame!” was lost in the uproar, merely -adding to it instead of quelling it. - -Bret Winfield in a stage box had seen Sheila in the wings for some -minutes before her entrance. He knew nothing of her except that her -beauty pleased him thoroughly and that he was sorry to see how scared -she was when she retreated. - -He saw also how plucky she was, for, angered by the boorish unchivalry -of the mob, she marched forth again like a young Amazon. At the full -sight of her the Freshmen united in a huge noise of kisses and murmurs -of, “Yum-yum!” and cries of, “Me for Claribel!” “Say, that’s some gal!” -“Name and address, please!” “I saw her first!” “Second havers!” “Mamma, -buy me that!” She was called a peach, a peacherino, a pippin, a -tangerine, a swell skirt—anything that occurred to the uninspired. - -Sheila felt as if she were struck by a billow. Her own color swept past -the bounds of the stationary blushes she had painted on her cheeks. She -came out again and began her line: “Oh, auntie—” - -It was as if echo had gone into hysterics. Two hundred voices mocked -her: “Oh, auntie!” “Oh, auntie!” “Oh, auntie!” - -She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to run, she wanted to -fight. She wished that the whole throng had but one ear, that she might -box it. - -The stage-manager was shrieking from the wings: “Go on! Don’t stop for -anything!” - -She continued her words with an effect of pantomime. The responses were -made against a surf of noise. - -Then Eric Folwell, who played the hero, came on. He was handsome, and -knew it. He was a trifle over-graceful, and his evening coat fitted his -perfect figure almost too perfectly. He was met with pitiless -implications of effeminacy. “Oh, Clarice!” “Say, Lizzie, are you busy?” -“Won’t somebody slap the brute on the wrist?” “My Gawd! ain’t he -primeval?” “Oh, you cave-girl!” - -As if this were not shattering enough, some of the students had provided -themselves with bags of those little torpedoes that children throw on -the Fourth of July. One of these exploded at Folwell’s feet. At the -utterly unexpected noise he jumped, as a far braver man might have done, -taken thus unawares. - -This simply enraptured the young mob, and showers of torpedoes fell -about the stage. It fairly snowed explosives. The gravel scattered in -all directions. A pebble struck Sheila on the cheek. It smarted only a -trifle, but the pain was as nothing to the sacrilege. - -Somehow the play struggled on to the cue for the entrance of the heroine -of the play. Miss Zelma Griffen was the leading woman. She was supposed -to arrive in a taxicab, and the warning “honk” of it delighted the -audience. She was followed on by a red-headed chauffeur who asked for -his fare, which she borrowed from the hero, then passed to the -chauffeur, who thanked her and made his exit. - -Miss Griffen was a somewhat sophisticated actress with a large record in -college boys. While she waited for her cue, she had cannily decided to -appease the mob by adopting a tone of good-fellowship. She had also -provided herself with a rosette of the college colors. She waved it at -the audience and smiled. - -This was a false note. It was resented as a familiarity and a -presumption. This same college had rotten-egged an actor some years -before for wearing a ’varsity sweater on the stage. It greeted Miss -Griffen with a storm of angry protest, together with a volley of -torpedoes. - -Miss Griffen, completely nonplussed, gaped for her line, could not -remember a word of it, then ran off the stage, leaving Sheila and Mrs. -Vining and Tuell to take up the fallen torch and improvise the scene. -Sheila made the effort, asked herself the questions Miss Griffen should -have asked her, and answered them. It was her religion as an actress -never to let the play stop. - -With all her wits askew, she soon had herself snarled up in a tangle of -syntax in which she floundered hopelessly. The student body railed at -her: - -“Oh, you grammar! ’Rah, ’rah, ’rah, night school!” - -This insult was too much for the girl. She lost every trace of -self-control. - -All this time Bret Winfield had grown angrier and angrier. Bear-baiting -was one thing; but dove-baiting was too cowardly even for mob-action, -too unfair even for a night of sports, unpardonable even in Freshmen. He -was thrilled with a chivalrous impulse to rush to the defense of Sheila, -whose angry beauty had inflamed him further. - -He stood up in the proscenium box and tried to call for fair play. He -was unheard and unseen; all eyes were fastened on the stage where the -fluttering actress besought the howling stage-manager to throw her the -line louder. - -Winfield determined to make himself both seen and heard. Fellow Seniors -in the box caught at his coat-tails, but he wrenched loose and, putting -a foot over the rail, stepped to the apron of the stage. In his struggle -he lost his eye-glasses. They fell into the footlight trough, and he was -nearly blind. - -Sheila, who stood close at hand, recoiled in panic at the sight of this -unheard-of intrusion. The rampart of the footlights had always stood as -a barrier between Sheila and the audience, an impassable parapet. -To-night she saw it overpassed, and she watched the invader with much -the same horror that a nun would experience at seeing a soldier enter a -convent window. - -Winfield advanced with hesitant valor and frowned fiercely at the -dazzling glare that beat upward from the footlights. - -He was recognized at once as the famous stroke-oar of the crew that had -defeated the historic rivals of Grantham University. He was hailed with -tempest. - -Sheila knew neither his fame nor his mission. She felt that he was about -to lay hands on her; all things were possible from such barbarians. Her -knees weakened. She turned to retreat and clung to a table for support. - -Suddenly she had a defender. From the wings the big actor who had played -the taxicab-driver dashed forward with a roar of anger and let drive at -Winfield’s face. Winfield heard the onset, turned and saw the fist -coming. There was no time to explain his chivalric motive. He ducked and -the blow grazed his cheek, but the actor’s impetus caught him off his -balance and hustled him on backward till one foot slid down among the -footlights. Three electric bulbs were smashed as he went overboard into -the orchestra. - -He almost broke the backs of two unprepared viola-players, but they -eased his fall. He caromed off their shoulder-blades into the -multifarious instruments of the “man in the tin-shop.” One foot thumped -bass-drum with a mighty plop; the other sent a cymbal clanging. His -clutching hands set up a riot of “effects,” and he lay on the floor in a -ruin of orchestral noises, and a bedlam of din from the audience. - -By the time he had gathered himself together the curtain had been -lowered and the whole house was in a typhoon. - -A dozen policemen who had been hastily summoned and impatiently awaited -by the manager charged down the aisles and seized each a double arm-load -of the nearest rioters. The foremost policeman received Winfield as he -clambered, shamefaced, over the orchestra rail. - -Winfield started to explain: “I went up there to ask the fellows to be -quiet.” - -The officer, indignant as he was, let out a guffaw of contemptuous -laughter: “Lord love you, kid, if that’s the best lie you can tell, -what’s the use of education?” - -Winfield realized the hopelessness of such self-defense. It was less -shameful to confess the misdemeanor than to be ridiculed for so impotent -a pretext. He suffered himself to be jostled up the aisle and tossed -into the patrol-wagon with the first van-load of prisoners. He counted -on a brief stay there, for it was a custom of the college to tip over -the patrol-wagon and rescue the victims of the police. - -This year’s Freshmen, however, lacked the necessary initiative and -leadership, and before the lost opportunity could be regained the wagon -had rolled away, leaving the class to eternal ignominy. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -Deprived of its ringleaders, the mob fell into such disarray that it was -ready to be cowed by the manager of the theater. He had waited for the -police to remove the chief pirates, and now he addressed the audience -with the one speech that could have had success: - -“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve lowered the curtain and I’m going to keep it -lowered till the hoodlums settle down or get thrown out. The majority of -people here to-night have paid good money to see this show. It is a good -show and played by a company of ladies and gentlemen from one of the -best theaters in New York, and I propose to have them treated as such -while they are in our city. We are going to begin the play all over -again, but if there is any further disturbance I’ll ring down the -asbestos and put out the house lights. And no money will be returned at -the box-office.” - -This last argument converted the mob into a sheriff’s posse. The -house-manager received a round of applause and the first Freshman who -rose in his place was subdued by his own fellow-classmen. - -Bret Winfield spent the night in a cell. He slept little, because the -Freshmen hardly ceased to sing the night long; they were solacing -themselves with doleful glees. Winfield could not help smiling at his -imprisonment. Don Quixote was tasting the reward of misapplied chivalry. - -The next morning he made no defense before the glowering judge who had -played just such pranks in his college days and felt, therefore, a -double duty to repress it in the later generation. He excoriated Bret -Winfield especially, and Winfield kept silence, knowing that the truth -would gain him no credence and only added contempt. The judge fined the -young miscreants five dollars each and left their further punishment to -the faculty. - -On his way back to his rooms after his release, Winfield met Eugene -Vickery, and said, with a wry smile, “Hello, ’Gene! I’ve just escaped -from the penitentiary.” - -To his astonishment, Vickery snapped back, “I’m sorry to hear it.” - -Winfield, seeing that he was in earnest, fumbled for words: “What -the—Why the—Well, say!” - -The slight and spindling youth confronted the bureau-chested giant and -shook his finger in his face: “If you weren’t so much bigger than I am -I’d give you worse than that actor gave you. To think that a great big -hulk like you should try to attack a little girl like that! Don’t you -ever dare speak to me or my sister again.” - -Winfield gave an excellent imitation of incipient apoplexy. He seized -Vickery by the lapels to demand: “Good Lord, ’Gene, you don’t think -I—Say, what do you think I am, anyway? Why—Well, can you beat it? I -ask you? Ah, you can all go plumb to—Ah, what’s the good!” - -Winfield never was an explainer. He lacked language; he lacked the -ambition to be understood. It made him an excellent sportsman. When he -lost he wasted no time in explaining why he had not won. To him the -martyrdom of being misunderstood was less bitter than the martyrdom of -justifying himself. He was so dazed now by the outcome of his -knight-errantry that he resolved to leave the college to its own verdict -of him. Eugene Vickery’s ruling passion, however, was a frenzy to -understand and to be understood. He caught the meaning in Winfield’s -incoherence and seized him by the lapel: - -“You mean that you didn’t go out on the stage to scare the girl, but -to—Well, that’s more like you! I’m a lunkhead not to have known it from -the first. Why, a copper collared me, too, and accused me of being one -of the Freshmen! I talked him out of it and proved I was a -post-graduate, or I’d have spent the night in a dungeon, too. Well, -well! and to think I got you so wrong! You write a statement to the -papers right away.” - -“Ah, what’s the good?” - -“Then I will.” - -“Just as much obliged, but no, you won’t.” - -“You ought to square yourself with the people who—” - -“There’s just two people I want to square myself with—that little -actress who didn’t realize what I was there for, and that damned actor -who knocked me through the bass-drum. Who were they, anyway? I didn’t -get a program.” - -“I didn’t see the man’s name; but the girl—I used to know her.” - -“You did! Say!” - -“She was only a kid then, and so was I. She could act then, too,—for a -kid, but now—You missed the rest of the show, though, didn’t you?” - -“Yes. I was called away.” - -“After you left, the audience was as good as a congregation. Sheila -Kemble—that’s the girl—was wonderful. She didn’t have much to do, but, -golly! how she did it! She had that thing they call ‘authority,’ you -know. I wrote a play for her as a kid.” - -“You did! Say! Did she like it?” - -“She never saw it. But I’m going to write her another. I planned to be a -professor of Greek—but not now—ump-umm! I’m going to be a playwright. -And I’m going to make a star out of Sheila Kemble, and hitch my wagon to -her.” - -“Well, say, give me a ride in that wagon, will you? Do you suppose I -could meet her? I’ve got to square myself with her.” - -Eugene looked a trifle pained at Bret’s interest in another girl than -Dorothy, but he said: “I’m on my way to the theater now to find out -where she’s stopping and leave this note for her. I don’t suppose she’ll -remember me; but she might.” - -“Do you mind if I tag after you? I might get a swipe at that actor, -too.” - -“Oh, well, come along.” - -They marched to the theater, stepping high and hoping higher. The stage -door-keeper brought them to ground with the information that the company -had left on a midnight train after the performance. He had no idea where -they had gone. - -The two youths, ignorant of the simple means of following theatrical -routes, went back to their dismal university with a bland trust that -fate would somehow arrange a rencounter for them. - -Winfield was soon called before the faculty. He had rehearsed a speech -written for him by Eugene Vickery. He forgot most of it and ruined its -eloquence by his mumbling delivery. - -The faculty had dealt harshly with the Freshmen, several of whom it had -sent home to the mercy of their fathers. But Winfield’s explanation was -accepted. In the first place, he was a Senior and not likely to have -stooped to the atrocity of abetting a Freshman enterprise. In the second -place, he would be needed in the next rowing-contest at New London. In -the third place, his millionaire father was trembling on the verge of -donating to the university a second liberal endowment. - -Winfield and Vickery returned to their daily chores and put in camphor -their various ambitions. Winfield endured the multitudinous jests of the -university on his record-breaking backward dive across the footlights, -but he made it his business to find out the name of the actor who -brought him his ignominy. In time he learned it and enshrined “Floyd -Eldon” and “Sheila Kemble” in prominent niches for future attention. -Somehow his loneliness for Dorothy seemed less poignant than before. - -Eugene Vickery could have been seen at almost any hour, lying on his -stomach and changing an improbable novel into an impossible play. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - -It was Sheila Kemble’s destiny to pass like a magnet through a world -largely composed of iron filings, though it was her destiny also to meet -a number of silver chums on whom her powers exerted no drag whatever. -Her father had been greatly troubled by her growth through the various -strata of her personality. He had noted with pain that she had a company -smile which was not the smile that illumined her face when she was -simply happy. He had begun a course of education. He kept taking her -down a peg or two, mimicking her, satirizing her. Her mother protested. - -“Let the child alone. It will wear off. She has to go through it, but -she’ll molt and take on a new set of feathers in due time.” - -“She’s got to,” Kemble groaned. “I’d rather have her deformed than -affected. If she’s going to be conscious of something, let her be -conscious of her faults.” - -Sheila had been schooled at school as well as at home. With both father -and mother earning large sums, the family was prosperous enough to give -its only child the most expensive forms of education—and did. In school -she tormented and charmed her teachers; she was so endlessly eager for -attention. It was true that she always tried to earn it and deserve it, -but the effort irritated the instructors, whose ideal for a girl was -that she should be as inconspicuous as possible. That was not Sheila’s -ideal. Not at all! - -She had soon tired of her classes. She was by nature quick at study. She -learned her lessons by a sort of mental photography, as she learned her -rôles later. The grind of her lessons irked her, not because she wanted -to be out at play like other children, but because she wanted to be in -at work. As ambitious young men chafe to run away from school and begin -their destinies, so young women are beginning to fret for their own -careers. - -But Sheila’s father and mother were eager for her to stay a baby. Polly -Farren especially was not unwilling to postpone acknowledging herself -the mother of a grown-up daughter. - -“You must have your childhood,” Roger had said. - -“But I’ve had it,” Sheila declared. - -“Oh, you have, have you?” her father laughed. “Why, you little upstart -kid, you’re only a baby.” - -Sheila protested: “Juliet was only thirteen years old when she married -Romeo, and Eleonora Duse was only fourteen when she played the part, and -here I’m sixteen and I haven’t started yet.” - -“Help! help!” cried Roger, with a sickish smile. “But you must prepare -yourself for your career by first educating yourself as a lady.” - -This argument had convinced her. She consented to play one more season -at Miss Neely’s school. She came forth more zealous than ever to be an -actress. Polly and Roger had wheedled her along as best they could, -tried to interest her in literature, water-colors, needlework, golf, -tennis, European travel. But her cry for “work” could not be silenced. - -When the autumn drew on they had urged her to try one year more at -school, pleaded that there was no opening for her in their company. She -was too young, too inexperienced. - -She murmured “Yes?” with an impudent uptilt of inflection. - -She left the house, and came home that afternoon bringing a contract. -She handed it to her father with another of those rising inflections, -“No?” - -He looked at the paper, gulped, called, “Polly!” - -They looked it over together. The party of the first part was J. J. -Cassard. - -“And who is J. J. Cassard?” said Polly, trying not to breathe fast. -Roger growled: - -“One of those Pacific-coast managers trying to jimmy a way into New -York.” - -Hoping to escape the vital question by attacking the details, Roger -glanced through the various clauses. It was a splendid contract—for -Sheila. The hateful “two-weeks’ clause” by which she could be dismissed -at a fortnight’s notice was omitted and in its place was an agreement to -pay for her costumes and a maid. - -“Do you mean to say,” Kemble blustered, “that Cassard handed you a -document like that right off the reel?” - -“Oh no,” perked Sheila; “he gave me a regular white-slave mortgage at -first.” - -“Where does she learn such language!” gasped Polly. - -Sheila went on, “But I whipped him out on every point.” - -“It looks almost suspicious,” said Kemble, and Polly protested. - -“I was ten years on the stage before I got my modern costumes and a -maid.” - -“Well,” said Sheila, as blandly as if she were a traveling saleswoman -describing her wares, “Cassard said I was pretty, and I reminded him -that I had the immense advertising value of the great Roger Kemble’s -name, and I told him I had probably inherited some of the wonderful -dramatic ability of Polly Farren. I told him I might take that for my -stage name—Farren Kemble.” - -Father and mother cast their eyes up and shook their heads, but they -could not help being pleased by the flattery implied and applied. - -Roger said: “Well, if all that is true, we’d better keep it in the -family. You’ll go with us.” - -“But you said there was no part for me to play.” - -“There’s the chambermaid.” - -“No, you don’t!” said Sheila. “You don’t hide me in any of those ‘Did -you rings?’ and ‘Won’t you sit down, ma’ams?”’ - -“We’ll have the author build up the part a little, and there’s a bit in -the third act that’s really quite interesting.” - -Sheila refused flatly. But her mother cried all that night, and her -father looked so glum the next morning that she consented to chaperon -them for one more year. - -She revealed a genuine gift for the stage, and she had a carrying -personality. When she entered as the chambermaid and said, “Did you -ring?” the audience felt a strangely vivid spark of reality at once. She -needed nothing to say. She just was. Like some of the curiously alive -figures in the paintings of the Little Dutch masters, she was perfectly -in and of the picture, and yet she was rounded and complete. She was -felt when she entered and missed when she left. - -Two or three times when her mother fell ill Sheila played her part—that -of a young widow. She did not look it yet, of course, but there was that -same uncanny actuality that had stirred the people who watched her as an -infantile Ophelia. - -Seeing that she meant to be a star and was meant to be one, her parents -gave her the best of their wisdom, taught her little tricks of make-up, -and gesture, and economy of gesture; of emphasis by force and of -emphasis by restraint; the art of underlining important words and of -seeming not to have memorized her speeches, but to be improvising them -from the previous speech or from the situation. They taught her what can -be taught of the intricate technique of comedy—waiting for the laugh -while seeming to hurry past it; making speed, yet scoring points; the -great art of listening; the delicate science of when to move and when -not to move, and the tremendous power of a turn of the eyes. And, above -all, they hammered into her head the importance of sincerity—sincerity. - -“There are hundreds of right ways to read any line,” Roger would say, -“and only one way that’s wrong—the insincere way. Insincerity can be -shown as much by exaggeration as by indifference. Let your character -express what you feel, and the audience will understand you, if it’s -only a slow closing of the eyes once or a little shift of the weight. Be -sincere!” - -Two seasons later, Roger’s manager brought over from Europe a well-tried -success that suited Roger and Polly to a T, but included no rôle at all -for Sheila. She simply could not play the fat old dowager, and she -simply would not play the laconic housemaid. The time had come for the -family to part. - - * * * * * - -Fathers are always frightened to death of their daughters’ welfares in -this risky, woman-trapping world. Roger Kemble knew well enough what -dangers Sheila ran. Whether they were greater than they would have been -in any other walk of life or in the most secluded shelter, he did not -know. He knew only that his child’s honor and honesty were infinitely -dear to him, and that he could not keep her from running along the -primrose path of public admiration. He could not be with her always. - -He managed to get Sheila an engagement with the production called “A -Friend in Need.” The part was not important, but she could travel with -her great-aunt, Mrs. Vining, who could serve as her guardian and teach -her a vast deal about acting as an art and a business. Also Polly -decided to give Sheila her own maid, Nettie Pennock, a slim, prim, grim -old spinster whose very presence advertised respectability. Pennock had -spent most of her life in the theater, and looked as if she had never -seen a play. Polly said that she “looked like all the Hard-shell Baptist -ministers’ wives in the world rolled into one.” - -But Pennock was broad-hearted and reticent, and as tolerant as -ministers’ wives ought to be. She was efficient as a machine, and as -tireless. She could be a tyrant, and her faultfindings were sparse and -sharp as drops of vinegar from a cruet. Polly was more afraid of them -than of all the thumps of the bladder-swatting critics. - -Yet that frosty face could smile with the sudden sweetness of sunlight -on snow, and Sheila’s arms about her melted her at once, except when she -had done some mischief or malice. And then Pennock could be thawed only -by a genuine and lengthy penance. - -Roger urged Polly to fill Sheila’s ears with good counsel, but Polly -Farren knew how little impression advice makes on those whom no inner -instinct impels to do the right thing anyway. - - * * * * * - -After the usual rehearsals in New York, “A Friend in Need” had the usual -preliminary weeks on the road before it was submitted to New York. - -When the time came for Sheila to leave home and strike out for herself, -it fell to Roger to take her to the train. Polly was suffering from one -of those sick headaches of hers which prostrated her when she was not at -work, though they never kept her from giving a sparkling performance. -Indeed, Kemble used to say that if the Angel Gabriel wanted to raise -Polly from the grave on Judgment morning, all the trumpets of the -Apocalypse would fail to rouse the late sleeper. But if he murmured -“Overture!” she would be there in costume with all her make-up on. - -On the way to the station with Sheila, who was as excited as a boy going -to sea, Roger was mightily troubled over her. She was indeed going to -sea, and in a leaky boat, the frail barge of dreams. He felt that he -must speak to her on the Importance of Being Good. The frivolous -comedian suffered anguishes of stage-fright, but finally mustered the -courage to deliver himself as Polonius might have done if it had been -Ophelia instead of Laertes who was setting out for foreign travel. - -It was a task to daunt a preachier parent than Roger Kemble, and it was -not easy to talk first principles of behavior to a sophisticated young -woman who knew as much about things as Sheila did. - -Roger made a dozen false starts and ended in gulps, till Sheila finally -said: “What’s the matter, old boy? You’re trying to say something, but I -can’t make out what it is. Tell me, and I may be able to throw you the -line.” - -“It’s about you, honey. I’m—That is, Polly is—At least your mother and -I—Well, anyway—” - -“Yes, and then?” said Sheila. - -Roger got the bit in his teeth and bolted. “The fact is, young woman, -you are all the daughters of your father’s and mother’s house. We’re -awfully proud of you, of course. And we know you’re going to be a big -actress. But we’d rather have you Just a good girl than all the stars in -the Milky Way squeezed into one. Do you still say your prayers at night, -honey?” - -“Sometimes,” she sighed, “when I’m not too sleepy.” - -“Well, say ’em in the mornings, then, when you first get up.” - -“I’m pretty sleepy, then, too.” - -“Well, for Heaven’s sake, say ’em sometimes.” - -“All right, daddy, I promise. Was that all?” - -“Yes! No! That is—You see, Sheila, you’re starting out by yourself and -you’re awfully pretty, and you’re pretty young, and the men are always -after a pretty girl, especially on the stage. And being on the stage, -you’re sure to be misjudged, and men will attempt—will say things they -wouldn’t dare try on a nice girl elsewhere. And you must be very much on -your guard.” - -“I’ll try to be, daddy, thank you. Don’t you worry.” - -“You know you’ll have to go to hotels and wait in railroad stations and -take cabs and go about alone at all hours, and you must be twice as -cautious as you’d be otherwise.” - -“I understand, dear.” - -“You see, Sheila honey, every woman who is in business or professional -life or is an artist or a nurse or a doctor or anything like that has to -stand a lot of insult, but so long as she realizes that it really is an -insult for a man to be familiar or anything like that, why, she’s all -right. But the minute she gets to feeling too free or to acting as if -she were a man, or tries to be a good fellow and a Bohemian and all that -rot—she’s going to give men a wrong impression. And then—well, even a -man that is the very decentest sort is likely to—to grow a little too -enterprising if a girl seems to encourage him, or even if she doesn’t -discourage him right at the jump.” - -“I know.” - -That little “I know” alarmed him more than ever. He went on with -redoubled zeal. - -“I want you to remember one thing always, Sheila—you’ve got only one -life to live and one soul to take care of and only one body to keep it -in. And it’s entirely up to you what you make of yourself. Education and -good breeding and all that sort of thing help, but they don’t guarantee -anything. Even religion doesn’t always protect a girl; sometimes it -seems to make her more emotional and—Well, I don’t know what can -protect a girl unless it’s a kind of—er—well, a sort of -a—conceitedness. Call it self-respect if you want to or anything. But -it seems to me that if I were a girl the thing that would keep me -straightest would be just that. I shouldn’t want to sell myself cheap, -or give myself away forever for a few minutes of—excitement, or throw -the most precious pearl on earth before any swine of a man. That’s it, -Sheila—keep yourself precious.” - -“I’ll try to, dad. Don’t worry!” she murmured, timidly. - -Such discussions are among the most terrifying of human experiences. -Roger Kemble was trembling as he went on: “Some day, you know, you’ll -meet the man that belongs to you, and that you belong to. Save yourself -for him, eh?” - -Then the modern woman spoke sternly: “Seems to me, daddy, that a girl -ought to have some better reason for taking care of herself than just -because she’s saving herself for some man.” - -“Of course. You’re quite right, my dear. But I only meant—” - -“I understand. I’ll try to save myself for myself. I don’t belong to any -man. I belong just to me; and I’m all I’ve got.” - -“That’s a much better way to put it. Much better.” And he sighed with -immense relief. - -The idea of the man that should make his daughter his own was an odious -idea to the father. It was odious now to the girl, too, for she was not -yet ready for that stormy crisis when she would make a pride of humility -and a rapture of surrender. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -The play that Sheila was surrendered to, “A Friend in Need,” proved a -success and raised its young author to such heights of pride and elation -that when his next work, an ambitious drama, was produced, he had a long -distance to fall. And fell hard. - -Young Trivett had tossed off “A Friend in Need” and had won from it the -highest praise as a craftsman. He had worked five years on his drama, -only to be accused of being “so spoiled by success as to think that the -public would endure anything he tossed off.” - -But the miserable collapse of his _chef-d’œuvre_ did not even check the -triumph of his _hors-d’œuvre_. “A Friend in Need” ran on “to capacity” -until the summer weather turned the theater into a chafing-dish. Then -the company was disbanded. - -In the early autumn following it was reorganized for a road tour. Of the -original company only four or five members were re-engaged—Sheila, Mrs. -Vining, Miss Griffen, and Tuell. - -During the rehearsals Sheila had paid little attention to the new -people. She was doomed to be in their company for thirty or forty weeks -and she was in no hurry to know them. She was gracious enough to those -she met, but she made no advances to the others, nor they to her. She -had noticed that a new man played the taxicab-driver, but she neither -knew nor cared about his name, his aim, or his previous condition of -servitude. - -The Freshmen of Leroy University brought him to her attention with a -spectacular suddenness in the guise of a hero. The blow he struck in her -supposed defense served as an ideal letter of introduction. - -As soon as the curtain had fallen on the riot, cutting off the view of -the battle between the police and the students, Sheila looked about for -the hero who had rescued her from Heaven alone knew what outrage. - -The neglected member of the troupe had leaped into the star rôle, the -superstar rôle of a man who wages a battle in a woman’s defense. She ran -to him and, seizing his hands, cried: - -“How can I ever, ever, ever thank you, Mr.—Mr.—I’m so excited I can’t -remember your name.” - -“Eldon—Floyd Eldon, Miss Kemble.” - -“You were wonderful, wonderful!” - -“Why, thank you, Miss Kemble. I’m glad if you—if—To have been of -service to you is—is—” - -The stage-manager broke up the exchange of compliments with a “Clear! -clear! Damn it, the curtain’s going up.” They ran for opposite wings. - -When the play was over Eldon was not to be found, and Sheila went with -her aunt to the train. At the hour when Winfield was being released from -his cell the special sleeping-car that carried the “Friend in Need” -company was three hundred miles or more away and fleeing farther. - -When Sheila raised the curtain of her berth and looked out upon the -reeling landscape the morning was nearly noon. Yet when she hobbled down -the aisle in unbuttoned shoes and the costume of a woman making a hasty -exit from a burning building, there were not many of the troupe awake to -observe her. Her aunt, however, was among these, for old age was robbing -Mrs. Vining of her lifelong habit of forenoon slumber. Like many another -of her age, she berated as weak or shiftless what she could no longer -enjoy. - -But Sheila was used to her and her rubber-stamp approval of the past and -rubber-stamp reproval of the present. They went into the dining-car -together, Sheila making the usual theatrical combination of breakfast -and lunch. As she took her place at a table she caught sight of her -rescuer of the night before. - -He was gouging an orange when Sheila surprised him with one of her best -smiles. His startled spoon shot a geyser of juice into his eye, but he -smiled back in spite of that, and made a desperate effort not to wink. -Sheila noted the stoicism and thought to herself, “A hero, on and off.” - -Later in the afternoon when she had read such morning papers as were -brought aboard the train, and found them deadly dull since there was -nothing about her in them, and when she had read into her novel till she -discovered the familiar framework of it, and when from sheer boredom she -was wishing that it were a matinée day so that she might be at her work, -she saw Floyd Eldon coming down the aisle of the car. - -He had sat in the smoking-room until he had wearied of the amusing -reminiscences of old Jaffer, who was always reminiscent, and of the grim -silence of Crumb, who was always taciturn, and of the half-smothered -groans of Tuell, who was always aching somewhere. At length Eldon had -resolved to be alone, that he might ride herd about the drove of his own -thoughts. He made his face ready for a restrained smile that should not -betray to Sheila in one passing glance all that she meant to him. - -To his ecstatic horror she stopped him with a gesture and overwhelmed -him by the delightful observation that it was a beautiful day. He freely -admitted that it was and would have moved on, but she checked him again -to present him to Mrs. Vining. - -Mrs. Vining was pleased with the distinguished bow he gave her. It was a -sort of old-comedy bow. She studied him freely as he turned in response -to Sheila’s next confusing words: - -“I want to thank you again for coming to my rescue from that horrible -brute.” - -Eldon looked as guilty as if she had accused him of being himself the -brute he had saved her from. He threw off his disgusting embarrassment -with an effort at a careless shrug: - -“It was nothing—nothing at all, I am sure.” - -“It was wonderful,” Sheila insisted. “How powerful you must be to have -lifted that monster clear over the apron of the stage into the lap of -the orchestra!” - -A man never likes to deny his infinite strength, but Eldon was honest -enough to protest: “I caught him off his balance, I am afraid. And, -besides, it comes rather natural to me to slug a man from Leroy.” - -“Yes? Why?” - -“I am a Grantham man myself. I was on our ’varsity eleven a couple of -years.” - -“Oh!” said Sheila. “Sit down, won’t you?” - - * * * * * - -She felt that she had managed this rather crassly. It would have been -more delicate to express less surprise and to delay the invitation to a -later point. But it was too late now. He had already dropped into the -place beside her, not noticing until too late that he sat upon a novel -and a magazine or two and an embroidery hoop on which she had intended -to work. But he was on so many pins and needles that he hardly heeded -one more. - -College men are increasingly frequent on the stage, but not yet frequent -enough to escape a little prestige or a little prejudice, according to -the point of view. In Sheila’s case Eldon gained prestige and a touch of -majesty that put her wits to some embarrassment for conversation. It was -one thing to be gracious to a starveling actor with a two-line rôle; it -was quite another to be gracious to a football hero full of fame and -learning. - -Mrs. Vining, however, had played _grandes dames_ too long to look up to -anybody. She felt at ease even in the presence of this big -third-baseman, or coxswain, or whatever he had been on his football -nine. She said, “Been on the stage long, Mr. Eldon?” - -Eldon grinned meekly, looked up and down the aisle with mock anxiety, -and answered: “The stage-manager isn’t listening? This is my first -engagement.” - -“Really?” was the only comment Sheila could think of. - -After his long silence in the company, and under the warming influence -of Sheila’s presence, the snows of pent-up reminiscence came down in a -flood of confession: - -“I don’t really belong on the stage, you know. I haven’t a big enough -part to show how bad an actor I really could be if I had the chance. But -I set my mind on going on the stage, and go I went.” - -“Did you find it hard to get a position?” - -“Well, when I left college and the question of my profession came up, -dad and I had several hot-and-heavies. Finally he swore that if I didn’t -accept a job in his office I need never darken his door again. Business -of turning out of house. Father shaking fist. Son exit center, swearing -he will never come back again. Sound of door slamming heard off.” - -Sheila still loved life in theatrical terms. “But what did your poor -mother do?” she said. - -A film seemed to veil Eldon’s eyes as he mumbled: “She wasn’t there. She -was spared that.” Then he gulped down his private grief and went on with -his more congenial self-derision: “I left home, feeling like Columbus -going to discover America. I didn’t expect to star the first year, but I -thought I could get some kind of a job. I went to New York and called on -all the managers. I was such an ignoramus that I hadn’t heard of the -agencies. I got to know several office-boys very well before one of them -told me about the employment bureaus. Well, you know all about that -agency game.” - -Sheila had been spared the passage through this Inferno on her way to -the Purgatory of apprenticeship. But she had heard enough about it to -feel sad for him, and she spared him any allusions to her superior luck. -Still, she encouraged him to describe his own adventures. - -He told of the hardships he encountered and the siege he laid to the -theater before he found a breach in its walls to crawl through. -Constantly he paused to apologize for his garrulity, but Sheila urged -him on. She had been born within the walls and she knew almost nothing -of the struggles that others met except from hearsay. And she had never -heard say from just such a man with just such a determination. So she -coaxed him on and on with his history, as Desdemona persuaded Othello to -talk. With a greedy ear she devoured up his discourse and made him -dilate all his pilgrimage. Only, Eldon was not a Blackmoor, and it was -of his defeats and not his victories that he told. Which made him -perhaps all the more attractive, seeing that he was well born and well -made. - -He laughed at his own ignorance, and felt none of the pity for himself -that Sheila felt for him. When she praised his determination, he sneered -at himself: - -“It was just bull-headed stubbornness. I was ashamed to go back to my -dad and eat veal, and so I didn’t eat much of anything for a long while. -The only jobs I could get were off the stage, and I held them just long -enough to save up for another try. How these actors keep alive I can’t -imagine. I nearly starved to death. It wouldn’t have been much of a loss -to the stage if I had, but it wasn’t much fun for me. I wore out my -clothes and wore out my shoes and my overcoat and my hat. I wore out -everything but my common sense. If I’d had any of that I’d have given -up.” - -Mrs. Vining moved uneasily. “If you’d had common sense you wouldn’t have -tried to get on the stage.” - -“Auntie!” Sheila gasped. But she put up her old hand like a decayed -czarina: - -“And if you have common sense you’ll never succeed, now that you’re -here.” - -When this bewildered Eldon, she added, with the dignity of a priestess: -“Acting is an art, not a business; and people come to see artists, not -business men. Half of the actors are just drummers traveling about; but -the real successes are made by geniuses who have charm and individuality -and insight and uncommon sense. I think you’re probably just fool enough -to succeed. But go on.” - -Eldon felt both flattered and dismayed by this pronouncement. He began -to talk to hide his confusion. - -“I’m a fool, all right. Whether I’m just the right sort of a fool—Well, -anyway—my money didn’t last long, and I owed everybody that would trust -me for a meal or a room. The office-boys gave me impudence until I wore -that out too, and then they treated me like any old bench-warmer in the -park. The agents grew sick of the sight of me. They sent me to the -managers until they had instructions not to send me again. But still I -stuck at it, the Lord knows why. - -“One day I went the rounds of the agencies as usual. When I came to the -last one I was so nauseated with the idiocy of asking the same old -grocery-boy’s question, ‘Anything to-day?’ I just put my head in at the -door, gave one hungry look around, and started away again. The -agent—Mrs. Sanchez, it was—beckoned to me, but I didn’t see; she -called after me, but I didn’t hear; she sent an office-boy to bring me -back. - -“When I squeezed through the crowd in the office it was like being -called out of my place in the bread-line to get the last loaf of the -day. I felt ashamed of my success and I was afraid that I was going to -be asked to take the place of some Broadway star who had suddenly fallen -ill. - -“Mrs. Sanchez swung open the gate in the rail and said: ‘Young man, can -you sing?’ - -“My heart fell to the floor and I stepped on it. I heard myself saying, -‘Is Caruso sick?’ - -“Mrs. Sanchez explained: ‘It’s not so bad as all that. But can you carry -a tune?’ - -“I told her that I used to growl as loud a bass as the rest of them when -we sang on the college fence. - -“‘That’s enough,’ said Mrs. Sanchez. ‘They’re putting on a Civil War -play and they want a man to be one of a crowd of soldiers who sing at -the camp-fire in one of the acts. The part isn’t big enough to pay a -singer and there is nothing else to do but get shot and play dead in the -battle scene.’ - -“I told her I thought I could play dead to the satisfaction of any -reasonable manager and she gave me a card to the producer. - -“Then she said, ‘You’ve never been on the stage, have you?’ - -“I shook my head. She told me to tell the producer that I had just come -in from the road with a play that had closed after a six months’ run. I -took the card and dashed out of the office so fast I nearly knocked over -a poor old thing with a head of hair like a bushel of excelsior. It took -me two days to get to the producer, and then he told me that it had been -decided not to send the play out, since the theatrical conditions were -so bad.” - -Mrs. Vining interpolated, “Theatrical conditions are like the -weather—always dangerous for people with poor circulation.” - -“I went back to the office,” said Eldon, “and told Mrs. Sanchez the -situation. The other members of the company had beaten me there. The -poor old soul was broken-hearted, and I don’t believe she regretted her -lost commissions as much as the disappointment of the actors. - -“A lot of people have told me she was heartless. She was always good to -me, and if she was a little hard in her manner it was because she would -have died if she hadn’t been. Agents are like doctors, they’ve got to -grow callous or quit. Her office was a shop where she bought and sold -hopes and heartbreaks, and if she had squandered her sympathy on -everybody she wouldn’t have lasted a week. But for some reason or other -she made a kind of pet of me.” - -Mrs. Vining murmured, “I rather fancy that she was not the first, and -won’t be the last, woman to do that.” - - * * * * * - -Eldon flushed like a young boy who has been told that he is pretty. He -realized also that he had been talking about himself to a most unusual -extent with most unusual frankness, and he relapsed into silence until -Sheila urged him on. - -It was a stupid Sunday afternoon in the train and he was like a traveler -telling of strange lands, under the insatiable expectancy of a fair -listener. There are few industries easier to persuade a human being -toward than the industry of autobiography. Eldon described the dreary -Sahara of idleness that he crossed before his next opportunity appeared. - -As a castaway sits in the cabin of a ship that has rescued him and -smiles while he recounts the straits he has escaped from, and never -dreams of the storms that are gathering in his future skies, so Eldon in -the Pullman car chuckled over the history of his past and fretted not a -whit over the miseries he was hurrying to. - -The only thing that could have completed his luxury was added to him -when he saw that Sheila, instead of laughing with him, was staring at -him through half-closed eyelids on whose lashes there was more than a -suspicion of dew. There was pity in her eyes, but in her words only -admiration: - -“And you didn’t give up even then!” - -“No,” said Eldon; “it is mighty hard knocking intelligence into as thick -a skull as mine. I went back to the garage where I had worked as a -helper. I had learned something about automobiles when I ran the one my -father bought me. But I kept nagging the agencies. Awful idiot, eh?” - -To his great surprise the cynical Mrs. Vining put in a word of implied -approval: - -“We are always reading about the splendid perseverance of men who become -leading dry-goods merchants of their towns or prominent politicians or -great painters, but the actors know as well as anybody what real -perseverance is. And nobody gives them credit for being anything but a -lot of dissipated loafers.” - -Sheila was not interested in generalizations. She wanted to know about -the immediate young man before her. She was still child enough to feel -tremendous suspense over a situation, however well she knew that it must -have a happy ending. When she had been littler the story of Jack the -Giant-killer had enjoyed an unbroken run of forty nights in the bedtime -repertoire of her mother. And never once had she failed to shiver with -delicious fright and suffer anguishes of anxiety for poor Jack whenever -she heard the ogre’s voice. At the first sound of his _leit motiv_, -“Fee, fi, fo, fum—” her little hands would clutch her mother’s arm and -her eyes would pop with terror. Yet, without losing at all the thrill of -the drama, she would correct the least deviation from the sacred text -and rebuke the least effort at interpolation. - -It was this weird combination of childish credulity, fierce imagination, -and exact intelligence that made up her gift of pretending. So long as -she could keep that without outgrowing it, as the vast majority do, she -would be set apart from the herd as one who could dream with the eyes -wide open. - -When she looked at Eldon she saw him as the ragged, hungry beggar at the -stage door. She saw him turned away and she feared that he might die, -though she knew that he still lived. There was genuine anxiety in her -voice when she demanded, “How on earth did you ever manage to succeed?” - -“I haven’t succeeded yet,” said Eldon, “or even begun to, but I am still -alive. It’s hard to get food and employment in New York, but somehow -it’s harder still to starve there. One way or another I kept at work and -hounded the managers. And one day I happened in at a manager’s office -just as he was firing an actor who thought he had some rights in the -world. He snapped me up with an offer of twenty-five dollars a week. If -he had offered me a million it wouldn’t have seemed any bigger.” - -Mrs. Vining had listened with unwonted interest and with some -difficulty, for sleep had been tugging at her heavy old eyelids. As soon -as she heard that Eldon had arrived in haven at last she felt no further -necessity of attention and fell asleep on the instant. - -Sheila sighed with relief, too. And the train had purred along -contentedly for half a mile before she realized that after all Eldon was -not with that company, but with this. Seeing that her aunt was no longer -with them in spirit, she lowered her voice to comment: - -“But if you went with the other troupe, what are you doing here?” - -“Well, you see, I thought I ought to tell Mrs. Sanchez the good news. I -thought she would be glad to hear it, and I was going to offer her the -commission for all the work she had done and all the time she had spent -on me. She looked disappointed when I told her, and she warned me that -the manager was unreliable and the play a gamble. She had just found me -a position with a company taking an assured success to the road. It was -this play of yours. The part was small and the pay was smaller still, -but it was good for forty weeks. - -“But I was ambitious, and I told her I would take the other. I wanted to -create—that was the big word I used—I wanted to ‘create’ a new part. -She told me that the first thing for an actor to do was to connect with -a steady job, but I wouldn’t listen to her till finally she happened to -mention something that changed my mind.” - -He flushed with an excitement that roused Sheila’s curiosity. When he -did not go on, she said: - -“But what was it that changed your mind?” - -Eldon smiled comfortably, and, emboldened by the long attention of his -audience, ventured to murmur the truth: “I had seen you act—in New -York—in this play, and I—I thought that you were a wonderful actress, -and more than that—the most—the most—Well, anyway, Mrs. Sanchez -happened to mention that you would be with this company, so I took the -part of the taxicab-driver. But I found I was farther away from you than -ever—till—till last night.” - -And then Eldon was as startled at the sound of his words and their -immense import as Sheila was. The little word “you” resounded softly -like warning torpedoes on a railroad track signaling: “Down brakes! -Danger ahead!” - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -As Eldon’s words echoed back through his ears he knew that he had said -too much and too soon. Sheila was afraid to speak at all; she could not -improvise the exquisitely nice phrase that should say neither more nor -less than enough. Indeed, she could not imagine just what she wanted to -say, what she really felt or ought to feel. - -The woman was never born, probably, who could find a declaration of -devotion entirely unwelcome, no matter from whom. And yet Sheila felt -any number of inconveniences in being loved by this man who was a total -stranger yesterday and an old acquaintance to-day. It would be endlessly -embarrassing to have a member of the company, especially so humble a -member, infatuated with her. It would be infinitely difficult to be -ordinarily polite to him without either wounding him or seeming to -encourage him. She had the theatric gift for carrying on a situation -into its future developments. She was silent, but busily silent, -dramatizing to-morrows, and the to-morrows of to-morrows. - -Eldon’s thoughts also were speeding noisily through his brain while his -lips were uncomfortably idle. He felt that he had been guilty of a gross -indiscretion and he wanted to remove himself from the discomfort he had -created, but he could not find the courage to get himself to his feet, -or the wit to continue or even to take up some other subject. - -It was probably their silence that finally wakened Mrs. Vining. She -opened her drowsy eyes, wondering how long she had slept and hoping that -they had not missed her. She realized at once that they were both -laboring under some confusion. She was going to ask what it was. - -Sheila resented the situation. Already she was a fellow-culprit with -this troublesome young man. An unwitting rescuer appeared in the person -of the stage-manager who dawdled along the aisle in the boredom of a -stage-manager, who can never quite forget his position of authority and -is never allowed to forget that his flock are proud individuals who feel -that they know more than he does. - -Sheila was impelled to appeal to Batterson on Eldon’s behalf, but she -and the stage-manager had been in a state of armed truce since a clash -that occurred at rehearsals. Batterson was not the original producer of -the play, but he put out the road company and kept with it. - -A reading of Sheila’s had always jarred him. He tried to change it. She -tried to oblige him, but simply could not grasp what he was driving at. -One of those peculiar struggles ensued in which two people are mutually -astounded and outraged at their inability to explain or understand. - -But if Mr. Batterson was hostile to Sheila, he was afraid of Mrs. -Vining, both because he revered her and because she had known him when -he was one of the most unpromising beginners that ever attempted the -stage. He had never succeeded as an actor, which was no proof of his -inability to tell others how to act, but always seemed so to them. - -As he would have passed, Mrs. Vining, quite as if Sheila had prompted -her, made a gesture of detention: - -“Oh, Mr. Batterson, will you do me a great favor?” He bowed meekly, and -she said, “Be a good boy and give Mr. Eldon here a chance to do some -real work the first opportunity you get.” - -Batterson sighed. “Good Lord! has he been pestering you, too?” - -“He has been telling me of his struggles and his ambitions,” Mrs. Vining -answered, with reproving dignity, “and I can see that he has ability. He -is a gentleman, at least, and that is more than can be said of some of -the people who are given some of the rôles.” - -Batterson did not relish this. He had had one or two battles with Mrs. -Vining over some of her stage business and had been withered by her -comments on his knowledge of what really went on in real drawing-rooms. -She had told him that they were as different as possible from stage -drawing-rooms, and he had lacked information to answer. All he said now -was: - -“I’ve promised Eldon a dozen times that he should have a try at the -first vacancy. But you know this old guard; they never surrender and -they never die.” - -“Except when they get a cue,” was Mrs. Vining’s drop of acid. - -Batterson renewed his pledge and moved on, with a glance in which Eldon -felt more threat than promise. But he thanked Mrs. Vining profusely and -apologized to Sheila for taking so much of her time talking about -himself. This made a good exit speech and he retired to his cell, -carrying with him a load of new anxieties and ambitions. - - * * * * * - -Triply happy was Eldon now. He had been commended to the stage-manager -and promised the first opportunity. He was getting somewhere. He had -established himself in the good graces of the old duchess of the troupe. -He had put his idol, Sheila, under obligations to him. He had ventured -to let her know that he had joined the company on her account, and she -had not rebuked him. This in itself was a thousand miles on his journey. - -The meter of the train had hitherto been but a dry, monotonous -clickety-click like the rattle bones of a dolorous negro minstrel. Now -it was a jig, a wedding jig. The wheels and the rails fairly sang to him -time after tune. The amiable hippety-hop fitted itself to any joyful -thought that cantered through his heart. - -By and by a town came sliding to the windows—Milton, a typical smallish -city with a shabby station, a stupid hotel, no history, and no sights; -it had reached the gawky age and stopped growing. But Eldon bade it -welcome. He liked anybody and any place. He set out for the hotel, -swinging his suit-case as if it were the harp of a troubadour. He walked -with two or three other men of the company. - -Old Jaffer had said: “The Mansion House is the only hotel. It’s three -blocks to the right from the station and then two blocks to the left.” -Jaffer knew the least bad hotel and just how to find it in hundreds of -towns. He was a living gazetteer. “I’ve been to every burg in the -country, I think,” he would say, “and I’ve never seen one yet that had -anything to see.” The highest praise he could give a place was, “It’s a -good hotel town.” - -But they were all paradises to Eldon. He had fed so dismally and so -sparsely, as a man out of a job, that even the mid-Westem coffee tasted -good to him. Besides, to-day he had fed on honey dew and drunk the milk -of paradise. - -He was so jubilant that he offered to carry the hand-bag of Vincent -Tuell, who labored along at his side, groaning. Eldon’s offer offended -Tuell, who was just old enough to resent his age. It had already begun -to lop dollars off his salary and to cut him out of the line of parts he -had once commanded. - -Tuell had never reached high—but he had always hoped high. Now he had -closed the books of hope. He was on the down grade. His career had not -been a peak, but a foot-hill, and he was on the wrong side of that. He -received Eldon’s proffer as an accusation of years. He answered with a -bitter negative, “No, thank you, damn you!” - -Eldon apologized with a laugh. He felt as hilariously contented and -sportive as a young pup whom no rebuff can offend. As he strode along he -glanced back and saw that Sheila and Mrs. Vining were footing it, too, -and carrying such luggage as Pennock could not accommodate. Eldon was -amazed. He had supposed that they would ride. He dropped back to -Sheila’s elbow and pleaded: - -“Won’t you let me take a cab and ride you to the hotel?” - -Sheila thanked him No, and Mrs. Vining finished him off: - -“Young man, if you’re going to be an actor you must learn to practise -small economies—especially in small towns where you gain nothing by -extravagance. You never know how short your season may be. The actor who -wastes money on cabs in the winter will be borrowing car fare in the -summer.” - -Eldon accepted the repulse as if it were a bouquet. “I see; but at least -you must let me carry your suit-cases.” - -Mrs. Vining threw him much the same answer as Tuell: “I’m not so old as -I look, and I travel light.” - -He turned to Sheila, whose big carry-all was so heavy that it dragged -one shoulder down. She looked like the picture of somebody or other -carrying a bucket from the well—or was it from a cow? He put out his -hand. She turned aside to dodge him. He followed her closely and finally -wrested the suit-case from her. Seeing his success, Mrs. Vining yielded -him hers also. He let Pennock trudge with hers. And so they walked to -the hotel and marched up to the desk. - -Jaffer and Tuell had already registered. Eldon thought they might at -least have waited till the ladies had had first choice. He was surprised -to hear Sheila and Mrs. Vining haggling over the prices of lodging and -choosing rooms of moderate cost. - -He had no chance to speak to them at the performance or after it, but -the next morning he hung about the lobby till train-time. He pretended -much surprise at seeing Sheila,—as if he had not been waiting for her! -He was a bad actor. Again he secured the carry-all in spite of her -protests. If he had known more he would have seen that she gave up to -avoid a battle. But she dropped back with Pennock and left him to walk -with Mrs. Vining, who did not hesitate to assail him with her usual -directness: - -“Young man, you’re very nice and you mean very well, but you’ve got a -lot to learn. Have you noticed that when the company gets into a train -or a public dining-room, everybody settles as far away as possible from -everybody else?” - -Eldon had noticed it. It had shocked him. Mrs. Vining went on: - -“And no doubt you’ve seen a big, husky actor let a poor, tired actress -drag her own baggage to a far-off hotel.” - -Eldon had noted that, too, with deep regret. He was astounded when Mrs. -Vining said: - -“Well, that actor is showing that actress the finest courtesy he can. -When men and women are traveling this way on business, the man who is -attentive to a woman is doing her a very dubious kindness, unless -they’re married or expect to be.” - -“Why?” said Eldon. “Can’t he pay her ordinary human courtesy?” - -“He’d better not,” said Mrs. Vining, “or he’ll start the other members -of the company and the gaping crowd of outsiders to whispering: ‘Oh, -he’s carrying her valise now! It’s a sketch!’” - -“A ‘sketch’?” Eldon murmured. - -“Yes, a—an alliance, an affair. A theatrical troupe is like a little -village on wheels. Everybody gossips. Everybody imagines—builds a big -play out of a little scenario. And so the actor who is a true gentleman -has to keep forgetting that he is one. It’s a penalty we women must pay -for earning our livings. You see now, don’t you, Mr. Eldon?” - -He bowed and blushed to realize that it was all meant as a rebuke to his -forwardness. He had been treated with consideration, and had immediately -proceeded to make a nuisance of himself. He had no right to carry -Sheila’s burdens, and his insistence had been only an embarrassment to -her. He had behaved like a greedy porter at a railroad station to whom -one surrenders with wrath in order to silence his demands. - -He had not progressed so far as he thought. His train had been ordered -to back up. When he had placed Sheila’s baggage and Mrs. Vining’s in the -seats they chose in the day coach, he declined Sheila’s invitation to -sit down, and sulked in the smoking-car. - -The towns that followed Milton were as stupid as Jaffer had said they -were. The people who lived there seemed to love them, or at least they -did not leave them, but they were dry oases for the lonely traveler. Few -of the towns had even a statue, and most of those that had statues would -have been the richer for their absence. - -Of one thing Eldon made sure—that he would never inflict another of his -compromising politenesses on Miss Sheila Kemble. He avoided her so -ostentatiously that the other members of the company noticed it. Those -who had instantly said when he carried her valise, “Aha! he is carrying -her valise now!” were presently saying, “Oh, he’s not carrying her -valise now!” - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -Gradually the company worked a zigzag passage to Chicago, where it was -booked for an indefinite stay. If the “business” were good, it would be -announced that, “owing to the unprecedented success, it has been found -necessary to extend the run originally contemplated.” If the business -were not so good, it would be announced that, “owing to previous -bookings, it would unfortunately be impossible to extend the run beyond -the next two weeks.” - -Jaffer was saying as they rolled in: “There’s no telling in advance what -Chicago’s going to do to us. New York stood for this rotten show for a -whole season; Chicago may be too wise for us. I hope so. It’s a ghastly -town. The Lake winds are death to a delicate throat. I always lose my -voice control in Chicago.” - -With Jaffer the success he was in was always a proof of the stupidity of -the public. In his unending reminiscences, which he ran serially in the -smoking-room like another _Arabian Nights_, the various failures he had -met were variously described. Those in which he had had a good part were -“over the heads of the swine”; those in which he had shone dimly were -“absolutely the worst plays ever concocted, my boy—hopeless from the -start. How even a manager could fail to see it in the script I can’t for -the life of me imagine.” - -Old Jim Crumb said: “Chicago is a far better judge of a play than New -York is. Chicago’s got a mind of her own. She’s the real metropolis. The -critics have got a heart; they appreciate honest effort. If they don’t -like you they say so fairly, without any of the brutality of New York.” -Crumb’s last appearance in Chicago had been in a highly successful play. - -Tuell stopped groaning long enough to growl: “Don’t you believe it! -Chicago’s jealous of New York, and the critics have got their axes out -for anything that bears the New York stamp. If they don’t like you, they -lynch you—that’s all, they just lynch you.” Tuell’s last appearance -there had been with a failure. - -Eldon felt little interest in the matter one way or another. He had been -snubbed in his romance. The other rôle he played would never be -dignified even by a tap of the critical bludgeon. He was tired of the -stage. - -And then the opportunity he had prayed for fell at his feet, after he -had ceased to pray for it. - - * * * * * - -The play opened on a Sunday night. It was Eldon’s first performance of a -play on the Sabbath. He rather expected something to come through the -roof. But the play went without a mishap. The applause was liberal, and -the next morning’s notices were enthusiastic. - -Sheila was picked out for especial praise. The leading woman, Miss Zelma -Griffen, was slighted. She was very snappy to Sheila, which added the -final touch to Sheila’s rapture. - -Old Jaffer was complimented and remembered, and now he was loud in the -praises of the town, the inspiring, bracing ozone from the Lake, and his -splendid hotel. Jim Crumb’s bit as a farmer was mentioned, and his -previous appearance recalled with “regret that he had not more -opportunity to reveal his remarkable gifts of characterization.” - -This was too much for poor Crumb. He went about town renewing former -acquaintances with the fervor of a far voyager who has come home to -stay. When he appeared at the second performance his speech was glucose -and his gait rippling. In his one scene it was his duty to bring in a -lantern and hold it over an automobile map on which Sheila and Mrs. -Vining were trying to trace a lost road. It was a passage of some -dramatic moment, but Crumb in his cups made unexpected farce of it by -swinging the lantern like a switchman. - -No comic genius from Aristophanes _via_ Molière to Hoyt has ever yet -devised a scene that will convulse an audience like the mistake or -mishap of an actor. Poor, befuddled Crumb’s wabbly lantern was the -laughing hit of the piece. He was too thick to be rebuked that night. -Friends took him to his hotel and left him to sleep it off. - -When the next morning he realized what he had done, what sacrilege he -had committed, he sought relief from insanity in a hair of the dog that -bit him. He was soon mellow enough to fall a victim to an hallucination -that Tuesday was a matinée day. He appeared at the theater at half-past -one, and made up to go on. He fell asleep waiting for his cue, and was -discovered when his dressing-room mate arrived at seven o’clock. Then he -insisted on descending to report for duty. He was still so befogged that -Batterson did not dare let him ruin another performance. He addressed to -Crumb that simple phrase which is the theatrical death-warrant: - -“Hand me back your part.” - -With the automatic heroism of a soldier sentenced to execution, Crumb -staggered to his room and, fetching the brochure from his trunk, -surrendered it to the higher power, revealing a somewhat shaky majesty -of despair. - -Eldon was standing in the wings, and Batterson thrust the document at -him and growled: “You say you’re a great actor. I’m from Missouri. Get -up in that and show me, to-night.” - -If he had placed a spluttering bomb in Eldon’s hands, and told him to -blow up a Czar with it, Eldon could hardly have felt more terrified. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -Eldon climbed the three flights of iron stairway to his cubby-hole more -drunkenly than Crumb. The opportunity he had counted on was his and he -was afraid of it. This was the sort of chance that had given great -geniuses their start, according to countless legends. And he had been -waiting for it, making ready for it. - -Weeks before during the rehearsals and during the first performances he -had hung about in the offing, memorizing every part, till he had found -himself able to reel off whole scenes with a perfection and a vigor that -thrilled him—when he was alone. Crumb’s rôle had been one of the first -that he had memorized. But now, when he propped the little blue book -against his make-up box and tried to read the dancing lines, they seemed -to have no connection whatsoever with the play. He would have sworn he -had never heard them. He had been told that the best method for quickly -memorizing a part was to photograph each page or “side.” But the lines -danced before him at an intoxicated speed that would have defied a -moving-picture camera. - -He mumbled good counsels to himself, however, as if he were undertaking -the rescue of a drowning heroine, and at length the letters came to a -focus, the words resumed their familiarity. - -He had received the part nearly an hour before the time for the -overture, that faint rumor which is to the actor what the bugle-call is -to the soldier. By half past seven he found that he could whisper the -lines to himself without a slip. - -The character he was to impersonate did not appear until the third act, -but Eldon was in the wings made up and on tiptoe with readiness when the -first curtain rose. His heart went up with it and lodged in his pharynx, -where it throbbed chokingly. - -The property-man had been recruited to replace Eldon as the -taxicab-driver, but Eldon was on such tenterhooks that when his old cue -came for entrance he started to walk on as usual. Only a hasty backward -shove from the arm of the property-man saved him from a public blunder. - -The rest of the play seemed to unfold itself with an unendurable -slowness. The severer critics had remarked on this. - -As Eldon watched, the lines he heard kept jostling the lines he was -trying to remember and he fell into a panic of uncertainty. At times he -forgot where he was and interfered with the entrances and exits of the -other actors, yet hardly heard the rebukes they flung at him. - -Sheila, following one of her cues to “exit laughing L 2 E,” ran plump -into Eldon’s arms. He was as startled as a sleep-walker suddenly -awakened, and clung to her to keep from falling. His stupor was -pleasingly troubled by a vivid sense of how soft and round her shoulders -were when he caught them in his hands. - -As he fell back out of her way he trod upon Mrs. Vining’s favorite toe -and she swore at him with an old-comedy vigor. She would have none of -his apology, and the stage-manager with another oath ordered him to his -room. - -Once there, he fell to studying his lines anew. The more he whispered -them to himself the more they eluded him. The vital problem of positions -began to harass him. He began to wonder just where Crumb had stood. - -He had learned from watching the rehearsals that few things upset or -confuse actors like a shift of position. They learned their lines with -reference to the geography of the stage and seemed curiously bewildered -if the actor whom they had addressed on the right side appeared on the -left. - -Eldon foresaw himself throwing Sheila and Mrs. Vining out of their -stride by standing up-stage when he should stand down, or right when he -should stand left. He knew there was an etiquette about “giving the -stage” to the superior characters. He remembered one rather heated -argument in which Batterson had insinuated that old Mrs. Vining had been -craftily “stealing the stage” from one young woman who was selfish -enough in all conscience, but who had foolishly imagined that the closer -she was to the audience the more she commanded it. - -Eldon was disgusted with his ability to forget what he had watched -incessantly. He was to make his entrance from the left, yet, as he -recollected it, Crumb had stood to the right of Sheila as he held the -lantern over the map. Now he wondered how he was to get round her. This -bit of stage mechanism had always impressed him. He had seen endless -time spent by the stage-manager in trying to devise a natural and -inconspicuous method for attaining the simple end of moving an actor -from one side of a table to the other side. At first he would have said, -bluntly, “The way to go round a table is to go round it.” But he had -finally realized that the audience must always be taken into account -while seeming always to be ignored. - -The more he pondered his brief rôle the more intricate it grew. It began -to take on the importance of Hamlet. He repeated it over and over until -he fell into a panic of aphasia. - -Suddenly he heard the third act called and ran down the steps to secure -his lantern. It was not to be found. The property-man was not to be -found. When both were discovered, the lighting of the lantern proved too -intricate for Eldon’s bethumbed fingers. The disgusted property-man -performed it for him. He took his place in the wings. - -Agues and fevers made a hippodrome of his frame. He saw his time -approaching. He saw Sheila unfolding the road-map, scanning it closely. -She was going to see the farmer approaching with a lantern. She was -going to call to him to lend her the light of it. Now she saw him. She -called to him. But he must not start yet, for he was supposed to be at a -distance. She called again. She spoke to her aunt. - -Now is the time! No, not yet! Now! Not yet! - -“Why, here you are!” said Sheila. - -But he was not there. He was a cigar Indian riveted to the floor. She -beckoned to him, and summoned him in a stage whisper, but he did not -move. Batterson dashed from his position near the curtain and shoved him -forward, with a husky comment, “Go on, you—” - -Eldon never knew what Batterson called him, but he was sure that he -deserved it. He started like a man who has fallen out of bed. He -tripped, dropped to one knee, recovered himself with the lurch of a -stumbling horse, and plunged into the scene. - -The quick and easy way to extinguish a lantern is to lower it quickly -and lift it with a snap. That is what Eldon did. He found himself in the -presence of two actresses on a little strip of dark beach with the -audience massed threateningly before it like a tremendous phosphorescent -billow curved inward for the crash. The billow shook a little as Eldon -stumbled; a few titters ran through it in a whispering froth. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -Eldon was unaware that his light was out. He was unaware of almost -everything important. He forgot his opening lines and marched across the -stage with the granite tread of the statue that visited Don Juan. - -Sheila improvised at once a line to supply what Eldon forgot. But she -could not improvise a flame on a wick. Indeed, she had not noticed that -the flame was missing. Even when Eldon, with the grace of a scarecrow, -held out the cold black lantern, she went on studying the map and -cheerily recited: - -“Oh, that’s better! Now we can see just where we are.” - -The earthquake of joy that smote the audience caught her unaware. The -instant enormity of the bolt of laughter almost shook her from her feet. -They do well to call it “bringing down the house.” There was a sound as -of splitting timbers and din upon din as the gallery emptied its howls -into the orchestra and the orchestra sent up shrieks of its own. The -sound was like the sound that Samson must have heard when he pulled the -temple in upon him. - -Sheila and Mrs. Vining were struck with the panic that such unexpected -laughter brings to the actor. They clutched at their garments to make -sure that none of them had slipped their moorings. They looked at each -other for news. Then they saw the dreadfully solemn Eldon holding aloft -the fireless lantern. - -The sense of incongruity that makes people laugh got them, too. They -turned their backs to the audience and fought with their uncontrollable -features. Few things delight an audience like the view of an actress -broken up. It is so successful that in comic operas they counterfeit it. - -The audience was now a whirlpool. Eldon might have been one of the -cast-iron effigies that hold up lanterns on gate-posts; he could not -have been more rigid or more unreal. His own brain was in a whirlpool, -too, but not of mirth. Out of the eddies emerged a line. He seized it as -a hope of safety and some desperate impulse led him to shout it above -the clamor: - -“It ain’t a very big lantern, ma’am, but it gives a heap o’ light.” - -Sheila’s answer was lost in the renewed hubbub, but it received no -further response from Eldon. His memory was quite paralyzed; he couldn’t -have told his own name. He heard Sheila murmuring to comfort him: - -“Can’t you light the lantern again? Don’t be afraid. Just light it. -Haven’t you a match? Don’t be afraid!” - -If Eldon had carried the stolen fire of Prometheus in his hand he could -not have kindled tinder with it. He heard Mrs. Vining growling: - -“Get off, you damned fool, get off!” - -But the line between his brain and his legs had also blown out a fuse. - -The audience was almost seasick with laughter. Ribs were aching and -cheeks were dripping with tears. People were suffering with their mirth -and the reinfection of laughter that a large audience sets up in itself. -Eldon’s glazed eyes and stunned ears somehow realized the activity of -Batterson, who was epileptic in the wings and howling in a strangled -voice: - -“Come off, you—! Come off, or—I’ll come and kick you off!” - -And now Eldon was more afraid of leaving than of staying. - -In desperation Sheila took him by the elbow and started him on his way. -Just as the hydrophobic Batterson was about to shout, “Ring!” Eldon -slipped slowly from the stage. - -Little Batterson met the blinded Cyclops and was only restrained from -knocking him down by a fear that he might knock him back into the scene. -As he brandished his arms about the giant he resembled an infuriated -spider attacking a helpless caterpillar. - -Batterson’s oration was plentifully interlarded with simple old -Anglo-Saxon terms that can only be answered with a blow. But Eldon was -incapable of resentment. He understood little of what was said except -the reiterated line, “If you ever ask me again to let you play a part -I’ll—” - -Whatever he threatened left Eldon languid; the furthest thing from his -thoughts was a continuance upon the abominable career he had insanely -attempted. - -He stalked with iron feet up the iron stairs to his dressing-room, put -on his street clothes, and went to his hotel. He had forgotten to remove -his greast-paint, the black on his eyebrows and under his eyes, or the -rouge upon his mouth. A number of passers-by gave him the entire -sidewalk and stared after him, wondering whether he were on his way to -the madhouse or the hospital. - - * * * * * - -The immensity of the disaster to the play was its salvation. The -audience had laughed itself to a state of exhaustion. The yelps of -hilarity ended in sobs of fatigue. The well-bred were ashamed of their -misbehavior and the intelligent were disgusted to realize that they had -abused the glorious privilege of laughter and debauched themselves with -mirth over an unimportant mishap to an unfortunate actor who had done -nothing intrinsically humorous. - -Sheila and Mrs. Vining went on with the scene, making up what was -necessary and receiving the abjectly submissive audience’s complete -sympathy for their plight and extra approval for their ingenuity in -extricating themselves from it. When the curtain fell upon the act there -was unusual applause. - -To an actor the agony of “going up” in the lines, or “fading,” is not -much funnier after the first surprise than the death or wounding of a -soldier is to his comrade. The warrior in the excitement of battle may -laugh hysterically when a friend or enemy is ludicrously maimed, when he -crumples up and grimaces sardonically, or is sent heels over head by the -impact of a shell. But there is little comfort in the laughter since the -same fate may come to himself. - -The actor has this grinning form of death always at his elbow. He may -forget his lines because they are unfamiliar or because they are old, -because another actor gives a slightly different cue, some one person -laughs too loudly in the audience, or coughs, or a baby cries, or for -any one of a hundred reasons. That fear is never absent from the stage. -It makes every performance a fresh ordeal. And the actor who has -faltered meets more sympathy than blame. - -If Eldon had not sneaked out of the theater and had remained until the -end of the play he would have found that he had more friends than before -in the company. Even Batterson, after his tirade was over, regretted its -violence, and blamed himself. He had sent a green actor out on the stage -without rehearsal. Batterson was almost tempted to apologize—almost. - -But Eldon was not to be found. He was immured in the shabby room of his -cheap hotel sick with nausea and feverish with shame. - -Somehow he lived the long night out. He read the morning papers fiercely -through. There were no head-lines on the front page describing his -ruinous incapacity. There was not even a word of allusion to him or his -tragedy in the theatrical notices. He was profoundly glad of his -obscurity and profoundly convinced that obscurity was where he belonged. -He wrote out a note of humble apology and resignation. He resolved to -send it by messenger and never to go near that theater again, or any -other after he had removed his trunk. - -With the utmost reluctance he forced himself to go back to the scene of -his shame. The stage-door keeper greeted him with a comforting -indifference. He had evidently known nothing of what had happened. -Stage-door keepers never do. None of the actors was about, and the -theater was as lonely and musty as the tomb of the Capulets before Romeo -broke in upon Juliet’s sleep. - -Eldon mounted to his dressing-room and stared with a rueful eye at the -make-up box which he had bought with all the pride a boy feels in his -first chest of tools. He tried to tell himself that he was glad to be -quit of the business of staining his face with these unmanly colors and -of rubbing off the stains with effeminate cold-creams. He threw aside -the soiled and multicolored towel with a gesture of disdain. But he was -too honest to deceive himself. The more he denounced the actor’s calling -the more he denounced himself for having been incompetent in it. He -writhed at the memory of the hardships he had undergone in gaining a -foothold on the stage and at the poltroonery of leaping overboard to -avoid being thrown overboard. - -As he left the theater to find an expressman to call for his trunk he -looked into the letter-box where there was almost never a letter for -him. To his surprise he found his name on a graceful envelope gracefully -indited. He opened it and read the signature first. It was a note from -Sheila. - - * * * * * - -Eldon’s eyes fairly bulged out of his head with amazed enchantment. His -heart ached with joy. He went back to his dressing-room to read the -letter over and over. - - DEAR MR. ELDON,—Auntie John and I tried to see you last night, - but you had gone. She was afraid that you would grieve too - deeply over the mishap. It was only what might have happened to - anybody. Auntie John says that she has known some of the most - famous actors to do far worse. Sir Charles Wyndham went up in - his lines and was fired at _his_ first appearance. She wants to - tell you some of the things that happened to her. They had to - ring down on her once. She wants you to come over to our hotel - and have tea with us this afternoon. Please do! - - Heartily, - SHEILA KEMBLE. - -There was nothing much in the letter except an evident desire to make -light of a tragedy and cheer a despondent soul across a swamp. Eldon did -not even note that it was mainly about Aunt John. To him the letter was -luminous with a glow of its own. He kissed the paper a dozen times. He -resolved to conquer the stage or die. The stage should be the humble -stepping-stone to the conquest of Sheila Kemble. Thereafter it should be -the scene of their partnership in art. He would play Romeo to her -Juliet, and they should play other rôles together till “Mr. and Mrs. -Eldon” should be as famous for their art as for their domestic bliss. - -Had she not already made a new soul of him, scattering his fright with a -few words and recalling him to his duty and his opportunity? He would -redeem himself to-night. To-night there should be no stumbling, no gloom -in the lantern, no gaiety in the audience during his scene. To-night he -would show Batterson how little old Crumb had really made of the part, -drunk or sober. - -He placed the letter as close to his heart as he could get it, and it -warmed him like a poultice. He would go shave himself again and brush up -a bit for Sheila’s tea-fête. - -As he groped slowly down the dark stairway he heard voices on the stage. -He recognized Crumb’s husky tones: - -“If you’ll give me one more chance, Val, I swear I’ll never disappoint -you again. I’m on the water-mobile for good this time.” - -Eldon felt sorry for the poor old man. He paused to hear Batterson’s -epitaph on him: - -“Well, Jim, I’ll give you another try. But it’s against my will.” - -“Oh, thank you, thank you, Val!” - -“Don’t thank me. Thank that dub, Eldon. If he hadn’t thrown the scene -last night you’d never get another look-in. No more would you if I could -pick up anybody here. So you can go on to-night, but if your foot slips -again, Jim, so help me, you’ll never put your head in another of our -theaters.” - -As Crumb’s heart went up, Eldon’s followed the see-saw law. All his -hopes and plans were collapsed. He would not go to Sheila’s tea with -this disgrace upon him and sit like a death’s-head in her presence. - -And how could he present himself at her hotel in the shabby clothes he -wore? She and her aunt were living expensively in Chicago. It was good -advertisement to live well there; at least it was a bad advertisement -not to. It was a bad advertisement for Eldon to appear anywhere. He was -under the buffets of fortune. But he tore up his resignation. - -Now of all times he needed the comfort of her cheer. Now of all times he -could not ask it or accept it. He wrote her a note of devout gratitude, -and said that a previous engagement with an old college friend prevented -his accepting her gracious hospitality. His old college friend was -himself, and they sat in his boarding-house cell and called each other -names. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -Eldon resumed the livery of the taxicab-driver and spoke his two lines -each night with his accustomed grace, and received his accustomed -tribute of silence. He arrived on the stage just before his cue, and he -went to his room just after his exit. - -He avoided Sheila, and she, feeling repulsed, turned her attention from -him. Friends of her father and mother and friends of her school days -besieged her with entertainment. People who took pride in saying they -knew somebody on the stage sought introductions. Rich or handsome young -men were presented to her at every turn. They poured their praises and -their prayers into her pretty ears, but got no receipt for them nor any -merchandise of favor. She was not quite out of the hilarious stage of -girlhood. She said with more philosophy than she realized that she “had -no use for men.” But they were all the more excited by her evasive -charms. Her prettiness was ripening into beauty and the glow of youth -from within gave her a more shining aureole than even the ingenuities of -stage make-up and lighting. Homes of wealth were open to her and her -growing clientèle frequented the theater. Miss Griffen was voted common, -and left to the adulation of the fast young men. - -The traveling-manager of the company was not slow to notice this. He saw -that Sheila had not only the rare gifts of dramatic instinct and appeal, -but that she had the power of attracting the approval of distinguished -people as well as of the general. Men of all ages delighted in her; and -this was still more important—women of all ages liked her, paid to see -her. Women who gave great receptions in brand-new palaces bought up all -the boxes or several rows in the orchestra in honor of Sheila Kemble. -School-girls clambered to the balcony and shop-girls to the gallery to -see Sheila Kemble. - -The listening manager heard the outgoing voices again and again saying -such things as, “It’s the third time I’ve seen this. It’s not much of a -play, but Sheila Kemble—isn’t she sweet?” - -The company-manager and the house-manager and the press agent all wrote -to Reben, the manager-in-chief: - -“Keep your eye on Kemble. She’s got draught. She makes ’em come again.” - -And Reben, who had made himself a plutocrat with twenty companies on the -road, and a dozen theaters, owned or leased—Reben who had grown rich by -studying his public, planned to make another fortune by exploiting -Sheila Kemble. He kept the secret to himself, but he set on foot a still -hunt for the play that should make her while she seemed to be making it. -He schemed how to get her signature to a five-year contract without -exciting her cupidity to a duel with his own. He gave orders to play her -up gradually in the publicity. The thoughts of managers are long, long -thoughts. - -He gave out an interview to the effect that what the public wanted was -“Youth—youth, that beautiful flower which is the dearest memory of the -old, and the golden delight of the young.” - -His chief publicity man, Starr Coleman, a reformed dramatic critic, -wrote the interview for Reben, explained it to him, and was proud of it -with the vicarious pride of those strange scribes whose lives are -devoted to getting for others what they deny to themselves. - -Reben had told Coleman to play up strong his belief in the American -dramatist, particularly the young dramatist. Reben always did this just -before he set out on his annual European shopping-tour among the foreign -play-bazars. Over there he could inspect the finished products of expert -craftsmen; he could see their machines in operation, in lieu of buying -pigs in pokes from ambitious Yankees who learned their trade at the -managers’ expense. - -This widely copied “Youth” interview brought down on Reben’s play-bureau -a deluge of American manuscripts, almost all of them devoid of theme or -novelty, redolent of no passion except the passion for writing a play, -and all of them crude in workmanship. Reben kept a play-reader—or at -least a play-rejector, and paid him a moderate salary to glance over -submitted manuscripts so that Reben could make a bluff at having read -them before he returned them. This timid person surprised Reben one day -by saying: - -“There’s a play here with a kind of an idea in it. It’s hopeless as it -stands, of course, but it might be worked over a little. It’s written by -a man named Vicksburg, or Vickery, or something like that. Funny -thing—he suggests that Sheila Kemble would be the ideal woman for the -principal part. And, do you know, I’ve been thinking she has the makings -of a star some day. Had you ever thought of that?” - -“No,” said Reben, craftily. - -“Well, I believe she’ll bear watching.” - -In after-years this play-returner used to say, “I put Reben on to the -idea that there was star material in Kemble, before he ever thought of -it himself.” - -But long before either of them thought of Sheila Kemble as a star, that -destiny had been dreamed and planned for her by Sheila Kemble. - -Frivolous as she appeared on the stage and off, her pretty head was full -of sonorous ambitions. That head was not turned by the whirlwinds of -adulation, or drugged by the bouquets of flattery, because it was full -of self-criticism. She was struggling for expressions that she could not -get; she was groping, listening, studying, trying, discarding, -replacing. - -She thought she was free from any nonsense of love. Nonsense should not -thwart her progress and make a fool of her, as it had of so many others. -It should not interrupt her career or ruin it as it had so many others. -She would make friends with men, oh yes. They were so much more -sensible, as a rule, than women, except when they grew sentimental. And -that was a mere form of preliminary sparring with most of them. Once a -girl made a fellow understand that she was not interested in spoony -nonsense, he became himself and gave his mind a chance. And all the -while nature was rendering her more ready to command love from without, -less ready to withstand love from within. She was becoming more and more -of an actress. But still faster and still more was she becoming a woman. - - * * * * * - -While Sheila was drafting herself a future, Eldon was gnashing his teeth -in a pillory of inaction. He could make no step forward and he could not -back out. He had taken cheap and nasty lodgings in the same -boarding-house with Vincent Tuell, who added to his depression by his -constant distress. Tuell could not sleep nights or days; he filled -Eldon’s ears with endless denunciations of the stage and with cynical -advice to chuck it while he could. Eldon would probably have taken -Tuell’s advice if Tuell had not urged it so tyrannically. In -self-defense Eldon would protest: - -“Why don’t you leave it yourself, man? You ought to be in the hospital -or at home being nursed.” - -And Tuell would snarl: “Oh, I’d chuck it quick enough if I could. But -I’ve got no other trade, and there’s the pair of kiddies in school—and -the wife. She’s sick, too, and I’m here. God! what a business! It -wouldn’t be so bad if I were getting anywhere except older. But I’ve got -a rotten part and I’m rotten in it. Every night I have to breeze in and -breeze out and fight like the devil to keep from dying on the job. And -never a laugh do I get. It’s one of those parts that reads funny and -rehearses the company into convulsions and then plays like a column from -the telephone-book. I’ve done everything I could. I put in all the old -sure-fire business. I never lie down. I trip over rugs, I make funny -faces, I wear funny clothes, but does anybody smile?—nagh! I can’t even -fool the critics. I haven’t had a clipping I could send home to the wife -since I left the big town.” - -Eldon had been as puzzled as Tuell was. He had watched the expert actor -using an encyclopedia of tricks, and never achieving success. Tuell -usually came off dripping with sweat. The moment he reached the wings -his grin fell from him like a cheap comic mask over a tragic grimace of -real pain and despair. In addition to his mental distress, his physical -torment was incessant. In his boarding-house Tuell gave himself up to -lamentations without end. Eldon begged him to see a doctor, but Tuell -did not believe in doctors. - -“They always want to get their knives into you,” he would growl. -“They’re worse than the critics.” - -One day Eldon made the acquaintance of a young physician named Edie, who -had recently hung a sign in the front window and used the parlor as an -office during certain morning hours. Patients came rarely, and the -physician berated his profession as violently as Tuell his. Eldon -persuaded the doctor to employ some of his leisure in examining Tuell. -He persuaded Tuell to submit, and the doctor’s verdict came without -hesitation or delicacy: - -“Appendicitis, old man. The quicker you’re operated on the better for -you.” - -“What did I tell you?” Tuell snarled. “Didn’t I say they were like -critics? Their only interest in you is to knife you.” - -The young doctor laughed. “Perhaps the critics turn up the truth now and -then, too.” - -But Tuell answered, bitterly: “Well, I’ve got to stand them. I haven’t -got to stand for you other butchers.” - -Eldon apologized for his friend’s rudeness, but the doctor took no -offense: “It’s his pain that’s talking,” he said. “He’s a sick man. He -doesn’t know how sick he is.” - -One matinée day Tuell was like a hyena in the wings. He swore even at -Batterson. On the stage he was more violently merry than ever. After the -performance Eldon looked into his dressing-room and asked him to go to -dinner with him. Tuell refused gruffly. He would not eat to-day. He -would not take off his make-up. The sweat was everywhere about his -greasy face. His jaw hung down and he panted like a sick dog. Eldon -offered to bring him in some food—sandwiches or something. Tuell winced -with nausea at the mention. Then an anguish twisted through him like a -great steel gimlet. He groaned, unashamed. Eldon could only watch in -ignorant helplessness. When the spasm was over he said: - -“You’ve got to have a doctor, old man.” - -“I guess so,” Tuell sighed. “Get that young fellow, Edie. He won’t rob -me much. And he’ll wait for his fee.” - -Eldon made all haste to fetch Edie from the boarding-house. They -returned to find Tuell on the floor of his room, writhing and moaning, -unheeded in the deserted theater. The doctor gave Eldon a telephone -number and told him to demand an ambulance at once. - -Tuell heard the word, and broke out in such fierce protest that the -doctor countermanded the order. - -“I can’t go to any hospital now,” Tuell raged. “Haven’t you any sense? -You know there’s an evening performance. Get me through to-night, and I -can rest all day to-morrow. I’ve got to play to-night. I’ve got to! -There’s no understudy ready.” - -He played. They set a chair for him in the wings and the physician -waited there for him, piercing his skin with pain-deadening drugs every -time he left the stage. There was sympathy enough from the company. Even -Batterson was gentle, his fierce eyes fiercer with the cruelty of the -situation. The house was packed, and “ringing down on capacity” is not -done. - -Tuell sat in a stupor, breathing hard like a groggy prize-fighter. But -whenever his cue came it woke him as if a ringside gong had shrilled. He -flung off his suffering and marched out to his punishment. Only, -to-night, somehow, he lacked his usual speed. The suffering and the -bromides dulled him so that in place of dashing on the stage he -sauntered on; in place of slamming his lines back he just uttered them. - -And somehow the laughter came that had never come before—the laughter -the author had imagined and had won from the company at the first -reading from the script. - -From the wings they could see Tuell’s knuckles whiten where he clung to -a chair to keep from falling. - -The audience loved Tuell to-night, never suspected his anguishes, and -waited for him, laughed when he appeared. For his final exit he had -always stumbled off, whooping with stage laughter. It had always -resounded unaccompanied. To-night he was so spent that he was capable -only of a dry little chuckle. To his ears it was the old uproar. To the -audience it was the delicious giggle of this spring’s wind in last -year’s leaves. It tickled the multitude and all those united titters -made a thunder. - -Tuell staggered past the dead-line of the wings and fell forward into -Eldon’s arms, whispering: - -“I got ’em that time. Damn ’em, I got ’em at last.” - -Eldon helped him to his chair, helped lift him in his chair and carry -him to the ambulance. Tuell didn’t know whither they were taking him. He -clawed at Eldon’s arm and muttered: - -“I must write to the wife and tell her how I killed ’em to-night. And -I’ve got the trick now. I’ve just found the secret—just to-night. Of -course there wouldn’t be a critic there. Oh no, of course not.” - -But there was a Critic there. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - -The next morning, as Eldon was leaving his boarding-house to call on -Tuell at the hospital, he was astounded to see Batterson at the foot of -the steps. - -“I’m looking for you,” said the stage-manager. - -Batterson’s eyes were so bloodshot and so wet that Eldon stared his -surprise. Batterson grumbled: - -“No, I’m not drunk. Tried to get drunk, but couldn’t.” - -Eldon was at a loss for what to say to this. Suddenly Batterson was -clinging to his arm, and sobbing with head bent down to hide his -weakness from the passers-by. - -“Why, Mr. Batterson,” Eldon stammered, “what’s wrong?” - -“Tuell’s dead.” - -“No! My God!” - -“He never came out of the ether. They were too late to save him. The -appendix had burst while he was working last night.” - -Eldon, remembering that uncanny battle, felt the gush of brine to his -eyes. He hung his head for concealment, too. - -Batterson raged on: “Remember what Hamlet said: ‘They say he made a good -end.’ Tuell was only a mummer, but he died on the firing-line, makin’ -’em laugh. If he’d been a soldier trying to save somebody from paying -taxes without representation or trying to protect some millionaire’s -oil-wells, or a fireman trying to rescue somebody’s furniture—they’d -have called him a damned hero. But he was only an actor—he only tried -to make people happy. He was a comedian, and not a good comedian—just a -hard worker; one of these stage soldiers trying to keep the theater -open. - -“He did the best he knew how. The critics ripped him open and made him -funnier than he could make himself. But he kept right on. I used to -roast him worse than they did, God help me! But he never laid down on -us. He died in his make-up. They didn’t take his grease-paint off till -afterward. They didn’t know how. I had to do it for him when I got -there. Poor old painted face, with the comedian’s smile branded on it! -That was his trade-mark. He was only an actor.” - -Eldon noted that Batterson had led him, not to the hospital, but to the -theater, with its electric signs, its circus lithographs, its gaudy -ballyhoo of advertisement. - -Batterson groaned: “Well, here’s the shop. We’ve got to do what Tuell -did. The theater’s got to keep open. It’s another sell-out to-night. -Somebody has to play Tuell’s part to-night. I want you to.” - -In spite of the horror that filled his heart Eldon felt a shaft of hope -like a thrust of lightning in the night. Then the dark closed in again, -for Batterson went on: - -“It’s only for to-night, old boy. I’ve wired to New York and a good -man’ll be here to-morrow. But there’s to-night. You’ve got to go on. You -fell down the other time, and I guess I told you so, but you didn’t have -a rehearsal. I can coach you up to-day. I’ve called the other people. -They ought to be here now.” - -And so they were. - -On the gloomy stage before the empty house the company stood about in -somber garb, under the oppression of Tuell’s death. Batterson walked -down to the footlights, clapped his hands, and said: - -“Places, please, ladies and gentlemen, for poor old Tuell’s first scene. -Mr. Eldon will play the part to-night.” - -Those who were not on at the entrance drew to the sides. The others -moved here and there and stood at their posts. Batterson directed with -an unwonted calm, with a dismal patience. - -The part Eldon held in his hand had been taken from Tuell’s trunk. The -dead hands seemed to cling to it with grisly jealousy. The laughter of -Tuell seemed to haunt the place like the echo of a maniac’s voice. Eldon -could not give any color to the lines. He could barely utter them. The -company gave him his cues with equal lifelessness. - -Sheila was present and read her flippancies in a voice of terror—the -terror of youth before the swoop of death. Mrs. Vining muttered her -cynicisms with the drear bitterness of one to whom this familiar sort of -thing had happened once more. - -When the detached scenes had been run over several times Batterson -dismissed Eldon first that he might go and study. As he went he heard -Batterson saying: - -“Help him out to-night, ladies and gentlemen. Do the best you can. -To-morrow we’ll have a regular man here. And now about poor Tuell. Some -of the comic-opera people in town will sing at his funeral. His wife is -coming out to get him. Mr. Reben telegraphed to pay the expenses of -taking him back. I guess he didn’t leave the wife anything much—except -some children. We’d better get up a little benefit, I guess—a matinée, -probably. The other troupes in town will help, of course. If any of you -know any good little one-act plays, let’s have ’em. I’ve got a screaming -little farce we might throw on. I think I can get some of the vaudeville -people to do a few comic turns.” - - * * * * * - -That night Eldon slipped into the dead man’s shoes—at least he wore the -riding-boots and the hunting-coat and carried the crop that Tuell had -worn. Tuell had had them made too large—for the comic effect that did -not come. They fitted Eldon fairly well. But it was like acting in -another man’s shroud. - -He was without ambition, without hope of personal profit. He was merely -a stop-gap. He was too completely gloomy even to feel afraid of the -audience. He was only a journeyman finishing another man’s job. - -His memory worked like a machine, so independently of his mind that he -seemed to have a phonograph in his throat. He kept wondering at the -little explosions of laughter at his words. - -He saw the surprise in Sheila’s eyes as he brought down the house—with -so different a laughter now. He murmured to her in sudden dread, “Are -they guying me again?” - -“No, no,” she answered. “Go on; you’re splendid!” - -The news of Tuell’s death had taken little space in the evening papers. -The audience, as a whole, was oblivious of it, or of what he had played. -There was none of the regret on the other side of the footlights that -solemnized the stage. The play had been established as a successful -comedy. People came to laugh, and laughed with confidence. - -But the pity of Tuell’s fate ruined any joy Eldon might have taken in -the success he was winning. He played the part through in the same dull, -indifferent tone. When he made his final exit he laughed as he had heard -Tuell laugh, with uncanny mimicry as if a ghost inhabited him. He was -hardly conscious of the salvo of applause that followed him. He supposed -that some one still on the stage had earned it. He sighed with relief as -he reached the shelter of the dark wings. Batterson, who had hovered -near him, ready with the unnecessary prompt-book, glared at him in -amazement and growled: - -“Good Lord! Eldon, who’d have ever picked you for a comedian?” - -Eldon smiled at what he imagined to be sarcasm, and took from his pocket -the little pamphlet he had carried with him for quick reference. He -offered it to Batterson. Batterson waved it back. - -“Keep it, my boy. When the other fellow gets here from New York he can -play your old part.” - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - -The next night Eldon reached the theater in a new mood. He had been -promoted. He still felt sorry for poor Tuell. The grief of the wife whom -he had met at the train and taken to the undertaker’s shop where Tuell -rested had torn his heart as with claws. He had told her all things -beautiful of Tuell. He had wept to see her weep. He wept his heart clean -as a sheep’s heart. - -As Villon said, “The dead go quick.” Eldon was ashamed to be so -merciless, but in spite of himself ambition blazed up in him. He was a -comedian. Batterson had told him so. The house had told him so. Sheila -had murmured, “You’re splendid.” - -And now he was a comedian with a screamingly funny rôle. Now he could -build it up. He had been working on it half unconsciously all night and -all day. - -The second night he marched into the scene with the authority of one who -is about to be very funny. In his first scenes he delivered his lines -with enthusiasm, with appreciation of their humor. He took pains not to -“walk into his laughs” as he had done the night before, when he had not -expected any laughs. He waited for his laughs. He was amazed to note -that they did not come. His pause left a hole in the action. He worked -harder, underlined his important words, cocked his head as one who says, -“The story I am about to tell you is the funniest thing you ever heard. -You’ll die when you hear it.” - -It was the scene that died. A new form of stage-fright sickened him. -Hope perished. He was not a comedian, after all. His one success had -been an accident. - -When the first curtain fell he slunk away by himself to avoid -Batterson’s searching eyes. To complete his shame he saw that Batterson -was talking earnestly with the new-comer from New York. - -Old Mrs. Vining sauntered his way. He tried to escape, but the heavy -standard of a bunch-light cut him off. She approached him and began in -that acid tone of hers: - -“Young man, there are two things that are important to a comedian. One -is to get a laugh, and the other is to nail it. You got your laughs last -night and you’ve lost ’em to-night. Do you know why?” - -“If I only did! I’m playing twice as hard to-night.” - -“You bet you are, and you’re hard as zinc. You keep telling the audience -how funny you’re going to be, and that finishes you. Now you’ve lived -long enough to know that there are few jokes in the world so funny that -they can stand being boosted before they’re told. Play your part -straight, man. You can fake pathos and rub it in, but of all things -always play comedy straight. - -“And another thing, don’t fidget! One of the best comedians that ever -walked the stage told me once, ‘I know only one secret for getting -laughs, and that is, Nobody must move when the laugh comes.’ But -to-night you never waited for anybody else to kill your laughs. You -butchered ’em yourself by lolling your head and making fool gestures. -Quit it! Now you go on in the next act and play the part as you did last -night. Be gloomy and quiet and depressed. That’s what makes ’em laugh -out there—the sight of your misery. There’s nothing funny to them in -your being so damned cheerful as you were to-night.” - -Eldon said, “Thank you very much, Mrs. Vining.” But he was not convinced -of anything except his fatal and eternal unfitness to be an actor. He -walked into the second act carrying his old burden of dejection; he -rather moaned than delivered his lines. And the people laughed. - -The cruelty of the public heart angered Eldon and he made further -experiment in dolor. Laughs came now that he had not secured the night -before. The others were bigger than then. He threw into some of his -lines such subcellar misery that he broke up Sheila. When he made the -laughing exit he did not even chuckle, he moaned. And the result was a -tornado. People mopped their eyes. - -Batterson met him with a quizzical smile: “You got ’em going to-night -nearly as good as the time your lantern went out.” - -That was higher praise than it sounded at first hearing. - -When Mrs. Vining made her exit she said, “Aha! What did I tell you, -young man?” - -When Sheila came off she sought him out, and cried, “Oh, you were -wonderful, simply wonderful!” - -And when Batterson growled at her: “You spoiled several of his best -laughs by talking through ’em. You ought to know better than that,” -Sheila was so pleased for Eldon’s sake that she relished the rebuke. - -Mrs. Vining had warned him to nail his laughs. At the next performance -he tried to repeat his exact effects. Some of them he forgot, some of -them he remembered. But they did not work this time. Others went better -than ever. Each point was a new battle. - -And so it was with every repetition. No two audiences were alike. Each -had its own individuality. He began to study audiences as individuals. -The first part of his first act was his period of getting acquainted. -Some houses were quick and some slow, some noisily demonstrative, some -quietly satisfied. It took all his powers to play his part. And he could -not tire of it because every night was a first night in a new rôle. - - * * * * * - -Success made another man of him. He was interested in his task. He was -winning praise for it. The management voluntarily raised his salary a -little. He held his head a trifle higher. - -Sheila noted the change at once. She liked him the better for it. She -repeated her invitation to tea. He accepted now, and appeared in some -new clothes. They were vastly becoming. On the stage he played a -middle-aged henpecked plebeian. Off the stage he was young and handsome -and thoroughbred. - -He was a reader, too, and Sheila, like most actresses, was an omnivorous -browser. They talked books. She lent him one of hers. He cherished it as -if it were a breviary. They argued over literature and life. He ventured -to contradict her. He was no longer a big mastiff at heel. He was -forceful and stubborn. These qualities do not greatly displease a woman -who likes a man. - -Mrs. Vining was amused at first by the change in Sheila. Latterly the -girl was constantly quoting “Mr. Eldon.” By and by it was “As Floyd -Eldon says,” and one day Mrs. Vining heard, “Last night Floyd was -telling me.” Then Aunt John grew alarmed, for she did not want Sheila to -be in love—not for a long while yet, and never with an actor. - -And Sheila had no intention of falling in love with an actor. But this -did not prevent her from being the best of friends with one. All of -Eldon’s qualities charmed Sheila as she discovered them. She had leisure -for the discovery. There were no rehearsals; business was good at the -theater; Eldon grew better and better in his performance. Sheila kept up -her pace and enlarged her following. They dwelt in an atmosphere of -contentment. But as her personal public increased and as the demands on -her spirits and her time increased she began to take more pleasure in -the company of Eldon and to like him best alone. She began to break old -engagements, or fulfil them briefly, and to refuse new invitations. - -Mrs. Vining was not able to be about for a while. Her neuralgia was -revived by the knife-winds of Chicago. But Sheila and Eldon found them -highly stimulating. He joined her in her constitutionals. - -Chicago was large enough to give them a kind of seclusion by multitude, -the solitude of a great forest. Among Chicago’s myriads the little -“Friend in Need” company was lost to view. It was possible to go about -with Eldon and never meet a fellow-trooper; to walk miles with him along -the Lake front, or through Lincoln Park, to sidle past the pictures in -the Art Institute or the Field Museum, and rest upon the benches in -galleries where the dumb beauty on the walls warmed the soul to -sensitiveness. - -And when they were not alone their hearts seemed to commune without -exchange of word or glance. He told her first how wonderful an artist -she was, and by and by he was crediting her art to her wonderful -“personality.” She told him that he had “personality,” too, lots of it, -and charming. She told him that the stage needed men of birth and -breeding and higher education, especially when these were combined with -such—such—she could hardly say beauty—so she fell back again on that -useful term—“personality.” - -They never tired of discussing the technic of their trade and its -emotional grandeurs. He told her that his main ambition was to see her -achieve the heights God meant her for; he only wished that he might -trudge on after her, in her wake. She told him that he had far greater -gifts than she had, and that his future was boundless. - -Finally she convinced him that she was convinced of this, and over a -tea-table in the Auditorium Hotel he murmured—and trembled with the -terrific audacity of it as he murmured: - -“If only we could always play together—twin stars.” - -She was shocked as if she had touched a live wire of frightful -beatitude. And her lips shivered as she mumbled, “Would you like that?” - -He could only sigh enormously. And his eyes were full of devout longing -as he whispered, “Let’s!” - -They burst into laughter like children planning some tremendous game. -And then Mrs. Vining had to walk into their cloud-Eden and dissolve it -into a plain table at which she seated herself. - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Vining was thinking “Aha!” as she crossed the room to their table. -“It’s high time I was getting well. Affairs have been progressing since -I began to nurse my neuralgia.” - -She resolved to stick around, like the “demon chaperon” of Fontaine -Fox’s comic pictures. At all costs she must rescue Sheila from the wiles -of this good-looking young man. For her ward to lose her head and find -her heart in an affair with an actor would be a disaster indeed; the -very disaster that Sheila’s mother had warned her against. - -Of course Sheila’s mother had married an actor and been as happy as a -woman had a right to expect to be with any man. And of course Mrs. -Vining’s own dear dead John Vining had been the most lovable of rascals. -But such bits of luck could not keep on recurring in the same family. - -And Mr. Reben did not believe in marriage for actors, either. He had -many reasons far from romantic. The public did not like its innocent -heroines to be wives. The prima donna’s husband is a proverb of -trouble-making. Separated, the couple pine; united, they quarrel with -other members of the company or with each other. Children arrive -contrary to bookings and play havoc with youth and vivacity, changing -the frivolous Juliet into a Nurse or a Roman Matron. - -Reben would have been infuriated to learn that Sheila Kemble, his Sheila -of the golden future, was dallying on the brink of an infatuation for an -infatuated minor member of one of his companies. A flirtation, even, was -too dangerous to permit. He would have dismissed Eldon without a -moment’s pity if he had known what none of the company had yet -suspected. Unwittingly he accomplished the effect he would have sought -if he had been aware. - -Reben ran out to Chicago ostensibly, according to his custom, to inspect -the troupe in the last fortnight of its run there. He invited Sheila to -supper with Mrs. Vining. He criticized Sheila severely and praised Miss -Griffen. Later, as if quite casually, he spoke to Mrs. Vining of a new -play he had found abroad. It was a man star’s play. “I bought it for Tom -Brereton,” he said, “but the leadin’ woman’s rôle is rather -interestin’.” - -He described one of her scenes and noted that Sheila was instantly -excited. It was one of those craftsmanly achievements the English -dramatists arrive at oftener than ours, and it had made the instant fame -of the actress who played it in London. Having dropped this golden apple -before Atalanta, he changed the subject carelessly. - -Sheila turned back to the apple: - -“Tell me more about the play, please!” - -Reben told her more, permitted her to coax him to tell it all. He yawned -so crudely that she would have noticed his wiles if she had been able to -think of anything but that rôle; for an actress thrills at the thought -of putting on one of these costumes of the soul as quickly as an average -woman grows incandescent before a new gown. - -Sheila clasped her hands and shook her head like a beggar outside a -restaurant window: “Oh, but I envy the woman who plays that part! Who is -she?” - -“Parton, I suppose,” Reben yawned. “But she’s fallen off lately. Gone -and got herself in love—and with a fool actor, of all people! The -idiot! I’ve a notion to chuck her. After all the money and publicity -I’ve wasted on her, to fall for a dub like that!” - -Sheila did not dare plead for the part. But her eyes prayed; her very -attitude implored it. - -Reben laughed: “In case anything awful happened to Parton—like sudden -death or matrimony—I don’t suppose the rôle would interest you?” - -“I’d give ten years off my life to play that part.” - -“Would you, now?” Reben laughed. “You don’t mean it. Ten years off your -life, eh? Would you give ten dollars off your salary?” He chuckled at -his shrewdness. - -But she answered, solemnly, “I’d play it for nothing.” - -“Well, well!” said Reben. “That would be a savin’!” He always would have -his little joke. Then he said: “But jokin’ aside, of course I couldn’t -afford to let you work for nothin’. Fact is, if the play was a success I -could afford to pay you a little better than you’re gettin’ now. What -are you gettin’ now?” - -“Seventy-five,” said Sheila. - -“Is that all!” said Reben. “Well, well, I don’t have to be as stingy as -that. But there’s one thing I can’t afford to do and that’s to work for -an actor—or actress—who quits me as soon as I make him—or her.” - -“I’d never quit you if you gave me chances like that,” Sheila sighed, -hopelessly. - -“So they all tell me,” said Reben. “Then they chuck me for the -management of Cupid & Co. Would you be willin’ to sign a five years’ -contract with me, young lady?” - -“In a minute!” - -“Well, well! I’ll see what can be done. Good night!” - -He left her to fret herself to an edge with the insomnia of frantic -ambition. The next day he sent her a contract to look over. - -“Aha!” said Sheila to Mrs. Vining. “That’s his little game. He wanted me -all the time. Why couldn’t he have said so? I’ll make him pay for being -so clever.” - -She sent the contract back with emendations. - -He emended her emendations and returned it to her. - -She emended further and wrote in the margin, “Oh, Mr. Reben!” and, -“Greedy, greedy!” - -He rather enjoyed the duel with the little haggler. He belonged to the -race that best manages to combine really good art with really good -business and really good generosity. - -When at last he had bargained Sheila to the wall he made her a present -of better terms than she had accepted—as if he were tossing her a -handsome diamond. - -Sheila embraced him and called him an angel. He belonged, indeed, to the -same race as the only original angels. - -She signed the contract with exclamations of gratitude. With his copy in -his pocket he put out both hands and wished her all the glory he planned -for her. Then he told her to get ready to leave within a week for New -York and rehearsals. - -He had brought to Chicago a young woman stage-named Dulcie Ormerod to -replace her. He wanted Dulcie to play the part at least a week so that -the company could be advertised as “exactly the same that appeared in -Chicago.” - -When he had gone Sheila fell from the clouds—at least she struck a hole -in the air and sank suddenly nearer to the earth. She cried, “Oh, Aunt -John, I forgot to ask if he wanted you in the new play!” - -“No, he doesn’t, dearie. He told me how sorry he was that there was no -part for me while you were signing the contract.” - -“Oh, I’m so sorry! I won’t leave you!” - -“Of course you will, my child. You can’t go on forever chained to my old -slow heels. Besides, I’m too tired to learn a new part this season. I’ll -jog on out to the Coast with this company. I think California will be -good for me.” - -A little later Sheila remembered Floyd Eldon. She gasped as if she had -been stabbed. - -“Why, what’s wrong now, honey?” cried Mrs. Vining. - -“I was just thinking—Oh, nothing!” - - * * * * * - -Sheila was dismayed at the idea of leaving Eldon, leaving him all by -himself—no, not by himself, for that Dulcie creature would replace her -in the company, and perhaps—no doubt—in his lonely heart. Sheila had -grown ever so fond of Eldon, but she could not expect any man, least of -all so handsome, so big-hearted a man, to resist the wiles of a cat, or, -worse, a kitten, who would select such a name as “Dulcie.” - -An inspiration gave Sheila sudden cheer. She would ask dear Mr. Reben to -give Eldon a chance in the new company. It would be far better for Floyd -to “create” something than to continue hammering at his present -second-hand rôle. He might have to take a smallish part, but they would -be in each other’s neighborhood, and perhaps the star might fall ill. -Eldon would step in; he would make an enormous sensation; and then and -thus in a few short months they would have accomplished their -dream—they would be revolving as twin stars in the high sky together. - -She called up Reben at the theater; he had gone to the hotel. At the -hotel, he had left for the station. At the station, he had taken the -train. Well, she would write to him or, better yet, see him in person -and arrange it the minute she reached New York. - -That night she took her contract to the theater in her hand-bag. She -must tell Floyd about it. - -He was loitering outside when she reached the stage door. Her face was -agleam with joy as she beckoned him under a light in the corridor. His -face was agleam, too, as he hurried forward. Before she could whisk out -her contract he brandished before her one of his own. Before she could -say, “See what I have!” he was murmuring: “Sheila! Sheila! What do you -suppose? Reben—the great Reben likes my work. He said he thought I was -worth keeping, but I ought to be playing the juvenile lead instead of a -second old man. He’s going to shift Eric Folwell to a new production -East, and he offered me his place! Think of it! Of course I grabbed it. -I’m to replace Folwell as soon as I can get up in the part. Would you -believe it—Reben gave me a contract for three years. He’s boosted me to -fifty a week already. I’m to play this part all season through to the -Coast. And next season he’ll give me a better part in something -else—and at a better salary. - -“I wanted to telephone you about it, but I was afraid to mention it to -you for fear something might prevent him from signing. But he did!—just -before he took the train. See, there’s his own great name! After next -week I’m to be your lover in the play as well as in reality. Our dream -is coming true already, isn’t it—” He hesitated before the absolute -word, then, having made the plunge, went on and whispered, “Sheila -mine!” - -Sheila stared at him, at the love and triumph in his eyes; and suddenly -her cake was dough. Her mouth twisted like a child’s when the rain -begins on a holiday. She turned her head away and passed the side of her -hand childishly across her clenched eyes, whence the tears came -thronging. She half murmured, half wept: - -“I’m not your Sheila. I’m that hateful old Reben’s slave. And I don’t go -any further with you. Miss—Dulcie Somebody-or-other is to have my part. -She’s prettier than I am. And I’ve got to go to New York next week to -begin rehearsals of—a horrid old B-british success.” - - * * * * * - -The voice of the call-boy warning them of the half-hour sent them -scurrying to their cells with their plight unsolved. They had a few -chances to exchange regrets during the performance, but other members of -the company who had heard of the good luck of both of them kept breaking -in with felicitations that sounded like irony. They were so desperate -for talk that Eldon waited for Sheila in the alley and walked to her -hotel with her. Mrs. Vining went along, very much along. They had to -accept her presence; she would not be ignored. She put in sarcastic -allusions to the uselessness of good luck in this world. In her day -actors and actresses would have been dancing along the streets over such -double fortune. As to their separation, it would be a good test of their -alleged affection. If it was serious it would outlast the test; if not, -it was a good time to learn how unimportant the whole thing was. - -She regarded the elegies of young love with all the skepticism of the -old who have seen so much of it, heard so much repetition of such words -as “undying” and “forever,” and have seen the “undying” dying all about -like autumn leaves, and few of the “forevers” lasting a year. - -Sheila accepted Eldon’s invitation to have a bite of supper in the -grill-room. Mrs. Vining was in a grill-room mood and invited herself -along. Other members of the troupe appeared and visited the funeral -table with words of envy. - -In the spaces between these interruptions Sheila explained her plan to -ask Reben to give Eldon a chance with the new company. - -Mrs. Vining sniffed: “Sheila, you ought to have sense enough to know -that the minute you mentioned this young man’s name Reben would send him -to Australia—or fire him.” - -“Fire him?” said Sheila. “He has a three years’ contract.” - -“Yes, with a two weeks’ clause in it, I’ll bet.” - -They fetched the contract out and looked it over again. There was the -iniquitous clause, seated like a toad overlooked among the flowers, and -now it was impossible to see the flowers for the toad. - -“Oh, you ought to have changed that,” said Sheila. “It’s different in -mine.” - -“I didn’t know,” said Eldon, “and I shouldn’t have dared to argue with -Reben. I was afraid he might change his mind. But I could resign and -come East and get a job with another manager.” - -Mrs. Vining poured on more vinegar: “You can’t resign. That two weeks’ -notice works only one way. And if you break with Reben you’ll have a -fine chance getting in with any other manager! Besides, why let -your—well, call it ‘love’ if you want to—why let it make fools of you -both? Mr. Eldon has had a great compliment from the best manager in the -country, and a raise of salary, and a promise of his interest. Are you -thinking of slapping him in the face and kicking your own feet out from -under yourself just because this foolish little girl is going along -about her business? - -“And another thing, Mr. Floyd Eldon, if you love this girl as much as -you say you’re taking a pretty way to prove it. Do you want to ruin her -career just as it’s beginning, drag this rising star back to the -drudgery of being the wife of a fifty-dollar-a-week actor? Oh, you’ll do -better. You’re the type that matinée girls make a pet of. You’ll have -draught, too, as soon as you learn a little more about your business. -But it wouldn’t help you any just now to be known as an old married man. -You mind your business and let her mind hers. - -“You think you’re Romeo and Juliet in modern costume, I suppose. Well, -look what a mess they made of it. You are two fine young things and I -love you both, but you mustn’t try to prove your devotion to each other -by committing suicide together.” - -Eldon’s thoughts were dark and bitter. His own career meant nothing to -him at the moment. His love of Sheila was all-important to him, and her -career was, above all, important. He said: “I certainly won’t do -anything to hurt Sheila’s career. That’s my religion—her career.” - -He poured into her eyes all the idolatry a man can feel for a woman. He -had a curious feeling that he read in her eyes a faint fleck of -disappointment. His sacrifice was perfect and complete, but he felt an -odious little suspicion that it was not absolutely welcome. - -Perhaps he guessed right. Sheila was hastening to that point in -womanhood where the chief demand of her soul is not that her lover -should exalt her on a pedestal and worship her, but should tear her -thence and love her. She did not suspect this yet herself. All she knew -was that she was dissatisfied with her triumph. She bade Eldon a ghostly -farewell at the hotel elevator and went up to her room, while he turned -away to his dingy boarding-house. He had not yet bettered his lodgings; -he was trying to save his pennies against the future need of a married -man. - -When Sheila had made ready for bed she put out the lights and leaned -across the sill and stared across the dark boundless prairie of the -starlit Lake. It had an oceanic vastitude and loneliness. It was as -blank as her own future. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - -The last days of Sheila’s presence with the company were full of -annoyances. There was little opportunity for communion with Floyd. Mrs. -Vining was invincibly tenacious. All day long, too, Floyd was rehearsing -his new rôle. This proved intensely difficult to him. With a heart full -of devotion to Sheila, it was worse than awkward to be making love to -the parvenue who took her place, mimicked her intonations, made the same -steps and gestures, said the same words, and yet was so radically -different. - -She was a forward thing—Miss Dulcie Ormerod. She patronized Eldon and -tried to flirt with him at the same time. She forced conversation on him -when he was morose. She happened to meet him with extraordinary -coincidence when he was outside the theater. And almost every time the -two of them happened to be together they happened to meet Sheila. - -Dulcie was one of those women who seem unable to address one without -pawing or clinging—as if the arms were telephone cables, and there were -no communicating without contact. - -Sheila was of the wireless type. A touch from her was as important as a -caress. To put a hand familiarly or carelessly on her arm was not to be -thought of, at least by Eldon. Others who attempted it found that she -flinched aside or moved to a distance almost unconsciously. She kept -herself precious in every way. - -Eldon loathed the touch of Dulcie’s claws, especially as he could not -seem to convince Sheila that he did not enjoy her incessant contiguity. -And the prehensive Dulcie was calling him “Floyd” before the third -rehearsal. - -Batterson was calling him all sorts of names of the familiarity that -implies contempt, for Eldon was not rehearsing well. He realized the -confusing inconveniences that love can weave into the actor’s trade. If -it had not been for Sheila he could have made a straight matter of art -or business out of the love-scenes with Dulcie, or he could have thrown -the hungry thing an occasional kind word to keep her quiet, or have -fallen temporarily in love with her, for Dulcie was one of those -actresses who insist that they “must feel a part to play it.” She was -forever alluding to one of her rôles in which “she knew she was great -because she wept real tears in it.” - -Sheila belonged to the other school. Her father would say of a scene, “I -knew I was great in that because I could guy it.” For then he was like -the juggler who can chat with the audience without dropping a prop—a -Cyrano who can fight for his life and compose a poem at the same time. - -Sheila felt the emotions of her rôle when she first took it up, but she -conquered them as soon as she could by studying and registering their -manifestations, so that her resources were like an instrument to play -on. Thereafter her emotions were those of the concert violinist who -plays upon his audience as well as his instrument. - -Sheila watched a few rehearsals. She hated the exaggerated -sentimentalisms of Dulcie and her splay-footed comedy. Dulcie -underscored every important word like a school-girl writing a letter. -Sheila credited the audience with a sense of humor and kept its -intelligence alert. Sheila made no bones of criticizing her successor. -But when Eldon agreed with her, she was not convinced. She was far more -jealous of him than she was of her rôle. But Eldon was not wise enough -to take comfort from these proofs of her affection. They narrowly -escaped quarreling during their last few meetings. - -When Sheila went away Eldon could not even go to the train with her. -Batterson held him to rehearsal. - -Sheila said, “Don’t worry; Mr. Folwell will take care of me.” She could -hardly have been ignorant of the torment this meant to Eldon, but her -heart was aching, too, because he permitted a little thing like his -business to keep him from paying the last tributes of tenderness. - -Folwell was one of those affable leading men who always proffer their -leading women as much gallantry as they care to accept. He had been a -devoted suitor to Zelma Griffen and had graciously pretended to suffer -agonies of jealousy over her humming-bird flirtations. He had done the -same with the women stars of his last three engagements. He was Scotch, -and had a gift of sad-eyed sincerity for the moment, and a vocabulary of -irresistible little pet names, and a grim earnestness about whatever -interested him at the time. His real name was, curiously, Robert Burns. -He had changed it lest he be suspected of stealing it, or of advertising -a much-advertised tobacco. - -Eldon imagined that Folwell would begin to languish over Sheila the -moment the train started, and was tempted to bash in his head so that he -would be incapable of making love at all. He had won into Sheila’s good -graces by knocking an anonymous student over the footlights. If he sent -a pseudonymous actor the same way he might clinch his success with her. -He little knew that the blow he had struck Bret Winfield had not yet -ceased to sting that youth, and that Winfield was still repeating his -vow to square himself with Eldon and with Sheila—in very different -ways. - -But Eldon let Folwell escape without planting his fists on him. And he -let Sheila escape without imprinting the seal of his kiss upon her. He -had never laid lip to her cheek. And now they were divorced, without -being betrothed. - -If he had known how tenderly Sheila’s thoughts flew back to him, if he -had known that she locked herself in her state-room and wept and never -once saw Folwell on the train, he would have been happier and sadder -both, with the incurable perversity of a forlorn lover. If he could have -seen her very soul of souls he would have seen what she dared not admit -to herself, that she was a little disappointed in him because he let her -go. She doubted the greatness of his love of her because he loved the -artist she was so well. Sheila was more jealous of her actress self than -of Dulcie Ormerod. - -It was not many days before Eldon, too, turned his back on Chicago, but -facing westerly. The city was dear to him: he had passed through a whole -lifetime of stages there, from crushing failure to success in a leading -rôle, and from loneliness to reciprocated love and widowerhood. - -Mrs. Vining tried to console him when he turned to her as at least a -relative of Sheila’s. She made as much as she could of his performance -as Folwell’s successor. It was a creditable and a promising beginning, -though it offended her experienced standards in countless ways. But she -flattered him with honeyed words, and she tried to wear away his love -for Sheila. - -She had seen so many nice young fellows and dear, sweet girls stretched -on the rack of these situations—wrenched by the wheels of separation -and all the suspicions that jealousy can imagine from opportunity. In -all mercy she wished this couple well cured of the inflammation. She did -her part to allay it with counter-irritants and caustics. She wrote -Sheila that Eldon was getting along famously with his rôle—and with -Dulcie, who was “a dear little thing and winning excellent press -notices.” She told Eldon that Sheila was in love with her new play, and -that Tom Brereton was turning her head with his compliments. Folwell, -who had the second male rôle in the new play, was also very attentive, -she said. And Sheila was going out a good deal in New York—dancing her -feet off nearly every night. The author of the play was a third rival -for her favor, in Mrs. Vining’s chronicles. - -Everything collaborated to Eldon’s torture. The “Friend in Need” company -was moving West in long jumps. Sheila’s letters had farther and farther -to go. A sudden change of booking threw them off the track and two weeks -passed without a line. He sent her day letters and night letters as -affectionate in tone as he had the face to submit to the telegraph -operators. Her answers did not satisfy him. They were never so prompt as -his calculations and he did not credit her with restraint before the -cold-eyed telegraphers. - -She was far busier, too, than he imagined. Costumes were to be ordered -and fitted; the new lines to be learned; photographs to be posed for; -interviews to be given. Reben was grooming her for a star already, -without giving her an inkling of his schemes. As for flirting with -Brereton or Folwell, she was as far as possible from the thought of such -a leisurely occupation. She was having battles with them, and still -bitterer conflicts with the author. - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - -In the eyes of the playwright Sir Ralph Incledon, as in the eyes of the -early Spaniards, the Americans were savages with unlimited gold to -exchange for glass beads. He had a noble contempt for all of us except -our dollars, and he was almost ashamed to take those; their very -nomenclature was vulgar and the decimal system was French. - -The London success of his piece following upon his arrival at knighthood -had completely spoiled him. Other great writers and actors who had -received the accolade had been rendered a little meeker and more -knightly as knights, but Incledon became almost unendurably offensive, -even to his fellows in London. The decent English in New York who had to -meet him abominated him as civilized Americans abroad abominate the -noisy specimens of Yankee insolence who go twanging their illiterate -contempt through the palaces and galleries and restaurants of Europe. - -Sir Ralph was greatly distressed with the company Reben had proudly -mustered for him. Tom Brereton was English born and bred, but Sir Ralph -accused him of “an extraord’n’r’ly atrowcious Amayric’n acs’nt.” -Americans who had seen the London performance had been amazed not only -at the success of Miss Berkshire, but at her very tolerance on the -stage; they said she looked like a giraffe and talked like a cow. But -she pleased her own public somehow. When Sir Ralph saw Sheila he was not -impressed; he said that she was “even wahss” than Brereton and under -“absolutely neigh-o sec’mst’nces could he permit hah to deviate from the -p’fawm’nce of d’yah aold Bahkshah.” - -Sheila had flattered herself that she knew something of England and -English; she had visited the island enough, and some of its stateliest -homes; and she had had some of the worst young peers making love to her. -But Sir Ralph, she wrote her aunt, evidently regarded her “as something -between a squaw and a pork-packer’s daughter.” - -Sir Ralph threw her into such a bog of humiliation that she floundered -at every step. How could she give an intelligent reading to a line when -he wanted every word sung according to the idiom of another woman of -another race? How could she embody a rôle in its entirety when every -utterance and motion was to be patterned on Sir Ralph’s wretched -imitations of a woman she had never seen? - -Sir Ralph not only threw his company into a panic, but he revealed a -positive genius for offending the reporters, the critics, the public. -Before the first curtain rose there was a feeling of hostility, against -which the disaffected and disorganized players struggled in vain. - -His play was a beautiful structure, full of beautiful thoughts expertly -wrought into form. But Sir Ralph, like so many authors, seemed to -contradict in his person everything worth while in his work. - -His wife, Lady Incledon, knew him to be earnest, hard-working, -emotional, timorous. His anxiety and modesty when at bay before the -public gave the impression of conceit, contempt, and insolence. If he -had been more cocksure of his play he would not have been so critical of -its interpreters. If he had not been so afraid of the Americans he would -not have tried to make them afraid of him. No tenderer-hearted novelist -ever wrote than Dickens, yet he had the knack of infuriating mobs of -people into a warm desire to lynch him. No sweeter-souled poet ever sang -than Keats, yet Byron said he never saw him but he wanted to kick him. - -Sir Ralph Incledon had the misfortune to belong to this class. He was -not popular at home and he was maddening abroad. He made Americans -remember Bunker Hill and long to avenge Nathan Hale. The critics felt it -their patriotic duty to make reprisals for all the Americans who had -failed in London and to send this Piccadillian back with his coat-tails -between his legs. - -The opening performance in New York was a first-class disaster. The -audience did not follow the London custom of calling the author out and -booing him. It left him in the wings, excruciated with ingrowing speech. -He had drawn up one of the most tactless orations ever prepared in -advance by a well-meaning author. He was not permitted to deliver it. He -had a cablegram written out to send his anxious wife overseas. He did -not send it. When he read the next morning’s papers he was simply dazed. -He had come as a missionary direct from the capital to a benighted -province and he was received with jeers—or “jahs,” as his dialect would -be spelled in our dialect. - -He wept privately and then put on an armor of contempt. He sailed -shortly after, leaving the Americans marooned on their desert continent. - -The actors were treated with little mercy by most of the critics, except -to be used as bludgeons to whack the author with. Sheila’s notices were -of the “however” sort. “Miss Sheila Kemble is a promising young actress; -the part she played, however, was so irritating—” or, “In spite of all -the cleverness of—” or, “Sheila Kemble exhausted her resources in vain -to give a semblance of life to—” - -Sheila sent the clippings to Mrs. Vining, and added: “Every bouquet had -a brickbat in it. We are not long for this world, I fear.” - -Reben fought valiantly for the play. He squandered money on extra spaces -in the papers and on the bill-boards. He quoted from the critics who -praise everything and he emphasized lines about the scenery. The play -simply did not endure the sea change. People who came would not enjoy -it, and would not recommend it. It was hard even to give away -complimentary seats, and the result was one that would have been more -amazing if it were less common; a successful play by a famous author -produced with a famous cast at a leading theater in the largest city of -the New World was played to a theater that could not be filled at any or -no price. The receipts fell to forty dollars one night. - -A newspaper wit wrote, “Last night the crowds on Broadway were so dense -that a man was accidentally pushed into the Odeon Theater.” On another -day he said, “Last night during a performance of Sir Ralph Incledon’s -masterpiece some miscreant entered the Odeon Theater and stole all the -orchestra chairs.” - -The slow death of a play is a miserable process. The actors began to see -the nobilities of the work once the author was removed from in front of -it. They regretted its passing, but plays cannot live in a vacuum. -Novels and paintings can wait patiently and calmly in suspended -animation till their understanders grow up, but plays, like infants, -must be nourished at once or they die and stay dead. - - * * * * * - -Sheila and all the company had fought valiantly for the drama. Once Sir -Ralph’s back was turned, they fell to playing their rôles their own way, -and they at least enjoyed their work more. But the audiences never came. - -Sheila was plunged into deeps of gloom. She felt that she must suffer -part of the blame or at least the punishment of the play’s non-success. -She wished she had stayed with “A Friend in Need.” - -But Reben had always been known as a good sport, a plucky taker of -whatever medicine the public gave him. After a bastinado from the -critics he had waited to see what the people would do. There was never -any telling. Sometimes the critics would write pæans of rapture and the -lobby would be as deserted as a graveyard, leaving the box-office man -nothing to do but manicure his nails. Sometimes the critics would -unanimously condemn, and there would be a queue at the door the next -morning. Sometimes the critics would praise and the mob would storm the -window. Sometimes they would blame and audiences would stay away as if -by conspiracy. In any case, “the box-office tells the story.” - -Cassard, the manager, once said that he could tell if a play were a -success by merely passing the theater an hour after the performance was -over. A more certain test at the Odeon Theater was the manner of Mr. -Chittick, the box-office man. If he laid aside his nail-file without a -sigh and proved patient and gracious with the autobiographical woman who -loitered over a choice of seats and their date, the play was a failure. -If Mr. Chittick insulted the brisk business man who pushed the exact sum -of money over the ledge and weakly requested “the two best, please” the -play was a triumph. Mr. Chittick was a very model of affability while -Incledon’s play occupied the stage of the unoccupied theater. - -Reben’s motto was “The critics can make or break the first three weeks -of a play and no more. After that they are forgotten.” If he saw the -business growing by so much as five dollars a night he hung on. But the -Incledon play sagged steadily. At the end of a week Reben had the -company rehearsing another play called “Your Uncle Dudley,” an old -manuscript he had bought years ago to please a star he quarreled with -later. - -Reben talked big for a while about forcing the run; then he talked -smaller and smaller with the receipts. Finally he announced that “owing -to previous bookings it will be necessary,” etc. “Mr. Reben is looking -for another theater to which to transfer this masterwork of Sir Ralph -Incledon. He may take it to Boston, then to Chicago for an all-summer -run.” - -Eventually he took it to Mr. Cain’s storage warehouse. - -“Your Uncle Dudley,” appealed to Reben as a stop-gap. It would cost -little. The cast was small; only one set was required. The title rôle -fitted Brereton to a nicety. He offered Sheila the heroine, who was a -“straight.” She cannily chose a smaller part that had “character.” The -play was flung on “cold”—that is, without an out-of-town try-out. - -It caught the public at “the psychological moment,” to use a denatured -French expression. The morning after the first night the telephone drove -Mr. Chittick frantic. He almost snapped the head off a dear old lady who -wanted to buy two boxes. It was a hopeless success. - -The only sour face about the place except his was the star’s. The -critics accused Tom Brereton of giving “a creditable performance.” All -the raptures were for Sheila. She was lauded as the discovery of the -year. - -The critics are always “discovering” people, as Columbus discovered the -Indians, who had been there a long while before. Two critics told Reben -in the lobby between the acts that there was star-stuff in Sheila. He -thanked them both for giving him a novel idea: “I never thought of that, -old man.” And the old men walked away like praised children. Like -children, they were very, very innocent when they were good and very, -very incorrigible when they were horrid. - -Tom Brereton behaved badly, to Sheila’s thinking. To his thinking she -was the evil spirit. He gave one of those examples of good business -policy which is called “professional jealousy” in the theater. He did -what any manufacturer does who resists the substitution of a “just as -good” for his own widely advertised ware. Tom Brereton was the star of -the piece according to his contracts and his prestige. He had toiled -lifelong to attain his height and he was old enough and wise enough to -realize that he must maintain himself stubbornly or new ambitions would -crowd him from his private peak. - -Sheila had youth, femininity, and beauty, none of which qualities were -Brereton’s. The critics and the public acclaimed the comet and neglected -the planet. Reben’s press agent, Starr Coleman, flooded the press with -Sheila’s photographs and omitted Brereton’s, partly because the papers -will always give more space to a pretty woman than a plain man, and -would rather publish the likeness of a rear-row chorus girl than of the -eccentric comedian who heads the cast. - -Coleman arranged interviews with Sheila, wrote them and gave them to -dramatic editors and the gush-girls of the press. Coleman compiled what -he called the “Sheila Kemble cocktail” and demanded it at the bars to -which he led the arid newspaper men. He did not object to the recipe -being mentioned. - -Sheila won the audiences, and if Brereton omitted her at a curtain call -the audience kept on applauding stubbornly till he was forced to lead -her out. She was always waiting. She was greedy for points, and kept -building her scenes, encroaching little by little. - -Brereton sulked awhile, then protested formally to the stage-manager, -who gave him little sympathy. Eventually Brereton tried to repress -Sheila’s usurpations. - -Little unpleasantnesses developed into open wrangles. It was purely a -business rivalry, and Sheila had no right to expect gallantry in a field -where she condescended to put herself on an equality with men. But she -expected it, none the less. The labor-unions show the same jealousy of -women when they trespass on their profits in the mills or the -coal-mines. - -Sheila began to hate Brereton with a young woman’s vivacity and -frankness, and to torment him mischievously. In one scene he had to -embrace her with fervor. She used to fill her belt with pins and watch -him wince as he smiled. He retaliated with as much dignity as he could -muster. He could not always muster much. His heart was full of rage. - -He visited Reben in his office and demanded his rights or his release. -Reben tried to appease him; business was too good to be tampered with. -Reben promised him complete relief—next season. Then he would put -somebody else in Sheila’s place. - -He could afford to be gracious because he felt that the hour had come to -launch Sheila as a star. Her success in a character rôle of peculiarly -American traits led him to abandon hope of finding a foreign success to -float her in. Besides, he had lost so much money on Incledon’s London -triumph that he was an intense partisan for the native drama—till the -next American play should fail, and the next importation succeed. - - * * * * * - -One evening, during the second _entr’acte_, he led a tall and -scholarly-looking young man down the side aisle and back of a box to the -stage. He left the uneasy alien to dodge the sections of scenery that -went scudding about like sails without hulls. Then he went to -dressing-room “No. 2” and tapped. - -Old Pennock’s glum face appeared at the door with a threatening, -“We-ell?” - -The intruder spoke meekly. “It’s Mr. Reben.” - -Pennock repeated, “We-ell?” - -Reben shifted to his other foot and pleaded, “May I speak to Miss Kemble -a moment?” - -Pennock closed the door. Later Sheila opened it a little and peered -through, clutching together a light wrapper she had slipped into. - -“Oh, hello!” she cried. “I’m sorry I can’t ask you in. I’ve got a quick -change, you know.” - -Even the manager must yield to such conditions and Reben spoke around -the casement. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “that since you are so -unhappy in this company you’d better have one of your own.” - -“For Heaven’s sake!” Sheila gasped at this unexpected bouquet. - -Reben went on: “Since we had such bad success with the masterpiece of -the foremost English dramatist, perhaps you might have good luck by -going to the other extreme. I’ve found the youngest playwright in -captivity. Nowadays these kindergarten college boys write a lot of -successes. Joking aside, the boy has a manuscript I’d like you to look -over. There is a germ of something in it, I think. Will you just say -Hello to him, please?” - -Sheila consented with eagerness. Reben beckoned forward a long effigy of -youthful terror. - -“Miss Kemble, let me present Mr. Eugene Vickery.” - -“How do you do, Mr. Nickerson?” said Sheila, and thrust one bare arm -through the chink to give her hand to Vickery. The arm was all he could -see of her except a narrow longitudinal section of silhouette against -the light over her mirror. - -Vickery was so hurt, and so unreasonably hurt, by her failure to recall -him who had cherished her remembrance all these years, that his surprise -escaped him: “I met you once before, but you don’t remember me.” - -She lied politely, and squeezed the hand she felt around hers with a -prevaricating cordiality. “Indeed I do. Let me see, where was it we -met—in Chicago, wasn’t it, this fall?” - -“No; it was in Braywood.” - -“Braywood? But I’ve never been in Braywood, have I? Mr. Reben, have I -ever played Bray—Oh, that’s where my aunt and uncle live! But was I -ever there?” - -“Very long ago.” - -“Oh, don’t say that! Not before my manager!” - -“As a very little girl.” - -“Oh, that’s better. You see, I go to so many places. And that’s where I -met you? You’ve changed, haven’t you?” - -She could see nothing of him except the large hand that still clung to -hers. She got it back as he laughed: - -“Yes, I’ve grown some taller. I played Hamlet to your Ophelia. Then I -wrote a play for you, but you got away without hearing it. Now I’ve -written another for you. You can’t escape this time.” - -“I won’t try to. I’m just dying to play it. What is it?” - -A voice spoke in sternly: “Curtain’s going up. You ready, Miss Kemble?” - -“Good Lord! Yes!” Then to Vickery. “I’ve got to fly. When can I see you, -Mr. Bickerton?” - -Reben solved the problem: “Got an engagement to supper?” - -“Yes, but I’ll break it.” - -“We’ll call for you.” - -“Fine! Good-by, Mr.—Mr. Braywood!” - -The door closed and Vickery turned away in such a whirl of elation that -he almost walked into the scene where Tom Brereton was giving an -unusually creditable performance, since Sheila was off the stage. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - -It must be a strangely thrilling thing to be a woman and meet a man who -has been so impressed by oneself in childhood that he has never -forgotten—a man who has indeed devoted his gifts and ambitions to the -perfection of a drama to exploit one’s charms and one’s gifts, and comes -back years after with the extraordinary tribute. - -The idol needs the idolater or it is no idol, and it doubtless watches -the worshiper with as much respect and trepidation as the worshiper it. -That is why gods, like other artists, have always been jealous. Their -trade lies in their power to attract crowds and hold them. Rivals for -glory are rivals for business. - -Vickery was Sheila’s first playwright. She could not fail to regard him -as a rescuer from mediocrity, and see a glamour about him. - -She had planned to go to a late dance that night with some people of -social altitude. But she would have snubbed the abbess of all -aristocracy for a playwright who came offering her transportation to the -clouds. - -She had taken her best bib and tucker to her dressing-room and she put -it on for Vickery. But she could not dredge up the faintest memory of -him, and he found her almost utterly strange as he stared at her between -the shaded candles on the restaurant table. She was different even from -the girl he had seen on the stage recoiling from Bret Winfield’s unlucky -chivalry. The few months of intermission had altered her with theatrical -speed. She had had her sentiments awakened by Eldon and her authority -enlarged by two important rôles. Her own character was a whole -repertoire. - -When Vickery had last seen her she was playing the second young woman -under her aunt’s protection; now she was a metropolitan favorite at -whose side the big manager of the country sat as a sort of prime -minister serving her royalty. - -First came the necessary business of ordering a supper. Sheila’s -appetite amazed Vickery, who did not realize that this was her dinner, -or how hard she had worked for it. - -When the waiter had hurried off with a speed which he would not -duplicate in returning, Sheila must hear about her first acquaintance -with Vickery. He spoke with enthusiasm of the little witch she had been, -and described with homage her fiery interpretation of Ophelia and her -maniac shrieks. He could still hear them, he said, on quiet nights. He -pictured her so vividly as she had sat on his mother’s knee and defended -her family name and profession that Sheila’s eyes filled with tears and -she turned to Reben for confirmation of her emotions. There are few -children for whom we feel kindlier than for our early selves. - -Her eyes glistened as Vickery recounted his own boyish ambitions to -write her a play; the depths of woe he had felt when he found her gone. -Then he described his retrieval of her during the riot at Leroy. He told -how his friend Bret Winfield had been knocked galley-west by some actor -in her troupe. He had forgotten the man’s name, but his words brought -Eldon back in the room and seated him like a forlorn and forgotten -Banquo at the table. Sheila blushed to remember that she had owed the -poor fellow a letter for a long time. - -Then Vickery explained that Winfield had gone to her defense and not to -her offense, and she felt a pang of remorse at her injustice to him, -also. A pretty girl has to be unjust to so many men. - -She had a queer thrill, too, from Vickery’s statement that Winfield had -vowed to meet her some day and square himself with her; also to meet -“that actor” some day and square himself with him. - -This strange man Winfield began to loom across her horizon like an -approaching Goliath. She tried to remember how he had looked, but -recalled only that he was very big and that she was very much afraid of -him. - -This confusion of retrospect and prospect was dissipated, however, when -Vickery began to talk of the play he had written for her. Then Sheila -could see nothing but her opportunity, and that strange self an actor -visualizes in a new rôle. The rest of us think of Hamlet as a certain -personage. The actor thinks of “Hamlet as Myself” or “Myself as Hamlet.” - -Vickery’s play, as Reben’s play-reader had told him, contained an idea. -But an idea is as dangerous to a playwright as a loaded gun is to a -child. The problem is, What will he do with it? - -When Vickery told Sheila the central character and theme of his play she -was enraptured with the possibilities. When he began to describe in -detail what he had done with them she was tormented with disappointments -and resentments. She gave way to little gasps of, “Oh, would she do -that?” “Oh, do you think you ought to have her say that?” - -Vickery was young and opinionated and had never seen one of his plays -after the critics and the public had made tatters of it. He could only -realize that he had spent months of intense thought upon every word. He -was shocked at Sheila’s glib objections. - -How could one who simply heard his story for the first time know what -ought to be done with it? He forgot that a play’s prosperity, like a -joke’s, lies in the ear of those who hear it for the first time. - -He responded to Sheila’s skepticisms with all the fanatic eloquence of -faith. He convinced her against her will for the moment. She liked him -for his ardor. She liked the reasons he gave. She could not help -feeling: “What a decent fellow he is! What a kind, wholesome view of -life he takes!” - -Woman-like, as she listened to his ideas she fell to studying his -character and the features that published it. She was contrasting him -with Eldon—Eldon so powerful, so handsome, so rich-voiced, so magnetic, -and so obstinate; Vickery so homely, so lean, so shambling of gait and -awkward of gesture, his voice so inadequate to the big emotions he had -concocted. And yet Eldon only wanted to join her in the interpretation -of other people’s creations. This spindle-shanks was himself a creator; -he had idealized and dramatized a play from and for Sheila’s very own -personality. - -She began to think that there was something a trifle more exhilarating -about an alliance with a creative genius than with just another actor. -In her youth and ignorance she used the words “creative” and “genius” -with reverence. She had never known a “creative genius” before—except -Sir Ralph Incledon, and she loathed him. Vickery was different. - -Suddenly in the midst of Vickery’s description of the complexest tangle -of his best situation Sheila dumfounded him by saying, “You have gray -eyes, haven’t you?” - -He collapsed like a punctured balloon and a look of intense -discouragement dulled his expression. Misunderstanding the cause of his -collapse entirely, she hastened to add: - -“Oh, but I like gray eyes! Really! Please go on!” - -Vickery understood her misunderstanding, smiled laboriously, then with -an effort gathered together the wreckage of his plot for a fresh -ascension. Just as he was fairly well away from the ground again Sheila -turned to Reben and spoke very earnestly: - -“He ought to write a good play. He has the hands of a creative -genius—those spatulate fingers, you know. See!” - -Since she had known Vickery from childhood, she felt at liberty to stop -his hand in the midst of an ardent gesture and submit it to Reben’s -inspection. Vickery was hugely embarrassed. Reben was gruff: - -“If he’s such a genius you’d better not hold his hand. Let him gene.” - -She stared at Reben in amazement; there was a clang of anger in his -sarcasm. Abruptly she realized that she had quite ignored him. She had -lent Vickery her eyes and ears for half an hour. Reben’s anger was due -to hurt pride, the miff of a great manager neglected by a minor actress -and an unproduced author. But as she glanced up into the Oriental -blackness of his glare she saw something lurking there that frightened -her. Her instant intuition was, “Jealousy!” Slower-footed reason said, -“Absurd!” - -Reben had been closely attached for years to the exaltation of the -famous actress, Mrs. Diana Rhys, who had floated to the stage on the -crest of a famous scandal from a city where she had been known as Diana -the Huntress. She had behaved rather better as an actress than as a -housewife, but none too well in either calling. For some years she had -been bound to Reben by ties that were supposed to be permanent. - -Sheila reproached herself for imagining that Reben could be jealous of -herself. Yet she cherished a superstitious belief that when she -disregarded her intuition she went wrong. The superstition had fastened -itself on her, as superstitions do, from her habit of remembering the -occasional events that seemed to confirm it and forgetting the -numberless events that disproved it. - -She restored her attention to Vickery’s plot, but the background of her -thoughts was full of ominous lightnings and rumblings like a summer sky -when a storm is far off but inevitable. - -Now the plight of Vickery’s heroine seemed much less thrilling than her -own. Here she sat almost betrothed to the distant Eldon, almost -bewitched by the new-comer, Vickery, and threatened with the wrath of an -unexpected claimant who was her manager and held both her present and -her future in his hand. - -She studied Reben out of the corner of her eye. This new, this utterly -unsuspected phase of his, made necessary a fresh appraisal of him. He -was now something more and something less than her manager. He was -something of a conquest of hers; but did he hope to be a conqueror, too? - -It was strange to think of him as a suitor—an amorous manager! a -business man with a bouquet! In this guise he looked younger than she -had seen him, yet more crafty, more cruel than ever. The Orientalism -that had made him so shrewd a bargainer in the bazar was now in a harem -humor. His black hair was, after all, in curls; his big eyes were -shadowy, wet; his fat hands wore rings—a sanguine ruby twinned with a -gross diamond and a shifty opal, like the back of an iridescent and -venomous beetle. - -Sheila thought of David and Solomon with their many loves, and she felt -that perhaps Mrs. Rhys was not sufficient for this man. If he should -claim her, too, what should she say to him? Must she sacrifice her -career at its very outset just because this man turned monster? - -She became so involved in her own meditations that Vickery found her -almost deaf to his narrative. He lost the thread of his spinning and -tangled himself in it like another Lady of Shalott. - -Finally Sheila confessed her bewilderment. She spoke with an assumption -of vast experience: “I never could tell anything from a scenario. The -play is written out, isn’t it?” - -“Oh yes,” said Vickery. “May I send it to your hotel?” - -“I’d rather you’d read it to me,” Sheila pleaded. “You could explain it, -you know. I’m so stupid.” - -“That would be splendid!” said Vickery. “When? Where?” - -Before Sheila could answer, Reben broke in, “At my office, at three -to-morrow, if that suits you, Miss Kemble.” - -She demurred feebly that they would be interrupted all the time. Reben -promised absolute peace and said, with a grim finality: “That’s settled, -then, Mr. Vickery. To-morrow, my office, three o’clock.” - -There was such a sharp dismissal in his tone that Vickery found himself -standing with his hand out in farewell before he quite realized what had -lifted him from his chair. - -“You’re not going?” said Sheila. “You haven’t finished your coffee.” - -“I’ve had more than is good for me,” said Vickery. “Good night, and -thank you a thousand times. Good night, Mr. Reben.” - -As he shambled through the tables to the door Sheila said, “Nice boy.” - -“So you seem to think,” Reben growled. - -She stared at him again, troubled at his manner, confirmed in her -suspicion, afraid of it and of him. But she said nothing. - -“Want a liqueur?” he snapped. - -She shook her head. - -He said to her, “I’ll take you home,” and to the waiter, “Check!” - -“Just put me in a cab,” said Sheila. - -He fumed with impatience over the waiter’s delay with the check and the -change, the time Sheila spent getting her wrap from the cloak-woman, and -her gloves and her hand-bag. He tapped his foot with impatience while -the starter whistled up a taxicab. Then he spoke to the driver and got -in with her. - -He said nothing but, “May I smoke?” But she noted his fearsome mien as -the light of his match painted it with startling vividness against the -dark. The ruby of his ring was like an evil eye. His thick brows drew -down over the black fire of his own eyes, and his lips were red over the -big teeth that clenched the cigar. Then he puffed out the match and his -face vanished. He said nothing till they reached the apartment-hotel -where she lived. He helped her out and paid the driver. She put forth -her hand to bid him good night, but he said: - -“I want a word with you, please.” - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - -He led the way into the lobby. She was intensely disturbed, but she -could not find the courage to quarrel with him in the presence of the -hall-boys. Those who had suites of rooms were permitted to receive -guests in them. Reben was the first man that had come alone to Sheila’s -rooms, and she felt that the elevator-boy was trying to disguise his -cynical excitement. - -What could she say to him? how rebuke an unexpressed comment? She hoped -that Pennock would be there or would come along speedily to save the -situation. She was angry and discomfited as she unlocked her door, -switched on the lights, and offered Reben a chair in her little parlor. - -Sheila saw that Reben’s eyes were eagerly searching the apartment for -signs of a third person. She was tempted to go to Pennock’s room and -call some message to her imaginary presence. But she resented her own -cowardice and her need of a duenna. She laid off her hat, seated herself -with smiling hospitality, and waited for Reben to say his say. - -He indicated his cigar with a querying lift of the eyebrows, and she -nodded her consent. - -Then the business man of him began at the beginning as if he had much to -say in a short time and did not want to lose the momentum of his -emotion: - -“Sheila, you’re a wonderful girl. If you weren’t I shouldn’t be taking -you up from the army of actresses that are just as ambitious as you are. -I’d be very blind not to see what the whole public sees and not to feel -what everybody feels. - -“This cub Vickery felt your fascination when you were a child. He never -forgot you. He’s trying to put something of you into his play. That -other fellow he told you about has made a vow to get to you. You have -draught, and all that it means. - -“But the brighter the light, the firmer its standard must be. The -farther your lantern shines, the bigger and stronger and taller a -lighthouse it needs. You know there’s such a thing as hiding a light -under a bushel. - -“Now, I’m already as big a manager as you’ll ever be a star. I can give -you advantages nobody else can give you. I’ve given you some of them -already. I can give you more. In fact, nobody else can give you any, for -I’ve got you under a contract that makes it possible for me to keep -anybody else from exploiting you. But I’m willing and anxious to do -everything I can for you. The question is, what are you willing to do -for me?” - -Sheila knew what he meant, but she answered in a shy voice: “Why, I’ll -do all I can—of course. I’ll work like a slave. I’ll try to make you -all the money I’m able to.” - -“Money? Bagh!” he sneered. “What’s money to me? I love it—as a game, -yes. But I don’t mind losing it. You’ve known me to drop forty or fifty -thousand at a throw and not whimper, haven’t you?” - -“Yes.” - -“You’ll do all you can, you say. But will you? There’s something in life -besides money, Sheila. There’s—there’s—” He tried to say “love,” but -it was an impossible word to get out at once. Instead he groped for her -hand and took it in his hot clench. - -She drew her cold, slim fingers away with a petulant, girlish, “Don’t!” - -He sighed desperately and laughed with bitterness. “I knew you’d do -nothing for me. You’d let me work for you, and make you famous and rich, -and squander fortunes on your glory, and you’d let me die of loneliness. -You’d let me eat my heart out like a love-sick stage-door Johnny and you -wouldn’t care. But I tell you, Sheila, even a manager is a man, and I -can’t live on business alone. I’ve got to have some woman’s -companionship and tenderness and devotion.” - -Sheila could not refrain from suggesting, “I thought Mrs. Rhys—” - -“Mrs. Rhys!” he snarled. “That worn-out, burned-out volcano? She’s an -old woman. I want youth and beauty and—Oh, I want you, Sheila.” - -“I—I’m sorry,” she almost apologized, trying not to insult such ardor. - -“Oh, I know I’m not young or handsome, but I’ll surround you with youth. -I’ll buy that play of your friend Vickery’s; I’ll get the biggest man in -the country to whip it into shape; I’ll give it the finest production -ever a play had; I’ll make the critics swallow it; I’ll buy the ones -that are for sale, and I’ll play on the vanity of the others. If it -fails, I’ll buy you another play and another till you hit the biggest -success ever known. Then I’ll name a theater after you. I’ll produce you -in London, get you commanded to court. I’ll make you the greatest -actress in the world. These young fellows may be pretty to play with, -but what can they do for you except ruin your career and interfere with -your ambition and make a toy of you? I can give you wealth and fame -and—immortality! And all I ask you to give me is your—your”—now he -said it—“your love.” - -“I—I’m sorry,” Sheila mumbled. - -“You mean you won’t?” he roared. - -“How can I?” she pleaded, still apologetic. “Love isn’t a thing you can -just take and give to anybody you please, is it? I thought it was -something that—that takes you and gives you to anybody it pleases. -Isn’t that it? I don’t know. I’m not sure I know what love is. But -that’s what I’ve always understood.” - -He grunted at the puerility of this, and said, brusquely, “Well, if you -can’t give me love, then give me—you.” - -“How do you mean—give you me?” - -“Oh, you’re no child, Sheila,” he snarled. “Don’t play the ingenue with -me. You know what I mean.” - -Her voice grew years older as she answered, icily: “When you say I’m no -child, it makes me think I understand what you mean. But I can’t believe -that I do.” - -“Why?” - -“Well, you’ve known my father and mother so long and they like you so -much, and—well—it doesn’t seem possible that you would mean me any -harm.” - -No amount of heroics could have shamed him like that. His eyes rolled -like a cornered wolf’s. He shut them, and with one deep breath seemed to -absolve himself and purify his soul. He mumbled, “I—I want you to—to -marry me, Sheila!” - -Sheila seemed to breathe a less stifling air. She felt sorry for him -now; but he asked a greater charity than she could grant. She answered: -“Oh, I couldn’t marry anybody; not now. I don’t want to marry—at all.” -She sought for the least-insulting explanation. “It—it would hurt me -professionally.” - -His self-esteem blinded him to her tact. He persisted: “We could be -married secretly. No one needs to know.” - -She protested, “You can’t keep such a thing secret.” - -He retorted: “Of course you can. They never found out that Sonia -Eccleston was married to her manager.” - -“She never was!” - -“I saw her with their child in Switzerland.” - -“Then it was true! I’ve heard so many people say so. But I never could -be sure.” - -“It’s true. Our marriage could be kept just as secret as that.” - -“Just about!” she laughed, with sudden triumph. - -He was too earnest to realize that he had set a trap and stepped into it -till he sprung it. - -He was suddenly enraged at her and at himself. He would not accept so -farcical a twist to his big scene. He broke out into a flame of wrathful -desire, and rose threateningly: - -“Marriage or no marriage, Sheila, you’ve got to belong to me, or—or—” - -“Or what?” - -“Or you’ll never be a star. You’ll never play that play of Vickery’s or -anybody else’s. You’ll play whatever part I select for you, as your -contract says, or you’ll play nothing at all.” - -He only kindled Sheila’s tindery temper. She leaped to her feet and -stormed up in his face: “Is this a proposal of marriage or a piece of -blackmail? I signed a contract, you know, not a receipt for one slave. -Marry you, Mr. Reben? Humph! Not if you were the last man on earth! Not -if I had to black up and play old darky women.” - -The passion that overmastered him resolved to overmaster her. - -“You can’t get away from me. I love you!” - -He thrust his left arm back of her and enveloped her in a huge embrace, -seizing her right arm in his hand. Sheila had been embraced by numerous -men in her stage career. She had stood with their arms about her at -rehearsal and before the public. She had replied to their ardors -according to the directions of the manuscript—with shyness, with -boldness, with rapture. - -At one of the rehearsals of “Uncle Dudley,” indeed, Reben himself, after -complaining of Brereton’s manner of clasping Sheila, had climbed to the -stage and demonstrated how he wanted Sheila embraced. She had smiled at -his awkwardness and thought nothing of it. - -But that was play-acting, with people looking on. This was reality, in -seclusion. Intention is nearly everything. Then it was business. Now the -touch of his hand upon her elbow made her flesh creep; the big arm about -her was as repulsive as a python’s coil. She fought away from him in a -nausea of hatred. While his muscles exerted all their tyranny over her -little body, his lips were pleading, maundering appeals for a little -pity, a little love. - -She fought him in silence, dreading the scandal of a scream. She wanted -none of that publicity. Her silence convinced him that her resistance -was not sincere; he thought it really the primeval instinct to put up an -interesting struggle and sweeten the surrender. - -With a chuckle of triumph he drew her to his breast and thrust his head -forward toward the cheek dimly aglow. But just as he would have kissed -her she twisted in his clutch and lurched aside, wrenched her right arm -free, and bent it round her head to protect her precious flesh. Then as -he thrust his head forward again in pursuit of her, she swung her arm -back with all her might and drove her elbow into his face. - -Some Irish instinct of battle inspired her to swing from waist and -shoulder and put her whole weight into the blow. Only his Reben luck -saved him from having a mouthful of loose teeth, a broken nose, or a -squashed eye. As it was, the little bludgeon fell on his eminent -cheek-bone with an impact that almost knocked him senseless amid a -shower of meteors. - -Reben’s heartache was transferred to his head. His arms fell from her -and romance departed in one enormously prosaic “Ouch!” - -The victorious little cave-woman cowered aside and rubbed her bruised -elbow, and pouted, and felt ashamed of herself for a terrible brute. -Then, as the ancient Amazons must undoubtedly have done after every -battle, she began to cry. - -Reben was too furious to weep. He nursed his splitting skull in his -hands and thought of the Mosaic law “an eye for an eye.” He longed for -surcease of pain so that he might devise a perfect revenge against the -little beast that had tried to murder him just because he paid her the -supreme honor of loving her. He could not trust himself to speak. He -found his hat and went out, closing the door softly. - -The elevator that took him down returned shortly with Pennock. She had -seen Reben cross the hotel lobby, and she came in with a glare of -horror. She sniffed audibly the cigar-smoke in the precincts. Her wrath -was so dire that she stared at Sheila weeping, and made no motion toward -her till Sheila broke out in a clutter of sobs: - -“I—I—want some witch-hazel for my elbow. I think I b-b-broke it on old -Reben’s j-j-jaw.” - -Then the amazing Pennock caught her in her arms and laughed aloud. It -was the first time Sheila had heard her laugh aloud. But when she looked -up Pennock was weeping as well, the tears sluicing down into her smile. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -Sheila wept more as Pennock helped her to undress and drew the sleeve -tenderly over the invincible elbow. She wept into the bath and she wept -into her pillow. She ran a gamut of emotions from self-pity to -self-contempt for so unlady-like a method of extricating herself from a -predicament that no lady would have got into. She reproached herself for -being some kind of miserable reptile to have inspired either the -affection or the insolence of so loathsome another reptile as Reben. - -Then she bewailed the ruin of her career. That was gone forever. She -bewailed the destruction of Vickery’s hopes—such a nice boy! If she had -not permitted Reben to be so rude to Vickery he never would have been so -rude to her. She would give up the stage and go live at her father’s -house, and die an old maid or marry a preacher or a milkman or -something. - -She wept herself out so completely that she slept till one o’clock the -next afternoon. When she was up she stood at her window and gazed -ruefully across the city. On a distant roof she could just see the tall -water-tanks marked “Odeon Theater,” and a wall of the theater carrying -an enormous blazon of the play with Tom Brereton’s name in huge letters -and hers in large. She would never appear there again. She supposed -Reben would send her understudy on to-night. Of course the reading of -Vickery’s play at three o’clock was all off. - -It would be of no use to go to the office. Reben wouldn’t be there. He -would doubtless be in a hospital with his face in splints. - -She wondered if she had fractured his skull—and how many years they -gave you for doing that to a man. She could claim that she did it in -self-defense, of course, but she had no witnesses to prove it. - -She spent hours in putting herself into all imaginable disasters. The -breakfast Pennock commanded her to eat she only dabbed at. - -At half past three the telephone rang. The office-boy at Reben’s hailed -her across the wire: - -“That choo, M’Skemble? This is Choey. Say, M’Skemble, Mis’ Treben wantsa -speak choo. Hola wire a min’t, please.” - -Sheila reached out and hooked a chair with her foot and brought it up to -catch her when the blow fell. Reben’s voice was full of restrained -cheerfulness: - -“That you, Sheila? Are you ill?” - -“Why, no! Why?” - -“You had an appointment here at three. We’re still waiting.” - -“But you don’t want to see—me, do you?” - -“And why not?” - -“But last night you said—” - -“Last night I was talking to you about personal affairs. This is -business. That was at your home. This is my office. Hop in a cab and -come on over. I’ll explain.” - -She was in such a daze as she made ready to go that when she had her hat -on she could not find it with her hat-pin. Pennock performed the office -for her. When she reached Reben’s office she meekly edged through the -crowd of applicants waiting like the penniless souls on the wrong side -of the River Styx. She thought that Eldon must have been one of these -once. Some of these were future Eldons, future Booths. - -Joey, the office-boy, hailed her with pride, swung the gate open for -her, and led her to Reben’s door. He did that only for stars or managers -or playwrights of recent success. - -Reben was alone. He was dabbing his mumpsy cheek with a handkerchief he -wet at a bottle. He smiled at her with a mixture of apology and rebuke. - -“There you are! the suffragette that took my face for a shop window. I -told everybody I stumbled and hit my head on the edge of a table. If you -will be kind enough not to deny the story—” - -“Of course not! I’m so sorry! I lost my head!” - -“Thank you. So did I. Last night I made a fool of myself. To-day I’m a -business man again. I made you a proposition or two. You declined both -with emphasis. I ought not to have insisted. You didn’t have to -assassinate me. I’ll forgive you if you’ll forgive me.” - -“Of course,” said Sheila, sheepishly. - -Reben spoke with great dignity, yet with meekness. “We understand each -other better now, eh? I meant what I said about being crazy about you. -If you’d let me, I could love you very much. If you won’t, I’ll get over -it, I suppose. But the proposition stands. If you would marry me—” - -“I’m not going to marry anybody, I tell you.” - -“You promise me that?” - -Sheila felt it safer not to promise forever, but safe enough to say, -“Not for a long time, anyway.” - -Reben stared at her grimly. “Sheila, I’m a business man; you’re a -business woman. I’ll play fair with you if you’ll play fair with me. -I’ll make a star of you if you’ll do your share. You wouldn’t flirt with -me or let me make a fool of you. Then be a man and we’ll get along -perfectly. If you’ll stick to me, not quit me, not hamper me, not play -tricks on me, and abide by your contract, I’ll do the same for you. I’ll -put you up in the big lights. Will you stand by me, Sheila, as man to -man—on your honor as a gentleman?” - -She repeated his words with a kind of amused solemnity: “As man to man, -on my honor as a gentleman, I’ll stand by you and fulfil my contract.” - -“Then that’s all right. Shake hands on it.” - -They shook hands. His grasp was hot and fierce and slow to let go. His -eyes burned over her with a menace that belied his icy words. - - * * * * * - -When the bond was sealed with the clasp of hands Reben breathed heavily -and pressed a button on his desk. “Now for the young Shakespeare. We’ve -kept him waiting long enough. He’s cooled his heels till he must have -cold feet by now. Joey, show Mr. Vickery in; and then I don’t want to be -disturbed by anybody for anything. I’ll wring your neck if you ring my -telephone—unless the building catches on fire.” - -“Yes, sir; no, sir,” said Joey; and, holding the door ajar, he beckoned -and whistled to Vickery, and, having admitted him, dispersed the rabble -outside with brevity: “Nothin’ doin’ to-day, folks. Mis’ Treben’s went -home.” - -Sheila, Vickery, and Reben regarded one another with the utmost anxiety. -They were embarking on a cruise to the Gold Coast. Success would mean a -fortune for all; the failure of any would mean disaster to all. - -Usually it was next to impossible to persuade Reben to give three -consecutive hours of his busy life to an audition; but, once engaged, he -listened with amazing analysis. He tried to sit with an imaginary -audience. He listened always for the human note. He criticized, as a -woman criticizes with reference not to art or logic or truth, but to -etiquette, morality, and attractiveness. - -The virtuous and scholarly Vickery, as he read his masterwork, was -astounded to find his ideals of conduct riddled by a manager, and -especially by a Reben. He blushed to be told that his hero was a cad and -his heroine a cat. And he could hardly deny the justice of the criticism -from Reben’s point of view, which was that of an average audience. - -Sheila, feeling that Vickery needed support, gave him only her praise, -whatever she felt; little giggles of laughter, little gasps of -“Delicious!” and cries of, “Oh, charming!” When with the accidental -rarity of a scholar he stumbled into the greatness of a homely -sincerity, he was amazed to see that tears were pearling at her eyelids -suddenly. - -His heart was melted into affection by the collaboration of her -sympathy. Without it he would have folded up his manuscript and slunk -away, for Reben’s comments were more and more confusingly cynical. - -When he finished the ordeal Vickery was exhausted, parched of throat and -of heart. Sheila flung him adjectives like flowers and his heart went -out toward her, but Reben was silent for a long and cruelly anxious -while. Then he spoke harshly: - -“A manager’s main business is to avoid producing plays. It’s my business -to imagine what faults the public would find and then beat ’em to ’em. -There will be plenty of faults left. And don’t forget, Mr. Vickery, that -every compliment I pay a playwright costs me a thousand dollars or more. -Frankly, Mr. Vickery, I don’t think your play is right. The idea is -there, but you haven’t got it.” - -Vickery’s heart sickened. Reben revived it a little. - -“Maybe you can fix it up. If you can’t I’ll have to get somebody to help -you. It’s too late to produce it this season, anyway. Hot weather is -coming on. You have all summer to work at it.” - -Vickery wondered if he should live so long. - -Reben went on: “I—I’ve been thinking, Sheila—Miss Kemble, that it -might be a good idea to try this play out in a stock company. Then Mr. -Vickery could see its faults.” - -Sheila protested, “Oh, but I couldn’t let anybody else play it first.” - -“You could join the company as a guest for a week and play the part -yourself.” - -“Fine!” Sheila exclaimed. “I’ve been planning to put in a good hard -summer in stock. It’s such an education—limbers your mind up so, to -play all sorts of parts. See if you can find me a good, coolish sort of -town with a decent stock company that will let me in.” - -“Ay, ay, sir!” said Reben, with a salute. “And now, Mr. Vickery, you’ve -got your work cut out, too. See if you can get your play into shape for -a stock production.” - -Reben was attempting to scare Vickery just enough to make him toil, but -he would have given up completely if Sheila had not begged him to go on, -asked him to come to see her now and then and “talk things over.” - -He promised with gratitude and went, carrying that burden of delay which -weighs down the playwright until he reaches the swift judgment of the -critics. When he had gone Reben spoke more confidently of the play. He -was already considering the cast. He mentioned various names and -discarded this actor or that actress because he or she was a blond or -too dark, too tall, or too short, lean, fat, commonplace, eccentric. -Nobody quite fitted his pictures of Vickery’s people. At length he said: - -“I’ll tell you a man I’ve had in mind for the lead. He’d be ideal, I -think. He’s young, handsome, educated; he’s got breeding; he can wear a -dress-suit; and he hasn’t been on the stage long enough to be spoiled by -the gush of fool women. He’s tall and athletic and a gentleman.” - -“And who’s all that?” said Sheila. “The angel Gabriel?” - -“Young fellow named—er—Elmore—no, Eldon; that’s it. You must know -him. He was with you in the ‘Friend in Need’ company.” - -“Oh yes,” Sheila murmured, “I know him.” - -“How do you think he would do?” - -“I think he would be—he would be splendid.” - -“All right,” said Reben. “The stock experience would be good for him, -too. He might make a good leading man for you. You could practise -team-work together. If he pans out, I could place him with the company -we select for you.” - -“Fine!” said Sheila. - -Reben could never have suspected from her tone how deeply she was -interested in Eldon. Unwittingly he had torn them asunder just as their -romance was ripening into ardor; unwittingly he was bringing them -together. - -As soon as she left Reben’s office Sheila hurried to her room to write -Eldon of their reunion. She wrote glowingly and quoted their old -phrases. When she had sent the letter off she had a tremor of anxiety. -“What if he finds me changed and doesn’t like me any more? How will he -have changed after a season of success and—Dulcie Ormerod?” - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - -Sheila had earned a vacation. And she had nearly a thousand dollars in -bank, which was pretty good for a girl of her years, and enough for a -golden holiday. But her ambition was burning fiercely now, and after a -week or two of golf, tennis, surf, and dance, at her father’s Long -Island home, she joined the summer stock company in the middle-sized -city of Clinton. She did twice her usual work for half her usual salary, -but she was determined to broaden her knowledge and hasten her -experience. - -The heat seemed intentionally vindictive. The labor was almost -incredible. One week she exploited all the anguishes of “Camille” for -five afternoons and six evenings. During the mornings of that week and -all day Sunday she rehearsed the pink plights of “The Little Minister,” -learning the rôle of Lady Babbie at such odd moments as she could steal -from her meals or her slumber or her shopping tours for the necessary -costumes. The next week, while she was playing Lady Babbie eleven times, -she was rehearsing the masterful heroine of “The Lion and the Mouse” of -mornings. While she played this she memorized the slang of “The Chorus -Lady” for the following week. - -Before the summer was over she had lived a dozen lives and been a dozen -people. She had become the pet of the town, more observed than its -mayor, and more talked about than its social leader. - -She had established herself as a local goddess almost immediately, -though she had no time at all for accepting the hospitalities of those -who would fain have had her to luncheons, teas, or dinners. - -She had no mornings, afternoons, or evenings that she could call her -own. The hardest-worked Swede cook in town would have given notice if -such unceasing tasks had been inflicted on her; and the horniest-handed -labor-unionist would have struck against such hours as she kept. - -To the townspeople she was as care-free and work-free as a fairy, and as -impossible to capture. After the matinées throngs of young women and -girls waited outside the stage door to see her pass. After the evening -performances she made her way through an aisle of adoring young men. She -tried not to look tired, though she was as weary as any factory-hand -after overtime. - -At first she hurried past alone. Later they saw a big fellow at her side -who proved to be a new-comer—Eldon. And now the matinée girls divided -their allegiance. Eldon’s popularity quickly rivaled Sheila’s. But he -had even less time for making conquests, for he had a slower memory and -was not so habited to stage formulas. - -Nor had he any heart for conquests. A certain number of notes came to -his letter-box, some of them anonymous tributes from overwhelmed young -maidens; some of them brazen proffers of intrigue from women old enough -to know better, or bound by their marriage lines to do better. - -Eldon, who had thought that vice was a city ware, and that actors were -dangerous elements in a small town, got a new light on life and on the -theory that women are the pursued and not the pursuers. - -But these wild-oat seeds of the Clinton fast set fell upon the rock -where Sheila’s name was carved. He found her subtly changed. She was the -same sweet, sympathetic, helpful Sheila that had been his comrade in -art; but he could not recapture the Sheila that had shared his dreams of -love. - -As in the old Irish bull of the two men who met on London Bridge, they -called each other by name, then “looked again, and it was nayther of -us.” - -The Sheila and Eldon that met now were not the Sheila and Eldon that had -bade each other good-by. They had not outgrown each other, but they had -grown away from each other—and behold it was neither of them. - -The Eldon that Sheila had grown so fond of was a shy, lonely, -blundering, ignorant fellow of undisclosed genius. It had delighted -Sheila to perceive his genius and to mother him. He was like the last -and biggest of her dolls. - -But now he was no longer a boy; he was a man whose gifts had proved -themselves, who had “learned his strength” before audience after -audience clear across the continent. Dulcie Ormerod had irritated him, -but she had left him in no doubt of his power. - -Already he had maturity, authority, and the confidence of a young -Siegfried wandering through the forest and understanding the birds that -sang him up and sang him onward. - -He was a total stranger to Sheila. She could not mother him. He did not -come to her to cure his despair and kindle ambition. He came to her in -the armor of success and claimed her for his own. - -At first he alarmed her more than Reben had. She felt that he could -never truly belong to her again. And she felt no impulse to belong to -him. She liked him, admired him, enjoyed his brilliant personality, but -rather as a gracious competitor than any longer as a partner. - -To Eldon, however, the change endeared Sheila only the more. She was -fairer and wiser and surer, worthier of his love in every way. He could -not understand why she loved him no longer. But he could not fail to see -that her heart had changed. It seemed a treachery to him, a treachery he -could feel and not believe possible. - -When he sought to return to the room he had tenanted in her heart he -found it locked or demolished. He could never gain a moment of solitude -with her. Their former long walks were not to be thought of. - -“Clinton isn’t Chicago, old boy,” Sheila said. “Everybody in this town -knows us a mile off. And we’ve no time for flirting or philandering or -whatever it was we were doing in Chicago. I’m too busy, and so are you.” - -Eldon’s heart suffered at each rebuff. He murmured to her that she was -cruel. He thought of her as false when he thought of her at all. But -that was not so often as he thought. He was too horribly busy. - -To a layman the conditions of a stock company are almost unbelievable: -the actors work double time, day and night shifts both. Most of the -company were used to the life. In the course of years they had acquired -immense repertoires. They had educated their memories to amazing -degrees. They could study a new rôle between the acts of the current -production. - -Sheila and Eldon had not that advantage. They spent the intermission -after one act in boning up for the next, rubbing the lines into the mind -as they rubbed grease-paint into the skin. - -The barge of dreams was a freight-boat for them. - -When Pennock wakened Sheila of mornings it was like dragging her out of -the grave. She came up dead; desperately resisting the recall to life. -At night she sank into her sleep as into a welcome tomb. She was on her -feet almost always. Her hours in the playmill averaged fourteen a day. -She grew haggard and petulant. Eldon feared for her health. - -Yet the theater was her gymnasium. She was acquiring a post-graduate -knowledge of stage practice, supplying her mind as well as her muscles, -like a pianist who practises incessantly. If she kept at it too long she -would become a mere audience-pounder. If she quit in time the training -would be of vast profit. - -One stifling afternoon Eldon begged her to take a drive with him between -matinée and night, out to “Lotus Land,” a tawdry pleasure-park where one -could look at water and eat in an arbor. She begged off because she was -too busy. - -She had no sooner finished the refusal than he saw her face light up. He -saw her run to meet a lank, lugubrious young man. He saw idolatry in the -stranger’s eyes and extraordinary graciousness in Sheila’s. He heard -Sheila invite the new-comer to buggy-ride with her to “Lotus Land” and -take dinner outdoors. - -Eldon dashed away in a rage of jealousy. Sheila did not reach the -theater that night till after eight o’clock. - -She nearly committed the unpardonable sin of holding the curtain. The -stage-manager and Eldon were out looking for her when they saw a -bouncing buggy drawn by a lean livery horse driven by a lean, liverish -man. Up the alley they clattered and Sheila leaped out before the -contraption stopped. - -She called to the driver: “G’-by! See you after the performance.” She -called to the stage-manager: “Don’t say it! Just fine me!” Eldon held -the stage door open for her. All she said was: “Whew! Don’t shoot!” - -She had no time to make up or change her costume. She walked on as she -was. - -After the performance Eldon came down in his street clothes to demand an -explanation. He saw the same stranger waiting for Sheila, and dared not -trust himself to speak to her. - -The next morning, at rehearsal, he said to Sheila, with laborious -virulence, “Where’s your friend this morning?” - -“He went back to town.” - -“How lonely you must feel!” - -Sheila was startled at the same twang of jealousy she had heard in -Reben’s voice when she and Vickery first met. It angered and alarmed her -a little. She explained to Eldon who Vickery was, and that he had run -down to discuss his new version of the play. Eldon was mollified a -little, but Sheila was not. - -Vickery, whose health was none too good, found it tedious to make a -journey from Braywood to Clinton every time he wanted to ask Sheila’s -advice on a difficulty. He suddenly appeared in Clinton with all his -luggage. He put it on the ground of convenience in his work. It must -have been partly on Sheila’s account. - -Eldon noted that Sheila, who had been rarely able to spare a moment with -him, found numberless opportunities to consult with this playwright. -Sheila’s excuse was that business compelled her to keep in close touch -with her next starring vehicle; her reason was that she found Vickery -oddly attractive as well as oddly irritating. - -In the first place, he was writing a play for her, for the celebration -of her genius. That was attractive, certainly. In the second place, he -was not very strong and not very comfortable financially. That roused a -sort of mother-sense in her. She felt as much enthusiasm for his career -as for her own. And then, of course, he proceeded to fall in love with -her. It was so easy to modulate from the praise of her gifts to the -praise of her beauty, from the influence she had over the general public -to her influence over him in particular. - -He exalted her as a goddess. He painted her future as the progress of -Venus over the ocean. He would furnish the ocean. He wrote poems to her. -And it must be intensely comforting to have poems written at you; it -must be hard to remain immune to a sonnet. - -Vickery quoted love-scenes from his play and applied them to Sheila. He -very slyly attempted to persuade her to rehearse the scenes with him as -hero. But that was not easy when they were buggy-riding. - -When he grew demonstrative she could hardly elbow his teeth down his -throat; for his manner was not Reben’s. It needed no blow to quell poor -Vickery’s hopes. It needed hardly a rebuke. It needed nothing more than -a lack of response to his ardor. Then his wings would droop as if he -found a vacuum beneath them. - -To repel Reben even by force of arms had seemed the only decent thing -that Sheila could do. She was keeping herself precious, as her father -told her to. To keep Eldon at a distance seemed to be her duty, at least -until she could be sure that she loved him as he plainly loved her. But -to fend off Vickery’s love seemed to her a sin. That would be quenching -a fine, fiery spirit. - -But, dearly as she cherished Vickery, she felt no impulse to surrender, -not even to that form of conquest which women call surrender. And yet -she nearly loved him. Her feeling was much, much more than liking, yet -somehow it was not quite loving. She longed to form a life-alliance with -him, but a marriage of minds, not of bodies and souls. - -And Vickery proposed a very different partnership from the league that -Eldon planned. Eldon was awfully nice, but so all the other women -thought. And if she and Eldon should marry and co-star together, there -could be no success for them, not even bread and butter for two, unless -lots and lots of women went crazy over Eldon. Sheila had little doubt -that the women would go crazy fast enough, but she wondered how she -would stand it to be married to a matinée idol. She wondered if she had -jealousy in her nature—she was afraid she had. - -In complete contrast with Eldon’s life, Vickery’s would be devoted to -the obscurity of his desk and the creation of great rôles for her to -publish. If any fascinating were to be done, Sheila would do it. She -thought it far better for a man to keep his fascination in his wife’s -name. - -Thus the young woman debated in her heart the merits of the rival -claimants. So doubtless every woman does who has rival claimants. - -Sometimes when Vickery was unusually harrowing in his inability to write -the play right, and Eldon was unusually successful in a performance, -Sheila would say that, after all, the better choice would be the great, -handsome, magnetic man. - -Playwrights and things were pretty sure to be uncertain, absent-minded, -moody, querulous. She had heard much about the moods of creative -geniuses and the terrible lives they led their wives. Wasn’t it Byron or -Bulwer Lytton or somebody who bit his wife’s cheek open in a quarrel at -the breakfast-table or something? That would be a nice thing for Vickery -to do in a hotel dining-room. - -He might develop an insane jealousy of her and forbid her to appear to -her best advantage. Worse yet, he might devote some of his abilities to -creating rôles for other women to appear in. - -He might not always be satisfied to write for his wife. In fact, now and -then he had alluded to other projects and had spoken with enthusiasm of -other actresses whom Sheila didn’t think much of. And, once—oh -yes!—once he spoke of writing a great play for Mrs. Rhys, that statue -in cold lava whom even Reben could endure no longer. - -A pretty thing it would be, wouldn’t it, to have Sheila’s own husband -writing a play for that Rhys woman? Well—humph! Well! And Sheila had -wondered if jealousy were part of her equipment! - -Between the actor and the playwright there was little choice. - -A manager also had offered himself to Sheila. She could have Reben for -the asking. If he were not so many things she couldn’t endure the -thought of, he might make a very good husband. He at least would be free -from temperament and personality. Two temperaments in one family would -be rather dangerous. - -These thoughts, if they were distinct enough to be called thoughts, -drifted through her brain like flotsam on the stream of the unending -demands of her work. This was wearing her down and out till, sometimes, -she resolved that whoever it might be she married he needn’t expect her -to go on acting. - -This pretty well cleared her slate of suitors, for Reben, as well as the -other two, had never suggested anything except her continuance in her -career. As if a woman had no right to rest! As if this everlasting -battle were not bad for a woman! - -In these humors her fatigue spoke for her. And fatigue is always the -bitter critic of any trade that creates it. Frequently Sheila resolved -to leave the stage. Often, as she fell into her bed and closed her -lead-loaded eyelashes on her calcium-seared eyes and stretched her -boards-weary soles down into the cool sheets, she said that she would -exchange all the glories of Lecouvreur, Rachel, Bernhardt, and Duse for -the greater glory of sleeping until she had slept enough. - -When Pennock nagged her from her Eden in the morning Sheila would vow -that as soon as this wretched play of that brute of a Vickery was -produced she would never enter a theater again at the back door. If the -Vickery play were the greatest triumph of the cycle, she would let -somebody else—anybody else—have it. Mrs. Rhys and Dulcie Ormerod could -toss pennies for it. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -Eventually Vickery’s play was ready for production. At least Reben told -him, with Job’s comfort: - -“We’ve all worked at it till we don’t know what it’s about. We’ve -changed everything in it, so let’s put it on and get rid of it.” - -The weather of the rehearsal week for the Vickery play was barbarously -hot. The theater at night was a sea of rippling fans. The house was none -the less packed; the crowd was almost always the same. People had their -theater nights as they had their church nights. The prices were very low -and a seat could be had for the price of an ice-cream soda. People were -no hotter in the theater than on their own porches, and the play took -their minds off their thermometers. - -Reben had come down for the rehearsals. There were to be few of -them—five mornings and Sunday. There was no chance to put in or take -out. The actors could do no more than tack their lines to their -positions. - -Still Reben found so much fault with everything that Vickery was ready -for the asylum. Sheila simply had to comfort him through the crisis. -Eldon proceeded to complicate matters by developing into a fiend of -jealousy. Fatigue and strain and the weather were all he could bear. The -extra courtesies to Vickery were the final back-breaking straws. - -He told Sheila he had a mind to throw the play. The distracted girl, -realizing his irresponsible and perilous state, tried to tide him over -the ordeal by adopting him and mothering him with melting looks and -rapturous compliments. This course brought her into further difficulties -with the peevish author. - -While they were rehearsing Vickery’s play they were of course performing -another. - -By some unconscious irony the manager had chosen to revive a melodrama -of arctic adventure, thinking perhaps to cool the audience with the -journey to boreal regions. The actors were forced to dress in polar-bear -pelts, and each costume was an ambulant Turkish bath. The men wore long -wigs and false beards. The spirit gum that held the false hair in place -frequently washed away from the raining pores and there were -astonishingly sudden shaves that sent the audience into peals of -laughter. - -Eldon congratulated himself that his face at least was free, for he was -a faithful Eskimo. But in one scene, which had been rehearsed without -the properties, it was his duty to lose his life in saving his master’s -life. On the first night of the performance the hero and the villain -struggled on two big wabbly blocks of blue papier-maché supposed to -represent icebergs. Eldon, the Eskimo, was slain and fell dead to -magnificent applause. But his perspiratory glands refused to die and his -diaphragm continued to pant. - -And then his grateful master delivered a farewell eulogy over him. And -as a last tribute spread across his face a great suffocating polar-bear -skin! There were fifteen minutes more of the act, and Sheila in the -wings wondered if Eldon would be alive or completely Desdemonatized when -the curtain fell. - -He lived, but for years after he felt smothered whenever he remembered -that night. - -During the rest of the week his master’s farewell tribute was omitted at -Eldon’s request. But it was impossible to change the scene to Florida -and the arctic costumes had to be endured. Sheila’s own costumes were -almost fatal to her. - -And that was the play they played afternoons and evenings while they -devoted their mornings to whipping Vickery’s drama into shape. - -And now Reben, goaded by the heat as by innumerable gnats, and fuming at -the time he was wasting in the dull, hot town where there was nothing to -do of evenings but walk the stupid streets or visit a moving-picture -shed or see another performance of that detestable arctic play—Reben -proceeded to resent Sheila’s graciousness to both actor and author and -to demand a little homage for the lonely manager. - -Sheila said to Pennock: “I’m going to run away to some nice quiet -madhouse and ask for a padded cell and iron bars. I want to go before -they take me. If I don’t I’ll commit murder or suicide. These men! these -men! these infernal men! Why don’t they let me alone?” - -All Pennock could say was: “There, there, there, you poor child! Let me -put a cold cloth on your head.” - -“If you could pour cold water on the men I’d be all right,” Sheila would -groan. She had hysterics regularly every night when she got to her room. -She would scream and pull her hair and stamp her feet and wail: “I vow -I’ll never act again. Or if I do, I’ll never marry; or if I marry, I’ll -marry somebody that never heard of the stage. I’ll marry a Methodist -preacher. They don’t believe in the theater, and neither do I!” - -Thus Sheila stormed against the men. But her very excitement showed that -love was becoming an imperious need. She was growing up to her -mating-time. Just now she was like a bird surrounded by suitors, and -they were putting on their Sunday feathers for her, trilling their best, -and fighting each other for her possession. She was the mistress of the -selection, coy, unconvinced, and in a runaway humor. - -Three men had made ardent love to her, and her heart had slain them each -in turn. She was a veritable Countess of Monte Cristo. She had scored -off “One!” “Two!” and “Three!” - -This left her with nothing to wed but her career. And she was disgusted -with that. - - * * * * * - -Only her long training and her tremendous resources of endurance could -have carried her through that multiplex exhaustion of every emotion. - -Numbers of soldiers desert the firing-line in almost every battle. -Occasional firemen refrain from dashing into burning and collapsing -buildings. Policemen sometimes feel themselves outnumbered beyond -resistance. But actors do not abstain from first-night performances. -Even a death-certificate is hardly excuse enough for that treachery. - -So on the appointed night Sheila played the part that Vickery wrote for -her, and played it brilliantly. She stepped on the stage as from a -bandbox and she flitted from scene to scene with the volatility of a -humming-bird. - -Eldon covered himself with glory and lent her every support. The -kiln-dried company danced through the other rôles with vivacity and the -freshness of débutancy. They had had the unusual privilege of a Monday -afternoon off. - -The big face of the audience that night glistened with joy and -perspiration, and found the energy somewhere to demand a speech from the -author and another from Sheila. - -Vickery was in the seventh heaven. If there were an eighth it would -belong to playwrights who see the chaos of their manuscripts changed -into men and women applauded by a multitude. Vickery could not believe -the first howl of laughter from the many-headed, one-mooded beast. The -second long roll of delight rendered him to the clouds. He went up -higher on the next, and when a meek little witticism of his was received -with an earthquake of joy, followed by a salvo of applause, he hardly -recognized the moon as he shot past it. - -Later, there were moments of tautness and hush when the audience sat on -the edge of its seats and held its breath with excitement. That was -heroic bliss. But when from his coign of espionage in the back of a box -he saw tears glistening on the eyes of pretty girls, and old women with -handkerchiefs at their wet cheeks, and hard-faced business men sneaking -their thumbs past their dripping lashes, the ecstasy was divine. When -the tension was relaxed and the audience blew its great nose he thought -he heard the music of the spheres. - -The play was almost an hour too long, but the audience risked the last -street-cars and stuck to its post till the delightful end. Then it -lingered to applaud the curtain up three times. As the amiable mob -squeezed out, Vickery wound his way among it, eavesdropping like a spy, -and hearing nothing but good of his work and of its performers. - -As soon as he could he worked his way free and darted back to the stage. -There he found Sheila standing and crying her heart out with laughter, -while Eldon held one hand and Reben the other. - -Vickery thrust in between them, caught her hands away from theirs, and -gathered her into his arms. And kissed her. Both were laughing and both -were crying. It was a very salty kiss, but he found it wonderful. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - -Were it not for hours like these, the hope of them or the memory of -them, few people would continue to trudge the dolorous road of the -playwright. Such hours come rarely and they do not linger unspoiled, but -they are glimpses of heaven while they last. It was not for long that -Vickery and Sheila were left seated upon the sunny side of Saturn with -the rings of unearthly glory swirling round them. - -Their return to earth was all the more jolting for the distance they had -to fall. - -Sheila saw Eldon turn away in a sudden rancor of jealousy. She saw Reben -turn swart with rage. His cruel mouth twisted into a sneer, and when -Vickery turned to him with the gratitude of a child to a rescuing angel -Reben’s comments wiped the smile off Vickery’s rosy face and left it -white and sick. - -Sheila suffered all her own shocks and vicariously those of each of the -three she had embroiled. She suffered most for the young creator who had -seen that his work was good but must yet hear Satan’s critique. And -Reben looked like a wise and haughty Lucifer when in answer to Vickery’s -appealing “Well?” he said: - -“Well, you certainly got over—here. They like it. No doubt of that. But -they liked ‘The Nautilus.’ It broke all records here in Clinton and -lasted two nights in New York. - -“You mustn’t let ’em fool you, my boy. This stock company is a kind of -religion to these yokels. They snap up whatever you throw ’em the way a -sea-lion snaps up a fish. Anything on God’s earth will go here. Just -copper your bets all round. Whatever went here will flop in New York, -and _vice versa_. Did you hear ’em howl at that old wheeze in the first -act? Broadway would throw the seats at you if you sprung it. The one -scene that fell flat to-night is the one scene worth keeping in. - -“You’ve got a lot of work to do. You’d better let me bring Ledley or -somebody down here to whip it into shape. As it stands, I don’t see how -I can use it. Look me up next time you’re in town—if you can bring me -some new ideas.” - -Then he turned to Sheila and, taking her by that dangerous elbow, led -her aside and murdered her joy. He was perfectly sincere about his -distrust of the piece. He had seen so many false hopes come up like -violets in the snow, only to wither at the first sharp weather. - -He answered Sheila’s defiant “Say it” with another icy blast: - -“You poor child!” he said. “You were awful. I want you to close with -this stock company and take a good rest. You’re all frayed out. You -looked a hundred years old and you played like a hack-horse. That man -Eldon was the only one of you who played up to form. He’s a discovery. -Now I’m going back to town to see if I can get a real play for you, and -you run along home to your papa and mamma and see if you can’t get back -your youth. But don’t be discouraged.” Having absolutely crushed her, he -told her not to be discouraged. - -When he had pointed out that the laurel crowns were really composed of -poison ivy he waved a cheerful good-by and hurried off to catch the -midnight train to New York. - - * * * * * - -Sheila turned the eyes of utter wretchedness upon Vickery, in whose face -was the look of a stricken stag. They had planned to take supper -together, but she begged off. She felt that it was kinder. - -Besides, Vickery would have to work all night. The stage director had -told him that he must cut at least an hour out of the manuscript before -the special rehearsal next morning. And the cuts must be made in chunks -because the company had to begin rehearsals at once of the next week’s -bill, an elaborate production of one of Mr. Cohan’s farces, in his -earlier manner. - -As Sheila left the stage she met Eldon staring at her hungrily. Reben -had not spoken to him. Sheila had to tell him that the manager’s only -praise was for him. But he could get no pleasure from the bouquet -because it included rue for Sheila: - -“He’s a liar. You were magnificent!” Eldon cried. - -“Thank you, Floyd,” she sighed, and, smiling at grief like Patience, -shook her head sadly and went to her dressing-room. She was almost too -bankrupt of strength to take off her make-up. She worked drearily and -smearily in disgust, leaving patches of color here and there. Then she -slipped into a mackintosh and stumbled to the waiting carriage. - -When she got to her room she let Pennock take off the mackintosh and her -shoes and stockings; she was asleep almost before she finished -whimpering her only prayer: - -“O God, help me to quit the stage—forever. Amen!” - -Pennock stared at her dismally and saw that even her slumber was shaken -with little sobs. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - -Sheila was late at the rehearsal the next morning, and so dejected that -she hardly felt regret at hearing Vickery tell her how many of her -favorite scenes had to be omitted because they were not essential. -Vickery held command of the company with the plucky misery of a Napoleon -retreating from his Moscow. - -When this rehearsal was over the director told Sheila that she need not -stay to rehearse the next week’s bill, since Reben had asked him to -release her from further work. He had telegraphed to New York for a -woman who had played the same part with great success, and received -answer that she would be able to step in without inconvenience. Sheila -was dolefully relieved. She felt that she could never have learned -another rôle. She felt almost grateful to Reben. “My brain has stopped,” -she told Pennock; “just stopped.” - -The Tuesday afternoon matinée was always the worst of the week. The heat -was like a persecution. The actors played havoc with cues and lines, and -the suffocated audience was too indifferent to know or care. - -After the performance Vickery was so lost to hope that he grew sardonic. -He said with a tormented smile: - -“It’s a pity Reben didn’t stay over. If he had seen how badly this -performance went he would have sworn that the play would run a year on -his dear damned Broadway. I’m going to telegraph him so.” - -Tuesday night the house was again poor, though better than at the -matinée. The company settled down into harness like draught-horses -beginning a long pull. The laughter was feeble and not focused. It was -indeed so scattered that the voice of one man was audible above the -rest. - -Out of the silences or the low murmurs of laughter resounded the -gigantic roars of this single voice. People in the audience twisted -about to see who it was. The people on the stage were confused at first, -and later amused. They also made more or less concealed efforts to place -the fellow. - -By and by the audience began to catch the contagion of his mirth. It -laughed first at his laughter, and then at the play. During the third -act the piece was going so well that it was impossible to pick out any -individual noise. - -After the last curtain a number of townspeople went back on the stage to -tell Sheila how much they liked the play, and especially her work. They -had read the glowing criticisms in the morning and evening papers. They -had not heard what Reben had said of what Broadway would say. They would -not have cared. Broadway was suspect in Clinton. - -These bouquets had the savor of artificial flowers to Sheila, but she -enacted the rôle of gratitude to the best of her ability. Back of the -knot surrounding her she saw Vickery standing with a towering big fellow -evidently waiting to be presented. Then she saw Eldon shaking hands with -the stranger. - -Bret Winfield was suffering from stage-fright. He had met Vickery in New -York and had promised to run down to see his play, and incidentally to -square himself with the girl he had frightened. In the generally -disheveled state of brains that characterizes a playwright during -rehearsal, Vickery had neglected to tell Winfield that the company -contained also the man that Winfield had vowed to square himself with. - -When, years before at Leroy, Eldon, as the taxicab-driver, had floated -Winfield over the footlights, he had worn a red wig and disguising -make-up. When Winfield saw him on the stage as a handsome youth -perfectly groomed, there was no resemblance. Eldon’s name was on the -program, but Winfield was one of those who pay little heed to programs, -prefaces, and title-pages. He was one of those who never know the names -of the authors, actors, composers, printers, and architects whose work -pleases them. They “know what they like,” but they never know who made -it. - -As he waited to reach Sheila, Winfield noted Eldon standing in a little -knot of admirers of his own. He said to Vickery, with that elegance of -diction which has always distinguished collegians: - -“That lad who played your hero is a great little actor, ’Gene. He’s -right there all the time. I’d like to slip it to him.” - -Vickery absently led him to Eldon and introduced the two, swallowing -both names. The two powerful hands met in a warm clutch that threatened -to become a test of grip. Winfield poured out his homage: - -“You’re certainly one actor, Mr.—er—er— You’ve got a sad, solemn way -of pulling your laughs that made me make a fool of myself.” - -“You’re very kind to think so,” said Eldon, overjoyed to get such praise -from a man of such weight. And he crushed Winfield’s fingers with a -power that enhanced the layman’s respect still further. Winfield crushed -back with all his might as he repeated: - -“Yes, sir. You’re sure some comedian, Mr.—Mr.—” - -“Eldon,” said Eldon. - -Winfield’s grip relaxed so unexpectedly that Eldon almost cracked a bone -or two before he could check his muscles. Winfield turned white and red -in streaks and said: - -“Eldon? Your name’s Eldon?” - -Eldon nodded. - -“Are you the Eldon that knocked a fellow about my size about ten yards -for a touch-down across the footlights once?” - -Eldon blushed to find his prowess fame, and said: “Yes. Once.” - -“Well, I’m the fellow,” said Winfield, trying to call his ancient grudge -to the banquet. “I’ve been looking for you ever since. I promised myself -the pleasure of beating you up.” - -Eldon laughed: “Well, here I am. I’ve been ashamed of it for a long -time. I took an unfair advantage of you.” - -“Advantage nothing,” said Winfield. “I ought to have been on my guard.” - -“Well,” Eldon suggested. “Suppose I stand down here on the apron of the -stage and let you have a whack at me. See if you can put me into the -orchestra chairs farther than I put you.” - -Winfield sighed. “Hell! I can’t hit you now. I’ve shaken hands with you, -unbeknownst. I guess it’s all off. I couldn’t slug a man that made me -laugh so hard. Shake!” - -He put out his hand and the enemies gripped a truce. Winfield was -laughing, but there was a bitterness in his laugh. He had been struck in -the face and he could not requite the debt. - - * * * * * - -Then Vickery called him to where Sheila, having rid herself of her -admirers, was making ready to leave the stage. - -“Miss Kemble, I want to present my old friend, Mr. Bret Winfield. He’s -been dying to meet you again for a long while.” - -“Again?” thought Sheila, but she said, as if to her oldest friend: “Oh, -I’m delighted! I haven’t seen you since—since— Chicago, wasn’t it?” - -Vickery laughed and explained: “Guess again! You’ve met before, but you -were never introduced.” - -Slowly Sheila understood. She stared up at Winfield and cried, “This -isn’t the man who—” - -“I’m the little fellow,” said Winfield, enfolding her hand in a clasp -like a boxing-glove. “I scared you pretty badly, I’m afraid. But Vickery -tells me he told you my intentions were honorable. I’ve come to -apologize.” - -“Oh, please don’t! I’m the one that ought to. I made an awful idiot of -myself; but, you see, I was afraid you were going to—to—well, kidnap -me.” - -“I wish I could now!” - -“Kidnap me?” Sheila gasped with a startled frown-smile, drawing her -brows down and her lips up. - -He lowered his high head and his low voice to murmur, with an impudence -that did not offend her, “You’re too darned nice to waste your gifts on -the public.” - -“Waste them!—on the public?” Sheila mocked. “And what ought I to do -with them, then?” - -He spoke very earnestly. “Invest them in a nice quiet home. You oughtn’t -to be slaving away like this to amuse a good-for-nothing mob. You let -some big husky fellow do the work and build you a pretty home. Then you -just stay home and—and—bloom for him—like a rose on a porch. I tell -you if I had you I’d lock you up where the crowds couldn’t see you.” - -Sheila put back her head and laughed at the utter ridiculousness of such -insolence. Then her laugh stopped short. The word “home” got her by the -throat. And the words “bloom just for him” brought sudden dew to her -eyes. - -She had hurt Winfield by her laughter. Under the raillery of it he had -muttered a curt “Good night” without heeding her sudden softness. - -He had rejoined Eldon and Vickery. Of the three tall men he was the -least gifted, the least spiritual. But he was the only one of the three, -the only one of all her admirers, who had not urged her forward on this -weary climb up the sun-beaten hill. He was the only one who had -suggested twilight and peace and home. - -At any other time his counsel would have wakened her fiery dissent. Now -in her fatigue and her loneliness it soothed her like the occasional -uncanny wisdom of a fool. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - - -That night Sheila went to bed to sleep out sleep. When Pennock asked, on -leaving her arranged for slumber, “Will you be called at the usual hour, -please?” Sheila answered, “I won’t be called at all, please!” - -This privilege alone was like a title of gentility to a tired laundress. -There would be no rehearsal on the morrow for her. - -The other galley-slaves in the company must still bend to the oar, but -she had shore leave of mornings, and after Saturday she was free -altogether. - -Now that she had time to be tired, old aches and fatigues whose -consideration had had to be postponed came thronging upon her, till she -wondered how she had endured the toil. Still more she wondered why. - -Then she wondered nothing at all for a good many hours, until the old -habit of being called awakened her. She glanced at her watch, saw that -it was half past ten, and flung out of bed, gasping, “They’ll be -rehearsing and I’m not there!” - -Then she remembered her liberty, and stood feeling pleasantly foolish. -The joy of toppling back to bed was more than payment for the fright she -had suffered. It was glorious to float like a basking swimmer on the -surface of sleep, with little ripples of unconsciousness washing over -her face and little sunbeams of dream between. - -In the half-awake moods she reviewed her ambitions with an indolent -contempt. That man Winfield’s words came back to her. After all, she had -no home except her father’s summer cottage. And she had been planning no -home except possibly another such place whither she would retire in the -late spring until the early fall, to rest from last season’s hotels and -recuperate for next season’s. Yes, that was just about the home life she -had sketched out! - -It occurred to her now that her plans had been unhuman and unwomanly. “A -woman’s place is the home,” she said. It was not an original thought, -but it came to her with a sudden originality as sometimes lines she had -heard or had spoken dozens of times abruptly became real. - -She wanted a pretty little house where she could busy herself with -pretty little tasks while her big, handsome husband was away earning a -pretty little provender for both of them. She would be a young -mother-bird haunting the nest, leaving the male bird to forage and -fight. That was the life desirable and appropriate. Women were not made -to work. An actress was an abnormal creature. - -Sheila did not realize that the vast majority of home-keeping women must -work quite as hard as the actress, with no vacations, little income, and -less applause. The picture of the husband returning laughing to his -eager spouse was a decidedly idealized view of a condition more -unfailing in literature than in life. Some of those housewives who had -grown tired of their lot, as she of hers, would have told her that most -husbands return home weary and discontented, to listen with small -interest to their weary and discontented wives. And many husbands go out -again soon after they have come home again. - -Sheila was doing what the average person does in criticizing the stage -life—magnifying its faults and contrasting it, not with the average -home, but with an ideal condition not often to be found, and less often -lasting when found. - -Sheila had known so little of the average family existence that she -imagined it according to the romantic formula, “And so they were married -and lived happily ever afterward.” She thought that that would be very -nice. And she lolled at her ease, weltering in visions of cozy -domesticity with peace and a hearth and a noble American citizen and the -right number of perfectly fascinating children painlessly borne and -painlessly borne with. - -Anything, anything would be better than this business of rehearsing and -rehearsing and squabbling and squabbling, and then settling down into a -dismal repetition of the same old nonsense in the same old theater or in -a succession of same old theaters. - -How good it was, just not to have to learn a new play for next week! It -was good that there was no opportunity to rehearse any further revisions -even of poor Vickery’s play. There was almost a consolation in the -thought that it had not succeeded with Reben. Perhaps Reben would be a -long while discovering a substitute. Sheila hoped he would not find one -till the new year. She almost hoped he would never find one. - -She was awfully sorry for poor Vickery. He had suffered so cruelly, and -she had suffered with him. Perhaps he would give up play-writing now and -take up some less inhuman trade. To think that she had once dallied with -the thought of marrying him! To play plays was bad enough, but to be the -wife of a playwright—no, thank you! Better be the gambler’s wife of a -less laborious gambler or the nurse to a moody lunatic under more -restraint. - -Worse yet, Sheila had narrowly escaped falling in love with an actor! -They would have been Mr. and Mrs. Traveling Forever! Mr. and Mrs. Never -Rest! To live in hotels and railroad stations, sleeping-car berths, and -dressing-rooms of about the same size; to put on a lot of sticky stuff -and go out and parrot a few lines, then to retire and grease out the -paint, and stroll to a supper-room, and so to bed. To make an ambition -of that! No, thank you! Not on your _jamais de la vie_, never! - -And thus having with a drowsy royalty effaced all her plans from her -books, she burned her books. Desdemona’s occupation was gone. She might -as well get up. She bathed and dressed and breakfasted with splendid -deliberation, and then, the day proving to be fine and sunny and cool -when she raised her tardy curtains, she decided to go forth for a walk, -the dignified saunter of a lady, and not the mad rush of a belated -actress. It wanted yet an hour before she must make up for the matinée. - -She had not walked long when she heard her name called from a motor-car -checked at the curb. She turned to see Eugene Vickery waving his cap at -her. Bret Winfield, at the wheel, was bowing bareheaded. They invited -her to go with them for a ride. It struck her as a providential -provision of just what she would have wished for if she had thought of -it. - -Vickery stepped down to open the door for her, and, helping her in, -stepped in after her. Winfield reached back his hand to clasp hers, and -Vickery said: - -“Drive us about a bit, chauffeur.” - -“Yes, sir!” said Winfield, touching his cap. And he lifted the car to a -lively gait. - -“Where did you get the machine?” said Sheila. - -“It’s his—Bret’s—Mr. Winfield’s,” said Vickery. “He came down in -it—to see that infernal play of mine. Do you know, I think I’ve -discovered one thing that’s the matter with it. In that scene in the -first act, you know, where—” - -He rambled on with intense enthusiasm, but Sheila was thinking of the -man at the wheel. He was rich enough to own a car and clever enough to -run it. As she watched he guided it through a swarm of traffic with -skill and coolness. - -Now and then Winfield threw a few words over his left shoulder. They had -nothing to do with things theatrical—just commonplace high spirits on a -fine day. Sheila did like him ever so much. - -By and by he drew up to the curb and got down, motioning to Vickery with -the thumb of authority. “I’m tired of letting you monopolize Miss -Kemble, ’Gene. I’m going to ask her to sit up with me.” - -“But I’m telling her about my play,” said Vickery. “Now, in the middle -of the last act—” - -“If you don’t mind,” said Sheila, “I should like to ride awhile with Mr. -Winfield. The air’s better.” - -Winfield opened the door for her, helped her down and in again, and -resumed his place. - -“See how much better the car runs!” he said. - -And to Sheila it seemed that it did run better. Their chatter ran about -as importantly as the engines, but it was cheerful and brisk. - -Every man has his ailment, at least one. The only flaw in Winfield’s -powerful make-up was the astigmatism that compelled him to wear glasses. -Sheila rather liked them. They gave an intellectual touch to a face that -had no other of the sort. Besides, actor-people usually prefer a touch -of what they call “character” to what they call “a straight.” - -Winfield told Sheila that his glasses had kept him from playing -football, but had not hampered his work in the ’varsity crew. He could -see as far as the spinal column of the oarsman in front of him, and that -was all he was supposed to see once the race began. - -He explained that his glasses had fallen from his eyes when he stepped -on the stage at Leroy. That had been one reason why Eldon had got home -on him so easily. - -Evidently this unpaid account was still troubling him. - -“I hate to owe a man a dollar or a kindness or a blow,” he said. “I’ve -lost my chance to pay that man Eldon what was due, and I’ll never get -another chance. Our paths will never cross again, I’m afraid.” - -“I hope not!” Sheila cried. - -“Why?” - -“Because you’re both such powerful men. He was a football-player, you -know.” - -“Oh, was he?” - -“Oh yes. And he keeps himself in trim. Most actors do. They never know -when they’ll have to appear bare-armed. And then they meet such awful -people sometimes.” - -“Oh, do they? And you think he would whip me, eh?” - -“Oh no. I don’t think either of you could whip the other. But it would -be terrible to have either of you hurt either of you.” - -Winfield laughed, but all he said was, “You’re a mighty nice girl.” - -She laughed, “Thanks.” - -Then both looked about guiltily to see if Vickery were listening. -Nothing important had been said, but their hearts had been fencing, or -at least feinting, at a sort of flirtation. - -Vickery was gone. - -“For Heaven’s sake!” said Sheila. - -“He probably dropped out when we stopped some time ago to let that wagon -pass.” - -“I wonder why?” Sheila said, anxiously. - -“Oh,” Winfield laughed, “’Gene’s such an omni—om—he reads so much he’s -probably read that two’s company and three’s a crowd.” - -This was a trifle uncomfortable for Sheila, so she said, “What time is -it, please?” - -“Half past one, or worse,” said Winfield, pointing with his toe to the -auto-clock. “That’s usually slow.” - -“Good Lord! I ought to be in the shop this minute. Turn round and fly!” - -They were far out in the country. Winfield looked regretfully at the -vista ahead. Turning round in a narrow road was a slow and maddening -process, and Sheila’s nerves grated like the clutch. Once faced -townward, they sped ferociously. She doubted if she would ever arrive -alive. There were swoops and skids and flights of chickens and narrow -escapes from the murder of dogs who charged ferociously and vanished in -a diminuendo of yelps. - -There followed an exciting race with the voice of a motor-cycle coming -up from the rear. Winfield laughed it to scorn until Sheila, glancing -back, saw that it carried a policeman. - -“He’s waving to us. Stop!” - -“If I do we’ll never make it. I’ll put you in the theater on time if I -go to jail for life.” - -“No, no; I won’t get you into trouble. Please stop. He looks like a nice -policeman. I’ll tell him you’re a doctor and I’m a trained nurse.” - -Winfield slowed down, and the policeman came up, sputtering like his own -blunderbuss. Sheila tried to look like a trained nurse, but missed the -costume and the make-up. She began at once: - -“Oh, please, Mr. Officer, it’s all my fault. You see, the doctor has a -dying patient, and I—I—” - -“Why, it’s Sheila Ke— Miss Kemble! Ain’t you playin’ this afternoon?” - -“Oh yes, it’s me—and I ought to be, but I was detained, and that’s -why—” - -“Well, you better hurry up or you’ll keep folks waitin’. My wife’s there -this afternoon. I seen you myself last night.” - -“Did you? Oh, thank you so much! Good-by!” - -As Winfield’s car slid forward they heard the policeman’s voice: “Better -go kind o’ slow crossing Fifth Street. McGonigle is stricter ’n I am.” - -Winfield was greatly impressed by the fame of his passenger. He carried -Calphurnia; no harm could come to him. They crossed Fifth Street at such -a pace that the car-tracks sent Sheila aloft. As she came down she -remembered Officer McGonigle. She saw that he or a vague film of him was -saluting her with admiring awe. The grinding toil of the stock actress -has its perquisites, after all. - -She made Winfield let her out at the alley and ran with all her might. -Once more she was met at the stage door by the anxious Eldon. But now -she resented his presence. His solicitude resembled espionage. But it -was not he that had changed. - -Pennock was in a furious mood and scolded Sheila roundly when she helped -her into her costume at a speed a fireman would have envied. As she made -up her face while Pennock concocted her hair, Sheila was studying some -new lines that Vickery had determined to try out that afternoon. - -The performance went excellently well. Sheila was refreshed by her sleep -and the forced ventilation her soul had had. She dined with Vickery and -Winfield. Vickery was aflame with new ideas that had come to him in -Winfield’s car. He had dropped out, not to leave them alone, but to be -alone with his precious thoughts. - -Sheila’s ambitions, however, were asleep. She was more interested in the -silent admiration of Winfield. The light on his glasses kept her from -seeing his eyes, but she felt that they were soft upon her, because his -voice was gentle when he spoke the few words he said. - - * * * * * - -It irritated Sheila to have to hurry back to the theater after dinner to -repeat again the afternoon’s repetition. The moon seemed to call down -the alley to her not to give herself to the garish ache of the calcium; -and the breeze had fingers twitching at her clothes and a voice that -sang, “Come walk with me.” - -She played the play, but it irked her. When she left the theater at half -past eleven she found Winfield waiting, in his car. Vickery was walking -at her side, jabbering about his eternal revisions. Winfield offered to -carry them to their hotels. He saw to it that he reached Vickery’s -first. When they had dropped Jonah overboard Winfield asked Sheila to -take just a bit of the air for her health’s sake. - -She hesitated only a moment. The need of a chaperon hardly occurred to -her. She had been living a life of independence for months. She had no -fear of Winfield or of anybody. Had she not overpowered the ferocious -Reben? She consented—for the sake of her health. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI - - -There will always be two schools of preventive hygiene for women. One -would protect girls from themselves and their suitors by high walls, -ignorance, seclusion, and a guardian in attendance at every step. The -other would protect them by encouraging high ideals through knowledge, -self-respect, liberty, and industry. - -Neither school ever succeeded altogether, or ever will. The fault of the -former is that what is forbidden becomes desirable; high walls are -scalable, ignorance dangerous, seclusion impossible, and guardians -either corruptible or careless. - -The fault of the latter is that emotions alter ideals and subdue them to -their own color; that knowledge increases curiosity, self-respect may be -overpowered or undermined, and that liberty enlarges opportunity. - -It always comes back to the individual occasion and the individual soul -in conflict with it. There has been much viciousness in harems and in -more sacred inclosures. And there has been much virtue in dual -solitudes, Liberty is not salvation, but at least it encourages -intelligence, it enforces responsibility, and it avoids the infinite -evils of tyranny. For that reason, while actresses and other women are -not always so good as they might be, they are not often so bad as they -might be. - -Sheila, the actress, was put upon her mettle. She had no duenna to play -tricks upon. She had herself to take care of, her preciousness to waste -or cherish. Sometimes women respond to these encounters with singular -dignity: sometimes with singular indifference. - -The town of Clinton was almost all asleep. The very houses seemed tucked -up in sheeted moonlight. And soon Sheila and her cavalier—or -engineer—were beyond the point where the streets were subtly changed to -roads. The last car on the suburban line growled and glittered past, -lurching noisily on its squealing rails. And then they were alone under -the moony vastitude of sky, with the dream-drenched earth revolving -around them in a huge, slow wheel. - -The car purred with the contentment of a great house-cat and lapped up -the glimmering road like a stream of milk. - -Sheila felt the spirit of the night, and felt that all the universe was -in tender rapport with itself. She felt as never before the grace of -love, the desire, the need of love. For years she had been exerting -herself for her ambition, and now her ambition was tired. The hour of -womanhood was striking, almost silently, yet as unmistakably as the -distant town clock that published midnight, so far away as to be less -overheard than felt in the slow throb of the air. - -Bret Winfield’s response to the mood of the night was pagan. Sheila was -a mighty nice girl and darned pretty and she had consented to take a -midnight spin with him. But many darned pretty girls had done the same. -A six-cylinder motor-car is a very winsome form of invitation. - -In place of inviting a young man to a cozy corner in a parlor or a -hammock on a piazza, the enterprising maiden of the day accepts his -invitation—and seats herself in a flying hammock. Seclusion is secured -and concealment attained by way of velocity. - -A wonderful change had taken place in the world of lovers in the last -ten years. For thousands of years before—ever since, indeed, the first -man invented the taming of the first horse and took his cave-girl -buggy-riding on a pair of poles or in a square-wheeled cart—lovers had -been kept to about the same pace. Suddenly they were given a buggy that -can go sixty miles an hour or better; so fast, indeed, that it is veiled -in its own speed and its own dust. Even the naughty gods and the -goddesses of Homer never knew any concealment like it. - -Winfield was an average young man who had known average young women -averagely well. He had found that demoiselles either would not motor -with him at all or, motoring with him, expected to be paid certain -gallant attentions. He always tried to live up to their expectations. -They might struggle, but never fiercely enough to endanger the -steering-wheel. They might protest, but never loudly enough to drown the -engine. - -Such was his experience with the laity. Sheila was his first actress, -not including a few encounters with those camp-followers of the theater -who are only accepted as “actresses” when they are arrested, and who -have as much right to the name as washwomen for a convent have the right -to be called “nuns,” when they drink too much. - -But Winfield had reasoned that if the generality of pretty girls who -motored with men were prepared for dalliance, by so much more would an -actress be. Consequently, when he reached a hilltop where there was a -good excuse for pausing to admire the view of a moon-plated river laid -along a dark valley, he shut off the power and slid his left arm back of -Sheila. - -She sat forward promptly and his heart began to chug. - -Making love is an old and foolish game, but strangely exciting at the -time. Winfield was more afraid to withdraw his arm than to complete the -embrace. - -Sheila’s heart was spinning, too. She had thrilled to the love-croon of -the night. The landscape before her and beneath her seemed to be filled -with dreams. But she was in love with love and not with Bret Winfield. - -When she recognized that he was about to begin to initiate her by a -familiar form of amorous hazing into the ancient society whose emblem is -a spoon, she abruptly decided that she did not want to belong. Winfield -became abruptly more of a stranger than ever. - -Sheila did not want to hate this nice young man. She did not want to -quarrel with her chauffeur so far from home at so compromising an hour. -She did not want to wreck the heavenly night with idiotic combat. She -hated the insincerity and perfunctoriness that must be the effect of any -protest. She was actress enough to realize that the lines the situation -required of her had long ago lost their effectiveness and their very -sincerity. - -But she did not want to be hugged. She loathed the thought of being -touched by this man’s arm. She felt herself as precious and her body as -holy as the lofty emotion of the night. Still, how could she protest -till he gave her cause? He gave her cause. - -Her very shoulder-blades winced as she felt Winfield’s arm close about -her; she shivered as his big hand folded over her shoulder. - -Sheila groped for appropriate words. Winfield’s big handsome face with -the two dim lenses over his eyes was brought nearer and nearer to her -cheek. Then, without giving him even the help of resistance, she -inquired, quite casually: - -“Is it true that they can send you to the penitentiary if you hit a man -in the face when he’s wearing glasses?” - - * * * * * - -Sheila was as astounded as Winfield was at this most unexpected query. -His lips paused at her very cheek to stammer: - -“I don’t know. But why? What about it?” - -“Because if it is true I want you either to take your arm away or take -your glasses off.” - -“I don’t understand.” - -“You don’t have to. All you have to understand is that I don’t want your -arm around me. I’d rather go to the penitentiary than have you kiss me.” - -“For the Lord’s sake!” Winfield gasped, relaxing his clutch. - -Sheila went on with that sarcasm which is cold poison to romance: “I -don’t blame you for attempting it. I know it’s the usual thing on such -occasions. But I don’t like it, and that ought to be enough.” - -Winfield sighed with shame and regret. “It’s quite enough! I beg your -pardon very humbly. Shall we turn back now?” - -“If you please.” - -The very engine seemed to groan as Winfield started it up again. It -clucked reprovingly, “Ts! ts! ts!” - -Winfield was more angry than sorry. He had made a fool of himself and -she had made another fool of him. He was young enough to grumble a -little, “Are you in love with that man Eldon?” - -“He’s very nice.” - -“You love him, then?” - -“Not at all.” - -“Well, then, if you keep me at such a distance, why do you—how can you -let him put his arms round you and kiss you twice a day before -everybody?” - -“He gets paid for it, and so do I.” - -“That makes it worse.” - -“You think so? Well, I don’t. Actors are like doctors. They have special -privileges to do things that would be very wrong for other people.” - -Winfield laughed this to scorn. Sheila was furious. - -“If there weren’t any actors there wouldn’t be any Shakespeare or any of -the great plays. Doctors save people from death and disease. Actors save -millions from melancholy and from loneliness, and teach them sympathy -and understanding. So it is perfectly proper for an actress to be kissed -and hugged on the stage. Acting is the noblest profession in the world, -the humanest and the most fascinating. And a woman can do just as much -good and be just as good on the stage as she can anywhere else. If you -don’t think so, then you have no right to speak to an actress. And I -don’t want you to speak to me again—ever! for you come with an insult -in your heart. You despise me and I despise you.” - -Winfield was in a panic. He had sought this girl out to square himself -with her, and he had wounded her deeper than before. - -“Oh, please, Miss Kemble, I beg you!” he pleaded. “I don’t blame you for -despising me, but I don’t despise you. I think you are wonderful. I’m -simply crazy about you. I never saw a girl I—I liked so much. I didn’t -mean anything wrong, and I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. I just -thought—” - -Sheila felt a little relentment. “I know what you thought, and I suppose -I oughtn’t to blame you. Actresses ought to get used to being -misunderstood, just as trained nurses are. But I hoped you were -different. I know I am. I’ve had so much stage loving that it doesn’t -mean anything to me. When I get the real I want it to be twice as real -as it would have to be for anybody else. Just because I pretend so much -I’d have to be awfully in love to love at all.” - -“Haven’t you ever loved anybody?” Winfield asked, quite inanely. - -She shook her head and answered, with a foolish solemnity. “I thought I -was going to, once or twice, but I never did.” - -“That’s just like me. I’ve never really loved anybody, either.” - -There was such unqualified juvenility in their words that they -recognized it themselves. Sheila could not help laughing. He laughed, -too, like a cub. - -Then Sheila said, with the earnestness of a child playing doll’s house: -“You’re too young to love anybody, and I haven’t time yet. I’ve got much -too much work ahead of me to waste any time on love.” - -“I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, too,” said Winfield. - -“You have?” said Sheila. “What is your work—doctor, lawyer, merchant, -chief?” - -She was surprised to realize that she had come to know this man pretty -well before she knew anything at all about him. She was discussing -Winfield’s future before she had heard of his past. Vickery’s -introduction had been his only credentials, his only history. And yet -she had already rested briefly in his arms. She was surprised further -when he said: - -“I’m a— That is, my father is— We are Winfield’s Scales.” - -She took this so blankly that he gasped, “Good heavens! didn’t you ever -hear of Winfield’s Scales?” - -“I never did,” said Sheila. - -“I’ll bet you were weighed in one of ’em when you were born.” - -“I couldn’t read when I was born,” said Sheila. - -“And you’ve never heard of them since?” - -“Not to my knowledge.” - -Winfield shook his head amiably over her childlike ignorance. But then, -what information could one expect of theatrical people? He went on: - -“Well, anyway, my father is one of the biggest manufacturers of scales -and weighing-machines and such things that there is. He’s about the only -independent one left out of the trust. Haven’t you heard of the -tremendous fight we’ve been putting up?” - -Sheila was less interested in the war than in the soldier. - -“We?” she said. - -“Well, I’m not in the firm yet, but my father expects me to step in -right away, so that he can step out. He’s not very well. That makes him -rather cranky. He didn’t want me to come down here, but I wanted to see -Vickery’s play and square myself with you. And I’ve made a mess of -that.” - -“Oh no! we’re square now, I fancy,” said Sheila. - -“Then I ought to be at home,” he sighed. - -“Instead of sowing wild oats with actresses,” said Sheila. - -“These oats are not very wild,” Winfield grumbled, not quite cured of -regret. - -“Rather tame, eh?” Sheila laughed. “Well, you’ll find that most -actresses are. We’re such harness-broken, heart-broken hacks, most of -us, there’s not much excitement left in us. So you’re to be a scale -manufacturer. You’re awfully rich, I suppose.” - -“When the market’s good, Dad makes a pile of money. When it’s bad—whew! -And it’s expensive fighting the trust.” - -“Is it anything like the theatrical trust?” - -“Is there a theatrical trust?” - -“Good heavens! Haven’t you read about the war?” - -“Was there a war?” - -“For years. Millions of dollars were involved.” - -“Is that so?” - -“Why, yes! and Reben was right in the thick of it. Both sides were -trying to get him in.” - -“Who’s Reben?” said Winfield. “What does he manufacture?” - -Sheila laughed, shocked at his boundless ignorance. It was like asking, -“What does St. Peter do for a living?” - -“You don’t know much about the theater, do you?” - -“No,” he laughed, “and you don’t know much about weighing-machines.” - -“No.” - -“Neither do I. I’ve got to learn.” - -“Then you’d better be hurrying home. I wouldn’t for worlds interfere -with your career.” - -She felt quite grandmotherly as she said it. She did not look it, -though, and as he stole a glance at her beauty, all demure and moonlike -in the moon, he sighed: “But I can’t bear to leave you just as I’m -beginning to—” he wanted to say “to love you,” but he had not prepared -for the word, so he said, “to get acquainted with you.” - -She understood his unspoken phrase and it saddened her. But she -continued to be very old and extremely sage. “It’s too bad; but we’ll -meet again, perhaps.” - -“That’s so, I suppose. Well, all right, we’ll be sensible.” - -And so, like two extremely good children, they put away temptation and -closed the door of the jam-closet. Who can be solemner than youth at -this frivolous age? What can solemnize solemnity like putting off till -to-morrow the temptation of to-day? - -The moment Sheila and Winfield sealed up love in a preserve-jar and -labeled it, “Not to be opened till Christmas,” and shelved it, that love -became unutterably desirable. - -Nothing that they could have resolved, nothing that any one else could -have advised them, could have mutually endeared them so instantly and so -pathetically as their earnest decision that they must not let themselves -grow dear to each other. - -They finished their ride back in silence, leaving behind them a moon -that seemed to drag at their flying shoulders with silver -grappling-hooks. The air was humming forbidden music in their ears and -the locked-up houses seemed to order them to remain abroad. - -But he drew up at her little apartment-hotel and took her to the door, -where a sleepy night-clerk-plus-elevator-boy opened the locked door for -her and went back to sleep. - -Sheila and Winfield defied the counsel of the night by primly shaking -hands. Sheila spoke as if she were leaving a formal reception. - -“Thank you ever so much for the lovely ride. And—er— Well, good -night—or, rather good-by, for I suppose you’ll be leaving to-morrow.” - -“I ought to,” he groaned, dubiously. “Good night! Good-by!” - -He climbed in, waved his hat to her, and she her gloves at him. Far down -the street he turned again to stare back and to wave farewell again. He -could not see her, but she was there, mystically sorrowing at the lost -opportunity of happiness, the unheeded advice of nature—in the mood of -Paul Bourget’s elegy as Debussy set it to music: - - “_Un conseil d’être heureux semble sortir des choses_ - _Et monter vers le cœur troublé,_ - _Un conseil de goûter le charme d’être au monde_ - _Cependant qu’on est jeune et que le soir est beau;_ - _Car nous nous en allons, comme s’en va cette onde—_ - _Elle à la mer, nous au tombeau._” - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII - - -Winfield had said, “I ought to!” It is strange that we always say “I -ought to” with skepticism, wondering both “Shall I?” and “Will I?” If -our selves are our real gods, we are all agnostics. - -The next morning Sheila woke with less than her yester joy. Leisure was -not so much a luxury and more of a bore. Not that she felt regret for -the lack of rehearsals. She was not interested in plays, but in the raw -material of plays, and she was not so proud of her noble renunciation of -Bret Winfield as she had been. - -To fight off her new loneliness she decided to go shopping. When men are -restless they go to clubs or billiard-parlors or saloons. Women go -prowling through the shops. The Clinton shops were as unpromising to -Sheila as a man’s club in summer. But there was no other way to kill -time. - -As she set out she saw Bret Winfield’s car loafing in front of her -hotel. He was sitting in it. The faces of both showed a somewhat dim -surprise. Sheila quickened her steps to the curb, where he hastened to -alight. - -“You didn’t go,” she said, brilliantly. - -“No.” - -“Why not?” - -“I—I couldn’t.” - -“Why?” - -“Well, I didn’t sleep a wink last night, and—” - -“I didn’t close my eyes, either.” - -It was a perfectly sincere statement on both sides and perfectly untrue -in both cases. Both had slept enviably most of the time they thought -they were awake. Sheila tried to make conversation: - -“What was on your mind?” - -“You!” - -His words filled her with delicious fright. On the lofty hill under the -low-hanging moon he had scared love off by attempted caresses. With one -word he brought love back in a rose-clouded mantle that gave their -communion a solitude there on the noisy street with the cars brawling by -and the crowds passing and peering, people nudging and whispering: -“That’s her! That’s Sheila Kemble! Ain’t she pretty? She’s just grand in -the new show! Saw it yet?” - -They stood in gawky speechlessness till he said, “Which way you going?” - -“I have some shopping to do.” - -“Oh! Too bad. I was going to ask you to take a little spin.” - -They span. - - * * * * * - -Winfield did not leave Clinton till the week was gone and Sheila with -it. They were together constantly, making little efforts at concealment -that attracted all manner of attention in the whole jealous town. - -Vickery and Eldon were not the least alive to Winfield’s incursion into -Sheila’s thoughts. Both regarded it as nothing less than a barbaric -danger. Both felt that Winfield, for all his good qualities, was a -Philistine. They knew that he had little interest in the stage as an -institution, and no reverence for it. It was to him an amusement at -best, and a scandal at worst. - -But to Vickery the theater was the loftiest form of literary -publication, and to Eldon it was the noblest forum of human debate. To -both of them Sheila was as a high priestess at an altar. They felt that -Winfield wanted to lure her or drag her away from the temple to an -old-fashioned home where her individuality would be merged in her -husband’s manufacturing interests, and her histrionism would be confined -to an audience of one, or to the entertainment of her own children. - -This feeling was entirely apart from the love that both of them felt for -Sheila the woman. Each was sure in his heart that his own love for -Sheila was far the greatest of the three loves. - -Vickery forgot even his own vain struggles to make the heroine of his -play behave, in his eagerness to save Sheila from ruining the dramatic -unity of her life by interpolating a commercial marriage as the third -act. He found a chance to speak to her one afternoon just before the -second curtain rose. He was as excited as if he had been making a -curtain speech and nearly as awkward: - -“Sheila,” he hemmed and hawed, “I want to speak to you very frankly -about Bret. Of course, he’s a splendid fellow and a friend I’m very fond -of, but if he goes and makes you fall in love with him I’ll break his -head.” - -“He’s bigger than you are,” Sheila laughed. - -“Yes,” Vickery admitted, “but there are clubs that are harder than even -his hard head. If he takes you off the stage I’ll never forgive myself -for introducing him to you. I’ll never forgive him, either—or you. In -Heaven’s name, Sheila, don’t let him take you off the stage. I’ve heard -of hitching your wagon to a star, but this would be hitching a star to a -wagon. I can’t ask you to marry me for the Lord knows how long; even -assuming that you would consider me if I had a million instead of being -a penniless playwright; but I at least would try to help you on in your -career. I’d rather you wouldn’t marry either of us than marry him.” - -Sheila chuckled luxuriously: “Don’t you lose any sleep over me, Vick. In -the first place, Mr. Winfield has never even suggested that I should -marry him.” - -Which was fact. - -“In the second place, if he did I should decline him with thanks.” - -Which was prophecy. - -Vickery was so relieved that he returned to the discussion of his play. -He promised to have it ready for fall rehearsals. Sheila assured him -that she would be ready whenever the play was. Then her cue came and she -walked into her laboratory, while Vickery hastened out front to study -the effect of his new lines on the audience. - -When Sheila issued from her dressing-room for the third act, in which -she did not appear for some time after the curtain was up, she found -Eldon waiting for her. He was suffering as from stage-fright, and he -delivered the lines he had been rehearsing in his dressing-room nearly -as badly as the lines he had forgotten the night he played the farmer -with the dark lantern. The substance of what he jumbled was this: - -“Sheila, I want to speak very frankly to you. Don’t take it for mere -jealousy, though you have hardly looked at me since Mr. Vickery and the -Winfield fellow struck town. I don’t Suppose you care for me any more, -but I beg you not to let anybody take you off the stage. You belong. You -have the God-given gifts. Your success proves where your duty to -yourself lies. - -“If you can’t marry me and you must marry some one, marry our author. It -would break my heart, but I’d rather he’d have you than anybody but me, -for he’d keep you where you belong, anyway. I suppose this Winfield has -some extraordinary charms for you. He seems a nice enough fellow and -he’ll come into a heap of money. But if I thought there was any danger -of his carrying you off, I’d knock him so far out of the theater that -he’d never—” - -Sheila was bristling up to say that two could play at the same game, but -Eldon had heard his signal for entrance, and, leaving his gloomy -earnestness in the wings, he breezed on to the stage with all imaginable -flippancy. He came off just as gaily a little later, only to resume his -sobriety and his speech the moment he passed the side-line: - -“As I was saying, Sheila, I implore you not to ruin your life by -marrying that man.” - -Sheila had many things to say, but her actress self had heard the -approach of her cue, and she spoke hastily: “You are worrying yourself -needlessly, Floyd. In the first place, Mr. Winfield has never even -suggested that I should marry him; in the second place, if he did, I’d -decline with—” - -And then she slipped into the scene and became the creature of Vickery’s -fancy. - -On Saturday night the house-manager gave a farewell supper to Sheila on -the stage and naturally failed to include Winfield in the invitations. -He sulked about the somnolent town in a dreadful fit of loneliness, but -he could not get a word with Sheila. Sheila, now that she was leaving -the company, felt a mingling of fondness for the shabby old stage and -the workaday troupe and of happiness at being pardoned out of the -penitentiary. - -On the morrow Winfield asked her by telephone if he might take her to -the train in his car. She consented. She was late getting ready, and he -had to go at high speed, with no chance for farewell conversation. As -they reached the station his agony at leaving her wrenched from him a -desperate plea: - -“Won’t you kiss me Good-by?” - -In the daylight, among the unromantic hacks, she laughed at the thought: - -“Kiss you _Good-by_? Why, I haven’t kissed you _How-d’-do?_ yet!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII - - -When Sheila reached the home of her father and mother she spent her -first few days renewing her kinship with them. They seemed older to her, -but they had not aged as she had. They had been through just one more -season. She had passed through an epoch. - -They found her mightily changed. They were proud of her. They could see -that she had taken good care of her body. They knew that she had -succeeded in her art. They wondered what she had done with her soul. -They had reached that thrilling, horribly anxious state of parentage -when the girl child is grown to a woman and when every step is -dangerous. Authority is ended; advice is untranslatable, and the parents -become only spectators at a play whose star they have provided but whose -cast they cannot select. - -Sheila was not troubled about these things. Her chief excitement was in -the luxury of having her afternoons to herself and every evening free. -She was like a night-watchman on a vacation. It was wonderful to be her -own mistress from twilight to midnight. She had no make-up to put on -except for the eyes of the sun. There were no footlights. The only need -for attention to her skin was to fight off sunburn and the attacks of -the surf in which she spent hours upon hours. - -The business of her neighbors and herself was improvising hilarities: -the sea, the motors, saddle-horses, tennis, golf, watching polo-games, -horse-races, airship-races, all the summer industries of Long Island. - -The Kembles had a wide and easy acquaintance with the aristocracy. Roger -and Polly forgot, if the others did not, that they were stage folk. They -enjoyed the elegancies of life and knew how to be familiar without being -vulgar. Sheila inherited their acquaintance and had been bred to their -graces. - -Young women and old of social importance made the girl one of their -intimates. Any number of more or less nice young plutocrats offered to -lead her along the primrose path as far as she would go. But she -compelled respect, perhaps with a little extra severity for the sake of -her maligned profession. Before many days she would have to return to -it, but she was in no hurry. - -One morning in the sun-flailed surf she grew weary of the jigging crowd -of rope-dancers. Seeing that one of the floats was empty, she swam out -to it. It was more of a journey than she thought, for we judge distances -as walkers, not as swimmers. She climbed aboard with difficulty and -rested, staring out to sea, the boundless sea where big waves came -bowing in, nodding their white feathers. - -She heard some one else swimming up, but did not look around. She did -not want to talk to any of the men she had swum away from. She felt the -float tilt as whoever it was sprang from the water and seated himself, -dripping. Then she heard a voice with all the morning in it: - -“Good morning!” - -“Bret Winfield!” she cried, as she whirled on one hip like a mermaid. - -“Sheila Kemble!” he laughed. - -“What on earth are you doing here?” - -“I’m not on earth; I’m alone in midocean with you.” - -“But what brought you? Where did you come from?” - -“Home. I just couldn’t stand it.” - -“Stand what?” - -“Being away from you.” - -“Good heavens!” - -“It’s been the other place to me.” - -“Really?” - -“I told Dad I needed a rest; that something was the matter with my mind. -He admitted that, but blamed it to lack of use. Then I ducked. I shipped -my car to New York, and flew down the Motor Parkway to here. Got here -yesterday. Been hanging round, trying to find you alone. Swell chance! -There’s a swarm after you all the time, isn’t there?” - -“Is there?” - -“Last night I saw you dancing at the hotel with every Tom, Dick, and -Harry. I hoped you’d come out and sit on the piazza so that I could -sandbag the man and carry you off. But you didn’t.” - -“No.” - -“Why?” - -“I didn’t care to be alone with any of them.” - -“Lord bless your sweet soul! Were you thinking of me?” - -“Not necessarily.” - -“Are you glad to see me?” - -“Oh yes. The more the merrier.” - -This impudence brought his high hopes down. But they soared again when -she said, with charming inconsistency: - -“Dog-on it! here comes somebody!” - -A fat man who somewhat resembled the globular figures cartoonists use to -represent the world, wallowed out, splashing like a side-wheel -raft-boat. He tried to climb aboard, but his equator was too wide for -his short arms, and neither Sheila nor Winfield offered to lend him a -hand. He gave up and propelled himself back to shore with the grace of a -bell-buoy. - -“Good-by, old flotsam and jetsam,” said Winfield. - -Sheila could not but note the difference between the other man and -Winfield. There was every opportunity for observation in both cases. -Each inly acknowledged that the other was perfection physically. Each -wished to be able to observe the other’s soul in equal completeness of -display. But that power was denied them. - -It would have served them little to know each other’s souls, since -happiness in love is not a question of individual perfections, but of -their combination and what results from it. Fire and water are excellent -in their place, but brought together, the result is familiar—either the -water changes the flame to sodden ashes, or the flame changes the water -to steam. Both lose their qualities, change unrecognizably. - -In any case, Winfield courted Sheila with all the impetuous stubbornness -of his nature. He had no visible rivals to fight, but the affair was not -denied the added charm of danger. - -One blistering day, when all of the populace that could slid off the hot -land into the water like half-baked amphibians, Sheila and Winfield -plunged into the nearest fringe of surf. The beach was like Broadway -when the matinées let out. They swam to the float. It was as crowded as -a seal-rock with sirens, sea-leopards, sea-cows, walruses, dugongs, and -manatees. There was no room for Sheila till an obliging faun gallantly -offered her his seat and dived from the raft more graciously than -gracefully, for he smacked the water flatly in what is known as a -belly-buster or otherwise. He nearly swamped her in his back-wash. - -She felt a longing for the outer solitudes and, when she had rested and -breathed a few times, she struck out for the open sea beyond the ropes. -Winfield followed her gaily and they reveled in the life of mer-man and -mer-girl till suddenly she realized that she was tired. - -Forgetting where she was, she attempted to stand up. She thrust her feet -down into a void. There is hardly a more hideous sensation, or a more -terrifying, for an inexpert swimmer. She went under with a gasp and came -up choking. - -Winfield was just diving into a big wave and did not see her. The same -wave caught Sheila by the back of her head and held her face down, then -swept on, leaving her strangling and smitten into a panic. She struck -out for shore with all awkwardness, as if robbed of experience with the -water. - -Winfield turned to her, and sang, “A life on the bounding waves for me.” -An ugly, snarling breaker whelmed her again, and a third found her -unready and cowering before its toppling wall. She called Winfield by -his first name for the first time: - -“Bret, I can’t get back.” - -He crept to her side with all his speed, and spoke soothing words: “You -poor child! of course you can.” - -“I—I’m afraid.” - -A massive green billow flung on her a crest like a cartload of -paving-stones, and sent her spinning, bewildered. Winfield just heard -her moan: - -“I give up.” - -He clutched her sleeve as she drooped under the petty wave that -succeeded. He tried to remember what the books and articles said, but he -had never saved anybody and he was only an ordinary swimmer himself. - -He swam on his side, reaching out with one hand and dragging her with -the other. But helplessly he kicked her delicate body and she floated -face downward. He turned on his back and, suddenly remembering the -instructions, put his hands in her armpits and lifted her head above all -but the ripple-froth, propelling himself with his feet alone. - -But his progress was dismally slow, and he could not see where he was -going. The laughter of the bathers and their shrieks as the breakers -charged in among them grew fainter. A longshore current was haling them -away from the crowds. The life-savers were busy hoisting a big woman -into their boat and everybody was watching the rescue. Nobody had missed -Sheila. Her own father and mother were whooping like youngsters in the -surf. - -Winfield twisted his head and tried to make out his course, but his dim -eyes could not see so far without the glasses he had left at the -boat-house; and the light on the water was blinding. - -He was tired and dismayed. He rested for a while, then struck out till -he must rest again. At last he spoke to her: “Sheila.” - -“Yes, dear.” - -“You’ll have to help me. I can’t see far enough.” - -“You poor boy!” she cried. “Tell me what to do.” - -“Can you put your hands on my shoulders, and tell me which way to swim? -I’m all turned round.” - -He drew her to him, and revolved her and set her hands on his shoulders, -then turned his back to her, and swam with all-fours. She floated out -above him like a mantle, and, holding her head high, directed him. She -was his eyes, and he was her limbs, and thus curiously twinned they -fought their way through the alien element. - -The sea seemed to want them for its own. It attacked them with waves -that went over them with the roar of railroad trains. Beneath, the icy -undertow gripped at his feet. His lungs hurt him so that he felt that -death would be a lesser ache than breathing. - -Sheila’s weight, for all the lightness the water gave it, threatened to -drown them both. But her words were full of help. In his behalf she put -into her voice more cheer than she found in her heart. The shore seemed -rather to recede than to approach. - -Now and then she would call aloud for help, but the salt-water had -weakened her throat and there was always some new sensation ashore. - -At length, Winfield could hear the crash of the breakers and at length -Sheila was telling him that they were almost in. Again and again he -stabbed downward for a footing and found none. Eventually, however, he -felt the blessed foundation of the world beneath him and, turning, -caught Sheila about the waist and thrust her forward till she too could -stand. - -The beach was bad where they landed and the baffled waters dragged at -their trembling legs like ropes, but they made onward to the dry sand. -They fell down, panting, aghast, and stared at the innocent sea, where -joyous billows came in like young men running with their hands aloft. -Far to their deft the mob shrieked and cavorted. Farther away to their -right the next colony of maniacs cavorted and shrieked. - -When breathing was less like swallowing swords they looked at each -other, smiled with sickly lips, and clasped cold, shriveled hands. - -“Well,” said Sheila, “you saved my life, didn’t you?” - -“No,” he answered; “you saved mine.” - -She gave him a pale-blue smile and, as the chill seized her, she spoke, -with teeth knocking together, “We s-saved dea-dea chother.” - -“Ye-yes,” he ch-chattered, “so w-we bu-bu-bu-bulong to wea-weachother.” - -“All r-r-right-t-t-t.” - -That was his proposal and her acceptance. They rose and clasped hands -and ran for the bath-house, while agues of rapture made scroll-work of -their outlines. They had escaped from dying together, but they were not -to escape from living together. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIX - - -The betrothed couple had no opportunity to seal the engagement with the -usual ceremonies. When they met again, fully clothed, she was so late to -her luncheon that she had to fly. - -Already, after their high tragedy and their rosy romance, the little -things of existence were asserting their importance. That afternoon -Sheila had an engagement that she could not get out of, and a dinner -afterward. She had booked these dates without dreaming of what was to -happen. - -It was not till late in the evening that Sheila could steal away to -Winfield, who stole across the lawn to her piazza by appointment. - -The scene was perfectly set. An appropriate moon was in her place. The -breeze was exquisitely aromatic. Winfield was in summer costume of -dinner-suit and straw hat. Sheila was in a light evening gown with no -hat. - -They cast hasty glances about, against witnesses, and then he flung his -arms around her, and she flung hers around him. He crushed her as -fiercely as he dared, and she him as fiercely as she could. Their lips -met in the great kiss of betrothal. - -She was happy beyond endurance. She was in love and her beloved loved -her. - -All the Sheilas there were in her soul agreed for once that she was -happy to the final degree, contented beyond belief, imparadised on -earth. The Sheilas voted unanimously that love was life; love was the -greatest thing in the world; that woman’s place was with her lover, that -a woman’s forum was the home; and that any career outside the walls was -a plaything to be put away and forgotten like a hobby-horse outgrown. - -As for her stage career—pouf! into the attic with it where her little -tin house and the tiny tin kitchen and her knitted bear and the glueless -dolls reposed. She was going to have a real house and real children and -real life. - -While she was consigning her ambitions to the old trunk up-stairs, -Winfield was refurbishing his ambitions. He was going to do work enough -for two, be ambitious for both and make Sheila the proudest wife of the -busiest husband in the husband business. - -But these great resolutions were mainly roaring in the back parlors of -their brains. On the piazzas of their lips were words of lovers’ -nonsense. There is no use quoting them. They would sound silly even to -those who have used them themselves. - -They sounded worse than that to Roger and Polly, who heard them all. - -Roger and Polly had come home from dancing half an hour before, and had -dropped into chairs in the living-room. The moon on the sea was -dazzling. They watched it through the screens that strained the larger -mosquitoes, then they put out the lights because the view was better and -because enough mosquitoes were already in the house. - -The conversation of the surf had made all the necessary language and -Roger and Polly sat in the tacit comfort of long-married couples. They -had heard Sheila brought home by a young man whom she dismissed with -brevity. Before they found energy to call to her, another young man had -hurried across the grass. To their intense amazement he leaped at Sheila -and she did not scream. Both merged into one silhouette. - -Polly and Roger were aghast, but they dared not speak. They did not even -know who the man was. Sheila called him by no name to identify him, -though she called him by any number of names of intense saccharinity. - -At length Roger’s voice came through the gloom, as gentle as a shaft of -moonlight made audible: “Oh, Sheila.” - -The silhouette was snipped in two as if by scissors. - -“Ye-yes, dodther.” She had tried to say “Daddy” and “father” at the same -time. - -Roger’s voice went on in its drawing-roomest drawl: “I know that it is -very bad play-writing to have anybody overhear anybody, but your mother -and I got home first, and your dialogue is—well, really, a little of it -goes a great way, and we’d like to know the name of your leading man.” - -Winfield and Sheila both wished that they had drowned that morning. But -there was no escape from making their entrance into the living-room, -where Roger turned on the lights. All eyes blinked, rather with -confusion than the electric display. - -The elder Kembles had met Winfield before, but had not suspected him as -a son-in-law-to-be. Sheila explained the situation and laid heavy stress -on how Winfield had rescued her from drowning. She rather gave the -impression that she had fallen off a liner two days out and that he had -jumped overboard and carried her to safety single-handed. - -Winfield tried to disclaim the glory, but he managed to gulp up a -proposal in phrases he had read somewhere. - -“I came to ask you for your daughter’s hand.” - -“It looked to me as if you had both of them around your neck,” Roger -sighed. Then he cleared his throat and said: “What do you say, Polly? Do -we give our consent?—not that it makes any difference.” - -Polly sighed. “Sheila’s happiness is the only thing to consider.” - -“Ah, Sheila’s happiness!” Roger groaned. “That’s a large order. I -suppose she has told you, Mr. Wyndham, that she is an actress—or is -trying to be?” - -“Oh yes, sir,” Winfield answered, feeling like a butler asking for a -position. “I fell in love with her on the stage.” - -“Ah, so you are an actor, too.” - -“Oh no, sir! I’m a manufacturer, or I expect to be.” - -“And is your factory one that can be carried around with you, or does -Sheila intend—” - - “Oh, { I’m } going to leave the stage.” - {she’s} - -“Hum!” said Roger. “When?” - -“Right away, I hope,” said Winfield. - -“I’m off the stage now,” said Sheila. “I’ll just not go back.” - -“I see,” said Roger, while Polly stared from her idolized child to the -terrifying stranger, and wrung her hands before the appalling explosion -of this dynamite in the quiet evening. - -“Well, mummsy,” Sheila cried, taking her mother in her arms, “why don’t -you say something?” - -“I—I don’t know what to say,” Polly whimpered. - -Roger’s uneasy eyes were attracted by the living-room table, where there -was a comfortable clutter of novels and magazines. A copy of _The -Munsey_ was lying there; it was open, face down. Roger picked it up and -offered the open book to Sheila. - -She and Winfield looked down at a full-page portrait of Sheila. - -“Had you seen this, Mr.—Mr.—Wingate, is it? It’s a forecast of the -coming season and it says—it says—” He produced his eye-glasses and -read: - - “‘The most interesting announcement among the Reben plans is the - statement that Sheila Kemble is to be promoted to stellar honors - in a new play written especially for her. While we deplore the - custom of rushing half-baked young beauties into the electric - letters, an exception must be made in the case of this rising - young artist. She has not only revealed extraordinary - accomplishments and won for herself a great following of - admirers throughout the country, but she has also enjoyed a - double heritage in the gifts of her distinguished forebears, who - are no less personages than’—et cetera, et cetera.” - -Sheila and Winfield stared at the page from which Sheila’s public image -beamed quizzically at herself and at the youth who aspired to rob her -“great following” of their darling. - -“What about that?” said Roger. - -Winfield looked so pitiful to Sheila that she cried, “Well, my ‘great -following’ will have to follow somebody else, for I belong to Bret now.” - -“I see,” said Roger. “And when does the rising young star—er—set? When -does the marriage take place?” - -“Whenever Bret wants me,” said Sheila, and she added “Ooh!” for he -squeezed her fingers with merciless gratitude. - -“Oh, Sheila! Sheila!” said Polly, clutching at her other hand as if she -would hold her little girl back from crossing the stile of womanhood. - -Roger hummed several times in the greatest possible befuddlement. At -length he said: - -“And what do your parents say, Mr. Winston?—or are they—er—living?” - -“Yes, sir, both of them, thank you. They don’t know anything about it -yet, sir.” - -“And do you think they will be pleased?” - -“When they know Sheila they can’t help loving her.” - -“It has happened, I believe,” said Roger, “that parents have not -altogether echoed their children’s enthusiasms. And there are still a -few people who would not consider a popular actress an ideal -daughter-in-law.” - -“Oh, they won’t make any trouble!” said Winfield. “They ought to be -proud of—of an alliance with such—er—distinguished forebears as you.” -He tried to include Polly and Roger in one look, and he thought the -tribute rather graceful. - -Roger smiled at the bungled compliment and answered, “Well, the -Montagues and the Capulets were both prominent families, but that didn’t -help Romeo and Juliet much.” - -Winfield writhed at Roger’s light sarcasm. “It doesn’t matter what they -say. I am of age.” - -“So I judge, but have you an income of your own?” - -“No, but— Well, I can take care of Sheila, I guess!” He was angry now. - -Roger rather liked him for his bluster, but he said, “In any case there -is no especial hurry, I presume.” - -To the young lovers there seemed to be the most enormous necessity of -haste to forsake the world and build their own nest in their own tree. - -Roger was silent and Polly was silent. Winfield felt called upon to -speak. At last he managed to extort a few words from his embarrassment: - -“Anyway, I can count on your consent, can I?” - -“Our consent!” laughed Roger. “What have we to say? We’re only the -parents of a young American princess. If Sheila says yes, your next -trouble is your own parents, for you are only an American man.” - -“Anyway, you won’t oppose us?” Winfield urged. - -“My boy, I would no more oppose Sheila than I would oppose the Twentieth -Century Limited in full flight.” - -Sheila pouted. “That’s nice! Now he’ll think I’m something terrible.” - -Roger put his arm about his daughter, who was nearly taller than he was. -“My child,” he said, “I think you are the finest woman in the world -except your own mother. And if it would make you happy and keep you -happy I’d cut off my right arm.” Then he kissed her, and his eyes were -more like a sorrowful boy’s than a father’s. There was a lull in the -conversation and he escaped with the words: “Mother, it’s time for the -old folks to go to bed. The young people have a lot to talk over and -we’re in the way. Good night, Mr. Win—my boy, and good luck to -you—though God alone knows good luck when He sees it.” - -When the veterans had climbed the stairs to the shelf on which younger -romance had put them, Bret and Sheila resumed that interrupted embrace, -but deliberately and solemnly. It was a serious matter, this getting -married and all. - - * * * * * - -The next morning brought a flood of sunlight on an infinitely cheerful -ocean and the two lovers’ thoughts flew to each other from their remote -windows like carrier-pigeons. - -Sheila was perturbed, and as she watched Winfield approach she thought -that his very motor seemed to be a trifle sullen. Then she ran down to -the piazza to meet him. She carried a letter in her left hand. She waved -him welcome with the other. - -As he ran up the walk he took from his pocket a telegram. They vanished -into the house to exchange appropriate salutes, but Pennock was there as -housemaid, and she was giving orders to Roger’s valet, who doubled as -the butler in summer-time. - -So they returned to the porch embraceless. This began the morning wrong. -Then Winfield handed Sheila his telegram, a long night letter from his -father, saying that his health was bad and he might have to take a rest. -He added, vigorously: - -“You’ve fooled away time enough. Get back on the job; learn your -business and attend to it.” - -Winfield shook his head dolefully. “Isn’t that rotten?” - -“Mate it with this,” said Sheila, and handed him her letter. - - DEAR SHEILA KEMBLE,—Better run in town and see me to-morrow. - I’ve got a great play for you from France. Rehearsals begin - immediately. Trusting your rest has filled you with ambition for - a strenuous season, I am, - - Yours faithfully, - HY. REBEN. - -This threw Winfield into a panic. “But you promised me—” - -“Yes, dear,” she cooed, “and I’ve already written the answer. How’s -this?” She gave him the answer she had worked over for an hour, trying -to make it as business-like as possible: - - Letter received regret state owing change plans shall not return - stage this season best wishes. - - SHEILA KEMBLE. - -Even this did not allay Winfield’s alarm. “Why do you say ‘this -season’?” he demanded. “Are you only marrying me for one season?” - -“For all eternity,” she cried, “but I wanted to let poor old Reben down -easy.” - - * * * * * - -Sheila found that Reben was not so easily let down as stirred up. An -answer to the telegram arrived a few hours later, just in time to spoil -the day: - - You gave me word of honor as gentleman you would keep your - contract better look it over again you will report for rehearsal - Monday ten A.M. Odeon Theater. - - REBEN. - -Winfield stormed at Reben’s language as much as at the situation: - -“How dares he use such a tone to you? Are you his servant or are you my -wife?” - -“I’m neither, honey,” Sheila said, very meekly. “I’m just the darned old -public’s little white slave.” - -“But you don’t belong to the public. You belong to me.” - -“But I gave him my word first, honey,” Sheila pleaded. “If it were just -an ordinary contract, I could break it, but we shook hands on it and I -gave him my word as a gentleman. If I broke that I couldn’t be trusted -to keep my word to you, could I, dear?” - -It was a puzzling situation for Winfield. How could he demand that the -woman in whose hands he was to put his honor should begin their compact -by a breach of honor? How could he counsel her to be false to one solemn -obligation and expect her to be true to another assumed later? - -Reben followed up his telegram by a letter of protest against Sheila’s -bad faith. He referred to the expense he had been at; he had bought a -great foreign play, paying down heavy advance royalties; he had given -large orders to scene-painters, lithographers, and printers, and had -flooded the country with her photographs and his announcements. The cast -was selected, and her defection would mean cruelty to them as well as -disloyalty to him. - -She felt helpless. Winfield was helpless. She could only mourn and he -rage. They were like two lovers who find themselves on separate ships. - -Winfield went back to his father’s factory in a fume of wrath and grief. -Sheila went to Reben’s factory with the meekness of a mill-hand carrying -a dinner-pail. - - * * * * * - -Sheila made a poor effort to smile at the stage-door keeper, who lifted -his hat to her and welcomed her as if she were the goddess of spring. -The theater had been lonely all summer, but with the autumn was -burgeoning into vernal activity. - -The company in its warm-weather clothes made little spots of color in -the dimly lighted cave of the stage. The first of the members to greet -Sheila was Floyd Eldon. - -Eldon seized both of Sheila’s hands and wrung them, and his heart cried -aloud in his soft words: “God bless you, Sheila. We’re to be together -again and I’m to play your lover again. You’ve got to listen to me -telling you eight times a week how much I—” - -“Why, Mr. Batterson, how do you do?” - -The director—Batterson again—came forward with other troupers, old -friends or strangers. Then Reben called to Sheila from the night beyond -the footlights. She stumbled and groped her way out front to him, and he -scolded her roundly for giving him such a scare. - -The director’s voice calling the company together rescued her from -answering Reben’s questions as to the mysterious “change of plans” that -had inspired her telegram. - -“I guess you must have been crazy with the heat,” he said. - -“Call it that,” said Sheila. And she rejoined the company, trying not to -be either uppish or ’umble in her new quality as the star. - -The author of the play was a Parisian plutocrat whose wares had -traversed all the oceans, though he had never ventured across the -English Channel. So he was not present to read the play aloud. Ben -Prior, the adapter, was a meek hack afraid of his own voice, and -Batterson was not inclined to show the company how badly their director -read. His assistant distributed the parts, and the company, clustered in -chairs, read in turn as their cues came. - -Each had hefted his own part, and judged it by the number of its pages. -One might have guessed nearly how many pages each had by the vivacity or -the dreariness of his attack. - -“Eight sides!” growled old Jaffer as he counted his brochure. - -It is a saddening thing to an ambitious actor to realize that his -business for a whole season is to be confined to brief appearances and -unimportant speeches. - -People congratulated old Jaffer because he was out of the play after the -first act. But, cynic as he was, he was not glad to feel that he would -be in his street mufti when the second curtain rose. It is pleasant to -play truant, but it is no fun to be turned out of school when everybody -else is in. - -Of all the people there the most listless was the one who had the -biggest, bravest rôle, the one round which all the others revolved, the -one to whom all the others “fed” the words that brought forth the witty -or the thrilling lines. - -Sheila had to be reminded of her cue again and again. Batterson’s voice -recalled her as from a distance. - -It is as strange as anything so usual and immemorial can be, how madly -lovers can love; how much agony they can extract from a brief -separation; what bitter terror they can distil from ordinary events. As -the tormented girl read her lines and later walked through the positions -or stood about in the maddening stupidities of a first rehearsal, she -had actually to battle with herself to keep from screaming aloud: - -“I don’t want to act! I don’t want the public to love me! I want only my -Bret!” - -The temptation to hurl the part in Reben’s face, to mock the petty -withes of contract and promise, and to fly to her lover, insane as it -was, was a temptation she barely managed to fight off. - - - - - CHAPTER XXX - - -In a similar tempest of infinitely much ado about next to nothing the -distant Bret Winfield was browbeating himself silently, pleading with -himself not to disgrace himself by running away from his loathsome -factory. His father needed his presence, and Sheila needed his absence. - -But gusts of desire for the sight of her swept through him like manias. -He would try to reach her on the long-distance telephone. At the -theater, where there was as yet no one in the box-office, it was usually -impossible to get an answer or to get a message delivered. The -attendants would as soon have called a priest from mass as an actor from -rehearsal. Sometimes, after hours of search with the long-distance -probe, he would find Sheila at the hotel and they would pour out their -longings across the distance till strange voices broke in and mocked -their sentimentalities or begged them to get off the wire. It was -strange to be eavesdropped by ghosts whose names or even whereabouts one -could never know. - -Winfield’s mother observed her son’s distress and insisted that he was -ill. She demanded that he see a doctor; it might be some lingering fever -or something infectious. It was both, but there is no inoculation, no -antitoxin, yet discovered to prevent the attack on a normal being. The -mumps, scarlet fever, malaria, typhoid and other ailments have their -serums, but love has none. Light attacks of those affections procure -immunity, but not of this. - -Winfield finally told his mother what his malady was. “Mother, I’m in -love—mad crazy about a girl.” - -Mrs. Winfield smiled. “You always are.” - -“It’s real this time—” - -“It always was.” - -“It means marriage.” - -This was not so amusing. - -“Who is she?” - -“Nobody you ever saw.” - -This was reassuring. Mrs. Winfield had never seen any girl in town quite -good enough for her daughter-in-law. - -Mrs. Winfield was very strict, and very religious in so far as religion -is concerned with trying one’s neighbors as well as oneself by very -lofty and very inelastic laws of conduct. - -Bret dreaded to tell his mother who Sheila was or what she was. He knew -her opinion of the stage and its people. She had not expressed it often -because she winced even at the mention of hopelessly improper subjects -like French literature, the theater, classic art, playing cards, the -works of Herbert Spencer, Ouida, Huxley, and people like that. - -She knew so little of the theater that when she made him tell her the -girl’s name, “Sheila Kemble” meant nothing to her. - -Mrs. Winfield demanded full information on the vital subject of her -son’s fiancée. Bret dodged her cross-examination in vain. He dilated on -Sheila’s beauty, her culture, her fascination, her devotion to him. But -those were details; Mrs. Winfield wanted to know the important things: - -“What church does she belong to?” - -“I never thought to ask her.” - -“Are her people in good circumstances?” - -“Very!” - -“What is her father’s business?” - -“Er—he’s a professional man.” - -“Oh! A lawyer?” - -“No.” - -“Doctor?” - -“No.” - -“What then?” - -“Er—well—you see—he’s very successful. He’s famous in his line—makes -a heap of money. He stands very high in his profession.” - -“That’s good, but what is it?” - -“Why—he— If you knew him—you’d be proud to have him for a -father-in-law or—a—whatever relative he’d be to you.” - -“No doubt; but what _does_ this wonderful man do for a living?” - -“He’s an actor.” - -Mrs. Winfield would have screamed the word in echo, but she was too -weak. When she got her breath she hardly knew which of the myriad -objections to mention first. - -“An actor! You are engaged to the daughter of an actor! Why, that’s -nearly as bad as if she were an actress herself!” - -Bret mumbled, “Sheila is an actress.” - -Then he ran for a glass of water. - -At length his mother rallied sufficiently to flutter tenderly, with a -mother’s infinite capacity for forgiving her children—and nobody else: - -“Oh, Bret! Bret! has my poor boy gone and fallen into the snare of some -adventuress—some bad, bad woman?” - -“Hush, mother; you mustn’t speak so. Sheila is a good girl, the best in -the world.” - -“I thought you said she was an actress.” - -This seemed to end the argument, but he amazed her by proceeding: “She -is! and a fine one, the best actress in the country—in the world.” - -When Mrs. Winfield tried to prove from the profundity of her ignorance -and her prejudice that an actress must be doomed he put his hand over -his ears till she stopped. Then she began again: - -“And are you going to follow this angel about, or is she going to -reform?” - -“She can’t quit just now. She has a contract, but after this season -she’ll stop, and then we’ll get married.” - -Mrs. Winfield caught at this eagerly. “You’re not going to marry her at -once then?” - -“No. I wish I could, but she can’t break her contract.” - -Mrs. Winfield smiled and settled back with relief. She felt as if an -earthquake had passed by, leaving her alive and the house still on its -foundations. She knew Bret and she was sure that any marriage scheduled -for next year was as good as canceled already. - -She wanted nothing more said about it. Her son’s relations with an -actress might be deplorable, but, fortunately, they were only transient -and need not be discussed. - -But Bret would not permit his love to be dismissed with scorn. He -insisted that he adored Sheila and that she was adorable. He produced -photographs of her, and the mother could not deny the girl’s beauty. But -she regarded it with an eye of such hostility that she found all the -guiles and wiles that she wanted to find in it. - -Bret insisted on his mother’s meeting Sheila, which she refused to do. -She announced that she would not meet her if she became his wife. She -would not permit the creature to sully her home. She warned Bret not to -mention it to his father, for the old man’s heart was weak and he was -discouraged enough over the conflict with the scales trust. The shock of -a stage scandal might kill him. - -The elder Winfield wandered into the dispute at its height. He insisted -on knowing what it was. His wife tried to break it to him gently and -nearly drove him mad with her delay. When she finally reached the -horrible disclosure he did not swoon; he just laughed. - -“Is that all! Mother, where’s your common sense of humor? The young cub -has been sowing some wild oats and he’s trying to spare your feelings. -Think nothing more about it. Bret is going to settle down to work, and -he won’t have time for much more foolishness. And now let’s drop it. Get -your things packed and mine, for I’ve got to run over to New York for a -board of directors’ meeting with some big interests, and while I’m there -I’ll just go to a real doctor. These fossils here all prescribe the same -pills.” - -Bret glared at his father almost contemptuously. He was heavily -disappointed in his parents. They were unable to rise to a noble -occasion. - -An inspiration occurred to him. Their trip to New York came pat to his -necessities. They had been cold to his description of Sheila. But once -they met her, they could not but be swept off their feet—not if they -had his blood in their veins. - -He sent a voluminous telegram to Sheila asking her to call on his father -and mother and make them hers. It was a manlike outrage on the etiquette -of calls, but Sheila cared little for conventions of the stupid sort. - -Bret could not persuade his mother to consent to meet Sheila and be -polite until he implored her to treat Sheila at least with the humanity -deserved by a Magdalen. That magic word disarmed Mrs. Winfield and gave -her the courage of a missionary. She saw that it was plainly her duty to -see the misguided creature. She might persuade her to change her ways. -Of course she would incidentally persuade her of the impossibility of a -marriage with Bret. She would appeal to the girl’s better nature, for -she imagined that even an actress was not totally depraved. - -In an important conference with her husband Mrs. Winfield drew up a -splendid campaign. She would try the effect of reason, and, if she -failed, her husband would bring up the heavy artillery. - -Mr. Charles Winfield determined to do his share by pointing out to the -woman that Bret had no income and would have none. This would scare the -creature away, for she was undoubtedly after the boy’s money. What else -could she want? If worst came to worst, they might even buy her off. A -few thousand dollars would be a cheap blackmail to pay for the release -of their son. - - * * * * * - -The train that carried the elder Winfields to the ordeal of meeting with -the threatening invader of their family was due in New York in the -forenoon. - -When Charles Winfield bought a paper to glance over it during his -dining-car breakfast he was pleased to find a brief mention of the -meeting of the directors. His own name was included in small type, with -the initials wrong. Still, it was pleasant to be named in a New York -paper. - -As he turned the page he was startled to see a familiar face pop up -before him as if with a cheerful “Good morning!” He studied it. It was -familiar, but he could not place it. He read the name beneath—“Sheila -Kemble”! - -It was a large portrait and the text accompanying it was an adroit piece -of press-agency. Reben’s publicity man, Starr Coleman, had smuggled past -the dramatic editor’s jealous guard a convincing piece of fiction -purporting to describe Sheila’s opinions on woman suffrage as it would -affect the home. He had been unable to get at Sheila during rehearsals -and he had concocted the interview out of his own head. - -Winfield passed the paper across to his wife. Both were decidedly -shaken. Winfield’s logical mind automatically worked out a problem in -ratio. If he himself felt important because a New York newspaper -included his name in a list of arrivals, how important was Sheila, who -received half a column of quotation and a photograph? - -Furthermore, Sheila’s name was coupled with that of a prominent woman -whose social distinction was nation-wide. - -Mrs. Winfield fetched forth her spectacles, read Sheila’s dictum -carefully and with some awe. There were two or three words in it that -Mrs. Winfield could not understand—neither could Sheila when she read -it. Starr Coleman liked big words. But in any case the interview scared -Mrs. Winfield out of her scheme to play the missionary. By the same -token Mr. Winfield decided not to offer Sheila a bribe. - -Their plans were in complete disarray when they reached New York. - -They had not been settled long in their hotel when the telephone-bell -rang. - -Mrs. Winfield answered the call, since her husband was belatedly shaving -himself. - -The telephone operator said, “M’ Skemble to speak to M’ Swinfield.” - -Mrs. Winfield’s heart began to skip. She answered, feebly, “This is Mrs. -Winfield.” - -The operator snapped, “Go ahead,” and another voice appeared, putting -extraordinary music into a lyrical “Hello!” - -Mrs. Winfield answered: “Hello! This is Mrs. Winfield.” - -“Oh, how do you do? This is Mrs. Kemble, Sheila’s mother. Your son asked -her to call you up as soon as you got in, but she is rehearsing and -asked me to.” - -“That’s very n-nice of you.” - -“Why, thank you. Your son probably explained to you that Sheila is a -horribly busy young woman. I know you are busy, too. You’ll be doing a -lot of shopping, I presume. I should like to call on you as one helpless -parent on another, but my husband and I are leaving in a day or two for -one of our awful tours to the Coast. The ocean is so beautiful that I -wondered if you wouldn’t be willing to run out here and take dinner with -us to-night.” - -Mrs. Winfield’s wits were so scattered that she had not the strength -even to improvise another engagement. She was not an agile liar. She -murmured, feebly: “It would be very nice. Thank you.” - -Then the irresistible Polly Farren voice purred on: “That’s splendid! -We’ll send our car for you. It’s not a long run out here, and the car -can bring Sheila out at the same time. You can have a little visit -together.” - -“That would be very nice. Thank you,” Mrs. Winfield babbled. - -“One more thing, if I may,” Polly chanted. “Our town car is in New York. -It took Sheila in, you know. The driver has nothing at all to do till -five. My husband says he would be ever so pleased if you’d let me put it -at your disposal. Please call it your very own while you’re in the city, -won’t you? The chauffeur is quite reliable, really.” - -Poor Mrs. Winfield could only wail, “Hold the wire a moment, please.” - -She was unutterably miserable. She dropped the receiver and called her -lather-jawed husband in conference. They whispered like two -counterfeiters with the police at the door. They could see no way of -escape without brutality. - -Mrs. Winfield took up the receiver and wailed, “My husband says it is -very nice of you and of course we accept.” - -“Oh, that’s splendid!” throbbed in her ear. “I’ll telephone the man to -call for you at once. Good-by till dinner, then. Good-by.” - -Mr. Winfield glared at his wife, and she looked away, sighing: - -“She has a right nice voice, anyway.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXI - - -The car was a handsomer car than their own, and in the quietest taste. -Polly had somewhat softened the truth in the matter of its tender. Roger -had protested mightily against offering the car to the Winfields, but -Sheila and Polly had taken it away from him. - -He had resisted their scheme for the dinner with even greater vigor, but -Polly mocked him and gave her orders. Seeing himself committed to the -plot, he said, “Well, if we’ve got to have this try-out performance -we’ll make a production of it with complete change of costumes, -calciums, and extra people.” - -Polly and Roger did not approve of Bret any more than the Winfields -approved of Sheila; but they resolved to jolt the Philistines while they -were at it. - -After a day in the Kemble limousine the Winfields picked up Sheila, who -had been spending an hour on her toilet, though she apologized for the -wreckage of rehearsals. - -She dazzled both of them with her beauty. She did most of the talking, -but permitted restful silences for meditation. The Winfields were as shy -and as staring as children. It was the first time they had been so close -to an actress. - -The Kemble cottage on Long Island was a pleasant enough structure at any -time, but at night under a flattering moon it looked twice its -importance. - -The dinner was elaborate and the guests impressive. Roger apologized for -the presence of a famous millionaire, Tilton, his wife, and their -visitor Lady Braithwaite. He said that they had been invited before, -though it would have been more accurate to say that they had been -implored at the last moment, and had consented because Roger said he -needed them. - -Sheila never acted harder. She never suffered worse from stage-fright -and never concealed it more completely. She suffered both as author and -as actor. Her little comedy was, like Hamlet’s brief tragedy, produced -for an ulterior purpose. Which it accomplished. - -The Kembles had succeeded in shifting the burden of discomfort to their -observers. The Winfields felt hopelessly small town. Polly and Sheila -were exquisitely gracious, and Lady Braithwaite kept my-dearing Polly, -while the millionaire called Kemble by his first name. Roger set old -Winfield roaring over his stories and, as if quite casually, he let fall -occasional allusions to the prosperity of prosperous stage people. He -referred to the fact that a certain actress, “poor Nina Fielding,” had -“had a bad season, and cleared only sixty thousand dollars.” - -Tilton exclaimed, “Impossible! that’s equivalent to six per cent, on a -million dollars.” - -Roger shrugged his shoulders. “Well, there are others that make more, -and if Nina is worth a million, Sheila is worth two of her. And she’ll -prove it, too. And why shouldn’t actors get rich? They do the world as -much good as your manufacturers of shoes and electricity and -automobiles. Why shouldn’t they make as much money?” - -Tilton said: “Well, perhaps they should, but they haven’t done so till -recently. It’s a big change from the time when you actors were rated as -beggars and vagabonds; you’ll admit that much, won’t you?” - -He had touched Kemble on a sensitive spot, a subject that he had fumed -over and studied. Roger was always ready to deliver a lecture on the -topic. He blustered now: - -“That old idiocy! Do you believe it, too? Don’t you know that the law -that branded actors as vagrants referred only to actors without a -license and not enrolled in an authorized company? At that very time the -chief noblemen had their own troupes and the actors were entertained -royally in castles and palaces. - -“For a time the monks and nuns used to give plays, and there was a -female playwright who was a nun in the tenth century. The Church -sometimes fought against the theater during the dark ages, but so it -fought against sculpture and painting the human form. Actors were -forbidden Christian burial once and were treated as outlaws, but so were -the Catholics in Protestant countries and Protestants in Catholic -regions, and Presbyterians and Episcopalians in each other’s realms, and -Quakers in Boston. - -“The Puritans did not believe in the theater any more than the theater -believed in the Puritans, and there was a period in England when plays -had to be given secretly in private houses. But what does that prove? -Religious services had to be given the same way; and political meetings. - -“There are plenty of people who hate the theater to-day. It always will -have enemies—like the other sciences and arts. - -“But one thing is sure. Wherever actors have been permitted at all, they -have always gone with the best people. Several English actors have been -knighted recently, but that’s nothing new. The actor Roscius was -knighted at Rome in 50 B.C. In Greece they carved the successful actors’ -names in stone. - -“We made big money then, too. The actor Æsopus—Cicero’s friend—left -his good-for-nothing son so much money that the cub dissolved a pearl in -vinegar and drank it. He tossed off what would amount, in our money, to -a forty-thousand-dollar cocktail. - -“In the Roman Empire actors like Paris stood so high at court that -Juvenal said, ‘If you want to get the royal favor ask an actor, not a -lord.’ When Josephus went to Rome to plead for the lives of some -priests, a Jewish actor named Aliturus introduced him to Nero and his -empress and got him his petition. It seems funny to think of a Jewish -actor at the court of Nero. The Roman emperor Justinian married an -actress and put her on the throne beside him. - -“In Italy after the Renaissance one of the actresses—I forget her -name—was so much honored that when she came to a town she was received -with a salute of cannon. - -“Louis XIV. loved Molière, stood godfather to his child, and suggested a -scene for one of his plays. One of Napoleon’s few intimate friends was -the actor Talma. - -“David Garrick was in high favor at court and he sold his interest in -Drury Lane, when he retired, for one hundred and seventy-five thousand -dollars. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. - -“And if I may speak of my own ancestors, Mrs. Siddons was one of the -most highly esteemed and irreproachable women of her time. Sir Joshua -Reynolds was proud to paint her as the Tragic Muse and old Dr. Samuel -Johnson wrote his autograph on the canvas along the edge of her robe -because he said he wanted his name to go down to posterity on the hem of -her garment. - -“Her brother, John Philip Kemble, was so successful that he bought a -sixth share in Covent Garden for over one hundred thousand dollars. When -it burned down it would have ruined him if the Duke of Northumberland -had not made him a loan of fifty thousand dollars. And later he refused -repayment. - -“Take an actress of our own time, Sarah Bernhardt. What woman in human -history has had more honor, or made more money? Or take—” - -Polly felt it time to intervene. “For Heaven’s sake, ring down! You’re -not at Chautauqua, you know.” - -Kemble started and blinked like a sleep-walker abruptly wakened. “I beg -your pardon,” he said. “I was riding my hobby and he ran away.” - -The Winfields were plentifully impressed and Mrs. Winfield completely -overwhelmed when Lady Braithwaite said: - -“He’s quite right, my dear. There’s no question of the social position -of the stage. So many actresses have married into our peerage that you -can’t tell which is the annex of which; and no end of young peers are -going on the stage. They can’t act, but it keeps them out of mischief in -a way. And I can’t see that stage-marriages are any less permanent than -the others. Can you? I mean to say, I’ve known most charming cases. My -poor friend the Duchess of Stonehenge had a son who was a hopeless -little cad and rotter—and he married an actress—you know the one I -mean—from the Halls she was, too. And you know she’s made a man of -him—a family man, too, she has, really! And she’s the most devoted of -mothers. Really she is!” - -Somehow the character Lady Braithwaite gave the stage made more -impression on Mrs. Winfield than all of Roger’s history. - -On the long, late ride back to their hotel the old couple were meek, -quite whipped-out. They had come to redeem an actress from perdition or -bribe her not to drag their son to her own level; they returned with -their ears full of stage glories and a bewildered feeling that an -alliance with the Kemble family would be the making of them. - -As the train bore them homeward, however, their old prejudices resumed -sway. They began to feel resentful. If Sheila had been more lowly, -suppliant, and helpless they might have stooped to her. But a -daughter-in-law who could earn over fifty thousand dollars a year was a -dangerous thing about the house. Sheila’s scenario had worked just a -little too well. - -Young Winfield met his parents at the train and searched their faces -eagerly. They looked guilty and almost pouting. They said nothing till -they were in their own car—it looked shabby after the Kemble turnout. -Then Bret pleaded: - -“Well, what do you think of Sheila?” - -“She’s very nice,” said his mother, stingily. - -“Is that all? She wrote me that you were wonderful. She said my father -was one of the most distinguished-looking men she ever saw, and as for -my mother, she was simply beautiful, so fashionable and aristocratic—an -angel, she called you, mother.” - -One may see through these things, but they can’t be resisted. As Roger -Kemble used to put it: “Say what you will, a bouquet beats a brickbat -for comfort no matter what direction it comes from.” - -The Winfields blushed with pride and warmed over their comments on -Sheila. In fact, they went so far as to say that she would never give up -the fame and fortune and admiration that were waiting for her, just to -marry a common manufacturer’s son. - -This threw the fear of love into Bret and made him more than ever -frantic to see Sheila and be reassured or put out of his misery. There -was no restraining him. His father protested that he was needed at home. -But it was mating-season with the young man, and parents were only in -his way, as their parents had been in theirs. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXII - - -Bret telegraphed Sheila that he was coming to New York to see her. She -telegraphed back: - - Awfully love see you but hideously busy rehearsals souls - devotion. - -These poor telegraph operators! The honey they have to transmit must -fairly stick to the wires and gum up the keys. - -Winfield determined to go, anyway—and to surprise her. He set out -without warning and flew to the theater as soon as he reached New York. -The tip-loving doorman declined so fiercely to take his card in that he -frightened the poor swain out of the proffer of a bribe. - -While Winfield loitered irresolutely near the stage entrance an actor -strolled out to snatch a few puffs of a cigarette while he was not -needed. Winfield was about to ask him to tell Miss Kemble that Mr. -Winfield was waiting for her. He saw that the actor was Eldon. - -He dodged behind the screen of a fire-escape from the gallery and slunk -away unobserved. There was no fire-escape in his soul from the -conflagration of jealousy that shot up at the sight of his rival, and -the thought that Eldon was spending his days in Sheila’s company, while -her affianced lover gnashed his teeth outside. - -He hung about like Mary’s lamb for meekness and like Red Riding-Hood’s -wolf for wrath. He would wait for Sheila to come out for lunch. Hours -passed. He saw Eldon dash across the street to a little restaurant and -return with a cup of coffee and a bundle of sandwiches. Ye gods, he was -feeding her! - -With all a lover’s fiendish ingenuity in devising tortures for himself, -Winfield transported his soul from the vat of boiling oil to the rack -and the cell of Little Ease and back again. He imagined the most -ridiculous scenes in the theater and suspected Sheila of such -treacheries that if he had really believed them he would surely have -been cured of his love. - -He saw that a policeman was regarding him with suspicion, and since he -was faint with torture on an empty stomach, he went to a restaurant to -kill time. When he returned he waited an hour before he ventured to -steal upon the stage-door keeper again. Then he learned that the -rehearsal had been dismissed two hours before. Aching with rage, he -taxicabbed to Sheila’s hotel. She had not returned. Out riding with -Eldon somewhere no doubt! - -He went to the railroad station. He would escape from the hateful town -where there was nothing but perfidy and vice. He called up the hotel to -bid Sheila a bitter farewell. Pennock answered and informed him that -Sheila had been at the dressmaker’s all afternoon and was just returned, -so dead that Pennock had made her take a nap. She shouldn’t be disturbed -till she woke, no, not for a dozen Winfields, especially as she had an -evening rehearsal. - -Winfield returned to her hotel and hung about like a process-server. He -waited in the lobby, reading the evening papers, one after another, from -“ears” to tail. He telephoned up to Pennock till she forbade the -operator to ring the bell again. - -The big fellow was almost hysterical when a hall-boy called him to the -telephone-booth. He heard Sheila’s voice. She was fairly squealing with -delight at his presence. Instantly chaos became a fresh young world, all -Eden. - -Sheila had just learned of Winfield’s arrival. She promised to be down -as soon as she had scrubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She invited him -to take her to dinner at Claremont before she went back to “the morgue,” -as she called the theater—and meant it, for she was fagged out. -Everything was wrong with the play, the cast, and, worst of all, with -her costumes. - -There was further tantalism for Bret in the greeting in the hotel lobby. -A formal hand-clasp and a more ardent eye-clasp were all they dared -venture. The long bright summer evening made it impossible to steal -kisses in the taxicab, except a few snapshots caught as they ran under -the elevated road. But they held hands and wrung fingers and talked -rapturous nonsense. - -The view of the Hudson was supremely beautiful from the restaurant -piazza, until Reben arrived with his old Diana Rhys and the two of them -filled the landscape like another Storm King and Dunderberg. - -Mrs. Rhys had for some time resented Reben’s interest in Sheila and had -made life infernal for him. She began on him at the table. He was -furious with humiliation and swarthier with jealousy of the unknown -occupant of the chair opposite Sheila. - -Sheila explained to Winfield in hasty asides that she was in hot water. -Reben did not like to have her appear in public places at all, and then -only with the strictest chaperonage. - -Winfield sniffed at such Puritanism from him. - -“It isn’t that, honey,” Sheila said, “it’s business. He says that -actresses, of all people, should lead secluded lives because—who wants -to pay two dollars to see a woman who can be seen all over town for -nothing? He’s planning a regular convent life for me, and he’s shutting -down on all the personal publicity. I’m glad of it—for I really belong -to you. - -“Reben wants me to be especially strict because I’ve got to play -innocent young girls, and he says that many a promising actress has -killed herself commercially with the nice people, by thinking that it -was none of the public’s business what she did outside the theater. Of -course it isn’t really their business in a way, but the public make it -so. - -“And you can’t wonder at it. I know I’m not prudish or narrow, but when -I see a play where a character is supposed to be terribly ignorant and -pathetic and trusting, it sort of hurts the illusion when I know that -the actress is really a hateful cat who has broken up a dozen homes. - -“So you see Reben’s right. He’d come over here now and send me home if -old Rhys would let him. He’s dying to know who you are. But of course I -won’t tell him.” - -This did not comfort Winfield in the least. It angered him, too, to -think of Reben as right about anything; and he felt no thanks to him for -his counsels of prudence. When it is insisted too strenuously that -honesty is good policy, even honesty becomes suspect. - -The tête-à-tête and the dinner were ruined and it was not yet dark -enough on the way back to permit any of the embraces and kisses that -Winfield was famished for. He took no pleasure even in the spectacular -sunset along the Hudson—miles of assorted crimsons in the sky, with the -cool green Palisades as a barrier between the radiant heavens and the -long panel of the mirror-river that told the sky how beautiful it was. - -Winfield was completely dissatisfied with life. It was peculiarly -distressing to be so deeply in love with so dear a girl so deeply in -love in turn, and to have her profession and its necessities brandished -like a flaming sword between them. - -This experience is likely to play an increasing part in the romances of -the future as more and more women claim a larger and larger share of -life outside the home. Existence has always been a process of -readjustments, but certainly at no time in history has there been such a -revolution as this in the relations of man and woman. From now on -numbers of husbands will learn what wives have endured for ages in -waiting for the spouse to come home from the shop. - -The usual pattern of emotion was almost ludicrously reversed when -Winfield took his sweetheart to her factory and left her at the door to -resume her overtime night-work, while he idled about in the odious -leisure of a housekeeper. - -Winfield hated the situation with all the ferocity of a lover denied, -and all the indignation of an old-fashioned youth who believed in taking -the woman of his choice under his wing to protect her from the world. - -But he had chosen a girl who proposed to conquer the world and who would -find the shadow under his wing too close. He felt himself as feeble and -misallied as a ring-dove mated with a falcon. She was an artist, a -public idol, while he at best was as obscure as a vice-president; he was -only the indolent heir of a self-made man. - -He dawdled about, revolting against his dependency, till Sheila finished -her rehearsal. Then she met him and they rode through the moonlit Park. -She loved him immensely, but she was so exhausted that she fell asleep -in his arm. He kissed the wan little moon of her face as it lay back on -his shoulder. He loved her with all his might. He loved her enough to -take her home to her hotel and surrender her to herself while he moped -away to his own hotel. - -The next day it was the same story except that she promised to ask for a -respite at the luncheon hour and meet him at a restaurant near the -theater. The appointment was for one o’clock. He waited until two-thirty -before she appeared. And then she had only time to tell him that Reben -had given her a merciless scolding for her escapade of the evening -before. - -Winfield expressed his desire to punch Reben’s head, and Sheila rejoiced -at having a champion, even though (or perhaps because) the champion -claimed her more exclusively than Reben did. - -Bret had to endure another dismal wait until dinner, and then there was -again an evening rehearsal. The time of production was approaching and -Batterson was growing demoniac. After the rehearsal Bret from across the -street watched all the other members of the company leave the theater. -Even Eldon came forth, but not Sheila. - -Another hour Bret spent of watchful waiting, and then she appeared with -Reben and Prior. They had been having a consultation and a quarrel, and -they continued it to the hotel, Sheila not daring to shake them off. -Winfield shadowed them along the street, and waited outside till they -left the hotel; then he made haste to find Sheila. - -She was distraught between the demands of her play and her lover. -Revisions had been made and she had a new scene to learn and a new -interpretation of the character to achieve before morning. The only -crumb of good news was the fact that Reben was to be out of town the -next day and she could sneak Winfield in to watch a rehearsal, if he -wanted to come. - -He wanted to exceedingly. It was one way of borrowing trouble. - -He stole in at the front of the house and sat in the empty dark, -unobserved, but not unobserving. He had the wretched privilege of -watching Eldon make love to Sheila and take her in his arms. A dozen -embraces were tried before Batterson could find just the attitude to -suit him. And that did not suit Sheila. - -Partly because it is almost impossible for a man to show a woman how she -would act, and partly because Sheila could almost see Bret’s gaze -blazing from the dark like a wolf’s eyes, she was incapable of achieving -the effect Batterson wanted. - -The stage-manager was reaching his ugly phase, and after leaving Sheila -in Eldon’s clasp for ten minutes while he tried her arms in various -poses, all of them awkward, he walked to the table where Prior sat and -muttered: - -“Her mother would have grasped it in a minute. Isn’t it funny that the -children of great actors are always damned fools?” - -The whole company overheard and Winfield rose to his feet in a fury. But -he heard Sheila say to Eldon, for Batterson’s benefit: - -“Why, I didn’t know that Mr. Batterson’s parents were great actors, did -you?” - -Batterson caught this as Sheila intended, and he flew into one of the -passions that were to be expected about this time. He slammed the -manuscript on the table and made the usual bluff of walking out. Sheila -did not follow. She sank into a chair and made signals to the invisible -Bret not to interfere, as she knew he was about to do. - -He understood her meaning and restrained his impulse to climb over the -footlights once more. - -Batterson fought it out with himself, then came back, and with a sigh of -heavenly resignation resumed the rehearsal. The company was refreshed by -the divertisement and Sheila and Batterson were as amiable as two -warriors after a truce. The embrace was speedily agreed upon. - -Sheila met Bret at luncheon, and now she had him on her hands. He was -ursine with clumsy wrath. - -“To think that my wife-to-be must stand up there and let a mucker like -that stage-manager swear at her! Good Lord! I’ll break his head!” - -Sheila wondered how long she would be able to endure these alternating -currents, but she put off despair and cooed: - -“Now, honey, you can’t go around breaking all the heads in town. You -mustn’t think anything of it. Poor old Batty is excited, and so are we -all. It’s just a business dispute. It’s always this way when the -production is near.” - -“And are you going to let that fellow Eldon fondle you like that?” - -“Why, honey dear, it’s in the manuscript!” - -“Then you can cut it out. I won’t have it, I tell you! What kind of a -dog do you think I am that I’m to let other men hug my wife?” - -“But it’s only in public, dearest, that he hugs me.” - -At the recurrence of this extraordinary logic Winfield simply opened his -mouth like a fish on land. He was suffocating with too much air. - -Sheila and he kept silence a moment. They were remembering the somewhat -similar dispute in another moonlit scene, at Clinton. Only then he was -an audacious flirter; now he was a conservative fiancé. Her logic was -the same, but he had veered to the opposite side. She murmured, -dolefully: - -“You don’t understand the stage very well, do you, dear?” - -“No, I don’t!” he growled. “And I don’t want to. It’s no place for a -woman. You’ve got to give it up.” - -“I’ve promised to, honey, as soon as I can.” - -“Well, in the mean while, you’ve got to cut out that hugging business -with Eldon—or anybody else. I won’t have it, that’s all!” - -To her intense amazement Sheila was flattered by this overweening -tyranny. She rejoiced at her lover’s wealth of jealousy, the one supreme -proof of true love in a woman’s mind, a proof that is weightier than any -tribute of praise or jewelry or toil or sacrifice. - -She said she would see if the embrace could be omitted. The next day -Reben sat in the orchestra and she went down to sit at his side. She did -not mention Winfield’s part in the matter, of course, but craftily -insinuated: - -“Do you know something? I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s a mistake to -have that embrace in the second act. It seems to me to—er—to -anticipate the climax.” - -Reben, all unsuspecting, leaped into the snare: - -“That’s so! I always say that once the hero and heroine clinch, the -play’s over. We’ll just cut it there, and save it to the end of the last -act.” - -Sheila, flushed with her victory, pressed further: - -“And that’s another point. Wouldn’t it be more—er—artistic if you -didn’t show the embrace even then—just have the lovers start toward -each other and ring down so that the curtain drops before they embrace? -It would be novel, and it would leave something to the audience’s -imagination.” - -Reben was skeptical of this: “We might try it in one of the tank towns, -but I’m afraid the people will be sore if they don’t see the lovers -brought together for at least one good clutch. Nothing like trying -things out, though.” - -Sheila was tempted to ask him not to tell Batterson that it was her -idea. The fear was unnecessary. Any advice that Reben accepted became at -once his own idea. He advanced to the orchestra rail and told Batterson -to “cut out both clutches.” - -Batterson consented with ill grace and Eldon looked so crestfallen, so -humiliated, that Sheila hastened to reassure him that it was nothing -personal. But he was not convinced. - -He was enduring bitter days. His love for Sheila would not expire. She -treated him with the greatest formality. She paid him the deference -belonging to a leading man. She was more gracious and more zealous for -his success than most stars are. But he read in her eyes no glimmer of -the old look. - -He hoped that this was simply because she was too anxious and too busy -to consider him, and that once the play was prosperously launched she -would have time to love him. - -This comfort sustained him through the loss of the two embraces. He -could not have imagined that Sheila had cut them out to please Winfield, -of whose presence in her environs he never dreamed. - -At dinner that evening Sheila told Bret how she had brought about the -excision of the two embraces. He was as proud as Lucifer and she -rejoiced in having contrived his happiness. This was her chief ambition -now. She was thinking more of him and his peace than of her own success -or of that disturbance of the public peace which makes actors, -story-tellers, acrobats, and singers and other entertainers interesting. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIII - - -Sheila was passing through the meanest phase of play production when the -first enthusiasms are gone and the nagging mechanics of position, -intonation, and speed are wearing away the nerves: when those wrenches -and inconsistencies of plot and character that are inevitably present in -so artificial a structure as a play begin to stick out like broken -bones; when scenery and property and costumes are turning up late and -wrong; and when the first audience begins to loom nearer and nearer as a -tidal wave toward which a ship is hurried all unready and aquiver to its -safety or to disaster. - -At such a time Sheila found the presence of Winfield a cool shelter in -Sahara sands. He was an outsider; he was real; he loved her; he didn’t -want her to be an actress; he didn’t want her to work; he wanted her to -rest in his arms. His very angers and misunderstandings all sprang from -his love of herself. - -Yet only a few days and she must leave him. The most hateful part of the -play was still to come—the process of “trying it on the dog”—on a -series of “dog-towns,” where the play would be produced before small and -timid audiences afraid to commit themselves either to amusement or -emotion before the piece had a metropolitan verdict passed upon it. - -It was a commonplace that the test was uncertain, yet what other test -was possible? There was too much danger in throwing the piece on “cold” -before the New York death-watch of the first night. That would be to -hazard a great investment on the toss of a coin. - -Sheila was cowering before the terrors that faced her. The difficulties -came rushing at her one after another. She was only a young girl, after -all, and she had swum out too far. Winfield was her sole rescuer from -the world. The others kept driving her farther and farther out to sea. -He would bring her to land. - -The thought of separating from him for a whole theatrical season grew -intolerable. Fatigue and discouragement preyed on her reserve of -strength. Fear of the public swept her with flashes of cold sweat. She -could not sleep; herds of nightmares stampeded across her lonely bed. -She saw herself stricken with forgetfulness, with aphasia; she saw the -audiences hooting at her; she read the most venomous criticism; she saw -herself in train wrecks and theater fires. She saw the toppling scenery -crushing her, or weight-bags dropping on her from the flies. - -The production was heavy and complicated and Reben believed in many -scenery rehearsals. There were endless periods of waiting for stage -carpenters to repair mistakes, for property-men to provide important -articles omitted from the property plot. The big set came in with the -stairway on the wrong side. Almost the whole business of the act had to -be reversed and learned over again. The last-act scene arrived in a -color that made Sheila’s prettiest costume hideous. She must have a new -gown or the scene must be repainted. A new gown was decided on; this -detail meant hours more of fittings at the dressmaker’s. - -The final rehearsals were merciless. Sheila left Bret at the stage door -at ten o’clock one morning and did not put her head out of the theater -till three o’clock the next morning. And five hours later she must stand -for costume photographs in a broiling gallery. - -Reben, utterly discouraged by the look of the play in its setting, -feared to bring it into New York even after the two weeks of trial -performances he had scheduled. An opportunity to get into Chicago turned -up, and he canceled his other bookings. Sheila was liked in Chicago and -he determined to make for there. The first performance was shifted from -Red Bank, New Jersey, to Grand Rapids, Michigan. - -Sheila was in dismay and Bret grew unmanageable. The only excuse for the -excitement of both was the fact that lovers have always been the same. -Romeo and Juliet would not wait for Romeo to come back from banishment. -They had to be married secretly at once. The world has always had its -Gretna Greens for frantic couples. - -So this frantic couple—not content with all its other torments—must -inflict mutual torment. Bret loved Sheila so bitterly that he could not -endure the ordeal she was undergoing. The wearier and more harried she -grew, the more he wearied and harrowed her with his doubts, his demands, -his fears of losing her. He was so jealous of her ambition that he made -a crime of it. - -He looked at her with farewell in his eyes and shook his head as over -her grave and groaned: “I’m going to lose you, Sheila. You’re not for -me.” - -This frightened her. She was even less willing to lose him than he her. -When she demanded why he should say such things he explained that if she -left him now he would never catch up with her again. Her career was too -much for him, and her loss was more than he could bear. - -She mothered him with eyes of such devoted pity that he said: “Don’t -stare at me like that. You look a hundred and fifty years old.” - -She felt so. She was his nurse and his medicine, and she was at that -epoch of her soul when her function was to make a gift of herself. - -When he sighed, “I wanted you to be my wife” it was the “my” that -thrilled her by its very selfishness; it was the past tense of the verb -that alarmed her. - -“You wanted me to be!” she gasped. “Don’t you want me any more?” - -“God knows there’s nothing else I want in the world. But I can’t have -you. My mother said that I couldn’t get you; she said that your ambition -and the big money ahead of you would keep you from giving yourself to -me.” - -The primeval feud between a man’s mother and his wife surged up in her. -She said, less in irony than she realized: “Oh, she said that, did she? -Well, then, I’ll marry you just for spite.” - -“If you only would, then I’d feel sure of you. I’d have no more fears.” - -“All right. I’ll marry you.” - -“When?” - -“Whenever you say.” - -“Now?” - -“This minute.” - -It was more like a bet than a proposal. He seized it. - -“I’ll take you.” - -They had snapped their wager at each other almost with hostility. They -glared defiantly together; then their eyes softened. Laughter gurgled in -their throats. His hands shot across the table; she put hers in them, in -spite of the waiters. - -A fierce impulse to make certain of possession caught them to their -feet. He paid his bill standing up, and would not wait for change. They -found a jewelry-shop and bought the ring. They took the subway to City -Hall; a taxicab would be too slow. - -There was no difficulty about the license. Every facility is offered to -those who take the first plunge into marriage. The ascent into Paradise -is as easy as the descent into Avernus. It is the getting back to earth -that is hard in both cases. - -“Shall we be married here in the City Hall?” said the licentiate. “It’s -quicker.” - -“I—I had rather hoped to be married in church,” Sheila pouted. “But -whatever you say—” - -“It will make you late to rehearsal,” he said. He was very indulgent to -her career now that he was sure of her. - -“Who cares?” she murmured. “Let’s go to the Little Church Around the -Corner.” - -And so they did, and waited their turn at the busy altar. - -Then there was a furious scurry back to the theater. Mrs. Winfield -kissed her husband good-by and dashed into the stage door to take her -scolding. But Mr. Winfield was laughing as he rode away to arrange for -their lodging for the remaining two days. Also his wife had made him -promise to break the news to Pennock. Her father and mother were -traveling now in the mid-West. - -If Bret had known Pennock he might not have promised so glibly. - - * * * * * - -When Pennock finished with Winfield there was nothing further to say in -his offense. She told him he was a monstrous brute and Sheila was a -little fool to trust him. She declared that he had blighted the -happiness of the best girl in the world, and ruined her career just as -it was beginning. Then Pennock locked him out and went to packing -Sheila’s things. She wept all over the child’s clothes as if Sheila were -buried already. Then she took to her bed and cried her pillow soppy. - -Sheila, all braced for a tirade from Batterson for her truancy, found -that she had not been missed. The carpenters had the scenery spread on -the floor of the stage like sails blown over, and the theater was a -boiler-factory of noise. Shortly after her appearance Batterson called -the company into the lobby for rehearsal. He took up the act at the -place where they had stopped in the forenoon—a point at which Eldon -caught Sheila’s hands in his and lifted them to his lips. - -Now, as Eldon took those two beloved palms in his and bent his gaze on -her fingers it fell on Sheila’s shining new wedding-ring. The circlet -caught his eye; he studied it with vague surprise. - -“A new ring?” he whispered, casually, not realizing its significance. - -Sheila blushed so ruddily and snatched her hand away with such guilt -that he understood. He groaned, “My God, no!” - -“I beg you!” she whispered. - -“What’s that?” said Batterson, who had been speaking to Prior. - -“I lost the line,” said Eldon, looking as if he had lost his life. -Batterson flung it to him angrily. - -There was nothing for Sheila to do but throw herself on Eldon’s mercy at -the first moment when she could steal a word with him alone. - -He did not say, “You had no mercy on me.” - -She knew it. It was more eloquent unsaid. He was a gallant gentleman, -and sealed away his hopes of Sheila in a tomb. - -At dinner Sheila told Bret about the incident, and he was secure enough -in the stronghold of her possession to recognize the chivalry of his -ex-rival. - -“Mighty white of him,” he said. “Didn’t anybody else notice it?” - -“I put my gloves on right afterward,” said Sheila, “but I—I don’t dare -wear it again.” - -“Don’t dare wear your wedding-ring!” Winfield roared. “Say, what kind of -a marriage is this, anyway?” - -“I hope it’s not dependent on a piece of metal round my finger,” Sheila -protested. “Your real wedding-ring is round my heart.” - -This was not enough for Winfield. She explained to him patiently (and -gladly because of the importance he gave the emblem) that she played an -unmarried girl in the comedy. And the audience would be sure to spot the -wedding-ring. - -It simply had to come off, and she begged him to understand and be an -angel and take it off himself. - -He drew it away at last. But he did not like the omen. She put it on a -ribbon and he knotted it about her neck. Then she remembered that she -wore a dinner gown in the play, and it had to come off the ribbon. She -would have to carry it in her pocketbook. - -The omens were hopelessly awry. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIV - - -The brand-new couple forgot problems of this and every other sort in the -raptures and supernal contentments of belonging to each other utterly -and forever. - -The notifying of their parents was one of the unpleasantest of tasks. -They put it off till the next day. Sheila’s father and mother had -already begun their tour to the Coast and the news found them in the -Middle West. - -Sheila telegraphed to them: - - Hope my good news wont seem bad news to you Bret and I were - quietly married yesterday please keep it secret both terribly - terribly happy play opens Grand Rapids Monday best love from us - both to you both. - -Her good news was sad enough for them. It filled them with forebodings. -That phrase “terribly happy” seemed uncannily appropriate. Between the -acts of their comedy that night they clung to each other and wept, -moaning: “Poor child! The poor child!” - -Winfield’s situation was summed up in a telegram to his home. - - Happiest man on earth married only woman on earth yesterday - please send your blessings and forgiveness and five hundred - dollars. - -Bret’s mother fainted with a little wail and his father’s weak heart -indulged in wild syncopations. When Mrs. Winfield was resuscitated she -lay on a couch, weeping tiny old tears and whimpering: - -“The poor boy! The poor boy!” - -The father sat bronzed with sick anger. He had built up a big industry -and the son he had reared to carry it after him had turned out a loafer, -a chaser of actresses, and now the worthless dependent on one of them. - -Charles Winfield pondered like an old Brutus if it were not his solemn -duty to punish the renegade with disinheritance; to divert his fortune -to nobler channels and turn over his industry to a nephew who was -industrious and loyal to the factory. - -But he sent the five hundred dollars. In his day he had eloped with his -own wife and alienated his own parents and hers. But that had been -different. Now his mouth was full of the ashes of his hopes. - -Reben was yet to be told. Sheila said that he had troubles enough on his -mind and was in such a state of temper, anyway, that it would be kinder -to him not to tell him. This was not altogether altruism. - -She dreaded the storm he would raise and longed for a portable -cyclone-cellar. She knew that he would denounce her for outrageous -dishonor in her treatment of him, and from his point of view there was -no justifying her unfealty. But she felt altogether assured that she had -accomplished a higher duty. In marrying her true love she was fulfilling -her contract with God and Nature and Life, far greater managers than any -Reben. - -She had, therefore, for her final rapture the exquisite tang of stolen -sweets. And to the mad completeness of the escapade was added the -hallowing sanction of law and the Church. - -It was a honeymoon, indeed, but pitilessly interrupted by the tasks of -departure, and pitifully brief. - - * * * * * - -The question of whether or not her husband—how she did read that word -“husband”!—should travel on the same train with her to Grand Rapids was -a hard riddle. - -Both of them were unready to publish the delirious secret of their -wedding. - -There was to be a special sleeping-car for the company. For Sheila as -the star the drawing-room was reserved, while Reben had claimed the -stateroom at the other end of the coach. - -To smuggle Bret into her niche would be too perilous. For her to travel -in another car with him was equally impossible. If he went on the same -train he might be recognized in the dining-car. For her to take another -train would not be permitted. A manager has to keep his flock together. - -At length they were driven to the appalling hardship of separation for -the journey. Bret would take an earlier train, and arrange for their -sojourn at the quietest hotel in Grand Rapids. She would join him there, -and no one would know of her tryst. - -So they agreed, and she saw him off on the noon express. Of all the -topsy-turvy households ever heard of, this was the worst! But they -parted as fiercely as if he were going to the wars. - -The company car left at five o’clock in the afternoon, and was due in -Grand Rapids at one the next day. Eldon and Pennock alone knew that the -young star was a young bride. Both of them regarded Sheila with such -woeful reproach that she ordered Pennock to change her face or jump off -the train, and she shut herself away from Eldon in her drawing-room. - -But she was soon routed out by Batterson for a reading rehearsal of a -new scene that Prior had concocted. She was so afraid of Eldon’s eyes -and so absent-minded with thoughts of her courier husband that Batterson -thought she had lost her wits. - -Twice she called Eldon “Bret” instead of “Ned,” the name of his rôle. -That was how he learned who it was she had married. - -Even when she escaped to study the new lines she could not get her mind -on anything but fears for the train that carried her husband. - -After dinner Reben called on her for a chat. He alluded to the fact that -he had wired ahead for the best room in the best hotel for the new star. - -Sheila was aghast at this complication, which she would have foreseen if -she had ever been either a star or a bride before. - -Reben was in a mood of hope. The voyage to new scenes heartened -everybody except Sheila. Reben kept trying to cheer her up. He could -best have cheered her by leaving her. He imputed her distracted manner -to stage-fright. It was everything but that. - -That night Sheila knew for the first time what loneliness really means. -She pined in solitude, an early widow. - -The train was late in arriving and the company was ordered to report at -the theater in half an hour. The company-manager informed Sheila that -her trunk would be sent to her hotel as soon as possible. She thanked -him curtly, and he growled to Batterson: - -“She’s playing the prima donna already.” - -She was all befuddled by this new tangle. How was she to smuggle her -trunk from the hotel to her husband’s lodgings, and where were they? He -had arranged to leave a letter at the theater instructing her where they -were to pitch their tent. She went directly to the theater. - -She found a corpulent envelope in the mail-box at the stage door. It was -full of mourning for the lost hours and full of enthusiasm over the cozy -nook Bret had discovered in the outer edge of town. He implored her to -make haste. - -As she set out to find a telephone and explain to him the delay for -rehearsal, she was called back by Reben to the dark stage where -Batterson and Prior and Eldon were gathered under the glimmer of a few -lights on an iron standard. They were discussing a new bit of business. - -Sheila was aflame with impatience, but she could not leave. Before the -council of war was finished the general rehearsal was called—a -distracting ordeal, with the company crowded to the footlights and -struggling to remember lines and cues in the battle-like clamor of -getting the scenery in, making the new drops fast to the ropes and -hoisting them away to the flies. Hammers were pounding, canvases going -up, stage-hands shouting and interrupting. - -The rehearsal was vexatious enough in all conscience, but its crudities -were aggravated by the icy realization that this was the final rehearsal -before the production. In a few hours the multitude of empty chairs -would be occupied by the big jury. - -Under this strain the actors developed disheartening lapses of memory -that promised complications at night. When the lines had been parroted -over, Reben spoke a few words like a dubious king addressing his troops -before battle. The stage-manager sang out with unwonted comradery: - -“Go to it, folks, and good luck!” - - * * * * * - -Sheila dashed to the stage door, only to be called again by Reben. He -offered to walk to the hotel with her. She dared not refuse. He invited -her to dine with him. She said that she would be dining in her room. In -the lobby of the hotel he had much to say and kept her waiting. He was -trying to cheer up a poor fluttering girl about to go through the fire. -He found her peculiarly ill at ease. - -At last she escaped him and flew to her room to telephone Bret. She knew -he must be boiling over by now. Pennock met her with exciting news. -Certain articles of her costume had not arrived as promised. Shopping -must be done at once, since the stores were about to close. - -All things must yield to the battle-needs, and Sheila postponed -telephoning Bret; it was the one postponable duty. By the time she had -finished her purchases it was too late to make the trip out to the cozy -nook he had selected. She was bitterly disappointed on his account—and -her own. - -She reached the telephone at last, only to learn that he had gone out, -leaving a message that if his wife called up she was to be told to come -to their lodgings at once. But this she could not do. And she could not -find him to explain why. - -He found her at last by telephone, and when she described her plight to -him he was furious with disappointment and wrath. He had bought flowers -lavishly and decorated the rooms and the table where they were to have -had peace at last for a while. Nullified hope sickened him. - -He could not visit her at the theater during her make-up periods or -between the acts. He had to skulk about during the performance, dodging -Reben, who watched the play from the front and shifted his position from -time to time to get various points of view, and overhear what the people -said. - -Numberless mishaps punctuated the opening performance of “The Woman -Pays,” as the play had been relabeled for the sixth time at the eleventh -hour. Lines were forgotten and twisted, and characters called out of -their names. - -In the scene where Eldon was to propose to Sheila and she to accept him, -the distraite Sheila, unable to remember a line exactly, gave its -general meaning. Unfortunately she used a phrase that was one of Eldon’s -cues later on. He answered it mechanically as he had been rehearsed, and -then gave Sheila the right cue for the wrong scene. Her memory went on -from there and she heard herself accepting Eldon before he had proposed. -He realized the blunder at the same time. - -They paused, stared, hesitated, wondering how to get back to the -starting-point, and improvised desperately while the prompter stood -helpless in the wings, not knowing where to throw what line. Reben swore -silently and perspired. The audience blamed itself for its bewilderment. - -But even amid such confusion Sheila was fascinating. There was no doubt -of that. When she appeared the spectators sat forward, the whole face of -the house beamed and smiled “welcome” with instant hospitality. Reben -recognized the mysterious power and told Starr Coleman and the -house-manager that Kemble was a gold-mine. - -Bret felt his heart go out to the brave, pretty thing she was up there, -sparkling and glowing and making people happy. He was proud that she -belonged to him. He felt sorry for the public because it had to lose -her. But he was not the public’s keeper. He was glad he had made her cut -out that embrace with Eldon—both of the embraces. - -The last curtain fell just before the lovers moved into each other’s -open arms. This was the “artistic” effect that Sheila had persuaded -Reben to try. Even Bret felt a lurch of disappointment in the audience. -There was applause, but the rising curtain disclosed the actors bowing. -There was something wanting. Bret would have regretted it himself if he -had not been the husband of the star. - -He was aching with impatience to see her and tell her how wonderful she -was. He did not dare go back on the stage, lest his presence in Grand -Rapids should require explaining. He must wait in the alley—he, the -owner of the star, must wait in the alley! - -He hated the humiliation of his position, and thanked Heaven that after -this season Sheila would be at home with him. He hoped that it would not -take her long to slip into her street clothes. - -He was the more eager to see her as he had prepared a little banquet in -their rooms. In his over-abundant leisure he had bought a chafing-dish -and the other things necessary to a supper. Everything was set out, -ready. He chuckled as he trudged up and down the alley and pictured -Sheila’s delight, and the cozy housewifeliness of her as she should -light the lamp and stir the chafing-dish. They would begin very light -housekeeping at once, with never a servant to mar their communion. - -But Sheila did not come. None of the company emerged from the stage -door. It was long after twelve and nobody had appeared. He did not know -that the company had been held after the performance for criticism. -Aligned in all its fatigue and after-slump, it waited to be harangued by -Reben while the “grips” whisked away the scenery. Reben read the copious -notes he had made. He spared no one. Every member in turn was rebuked -for something, and he carefully refrained from any words of approval -lest the company should become conceited. - -Reben believed in lashing his horses to their tasks. Others believe -otherwise and succeed as well, but Reben was known as a “slave-driver.” -He paid good prices for his slaves and it was a distinction to belong to -him; but he worked them hard. - -Batterson and Prior had also made notes on the performance and the -dismal actors received spankings one after another. Sheila was not -overlooked. Rather she was subjected to extra severity because she -carried the success or failure on her young shoulders. - -As usual, the first performance found the play too long. The first rough -cuts were announced and a rehearsal called for the next morning at ten. - -It was half past twelve when the forlorn and worn-out players were -permitted to slink off to their dressing-rooms. - -Sheila knew that her poor Bret must have been posting the alley outside -like a caged hyena. She was so tired and dejected that she hardly cared. -She sent Pennock out to explain. Pennock could not find him. She did not -look long. She did not like him. When at length Sheila was dressed for -the street she found Reben waiting for her with the news that he had -ordered a little supper in a private room at the hotel, so that she and -Batterson, Prior and Eldon and the company-manager and the press agent, -Starr Coleman, and the house-manager, might discuss the play while it -was fresh in their minds. - -Sheila had never sat on one of these inquests before, and she had not -foreseen the call to this one. Such conferences are as necessary in the -theater as a meeting of generals after a hard day’s battle. Long after -the critics have turned in their diatribes or eulogies and gone home to -bed, the captains of the drama are comparing notes, quoting what the -audience has said, searching out flaws and discussing them, often with -more asperity than the roughest critic reveals. - - * * * * * - -In these anxious night-watches the fate of the new play may be settled, -and advance, retreat, or surrender decided upon. - -Sheila, thinking of her poor husband, asked Reben to excuse her from the -conference. - -His look of amazement and his sharp “Why?” found her without any -available excuse. She drearily consented and was led along. - -During and after the cold supper everybody had much to say except -Sheila. Endless discussions arose on minutely unimportant points or upon -great vague principles of the drama and of public appeal. At three -o’clock Sheila began to doze and wake in short agonies. There was a hint -of daybreak in the sky when the meeting broke up. She was too sleepy to -care much whether she lived or died or had a husband or had just lost -one. She made a somnambulistic effort to search for Bret, but Reben and -the others had adjourned to the hotel lobby for further debate and she -dared not challenge their curiosity. - -She went to the room the manager had reserved for her and slept there -like a Juliet on her tomb. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXV - - -The next morning Pennock did not call Sheila till the last moment. Then -her breakfast was on the table and her bath in the tub. The old dragon -had again forbidden the telephone operator to ring the bell, and the -bell-boys that came to the door with messages from Bret she shooed away. - -Sheila found on her breakfast-tray a small stack of notes from Bret. -They ranged from incredulous amazement at her neglect to towering rage. - -Sheila was still new enough to wedlock to feel sorrier for him than for -herself. She had a dim feeling that Bret had in him the makings of a -very difficult specimen of that most difficult class, the prima donna’s -husband. But she blamed her profession and hated the theater and Reben -for tormenting her poor, patient, devoted, long-suffering lover. - -Yet as the soldier bridegroom, however he hates the war, obeys his -captain none the less, so Sheila never dreamed of mutiny. She was an -actor’s daughter and no treachery could be worse than to desert a -manager, a company, and a work of art at the crisis of the whole -investment. She regretted that she was not even giving her whole mind -and ambition to her work. But how could she with her husband in such a -plight? - -She wrote Bret a little note of mad regret, abject apology, and insane -devotion, and asked Pennock to get it to him at once. - -Pennock growled: “You better give that young man to me. You’ll never -have time to see him. And his jealousy is simply dretful.” - -At the theater Sheila met Reben in a morning-after mood. He had had -little sleep and he was sure that the play was hopeless. The only thing -that could have cured him would have been a line of people at the -box-office. The lobby was empty, and few spaces can look quite so empty -as a theater lobby. The box-office man spoke to him, too, with a -familiarity based undoubtedly on the notices. - -One of the papers published a fulsome eulogy that Starr Coleman would -not have dared to submit. Of the opposite tenor was the slashing abuse -of a more important paper that nursed one of those critics of which each -town has at least a single specimen—the local Archilochus whose similar -ambition seems to be to drive the objects of his satire to suicide. - -His chief support is his knowledge that his readers enjoy his vigor in -pelting transient actors as a small boy throws rocks at express trains. -His highest reward is the town boast, “We got a critic can roast an -actor as good as anybuddy in N’York, and ain’t afraid to do it, either.” - -As children these humorists first show their genius by placing bent pins -on chairs; later they pull the chairs from under old ladies and start -baby-carriages on a downward path. Every day is April fool to them. - -Reben was always arguing that critics had nothing to do with success or -failure and always ready to document his argument, and always trembled -before them, none the less. It is small wonder that critics learn to -secrete vitriol, since their praise makes so little effect and only -their acid etches. - -Reben had tossed aside the paper that praised his company and his play, -but he clipped the hostile articles. The play-roaster began, as usual, -with a pun on the title, “The Woman Pays but the audience won’t.” - -As a matter of fact, Reben was about convinced that the play was a -failure. It had succeeded in France because it was written for the -French. The process of adaptation had taken away its Gallic brilliance -without adding any Anglo-Saxon trickery. Reben would make a fight for -it, before he gave up, but he had a cold, dismal intuition which he -summed up to Batterson in that simple fatal phrase: - -“It won’t do.” - -He did not tell Sheila so, lest he hurt her work, but he told Prior that -the play was deficient in viscera—only he used the grand old -Anglo-Saxon phrasing. - -He gave Prior some ideas for the visceration of the play and set him to -work on a radical reconstruction, chiefly involving a powerful injection -of heart-interest. Till this was ready there was no use meddling with -details. - -When Sheila reached the theater the rehearsal was brief and perfunctory. -Reben explained the situation, and told her to take a good rest and give -a performance at night. He had only one suggestion: - -“Put more pep in the love-scenes and restore the clutch at the last -curtain.” - -Sheila gasped, “But I thought it was so much more artistic the way we -played it last night.” - -Reben laughed: “Ah, behave! When the curtain fell last night the thud -could be heard a mile. The people thought it fell by accident. If the -box-office hadn’t been closed they’d have hollered for their money back. -You jump into Eldon’s arms to-night and hug as hard as you can. The same -to you, Eldon. It’s youth and love they come to see, not artistic -omissions.” - -Sheila felt grave misgivings as to the effect of the restoration on her -own arch-critic and private audience. But she rejoiced at being granted -a holiday. She telephoned to Bret from a drug-store. - -“I’ve got a day off, honey. Isn’t it gee-lo-rious!” - -Then she sped to him as fast as a taxicab could take her. He had an -avalanche of grievances waiting for her, but the sight of her beauty -running home to him melted the stored-up snows. The chafing-dish was -still in place after its all-night vigil, and it cooked a luncheon that -rivaled quails and manna. - -That afternoon Bret chartered a motor and they rode afar. They talked -much of their first moonlight ride. It was still moonlight about them, -though people better acquainted with the region would have called it -afternoon sunlight. When Bret kissed her now she did not complain or -threaten. In fact, she complained and threatened when he did not kiss -her. - -They dined outside the city walls and scudded home in the sunset. Sheila -would not let Bret take her near the theater, lest he be seen. Indeed, -she begged him not to go to the theater at all that night, but to spend -the hours of waiting at the vaudeville or some moving-picture house. He -protested that he did not want her out of his sight. - -The reason she gave was not the real one: “Everybody always plays badly -at a second performance, honey. I’d hate to have you see how badly I can -play. Please don’t go to-night.” - -He consented sulkily; she had a hope that the romantic emphasis Reben -had commanded and the final embrace would fail so badly that he would -not insist on their retention. She did not want Bret to see the -experiment. But there was no denying that warmth helped the play -immensely. Sheila’s increased success distressed her. Her marriage had -tied all her ambitions into such a snarl that she could be true neither -to Bret nor to Reben and least of all to herself. - -Reben was jubilant. “What d’I tell you? That’s what they pay for; a lot -of heart-throbs and one or two big punches. We’ll get ’em yet. Will you -have a bite of supper with us to-night?” - -“Thanks ever so much,” said Sheila. “I have an engagement -with—friends.” - -She simply had not the courage to use the singular. - -Reben laughed: “So long as it’s not just one. By the by, where were you -all day? I tried all afternoon to get you at the hotel. I wanted to take -you out for a little fresh air.” - -“That’s awfully nice of you, but I got the air. I—I was motoring.” - -“With friendzz?” he asked, peculiarly. - -“Naturally not with enemies.” - -She thought that rather quick work. But he gave her a suspicious look. - -“Remember, Sheila—your picture is pasted all over town. These small -cities are gossip-factories. Be careful. Remember the old saying, if you -can’t be good, be careful.” - -She blushed scarlet and protested, “Mr. Reben!” - -He apologized in haste, convinced that his suspicions were outrageous, -and glad to be wrong. He added: “I’ve got good news for you: the office -sale for to-morrow’s matinee and night shows a little jump. That tells -the story. When the business grows, we can laugh at the critics.” - -“Fine!” said Sheila, half-heartedly. Then she hurried from the theater -to the carriage waiting at the appointed spot. The door opened magically -and she was drawn into the dark and cuddled into the arms of her -“friends,” her family, her world. - -After the first informalities Bret asked, “Well, how did it go?” - -“Pretty well, everybody said. But it needs a lot of work. Reben is sure -we’ve got a success, eventually.” - -“That’s good,” Bret sighed. - -When they reached the hotel they found that they had neglected to -provide supplies for the chafing-dish. Sheila was hungry. - -“We’re old married people now,” said Sheila. “Let’s have supper in the -dining-room. There’ll be nobody we know in this little hotel.” - -They took supper in the little dining-room. There were only two other -people there. Sheila noted that they stared at her with frank delight -and plainly kept talking about her. She was used to it; Winfield did not -see anybody on earth but Sheila. - -“Kind of nice being together in public like decent people,” he beamed. - -“Isn’t it?” she gleamed. - -“Let’s have another motor-ride to-morrow afternoon.” - -“I can’t, honey. It’s matinée day.” - -“We’ll get up early and go in the morning, then.” - -“Oh, but I’ve got to sleep as late as I can, honey! It’s a hard day for -me.” - -The next morning they had breakfast served in their apartment at twelve -o’clock. She called it breakfast. It was lunch for Bret. - -He had stolen out of the darkened room at eight and gone down to his -breakfast in the cafe. He had dawdled about the town, buying her flowers -and gifts. When he got back at eleven she was still asleep. She looked -as if she had been drowned. - -He sat in the dim light till it was time to call her. They were eating -grapefruit out of the same spoon when the telephone rang. A gruff voice -greeted Bret: - -“Is this Mr. Winfield?” - -“Yes. Who are you?” - -“Is—Miss—is Sheila there?” - -“Ye—yes. Who are you?” - -“Mr. Reben.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVI - - -That morning Reben had wakened early with a head full of inspirations. -He was fairly lyrical with ideas. He wanted to talk them over with -Sheila. He called up her room. Pennock answered the telephone. - -“Can I speak to Miss Kemble?” - -“She—she’s not up yet.” - -“Oh! Well, as soon as she is up have her let me know. I want a word with -her.” - -“Yes, sir.” - -Pennock, in dismay, called up Winfield’s hotel to forewarn Sheila. But -Winfield had gone out, leaving word that his wife was not to be -disturbed. Pennock left a message that she was to call up Miss Pennock -as soon as she was disturbable. The message was put in Winfield’s box. -When he came in he did not stop at the desk to inquire for messages, -since he expected none. - -Reben grew more and more eager to explain his new ideas to Sheila. He -called up Pennock again. - -“Isn’t Miss Kemble up yet?” - -“Oh yes,” said Pennock. - -“I want to speak to her.” - -The distracted Pennock groped for the nearest excuse: - -“She—she’s gone out.” - -“But I told you to tell her! Didn’t you tell her I wanted to speak to -her?” - -“Oh yes, sir.” - -“What did she say?” - -“Nothing, sir; nothing,” Pennock faltered. She had told one big lie that -morning and her invention was exhausted. - -“That’s damned funny,” Reben growled. Slapping the receiver on the hook, -he went to the cigar-stand, fuming, and bought a big black cigar to bite -on. - -When plays are failures one’s friends avoid one. When plays are -successes strangers crowd forward with congratulations. The cigar girl -said to the angry manager, who had given her free tickets the night -before; “That’s a lovely show, Mr. Reben. I had a lovely time, and Miss -Kemble is simpully love-la.” - -A stranger who was poking a cheap cigar into the general chopper spoke -in: “I was there last night, too—me and the wife. You the manager?” - -Reben nodded impatiently. - -The stranger went on: “That’s a great little star you got there—Miss -Kemble—or Mrs. Winfield, I suppose I’d ought to say.” - -Reben looked his surprise. “Mrs. Winfield?” - -“Yes. She’s stopping at our hotel with her husband. Right nice-lookin’ -feller. Actor, too, I s’pose? I’m on here buying furniture. I always -stop at the Emerton. Right nice hotel. Prices reasonable; food fair to -middlin’. Has she been married long?” - -But Reben had moved off. He was in a mood to believe any bad rumor. -This, being the worst news imaginable, sounded true. He felt queasy with -business disgust and with plain old-fashioned moral shock. He rushed for -the telephone-booth and clawed at the book till he found the number of -the Emerton Hotel. He was puffing with anxious wrath. - -When Winfield answered, Reben almost collapsed. While he waited he took -his temper under control. When he heard Sheila’s voice quivering with -all the guilt in the world he mumbled, quietly: - -“Oh, Sheila, I’d like to have a word with you.” - -“Wh-where?” Sheila quivered. - -“Here. No—at the theater. No—yes, at the theater.” - -“All right,” she mumbled. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVII - - -Sheila went to the theater with the joyous haste of a child going up to -the teacher’s desk for punishment. She wondered how Reben could have -learned of the marriage. She wished she had told him of it when it was -celebrated. She felt that poor Reben had a just grievance against her. -It would be only fair to let him scold his anger out, and bear his -tirade in quiet resignation. - -Bret thought that he might as well come along, since he had been -unearthed. But Sheila would not permit him to enter the theater lest -Reben and he fall to blows. She did not want Reben to be beaten up. She -left Bret in the alley, and promised to call for him if she were -attacked. - -The theater was quite deserted at this hour. Sheila found Reben pacing -the corridor before her dressing-room. She advanced toward him timidly -with shame that he misinterpreted. He fairly lashed her with his glare -and groaned in all contempt: - -“My God, Sheila, I’d never have thought it of you!” - -“Thought what?” Sheila gasped. - -He laughed harshly: “And you called me down for insulting you! And you -got away with it! But, say, you ought to use your brains if you’re going -to play a game like that. Coarse work, Sheila; coarse work!” - -Sheila bit her lip to keep back the resentment boiling up in her heart. - -He went on with his denunciation: “I warned you that you would be known -everywhere you went. I told you your picture was all over town. And now -your name is. A stranger comes up to me and says he saw you and -your—your ‘husband,’ Mr. Winfield? Who’s the man? What’s his real -name?” - -“Mr. Winfield, of course.” - -“Oh, of course! Where did you meet him? Does he live here?” - -“Live here! Indeed, he doesn’t!” - -“He followed you here, then?” - -“He preceded me here.” - -“It’s as bad as that, eh? Well, you leave him here, at once. If he comes -near you again I’ll break every bone in his body.” - -Sheila laughed. “You haven’t seen my husband, have you?” - -“Your husband?” Reben laughed. “Are you going to try to bluff it out -with me, too?” - -Sheila blenched at this. “He is my husband!” she stormed. “And you’d -better not let him hear you talk so to me.” - -Reben’s knees softened under him. “Sheila! you don’t mean that you’ve -gone and got yourself married!” - -“What else should I mean? How dare you think anything else?” - -“Oh, you fool! you fool! you little damned fool!” - -“Thanks!” - -“You little sneaking traitor. Didn’t you promise me, on your word of -honor—” - -“I promised to carry out my contract. And here I am.” - -“I ought to break that contract myself.” - -“You couldn’t please me better.” - -He stood over her and glowered while his fingers twitched. She stared -back at him pugnaciously. Then he mourned over her. She was both his -lost love and his lost ward. His regret broke out in a groan: - -“Why did you do this, Sheila? Why, why—in God’s name, why?” - -Sheila had no answer. He might as well have shouted at her: “Why does -the earth roll toward the east? Why does gravity haul the worlds -together and keep them apart? Why are flowers? or June? what’s the -reason for June?” - -Sheila knew why no more than the rose knows why. - -At length Reben’s business instinct came to the rescue of his -heartbreak. He thought of his investment, of his contracts, of his -hoped-for profits. His experience as a manager had taught him to be -another Job. He ignored her challenge, and groaned, “How are we going to -keep this crime a secret?” - -Sheila, seeing that he had surrendered, forgot her anger. “Have we got -to?” - -“Of course we have. You know it won’t help you any to be known as a -married woman. O Lord! what fools these mortals be! We’ve got to keep it -dark at least till the play gets over in New York. If it’s a hit it -won’t matter so much; if it’s a flivver, it will matter still less.” - -He was heartsick at her folly and her double-dealing. Such things and -worse had happened to him and to other managers. They force managers to -be cynical and to drive hard bargains while they can. Like captains of -ships, they are always at the ultimate mercy of any member of the crew. -But they must make voyages somehow. - -Feeling the uselessness of wasting reproaches, Reben left Sheila and -groped through the dark house to the lobby. There he found a most -interesting spectacle—a line at the box-office. It was a convincing -argument. Sheila had draught. Even with a poor play in an unready -condition, she drew the people to the box-office. He must make the most -of her treason. - -But his heart was sick. He was managing a married star. This was double -trouble with half the fun. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVIII - - -Now that the cat was out of the bag, and the husband out of the closet, -Sheila decided to produce Bret at the train the next morning. He was -about to get a taste of the gipsying life known as “trouping” and he was -to learn the significance of the one-night stand. - -He had felt so shamefaced for his part in the deception of Reben that -when he visited the play during the evening performance, and saw the -much-discussed embrace restored, he had no heart to make a vigorous -protest. And Sheila was too weary after the two performances to be -hectored. It was heartbreaking to him to see her so exhausted. - -“Where do we go from here?” he asked, helplessly. - -“Petoskey,” she yawned. - -“Petoskey!” he gasped. “That’s in Russia. In Heaven’s name, do we—” - -He was ready to believe in almost anything imbecile. But she explained -that their Petoskey was in Michigan. He did not approve of Michigan. - -His hatred of his wife’s profession began to take deeper root. It -flourished exceedingly when they had to get up for the train the next -morning at six. It was hard enough for him to begin the new day. -Sheila’s struggles to fight off sleep were desperate. Sleep was like an -octopus whose many arms took new hold as fast as they were torn loose. -Bret was so sorry for her that he begged her to let the company go -without her. She could take a later train. But even her sad face was -crinkled with a smile at the impossibility of this suggestion. - -Breakfast was the sort of meal usually flung together by servants -alarm-clocked earlier than their wont. For all their gulping and hurry, -Bret and Sheila nearly missed the train. It was moving as they clambered -aboard. - -“Which is the parlor-car?” Bret asked the brakeman. - -“Ain’t none.” - -“Do you mean to say that we’ve got to ride all day in a day coach?” - -“That’s about it, Cap.” - -Bret was furious. Worse yet, the train was so crowded that it was -impossible for them even to have a double space. Their suit-cases had to -be distributed at odd points in racks, under seats, and at the end of -the car. - -Bret remembered that he had forgotten to get his ticket, but the -business-manager, Mr. McNish, passed by and offered his congratulations -and a free transportation, with Mr. Reben’s compliments. Bret did not -want to be beholden to Mr. Reben, but Sheila prevailed on him not to be -ungracious. - -When the conductor came along the aisle she said, “Company.” - -“Both?” said the conductor, and she smiled, “Yes,” and giggled, adding -to Bret, “You’re one of the troupe now.” - -Bret did not seem to be flattered. - -Reben came down the aisle to meet the bridegroom. He was doing his best -to take his defeat gracefully. Bret could not even take his triumph so. - -Other members of the company drifted forward and offered their -felicitations. They made themselves at home in the coach, sitting about -on the arms of seats and exchanging family jokes. - -The rest of the passengers craned their necks to stare at the -bridegroom, crimson with shame and anger. Bret loathed being stared at. -Sheila did not like it, but she was used to it. Both writhed at the -well-meant humor and the good wishes of the actors and actresses. Their -effusiveness offended Bret mortally. He could have proclaimed himself -the luckiest man on earth, but he objected to being called so by these -actors. If he had been similarly heckled by people of any sort—college -friends, club friends, doctors, lawyers, merchants—he would have -resented their manner, for everybody hazes bridal couples. But since he -had fallen among actors, he blamed actors for his distress. - -Eldon alone failed to come forward with good wishes, and Bret was -unreasonable enough to take umbrage at that. Why did Eldon remain aloof? -Was he jealous? What right had he to be jealous? - -Altogether, the bridegroom was doing his best to make rough weather of -his halcyon sea. Sheila was at her wits’ end to cheer him who should -have been cheering her. - -At noon a few sandwiches of the railroad sort were obtained by a dash to -a station lunch-counter. Bret apologized to Sheila, but she assured him -that he was not to blame and was not to mind such little troubles; they -were part of the business. He minded them none the less and he hated the -business. - -The town of Petoskey, when they reached it, did not please him in any -respect. The hotel pleased him less. When he asked for two rooms with -bath the clerk snickered and gave him one without. He explained with -contempt, “They’s a bath-room right handy down the hall and baths are a -quarter extry.” - -It was a riddle whether it were cleanlier to keep the grime one had or -fly to a bath-room one knew not of. When Bret and Sheila appeared at the -screen door which kept the flies in the dining-room they were beckoned -down the line by an Amazonian head waitress. She planted them among a -group of grangers who stared at Sheila and picked their teeth snappily. - -The dinner was a small-hotel dinner—a little bit of a lot of things in -a flotilla of small dishes. - -The audience at the theater was sparse and indifferent. The play had -begun to bore Winfield. It irritated him to see Sheila repeating the -same love-scenes night after night—especially with that man Eldon. - -After the play supper was to be had nowhere except at a cheap and -ill-conditioned little all-night restaurant where there was nothing to -eat but egg sandwiches and pie, the pastry thicker and hardly more -digestible than the resounding stone china it was served on. - -The bedroom at the hotel was ill ventilated, the plush furniture greasy, -the linen coarse, and the towels few and new. Bret declared it -outrageous that his beautiful, his exquisite bride should be so shabbily -housed, fed like a beggar, and bedded like a poor relation. Almost all -of his ill temper was on her account, and she could not but love him for -it. - -After a dolefully realistic night came again the poignant tragedy of -early rising, another gulped breakfast, another dash for the train. The -driver of the hack never came. Bret and Sheila waited for him till it -was necessary to run all the way to the station. The station was handier -to the railroad than to the hotel. Since red-caps were an institution -unknown to Petoskey, they carried their own baggage. - -The itinerary of the day included a change of trains and an eventual -arrival at no less—and no more—a place than Sheboygan. - -There they found a county fair in progress and the hotels packed. Decent -rooms were not to be had at any price. It took much beseeching even to -secure a shelter in a sample-room filled with long tables for drummers -to display their wares on. They waited like mendicants for luncheon in -an overcrowded dining-room where over-driven waitresses cowed the -timorous guests. Sheila had not time to finish her luncheon before she -must hurry away to a rehearsal. Bret left his and went with her, racing -along the streets and growling: - -“Why is Reben such a fool as to play in towns like this?” - -“He has to play somewhere, honey, to whip the play into shape,” Sheila -panted. - -“Well, he’s whipping you out of shape.” - -“I don’t mind, dearest. It’s fun to me. It’s all part of the business.” - -“Well, I want you to get out of the business. It’s unfit for a decent -woman.” - -“Oh—honey!” - -It was a feeble little wail from a great hurt. Plainly Bret would never -comprehend the majestic qualities of her art, or realize that its -inconveniences were no more than the minor hardships of an army on a -great campaign. - - * * * * * - -At the rehearsal the first of Prior’s new scenes was gone over. It -emphasized the “heart-interest” with a vengeance. Sheila trembled to -think what her husband would do when he saw it played. She was glad that -it was not to be tried until the following week. Every moment of -postponement for the inevitable storm was so much respite. - -They rehearsed all afternoon. The struggle for dinner was more trying -than for the luncheon. The performance was early and hasty, as it was -necessary to catch a train immediately after the last curtain, in order -to reach Bay City for the Saturday matinée. Worse yet, they had to leave -the car at four o’clock in the morning. - -This time it was Bret who was hard to waken. His big body was so -famished for sleep that Sheila was afraid she would have to leave him on -the train. She was wiry, and her enthusiasm for the battle gave her a -courage that her disgusted husband lacked. There was no carriage at the -station and Bret stumbled and swore drowsily at the dark streets and the -intolerable conditions. - -He had nothing to interest him except the infinite annoyances and -exactions of his wife’s career. There was nothing to reward him for his -privations except to lumber along in her wake like a coal-barge hauled -by a tug. - -His pride was mutinous, and it seemed a degradation to permit his bride -to run from place to place as if she were a fugitive from justice. He -had wealth and the habit of luxury, and his idea of a honeymoon was the -ultimate opposite of this frenzied gipsying. - -He had always understood that actors were a lazy folk whose life was one -of easy vagabondage, with all the vices that indolence fosters. Three -days of trouping had wrecked his strength; yet he had done none of the -work but the travel. - -When he protested the next morning at early breakfast that the tour -would be the death of them both Sheila looked up from the part she was -studying and laughed: - -“Cheer up! The worst is yet to come. We haven’t made any long jumps yet. -The route-sheet says we leave Bay City at one o’clock to-night and get -to Ishpeming at half past four to-morrow afternoon. We rehearse Sunday -night and all day Monday, play that night, and take a train at midnight -back to Menominee. From there we rush back to Calumet, and then on to -Duluth.” - -Bret set his coffee-cup down hard and growled, “Well, this is where I -leave you.” - -He spoke truer than he knew. He had kept his family informed of his -whereabouts by night-letters, in which he alluded to the blissful time -he ought to have been having. When he took Sheila to the theater for the -matinée he found a telegram for him. - -He winced at the address: “Bret Winfield, Esq., care of Miss Sheila -Kemble, Opera House, Bay City.” He forgot the pinch of pride when he -read the message: - - Please come home at once your father dangerously ill and asking - for you. - - MOTHER. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIX - - -Sheila saw the anguish of dread cover his face like a sudden fling of -ashes. He handed the telegram to her, and she put her arms about his -shoulders to uphold him and shelter him from the sledge of fate. - -“Poor old dad!” he groaned. “And mother! I must take the first train.” - -She nodded her head dismally. - -He read the telegram again in a stupor, and mumbled, “I wish you could -come with me.” - -“If I only could!” - -“You ought to,” he urged. - -“Oh, I know it—but I can’t.” - -“You may never see my father again.” - -“Don’t say that! He’ll get well, honey; you mustn’t think anything else. -Oh, it’s too bad! it’s just too bad!” - -He felt lonely and afraid of what was ahead of him. He was afraid of his -father’s death, and of a funeral. He was terrified at the thought of his -mother’s woe. He could feel her clutching at him helplessly, -frantically, and telling him that he was all she had left. His eyes -filled with tears at the vision and they blinded him to everything but -the vision. He put his hands out through the mist and caught Sheila’s -arms and pleaded: - -“You ought to come with me, now of all times.” - -She could only repeat and repeat: “I know it, but I can’t, I can’t. You -see that I can’t, don’t you, honey?” - -His voice was harsh when he answered: “No, I don’t see why you can’t. -Your place is there.” - -She cast her eyes up and beat her palms together hopelessly over the -complete misunderstanding that thwarted the union of their souls. She -took his hands again and squeezed them passionately. - -Reben came upon them, swinging his cane. Seeing the two holding hands, -he essayed a frivolity. “Honeymoon not on the wane yet?” - -Sheila told him the truth. He was all sympathy at once. His race made -him especially tender to filial love, and his grief brought tears to his -eyes. He crushed Bret’s hands in his own and poured out sorrow like an -ointment. His deep voice trembled with fellowship: - -“If I could only do anything to help you!” - -Winfield caught at the proffer. “You can! Let Sheila go home with me.” - -Reben gasped. “My boy, my boy! It’s impossible! The matinée begins in -half an hour. She should be making up now.” - -“Let somebody else play her part.” - -“There is no understudy ready. We never select the understudy for the -try-out performances. Sheila, you must understand.” - -“I do, of course; but poor Bret—he can’t seem to.” - -“Oh, all right, I understand,” Winfield sighed with a resignation that -terrified Sheila. “What train can I get? Do you know?” - -Reben knew the trains. He would get the company-manager to secure the -tickets. Bret must go by way of Detroit. He could not leave till after -five. He would reach Buffalo early Sunday morning and be home in the -late afternoon. - -The big fellow’s frame shook with anxiety. So much could happen in -twenty-four hours. It would seem a year to his poor mother. He hurried -away to send her a telegram. Sheila paused at the stage door, staring -after his forlorn figure; then she darted in to her task. - -Bret came back shortly and dropped into a chair in Sheila’s -dressing-room. His eyes, dulled with grief, watched her as she plastered -on her face the various layers of color, spreading the carmine on cheek -and ear with savage brilliance, penciling her eyelashes till thick beads -of black hung from them, painting her eyelids blue above and below, and -smearing her lips with scarlet. - -He turned from her, sick with disgust. - -Sheila felt his aversion, and it choked her when she tried to comfort -him. She painted her arms and shoulders white and powdered them till -clouds of dust rose from the puff. Pennock made the last hooks fast and -Sheila rose for the final primpings of coquetry. - -Pennock opened the door of the dressing-room to listen for the cue. When -the time came Sheila sighed, ran to Bret, clasped him in a tight -embrace, and kissed his wet forehead. Her arms left white streaks across -his coat, and her lips red marks on his face. - -He followed to watch her make her entrance. She stood a moment between -the flats, turned and stared her adoration at him through her viciously -leaded eyelashes, and wafted him a sad kiss. Then she caught up her -train and began to laugh softly as from a distance. She ran out into the -glow of artificial noon, laughing. A faint applause greeted her, the -muffled applause of a matinée audience’s gloved hands. - -Bret watched her, heard her voice sparkle, heard it greeted with waves -of hilarity. He could not realize how broken-hearted she was for him. He -could not understand how separate a thing her stage emotions were from -her personal feelings. - -Good news would not have helped her comedy; bad news could hardly alter -it. She went through her well-learned lines and intonations as a -first-class soldier does the manual of arms without reference to his -love or grief. - -All Bret knew was that his wife was out there, laughing and causing -laughter, while far away his mother was sobbing—sobbing perhaps above -the chill clay of his father. - -He hurried from the stage door to pack his trunk. He went cursing the -theater, and himself for lingering in its infamous shadow. He did not -come back till the play was over and Sheila in her street clothes. In -her haste she had overlooked traces of her make-up—that odious blue -about the eyes, the pink edging of the ears, the lead on the eyelashes. - -Once more Sheila went to the train with her husband. They clung together -in fierce farewells, repeated and repeated till the train was moving and -the porter must run alongside to help Bret aboard. - -When he looked back he could not see Sheila’s pathetic figure and her -sad face. When he thought of her he thought of her laughing in her -motley. All the next day he thought of her in the theater rehearsing. - -He loved her perhaps the more for that unattainable soul of hers. He had -won her, wed her, possessed her, made her his in body and name; but her -soul was still uncaptured. He vowed and vowed again that he would make -her altogether his. She was his wife; she should be like other wives. - - * * * * * - -When he reached home his father was dead. His mother was too weak with -grief to rebuke him for being on a butterfly-hunt at such a time. - -He knelt by her bed and held her in his arms while she told him of his -father’s long fight to keep alive till his boy came back. She begged him -not to leave her again, and he promised her that he would make her home -his. - -The days that ensued were filled with tasks of every solemn kind. There -was the funeral to prepare for and endure, and after that the assumption -of all his father’s wealth. This came to him, not as a mighty treasure -to squander, but as a delicate invalid to nurture and protect. - -Sheila’s telegrams and letters were incessant and so full of devotion -for him that they had room for little about herself. - -She told him she was working hard and missing him terribly, and what her -next address would be. She tried vainly to mask her increasing terror of -the dreadful opening in Chicago. - -He wished that he might be with her, yet knew that he had no real help -to give her. He prayed for her success, but with a mental reservation -that if the play were the direst failure he would not be sorry, for it -would bring them to peace the sooner. - -He tried to school his undisciplined mind to the Herculean task of -learning in a few days what his father had acquired by a life of toil. -The factory ran on smoothly under the control of its superintendents, -but big problems concerning the marketing of the output, consolidation -with the trust, and enlargement of the plant, were rising every hour. -These matters he must decide like an infant king whose ministers -disagree. - -To his shame and dismay, he could not give his whole heart to the work; -his heart was with Sheila. He thought of her without rancor now. He -recognized the bravery and honor that had kept her with the company. As -she had told him once before, treachery to Reben would be a poor -beginning of her loyalty to Bret. The very things he cherished bitterly -against her turned sweet in his thoughts. He decided that he could not -live without her, and might as well recognize it. - -He found himself clenching his hands at his desk and whispering prayers -that the play should be a complete failure. How else could they be -reunited? He could not shirk his own responsibilities. It was not a -man’s place to give up his career. There was only one hope—the failure -of the play. - -But “The Woman Pays” was a success. The Grand Rapids oracle guessed -wrong. As sometimes happens, the city critics were kinder than the -rural. Sheila sent Bret a double night-telegram. She said that she was -sorry to say that the play had “gone over big.” She had an enormous -ovation; there had been thirty curtain calls; the audience had made her -make a speech. Reben had said the play would earn a mint of money. And -then she added that she missed Bret “terribly,” and loved him “madly and -nothing else mattered.” - -The next day she telegraphed him that the critics were “wonderful.” She -quoted some of their eulogies and announced that she was mailing the -clippings to him. But she said that she would rather hear him speak one -word of praise than have them print a million. He did not believe it, -but he liked to read it. - -He did not wait to receive the clippings. He gave up opposing his -ravenous heart, and took train for Chicago. He could not bear to have -everybody except himself acclaiming his wife in superlatives. - -He decided to surprise her. He did not even telegraph a warning. Indeed, -when he reached Chicago in the early evening, he resolved to see the -performance before he let her know he was in town. - -He could not get by Mr. McNish, who was “on the door,” without being -recognized, but he asked McNish not to let “Miss Kemble” know that he -was in the house. McNish agreed readily; he did not care to agitate -Sheila during the performance. After the last curtain fell her emotions -would be her own. - -McNish was glowing as he watched the crowd file past the ticket-taker. -He chuckled: “It’s a sell-out to-night I bet. This afternoon we had the -biggest first matinée this theater has known for years. I told Reben two -years ago that the little lady was star material. He said he’d never -thought of it. She’s got personality and she gets it across. She plays -herself, and that’s the hardest kind of acting there is. I discover her, -and Reben cops the credit and the coin. Ain’t that life all over?” - -Bret agreed that it was, and hurried to his seat. It was in the exact -center of a long row. He was completely surrounded by garrulous women -trying to outchatter even the strenuous coda of the band. - -A fat woman on his right bulged over into his domain and filled the arm -of his chair with her thick elbow. A lean woman on his left had an arm -some inches too long for her space, and her elbow projected like a spur -into Bret’s ribs. He could have endured their contiguity if they had -omitted their conversation. The overweening woman was chewing gum and -language with the same grinding motions, giving her words a kind of -stringy quality. - -“Jevver see this Sheilar Kemble?” she munched. “I seen her here some -time ago. She didn’t have a very big part, but she played it perfect. -She was simpully gurrand. I says at the time to the gempmum was with me, -I says, ‘Somebody ought to star that girl.’ I guess I must ’a’ been -overheard, for here she is. - -“A lady frien’ o’ mine went last night, and told me I mustn’t miss it. -She says they got the handsomest actor playin’ the lover—feller name of -Weldon or Weldrum or something like that—but anyway she says he makes -love something elegant, and so does Sheilar. This frien’ o’ mine says -they must be in love with each other, for nobody could look at one -another that way without they meant it. Well, we’ll soon see.” - -To hear his wife’s name and Eldon’s chewed up together in the gum of a -strange plebeian was disgusting. - -The sharp-elbowed woman was talking all the while in a voice of affected -accents: - -“She’s almost a lady, this Kemble gull. Really, she was received in the -veribest homes hyah lahst wintuh. Yes, I met hah everywhah. She was -really quite refined—for an actress, of cawse. Several of the nicest -young men made quite fools of themselves—quite. Fawtunately their -people saved them from doing anything rahsh. I suppose she’ll upset them -all again this season. There ought to be some fawm of inoculation to -protect young men against actresses. Don’t you think so? It’s fah more -dangerous than typhoid fevah, don’t you think so?” - -All about him Bret heard Sheila’s name tossed carelessly as a public -property. - -The curtain rose at last and the play began. Sheila made a conspicuously -inconspicuous entrance without preparation, without even the laughter -she had formerly employed. She was just there. The audience did not -recognize her till she spoke, then came a volley of applause. - -Bret’s eyes filled with tears. She was beautiful. She seemed to be sad. -Was she thinking of him? He wanted to clamber across the seats and over -the footlights to protect her once more from the mob, not from its -ridicule as at that first sight of her, but from its more odious -familiarity and possession. - -He hardly recognized the revised play. The character she played—and -played in her very selfhood—was emotional now, and involved in a -harrowing situation with a mystery as to her origin, and hints of a -past, a scandal into which an older woman, an adventuress, had decoyed -her. - -Then Eldon came on the scene and they fell in love at once; but she was -afraid of her past, and evaded him for his own sake. He misunderstood -her and accused her of despising him because he was poor; and she let -him think so, because she wanted him to hate her. - -The audience wept with luxurious misery over her saintly double-dealing. -The gum-chewer’s tears salted her pepsin and she commented: “Ain’t it -awful what beasts you men are to us trusting girrls! Think of the demon -that loored that girrl to her roon!” - -The sharp-elbowed woman dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and said -that it was “really quite affecting—quite. I’ve made myself -ridiculous.” Then she blew her nose as elegantly as that proletarian -feat can be accomplished. - -Winfield was astounded at the changes in the play. A few new scenes -altered the whole meaning of it. Everything pink before was purple now. -The rôles of Sheila and Eldon had been rendered melodramatic. Sheila’s -comedy was accomplished now in a serious way. With a quaint little pout, -or two steps to the side and a turn of the head, she threw the audience -into convulsions. - -Suddenly Sheila would quench the hilarity with a word, and the hush -would be enormous and strangely anxious; then the handkerchiefs would -come out. - -Bret would have felt with the mob had the actress been any woman on -earth but his own. That made all the difference in the world. He told -himself that she was the victim of her art. But his ire burned against -Eldon, since Eldon made love to her for nearly three hours. And he said -and did noble things that made her love him more and more. And there was -no lack of caresses now. - -In the second act Eldon overtook the fugitive Sheila and claimed her for -his own. She broke loose and ran from him, weeping, because she felt -“unworthy of a good man’s love.” But she followed him with eyes of -doglike adoration. Her hands quivered toward him and she held them back -“for his dear sake.” Then he caught her again and would not let her -escape. He held her by both hands. - -“Mary!”—that was her name in the play. “Mary,” he cried, “I love you. -The sight of you fills my eyes with longing. The touch of your hand sets -my very soul on fire. I love you. I can’t live without you!” - -He seized her in his arms, crushed her fiercely. She struggled a moment, -then began to yield, to melt toward him. She lifted her eyes to -his—then turned them away again. The audience could read in them -passion fighting against renunciation. She murmured: - -“Oh, Jack! Jack! I—” - -He pressed his conquest. “You do love me! You must! You can’t scorn a -love like mine. I have seen you weeping. I can read in your eyes that -you love me. Your eyes belong to me. Your lips are mine. Give them to -me! Kiss me! Kiss me—Ma-ry!” - -She quivered with surrender. The audience burned with excitement. The -lover urged his cause with select language. - -It was the sort of thing the women in the audience did not get from -their own lovers or husbands; the sort of thing the men in the audience -wanted to be able to say in a crisis and could not. Therefore, for all -its banality, it thrilled them. They ate it up. It was a sentimental -banquet served at this emotion restaurant every evening. - -At length, as Eldon repeated his demand in tones that swept the -sympathetic strings in every bosom to response, Mary began to yield; her -hands climbed Eldon’s arms slowly, paused on his shoulders. In a moment -they would plunge forward and clasp him about the neck. - -Her lips were lifted, pursed to meet his. And then—as the audience was -about to scream with suspense—she thrust herself away from him, broke -loose, moaning: - -“No, I am unworthy—no, no—I can’t, I don’t love you—no—no!” - -The curtain fell on another flight. - -Bret wanted to push through the crowd and go back to the stage to forbid -the play from going on. But he would have had to squeeze past the fat -woman’s form or stride across the lean woman’s protrusive knees. And fat -women and men, and lean, were wedged in the seats on both sides of him. -He was imprisoned in his wrath. - -As if his own doubts and certainties were not torture enough, he had to -hear them voiced in the dialects of others. - -The gumstress was saying: “Well, I guess that frien’ o’ mine got it -right when she says those two actors must be in love with each other. I -tell you no girrl can look at a feller with those kind of looks without -there bein’ somethin’ doin’, you take it from me. No feller like Mr. -Eldon is goin’ to hold no beauty like Sheila in his arms every evening -and not fall in love with her.” - -Her escort was encouraged by her enthusiasm to rhapsodize over Sheila on -his own account. It seemed to change the atmosphere. He had paid for -both seats, but he had not bought free speech. He said—with as little -tact as one might expect from a man who would pay court to that woman: - -“Well, all I gotter say is, if that guy gets wore out huggin’ Sheila -I’ll take his place and not charge him a cent. Some snap, he has, -spendin’ his evenin’s huggin’ and kissin’ an A1 beaut like her and -gettin’ paid for it.” He seemed to realize a sudden fall in the -temperature. Perhaps he noted that the gum-crunching jaw had paused and -the elastic sweetmeat hung idle in the mill. He tried to retreat with a -weak: - -“But o’ course she gets paid for huggin’ him, too.” - -The anxious escort bent forward to look into his companion’s face. He -caught a glimpse of Bret’s eyes and wondered how that maniac came there. -He sank back alarmed just as Bret realized that, however unendurable -such comment was, he could not resent it while his wife belonged to the -public; he could only resolve to take her out of the pillory. - -But his Gehenna was not ended yet, for he must hear more from the woman. - -“Well, o’ course, Mr. Jeggle, if you’re goin’ to fall for an actress as -easy as that, you’re not the man I should of thought you was. But that’s -men all over. An actress gets ’em every time. - -“I could of went on the stage myself. Ma always said I got temper’munt -to beat the band. But she said if I ever disgraced her so far as to show -my face before the footlights I need never come home. I’d find the door -closed against me. - -“And my gempmum friend at that time says if I done so he’d beat me with -a rollin’-pin. The way he come to use such words was he was travelin’ -for a bakery-supply house—he was kind of rough in his talk—nice, -though—and eyes!—umm! Well, him and I quarreled. I found he had two -other wives on his route and I refused to see him again—that’s his ring -there now. He was a wicked devil, but he did draw the line at actresses. -He married often, but he drew the line: and he says no actress should -ever be a wife of his. - -“And he had it right. No sane man ain’t goin’ to leave his wife layin’ -round loose in the arms of any handsome actor, not if he’s a real man. -If she’ll kiss him like that in public—well, I say no more. Not that I -blame a poor actress for goin’ wrong. I never believe in being merciless -to the fallen. It’s the fault of the stage. The stage is a nawful -immor’l place, Mr. Jeggle. The way I get it is this: if a girl’s not -ummotional she’s got no right on the stage. If she is ummotional she’s -got no chance to stay good on the stage. Do you see what I mean?” - -Mr. Jeggle said he saw what she meant and he forbore to praise Sheila -further. He changed the perilous subject hastily and lowered his voice. - -Bret, on a gridiron of intolerable humiliation, could hear now the dicta -of the elbow-woman. - -“I fancy the young men in Chicago are quite safe from that Kemble gull -this season. She must be hopelessly infatuated with that actor. And no -wonder. If she doesn’t keep him close to hah, though, he’ll play havoc -with every gull in town. He’s quite too beautiful—quite!” - -In the last act Sheila poured out the confession of her sins to Eldon. -This was a bit that Bret had not seen, and it poured vinegar into his -wounds to hear his own wife announcing to a thousand people how she had -been duped and deceived by a false marriage to a man who had never -understood her. That was bad enough, but to have Eldon play the saint -and forgive her—Bret gripped the chair arms in a frenzy. - -Eldon offered her the shelter of his name and the haven of his love. And -she let him hold her in his arms while he poured across her shoulder his -divine sentiments. Now and then she would turn her head and gaze up at -him in worship and longing, and at last, with an irresistible passion, -she whirled and threw her arms around him and gave him her kisses, and -his arms tightened about her in a frenzy of rapture. - -That could not be acting. Bret swore that it was real. - -They clung together till several humorous characters appeared at doors -and windows and she broke away in confusion. There were explanations, -untying of knots and tying of others, and the play closed in a comedy -finish. - -The curtain went down and up and down and up in a storm of applause, and -Sheila bowed and bowed, holding Eldon’s hand and generously recommending -him to the audience. He bowed to her and bowed himself off and left her -standing and nodding with quaint little ducks of the head and mock -efforts to escape, mock expressions of surprise at finding the curtain -up again and the audience still there. - -Bret had to wait till the women got into their hats and wraps. They were -talking, laughing, and sopping up their tears. They had been well fed on -sorrow and joy and they were ready for supper and sleep. - -Bret wanted to fight his way through in football manner, but he could -hardly move. The crowd ebbed out with the deliberation of a glacier, and -he could not escape either the people or their comments. The Chicago -papers had not heard of Sheila’s marriage to him. He was a nonentity. -The sensation of the town was the romance of Sheila Kemble and Floyd -Eldon. - -When at last Bret was free of the press he dashed round to the stage -entrance. The old doorkeeper made no resistance, for the play was over -and visitors often came back to pay their compliments to the troupe. -Bret was the first to arrive. - -In his furious haste he stumbled down the steps to the stage and almost -sprawled. He had to wait while a squad of “grips” went by with a huge -folded flat representing the whole side of a canvas house. - -He stepped forward; a sandbag came down and struck him on the shoulder. -He tripped on the cables of the box lights and lost his glasses. While -he groped about for them he heard the orchestra, muffled by the curtain, -playing the audience out to a boisterous tune. His clutching fingers -were almost stepped on by two men carrying away a piece of solid -stairway. - -Before he found his glasses he was demoniac with rage. He rubbed them on -his sleeve, set them in place, and again a departing wall obstructed his -view. An actress and an actor walked into him. At last he found the -clear stage ahead of him. He made out a group at the center of it. -McNish, Batterson, and Prior were in jovial conference, slapping each -other’s shoulders and chortling with the new wine of success. - -He brushed by them and saw Sheila at last. Reben was holding her by one -arm; his other hand was on Eldon’s shoulder. He was telling them of the -big leap in the box-office receipts. - -Sheila seemed rapturous with pride and contentment. Bret saw her murmur -something to Eldon. He could not hear what it was, but he heard Eldon -chuckle delightedly. Then he called: - -“Eldon!” - -Eldon looked forward just in time to see Bret coming on like a striding -giant, just in time to see the big arm swing up in a rigid drive, -shoulder and side and all. - -The clenched fist caught Eldon under the chin and sent him backward -across a heavy table. - - - - - CHAPTER XL - - -The thud of the fist, the grunt of Bret’s effort, the shriek of Sheila, -the clatter of Eldon’s fall, the hubbub of the startled spectators, were -all jumbled. - -When Eldon, dazed almost to unconsciousness, gathered himself together -for self-defense and counter attack, the stage was revolving about him. -Instinctively he put up his guard, clenched his right fist, and shifted -clear of the table. - -Then his anger flamed through his bewilderment. He realized who had -struck him, and he dimly understood why. A blaze of rage against this -foreigner, this vandal, shot up in his soul, and he advanced on Winfield -with his arm drawn back. But he found Winfield struggling with Batterson -and McNish, who had flung themselves on him, grappling his arms. Eldon -stopped with his fists poised. He could not strike that unprotected -face, though it was gray with hatred of him. - -An instant he paused, then unclenched his hand and fell to straightening -his collar and rubbing his stinging flesh. Sheila had run between the -two men in a panic. All her thought was to protect her husband. Her eyes -blazed against Eldon. He saw the look, and it hurt him worse than his -other shame. He laughed bitterly into Bret’s face. - -“We’re even now. I struck you when you didn’t expect it because you -didn’t belong on the stage. You don’t belong here now. Get off! Get off -or—God help you!” - -This challenge infuriated Bret, and he made such violent effort to reach -Eldon that Batterson, Prior, McNish, and an intensely interested and -hopeful group of stage-hands could hardly smother his struggles. He bent -and wrestled like the withed Samson, and his hatred for Eldon could find -no word bitter enough but “You—you—you actor!” - -Eldon laughed at this taunt and answered with equal contempt, “You -thug—you business man!” Then, seeing how Sheila urged Bret away, how -dismayed and frantic she was, he cried in Bret’s face: “You thought you -struck me—but it was your wife you struck in the face!” - -Sheila did not thank him for that pity. She silenced him with a glare, -then turned again to her husband, put her arms about his arms, and clung -to them with little fetters that he could not break for fear of hurting -her. She laid her head on his breast and talked to his battling heart: - -“Oh, Bret, Bret! honey, my love! Don’t, don’t! I can’t bear it! You’ll -kill me if you fight any more!” - -The fights of men and dogs are almost never carried to a finish. One -surrenders or runs or a crowd interferes. - -Winfield felt all his strength leave him. His wife’s voice softened him; -the triumph of his registered blow satisfied him to a surprising degree; -the conspicuousness of his position disgusted him. He nodded his head -and his captors let him go. - -The reaction and the exhaustion of wrath weakened him so that he could -hardly stand, and Sheila supported him almost as much as he supported -her. - - * * * * * - -And now Reben began on him. An outsider had invaded the sanctum of his -stage, had attacked one of his people—an actor who had made good. -Winfield had broken up the happy family of success with an omen of -scandal. - -Reben denounced him in a livid fury: “Why did you do it? Why? What right -have you to come back here and slug one of my actors? Why? He is a -gentleman! Your wife is a lady! Why should you be—what you are? You -should apologize, you should!” - -“Apologize!” Bret sneered, with all loathing in his grin. - -Eldon flared at the look, but controlled himself. “He doesn’t owe me any -apology. Let him apologize to his wife, if he has any decency in him.” - -He sat down on the table, but stood up again lest he appear weak. Again -Sheila threw him a look of hatred. Then she began to coax Winfield from -the scene, whispering to him pleadingly and patting his arms soothingly: - -“Come away, honey. Come away, please. They’re all staring. Don’t fight -any more, please—oh, please, for my sake!” - -He suffered her to lead him into the wings and through the labyrinth to -her dressing-room. - - * * * * * - -And now the stage was like a church at a funeral after the dead has been -taken away. Everybody felt that Sheila was dead to the theater. The look -in her eyes, her failure to rebuke her husband for his outrage on the -company, her failure to resent his attitude toward herself—all these -pointed to a slavish submission. Everybody knew that if Sheila took it -into her head to leave the stage there would be no stopping her. - -The curtain went up, disclosing the empty house with all the soul gone -out of it. In the cavernous balconies and the cave of the orchestra the -ushers moved about banging the seats together. They went waist-deep in -the rows, vanishing as they stooped to pick up programs and rubbish. -They were exchanging light persiflage with the charwomen who were -spreading shrouds over the long windrows. The ushers and the -scrub-ladies knew nothing of what had taken place after the curtain -fell. They knew strangely little about theatrical affairs. - -They were hardly interested in the groups lingering on the stage in -quiet, after-the-funeral conversation. But the situation was vitally -interesting to the actors and the staff. Without Sheila the play would -be starless. How could it go on? The company would be disbanded, the few -weeks of salary would not have paid for the long rehearsals or the -costumes. The people would be taken back to New York and dumped on the -market again, and at a time when most of the opportunities were gone. - -It meant a relapse to poverty for some of them, a postponement of -ambitions and of loves, a further deferment of old bills; it meant -children taken out of good schools, parents cut off from their -allowances; it meant all that the sudden closing of any other factory -means. - -The disaster was so unexpected and so outrageous that some of them found -it incredible. They could not believe that Sheila would not come back -and patch up a peace with Reben and Eldon and let the success continue. -Successes were so rare and so hard to make that it was unbelievable that -this tremendous gold-mine should be closed down because of a little -quarrel, a little jealousy, a little rough temper and hot language. - -Eldon alone did not believe that Sheila would return. He had loved her -and lost her. He had known her great ambitions, how lofty and beautiful -they had been. He had dreamed of climbing the heights at her side; then -he had learned of her marriage and had seen how completely her art had -ceased to be the big dream of her soul, how completely it had been -shifted to a place secondary to love. - -No, Sheila would not make peace. Sheila was dead to this play, and this -play dead without her, and without this play Sheila would die. Of this -he felt solemnly assured. - -Therefore when the others expressed their sympathy for the attack he had -endured, or made jokes about it, he did not boast of what he might have -done, or apologize for what he had left undone, or try to laugh it off -or lie it off. - -He could think only solemnly of the devastation in an artist’s career -and the deep damnation of her taking off. - -Batterson said, “Say, that was a nasty one he handed you.” - -Eldon confessed: “Yes, it nearly knocked my head off; but it was coming -to me.” - -“Why didn’t you hand him one back?” - -“How could I hit him when you held his hands? How could I hit him when -his wife was clinging to him? And what’s a blow? I’ve had worse ones -than that in knock-down and drag-out fights. I’ll get a lot more later, -no doubt. But I couldn’t hit Winfield. He doesn’t understand. Sheila has -trouble enough ahead of her with him. Poor Sheila! She’s the one that -will pay. The rest of us will get other jobs. But Sheila is done for.” - -By now the scenery was all folded and stacked against the walls. The -drops were lost in the flies. The furniture and properties were -withdrawn. The bare walls of the naked stage were visible. - -The electrician was at the switchboard, throwing off the house lights in -order. They went out like great eyes closing. The theater grew darker -and more forlorn. The stage itself yielded to the night. The footlights -and borders blinked and were gone. There was no light save a little glow -upon a standard set in the center of the apron. - -Eldon sighed and went to his dressing-room. - - - - - CHAPTER XLI - - -Meanwhile Sheila was immured with her husband. She sent Pennock away and -locked the door, pressed Bret into a chair, and knelt against his knee -and stretched her arms up. - -“What is it, honey? What’s happened? I didn’t know you were within a -thousand miles of here.” - -He was still ugly enough to growl, “Evidently not!” - -She seemed to understand and recoiled from him, sank back on her heels -as if his fist had struck her down. “What do you mean?” she whispered. -“That I—I—You can’t mean you distrust me?” - -“That dog loves you and you—” - -“Don’t say it!” She rose to her knees again and put up her hands. “I -could never forgive you if you said that now—and our honeymoon just -begun.” - -“Honeymoon!” he laughed. “Look at this.” He held up his right hand. -Grease-paint from Eldon’s jaw was on his knuckles. He put his finger on -her cheek and it was covered with the same unction. Then he rubbed the -odious ointment from his hands. She blushed under her rouge. - -“I know it’s been a pitiful honeymoon. But I couldn’t help it, Bret. I -did what I could. It has been harder for me than for you, and I’m just -worn out. There’s no joy in the world for me. The success is nothing.” - -“He loves you, I tell you, and you let him make love to you.” - -“Of course, honey; it’s in the play; it’s in the play!” - -“Not love like that. Why, everybody in the audience was saying it was -real. All the people round me were saying you two were in love with each -other.” - -“That’s what we were working for, isn’t it?” - -“Oh, not the characters, but you two; you and Eldon. Couldn’t I see how -he looked at you, how you looked at him, how you—you crushed him in -your arms?” - -“How else could we show that the characters were madly in love with each -other, dear?” - -“But you didn’t have to play it so earnestly.” - -“It wouldn’t be honest not to do our best, would it? Can’t you -understand?” - -“I can understand that my wife was in the arms of a man that loves her, -and that even if you don’t love him, you pretended to, and he took -advantage of it to—to—to kiss you!” - -“Why, he didn’t kiss me, honey.” - -“I saw him.” - -“No, you didn’t. We just pretended to kiss each other. Not that a stage -kiss makes any difference with rouge pressing on grease-paint—but, -anyway, he didn’t.” - -“You’ll be telling me he didn’t make love to you next.” - -“Of course he didn’t, honey. We’d be fined for it if Reben or Batterson -had noticed it; but the fact is we were trying to break each other up. -Actors are always doing that when they’re sure of a success. We’ve been -under a heavy strain, you know, and now we let down a little.” - -Bret could hardly believe what he wanted so to believe—that while the -audience was sobbing the actors were juggling with emotions, the mere -properties of their trade. He asked, grimly, “If he wasn’t making love -to you, what was he saying?” - -“It was nothing very clever. He’s not witty, Eldon; he’s rather heavy -when he tries to write his own stuff. He accused me of letting the scene -lag, and he was whispering to me that I was ‘asleep at the switch, and -the switch was falling off,’ and I answered him back that Dulcie Ormerod -would please him better.” - -“Dulcie Ormerod? Who’s Dulcie Ormerod?” - -“Oh, she’s a little tike of an actress that took my place in the ‘Friend -in Need’ company a long while ago. And she’s come on here to be my -understudy. Eldon hates her because she makes love to him all the time.” - -Bret’s gaze pierced her eyes, trying to find a lie behind their defense. -“And you dare to tell me that you and Eldon were joking?” - -“Of course we were, honey. If I’d been in love with him I wouldn’t -choose the theater to display it in, with a packed house watching, would -I? If we’d been carried away with our own emotion we’d have played the -scene badly. - -“Another thing happened. Batterson noticed that something was wrong with -our work, and he stood in the wings close to me and began to whip us up. -He was snarling at us: ‘Get to work, you two. Put some ginger in it.’ -And he swore at us. That made us work harder.” - -Bret was dumfounded. “You mean to tell me that you played a love-scene -better because the stage-manager was swearing at you?” - -Sheila frowned at his ignorance. “Of course, you dear old stupid. Acting -is like horse-racing. Sometimes we need the spur and the whip; sometimes -we need a kind word or a pat on the head. Acting is a business, honey. -Can’t you understand? We played it well because it’s a business and we -know our business. If you can’t understand the first thing about my -profession I might as well give it up.” - -“That’s one thing we agree on, thank God.” - -“Oh, I’d be glad to quit any time. I’m worn out. I don’t like this play. -It hasn’t a new idea in it. I’m tired of it already and I dread the -thought of going on with it for a year—two years, maybe. I wish I could -quit to-night.” - -“You’re going to.” - -She was startled by the quiet conviction of his tone. Again she sighed: -“If I only could!” - -“I mean it, Sheila,” he declared. “This is your last night on the stage -or your last night as my wife.” - -She studied him narrowly. He really meant it! He went on: - -“Joking or no joking, you were in another man’s arms and you had no idea -when you were coming home. We have no home. I have no wife. It can’t go -on. You come back with me to-morrow or I go back alone for good and -all.” - -“But Reben—” she interposed, helpless between the millstones of her two -destinies as woman and artist. - -“I’ll settle with Reben.” - -She hardly pondered the decision. Suddenly it was made for her. She -looked at her husband and felt that she belonged to him first, last, and -forever. She was at the period when all her inheritances and all nature -commanded her to be woman, to be wife to her man. It was good to have -him decide for her. - -She dropped to the floor again and breathed a little final, comfortable, -“All right.” - -Bret bent over and caught her up into his arms with a strength that -assured her protection against all other claimants of her, and he kissed -her with a contented certainty that he had never known before. Then he -set her on her feet and said with a noble authority: - -“Hurry and get out of those things and into your own.” - -She laughed at his magistral tone, and her last act of independence was -to put him out of the actress’s room and call Pennock to her aid. Bret -stood guard in the corridor. If he had had any qualms of conscience they -would have been eased by the sound of Sheila’s cheerful voice as she -made old Pennock bestir herself. - -At length Sheila emerged with no trace of the actress about her, just a -neat little, tight little armful of wife. - -As they were about to turn out at the stage door they saw Reben -lingering in the wings. He beckoned to Sheila and called her by name. -She moved toward him, not because he was her boss, but because he did -not know that he was not. She rejoiced to feel that she had changed -masters. Her husband, already the protector and champion, motioned her -back and went to Reben in her stead. - -“I wanted Miss Kemble,” Reben said, very coldly. - -To which Bret retorted, calmly, “Mrs. Winfield has decided to resign -from your company.” - -Reben had fought himself to a state of self-control. He had resolved to -leave Sheila and Bret to settle their own feud. He would observe a -strict neutrality. His business was to keep the company together and at -work. The word “resign” alarmed him anew. - -“Resign!” he gasped. “When?” - -“To-night.” - -“Nonsense! She plays to-morrow.” - -“She cannot play to-morrow.” - -“She is ill? I don’t wonder, after such scenes. Her understudy might get -through to-morrow night, but after that she must appear.” - -“She cannot appear again.” - -“My dear fellow, I have a contract.” - -“I am breaking the contract.” - -“Your name is not on the contract.” - -“It is on a contract of marriage.” - -“So you told me. She plays, just the same.” - -“She does not play.” - -“I will make her play.” - -“How?” - -“I—She—You—Sheila, you can’t put such a trick on me.” - -Sheila crept forward to interpose again: “I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Reben. -But my husband—” - -“Have I treated you badly? Have I neglected anything? Have I done you -any injury?” - -“No, no. I have no fault to find with you, Mr. Reben. But my husband—” - -“Before you married him—before you met him, you promised me—” - -“I know. I’m terribly sorry, but my duty to my husband is my highest -duty. Please forgive me, but I can’t play any more.” - -“You shall play. I have invested a fortune in your future. I have made -you a success. You can’t desert me and the company now. You can’t! You -sha’n’t, by—” - -Sheila shook her head. She was done with the stage. Reben was throttled -with his own anger. He turned again on Winfield and shook a jeweled fist -under his nose: - -“This is your infernal meddling. You get out of here and never come near -again.” - -Winfield pressed Reben’s fist down with a quiet strength. “We’re not -going to.” - -“You, I mean; not Sheila. Sheila belongs to me. She is my star. I made -her. I need her. She means a fortune to me.” - -“How much of a fortune does she mean to you?” - -“I will clear a hundred thousand dollars from this piece at least; a -hundred thousand dollars! You think I will let you rob me of that?” - -“I’m not going to. I will pay you that much to cancel her contract.” - -Reben gasped in his face. “You—you will pay me -a—hun—dred—thou—sand—dol—lars?” - -“Yes.” - -“When?” - -“I haven’t that much cash in the bank.” - -“Ha, ha! I guess not!” - -“But I will pay it to you long before Sheila could earn it for you.” - -“I will believe that when I see it.” - -“I haven’t my check-book with me. I will send you a check for ten -thousand on account to-morrow morning.” - -Reben laughed wildly at him. Bret took out his card-case. There was a -small gold pencil on his key-chain. He wrote a few words and handed the -card to Reben: - - ────────────────────────────── - - _I O U $100,000_ - - =MR. BRET WINFIELD= - - _Bret Winfield_ - - ────────────────────────────── - -Reben tossed his mane in scorn. - -Bret answered: “It is a debt of honor. I’m able to pay it and I will.” - -Reben stared up into the man’s cold eyes, looked down at the card, -tightened his mouth, put the card into his pocketbook, and snarled: - -“Honor! We’ll see. Now get out—both of you!” - -Winfield accepted the dismissal with a smile of pride, and, turning, -took Sheila’s arm and led her away. - -“Oh, Bret! Bret!” she moaned. - -“Don’t you worry, honey. You’re worth it,” he laughed. - -“I wonder!” she sighed. - - * * * * * - -The next morning after breakfast Bret sat down to write the -ten-thousand-dollar check. “It makes an awful hole in my back account,” -he said, “but it heals a bigger one in my heart.” - -Just then a note was brought to the door. When he opened it the “I O U” -torn into small bits fell into his hands from a sheet of letter-paper -containing these words: - - MY DEAR MR. WINFIELD,—Please find inclosed a little - wedding-present for your charming bride. One of the unavoidable - hazards of the manager’s life is the fatal curiosity of - actresses concerning the experiment of marriage. Please tell - Miss Kemble—I should say Mrs. Winfield—that no fear of - inconveniencing me must disturb her honeymoon. Miss Dulcie - Ormerod will step into her vacant shoes and fill them nicely. I - cannot return her contract, as it is in my safe in New York. I - will leave it there until she feels that her vacation is over, - when I shall be glad to renew it. The clever little lady - insisted on cutting out the two weeks’ clause in her contract - with me—I wonder if she left it in yours. - - With all felicitation, I am, dear Mr. and Mrs. Winfield, - - Faithfully yours, - HENRY REBEN. - BRET WINFIELD, Esq. - -Sheila read the ironic words across Bret’s arm. She clung to it as to a -spar of rescue and laughed. “I’ll never go back.” - -And this time it was Bret who sighed, “I wonder.” - - - - - CHAPTER XLII - - -The impromptu epilogue to the play and the abandonment of the theater by -the young star had occurred too late to reach the next morning’s papers. - -The evening sheets were sure to make a spread. The actors were bound to -gossip, and the stage-hands. Somebody would tell some reporter and gain -a little credit or a little excitement. Therefore almost everybody would -join in the race for publication. - -Reben understood this, and he held a council of war with Starr Coleman -as to the best form of presentation. He had a natural and not -unjustified desire to have the story do the least possible harm to his -play. He collaborated with his press agent for hours over the campaign, -and they decided upon a formal telegram to be given to the Associated -Press and the other bureaus. They would flash it to all the crannies of -the continent. It was too bad that such easy publicity should be wasted -on an expiring instead of a rising star. - -For the Chicago papers Reben decided upon an interview which he would -give with seeming reluctance at the solicitation of Coleman on behalf of -the reporters. - -The loss of Sheila was a serious blow. The problem was whether or not -“Hamlet” could succeed with Hamlet omitted; or, rather, if “As You Like -It” would prosper without Rosalind. - -Reben had been tempted to close the theater at once; then get Winfield’s -money out of him if he had to levy on his father’s business, which, the -manager had learned, was big and solvent. - -But his egotism revolted at such a procedure, and in a fine burst of -pride he had written the letter to Bret and, tearing the “I O U” to -shreds, sealed it in. At the same time he resolved not to give up the -ship. It was never easy to tell who made the success of a play. He had -known road companies to take in more money without a famous star than -with one. - -He rounded up Batterson, got him out of bed, and sent for Dulcie Ormerod -to meet him in the deserted hotel parlor and begin rehearsals at once. -She could make up her sleep later in the day or next week. Then he went -to his own bed. - -Sometimes luck conspires with the brave. The first stage-hand who met -the first early morning reporter and sold him the story for a drink had -the usual hazy idea one brings away from a fist-battle. According to him -Winfield had come back on the stage drunk and started a row by striking -at Mr. Eldon. - -Eldon knocked Winfield backward into the arms of Batterson and McNish, -and would have finished him off if Sheila had not sheltered him. -Thereupon Eldon ordered Winfield out of the theater, and he retreated -under the protection of his wife, for it seemed that the poor girl had -been deluded into marrying the hound. - -The reporter was overjoyed at this glorious find. He hunted up Sheila -and Winfield first. Sheila answered the telephone, and at Bret’s advice -refused to see or be seen. She gave the reporter the message that her -husband had absolutely nothing to say. - -It is a safe statement at times, but just now it confirmed the reporter -in a beautiful theory that Eldon had beaten Winfield up so badly that he -was in no condition to be seen. - -The reporter found Batterson next and told him his suspicions. -Batterson, surly with wrecked slumber, was pleased to confirm the theory -and make a few additions. He owed Winfield no courtesies. - -When Starr Coleman and Reben were found they needed no prompting to set -that snowball rolling and to play up Eldon’s heroism. Coleman added the -excellent thought that Winfield’s motive was one of professional -jealousy because Eldon had run away with the play and the star’s laurels -were threatened. For that reason she had basely deserted the ship; but -the ship would go on. Mr. Reben, in fact, had felt that Miss Kemble was -an unfortunate selection for the play and had already decided to -substitute his wonderful discovery, the brilliant, beautiful Dulcie -Ormerod—photographs herewith. - -That was the story that Bret and Sheila read when it occurred to them to -send down for an evening paper. Bret was desperate with rage—rage at -Eldon, at Reben, at the entire press, and the whole world. But he -remembered that his father, who had been a politician, had used as his -motto: “Don’t fight to-day’s paper till next week. You can’t whip a -cyclone. Take to the cellar and it will soon blow over.” - -Sheila was frantic with remorses of every variety. She blamed Eldon for -it all. She did not absolve him even when a little note arrived from -him: - - DEAR MRS. WINFIELD,—After the exciting events of last night I - overslept this morning. I have but this minute seen the - outrageous stories in the newspapers. I beg you to believe that - I had no part in them and that I shall do what I can to deny the - ridiculous rôle they put upon me. - - Yours faithfully, - FLOYD ELDON. - -Eldon’s denials were as welcome as denials of picturesque newspaper -stories always are. They were suppressed or set in small type, with -statements that Mr. Eldon very charmingly and chivalrously and with his -characteristic modesty attempted to minimize his share in a most -unpleasant matter. - -Bret was so annoyed by a chance encounter with a group of -cross-examining reporters, and found himself so hampered by his -inability to explain his own anger at Eldon and the theater without -implying gross suspicion of his wife’s behavior, that he broke away, -returned to the policy of silence that he ought not to have left, and, -gathering Sheila up, fled with her to his own home. - -The play profited by the advertisement, and Dulcie Ormerod slid into the -established rôle like a hand going into a glove several sizes too large. -Eldon was doubly a hero now, and Reben went back to New York with -triumph perched on his cigar. - - - - - CHAPTER XLIII - - -A honeymoon is like a blue lagoon divinely beautiful, with a mimicry of -all heaven in its deeps; blinding sweet in the sun, and almost -intolerably comfortable in the moon. - -But by and by the atoll that circles it like a wedding-ring proves to be -a bit narrow and interferes with the view of the big sea pounding at its -outer edges. The calm becomes monotonous, and at the least puff of wind -the boat is on the reefs. They are coral reefs, but they cut like knives -and hurt the worse for being jewelry. - -To Bret and Sheila the newspaper storm over her departure from the -theater, her elopement from success, was like the surf on the shut-out -sea. - -The Winfield influence had suppressed most of the newspaper comment in -the home papers, but the people of Blithevale read the metropolitan -journals, and Sheila’s name flared through those for many days. - -When the news element had been exhausted there were crumbs enough left -for several symposiums on the subject of “Stage Marriages,” “Actresses -as Wives,” “Actresses as Mothers,” “The Home _vs._ the Theater,” and all -the twists an ingenious press can give to a whimsy of public interest. - -Bret and Sheila suffered woefully from the appalling pandemonium their -secret wedding had raised, and Winfield began to be convinced that the -policy of the mailed fist, the blow and the word, had not brought him -dignity. But it had brought him his wife, and she was at home; and when -they could not escape the articles on “Why Actresses Go Back to the -Stage,” she laughed at the prophecies that she would return, as so many -others had done. - -“They haven’t all gone back,” she smiled. “And I am one of those who -never will, for I’ve found peace and bliss and contentment. I’ve found -my home.” - -They were relieved of all that had been unusual in their marriage, and -they shared and inspired the usual raptures, which were no less poignant -for being immemorially usual. This year’s June was the most beautiful -June that ever was, while it was the newest June. - -Their honeymoon was usual in being sublime. It was also usual in running -into frequent shoals and reefs. - -The first reef was Bret’s mother. Bret had always been amazed at the -professional jealousy of actors and their contests for the largest type -and the center of the stage. Suddenly he was himself the center of the -stage and his attention was the large type. He was dismayed to behold -with what immediate instinct his mother and his wife proceeded to take -mutual umbrage at each other’s interest in him, and to take astonishing -pain from his efforts to divide his heart into equal portions. - -Sheila recognized that poor Mrs. Winfield had a right to her son’s -support in a time of such grief, but she felt that she herself had a -right to some sort of honeymoon. And being a stranger in the town and -all, she had especial claim to consideration. - -Sheila told Bret one day: “Of course, honey, your mother is a perfect -dear and I don’t wonder you love her, but she’d like to poison me— Now -wait, dearie. Of course I don’t mean just that, but—well, she’s like an -understudy. An understudy doesn’t exactly want the star to break her -neck or anything, but if a train ran over her she’d bear up bravely.” - -Another reef was the factory. Of course Sheila expected her husband to -pay the proper attention to his business and she wanted him to be -ambitious, but she had not anticipated how little time was left in a day -after the necessary office hours, meal hours, and sleep hours were -deducted. - -She wrote her mother: - - Bret is an ideal husband and I’m ideally happy, of course, but - women off the stage are terrible loafers. They just sit in the - window and watch the procession go by. - - When I chucked Reben I said, “Thank Heaven, I don’t have to go - on playing that same old part for two or three years night after - night, matinée after matinée.” But that’s nothing to the record - of the household drama. This is the scene plot of my daily - performance: - - SCENE: Home of the Winfields. TIME: Yesterday, to-day, and - forever. - - ACT I. SCENE: Dining-room. Time: 8 A.M. Husband and wife at - breakfast. Soliloquy by wife while hubby reads paper and eats - eggs and says, “Yes, honey,” at intervals. - - Exit husband. CURTAIN. - - Five hours elapse. - - ACT II. SCENE: Same as ACT I. Luncheon on table. Husband enters - hurriedly, apologizes for coming home late and dashing away - early. Tells of trouble at factory. - - Exit hastily. CURTAIN. - - Five hours elapse. - - ACT III. SCENE: Same as ACT II. Dinner on table. Husband - discusses trouble at factory. Wife tells of troubles with - servants. Neither understands the other. CURTAIN. Two hours - elapse. - - ACT IV. SCENE: Living-room. Husband reads evening papers; wife - reads stupid magazines. Business of making love. Return to - reading-matter. Husband falls asleep in chair. CURTAIN. - - That’s the scenario, and the play has settled down for an - indefinite run at this house. - -Roger and Polly read the letter and shook their heads over it. Roger -sighed. - -“How long do you think it’s really booked for, Polly?” - -“Knowing Sheila—” Polly began, then shook her head. “Well, really I -don’t know. There are so many Sheilas, and I haven’t met the last three -or four of them.” - -For many months Sheila was royally entertained by what she called “the -merry villagers.” She was the audience and they the spectacle. She took -a childish delight in mimicking odd types, to Bret’s amusement and his -mother’s distress. She took a daughter-in-law’s delight in shocking her -mother-in-law by pretending to be shocked at the Blithevale vices. - -Hitherto Sheila had gone to church regularly next Sunday, but seldom -this. In Blithevale Mrs. Winfield compelled her to attend constantly. -Sheila took revenge by quoting all the preacher said about the -wickedness of his parishioners. - -When she heard of a divorce or a family wreck she would exclaim, “Why, I -thought that only actors and actresses were tied loose!” - -When she heard of one of those hideous scandals that all communities -endure now and then as a sort of measles she would make a face of -horror: “Why, I’ve always read that village life was ninety-nine and -forty-four one-hundredths pure.” - -When Bret would fume at the petty practices of business rivals, the -necessity for crushing down competition and infringement, the importance -of keeping the name at the top of the list, Sheila would smile, “And do -manufacturers have professional jealousy, too?” - -She soon realized, however, that her comedy was not getting across the -footlights as she meant it. - -Seen through the eyes of one who had been used to hard work, far travel, -and high salary, the business of being a wife as the average woman -conducted it was a farce to Sheila. - -That the average wife was truly a helpmeet appeared to her merely a -graceful gallantry of the husbands. As a matter of fact, as far as she -could see, the only help most of the men got from their wives was the -help of the spur and the lash. The women’s extravagances and discontent -compelled the husbands to double energy and increased achievement. - -Thus, while the village was watching with impatient suspicion the -behavior of this curious actress-creature who had settled there, the -actress-creature was learning the uglier truths about that most -persistently flattered of institutions, the American village. - -But after the failure of her first satires Sheila resolved to stop being -“catty,” and to dwell upon the sweeter and more wholesome elements of -life in Blithevale. She ceased to defend the theater by aspersing the -town. - -She said never a word, however, of any longing for a return to the -stage. Now and then an exclamation of interest over a bit of theatrical -news escaped her when she read the New York paper that had been coming -to the Winfield home for years. It arrived after Bret left for the -office, and he usually glanced at it during his luncheon. One noon -Bret’s eye was caught by head-lines on an inner page devoted largely to -dramatic news. The “triumph” of “The Woman Pays” was announced; it had -been produced in New York the night before. In spite of the handicap of -its Chicago success it had conquered Broadway. As sometimes happens, it -found the Manhattanites even more enthusiastic than the Westerners. - -Bret noted with a kind of resentment that Sheila was not mentioned as -the creator of the leading rôle. He hated to see that Dulcie Ormerod was -taken seriously by the big critics. He winced to read that Floyd Eldon -was a great find, a future star of the first magnitude. - -Winfield had once been wretched for fear that his kidnapping of Sheila -had ruined the chances of the play. Yet it was not entirely comfortable -to see that the play prospered so hugely without her. He had not been -entirely glad that Reben had returned his “I O U”; and he was not -entirely glad that Reben stood to make a greater profit than he had -estimated at first in spite of Sheila. It was a peculiarly galling -humiliation. - -Bret would have concealed the paper from Sheila, but he knew that she -had read it before he came home to luncheon. He had wondered what made -her so distraught. Now that he knew, he said nothing, but he could see -the torment in the back of her smiling eyes, the labored effort to be -casual and inconsequential. That Mona Lisa enigma haunted him at his -office, and he resolved to take her for a spin in the car. She would be -having a hard day, for ambitious fevers have their crises and relapses, -too. Bret wanted to help his wife over this bitter hour. - -When he came in unexpectedly he found her lying asleep on the big divan -in the living-room. The crumpled newspaper lay on the floor at her side. -She had been reading it again. Her lashes were wet with recent tears, -yet she was smiling in her sleep. As he bent to her lips moved. He -paused, an eavesdropper on her very dreams. And he made out the muffled, -disjointed words: - -“What can I say but, thank you—on behalf of the company—your -applause—I thank you.” - -She was taking a curtain call! - -Bret tiptoed away, wounded by her and for her. He struggled for -self-control a moment, telling himself that he was a fool to blame her -for her dreams. He knocked loudly on the door and called to her. She -woke with a start, stared, realized where she was and who he was, and -smiled upon him lovingly. She explained that she had been asleep and -“dreaming foolish dreams.” - -But when he asked what they were she shrugged her shoulders and laughed, -“I forget.” - - * * * * * - -Afterward Bret read that “The Woman Pays” had settled down for a long -run on Broadway. Sheila settled down also and attended to her knitting. -And knitting became a more and more important office. She was more and -more content to sit in an easy-chair and wait. - -Bret paused one day to pick up some of the curious doll-clothes. - -“I knat ’em myself,” said Sheila, with boundless pride. - -Bret, the business man, pondered the manufacturing cost. - -“You could buy the whole lot for ten dollars,” he said. “And they’ve -taken you a month to finish them. You’re not charging as much for your -time as you did.” - -“No,” she said, “I could buy ’em for less, and it would be still less -trouble to adopt a child to wear ’em; but it wouldn’t be quite the same, -would it?” - -He agreed that it would not. - - - - - CHAPTER XLIV - - -The most thrilling first night of Sheila’s life was her debut as a -mother. The doctor and the stork had a nip-and-tuck race. The young -gentleman weighed more than ten pounds. - -According to all the formulas of tradition, this epochal event should -have made a different woman of Sheila. The child should have filled her -life. According to actual history, Sheila was still Sheila, and her son, -while he brought great joys and great anxieties, rather added new -ambitions than satisfied the old. - -Bret senior did not change his business interests or give up his office -hours because of the child. Indeed, he was spurred on to greater effort -that he might leave his heir a larger fortune. - -The trained nurse, who received twenty-five dollars a week, and the -regular nurse, who received twenty-five dollars a month, knew infinitely -more about babies than Sheila. - -The elder Mrs. Winfield, with the best intention and the worst tact, -thought to make Sheila happy by telling her how happy she ought to be. -This is an ancient practice that has never been discarded, though it has -never yet succeeded. - -The elder Mrs. Winfield said, “It’s a splendid thing for baby that -you’ve given up the stage.” - -Sheila felt an implied attack on her own family, and she bristled -gently: “It’s fine for me, but I don’t think the baby would notice the -difference if I acted every night. My mother didn’t leave the stage, and -her mother and my father’s mother were hard-working actresses. And their -children certainly prospered. Besides, if I were out of the way, the -baby would have the advantage of its grandmother uninterrupted.” - -The new grandmother accepted the last statement as an obvious truth and -attacked the first. “You’re still thinking of going back, then?” - -“Not at all,” said Sheila. “I’ll never act again. I was just saying that -it wouldn’t harm the baby if I did. And,” she added, meekly, “it might -be the making of him to have me out of the way.” - -She said this with honest deprecation. She was troubled to find that she -had not become one of those mere mothers that are so universal in books. -She was horrified to discover that at times the baby lost its novelty, -that its tantrums tried her nerves. She did not know enough to know that -this was true of all mothers. She felt ashamed and afraid of herself. -She did not return to her normal glow of health so soon as she should -have done. She kept thin and wan. Cheerfulness was not in her, save when -she played it like a rôle. - -At length the doctor recommended a change of scene. Since it was not -quiet that she needed, he suggested diversion, a trip to the city. The -three Winfields made the journey—father, mother, and baby, not to -mention the nurse. - - * * * * * - -The quick pulse and exultant life of New York reacted upon Sheila. She -found the theaters a swift tonic, and, since “The Woman Pays” was now on -the road after a long season on Broadway, there was no danger of -choosing the wrong theater. She and Bret reveled in the plays with the -ingenuous gaiety of farmers in town. - -At this time, also, a monster “all-star” benefit was being extensively -advertised. A great fire had destroyed a large part of one of our highly -inflammable American cities, leaving thousands of people in such -distress that public charity was invoked. The actors, as usual the most -prompt of all classes to respond to any call upon their generosity, -organized a huge performance to be given at the Metropolitan Opera -House. - -Players, managers, scene-painters, and scene-shifters were emulous in -the service. Stars offered to scintillate in insignificant rôles. A -program lasting from one o’clock to six was speedily concocted. The -Opera House was not large enough for the demand. Boxes were sold by -eminent auctioneers at astonishing premiums. - -Bret took it into his head to assist. He paid two hundred dollars for a -box. - -Sheila left the baby with the nurse, put on a brand-new Paris frock, and -gulped an early luncheon that she might not miss a line. Bret saw with -mingled relief and dismay that she was as eager as a child going to her -first party. - -They read with awe the name-plate on the door of the box they had -rented; it was that of one of the war lords of American finance. - -The Opera House was seething with people. Bret and Sheila wedged their -way through a dense skirmish-line of prominent actresses selling -programs printed free with illustrations designed free. Bret had bought -five for ten dollars before Sheila restrained him. - -The bill was a reckless hash; everything was in it from a morsel of -tragedy to a bit of juggling and repartee. The vast planes of the -auditorium were crowded with people. The dean of the dramatists -announced from the stage that the receipts were over fifteen thousand -dollars and that a program autographed by every participant would be -auctioned later. - -Bret, in a mood of extravagance, determined to buy it for Sheila. It -would show that he was not ashamed of her past or afraid of her future. -During an intermission they promenaded the corridors thronged with -notables. Sheila bowed her head almost off and was greeted with an -effusiveness usually reserved for long-lost children. - -At length Sheila heard her name called, felt a hand plucking at her -elbow. She turned and faced Dulcie Ormerod, who gushed like a faucet: - -“How are you, Sheila dear? I haven’t seen you for ages. How well you -look! Isn’t this wonderful? Our play is in Trenton this week, so Mr. -Eldon and I just ran over to take in this show. And is this your -husband? Mayn’t I meet him?” - -Sheila made the presentation helplessly, and Dulcie gushed on: - -“I’ve been dying to see you. You remember Mr. Eldon, don’t you? Where is -that man? Oh, Floydie dear, here’s an old friend of yours.” - -To Sheila’s horror and Bret’s she turned and seized the elbow of a man -whose back was turned and whose existence they had not noted in the -thick crowd. Dulcie dragged Eldon about and swung him into his place at -her side. He confronted Sheila and Bret as by miracle. - - - - - CHAPTER XLV - - -Dulcie had plotted it all for her own personal entertainment. Like a mad -King of Bavaria she commanded the actors before her. She had caught -sight of Sheila, and she knew who Bret was from the descriptions of him. -She had a grudge against Sheila on general principles and another -against Eldon for not going mad over her. - -Eldon had received no answer to the note he sent Sheila denying his part -in the newspaper notoriety. This had rankled in his heart. Bret still -believed that the note was a lie and an effort to keep a hook on Sheila. -He loved Eldon less than ever. - -There was a longing for battle in both the big hearts, and each would -have been glad to beat the other down before the whole crowd; yet, -because of the crowd, neither could strike. - -Sheila guessed at once that Dulcie had planned it; the cat was -overacting her rôle of surprise and regret, as her little heart thrilled -to see the two men braced in scarlet confusion and Sheila fluttering -between them. - -Bret endured a year of compressed agony. The foolishness of resuming the -fight, the foolishness of not resuming it, the inextricable tangle of -contradictory duties and impulses, shattered him. Eldon was undergoing -the same return to chaos. - -Yet the crowd shoving past observed nothing and did not pause. Bret felt -Sheila’s hand clasp his arm both to protect and to be protected, and she -urged him on. Then he managed to bow with formality to Eldon and to -Dulcie. And so the great rencounter ended. Dulcie alone was made happy. - -Sheila could not let her get away with that baby stare. She smiled with -pretended amusement and said, “Thank you ever so much, Miss Ormerod.” - -“Thank me for what?” gasped Dulcie. But Sheila just twinkled her eyes -and smiled as she walked on. - -Her muscles were tired for half an hour with the effort that smile cost -them. - -She led Bret to the box, and he was shivering with the unsatisfied -emotions of a fighter for the battle missed. Sheila sank into a chair -exhausted. She looked about anxiously. The one thing needed to complete -the situation was for Eldon to walk into the next box and spend the rest -of the afternoon. They were spared this coincidence. - -Bret was in no mood to remain, but she kept him there. There would be -some distraction at least in the spectacle. If they went back to their -hotel they would have only their bitterness to chew upon. - -The auction of the autographed program began. There was excited bidding -from all parts of the house. But Bret kept silent. The program brought -five hundred dollars. Bret sneered at the price of the trash. - -A musical number came next. The orchestra struck up a tune that would -have set gravestones to jigging. A platoon of young men and women in -fantastic bravery was flung across the stage, singing and caracoling. A -famous buffoon waddled to the footlights and beamed like a new red moon -with its chin on the horizon. He was a master of the noble art of -tomfoolery and the high-school of horse-play. He probed into the -childhood core of every heart, and no grief could resist him. - -Sheila forgot to be dismal and tried to look solemn for Bret’s sake till -she saw that he was overpowered, too. He began to grin, to sniff, to -snort, to shake, to roll, to guffaw. He laughed till tears poured down -his cheeks. Sheila laughed in a dual joy. Everything solemn, ugly, -hateful, dignified, had become foolish and childish; and foolishness had -become the one great wisdom of the world. - -The jester always wins in a contest with the doldrums because philosophy -and honor present riddles that cannot be solved. The mystery of fun is -just as insoluble, but you laugh while you wait. - -Sheila watched the thousands of people rocking and roaring in a surf of -delight, and she watched her husband’s soul washed clean as a child’s -heart. It was a noble profession, this clownery; comedy was a -priesthood. - -Suddenly she saw Bret’s eyes, roving the hilarious multitude, pause and -harden. She followed the line of his gaze across the space and saw Eldon -in a box. He was laughing like a huge boy, putting back his head and -baying the moon with yelps of delight. - -She watched Bret anxiously and saw a kind of forgiveness softening his -glare. The contagion of laughter reinfected him and he laughed harder -than ever. If Eldon and he had met now they would have leaned on each -other to laugh. Music and buffoonery and grief are the universal -languages that everybody understands. - -The excerpt from the comic opera was succeeded by a little play, and now -the audience, shaken from its trenches by the artillery of laughter, was -helpless before the pathos. The handkerchiefs fluttered like little -white flags everywhere. Sheila saw through her tears that Bret was -swallowing hard; a tear rolled out on his cheek, and he was ashamed to -brush it off. It splashed on his finger and startled him. He looked at -Sheila, and she smiled at him with ineffable tenderness. He reached out -and took her hand. - -In that mood a swift understanding could have been reached with Eldon. -Sheila might almost have forgiven Dulcie. But they did not meet. As they -left the Opera House, pleasantly fatigued with the exercise of every -emotion, she felt immensely contented. - -But the inevitable reaction followed. In this wonderful work of the -stage, why was she idle? Why was she skulking at a distance when her -training, her gifts, her ambitions, called her to do her share—to make -people glad and sad and wise in sympathy? Why? Why? Why? - - * * * * * - -Two years later there was another baby—a daughter, its mother’s -exquisite miniature. There was some bad luck for Sheila on this -occasion, and the physician warned her against further child-bearing for -several years. She was not up and about so soon as before, and a vague -haze of melancholy settled about her. She took less interest in life. - -Her laughter was not half so frequent or so clear; her mischief of -satire was gone. She smiled on Bret more tenderly than ever, but it was -tenderness rather than amusement. She had nerve-storms and idled about -incessantly, and sometimes, with no apparent reason or warning, she -would sigh frantically, leap to her feet, and pace the floor or the -porch or the lawn aimlessly. When Bret anxiously asked her what was the -matter she would gaze at him with sorrowful eyes and that doleful effort -at a smile and say: - -“Nothing, honey; nothing at all.” - -“But you’re not happy?” - -“Yes, I am, dear. Why shouldn’t I be? I have everything: my lover for my -husband, my children, the home—everything.” - -“Everything,” he would groan, “except—” - -Then she would put her hands over his lips. - - - - - CHAPTER XLVI - - -Eugene Vickery’s sister Dorothy lived in Blithevale. Having lost her -first choice, Bret Winfield, to the scintillating Sheila, she had -sensibly accepted the devotion of his rival, Jim Greeley, who was now a -junior partner in the big chemical works where his father manufactured -drug staples. - -Dorothy had never forgotten the child Sheila, and the two women resumed -their acquaintance, their souls little changed, for all their bodily -evolution. They were still two little girls playing with dolls. They -were still utterly incomprehensible to each other, and the friendlier -for that fact. Dorothy found Sheila a trifle insane, but immensely -interesting, and Sheila found Dorothy stodgily Philistine, but -thoroughly reliable, as normal as a yardstick. - -Sheila gave to her two children all the adoration of a Madonna. They -were fascinating toys to her; though at times she tired of them. She -entertained them with all her talents, wasting on the infantile private -audience graces and gifts that the public would have paid thousands of -dollars to see. - -But the children tired of their expensive toy, too, and preferred a rag -doll or a little tin automobile that banged into chair legs and turned -over at the edge of a rug. - -Sheila had nursed her babies with an ecstatic pride. That was more than -many of the village women did. She had been amazed to learn how many -bottle-fed infants there were in town. Dorothy herself strongly -recommended one or two foods prepared in other factories than the -mother’s veins. - -Dorothy was not the mother one meets in romance, but very much like the -mothers next door and across the street—the ones the doctors know. Her -children drove her into storms of impatience and outbursts of temper. -Now and then she had to get away from them for half a day or for many -days. If she could not escape on a shopping prowl to some other city she -would send them off with the nurse under instructions to stay as long as -the light held out. She welcomed their visits to relatives, she -encouraged them to play in other people’s yards. Other mothers with -headaches urged their children to play in one another’s yards. Nobody -knew very well where they played or at what. - -Dorothy was a violent anti-suffragist and the head of the local league, -whose motto was that woman’s place is in the home. She was kept away -from home a good deal in the furtherance of this creed. - -Jim Greeley, the normal business man, spent his days at his desk, his -evenings at his club, and his free afternoons at baseball games. -Sometimes he added a little variety to the peace of his household by -rolling in late, lyrical and incoherent. - -There was a general impression about town that he found his home so well -ordered that he sought a recreative disorder elsewhere. From the first -meeting with him Sheila disliked the way he looked at her. His eyes, as -it were, crossed swords with hers playfully and said, “Do you fence?” -She found the compliments he murmured to her whenever opportunities -arrived uncomfortably unctuous. But there was nothing that she could -openly resent. - -In the summer all the wives of Blithevale whose husbands had the money -or could borrow it followed the national custom and went to the -seashore, the mountains, anywhere to get away from home and husband; -they took the children with them. The husbands stuck to their jobs and -made occasional dashes to their families. All signs fail in hot weather. -Even the churches close up. It is curious. It is even agreed that the -rule about woman’s place being the home does not hold in hot weather. - -Dorothy and Sheila and their youngsters went together one summer to a -beach with nearly as much boardwalk as sand. - -Sheila fretted about leaving Bret at his lonely grindstone. Dorothy -ridiculed her and told her she must get over her honeymoon. Dorothy -emphasized the importance of the sea air “for the children.” She -insisted that a mother’s first duty was to them. Dorothy paid little -enough heed to her own. She slept late, played cards, watched the -dancing, and changed her clothes with a chameleonic frequence. - -Sheila found that her children, like the rest, preferred the company of -fellow-children and the sea to any other attractions. Their mothers -bored them, hampered them, disgraced them. The children were -self-sufficient, and better so. By the early evening they had played -themselves into a comatose condition and never knew who took off their -shoes or put them to bed. The long evenings remained to the mothers and -they formed porch-colonies, and rocked and gabbled and stared through -the windows at the dancers. - -All over the country wives were enjoying their summer divorce. -Thousands, millions of wives deserted their husbands and loafed at great -cost, and it was all right. But for an actress to desert her husband and -work—that was all wrong! - -Sheila felt that her husband needed her more than her children did. She -pictured him distraught with longing for her. And he was—so far as his -business worries gave him time for sentimental worries. Sheila left the -children in charge of the governess and fled back to Bret, who was -enraptured at the sight of her and had an enormous amount of factory -news to tell her. - -The men-folk were working in spite of the summer, and glad to be -working. Bret was absorbed in his business and left Sheila all day to -sit in the darkened oven of the closed-up house, alone. - -She contrasted her life this summer with the summer she had played in -the stock company and toiled so hard to furnish amusement to the people -who could not get away to seashores or mountains. She wondered wherein -her present indolence was an improvement over her period of toil. - -Still she was glad to be where her husband could find her in the brief -_entr’actes_ of his commercial drama. She had learned enough of the -village to know that some of the men whose wives left them for the -summer found substitutes among the village belles who could not or would -not leave the old town. - -Sheila had heard a vast amount of gossip concerning Jim Greeley. She had -not repeated any of it to Dorothy, of course. It is not according to the -rules of the game and only very unpleasant persons do it. - -Bret knew of Jim’s repute, but did not forbid Jim his house. The village -was full of such scandals and it was dangerous to begin cutting and -snubbing. When the gossips whispered they made a terrifying picture of -village life, yet whenever the theater was mentioned they assumed an air -of Pharisaic superiority. - -As soon as Sheila hurried back to Blithevale Jim Greeley began to spoil -her evening communions with her husband by “just dropping round.” He -talked till Bret yawned him home. - -Still, Sheila was glad to keep Jim interested in respectable -conversation, for Dorothy’s sake. Sometimes when Bret had to go back to -his office, after dinner, and Jim was free, he just dropped round just -the same. - -On these occasions he seemed to be laboring under some excitement, full -of audacious impulses restrained by timidity. Sheila felt a nausea at -her suspicions; she was ashamed of them. - -One cruelly hot evening when Bret was at the factory and the only stir -of air eddied in a vine-covered corner of the big piazza she heard Jim -come up the walk. She did not speak, hoping that he would go away. But -he called her twice, and she had to answer. - -He invited himself to sit down, and after violently casual chatter began -to talk of his loneliness and her kindliness. She was his one salvation, -he said. - -In the dusk he was only a voice, a voice of longing and appeal, like a -disembodied Satan in a mood of desire. In the gloom she felt his hand -brush hers, then cling. She drew hers away. His followed. It was very -strange that two beings should conflict so tangibly, audibly, without -any other evidence of existence. - -Suddenly she knew that he was standing close to her, bending over her. -She pushed her chair back and rose. Unseen arms caught her to a ghost as -invisible and ineluctable as the wrestler with Jacob. - -Sheila was horrified. She blamed herself more than Jim. She hated -herself and humanity. “Don’t! please!” she pleaded in a whisper. She -dreaded to have the servants overhear such an encounter. Jim -misinterpreted her motive, clenched her tighter, and tried to find her -lips with his. - -“I thought you were Bret’s friend,” she protested as she hid her face -from him. - -“I like Bret,” Jim whispered in a frenzy, “but I love you. And I want -you to love me. You do! You must! Kiss me!” - -She tried to release the proved weapon of her elbow, but he held her by -the wrists till she wrenched her hand loose with great pain and gave him -her knuckles for a kiss. - -The shock to his self-esteem was more than to his mouth, and he let her -go. She rebuked him in guttural disgust: - -“I suppose you think that because I’m an actress you’ve got to be a -cad.” - -“No, no,” he mumbled. “It’s just because you are you, and because you -are so wonderful. Forgive me, won’t you?” - -Even as he asked for forgiveness his hand sought her arm again. She -slipped away and went into the starlight and sat on the steps. - -“You’d better go now,” she said, “and you’d better not come back.” - -“All right,” he sighed. - -In the silence she heard Bret’s car far away. “Sit down,” she said, “and -stay awhile. And smoke!” - -She had foreseen Bret arriving as Jim hurried away. She did not like the -way it would appear. If Bret’s suspicions were aroused he could not but -look uneasily on her, and once he suspected her she felt that she would -never forgive him. And it was altogether odious, too, to be included in -the list of women whose names were remembered when Jim Greeley’s was -mentioned. - -And so she conspired with a knave by lies and concealments to keep peace -in her husband’s home. Jim lighted a cigar and dropped down on the -steps, puffing with ostentation. - -Sheila looked out on the innocent seeming of the village and the gentle -benignity of the stars, and hated to think how much evil could cloak -itself and prosper in these deep shadows and soft lights and peaceful -hours. - -The car bustled to the curb, stopped while Bret got out. Then the -chauffeur shot away with it to the garage. Bret came drowsily up the -walk, kissed his wife, gripped the hand of his friend, and sat down. - -Jim asked how business was, and they talked shop with zest while Sheila -sat in utter solitude, watching the village Lothario play the rôle of -honest Horatio. - -Her husband had spent the day and half the evening at his business, and -yet it interested him more than Sheila did. He showed no impatience to -be rid of this man, no eagerness to be alone with his wife who had given -up all her own industry to be his companion. - -No instinct warned him that his absorption in his business was -imperiling his home, nor that his crony was a sneaking conspirator -against his happiness. - -Sheila was wildly excited, but she pretended to be sleepy and yawningly -begged to be excused. It was an hour later before Bret finished talking -and she heard him exchange cheery good nights with Jim Greeley. When -Bret arrived up-stairs she pretended to be asleep. Before long he was -asleep, worn out with honest toil, while she lay battling for the -slumber she had not earned. She was sleeping little and ill nowadays, -and she rose unrefreshed from unhappy nights to uninteresting days. The -effect on her health was growing manifest. - - - - - CHAPTER XLVII - - -The morning after the Jim Greeley adventure Sheila went back to her -children and the seaside. She had no energy and everything bored her. -The shock of the surf did not thrill her with new energy; it chilled and -weakened her. She found Dorothy all aflutter over the attentions of a -rich old widower who complimented her brutally. - -Dorothy called him her “conquest” and spoke of her “flirtation.” Sheila -knew that she used the words rather childishly than with any -significance, but her face betrayed a certain dismay. - -Dorothy bristled at the shadow of reproof. “Don’t look at me like that! -I guess if Jim can butterfly around the way he does I’m not going to -insult everybody that’s nice to me.” - -Sheila disclaimed any criticism, but the incident alarmed her. And she -thought of what Satan provided for idle hands. - -Civilization keeps robbing women of their ancient housework. Spinning, -weaving, grinding corn, making clothes, and twisting lamp-lighters are -gone. Their husbands do not want them to cook or sweep or wait upon -their own children. With the loss of their back-breaking, -heart-withering old tasks has come a longer life of beauty and desire -and a greater leisure for curiosity. They were unhappy and discontented -in their former servitude. They are unhappy and discontented in their -useless freedom. - -Sheila saw everywhere evidences that grown-ups, like children, must -either become sloths of indolence, or find occupation, or take up -mischief for a business. She wondered and dreaded what the future might -hold for herself. - -The summers were not quite so hard to get through, for they had usually -been periods of vacation for her. Sometimes she spent a month or two -with her father and mother, or they with her. Sometimes old Mrs. Vining -visited her and shamed her with the activity that kept the veteran -actress alert at seventy years. - -Sheila found a cynical amusement in pitting Mrs. Vining and Bret’s -mother against each other. They began always with great mutual -deference, but soon the vinegar of age began to render their comments -acidulous. Mrs. Winfield had grown old in the domestic world and the -church. Mrs. Vining had grown old in the wicked theater. Of course -Sheila was prejudiced, but to save her she could not discover wherein -Mrs. Winfield was the better of the two. She was certainly narrower, -crueler, more somber. Moreover, she was also less industrious, for to -Sheila the hallowed duties of the household were not industry at all, or -at best were the proper toil for servants. Mrs. Winfield seemed to her -to be a Penelope eternally reweaving each day the same dull pattern she -had woven the day before. - -When the autumn came her father and mother and Mrs. Vining and the other -theater folk emerged from their estivation and made ready for the year’s -work, while Sheila must return to the idleness of the village, or its -more insipid dissipations. - -Daughter-in-law and mother-in-law began to get on each other’s nerves. -Sheila could not forget the glory of the theater. Mrs. Winfield could -not outgrow her horror of it, and she could not refrain from nagging -allusions to its baleful influences. To Sheila it was a case of the -sooty pot eternally railing at the simmering kettle. - -One day Sheila was wrought to such a pitch of resentment that she -blurted out the whole story of her encounter with Jim Greeley. - -“He was no actor,” said Sheila, triumphantly, “but he tried to win his -friend’s wife away.” - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Winfield, “but his friend’s wife was an actress.” - -Against such logic Sheila saw that she would beat her head in vain. She -suppressed an inclination to tear her hair out and dance on it. And she -gave Mrs. Winfield up as hopeless. Mrs. Winfield had long before given -Sheila up as beyond redemption, and eventually she moved away from -Blithevale to live with a widowed sister in the Middle West. - -Sheila asked herself, bitterly, “What am I getting out of life? When one -trouble goes another bobs into its place.” By the time the mother-in-law -retired the children had grown up to a noisy, uncontrollable -restlessness that drove the office-weary Bret frantic. - -It was he, and not Sheila, that insisted on their occasional flights to -New York, where they made the rounds of the theaters. Sometimes Sheila -ran back on the stage to embrace her old friends and tell them how happy -she was. And they said they envied her, knowing they lied. - -They always asked her, “When are you coming back?” and when she always -answered, “Never,” they did not believe her. Yet they saw that -discontent was aging her. Discontent was never yet a fountain of youth. - - * * * * * - -Sheila returned to Blithevale like a caught convict. Plays came there -occasionally, and Bret liked to see them as an escape from the worries -he found at home or the worries that followed him from the office. He -enjoyed particularly the entertainments concocted with the much-abused -mission of furnishing relaxation for the tired business man. As if the -tired business man were not an important and pathetic figure, and his -refreshment one of the noblest and most needful acts of charity. - -At these times when Sheila sat and watched other people playing, and -often playing atrociously, the rôles that she should have played or -would have enjoyed, her homesickness for the boards swept over her in -waves of anguish. Sometimes the yearning to act goaded her so cruelly -that she almost swooned. She felt like a canary full of song with her -tongue cut out. - - * * * * * - -Now and then Eugene Vickery came to visit his sister Dorothy. He usually -spent a deal of time with Bret and Sheila. - -He was a different Eugene so far as success and failure can alter a man. -That play of his which Sheila had tried in stock and Reben had allowed -to lapse Eugene had patched up and sold to another manager who had a -star in tow. - -Play and star had been flayed with jubilant enthusiasm by the New York -critics, but had drawn enough of the public to keep them on Broadway -awhile, and then had succeeded substantially on the road in the cheaper -theaters known as the “dollar houses.” - -Vickery the scholar was both irritated and amused by the irony of his -success. Almost illiterate journalists called his wisdom trash and only -the less sophisticated people would accept it. His feelings were only -partly soothed by the dollar anodyne and the solace of regular -royalties. - -His manager ordered another play, and Vickery tried to write down to his -public. The result was a dismal fiasco, critically and box-officially. -The lesson was worth the price. He went back to writing for himself in -the belief that if he could succeed in the private theater of his own -heart he would be sure at least of one sympathetic auditor. That was one -more than the insincere writer could count on. - -His bookish tastes and training led him to a bookish ideal. He felt that -the highest dramatic art was in the blank-verse form, and he felt that -there was something nobler in the good old times of costumes and -rhetoric. In fact, blank verse demanded heroic garb, for when the words -strut the speakers must. His Americanism was revealed only in the fact -that he chose for his chief character a man struggling for liberty, for -the right of being himself. - -He selected the epic argosy of the Puritans and their battle for freedom -of worship. His central figure was a granite and velvet soul of the type -of Roger Williams. - -He told Sheila and Bret a little about his scheme and they thought it -wonderful. Bret found any literary creation incredibly ingenious, though -more brilliant mental processes applied to mechanical problems seemed -simple enough. - -Sheila thought Vickery’s plan wonderful because her heart swelled at the -lofty program of the plot. Blank verse had been her first religion and -Shakespeare her first Scripture. It was one of her bitterest regrets -that she had never paid the master the tribute of a performance of any -of his works since she adapted his “Hamlet” to the needs of her own -children’s theater. - -“Who’s going to play your hero?” Bret asked, idly. - -Vickery answered, “Well, I haven’t read it to him yet, but there’s only -one man in the country with the brains and the skill and the good -looks.” - -“And who might all that be?” Sheila asked, with a laugh. - -“Floyd Eldon.” - -The name seemed to drop into a well of silence. - -Vickery had forgotten for the moment the feud of the two men. The -silence recalled it to him. He spoke with vexation: - -“Good Lord, people! haven’t you got over that ancient trouble yet? When -a grudge gets more than so old the board of health ought to cart it -away. Eldon’s got over it, I know. A year or two ago he was telling me -how kindly he felt toward Sheila and how he didn’t really blame Bret.” - -Bret was not at all obliged for Eldon’s magnanimity, but Vickery went on -singing Eldon’s praises till he noticed the profound silence of his -auditors. He suddenly felt as if he had been speaking in an empty room. -He saw that Bret was sullen and Sheila uneasy. Vickery spread the praise -a little thicker in sheer vexation. - -“Reben is going to star Eldon the minute he finds his play. I’m hoping I -can fit him with this. He’s on the way up and I want to ride up on his -coat-tails. He’s a gentleman, a scholar, an athlete—” - -“But, after all, he’s an actor,” sniffed Bret. - -“So was Shakespeare, the noblest mind in English literature.” - -“I don’t care for the type,” said Bret. “Always posing, always talking -about themselves.” - -“Thanks, dear,” said Sheila, flushing. - -“Oh, I don’t mean you, honey,” Bret expostulated. “That’s why I loved -you—you almost never talk about yourself. You’re everything that’s -fine.” - -Vickery tried to restore the conversation to safer generalities. “Actors -talk about their personality sometimes because that is what they are -putting on the market. But did you ever hear traveling-men talk about -their line of goods? or clergymen about the church? or manufacturers -about what they are making? Do you ever talk shop yourself?” - -“Oh no!” Sheila laughed ironically, and now Bret flushed. - -“Shop talk is merely a question of manners,” said Vickery. “Some people -know enough not to talk about themselves, and some don’t. There are lots -of old women that will talk you to death about their cooks and their -aches. I’m one of those who jaw about themselves all the time. It’s not -because I’m conceited, for the Lord knows I have too much reason for -modesty. It’s just a habit. Eldon hasn’t got it. He’ll talk about a -rôle, or about an audience, but you’ll never hear him praise himself. -And there are plenty of actors like him.” - -Bret grunted his disbelief. - -“You don’t know enough of them to be a judge,” Vickery insisted. - -“No, and I don’t want to,” Bret growled. “I prefer good, honest, -wholesome, normal, real men—men like Jim Greeley and other friends of -mine.” - -A little shiver passed through Sheila. Bret felt it, and assumed that -she was distressed at hearing Eldon’s name taken in vain. Vickery was -not impressed with the choice of his brother-in-law as an ideal. Dorothy -had told him too much about Jim. He did not suspect, however, that -Sheila had cause to loathe him. He continued to talk his own shop, and -to praise Eldon, to celebrate his progress, his increasing science in -the dynamics of theatricism. - -“He’s becoming a great comedian,” he said. “And comedy requires brains. -Pathos and tragedy are more or less matters of emotion and temperament, -but comedy is a science.” - -As Vickery chanted Eldon up, Sheila’s eyes began to glow again. Bret -fumed with jealousy, imputing that glow of hers to enthusiasm for Eldon. - -The fact was that she was thinking of Eldon without a trace of -affection. She was thinking of him as a successful competitor, as a -beginner who was forging ahead and growing expert, growing famous while -she had fallen out of the race. - -She was more jealous of Eldon than Bret was. - - - - - CHAPTER XLVIII - - -Sheila suffered the very same feeling to a more sickening degree, a -little later, when “The Woman Pays” company, now in its fourth year, -reached Blithevale in cleaning up the lesser one-night stands. The play -that Sheila had rejected had become the corner-stone of Reben’s -fortunes. It was as inartistic and plebeian and reminiscent as apple -pie. But the public loves apple pie and consumes tons of it, to the -great neglect of _marrons glacés_. - -That play was a commodity for which there is always a market. A great -artist could adorn it, but it was almost actor-proof against -destruction. - -Even Dulcie Ormerod could not spoil it for its public. When she played -it Batterson gnashed his teeth and Reben held his aching head, but there -were enough injudicious persons left to make up eight good audiences a -week. - -Dulcie “killed her laughs” by fidgeting or by reading humorously or by -laughing herself. She lost the audience’s tears by the copiousness of -her own. But she loved the play and still “knew she was great because -she wept herself.” When she laughed she showed teeth that speedily -earned a place in the advertisement of dentifrice, and when she wept, a -certain sort of audience was overawed by the sight of a genuine tear. -Real water has always been impressive on the stage. - -By sheer force of longevity the play slid her up among the prominent -women of the day. She stuck to the rôle for four years, and was -beginning to hope to rival the records of Joseph Jefferson, Denman -Thompson, Maggie Mitchell, and Lotta. - -The night the company played in Blithevale Bret and Eugene, Sheila, -Dorothy and her Jim, made up a box-party. - -Jim proclaimed that Dulcie was a “peach,” but he alluded less to the art -she did not possess than to the charms she had. She was pretty, there -was no question of that—as shapely and characterless as a Bouguereau -painting, as coarsely sweet as granulated sugar. Dorothy credited her -with all the winsome qualities of the character she assumed, and took a -keen dislike to the actress who played the adventuress, an estimable -woman and a genuine artist whose oxfords Dulcie was not fit to untie. - -Eugene and Sheila suffered from Dulcie’s utter falsehood of -impersonation. Even Bret felt some mysterious gulf between Dulcie’s -interpretation and Sheila’s as he remembered it. - -Sheila was afraid to speak her opinion of Dulcie lest it seem mere -jealousy. Eugene voiced it for her. - -“To think that such a heifer is a star! Getting rich and getting -admiration,” he growled, “while a genius like Sheila rusts in idleness. -It’s a crime.” - -“It’s all my fault,” said Bret. “I cut her out of it.” - -“Don’t you believe it, honey,” Sheila cooed. “I’d rather be starring in -your home than earning a million dollars before the public.” - -But somehow there was a clank of false rhetoric in the speech. It was -lover’s extravagance, and even Bret felt that it could not quite be -true, or that, if it were true, somehow it ought not to be. - -He felt himself a dog in the manger, yet he was glad that Sheila was not -up there with some actor’s arms about her. - - * * * * * - -After the third act Dulcie sent the company-manager—still Mr. -McNish—to invite Mrs. Winfield to come back at the end of the play. - -Sheila had hoped to escape this test of her nerves, but there was no -escape. She felt that if Dulcie were haughty over her success she would -hate her, and if she were not haughty and tried to be gracious she would -hate her more. - -Dulcie assumed the latter rôle and played it badly. She condescended as -from a great height, patronized like a society patroness. Worse yet, she -pawed Sheila and called her “Sheila” and “dearie” and congratulated her -on having such a nice quiet life in such a dear little village, while -“poor me” had to play forty weeks a year. Sheila wanted to scratch her -big doll-eyes out. - -On the way home Bret confessed that it rather hurt him to see a “dub -like Dulcie rattling round in Sheila’s shoes.” The metaphor was meant -better than it came out, but Sheila was not thinking of that when she -groaned: “Don’t speak of it.” - -Bret invited Vickery to stop in for a bit of supper and Vickery -accepted, to Bret’s regret. Sheila excused herself from lingering and -left Bret to smoke out Vickery, who was in a midnight mood of garrulity. -The playwright watched Sheila trudge wearily up the staircase, worn out -with lack of work. He turned on Bret and growled: - -“Bret, there goes the pitifulest case of frustrated genius I ever saw. -It’s a sin to chain a great artist like that to a baby-carriage.” - -Bret turned scarlet at the insolence of this, but Vickery was too feeble -to be knocked down. He was leaner than ever, and his eyes were like wet -buckeyes. His speech was punctuated with coughs. As he put it, he -“coughed commas.” Also he coughed cigarette-smoke usually. His friends -blamed his cough to his cigarettes, but they knew better, and so did he. - -He was in a hurry to do some big work before he was coughed out. It -infuriated him to feel genius within himself and have so little strength -or time for its expression. It enraged him to see another genius with -health and every advantage kept from publication by a husband’s -selfishness. - -He was in one of his irascible spells to-night and he had no mercy on -Bret. He spoke with the fretful tyranny of an invalid. - -“It’s none of my business, I suppose, Bret, but I tell you it makes me -sick—sick! to see Sheila cooped up in this little town. New York would -go wild over her—yes, and London, too. There’s an awful dearth on the -stage of young women with beauty and training. She could have everything -her own way. She’s a peculiarly brilliant artist who never had her -chance. If she had reached her height and quit—fine! But she was -snuffed out just as she was beginning to glow. It was like lighting a -lamp and blowing it out the minute the flame begins to climb on the -wick. - -“Dulcie Ormerod and hundreds of her sort are buzzing away like cheap -gas-jets while a Sheila Kemble is here. She could be making thousands of -people happy, softening their hearts, teaching them sympathy and charm -and breadth of outlook; and she’s teaching children not to rub their -porridge-plates in their hair! - -“Thousands used to listen to every syllable of hers and forget their -troubles. Now she listens to your factory troubles. She listens to the -squabbles of a couple of nice little kids who would rather be outdoors -playing with other kids all day, as they ought to be. - -“It’s like taking a lighthouse and turning the lens away from the sea -into the cabbage-patch of the keeper.” - -“Go right on,” Bret said, with labored restraint. “Don’t mind me. I’m -old-fashioned. I believe that a good home with a loving husband and some -nice kids is good enough for a good woman. I believe that such a life is -a success. Where should a wife be but at home?” - -“That depends on the wife, Bret. Most wives belong at home, yes. Most -men belong at home, too. They are born farmers and shoemakers and -school-teachers and chemists and inventors, and all glory to them for -staying there. But where did Christopher Columbus belong? Where would -you be if he had stayed at home?” - -“But Sheila isn’t a man!” - -“Well, then, did Florence Nightingale belong at home? or Joan of Arc?” - -“Oh, well, nurses and patriots and people like that!” - -“What about Jenny Lind and Patti?” - -“They were singers.” - -“And Sheila is a singer, only in unaccompanied recitative. Actors are -nurses and doctors, too; they take people who are sick of their hard -day’s work and they cure ’em up, give ’em a change of climate.” - -“Home was good enough for our mothers,” Bret grumbled, sinking back -obstinately in his chair. - -“Oh no, it wasn’t.” - -“They were contented.” - -“Contented! hah! that’s a word we use for other people’s patience. -Old-fashioned women were not contented. We say they were because other -people’s sorrows don’t bother us, especially when they are dead. But -they mattered then to them. If you ever read the newspapers of those -days, or the letters, or the novels, or the plays, you’ll find that -people were not contented in the past at any time. - -“People used to say that laborers were contented to be treated like -cattle. But they weren’t, and since they learned how to lift their heads -they’ve demanded more and more.” - -Bret had been having a prolonged wrestle with a labor-union. He snarled: -“Don’t you quote the laboring-men to me. There’s no satisfying them!” - -“And it’s for the good of the world that they should demand more. It’s -for the good of the world that everybody should be doing his best, and -getting all there is in it and out of it and wanting more.” - -“Is nobody to stay at home?” - -“Of course! There’s my sister Dorothy—nicest girl in the world, but not -temperamental enough to make a flea wink. She’s got sense enough to know -it. You couldn’t drive her on the stage. Why the devil didn’t you marry -her? Then you both could have stayed at home. You belong at home because -you’re a manufacturer. I should stay at home because I’m a writer. But a -postman oughtn’t to stay at home, or a ship-captain, or a fireman.” - -Bret attempted a mild sarcasm: “So all the women ought to leave home and -go on the stage, eh?” - -Vickery threw up his hands. “God forbid! I think that nine-tenths of the -actresses ought to leave the stage and go home. Too many of them are -there because there was nowhere else to go or they drifted in by -accident. Nice, stupid, fatheads who would be the makings of a farm or -an orphan-asylum are trying to interpret complicated rôles. Dulcie -Ormerod ought to be waiting on a lunch-counter, sassing brakemen and -brightening the lot of the traveling-men. But women like Mrs. Siddons -and Ellen Terry, Bernhardt and Duse and Charlotte Cushman and Marlowe -and any number of others, including Mrs. Bret Winfield, ought to be -traveling the country like missionaries of art and culture and -morality.” - -“Morality!” Bret roared. “The stage is no place for a good woman, and -you know it.” - -“Oh, bosh! In the first place, what is a good woman?” - -“A woman who is virtuous and honorable and industrious and—Well, you -know what ‘good’ means as well as I do.” - -“I know a lot better than you do, you old mud-turtle. There are plenty -of good women on the stage. And there are plenty of bad ones off. There -are more Commandments than one, and more than one way for a woman to be -bad. There are plenty of wives here in Blithevale whose physical -fidelity you could never question, though they’re simply wallowing in -other sins. You know lots of wives that you can’t say a word against -except that they are loafers, money-wasters, naggers of children, -torturers of husbands, scourges of neighbors, enemies of everything -worth while—otherwise they are all right. - -“They neglect their little ones’ minds; never teach them a lofty ideal; -just teach them hatred and lying and selfishness and snobbery and spite -and conceit. They make religion a cloak for backbiting and false -witness. And they’re called good women. I tell you it’s an outrage on -the word ‘good.’ ‘Good’ is a great word. It ought to be used for -something besides ‘the opposite of sensual’!” - -“All right,” Bret agreed, “use it any way you want to. You’ll admit, I -suppose, that a good woman ought to perpetuate her goodness. A good -woman ought to have children.” - -“Yes, if she can.” - -“And take care of them and sacrifice herself for them.” - -“Why sacrifice herself?” - -“So that the race may progress.” - -“How is it going to progress if you sacrifice the best fruits of it? -Suppose the mother is a genius of the highest type, a beautiful-bodied, -brilliant-minded, wholesome genius. Why should she be sacrificed to her -children? They can’t be any greater than she is. Since genius isn’t -inherited or taught, they’ll undoubtedly be inferior. And at that they -may die before they grow up. Why kill a sure thing for a doubtful one?” - -“You don’t believe in the old-fashioned woman.” - -“She’s still as much in fashion as she ever was. The old-fashionedest -woman on record was Eve. She meddled and got her husband fired out of -Paradise. And she never had any stage ambitions or asked for a vote or -wore Paris clothes, but she wasn’t much of a success as a wife; and as a -mother all we know of her home influence was that one of her sons killed -the other and got driven into the wilderness. You can’t do much worse -than that. Even if Eve had been an actress and gone on the road, her -record couldn’t have been much worse, could it?” - -Bret was boxing heavily and sleepily with a contemptuous patience. “You -think women ought to be allowed to go gadding about wherever they -please?” - -“Of course I do! What’s the good of virtue that is due to being in jail? -We know that men are more honest, more decent, more idealistic, more -romantic, than women. Why? Because we have liberty. Because we have -ourselves to blame for our rottenness. Because we’ve got nobody to hide -behind. The reason so many women are such liars and gossips and so -merciless to one another is because they are so penned in, because all -the different kinds of women are expected to live just the same way -after they are married. But some of them are bad mothers because they -have no outlet for their genius. Some of them would be better wives if -they had more liberty.” - -Bret was entirely unconvinced. “You’re not trying to tell me that the -stage is better than the average village?” - -“No, but I think it’s as good. There will never be any lack of sin. But -the sin that goes on in harems and jails and hide-bound communities is -worse than the sin of free people busily at work in the splendid fields -of art and science and literature and drama and commerce. - -“I think Sheila belongs to the public. I don’t see why she couldn’t be a -better wife and a better mother for being an eminent artist. And I like -you, Bret, so much. You’re as decent a fellow at heart as anybody I -know. I hate to have it you, of all men, that’s crushing Sheila’s soul -out of her. I hate to think that I introduced you to her. And I let you -cut me out. - -“She wouldn’t have loved me if she’d married me, but, by the Lord Harry! -her name would be a household word in all the homes in the country -instead of just one.” - -Vickery dropped to a divan and lay outstretched, exhausted with his -oration. Bret sat with his lips pursed and his fingers gabled in long -meditation. At length he spoke: - -“I’m not such a brute as you think, ’Gene. I don’t want to sacrifice -anybody to myself, least of all the woman I idolize. If Sheila wants to -leave me and go back, I’ll not hinder her. I couldn’t if I wanted to. -There’s no law that enables a man to get out an injunction against his -wife going on the stage. If she wants to go, why doesn’t she?” - -Vickery sat up on the couch and snapped: “Because she loves you, damn -it! I’m madder at her than I am at you.” Then he fell back again, -puffing his cigarette spitefully. - -Bret smoked slowly at a long cigar. He was thinking long thoughts. - -A little later Vickery spoke again: “Besides, Sheila won’t say she wants -to go back, for fear it would hurt your feelings.” - -Bret took this very seriously. “You think so?” - -“I know so.” - -Bret smoked his cigar to ash, then he rose with effort and solemnity, -went to the door, and called, “Oh, Sheila!”? - -From somewhere in the clouds came her voice—the beautiful Sheila voice, -“Yes, dear.” - -“Come to the stairs a minute, will you?” - -“Yes, dear.” - -Vickery had risen wonderingly. He could not see Sheila’s nightcapped -head as she looked over the balustrade. He did not know that Sheila had -been listening to his eulogy of her and agreeing passionately with his -regrets at her idleness. - -“’Gene here,” said Bret, “has been roasting me for keeping you off the -stage. I want him to hear me tell you that I’m not keeping you off the -stage. Do you want to go on the stage, Sheila?” - -Sheila’s voice was housewifely and matter-of-fact. “Of course not. I -want to go to bed. And it’s time ’Gene was in his. Send him home.” - -She heard Bret cry, “You see!” and heard his triumphant laughter as he -clapped Vickery on the shoulder. Then she went to her room and locked -herself in. The click of the bolt had the sound of a jailer’s key. She -was a prisoner in a cell, in a solitary confinement, since her husband’s -soul was leagues away from any sympathy with hers. She paced the floor -like a caged panther, and when the sobs came she fell on her knees and -silenced them in her pillow lest Bret hear her. She had made her -renunciation and plighted her troth. She would keep faith with her lover -though she felt that it was killing her. Her soul was dying of -starvation. - - - - - CHAPTER XLIX - - -Vickery went to his sister’s house and sat up all night, working on his -play for Eldon. For months he toiled and moiled upon it. Sometimes he -would write all day and all night upon a scene, and work himself up into -a state of what he called soul-sweat. - -He would go to bed patting himself on the shoulder and talking to -himself as if he were a draught-horse and a Pegasus combined: “Good boy, -’Gene! Good work, old Genius!” - -In the morning he would wake feeling all the after-effects of a -prolonged carouse. He would reach for a cigarette and review with -contempt all he had previously done. No critic could have reviled his -work with less sympathy. - -“By night I write plays and by day I write criticisms,” he would say. - -Lazily he would cough himself out of bed, cough through his tub and into -his clothes, and go to his table like a surly butcher to carve his play -with long slashes of the blue pencil. - -At length he had it as nearly finished as any play is likely to be -before it has been read. He went to New York, where Eldon was playing, -and easily persuaded him to listen to the drama. Vickery would not -explain the story of the play beforehand. - -“I want you to get it the way the audience does.” - -He marched his buskined blank verse with the elocution of a poet and all -the sonority his raucous voice could lend him. He was shocked to note -that Eldon was not helping him along with enthusiasm. His voice wavered, -faltered, sank. He was hardly audible at the climax of his big third -act. - -Here the Puritan hero, who had left the Old World for the New World and -liberty, discovered that the other Puritans wanted liberty only for -themselves, and so abhorred his principles of toleration that they -exiled him into the wilderness, mercilessly expecting him to perish in -the blizzards or at the hands of the Indians. The hero, like another -Roger Williams, turned and denounced them, then vowed to found a state -where a man could call his soul his own, and plunged into the storm. - -Vickery closed the manuscript and gulped down a glass of water. He had -not looked at Eldon for two acts; he did not look at him now. He simply -growled, “Sorry it bored you so.” - -“It doesn’t bore me!” Eldon protested. “It’s magnificent—” - -“But—” Vickery prompted. - -“But nothing. Only—well—you see you said it was a play for me, and -I—I’ve been trying to like it for myself. But—well, it’s too good for -me. I feel like a man who ordered a suit of overalls and finds that the -tailor has brought him an ermine robe and velvet breeches. It’s too -gorgeous for me.” - -“Nonsense!” said Vickery. “You don’t have to softsoap me. Why don’t you -like it?” - -“I do! As a work of art it is a masterpiece. The fault is mine. You see, -I admire the classic blank-verse plays so much that I wish people -wouldn’t try to write any more of them. They’re not in the spirit of our -age. In Shakespeare’s time men wore long curls and combed them in -public, and tied love-knots in them and wrote madigrals and picked their -teeth artistically with a golden picktooth. The best of them cried like -babies when their feelings were hurt. - -“Nowadays we’d lynch a man that behaved as they did. Then they tried to -use the most eloquent words. Now we try to use the simplest or, better -yet, none at all. I think that our way is bigger than theirs, but, -anyway, it’s our way. - -“And then the Puritans. I admire them in spots. My people came over in -one of the early boats. But plays about Puritans never succeed. Do you -know why? It’s because the Puritans preached the gospel of Don’t! -Everything was Don’t—don’t dance, don’t sing, don’t kiss, don’t have -fun, don’t wear bright colors, don’t go to plays, don’t have a good -time. But the theater is the place where people go to have a good time, -a good laugh, a good cry, or a good scare. The whole soul of the theater -is to reconcile people with life and with one another. - -“The Puritans call the theater immoral. It is so blamed moral that it is -untrue to life half the time, for wickedness always has to be punished -in the theater, and we know it isn’t in real life. - -“And another thing, Vick, why should the theater do anything for the -Puritans? They never did anything for us except to tear down the -playhouses and call the actors hard names. And what good came of it all? - -“Here’s a book I picked up about the Puritans, because it has a lot -about my ancestors. They had a daughter named Remember and a son named -Wrastle. But look at this.” Eldon got up, found the volume, and hunted -for the page, as he raged: “Now the Puritans in our country had none of -the alleged causes of immorality—they had no novels, no plays, no grand -or comic operas, no nude art, no vaudeville, no tango, and no moving -pictures. They ought to have been pretty good, eh? Well, take a peek at -what their Governor William Bradford writes.” - -He handed the book to Vickery, whose eyes roved along the page: - - Anno Dom: 1642. Marvilous it may be to see and consider how some - kind of wickednes did grow breake forth here, in a land wher the - same was so much witnesed against, and so narrowly looked unto, - & severly punished when it was knowne; as in no place more, and - so much, that I have known or head of . . . . . espetially - drunkennes and unclainnes; not only incontinencie betweene - persons unmaried, for which many both men & women have been - punished sharply enough, but some maried persons allso. . . - things fearful to name have broak forth in this land, oftener - then once . . . one reason may be, that ye Divell may carrie a - greater spite against the churches of Christ and ye gospell - hear, by how much ye more they endeavor to preserve holynes and - puritie amongst them . . . that he might cast a blemishe & - staine upon them in ye eyes of ye world, who use to be rashe in - judgmente. - -Vickery smiled sheepishly, and Eldon relieved him of the book, -exclaiming: - -“Think of it, those terribly protected people were so bad they could -only explain it by saying that Satan worked overtime! There is one of -the most hideous stories in here ever published and you can find facts -that make _The Scarlet Letter_ look innocent.” - -Vickery protested, mildly: “Of course the Puritans were human and -intolerant. That’s the whole point of my play, the struggle of a man -against them.” - -Eldon opposed him still. “But why should we worry over that? The -Puritans have been pretty well whipped out. Liberty is pretty well -secured for men in America. Why try to excite an audience about what -they all are as used to as the air they breathe? Let Russia write about -such things. Why not write a play about the exciting things of our own -days? If you want liberty for a theme, why don’t you write about the -fight the women are waging for freedom? Turn your hero into a heroine; -turn your Puritans into conservative men and women of the day who stand -just where they did. Show up the modern home as this book shows up the -old Puritans.” - -Vickery was dazed. Of all the critical suggestions he had ever heard, -this was the most radical, to change the hero to a heroine, and _vice -versa_. - -He stared at Eldon. “Are you in favor of woman suffrage, you, of all -men?” - -Eldon laughed. “You might as well ask me if I am in favor of the coming -winter or the hot spell or the next earthquake. All I know is that my -opposition wouldn’t make the slightest difference to them and that I -might as well reconcile myself to them. - -“There’s nothing on this earth except death and the taxes that’s surer -to come than the equality of women—in the sense of equality that men -mean. The first place where women had a chance was the stage; it’s the -only place now where they are put on the same footing with the men. They -have every advantage that men have, and earn as much money, or more, and -have just as many privileges, or more. The one question asked is, ‘Can -you deliver the goods?’ That’s the question they ask of a business man, -or painter, or sculptor, or architect, or soldier. Private morals are an -important question, but a separate question, just as they are with men. - -“So the stage is the right place for freedom to be preached by women, -because that is the place where it is practised. The stage ought to lend -its hand to free others because it is free itself.” - -Vickery was beginning to kindle with the new idea, though his kindling -meant the destruction of the building he had worked on so hard. He made -one further objection: “You’re not seriously urging me to write a -suffragette play, are you?” - -“Lord help us, no!” Eldon snorted. “The suffragette is less entertaining -on the stage than the Puritan, or the abolitionist, or any fighter for a -doctrine. What the stage wants is the story of individuals, not of -parties, or sects, or creeds. Leave sermons to the pulpits and lectures -to the platform. The stage wants stories. If you can sneak in a bit of -doctrine, all right, but it must be smuggled. Why don’t you write a play -about the tragedy of a woman who has great gifts and can’t use them—a -throttled genius like—well, like Sheila Kemble, for instance?” - -“Oh, Sheila!” Vickery sighed. But the theme became personal, concrete, -real at once. He made still a last weak objection: “But I wrote this -play for you. I wanted to see you star in it.” - -Eldon thought a moment, then he said: “You write the play for the woman, -and let me play her husband. Give her all the fire you want, and make me -just an every-day man with a wife he loves and admires and wants to -keep, and doesn’t want to destroy. You do that and I’ll play the husband -and I’ll give the woman star the fight of her life to keep me from -running away with the piece. Don’t make the husband brilliant or heroic; -just a stupid, stubborn, every-day man, and give him the worst of it -everywhere. That all helps the actor. The woman will be divine, the man -will be human. And he’ll get the audience—the women as well as the -men.” - -Vickery began to see the play forming on the interior sky of his skull, -vaguely yet vividly as clouds take shape and gleam. “If only Sheila -could play it,” he said. - -Eldon tossed his hands in despair. - -Vickery began to babble as the plot spilled down into his brain in a -cloudburst of ideas: “I might take Sheila for my theme. To disguise her -decently she could be—say—Let me see—I’ve got it!—a singer! Her -voice has thrilled Covent Garden and the Metropolitan and she marries a -nice man and has some children and sings ’em little cradle-songs. She -loves them and she loves her husband, but she is bursting with bigger -song—wild, glorious song. Shall she stick to the nursery or shall she -leave her babies every now and then and give the world a chance to hear -her? Her mother-in-law and the neighbors say, ‘The opera is immoral, the -singers are immoral, the librettos are immoral, the managers are -immoral; you stay in the nursery, except on Sundays, and then you may -sing in the choir.’ - -“But she remembers when she sang the death-love of Isolde in the -Metropolitan with an orchestra of a hundred trying in vain to drown her; -she remembers how she climbed and climbed till she was in heaven, and -how she took five thousand people there with her, and—Oh, you can see -it! It’s Trilby without Svengali; it’s Trilby as a mother and a wife. -It’s all womankind.” - -His thoughts were stampeded with the new excitement. He picked up the -play he had loved so well and worked for so hard, and would have tossed -it into the fire if Eldon’s room had not been heated by a -steam-radiator. He flung it on the floor with contempt: - -“That!” and he trampled it as the critics would have trampled it had it -been laid at their feet. - -“What to call my play?” he pondered, aloud. “It’s always easier for me -to write the play than select the name.” As he screwed up his face in -thought a memory came to him. “My mother told me once that when she was -a little girl in the West her father wounded a wild swan and brought it -home. She cared for it till it got well, then he clipped one of its -wings so that it could not balance itself to fly. It grew tame and -stayed about the garden, but it was always trying to fly. - -“One day my grandfather noticed that the clipped wing was growing out -and he sent a farm-hand to trim it down again. The fellow didn’t -understand how birds fly, and he clipped the long wing down to the -length of the short one. The bird walked about, trying its pinions. It -found that, short as they were, they balanced each other. - -“She walked to a high place and suddenly leaped off into the air; my -mother saw her and thought she would fall. But her wings held her up. -They beat the air and she sailed away.” - -“Did she ever come back?” Eldon asked. - -“She never came back. But she was a bird and didn’t belong in a garden. -A woman would come back. We used to have pigeons at home. We clipped -their wings at first, too, till they learned the cote. Then we let them -free. You could see them circling about in the sky. Pigeons come back. -I’m going to call my play ‘Clipped Wings.’ How’s that for a -title?—‘Clipped Wings’!” - -Eldon was growing incandescent, too, but he advised caution: - -“Be easy on the allegory, boy, or you’ll have only allegorical -audiences. Stick to the real and the real people will come to see it. Go -on and write it, and don’t forget I play the husband; I saw him first. -Don’t write a lecture, now; promise me you won’t preach or generalize. -You stick to your story of those two people, and let the audience -generalize on the way home. And don’t let your dialogue sparkle too -much. Every-day people don’t talk epigrams. Give them every-day talk. -That’s as great and twice as difficult as blank verse. - -“Don’t try to sweeten the husband. Let him roar like a bull, and -everybody will understand and forgive him. I tell you the new wife has -it all her own way. She’s venturing out into new fields. The new husband -is the one I’m sorry for. - -“I hate Winfield for taking Sheila off the stage, and I hate him for -keeping her away. But if I were in his place I’d do the same. I’d hate -myself, but I’d keep her. The more you think of it, the harder the -husband job is. - -“The new husband of the new woman is up against the biggest problem of -the present time and of the future: what are husbands going to do about -their wives’ ambitions? What are wives going to do about their husbands’ -rights to a home? Where do the children come in? It doesn’t do the kids -much good to have ’em brought up in a home of discontent by a -broken-hearted mother raising her daughter to go through the same -tragedy. But they ought to have a chance. - -“There’s a new triangle in the drama. It’s not a question of a lover -outside; the third member is the wife’s ambition. Go to it, my boy—and -give us the story.” - -Vickery stumbled from the room like a sleep-walker. The whole play was -present in his brain, as a cathedral in the imagination of an architect. - -When he came to drawing the details of the cathedral, and figuring out -the ground-plan, stresses, and strains, the roof supports, the flying -buttresses, the cost of material, and all the infernally irreconcilable -details—that was quite another thing yet. - -But he plunged into it as into a brier-patch and floundered about with a -desperate enthusiasm. His health ebbed from him like ink from his pen. -His doctor ordered him to rest and to travel, and he sought the -mountains of New York for a while. But he would not stop work. His theme -dragged him along and he hoped only that his zest for writing would not -give out before the play was finished. If afterward his life also gave -out, he would not much care. - -He had lost Sheila, and Sheila had lost herself. If he could find his -work, that would be something at least. - - - - - CHAPTER L - - -There was a certain birch-tree on the hill behind the old Winfield -homestead. - -The house itself sat well back in its ample green lawn, left fenceless -after the manner of American village lawns. In the rear of the house -there were many acres of gardens and pasture where cattle stood about, -looking in the distance like toy cows out of a Noah’s Ark. - -Beyond the pasture was the steep hill they flattered with the name of -“the mountain.” To the children it furnished an unfailing supply of -Indians, replenished as fast as they were slaughtered. - -Every now and then Sheila had to be captured and tied to a tree and -danced around by little Polly and young Bret and their friends, bedecked -with feathers from dismantled dusters, brandishing “tommyhawks” and -shooting with “bonarrers.” - -Just as the terrified pale-face squaw was about to be given over to the -torture the Indians would disappear, take off their feathers, rub the -war mud off their noses, and lay aside their barbarous weapons; then -arming themselves with wooden guns, they would charge to Sheila’s -rescue, fearlessly annihilating the wraiths of their late selves. - -One day when Sheila was bound to the tree she saw Bret stealing up to -watch the game. He waved gaily to her and she nodded to him. Then the -whim came to her to cease burlesquing the familiar rôle and play it for -all it was worth. She imagined herself really one of those countless -women whom the Indians captured and subjected to torment. Perhaps some -woman, the wife of a pioneer, had once met her hideous doom in this same -forest. She fancied she saw her house in flames and Bret shot dead as he -fought toward her. She writhed and tugged at the imaginary and -unyielding thongs. She pleaded for mercy in babbling hysteria, and for a -climax sent forth one sincere scream of awful terror. If Dorothy’s -mother had heard it she would have remembered the shriek of the little -Ophelia. - -Sheila noted that the redskins were silent. She looked about her through -eyes streaming with fictional tears. She saw that Bret was plunging -toward her, ashen with alarm. The neighbors’ children were aghast and -her own boy and girl petrified. Then Polly and young Bret flung -themselves on her in a frenzy of weeping sympathy. - -Sheila began to laugh and Bret looked foolish. He explained: - -“I thought a snake was coiled round you. Don’t do that again, in -Heaven’s name.” That night he dreamed of her cry. - -It was a long while before Sheila could comfort her children and -convince them that it was all “pretend.” - -After that, when they were incorrigible, she could always cow them by -threatening, “If you don’t I’ll scream.” - -The children would have been glad to make little canoes from the bark of -the birch, but Sheila would not let them peel off the delicate -human-like skin. The tree meant much to her, for she and Bret had been -wont to climb up to it before there were any amateur Indians. Bret had -carved their names on it in two linked hearts. - -On the lawn in front of the house there was another birch-tree. It -amused Bret to name the tree on the hill “Sheila” and the tree on the -lawn “Bret.” And the nearest approach he ever made to poetry was to -pretend that they were longing for each other. He probably absorbed that -idea from the dimly remembered lyric of the pine-tree and the palm. - -Sheila suggested that the birch from the lawn should climb up and dwell -with the lonely tree on the heights. Bret objected that he and Sheila -would never see them then, for they made few such excursions nowadays. - -It struck him as a better idea to bring “Sheila” down to “Bret.” He -decided to surprise his wife with the view of them together. He chose a -day when Sheila was to take the children to a Sunday-school picnic. On -his way to the office he spoke to the old German gardener he had -inherited from his father. When Bret told him of his inspiration the old -man (Gottlieb Hauf, his name was) shook his head and crinkled his thin -lips with the superiority of learning for ignorance. He drawled: - -“You shouldn’t do so,” and, as if the matter were ended, bent to snip a -shrub he was manicuring. - -“But I want it,” Bret insisted. - -“You shouldn’t vant it,” and snipped again. - -Opposition always hardened Bret. He took the shears from the old man and -stood him up. “You do as I tell you—for once.” - -Gottlieb could be stubborn, too. “Und I tell you die Birke don’t vant -it. She don’t like it down here.” - -“The other birch-tree is flourishing down here.” - -“Dot makes nuttink out. Die Birke up dere she like vere she is. She like -plenty sun.” - -“This one grows in the shade.” - -“Diese Birke don’t know nuttink about sun. She alvays grows im -Schatten.” - -“Well, the other one would like the shade if it had a chance. You bring -it down here.” - -The old man shook his head stubbornly and reached for the shears. - -Bret was determined to have his own way. “Is it my tree or yours?” - -“She is your tree—but she don’t like. You move her, she dies.” - -“Bosh! You do as you’re told.” - -“All right. I move her.” - -“To-day?” - -“Next vinter.” - -“Now!” - -“_Um Gotteswillen!_ She dies sure. Next vinter or early sprink, maybe -she has a chence, but to move her in summer—no!” - -“Yes!” - -“_Nein doch!_” - -Bret choked with rage. “You move that tree to-day or you move yourself -out of here.” - -Gottlieb hesitated for a long while, but he felt that he was too old to -be transplanted. Besides, that tree up there was none of his own -children. He consented with as bad grace as possible. He moved the tree, -grumbling, and doing his best for the poor thing. He took as large a -ball of earth with the roots as he could manage, but he had to sever -unnumbered tiny shoots, and the voyage down the mountain filled him with -misgivings. - -When Bret came home that night the two trees stood close together like -Adam and Eve whitely saluting the sunset. Over them a great tulip-tree -towered a hundred feet in air, and all aglow with its flowers like a -titanic bridal bouquet. When the bedraggled Sheila came back with the -played-out children she was immeasurably pleased with the thoughtfulness -of the surprise. - -The next morning Bret called her to the window to see how her namesake -laughed with all her leaves in the early light. The two trees seemed to -laugh together. “It’s their honeymoon,” he said. When he left the house -old Gottlieb was shaking his head over the spectacle. Bret triumphantly -cuffed him on the shoulder. “You see! I told you it would be all right.” - -“Vait once,” said Gottlieb. - - * * * * * - -A few days before this Dorothy had called on Sheila to say that the -church was getting up an open-air festival, a farewell to the -congregation about to disperse for the summer. They wanted to borrow the -Winfield lawn. - -Sheila consented freely. Also, they wanted to give a kind of masque. -Masques were coming back into fashion and Vickery had consented to toss -off a little fantasy, mainly about children and fairies, with one or two -grown-ups to hold them together. - -Sheila thought it an excellent idea. - -Also, they wanted Sheila to play the principal part, the mother of the -children. - -Sheila declined with the greatest cordiality. - -Dorothy pleaded. Sheila was adamant. She would work her head off and -direct the rehearsals, she said, but she was a reformed actress who -would not backslide even for the church. - -Other members of the committee and even the old parson begged Sheila to -recant, but she beamed and refused. Rehearsals began with Dorothy as the -mother and Jim’s sister Mayme as the fairy queen. Sheila’s children and -Dorothy’s and a mob of others made up the rest of the cast, human and -elfin. - -Sheila worked hard, but her material was unpromising—all except her own -daughter, whom she had named after Bret’s mother and whom she called -“Polly” after her own. Little Polly displayed a strange sincerity, a -trace of the Kemble genius for pretending. - -When Vickery, who came down to see his work produced and saw little -Polly, it was like seeing again the little Sheila whom he still -remembered. - -He told big Sheila of it, and her eyes grew humid with tenderness. - -He said, “I wrote my first play for you—and I’d be willing to write my -last for you now if you’d act in it.” - -Sheila blessed him for it as if it were a beautiful obituary for her -dead self. He did not tell her that he was writing her into his -masterpiece, that she was posing for him even now. - -On the morning of the performance Miss Mayme Greeley woke up with an -attack of hay-fever in full bloom. The June flowers had filled her with -a kind of powder that went off like intermittent skyrockets. She began -to pack her trunk for immediate flight to a pollenless clime. It looked -as if she were trying to sneeze her head into her trunk. There was no -possibility of her playing the fairy queen when her every other word was -ker-choo! - -Sheila saw it coming. Before the committee approached her like a -press-gang she knew that she was drafted. She knew the rôle from having -rehearsed it. Mayme’s costume would fit her, and if she did not jump -into the gap the whole affair would have to be put off. - -These were not the least of the sarcasms fate was lavishing on her that -her wicked past as an actress, which had kept her under suspicion so -long, should be the means of bringing the village to her feet; that the -church should drive her back on the stage; that the stage should be a -plot of grass, that her own children should play the leading parts, and -she be cast for a “bit” in their support. - -Thus it was that Sheila returned to the drama, shanghaied as a reluctant -understudy. The news of the positive appearance of the great Mrs. -Winfield—“Sheila Kemble as was, the famous star, you know”—drew the -whole town to the Winfield lawn. - -The stage was a level of sward in front of the two birches, with -rhododendron-bushes for wings. The audience filled the terraces, the -porches, and even the surrounding trees. - -The masque was an unimportant improvisation that Vickery had jingled off -in hours of rest from the labor of his big play, “Clipped Wings.” - -But it gained a mysterious charm from the setting. People were so used -to seeing plays in artificial light among flat, hand-painted trees with -leaves pasted on visible fishnets, that actual sunlight, genuine grass, -and trees in three dimensions seemed poetically unreal and unknown. - -The plot of the masque was not revolutionary. - -Dorothy played a mother who quieted her four clamoring children with -fairy-stories at bedtime; then they dreamed that a fairy queen visited -them and transported them magically in their beds to fairyland. - -At the height of the revel a rooster cock-a-doodle-did, the fairies -scampered home, the children woke up to find themselves out in the woods -in their nighties, and they skedaddled. Curtain. - -The magic transformation scene did not work, of course. The ropes caught -in the trees and Bret’s chauffeur and Gottlieb Hauf had to get a -stepladder and fuss about, while the sleeping children sat up and the -premature fairies peeked and snickered. Then the play went on. - -Bret watched the performance with the indulgent contempt one feels for -his unprofessional friends when they try to act. It puzzled him to see -how bad Dorothy was. - -All she had to do was to gather her family about her and talk them to -sleep. Sheila had reminded her of this and pleaded: - -“Just play yourself, my dear.” - -But Dorothy had been as awkward and incorrigible as an overgrown girl. - -To the layman it would seem the simplest task on earth—to play oneself. -The acting trade knows it to be the most complex, the last height the -actor attains, if he ever attains it at all. - -Bret watched Dorothy in amazement. He was too polite to say what he -thought, since Jim Greeley was at his elbow. Jim was not so polite. He -spoke for Bret when he groaned: - -“Gee whiz! What’s the matter with that wife of mine? She’s put her kids -to bed a thousand times and yet you’d swear she never saw a child in her -life before. You’d swear nobody else ever did. O Lord! Whew! I’ll get a -divorce in the morning.” - -The neighbors hushed him and protested with compliments as badly read -and unconvincing as Dorothy’s own lines. At last Sheila came on, in the -fairy-queen robes. Everybody knew that she was Mrs. Winfield, and that -there were no fairies, at least in Blithevale, nowadays. - -Yet somehow for the nonce one fairy at least was altogether undeniable -and natural and real. The human mother putting her chicks to bed was the -unheard-of, the unbelievable fantasm. Sheila was convincing beyond -skepticism. - -At the first slow circle of her wand, and the first sound of her easy, -colloquial, yet poetic speech, there was a hush and, in one heart-throb, -a sudden belief that such things must be true, because they were too -beautiful not to be; they were infinitely lovely beyond the cruelty of -denial or the folly of resistance. - -Bret’s heart began to race with pride, then to thud heavily. First was -the response to her beauty, her charm, her triumph with the neighbors -who had whispered him down because he had married an actress. Then came -the strangling clutch of remorse: What right had he to cabin and confine -that bright spirit in the little cell of his life? Would she not vanish -from his home as she vanished from the scene? Actually, she merely -walked between the rhododendron-bushes, but it had the effect of a -mystic escape. - -There was great laughter when the children woke up and scooted across -the lawn in their bed-gear, but the sensation was Sheila’s. Her ovation -was overwhelming. The women of the audience fairly attacked Bret with -congratulations. They groaned, shouted, and squealed at him: - -“Oh, your wife was wonderful! wonderful! WONderful! You must be so PROUD -of her!” - -He accepted her tributes with a guilty feeling of embezzlement, a -feeling that the prouder he was of her the more ashamed he should be of -himself. - -He studied her from a distance as she took her homage in shy simplicity. -She was happy with a certain happiness he had not seen on her face since -he last saw her taking her last curtain calls in a theater. - -Sheila was so happy that she was afraid that her joy would bubble out of -her in disgraceful childishness. With her first entrance on the grassy -“boards” she had felt again the sense of an audience in sympathy and in -subjection, the strange clasp of hands across the footlights, even -though there were no footlights. It was a double triumph because the -audience was Philistine and little accustomed to the theater. But she -could feel the pulse of all those neighbors as if they had but one wrist -and she held that under her fingers, counting the leap and check of -their one heart and making it beat as she willed. - -The ecstasy of her power was closely akin, in so different a way, to -what Samson felt when the Philistines that had rendered him helpless -called him from the prison where he did grind, to make them sport: - -“He said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may -feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth that I may lean upon -them.” As he felt his strength rejoicing again in his sinews, he prayed, -“Strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged of the -Philistines for my two eyes.” - -Nobody could be less like Samson than Sheila, yet in her capacity she -knew what it was to have her early powers once more restored to her. And -she bowed herself with all her might—“And the house fell.” - -An almost inconceivable joy rewarded Sheila till the final spectator had -italicized the last compliment. Then, just as Samson was caught under -his own triumph, so Sheila went down suddenly under the ruination of her -brief victory. - -She was never to act again! She was never to act again! - -When Bret came slowly to her, the last of her audience, she read in his -eyes just what he felt, and he read in her eyes just what she felt. They -wrung hands in mutual adoration and mutual torment. But all they said -was: - -“You were never so beautiful! You never acted so well!” and “If you -liked me, that’s all I want.” - - * * * * * - -The next morning Bret woke to a new and busy day after a night of -perfect oblivion. Sheila did not get up, as her new habit was, but she -reverted to type. She said that she had not slept and Bret urged her to -stay where she was till she was rested. - -Later, as he was knotting his tie, he glanced from the window as usual -at the birches whose wedding he was so proud of. His hands paused at his -throat and his fingers stiffened. He called, “Sheila! Sheila! Come -look!” - -He forgot that she had not risen with him. She lifted herself heavily -from her pillow and came slowly to his side. She brushed back her heavy -hair from her heavy eyes and said, “What is it?” - -“Look at the difference in the birches. ‘Bret’ is bright and fine and -every leaf is shining. But look at ‘Sheila’!” - -The Sheila tree seemed to have died in the night. The leaves drooped, -shriveled, turning their dull sides outward on the black branches. The -wind, that made the other tree glisten like breeze-shaken water, sent -only a mournful shudder through her listless foliage. - - - - - CHAPTER LI - - -Bret turned with anxious, almost with superstitious query to Sheila. He -found her wan and tremulous and weirdly aged. He cried out: “Sheila! -What’s the matter? You’re ill!” - -She tried to smile away his fears: “I had a bad night. I’m all right.” - -But she leaned on him, and when he led her back to bed she fell into her -place like a broken tree. She was stricken with a chill and he bundled -the covers about her, spread the extra blankets over her, and held her -in his arms, but the lips he kissed shivered and were gray. - -He was in a panic and begged her to let him send for the doctor, but she -reiterated through her chattering teeth that she was “all right.” When -he offered to stay home from the office she ridiculed his fears and -insisted that all she needed was sleep. - -He left her anxiously, and came home to luncheon earlier than usual. He -did not find Sheila on the steps to greet him. She was not in the hall. -He asked little Polly where her mother was, and she said: - -“Mamma’s sick. She’s been crying all day.” - -“No, I haven’t,” said Sheila; “I’m all right.” - -She was coming down the stairs; she was bravely dressed and smiling -bravely, but she depended on the banister, and she almost toppled into -Bret’s arms. - -He kissed her with terror, demanding: “What’s the matter, honey? Please, -please tell me what’s the matter.” - -But she repeated her old refrain: “Why, I’m all right, honey! I’m -perfectly all right!” - -But she was not. She was broken in spirit and her nerves were in shreds. - -Though she sat in her place at table, Bret saw that she was only -pretending to eat. Dinner was the same story. And there was another bad -night and a haggard morning. - -Bret sent for the doctor in spite of her. He found only a general -constitutional depression, or, as Bret put it, “Nothing is wrong except -everything.” - -A week or two of the usual efforts with tonics brought no improvement. -Meanwhile the doctor had asked a good many questions. It struck him at -last that Sheila was suffering from the increasingly common malady of -too much nervous energy with no work to expend it on. She must get -herself interested in something. Perhaps a change would be good, a long -voyage. Bret urged a trip abroad. He would leave the factory and go with -her. Sheila did not want to travel, and she reminded him of the vital -importance of his business duties. He admitted the truth of this and -offered to let her go without him. She refused. - -The doctor advised her to take up some active occupation. Bret suggested -water-colors, authorship, pottery, piano-playing, the harp, vocal -lessons—Sheila had an ear for music and sang very well, for one who did -not sing. Sheila waved the suggestions aside one by one. - -Bret and the doctor hinted at charity work. It is necessary to confess -that the idea did not fascinate Sheila. She had the actor’s instinct and -plenteous sympathy, and had always been ready to give herself gratis to -those benefit performances with which theatrical people are so generous, -and whose charity should cover a multitude of their sins. But charity as -a job! Sheila did not feel that going about among the sick and poverty -stricken people would cheer her up especially. - -The doctor as his last resort suggested a hobby of his own—he suggested -that Sheila take up the art of hammering brass. He had found that it -worked wonders with some of his patients. - -Sheila, not knowing that it was the doctor’s favorite vice and that his -home was full of it, protested: “Hammered brass! But where would I hide -it when I finished it? No, thank you!” - -She said the same to every other proposal. You can lead a woman to an -industry, but you cannot make her take it up. Still Bret agreed with the -doctor that idleness was Sheila’s chief ailment. There was an abundance -of things to do in the world, but Sheila did not want to do them. They -were not to her nature. Forcing them on her was like offering a banquet -to a fish. Sheila needed only to be put back in the water; then she -would provide her own banquet. - -Bret gave up trying to find occupations for her. The summer did not -retrieve her strength as he hoped. She tired of beaches and mountains -and family visitations. - -In Bret’s baffled anxiety he thought perhaps it was himself she was so -sick of; that love had decayed. But Sheila kept refuting this theory by -her tempests of devotion. - -He knew better than the doctor did, better than he would admit to -himself, what was the matter with her. She wanted to go on the stage, -and he could not bear the thought of it. Neither could he bear the -thought of her melancholia. - -If Sheila had stormed, complained, demanded her freedom he could have -put up a first-class battle. But he could not fight the poor, meek -sweetheart whose only defense was the terrible weapon of reticence, any -more than he could fight the birch-tree that he had brought from its -native soil. - -The Sheila tree made a hard struggle for existence, but it grew shabbier -and sicker, while the Bret tree, flourishing and growing, offered her -every encouragement to prosper where she was. But she could not prosper. - -One evening when Bret came home, nagged out with factory annoyances, he -saw old Gottlieb patting the trunk of the Sheila tree and shaking his -head over it. Bret went to him and asked if there were any hope. - -There were tears in Gottlieb’s eyes. He scraped them off with his -wrist-bone and sighed: - -“_Die arme schöne Birke._ Ain’t I told you she don’t like? She goink -die. She goink die.” - -“Take her back to the sunlight, then,” said Bret. - -But Gottlieb shook his head. “_Jetzt ist’s all zu spät._ She goink die.” - -Bret hurried on to the house, carrying a load of guilt. Sheila was lying -on a chair on the piazza. She did not rise and run to him. Just to lift -her hand to his seemed to be all that she could achieve. When he dropped -to his knee and embraced her she seemed uncannily frail. - -The servant announcing dinner found him there. - -Bret said to Sheila, “Shall I carry you in?” - -She declined the ride and the dinner. - -Bret urged, “But you didn’t eat anything for lunch.” - -“Didn’t I? Well, no matter.” - -He stared at her, and Gottlieb’s words came back to him. The two Sheilas -would perish together. He had taken them both from the soil where they -had first taken root. Neither of them could adapt herself to the new -soil. It was too late to restore the birch to its old home. Was it too -late to save Sheila? - -He would not trust the Blithevale fogies longer. She should have the -best physician on earth. If he were in New York, well and good; if he -lived in Europe, they would hunt him down. Craftily he said to Sheila: - -“How would you like to take a little jaunt to New York?” - -“No, thanks.” - -“With me. I’ve got to go.” - -“I’m sorry I can’t; but it will be a change for you.” - -“I’ll be lonely without you.” - -“Not in New York,” she laughed. - -“In heaven,” he said, and the extravagance pleased her. He took courage -from her smile and pleaded: “Come along. You can buy a raft of new -clothes.” - -She shook her head even at that! - -“You could see a lot of new plays.” - -This seemed to waken the first hint of appetite. She whispered, “All -right; I’ll go.” - - - - - CHAPTER LII - - -Paris fashions rarely get a good word from men or a bad word from women. -The satirists and the clergy and native dressmakers who do not import -have delivered tirades in all languages against them for centuries. They -are still giving delight and refreshment from the harems on the Bosporus -to the cottages on the Pacific and the rest of the way around the world. - -The doctors have not seemed to recognize their medicinal value. They -recommend equally or even more expensive changes of occupation or of -climate which work a gradual improvement at best in the condition of a -failing woman. - -But for instant tonic and restorative virtue there is nothing to match -the external application of a fresh Paris gown. For mild attacks a Paris -hat may work, and where only domestic wares are obtainable they -sometimes help, if fresh. For desperate cases both hat and gown are -indicated. - -Mustard plasters, electric shocks, strychnia, and other remedies have -nothing like the same potency. The effect is instantaneous, and the -patient is not only brought back to life, but stimulated to exert -herself to live up to the gown. Husbands or guardians should be excluded -during the treatment, as the reaction of Paris gowns on male relatives -is apt to cause prostration. There need be no fear, however, of -overdosing women patients. - -As a final test of mortality, the Paris gown has been strangely -overlooked. Holding mirrors before the lips, lifting the hands to the -light, and like methods sometimes fail of certainty. If, however, a -Paris gown be held in front of the woman in question, and the words -“Here is the very newest thing from Paris just smuggled in” be spoken in -a loud voice, and no sign of an effort to sit up is made, she is dead, -and no doubt of it. - -Bret had decoyed Sheila to New York with an elaborate story of having to -go on business and hating to go alone. When they arrived she was so weak -that Bret wanted to send a red-cap for a wheeled chair to carry her from -the train to the taxicab. Her pride refused, but her strength barely -sufficed the distance. - -Bret chose the Plaza for their hotel, since it required a ride up Fifth -Avenue. His choice was justified by the interest Sheila displayed in the -shop windows. She tried to see both sides of the street at once. - -She was as excited as a child at Coney Island. She astounded Bret by -gifts of observation that would have appalled an Indian scout. - -After one fleeting glance at a window full of gowns she could describe -each of them with a wealth of detail that dazzled him and a technical -terminology that left him in perfect ignorance. - -At the hotel she displayed unsuspected vigor. She needed little -persuasion to spend the afternoon shopping. He was afraid that she might -faint if she went alone, and he insisted that his own appointments were -for the next day. - -He followed her on a long scout through a tropical jungle of -dressmakers’ shops more brilliant than an orchid forest. Sheila clapped -her hands in ecstasy after ecstasy. She insisted on trying things on and -did not waver when she had to stand for long periods while the fitters -fluttered about her. She promenaded and preened like a bird-of-paradise -at the mating season. She was again the responsive, jocund Sheila of -their own seaside mating period. - -She found one audacious gown and a more audacious hat that suited her -and each other without alterations. And since Bret urged it, she let him -buy them for her to wear that night at the theater. She made -appointments for further fittings next day. - -On the way to the hotel she tried to be sober long enough to reproach -herself for her various expenditures, but Bret said: - -“I’d mortgage the factory to the hilt for anything that would bring back -that look to your face—and keep it there.” - -At the hotel they discussed what play they should see. The ticket agent -advised the newest success, “Twilight,” but Sheila knew that Floyd Eldon -was featured in the cast and she did not want to cause Bret any -discomfort. She voted for “Breakers Ahead” at the Odeon, though she knew -that Dulcie Ormerod was in it. Dulcie was now established on Broadway, -to the delight of the large rural-minded element that exists in every -city. - -Bret bought a box for the sake of the new gown. It took Sheila an age to -get into it after dinner, but Bret told her it was time well spent. When -they reached the theater the first act was well along, and in the -otherwise deserted lobby Reben was talking to Starr Coleman concerning a -learned interview he was writing for Dulcie. - -Both stared at the sumptuous Delilah floating in at the side of Bret -Winfield. They did not recognize either Bret or Sheila till Sheila was -almost past them. Then they leaped to attention and called her by name. - -All four exchanged greetings with cordiality. Time had blurred the old -grudges. The admiration in the eyes of both Reben and Coleman reassured -Sheila more than all the compliments they lavished. - -Reben ended a speech of Oriental floweriness with a gracious -implication: “You are coming in at the wrong door of the theater. This -is the entrance for the sheep. The artists—Ah, if we had you back there -now!” - -Bret whitened and Sheila flushed. Then they moved on. Reben called after -her, laughingly: - -“I’ve got that contract in the safe yet.” - -It was a random shot, but the arrow struck. When the Winfields had gone -on Reben said to Coleman: - -“She’s still beautiful—she is only now beautiful.” - -Coleman, whose enthusiasms were exhausted on his typewriting machine, -agreed, cautiously: “Ye-es, but she’s aged a good deal.” - -Reben frowned. “So you could say of a rosebud that has bloomed. She was -pretty then and clever and sweet, but only a young thing that didn’t -know half as much as she thought she did. Now she has loved and suffered -and she has had children and seen death maybe, and she has cried a lot -in the night. Now she is a woman. She has the tragic mask, and I bet she -could act—my God! I know she could act—if that fellow didn’t prevent.” - -“Fellow” was not the expression he used. Reben abhorred Bret even more -than Bret him. - - * * * * * - -Once more Sheila was in the Odeon, but as one of the laity. When she -entered the dark auditorium her eyes rejoiced at the huge, dusty, gold -arch of the proscenium framing the deep brilliant canvas where the -figures moved and spoke. It was a finer sight to her than any sunset or -seascape or any of the works of mere nature, for they just happened; -these canvas rocks and cloth flowers were made to fit a story. She -preferred the human to the divine, and the theatrical to the real. - -The play was good, the company worthy of the Odeon traditions. Even -Dulcie was not bad, for Reben had subtly cast her as herself without -telling her so. She played the phases of her personality that everybody -recognized but Dulcie. The play was a comedy written by a gentle -satirist with a passion for making a portrait of his own times. The -character Dulcie enacted was that of a pretty and well-meaning girl of a -telephonic past married into a group of snobs, through having fascinated -a rich man with her cheerful voice. Dulcie could play innocence and -amiability, for she was not intelligent enough to be anything but -innocent, even in her vices, and she usually meant well even when she -did her worst. - -The author had selected Dulcie as his ideal for the rôle, but he had -been at a loss how to tell her to play herself without hurting her -feelings. She saved him by asking: - -“Say, listen, should I play this part plebean or real refined?” - -He hastened to answer, “Play it real refined.” - -And she did. She was delicious to those who understood; and to those who -didn’t she was admirable. Thus everybody was pleased. - -Sheila would have enjoyed the rôle as a _tour de force_, or what she -called a stunt, of character-playing. But she was glad that she was not -playing it. She felt immortal longings in her for something less trivial -than this quaint social photograph; something more earnest than any -light satire. - -She did not want to play that play, but she wanted to play—she -smoldered with ambition. Her eyes reveled in the splendor of the -theater, the well-groomed informality of the audience so eager to be -swayed, in the boundless opportunity to feed the hungry people with the -art of life. She felt at home. This was her native land. She breathed it -all in with an almost voluptuous sense of well-being. - -Bret, eying her instead of the stage, caught that contentment in her -deep breathing, the alertness of her very nostrils relishing the -atmosphere, the vivacity of her eager eyes. And his heart told him what -her heart told her, that this was where she belonged. - -He leaned close to her and whispered, “Don’t you wish you were up -there?” - -She heard the little clang of jealousy in his mournful tone, and for his -sake she answered, “Not in the least.” - -He knew that she lied, and why. He loved her for her love of him, but he -felt lonely. - -Dulcie did not send for Sheila to come back after the play. Broadway -stars are busy people, with many suppliants for their time. Dulcie had -no time for ancient history. - -Sheila was glad to be spared, but did not misunderstand the reason. As -she walked out with the audience she did not feel the aristocracy of her -wealth and her leisure. She wanted to be back there in her -dressing-room, smearing her features into a mess with cold-cream and -recovering her every-day face from her workaday mask. - -Bret and she supped in the grand manner, and Sheila had plenty of stares -for her beauty. But she could see that nobody knew her. Nobody -whispered: “That’s Sheila Kemble. Look! Did you see her in her last -play?” It was not a mere hunger for notoriety that made her regret -anonymity; it was the artist’s legitimate need of recognition for his -work. - -She went back to the hotel and took off her fine plumage. It had lost -most of its warmth for her. She had not earned it with her own success. -It was the gift of a man who loved her body and soul, but hated her -mind. - -Sheila was very woman, and one Paris gown and the prospect of more had -lifted her from the depths to the heights. But she was an ambitious -woman, and clothes alone were not enough to sustain her. In her -situation they were but gilding on her shackles. The more gorgeously she -was robed the more restless she was. She was in the tragi-comic plight -of the man in the doleful song, “All dressed up and no place to go!” - -Fatigue enveloped her, but it was the fag of idleness that has seen -another day go by empty, and views ahead an endless series of empty days -like a freight-train. - -She tried to comfort Bret’s anxiety with boasts of how well she was, but -she fell back on the pitiful refrain, “I’m all right.” If she had been -all right she would not have said so; she would not have had to say so. - -Both lay awake and both pretended to be asleep. In the two small heads -lying as motionless on the pillows as melons their brains were busy as -ant-hills after a storm. Eventually both fell into that mysterious state -called sleep, yet neither brain ceased its civil war. - -Bret was wakened from a bitter dream of a broken home by Sheila’s -stifled cry. He spoke to her and she mumbled in her nightmare. He -listened keenly and made out the words: - -“Bret, Bret, don’t leave me. I’ll die if I don’t act. I love you, I love -my children. I’ll take them with me. I’ll come home to you. Don’t hate -me. I love you.” - -Her voice sank into incoherence and then into silence, but he could tell -by the twitching of her body and the clutching of her fingers that she -was still battling against his prejudice. - -He wrapped her in his arms and she woke a little, but only enough to -murmur a word of love; then she sank back into sleep like a drowning -woman who has slipped from her rescuer’s grasp. - -He fell asleep again, too, but the daybreak wakened him. He opened his -eyes and saw Sheila standing at the window and gazing at her beloved -city, her Canaan which she could see but not possess. - -She shook her head despairingly and it reminded him of the old -gardener’s farewell to the birch-tree that must die. - -She looked so eery there in the mystic dawn; her gown was so fleecy and -her body so frail that she seemed almost translucent, already more -spirit than flesh. She seemed like the ghost, the soul of herself -departed from the flesh and about to take flight. - -Bret thought of her as dead. It came to him suddenly with terrifying -clarity that she was very near to death; that she could not live long in -the prison of his love. - -He was the typical American husband who hates tyranny so much that he -would rather yield to his wife’s tyranny than subject her to his own. He -took no pride in the thought of sacrificing any one on the altar of his -self, and least of all did he want Sheila’s bleeding heart laid out -there. - -The morning seemed to have solved the perplexities of the night; chill -and gray, it gave the chill, gray counsel: “She will die if you do not -return her where you found her.” He vowed the high resolve that Sheila -should be replaced upon the stage. - -The pain of this decision was so sharp that when she crept back to bed -he did not dare to announce it. He was afraid to speak, so he let her -think him asleep. - -That morning Sheila was ill again, old again, and jaded with discontent. -He reminded her of her appointments with the dressmakers, but she said -that she would put them off—or, better yet, she would cancel the -orders. - -He had their breakfast brought to the room, and he chose the most -tempting luxuries he could find on the bill of fare. Nothing interested -her. He suggested a drive in the Park. She was too tired to get up. - -Suddenly he looked at his watch, snapped it shut, rose, said that he was -late for his conference. She asked him what time it was, and he did not -know till he looked at his watch again. He kissed her and left her, -saying that he would lunch down-town. - - - - - CHAPTER LIII - - -Though there was a telephone in their rooms, Bret went down to the -public booths. He remembered Eugene Vickery’s tirade about the crime of -Sheila’s idleness. He telephoned to Vickery’s apartments and told -Vickery that he must see him at once. Vickery answered: - -“Sorry I can’t ask you up or come to where you are this morning, but the -fact is I’m at the last revision of my new play and I can’t leave it -while it’s on the fire. Meet me at the Vagabonds Club and we’ll have -lunch, eh?—say, at half past twelve.” - -Bret reached the club a little before the hour. Vickery had not come. -The hall captain ushered Bret into the waiting-room. He sat there -feeling a hopeless outsider. “The Vagabonds” was made up chiefly of -actors. From where he sat he could see them coming and going. He studied -them as one looking down into a pool to see how curious fish behave or -misbehave. They hailed each other with a simple cordiality that amazed -him. The spirit was rather that of a fraternity chapter-house than of a -city club, where every man’s chair is his castle. Everything was without -pose; nearly everybody called nearly everybody by his first name. There -were evidences of prosperity among them. Through the window he could see -actors, whose faces were familiar even to him, roll up in their own -automobiles. - -At one o’clock Vickery had not come, and a friend of Bret’s, named -Crashaw, who had grown wealthy in the steel business, caught sight of -Bret and took him under his wing, registered him in the guest-book and -led him to the cocktail desk. Then Crashaw urged him to wait for the -uncertain Vickery no longer, but to lunch with him. Bret declined, but -sat with him while he ate. - -Bret, still looking for proof that actors were not like other people, -asked Crashaw what the devil he was doing in that galley. - -“It’s my pet club,” said Crashaw, “and I belong to a dozen of the best. -It’s the most prosperous and the most densely populated club in town, -and the only one where a man can always find somebody in a cheerful -humor at any hour of the day or night, and I like it best because it’s -the only club where people aren’t always acting.” - -“What!” Bret exclaimed. - -“I mean it,” said Crashaw. “In the other clubs the millionaire is always -playing rich, the society man always at his lah-de-dah, the engineer or -the painter or the athlete is always posing. But these fellows know all -about acting and they don’t permit it here. So that forces them to be -natural. It’s the warmest-hearted, gayest-hearted, most human, clubbiest -club in town, and you ought to belong.” - -Bret gasped at the thought and rather suspected Crashaw than absolved -the club. - -Bret was introduced to various members, and even his suspicious mind -could not tell which were actors and which business men, for there are -as many types of actor as there are types of mankind, and as many grades -of prosperity, industry, and virtue. - -Some of the clubmen joined Bret’s group, and he was finally persuaded to -give Vickery up for lost and eat his luncheon with an eminent tragedian -who told uproarious stories, and the very buffoon who had conquered him -at the benefit in the Metropolitan Opera House. The buffoon had an -attack of the blues, but it yielded to the hilarity of the tragedian, -and he departed recharged with electricity for his matinée, where he -would coerce another mob into a state of rapture. - -It suddenly came over Bret that this club of actors was as benevolent an -institution in its own way as any monastery. Even the triumphs of -players, which they were not encouraged to recount in this sanctuary, -were triumphs of humanity. When an actor boasts how he “killed ’em in -Waco” it does not mean that he shot anybody, took anybody’s money away, -or robbed any one of his pride or health; it means that he made a lot of -people laugh or thrilled them or persuaded them to salubrious tears. It -is the conceit of a benefactor bragging of his philanthropies. Surely as -amiable an egotism as could be! - -Bret was now in the frame of mind that Sheila was born in. He felt that -the stage did a noble work and therefore conferred a nobility upon its -people. - -All this he was mulling over in the back of his head while he was -listening to anecdotes that brought the tears of laughter to his eyes. -He needed the laughter; it washed his bitter heart clean as a sheep’s. -Most of the stories were strictly men’s stories, but those abound -wherever men gather together. The difference was that these were better -told. - -Gradually the clatter decreased; the crowd thinned out. It was Wednesday -and many of the actors had matinées; the business men went back to their -offices. Still no Vickery. - -By and by only a few members were left in the grill-room. - -Bret had laughed himself solemn; now he was about to be deserted. -Vickery had failed him, and he must return to that doleful, heartbroken -Sheila with no word of help for her. - -He had come forth to seek a way to compel her to return to the stage as -a refuge from the creeping paralysis that was extinguishing her life. He -hated the cure, but preferred it to Sheila’s destruction. Now he was -persuaded that the cure was honorable, but beyond his reach. He had -heard many stories of the hard times upon the stage, and of the unusual -army of idle actors and actresses, and he was afraid that there would be -no place for Sheila even though he was himself ready to release her. - -Crashaw rose at length and said: “Sorry, old man, but I’ve got to run. -Before I go, though, I’d like to show you the club. You can choose your -own spot and wait for Vickery.” - -He led Bret from place to place, pointing out the portraits of famous -actors and authors, the landscapes contributed by artist members, the -trophies of war presented by members from the army and navy, the cups -put up for fearless combatants about the pool-tables. He gave him a -glimpse of the theater, where, as in a laboratory, experiments in drama -and farce and musical comedy were made under ideal conditions before an -expert audience. - -Last he took him to the library. It was deserted save by somebody in a -great chair which hid all but his feet and the hand that held a big -volume of old plays. Crashaw went forward to see who it was. He -exclaimed: - -“What are you doing here, you loafer? Haven’t you a matinée to-day?” - -A voice that sounded familiar to Bret answered, “Ours is Thursday.” - -“Fine. Then you can take care of a friend of mine who’s waiting for -Vickery.” - -The voice answered as the man rose: “Certainly. Any friend of -Vickery’s—” Crashaw said: - -“Mr. Winfield, you ought to know Mr. Floyd Eldon. Famous -weighing-machine, shake hands with famous talking-machine.” - -The two men shook hands because Crashaw asked them to. He left them with -a hasty “So long!” and hurried to the elevator. - - * * * * * - -It is a curious contact, the hand-clasp of two hostile men. It has -something of the ritual value of the grip that precedes a prize-fight to -the finish. - -Once Bret’s and Eldon’s hands were joined, it was not easy to sever -them. There was a kind of insult in being the first to relinquish the -pressure. They looked at each other stupidly, like two school-boys who -have quarreled. Neither could say a harsh word or feel a kind one. They -had either to fight or to laugh. - -Eldon was more used than Bret to speaking quickly in an emergency. He -ended what he would have called a “stage wait” by lifting his left hand -to his jaw, rubbing it, and smiling. - -“It’s some time since we met.” - -“Nearly five years, I guess,” said Bret, and returned the compliment by -rubbing his own jaw. - -“We meet every few years,” said Eldon. “I believe it’s my turn to slug -now.” - -“It is,” said Bret. “Go on. I’ve found that I didn’t owe you that last -one. I misunderstood. I apologize.” Bret said this not because of any -feeling of cordiality, but because he believed it especially important -not to be dishonest to an enemy. - -Eldon, with equal punctilio and no more affection, answered: “I imagine -the offense was outlawed years ago. I never knew what the cause of your -anger was, but I’m glad if you know it wasn’t true.” - -Silence fell upon them. Bret was wondering whether he ought to describe -the injustice he had done Eldon. Eldon was debating whether it would be -more conspicuous to ask about Sheila or to avoid asking about her. -Finally he took a chance: - -“And how is Mrs. Winfield?” - -The question cleared the air magically. Bret said, “Oh, she’s well, -thank you, very well—that is, no, she’s not well at all.” - -Bret had attempted a concealment of his cross, but the truth leapt out -of him. Eldon was politely solicitous: - -“Oh, I am sorry! Very sorry! She’s not seriously ill, I hope.” - -“She’s worse than ill. I’m worried to death!” - -Eldon’s alarm was genuine. “What a pity! Have you been to see a -specialist? What seems to be the trouble?” - -“She’s pining away. She—I think I made a mistake in taking her off the -stage. I think she ought to be at work again.” - -Eldon was as astounded at hearing this from Winfield as Bret at hearing -himself say it. But Bret was in a panic of fear for Sheila’s very life -and he had to tell some one. Once he had betrayed himself so far, he was -driven on: - -“She won’t admit it. She’s trying to fight off the longing. But the -battle is wearing her out. You see, we have two children. We have no -quarrel with each other. We’re happy—ideally happy together. She feels -that she ought to be contented. She insists that she is. But—well, she -isn’t, that’s all. I’ve tried everything, but I believe that the only -hope of saving her is to get her back where she belongs. Idleness is -killing her.” - -Eldon hid in his heart any feeling that might have surged up of -disprized love finding itself vindicated. His thoughts were solemn and -he spoke with earnestness: - -“I believe you are right. You must know. I can quite understand. People -laugh a good deal at actresses who come back after leaving the stage. -They think it is a kind of craze for excitement. But it is better than -that. The stage is still the only place where a woman’s individuality is -recognized and where she can be really herself. - -“Sheila—er—Miss Kemble—pardon me—Mrs. Winfield has the theater in -her blood, of course. Almost all the Kemble women have been actresses, -and good ones. Your wife was a charming woman to act with. We fought -each other—for points. I feel very grateful to her, for she gave me my -first encouragement. She and her aunt, Mrs. Vining, taught me my first -lessons. I grew very fond of them both and very grateful. - -“There’s a natural enmity between a leading woman and a leading man. -They love each other as two rival prize-fighters do. The better boxer -each of them is, the better the fight. Sheila—your wife, always gave me -a fight—on the stage—and after, sometimes, off the stage. She was a -great actress—a born aristocrat of the theater.” - -Bret took fright at the word “was.” It tolled like a passing-bell. He -had made up his mind that Sheila should not be destroyed on his account. -He had determined, after the morning’s relapse, that he would restore -his stolen sweetheart to her rightful owners as soon as he could. He -would keep as close to her as might be. His business would permit him to -make occasional journeys to Sheila. His mother would take care of the -children and be enchanted with the privilege. Sometimes they could -travel a little with Sheila. - -His great-grandmother had crossed the plains in a prairie-schooner with -five children, and borne a sixth on the way. That was considered -praiseworthy in all enthusiasm. Wherein was it any worse for an actress -to take her children with her? - -There was no hiding from slander in any case, and he must endure the -contempt of those who did not understand. The one unendurable thing was -the ruination of his beloved’s happiness, of her very life, even. - -He had sought out Vickery as an old friend who knew the theater world. -But Vickery had failed him. He dreaded to go back to Sheila without -definite news. - -Of all men he most hated to ask Eldon’s help, but Eldon was the sole -rescuer on the horizon. He threw off his pride and appealed to the man -he had fought with. - -“Mr. Eldon, you say you think my wife is a great artist. Will you help -me to—to set her to work? I’m afraid for her, Mr. Eldon. I’m afraid -that she is going to die. Will you help me?” - -“Me? Will I help?” Eldon stammered. “What can I do? I’m not a manager, I -have no company, no theater, hardly any influence.” - -Bret’s courage went to pieces. He was a stranger in a strange land. “I -don’t know any manager—except Reben, and he hates me. I don’t know -anything at all about the stage. I only know that my wife wants her -career, and I’m going to get it for her if I have to build a theater -myself. But that takes time. I thought perhaps you would know some way -better than that.” - -Eldon was stirred by Bret’s resolution. He said: “There must be a way. -I’ll do anything I can—everything I can, for the sake of the stage—and -for the sake of an old colleague—and for the sake of—of a man as big -as you, Mr. Winfield.” - -And now their hands shot out to each other without compunction or -restraint and wrestled, as it were, in a tug of peace. - - - - - CHAPTER LIV - - -It was thus that Eugene Vickery found them. His gasp of astonishment -ended in a fit of coughing as he came forward, trying to express his -amazement and his delight. - -Bret seized his right hand, Eldon his left. Bret was horrified at the -ghostly visage of his friend. Already it had a post-mortem look. - -Vickery saw the shock in Bret’s eyes. He dropped into a seat. - -“Don’t tell me how bad I look. I know it. But I don’t care. I’ve -finished my play! Incidentally my play has finished me. But what does -that matter? I put into it all there was of me. That’s what I’m here -for. That’s why there’s nothing much left. But I’m glad. I’ve done all I -can. _J’ai fait mon possible._ It’s glorious to do that. And it’s a good -play. It’s a great play—though I do say it that shouldn’t. Floyd, I’ve -got it!” He turned back to Bret. “Poor Floyd here has heard me read it a -dozen times, and he’s suggested a thousand changes. I was in the vein -this morning. I worked all day yesterday, and all night till sunrise. -Then I was up at seven. When you called me I was writing like a madman. -And when the lunch hour came I was going so fast I didn’t dare stop then -even to telephone. I apologize.” - -“Please don’t,” said Bret. - -“I see you’ve had your luncheon. Will you have another with me? I’m -famished.” - -He rang for a waiter and ordered a substantial meal and then returned to -Bret. - -“How’s Sheila?” - -“She—she’s not well.” - -“What a shame! She ought to be at work and I wish to the Lord she were. -I may as well tell you, Bret, that I took the liberty of imagining -Sheila as the principal woman of my play. And now that it’s finished, I -can’t think of anybody who fills the bill except your wife. There are -thousands of actresses starving to death, but none of them suits my -character. None of them could play it but your Sheila.” - -“Then for God’s sake let her play it!” Bret groaned. Vickery, astonished -beyond surprise, mumbled, “What did you say?” - -Bret repeated his prayer, explained the situation to the incredulous -Vickery, apologized for himself and his plight. Vickery’s joy came -slowly with belief. The red glow that spotted his cheeks spread all over -his face like a creeping fire. - -When he understood, he murmured: “Bret, you’re a better man than I -thought you were. Whether or not you’ve saved Sheila’s life, you’ve -certainly saved mine.” A torment of coughing broke down his boast, and -he amended, “Artistically, I mean. You’ve saved my play, and that’s all -that counts. The one sorrow of mine was that when I had finished it -there was no one to give it life. But what if Sheila doesn’t like it? -What if she refuses!” - -His woe was so profound that Bret reached across the table and squeezed -his arm—it was hardly more than a bone. Bret said, “I’ll make her like -it!” - -“She’s sure to,” Eldon said. - -Vickery broke in: “You ought to hear him read it. Sometimes he reads a -doubtful scene to me. Then it sounds greater to me than I ever dreamed. -A manuscript is like an electric-light bulb, all glass and brass and -little loops of thread that don’t mean anything. When the right actor -reads it it fills with light like a bowl of fire and shines into dark -places.” His mood was so grave that it influenced his language. - -Bret said, “Let me take the manuscript to Sheila.” - -Vickery frowned. “It’s not in shape for her eyes. It ought to be read to -her.” - -“Come read it to her, then.” - -“My voice is gone and I cough all the time, but if—” - -He paused. He did not dare suggest that Eldon read it for him. Eldon did -not dare to volunteer. Bret did not dare to ask him. But at length, -after a silence of crucial distress, he overcame himself and said, with -difficulty: - -“Perhaps Mr. Eldon would be—would be willing to read it.” - -“I should be very glad to,” said Eldon in a low tone. - -It was strange how solemn and tremulous they were all three over so -small a matter. A razor edge is a small thing, but a most uncomfortable -place to balance. - -Vickery broke out with a revulsion to hope. “Great!” he exclaimed. -“When?” - -“This afternoon would please me best,” said Bret, rather sickly, now -that the business had gone so far. “If Mr. Eldon—” - -“I am free till seven,” said Eldon. - -“I’ll go back and ask Mrs. Winfield, if she hasn’t gone out,” said Bret, -rising. - -“I’ll go fasten the manuscript together,” said Vickery, rising. - -“I’ll go along and glance over the new scenes,” said Eldon, rising. - -“Telephone me at my place,” said Vickery, “and let me know one way or -the other as soon as you can. The suspense is killing.” - -They walked out on the steps of the club, and Bret hailed a passing -taxicab. As he turned round he saw Eldon lifting Vickery into a car that -was evidently his own, for he took the wheel. - -The nearer he got to the hotel the more Bret repented of his rash -venture, the uglier it looked from various angles. He hoped that Sheila -would be at the dressmaker’s, contenting herself with rhapsodies in -silk. - -But she was sitting at the window. She was dressed, but her eyes were -dull as she turned to greet him. - -“How are you, honey?” he asked. - -“I’m all right,” she sighed. The old phrase! - -Then he knew he had crossed the Rubicon and must go forward. “Why didn’t -you go to your fitting?” - -“I tried to, but I was too weak. I don’t need any new clothes. How was -your business talk?” - -“I can’t tell yet,” he said, and, after a battle with his stage-fright, -broached the most serious business of his life. He had a right to be a -bad actor and he read wretchedly the lines he improvised on his own -scenario. “By the way, I stumbled across Eugene Vickery this afternoon.” - -“Oh, did you? How is he?” - -“Pretty sick. He’s just finished a new play.” - -“Oh, has he?” - -“He says it’s the work of his life.” - -“Poor boy!” - -“I don’t think he’ll write another.” - -“Great heavens! Is he so bad?” - -“Terribly weak. I told him you were in town and he was anxious to see -you.” - -“Why didn’t you invite him up?” - -“I did. He said he’d like to come this afternoon if you were willing.” - -“By all means. Better call him up at once.” - -Bret went to the telephone, but turned to say, trying to be casual, “He -asked if you’d be interested in hearing his play.” - -“Indeed I would!” There was distinct animation in this. “Ask him to -bring it along.” - -Bret cleared his throat guiltily. “I told him I was sure you’d be dying -to hear it, and he said he wondered if you would mind if he—er—brought -along a friend to read it. Vick’s voice is so weak, you know.” - -“I’m not in the mood for strangers, but if Vickery wants it, why—of -course. Did he say who it was?” - -“Floyd Eldon.” - -That name had a way of dropping into the air like a meteor. When two -lovers have fought over an outsider’s name that name always recurs with -all its battle clamor. It is as hard to mention idly as “Gettysburg” or -“Waterloo.” - -Sheila knew what Bret had said of Eldon, what he had thought of him and -done to him. She was amazed, and it is hard not to look guilty when old -accusations of guilt are remembered. Bret saw the sudden tensity in her -hands where they held the arms of her chair. He felt a miserable return -of the old nausea, the incurable regret of love that it can never count -on complete possession of its love, past, present, and future. But he -was committed now to the conviction that he could not keep Sheila behind -bars, and had no right to try. He had given her back to herself and the -world, as one uncages a bird, hoping that it will hover about the house -and return, but never sure what will draw it, or whither, once it has -climbed into the sky. - -To escape the ordeal of watching Sheila, and the ordeal of being -questioned, he called up Vickery’s’ number and told him to come over at -once, and added, “Both of you.” - -Then he hung up the receiver and went forward to face Sheila’s eyes. He -told her all that had happened except his appeal to Eldon and their -conspiracy to get her back on the stage. - -She was agitated immensely, and risked his further suspicion by setting -to work to primp and to change her gown to one that her nature found -more appropriate to such an audition. - -Eldon and Vickery arrived while she was in the dressing-room, and Bret -whispered to them: - -“I haven’t told her that the play is for her. Don’t let her know.” - -This threw Eldon and Vickery into confusion, and they greeted Sheila -with helpless insincerity. - -She saw how feeble Vickery was and how well Eldon was, and both saw that -she was not the Sheila that had left the stage. Eldon felt a resentment -against Winfield for what time and discontent had wrought to Sheila, but -he knew what the theater can do for impaired beauty with make-up and -artifice of lights. - -After a certain amount of small talk and fuss about chairs the reading -began. To Bret it was like a death-warrant; to Vickery and Eldon it was -a writ of habeas corpus; to Sheila it was like the single copy of a -great romance that she could never own. - - * * * * * - -Eldon read without action or gesticulation and with almost no attempt to -indicate dialect or characterization. But he gave hint enough of each to -set the hearers’ imagination astir and not enough to hamper it. - -Outside in the far-below streets was a muffled hubbub of motors and -street-cars. And within there was only the heavy elegance of hotel -furniture. But the listeners felt themselves peering into the lives of -living people in a conflict of interests. - -The light in the room grew dimmer and dimmer as Eldon read, till the air -was thick with the deep crimson of sunset straining across the roofs. It -served as the very rose-light of daybreak in which the play ended, -calling the husband and wife to their separate tasks in the new manhood -and the new womanhood, outside the new home to which they should return -in the evening, to the peace they had earned with toil. - -Bret hated the play because he loved it, because he felt that it had a -right to be and it needed his wife to give it being; because it seemed -to command him to sacrifice his old-fashioned home for the sake of the -ever-demanding world. - -Sheila made no comment at all during the reading. She might have been an -allegory of attention. - -Even when Eldon closed the manuscript and the play with the quiet word -“Curtain” Sheila did not speak. The three men watched her for a long -hushed moment, and then they saw two great tears roll from the clenched -eyes. - -She murmured, feebly: “Who is the lucky woman that is to—to create it?” - -“You!” said Bret. - -Woman-like, Sheila’s first emotion at the vision of her husband urging -her to go back on the stage was one of pain and terror. She stared at -Bret through the tears evoked by Vickery’s art, and she gasped: “Don’t -you love me any more? Are you tired of me?” - -“Oh, my God!” said Bret. - -But when he collapsed Vickery took the floor and harangued her till she -yielded, to be rid of him and of Eldon, that she might question her -husband. - - - - - CHAPTER LV - - -When they were alone Bret explained his decision and the heartbreaking -time he had had arriving at it. He would not debate it again. He -permitted Sheila the consolation of feeling herself an outcast, and she -reveled in misery. But the first rehearsal was like a bugle-call to a -cavalry horse hitched to a milk-wagon. - -She entered the Odeon Theater again by the back door and bowed to the -same old man, who smiled her in with bleary welcome. And Pennock was at -her post looking as untheatrical as ever. She embraced Sheila and said, -“It’s good to see you workin’ again.” - -The next person she met was Mrs. Vining, looking as time-proof as ever. - -“What on earth are you doing here?” Sheila cried. - -And Mrs. Vining sighed. “Oh, there’s an old catty mother-in-law in the -play, and Reben dragged me out of the Old Ladies’ Home to play it.” - -Sheila’s presence at the Odeon was due to the fact that when Eldon asked -Reben to release him so that he might play in “Clipped Wings,” with -Sheila as star and Bret Winfield as the angel, Reben declined with -violence. - -When Eldon told him of the play he demanded the privilege of producing -it. He ridiculed Bret as a theatrical manager and easily persuaded him -to retire to his weighing-machines. Reben dug out the yellowed contract -with Sheila, had it freshly typed, and sent it to her, and she signed it -with all the woman’s terror at putting her signature to a mortgage. - -One matinée day, as Sheila left the stage door, she met Dulcie coming in -to make ready for the afternoon’s performance. - -Dulcie clutched her with overacted enthusiasm and said: “Oh, my dear, -it’s so nice that you’re coming back on the stage, after all these -years. Too bad you can’t have your old theater, isn’t it? We’re doomed -to stay here forever, it seems. But—oh, my dear!—you mustn’t work so -hard. You look all worn out. Are you ill?” - -Sheila retreated in as good order as possible, breathing resolutions to -oust Dulcie from the star dressing-room and quench her name in the -electric lights. That vow sustained her through many a weak hour. - -But at times she was not sure of even that success. At times she was -sure of failure and the odious humiliation of returning to Blithevale -like a prodigal wife fed on husks of criticism. - -Bret was called back to his factory by his business and by his request. -He did not want to impede Sheila in any way. He had gone through -rehearsals and try-outs with her once, and, as he said, once was plenty. - -Sheila wept at his desertion and called herself names. She wept for her -children and called herself worse names. She wept on Mrs. Vining at -various opportunities when she was not rehearsing. - -At length the old lady’s patience gave out and she stormed, “I warned -you not to marry.” - -“You warned me not to marry in the profession, and I didn’t.” - -“Well,” sniffed Mrs. Vining, “I supposed you had sense enough of your -own not to marry outside of it.” - -“But—” - -“And now that you did, take your medicine. You’re crying because you -want to be with your man and your children. But when you had them you -cried just the same. All the women I know on the stage and off, married -and single, childless or not, are always crying about something. Good -Lord! it’s time women learned to get along without tears. Men used to -cry and faint, and they outgrew it. Women don’t faint any more. Why -can’t they quit crying? The whole kit and caboodle of you make me sick.” - -“Thank you!” said Sheila, and walked away. But she was mad enough to -rehearse her big scene more vigorously than ever. Without a slip of -memory she delivered her long tirade so fiercely that the company and -Vickery and Batterson broke into applause. From the auditorium Reben -shouted, “Bully!” - -As Sheila walked aside, Mrs. Vining threw her arms around her and called -her an angel and proved that even she had not lost the gift of tears. - - * * * * * - -Bret was not without his own torments. The village people drove him -frantic with their questions and their rapturous horror and the gossip -they bandied about. - -His mother, who hurried to the “rescue” of his home and his “abandoned -children,” strengthened him more by her bitterness against Sheila than -she could have done by any praise of her. A man always discounts a -woman’s criticism of another woman. It always outrages his male sense of -fairness and good sportsmanship. - -Besides, Bret was driven by every reason of loyalty to defend his wife. -He told his mother and his neighbors that he would see her oftener than -a soldier or a sailor sees his wife. He would keep close to her. His -business would permit him to make occasional journeys to her. Their -summers would be honeymoons together. - -He made good use of the _argumentum ad feminam_ by telling his mother -how well the children would profit by their grandmother’s wisdom, and he -promised them the fascinating privilege of traveling with their mother -at times. - -But it was not easy for Bret. He knew that many people would laugh at -him for a milksop; others would despise him for a complacent assistant -in his wife’s dishonor. At times the dread of this gossip drove him -almost mad. - -He had his dark hours of jealous distrust, too, and the very thought of -Eldon filled him with dread. Eldon was gifted and handsome, and -congenial to Sheila, and a fellow-artist as well. And his other self, -the Iago self that every Othello has, whispered that hateful word -“propinquity” in his ear with vicious insinuation. - -He gnashed his teeth against himself and groaned, “You fool, you’ve -thrown her into Eldon’s arms.” - -His better self answered: “No, you have given her to the arms of the -world. Propinquity breeds hatred and jealousy and boredom and emulation -as often as it breeds love.” - -He would have felt reassured if he had seen Sheila fighting Eldon for -points, for positions, and for lines. - -There was one line in Eldon’s part that Sheila called the most beautiful -line in the play, a line about the husband’s dead mother. Sheila first -admired then coveted the line. - -At last she openly asked for it. Eldon was furious and Vickery was -aghast. - -“But, my dear Sheila,” he explained, “you couldn’t use that line. Your -mother is present in the cast.” - -“Couldn’t we kill her off?” said Sheila. - -“I like that!” cried Mrs. Vining, who was playing the part. - -Sheila gave up the line, but with reluctance. But it was some time -before Eldon and Vickery regained their illusions concerning her. - -And yet it was something more than selfish greed that made her grasp at -everything for the betterment of her rôle. It was like a portrait she -was painting and she wished for it every enhancement. An architect who -plans a cathedral is not blamed for wishing to raze whole acres so that -his building may command the scene. The actor’s often berated avarice is -no more ignoble, really. And the actor who is indifferent or -over-generous is like the careless artist in other fields. He builds -neither himself nor his work. - -Mrs. Vining fought half a day against the loss of a line that emphasized -the meanness of her character. She wanted to be hated. She played -hateful rôles with such exquisite art that audiences loved her while -they loathed her. - -So Sheila spared nothing and nobody to make the part she played the -greatest part was ever played. Least of all she spared herself, her -strength, her mind, her time. But she battened on work, she was a -glutton for punishment. She had her stage-manager begging for a rest, -and that is rare achievement. - -And all the while she grew stronger, haler, heartier; she grew so -beautiful from needing to be beautiful that even Dulcie Ormerod, passing -her once more at the mail-box, gasped: - -“My Gawd! but that hat is becoming. Tell me quick what’s the address of -your milliner.” - -That was approbation indeed from Dulcie. - -At length the dreadful dress-rehearsal was reached. The usual unheard-of -mishaps happened. Everybody was hopeless. The actors parroted the old -saying that “a bad dress-rehearsal means a good first performance,” -knowing that it proves true about half the time. - -The piece was tried first in Plainfield. The local audience was not -demonstrative. Eldon tried to comfort himself by saying that the play -was too big, too stunning, for them to understand. - -The next night they played in Red Bank and were stunned with applause in -the first scene and increasing enthusiasm throughout. But that proved -nothing, and Jaffer, who was with the company, remembered a famous -failure that had been a triumph in Red Bank and a disaster on Broadway. - -The fear of that merciless Broadway gauntlet settled over the company. -Success meant everything to every member. It meant the paying of bills, -a warm home for the winter, a step upward for the future. Even one of -the stage-hands had a romance that required a New York run. - - - - - CHAPTER LVI - - -Some of the provincial cities said the play was disgustingly immoral and -the police ought to stop it. The accusation hurt. Was it immoral? A -certain clergy man said the play was a sermon; a certain critic said it -was vile. Which was true? It is not pleasant to be called vile even -though the epithet has been hurled at many of the noblest. - -The bitter discussion it aroused wounded Vickery mortally. Eldon told -him that nothing was better for success than to arouse discussion, and -that the final proof of great art is its ability to make a lot of people -ferociously angry. - -But Vickery would not be cheered up. He said that the bumps were killing -him. - -“You see, I’m so lean and weak, I’ve got no shock-absorbers. I can’t do -anything but cough like a damned he-Camille.” - -Sheila and Batterson and even Reben begged him to leave the company and -go back to town. But he was in a frenzy for perfection. He was -relentless with his own lines and scenes. He denounced them rabidly. He -tore out pages of manuscript from the prompt-copy, and sat at the table -writing new scenes while the rehearsals went on. Between the acts he -wrote new lines. He wrote in a terrible hurry. He was in a terrible -hurry. - -But he was in a frenzy for perfection. He was relentless with the -actors. Every word, every silence, was important to him as a link in his -chain of gold. - -Batterson and Reben and Sheila questioned many of his words, phrases, -and even whole scenes. Everybody had a more or less respectful -criticism, a more or less brilliant contribution, but Vickery had had -enough of this piecemeal microscopy. - -“A play succeeds or falls by its big idea,” he said, “by its big sweep, -and nothing else matters. The greatest play in the world is ‘Hamlet,’ -and it’s so full of faults that a whole library has been written about -it. But you can’t kill its big points. What difference does it make how -the shore-line runs if your ocean is an ocean? Let me alone, I tell you. -Do my play the best you can, then we’ll soon know if the public wants -it. - -“You ruined one play for me, Mr. Reben, but you can’t monkey with this -one. I thought of all the objections you’ve made and a hundred others -when I was writing it. I liked it this way then, and I knew as much then -as I do now—only I was red-hot at the time, and I’m not going to fool -with it in cold blood.” - -There were arguments and instances enough against him, and Reben and -Batterson showered him with stories of plays that had been saved from -disaster by collaboration. He answered with stories of plays that had -succeeded without it and plays that had crashed in spite of it. - -“It’s all a gamble,” he cried. “Let’s throw our coin on one number and -either make or lose. Anyway, my contract says you can’t alter a line -without my consent, and you’ll never get that. It’s my last play, and -it’s my own play, and they’ve got to take it or leave it just as I write -it.” - -They yielded more in deference to his feelings than to his art. - -At last the company turned to charge down upon New York. They arrived at -three o’clock on a Sunday morning. - -As Sheila and Mrs. Vining rode through the streets to their hotel they -saw on all sides the work of the advertising men. On bill-boards were -big “stands” with Sheila’s name in letters as big as herself. On smaller -boards her full-length portrait smiled at her from “three sheets.” In -the windows were “half-sheets.” Even the garbage-cans proclaimed her -name. - -Fame was a terrifying thing. - -Sunday was given over to a prolonged dress-rehearsal beginning at noon -and lasting till four the next morning. At about three o’clock in the -afternoon Eugene Vickery in the midst of a wrangle over a scene was -overcome with his illness. - -A doctor who was brought in haste picked him up and carried him to a -taxicab and sped with him to a hospital. The troupe was staggered like a -line of infantry in which the first shell drops. Then it closed together -and went on. - -The next day Sheila visited Eugene and never found a rôle so hard to -play as the character of Hope at the bedside of Despair. - -The nurse would not let her stay long and forbade Vickery to talk, but -he managed to whisper, brokenly: - -“Don’t worry about me. Don’t think about me. Work for yourself and the -play. That will be working for me. If it succeeds, it’s a kind of a -little immortality for me; if it fails—well, don’t worry, I won’t -mind—then. Go and rest now. I’ve no strength to give you, or I’d make -you as strong as a giant—you poor, brave, beautiful little woman! God -bless you! Good luck!” - - - - - CHAPTER LVII - - -Eight o’clock and a section of Broadway is a throng of throngs, as if -all the world were prowling for pleasure. At this theater or that, parts -of the crowd turn in. Where many go there is success; but there are sad -doorways where few cabs draw up and few people march to the lonely -window; and that is a home of failure, though as much work has been done -and as much money deserved. Only, the whim of the public is not for that -place. - -Eight o’clock and Sheila sits in her dressing-room in an ague of dread, -painting her face and wondering why she is here, a lone woman fighting a -mob for the sake of a dying man’s useless glory, and for the ruin of a -living man’s schedule of life. Why is she not where Bret Winfield said a -woman’s place was—at home? - -She wonders about Bret. If she fails, if she succeeds, what does it mean -to him and her? She understands that he has left her alone till now -because he could not help her. But no flowers, no telegram, nothing? She -looks over the heap of telegrams—no, there is nothing from him. - -Then a note comes. He is there. Can he see her? Her heart leaps with -rapture, but she dares not see him before the play. She would cry and -mess her make-up, and she must enter with gaiety. She sends Pennock with -word begging him to come after the play is over—“if he still wants -to—if he’s not ashamed of me; tell him that.” - -She thinks of him wincing as he is turned away from the stage door. Then -she banishes the thought of him, herself, everybody but the character -she is to play. - -Outside the curtain is a throng eager to be entertained, willing to pay -a fortune for entertainment, but merciless to those who fail. There is -no active hostility in the audience—just the passive inertia of a dull, -dreary, anxious mob afraid of being bored and cheated of an evening. - -“Here are our hearts,” it says; “we are sick of our own lives. We do not -care what your troubles are or your good intentions. We have left our -homes to be made happy, or to be thrilled to that luxurious sorrow for -some one else that is the highest happiness. We have come here at some -expense and some inconvenience. We have a hard day ahead of us -to-morrow. It is too late to go elsewhere. You have said you have a good -show. Show us!” - -Back of that glum curtain the actors, powdered, caparisoned, painted, -wait in the wings like clowns for the crack of the whip—and yet also -like soldiers about to receive the command to charge on trenches where -unknown forces lie hidden. No one can tell whether they are to be hurled -back in shame and confusion, or to sweep on in uproarious triumph. Their -courage, their art, will be the same. The result will be history or -oblivion, homage or ridicule. - - * * * * * - -It is an old story, an incessantly recurring story, a tragi-farce so -commonplace that authors and actors and managers and critics make jokes -of their failures and successes—afterward. But they are not jokes at -the time. - -It was no joke for the husband who had intrusted Sheila to the mercy of -the public and the press, and who made one of the audience, though he -quivered with an anguish of fear as each line was delivered, and an -anguish of joy or woe as it scored or lapsed. - -It was no joke to Eugene Vickery, lying in the quiet white room with the -light low and one stolid stranger in white to sentinel him. It was hard -not to be there where the lights were high, where the throngs heard his -pen and ink made flesh and blood. It was hard not to know what the words -he had put on paper sounded like to New York—the Big Town of his -people. He wanted to see and hear and his soul would have run there if -it could have lifted his body. But that it could not do. - -It could lift thousands of hands to applause and lift a thousand voices -to cry his name, but it could not lift his own hands or his own voice. - -The nurse, who did not understand playwrights, tried to keep him quiet. -She kept taking the sheet from his hands where they kept tugging at its -edge. She forbade him to talk. She refused to tell him what time it was. - -But he would say, “Now the overture’s beginning,” and then, later, “Now -the curtain’s going up.” He tried to rise with it, but she pressed him -back. Later he reckoned that the first act was over, and then that the -second act was begun. - -Then a telephoned message was brought to him that Mr. Reben telephoned -to say, “the first act got over great.” - -That almost lifted him to his feet, but he fell back, sighing, “He’d say -it anyway, just to cheer me up.” - -The same message or better came after the other acts. But he would not -believe, he dared not believe, till suddenly Sheila was there in her -costume of the last act. The divine light of good news poured from her -eyes. She had not waited to meet the people who crowded back to -congratulate her—“and they never crowd after a failure,” she said. - -She had not waited to change her costume lest she be too late with her -music. She had waited only for Bret to run to her and tell her how -wonderful she was, and to crush him as hard as she could in her arms. -Then she had haled him to the cab that was held in readiness, and they -had dashed for Vickery’s bed—his “throne,” she called it. - -Perhaps she exaggerated the excitement of the audience; perhaps she drew -a little on prophecy in quoting what the critics had been overheard to -say in praise of the drama—“epoch-making” was the least word she -quoted. - -But she brought in with her a very blast of beauty and of rapture, and -she carried flowers that she would have flung across his bed if she had -not suddenly feared the look of them there. - -As for Vickery, he felt the beauty and fragrance of the triumphal red -roses on the towering stems. - -But he closed the great eyelids over the great eyes and inhaled the -sweeter, the ineffable aroma of success. It was so sweet that he turned -his face to the wall and sobbed. - -Sheila tried to console him—console him for his triumph! She said: -“Why, ’Gene, ’Gene, the play is a sensation! The royalties will be -enormous. The notices will be glorious. You mustn’t be unhappy.” - -He put out a hand that tried to be soft, he made a sound that tried to -be a laugh, and he spoke in a sad rustle that tried to be a voice: - -“I’m not unhappy. I never was happy till now. The royalties won’t be -necessary where I’m going—just a penny to pay the ferryman. The notices -I’ll read over there—I suppose they get the papers over there so that -the obituary notices can be read—the first kind words some of us ever -get from this world. - -“I owe it to you two that my play got on and succeeded. Success! to -write your heart’s religion and have it succeed with the people—that’s -worth living for—that’s worth dying for—” - -His speech was frail, and broken with long pauses and with paroxysms: - -“I hope I haven’t ruined your lives for you two. But you weren’t very -happy when I came along, were you? Sheila was breaking your heart, Bret, -just because she couldn’t keep her own from breaking. You were like a -man chained to a dead woman. If you had gone on, maybe you would have -been less happy than you will be now. Look at poor Dorothy. How long -will she stand her unhappiness? My royalties will go to her! They will -make her independent of that—But I’ve got no time to be bitter against -anybody now. - -“I hope you’ll be happy, you two. But happiness isn’t the thing to work -for. The thing to work for is work—to do all you can with what you -have. I’m a poor, weak, ramshackle sack of bones, but I’ve done what I -could—and a little more. _J’ai fait mon possible._ That’s all God or -man can ask. Go on and do your possible, Bret—you in your factory—and -Sheila in her factory. I can’t see why your chance for happiness isn’t -as good as anybody’s, if you’ll be patient with each other and run home -to each other when you can—and—and—now I’ve got to run home, too.” - -Then a deep peace soothed him, and them. - -CURTAIN - - THE END - - - - - TRANSCRIBER NOTES - - -Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed. - -Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained. - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Clipped Wings, by Rupert Hughes - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLIPPED WINGS *** - -***** This file should be named 60037-0.txt or 60037-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/0/3/60037/ - -Produced by Alex White & the online Distributed Proofreaders -Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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