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Title: Presenting Lily Mars
Author: Tarkington, Booth [Newton Booth] (1869-1946)
Date of first publication: 1933
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1933
Date first posted: 9 September 2019
Date last updated: 9 September 2019
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1623

This ebook was produced by
Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.






PRESENTING LILY MARS

by Booth Tarkington




    To G. C. TYLER




CHAPTER ONE


People who have read "The Lost Theatre" by Owen Gilbert may recall his
printed opinion that the heyday of the theatre and the best time to be
young were in the days when the dpt hack still struggled against the
station taxicab and extinction. Intimate friends of Mr. Gilbert, reading
this passage, have smiled, knowing that the celebrated gentleman was
himself young in the favored period and guessing that he preferred a
dpt hack to a taxicab on the very day of his return to his native city
for the visit that was to bring him his first acquaintance with Lily
Mars.

The guess is accurate. Mr. Owen Gilbert, playwright, aged twenty-nine,
comely, dark-eyed and of a reticent air, descended from the train that
had borne him from New York to the heart of the midland plain; then,
coming out of the station into September afternoon sunshine, he ignored
the suggestions of several taxicab drivers and stepped into one of the
two or three shabby old hacks that still competed with them.

The hackman, fat and red-faced, was pleased; a benevolent smile widened
his dissipated old moustache. "Reckanize you, I guess," he said. "Ain't
you the late Henry J. Gilbert of Gilbert and Company's son, Owen?
Thought so. Seen you many a time when you was growin' up. I used to work
for Foudray's Livery and Undertaking, and I've drove you and your family
I don't know how often to funerals and parties when they wasn't usin'
their own carriage. Guess you 'member my face, too, likely. Likely why
you took my hack 'stead o' one them automobile cabs."

"Yes."

The hackman sighed conversationally as he climbed to his seat. "Times
all changin'. Goin' to make a man scramble to git a livin', it looks
like. You rather have the top up?"

"No."

"Thought not, account the nice warm fall weather." He took up the reins
and whip; the two flaccid old black horses walked a short distance, then
conscientiously pushed themselves into a patient trot, and the hackman,
turning his head a little for greater audibility, continued the
conversation. "Ain't seen you fer quite some time lately. Two or three
years maybe. Ain't been back here fer a good while, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"Seems like I heard somebody say you was livin' in New York or Europe or
somewheres nowadays. That right?"

"Yes."

"Ain't seen any your kinfolks all the time you been away?"

"Oh, yes. My mother comes to New York for a day or so sometimes."

"I expect so." The hackman, about to speak of his own beloved city, made
wide gestures with his whip. "Well, sir, you'll see big changes in this
old burg, I guess. Bigger! Newhouse and Treadwell's puttin' up a
'leven-story building. Say the Chamber of Commerce is talkin' about a
skyscraper even higher'n that. Oh, we're growin'! Say we're goin' to be
'way up over two-hundred thousand time o' the next census. Guess you'll
find everything lookin' natural up on Harrison Avenue, though, and all
around through that neighborhood where your kin live. All them old fine
big houses you'll find them jest the same. Guess you ain't found no
place to live no better'n what we got here, have you?"

"No."

"No, sir! Must feel mighty good to git back to God's country when you're
able to!"

The old liveryman, pleased with himself, stopped talking and gave his
attention to the guidance of his horses through a thickening traffic.
His passenger, meanwhile, glancing with thoughtful eye at the thronged
sidewalks of the "business section", meditated upon an impression that
to anybody fresh from New York, all these bustling honest people, their
buildings and the broad irregular prospects of their streets must have
an appearance of some rusticity. They had that appearance to him, a
returned native; and, as it was his habit to observe professionally his
own thoughts and sensations, he inquired of himself whether or not there
was anything vivid enough in his feeling about the rusticity to be put
into a play. He decided that there wasn't, and then, annoyed by the
persistence of his habit, "Good heavens!" he thought. "Can't I even come
home to see my mother without worrying at every tiny thing on earth to
find if I can't use it for the stage?"

The hack crossed a wide thoroughfare, climax spectacle of the city's
trade and tumultuous with people and vehicles; then, after another
block, hoof-beats had a softer sound. The old hack-horses trotted now
not upon asphalt but upon a more genially resonant pavement of cedar,
and abruptly were beyond the crowded ways and in a quiet neighborhood of
churches and old-fashioned houses. Farther on, they passed an open green
square with a busily plashing fountain in the centre and benches where
old men sat in revery, their beards upon their G. A. R. buttons, while
along graveled paths nurses pushed baby-carriages and small children
rode velocipedes and trundled hoops.

Beyond this, the wide sunny street seemed to wear a mildly prouder air;
for now, with bordering shady sidewalks, it entered the purlieus of the
city's obvious grandees. Here, with simple enough architecture, yet a
touch of Mansard, there was a spaciousness not lacking dignity; and the
large brick houses, none of them new, rose from clipped green lawns and
softened their outlines graciously among the foliage of tall trees. The
hackman, driving placidly in the middle of the street, turned his head
slightly to inquire, "Want me to drive up your driveway?"

"No; just let me out at the front gate."

"Well, so-so--whoa up!"

The horses immediately stopped trotting, and, upon the signal of one
slightly twitched rein, walked obliquely to the left and halted near the
curbstone on the left side of the street, their noses in line with a
horse-headed cast iron hitching post under a big elm. The fat old
hackman got down from his seat and glanced benevolently at the
commodious stone-trimmed brick house of the Seventies, deep in its
groomed lawn. "I guess you didn't need to tell me where to bring you,"
he said, smiling self-congratulation. "I'll carry them valises in fer
you if you'd like me to."

The passenger rewarded the offer generously but carried the bags
himself. He passed through the gateway of the tall iron fence, walked up
the cement path, ascended white stone steps to the white stone verandah
and pulled a bronze knob at the side of the carved walnut double front
doors. A moment later a remote tinkling let him know that the bell at
the end of the long wire was in operation; then there were faint sounds
of movement within the house, and a middle-aged stout neat colored woman
opened the door.

"Yes, suh, Mist' Owen," she said amiably. "I spectin' you."

"You were?" He was astonished. "Expecting me, Martha? Why, no; I'm a
surprise. I wrote my mother I'd be here the last of next week."

"No, suh; she ain't spectin' you. I said I was. She ain't home an'
nobody wasn't spectin' you till couple minutes ago when telephome rung
an' says they want to speak to you. 'No, suh,' I says. 'Mist' Owen
Gilbert in New York,' I says. 'No, ma'am, he ain't either,' telephome
say. 'He right in this city,' telephome say. 'Ef he ain't home right now
he goin' be in ve'y few minutes. You please ask him call number
five-hundud soon's he git there,' it tell me."

"All right, Martha," Gilbert said, coming into the ample hallway that
bisected the forward part of the house. "Where's my mother?"

"She out payin' calls. Nelson he drivin' her, so please res' them
valises right on the flo' until they git back an' Nelson carry 'em to
your room fer you. Your mamma goin' be mighty tickle' see you here when
she git home from payin' them calls. Telephome on the wall behine
stairway same's it use' to were, Mist' Owen. Ev'ything stay jes' the
same in this house year in, year out, Mist' Owen."

Gilbert was already sure of that. At his left the doors stood open into
the "reception room" whither formal callers had been shown, when they
came, throughout his boyhood and youth. The stiff, gilded chairs and the
brown velvet sofa were in their old accustomed places, and the oval
portrait of his grandfather--side-burns, wavy black hair, velvet coat
collar and all--hung coldly over the white marble mantelpiece where it
had been in the grandson's babyhood. Revealed by open double doors on
the other side of the hall was the "library", with the ponderous black
grand piano near the bay-window. Fresh from New York he felt the size of
this big room, like the width of the city's streets, as something
astonishing; yet here, under that high, high ceiling, he had spent hours
enough to be counted into years. Here were the same old rows of books on
the same old polished brown shelves, and, on the walls above, the same
old steel engravings of Lincoln and his Cabinet, of Anthony and
Cleopatra, and of Rebecca and Ivanhoe, the same old watercolors of
Amalfi, the Grand Canal and Pisa's tower. Upon the same old gayly floral
Brussels carpet stood the same old Eastlake sofas and the same
comfortable, unpleasantly carved old rosewood chairs in their old places
precisely; and everything, including the almost imperceptible same old
smell of cleanness, emanated to the young playwright the touching and
reproachful eloquence of old familiar things half forgotten in long
absence.

He went to the telephone instrument that was screwed to the
yellow-papered wall behind the wide black-walnut staircase, rang the
bell, and, after a few moments of waiting, rang again, then gave to a
languidly responsive voice the number five-hundred. Two or three minutes
later, in reply to another languid voice, he mentioned his name, said
that five-hundred had called him and was asked to wait. Then a brisker
voice, a man's, said, "This is the Gazette. We heard from New York you'd
be here to-day and I figured out you'd most likely get in on the
four-twelve. We picked up a story you were intending to open a new play
here under Adler and Company's management--going to use your own home
town to 'try it on the dog' before opening in New York, what? I s'pose
you know our old burg here takes quite some interest in your being a
home town boy that's making his way in the world and's had successes on
the New York stage. So if it's a fact you're going to put a play on here
for its first premire it'll be quite an event and we'd like to make a
feature of it. Anything in it?"

"No. That is--" Gilbert hesitated; then explained. "It's true Adler and
Company are going to put on a new play of mine; but it's not to open
here. Probably some rehearsing will be done here; that's all."

"Rehearse here? Well, that sounds interesting," the voice returned
ingratiatingly. "What's the name of your new play, Mr. Gilbert, and
what's it about?"

"It's called 'Catalpa House' and it's about old times on the Mississippi
River."

"Romantic and all that?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Good enough," the voice said. "How does it happen you're going to
rehearse it here instead of in New York, Mr. Gilbert?"

"There'll be only a week of rehearsing here--week after next. Adler and
Company's 'Skylark' will be playing here that week. It has quite a small
cast and they're all engaged for my play, which requires a few more
people; but they'll be brought here with the 'Skylark' company for
rehearsal, because the Adler firm means to put my piece on rather soon."

"I see," the voice said. "The 'Skylark' company'll be rehearsing your
play in its off hours. Very good. How about yourself, Mr. Gilbert?
You're combining pleasure with business, I take it, and getting in a
little visit with your relations here before your work on rehearsals
begins?"

"Yes."

"Let's see, now, Mr. Gilbert; you've had three very successful plays up
to the present, haven't you?"

"No. Only one. I've had only three plays produced altogether."

"Is that so?" the voice from the telephone said sympathetically. "But
your last was a big hit, wasn't it?"

"No; not even a small one."

"Is that so? Well, better luck with this next one. I guess that's all,
Mr. Gilbert; I'll probably be calling you up again for something on your
rehearsals when the 'Skylark' company gets here. Thank you for the
information, and good day."

Gilbert went out to the verandah and looked contemplatively at one of
its wicker chairs, but did not sit down, for his ear caught a sound from
a little distance down the street--conglomerate hoof-beats that seemed
familiar. "Jeff and Joey," he said, half aloud. "It couldn't be any
other horses in the world!"

Then, dappled with disks of sunshine beneath the Gothic shade trees,
there came trotting down the middle of the street his mother's two fat
bay steeds, drawing the black and shiny "family carriage" and driven by
a proud-looking thin old black man undoubtedly certain of the lofty
effect of his white cotton gloves, his glistening high white collar and
ministerial white lawn necktie. Behind him, a graceful shape in the
graceful vehicle, sat a dark haired lady of fifty in wine-colored silk
and white lace. The top of the carriage was down, and in one
white-gloved hand she held the coral handle of the white silk parasol
that kept sunlight from her plumed black hat; her other hand, in her
lap, negligently clasped an ivory card-case carved in Chinese filigree.
Already this was a picture beginning to be a little old-fashioned, the
adopted New Yorker on the white stone verandah thought, and liked it all
the more for that. The midland lady, returning in style from "paying
calls"--formal calls accumulated for months against her precisely kept
accounts of social credits--seemed the eloquent symbol of a whole
historical period now perhaps about to vanish.

Could such a picture and its significance be expressed in the theatre,
he wondered. No; even if he went to the trouble and expense (expense for
the manager) of putting an actress in wine-colored silk into just such a
carriage, with just such a coachman as old Nelson, and just such fat,
brisk bay horses, and should place the whole equipage upon the
resounding boards of the stage, the audience might be too thick-headed.
"Doubt if they'd get it," he murmured. However, he wasn't sure, and
reminded himself that almost impossible things could be made into
theatrical effects. Hadn't Augustus Thomas used actual perfumes in the
theatre to transport audiences into the blossoming sweetness of Alabama
springtime? "I'd put the driveway gates extreme left, with a shrubbery
and foliage back-drop," Gilbert thought, and then, catching himself at
his tricks again, felt shame. "Nice of me, isn't it? Haven't seen my
mother for six months and at sight of her begin trying to dramatize
her!"

But the carriage was now on the driveway, his mother saw him, and, as
the expression of her handsome face changed from absent placidity to
startled brightest happiness, "No," he thought. "Couldn't get that out
of any actress on Adler and Company's lists!"

The mutual greeting, caressive and gently exclamatory, brought them all
the way from the driveway stone mounting-block to the library, where
each found further delight in the other's "looking so well" and the son
explained his premature arrival. "There really isn't anything more for
me to do about the new play until the 'Skylark' company gets here and I
begin watching rehearsals. It just struck me yesterday rather suddenly
that if I didn't give myself a recess from 'theatrical atmosphere' I'd
go crazy, and in all the world there isn't anything more untheatrical
than home and you, Mother; so I made a hansom cab dash for the train."

Mrs. Gilbert laughed. "That's funny talk from anybody who was as wild to
be in the 'theatrical atmosphere' as you were a few years ago, Owen."

"Oh, I know, I know! Of course the thing's my life; but, Mother, I've
got so soaked with it that I can't even breathe except in what's
odiously called 'terms of the theatre'. I'm getting to be so lost to
life and drowned in theatre I'm like Barrie's journalist who'd become so
horribly nothing else that he knew, himself, he'd get material for a
paragraph out of his own mother's funeral!"

Mrs. Gilbert wasn't alarmed; she laughed again and said, "You'd have a
hard time to get a play out of mine, dear, and besides, it won't be
ready for a long, long time. For me I'm afraid the main thing is that
you're here, no matter what brought you." But her glance, thus reminded,
went gently to two silver-framed photographs upon the piano. "We could
drive out to the cemetery to-morrow morning with some flowers, do you
think? I'd like you to see how nice the lot looks--it's so lovely out
there--and----"

"Yes; of course, dear Mother."

"Then in the afternoon," she went on musingly, "of course we'll have to
call on your Aunt Fanny and your poor old Uncle Harry and the Lord and
Pennington cousins and all the rest of 'em. I suppose I'd better ask
Cousin Jenny and the Whitlocks and some more in for dinner to-morrow
evening. They're all so genuinely interested in your career, Owen,
and----" She stopped speaking, looked thoughtful for a moment, and said,
"Oh, that reminds me!"

"Of what, Mother?"

"There's a special reason I'm glad you'll have a little time here before
your theatrical people arrive and begin their rehearsing. As a matter of
fact, I've just come from their house. I was lucky and found a lot of
people out this afternoon, so I had time and stopped in there on my way
home."

"You stopped in where?" her son asked, and laughed affectionately at the
characteristic, unconscious cart-before-the-horse method of narrative
just displayed to him. Yet, before she answered, he had that rather
infrequent sensation commonly described as the memory of a previous
incarnation; it seemed to him that long ago he and his mother had said
to each other what they were saying now and that he ought to remember,
as it were, what she was going to say next. Moreover, in addition to
this disturbing sense of echoing the past, he had a feeling that what
she was about to say was portentous, that it was to prove of great
moment to himself and that these very seconds before she spoke were the
final ones before the rising of the curtain to begin a dramatic period
in his life. "Could I use this?" he thought. "Young man feeling it's all
happened before and having a premonition of something important and
dangerous going to happen and--Oh, dear! There I go again! Shame on me!"

He broke off the thought despairingly, and, with a disappointed sense of
anticlimax, looked plaintively at his mother as she said, "At that poor
little place where they're living now. Such a beautiful woman she used
to be, poor Mrs. Mars! They'd heard you were coming home and wrote me a
note to ask about it. Really, Owen, I never knew a young girl who showed
a greater talent for the stage."

They were still standing; but, at this, Owen Gilbert sat down heavily.
"Mother! It's what I came home to get away from, and, of all things on
earth, talented young girls who want to go on the stage! Besides, _I_
can't put anybody on the stage; I'm only a playwright. Who is it?"

Mrs. Gilbert looked surprised. "Why, I just told you! You remember the
Mars family, Owen."

"No, I don't."

"Why, yes, you do! All the time you were a little boy they lived in that
big brown brick house with the Mansard roof where the Hubbards do now,
with a fountain in the front yard, only Mr. Hubbard's had the fountain
taken out. They only had one child then and you used to play with him.
Surely you remember little Willie Mars and his mother and father, too."

"Oh, vaguely, vaguely," the young man admitted. "What about Willie Mars?
Seems to me I recall he died when he was a child."

"He did. I'm talking about the survivors! Really, they're in a pretty
distressing situation, Owen. Mr. Mars failed in the Panic while you were
in college. They dropped out of everything and he died, and Mrs. Mars
and the two little girls that came after Willie's death were left with
scarcely anything."

"I see, Mother, you want me to----"

"No!" Mrs. Gilbert exclaimed. "Not money! About that, Mrs. Mars has
always had the pride of Satan. I tried once to lend her a little money
myself in a tactful way; but she said that if I wished I could use it to
bury her--while she lived she wasn't an object of charity! Finally she
got something to do in the city library, and that kept them going; but
she fell downstairs and hurt her spine and now she's a helpless invalid.
I just don't know how they have lived, except that Clara, the older
daughter, has been clerking in Vance's Dry Goods Store and that brings
in a little something, I suppose. The younger daughter had to leave high
school last winter without graduating, because Mrs. Mars can't do
anything at all for herself and of course couldn't be left alone. It's
been a constant sacrifice for both those poor girls, and if they hadn't
been upheld by their absolute conviction that the younger one's a genius
I don't know what they'd have done."

"A genius?" the young man asked, and added apprehensively, "Mother, if
you don't mind I believe I'd rather not hear much about the kind of
genius she is."

"Would you, poor lamb?" Mrs. Gilbert laughed, and again became
solicitous. "Of course I could see they'd been looking forward
desperately to your coming home, Owen--it's just life or death to them,
and oh, I do hope you'll try your best to do something for them, dear!
They feel if you could just get her started! Of course you can't do it
the first day or two; but after you've got a little rested and seen all
the relatives--I told them that of course you'll be glad to hear her
recite and----"

"Recite?" Gilbert said. "Recite! Oh, Mother! Oh, my goodness! What's her
name?"

"Owen! I've just been telling you! Lily Mars!"




CHAPTER TWO


In the dusty little cross-street, far from Harrison Avenue, Gilbert
stepped down from his mother's carriage, said ruefully to the proud
black driver, "I hope I'll not keep you waiting long, Nelson", crossed
the uneven brick sidewalk and entered the gate of the grey picket fence.
The "double frame" house, close before him, stood in a small yard of
mangy patches of grass, and the twin half-glass front doors of the
dwelling were within ten feet of the sidewalk. Between these doors there
was nothing to choose; but he turned the brass handle set into the
middle of the one to the right and evoked a metallic clatter from just
within.

A woman's voice a little tremulously called, "Please come in!"

There was neither vestibule nor hallway; he stepped straight into a
brown room and saw first an invalid gentlewoman (so he defined her)
lying upon a sofa beside the room's one window. Her hair, carefully
coiled high in an extinct fashion, was little less white than the pillow
supporting her head; but her thin eyebrows were black over sunken bright
eyes, and the pallid, fine face was one Du Maurier would have drawn, the
caller fancied, for a dying great lady's. To find such a face in the
cheap ugliness of this room was to go beyond pathos and touch the
grotesque, he thought. There was a repulsive little black fireplace,
with paper flowers in two china vases on the mantel shelf, and Gilbert
fastidiously suspected that the flowers, and the mantel shelf itself,
were dusty.

"Mrs. Mars?" he began. "I'm----"

"You're Owen Gilbert, of course," the invalid said, with a perceptible
eagerness. "I'm sure you couldn't think I've forgotten you, and your
mother's been kind enough to say you remember me. Lily'll be down right
away. She saw you drive up through the window and ran upstairs to see if
her nose was shiny, I'm afraid. The poor thing's so terribly excited
about your coming, and of course she's temperamental and feels she's got
one of her off days and won't be at her best. Naturally, with so much
depending on it, she's terribly afraid of the impression she'll make on
you. You'll sit down, won't you?"

Somewhat heartsick, he sat in a rocking-chair, facing Mrs. Mars. Her
phrase "so much depending on it" dismayed him and conscientiously he
felt he must enlighten her. "I'm afraid I can't let you think that
anything of importance could depend on me."

"Ah, you mustn't be modest!" she protested. "Of course we know all about
the splendid career you're having and----"

"My dear Mrs. Mars!" Gilbert said compassionately. "I'm not modest. I'm
only explaining that though you can count on my help I haven't the
powers I'm afraid you imagine. A few playwrights much better established
than I am select the casts for their plays and are sometimes able to put
young people of talent on the stage; but I don't possess that
importance. I've had one fair success and two failures and----"

"Oh, but everybody knows the great Adler and Company are going to put on
your new play; it's been announced in our papers time and again." Mrs.
Mars evidently still thought him merely modest. "If there could just be
a good part in it for Lily, or if that isn't possible, because of course
we realize she's just a beginner, why, even a rather small one! Your
dear mother said she was sure----"

"I'm afraid she did," Gilbert said. "I'm afraid she's always been given
to overestimating an only son. For that matter, I'm afraid I've had to
learn, myself, that a new playwright, next to a new actor, is generally
treated as the most negligible person about a theatre. Compared to a
stage-hand, he's a nonentity. He's pleased if the very doorman speaks to
him with a little condescending familiarity."

Mrs. Mars, unimpressed, laughed gently. "Your dear mother says you've
always underrated yourself, and I can well believe her!" Abruptly
serious, she looked at him with a fervid anxiety. "If there weren't just
the right part for Lily in this new play of yours, couldn't a good one
be written into it? I've read of such things being done, especially when
some new genius is being discovered and----" She lifted a thin hand from
the old white shawl that covered her; she touched her pallid lips
admonishingly. "Sh! You mustn't tell her I said this, because it was
something she wanted to suggest to you, herself, and she thought she
could do it better. She's coming!"

Footsteps were heard upon an uncarpeted stairway, and Owen Gilbert's low
spirits sank lower as an inner door opened and Lily Mars came into the
room.

He rose, giving her a quick glance from eyes usually accurate in their
estimations of people. Even to his own hearing, his greeting sounded
plaintive, for his first impression of her was not favorable, and
something startlingly personal and demanding in her reciprocal first
glance at him shot into him a premonition that she was going to be a
serious nuisance to him. "A girl in bad taste" was his too sweeping
first thought; then he added, "Rather unusual type of good looks,
though--and going to use them on me her darnedest!"

Within a moment, adding more to his observation, he somewhat modified
his feeling of protest. Her brilliant eyes, like her mother's, were warm
hazel under black eyebrows; her hair was the deep tan of an oak leaf in
late autumn. Altogether, at second glance, her features were "really not
uninteresting" he thought, and he immediately admitted that her figure
had a suave young symmetry out of the common. Moreover, he had never
found himself in the presence of any person more exquisitely possessed
of the very peach-bloom of youth, and this bloom and the lovely figure,
too, were almost flagrantly revealed by the bad taste; for what she wore
was a directoire ball gown of old yellow satin easily guessed to be a
recently made-over relic of Mrs. Mars's better days. Worst of all, it
had probably been made over hurriedly for this very encounter and for
the ampler display of the aspirant's shapeliness, and, to the somewhat
frayed, misplaced elegance of the costume, there had been added some
jingling cheap bracelets and a necklace of false pearls execrably
oversized.

She gave his hand a hasty but feverish clasp; then hurried at once to
her mother and began to make a tender little fuss over her, smoothing
the pillow, Mrs. Mars's cheeks and the adjacent air. "Muddie, Muddie,
Muddie!" she said, and the peculiar quality of her voice had its effect
upon the caller in spite of his perception that it was intended to have
an effect upon him. It was a slender voice yet a rich one and of a
noticeable elasticity; even in the three utterances of the pet name it
played up and down over a dozen tones, rang bell-like upon some of them,
trembled either touchingly or playfully upon others, then sank to a
husky gentle sweetness barely audible. "Muddie's been moving her head
too much, to talk. Muddie knows she mustn't, mustn't!" She turned toward
Gilbert almost tragically and flung out her slender pretty arms in a
jingling gesture of appeal. "Ah, you tell her she mustn't! Whenever she
moves her head it's likely to jar her spine, and she mustn't, she
mustn't! We can't do anything with her; she's so reckless. If _you'd_
tell her she must be careful I think she would!" But without waiting for
a response she sank gracefully upon a stool beside the sofa and said
cozily, "Now, let's all sit down and talk things over." She leaned back
against her mother, crossed her knees with an elaboration that gave one
of them to view and allowed it to remain there, then inquired, "What day
does the company get here?"

"The company?" Gilbert said blankly, not at once comprehending. "The
com----"

"_Your_ company," she explained indulgently and too flatteringly. "This
'Skylark' company that's to begin rehearsing your play. What day will
rehearsals commence?"

"Oh, that," he murmured, and replied with some coldness, "Possibly next
Sunday."

"Five days!" She jumped up, smiling. "We have five days! What I'd like
to do, I'd take your manuscript and learn whichever one of the women's
parts you'd want me to by heart and then I'd play it for you; but we can
take that up later. Just now I want to show you----" She turned toward
her mother. "Muddie, which'll I do first? The balcony scene, don't you
think?" She took a book from a battered little Eastlake table, gave it
to her mother and smiled radiantly upon Gilbert. "Don't you adore the
balcony scene? You probably know it by heart, yourself--I mean from
Romeo and Juliet. Ah, if I ever get a chance to play Juliet! I mean in
New York! Of course you think I'm perfectly crazy! Muddie, have you
found the cue for me?"

Then, while Mrs. Mars read a dozen words from the book, her daughter
advanced a dramatic step toward Gilbert, who sat helplessly in the
rocking-chair before her; she clasped her hands against her cheek,
looked upward tensely, became rigid in this attitude and began to speak
in a high-pitched, wailing voice.

    _"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?_
    _Deny thy father and refuse thy name..."_

She went on with the scene, changing the wailing voice to a startled
one, then sinking it to caressive murmurs; altering her posture, too,
almost constantly, and becoming so flutteringly gesticulative that the
playwright shivered internally, thinking of what a stage director would
say (if he could speak) to a performer so much too eloquently in motion.
Obviously, she was graceful, knew it and knew, too, how every shifting
glimmer of the old satin added another hint of the gracefulness beneath
it. Gilbert had no doubt that every one of the multitude of movements
had been practised before a mirror; but, for a theatre become as nearly
gestureless as the new school of stage directors could make it, such a
volubility of pantomimic accompaniment was a disqualification. Too much
expression was worse than too little, and overstatement had almost been
banished from the stage; understatement was now the fashion. She played
the scene through to the bitter end (he thought an audience would have
been bitter) and he said to himself that she was worse than he had
expected. Then she stopped and looked at him, and for some reason he
decided that she was just the least bit better than he had expected.

She was flushed with exertion; the color glowing in her cheeks became
her, and he observed with a slightly increased interest that her eyes
could be rather dazzling. "There!" she said. "That's my Juliet!"

"I see," the embarrassed young man returned. "Ah--I'm glad you've
learned not to use the half-gestures of the amateur. That's a very good
sign. Nearly all amateurs begin gestures and then get too self-conscious
to finish them; they just flop their arms a little way out from their
sides and then give it up. It's quite an advantage that you're already
beyond that phase. But perhaps--ah----"

Mrs. Mars intervened. "Amateurs! There's never been the slightest
amateurishness about Lily's dramatic work--not from the time she first
began to recite, when she was only five years old. She's always used the
most natural, expressive gestures I've ever seen. Dr. Gordon, our family
physician, is a great lover of the stage--he hardly ever misses any play
that comes to town--and he's seen Mary Anderson's Juliet and Julia
Marlowe's, and he declares he likes Lily's better." She laughed
deprecatingly. "Of course he's an old friend of the family and
prejudiced, but that's what he says, and he really does know the stage."

"From A to Z!" Lily added. "There've been times when if it hadn't been
for Dr. Gordon I'd have given the whole thing up. Oh, yes, I get awfully
down sometimes. If it hadn't been for Dr. Gordon's faith in me----" She
painted the catastrophe with a gesture of falling hands, then was
blithe. "What do you think I'd better show him next, Mother? Wait, I
know! Lady Macbeth--the sleep-walking scene."

"Or else 'Roger and I'," Mrs. Mars suggested, and explained eagerly to
Gilbert, "I think 'Roger and I' and Lady Macbeth are almost the finest
things she does, and they show her range so wonderfully, I think--such
different kinds of emotion. Suppose you do 'Roger and I' first and then
Lady Macbeth, Lily."

Lily did "Roger and I" first and then she did Lady Macbeth. Gilbert,
conscious all the time of the mother's anxious gaze upon him, sat in
pain, engaged in a continual struggle to prevent his emotional opinion
of the performance from manifesting itself dreadfully upon his
countenance. He had selfish unfilial thoughts reproachful of his mother
for putting him in this impossible position--when he'd come home for
change and rest! Lily's "Roger and I" was pseudo-pathos straight out of
a School of Elocution; but Lady Macbeth, ranted at him at close quarters
in that depressing small room, was sheer nightmare.

"Ah--very nice," he said in a sickly voice when she finished. "That is,
I mean----" He stopped himself and repeated the two words in almost a
whisper. "Very nice."

The invalid upon the sofa pathetically mistook his vocal inadequacy for
the hush of appreciation. "That was magnificent, Lily! There's only one
word for it--magnificent! You never did it better in your life!"

"No," Lily said judicially. "I did it better that night at the Auxiliary
Supper. Anyhow, I did 'Roger and I' better that night, Mother. I'm not
at my best to-day and I know it, myself. I can always feel it. There are
times when I absolutely know I've _got_ it, and there are other times
when I can hear myself missing little shades of meaning. Other people
mightn't realize it; but _I_ know!" She shook her head prettily in
gloom, then clasped her hands impulsively. "Oh, Mother! Now shall I show
him my dance?"




CHAPTER THREE


If the unhappy young playwright in the rocking-chair could have spoken
his mind he would have said, "For God's sake, no!" and he had not
infrequently heard managers and stage directors speak with that much
frankness; but he had been brought up to be a gentleman, couldn't get
over it, and what he whispered was, "Interesting!"

"It's an interpretive dance I've created, myself," Lily explained. "Of
course there isn't room for it here; but I can give you an idea of the
movements. It's the joy of mankind in the springtime throughout all the
ages. It begins with the savages and how they expressed themselves about
the coming of the flowers and birds and bees, and then takes up how the
nuns and monks hailed the going of winter in the middle ages, and then
there's the English peasants' Maypole--folk-dancing, you know--then part
of a minuet to show how people felt about it in Colonial times, and then
just a touch of Cake Walk for modern expression, and it ends with my
conception of the spring dancing of the future. I'll have to hum the
accompaniment."

He produced a sound. "Interesting."

She looked upward mystically, extended her arms wide, then slowly
brought her small hands together with a little slap. She did this
several times, chanting, "Tum! Tum! Tum! Bom! Bom! Bom!" She glanced
down at him and explained confidentially, "Tom-toms, you know." Then she
hummed hoarsely, intending savage rhythms, and began to
dance--principally with her shoulders.

She left in him no doubt of their graceful flexibility; but presently
let them droop, and, to suggest a medival piety, made the sign of the
cross upon her breast and forehead, hummed "Beulah Land" solemnly, and,
with palms together prayerfully before her, walked a few slow steps
forward and back several times. Then, with a startling generosity, she
picked up her yellow satin skirt, held it high and began to skip round
and round Gilbert's rocking-chair, singing in a joyous sweet voice "Ye
lads and lassies on the green";--the incredulous young man could not but
conclude that he represented a Maypole. After that, she trod minuetish
measures recognizably, did Cake Walk steps flamboyantly, singing "Dinah,
de moon am shinin'"; then, looking rapt, stood with her feet together
and made fantastic gestures with her arms, the dancing of the future
presumably. Finally, blushing resplendently but with downcast eyes, she
sank to the floor in a deep curtsey close before the visitor.

"Bravo! Bravo, Lily!" Mrs. Mars cried tremulously from her sofa, and
began to clap her fragile white hands.

Lily sprang up from the curtsey, rushed to her, caught the applauding
hands and held them. "Muddie! Muddie, you mustn't! You mustn't jar! You
mustn't----"

"I just couldn't help it! You were magnificent, Lily!" The mother
appealed to Gilbert pleadingly. "Wasn't she magnificent, Owen? You'll
let me call you Owen because I knew you when you were a little boy?
Really and truly don't you think she was magnificent?"

"Ah----" he began; but was spared a dishonest response. The front door
was opened without prelude and a rather shabby boy of about eighteen
walked brusquely into the room. A commonplace of lower-middle origin he
was, in the instant classifying of the playwright, who recorded him as
of the type "high school boy" and was somewhat astonished to see so
bitter a sternness upon so youthful a brow. Lily was not pleased with
the interruption.

"I can't bother with you now, Charlie," she said coldly. "Mr. Gilbert,
this is Mr. Charlie Bright. We're busy, Charlie!"

Young Mr. Bright remained where he was, in the centre of the room,
looked fiercely from her to the surprised caller and then with increased
anger back at her. "I see you are!" he said in a husky voice. "I know
what kind of business it is, too! My mother told me it was going to
happen, after she was here to see your mother yesterday. Mrs. Mars, are
you going to let this thing go on? Are you going to lie there calmly and
let your daughter's life get wrecked the way it's going to be if
she----"

"You go straight out of that door!" Lily said in a low voice. "Go
straight out of that door!"

"I won't! I won't go out of that door or any other door till I've done
my duty. Do you s'pose I don't know who this man is and what he's here
for?"

"You go straight out of that----"

"I won't!" The boy turned rudely upon Gilbert. "You see here! You can't
come here and take this girl away into all that life of false glitter
and dissipation without having a counting with me first! She's just the
same as engaged to be married to me----"

"What!" Lily shouted out a contemptuous laughter. "Of all the crazy
insinuations! Why, you ought to be taken straight to the insane asylum!"
She stopped laughing and appealed vehemently to her mother. "Mother,
tell Mr. Gilbert you know it's absolutely and utterly false! Tell Mr.
Gilbert I never----"

"You did!" Charlie Bright interrupted. "You just as good as did! I've
considered myself the same as engaged to you ever since what you said
when we were watching the fireworks Fourth o' July night. If you think
I'm going to stand idly by and see this man lure you into the life of
the stage, where your whole personality would be pulled down to a mere
puppet for everybody that could pay fifty cents for a ticket to laugh
and sneer at----"

"March straight out!" Lily cried. "You little idiot, how dare you
presume to interfere in my----"

"You call it interference from--from the man you're engaged to?"

"I'm no more engaged to you than I am to the man in the moon or to----"

"Or to F. Munson Lang?" the boy asked, with the air of one who delivers
the stroke that kills. "How about F. Munson Lang? Doesn't he kind of
think he's engaged to you, too, Lily, if he could only get a divorce
from his wife and three children?"

"You----" Lily's breast heaved with a tumultuous breathing. She pointed
imperiously at the door. "You slanderer, associating my name with a
married man's! You see that door?"

"Me?" the boy cried. "Didn't you tell me yourself Mrs. F. Munson Lang
was so jealous of you you were scared of her? Look at the way you
behave! Didn't you get about half the men in our class mashed on you,
all at the same time? You know you did! Look what you did to me and
Minnie Bush. You knew Min and I were practic'ly engaged; but you went
ahead and got me mashed on you, the way you do and----"

"I didn't! Minnie Bush is my best friend and I tried my best to keep you
loyal to her. I----"

"You did?" young Charlie interrupted, with laughter as biting as he knew
how to make it. "Min told my sister Fanny I've practic'ly ruined her
life because how could she ever look at anybody else after me? She and
everybody else knows it's all on account of you! Then here now you just
give us all the la-de-da because this man wants to put you on the stage,
with all its tinsel and immorality, and you expect me to stand idly by
with folded hands and----"

"You're wrong!" Lily drew herself up grandly, threw back her head and
spoke in a voice genuinely indignant yet of such a richness that the
annoyed Gilbert suspected her of enjoying herself; indeed he was almost
certain she was glad to make him a spectator of this scene that he felt
might well have been seriously mortifying to her. "You're wrong! I
expect you to march out of that door!" Again she pointed to it regally.
"Go!"

Charlie remained. "Everybody knows you always been stage-struck!" he
said, and added passionately, "Just look at you now! I didn't think I'd
ever see you as low in the scale as this--exposing yourself dressed like
that to an utter stranger, while he sits here and figures out just how
many dollars and cents he's going to make out of selling your looks on
the stage to----"

The invalid on the sofa contrived to interrupt him. "That will do,
Charlie," she said quietly. "Your mother's coming in this evening and
I'll tell her that when you've apologized to Lily and asked her to
apologize for you to Mr. Gilbert I'll think whether it's best for me
ever to allow you to come here again. You can't stay now."

"I can't? Why, look here, Mrs. Mars----"

"No. That's all, Charlie."

The boy's excitement departed out of him; his chest deflated and his
shoulders drooped in gloom. "Oh--Gee," he murmured in lamentable
anticlimax, and turned toward the door. He had not reached it when it
was opened and a thin and pallid blonde girl a little older than Lily
came in.

Gilbert perceived that she was the older sister, the one who somehow
meagrely supported the three of them by working at Vance's. She was like
Lily as a withering rosebud is like a fresh one. Lily was almost
violently vivid; already Gilbert felt he had never in his life met
anyone of such vividness, and this quality, which he knew not how
otherwise to express, was lacking in the sister, as was Lily's color,
her delicate shapeliness and a look she had of being incomparably more
alive than other people. Clara Mars, not yet twenty-one, seemed dried,
lifeless and hard driven; her pallor, moreover, as she came into the
room, was noticeable and she walked limpingly.

At sight of her, the invalid and Lily uttered little outcries of
surprise and solicitude; Lily also, scrupulous upon etiquette,
pronounced her sister's name and Gilbert's in a presentation that
covered young Mr. Bright's muttering, inglorious withdrawal from the
house. "Nothing to worry about; I'm not dismissed," Clara explained, as
she went lamely to the inner door of the room. "They just let me off for
the rest of the afternoon; that's all. I'm all right."

"You didn't----" Mrs. Mars hesitated pathetically. "You didn't--have
another fainting spell from standing so many hours?"

"No; not quite," Clara said wanly. "I don't know why it takes me so long
to get used to it. There are girls down there that haven't been at it
nearly as long as I have and they can stand all day without even seeming
tired. I don't think it happens to me as often as it used to, Mother.
Please sit down again, Mr. Gilbert. I guess--I guess if you'll excuse me
perhaps I'd better go and lie down." She gave her sister an affectionate
smile and forestalled Lily's impulsive movement to accompany her. "No, I
don't need anything, Lily; I'll be perfectly all right in an hour or
two. I know Mr. Gilbert's already seen what a wonderful actress you are;
but I wish I could tell him what a darling sister you are!"

"Yes, and daughter," Mrs. Mars murmured, as Clara shut the door. The
mother lay with eyes closed--closed tragically, it seemed to
Gilbert--while Clara could be heard slowly ascending the uncarpeted
stairway, coughing hard as she went. "They're both wonderful daughters
to me, Owen. I've had to let them sacrifice their youth to me. I haven't
seemed to have any choice but just to lie here and see their beautiful
young lives wasted on me."

"Wasted!" Lily, with a lovely movement, flung herself upon one knee
beside the sofa and clasped one of her mother's hands in both of hers.
"Ah, you precious Muddie, do you think anything's wasted if it could be
the least use in the world to you?"

Mrs. Mars's eyes opened, releasing great crystal drops upon her cheeks.
"You see, Owen?" she asked. "You see what Lily's genius means to us? You
see what our hopes in it must be?"

He saw indeed, and, in despair of what such wild hopes must lead to,
again inwardly reproached his mother for letting him in for such an
afternoon. Lily Mars was pretty; she was even what people call
"striking" and he recognized the fact that she had exquisite and even
beautiful moments--but, as a professional actress, "impossible." That
was the only word he found for her, though no word at all was needed,
because even if she had been an untrained young Bernhardt or Terry or
Marlowe he had no power to put her upon the stage. More, he knew what
George Hurley would say to him--or, rather, roar at him--in response to
any proposal for an exhibition of aspiring "local talent" or even in
response to a suggestion that a young lady desirous of going on the
stage be presented for brief inspection and words of counsel. Hurley was
the junior partner in the firm of Adler and Company and would come with
the "Skylark" people to rehearse "Catalpa House" the next week; he was
the most uneven-tempered man in the world, the busiest, ruinously
eloquent in his furies and always furious with anything that wasted a
moment of his time. If he could by any means be brought to let Lily
waste a moment of it he would inevitably destroy the hope that sustained
these piteous women. "You learn to cook!" he would say, red-faced with
indignation. "You learn to sew! You stay home and wash dishes! Get
married!"

Gilbert, wrung with sympathy for Mrs. Mars and for the wan daughter,
Clara, felt that there was nothing for it but to let them live on in
their impossible hope. He had not the same feeling for Lily that he had
for them; she roused in him not dislike at all, but a sense of
protest--perhaps because he already felt her as a burden upon him and a
little no doubt because of his continued suspicion that she was in some
hidden way enjoying herself still, even when she gently and tenderly
wiped her mother's cheeks with a handkerchief and then hurriedly brushed
the handkerchief over her own eyes.

"Dear Mrs. Mars," he said, rising, "I'll do everything on earth I can,
though I warn you not to count too much on my being able to accomplish
what I'm afraid you think I could if I wished to. I assure you I do wish
to give your daughter her opportunity."

But to his dismay Lily jumped up, radiant, and, what was worse, he saw
that the mother was instantly radiant, too. "Oh, you heavenly angel!"
Lily cried. "You lamb!" She seized his hands. "Oh, after all this long,
long waiting and struggle--to get a hearing and to have it turn out like
this!" She whirled from him to her mother. "Muddie! Muddie! Muddie! Can
you believe it's actually happened at last? Isn't he an angel of a man,
Muddie, to do this for me when he's only heard me once?"

"I think he is," Mrs. Mars said. "Owen, I know we owe it to the
impression Lily's talent has made on you; but if you could know what
gratitude----"

"No, no!" he protested unhappily. "I'm afraid you don't understand at
all. You're mistaking the deed for the will. I----"

"And we'll just go on mistaking it!" Lily assured him, beaming upon him.
She stepped close to him. "Oh, you shower golden happiness upon me! This
is the most thrilling moment in my whole life--to think I've won your
belief in my acting so instantly! I have the strangest, divinest feeling
that this is the beginning of a great friendship--or something!" She
laughed excitedly. "Oh, do you know, before you came this afternoon I
was perfectly horribly frightened of you! I was! Since the world began,
I don't believe any person was so afraid of what some other person would
think of them. I thought at the best maybe you'd say I had a little
something that promised rather well but was terribly untrained and
advise me to go to a dramatic school for years and years before you'd
feel like giving me an actual start. Oh, I didn't dream what you'd be
like, and, oh, oh, oh, I never possibly could have dreamed you'd really
commit yourself to me like this!"

Helplessly the young man made no effort to deny that he was committed to
her. With envy he thought of old Nelson sitting in the free air and
sunlight outside; for escape from this ugly little brown room and its
confusions seemed the only desirable thing in the world. Moreover, a
part of Gilbert's own confusion of mind rose from a curious new
impression of Lily Mars, as she stood close to him, chattering out her
raptures. Her eyes were warmly, lustrously and gratefully uplifted to
his; she almost touched him and seemed to wish to touch him. She looked,
in fact, as though she were in love with him; she gave him the
incredible impression that she was suddenly falling in love with him.
Her very voice seemed almost to say, "I love you!" A personal, mutual
consciousness of possibly illimitable consequences seemed to establish
itself between them; she seemed somehow to make it almost witless of him
not to exclaim to himself, "Why, this girl loves me!"

He murmured feeble reassurances and farewells to Mrs. Mars, touched her
hand in departure and found that Lily was accompanying him outdoors.
Incongruous and more in bad taste than ever in the unmitigating
sunshine, she was nevertheless all the more vivid and only gained color
from the strong light. She put a hand softly upon his arm to retard his
crossing of the brief space of scrubby front yard and prattled to him
confidentially in a sweet, lowered voice. "You don't mind that crazy
little Charlie Bright and what he said? I mean particularly what he said
about that silly old Mr. F. Munson Lang. They're both too ridiculous to
speak of! You won't think it possible for me to have ever done anything
except try as decently as I could to stop them from being so silly? I
really couldn't stand it to have you believe I'd been as foolish as he
tried to make you think I was--and about such terribly ordinary men! Ah,
truly, truly, all I've cared about throughout all these years has been
the stage--the stage! You see it's my very life, don't you? You could
almost tell that just by looking at me, couldn't you? Couldn't you?"

"Well, I--I suppose I----"

"Of course you could! The idea of that goose's saying I took him away
from Minnie Bush! Minnie's a lovely girl, my most intimate friend and
cares almost as much for the stage as I do. We've spent whole days
reciting to each other and talking about how if I ever got to be a star
I'd put her in my company and all that. I'll never speak to him
again--as if I'd be flirting with mere high school boys and that silly
old married F. Munson Lang! I know what I possess to give to any man
who'd win me wholly; but I've put all that away until my dream comes
true, my lifelong dream of being on the stage. You understand me! I know
you do--I saw it in your eyes the instant I came into the room. I knew
you were the man who brought me my great adventure. Do you see what it
makes me feel about you?" She laughed emotionally. "To express it, would
you let me lift you into your carriage?"

He laughed, too, but with no spontaneity. "I'm afraid you won't feel
that way after I've proved of no benefit to you."

"You couldn't make me doubt you--now," she said, and, as he stepped
through the gateway, seemed to have an afterthought. "Wait! Give me just
one moment more. You wouldn't mind if you knew how much I'll treasure
the memory of it. I've just thought----" She hesitated, frowning as in
some perplexity. "I don't suppose--I mean, isn't something like this
done sometimes with plays? If you thought--now after you've seen what I
can do--if you thought one of the women's parts could be changed a
little to get some of that into it--or perhaps if a new part could be
written in, with a good deal of that in it--I mean of course if it
wouldn't be any trouble. But isn't something of that sort done sometimes
with plays?"

He had the impulse to tell her, even somewhat vindictively, that it
wasn't done for girls just out of high school who recited; but she was
looking at him with her remarkable eyes wistfully and in a bright
confidence he could not shatter. Against his will, he said, "Sometimes",
smiled more benevolently than he meant to; then got into his mother's
carriage and drove away in a low state of mind. He was uncomfortably
aware that she stood at her gate, gazing after him, and just before he
reached the next corner he turned his head and looked back. She was
there, and immediately raised her right arm high, a farewell symbol of
their understanding. He lifted his hat and was sharply annoyed with
himself for looking back, the more-so because he knew she had fully
expected him to look back.




CHAPTER FOUR


Driving homeward, he had an almost bodily sensation of having been
pestered exhaustingly, and, at dinner that evening, he spoke of this
feeling to his mother. He had not seen her after his call until they
came to the table. "I went through it for you," he said. "I must say
your young friend knows how to put herself on a person's hands! She's
got at least one temperamental qualification for the stage, too--an hour
or so with her certainly takes it out of you!"

Mrs. Gilbert smiled at him approvingly across the lace cloth and "best
silver" with which she honored this visit, even when she and her son
dined alone together as they did to-night. "You were an angel to go
there, Owen."

"Not very," he said with some dryness. "I went there instead of letting
her come here because I thought I could get away when I wanted to--a
mistake of mine because I wanted to get away all the time I was there."

Mrs. Gilbert looked disturbed. "Oh, dear! Did you? Of course I
understand what you mean by her taking it out of you. I'm afraid the
poor child does, rather; but don't you think it's because all people of
that abounding intense vitality do? Especially anybody with such great
emotional volatility? They seem to feel everything so much more keenly
than other people do, whether it's joy or unhappiness or----"

"Or just egoism?" her son suggested. "How can you tell whether they feel
things more or only express them more? She's got that in common with
quite a number of stage people of my acquaintance. They live by
expressing feelings more eloquently than other people can, and when
they're not on the stage they naturally go on doing that. An
inexpressive person might be feeling infinitely more."

"Yes, but you did think she was expressive? You did see talent in her,
didn't you?"

"Talent!" he said, and groaned. "Heaven knows! Mother, if you knew the
long hard road--the hundreds of tiny things and large things, the
unending technical things an actor has to know before he can even begin
to act! Why, just the mere knowing how to come into a scene, just to
walk on the stage----"

"But dear me!" she interrupted. "You might as well say you've got to
learn to swim without going near the water."

"It's true," he returned despondently. "That's just about it! I don't
mean there aren't people who seem to have a natural instinct for the
stage and appear to know all such things by intuition--at least, they
seem to acquire 'em almost instantly----"

"But why couldn't Lily Mars be one of those people, Owen? Are you sure
she isn't?"

"No, I'm not," he admitted grudgingly. "I don't know what she is. She
ranted Lady Macbeth at me terribly; but I don't know that she mightn't
have done better if somebody'd given her a few hints."

"What sort of hints?"

"Not to do Lady Macbeth!" he said grimly. "Not constantly to use
theatrical gestures. In a word, not to 'act' at all but to try to speak
and move and look like a human being, even during the deadliest
declamation!"

"But dear boy, why didn't you tell her?"

"With her pathetic mother looking on who thinks she's perfect--and the
girl herself obviously convinced of being a genius and knowing more than
anybody else in the world? Besides, what would have been the use? The
trouble with your plan for her is that so far as her chance to get on
the stage is concerned it doesn't matter whether she's the genius they
all three think she is or just a stage-struck high school girl. Do you
suppose George Hurley'd be willing to put her into the cast of a play
when by lifting his little finger he can get any one of a hundred
trained actresses, specialists for any kind of part he wants?"

"But good gracious, people do get on the stage!"

"Not through me! If I ask George Hurley----"

"Ah, but you will ask him!" the mother said quickly. "Owen, it's just
got to be accomplished somehow. You saw that poor dear broken woman on
her sofa----"

"Yes, I saw her," he returned, and shook his head pityingly. "I even saw
the sister. She had to come home because she'd had some sort of fainting
attack, standing on her noticeably small feet all day behind a counter,
I suppose, and she seemed to have a pretty bad cough, too."

"A pretty badly threatening one," his mother said gravely. "Owen, I feel
some sort of little protest or something in you against Lily, perhaps
because she's so buoyant and perhaps a little, too, because she's not
had any chance to cultivate much of what we think of as good taste. How
could she? She was only a little girl when the family collapsed and
she's had to grow up in such meagre surroundings, naturally drifting
among some pretty ordinary people, no doubt, on account of that--but
it's really touching to see such an attractive girl who loves life as
she does giving up everything to take care of her mother. You see, one
of them has to be near her all the time; Mrs. Mars told me Lily'd hardly
been out of the house in months and months except a little in the
evenings sometimes when Clara's home. Aren't actors rather well paid,
even when they're playing rather minor rles?"

"Fairly--while they're acting. Financially it's the most hazardous of
professions, Mother. When a play fails, they're out of work, some of
them for the rest of the year probably, and there are never any
certainties. I understand what you want to know, though; a new girl
engaged for a minor rle might get thirty-five or fifty or seventy-five
dollars a week, according to the size of the part and the manager's idea
of her value to him. She'd have to pay all her own expenses, of course,
except railroad fares."

Mrs. Gilbert looked pleased. "But that would be splendid! Seventy-five
dollars a week perhaps, and I suppose they're living on something like
ten! I don't believe any of the Vance clerks get over fifteen. Why, this
would be--you see it would solve the whole terrible problem for them,
Owen. They could have a servant and a nurse for Mrs. Mars, and Clara
could get the long rest she needs so dreadfully, and oh, how that plucky
devoted Lily deserves it, Owen! I don't doubt you discovered some of her
youthful foolishnesses and, as you say, a funny girlish kind of egoism;
but you've got to respect anybody who makes the sacrifice she does and
if you could bring a little glory into her life--stage glory--you'd do
more than that, you'd save the three of them, and you must have seen,
yourself, how desperately they need saving."

"Oh, murder, yes!" he said impatiently. "But you seem to be as sure as
they were that I can do it, Mother. See here; I'd take the chance of her
damaging my play in a small part if it were left to me. I need a success
pretty badly just now, to keep the ear of the managers; but I'd do it.
You can't see people in such a hole as that and not try to pull 'em out.
I wish you'd tell me how to do it! There are just four women's parts in
'Catalpa House', and Hurley's got just the four actresses he wants for
those parts; three of 'em are in the 'Skylark' company and he has the
other one, Lena Hoyt, along with them and they're already rehearsing
'Catalpa House' in their spare time on the road."

"I understand," Mrs. Gilbert said musingly. "But sometimes, Owen, in
case a great talent is discovered----"

"Mother! Stop!" He held up a protesting hand. "You're going to suggest
that I could write a part into the play for Lily. Lily put that into her
mother's head and her mother put it into yours." He laughed feebly. "I'd
like to see George Hurley's face if I proposed adding another salary to
the list for the benefit of unknown genius and a suffering family,
throwing the play out of balance, lengthening it when it's already too
long and----"

"Oh, dear!" Mrs. Gilbert said blankly. "Is it as terribly discouraging
as that? But, Owen, you _will_ do something for her?"

"Yes, I will. It won't do her the slightest actual good and it'll make
George Hurley think I'm a sentimental idiot and more of a stage
greenhorn than he already does think I am; but I'll do it. I could get
the President of the United States to stop a Cabinet meeting for the
pleasure of hearing young Miss Mars recite a great deal more easily than
I could get Hurley to listen to her. He simply won't do it, Mother, and
by putting such a possibility out of our minds we'll save ourselves
useless worry. The best thing and the only thing I can do is to help
those three women to go on living in their poor impossible hope.
Hurley's a good-hearted man inside, though he does his best not to let
it interfere with his business, and I think he'll do this much for me if
I ask it as a personal favor. He'll let me just barely introduce her to
him, perhaps, and he'll take just long enough to tell her to quit
thinking about the stage; but if I ask him beforehand, as I will, I
think he'll 'take her name'. That means he'll pretend to write down her
name and address in a notebook, as if maybe some day he'd have a part
that looked her style and send for her. He'll never do any such thing of
course and he wouldn't even be able to read what he pretends to scribble
in his notebook; but she and her mother and sister'll have the chance to
think that perhaps some time the part will turn up and he'll send for
her--and they could add that hope to their other ones----"

"But none of them will ever be fulfilled?"

"No."

"You're sure there isn't any chance of his being persuaded to give her a
hearing--to let her recite----"

"Murder, no! But, Mother, those poor things will have their hope to go
on with and it's just possible that in two or three years I'll be in a
position to have something to say about the casting of my own plays and
could let her try a small part. It might be----"

"In two or three years," his mother said sorrowfully. "If their hope
lasts that long, and if Mrs. Mars and Clara do!" Then she spoke in a
brisker voice. "Your great Mr. Hurley and the company reach here next
Sunday, do they?"

"Yes; in the morning, at ten. They'll go at it at half-past ten and
rehearse all day probably."

"Wouldn't you like me to ask them to dinner that evening?"

He laughed, inquired if she was sure she wanted a whole theatrical
company in her house at once; but remembered that this one wasn't
overwhelmingly numerous. "Let's see. The seven 'Skylark' people and the
ingnue who's to play in 'Catalpa House', Lena Hoyt, and the two
bit-part actors Hurley has with them to fill out the 'Catalpa House'
cast of ten, and Hurley himself and Pinkney Monk, the stage
director--that's only twelve." He assured her that they'd all be
delighted with the opportunity to dine in a house as a change from
hotels and road-town restaurants and suggested as a pleasant possibility
that she might enjoy them, especially as several of them were well
equipped to be the life of any party. "But don't try to talk to George
Hurley about young Miss Mars," he added, in warning. "He's had that sort
of thing practised on him so often in the hope of getting somebody on
the stage that he's infuriated by the slightest sniff of it in his
nostrils."

"No, no," Mrs. Gilbert protested. "I understand what you mean--that it
would only antagonize him against her--and I haven't the slightest idea
of making a plea to him. It's curious," she added smilingly, as she
rose, observing that he had finished his coffee, "to be the mother of a
playwright and know as little about the theatre as I do; but I suppose
that's what I ought to try to talk to them about, isn't it--the stage?"

"You needn't worry!" he told her, and laughed, following her toward the
library, where by old custom they always sat after dinner. "Don't bother
about your share of the talking or about knowing little of the stage,
either. They'll attend to both those matters for you."

In the library she occupied herself with a floral embroidery, while her
son, taking a volume of Walpole's Letters from a shelf, sat with the
book in his lap, beneath the light of a bronze standing-lamp near the
piano. He read for some time but so absently that now and then he turned
back to a previous page to discover what he was reading; for his mind's
eye prevailed over the physical one discomfitingly and what he
continually saw were the shimmering and changing folds of old yellow
satin, a flying grace of gesturing young arms, shades of autumn leaf tan
in soft hair on a little head, fitful hazel glances entreating his
admiration, and long looks, also hazel, warmly hinting--almost
promising--that a unique adoration of himself was far from impossible.

Against his will and almost to his chagrin, the image of Lily Mars had
remained insistently with him ever since he had left her at her gate in
the afternoon. His feeling about the girl herself was that she was a
bother, a high school declaimer who was going to be a nuisance to him on
account of his sympathies and also because he had to go to the trouble
of worrying the irascible and powerful George Hurley into "taking her
name". As for her devotion to her mother, he admitted it as admirable
and even, as Mrs. Gilbert said, touching; but good heavens! daughters
were supposed to sacrifice themselves for their mothers under such
circumstances, weren't they? He didn't like the girl, neither did he
dislike her; but he did indeed dislike what seemed to be her unremittent
pursuit of him into his thoughts. With his annoyed eyes on his book, he
read paragraphs of no meaning; old satin twinkled across the print, and
Lily Mars seemed to sink to the floor in a curtsey before him, then to
come close to him, tenderly, as if she half-offered a caress for which
he had no desire. Her odd slender rich voice seemed to murmur, "I love
you!"

In Taormina, a year past, he had completed a recovery from a severe love
affair; he had no intention of being attacked by another, last of all by
one concerned with such a person as Lily Mars. Then, "Rubbish!" he said
contemptuously to himself for even mentioning Lily Mars in such a
connection.

Across the room Mrs. Gilbert, apparently preoccupied with her
embroidery, laughed softly aloud as if in preface to something she was
going to say; but she did not say it and continued to ply her needle,
though absentmindedly.

"Yes?" her son inquired. "You've thought of something funny but won't
share it?"

"Not funny precisely, I suppose," she explained. "I was sitting here
thinking I was embroidering, and in a way I suppose I have been--at
least I haven't made any mistakes--but what I've really been doing all
the time was thinking about that poor dear child. I have a peculiar
experience in connection with her; whenever I've been with her, or even
when I've only been talking about her, I never can stop thinking about
her for the longest time! Once I start thinking about her, I always keep
on thinking about her for hours and hours! She has that odd effect, and
to-night after we had that talk about her at the dinner-table--why,
really it's almost as if she were here in this very room with us. She's
so--so almost tragically vivid! Often it's as if she absolutely makes me
think about her whether I want to or not. Do you think she'd affect
other people, too, that way, Owen--audiences perhaps? For instance,
you've been reading and I suppose you've been busy with it; but hasn't
she come into your mind several times, for a moment or two, in spite of
it?"

Her son's response to this question was of a nature that might well have
dismayed him had he perceived it to be what it actually was, a symptom
that he wished to avoid admitting what was happening to him, and hence
that something was indeed happening to him.

"Who?" he said coolly. "You're speaking of----"

"Why, good heavens! Lily Mars!"

"Oh," he said. "What about her?"




CHAPTER FIVE


On Sunday evening, at the hour her son had advised her to set for
dinner, the September twilight was still not so far advanced that Mrs.
Gilbert, looking forth interestedly from the library bay-window, lacked
a clear view of what was happening upon her driveway. Three closed
automobiles had glided in and stood vibrating, a novel sight in that
white lane. Owen had hired them from Foudray's Livery, an old
establishment now transitional, half equine, half mechanical, where
doomed cab-horses in their stalls breathed burnt oil and gasoline, and
Owen himself was in the leading car, guide to his mother's guests after
the long rigor of rehearsal he had shared with them. He sat forward with
the driver, jumped lightly down, opened the door and at once received
familiarly upon his shoulder the pressure of a slender hand in a grey
suede glove. The owner of the hand, descending, was disclosed, a
smiling, handsome, auburn-haired lady of thirty, of easy poise and
carriage; and Mrs. Gilbert, at the window, instantly made the good
guess, "Miss Hedrington, Isabelle Hedrington, the leading lady. And how
lovely and what lovely Titian hair!" she thought. "I suppose probably
they all put their hands on people's shoulders like that without meaning
anything by it."

After Miss Hedrington there emerged a short and thick-waisted but
active-looking man of about forty who was smoking a cigar, but, in spite
of that and his clipped sandy hair, resembled Napoleon enough in profile
for Mrs. Gilbert, recalling her son's description, to be sure of him.
"That's the one," she thought with gravity. "That's the man we're after!
That's the great Mr. George Hurley!" Then, following the manager from
the dark interior, there emerged a tall fair young man of such
comeliness, both of face and athletic figure, and so carefully exquisite
in every point of haberdashery and tailoring that Mrs. Gilbert had no
doubt whatever of him. "You handsome nice thing! You're Owen's great
friend, Eugene Allan, and going to play the hero in 'Catalpa House'.
You're perfect for it, too!"

Other members of the theatrical company were descending from the two
other cars, and Mrs. Gilbert's first impression of them was that
outwardly at least they were not theatrical at all and that seen thus in
their street clothes they were like any other group of well dressed,
pleasant-looking people anywhere. There were two middle-aged women with
good-natured, intelligent faces, a slim, short girl of twenty, pretty
and "bright-looking", as Mrs. Gilbert thought, and the rest were men of
various ages who in her opinion might have belonged to almost any
profession whatever. "Why, they don't look like actors at all!" she
thought, in surprise; but added, as the last of them emerged to her
view, "Except that old fellow. Gracious me!"

The old fellow referred to was seventy probably, large all over, fat at
the middle, yet plainly a person of high vigor; he had a great red old
Roman face, and, fluffing out beneath the only silk hat in view,
displayed a magnificent head of bushy white hair. Instantly upon setting
foot on the lawn beside the driveway, he made himself audible over the
voices of his colleagues who were all chatting and laughing cheerfully.
"Green grass!" he bellowed, in a grand bass voice easily heard through
the closed window. "Green grass to sport upon! Hark ye, hearties,
demoiselles and lanzknechts, we'll romp it!"

He rushed upon the two middle-aged women, laid hold of them, and,
capering himself, sought to make them caper with him. "Trip it! How
often do you see green grass, troupers? Sing hey, nonny hey, nonny no!"
Repulsed by the two, he seized upon the "bright-looking" small girl who,
nothing loth, gayly joined in his cavortings. With an arm about her
waist, and side by side with her, displaying high dance steps of
astonishing agility and grace, he swept her across the lawn. Mrs.
Gilbert gave a thought to a scandalized Sabbath-observing neighborhood
as he sang lustily:

    _"A great while ago the world begun,_
      _With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,_
    _But that's all one, our play is done,_
      _And we'll strive to please you every day!"_

The others paid no attention, and Mrs. Gilbert had to leave the window,
for already her son and several of her guests were in the house. The
rest followed immediately, the boisterous old man and his lively young
partner bringing a fragment of song with them to add to the effusion of
talk and laughter in the hall--Mrs. Gilbert had the impression that
never under her roof had there been such a resonance of rich and musical
voices. Owen came into the room with Miss Hedrington, who maintained a
comrade's affectionate clasp upon one of his arms, while the tall and
elegant leading man, Mr. Eugene Allan, upon the other side, kept a white
hand on the playwright's shoulder. Mrs. Gilbert was pleased to see these
tokens of liking for her son and fondly thought him almost as handsome
as the actor. Even Owen couldn't be quite that handsome, she realized,
for she had never before seen any man so resplendently good-looking as
Mr. Allan; but she made up to herself for this admission by thinking her
son, in his dark, reticent way, much the more "distinguished".

The Napoleonic though sandy haired Hurley, with his cigar fuming between
two negligent fingers, sauntered in with this group, which seemed
naturally to take precedence; but the others came forward with a little
eagerness and a great deal of cordiality as Owen began to speak their
names to his mother. Upon closer view, she found them somewhat more like
actors than she had thought at first, or at any rate they seemed not
quite like the people to whom she was accustomed; these guests of hers
had perhaps a little more manner, spoke more distinctly, were better
poised and also more emphatic. Naturally she mislaid most of the names;
but was able to remember that the boisterous old Roman was Mr. Ord, that
the sprightly young lady who had capered with him was Miss Hoyt, and
that a sallow and emaciated young man who looked like Edwin Booth in ill
health was Mr. Monk, the stage director. She was impressed again with
the quality of the voices as the company disposed itself easily about
the big room; especially she felt the beauty of the voice of Mr. Allan
who remained beside her, talking of his admiration for her son. This
deep and manly yet musical voice seemed to linger just detectably the
slightest fraction of a second upon almost every word, as if to unite it
the more suavely to the word that followed, and the effect of rhythmic
cadence thus obtained hinted study--and almost that the speaker, with a
little pardonable pleasure, joined his listener in listening.

Nelson and a temporary assistant of like age and color appeared with
silver trays bearing small glasses of sherry, which were hospitably
received by the company, emptied without exception, collected and borne
away; then Nelson again made his appearance in the wide, open doorway
into the hall and seemed content to stand there, doing nothing except to
look important. Owen, near the doorway with Miss Lebrun, one of the two
older ladies of the company, spoke to him aside. "If you want to tell my
mother that dinner's served, why don't you?"

"No, suh," Nelson said mysteriously. "She waitin'."

"Waiting? What for?"

Nelson continued to be mysterious. "Doin' jes' like she tol' me, Mist'
Owen. Supprise. You see in a minute."

"Why, what----" The question was interrupted by an exclamation from Miss
Lebrun. Standing in the doorway she had in view the broad staircase
farther down the hall.

"What a lovely girl!" she cried.

"Girl? Where----" But then, following her glance, he saw Lily Mars in a
black velvet evening dress that was beyond his fastidious criticism; she
was coming slowly down the stairs, and he understood what his mother had
done and how romantically--nay, how theatrically!--she had planned.

Nelson, in the doorway, thought fit to attract the general attention to
himself with a gust of loud, pompous and artificial coughing; then, when
talk naturally stopped and he held all eyes, he shouted solemnly, "Miss
Lillian Mars!" and stepped aside.

Mrs. Gilbert had said she knew little of the theatre, yet she had
devised and directed for her protge an "entrance" that any stage star
might have coveted, her son thought. Lily gave him one quick inscrutable
look, as she approached in the hall; then, stepping to the centre of the
bright doorway, she let herself be framed there for one instant, while
an audible murmur came from every part of the room, and the
over-bubbling old Ord was heard to exclaim, "Honorable Vera de Vere!
Portrait by Gainsborough!" But Lily's pause was so brief she could
hardly have been caught at it; she went on quickly to Mrs. Gilbert,
leaving behind her near the doorway a heart agitated by anxiety,
admiration and another feeling not yet definite.

This worried heart was the playwright's. The anxiety was for what the
evening might bring--most probably a destructive outbreak on the part of
the nearly absolute ruler over the destinies of most of the people in
the house, the untamable Hurley--and the admiration was for what Mrs.
Gilbert, untrained in such matters, had already accomplished as a
"producer" and stage director. That black velvet evening gown must have
been a hurry-order, yet it could have been Parisian; there was just one
ornament, Owen's grandmother's diamond brooch, and in Lily's left hand
was the ivory handle of Mrs. Gilbert's white ostrich feather
fan--unquestionably, she was a picture of high fashion and Owen
perceived that somehow through his own talk his mother must have divined
that stage people, after centuries of half exclusion, half adulation by
such fashion, are often unreasonably impressed by it. When Lily Mars
came into the room, the superb Allan tested with his fingers the
adjustment of his neck-scarf and coat collar, began as soon as possible
to talk to her and Mrs. Gilbert of some "hunting people" he knew in
Maryland, and Miss Lebrun murmured despairingly to Owen, "Ah, if we
could ever get just that on the stage! How seldom you see an actress who
knows how to simply walk on with anything like the gracious quiet aplomb
these real society girls possess!"

"Dear me!" he said, staring, and Miss Lebrun, after a moment's
perplexity, decided that he hadn't listened to her but had been
thinking, most likely, about his play. She was mistaken; moreover, the
playwright was unaware of the significance of the fact that for days his
habit of subjecting almost everything to the search for drama had been
broken. He sought no "situation" now in the plight of a young man afraid
that his philanthropic mother and a coached girl in desperate
circumstances were about to bring embarrassment and mortification upon
themselves, and upon himself, too. He was beyond dramatizing, being far
too feelingly that very young man himself and too sickeningly assured
that before the evening was over his mother and Lily Mars between them,
in touching innocence, would perpetrate a horror. Before these
long-experienced and seasoned experts and the deadly Hurley, Lily would
recite "Roger and I"; she would do Juliet and Lady Macbeth, and it was
not beyond the bounds of a terror-struck imagination to suppose that she
would do the dance of the coming of springtime throughout all the ages.

He had a respite; it became evident that the performance was not planned
to take place before dinner, and presently, at the table, he recovered
enough presence of mind to do his duty by Isabelle Hedrington and the
vivacious Miss Hoyt between whom he sat, at the foot of the
lace-covered, glittering board. Both of them expressed an almost
rapturous admiration for his mother, something he had rather dryly
expected; for he knew that actors more than most other people are not
only volatile in enthusiasms but sympathetically love to say the
pleasing thing.

"And it's a privilege just to look at her!" Miss Hoyt exclaimed,
concluding her tribute. "When I'm fifty I suppose George Hurley or that
disgusting Adler'll have me playing comedy old women instead of _grande
dame_ parts; but if I ever have a chance to do a _grande dame_ I'll
remember your mother and try to play it like that. I'd remember her
against the background of this grand serene old house of yours----"

"Now, now!" he protested. "I'm afraid that's a little extreme--about the
house."

"Not at all!" Miss Hedrington assured him warmly. "Your mother would
impart all that to it even if it weren't there intrinsically, Owen. So
serene and yet so smilingly, graciously simple and friendly! With such a
beautiful person at the head of the table, it seems almost sacrilege to
think about anything else; but tell me, I suppose Miss Mars is a cousin
or something of yours?"

"No; her mother's an old friend of my mother's. She's just----" He
hesitated, then finished the sentence inadequately--"just a girl."

"I doubt if that's all she is," Miss Hoyt rejoined, glancing toward the
head of the table. Then she looked roguishly at Miss Hedrington who had
an emotional failing humorously but unfortunately known to her
theatrical associates. "It may be a good thing we're to play here only a
week, don't you think, Isabelle?"

Miss Hedrington laughed quickly. "If Eugene, poor dear, were as
susceptible to everybody he meets as you try to goad me into thinking he
is, Lena, I'd better step aside at once and give you your chance at him,
hadn't I? Happily, I'm not of a jealous temperament."

The mischievous Miss Hoyt looked at the ceiling. "No, you don't know the
meaning of the word," she said musingly. "And isn't that a good thing,
too!"

In spite of herself, Miss Hedrington colored slightly and glanced again
at Lily Mars to whom Mr. Eugene Allan was talking with a visible
impressiveness. "Don't be vicious, Lena."

"Me? Why, you cat!"

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" the playwright said, with perfunctory humor, and
was conscious himself of an inward objection to the warmly appreciative
interest Allan appeared to be taking in Miss Mars. Actually to be
sitting next to that romantic idol who looked, off the stage, all that
on the stage he promised to be, and actually to have his musical voice
doing its best to be fascinating to her--what could more demoralizingly
fulfill the dream and turn the head of an obscure, stage-struck girl
just out of high school? Moreover, it was ironically cruel that the
philanthropy now providing her with the bright tinsel of these moments
was in reality but the means to bring upon her a disappointment all the
more crushing. At the head of the table his mother sat talking to George
Hurley with the characteristic smiling unconcern of an impulsive good
woman who, because of her ignorance of thunderbolts, believes she can
play with them. Her son sent her a long, reproachful and significantly
imploring glance.

Mrs. Gilbert did not see it. She had placed the manager upon her right,
with Lily next to him and the leading man next beyond, and, although she
had cautioned Lily not to talk a great deal, she wished her to talk more
to Mr. Hurley than to Mr. Allan; but now, here was Lily speechless
apparently, and with downcast eyes and heightened color, listening
steadily to the richly toned murmuring of the actor. "I must let Miss
Mars have a little chance at you," the hostess said to Hurley. "Of
course she's interested in the stage, as everybody is, and to hear
something of it from one of its fountain heads, so to speak----"

"Me?" he interrupted brusquely. "I'm a 'fountain head' of the stage all
right, or maybe just a goat for having anything to do with it; but I'd
certainly like to have a vacation from it sometimes. I can talk about
other things when I try; I'm no actor." Suddenly he became passionate.
"Good God; but I get sick of it! I wouldn't mind talking to this little
girl if Allan'd ever shut off his tin horn voice and quit pushing his
face at her to show how silly pretty it is; but I won't talk about the
stage to her. If you think that'd be a pleasure to me, you're wrong!
Isn't it enough that when you and Owen ask me to your house you have to
go and bring along all these people I'm compelled to live with in order
to get my living, and that I have to sit here and can't look anywhere
around the room without seeing some actor's face nor for one single damn
second let my ears get a rest from the horrible din of old Joe Ord's
voice?" Abruptly, he gave a piercing tenor scream and leaned toward Ord
who, upon Mrs. Gilbert's left, was talking noisily to Miss Lebrun. "Joel
For God's sake!"

The outburst was so sudden and so vehement that Mrs. Gilbert gasped;
Eugene Allan, reddening, laughed uneasily, and Lily turned open-eyed to
Hurley. The elderly Ord, on the contrary, uttered a resounding laughter.
"Bravo, George!" he said, in thunderous bass. "Gnat, thou sting'st me
not!" He lifted a glass of claret from beside his plate. "Away slight
man! Your health, ladies!" He drank, set down the empty glass and beamed
upon Mrs. Gilbert and Lily. "Ladies, that man should have been an actor;
I refer to the so-called guest of honor upon the hostess's right.
Dauntless, I say it; he should have been not a manager but an actor."
Then, regardless of the fact that Hurley said, "Oh, for God's sake!"
again loudly, stopped eating and pushed back his chair as if to leave
the table, he continued, "I flatter him less than others do, yet I
insist he should have been an actor. What is an actor?" He looked
fixedly at Lily. "Fair child, do you wish me to answer?"

"Yes," she said softly and eagerly. "Oh, yes."

"You'll be sorry!" Hurley warned her, in a voice unexpectedly quiet and
resigned. "He talks about 'the actor' in hotel bars until everybody
cries--after three A. M.! I see what's happened. There's a saloon across
the alley from the stage door. Soon as I noticed it this morning I knew
that before the week was out I'd be cutting his salary for delaying
rehearsal."

"Cut my salary!" The old player again projected a reverberating
laughter. "Sir, you threaten the infinitesimal! There are things too
small to be halved; they must be enlarged before they can be sliced. Now
I will tell you what is an actor. But first----" He again lifted his
glass, which Nelson had replenished. "Fair child, your health!"

"Have you got a barrel of that wine or any other liquor, no matter what,
in the cellar?" Hurley asked Mrs. Gilbert harshly. "If you have for
God's sake bring it up and give it to him and maybe we'll get a little
peace for half an hour or so."

Ord set down his empty glass. "Speech!" he announced sonorously. "By
Joseph Ord, sterling old Joe Ord, never in the whole history of trouping
permitted to play a heart of gold but usually in youth First Murderers,
Attendants or Second Heavies, and later Tybalt at the most; the King in
Hamlet throughout middle-age, varied by some two thousand, seven hundred
and sixty-one performances of Simon Legree, between the years Eighteen
hundred and seventy-seven and Eighteen hundred and ninety-four, both
dates of the genus Anno Domini absolutely, I give you my word. Subject:
the actor. What is he? Don't ask me!"

Lily leaned toward him eagerly; her eyes were brilliant with excitement.
"Ah, but I do ask you!"

"So be it," he said promptly. "The actor is any member of the
theoretically human race who thinks somebody else is looking at him, or
who is looking at himself. The professional actor is a person with an
instinct to be more so. Sometimes he is a Narcissus beset by such a
passionate sweetness of feeling for his fellow-man that he makes any
sacrifice in order to give everybody in the world a chance to see how
beautiful he is and hear how dulcet the sounds produced from his
oesophagus, charging a slight honorarium for the benefit. He is all
love, so loving he will play no part that does not make him love his
audience the more for their greater love of him; his dramatists must
have ink-pots full of noble deeds, great thoughts and boyish modesty.
Ah, but this is no true actor, for your true fellow gives little thought
to being watched from the stage door and perhaps snatched and kissed by
uncontrollable middle-aged wives of road-town stove-store proprietors
and absent traveling-men. We are not all of us Narcissi! Your true
fellow has for God knows what reason a passion for making his body into
the portraits of other people, changing his voice into the voice of
others and making his eyes look forth from their sockets as others' eyes
look forth from theirs. He will stick glue on his brows, wax in his
nostrils, plaster on his teeth; he'll wear rags and heave up a hump on
his back and whine in a cracked voice---- What does he care, so he makes
his picture? He would rather play a monster than a honey-hero and he
adores his audience for hating him. Narcissus dies luxuriously in his
suite at the Holland House; your true fellow gets hold of a little
laudanum in jail."

Mr. Allan, slightly flushed, spoke in an annoyed voice. "Oh, I say!
You're not going on any longer, are you?"

"Indubitably!" the old man returned, with elaborate distinctness. "You
hear me pronounce the word? With that ejaculation, upon occasion, I have
cleared away a false impression in the minds of the police. We return to
our subject. Your true actor, then, is a person foolish enough to live
in squalor and perish miserably for the sake of being allowed to make
pictures of other people for brief intervals during six evenings and
customarily two afternoons in the week. Why does he? What ecstasy
rewards him? None. I can only tell you that you would be mad not to
think him so. And under what horrid conditions does he make his
pictures, in what shackles does he work! He may not utter a syllable not
put in his mouth by an imperious playwright too often brainless. He may
not take a step, may not wiggle a finger, cough, smile, stoop, lift ear
or eyebrow unless so commanded by a stage director always hoarse and
nine times out of ten insane. In Nuremberg they have the Iron Maiden. It
is a steel box hollowed inside to the shape of a man; they would put a
man inside it and close the ponderous horrible thing so that he was a
man immovable in a ton of steel--and there's your actor, in a ton of
dramatist and stage director. What! Can he work thus, can he shine
through the metal? Why, he does! Come to the theatre and let the curtain
go up; there he is, poor Tom o' Bedlam, all warm and glowing in the
footlights, making elf-land pictures for you out of himself, draining
out his life to make you see a life not his, breaking his heart in his
passion to make you see a gnome or a miser, or maybe some such cheap
thing as a cruel banker. And if you do see it and perhaps hiss him for
the wickedness you hate in what he's made you see, is he happy, is he at
last content? Never! He's saying to himself, 'I misplaced my emphasis on
that word in the first act to-night. Ah, if I only hadn't, they'd be
hissing me louder!'" The old trouper again lifted a refilled purple
glass, and, with what seemed necromantic brevity, set it down glittering
but colorless. "There, fair child! That's your actor."

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Lily Mars cried, and she leaned toward him, her cheeks
pale now in her excitement and her eyes alight with a hazel fire, while,
at the other end of the table, Owen Gilbert held his breath. "It is! It
is!" she cried. "I know! All my life I've understood! I feel it! I'm
part of it!"

"You!" The barbaric Hurley turned upon her violently. "What do you
understand? What are you part of?"

Lily caught a look from her coach and adviser at the head of the table;
the color came into her cheeks again and she leaned back in her chair.
"Of the audience," she said softly. "When you have a successful play,
Mr. Hurley, don't you want the audience to feel it's part of it?"

Owen's breathing was resumed. He perceived that Lily was intended to
protract the impression she was making as a "society girl"--at least she
wasn't going to recite at the table. But his soul groaned within him;
the catastrophe was only postponed to the library after dinner.




CHAPTER SIX


In that spacious bright apartment, an hour later, with the laughter of
his mother's guests merry in his ears, he reached the depth of his
gloom, for he could no longer doubt that the moment was at hand. The
four youngest men in the theatrical company, gathering at the piano, had
burlesqued the sentimental quartet of vaudeville; then one of them,
Harry Vokes, a fat young comedian with a face suggesting a dissipated
baby's, had sung "Silver Threads Among the Gold" and "After the Ball" in
a sobbing tenor, with similar satirical intent. After that, besought by
her colleagues, Miss Lebrun had given her humorous imitations of Mme.
Bernhardt, Mme. Rejane, Coquelin and the elder Salvini, and during this
performance Owen entertained a momentary wild hope that when Lily did
Juliet and Lady Macbeth her exhibition might be mistaken for an
intentional satire. But the glimmer of optimism extinguished itself;
these experts would know better.

Several times he tried to get near enough to his mother for a private
imploring plea; she was too gayly surrounded, yet all the while he saw
calculation in her smiling eyes and understood that she was only waiting
to seize upon what she'd believe the most favorable juncture for Lily's
exhibition. During Miss Lebrun's mimicry, he thought he saw the
calculation intensify; but he had another respite, for Miss Lebrun,
concluding, to great applause, rushed upon the sallow Mr. Monk, dragged
him from his chair and loudly announced that Mrs. Gilbert and Miss Mars
must see his imitation of a visit to a Nickel Theatre. The stage
director assented, and, going to the piano, played noisily with one
hand, while with his other and the rest of him he mimicked recognizably
the jerky and flickeringly seen gestures and expressions of the moving
pictures. Thus, to ludicrous effect, he enacted a condensed idiotic
melodrama, and, during its progress, Owen with a sinking heart saw his
mother make the slight preparatory movements significant of her
intention to rise from her big chair at the conclusion of Monk's
travesty.

Smoking a cigar unhappily in the wide doorway into the hall with his
friend, Allan, the young playwright also saw Mrs. Gilbert glance
covertly at Lily, who sat nearby with the quartet of young actors close
about her, and he caught, too, the gleam of the girl's excited return
glance, as if she said, "Yes! Oh, yes! I'm ready!"

Allan meanwhile was talking to him in a voice lowered out of deference
to the stage director's performance. "Disagreeable old ass, Ord. You
can't tell me the older generation doesn't hate us. All that tirade
about the two kinds of actors--your 'true actor' playing heavies, low
comedy and what not, and the other kind that just score by
personality--levelled straight at me! They hate us because this modern
quiet realism that we've brought in makes their old mugging and
bellowing and gesticulating and clowning and all their nonsense of wigs
and false noses and gluey whiskers look silly. Their day's over; it went
out with gas footlights, and they know it. Look at him, there by your
mother, trying to look like a Doge or something talking to Queen
Elizabeth! If you watch him closely, every now and then you'll see him
sneak his hand up behind his head and twist one of those locks of his
round his finger to keep it curly. And that monocle of his! For ten
years I've never seen him without it and never once saw him put it in
his eye, because he's afraid to. Thinks that would be just a little
_too_ much but believes it gets a fine effect dangling on a string and
flopping about his monstrous waistcoat. If he cuts in on that third act
speech of mine again with his roaring and snorting the way he did this
afternoon I'm simply going to take him out in the alley and shoot him!"
Allan laughed good-naturedly, drew reflectively upon his cigar and added
with enthusiasm, "Alluring girl, your cousin Miss Mars. Wonderful!"

"What? She isn't my cousin."

"No? She spoke of your mother as 'dear blessed Aunt Anne'. Oh, I see,
just affectionately--lifelong family friendship. Do you know, Owen, I
got an idea while I was talking to her at the table."

"Did you?"

"Yes. In that second scene where I say to Isabelle, 'I love you. I've
loved you ever since' so on, so on and so on, and she says, 'Don't tell
me' so on and so on, and I say, 'I love you' again, so on, so on, I
think if I used a different tone right there--a little more tensity and
yet more whispery; like this." He whispered huskily, "I love you! What
you think?"

"I suppose so," Owen replied absently. "It might be better."

"I got it--well, it just seemed to come to me while I was talking to
her. A marvellous girl--that peach-bloom exquisiteness and yet of course
no end smart, to the manor born and all that." He laughed with the
effect of explaining that his modesty was still to the fore. "Do you
know, old fellow my lad, if I hadn't got a pretty steady head on my
bally young shoulders I could almost believe myself girlhood's sweet
dream come true!"

"You could?" Owen said with some blankness. He liked Allan, a generous,
warm-hearted human being and a fine, quiet actor so shrewd in his
handling of the materials given him that he sometimes had a startling
emotional effect upon an audience in spite of his quiet. He was a good
comrade, and now and then said something intelligent enough to be
thought over later; but, after all, wasn't he rather fatuous--about
women?

"I'm afraid I could be that much a gilly," the actor returned, "if I'd
let myself." He laughed again, at the same time clapping his hands to
show his approval of Mr. Monk, who was withdrawing from the piano.
"Hello! Your mother's up and going to say something. Splendid!" Then,
not noticing the spasmodic expression of his friend's face, he began to
clap his hands again and to cry, "Hear! Hear! Hear!"

Mrs. Gilbert had risen; she went gayly to Lily, took the girl's hand and
brought her forth from the quartet. "Come, dear," she said in a clear
voice. "We must do our own poor best to show we're grateful. I want that
charade you did for your mother when I was there on her birthday."

"Oh, no, no----" Lily protested, and seemed to struggle to regain her
chair; but Owen thought her reluctance had little vigor. The other
guests, meanwhile, were politely urgent, clapping their hands and with
at least apparent earnestness entreating, "Please, Miss Mars! Please
do!"

"She will!" Mrs. Gilbert announced, and, leaving the blushing girl alone
in the centre of the room, returned to her own easy-chair in the
semicircular group her guests had formed as spectators. Allan hurried
conspicuously to make himself a member of the audience.

"Hear! Hear! Hear!" he exclaimed again, when he had seated himself; he
clapped his hands. "Mars! Mars! Mars!"

"I wonder----" Lily said uncertainly. "It would be better if I had
someone to act at." She turned and spoke to the playwright, who had
remained in the doorway and had the air of a lurking person about to
disappear. "Will you help me?" she asked, smiling though there was a
tremor in her voice.

"I?" he said incredulously. "What in the world do you want me to----"

"Won't you? Just come and stand beside me here."

Then, as in obviously dismal astonishment he did what she asked, both
Allan and the vociferous Ord applauded, shouting loudly, "Author!
Author! Author!"

Instantly the manager, sitting next to Ord, became red with rage. "Joe!
What do you think human ears are made of? For God's sake!" Moreover, he
seemed to add, not orally yet all too plainly, by his expression and
attitude, the intimation that it was bad enough to have to sit through
the performance about to take place before him; he didn't intend to bear
any additional torture, especially not from his own people. Glancing at
him pallidly, Owen felt that whatever the nature of Lily's intended
exhibition it couldn't well begin under unhappier auspices. As for being
forced to take part in it himself, he suffered but wasn't a snob; he'd
sink as calmly as he could with his mother and her stage-struck
protge.

Lily was explaining to the semicircle. "It's the silliest little
charade--'a poor thing but mine own'--and made up one day when I was
trying to amuse my mother, who's an invalid; so don't hate me too much
for it! It's two syllables and the whole word all in one scene, and
really too dreadfully foolish!" She laughed deprecatingly and turned to
Owen. "For the first part of it you must look mockingly imperious, if
you don't mind. Fold your arms as if you were terribly satisfied with
yourself----"

"What? Oh--all right." He folded his arms and so far as he was able
complied with her instruction to look mockingly imperious.

"That's it," she said approvingly. "Now we'll begin." She turned her
back to him, took two steps away, halted, gave him over her shoulder a
sly estimating look, the glance of a dangerous shrew planning action,
then abruptly turned upon him, frowning, pointed at him and spoke in a
fierce voice. "'Let him that moved you hither remove you hence! I am too
light for such a swain as you to catch. If I be waspish, best beware my
sting!'" She took a long stride that brought her close to him, and, with
a sweeping arm, struck him upon the breast. "'If you strike me, you are
no gentleman!'" she cried sharply, as if in a little fear of his
reprisal; then, breathless but reassured, she became mocking. "'What is
your crest? A coxcomb? This is my fashion, when I see a crab. Say you
Sunday is our wedding-day? I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first!'" She
walked away from him, let her shoulders droop, put her hands against her
cheeks, looked upward deploringly and spoke in a voice that quavered
with pathos yet seemed to rail against herself.

    _"He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,_
    _Make friends, invite them, and proclaim the banns;_
    _Yet never means to wed where he hath wooed._
    _Now must the world point at poor Katherine,_
    _And say,--'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,_
    _If it would please him come and marry her.'"_

This seemed to end a phase in both her acting and the charade. She
returned to Owen, who was still holding his posture, and said to him
with a timid air, appealingly and as if aside, "Now, if you can, will
you begin to look as if you approved of me and even--if it's
possible--even as if you liked me a little?"

Suddenly and to his own surprise he found himself able to do both with a
good grace. This dreaded philanthropic experiment of his mother's was
strangely enough turning out not badly. Lily wasn't over-gesticulative;
she was neither too much anything nor too little anything, and he was
not ashamed of her, omitting to ask why he should have expected to be
ashamed of her, since she was not his. He perceived that she must have
taken readily to his mother's coaching and that the coaching must have
been excellent. More, Lily had caught the genuine attention of her
audience; that was plain. Of course these professional actors would show
polite indulgence to a pretty girl who played a charade for them; but
there was something like eagerness in their silence as they watched her.

Her manner changed. She stood beside him humbly, looked up at him
timidly and spoke with an imploring gentleness.

    _"And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:_
    _And if you please to call it a rush candle,_
    _Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me."_

She came closer to him, put her fingers fearfully yet tenderly upon his
arm and spoke with a placativeness so eloquently clear that he guessed
her little charade--"placate" of course, he saw it was; she was playing
Kate from The Taming of the Shrew and now wistfully placated him, a dumb
Petruchio.

    _"Then, God be blessed, it is the blessed sun:--_
    _But sun it is not, when you say it is not,_
    _And the moon changes even as your mind,_
    _What you will have it named, even that it is;_
    _And so, it shall be so for Katherine."_

She lifted her head, bringing her face nearer to his, and, smiling
ineffably, let her brown lashes cover the hazel eyes for a moment; then
they rose, almost dazing him with the revelation of an unfathomably
sweet meekness.

    _"Such duty as the subject owes the prince,_
    _Even such a woman oweth to her husband..._
    _And place your hand below your husband's foot;_
    _In token of which duty, if he please,_
    _My hand is ready, may it do him ease."_

For a perceptible instant longer she held him in a spell, her ardent
face close to his and that worshipping look still upon it, while all
through him there seemed to tingle a strange exhilaration, a feeling not
to be identified with his mere great relief that after all she hadn't
made herself and his mother and him ridiculous.

Suddenly she laughed, swept downward in a curtsey so deep it made her
half his height, jumped up and ran to a vacant chair near Mrs. Gilbert.

Already old Ord was thundering, "_Bis! Bis! Bis!_" and there was lively
applause from the whole company. Allan jovially pulled Lily out of her
chair to "take the call," he said; she made her curtsey again to
freshened applause, and Miss Hoyt, guessing the charade, shouted,
"Placate! Placate! Why, it's bully!" Ord discovered that young Mr.
Lancey, least in years of the "Skylark" cast, was still somewhat
puzzled, not by the charade but because he had never before heard of the
comedy upon which it was founded; whereupon the sardonic laughter of the
vociferous relic once more became unbearable in the manager's ear.

Hurley jumped up from his chair and uttered a scream of rage and pain.
"Joe! _Will_ somebody block up that grotto! Nobody wants to see all your
back teeth! My God!" He pointed to a glisteningly laden table against
the wall. "Fill him! Drown him!" Then, less vehement but apparently not
less embittered, he addressed the company at large. "I should think
you'd all feel like a lot of cigar store Indians! On my soul, I should!
Sit here and see an amateur with no pretensions to know anything about
the calling you're supposed to be following and she makes you all look
like thirty cents! My God!"

In seeming fury he strode to the table he had recommended for the
suppression of Ord and filled an assuaging glass for himself; while talk
and laughter, beginning apprehensively after his outburst, took courage
and again became general in the room. Mrs. Gilbert, excited in her
triumph, drew Owen aside for a moment as soon as she could. "I didn't
tell you beforehand because you'd have been worried and----"

"And because I'd have been afraid and would have tried to stop you," he
admitted. "Of course I'm only a fool of a man. I ought to have
remembered that women are always dashingly doing things that men won't
try because the things are impossible. I ought to have realized how much
cleverer you are than I am and have seen what you could do with
her--when all I did was just give up!"

"No, no!" she said. "What you can do comes now. You heard what he said.
Wasn't that really pretty tremendous--from a manager? Ah, look at her,
dear! Isn't it lovely--did you ever see a face so eager? Strike while
the iron's hot, Owen!"

"You mean ask him to take her name now?"

"'Take her name'! No!" Mrs. Gilbert exclaimed, though she kept her voice
low. "Good heavens, no! Tell him you want to write a part into your play
for her!"

Owen looked uncertain. "You don't know him; he's incalculable. Of course
I'll try it, but----"

"I should think so!" she said. "Of course you will!"

He had misgivings, and also found it difficult to get a word apart with
Hurley who had taken the stage director into a corner and begun a
discussion of details for the production of "Catalpa House". Owen made
an effort to interrupt, but was waved away, and the discussion became
more emphatic and exclusive, continued interminably. He did not find his
opportunity until the radiant Lily had left the room (to be driven home
by Nelson in her "dear blessed Aunt Anne's" little brougham) and most of
the grateful and exuberant theatrical party were surrounding Mrs.
Gilbert before departure. Turning diplomatist, he scooped a handful of
cigars from an open box on a table and pressed them upon the manager.

"What you trying to do, bribe me?" Hurley asked, staring angrily. "Want
me to write Adler we ought to raise your royalty percentage?"

"You might find the cigar stand closed when you get back to the hotel,
George. By the way--ah----"

Mr. Hurley accepted the gift. "By what way? What are you mumbling
about?"

"I've been thinking about Miss Hoyt's part in 'Catalpa House'," Owen
said. "She's going to play it well, I can see that, of course; but
there's something of a gap there somehow. I've thought it might be a
good idea to write in a secondary ingnue part and----"

"Secondary!" Hurley interrupted fiercely. "What do you mean, secondary?"

"Ah--supplementary. I could brace up a lot of weakish points with it."

"What? You mean you want two ingnues, like a Tom-show with two Topsys?"

"Not precisely! Please listen, George. The play'd be richer for such a
part, and just to-night it struck me I knew exactly where we could find
the right girl to play it."

"What!"

"Miss Mars," Owen said hurriedly, yet trying to speak with an air of
bright discovery. "She'd be precisely what I see in such a part. You
know what you thought about her, yourself, and besides, she's terribly
eager to go on the stage and wants to act and----"

"Oh, she does!" Hurley said, in a dangerous tone. "She wants to go on
the stage, does she? She wants to be a real live actress, does she?"

"Don't get excited, George, please. Yes, she does, and you know what you
said of her acting, yourself. Even in that little charade, you saw what
she could do and you stood up and said----"

"Listen!" Hurley interrupted, and then spoke slowly, with an air of
profound enmity, his facial expression being that of a naturally
suspicious person who discovers that a dish of sweets, just offered him,
contains poison. "Listen! When she did her little charade I gave it the
praise a Sunday School child ought to get for speaking his little lesson
nicely, according to his little lights. If you don't know better than to
think I'd put a Sunday School child into a company of mine on account of
his doing some such little thing nicely, or that I'd allow a part to be
written into a play I'm producing when the damn thing's already too
long, just for the benefit of a society dbutante's vanity and her
perfectly sickening desire to show herself off on the stage, why, God
help you!"

"But, George, you----"

"I praised her for her little two-minute peanut charade, so now she
wants to go on the stage, does she? If I say a baby looks healthy the
hell's-imp stands right up in its perambulator and swears I've as good
as promised him seventy-five dollars a week as a juvenile!" His voice
became falsetto. "Wants to go on the stage, does she? By cripes, I might
have known it! But if you think I wreck my business to please every
stage-struck heiress that gets a crush on me for an evening, God help
you!"

"Good heavens! She isn't----"

"That's all I have to say! God help you!"

"George, please----"

"God help you!" Truculent, the manager strode into the little group
about the hostess and ended the sonorous farewells of Ord by interposing
a sturdy shoulder and a brusque "Goodnight, ma'am!" Then, stamping into
the hall, he snatched his hat from a table and betook himself to the
night air and the waiting automobiles.




CHAPTER SEVEN


In the morning Mrs. Gilbert took a more temperate view of the manager
than she had expressed the night before when her son told her of
Hurley's disappointing explosion. "I believe he's the most terrible man
I ever met," she said, at the breakfast-table. "Yet, in spite of me, I
don't dislike him. But are all managers like that?"

"Gracious, no, Mother! Some of 'em are just business men who'll invest
in whatever they think they can sell to the public, and they don't all
care much what the goods are, so there's a market. Some of 'em are just
showmen; but they do unbelievable things with a Trump of Fame made of
paper--their actresses have the most jewel robberies. George Hurley's
another type. Managing is really an art for him, not a business; he
rages at the stage, wails that he hates it and all the time has a
passion for it. That's why he's so difficult. After last night, I
haven't the slightest hope of even getting him to take poor Lily's
name."

"No--the brute," Mrs. Gilbert said; but though she used this term her
tone was more musing than vindictive. "Except him, all those people were
so likeable and amusing; I was delighted with them. Funny--I'd supposed
the ladies of the company would be all paint and powder; but they
weren't a bit. Except for a little rouge I thought I saw on Miss Hoyt's
cheeks, there wasn't a trace of artificial color among them. I suppose
they have to use so much professionally they're glad to get away from
it. Such nice, light-hearted friendly people! They seem a little
different, of course--a little set apart--but attractively so, I
thought. I suppose they don't always seem light-hearted, do they?"

"Good heavens, no! When they're down, they proclaim the abyss."

Mrs. Gilbert looked more thoughtful. "Are there many love affairs in the
companies, Owen?"

"Oh, I don't know. About as many as there'd be in any excursion party of
the same size, or in classes at co-educational institutions, I suppose.
Why?"

"I thought Miss Hedrington seemed very much taken with Mr. Allan."

"Did you?" her son asked, laughing. "I mean, did you only think so? I'd
say it's fairly evident! Poor Eugene's had quite a surfeit of ladies'
falling in love with him; but this is one of the times when he's been
responsive. They've been playing opposite each other in the same
companies for two years and would have married before now except that
Hurley won't have married couples in any company of his; he thinks it
causes complications. Besides, both Eugene and Isabelle may be
'starring' before very long, and it's usually a little better business
for matine idols, either male or female, to be thought availably
single. They're very devoted, however."

"Yes; she seemed so," Mrs. Gilbert said reflectively. "Miss Hedrington
was the only one who didn't appear to be genuinely enthusiastic about
that poor child's charade. She just said, 'Quite extraordinary--for a
society girl.' Did you notice?"

"No, I didn't happen to."

"Perhaps under the circumstances it was natural, because Mr. Allan was
so very applausive and because he seemed to be rather pointedly
interested in Lily all evening." Mrs. Gilbert sighed. "They were all
really lovely to her, and you could see how strongly they felt her
charm."

"Her charm, Mother?"

"Dear me, yes!" Mrs. Gilbert returned, looking at him seriously. "I
suppose that means you don't feel it, yourself, and after all I think
it's just as well." She laughed apologetically, and then, with a slight
embarrassment, explained, "I mean--I mean of course that I want you to
do all you can for her; but I--I mean she really has a tremendous
charm--though I'm not quite sure that's exactly the way to speak of it.
It's a kind of emanation--something that seems to radiate from her--and
that she seems to be able to turn on and off at will, almost as one's
able to turn something on and off at a faucet. It's like what people
call a heady perfume, only this of hers reaches the heart. When she
turns it on, it seems to beat upon the people within its radius, so to
speak; they become intensely conscious of her to the exclusion of almost
everything else and they feel she's intensely conscious of them, too, as
if she were saying to each of them, man or woman, 'How adorable you
are!'"

"Really?" Owen said, successfully appearing to be a little astonished.
"You think so?"

"Think so? Why, I've seen it. Of course there must be individuals who'd
be impervious to it, and, as your mother, I'm pleased that you're one of
them." She smiled, looking at him with affectionate approbation. "That
poor child is good, Owen, and in her sacrifice to her mother she's shown
a noble nature; but, though you may not have entirely realized it yet,
she's an artist and has rather an overwhelming amount of that
unreasoning thing that seems to the rest of us to be sometimes angelic
and sometimes destructive, both without reason, and always rather mad. I
mean what we can't define and helplessly call the 'artistic
temperament'. You're an artist yourself, and of course you've got some
of it; so you're the last person in the world who should be subjected to
too much of anybody else's. I admire Lily and I care a great deal about
her on her own account as well as her mother's; but I'm glad you aren't
susceptible to that radiation of hers. She certainly did have it turned
on last night, in spite of its not affecting that odious Mr. Hurley!"

"It did," her son informed her, with some gravity. "His interpretation
was that she had a 'crush' on him, and of course that set him twice as
much against her. But she, poor thing, went away in the seventh heaven,
not doubting it had all been absolutely accomplished for her."

"No, Owen, I don't think that she or her mother or sister have any of
them had the slightest doubt since the day you went there."

"But that's awful!" he said. "Mother, I don't think I could ever face
that poor little family again, the girl herself least of all, and I just
can't bear the idea of your having to go there and face them, yourself,
after last night. Of course they must be in a great state
to-day--waiting for the news! What on earth's to be done about it?"

"I'm not sure," Mrs. Gilbert returned, with less gloom than he expected.
She had become meditative. "I don't think I'll tell them anything at all
for a while; I won't go there to-day. We'll just wait."

"Cruel to be kind?" he asked ruefully. "The longer they wait, the harder
it'll hit them when it comes."

"But in the meantime we may think of something," she said. "Because
you're immune, dear, I think you don't realize another pretty remarkable
thing about Lily--something I spoke of the other night. Most people,
after they've been with her when she's turned on her 'magnetism' or
whatever it is, are rather poignantly haunted by her. Well, it might
lead to something."

"With George Hurley?" he cried. "You don't know him!"

"But how about Mr. Allan? If he should bring some pressure to bear on
Mr. Hurley----"

"He? Not a feather's weight! I doubt if he'd count as much with Hurley
as even I would." They had moved into the hall, and here he picked up a
hat, turned toward the front door and sighed. "Well, Nelson's waiting
with the carriage and I'm off to rehearsal. I suppose you're right about
not telling those poor women now. We could give them one more day to
live in their hope."

With that, he despondently took his leave, and then, behind the proud
Nelson, drove down Harrison Avenue under a delicately hazy morning sky
that did not brighten him. Moreover, he suffered a slight return of the
ailment from which recent preoccupations had vouchsafed surcease; he
wondered if a mystical or symbolic play couldn't be written that would
deal with futile obsessions, such as that of a man unable to stop
thinking uselessly about something he didn't wish to think about. Then
another possible subject presented itself to him--the longing of the
caged bird for the open heavens, of the square peg for the square hole,
and of the misplaced human being for the right environs. Last night,
among those actors his mother had felt to be different from other
people, Lily was like a fish dropped into an aquarium after having grown
up, through some blundering miracle, without ever seeing water. She was
like them, and it had been instantly plain that she belonged among them.
Ever since her early childhood she had "recited", had acted constantly;
as she could not adjust herself to her surroundings, she strove always
to adjust them to her, and so, with the theatre denied her, struggled to
glamour that ugly little room in the double house into the semblance of
a stage. Could a play show such a girl growing older, never
relinquishing the struggle, yet always defeated in it--and yet not
utterly defeated? For the final scene might show her as an old
woman--dying perhaps--and then the small brown room would be
transfigured into what her mind's eye had always made it, a brilliant
and glowing stage of a great theatre where she stood, lovely and young
again, in a rain of roses from a shouting audience!

Owen laughed sourly at himself and at Lily Mars, too; Nelson had just
stopped the carriage at the curb before the big old "Metropolitan
Theatre" wherein the playwright, at the age of seven, had first seen
footlights and an enchantment called "The Mikado". He went into the
open, dark lobby, saw a gleam of inner light upon the opaque glass doors
at the end of it and realized that the light came from the stage and
that the day's rehearsing had begun. The only other person in the lobby
was a thin middle-aged man, hollow-eyed and hollow-chested, in black
clothes that were new but of no pretensions either to fashion or precise
conformity to their wearer. He had been pacing the scuffed marble floor
of the lobby restlessly; but when the playwright came in he halted
abruptly, stared and then approached.

"Are you--are you Owen Gilbert?" he asked, in a voice somewhat
noticeably husky.

"Yes. Are you from a newspaper or----"

"No," the stranger said. "I've been waiting for you. I thought of
calling at your house; but I supposed you might come here. I--I have a
personal matter to put before you---- That is, it isn't personal to
me---- I mean it's a subject I'm interested in; but it has no personal
bearing on myself. I--I take a particular interest for the reason that I
don't wish to stand by and see a wrong done."

"A wrong?" Owen repeated mildly. "You think I have some connection
with----"

"You have indeed!" the man returned, with sudden heat. "You have, Mr.
Gilbert! I'm willing to think it may be unwitting on your part. For all
I know, you may be congratulating yourself on conferring a benefit; but
I want to assure you that you're mistaken. I know this girl better than
you do; I understand her nature and I know that what you propose to do
would not only wreck her physical health, with the late hours and high
living, but would do her untold injury mentally and morally. The stage
is no place for a girl of her subtle and delicate nature, and I protest
with all my soul against your dragging her into it!"

"I beg your pardon. Would you mind letting me know what you're talking
about?"

"Miss Lily Mars! I protest against your taking her from the quiet and
wholesome neighborhood life she enjoys now, and from the loving care of
her mother and her friends and former teachers and----"

"Dear me!" Owen said. "May I ask if your name happens to be Lang? I
believe I recall the rest of it--You're Mr. F. Munson Lang, aren't you?"

"I am not!" the man replied hotly. "I don't happen to be engaged in the
retail shoe business, thank you! My name is Reller and I'm an instructor
in the English Department in the City high school. For over three years,
up to the time Miss Mars was forced to leave the school on account of
her mother's ill health, she was my pupil. I have never had a brighter
one or one in whom I have taken more interest, and I feel it's only
natural that a teacher should retain that interest in the career of a
student even after the student has gone out from under his care. So far
as circumstances have permitted, I've watched over Miss Mars since she
had to leave the school, and I don't intend to see her led into a fatal
misstep without protest."

"Quite right," Owen said. "What is it you want of me?"

Mr. Reller brought forth a white handkerchief from a hip pocket and
wiped his forehead. "I want you to let her alone! I want this theatrical
company of yours to give up the effort to take her away with them next
Saturday night when they leave here!"




CHAPTER EIGHT


"I beg your pardon," Owen said. "Where did you hear----"

"I protest against it and I denounce it!" Mr. Reller interrupted, again
applying the handkerchief to a dampened brow. "I've watched over that
girl as carefully as I have over my own daughter and I don't want to
have to curse the hours I spent in helping her with her declamations,
since this is what they've led to!"

"Just a moment," Owen said. "Where did you get the idea she might be
going away with the company next Saturday night?"

"I've just come from their house."

"You have?"

"I have!" Mr. Reller replied challengingly. "Do you see any objection to
a teacher's calling at intervals upon a former pupil and her family? I
believe you'd scarcely go that far! Only last night I was warned by a
former fellow-pupil of Lily's, a young man named Bright, and I called
there this morning. I saw her in the presence of her mother, as I
virtually always do, and if any of those wagging tongues in the
neighborhood----"

"Dear me!" Owen said again. "I just wanted to know----"

"Everybody knows it!" Mr. Reller interrupted, not abating his vehemence.
"Do you suppose you can conceal such a matter when it concerns a girl
like that? Her mother's been very ill-advised, very ill-advised! When I
went there this morning I found them in a state of mistaken excitement
and unwilling to listen to a single word from me. I had to come away
sick at heart--sick at heart, Mr. Gilbert!" His tone changed and became
plaintive. "Mr. Gilbert, I'm cutting my classes this morning without
notice; I'm neglecting my duties because my--my--because my conscience
would not let me rest until I made this protest to you. Mr. Gilbert,
you're a member of a prominent and respected family in this community.
You grew up in it, and I don't believe that if you thought it over you'd
want this community to think you'd take another member of it, a pure
young girl whose father hasn't lived to protect her--that you'd
deliberately take a young girl out of your own community and put her
into this gypsy life that you propose to. No; if you'll think it over,
Mr. Gilbert, I don't believe you'll want this community to think such a
thing of you!"

Owen, looking upon the perturbed teacher with compassion, saw that he
was tremulous, and understood that the man had sought this interview
under the pressure of an agitation too urgent to permit him to go about
his usual business until he had done something to relieve himself. The
playwright also began to understand, he thought, that a sponsorship of
any kind for Lily Mars might involve the sponsor in somewhat elaborate
responsibilities. "I think if you'd hurry, Mr. Reller," he said, "you
might still reach your school in time for some of your classes this
morning. The danger of the young lady's departure with this theatrical
company next Saturday night isn't imminent. I'll be obliged to you if
you won't speak of the matter to either her or her mother until after a
day or two; but I'm sorry to say I'm afraid they're in for a pretty
severe disappointment."

"Do you mean to say----" the schoolteacher began breathlessly. "Why, it
can't be! I tell you they wouldn't talk of anything but her traveling
clothes! Do you mean to say it's a mistake; she's not going?"

"I assure you I don't see the remotest chance of it."

"Thank you!" The impassioned face of the teacher cleared brilliantly; he
seized the playwright's hand. "Thank you! I was sure a man the whole
community admires as much as it does you wouldn't do such a thing!
This'll be a great relief to many true friends, and you can trust me to
make it widely known, and to your credit, Mr. Gilbert--to your credit!"
He glanced at his watch and looked startled. "Good heavens, I'm afraid I
must hurry!" With his head up, he departed briskly.

For several moments Owen stood ruminating; then he shook his head
pensively, and, pushing open a reluctant glass door, entered the
auditorium of the theatre. The stage was lighted coldly from above; but
the rest of the vast hollow cavern was dim and the dark rows of seats
were covered by long strips of cotton cloth. On the stage the sallow
director, Pinkney Monk, was speaking in a whisper to young Vokes and
Miss Hoyt, who stood before him, not listening apparently, for each of
them held in one hand a square pamphlet bound in blue paper and seemed
engrossed in the study of it. Miss Lebrun was visible in a chair in the
wings, interested in a similar pamphlet, and Eugene Allan lounged in one
of the dim proscenium boxes; but nobody else was in sight except the
manager who faintly loomed as a threatening black lump in the dark midst
of the house. With his arms folded and his black soft hat upon his head,
he sat, silent, and did not turn his head when the young playwright,
after tiptoeing down the aisle to a chair behind him, noiselessly let
down the seat and slid into it; nevertheless, the manager proved aware
of this new neighbor.

"Nice time to get here! S'pose you think there's nothing to do about a
play except write it. Merely producing it no importance whatever!"

Owen laughed placatively. "Well, as I don't seem to have any particular
usefulness in connection with producing it--except to get sat on
whenever I make a suggestion----"

"For God's sake!" Hurley interrupted, still not turning. "What do you
think this is, a conversation tea? How do you expect these people to do
any rehearsing if you come here just to talk?"

Owen sighed and held his peace. On the stage the director took several
steps backward, clapped his hands together sharply and said with
entreaty, "Now please! Please now! Let's have it again. Let's see if we
can't do it without the sides. Put your sides in your pocket, Harry. Do
please put your sides in your pocket. Put yours on the table, Miss Hoyt;
you don't need it, dear." Young Vokes obediently placed his pamphlet in
his coat pocket and Miss Hoyt, after a lingering last glance at hers,
tossed it upon a deal table at the front of the stage. "There, that's
better. Please now! Now please! We don't need our sides any longer. Now,
dear, so and so, and so and so, and so and so, 'Happens I'm not Hester
Blake but Myra'. That's your cue for business and look, Harry. Then so
and so, and so and so, and so and so, 'Hand the letter to my father'.
Then, Harry, you--so on, so on--'Get a handsome officer exterminated,
would you?' Then the silly smile and hold for laugh. Then you, 'Myra',
coughing over shoulder to hide smile and so on, so on. Don't forget the
shoulder, dear. Please now and let's get a little life into it! Please
now!"

He stepped backward from them and Miss Hoyt, placing her arms akimbo,
looked flippantly at Mr. Vokes and spoke, in character, "No? You're sure
you couldn't mistake 'those auburn tresses'? I'm afraid your cardplaying
friend didn't know there were two red-headed girls at Catalpa House. It
just happens I'm not Hester Blake but Myra. However, as you've rather
impulsively insisted upon my taking his letter----"

"Watch it!" the director interrupted warningly. "Watch it! That's the
turn up, dear. You go up, there, because you want him to think you're
going to go off. Now again. Please now! So and so, so on, so on, 'Not
Hester Blake but Myra'----"

Miss Hoyt came to the table, looked at the pamphlet she had left there
and said thoughtfully, "Oh, yes; that is the turn up, isn't it? I do go
up, there." She moved back to the central part of the stage. "However,
as you've rather impulsively insisted upon my taking his letter----"

"Go back!" Hurley shouted suddenly and fiercely from his seat. He jumped
up, strode down the aisle to the orchestra rail and stood there. "Go
back! 'Couldn't mistake those auburn tresses'. Let's have it."

Miss Hoyt resumed the attitude she had relinquished and became arch.
"No? You're sure you couldn't mistake those auburn----"

"Listen!" Hurley shouted. "Pink! Pink Monk!"

"Yes, sir," the director said apprehensively.

"Is there anything in the script about her standing with her elbows
sticking out like that? Is she supposed to----"

"No, sir."

"Then what do you let her do it for?"

Miss Hoyt looked disappointed. "I shouldn't? I only thought----"

"Listen!" the manager commanded her. "Don't argue with me! Think I'm
traveling with this company all over the godforsaken country for the
privilege of arguing with an ingnue? Listen! When your sides instruct
you to stand like that, do it; when they don't don't. Pink didn't tell
you to stand like that, did he? You know he didn't! What are you
supposed to be doing with your arms during this scene, anyhow?"

"Why--why, nothing."

"What! Oh, for God's sake! Pink!"

"Yes, sir." Monk began to rummage in the breast of his coat. "Of course
she's supposed to have the letter in her hand that Harry's just given
her; but I didn't think we'd begin to use the props until we'd got all
through with the sides." He produced an envelope and thrust it upon Miss
Hoyt. "Here, dear. You know you're supposed to be holding this. You----"

"Listen!" Hurley interrupted. "What are you going to do, stand there and
talk it over with her? Will you give me a chance to speak or have I got
to stand here waiting while you and she gabble your heads off over
social matters? Listen, Missus! You're supposed to be playing the part
of this younger sister, 'Myra'. Harry's supposed to have sneaked into
the plantation to slip a letter from the gambler to your sister, and by
mistake you get it. You understand that?"

"Why, of course, Mr. Hurley," Miss Hoyt said, with some dignity. "I
naturally----"

"Listen! I'm not trying to talk it over with you. Is this a rehearsal or
is it a discussion? Argue with Adler when he's rehearsing you. He likes
it; but I haven't time for it. Listen! You've got the letter, and you
know Harry'll try to get it back from you as soon as you've told him
you're the wrong girl; but you intend to keep it and give it to your
father. Where would you be holding it?"

"Where? Why, in my hand."

"Oh, sweetheart!" Hurley cried, in a climax of irascibility. "In your
hand!" He lifted his arms as if in invocation, shouted, "Give me
patience!" and let them drop; then he said wonderingly, "She knows she'd
hold it in her hand. She wouldn't hold it in her teeth. She knows she
wouldn't put it in her ear. She'd have it in her hand--clever!" He
pointed at Miss Hoyt and asked her bitterly, "Where would your hand be?
The letter'd be in your hand, as you say; but if you know Harry wants it
back, where would you put your hand?"

Miss Hoyt, confused and beginning to display symptoms of an irritability
restrained only by a strong effort, replied in a tone somewhat tart,
"I'd put it where it naturally would be. I'd just let it hang down
naturally."

"You would? You would not! Not while you're in this company! While
you're under contract to me you'll put it where the script tells you to
put it. Where does the script tell you to put it and where would you put
it anyhow if a man was trying to get it away from you? My soul and
liver! Behind your back! Behind your back! You've got the letter and the
letter's in your hand; put your hand behind your back and as God hears
me I swear the letter will go with it! Now begin the scene over."

Owen Gilbert, a lover of peace, knew by experience that the manager's
exasperation would increase before it subsided, and that at any moment
it might irresponsibly include whoever remained within range. Already
Miss Lebrun's chair in the wings was vacant, left so by her thoughtfully
imperceptible withdrawal from sight; the leading man was no longer
visible in the box where he had lounged, and the playwright, without
making a sound, rose from his chair and stole up the aisle to the
concealing thicker darkness at the back of the auditorium. Here, in the
semicircular vague avenue behind the seats, a big form loomed dimly, a
large old hand took lodgment upon his shoulder amiably, a faintly
alcoholic aroma found his nose, an unctuous chuckle sounded in his ear,
and a husky voice whispered, "Got a new Patsy!"

"Who, Joe?"

"Hoyt; can't you see?" old Joe Ord whispered. "He went for her four
times before you got here; now he's started it, he'll be after her all
day. She doesn't know what to make of it; she's Adler's pet. Listen to
George going for her again! I don't mind his changing off from me; I've
been his Patsy ever since we started on your play--rehearsals and
everywhere else. You heard him going for me every chance he got at your
house last evening. Beautiful woman, your mother, beautiful! George
always has to have a Patsy. Most of 'em do; it relaxes their nerves.
Monday morning rehearsals are always the devil anyhow. Lord! Listen to
him!"

Hurley had scrambled up into a proscenium box and stepped from one of
its chairs to the stage. He snatched up the manuscript of the play from
the table, shook it violently, slapped it with his hand and implored
Miss Hoyt to abide by its directions. Stung by a response of hers
inaudible to the observers in the rear aisle, he compared the manuscript
with her "sides", the blue-covered pamphlet containing "Myra's" speeches
and cues, became infuriated by an error therein discovered--one that
seemed to substantiate her defense--and shouted loudly for the
playwright.

"Don't say a word," Ord whispered. "He can't see you from there. Don't
give him any encouragement to change the Patsy to you. If you keep
quiet, he'll go on going for her."

The prophecy was correct. Hurley swept the vacant seats with an
indignant eye. "Not there!" he wailed. "When you don't want an author
you can't step for tripping on 'em, and when you do want one he's out
buying a new cane. That's where he's gone, I'll bet a hundred thousand
dollars; gone to buy a cane!" He turned again to the three people with
him on the stage. "Begin over. Go back to your entrance. Back to your
entrance!" Then, as Miss Hoyt turned away from him, "No!" he stormed.
"Not yours, Harry's! You're on. If we had to go back to your entrance
I'd die right where I'm standing. I would! What's more, I'd rather!"

For some ten minutes more, he continued to be irked by everything Miss
Hoyt did; then, at the top of his irritation, turned upon the young
comedian who played the scene with her, scathed him with sarcasm for a
misplaced emphasis, and suddenly and astonishingly spoke in a quiet,
mild voice. "Let it go till to-morrow. Take up the next scene, Pink."

Thereupon he stepped back into the box, dropped to the floor, and, with
a cigar in his mouth, walked up the aisle. Old Ord vanished knowingly;
but Owen waited, and Hurley, peering through the dimness, saw him, came
to him and took him by the arm. "Let's get out a while. That girl! Drive
a man crazy if he hoped for anything like what that 'Myra' part ought to
have. It's a beautiful little part, got all sorts of little subtleties
and undercurrents. Butchery! Well, well--got a match?"

They went into the lobby, Hurley leaned against the wall and smoked in
silence for a time; then he laughed gruntingly, as if stimulated by a
thought that made him scornful. "Adler! Begged me to give her this part
and now for the last two days been telegraphing me he wants her for a
musical piece he's putting on. Trying to get her away from me when he
knows I haven't got anybody else! Like him. Wants to send me Mabel
Meadows instead. Not me!"

"You'll keep Miss Hoyt of course?"

"If it's a choice between her and that Meadows girl I certainly will;
this one's wood but the other's tin." He sighed, then went on
despondently, "This Hoyt girl belongs in a musical piece; she certainly
doesn't know what to do with a part like 'Myra'. Thinks archness and
cuteness and jumping around and old trick side-glances to show she
doesn't mean what she's saying--thinks all that old stock stuff from the
shelf is the way to play such a part. Of course she hasn't got anything
else--so, my Lord! what else could you expect."

"But I don't think she's so bad; in fact, I thought she was rather----"

"Don't talk flooey!" Hurley put his hand under his soft hat and rubbed
his head, uptilted his cigar and stared meditatively at its ash. "I was
thinking. You know that little girl what's-her-name at your house last
night, she wasn't half bad. Really not half bad. Something about her a
person'd remember. Got to thinking about her after I came back to the
hotel; got something about her. If she only had a little training----"

Owen stood open-mouthed. "You don't mean you'd----"

"Listen," Hurley said. "Adler'll never quit pestering me till he gets
this Hoyt girl for his musical piece. He wants her right away and, for
that matter, I've decided this morning I don't want her at all. Got no
charm and never will have. If we had somebody else we could try out in
the part Pink could run over it with her this evening and we could let
her read it for us to-morrow at the regular rehearsal. Now this little
girl last night--how long would it take you to get hold of her?"




CHAPTER NINE


In the autumnal thick dusk of that week's Friday evening, Owen drove to
the shabby double house, twisted the handle of the instantly clanging
doorbell, was bidden to enter and found Mrs. Mars alone and smiling in
the gas-lighted room. She moved a frail hand toward him and he took it
for a moment as he sat down beside her sofa. "Angel!" she said happily.

"Oh, dear me, no!"

She gave an upward glance at the thin ceiling, which sounded lightly
with an irregular but quick movement of footsteps. "She'll be down in a
minute; you can be sure you'll not be late. Clara's helping her into
that black velvet dress your darling mother had made over for her so
wonderfully. The child thought she couldn't wear less for such an
immense occasion. Don't mind my calling you an angel. What a week!"

"Yes," he agreed, and seemed to include experiences of his own in the
rueful thought. "A pretty fairly trying one."

"That terrible man!" Mrs. Mars said. "When he told Lily she wouldn't do
and sent her home on Wednesday morning--after letting her think all day
Tuesday that everything was settled!--I never heard such tragic
sobbing--I thought the child would die. Oh, it was a black, black hour!
If you hadn't come after her and taken her back, that afternoon----"

"Of course you know I couldn't have done it," the playwright reminded
her, "unless he'd agreed to it. If he hadn't finally consented----"

"Oh, no," Mrs. Mars interrupted, persisting in her illusion. "I kept
telling Lily all the time I knew you'd overrule him. Of course I
understood there'd be argument----"

"If it could be called that!" Owen said, with a slight shiver of
reminiscence. "He did more than dismiss Lily, you know; a little while
after he sent her home, he dismissed the whole rehearsal, dismissed the
company and dismissed my play, too!" He laughed. "Three hours later,
after he'd had his lunch and worn all the rest of us out and had us in
utter despair, he was just as enthusiastic as ever, only he didn't want
to show it and had to pretend to be talked into going on with the play
and with Lily, too."

"Angel!" she said again. "No, you can't stop me! Do you know what we've
dared to do at last? I'm actually a borrower from a bank--Dr. Gordon
kindly arranged it for me--and I'm afraid poor Lily won't be able to
spend much out of her salary when it commences! Clara's out of Vance's
for good, thank heaven, and she's going to get a rest even from me,
because a trained nurse'll be here." From overhead there came the sound
of a sharp fit of coughing, and Mrs. Mars winced but looked all the more
gratefully at the young man by her side. "She'll get over that, with
rest, and that's one more thing we owe to your giving Lily her start."

"But I didn't," he said feebly, knowing the uselessness of his protest.
To no effect he had already insistently disclaimed her praise of him,
and what his conscience urged him to add now was a warning. Undeniably
Lily had become an actress, an actress in rehearsal and with an
engagement; but she certainly hadn't either been given or achieved a
"start" that warranted this burning of ships behind her. Clara's
recovery, a nurse's pay and a note in the bank oughtn't to depend upon
such precariously uncertain quantities as George Hurley, Lily herself
and the success of a play. As for this one item of peril alone, the
chances against any play's success were two or three to one, never to be
counted upon, and people oughtn't to be allowed to stake their lives on
such hazards. He wanted to say this to the stricken lady upon the sofa;
but with the permanent motionlessness of her long figure before him he
was unable, and held his peace.

"I'll try not to make my gratitude a burden to you," she
said;--"especially as I've got to increase it. You're going to leave
with the rest of them to-morrow night, aren't you, and stay with the
company all the time from now on?"

"Yes, until after 'Catalpa House' opens in New York. I'm going back
there with them now for the last week of rehearsal; then we have a
terrible little period of half-week engagements and 'one-night-stands'
to test the play upon audiences and make alterations before the New York
opening. At least that's the program so far as I know it; with Mr.
Hurley anything's subject to change."

She was thoughtful. "It's everything to me that you're going to be with
them--near her. She'll need guidance, and I know you'll give it. She's
so young, and she's subject to change, too, Owen. Something different
was born in her; it isn't just because I was her mother that I saw she
wasn't like other people, even in her childhood. The more you know her,
the more perplexing you'll think her, I foresee, and there'll be times
when she'll seem to you hopelessly inexplicable. Sometimes she'll appear
to be an experienced, mature woman of penetrating intelligence, and
within half an hour you might think her somewhere between nine and
thirteen; she's not to be counted upon in mind or mood. But always
there's a precious essence--it may need protection----"

Rapid feet were heard upon the stairway; Mrs. Mars gave Owen a gentle
glance that appealed to him to understand everything, and Lily came into
the room. She was so vivid--so almost glitteringly alive, as the
playwright thought--that she seemed to freshen the place and its
occupants and to brighten the gas-light. "Only to think!" she said
softly. "Already I've begun to keep great men waiting!"

She came to her mother; but Mrs. Mars continued to look at Owen. "I may
not see you again," she said. "I know you aren't afraid to write
sentimentally sometimes; but of course I understand you're going to hate
taking part in a sentimental scene yourself." He stood close beside her;
she took his hand and placed it upon Lily's. "I trust her to you. You'll
be an older brother to her, won't you?" She laughed faintly, to minimize
the size of her request and to mitigate the romanticism of her gesture.
"Or at least a young uncle," she added, but capped this with an almost
ceremonial whisper, "I place her in your hands."

The young man's inner objection to feeling and making an appropriately
emotional response, though he did both feel and make it, was less
disturbing to him than the repetition of a thought sharpened in portent
since his interview with the agitated schoolteacher, Reller: a
guardianship of Lily Mars promised the guardian somewhat intricate
responsibilities. Driving away from the double house with her, in the
dim enclosure of Mrs. Gilbert's brougham, he referred dryly to a matter
pertinent in this connection.

"When I got home from rehearsal this evening I found that a letter had
been left at the door for me by the writer of it, in person. From its
tone I think I'm to be congratulated for not being there to receive it,
myself. He finds me guilty of your going on the stage and intends to
make my character known to my fellow-citizens."

"That idiot!" she said petulantly. "I thought I was through with him and
his crazy nonsense! I told him weeks ago that if he didn't stop
bothering me I'd absolutely have to appeal to his family. I never did
anything to get him into such a horrible state; I didn't even start
him."

"No?" Owen said with some grimness. "You didn't even start him?"

"Not in the slightest!" She spoke in a grieved tone. "I just happened to
go in there, a year ago, because the shoes in the window were marked
lower prices than they were at other shops. I tried on a high pair for
winter that I needed, and he waited on me. I didn't even know he was the
proprietor. Of course I wanted him to like me, because I thought maybe
he'd give me a better pair for the same money than he would if he
didn't; but that was absolutely all I did. He kept trying on more and
more pairs till there weren't any left in the place, and he acted so
queerly I was almost frightened. A few days afterwards he sent me three
pairs of party slippers, two with rhinestone buckles, as a present, and
kept sending more and more shoes and slippers, and even silk stockings,
that all had to be returned of course, and he made his family change to
our church and would insist on walking home with me, after, and got his
poor wife so upset it got to be horribly embarrassing, and I simply
didn't have any way to stop it until I thought of telling him if he
didn't I'd appeal to her. To think of his having the impertinence to
write you a----"

"No," Owen said. "The letter wasn't from Mr. Lang."

"No?" She caught her breath audibly. "If it was from that Wilfred
Thomas----"

"No; it was from a Mr. Reller."

"Oh, _that_ old goose," Lily said, and laughed nervously. "He's been
making himself as annoying as he could--coming to the house and fussing
and lurking outside--he's been worse than that silly child, Charlie
Bright--all just to keep me from going away! Thank heaven, they won't be
able to bother me any more after to-morrow night, none of 'em! Only
to-morrow night!" Abruptly she struck his shoulder an ecstatic smart
blow with a small, strong fist. "Oh! Oh! Oh! I'll be on the way to
rehearse in New York! And you'll be there--and everybody! Oh, at last,
at last! Oh, how I love this world, this divine world! Don't you see
what a heavenly romance I'm living in?"

"Because to-morrow midnight we pile into a smoky, jolty train----"

"Because of every minute!" she cried. "Because of now! Because I'm
driving with you in this shiny, private coup to the theatre, to sit in
a box--good heavens! just to think of sitting in a box, and all of it
for the two of us because we're stage people! I never sat in a box
before in my life, and mostly in the balcony except when your mother's
taken me to matines sometimes. Here I am, with you; I'm an actress and
you're a playwright. I am! I'm a professional actress, as I always knew
I would be; but I seemed to be waiting forever and ever. The only time I
ever doubted it was Wednesday when he got furious because of those
gestures and did that awful thing to me; but I knew the instant you came
in the house that it had been just a bad dream. Before you said a word I
knew you'd come to take me back." She seized his hand, pressed it
rapturously to her cheek and released it as if she playfully flung it
back to him. "There! How bold I am to be so familiar with a playwright,
a great man who lives apart with managers and directors, high above us
poor actors and actresses!"

She chattered on, childlike in the joy she found in calling herself an
actress, and so liberal in giving herself this pleasure that he
marvelled she had not already worn it out. In their box next to the
curtained stage, he perceived that she played a variation upon the
theme. She stood for a moment close to the red velvet rail, looking
about familiarly; then with slow grace took her seat and said, loudly
enough to be heard by people in the chairs just below, "I'm afraid all
the poor dears must be no end tired after our long rehearsal to-day."

Owen recognized "no end" as a frequent part of the vocabulary of Eugene
Allan, and "poor dears" as a similar unconscious borrowing from Miss
Hedrington, and at the same time observed that a great part of the
rather sparse audience looked at Lily. This was natural, with the
opposite box vacant and the romantic Venetians in high color upon the
curtain no strangers, these dozen years, to the theatre-goers; but Lily
continued to hold the general attention, which as a rule would have
distributed itself variously after a first glance or two. She did
nothing to encourage such a dispersal; on the contrary, with an
appearance of aristocratic unconsciousness and not for an instant
seeming to pose, she let her light wrap slide away from a pretty
shoulder, looked slowly and estimatingly over the house and leaned as
conspicuously as confidentially toward Owen to whisper behind her hand,
"Less than a thousand dollars, I'll bet; Mr. Hurley'll be furious!"
Then, turning again to the house and seeing someone she knew, she played
a little scene of recognition, appearing incredulous at first, then
doubtful, with eyebrows raised and lips parted, and finally, becoming
certain, nodding delightedly as a climax. She did more for this friend;
she made a gesture of her pretty head toward the curtain, then nodded to
him again quickly and reassuringly, making the message clear: "Don't be
impatient; they're going to begin soon. I know, you see!"

Owen watched her and marvelled. He comprehended that she was playing at
being an actress; that in fact she was acting the part of an
actress--she was acting an actress sitting in a box. But that was what
she actually was! She was an actress, and she was an actress sitting in
a box; then what in the world made her want to act an actress sitting in
a box? Why should she play she was what she was? Moreover, old Ord,
always the actor, would have done the same thing in his own way, and,
for that matter, so would Eugene Allan, though with a much less
obviously picturesque technique. "These people!" the playwright said to
himself, in despair of ever understanding them completely. Then he
laughed at himself for not remembering that all the world's a stage. Had
he never seen artists not of the theatre who wore their calling in their
hair as well as in their manners? Had he never seen senators being
senatorial out of Washington? Had he never met a clergyman somewhat
emphatically gracious in display of the cloth on weekdays?

Musicians came up, stooping, through a short door beneath the apron of
the stage, settled themselves in their long pit and began the suggestive
tuning of their instruments. "Oh!" Lily gasped, forgot to act, and,
turning to Owen with the impulse of an excited child, seized his hand.
"I can't bear it! Sitting up in that balcony I've wondered a thousand
times how the actors in the dressing-rooms must feel when they hear the
orchestra before the play begins. Like gods! Now it's going to happen to
me! Oh, just a little while--just mere days--and it'll be happening to
me. To me, myself, Lily Mars! Oh, they're going to begin--there, they're
playing--it's the overture! I can't stand it!"

She sat clutching his fingers throughout the operatic medley the
orchestra played, and not until the musicians were tentatively resting
did she seem aware of the contact. "Why, you'll think I'm shocking!" she
said, releasing his hand. "I hardly knew it; I just had to hold onto
somebody--you! You don't mind?" She leaned toward him, wistfully. "I'm
afraid you'll have to stand all sorts of things from me. Can you? Mother
gave me to you, you know. People have to put up with all sorts of
nuisances from what they own, don't they?"

He made no response; but, after looking at him searchingly, she seemed
satisfied. "Dear man!" she said softly; then gave a little jump as
darkness suddenly increased about them and an amber glow appeared along
the base of the curtain. The orchestra played a snatch from "La Boheme",
the great painted canvas rose mysteriously, disclosing Eugene Allan,
himself becomingly painted, painting at an easel in a brilliantly
painted woodland glade. Lily leaned forward, watching him and the scene
with an intense concentration, while her escort, not at all interested
in the "Skylark", proved able to take a protracted interest in nothing
more dramatic than her profile. Some moments before the close of the
act, however, he discovered that he had been joined by a companion in
this occupation; the manager had come into the shadowy rear of the box
and also sat looking at Lily's profile.




CHAPTER TEN


Upon the fall of the act-drop, she applauded longer than anybody else;
then, turning, saw Hurley and cried out in startled pleasure, "You! Oh!
Mr. Hurley, I think this is the divinest play----"

"Oh, you do, do you?" he returned satirically. "I wish it had divinity
enough to pay salaries and railroad fares after the house takes its
share! Did a gross of twenty-six hundred last week, every cent! Might
have known the road wouldn't show independence enough to take it after
those Broadway chimpanzees used it as a trapeze to show their comical
tricks from. It's a fine life, a manager's! If he doesn't please all the
chimpanzees in New York and tries the road, he runs into a herd of sheep
that want to think they're chimpanzees, too! Sheep! Might have thought
they'd have come in anyhow to see Eugene Allan and Isabelle Hedrington;
they don't get them every day on the road."

"Or anywhere else!" Lily cried, clasping her hands. "Mr. Allan's simply
magnificent; seeing him in rehearsal I didn't dream he'd be like this!"

"No," Hurley said. "He's one of those stingy rehearsers; wouldn't let
himself out to save your life, blast him!"

"Ah, but when he does--like this to-night----"

"Yes, I noticed," Hurley interrupted. "He certainly hasn't been doing it
up to now. If he'd exerted himself a little more, earlier, we might have
had better business for the end of the week. So you think he's
magnificent, do you?"

"Oh, but everything is!" she cried, and gave a quick side-glance to
Owen. "Of course I like our own play infinitely better, 'Catalpa
House'--it's perfect--but to me there isn't any such thing as a bad
play. I mean, just to be in the theatre is heaven enough, no matter what
goes on. The theatre! Just the word itself is riches and it oughtn't
ever to be said except with a joyous kind of reverence. Those terrible
little places they call the 'Nickel Theatres'--some of 'em are beginning
to have the impudence to charge more--they oughtn't to be allowed to use
the word 'theatre'. It's an outrage and a blasphemy! How can any place
be a theatre where there isn't a stage and a lovely invisible communion
between the actors and the audience? A place isn't a theatre if you just
hang up a sheet and turn a cheap little magic-lantern on it. They ought
to be stopped by law!"

"From giving their shows?"

"No. Who cares about that? I mean a law to keep them from using the word
'theatre'!"

"So that's how you feel about it, is it? The theatre's all beauty and
glamour, is it?" Hurley said, implying that he sneered at her. His tone
was both mocking and intolerant; yet the playwright smiled privately,
knowing that in reality the manager was engaged in a sentimental
pursuit;--in order to hear praise of what he secretly loved, he railed
at it.

"Glamour!" Lily exclaimed. "Ah, more than that!"

"Indeed? The theatre's rapturous and sacred, Mr. Allan's magnificent,
Mr. Gilbert's play's perfect--and how about an ingnue we're trying out
in it? I suppose she's perfect, too--even when she waggles her feet
around while the leading woman's trying to put over a line?"

Lily blushed, but spoke up bravely. "People do show their feelings with
their feet. They show their feelings all over, sometimes, with every
part of them. Oh, I've learned my lesson!--I won't move my feet again,
or anything, unless you or Mr. Monk tell me to; but why shouldn't----"

"Listen!" Hurley said sternly. "Forty years from now if you get to be a
star in spite of a billion chances against it, you can act with your
feet and make the rest of the company stand around frozen stiff till you
get through doing it. They'll be hired for that, and everybody'll think
you're great and you'll get big notices from the critics; but right now,
don't try it. In the first place, I'll send you back to your family if
you do, and in the second, if I'd let you do it I'd have a hysterical
leading woman on my hands, an experience I swear I've endured for the
last time! You keep your feet still and your hands and face, too, while
Isabelle's speaking, and while anybody else is, unless I or Pink Monk or
the script tell you otherwise. Where'd you get all this ten-year-old
idea about the theatre being such a sublime place, anyhow?"

"Ah, it isn't an idea at all, Mr. Hurley. What anybody merely thinks
about the theatre doesn't make any difference, because the theatre is
what it is. It's--it's----"

"Well, well!" Hurley said, with apparent hostility. "Go ahead! What is
it?"

"It's----" She hesitated, blushing with her own knowledge that she
exposed girlishness and enthusiasm. "It's a temple of art."

Then, as Hurley uttered a muttering, sardonic laughter, she laughed,
too, complaisantly at herself, and, with the briefest possible turn of
the head, flickered over her shoulder a half instant's upward glance at
the balcony, then began to prattle out more of her delight in the
"Skylark" and the acting of Eugene Allan. Owen, quick of eye, caught
that over-shoulder glance of hers flung out at the audience, and
understood it. She was spiritedly in earnest in what she had said about
the theatre; yet she was acting that, too, and never for a moment
ceasing to act an actress. Now she was acting an actress sitting in a
box not only with a playwright but with a distinguished and powerful
manager; that glance had hoped that the audience, or at least some of
them, recognized the portent. More, it might be guessed as having hoped
that a person or persons whom she knew, sitting in the balcony, beheld
her as she sat, an actress in a box, gayly intimate with a great manager
and a playwright, and, beholding her thus, were too awed for envy.
Later, when Hurley had gone and just as the houselights dimmed, Owen saw
her glance upward over her shoulder again, and this time perceived that
the look went to a point just above the balcony rail not far from the
central aisle; but already faces were indistinguishable there, in the
quick darkness, and the orchestra was playing up the curtain.

He had a slight, annoyed curiosity to know who had this much interest
from her and wondered whether possibly Mr. Reller or Mr. F. Munson Lang
sat in the front row of the balcony--perhaps accompanied by disturbed
Mrs. Lang or Mrs. Reller. It was Lily herself who enlightened him, at
the end of the act. "Don't look now," she said confidentially, "but
right in the middle of the balcony my best friend's sitting--at least
she was my best friend until a little while ago. Heavens! All that seems
to me like something that happened in another life--millions and
millions of years ago. She's with that idiotic boy who made such a
spectacle of himself the first time you came. He got those seats for 'em
this afternoon--on purpose, I know absolutely! He was over early this
morning and I wouldn't see him; but he hung around pumping Clara. Poor
Minnie Bush! She must think some fairy's given me a wishing-ring; she's
been wild about Charlie for years and all her life simply crazy to go on
the stage. Goodness knows, I never wished for Charlie, though! I suppose
it seems to her I've got everything on earth she wants, while she's
simply starving. They've spent the whole evening staring down at us just
tragically. Now if you'll look up, just casually, you'll see 'em."

Owen looked and saw young Mr. Bright's face, recognizably reproachful
even at the distance, and beside it another reproachful face, this one
with sad blue eyes and aureoled with almost albino blonde hair.
Unsympathetic, he thought Miss Bush a silly-looking rather pretty girl;
but he said nothing and Lily prattled on in an excited confidential
undertone.

"She tried to be loyal to me until it just got too much for her. She
kept on being my friend, or at least saying she was, a long while after
that little goose had to go and make an idiot of himself telling her he
cared for me instead; but this last thing has simply killed her. I mean
my getting on the stage when now she'll never have the slightest chance
herself. She wrote me the most dreadful note yesterday, simply
harrowing! First, she charged, I'd taken the only man she could ever
care for away from her and now, what hurt her the worst, I'd given her
ambition a death-blow by not having you hear her recite, too. Said my
treachery had given her a stab and she didn't think she'd live long.
Pooh! She'd never thought of going on the stage until she got intimate
with me, first year in high school, and thought she had to do every
single thing I did! I suppose you think I'm absolutely heartless?"

"Oh, no," he said. "The other way. Sparing me from Miss Bush's
recitations----"

"Too late now!" Lily shrugged one shoulder, laughed with a light
recklessness and assumed the air of a woman who laughs like that no
matter how many lives she wrecks. "Only to-morrow night! They're sure to
wait in the lobby after the play to see us pass, or maybe on the
sidewalk when we get into the coup. Then when we don't come they'll
realize that we've gone round behind to congratulate the company and I
suppose that'll make 'em bitterer than ever."

"We needn't, you know," he said. "We could go out through the lobby and
spare them that."

"What!" she cried dismally. "Not go behind after?" Then, comprehending
his intention, she laughed and beamed upon him. "I love to be teased
like that--by you! Of course everybody'll be expecting us to come round
to the dressing-rooms and tell them how wonderful they've been
to-night."

"No doubt some of them will," he admitted, and did not make more
definite his impression that the leading man, after an unusually earnest
performance of his rle, might be expecting a particular enthusiasm from
the company's new ingnue. The surmise was not a mistaken one; after the
final descent of the curtain, when the playwright and his charge passed
through a door behind the box and came upon the stage, Allan was waiting
for them near the door and already wearing a handsome brown velvet
dressing-robe. Lily seized both his hands.

"Ah, if you knew how you'd made me cry! Oh, I never dreamed----"

Owen heard no more of the eulogy; a mulatto girl, the leading woman's
"dresser", was speaking to him. "Miss Hedrington sent me to ask you if
you'd please come to her dressing-room right away for a moment, Mr.
Gilbert."

He crossed the stage, dodging men in overalls who were re-setting the
scene for the morrow's matine and hurriedly bearing great oblongs of
painted canvas to and from the vast rear wall of naked brick. Beyond
this confusion he found Miss Hedrington in her dressing-room, staring at
the brightly lighted mirror above the long littered shelf before which
she sat. Her brilliantly lovely auburn hair, loose, rippled down
beautifully upon shoulders and back covered with a green wrapper; and
her face was serious beneath a coating of transparent grease. "Close the
door, Owen, please," she said. "Just a minute." She applied a towel to
her glistening face, rubbed delicately for some moments, tossed the
gayly stained towel into a basket, and, looking seriously solicitous,
turned to face the playwright. "I know you won't tell George and you
won't think, either, that I'm intruding in your affairs. You must know
by this time, Owen, I take a warmly affectionate interest in whatever
concerns you, and I can't help being worried by something that might do
you a serious harm. I mean it's solely on your account that I sent
Ernestine to bring you here. I don't want to see you make a mistake that
would injure your career. On your own account I believe you ought to
stop and think this matter over before you go ahead with it. Seriously,
do you want to take the chance of 'Catalpa House's' failing, after all
the work you've put into it, simply because you and George Hurley have
impulsively put an important minor rle into incompetent hands? You may
think an inexperienced amateur in such a rle can't ruin a play; but oh,
dear me, you poor boy, I've seen it happen time and again! Time and
again!"

"You think the part of 'Myra'----"

"Oh, dear me, yes!" she said. "When you look at a fine oil painting with
a hole in it, Owen, can you see anything but the hole? What's more,
you've no idea how nervous it makes the whole company to have to depend
upon an amateur for business and cues. You don't want to risk our all
getting upset; I'm sure you don't. Listen, Owen, for your own
sake--because personally I could spare myself the trouble of warning
you, because I'll lose nothing if your play fails; I'd be rehearsing
another part the next day. What I mean: George Hurley pretends he
doesn't listen to you; but he does, and if you want to avoid this really
absurdly needless risk to your whole future all you've got to do is to
use your influence with him to wire New York for Mabel Meadows. She'd do
'Myra' to the life."

"You think so?"

"To the life!" Miss Hedrington exclaimed, and became more urgent.
"Listen! On this girl's own account do you want to expose her, untrained
and awkward and amateurish as she is, to a New York first-night
audience? Have you stopped to think what the newspaper wise guys would
do to her? You know how they leap at such a chance--like tigers! Do you
want this little girl to have to undergo such a horrible, such a
crushing experience? Really, Owen, I'm speaking to you on her own
account. It's easy to see what an interest your dear mother took in her,
and how it would hurt her, too, to feel responsible for such a thing's
happening. There, that's all I wanted to say; but for the girl's own
sake, you'll surely think it over, won't you?"

Owen looked at her thoughtfully; then turned to the door. "Don't worry,
Isabelle," he said good-naturedly. "She knows better now than to cut in
on you again; she won't give you any more trouble."

"If that isn't like a man!" The actress swung round to face the mirror
again and began to brush her splendid auburn hair. "What's the use? Send
Ernestine in to me, will you?"

He found the mulatto girl on the other side of the door, and presently
detached Lily from Mr. Allan and several other members of the "Skylark"
cast who had formed a group about her and were all flushed with received
appreciation. "Happiness is as unbearable as grief sometimes," she said,
in the brougham driving home. "Through you I've found that out; I'll
never forget it's through you. By this time day after to-morrow, we'll
be in New York; I've never been there but once--when I was fifteen on a
two weeks' excursion with Minnie Bush and her aunt. New York! I'll be an
actress in New York! Can I call you Owen? All the rest of them do. Ah,
you'll let me! Owen, Owen, I don't know how to bear such joy! I just
want to scream with it. Oh, this golden evening! Owen, have you ever
seen a human being perfectly happy before--happy in every cell and
fibre?"

It was in this mood that she said good night at the twin door of the
double house and disappeared within as if she bobbed out of sight on a
dancing wave of joy. The next morning, as he finished his breakfast, he
was therefore sharply surprised when Nelson informed him that she was in
the library accompanied by another young lady and weeping. "Yes, suh,"
the old servitor said. "I tol' 'em the Madam gone over to your Aunt
Fanny's; but they di'n' ask fer her--say they want to see you. Yes, suh,
look to me like they both been cryin' some, an' Miss Lily she cryin'
right now like she can't he'p it."




CHAPTER ELEVEN


In the library he found Lily seated upon a sofa beside Miss Bush and
clutching this betrayed friend's hand. Beneath the lower eyelids of Miss
Bush were semicircular violet hints of a recent emotional vigil; yet
upon a face Owen thought somewhat insipid, she had demurely the
expression of a person modestly but righteously triumphant after long
oppression. Lily, though wearing a sprightly blue hat and a new
traveling-suit of the same hue, was nevertheless tragedy from head to
foot. Her eyelashes seemed jewelled; a loose lock of her tan hair hung
against a wet cheek, and she sat humped but flaccid, as if some deathly
weight had crumpled the youth and almost the life out of her. She spoke
in what seemed the last remaining shred of a voice. "Mr. Gilbert, this
is my friend Miss Bush."

"How do you do," Owen said blankly, and Miss Bush nodded to him with the
reserve and gravity of a person who self-respectingly suits the manner
to the occasion.

Lily rose and stood stooped before him. "I've come," she said, in the
thread-like voice. "I've come to do----" She sniffled, brought forth a
sodden handkerchief and looked at it helplessly, but still had
intelligence enough to see that it was too thoroughly saturated for use;
whereupon her trembling fingers of their own volition began to twiddle
with it, and she seemed to watch them. "I've come to do--I've come to do
justice upon myself."

"See here," he said. "What on earth's the matter? Does the doctor think
your mother----"

Upon this, Lily sobbed aloud. "My mother! This will just break her
heart--when she knows it. Oh, I can't tell her! Owen--Owen, you'll tell
her for me? You'll do that for me? Not till this afternoon! Don't tell
her till this afternoon, Owen. It'll all be settled and over and done
with by then, and then I want you to go to her and tell her--tell
her----"

"Good heavens! Tell her what?"

"Tell her----" Lily's stooped shoulders were pathetically convulsive;
her shaking fingers picked crazily at the wet handkerchief. "Tell her I
wasn't unworthy--tell her I did justice on myself. Tell her at least I
had the--the moral courage--to pay with my career and my life for the
awful thing I've done. Tell her she mustn't be ashamed of me for
sacrificing myself and everything I've lived for--to atone. Tell
her--tell her----"

"Lily!" he said sharply. "What the devil are you talking about?"

"My--my guilt," she said brokenly. "My treachery! My ruining two lives
to gratify a whim! My cruelty! My baseness! My unspeakable selfishness!
My----"

"Oh, see here, what----"

"Be patient," she sobbed. "Ah, be patient with me. If you turn against
me now--you! Ah, what shall I do, what shall I do?"

Sobbing aloud, she clutched both hands, and the handkerchief with them,
to her eyes, and her grief was so poignant, so despairing that the
perplexed young man was sharply troubled for her. "Lily, dear, please,
please! If you'd only tell me what in the world----"

"I will, I will! I'll try, I'll try; but it's such a frightful
humiliation--before you----" Suddenly, with a jerk of her whole body,
she stood erect, her head up proudly, and, although the rapid tears
still coursed, "No!" she cried. "Why should I call it a humiliation? I
can look you in the face, Owen, because I pay for what I've done. The
bitterness of this renunciation is past now, and I'm calm. I promise you
to go through this calmly. Look! I can even smile!" The smile was a
wavering one; but it seemed to suffice her, and she followed it with a
sorrowful gesture toward Miss Bush. "Owen, I've told you that this was
my best friend; but I never told you all I owed to her. Even before she
and I made our compact to be best friends and never let anything come
between us, she worked to get me elected vice-president of our class in
the first year of high school and got me voted the most popular girl in
senior year, even after I'd left, and always worked against all my
enemies. That's just the least of it, because it was she and her aunt
that invited me on that two weeks' excursion to New York in vacation
time two years ago. She did all this for me because she was true to our
friendship, and what have I done to her in return? She'd told me herself
the only man she could ever care for was Charlie Bright, and I didn't
want him to be in love with me; but just to feed my vanity I couldn't
help starting him. I've confessed to her that I started him. Afterward I
tried to get him swung back to her; but it hasn't been any use. Oh, I'm
making a clean breast of it at last, Owen!"

"But why?" he remonstrated. "Why make it to me?"

Her throat showed a momentary undulation. "Because I've come to give up
my place to her. I told you she and I had the same hopes and ambitions.
Her whole guiding-star was the stage and she loved Charlie Bright.
Well--I've taken both from her and after taking them what have I been
doing? I knew she was suffering and yet I was hard-hearted enough just
to put her out of my mind as much as I could. Shall I tell you what's
changed me? It was when she told me, not more than an hour ago, that
after all I owed to her, what she'd have done if she'd been in my place
when you came to our house that first time, she'd have said, 'No! I've
taken away the only man she can care for from my best friend; but I'll
give her the reward of her ambition and send for her right now to recite
for you, and you can put her in your company instead of me.' That's what
she said--and suddenly, suddenly, I saw it, and saw what I'd become.
Minnie would have done that, too, Owen, if she'd been me; but I wasn't
noble enough. I didn't even have justice enough in me to do that--but I
do it now. Before it's too late and I've lost my soul, I do it--I do it
now!"

"You do what now?" he asked, frowning at her. "What is all this, Lily?"

She looked at him piteously; her lip began to tremble and her attitude
to change into that crumpled aspect she had worn. "I give it all up,"
she said faintly. "I've brought her to you for you to take her with you
to this morning's rehearsal instead of me. I'm going down to Vance's to
try and get Clara's place there. Don't you understand? I've come to ask
you to put Minnie in the company and let her--let her play 'Myra'
instead of me."

"Why, certainly," he said, after staring at her for a long moment. "What
could be simpler?"

In her agitation Lily failed to perceive the satirical significance of
what he said and took his words at their face-value. She gasped, gulped
and began to laugh hysterically. "I think I have the funniest life!
Right in the midst of when I got to be happy at last, this had to
happen!" She turned to her friend upon the sofa. "There! Fix your hat on
straight, Minnie; it looks awful, and he's going to take you to Mr.
Allan and Mr. Hurley and all of 'em at the theatre, probably in the
coup. You'll be riding where I was riding last night, and
to-night--to-night you'll be on the train to New York." She turned again
to face the playwright, made a visible effort to look uplifted by
sacrifice. "Be--be kind----" She spoke with difficulty, but contrived to
finish the noble speech she had in mind. "Be kind--to her." Then he saw
real fright in her eyes. "Why, what'll I do?" she asked almost quietly.
Suddenly she flung herself upon his breast and clung to him, sobbing
desperately, "Oh, what'll I do? What'll I do? What'll I do?"

He put her into a chair, where she sat rocking the upper part of her
body from side to side, shivering and whispering, "What'll I do? What'll
I do? What'll I do?"

"I think perhaps you'd better stop being such an idiot," he said.
"There's only a short rehearsal this morning; but you'd better save your
strength for it because it's going to take up the parts of the play in
which you appear and you're to go over it without using your sides.
We'll have to start in a few minutes and you'd better stop your
nonsense. You can go and wash your face in my mother's bathroom."

She leaned back and stared up at him. "You won't put her in the company
instead of me?"

"Perhaps you haven't realized it," he said with a pained irony; "but
it's cost some slight effort and anxiety to get you into the company
yourself and keep you in it after you got there. Also, I might remind
you that your mother's incurring certain expenses depending on a salary
that'll begin when the play opens, and, additionally, that Mr. Hurley's
attitude would be that you're still on trial in the part, Lily. Miss
Bush no doubt has talent; but managers aren't precisely in the habit
of----"

Miss Bush interrupted him crisply. "Never mind, thank you!" Then she
rose, came to Lily and stood before her. "I guess you can quit taking
on, Lily," she said, with a dismal kind of dignity. "I knew he wasn't
going to do it soon as I had one look at him after you began talking."
She laughed gloomily. "I guess I mean after you began acting. I don't
mean you didn't mean it; you always do. But I've seen you carrying-on
too often not to know it's just where you're in your element. Oh, yes,
you were making a big sacrifice and you really thought you were doing
it; but all the same you were having a big time over it and kind of
believed, somewhere in your head, it wasn't going to happen, and you
were right. So you can be satisfied now, because you've made your
sacrifice and it hasn't cost you anything."

Lily began to cry again. "Oh, Minnie----"

"Don't 'oh, Minnie' me!" Miss Bush said. "I certainly wouldn't have let
you drag me here with you if I'd known this was the way you were going
to behave--making all this and that about Charlie Bright practic'ly
public, and yowling and throwing yourself around instead of what I'd
have done if I'd been in your place."

"Tell me," Lily whimpered. "Minnie, tell me what you'd have done and
I'll do it."

"Yes, you will!" Miss Bush returned, with a short laugh, and gave the
playwright a cold glance. "I'd just have walked in here and told your
high and mighty friend sensibly that I was going to stay home and take
care of my mother like I ought to, and here was a girl I owed a great
deal to and could play this part in his show anyhow as well as I could,
because there were experienced judges that had heard both and thought at
least that much, so please be fair enough to give her a chance to show
what she can do and if she's satisfactory let her take my part. Trust
you to do anything like that, Lily Mars! All you did was come here and
show off and leave me sitting there like a fool to be your audience, the
way you have a thousand times before!"

"But I will, Minnie. I'll ask Mr. Gilbert right now to listen to----"

"Thank you so much!" Miss Bush interrupted, and laughed with a mockery
somewhat shrewish. "I believe I've had enough of this farce. I'll simply
ask to be excused because I'm going home!"

Lily cried out and made sounds and gestures of protest; but Miss Bush
was gone before these manifestations became coherent; she went with such
indignant speed that the front door loudly closed behind her while the
courteous Owen, muttering hospitably, was following with the intention
of opening it for her. When he returned to Lily she was prostrate, face
downward, upon a sofa. "Well--how about getting your face washed, Lily?"

"I can't! I don't care! Things like that don't matter now. I want to
know what you think of me."

"That this is one of the times when you've been between nine and
thirteen years old."

"No; I want to know if you think I'm like what she said. Am I like
that?" She swung her feet down to the floor and sat up; her eyes, now
dry, were intensely preoccupied. "Minnie couldn't be right, could she?
After all, what am I? I don't seem to know. I did mean it. Anyhow I
thought I did. But did I? I always say what I mean; I always say what I
feel--and then somehow I hear myself saying it and it doesn't seem as if
I did mean it--and yet I do! It seems to me I'm two persons or,
sometimes, even three! Are we all like that, Owen? I don't think we can
be, because I feel so different from anybody else. Or maybe I've just
got more of something that other people have a little of, and that's
what makes me like this. I don't seem to be able to help what I do.
Other people can, I know; you can, for instance. You're so quiet and
non-committal and steady and reserved; anybody can see you know what
you're doing and somehow manage what you're doing so that it's all right
and everybody respects you. I'd ask you to teach me to be like that; but
I know I never could. I know that all my life I'll just be doing things
and see myself doing them without being able to do anything about it.
But that's terrible, isn't it?"

"Terrible? Why?"

"Because----" She stood and confronted him gravely. "Because I might do
anything--anything. It's like being an automobile that hasn't a driver."

"No," he said. "Not quite."

"But it is! And just listen to me now--I never seem to be interested in
anything except myself. Why, you must be horribly disgusted with me! Are
you?"

"No!" he said angrily. "Go upstairs and wash your face, and hurry. You
know what'll happen if you're late."

She looked at him timidly, seemed pleased and went meekly upon the
errand, quickening her steps as she passed through the doorway. As for
Owen Gilbert, he listened to the sound of her rushing ascent of the
stairs, sighed heavily and drooped into a chair, wondering if his sense
of exhaustion wasn't another token that Lily Mars was indeed truly an
actress. Everywhere, he knew, there were people whose emotional
disturbances left their friends exhausted and themselves refreshed; but
in his few years of the theatre he had known more such people than in
all his life before. "She's certainly got that!" he thought, not for the
first time. "Whether they live every moment more intensely than other
people do--who knows? But they certainly take it out of the rest of us!"

Lily returned briskly, beaming upon him confidently and extending her
hand in a new glove she wished him to button at the wrist. On the way
down town in the open carriage she chattered gayly about Harry Vokes,
Miss Lebrun and other members of the theatrical company, and then, when
they were near the theatre, she interrupted herself abruptly and said,
"Do you know, something's just come to me. I don't believe she really
cares one bit about that moony little old Charlie Bright any more. He
hasn't got a sign of a chin and she knows what a simp he is, perfectly
as well as I do; she couldn't help it. I believe absolutely she just
used all that broken-heart stuff on me this morning to get me worked up
so't I'd bring her over and get you to let her play 'Myra' instead of
me." Lily laughed airily, so light was her heart. "Well, wasn't I a
ninny? I just know that was it!"




CHAPTER TWELVE


The carriage stopped at the curb; Lily skipped into the theatre and went
through her scenes in the play without her "sides" and without being
prompted. Moreover, though the patient Monk gave her minor instructions
from time to time, she was not once interrupted by the manager who sat
in an apparently glum silence, watching her, until the brief rehearsal
ended. Then he rubbed his chin, sighed thoughtfully and turned his
Napoleonic profile toward the playwright who, as usual, sat behind him.
"Looks as if she might be going to get something out of that part. I let
her alone to-day to see if she'd got the lines set; but I'll go at her
in New York. Kind of looks as if she had something. It may be, it may
be--I suppose not; they nearly always disappoint you or do something
impossible. Let's get out." Then, as they walked up the dark aisle
together, he laughed gloomily. "Tell your mother she's cost me this
girl's fare to New York anyhow and if I have to send her back I'm going
to deduct the bill from your royalties. I've got an idea your mother
helped to put this over on me, and I don't know yet whether I ought to
sue her for it or send her a basket of orchids. You tell her that's my
farewell word to her."

Owen delivered the message late that evening; he had come downstairs in
grey, after removing and packing the ceremonial clothes in which it was
his gallant habit to dine with his mother, and she had told him fondly
that he looked "more distinguished than ever" in grey. "Mr. Hurley seems
to like grey, too," she added absently. "At least, that's what he's worn
the few times I've seen him. He's a fine-looking man, I think, and in
spite of his reddish hair he does look like Napoleon--though of course
he doesn't compare to you, dear."

Owen laughed, and, thus reminded, told her what Hurley had said;
whereupon Mrs. Gilbert nodded amiably. "He's a curiously interesting
person, Owen. One never sees him or even hears of him when he isn't
barking loudly at somebody. I wonder if he doesn't do it with the idea
that if he barks fiercely all the time he won't have to bite so often."
Then she smiled, as if a thought of hers had been confirmed. "So he
sends me a farewell message about Lily Mars, does he? I really wonder
how much he's thought of anything else since that night here."

"Hurley? Good heavens! He has a thousand things on his mind all the
time."

"Yes, but I think Lily'd be there, too. I don't mean she's in his mind
alone. Don't you realize that this whole fandango--all these rehearsals
and the company's week here, and most of everything you and I say to
each other and probably quite a good deal of what most of them say to
one another--yes, and even your play itself--that it all now somehow
seems to be about Lily Mars? Where she's concerned in anything it all
seems to revolve about her. Dear me, but I am glad you're immune from
the spell she casts!"

"Yes, it seems to be fortunate," he said, and, with an apparently
unconcerned shift of subject, began to talk intelligibly of his aunts,
uncles and cousins in the town. That he was intelligible was a credit to
his mental ambidexterity, so to speak; for he was all the while
disquietingly engaged with the realization that since his first meeting
with Lily Mars he had almost continuously thought of her, even though he
thought of other things at the same time. What did it mean, this
obsession? The question rather painfully alarmed him, and for the moment
he did not care to press it upon himself.

Later, in the lighted sleeping-car set apart in the station for the
theatrical company, the question seemed inclined to do its own pressing.
Lily had not arrived; but she had twenty minutes grace, and, though he
thought of the possibility, he was not really apprehensive that in her
stead Miss Bush would appear at the last minute with a commission,
signed by Lily, entitling the bearer to the rle of "Myra" in "Catalpa
House". The porter was making seats into sleeping-berths; but the two
older ladies of the company were playing cribbage in one of the open
sections, while elsewhere old Briggs, the stage manager, and other minor
necessary people of the organization sat relaxed yet talking briskly,
refreshed with the prospect of New York. Through the open door of the
"drawing-room" Miss Hedrington, Hurley and Allan were seen to be engaged
with newspapers, and from the smoking-compartment at the end of the car
came sounds of revelry--the ponderous basso of old Ord and the high, too
sweet tenor of young Harry Vokes syncopating.

    _"When I--I danced with Sammy_
    _Down in--in Alabammy,_
      _Where the--the bull--the bull-frogs play,_
      _In their plunk--plunk-plunking way--"_

Owen went behind the "drawing-room" to the compartment he was to share
with the manager and smoked an inch of cigar there; then he looked
nervously at his watch, got up, frowning, and walked through the car to
the rear platform. She was not yet in sight and for a moment he looked
in upon the blithe spirits of the smoking-room, where drifted with the
smoke an aerial suggestion of whisky. Ord and Vokes had stopped singing
and were listening to Pinkney Monk who had been washing his face and
hands in the bright metal basin in the corner and talked, partly through
a towel. "No; I never acted again from that day to this, and I never
will. It was six years ago the last Fourth of February; I'd never
thought of such a thing before in my life. I'd just sat down at my
dressing-table after the play and looked at myself in the mirror and saw
my face all made-up pretty with grease-paint, and my lips red and my
eyebrows and eyelids pencilled, and all at once I said to myself without
knowing why, 'I'm no woman! This may be all right for a woman; but it
isn't a man's business and, so help me, I'll never do it again!' And I
didn't! It may be all right for you boys, but----"

"Boys?" Ord rumbled dangerously. "Stripling, do you boy me? Me centre
stage playing heavies in 'Two Orphans', 'Celebrated Case', 'Sea of Ice',
'Round the World in Eighty Days'; your father out front half weaned in
your grandmother's lap and spoiling big effect by squawking and puling
in fear of me! The cask, Harry, the cask of old Marsala!" Vokes handed
him a silver flask and he drank from it hurriedly. "Gave up acting
because it shamed him, and now makes his living by your shame and mine,
Harry. There's a man!"

The fat young comedian made his infantile and ludicrously debauched face
into a grimace that burlesqued martyrdom. "They all do," he said.
"Managers, producers, theatre syndicates, stage-hands, critics, advance
men, press agents, scene painters, doormen, electricians and ushers,
they all live off the shame of you and me, Joe, and a few other really
good actors. They all do it, especially authors," he added, for the
entertainment of Owen. "Authors are the worst of all the gazabos that
exploit us. You and I produce the wealth, authors and harpies that play
the bass viol in theatre orchestras get all the money. Let's be
socialists." He smiled graciously upon the playwright, and asked, "You
see Tom-Jim-Jack anywhere around outside?"

"Who?"

"Tom-Jim-Jack. Thomas Worthington, James Morton and John Lancey. I
allude to the three serious young troupers of this company who sometimes
join me in song, to form what is loosely spoken of as a quartet. Thomas,
James and John always go to the same hotel, always eat together, always
tipple together, always love together. Having a keen sense of fitness, I
lump them into one person and call them or it Tom-Jim-Jack. You, being
such a scholar, or something, remember of course that Victor Hugo, the
old copy-cat, imitated this thought of mine in 'L'homme Qui Rit', which
was just wonderful of him because he did it long before I was born.
Don't think I've been drinking or anything much; but have you noticed
Tom-Jim-Jack, I pause to ask, anywhere around, in or near this almost
private car?"

"No."

"I see," Vokes said. "I see. There is a peculiar dulcimer voice I've
lately learned to know, and my dust would hear it and beat had I lain
for a century dead, and it is not yet one of those percolating to this
sanctuary. Grog and song delight Tom-Jim-Jack, yet it or they is or are
waiting outside the station in the hope of getting next to said dulcimer
with winning ways connected with bag-carrying. Tom-Jim-Jack----" The car
jolted with a heavy impact at the other end and interrupted him; he
clapped upon his abdomen a pudgy hand that shot a tiny dart of light
from a diamond upon the little finger. "My heart! They're coupling us
up, Tom-Jim-Jack aren't or isn't here; but what's terrifying to me the
dulcimer isn't here!"

Owen looked again at his watch, and Hurley, pushing aside the curtain of
the narrow doorway, thrust his head and black soft hat into the little
room. "Where's your ingnue?" he asked angrily. "Taking another train
she likes better? Maybe she's decided to retire from the stage; maybe
she thinks it'd be more fun after all to just stay here and dance with
the home town boys. Making a good beginning, isn't she, missing the
train and----"

"Hark, the dulcimer!" Harry Vokes exclaimed, and moved his head close to
Ord's. "Eugene Cowles, Pol Planon, Edouard de Reszke, we'll greet her!
Vamp me this! Oh, prom--oh, prom--oh, prom, prom, prom--Oh, promise me
that some day you and I will _take_ our love together----"

Hurley gave the singers an enigmatic look, withdrew to the main part of
the car, and Owen followed him. Lily rushed in, chattering and laughing,
and the three young actors hurried noisily with her, carrying two shabby
old valises for her with their own more modish equipment. In one hand
she held a bouquet of clustered pink rosebuds evidently designed for the
corsage; but there its intended place was occupied by a floral ornament,
gardenias based in purple tin-foil; and Owen, seeing this, was
disquieted by the sharpness of the twinge he felt. Thinking to please
Mrs. Mars, so he believed, he had gone to a florist's that afternoon,
and the rosebuds Lily now waved in excited greeting to him and Hurley
and the others were of his sending. Who had sent her the gardenias she
wore upon her breast?

He discovered that someone else was interested in the gardenias. Hurley
shouted savagely, "What do you think this is--a trip to a college prom?"
But Miss Hedrington, coming from the "drawing-room", paused by Owen and
laughed too loudly in applause of the manager. "I suppose some local
swain provided her with the rosebuds," she said, and Owen perceived that
she was contemptuously at no loss to divine the sender of the gardenias.
Indeed the flushed and exhilarated Lily was bending her head to them to
prove her appreciation as the tall Allan hurried to join the group about
her. "My word!" the leading lady exclaimed, and returned to the
"drawing-room", while the playwright meditatively went back to the
compartment behind it.

He found the two berths prepared for slumber, but took a book from his
traveling-bag and sat down in the compartment's one chair, to read. The
car was heavily jolted again, then began to glide forward, and the
manager came in, fuming. "Candy, too! Candy in pale pink satin ribbons!
That's the way it goes; work your heart out trying to make a
feather-head into an actress and pretty soon what you'll get's a batch
of shirtfronts and crush-hats hanging around the stage door, thinking a
manager's business is digging up girls for them. Crowd you right out of
a dressing-room in your own theatre; I give you my word they will! Lord,
what a life!" He groaned angrily and began to undress. "I'll take the
upper; I always do--better air. Read as long as you like; the light
won't keep me awake. Wire from Adler; says 'Blue Monday' is a hit and
did sixteen thousand at the Twenty-ninth Street this week. That's the
Brangin piece. Didn't have a third act curtain when they tried it out in
Atlantic City and looked like the soup. Sim Brangin had the author write
a dope fiend into it and gave him the third act curtain line--calls his
sister three dirty names in succession, each one worse. Now they've got
all New York and all the shirtfront and pearl necklace visiting
rubbernecks from out here, your intellectual part of the country, Owen,
all pouring out money to the speculators to hear a hundred-dollar-a-week
actor say three words on the stage that'd only make 'em think 'rather
disgusting' if they heard 'em up an alley. If business drops, all Sim
Brangin has to do is put in one more name for this boy to call his
sister; that'd make four and be worth thousands and thousands of dollars
to Sim and Steenie. Tip for you on how to write big box-office plays."

"I doubt it. You see, after they've used the four words, they'd have to
use five, and then six, and then seven and eight, until finally you
wouldn't have any other words in your whole manuscript, and I should
think it might be rather cloying."

"They'll do it," Hurley said, though he laughed sourly at himself for
the prediction. "The day'll come when you'll hear everything on the
stage that you would in a saloon. Of course there'll have to be some
other words in between to shape up the story and make the shocks fatter
by the feed-lines that lead up to 'em; but now that the Brangins have
pulled this off and'll make a fortune out of it you'll hear five
barrel-house words on the stage next year for every one you hear this.
The biggest class of suckers in the United States is the one that'll pay
money to dress up and sit with a lot of other dressed-up suckers and
either get shocked or be proud they're too smart to get shocked. Well,
God help the stage; I can't!" He grumbled himself into his pajamas,
climbed up into the higher berth, settled himself for slumber with his
face away from the light; then rolled over and looked down sardonically.
"I've got a great idea."

"I hope not, George; that usually means you want something changed in
the script of 'Catalpa House'."

"Wait! This girl of your mother's, for instance; she's young and she has
a look sometimes that has a kind of wondering, trusting, flower-like
innocence--you know, like one of Sir Joshua Reynolds's children. How
about our giving her the climax curtain speech?"

Owen looked up, astounded. "What!"

"Why, certainly!" Hurley grinned to find his satire taken seriously. "If
we let Isabelle do it, there'd only be the ordinary shock of hearing a
woman who looks like a lady saying something indecent; but this girl of
your mother's, now, if we gave a child like that a line that'd make a
gorilla blush, there'd be a fortune in it."

"I think there would," Owen agreed. "What's more, I'm afraid there are
one or two people in your business, George, who'd almost do it."

"They would if they thought of it," Hurley said. "And if the police'd
let 'em. On my soul, I believe the stage'll go to hell some day. On my
soul, I do!" He turned his face to the wall, sighed, murmured, "Some
day" indistinctly and was silent.

Owen read vaguely for an hour and more without achieving the inclination
to sleep that he sought. The pounding rumble of the heavy train at times
became insistently rhythmic in his ears and seemed to repeat the
syncopations of Harry Vokes and old Ord.

    _"When I--I danced with Sammy,_
    _Down in--in Alabammy,_
      _Where the--the bull--the bull-frogs play--"_

He closed the book and, listening, let it rest in his lap, for it seemed
to him that faintly, faintly mingling with the roar of the train through
the night were distant human voices. The sound was so eerily slender
that for a time he thought it probably an illusion; then he realized
that by some freak of acoustics he was actually hearing a waft of
revelry that still must be continuing in the smoking-compartment. The
hints of song, now just audible, now wholly lost in the noise of the
train, produced in him a slight uneasiness--he could not have said
why--and he finally yielded to an impulse to look in again upon the
revellers. As he came from the narrow passage outside the compartment
and the "drawing-room", and stepped into the now shrouded aisle through
the car, he saw coming toward him a tall and manly figure in a girdled
robe of Chinese scarlet silk. The gorgeous apparition, dimmed by the
meagre night-light of the sleeper, halted and awaited his approach.

"Still up, 'Gene," the playwright said in a lowered voice, when he
reached him. "Have you been singing with----"

"Not precisely!" the leading man replied with feeling. "I've been to bed
two or three times; but I couldn't sleep. There's a section that hasn't
been made up down at the end of the car and we can talk there."

"I suppose the noise in the smoking-compartment kept you awake," Owen
said, as they seated themselves in the open section. "Curious, I could
hear it in the compartment at the other end of the car; but I can't hear
it here."

"No, they're not singing just now," his friend informed him. "When they
do, it doesn't sound loud enough out here to keep anybody awake
necessarily. They're telling stories now, anyhow, old Joe Ord
especially, of course. I've been listening in the passage and so far the
songs and stories seem to have been printable. The thing that worries me
most is what the women of the company'll think about it and--and the use
Isabelle may make of it."

"Isabelle?" the playwright asked; but his heart sank. "Why, what would
she care how late those boys----"

"Those boys! Hark!"

They heard an applausive chorus of laughter, muffled by the partitions,
and the voices were not all those of men; then there followed a burst of
song, over which there rippled and trilled the single sweet soprano that
had run its silver thread through the heavy laughter.

    _"Then we--we went out mooning,_
    _While they--they did their crooning_
      _In their plunk--plunk-plunking way--"_

"There!" Allan said angrily. "She told me this morning you were
virtually her guardian. I don't mind saying you seem to me a pretty poor
one!"




CHAPTER THIRTEEN


The troubled playwright did not argue the point. Instead, he asked,
"Have you been in there?"

"No!" the actor returned with subdued violence. "How could I? If I'd
gone in I'd have either had to look genial and approving or glowered at
them, and if I glowered I was open to disagreeable interpretations. All
I could do was to fret. I suppose you know that George assigned the
drawing-room to Isabelle and Miss Mars together, do you?"

"Yes; it struck me as very thoughtful of him and----"

"Wasn't it!" Allan exclaimed satirically. "Tactful! With Isabelle
getting herself every day more and more into a state of mind about her,
he thoughtfully ups and puts them in the drawing-room together! You
don't suppose Isabelle's going to miss a chance like this, do you? She
knows where the girl is and she'll know what time she gets in, won't
she? It's going on three in the morning right now! Puts me in a pleasant
position, doesn't it?"

"You? I don't just see how you----"

"No, I suppose not," Allan said moodily. "I might as well tell you; I
wouldn't confide in anybody but you, though. Just lately I've been
wondering if I could ever come to doubt my feeling for Isabelle. What I
mean, I've wondered if some day I'd question myself about it's being the
real thing--I mean the thing that can only come once to anybody. What I
mean, some time after it's too late maybe, mightn't I perhaps be
startled by finding I had a deeper feeling for somebody else who would
be really the one? I tell you, old boy, I've had moments lately when
I've almost been shaken and it's seemed to me that practically without
knowing it I might contain possibilities of a passion I hardly
suspected, myself, I had the capacity for. Well, if that happened to me
I mightn't have any power over it--it might get beyond me. Of course I'd
strive with every ounce of strength within me to be loyal to Isabelle;
but I know the spiritual struggle would be something frightful. I don't
believe you know how these things can tear and rend a man, Owen."

"No," Owen said. "I don't suppose I do--at least not as you describe
them."

"You couldn't! I don't believe another living soul could be torn and
rent as I could be. Nobody could help me; I'd just have to fight it out
with myself. The question I keep asking and asking myself is simply
this: What's fair to Isabelle? The trouble is, she cares for me so
frightfully I just don't dare to let her dream I could ever give a
thought to anybody else--I don't know what she'd do! You see, she
doesn't really dream that I ever could; she makes scenes when she merely
dreams that she dreams I could--I mean just on the breath of a
suspicion. If she ever really does think it, then heaven help me! You
see what a position I'm in. Just suppose I'd gone into the smoking-room
and made myself disagreeable enough to get Lily out of there, and
somebody told Isabelle. God!"

Another burst of laughter was heard, and the gayest and lightest of the
voices rang reproachfully in the heart of the young man to whom a
stricken mother had lately confided her daughter. "It's all unknown
country for her," he said. "Of course she doesn't understand anything. I
supposed Jennie Lebrun would at least tell her things; she's going to
look after her in New York and have her with her at her Madison Avenue
boarding-house. I suppose Jennie just went to sleep. There's only one
thing for us to do, 'Gene, of course; we'll have to get her out of there
somehow."

"We? After what I've just been saying to you? Don't you suppose that if
I'd dared, I'd have done it an hour ago? No, my boy; that's your
affair!"

"Very well." Owen rose decisively and strode into the passage that led
to the curtained doorway of the smoking-room; but there, out of sight of
his friend, walked more hesitantly and came to a dubious halt. The
sonorous voice of old Ord was holding forth.

"What is an actor? Fair child, shall I tell you?"

Lily could be heard laughing eagerly as she cried, "Yes, Joe! Yes! Yes!
Yes!" But her encouragement was almost smothered under a protestive
booing.

"Not so!" Ord rumbled triumphantly. "She knows me but this hour,
Thespians, yet knows me better than you would in cycles of Cathay! She
knows I never repeat myself. She, this fair butterfly just from the
dreary cocoon, this novice just fled out into life from the dark convent
grille, she, this opening sweet bud, she sees upon that monument, my
forehead, the surge of a new thought. She bids me say what is an actor,
and I reply he is an artist. But what, then, is art? Art is what the
lily-maid and I make when out of ourselves we make new worlds to show
the old one what itself is made of. This is a magnificent saying; I
couldn't have done it without a clink of the cup and a lily-maid to glow
upon me. What is it an actor holds up to nature? You've heard from a
fine mind a mirror; but I say it is the cipher key to the secrets of
Olympus. He-troupers, you can't possibly understand such talk; the
hazel-haired Athenian child alone comprehends me and that's my reward
for staying sober. What! I'm doubted? Sober I am indubiter--I mean
indubitably. Do, mi, sol, do, 'No word of mine'! Sound the chord."

Unanimously sentimental, five male voices began to sing, with Lily's
soprano trilling high over them, even above the unctuous falsetto of the
fat young comedian.

    _"No word of mine shall mar, shall mar thy joy,_
      _Nor dim one smile of thine so bright--"_

Something in the absurd, old-fashioned words, and more in the girl's
appealing young voice, touched the listener, as he stood, uncertain, in
the passageway. All at once he found himself sentimental, too; he
frowned and went slowly back to his waiting friend.

"Well! Well!" Allan said. "What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"What? You haven't even been in there and----"

"No, confound it, how could I? I'm not equipped with papers of
guardianship and if I presume to interfere in what they have a perfect
right to think isn't my business----"

"What!" Allan exclaimed hotly. "You're only afraid of what they'd say to
you. You're afraid to go in there because you're afraid of looking
ridiculous!"

"Well--aren't you?"

"No!" Allan exclaimed with increasing fervor. "You know why I can't do
it; I've just told you. It's your business because you're responsible
for her being here and because she calls your mother 'Aunt Anne'. You
know your duty as well as I do. What, you mean to say you'd let a girl
who's a friend of your family's spend the night in an orgy led by Harry
Vokes--with his reputation known through the whole profession! Look
here! Either you go in there and stop it or I do, and you know what
interpretation Isabelle will put on that. All right, let her! I don't
care what, I'm not going to stand for a thing like this happening to a
young girl in a profession I have some ideals about. I tell you----"

His rising voice was interrupted by a heavy groan from the opposite
section. The lower half of the curtains were parted and a dishevelled
head and sallow face appeared wanly in the opening. "_Would_ you fellows
go and discuss everything somewhere else?" Pinkney Monk said pleadingly.
"I don't mind hearing the singing a little, occasionally; it's more or
less soothing--but this political argument of yours is keeping me
awake."

Allan muttered incoherently under his breath and the two withdrew to the
vestibule at the other end of the car. There, the actor ruffled his fair
hair with a nervous white hand. "Fool that I am! The truth is, I'm
upset; I'm not myself or I wouldn't have been so careless. I can only
hope he didn't hear what I said about Isabelle; but, after all, what's
that matter compared to the thing that's happening? See here; you know
how dangerous this is. We can't simply stand here and let it go on. How
much chance is there George Hurley won't hear of it? He talks like a
cynic; but you know his ideals for the profession and that they're as
high as my own. I never in my life knew of a girl's being in a Pullman
men's-room before! Are you going to let her stay there or what are you
going to do? Answer me, Owen! What do you intend to do about it? Answer
me!"

"I don't know. That's a scapegrace lot, of course; but old Ord's with
them and when I listened she seemed to be just young and excited and
happy."

Allan stamped his foot. "Happy! See here; this is sheer torture to me.
You don't understand that, because you may be an artist in your own way
but it's a cold thing you do, sitting alone in a room with paper and a
pot of ink--that's your material. An actor's material is his own
body--ah, and his own soul! Do you think any other kind of living
creature could have his terrific sensitiveness or suffer half as
sharply? What's a little thing to other people might be agony to me.
You're a little worried; but you don't really care whether or not this
girl destroys herself being 'happy'--God save the mark!--with that
mugger of a Harry Vokes. He's had his eye on her from the first, I tell
you! Oh, you can smile if you like! Laugh at me, why don't you! Laugh!"

"No," Owen said. "I don't feel in the least like it."

"You do! You don't care anything about this girl personally. I've seen
that, too. Your mother's fond of her; but she bores you and so you won't
help her--or help me. You won't help me get her out of there. I take an
interest in her, I tell you, and I loathe and detest the world's old
snobbish ignorance of my profession, thinking it means unconventional
living a few shades better than gypsying, and I don't want to see this
girl getting that way. I don't want to see her cheapening herself with
Harry Vokes and Jack Lancey! I tell you she's making herself cheap and
that's anguish to me! But you--you don't care. You shirk your duty and
excuse yourself by saying everything's all right because old Joe Ord is
there. Old Joe Ord! My soul and body!"

He elaborated the theme. Old Joe Ord, he explained, was
nothing--thistledown turned fossil but still weightless. Old Joe Ord was
the unfortunate survival of a period in art that should have become
extinct without leaving such traces; he belonged to the ancient
bellowing Bohemians, rightly outcasts, who could not be asked to a
gentleman's house, since they would less probably tip the butler than
attempt to borrow from him. Yet here was this pagan relic, this obsolete
vacuum, cited as a chaperon for a young girl who caroused all night with
a lower sort of players in a Pullman washroom! The agitated Eugene,
before his protracted eloquence abated, gripped his friend fiercely by
the shoulders, talked closely in his face, and was incomparably more
vehement in voice and vigorous in action than ever he was in scenes of
passion played upon the stage. In the theatre, indeed, his vogue rested
heavily upon his power to express with quiet and reserve such feeling as
possessed him now, and the playwright, in the midst of perturbations,
recalled curiously that he had seen old Joe Ord pass through a moment of
real emotion in such quiet he was almost dumb, whereas old Joe's acting
in the theatre knew no reservations at all.

This bit of Owen's observation of contradictory phenomena was only a
preoccupied flip with the tail of his mind. Time was passing; Eugene
raved on--and here they both continued to stand, wavering with the
train's changing flight and with indecision. It was Eugene who finally
ended the indecision. "All right," he said desperately. "You won't do it
and I can't stand it. I'll go back there myself and tell her Isabelle
wants to see her in the drawing-room and----"

"Eugene! Don't do that, because she'll naturally tell Isabelle that
you----"

"I don't care! I will, and when she's gone I'll stay there and give them
a bit of my mind!" As he pushed open the door of the car, he felt Owen's
hand upon his shoulder. "Don't try to stop me. I----"

"No, I see I can't. I'll go with you."

They strode through the dim car, and, assisted by a curve in the railway
track, made a dramatic but plunging entrance into the smoking-room.
Pinkney Monk, in his pajamas and slippers and an old brown dressing-robe
was seated there, alone, smoking a cigarette and looking out
reflectively at the dark, receding landscape.




CHAPTER FOURTEEN


"They're all gone to bed," he said, in a casual tone. "You fellows got
me so wide awake I couldn't sleep, so I got up and came in and told 'em
all to get the hell out of here because it was time for little girls to
be in bed and they'd get the devil from George for keeping everybody
awake if they didn't. Sit down a while?"

"Thank you," Eugene said coldly, inhaled and exhaled one long breath
audibly, and withdrew. Owen hesitated, glanced at the stage director,
who was still looking out of the window; then sat down and lighted a
cigar. Several minutes passed; Monk smoked contemplatively, and when he
finally broke the noisy silence it was in that same manner, as if he
spoke of something in which both he and his companion took but a remote
and academic interest.

"'Gene gets it when he gets it. Never stopped to think carrying-on up
and down the car might make her even more talked about in the company
and get her in a worse mess than what went on in here. Funny thing about
her. Did you ever happen to be walking in the country at night and see
what you thought was a nice bright little star go out because it was
only a farmhouse light up on a slope and somebody turned it off?
Personally I don't care whether that's what's going to happen to her or
not; but I did think it was about time for anybody to be getting to bed
who's expected to keep in shape to act in a play pretty soon. Purely
business with me. I don't care what they do, so it doesn't touch
box-office. Run loose and go without sleep till they die if it doesn't
hurt that; no affair of mine." Then, as there was no response, he gave
the playwright a slightly suspicious and challenging side-glance before
repeating himself with a defensive emphasis. "Personally, as I say, I
don't take any special interest in her. Personally, I mean, if she runs
wild what business is it of mine? It's nothing to me, because personally
I don't care. See what I mean?"

"Yes," Owen said, looking at him gravely. "I think I do."

In this reply the director perceived no undercurrent; he spoke on. "Been
watching her. I mean professionally at rehearsals. Outside, of course, I
don't care and wouldn't take the trouble. It's all a question of whether
she'll ever pick up a bag o' tricks. She might; you can't tell. God
knows any actor learns easily enough how to crab some other actor's line
or kill his laugh, if he wants to, though it takes some brains to do it
and not get caught at it by the fellow that's crabbed. Golly, if the
audience and critics only knew, sometimes, what they're looking straight
at and not seeing! What I mean about her, it looks a little as if she
had a natural eye for picking up the right sort of tricks. For instance,
only this morning she picked up old Joe's back step. You notice it?"

"No. I didn't even know he had a back step."

"Old-fashioned trouper stuff, but good sometimes," Monk explained. "When
he's going to cross the stage or even got a short cross to make, Joe
puts one foot behind him before he steps out, balances himself just the
least part of a second, then gives himself a swing forward by pushing
himself with the foot that's behind him. It gives him a decisive
movement and makes them notice him from out front without knowing why or
having any idea that he's working a little technique on 'em. Well, she
caught it--I think she hardly knew, herself, that she was picking it up
from him--and she saw the right place to use it and put it in. It's a
pretty small thing; but my idea of a big performance of a part is one
that's made up of about a thousand little things. When an actor gets a
fat bagful o' tricks and can take out the right ones to use for any part
he gets, he has a chance to see his name in electric lights some
day--that is, if he's got that other thing along with his bag o' tricks.
Of course that other thing gets it for some of 'em a while; but it don't
last long unless they've got the bag o' tricks, too. What do you think
yourself about that other thing? Think she's got some?"

"Yes," Owen said slowly, and was unaware that he also spoke sadly, "I
think she has."

"Looks like it, maybe. But an actress with that other thing is just like
any girl that has it. Take any girl like that in any town; she'll have
all the boys on the hop, and then after a year or two she'll get married
and pretty soon she'll lose that other thing, and if that's all she had
and she didn't bother to collect anything with her brains, her
husband'll feel like a cross widower, because he certainly hasn't got
what he married; outside the home he's liable to behave like a widower
that isn't cross. No, sir, this Lily Mars of yours is just the same as a
million other women, past, present and future, only it's more life and
death to her because she wants to be an actress. While it lasts they
think they're always going to have it, and a girl on the stage that's
got it gets big hands and big notices and thinks she'll always go great
because she's a great actress. Then it's gone--flooey!--and if she
hasn't got a bagful o' tricks her audience'll walk out on her the way a
husband would wish he knew how to, and she might as well be Friday's
flowers on the Monday morning ash barrel." He laughed indifferently,
then added in a sprightlier tone, "As far as I'm concerned myself,
though, as I say, I don't care how late she sits up or who she makes
jealous or how much trouble she gets herself and other people into.
Personally that's all your business, not mine."

"Is it?" Owen said quietly; but his dark eyes were haggard, and his
mother would have caught the bitterness in his tone. He rose abruptly
and went to the doorway. "Well, if it's my business to look after her, I
certainly am a failure at it. I suppose I--I think I ought to thank you
for----"

"For to-night? Me? Certainly not! Personally I wouldn't lift my little
finger----"

"I see," Owen said, turning into the passageway. "Then I'll only say
good night."

The obscure green aisle of the car, mysterious between curtained files
of prostrate bodies each engaged in its own mystery, was not all
voiceless as he passed through it. From a lower berth upon the right
came a hurried babbling in a monotone--"You up stage, me down, you on
blue horse, fine prop, business of clasping me in your arms--me business
of laughing in your face"--the fleshy and fleshly Vokes talking in his
sleep, and still a comedian. Slumbers across the aisle were not
disturbed, for here the dead air shook with the impact of such snorts,
cluckings, gulpings and mighty outpuffings as may be heard in windy
caverns that receive the ocean surf; thus any wakeful altruist had the
happy assurance that Joseph Ord slept.

Owen Gilbert found himself indifferent upon the point; he was angry with
both the old actor and the young comedian, and later, in his own berth,
was kept awake by his complaint against them, against Eugene Allan,
against Lily Mars and against himself.

The faults in himself that he found most shameful were ineptitude and
helplessness; both seemed to spring from a lifelong personal reticence
that was apparently part of the character with which he had been born.
It had always been natural to him to write freely and sometimes easily
upon any subject except himself; but when he mingled with his
fellow-creatures and spoke to them there was a weight upon his tongue.
Now here he was, habitually speechless and his lot cast by ironical
destiny among the most expressive people of the world! Moreover, here
was that same sly destiny playing tricks upon him because of his
helpless moral passivity, saddling him with the care of an irresponsible
girl upon whose safety and achievement hung two lives besides her own.
He had this night proved that he had neither the wit nor the
decisiveness to preserve her, just as he had earlier shown nothing but
incapacity when he had wished to help her.

Most ironical of all, he objected on grounds of taste to almost
everything she did. For but one single quality of hers he had an
admiration, and that tempered by protest; she was evidently capable of
emotional reckless self-sacrifice. As for the rest of her, seen from his
plane, she apparently lacked even the vital necessities of a woman to be
considered; she had no discrimination, too many men fell in love with
her, she had no discretion and only desultory flickerings of common
sense. She was all flaws, ignorances and an accidental talent of a scope
yet unknown. Properly he should have felt no more than a slightly amused
disapproval of her when he thought of her--if he thought of her at all!
Yet here he was, witch-ridden and unable to think of anything else.

Her odd sweet voice was incessant in his ears, his mind's eye was only a
lively storehouse continually being stocked with new pictures of her.
She was before him in every posture he had seen her assume; her face
wore every expression he had beheld upon it. She wept before him,
smiled, laughed--and came close, her hand light upon his arm and her
timid look worshipping him ineffably, to say, "Such duty as the subject
owes the prince, even such a woman oweth to her husband." Then, with
that strange word "husband" troubling his heart, he saw her bend her
head to Eugene's gardenias, and winced again with the same hot twinge in
his breast.

He saw her in the theatre, in his mother's house, in the ugly little
brown room where her mother lay; he saw Lily as she sought to detain him
by the picket gate before the shabby double house. He saw her in fine
black velvet, in the cheap street-dress she had worn at her first
rehearsal, in blue cloth and in ancient satin; he saw her sit and stand
and walk and dance--most recurrently of all he saw her dance and watched
the fast shifting twinkle of yellowed old satin moving upon the flying
gracefulness beneath it.

"Let me alone! Let me alone!" he mumbled, in his berth. "What are you to
my mind or to my spirit?" Then beneath him tons of steel whizzing on
other steel would ruthlessly chant and chant and chant a mocking rhythm.

    _"When I--I danced with Sammy,_
    _Down in--in Alabammy--"_

At last full knowledge of his plight came upon him, saddened and
humiliated him. Near daylight he understood that Lily was never to be
banished, and gave up; for good and ill he was in love with her, and so
closed tired eyes and slept.

He woke after noon, found he was alone in the compartment, had breakfast
brought to him there and did not come forth into the main part of the
car until three o'clock. The place was dazzling with rhomboids of
sunshine from the windows where autumnal trees and fields incessantly
swept backward out of sight; and beside Miss Lebrun, at about the middle
of the car, Lily sat, brightly sunlit and facing him but not looking at
him, for her lowered eyelids were dark in a pale and tragic face.
"Yes--and ought to look that way, too!" he thought vindictively; but she
was avenged by the pang that went through him to see her so downcast.

Old Briggs, the stage manager, sat facing her, talking animatedly to her
and Miss Lebrun. Ord and Monk were seated together near the end of the
car, and across the aisle from them Rita Carlin, Miss Lebrun's
contemporary, worked at an embroidery; but the "drawing-room" door was
closed and no other members of the company were in sight. Briggs
explained the greater part of this absence as Owen passed in the aisle.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Gilbert," he said, with a characteristic
officious courtesy. "There was a Pullman smoker hitched on forward, this
morning, and if you're hunting for Mr. Hurley or Mr. Allan----"

"I'm not, thank you," Owen said, looking at Lily.

She turned her head slowly and lifted a wounded, pleading gaze to his
face. Her quick and tremulous breathing was visible, almost audible, and
the plea she made was plain--"Ah, stay! Talk to me! Be kind to me! Help
me!" But he was cold and more than formal, gave her the briefest nod,
passed on and sat down in the next section on the other side of the
aisle.

From there Briggs was within his view, showing a pathetic powdered old
face brightened with his own talk and the possession of listeners. Once
a leading man of some consequence, he was now the least of mortals and
virtually a pensioner upon Hurley; but Owen stared at him angrily,
hating every inoffensive thing about the man, his unwiped eyeglasses on
a heavy black cord, his dapper, stiff, winged collar, his inappropriate
white waistcoat with a puffed out fold like a little shelf across his
stomach, and a fine sprinkling of cinders along this shelf. "Ass!" the
playwright thought. "Can't you see her nerves are on edge and let her
alone?"

Old Briggs smiled fatuously, touched his waxed white moustache and
resumed an interrupted narrative. "Of course that was years and years
before this specialist warned me about my heart, see, and stopped my
acting--except bits of course. I played a season with Sol Smith Russell,
see, and three with Nat Goodwin before I ever met Dick Mansfield at all,
see. I saw right away that we two would never get on, see, though he was
a good actor--mind you, I don't say he wasn't--but I saw from the first
that the day would come when I and he were going to clash, and sure
enough it did. You understand in my old Joe Jefferson days I'd caught
the trick of knowing just exactly when they wanted a laugh out front,
see, and when they weren't ready for it. But you see Mansfield never
caught on to how long you can hold them without a laugh and, see, I knew
he was weak there, see, so I just quietly waited my opportunity----"

From behind the playwright came the resounding voice of Ord. "Nine hours
more and I'll be eating rarebit and drinking beer with my old Becky,
praise the Lord! She's at the Empire, playing the grandmother in the
'Puppet Show', and she'll have six scraggly yellow chrysanthemums on the
dining-room table of the little old flat to show she's glad I'm home.
Yes, sir, forty-eight years married, never one single season in the same
company and never either of us gave the wink of an eyelash at anyone
else, so help me God. Never wanted to--never thought of such a thing,
because I tell you my old Becky----"

Owen closed the book he had begun to pretend to read, got up and went
forward to the Pullman smoking-car. There was but one vacant chair; he
seated himself in it, and, glancing about, saw that a game of cards and
iced amber glasses engrossed the quartet at the forward end of the car's
seating space, and that Hurley and Eugene Allan were sitting almost
opposite to him. They were neither talking nor smoking; they were not
reading nor engaged in any occupation apparently except that of thinking
uncomfortable thoughts. Eugene gave the playwright a disturbed glance,
not unfriendly, and a preoccupied nod; but the manager, red-faced and
seeming to lurk angrily beneath the downbent brim of his soft hat, made
no acknowledgment that he was aware of the presence of any person known
to him.

After a time, however, he lighted a cigar, and, during this slight
process, the fluctuation of the match's flame alternately glistened and
dimmed in reflection upon threatening eyes sidelong for the moment upon
the poker party. More, it was observable that Harry Vokes, serious
to-day, was aware of the deadly glance, wished to appear unconscious of
it and that it increased his gravity. Upon its removal from him he drank
hurriedly, with the air of one released only temporarily from a sinister
pressure, and continued his game in a manner both chastened and
apprehensive. Owen looked about no more but opened the book he had
brought and read doggedly until the outdoor light was wanly golden and a
pompous but amiable voice urged a summons upon all occupants of the car.
"First call for dinner! Dining-car three cars in the rear."

Hurley stood up, said brusquely to Eugene, "Come on!" and then, as he
passed by the playwright, bent down for a moment and spoke with strong
resentment. "_Fine_ job you've put on my shoulders! _Nice_ ingnue you
stuck me with!" Hostile, he stayed to hear no retort, permitted no
questioning but stalked fiercely and rapidly out of the car, followed by
the troubled Allan.

On this train Owen had no further speech with the manager or with any
other person connected with the theatre, nor did he desire it. When he
went to the dining-car himself, upon the "last call", no member of the
company was there. Afterwards he returned to his compartment; Hurley was
not in it and the porter had already carried the traveling-bags to the
platform, for the windows of the train now looked forth upon other
lighted windows and gave flitting glimpses, of a somewhat dingy
apartment life in the upper reaches of Manhattan Island. Upon the
station platform, where apparently not one of a horde of travelers was
content merely to walk out into New York or to immerse himself in the
city in any manner except that of plunging into it, the young man had
one distant glimpse of Lily Mars. She was far before him; he had the
impression that she walked stumblingly and her head inclined toward Miss
Lebrun, who had an arm about her and hurried her along. The crowd
blurred them out and he drove to the Players', where he had a room
engaged and meant to stay until "Catalpa House" set forth to test its
first fortune upon "the road".

In the genially splendid warm interior of that talented but friendly
club he found acquaintances at ease, two black bearded painters, a
sculptor with a face like a faun's and a short haired poet in evening
clothes; and he sat with them, listening mainly, until near midnight.
Then a boy from the office brought him two notes just delivered by a
messenger. The first was from Lily.

    "Owen, he's discharged me. He's engaged an actress named Mabel
    Meadows to play my part. He talked to me terribly this morning
    and this afternoon he telegraphed to her from the train to play
    Myra. I can't face it--I've killed my mother and I've killed my
    sister--I can't--I can't--and you didn't come near me. I don't
    know what's going to become of me or anything."

The other note was from Miss Lebrun.

    "If you possibly can, please come here to-morrow morning before
    rehearsal. I can't do anything with her to-night at all and I
    don't believe I'll be able to manage it alone to-morrow. Please,
    please!  Jeanne Lebrun."




CHAPTER FIFTEEN


In the Eastlake parlor of the Madison Avenue boarding-house, the next
morning, however, Lily proved to be anything but unmanageable. She sat
limply in a brown mohair-covered chair, wept quietly and steadily and
began by saying she'd do whatever Owen commanded. "Anything--anything at
all. The only thing I can't do is to stop crying. I'll try to do that if
you tell me to; but it won't be any good. You wouldn't come near me all
day yesterday--I don't know why--I hadn't done anything to you, had I?
No, I guess I had, because you thought I'd disgraced you. That's why you
treated me the way you did, wasn't it?"

"No, it wasn't."

"Oh, yes, I guess it was! You felt that way and just barely spoke to me
and wouldn't give me a chance to tell you anything, because you
knew----"

"I knew very little," he interrupted with some sharpness. "I didn't talk
to Mr. Hurley or to anybody else yesterday."

"But you knew about my being in the smoking-room the night before," she
said bleakly. "Isabelle Hedrington told me you did and said you despised
me for it. She was awake when I went to bed and she must have been
listening at a crack in the drawing-room door, because she knew
everything that'd happened. I never had anybody talk to me like that
before--nobody ever in my whole life. Minnie Bush said pretty mean
things to me three different times about Charlie, and they hurt me, but
she didn't talk like that! She wouldn't have known how; and I didn't
know there could be a woman in the world who could say things like that
to any other woman. Then this morning she sent me out of the
drawing-room and got Mr. Hurley to come in there, and afterwhile she
came out and made me go in and talk to him and he was--he was--he was
terrible!"

"What did he say to you?"

"He said--he said he'd had people like me in companies of his before
this but life was too short and he didn't intend to have any more.
He--he said I was a company trouble-maker."

"What?"

"He did," Lily said, and with a simplicity that touched him she brought
forth from a skirt pocket a fresh necessary handkerchief. "He said I'd
been with this company of his just a few hours but I'd kept them awake
the whole night and--and made myself cheap--and that I'd insulted his
leading lady when she tried to exercise a little care over me. He said
I'd spoken to her in a way no woman would bear, and he--he couldn't and
wouldn't ask her to stay in the same company with me after what I'd said
to her and--and the way I'd behaved all night--so he told me--he told
me----"

Owen stopped her. "What was it you said to her?"

"Nothing. I never said anything insulting to anybody in my life; I
wouldn't know how. But when--when she began saying such horrible things
to me, it shocked me and I couldn't help thinking how strange it was for
a person who could talk like that to have such a great friendship with
anyone as fine and high-minded as Mr. Allan, so I----" The tokens of
Lily's emotion increased with this recollection and for a moment she
could not continue. "Wait. I can't--she was so awful."

"Don't tell me unless you----"

"No, no; I'll be all right. I--I only asked her what Mr. Allan would
think of her if he could hear her. That's all I said--I didn't say
another thing to her--not anything else at all. But oh, she frightened
me! I just felt I was in there with a crazy woman. I don't mean she
shouted or screamed--it was almost all in a dreadful kind of husky
whispering--and she said I'd find out pretty early in the morning which
one of us two Mr. Hurley needed more in the company--oh, and I did, I
did!"

A painful enlightenment came upon the playwright and he sighed heavily.
"I'm afraid you said the one thing to her she'll never forgive."

"She?" Lily cried, and stared with wet astonished eyes. "Don't you even
consider what _I'd_ have to forgive?"

"Yes, I do," he said. "I'm not the Adler office. Up there they settle
things according to what's the best business and I'm afraid they'd
never----"

Lily disregarded him. "Ah, there's one thing I couldn't forgive her! She
said they'd all hate me because I'd made myself an outcast in the
company. She said I'd see how they'd despise me. They didn't! They all
knew, and they were gentle and sweet to me and did everything they
could. I think actors are the kindest people in the world to anybody in
trouble. Even that poor Mr. Briggs came and talked to me and tried to
keep my mind off myself. They were all heavenly kind to me
except--except you--you didn't care----"

"Lily!" he said sharply. "I seem to be here now."

"Ah, yes--when I sent for you! Because my mother put me in your hands
and you can't get out of it! You don't care what becomes of me--not for
my own sake. You don't----"

"I do--unfortunately," he interrupted. "I----"

She caught shrewdly at his qualifying word. "Yes--'unfortunately'!" she
exclaimed. "Don't you suppose I understand? You're my friend and it's a
curse to you and you know it always will be. Do you think I blame you
for feeling like that when I've been such a fool? I told you I might do
anything--anything--and you've seen for yourself I don't _know_
anything--not even enough to keep away from men when they're drinking
and singing in a sleeping-car smoking-room! I didn't think it'd be any
harm with old Joe there, and it wouldn't have been, either, except for
her. Ah, and this is the way I've come to New York--to New York!--to be
an actress. Oh, what I thought. Do you know what I thought my first
night here would be like? I thought you and I and maybe Jennie Lebrun
and Mr. Allan and some of the others would be going gayly out to supper
at some bright place with music, where I'd see people I've read about
and--Oh, what I thought!" Her voice had risen a little with this
outburst; she touched her mouth with her finger, desolately warning it
to be more decorous, then said meekly in a tired voice, "You see I'm
done for, and my mother and sister with me. Why don't you tell me what
to do?"

For the moment he did not reply; he was uncertain of the steadiness of
his voice. This was an emotional scene in which Lily did no acting and
had no hidden enjoyment of herself whatever, and, as she sat looking at
him with the eyes of a sorely hurt child in despair, he felt that for
the first time he saw her in her reality. Her eyelids were reddened; so
was her nose, and her wet face had so gaunt a moulding by its
desperation that she was not even pretty. More, she had nothing "turned
on", emanated no charm; what his mother had spoken of as her "magnetism"
and what Pinkney Monk had called "that other thing" was gone. She sat
before him no more than a stricken being of his own species, pathetic
only because life shouldn't crush creatures so young. Seeing her thus,
he nevertheless knew a deeper feeling for her than had been his at any
time since their first meeting--a feeling he could respect in himself
and that let him know, not unhappily, that he cared more for her to-day
than when he had first bitterly submitted to be in love with her.

He rose and found himself but the more deeply touched; her gaze, fixed
upon his face, followed his movement and questioned him with the upward
look that sometimes haunts a surgeon. "My--my dear," he stammered.
"Dear----"

She sprang up. "What's that? What did you call me? You called me that
once before. Can you still?"

"You ask me what to do and you say you'll do it," he said. "You can't do
anything and I don't know that I can, either; but you'll have to leave
it to me to see what's possible. In the meantime, I don't think you've
slept for two nights. Go up to your room and go to bed, stay there and
sleep until I come back and send word for you to come down."

She drew back from him, stared incredulously, then cast herself upon him
and threw her arms about his neck. "Angel! Angel! Guardian angel!"

"No, no! Don't hope! It's even a worse mess than you know and I'll do
what I can; but I don't see any way out. You mustn't hope for anything."

"Angel!" she cried again, kissed his cheek, and sprang back from him.
"I'll go to bed. I'll sleep in an instant! I'll obey you now and I'll
obey you all my life. I adore you!"

She ran out of the room and he heard her in flight up the stairs. Then,
after touching his cheek with his fingers as if something upon it
puzzled him, he went forth and drove to the Netherlands Theatre
Building. In a corridor of the ninth floor of that honeycombed theatric
pile Eugene Allan, emerging nervously and hurriedly from an open
doorway, almost walked against him, then caught him by the arm.

"I've got to talk to you, Owen. Rehearsal's on downstairs; but I can't
help it. Wait a moment until these people pass, poor souls."

Within the doorway a voice announced mechanically, "Very sorry, ladies
and gentlemen. It won't do any good to wait or to come again. Mr. Hurley
hasn't any additional productions in view this season. No more
engagements in this office this season, ladies and gentlemen. No use to
come again, if you please. Very sorry, ladies and gentlemen."

Seven or eight people, most of them middle-aged, came out into the
corridor and walked resignedly toward the elevator shafts. They were
followed by a jaunty little elderly man with a large head almost
grotesque in feature and conspicuously ornamented with a silk hat
remindful of the boulevards under the Second Empire. Otherwise he was
somewhat noticeably provided with a skirted coat shiny at the seams,
striped trousers, white spats, shoes of cracked patent-leather, and a
malacca walking-stick. He made play with the stick as he passed,
flourishing it at Eugene and saluting him gayly. "Eh, Eugene, bon
camarade! Fine autumn weather, my boy, fine autumn weather for a stroll
round the old purlieus and calling on an old friend or two! I like to
look in on 'em now and then for old time's sake. Au 'voir, laddie, au
'voir!"

"It's old Tom Cameron," Eugene explained compassionately, when the
jaunty figure had passed out of hearing. "Made a terrific hit in 'The
Queen's Jester' twenty years ago. It ran a whole season and then four
years on the road; but they say he hasn't had more than two or three
engagements since and none at all in the last ten years, because it was
the only part that ever fitted his nose, except 'Cyrano' and Mansfield
had that. Still spruces himself up, the way they all do, to show he's a
'good dresser on and off' and goes the rounds of the agents and
managers. Always tries to make everybody think he's just been dropping
around socially. After all, it's a life that scares one, isn't it?"

Owen did not respond immediately; the mechanical voice inside the room
was speaking again. "No, no; no use at all--no use at all. Sorry, but
you can't see him. No use to wait or to come again. No more engagements
this season, please. We've taken your name and we'll let you know if we
have anything. No use to wait now, please." Upon this, though with
reluctance and drooping shoulders, a comely pale young woman stepped
forth into the corridor; but when she saw the two young men near the
door she straightened her back, lifted her chin and passed them humming
carelessly a snatch from Pagliacci, a musical suggestion more
pathetically appropriate than she intended. She went toward the elevator
shafts; but before she reached them her head and shoulders abruptly
drooped again and she turned quickly into a passageway.

"Yes," Owen said, and knew that the pale girl had sought a moment's
shelter to control herself before she faced the descent in a crowded
elevator. "Yes, it's a life to scare anybody. I'm feeling rather that
way myself this morning; I've just seen that poor child."

Agitation became manifest in the actor's handsome face. "I'm in
torture," he said. "In torture! Isabelle's treatment of me--you couldn't
believe it! You'd think the worst sin in the calendar was to worry about
a fellow-being's misfortune. She knew everything, partly because she was
listening and partly because in every company there's always somebody
who sympathizes with both parties enough to carry tales. No matter! It's
all on my shoulders and I'm in agony; yet my hands are tied. Every
minute I'm late at rehearsal makes it worse; she'll suspect I've been up
here arguing with George for Lily's sake. Tell me--I suppose the child's
heartbroken?"

"Yes, I think so, unless----"

Eugene struck his clenched right fist into his open left palm. "I wish
I'd never been born! I do truly wish that sometimes, Owen. I want people
to be happy, do you understand? I want everybody to be happy! That's my
nature and it's one reason why they like me out front. If I ever lose it
I won't be able to hold them. But how can I keep it if I cause nothing
but suffering and if all I can think of is one woman's tears and another
woman's accusations of me? Oh, Isabelle's in triumph this morning; but
she finds room for side-stabs! And that child's hurt, hurt face in my
mind every instant! You won't be able to do anything with George, not a
thing; you'll only waste your breath."

"Well--I'd better go in and begin wasting it."

"I'm in torture!" Eugene said in an agonized whisper, and strode away
down the corridor.




CHAPTER SIXTEEN


In the outermost room of the series of offices a middle-aged woman at a
desk looked amiably at the playwright and spoke the name "Freddie!" A
melancholy old man in black appeared in the inner doorway, nodded sadly
to Owen, disappeared, came back and said, "You can go right in."

Owen walked through three small rooms, of which the partitions were
well-covered with photographs and framed old theatrical programs; but
the severe wallpaper of the innermost office, where the manager sat at a
desk, had no adornment whatever. The desk was a commonplace of mahogany
and except Hurley himself and a small marble bust of Poe upon a
book-case there was nothing in the room that mightn't have been seen in
any ordinary commercial office.

Hurley looked tired and serious; he gave the caller a glance and said
quietly, "Sit down a minute; then we'll go downstairs to rehearsal. I
can tell you beforehand it's no use, Owen."

"Why not?" Owen asked, and sat, facing him. "She's something of an asset
for the play, isn't she?"

Hurley frowned and avoided meeting the young man's too forthright gaze.
"I don't know about that; I don't know about that at all. Anyhow, we're
trying this Meadows girl to-day and if she won't do we'll get somebody
else." Abruptly he became more emphatic and struck the top of the desk
resoundingly with his fist. "Listen! I'm not going to have this sort of
thing in any company of mine. Life's too short; it's too short, I tell
you! Your mother's a fine lady and I'd like to please her; but when it
comes to disorganizing a company and ruining a piece of property like
'Catalpa House' and disrupting my peace of mind--no! I tell you I won't
do it! No! I'm willing to wear my soul out working actors into shape on
the stage; but when it comes to handling their squabbles and quarrels
and personal hell-raising, no! She's out of the cast, I won't hear a
single damn otherwise word and that's all there is to it! D'y'
understand me?"

"Now just a moment, George----"

"Oh, Lord!" Hurley threw himself back in his chair, thrust his hands
into his trousers pockets and looked at the ceiling. "What you got to
say?"

"That the poor young thing's done nothing of any consequence, one way or
the other, and that you can't treat her like this and call yourself a
just man, George."

"What!" The manager fairly leaped out of his attitude of resignation and
again thumped the desk. "Done nothing of any consequence, hasn't she?
She----"

"Certainly she hasn't. She's very young and she's had no experience;
that isn't a fault. It was light-heartedness and maybe light-headedness,
too, that made her sit up and sing with----"

"Listen!" Hurley shouted. "Listen! I'm not talking about that. She ought
to know better and I won't have it; but that's not what I fired her for.
Listen! I'm featuring Eugene Allan and Isabelle Hedrington in this
piece--featuring 'em, d'y' understand? That's been given to the press
and it goes on our posters and programs, '"Catalpa House" with Eugene
Allan and Isabelle Hedrington'. That settles it, doesn't it? When
Isabelle can't keep her self-respect and play in the same company with a
little ingnue on trial who walks into the drawing-room and insults her
and threatens to----"

"George! You don't know what you're----"

"Don't know what I'm talking about?" Hurley cried. "_I_ don't? Listen!
When she came in that drawing-room--about three o'clock in the
morning!--Isabelle tried to give her a few words of warning and advice,
the way any older woman would if she had any conscience at all and
wanted to show true kindness. The girl wouldn't hear a word of it--no,
sir!--flew into a fury, used vulgar language----"

"What! Why, she didn't----"

"Listen, will you? Isabelle told me every single thing that happened.
She felt shocked and hurt, naturally, and maybe spoke a little sharply
in reprimand and the girl flew out at her and threatened to make trouble
between her and Allan, told her she'd better not be so sure of 'Gene and
declared she'd make up a story to tell him, in the morning, that it was
Isabelle herself who'd used the vulgar language."

"But that's merely atrocious!" the startled Owen protested. "I've just
come from Lily and know I had the truth from her. A jealous woman'll say
or do anything of course; but for Isabelle to tell you that----"

"There!" Hurley interrupted sharply. "You admit yourself the girl's made
her jealous, and that's what I won't have. Haven't I seen her myself
looking at 'Gene with those eyes of hers? Came on the train covered with
flowers he'd sent her! Then when she goes so crazy over him she
threatens my leading lady----"

"Complete nonsense! Unfortunately your leading lady constructed that
'threat' out of whole cloth, George. If you'll just hear me with a
moment's patience----"

"I won't!" the manager assured him passionately. "Not a moment's or half
a moment's or any damn bit of a moment's! Think I'm going to let you
drive me crazy among you, listening to seven different sides of a story
nobody'd ever know the truth about anyhow if he lived a thousand years?
How much time would I have left for my business if I listened to all the
cacklings you all try to deafen me with? Listen! Not ten minutes ago,
right here in this office, 'Gene Allan was begging me not to tell
Isabelle he'd come here to plead for the girl. _That_ looks like peace
and quiet in the company if I took her back, doesn't it? What's more,
you can save your strength by not talking to me about it, because
Isabelle gave me the choice between herself and the girl, and, no matter
what the row was, that settles it!" His soft hat was on the desk before
him; he jumped up, put the hat on his head and strode to the door. "Come
on down to rehearsal!"

Owen could find no option but to follow him. They descended to the
ground floor, went through the long, tiled lobby and entered the
enormous dark auditorium of the Netherlands Theatre. Rehearsal was in
progress, and Hurley went to his customary watcher's position; but Owen
paused, and, leaning upon the top of the partition behind the rear
seats, stared sadly at the stage. Isabelle Hedrington played a scene
with old Ord and Eugene, who was unusually mechanical; whereas she, on
the contrary, was unusually spirited, playing her part with gusto and a
light in her eye. Then, as the action of the play proceeded and other
scenes followed, it became apparent that she was the only member of the
company to be so animated, with the exception of the new "Myra". The
animation of Miss Meadows, unfortunately, was visibly artificial; at
first sight of this professional ingnue, indeed, the sunken heart of
the playwright found depths below depths.

She was a small brunette, and, without make-up, appeared something
mature. Her expression was assured, even complacent; it was plain that
she had no doubt of her ability to play the part competently and, in
truth, her competence was obvious even though she read from her "sides".
Moreover, she bade fair to be an improvement upon Lena Hoyt, the first
of the play's three "Myras", and it needed not much more than a glance
to see that Miss Meadows familiarly knew what was required of her and
how easily to produce several effects that Lily had fumbled. Yet
something seemed to be strangely and dismally the matter with the
rehearsal, with the company of actors, with the big hollow stage, with
its lighting, with the play, with the hard-working stage director,
Pinkney Monk, and even with the vast emptiness of the baroque
Netherlands Theatre itself.

An odd sweet voice was missing. "Catalpa House" seemed to have lost
eloquence and even coherent meaning. Lacking that one vivid presence,
the play was like a mechanism that imitated the motions of life, and its
prophetic author saw no future for it. The prediction did not spring
wholly from his love for what had been taken away, he was sure, and he
presently had a confirmation of this certainty. Harry Vokes came beside
him in the gloom, leaned upon the partition and whispered, "Great show
you've got now, what? Reminds you some of one of those locust's shells,
or whatever bug it was, you used to find on a tree when you were a boy?
You know, one of those outsides of a bug when the little animal itself
has gone out walking and left its dead hide behind."

"Yes--it does."

"Quite some," Vokes assented huskily. "Rehearsing up there, it kind of
feels like walking around in the dark after somebody's taken the light
into another room. Funny. You wouldn't think a part with not a dozen
sides could make the difference. They all feel it up there." He laughed
in a whisper. "Except the Titian Venus, of course. She's sweet as sody
and having a great big morning. Of course you can't blame her."

"No?"

"Why, no," the comedian said reasonably. "Isabelle's got to protect
herself, like anybody else. She can't give a good performance if she's
all upset about 'Gene and a new young member of the company finding the
good old starlight in each other's eyes, can she? Heigh-ho! Nobody loves
a fat man; that's a mean gag but true when there's a golden haired,
wasp-waisted Apollo they got the chance to look at instead of a
half-souse Cupid like me! George's press agents are getting Isabelle the
big stuff. See it this morning? 'Isabelle Hedrington tells what the
young actress should know--how to care for the hair, figure and nails.'
Kind of good right now, her telling what the young actress should know,
what? You talked to George?"

"Yes."

"I see. No use." Vokes sighed and shook his head. "Me, fat little Harry
Brightface, never discourages anybody, always silver lining, sweet
summer days will soon come again, so on, so on; but it looks like the
loss of a good property to me, so to speak right out from the inner
thought. Tricksy business. Suppose Hoyt had stayed right on as 'Myra'
and we'd never seen the little girl from your town, we might have put
this piece over for you--kind o' think we would 'a'. But no; Hoyt out,
effulgent new maiden in--something different, what? Listen hard. Me
telling you; you absorbing thought, what? It ain't exactly she's so much
better in the part than Hoyt or Meadows either, though she is some
better, at that, and would get more-so soon; but the trouble with us up
there is we had somebody to play up to when she was in. Difference
between having a sweetheart all covered with rhinestones and one that
wears diamonds. Make myself clear?"

"Yes, and so does the rehearsal," Owen said. "So does----"

He spoke in a whisper; but Vokes nudged him sharply, muttered, "Look
out!" and suddenly sat upon the floor behind the partition. Forty feet
away, in the midst of the orchestra chairs, George Hurley had leaped to
his feet and was waving his arms.

"Oh, for God's sake! Now for God's _sake_!" he screamed fiercely. "How
can any human being expect to rehearse these people with all that
talking and squawking going on back there? For God's sake, can't you
give us a little quiet? Who is it making all that noise? Who is it has
to come in here and gibble-gabble like a female suffrage convention?
What do you think my nerves are made of? _Who_ is that, back there?"

Owen came down the aisle. "Never mind, George; it's only I."

"Only you!" Hurley cried, wailing resentfully. "You! What do you care
what happens to your play? Back there telling one of the scrubwomen
you're too great a dramatist to pay any attention to a mere rehearsal, I
suppose! For heaven's sake, will you sit down here and----"

"Suppose we both do, George," the playwright suggested, and added
significantly in a lowered voice, "I don't expect the rehearsal to be
much the better for it, though."

"No? What do you call that, repartee?" Hurley asked angrily, and
obviously understood the reference. He slumped back into his seat,
muttered, "For God's sake!" and said no more. The playwright sat behind
him, silent, too, and the interrupted actors upon the stage resumed
their work.

They were not stopped again by the manager. For an hour the large head,
black soft hat and sturdy shoulders just before Owen were motionless as
if with a spell of surly brooding; then, with an abrupt and startling
snort, the head turned and the Napoleonic profile emitted disgusted
speech in half-voice. "See what they're doing, the quitters? Laying down
on me! Taking the life out o' the piece! Acting their parts just up to
the point where you can't call 'em for it--and killing it. Listen to Joe
Ord talking dead. God, the tricks they can play a man!"

"I don't think so," Owen said. "I think they're doing it as well as they
can and as well as they usually do. I think it's something else."

Hurley turned full about and glared at him. "So! Joining them and laying
down on me, too, are you?"

On the stage Pinkney Monk made arresting gestures. "Stop! Wait a minute!
Hold up, please, ladies and gentlemen!" Then he turned a discouraged
face toward the auditorium. "Yes, Mr. Hurley?"

"I'm not talking to you!" the manager shouted. "I'm talking to myself.
Can't I even talk to myself in my own theatre without stopping a whole
damn rehearsal? Go on! Go on! For God's sake go on!" Then, as the actors
again began to find voice, his tone abruptly became confidential and
friendly. "Listen," he said to the playwright. "I got an idea."

"For a change in the play?"

"Yes. It's just struck me and I believe it's what the piece needs. I
believe it'd pull us out of a big hole. I've got the man for it, too; he
was up in the office this morning, though I didn't see him--I can get
hold of him in half an hour. It might be a good thing for you to look
him over and study how to get a big effect with him. Used to be a star
and bringing him back to the stage would make pretty good publicity and
just about save his life, too. Before your time, but he did a wonderful
piece of work in 'The Queen's Jester'--Thomas Cameron."

"Yes, I saw him in the corridor."

"Listen," Hurley said, becoming enthusiastic. "He looks very good for
us--very good indeed! There's always been a hole in this piece and
watching it this morning I see what a bad one it is. It could be filled
with a strong eccentric character. Cameron's exactly it, absolutely! You
see, we've got one strong beautiful emotional woman's part, 'Hester',
and Isabelle fills it to the queen's taste. Well, what you wrote as a
contrast was this lighter part of 'Myra', the sister; but, follow me
now, because here's the idea. Instead of a secondary female part--you
see, you don't really need an ingnue at all--how about it now if we
threw that 'Myra' part out head and heels and instead put in this strong
eccentric character rle I've been talking about? What I mean, he
wouldn't be a sister, he'd be an uncle or maybe the family lawyer, an
old Southern lawyer, with a different kind of comedy touch running
toward the grotesque and fantastic, full of contrast and putting life
into all this flat, weak 'Myra' part of the play. As for the plot, you
could tie all that up to a strong personality like Cameron's and get
something rather startling and original. Understand what I mean?"

"Yes." Owen nodded gravely. "But there's a simpler way, George. You'd
get your startling and original effect without my having to do any work
on the script at all."

"How's that?"

"Just engage Cameron to play the part of 'Myra' and let it go as it
stands."

Hurley got up, stepped into the aisle, thrust an unlighted cigar deep
into his mouth and walked to the rear of the auditorium. Then he
returned to his seat, with his hat pulled farther down upon his forehead
than it had been when he departed. As he sat down, he said listlessly,
"Comic talkers, playwrights!" and for another hour spoke no more.




CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


At intervals, however, he grunted, making slight vocal plaints such as
may escape involuntarily from even the manliest bosom if the pain be
sufficient. On the stage Eugene, old Joe, Harry Vokes and young Lancey
played the long, melodramatic suspensive scene of the second act to the
distaste of the stage director. "Now, gentlemen," he said, stopping
them, "we've been over this scene before and seemed to get the right
effect; but now it lets down. It might be the better for some
cutting--I'll take that up with Mr. Hurley and Mr. Gilbert--but anyhow
it's got to be lifted. The whole thing turns on the point of the
entrance of 'Myra' just ahead of this and 'Hester' after her, and you've
got to lift it so that they can lift it higher still when they come on.
Really, it all seems very spiritless--very spiritless indeed. Perhaps I
seem that way myself; but it shouldn't have any effect on you. Now,
gentlemen, please, let's take it up where we were and give this entrance
a proper value. Stand by, Miss Meadows, please. Now, 'Gene, please, 'I
did if Miss Myra says I did, Colonel, but' so on, so on. Let's have it,
'Gene, and please, please lift it!"

The leading man, thus exhorted, made an unquestionably conscientious
effort to do the desired lifting and his colleagues seemed as earnest as
he, yet it was evident that they were merely talking louder and faster
than usual; drama, that slippery magic, was not evoked. Miss Meadows,
sprightly and noisy, came into the scene and, after her, Isabelle,
richly emotional and making her fine voice tense with feeling as she
played the climax of the act. Nothing of consequence seemed to be
happening.

"Well, well," Monk said patiently. "Third act, ladies and gentlemen, and
please try to get a little life into it. All right, Joe. 'Colonel' up
centre, 'Myra' down left. Let's have it, please."

In the body of the house a portent of despondency became more and more
ominous; slowly the manager slumped, with his knees against the back of
the chair before him, so that to the view of the playwright little more
than an ill-defined black hat was evidence of any nearby human presence.
Experience warned that this attitude was alarming, that it was the
limpness of air about to swirl in typhoon, and that the life or death of
"Catalpa House" hung on the next half hour. Owen had an imaginative
glimpse of theatrical columns in the morrow's newspapers. "Rehearsals
called off. Adler and Company withdraw from new venture. 'Catalpa House'
abandoned..."

A waft of sachet powder, scented like mignonette, ascended the
playwright's nostrils with so much pungency that in ungallant distaste
he almost shivered. Isabelle had no part in the scene being played; she
had come down the aisle, and now, assuming the privilege of a leading
lady who was "featured", she joined the manager and the playwright. She
took the seat next to Owen, gave his shoulder a soft pat that seemed to
him to express more her content with herself than with him; then leaned
forward, and, combining her mignonette with an equally detectable
exhilaration, whispered to Hurley, "Isn't it splendid! Best rehearsal
we've had since we started--Mabel absolutely it--and the whole thing
looking like a sure-fire hit, don't you think, George?"

Hurley rose, sighed, leaned toward her and took her by the arm. "Come
here a minute, Isabelle; I want to talk to you."

She stood up, and her voice, but a moment ago too complacent, had fright
in it. "Why, but everything's settled, George--it's all settled and----"

"Just come along a minute," he said gently. "I've got to talk to you."

They walked slowly up the aisle together, and Owen heard fragments of
their talk as they went, Hurley saying, "It's a question of
business--this won't do----" and Isabelle protesting, "It's all going
splendidly and I refuse to consider----" A moment later he heard the
manager say decisively, "No, this is business. I gave you your way until
I saw it interfered with that. We've got to get every bit of value into
this piece we can----" There was a half-suppressed outcry from Isabelle,
"No! No! I gave you your choice and you made it. You can't talk me
into----"

They reached the broad passage behind the rows of seats and their words
became indistinguishable to the playwright. He could still hear tones,
however--Hurley's urgent, positive and kind; Isabelle's vehement,
hurried and angry. This perturbed talk lasted until the work on the
stage stopped for lack of the leading lady, and Pinkney Monk stood,
clapping his hands and calling: "Now Miss Hedrington! Miss Hedrington!
Where's Miss Hedrington?"

Owen heard Isabelle say desperately, from the darkness behind him, "Oh,
go ahead then, ruin it, ruin it!" She rushed down the side aisle,
disappeared behind the boxes and came out upon the stage, pallid and
apparently controlling an impulse toward hysteria. The speech from the
play with which she made this entrance seemed appropriate, and she
delivered it with a moving genuineness, "Now you've taken everything
from me I lived for, what have you got left to reward or punish me with
when I do as I will?"

Hurley came back to Owen but did not sit down. "Oh, it's the life, a
manager's!" he said. "Give one of 'em candy and it's another one's
poison; then give the poisoned one the candy and the first one screams
you've killed her. There'll be the devil to pay from now on; but I'm
going to give a play and not a morgue exhibition if it kills 'em all and
me too! Go tell her to be here this afternoon at two o'clock."

Owen was already upon his feet. "Ah, I thought you'd see----"

"You did not! Going to be one o' these I-told-you-so hellions are you?
Listen! It's stipulated she's to apologize to Isabelle in your presence
and mine before she comes back into the piece. And you tell her to keep
her back turned to 'Gene Allan from now on when she's not acting. I'll
talk to him on the subject myself this morning and I'll say plenty if
God lets me live! You have her here sharp at two."

He walked down the aisle, calling out to the stage director, "Stop it,
Pink. That'll do. Let 'em go; tell Allan and Miss Meadows to wait. Call
afternoon rehearsal for two-fifteen. Two-fifteen, d'you hear me?" The
question seemed more rhetorical emphasis than genuine interrogation;
Owen Gilbert, passing out into the theatre lobby, heard him easily and
perceived that a quarter of an hour was the precise Napoleonic allowance
for what might be anticipated as a somewhat harrowing scene of apology.

...Lily, in her new blue dress and wearing her hat, was waiting for
him in the boarding-house parlor, waiting with a confidence in him that
was touchingly and absurdly unshatterable, it seemed. She insisted that
she had slept "hours and hours" and indeed looked as refreshed as if
this were the truth. All her young bloom was upon her again, and, in the
welcoming joy with which she ran to him and seized his hands, her
vividness seemed but the brighter after its eclipse.

"I always knew an actress's life was going to be marvellous," she
cried;--"but really I never dreamed how deliriously exciting it would
be! These ups and downs! I thought I was lost! That was because I
thought I'd lost you; but oh, I hadn't, had I? No, you didn't throw me
away; you've kept the poor waif that was given to you, you blessed
Guardian Angel! I love you forever! What did they all say? Are they
waiting for us now? Were they all talking about it? How did Mr. Allan
look?"

Owen smiled faintly and with some pathos--if she had perceived it, as
she didn't. "We'll sit down a few moments, Lily, and then I'll take you
out to lunch. We're to be at the theatre at two for a ceremonial purpose
I'll explain; but first I'm afraid you mustn't wonder how Mr. Allan
looks."

"Oh, no!" she said eagerly, as they sat. "I understand perfectly.
Gracious, I should think I'd know a little of how frenzied she is about
him--after what I've been through! I know you think I'm an utter fool,
you dear Owen; but really I have got a few perceptions. For instance,
you don't need to tell me it was Mr. Hurley who asked you to make me
understand I mustn't wonder out loud how Mr. Allan looks--I know a
company can't work properly with that woman's frantic goings-on in the
midst of it. Don't worry. I'll never let her _dream_ I'm doing any
wondering how he looks. She's simply not sane in her infatuation and all
I'll do is to merely ignore her utterly and never----"

"I'm afraid not," Owen said, with a rueful laugh, and explained Miss
Hedrington's stipulation.

"What?" Lily cried. "Apologize to that woman? But I thought--Why, I
supposed of course by this time Mr. Hurley'd see, himself, it ought to
be the other way round; she'd apologize to me and I'd accept it and
after that simply have nothing more to do with her. Why, if Mr. Hurley
were a judge trying somebody that'd shot somebody else, he wouldn't make
the one that'd been shot apologize to the murderer, would he?"

"Yes, he would, if it were the only----"

"I decline!" Lily said haughtily. "I couldn't keep my self-respect if I
put myself in such a false position. If he wants me back in his company
he can make that woman do the apologizing. I won't. It would be an
absolute farce."

"So it would," her friend agreed. "That's why it wouldn't matter. I'll
tell you a curious secret, Lily; it usually doesn't matter at all which
one makes the apology; but if it's made by the person who ought instead
to receive it, she certainly appears to better advantage in the eyes of
spectators."

"I won't----" Lily began sturdily; then all at once beamed upon him, and
laughed. "You and Mr. Hurley have to be witnesses? I'll do it! Of course
I'll do it! I'll apologize to her utterly." She jumped up, and her feet
seemed to wish to dance; the sympathetic Owen would have described her
eyes as dancing. "I'll apologize her head off! Come on; I'm going out to
lunch in New York with Owen Gilbert the dramatist, and then I'm going to
apologize to another actress in a New York theatre! Oh, let's run!"

Her exuberance only increased as they sat at a window table in the
elaborately Renaissance restaurant to which he brought her, and after a
few minutes there he understood that patrons at neighboring tables were
to be permitted little doubt that he was lunching with an actress. Lily
talked gayly and distinctly of rehearsals, of "sides", of entrances, of
exits, of "business", of "props", of "the script" and of what the
newspapers said about present "runs" in New York. "They say 'The
Paradox' has turned out to be a colossal hit," she said. "You'll take me
to that? We might go to-night, mightn't we? George Hurley could arrange
seats for us, couldn't he? Pinkney Monk said there wouldn't be any night
rehearsals; we could see something different every night, couldn't we?"

She chattered on, not too loudly, all the while sparklingly aware that
her appearance and animation drew a polite, covert interest from other
tables. She spoke of Hurley and laughed with a full forgivingness. "Of
course you do have to get used to him; then you begin to see how
remarkable he is. He's the most wonderful coach and when he comes up on
the stage himself and shows you how to do something--does it for you the
way it ought to be done--it's better acting than anybody's. Oh, I do
think we have the most adorable company, Owen!--except that one, of
course. It's a far, far greater experience to be with them than I
dreamed."

"Is it, Lily?"

"Oh, it exhilarates me and enchants me and makes me want to be noble and
only do fine, high things." She looked at him with a half-timid
trustfulness and became confidential. "Ah, you won't think I'm too
schoolgirlish? But I feel my whole being's been altered--oh,
transfigured!--not only by my going on the stage but by what seems to me
more and more a sacred association. Don't laugh at me for sentimental
hero-worship--it's more than that, Owen. What I mean, I feel every hour
I'm one hour richer and must be that much nobler for another hour's
precious association with a great man."

"A great man?" he murmured, mystified and also inclined to be a little
disconcerted. Her hazel gaze was so warmly, so earnestly and so directly
into his eyes that there seemed small doubt of her preposterous serious
meaning or that the only course open to him was to become
self-deprecatory and laughingly disclaim his greatness. But a moment ago
she had been speaking of George Hurley, and, if she meant George, a
waiver of claims to grandeur on his own account would be strikingly
misplaced. Lily settled the matter for him.

"It does make me feel that way," she said. "Every hour of being in the
same company with Eugene Allan does that for me."

"With----" the playwright began; but checked himself before he added the
amazed word "whom". He beckoned mournfully to a waiter and asked for his
bill.

Lily went on talking busily. "More than anyone I've ever known he's made
me feel what the ideals of our art ought to be. Our glorious art! I've
been thinking so intensely about art, Owen--what it really is. Art is a
new world we actors make out of ourselves to show the old world what
itself is made of. Shakespeare says the actor holds the mirror up to
nature; but what he really holds up is a cipher key to the secrets of
the gods. You see what I mean; when I play a new part like 'Myra' I show
the audience a truth about womanhood--something that was hidden in the
minds of the gods on Olympus when they created woman. You see what I
mean?"

"I think I do," he replied uncertainly and with no great enthusiasm. A
part of what she said seemed familiar to his ear, and, groping among
recent memories, he found the picture of a narrow passage outside the
smoking-room of a sleeping-car and heard old Joe Ord discoursing
sonorously upon art. Yet it was obvious that Lily's ready absorption of
the Ordian thought and even the Ordian phrasing left her no doubt that
both were original with herself. "You say it's Eugene who's made you
think so deeply upon art, Lily?" he asked.

"Oh, I'd have done it anyway," she said quickly. "What I mean, he
stimulates me. Besides, he has all this adulation and everything, yet
nobody's ever sympathized with his ideals just exactly as I do--I've
found that out. Mentally he's always had a kind of loneliness; we've
both always had that, you see." She looked at Owen wistfully. "I suppose
there isn't any chance of his being there, too, for the apology?"

"No, there certainly isn't!" the playwright replied with impulsive
gruffness, as he rose. "We won't be there ourselves if we don't hurry."

They entered the lobby of the Netherlands Theatre within a minute of the
appointed hour, however, and a suavely handsome dark man, coming from a
door beyond the box-office window, stopped them for a moment. He seemed
engaged with an interior amusement, but gave Lily a lazily interested
glance as he spoke to her escort. "How's your show coming on, Mr.
Gilbert? You've got me turned out of my own office now; it ought to be
good. What a partner!" Evidently he had little interest in a response;
for, after a less languid second glance at Lily, he sauntered on.

"That's Adler," Owen explained, as they went toward the door from which
this personage had emerged. "He means the ceremony's to take place in
there. He's supposedly the senior partner; but you won't see anything of
him at all, except when we open here, and even then Mr. Hurley won't pay
any attention to him. He never does; but apparently indulges him
sometimes by letting him produce a musical piece. He has only this one
room for an office. Well--let's get through with it. You aren't
frightened, are you, Lily?"

She had taken his arm and now gave it a reassuring pressure but said
nothing; they went into the room, and Owen closed the door. Hurley,
solemn, stood with his hands in his pockets. Isabelle, statuesque, was
standing, too; her hands were clasped behind her and her air was
challenging, not to say repellent, as Lily advanced toward her meekly
and with bowed head.

"You couldn't forgive me?" the girl said with a tremulous exquisite
pathos that dumfounded Owen. "I think you would if you knew what I've
suffered for making you suffer. You were just trying to be kind to me
and watch over me. I--I ought to be whipped for not appreciating your
goodness."

"Yes," Isabelle said. "I think you ought."

"I know it!" Lily's breathing deepened and quickened visibly, and the
startled playwright saw large actual tears collect upon her eyelashes
and glisten down her cheeks as she put her hands out pleadingly toward
Isabelle. "I--oh, pardon----" she said falteringly. "I didn't
mean--anything--that would hurt you. You couldn't just forgive me and
let--let me love you?"

Isabelle became less statuesque. Her lower lip quivered in slight
distortions and her softened gaze betokened a change of feeling.

Lily bent before her, penitential and imploring.
"Forgive--ah--couldn't--couldn't you----"

Isabelle too began to weep. All at once she advanced a step, stretched
forth her arms and enfolded the sobbing girl. "You poor darling! I do
forgive you--yes, yes! Don't cry! Don't cry! I'll love you, too!"

They wept together. Lily sobbed, "Oh, oh, Miss Hedrington!" and Isabelle
begged moistly, "No, no! Always call me Isabelle!" while Owen Gilbert,
regarding them, added another "These people!" to his collection of
internal astonishments. He knew Lily had told him the truth; Isabelle
had committed the offense for which Lily had just asked pardon, and both
of them knew it. Yet here they were, sobbing in each other's arms with
emotions largely genuine roused in them because Isabelle had forgiven
Lily. Then the bemused observer's decorum was endangered by an impulse
to open laughter; George Hurley's eyes had begun to blink and he stepped
forward, put an arm about each of the weeping ladies, separating them,
sniffled suddenly and spoke in a husky voice.

"There! You're both sweet dear children; don't make me cry, too. There,
there!"

Lily clung to him. "You're so good to me!"

"There, there!" He bestowed upon each of them an encouraging lively slap
upon the back, beamed upon them both and said briskly, "There, you dear
things! Now we'll go in to rehearsal."

Owen went with Lily, who hung droopingly upon his arm, and, in the
dimness of a side aisle as they walked toward the passage behind the
boxes, detained him. "Just a moment." She leaned against him while she
wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. "I don't want the company to think
I've been crying, when we go behind."

For once he let his curiosity get the better of his reticence. "Lily,
would you mind telling me how you do it?"

"How I do what? You mustn't think I didn't mean I'll try to love her. Of
course it did hurt her--what I said in the drawing-room about if Mr.
Allan could hear her. I do think she's sweet. I think it's very touching
how sweet she's just been to me in there."

"Yes, but you began to cry before she began to be 'sweet'. I saw real
tears----"

"Oh, that?" she said. "Yes, I can always cry when I want to. I haven't
done it at rehearsal yet, because it seemed better to save it. You see,
all I have to do when I want to cry--I just think of Mother."

"You mean in there just now----"

"Why, yes," she said, and seemed a little surprised at his tone of
astonishment. "But of course afterwards it was easy to go on, because
Isabelle was so sweet." She put her handkerchief away, smiled and patted
his arm. "Now I'm ready. Let's go."

He took her to the stage, then went to his usual seat in the body of the
house. The rehearsal was encouraging; life seemed restored to the play
and light to the stage. Moreover, in none of the groupings of the actors
not "on" and during none of the intervals of consultation between Hurley
and Monk, were the ingnue and the leading man seen to approach each
other or even to appear aware of each other's presence. At five, when
the rehearsal was over, Lily went away with Miss Lebrun without having
spoken a word to Eugene Allan during the whole afternoon; Isabelle
looked sweetly benevolent and Owen felt a warm approval of his ward's
discretion.

This feeling, glowing pleasantly in his breast, lasted until after he
had finished an early dinner at the Players' and was wondering what
theatre would most enrapture her that evening; then he was called to the
telephone and the voice of Eugene said urgently, "Old boy; do get this
straight, will you? If Isabelle talks to you to-morrow be sure to
remember I came down to the club, had dinner with you and then we went
to your room and sat up till all hours going over the play together.
Isabelle or George Hurley either. In heaven's name don't fail me, old
boy!"




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


The man-for-man loyalty thus invoked, however, was not put to trial the
next day. Isabelle, serene, made no inquiries, but chided the playwright
amiably, on the stage, before Pinkney Monk began the morning's
rehearsal. "You authors! Making your actors rewrite your plays for you
nowadays, are you? What are you trying to do, wear 'Gene out? You look
something in that line yourself this morning, by the way. What's the
matter?" She laughed with pointed archness. "Worrying too much over your
play--or too much over your girl?"

"I'd never worry over anything if you'd be that," he contrived to say;
but to his dismay felt his face growing warm and then growing warmer as
Isabelle tapped his cheek with a too humorous finger.

"I thought so," she said, as she turned away. "You'll have your hands
full!"

Lily came to him, put a gentle hand upon his arm. "You aren't speaking
to me this morning? I've been sitting over there the longest time,
waiting for you to look at me. You've talked to almost all the others
and never came near me. What have I done? It couldn't be about last
night because I knew you wouldn't mind----"

"No? But I do."

"Oh, no," she said hurriedly. "He told me she wouldn't get upset,
because if she spoke to you about it you'd tell her----"

"Lily! It won't do."

She seemed gently surprised. "But if we're careful not to let her get
upset again? Of course I knew you didn't mind on your own account--we'd
said something about going somewhere last night, hadn't we? but not
definitely--because I'd told you how I felt about him and you were so
darlingly sympathetic. I knew you had almost that same feeling about
him, Owen. Oh, everybody would! And you knew how happy I'd be. You and I
could go somewhere to-night, though? I'd love to see 'The Paradox'. He
thought we'd better not try it again to-night and he's going to take her
there. We could ask them to supper with us, after?"

"No, we couldn't," Owen said, and, in a necessarily lowered voice but
with as much severity as he could command, gave her a brief lecture upon
what he felt should be her proper conduct under the circumstances. "You
can use your mother to cry about when you have occasion," he said,
concluding. "Perhaps you'd better give a thought now and then to what
would happen to her in case next time Mr. Hurley doesn't change his
mind."

She gave him a troubled look of inquiry. "You think I shouldn't do that?
I shouldn't think of Mother when I want to bring tears into my eyes?"

"Oh, murder!" he groaned. "I'm not talking about that. I do the same
thing myself in a manner; I've used hints for plays out of my own
mother's emotions. It's a dreadful business and we violate all that's
sacred and dearest for it. I'm not in a position to blame you. Can't you
understand I'm not blaming you for anything? I'm warning you, warning
you as seriously and earnestly as----"

"Oh, no; you're blaming me, too--in your heart." Her look became a
softly reproachful one. "But I told you. I told you I might do
anything--anything. You knew that. I told you I was like an automobile
that didn't have any driver and couldn't know, itself, where it was
going."

"You'd better!" he advised her sharply. "If you want to keep your sick
sister out of Vance's----"

Lily put a frightened hand to her cheek. "Ah, I didn't know you could be
cruel!"

Pinkney Monk rapped upon a table at the front of the stage. "First act,
ladies and gentlemen, please. Let's put all we can into it to-day, if
you please. Mr. Hurley asks me to announce that we open this play next
Monday evening at Somerville, New York, and that means stepping lively
from now on for all of us. First act, ladies and gentlemen, please."

Lily's saddened eyes glowed instantly. "Somerville! Where is it?"

"I don't think that matters," Owen said angrily. "Have you listened to
me at all?"

"Ord! Joe Ord!" Monk called. "Ord on; Tom and Jack up left. Stand by,
Miss Hedrington, please. 'Myra' ready for entrance."

"Somerville! Heavenly Somerville wherever it is!" Lily whispered, and,
clutching Owen's arm, delayed yet another moment before going to her
place. "Ah, if you'd climb up into the driver's seat the poor little car
would go wherever you liked. I love to have you rough with me!"

Monk was rapping upon the table. "'Myra'! Where's Miss----"

"I'm there!" Lily cried, and, laughing excitedly, ran across the stage
to her post.

In the free and graceful action of this short flight she was all lovely
in the playwright's eyes, and, despite his better reason, his spirits
rose once more in a familiar exhilaration. Naturally there was also some
effervescence of remorse; he was not a man to speak harshly to anyone,
least of all to his best loved, without subsequent self-reproach. It
seemed to him that he was always critical of her and, worse, always
pecking at her, sometimes even sneering at her, and it hurt him to
realize that she had never an ungentle word for him in return. Nay, she
had no really ungentle words at all for anybody, and under sharpest
punishment would weep yet still was unresentful. For the rest, had she
no right to be young and girlish and foolish?

Moved by the mere justice done her in this thought, he vowed to himself
that he would pester her no more with either advice or sarcasm, and for
three days and evenings with her kept his word. He had his reward; she
was like a tremulous ecstatic worshipful new little slave of the
seraglio to whom the great Sultan displays the opened coffers of his
treasure room, letting her play with huge rubies, carved emeralds, and
diamonds beyond price. Her impression seemed to be that he was the
proprietor of New York and in particular of its theatres and restaurants
wherein she gloriously moved and shone, an actress about to "open" a new
play in the celebrated city of Somerville somewhere in the State of New
York. It was not indeed until the day before the "Catalpa House" company
left town that uneasiness beset him again and ended this happy interval.

On Friday afternoon Lily had told him reluctantly that she felt
anticipatory qualms of stage-fright and dared not trifle with them; she
would remain in her room that evening to go over and over her "lines"
until no possible tremors could shake them out of her head. He assented
approvingly; but in the morning, on the stage of the Netherlands just
before the last rehearsal in that theatre, Isabelle Hedrington drew him
aside and asked him sharply and unexpectedly where he had spent the
previous evening.

Her brow was dark; foreboding smote him. "I, Isabelle?"

"Yes. Where were you and who was with you?"

"If you'll tell me why you want to know----"

"I see!" She became contemptuous. "You'll tell me after you find out
whether you'd be giving 'em away or not. Very well; I know I can't get
anything out of you. Eugene's got an old aunt in Bronxville and said he
had to go out there and dine and spend the evening with her before he
left town. I know her very well and it just happens she called me up
this morning and said she's seen in a paper that our company was leaving
for Somerville immediately and wanted me to use my influence with Eugene
to be nicer to her when we came back, because she knew he'd been here
all this week and he hadn't been to see her or paid her the slightest
attention. You see?"

"Then why don't you ask Eugene----"

"Oh, I will! If he tells me again that he was working on the play with
you, I suppose you'll back him up." She laughed bitterly. "You don't
seem to care as much about what happens to your girl as I do about my
man."

"I'm afraid I must ask you not to speak like that again," Owen said.
"You know that Miss Mars isn't my 'girl'."

Isabelle laughed a little more loudly. "No! I suspect she isn't! That's
why you'd better tell her to look out!"

She left him and Owen turned toward Lily; but she was talking merrily
with old Ord, Vokes and young Jack Lancey, and in a moment the rehearsal
began. With a fresh sting in his heart and a renewed fear upon his
shoulders he had to go out to his watcher's post in the house, and later
he found no opportunity to be alone with Lily or to draw her aside for
even a moment. "Ah, let it go," he said to himself with a sad pride; and
then, ruefully logical, he added, "Since that's all the weight I have
with her what else is there to do but let it go?"

Half an hour before the morning's rehearsal closed he drove away from
the theatre with Hurley just in time for their train to Somerville. The
actors of the company were to remain for a final session with the
costumers and Pinkney Monk in the afternoon and would not leave New York
until the following morning; but the manager and the playwright preceded
them to "rehearse the scenery" for "Catalpa House" in the theatre at
Somerville, and with these two went the designer of the "sets" and a
crew of electricians, carpenters and stage-hands.

It was a journey of five hours. Hurley roamed restlessly up and down the
train; but at times stopped and sat beside Owen in the smoking-car.
"Getting the fidgets," he explained, during one of these nervous
intervals. "If I sit down I keep tapping my foot and if I walk round I
want to sit down. If I smoke a cigar I want to throw it away and if I'm
not smoking I want to light one. Can't help it. Getting near an
opening'll always do that to me if I live a thousand years! We'll be
lucky if we're not up half the night getting the sets into working shape
and straightening out the lighting. Company'll reach Somerville at noon
to-morrow. Won't rehearse 'em in the theatre. Just let 'em rest and run
over their lines in one of the hotel parlors for their Sunday afternoon
job. Dress rehearsal'll probably last all Sunday night, so there's two
nights up for you and me. For my part I couldn't sleep anyhow. Nice
town, Somerville."

"Is it? I've never----"

"Ninety or a hundred thousand maybe. Good hotel, too. It's a nice
natural town; get a nice natural audience. They'll laugh when they feel
like it, not when they think it's the wise guy thing to do. I'll sit
back Monday night, you watch from the balcony, and we can locate the
spots in the script that ought to be cut or changed. It'll be easy
enough to see where we don't hold 'em; you can tell by the coughs. One
good thing; it isn't a soft-coal town and you won't get so many laughs
killed by the big horse-cough. There are more laughs in the piece than I
expected when I read it. More than I thought when we began rehearsing
it." He paused, then went on in a thoughtful tone, "Another thing about
this girl, talking to her ordinarily you wouldn't suspect she had any
special sense of humor, yet I'm pretty sure she's going to get three or
four laughs that nobody else saw were in the script. At that, I've got a
suspicion she's misplaced as an ingnue."

"Misplaced?" Owen said. "But I think she----"

"Certainly she does," Hurley agreed. "Even as an ingnue she's rather a
find, I think, and I suspect Monday night'll show I owe your mother
those orchids. What I mean, I've kind of an idea she might have more
than ingnue parts call for. We'll know better about it after we see her
with an audience; but it's struck me lately we might have something
there really rather important. See what I mean? I mean really rather
important." His tone was becoming enthusiastic and he modified it, with
the air of a man pleased by a rosy prospect but determined not to be
foolish about it. "Well, maybe; you can't tell. You're going to get a
fine performance from Joe Ord Monday night and from Vokes and Rita
Carlin. Joe Ord'll be colossal as the father. Colossal. One of those
old-timers you can always depend on, drunk or sober."

"More than on the new-timers--like Eugene?" the nervous playwright
asked. "You think----"

"Listen! Madeleine Ord was the best low-comedy woman on the stage, bar
none, Joe's sister and he thought the world of her. She was playing the
slavey and Joe the cockney thief in 'The Yellow Slum'. She got
despondent and called it all off with laudanum on a Friday night. They
put the understudy in for the Saturday matine and old Will Hatch, their
company manager, told me he never saw a better performance than Joe
gave. An old story; but how are you going to get that from an actor who
just plays himself? If he feels limp, he acts limp. Joe ought to've been
a star years ago; but he never will."

"Why not?"

Hurley laughed musingly. "I don't know. Probably because he's just old
Joe Ord. Everybody's always known he's good and lets it go at that. Got
a big mind, too. Maybe he isn't up higher because he'd always take any
part you'd give him, no matter what, and of course all that's going out
now. If I want a man in a play who's to be seven feet tall and's got one
green eye and the other glass I call up an agent and he'll send me one.
Ten years from now you won't have a real actor on the stage; they'll all
be just people that won't even change the way they part their hair. Look
at 'Gene Allan; he's that way now. If he's too much upset about
anything, he just walks through his part. Old Joe could be dying but
he'd _play_ his. If we'd had to put your play on the first of this week
God knows what would have happened to it!"

Owen sighed heavily, not in reminiscence but with apprehension. "Then if
'Gene's mood----"

"Both of 'em, both of 'em!" Hurley interrupted impatiently. "If Isabelle
lets down, the whole play goes down maybe even more than if 'Gene does
it. Lucky she had her tantrum and got over it last Monday instead of
next. She'll give you a good performance now and so'll 'Gene; he's
really shown sense since that talk I had with him. Lord, what a play's
life hangs on! What a gamble!"

"Yes--for all of us."

Hurley seemed to become reflective as he lighted a fresh cigar. "Another
thing about her. I never rehearsed anybody that caught what you wanted
of 'em in rehearsal quicker. For acting, she's got a mind like
lightning."

"Isabelle? But I thought she----"

"No," Hurley said absently. "This girl of your mother's. Start up to the
stage to show her something and half the time she's got it before you
can get up there." His reflectiveness vanished under a renewed pressure
of enthusiasm. "No, sir! Never in my whole life did I see anybody who'd
get it so quickly and on top of that give you better than what you
meant, yourself. She knows every word of your play, too--heard her
giving Jack Lancey his line this morning when he slipped up, and she
wasn't even on in that scene. Well--we'll see, we'll see. Won't even
know whether we've got a play or anything else until Monday night." He
slapped his knee; then rose abruptly. "Hi-yi! Got the fidgets till we
pass that bridge! I'll be calmer to-night when we can get down to work
on those sets in the theatre."

The prediction failed to convince his colleague, however, and later
proved to have been unwarranted. After dining together in the small,
pleasant and surprisingly expensive hotel, they had no more than fifty
yards to go to reach the theatre, and that distance the manager
traversed with a leisurely step and the appearance of serenity; but upon
the sidewalk as they were about to enter the lobby he halted abruptly,
stamped his foot and began to swear.

"What's the matter, George?"

"Look at that billboard!"

Owen looked at the billboard and found nothing amiss; though when he saw
one name upon it his heart quickened. For the first time seeing this
name upon a theatrical billboard he was queerly startled and had a
confused impression that something portentous impended.


        Mon. Tues. Wed, and Wed. Matine

               ADLER AND COMPANY
                    Present
                 CATALPA HOUSE

      _A Romantic Comedy by Owen Gilbert_
                     _with_
      EUGENE ALLAN AND ISABELLE HEDRINGTON

      _and a Distinguished Cast Including_
    Joseph Ord            Rita Carlin
    Jeanne Lebrun         T. R. Worthington
    John Lancey           Harry Vokes
    James Morton          Lily Mars


"What's the matter with it?" the playwright asked, a little
breathlessly.

"Matter! Where's Pink? That's it, leave one doggone thing to anybody
else and it's always done wrong. Then if you want to do anything about
it your hands are tied. I'd throw Frank Williams out of my office
to-morrow for this; but how can you do it when a man's got a fool wife
who keeps him head over heels in debt, with one boy in college and the
other one just barely out on bail for embezzlement? All I can do's give
him the devil for not having sense enough to put in 'Under the direction
of Pinkney Monk'. Fine! Everything's wrong right from the start! Let's
get in and see what else is bungled. Come on! Come on!"

He stamped into the theatre, walked down to the orchestra rail and began
to shout at the expert artisans who were already busily at work on the
stage. They responded interrogatively; he replied with exasperation, and
for hours he alternately walked, brooding, up and down the aisles and
returned to the rail to renew the high-pitched dialogue.

Oft-repeated phrases, sometimes bellowed in fury and sometimes wailed in
agony, the playwright felt would ring in his ears in sleep, if indeed he
ever slept again. "Lower your borders! Lower your borders! How many
thousand times have I got to crack my voice telling you to lower your
borders? You, up there! _Where's_ your borders?" A voice from invisible
heights would reply "Got 'em lowered, sir!" and Hurley would remain
unconvinced. "Lower your borders! Lower those borders! Aren't you _ever_
going to lower those borders?"

Frequently he became impassioned upon a necessity for amber. "Where's
the amber? Who cut out the amber? Give us that amber! Amber! Amber!
Amber! _Am_ I going to ruin my larynx again to get that amber? For the
two-hundredth time where's that amber? Hell and whiskers, _will_ you
give us that amber!"

Meanwhile there slowly appeared upon the stage the fresh-colored
semblance of a sub-tropical landscape. Moss hung from trees, shrubberies
hinted the South, the pillared verandah of a plantation house grew into
being upon the right, and, to the left, were glimpses of a mighty river
winding through a rosy sunset. By no means were the manager's sufferings
abated. "Where are those mats? Take up that green carpet! Take it up!
Who said to put that carpet on the stage? Get out the mats! Green grass
mats! Four hundred dollars' worth of green grass mats! Think I paid four
hundred dollars for green grass mats and then going to use a carpet? Oh,
my cripes, _will_ somebody get out those green grass mats and put 'em
down there! Green grass mats! For God's _sake_!"

Pinkney Monk came in, at eleven, just off the train, and sat down by the
playwright in the rear row of seats. "I'll go at it in a minute," he
explained. "Tired. Long siege with those costumes this afternoon.
Guv'ner been like this all evening?"

"Yes. His worries began when he saw your name had been left off the
billboard. I suppose you noticed it when you came in?"

Monk laughed absently. "Yes; he'll straighten that out, and besides, I
don't think I need bother about it, since he doesn't put his own name on
at all. Never does. Curious man, George; and I'd rather work for him
than anybody in the world. I'll get his mats out for him in a minute or
two. My, what a day!"

The exclamation, one of weariness, had no reassuring sound in anxious
ears. "Was it?" Owen said. "Ah--nothing wrong? All the company'll be
here on the morning train, won't they? All of them--ah--they're all
right, aren't they?"

"All right?" Monk made sounds intended to convey the impression of
hollow laughter. "Did anybody ever see a theatrical company that was all
right? Tom Worthington's got a cold and'll probably be whispering by
Monday night; but that's nothing. These leading ladies with tempers!"

"Isabelle? What did she----"

"Oh, Lord, her costumes! They couldn't possibly be better; but I thought
she'd murder old Sgur and me too before I got away. Whew, she's in a
state!"

"She is?" Owen said in a sickly voice. "But how about--how about----"

"Your little girl? She's a treat; the one bright spot. Happy as a lark
and flying over the top of the world!"




CHAPTER NINETEEN


Somerville was a quiet town upon Sunday; the playwright woke late in the
morning and heard no sound but the nasal piping of a newsboy upon the
sunny pavement far below the open windows of the hotel bedroom. Then
presently, when a waiter had brought breakfast, there were church bells
and after the chiming there was silence again. Looking forth from a
window upon a town apparently drowsing under the noon-day sun, Owen saw
clean straight streets between long rows of shade trees that were now
crimson and brown and yellow with autumn; but these prosperous neat
vistas and the houses, the business buildings, the lawns, church spires,
stables, garages, sheds, shrubberies, alleys and all that he saw were
concentrated, to his view, into a single inscrutable personality. "What
are you going to do to 'Catalpa House'?" he asked this town of
Somerville. "What are you going to do to 'Catalpa House'--and to Lily
Mars?"

He was summoned down to the lobby of the hotel. O'Mahoney, the lively
"advance man" for "Catalpa House", waited there, and, with a wink of a
twinkling eye, presented Mr. Leland, a blond shy spectacled boy
apparently twenty, dramatic critic of the Somerville Times. Young Mr.
Leland timidly asked questions and the interview was as long as it was
vague and ineffective. To the playwright, indeed, it seemed to be
lasting all afternoon; but finally, seeing old Briggs going toward the
elevator, he jumped up from the leather divan he occupied with the
critic. "Man I've got to see," he said hurriedly, and strode across the
lobby to join the stage manager.

"Briggs! The cast--they're all right and all here?"

"Yes, of course all here, Mr. Gilbert. Got in at noon. Just going up now
to hold the book on them while they run through their lines in the
mezzanine parlor."

"I suppose some of them are staying here in this hotel?"

"Well, I'm not, myself," Briggs said apologetically. "Of course Mr.
Allan and Miss Hedrington are here, and Mr. Vokes. Miss Lebrun and Miss
Carlin and the three boys and Joe Ord and I, and Miss Bement, the
understudy, are at 'The National', a very good place, rather more
moderate--ah--I had meant to take the liberty of advising Miss
Mars--ah----" He hesitated uneasily, then went on, "I think probably
Miss Lebrun already had spoken to her on the subject, and perhaps I
should have done so, too, in view of the expense here and Miss Mars's
rather limited salary. But of course it wasn't my affair, really. Yes,
she's staying here, too."

Owen made a hasty mental computation. Hurley had been liberal, he knew,
in setting the novice's pay at seventy-five dollars a week, to begin on
the morrow; but four days at five dollars a day for her room, and, on
top of that, the charges of the surprisingly expensive restaurant--half
the week bade fair to consume half the salary. The prospects, then, for
a cook's wages, a trained nurse's pay, the rent of half of a double
house, heat, light, sustenance and, above all, the redemption of a note
at the bank, appeared to be bleak and Lily's arithmetic feeble.

However, he was to have no chance that day to give her a hint in the
matter, or in other matters that troubled him more. He did not see her
until she came upon the stage in the dress rehearsal late in the
evening, and, during the harrowing hours that followed, he was never
near her. Amber and the lowering of borders still irked the manager; he
was not appeased upon these subjects until almost ten o'clock, when he
at last permitted the curtain to be lowered, then raised again to begin
the dress rehearsal.

Within the minute he was at the orchestra rail, shouting, "Where's that
carafe? Where's Smith? Bring Smith out here! Good heavens, Pink, where's
Smith? Props! Where's the carafe that ought to be on that table on the
verandah? Oh, my cripes, how's Joe going to pour liquor out of a carafe
if there isn't any and no carafe in the first place to pour it out of?
Expect him to pour nothing out of nothing? He's a good man; but I give
you my word he can't do it! _Oh_, my cripes!"

The property man disappeared to search for the carafe, returned to
report that it had been left in New York, sought again meekly after
receiving virulent instructions so to do, returned with it, set it in
place and came forward with voluble apologies, which were ill received.
Altogether, the matter of the carafe was to the fore during half an
hour, after which the curtain was lowered, then raised, and the
rehearsal began again. It moved smoothly for five minutes; then Lily
made her entrance and the playwright, suddenly breathless, was
preoccupied with the altering yet curiously becoming effect of her
gorgeous auburn wig, with its flowing tubular curls curved upon fine
white shoulders above a satin bodice of the year Eighteen-thirty.

She had just begun to speak when Pinkney Monk stepped forth from painted
shrubberies and said, "One minute, dear!" He advanced toward the
footlights, holding his open hand across his nose to shield his eyes as
he peered into the dark auditorium. "George----"

"Oh, for God's _sake_! What's the matter now? What are you stopping it
for, Pink?"

Monk looked distressed. "Ah--she--if you'd come up here a minute,
George----"

"Come up there? What for?"

It was Isabelle who answered. "I'll show you!" she cried, and came
rushing from the wings to display herself in an elaborate pale green
silk dress of the period of the play. "Look at me!"

"I am!" Hurley responded testily. "You couldn't look better. You're
beautiful! Go back there and make your entrance."

"I won't!" she said emotionally. "Sgur promised to make this dress over
for me and he's just got it here and you see what it looks like! Anybody
could see what it looks like! If Sgur thinks I'm going to look
like----"

"Listen!" Hurley shouted. "Wait!" Then he muttered, "Now they're
beginning to go hysterical on me!" climbed up to the stage, went to
Isabelle, put an arm about her benevolently and led her out of sight in
the wings. Pinkney Monk followed them and there was a wait of three
quarters of an hour. At the end of that time Hurley reappeared, sighing,
descended to his post by the orchestra rail, the curtain was lowered,
raised once more, and the rehearsal recommenced.

Dispirited, the actors fumbled for their "lines", stammered, lost cues
and bungled "stage business"--all except Lily, who was mechanically
correct, going through her part with precision, though with a blithe
kind of absent-mindedness. Eugene fumbled most of all, Isabelle was
resentful, melancholy and careless; Monk begged them and the others
despairingly and in vain for "Just a little more life!" Hurley
alternately thundered and wailed; he made them go over one scene "nine
times by actual count", as O'Mahoney whispered to the crushed Owen. For
crushed indeed he was, long before the miserable process closed at five
in the morning. By that time he had written new "lines" into the play,
upon passionate appeal from Hurley, had "cut" and altered scenes, though
Monk protested that this, the eleventh hour, was too late; and all
seemed confusion.

To the wearied head of the playwright, jerking upon the pillow even
after daylight came, there appeared no future for "Catalpa House". The
play was a thing so nearly dead that this town of Somerville, unaided,
would easily kill it; and even without the help of hotel bills Mrs. Mars
and Clara would perish with it. Heaven alone knew what was in store for
a girl who might do anything--anything!

Purposely, during all the sunlight hours of this disheartening Monday,
he had speech with no one connected with the theatrical professions. In
the afternoon he walked drearily about the town, and, when he passed by
the houses of the more affluent citizens, became more despondent.
Glancing sidelong at such a house, a big one of hard grey stone set in a
deep lawn and glistening coldly from many plate-glass windows, he even
shivered. Hard grey glistening people who lived there would probably be
in the theatre to-night, staring icily at "Catalpa House", withholding
all applause and perhaps going home before the play was done. They
wouldn't care what destruction they wrought; the shattered career of a
playwright wouldn't mean anything to them, nor would the loss of
Hurley's money, nor the waste of all the excruciating thought and labor
put into the building of every detail of the play.

Those people wouldn't clap their palms together once to keep old Joe
Ord, Jennie Lebrun and the rest from being out of work. Fat, cold,
plate-glass people, they'd eat heavily at dinner, sit sluggishly in the
theatre, and even if they knew that what they did there was in reality
not merely to damn a play but to sign the death-warrants of two women
who deserved to live, would they cheer "Catalpa House"? Not they! "Serve
'em right!" they'd say. "Serve the whole bunch of 'em right for coming
here and expecting to entertain us two dollars' worth with a show like
this!"

A more hopeful view was expressed to him, however, during the hurried
meal he had in the hotel restaurant just after dark. Ord came in, sat at
his table and turned upon him the rosy light of a grand red old Roman
countenance. "One dozen oysters simply," the veteran explained. "Came
over from 'The National' because the oysters are safe here and I thought
maybe I'd run into someone like you that'd pay for 'em. Fine to lose a
play because of one bad oyster. One could do it. All I ever eat before a
performance, a dozen half-shell. Midnight's the actor's hour. I'll
trencher and flagon me then, what? Good house to-night; not much paper,
either. Somerville pleased to be the dog we try it on; but don't worry,
they're play-goers not First Nighters. They can eat apple pie without
announcing it was no way to cook onion soup. They won't shoot us cooks;
they'll like us."

"What! You think----"

"My boy! Do I think? I know!"

"But that awful thing last night----"

"Awful?" Ord said, and laughed. "Best thing that could happen. Puts 'em
all on their toes. _Got_ to buck it up after that! You'll see a great
performance. Never knew it to fail. Watch Isabelle, for instance. She'll
put everything in to-night because she's scared and knows she's got to
fight for it. Fine for to-night; but afterwards, look out! Tantrum last
night over costume all plain scare. Couldn't looked better, herself--eh,
but maybe somebody else did. Lawsy, lawsy, how many times I've seen it!"

"Ah, but if she's worried and--and jealous----"

"Jealousy?" Ord swallowed an oyster with gusto. "Hah! My boy, we live by
it! We stand up there in competition, face to face with those who deal
us life or death. They ring the welkin for my rival, a slob with a fat
part; so be it, I'll feed him so well that at least they'll remember me
as a part of his triumph--and if I see but one slender little chance let
him beware of me, for I'll steal the scene from him! No, you'll see a
good house and a good performance to-night, no such horrible thing as'll
be before us when we open in New York to the peacocks and harpies. There
they'll drain your blood and mine to grow one extra green feather on a
tail. No, no; no fear about to-night. Later----" He paused and devoted
himself to his oysters for a time; then he said quietly, "I don't like
double jealousies, though, Owen. When you add a professional one to a
personal one bad harm can be done. Anything you can do to stop
that--well, it might be advisable for you to come out of your shell and
be a peacemaker."

"Thank you, Joe," Owen said. "I understand what you mean. So far I--I
haven't seemed to be up to it."

"No," the old actor agreed gravely. "Apparently not. Better keep trying,
though, if our little troupe's to reach New York undecimated." He shook
his head, swallowed the last of his oysters, slapped his chest briskly
and rose. "Hah! Me the stag at eve that had drunk his fill--not, what?
Leave that for after. Now for the buskins! My boy, you've written a good
play; fear nothing from Somerville--we'll dazzle these simple hinds for
you. _Courage mon ami, le diable est mort!_"

His silk hat and walking-stick were upon a vacant chair at the table; he
received them from the waiter, upon whom he bestowed a stately,
negligent nod; then, with a grand air, he placed the hat upon his head a
little to one side, glanced absently over the half dozen people at other
tables, bowed ceremoniously to Owen, and, loudly humming "Fair eyes
behold thee, Toreador!" strode magnificently out of the restaurant.

The playwright, whose depression was much increased, drank several cups
of coffee, and, having eaten almost nothing, left the hotel and walked
for an hour up and down Somerville's short stretches that were bordered
by lighted shop-windows. Then he turned into an alley, found the stage
door of the theatre and entered it slinkingly, with the look and manner
of that supposititious criminal who must ever return to the scene of his
misdeed. He went to Eugene's dressing-room, where the handsome actor,
superb as a dandified gambler of the Old South, was just being completed
by his "dresser".

"Owen, what's the matter?"

"'Gene, are you--are you all right?"

"Am I? Are _you_? What's wrong, old boy? You look like the devil."

Owen laughed feebly. "Oh, no--just stage-fright on behalf of the rest of
you, I suppose. I do hope you----"

"Don't worry about my performance. I was rotten last night; but I've got
hold of myself." He drew Owen to the doorway and spoke in a low tone.
"I'm in torture! Listen. If Isabelle asks you where I was either Friday
or Saturday nights, you don't know. Of course you naturally wouldn't
know about Saturday because you'd left New York; but about Friday you
don't know either. I thought I'd better not use last Monday night's
alibi again. She doesn't know anything; but she ferrets. She gives me no
rest. I'm in torture, I tell you, in torture! I'll play this part,
though; I'll make them like me--you'll see! There. I've got to run over
my first act lines with Tommy here. Go along--and good luck to us all!"

They shook hands feverishly; Owen climbed an open iron stairway, knocked
upon a dressing-room door above Eugene's, and, bidden to enter, stepped
within. Lily and Miss Lebrun sat before their wall-mirrors, deeply
engaged in "making-up" their brilliantly illuminated faces. They were in
costume; but Lily had not yet put on her wig, and her tan-colored hair
was twisted and pinned as closely as possible to her head. Her face was
coated with pink grease-paint, her lips were stained scarlet and her
eyelashes gummed into black spikes; and, thus besmeared and seen at
close range, with her lovely hair made into a disadvantage, she was a
test for a lover's heart. Owen's responded with a thrilled palpitation
that permitted no doubt of her possession of it. She could look her
worst and he cared for her only the more.

"You're--you're all right--both of you?" he asked.

Miss Lebrun said, "Indeed we are!" reassuringly; but Lily, just glancing
at him, gave him a preoccupied nod and returned her studious attention
to the bright mirror before her.

He had no place in her thoughts; nothing had place there except the
business in hand. Tense, concentrated and yet cool, she was like some
watchful chemist in a laboratory compounding a prescription that must be
accurate to the infinitesimal point, lest death come of it instead of
health renewed. She was intent not only upon her "make-up", he saw, but
upon the part she was to play, keeping the whole of her mind and mood
upon "Myra"; and this was a new Lily Mars to him, the actress in her
dressing-room before the play. He doubted that she would even hear the
overture by the orchestra, those strains she'd once thought would make
the actors feel "like gods".

He said "Good!" faintly, stepped out to the iron landing and closed the
door behind him, knowing that she was no more aware of his departure
than of his coming. He descended to the silent stage where no one was to
be seen except old Briggs whispering to an electrician, tiptoed behind
the set scene, passed out to the house and went to a seat in the
balcony. The ushers were busy, Somerville's play-goers were coming in,
encouragingly numerous, and on the floor below and in the boxes he saw
parties of people who evidently felt it due to a premire, their city
and themselves to make an agreeable display of evening dress. They
looked self-satisfied, the playwright thought, and as if they'd be hard
to satisfy with anything else. Heaven help "Catalpa House"! He and
Hurley and Pinkney Monk could do no more now; fate rested with the
actors making ready in their dressing-rooms to come down into the arena
and fight for the life of the play.

O'Mahoney, prowling, saw him and came to sit beside him for a time.
"Looks very good," he said. "Both the Somerville papers'll give us good
notices. Leland'll be all right, of course."

"Leland? Who's Leland?"

"The young feller I got to interview you Sunday. The other paper doesn't
keep a critic--they'll just send a woman reporter who'll give us a
general puff--but Leland takes himself solemnly. Nice young lad but of
course he'll feel it's due to himself to show some writery writing--real
two-dollar-a-yard near-silks to prove that our smaller city retailers
can handle the same line of goods you see on the New York counters.
He'll work 'em in somehow--patterns like 'Gallic lucidity' and 'biting
irony' and 'pellucid' something or other. Probably say your play hasn't
got 'em and isn't hot stuff for the 'discerning' but on the whole may
prove quite a popular entertainment, though of course it'll need some
remodelling before New York. They always say that so they'll be safe
whichever way it goes in the big city. He'll praise the acting to the
skies of course, because he knows the New York Death Watch usually let
that get by. No, Leland'll be all right for us and if the house like us
to-night they'll all go out and say so and get us business for to-morrow
night and Wednesday. Of course the gals'll all be daffy over Eugene. I
was around behind and he certainly looks a picture. So does old Joe as
the father; grand old ante-bellum Colonel--marvellous. They'll all have
to look out, though, or this new ingnue'll steal the show from 'em."
O'Mahoney laughed, as he rose. "Guv'ner'll be fuming; wants me to sit by
him with a pad and pencil and take notes of the points he'll see to
change. Bon voyage!"

The orchestra came up from under the stage, plunked and tuned, played
the overture, and Owen thought that probably, after all, she heard it;
for she would be coming down from the dressing-room now and taking her
place in the wings for her entrance. Perhaps she even felt like a god; a
playwright certainly didn't. The curtain rose, there was a flutter of
applause approving the scenery, and, in the balcony, a human spine knew
the sensation of being stroked with an icicle.




CHAPTER TWENTY


This chilled spine presently slumped from its rigidity. Lily came upon
the scene and Owen drooped, giving up all for lost because she received
a greeting round of applause, being mistaken for the "featured" leading
lady. When the audience discovered its error it would be ashamed of
itself, he thought, and would therefore detest the play. However, when
Isabelle made her entrance, a few moments later, the hand-clapping was
repeated, though somewhat uncertainly, and he felt a little less surely
doomed; at least a part of the audience could retain enough self-esteem
to give the play a chance.

So far as the playwright's own consciousness was concerned no drama at
all was being presented down there on the warmly lighted vari-colored
stage; the words he had written were long since dulled in meaning by
their repetition in rehearsal, and, uttered now by the actors, seemed
sounds without sense. It was impossible to believe that blank sound
carried any meaning to all these people seduced by Hurley into paying
honest money to listen to it. Hurley himself must have been caught in
delusion to produce such a play; its author, sunk in humility, wondered
how anybody could bear its empty babbling.

True, there was something picturesque and alluring down there for the
eye; and for the ear there was at times one unusual and lovely
sound--the voice of Lily Mars. Eugene was debonair in a brass-buttoned
green coat, high white stock, grey beaver hat, flowered waistcoat and
strapped pantaloons of exquisite pearl; his resplendent good looks and
the masterful quiet of his attitudes might do something to placate
Somerville. So might the swaggering postures and sonorous perfection of
Joseph Ord, who, as the hard-drinking, ominous father of Hester, the
heroine, provided the play with the element of physical danger that
carried its suspense. Indeed, it appeared vaguely to Owen that these two
were making an impression upon the audience, and even that the dark
house sat with an incredible breathlessness through the scene in which
the duelling old Colonel slowly recognizes the fted young Duc
d'Alenon, self-styled royal exile in Louisiana, as the notorious Sam
Hawkins, professional gambler, whom the Colonel has once had the
misfortune to encounter at a faro table on a river steamboat. Moreover,
when it became clear that Hester was none the less in love with the
impostor even after his exposure, there was an unmistakable flurry of
approval in the audience, who seemed to be surprised and pleased by the
breaking of the tradition that a heroine must at least for a time refuse
to adore a hero who has included her in a deception. After all, those
worn out words of the "script" miraculously seemed to be carrying
significances to these new listeners.

To the trembling mind of the playwright, however, Isabelle appeared to
lack something vital as she played that ardent love scene and the
violent clash with the "Colonel" just after it. The audience evidently
found her at least satisfactory--it could be felt that they were
interested and sympathetic--but to Owen's view, though it was clear she
worked her hardest, she showed almost flaccidity in a rle that called
for fire. Her contralto voice was of a rich quality; but there were
detectable rhythms and cadences in her utterance, so that an acute ear
heard suave elocution rather than truth, the practised lamentations of
Isabelle rather than the wails of "Hester". Owen had thought Isabelle
beautiful in the "Skylark"; now she was no more than rather
ineffectively handsome. She was like a painting originally brilliant in
color but dimmed by time and dust. For she oddly seemed not quite young
enough for the part she played, which needed the sparkle of a youthful
vividness apparently withdrawn from her.

These impressions of his were hazy; thoughts about Eugene and Isabelle
and Ord flitted but glimpsingly through his mind. He had a faint and
wondering pleasure in the multitudinous honest laughter that rewarded
Harry Vokes as the maladroit rascally friend of the princely impostor;
yet the significance of this hopeful token was almost lost upon the
bemused young man who had written what excited the risibility. To his
gaze, as he stared and stared, all of the color and life down there upon
the stage seemed to be losing brightness and even light itself--all
except the one bright figure of Lily Mars, a new Lily Mars face to face
with her audience at last.

He recalled a sculptor's saying that the clay is life, plaster of Paris
death, and the ultimate marble or bronze the resurrection. The dress
rehearsal of the night before had been Lily in plaster of Paris; but
now, in sensitive and delicate communion with every person who saw and
heard her, she made "Myra" every moment more poignantly alive. Like a
singer whose voice strikes the very middle of the note, she spoke with
the apparently easy naturalness that makes the uttered word seem never
to have been written but to be an act of human spontaneity. Where had
been his wits when he sat in the ugly room in the "double house"
listening to Lady Macbeth and "Roger and I"? All she had needed then was
Hurley--Hurley and the faithful Monk. Her miraculous plasticity had
answered every touch of theirs; and here was an audience caught in
delight, laughing in pleasure when she chose and serious when she wished
it, yet not made impatiently aware that she played but a minor rle.

The other actors, the play, the new-painted scenery and the voluminous
dark presence of the audience seemed to merge in a monochrome
background. To Owen Gilbert it was as if the one figure, continuously in
a "spotlight", moved among fainter illuminations that left everything
else almost shadowy. When Lily was off the stage, the scene became a
daytime moon; she came on, glowing, and the spell she cast came with
her. Her gorgeous little head shone in a ruby aureole; with every tone
in her voice and every movement of young white shoulders, fair arms and
even of her twinkling feet, she seemed to hint to everyone--alas! to
everyone--"Ah, if you and I loved each other!" Lily had it all "turned
on".

Before the end of the first act the play had become irretrievably
nothing but Lily to the watcher in the balcony. He remained dreamily in
his place through the interval between the first and second acts, and
through that between the second and the third; but, when the "climax
curtain" began its slow fall, he made his way to the stairs and
descended to the lower floor. There, in the vacant lobby, he hesitated;
then, hearing the muffled but stirring sound of persistent applause, he
opened a door and stepped into the auditorium, which was still dark,
except for footlights, and still resounding with clapped palms. The
curtain had been up and down half a dozen times and now the actors were
"taking their calls".

Eugene was revealed alone upon the stage, bowing gravely to strong
applause; then Isabelle, apparently faint with left-over emotion yet
gracious and tenderly appreciative of plaudits just detectably less
vigorous. After her, Ord, Harry Vokes and Miss Carlin, together, were
treated as heartily well. Hands still pattering brought the curtain up
again to show Lily standing between Miss Lebrun and young Lancey; the
applause suddenly possessed a solidity of sound that stirred the heart.

It continued until the descending curtain touched the boards of the
stage; but Owen did not hear the last of it. The lower floor ushers and
the manager of the theatre and O'Mahoney and Paradene, the "company
manager" for the Adler firm, stood in the passage behind the seats,
leading the applause under cover of the darkness, and now they raised a
scattering cry of "Author! Author!" which was echoed feebly from various
parts of the house, though somewhat more lustily from the balcony ushers
overhead. The alarmed playwright went out hastily and walked for ten
minutes in the alley behind the theatre. When he returned to his seat in
the balcony all gratuitous danger was over for him; the final act of his
play was in motion.

There came the scene in which Myra comprehends the catastrophe caused by
her youthful light-mindedness and asks pardon from Hester. In the second
act, mistaken for her sister because of the auburn hair, Myra has been
handed a letter meant for Hester and has half dutifully, half
mischievously given it instead to her father, who thus discovers the
continuance of his older daughter's forbidden love affair with the
outcast impostor and, in the third act, shoots him. In the fourth, as a
preliminary step-up to the emotional heights of the final scene of
parting between Hester and the convalescent but broken Hawkins, the
remorseful Myra begs for forgiveness from her sister. Isabelle and Lily
were alone in view, Isabelle seated in a symmetrical posture of grief
near the footlights while Lily stood pleading, faltering, weeping, a
stooped and humble figure at the centre of the stage.

The girl's sweet contrite voice, hesitating and even stammering, carried
an almost unbearable pathos through the silent house, where sporadic
snifflings began to be faintly audible, and, even from the upper row of
the balcony where the playwright sat, the glistening of actual tears was
seen upon her cheeks. "Making herself think of her mother now," he said
to himself, but was not critical of this bit of mechanics, which against
all reason had the same effect upon his own eyes that it had upon those
of uninformed people about him.

When she left the scene, and Eugene, feeble upon a cane, came on, Owen's
eyes dried, though the sniffling here and there in the audience
continued and even increased during the farewell speeches of the lovers.
Indeed, no "try-out" audience could have wept more promisingly than this
one did when Eugene, still handsome but shattered out of all
resplendency, limped slowly to the open door, loving his lady too well
to take her with him, and going back alone to his old crooked ways on
the river.

That was the end of the play, and, while the house was still dark and
the audience applauded thinly, Owen hurried out of the theatre and
returned to his alley, where he again walked nervously, this time for a
somewhat longer period. Then, downhearted but with a dogged air, he
opened the stage door and encountered O'Mahoney just on the other side
of it.

"Author! Author!" O'Mahoney cried, at sight of him. "Congratulations!
New York may kill us but we've certainly got by dear old Somerville."

"What!" Owen was incredulous. "But the applause after the curtain----"

"They never do," O'Mahoney explained, laughing. "Not after crying on the
last curtain; anyway not on the road. Did all their applauding after the
big third act curtain, though maybe you thought they didn't take up the
'Author! Author!' stuff loud enough. That's because this Somerville
class o' people doesn't really want to know a play's got an author at
all--or even a wonderful publicity man! They just come and enjoy it as
if it was happening."

"Then you really think----"

"Golly! It's unanimous. As they went out, didn't we have all the ushers
rubbering around among 'em in the lobby? Wasn't I there myself? Couldn't
have asked 'em to say more. All the gals, young and old, going it over
'Gene; didn't I tell you? Harry Vokes and Joe Ord fine, too, and they
liked Isabelle all right. As for the little friend from your home town,
she's a comer if she keeps her head. Scored one of the neatest little
hits I ever saw. Promising thing about her, the women like her as much
as the boys do. Myself I heard a mighty pretty girl say, 'I bet she'd be
awful cute off the stage, too!' Really the piece looks good for New York
to me. Guv'ner's tickled to death. Needn't try to get into 'Gene's room
to congratulate him. It's full of local millionairesses going to take
him out for a party; he knows people in all these towns. Bye-bye!
Probably see you in Binghamton Thursday and Easton Monday. Guv'ner wants
you; he's got a nasty sheaf of notes for you to work on. He's in
Isabelle's dressing-room."

Owen said hurriedly, "Yes, yes; I'll go there"; but what he did was to
ascend, almost tremblingly, the iron stairway that led to the door above
Eugene's. He opened it and saw Lily standing before him, still in the
costume she had worn in the last act, and with the auburn wig upon her
head and none of her "make-up" removed. Miss Lebrun, who did not appear
in the last act, was gone, and the playwright had the impression that
Lily had been standing there alone, just as she was, ever since she had
made her final exit from the stage. Moreover, she did not move now when
he came in; she stood and looked at him, and, startled, he realized that
it was for him she had been waiting and that he was now indeed in her
thoughts. She did not speak at all; but her eyes glowed--every inch of
her seemed to glow--with such a passion of gratitude as he had never
seen; he knew it was that.

Suddenly she flung herself upon him, threw her arms about his neck,
clung to him and kissed him. Then she pushed him away, pushed him
affectionately out of the door, in fact, laughed ringingly, cried, "I'll
black your boots forever!" and slammed the door rapturously after him.

Upon this, the fond young man was almost as grateful as she. "Whatever
you do to me," he said to her in his mind, as he went down the metal
steps, "I'll never fail you--not after that!"




CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


He crossed the stage to the leading lady's dressing-room, found
Ernestine lounging resignedly outside the door, and before he went in
heard the manager's voice high-pitched in argument. Owen entered,
however, during a brief interval of silence; and that he intervened in a
scene of no slight tensity was made clear by the fact that he received
neither a word nor a gesture of greeting. Isabelle, in a rose-colored
wrapper and with her splendid hair down, sat before her mirror, removing
with apparently close attention the final traces of "make-up"; but her
eyes were both fierce and hurt, and her handsome profile was stubborn.
Hurley, red-faced, sat in a chair beside hers, staring at her
frowningly, and Pinkney Monk stood in the background, leaning against
the wall and looking serious.

"Ah--I beg pardon----" Owen murmured, and turned to go.

"No," Isabelle said crisply. "We want you. Sit down."

"I say we don't!" Hurley exclaimed testily. "We don't want him for the
reason you mean." He gave a worried side-glance to the playwright. "Oh,
sit down! Sit down! Your play's going to be all right if we don't get it
into a snarl before the Death Watch has a chance at it. Got a colossal
reception to-night--colossal. Now, Isabelle----"

"Going to be all right, is it?" Her lips gave forth the vocal part of
laughter without forming the contours that should accompany such sounds,
and she did not look at Owen, though she addressed him. "Mr. Gilbert,
just what was your idea in writing a part like 'Hester' and then writing
in a piffling secondary part that was sure to kill it?"

Hurley leaned toward her and slapped her shoulder with a sheaf of papers
he held in his hand. "Now for God's sake! Talking about being killed
again, are you? Have we got to go over all that? You were a hit, I tell
you, a hit! Didn't you hear 'em? How many times do you want Pink and me
to tell you? Don't you know when they like you and when they don't?"

"I do."

"Well, then, I dare you to sit there and tell me again you weren't a
hit! Were you or weren't you?"

"Certainly I was," Isabelle said, and her nostrils and her eyes dilated
as she spoke. "You don't suppose I don't know my business, do you? But
that doesn't mean I'm going to stand being crabbed or made to work every
second I'm out there to keep all my scenes from being stolen from me and
get half a hand for breaking my heart over a part that was written wrong
in the first place!" Suddenly she swung round from her mirror and sat
facing Hurley angrily. "'Society girl', is she? Bosh! Everybody in the
company knows better by this time. Got a sister behind the counter in a
dry goods store in that jay town of Owen Gilbert's where we picked her
up!"

Monk intervened. "What's that got to do with it? The point I was making,
it's that the scene you're fretting about only helps you; it makes 'em
love you all the better. They love you to start with, Isabelle; but they
love you all the more when they see how much your sister loves you,
don't they? Why, certainly! It's you she's talking about, isn't it?
Besides that, it's good box-office for her to cry so they can see the
tears; that's always good box-office and everybody knows it is. Out
front they always think they're seeing wonderful acting--Fanny LeGarde
worked up to two-hundred and fifty a week on it and it was the only
thing she could do; but it got the big notices. She had some kind of eye
trouble and all she had to do was blink a little and out they'd come,
big as berries. What I mean, 'Myra' starts 'em crying out front; but
it's all about _you_, Isabelle. You're the one they're crying _about_
and really it only makes it fatter for you. They love you, see, and it's
all the time _you_ that they're crying _about_----"

"Certainly it is!" Hurley interrupted, taking up the theme urgently.
"It's all you, Isabelle. You're the one they're crying about; they
aren't crying about 'Myra'. Myself I think that's one of the finest
little scenes in the play, because you see what it does; it puts them in
just the mood and leads up to your big scene with Eugene where you cry,
yourself, later----"

"Later!" Isabelle said, with a hard laugh. "Yes, I should think so!
Crabbed again! All through the damn play! First she comes on and gets my
hand with that frowsy wig and, after that, I have to come on just
anyhow, with even my hair crabbed; then she gets feed-laughs right
straight on to the fourth act and then she's handed a crying scene
centre, with me down stage sitting there without a hell's-fire thing to
do till she gets through!" She turned upon Owen. "That the way you write
plays? Wait till you do one for a star and ask him to sit through a
scene with his face in his hands down near the foots while some little
shop-girl's sister in his company gets up stage of him and does school
dramatics for fifteen or twenty minutes! Can you see Sothern or
Forbes-Robertson or----"

"'Fifteen or twenty minutes!'" Hurley interrupted. "Listen! It runs
exactly four and a half, because I timed it. That scene lasts just four
and a half minutes, and there's one of the reasons it's so----"

Isabelle swung back to her mirror. "You make me sick, all of you," she
said quietly. "Either that scene's cut entirely before to-morrow night
or else she'll play it in the chair down stage--or I won't play it at
all."

Hurley looked dangerous. "Listen! The parts of this play that we know
are right, because we proved it to-night, we're not going to tamper
with. I've had plays ruined like this before; but I swear I----"

"Wait a minute, George," Monk said placatingly. "We can do that all
right; we can put 'Myra' in the chair down by the foots and give
Isabelle the stage. That'll make things all right, won't it, Isabelle?"

"It will not!" she answered fiercely. "If you think I'm going to break
my heart playing a whole evening against a frowsy red wig--well, just
think again, because I'm not going to do it!"

"Well, but Great Scott!" Monk protested. "We can't change the wig!
That's plot."

"I don't care; you either change it or----"

Hurley broke out at her violently. "How the devil's a letter going to be
given to her on account of Harry Vokes's mistaking her for you because
of her auburn hair unless she's _got_ auburn hair? You're crazy! How do
you expect----"

She turned upon Owen. "I won't play against a wig! You'll have to change
it."

"What!" he cried. "It's utterly impossible to change that. As it stands,
it's tricky but it's plausible. 'Catalpa House' isn't farce; you can't
have a man told to hand a letter to a lady in a green shawl and make him
give it to the wrong one because she's borrowed the shawl. The mistake's
just barely credible, as it is. I can't----"

"Oh, can't you?" she said. "You like her in the wig, do you?" She added
three words intrinsically harmless but made them both derisive and
insulting, "I guess so!"

Hurley was indignant. "That'll do, Isabelle! Spiteful feminine
implications'll be omitted if you please. This is a matter of business."

"You bet your life it is!" she said. "Going to talk contract to me now,
are you? Go ahead and talk it till you foam at the mouth, only don't
forget I've got a right to be sick. Just think that over a minute, will
you, instead of getting your eyes all bloodshot staring at me because it
makes you so mad you can't talk! Listen! She plays that last act scene
down stage and sitting in the chair; that's settled. Also, she doesn't
wear the wig. I don't care how lovesick your mamma's-boy author is over
it, she doesn't wear it, George. Not to-morrow night or any other night
while I play 'Hester'. I don't care how he fixes the script, just so he
fixes it."

"Now for God's _sake_!" Hurley shouted at her. "Will you use just a
little sense? Just a little; I don't ask for more. That wig's _plot_, I
tell you, and there isn't any way on God's green earth----"

"No?" Isabelle said, and, turning to her mirror, again took an apparent
interest in the cleansing of her face. "All right. Try not to have a
stroke in my dressing-room; I want to get into my clothes and it'd delay
me. Don't forget I could go to the Brangins to-morrow if I wanted to.
Sim could do the worrying about contracts, and I think--I really think,
George--that 'Gene would come with me. Maybe he wouldn't; but I think
so. Either there's only one head of auburn hair on the stage to-morrow
night or I know I'll have such a throat I can't whisper and you can put
in the understudy. I mean from now on. What do you think you'll do about
it?"

Hurley looked at her steadily for some moments; then abruptly he rose,
and, glancing at Owen, made a slight movement of his head toward the
door. "Come on."

Isabelle spoke again as they left the room together and just before they
had quite closed the door.

"'Society girl', hell!"

They heard Pinkney Monk beginning to talk to her cozeningly, as a grown
person does to an embittered child. "Now, Isabelle, dearie, they're
going to do it. They'll make it all right for you. He'll fix it in the
script and we'll rehearse the change to-morrow morning and----"

"Listen," Hurley said, took Owen by the arm, and, sighing, drew him a
little distance away from the door. "Makes a man feel sometimes as if
he's living among children about four years old, doesn't it? Well, well,
you can't altogether blame her, though; you and I might do the same in
her place. I know when I can control her and when I can't; got to give
in on these minor points sometimes. I'm afraid it'll be pretty hard on
Lily; but she'll have to stand it. She was rather remarkable this
evening--rather remarkable, you know. Lord! Isn't that always the way?
Put a play over with everything just about right, except a few details,
and then--Whoof! there goes one o' your best scenes! Of course she can't
do anything with it sitting in a chair and with Isabelle up of her,
taking it all. You'll have to tell her she's got to do it."

"I? I think it'd better come from you--if she's got to."

"Don't bother me! Tell her about the wig, too."

"What!" Owen gasped. "But that we absolutely can't----"

"Yes, you can. Wriggle out the change in the script to-night and I'll
call rehearsal for it at eleven to-morrow morning. That green shawl idea
of yours won't do; it's too comic opera. Think up something better."

"George! I only spoke of the green shawl to----"

"It's obsolete, I tell you!" Hurley said, annoyed. "For God's sake don't
argue with me!" He sighed and rubbed his head. "Another thing I'm afraid
of--if the morning paper to-morrow says too much about Lily--Hi-yi! more
tantrum! They've got a young boy named Leland writes it and I'd send
Paradene to see him to-night and try to get him to tone down on Lily and
compare Isabelle to Mrs. Fiske; but he's the kind that'd be insulted.
Don't dare ask a favor of 'em when they're like that. They talk about
their responsibility to their public as if they were Presidents of the
United States. Only people on earth it makes any difference to, of
course, just Isabelle and Lily; but no--'responsibility to my readers'!
Hi-yi! If he does give her a good notice it'll be the last she'll get as
long as she plays 'Myra'."

"But it's outrageously unfair and----"

"Unfair? What do you think the theatre is, the United States Supreme
Court? Here!" Hurley pushed his sheaf of papers into the playwright's
hand. "Here are the notes I made for changes--a lot of 'em but mostly
small. Don't put in any time on them to-night; we'll stick 'em in
Thursday in Binghamton. To-night you just work out the change for
getting off the wig. Better get over to your room right away and be at
it. What did you ever want to be a playwright for, anyhow? God knows why
I'm a manager! Tell her about it in the morning; let her have this one
night to dream she's going to be a great big actress."

He shook his head, gave Owen a sour but compassionate smile, and they
parted. Downcast again, the playwright returned to the hotel, and, as he
passed through the lobby, heard Lily laughing excitedly, a sound that
made him pause for a moment and glance through the broad open doorway
that gave access to the restaurant. People who had been to the theatre
were supping there, and, at one of the tables, sat Lily, Harry Vokes,
old Ord and young Lancey, making merry.

Two waiters attended them, one placing covered dishes upon the white
cloth and the other filling tall glasses with whisky and effervescent
water. Lily was radiant, the two younger actors, their heads in
juxtaposition, were already murmurous with subdued chords of song, which
old Joe seemed desirous of smothering under a gesticulative oratory,
and, thus occupied in gay celebration, they did not see the playwright.
He passed on, sent a telegram to his mother, informing her that the play
had opened rather promisingly and that Lily's acting had been
"delightful"; and then, repressing a tendency to return to the
restaurant doorway, he went to the elevator instead, and ascended to his
room.

There, for two hours, he alternately paced the floor and tried to work.
"Crazy! Crazy!" he muttered, at two o'clock, for the twentieth time.
"Everything's crazy!" In this thought, moreover, he included himself for
spinelessly consenting to make his play crazy; but his inclusion of Lily
was even more emphatic. True, a hotel restaurant wasn't a Pullman
smoking-room; but, good heavens, why couldn't she have sense enough to
drink a glass of milk and go to bed? Why couldn't she----

There was a gentle knock upon his door; but before he spoke in response,
the glass knob turned and Lily, coming in quickly, closed the door
behind her and stood looking at him as if she said joyously, "Behold
me!"




CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


In her eyes the night's triumph still sparkled, her pretty chin was up
jauntily, and, to complete the somewhat startling informality of the
visit, she wore a green and gold wrapper of Chinese silk and a pair of
scarlet Morocco slippers embroidered with gilt thread.

"Lily!"

"Nonsense!" she said airily, and laughed. "I knew you'd be horrified but
that's just because you'll never get over the way your mother brought
you up. You'll never really get used to the theatre, Owen dear. When a
company's in a hotel they're always flying round in each other's rooms
and nobody thinks anything of it at all, because they have to, a good
deal of the time, on business. Everybody knows that."

"Perhaps; but I doubt if this quiet hotel----"

"Pooh! You don't seem to realize I've become a Somebody and can do
pretty much as I please. Anyhow, I'm going to stay!" Her laughter
continued as she went to a velvet-covered easy-chair, sat and disposed
herself at ease. "I've given up quite a party because I wanted more to
do this, and besides, to show you how good I'm being. They closed up the
restaurant downstairs----"

"Yes, I saw you."

"Did you?" She looked at him earnestly. "Ah, you're angry! But I had to,
don't you see? I bet Harry last night he wouldn't get a laugh when he
hands me the letter, and he did; so of course I had to pay. It was
supper for the six of us; but poor Tom had a temperature and Jimmy went
with him to his room to read him to sleep--he was so heroic and they're
all perfectly angelic to each other----"

"You don't mean----" Owen sat down, facing her. "You paid for that
supper to-night?"

"Why, I had to! I'd lost the bet, don't you see? Besides, I was the only
one that had a week's salary in advance. I don't believe any of 'em'll
have much in their poor pockets until Saturday night, except enough to
pay for their rooms before we go to Binghamton on Thursday. It was only
fourteen dollars, so please don't--Ah, you are worried, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, please not to-night!" she begged him eagerly. "Just this one night
when everything's fairyland! You wouldn't be jealous of Harry and Jack,
would you? I do adore them; they're so perfectly angelic. I like Jack
because he's so easy-going and reckless and generous, and because he has
such funny kinky dark hair you always want to run your hand through it.
Did you know Harry has to pay alimony every month to two different wives
he's had, and, besides that, he takes care of an old sister of his and
her four children and keeps a broken-down old actor friend of his in an
expensive sanitarium? He's kept him there four years, Joe told me. When
the restaurant closed, they wanted me to go on with them to a chop-suey
joint that stays open all night; but I wouldn't because I haven't had a
chance really to talk to you since last Thursday in New York, and there
was something I was afraid you'd be thinking about me. I mean about
Friday night. You remember on Friday afternoon I told you I thought I'd
better not go out that evening, I'd better stay home and study?"

"Yes, I remember that rather well."

"Ah, I was afraid so! Of course I knew if she suspected anything she'd
run to you with it! I suppose she tried to find out from you if you knew
where 'Gene had been. Didn't she?"

"Yes."

"Of course she would!" Lily exclaimed. "But I want you to know the
truth; I did mean to stay home and study. He hadn't said anything about
coming for me; but he did, just before dinner-time, and I'd got all over
my nervousness and decided to go. Next morning I didn't have any chance
to tell you; but I wanted to, because truly and truly you're the last
person in the world I'd ever deceive, Owen. You believe me, don't you?"

"I'm afraid we'd both better consider that a matter of minor importance,
Lily."

"Oh, dear!" She lifted both hands, then dropped them deploringly to the
violent embroideries of her lap. "You're such a professor! I do just
worship you; but you'll have to admit yourself you behave terribly like
the faculty and parents and guardians and probation officers. Don't you
see I'm not the little girl any more that I was those ages and ages ago
at home? We have to measure by experience, not by time, don't we? I've
lived a hundred years in these few weeks and a thousand in this one
night. Experiences! I had one to-night you wouldn't believe. Want me to
prove it?" She laughed gayly, and, without either self-consciousness or
coquetry, slid the wrapper down from her left shoulder and gave to view
some discolorations upon the whiteness of the upper part of her arm.
"That's what she did in the sisterly embrace when Hester forgives Myra
at the end of our scene in the last act!"

He was horrified. "Isabelle! Why, good heavens----"

"I don't mind a bit," Lily said cheerfully. "Of course her explanation
would be that she was so tense in her acting she didn't know what she
was doing; but she's done it once or twice at rehearsal, too, though not
so hard. To-night I think she seriously tried to make me yelp, or at any
rate get out of the character. I'm pretty sure she'll do it every night
from now on; but I don't care. The top of my arm doesn't show in the
costume and she can pinch me as black and blue as she pleases." Lily
paused, laughed light-heartedly again, pulled the silk back in place
over her shoulder; then put her head on one side winningly. "Well--would
you like to say a few things now about how good I was to-night, or was
I? You may have been disappointed."

At that, he laughed, too. "I think we covered the point in your
dressing-room."

"Yes," she agreed gravely. "Do you know, I think that was the greatest
moment in my life up to now--waiting for you. For once I wasn't thinking
of myself--I really wasn't thinking of anything in the world but
you--and of what I had through you. Yet maybe I did think of just one
other thing--of the promise I made your mother just before we left
home."

He was surprised. "You made her a promise?"

"She asked me not to fall in love with you."

"She didn't!"

The seriousness of his exclamation amused Lily. "The dear angel, she was
so cute about it! Made a great joke of it; but she meant it and so did I
when I promised her. Of course what she really meant was that if I fell
in love with you it might do something toward getting you that way about
me; and what _I_ really meant was that I owed her too much to let myself
hope for any such calamity, and so I never would. I've got an idea you
think I'm too feather-brained to be conscientious; but I am about some
things, you'll find out. Besides, it was an easy promise to make. I care
too much about you to fall in love with you. The people I care about are
my mother and Clara and your mother and you and--and Mr. Hurley--and old
Joe and Jennie and Rita, and Pinkney Monk and the three boys and Harry
Vokes and--Oh, there's quite a list! Oh, and that audience to-night, the
precious lambs!"

It seemed to Owen that she had made an omission that was strikingly
significant, and, in a voice not entirely steady, he called it to her
attention. "You don't mention Mr. Allan."

Lily's gaze moved from his and fixed itself moodily upon the wall. "You
men are queer--a great deal queerer than we women are. Do you think a
woman of any spirit would let herself be treated absolutely as the
property of every man that happened to be in love with her? But that's
just what you men do. If some woman falls in love with you she keeps you
scared out of your wits for fear something you do won't look as if you
were as slavishly one of her possessions as her powder-puff is! What's
more, all your men-friends'll be in a panic of exertion to keep her
thinking you haven't got any rights that she doesn't allow you. Some
friends of his that live here are giving him a party to-night and told
him to bring along anybody in the company he chose, so of course he had
to take Isabelle. Imagine if he hadn't! Just suppose he'd asked me, what
a state you and Mr. Hurley would have been in by this time over it!"

Owen glanced at his watch, and rose. "It's time for you to be in bed, I
have work to do and it isn't safe for you to be here, anyhow, even if
what you say is true about some theatrical people running in and out
_of_ each other's rooms. You mustn't do it again, especially not in this
sort of hotel."

She jumped up and put a hand on his arm. "I thought so. Now you're
really angry. I see! Keep off the grass! You two policemen are duty
bound to see to it that her private property's protected and that he
doesn't get one instant's escape from being nagged and badgered and
bored to death! That's his reward for being magnificent in his part
to-night--and oh, wasn't he, though! And I couldn't dare to tell him so
in anything except the hastiest whisper!" Her voice trembled and so did
the fingers upon Owen's sleeve. "Yet I think that whisper may have meant
something to the poor slave she and all the rest of you make of him. Ah,
now you do hate me, don't you?" She stepped back from him, and tears
seemed imminent in her eyes; but suddenly she tossed her head, smiled
and became radiant once more. "Silly! On such a night and just after I'd
been saying we wouldn't spoil it because it's a night out of fairyland.
Oh, help me to keep it so, Owen! I do so want to remember it as all
perfect. Don't you think it's just about perfect, Owen, yourself?"

"Well, well; I hope so," he said. "Just run along now, dear, and----"

"I will." She went toward the door, but stopped. "Owen, when we think of
what this means at home--of my precious, precious mother and my
precious, precious sister, and the light it brings into their lives!"
She faltered, and then the tears did come. "I didn't mean to cry; but
they're so--so dear to me."

"I know, Lily. There's something I think I'd better speak to you about.
I think it was perfectly natural of you to want to give that little
party to-night. Of course you would. Why not? And of course you'd want
to be at this hotel; it's a pretty special occasion. It seems to me,
though, that you might run a little short of funds before the end of the
week, and Mr. Paradene might make some fuss about additional advances;
so if you'd let me----"

"No, no!" She shook her head gayly, bright again. "Like you, I've had a
bringing-up by a mother, and though most of her teaching doesn't show,
I'm afraid, there are one or two things I'd never be able to do. I just
couldn't borrow. I know it's untheatrical of me, because Joe and Harry
and Tom-Jim-Jack don't really seem to know which is which about
money--if one has some they all have, apparently. But I couldn't do it.
Don't worry; I'll get along all right."

"But about--about your mother and sister----"

Lily clasped her hands upon her breast impulsively. "Oh, Owen, if they
could have been here to-night! If they could have seen it! If some
miracle could only have transported them to-night into that heavenly,
heavenly audience, that darling audience! And to think there'll be
another to-morrow night--really to-night, because it's already morning.
Oh, I couldn't sleep! I don't want to sleep. I couldn't! I can't wait! I
want to be into my costume and that glorious wig. I just want to act and
act and act and act! And I shall! To-night and to-morrow night and the
night after, and oh, every night! They'll all be gloriously just like
to-night! Won't they, Owen?"

"Oh, I--I do hope so," he said uncertainly.

Upon a thought she had, Lily uttered an urchin laugh. "You know
something I've been more than half expecting? After the dress rehearsal
everybody in the company believed she'd do it, too. They were all sure
she'd try to get that wig away from me. Golly! The only reason in the
world she didn't must be because she hasn't had sense enough to think of
it!"

"Oh, no!" The playwright could not repress the impulse to lament. "Dear
me! She's thought of it, Lily!"

"What! You don't mean----"

"Yes, you poor child," he said, and it seemed to him that it would be
best to complete at once the unkind task to which he had been appointed.
"She's got her way. You're not to wear the wig again and you're to play
your last act scene giving her the stage, with you in the chair down
near the footlights where she was to-night."

Lily was incredulous. "But it can't be done! In the first place, Harry
gives me the letter because----"

"Because of 'Myra's' auburn hair, certainly! But you see such trifles as
the structure of a play don't matter at all sometimes, my dear. At least
you have a companion in misfortune; I'm hit too, you see. Somehow
between now and to-morrow morning I have to scratch, twist and blister
that manuscript on the table into giving Vokes another reason for
handing you the letter, because you're going to rehearse the new version
at eleven in the morning."

"But what possible other reason could there be?"

"You're quite right," he said. "But it has to be done. I'm afraid there
are even more ups and downs in the life than you thought, Lily."

"Well, but----" She paused, and, to his astonishment, her expression was
not one of consternation; she was suddenly profoundly thoughtful. "Play
that scene down stage--in the chair?" she murmured, and added, looking
at him absently, "My own hair mightn't be so bad, you know. She's a
fighter, isn't she? You poor man, caught in a ladies' battle." Her
manner changed; her expression became that of a person who pathetically
does not reproach another who has failed to defend her. "You want me to
go, I know," she said sadly, and pointed to the manuscript upon the
table, "so you can begin the work of destroying me."

"Lily! Lily!" he broke out, groaning. "I don't want you to go and you
know I'll make this change in the script do you as little harm as I
possibly can. It does pretty well knock 'Myra's' eye out--Hurley knew
that as well as we do and the sacrifice hurt him, too; but he made it to
save the play and it's got to be done. The theatre's the devil and
you're just beginning to understand that. Isabelle herself can't help
doing what she's doing; she's worked hard all her life getting up to
where she is, and of course she'll fight--fight every way she knows
how--to hold what she's got. You might destroy it, you see. There! Go to
bed! We'll all just do what we can."

"I--I know," she said slowly, and sighed quaveringly on an indrawn
breath, like a hurt child. "So this was my one night out of--out of
fairyland. Just one." Her head drooped; she went to the door and stood
there for a last moment, a crushed, delicate figure infinitely touching
in this loss of all the gay triumphancy so lately animating it. "I
know--dear Owen. I'll--I'll be good. Good night."

Not altering that attitude of desolation, she opened the door and went
out slowly and so softly that the closing of the door made no sound. His
heart was wrung for her and to brighten her he would have given whatever
he had in the world, just then; nevertheless, somewhere in a remoteness
of his mind there came into renewed vague life a small old suspicion of
his. She had been all reality during the murmured expression of her
thoughts about her own hair; but there seemed to be just a possibility
that since then she had somewhat pressed her hurt meekness--in fact,
that though unquestionably she had suffered a shock and was genuinely
hurt, she had been acting a little, too, and, somewhere within her, had
a little enjoyment of the scene she played.

The thought just peeped into view and withdrew entirely as he sat down
to attempt a revision of his manuscript that would eliminate the wig.
Tinkering dismally, he tried many devices, only to find them not
plausible, and finally came to the conclusion that no device at all was
better than a bad one. In the original manuscript of the play "Captain
Feenix", fat, wicked, inept henchman of the glittering "Hawkins", is
told to deliver secretly a letter to a lovely young auburn-haired lady
at "Catalpa House" plantation;--at five in the morning the author
decided that it would henceforth be best for "Captain Feenix" (Harry
Vokes) to deliver the letter to the wrong lovely young lady at "Catalpa
House" plantation without any mention of hair. Since neither "Hawkins"
nor "Captain Feenix" knew that the auburn-haired "Hester's" younger
sister also had auburn hair, why could they not equally as well be
ignorant that she had a sister at all? Fatigued, the playwright was
conscious of an inner dissatisfaction with the subterfuge; but wrote the
necessary rather slight alterations upon the pages before him, read them
over, shook his head forebodingly and went to bed to dream a dream of
being an actor playing a scene with Lily Mars before a gigantic audience
that rose and drove them both screaming from the stage.




CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


He slept three hours and had breakfast in his room, accompanying it with
a reading of the theatrical column of the Somerville morning newspaper.
As O'Mahoney had foretold, young Mr. Leland was benign; he wrote at the
outset that "'Catalpa House', though more an entertaining stratagem in
picaresque romance than a drama of deeps and human agonies portrayed by
the mordant penetration of a genius" was nevertheless "distinctly
worthwhile as a _tour de force_ in lighter vein." Continuing, after a
synopsis of the plot, he remarked that Owen Gilbert was "neither
Strindberg nor Shaw nor Pinero"; that a lack of "the more mature sort of
thinking" was obvious in the play; that the theme would have been "the
better expounded by the Gallic touch of Bernstein" and that those who
sought for "Attic pellucid clarity of motivation sounding the robust
profundities of nether human outcries in the formless passion of
humanity's agonized surge and struggle in the realities of life
magnificent and terrible would be disappointed." On the other hand, the
play offered the spectator a "consummated suspensiveness and interludes
of quaint comedy"; the audience had made manifest their "symptomatic
delight" and when some of the more "glaring crudities" had been "lopped
off" and the play "generally revised by an adroiter hand which it might
possibly be advisable for the management to call in from outside" it
would be not too much to hope that the "lavish and colorful production
accorded to this undeniably meager and youthful but promising effort of
the dramatist" would be granted the "guerdon of life by the Imperiali
who rule Broadway."

Concerning the actors and the "production", however, the critic had
written whole-heartedly and at times with an enthusiastically hurrying
alliterative pen. "Seldom has Somerville seen scenery more satisfying
and never has the able Adler more adroitly cast the characters of a
drama." As for Eugene, the reviewer felt that "words could not well be
too warm for such wedding of manly beauty to masterly art", a union
"satisfactorily sustained and supported by the talented emotional acting
of Isabelle Hedrington." Owen read with anxiety what was said of
Isabelle and came upon a word that worried him. "Mature" the thoughtless
young Leland had written, possessing little mordant penetration of his
own. "Mature in art and mind as well as in her tall, well-rounded
pulchritude, this talented and conscientious actress is always excellent
and dependable and will still be seen in leading rles for many years to
come."

The review's approval of Ord, Vokes and Rita Carlin was gracious; but
when it came to Lily the playwright's anxiety increased, though he was
pleased, too, when he thought of what the printed scribblings would mean
to Lily's mother. "Here is a young actress we confess previously unknown
to our orbit, and we would feel the more ashamed by the confession had
we not heard a whisper that her advent upon the stage is a recent shift
from the mere contentment with high social standing to the inevitable
climax of a career as a brilliant society amateur with the adoption of
professional footlights. Nothing could more lucidly illuminate the
genius of Felix Adler as a producer than his discovery of this young
artist, and we dare to asseverate that neither Frohman nor Belasco
himself could have found two such red-haired examples of pulchritude and
art in combination to present in one and the same play.

"Miss Mars has a piquante personality, lips of rose leaf, a dainty
profile, eyes that kindle, eyes that beam and sparkle, eyes that grow
tawnily soft, an aristocratic hand, a pretty foot, winsome symmetry of
line and limb, and a head crowned with an auburn glory that would be the
despair of a Parisian coiffeuse. Her voice has a singular quality. Like
an evanescent perfume it is sweet and penetrant yet never for an instant
saccharine and fails to cloy. Isabelle Hedrington with her mature
methods and hair of almost exactly the same shade as this younger
artist's ardent ringlets is no fortuitous foil but a tributary
illustration of the art of Felix Adler in selection. We recommend to our
readers," the review said in conclusion, "a remembrance of the name of
Lily Mars henceforth. Beauty, attractiveness, scintillant wit and
creative intellect are not often so combined. It is to be hoped and we
venture the prophecy that Miss Mars will climb high. Lovers of the drama
should attend this play in numbers and we advise that they will find
ample reward for eye and ear in the perfect acting of Eugene Allan and
in Miss Mars's pluperfect portrayal of the character of 'Myra.'"

Owen finished his reading of the last sentence with an actual gasp. "Oh
dear!" he murmured just afterward, and was conscious that as an
expression of his feeling the exclamation was ludicrously futile. "But
the infernal thing's printed," he added more philosophically. "It can't
be helped now." Then with a loudly blown "Whew!" he rose, put the
manuscript of his play under his arm and set forth for the morning's
rehearsal; but in the corridor outside his door he encountered a youth
in a jaunty uniform who brought him a telegram. It was from Mrs.
Gilbert.

    DELIGHTED WITH YOUR GOOD NEWS OF PLAY NO MATTER HOW GREAT ITS
    SUCCESS YOU DESERVE MORE I CANNOT WITHHOLD TOLD YOU SO ABOUT HER
    AND IT IS SPLENDID NEWS BUT PLEASE ASK HER TO WRITE HER MOTHER
    WHO IS VERY ANXIOUS AND I AM AFRAID WORRIES FOR MORE THAN ONE
    REASON WHICH I IMAGINE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THEY HAVE HEARD FROM
    HER ONLY ONCE SINCE SHE LEFT HOME A SHORT EXCITED NOTE UPON
    REACHING NEW YORK THEY KNOW SHE IS VERY BUSY BUT NATURALLY ARE
    MUCH TROUBLED SO DO URGE HER PLEASE PLEASE WRITE THEM

Owen put the telegram in his pocket, and, recalling certain tears
recently seen, smiled a lopsided smile as he went on his way to the
theatre. There, as he came in from the lobby, he saw Hurley and Pinkney
Monk waiting for him near the orchestra rail, while the members of the
company stood chatting in pairs and groups upon the stage. Several of
the actors held folded newspapers in their hands; young Lancey was one
of these, and a tiny episode that resulted flickered for a moment across
the playwright's vision as he walked down the aisle. Lancey was talking
to Eugene and Isabelle; he was cheerful and a lively gesture of his
brought the newspaper near Isabelle's face. There was no possibility
that it would touch her; but her head jerked back and there was a glance
from her eye that gave the playwright a curious brief impression. He
thought she was like a fastidious woman tourist among tribesmen who
carelessly handle snakes; that glance was like such a tourist's for a
savage who brings poison fangs close to her head.

This resemblance, not altogether fantastic, appeared and was gone in the
same instant. Owen called to Lily, handed her the telegram across the
footlights without a word, and, turning at once to Hurley and Monk,
opened his manuscript before them and explained the alterations he had
made. Hurley accepted these dubiously; but, as neither he nor the stage
director proved able to think of anything better, he presently dismissed
all of the company except Lily, Isabelle and Harry Vokes, the three
whose "lines" were affected by the alterations. The rehearsal was short.

Lily went through her part in a defeated manner that brought no chiding
from the sympathetic Monk; but, having concluded the listless business,
he detained her until after Isabelle and Vokes had gone. "Brace it up as
much as you can to-night, dear," he said. "You can still get some nice
little effects with this part, so don't be discouraged. Anyhow, do the
best you can with it."

"I'll try," Lily said meekly, with quivering lips, as she turned away.
She came through the passage behind the proscenium boxes at the right of
the stage and called softly to Owen from the dark side aisle. "May I
speak to you a moment?" Then, as he joined her, "You despise me again,"
she said huskily. "You always think the worst of me, don't you?" She
laughed plaintively. "Ah, yes, whether it's true or not! I wrote Mother
a long letter just before we left New York. I don't know why in the
world she hasn't got it yet. And of course I wired her last night about
how the audience had treated me. I guess it's a good thing I wired her
then, before _this_ happened to me."

He was remorseful instantly. "Ah, Lily, please----"

"No," she said, with a smothered half-sob. "You always do. I'll go now,
please." She put her handkerchief to her lips and went hurriedly up the
aisle.

Hurley, busy with Monk and Briggs and the manuscript, at the foot of the
centre aisle, was shouting for Owen. "For God's sake! Where is he? Gone
out to buy a cane again?" He caught sight of the playwright and also of
the disappearing stricken figure of Lily. "My cripes!" he said irascibly
yet in a lowered tone, as Owen approached. "Some time before I die I
hope to see just one single solitary soul around a theatre that shows a
glimmer of common sense. That's all I ask, just one glimmer, as God lets
me live! Here's Monk had to go and sympathize with her, and now _you_!
Isn't the part ruined enough on us already without that? If you _show_
her you think it's so damned damaged that she's got to be _sympathized_
with over it, she'll let it die deader'n a canned crab instead of trying
to do the little she still might with it! Never saw an actor or anybody
else that didn't wilt the minute you pity 'em. Think they got a _right_
to, then. My God! Here! Keep your sympathies for playwrights and
managers and producers with plays that get the hits kicked out of 'em by
too much temperament. Yes, and for stage managers that can't read your
handwriting, by cripes!"

"What? Isn't it----"

"No, it isn't. In my whole life I never saw rottener poultry-scratching
on a piece of paper--not in my whole life, I give you my solemn word!
Never! I swear by every saint and symbol that's called holy in this
universe I never saw anything even _like_ it! I'll take any oath you can
think of I never did!" The manager's irritation had appeared to
increase, swelling anew after every outburst; but unexpectedly and all
at once he fell into a quiet melancholy. "There. Explain it to Briggs so
he can read it and get it typewritten, will you? After lunch you'd
better get to work on those detail changes I gave you last night and any
you've thought of, yourself. It'll take you the rest of the day and
probably most of the night. I'll watch in the house to-night and have
Pink sitting out front, too. You'd better stick in your room till the
job's done so we can have a fresh script typed and ready for the
rehearsal in Binghamton day after to-morrow. I'll come up to your room
to-night after the play and bring you notes of whatever other changes I
notice. We may be able to think of something that'd brace the 'Myra'
part up and keep it from being a dead loss somehow. I don't know. Go
along!"

Owen returned to the hotel and by chance, just as he was stepping into
the elevator, saw Lily coming from a passageway over the entrance of
which was a neat small sign "Telegrams". He felt another pang of
remorse, for he thought that she had probably telegraphed to Mrs. Mars a
reassuring message in addition to the letter and the previous telegram
mentioned to him; but Lily, catching sight of him, betrayed just the
slightest hesitation in her movements, as if perhaps she hoped she was
not seen and had a momentary impulse to retreat. He was already in the
elevator and the metal door closed across the picture of her immediately
recovered indifference after this barely perceptible change;
nevertheless, as he sped upward, reason and intuition both informed him
that neither any letter nor any previous telegram had been sent. The
revelation seemed to be accompanied by the descent of a weight upon the
back of his neck.

"Ah, Lily, Lily!"

In his room he worked all the afternoon upon the notes Hurley had given
him, and, when evening came, was glad that he had not finished the task;
he felt no desire to be a witness of Lily's struggle with the botched
"Myra" or to behold the weakened effect of his marred play. Near
midnight he was still sitting at his strewn table when there was a brisk
and sturdy step in the corridor; the door flung open under a decisive
hand and Hurley came in.

"Well--George?"

The manager's eyes were bright beneath the black brim of his soft hat;
his face shone rosily and the fuming cigar in his mouth waggled--with
emotion, apparently. He strode to the seated playwright, smote him
powerfully upon the back, sat down opposite him, with the table between
them, removed his cigar and spoke loudly.

"Your mother's certainly raised hell with the theatrical business!"

"What's happened?"

"Happened? You write and tell her she's fixed _my_ business good and
plenty! Nice thing she did, hi-yi! Went up to dinner at her house with a
good quiet capable harmonious theatrical company, everything all set for
a success with your play, and she slipped that girl of hers over on me
whereby there's been hell to pay ever since. Never knew anything like it
in my whole life; I'll take any oath you can possibly think of it's the
damnedest thing I ever saw and I've seen a good deal. My cripes! I
swear----"

"George! Will you kindly tell me----"

"Listen!" Hurley slapped his open hand resoundingly down upon the papers
on the table, beamed, chuckled, laughed with delight. "Looks like we've
got something! Came on without that wig and for a minute or two maybe I
thought it wasn't so good. Just because she'd got me thinking of her in
the wig; that was all the matter. Same with Pink--I had him out front
with me and he caught it just the same way. Her own hair--it was just as
if she'd been freed of something that had been muffling her looks and
her expression, too. I'd never have had that wig on her, not for a
minute, if I'd known how much more she could get without it and her own
hair curled. Whoosh! She seemed about ten times more alive! Looks to me
like she might turn out to be something rather remarkable, rather
remarkable!"

"She's that," Owen said. "I haven't doubted her remarkableness."

"You mean you think _I_ have? I see. Authors are the only people in the
world with a single spark of intelligence. Why, certainly; of course
they are! What do you think I've worried my head off over her for? What
was I doing up there on the stage at rehearsals day after day, pecking
at her with Pink? Why do you s'pose I kept her on when she was
disrupting my company? I give you my word you make me sick; I give you
my absolute word you do!" Hurley returned the cigar to his mouth, drew
upon it deeply and with gusto. "I knew she had something; but I'll admit
I didn't know how much till I saw her play that last act scene down
stage and in a chair to-night."

"You don't mean she was really effective?"

"Effective? I give you my word--I give you my solemn word--I simply and
absolutely never saw such a performance in my whole life. Listen!" The
manager's sensitive complexion became ruddy and his eyes shone; he set
his cigar upon an ash-tray and rose to his feet, unable to suppress
strong evidences of an interior excitement. "She sat down near the foots
in that stiff little chair and never once turned her face toward the
audience. From out front you could just get one or two glimpses of her
profile during the whole scene. Isabelle had the stage just the way she
asked for it and was giving 'em everything with her face. By cripes, you
hardly knew she was there! Lily Mars sat with her back toward the
audience; but it looked like a back that was just about broken. I never
in my whole life saw such a figure of pain. Then she did all the rest
with just her voice and one or two little half-gestures, as if she
wanted to put her hand out to plead with Isabelle but was ashamed to.
All you got was just that kind of terrible bend in her back--after
always seeing her jaunty and graceful in the first three acts--just that
and a voice you could just barely hear but never missed a syllable of. I
give you my word it was like seeing and hearing a fresh pink rosebud
crinkling and making a tiny little sizzling noise when somebody'd put it
on a red hot stove. Cry out front? About five times as much as they did
last night! Whereby you might wonder why Pink and I never thought of
putting her down there in the first place. But as heaven is my witness
it doesn't make any difference where you put her, and the worst of it is
she knows it, herself! She's going to be a fine one to handle from now
on, isn't she? Watch her get the big head! Never knew it to fail, as
heaven is my witness! The younger they are, the worse they are; I've
seen it a thousand times. Find out they're a hit and in about four hours
you wouldn't know it's the same person. You'll see!"

He laughed with a rueful delight; but Owen looked grave. "What about
handling Isabelle, George?"

"Whew! _There's_ a grand barrel o' pickles! One thing, though; she won't
talk any more about quitting me now and going over to the Brangins."

"Why won't she?"

"Because she'd be afraid I'd laugh in her face! She's had her way; we
did exactly what she asked us to--threw out the wig and gave her the
stage in that fourth act scene. She _daren't_ quit now, because she
knows if she did it would get around that she was out-acted and laid
down because she'd let the play be stolen from her. Damaging! Don't
worry about her quitting; she knows now she's got to stay and fight, and
that's what we've got to expect. Oh, she knows, she knows! I went
around, after, and asked her if she didn't think it went better to-night
on account of the changes and felt satisfied. I hoped maybe she'd think
she was the one that had got all that crying in the scene with 'Myra';
but she knew, she knew. She just gave me a look. Hi-yi! That young boy
on the Somerville Times did _his_ little best to help matters along this
morning, too, didn't he? Eugene Allan and Lily Mars! My cripes! Pretty
good analysis of your play, though, he wrote. Don't you think so,
yourself?"

The manager made the inquiry so seriously that Owen looked somewhat
plaintive. "Then you feel that the play's hardly worth----"

Hurley slapped him again upon the back and laughed in high good humor.
"Oh, it might be worth something if we got this boy, Leland, to rewrite
it. It's a great business! Put in your whole life in the theatre, work
your heart out and your head off night and day over a play, and then any
semi-adolescent schoolboy that sits around a newspaper office walks up
and tells you all about it in two minutes! Tells you what's wrong, what
you ought to have done in the first place and what you'll have to do to
be saved. Here!" He placed a memorandum book upon the table. "There are
the notes Pink and I made to-night. Nothing much. Get 'em in and we'll
rehearse 'em in Binghamton and after that maybe we can let it get set
for the one-night-stands next week--Easton, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre; then
Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, before we go into New York to find out
whether we've got half a million dollars or go to jail. Hi-yi, I'm
dog-tired and going to bed! You sit up and work because you deserve to
for not being Strindberg and everybody. It's what you get for trying to
be a little subtle with your picaresque stratagems and serves you right.
Work hard, because you may run into a Leland again in Binghamton or
Easton. Write your mother I owe her the orchids with dynamite under 'em
because that's what she's handed me! Good night."

He yawned loudly and went forth whistling "Ach, du lieber Augustin"; but
the playwright, after a negligent glance at the memorandum book, looked
at his watch, rose and began to pace the floor. He was beginning to have
an understanding of a phase of Lily Mars and he was sure that before she
went to bed that night she would come to find out whether or not he had
perceived that she hadn't told him the truth about the telegram to her
mother.




CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


She astonished him by appearing not two minutes after the manager's
departure. Without knocking, she scurried noiselessly into the room,
closed the door and stood laughing, like a prankish boarding-school girl
in triumph. She was delighted to astonish him, as he perceived, and he
also had the impression that she was pleased to add to his surprise by
evidence that she had been enlarging her wardrobe; to-night her wrapper
was again Oriental but of black and gold, though she wore the same gilt
and scarlet slippers. "I've been waiting for him to go," she explained
gleefully. "Don't you dare scold me--not to-night--I won't have it! I'm
just across the hall, two doors down, and you can't possibly make me
believe there's any risk. I've come to make you admit how good I am--no
party for me to-night, just milk and bread in my room. You needn't tell
me any more it's important for me to take care of myself--not after the
answer I got from this audience to-night! Of course he told you about
it?"

"Yes."

"I thought he would!" She laughed, and in the light sound, as well as in
every other token of her elation, it seemed to him that he caught a hint
of something new in her--a self-assurance that appeared to spring from a
consciousness of being valuable, perhaps even of being precious. With
this new confidence in herself, moreover, she seemed to have become a
little less gentle; he was daunted by the thought that he glimpsed in
her a touch of self-importance. Certainly she showed him a new
sauciness, for she straightway flung a flippant challenge to one of his
anxieties about her. With her wide-sleeved arms outstretched, she looked
at him mockingly, glanced down at her oriental black and gold, asked,
"Do you like me in this?" and then, laughing, twirled like a
ballet-dancer. "Surprisingly good shops here," she said airily, as she
went to the easy-chair and sat. "I mean for a small town, of course."

"You went shopping this afternoon?" he asked dryly. "That was the effect
of reading young Mr. Leland's encomium?"

"Leland?" She looked innocently inquiring for a moment, then nodded.
"Oh, yes; the critic. They say he has immense influence; someone told me
to-day he has offers to go on one of the New York newspapers. I believe
he's to be brought around behind after to-morrow's matine. I'll be glad
to meet him; he was rather nice about my acting. I wish he hadn't
written his notice until after to-night, though." She paused and her
expression became judicial. "They say everybody admires his writing
tremendously; but I hope you don't mind what he said about the play
itself, because, though I suppose he felt he'd have to be severely
honest with his readers, I think some of it was really very
uncalled-for." She paused again, glanced sympathetically at Owen and
added with unmistakable loyalty, "I think he's a better critic of acting
than he is of writing."

"Yes, naturally; since he's a writer, not an actor."

She failed to perceive the slight bitterness of this comment; she was
thinking of something else. "You're sure he told you quite all about
this evening?"

"Mr. Hurley? Yes, I think so."

"He's really quite a marvellous man," Lily said, paying this tribute
with an air somewhat absent. "I'm just beginning to appreciate him more.
He seems to carry the whole thing in his head--the play and all of us,
and the scenery and the lights and everything--and he never stops
tinkering at us. Sometimes it's as if you and I and all the rest of us
were just colors on a palette he's using to paint a picture. Then he has
such tremendous ideals about the theatre--wanting to make it so fine and
all of its people so worthy of it, so noble and high-minded and so
serious about their work. He's given me several quite wonderful little
talks; showed a side of him I wouldn't have suspected he had. He gets
very gentle and yet so glowing with enthusiasm he looks immensely
distinguished and inspired and really quite handsome." She laughed
suddenly. "Then he's so terribly funny, too!"

"He is? Just how, Lily?"

"Poor George!" she said. "He tries so hard to keep from showing it when
he's excited about me; but to-night he simply couldn't help it. He's
adorable; but so funny when he thinks he's concealing his feelings that
time and again I almost laugh out loud. Poor George."

"You call him 'George' now, Lily?"

"Why, everybody does, don't they? You do, yourself. Even old Joe calls
him 'George'."

"Yes. I believe they've known each other about twenty years."

"Owen Gilbert," she said crisply, though her voice did not lack an
indulgent kind of affection. "I believe you're the priggishest man I
ever knew in my life. I really do! You're a dear and I love you for all
your imaginative worryings about me; but----"

"Imaginative?" he interrupted. "You mean my imagination conjures up
unreal dangers for you, Lily?"

"Oh, so did mine!" she admitted, laughing; then became eagerly
confidential. "Don't think I'll ever forget you're the best friend I
have--nothing'll ever make me forget that, Owen; and I want you always
to know you can count on it absolutely. I'd really always tell you
anything of my innermost nature and thoughts. For instance, listen. Last
night was simply great; but to-night, when she thought she had 'Myra'
practically out of the piece and I felt how I was holding 'em out
front--oh, absolutely in the hollow of my hand!--I had the strangest
psychic exaltation. Listen, I'm going to tell you something I've never
even told Clara. The only person I ever spoke of it to was Mother--and
Minnie Bush, once when she doubted my friendship and I felt I had to
prove it to her. It's about a dream."

"Oh--is it?" he responded, with but the simulation of interest; for even
a lover is seldom eager to hear of his lady's dreams unless he is to cut
some figure in them. "A dream of yours, Lily?"

"A repeated one. I've had it over and over since I was about fourteen.
Over and over!" she said impressively. "Listen! I'd find myself high,
high up in the crystal blue sky, riding two snow white horses with
beautiful waving white manes bareback and I standing up, riding them
easily--miles up in the sky with a great city far, far below and all the
multitudes and multitudes of people looking up at me in wonder. Yet it
would always be absolutely real, just as if it were actually happening;
I could feel the warm, flowing backs of the horses under my bare feet
and all I'd have on would be just a gauzy scarf that blew out behind
me." She looked at him wistfully. "I suppose you think I'm awfully
bold?"

"No, Lily."

Her eyes glowed again. "We'd be flying like the wind--oh, swift as
light!--and all the air would be full of music, like a thousand
orchestras playing, only you couldn't see them, and you could hear the
horses' running hoof-beats, though it was only the air they were running
upon. From 'way, 'way up there and almost out of sight of the city, we'd
swoop down in an enormous curve until we were skimming just above the
house-tops, and then sweep upward again toward the sun--and I'd hear an
enormous, enormous shout of transport from the multitudes of people as
they watched me turning golden and getting smaller and smaller in the
high distance; and I'd be 'way, 'way up there, transfigured and flying
into the very face of the dazzling, blazing sun itself. Oh, the ecstasy!
I'd feel it for hours after I woke up. Well, that's how I felt after I
began to play that scene to-night and knew I'd got them. Do you
understand?"

"I think so. Perhaps you're still feeling that way?"

"Well--some," she said gravely, and returned to her confidential manner.
"Another thing I'll tell you--it's about your having imagined I was in
trouble and my having imagined it, too, at the time. When you were so
frightened, that first day in New York, I was frightened, too--oh, out
of my wits! I thought he really meant it and that I was dropped and had
lost my chance. Of course later I saw that George himself thought he
meant to drop me then--but not permanently. You see he was really
furious because he thought that row with Isabelle on the train meant
something that upset him terribly. Don't you see, it looked as if I was
getting terribly interested in someone else--and of course I was!"

Owen was perplexed; she seemed to mean something incredible, and he
sought for a more reasonable interpretation of her words. "I don't quite
understand. Of course you don't mean that Mr. Hurley became personally
jealous of Mr. Allan and----"

Her excited laughter, interrupting him, had the tone of an increasingly
confidential gay roguery. "You see, that night at your mother's when I
met them all, he kept looking at me and of course I really knew he'd be
thinking of me afterwards and----"

"Lily! Do you always know that people will be 'thinking of you
afterwards'?"

"Oh--well." She became serious, looked reticent for a moment, then said,
"You can't help knowing sometimes, you see. Anyhow, of course I
understand now there wasn't any real danger; he just wanted to be
soothed down and persuaded into giving me the part again. That apology!
Oh, dear me, wasn't it funny? She did some fancy pinching to-night, I
can tell you, when she was forgiving me in the last act! I don't think
she will again."

"Won't she?"

"I don't _think_ she will again! While she was doing it I just whispered
to her, 'Isabelle, if you do this once more I'll show Eugene how black
and blue you've made me.' No, I don't think she will. Well, she's had
her way--got me out of that wig and put me down stage in the chair with
my back to the audience for my best scene. Murder! What she does to that
beautiful part of 'Hester'! It'd be magnificent if she only knew how.
Really, that woman's terribly dumb. If I get just one chance to play
'Hester' some night, what I'll do with it----"

"Lily! I don't think----"

"Oh, I know!" Lily said. "She'll stick as long as she can. She'd rather
die a thousand times than give me that chance, now. But oh, it is a
beautiful part--beautiful, if it could ever be really played!" She
became thoughtful. "You do write character into parts wonderfully well,
Owen. I wish you'd be thinking of a play that'd have a really great
woman's part in it--I mean something, for instance, that'd combine
everything that's in 'Hester' with what's in 'Myra'. All the laughs
'Myra' gets, you know, and the powerful emotional appeal that's in
'Hester', and then put something on top of both that'd really reach the
heights. I mean a play that'd be all about a woman--a woman that'd have
great passions and make sublime self-sacrifices, and yet have a sense of
humor, too, and say and do lots of amusing things; but in the end would
be tragic. It ought to have a tragic ending where she could reach out
and up, and yet there'd be a stony nothingness she'd seem to beat
herself against. Do you know what I admire most in the world? It's some
stupendous act of gorgeous self-immolation--one vast stroke that shows
the heights a woman's soul can reach. I can see a last act curtain with
her giving one long last look straight out front and maybe dying in a
chair, or, if she didn't die, just going back into the house; so the
last you'd see of her would be just her back all bent and crushed. You
see what I mean? I don't mean for this year; but----"

He stared at her with both amazement and compassion. "No," he said. "I
don't think it'd be for this year, Lily."

"I don't suppose so," she said dreamily, unaware of any undertone in his
voice. "Ah, but if I _do_ get the chance to play 'Hester', and Eugene
and I----"

"Lily!" he exclaimed; but this repetition of her name held a sharpness.
"You plan a double displacement of that unfortunate woman?"

He was standing before her, and she looked up at him with eyes enlarged.
"Plan? Good gracious, I'm not planning anything! She does the planning.
Look what she planned to do to me to-night! Think of the stories she
told about me--said _I_ was the one who used vulgar language!--trying to
ruin me from the start. It's she you'd better talk to about 'planning',
I think! I haven't 'planned' anything, and I won't. Whatever happens to
her'll be her own fault and just because she plans and plots things that
fail. If she wants to ruin herself that way I don't think I can be
accused of doing it for her!"

"'Accused'? I didn't put it as an accusation."

"Oh, didn't you?" For the first time since he had known her Lily showed
irritation with him. "You're her champion but without accusing me; is
that it? You think she needs a defender? It isn't enough that she
dictates what I shall wear and where I must play my scenes--ah, and that
he and I must live on stolen moments and hasty whispers, with just the
touch of a hand or a brushed shoulder once or twice a day to cherish! He
had to take her to another party to-night. What's more atrocious than
such a dictatorship? With all his beauty and his greatness, how's he
better than a slave and how am I better than another one when I sit here
letting you accuse me of 'planning' to 'displace' her?" Lily jumped up
and faced her grave friend angrily. "Don't you know you're always
accusing me of something? Only this morning you brought me that telegram
from your mother. Wasn't that an accusation?"

He looked at her scrutinizingly. "You told me you'd already both written
and telegraphed your mother. Had you?"

"Oh!" she cried, as if she disbelieved her ears. "You don't trust me!"

"Lily, I asked you----"

"You don't trust me! When you saw me coming out of the telegraph office
this morning you thought----"

"Yes," he said. "That was the first news of you that your mother's had
since just after we reached New York, wasn't it?"

"What? Do you realize that now you're accusing me of an untruth?"

"But it isn't an accusation."

"Then just what is it, if you please?"

She faced him proudly, holding her pretty head high and her figure
straight. He was in distress and angry, too; but the feeling of
exhaustion he often had when he was with her came upon him. He sat down
in the chair at the table where he had worked so many hours, and,
resting his chin upon his hand, spoke in a weary voice.

"Lily, last night you played a touching scene in this room after I'd
told you what Isabelle had exacted from Hurley. You were very pathetic
about the wig's being taken from you along with your last act scene. You
were again pathetic upon the same points at the rehearsal this morning.
Yet I know now that last night you knew exactly what you were going to
do and didn't feel pathetic yourself at all. Every moment while you were
making me suffer for the blow that had been dealt you, you were thinking
of what a chance you had to turn that blow to your advantage--you were
thinking of what you'd do to your hair and of how you'd play that last
act scene. You----"

"So! You charge me with being a natural-born, thoroughgoing hypocrite,
do you? Will you please explain what possible object I could have had in
pretending to be pathetic last night?"

"I don't know," he said sadly. "I think it was just to be more
picturesque. It seems to me you'll do anything at any time, Lily, to be
more picturesque; but I admit I don't know. I don't know you. When I try
to understand why you told me you'd written and telegraphed home when
you hadn't----"

"That's kind of you!" she interrupted sharply. "I suppose if I deny it
you'll write to your mother and prove it. All right; don't take the
trouble--I admit it. I suppose you think that because I was too excited
and too busy to write every day it shows I don't love my mother and
sister!"

"No, no; I understand that. But why didn't you----"

"Why didn't I tell you the truth about it? Because I cared for your good
opinion; that's all. That's a crime, isn't it? I'm a liar and a
hypocrite because I want you to think well of me! You confess that you
don't know me and yet you----"

"I don't indeed!" he said, with the vehemence of despair, and, rising,
again confronted her. "Lily, Lily, what are you? Who are you? That day
at home when you came with Minnie Bush you said you didn't know; but I
think you must. There must be a real you somewhere within you; but to
save my soul I can't find that reality. There's never even anything that
stays the same for twenty-four hours together--unless it's the one
thing, that you're always an actress! There must be something underneath
that; but who is it and what is it? How is it ever to be found? _Who_ is
Lily Mars?"

He stared at her haggardly in this desperate inquiry; but though she
looked shocked she was only the angrier and her proud chin was held all
the higher. "So now I'm unreal, too, am I? Besides all the other awful
things I am, I'm unreal! I don't suffer, I don't rejoice, I haven't a
soul, I'm not a human being--I'm not a playwright, I'm just an actress!
I'm never the same for twenty-four hours together! May I ask when you've
seen any change in me since you've known me?"

"What!" he cried. "You don't realize it? Why, good heavens, look at this
very day! Just before noon, in the theatre, you were a plaintive,
weeping girl with a career destroyed at its outset. On my soul, I
believe you were acting then, because you wanted the hit you knew you
were going to make to-night to be more startlingly picturesque. But
there it was, since we're speaking of change. To-night, because you've
held an audience from a difficult position, and because an almost
feeble-minded boy on a newspaper went into raptures over you, you're
exultant over a beaten rival, dreaming of 'starring' with her affianced
lover as your support, and expecting plays to be written for you!
Everybody knows how steady must be the head that isn't unsettled by a
hit in the theatre; but in my short experience I've never seen----"

"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried, and at last, so marked indeed was the change in
her, she was openly furious with him. "How horrible of you! Oh, I'd
heard what unthinkable jealousies and littlenesses an actress had to
expect--always some poison in her greatest hour--but I couldn't have
believed _this_! Oh, least of all of you! And you're Owen Gilbert, the
playwright! Just because he was critical of your play and found a few
faults in it--ah, and didn't with me!--you call him 'feeble-minded' and
try to belittle what he said of me and to make me feel that it was silly
and doesn't count! Oh, and I'd looked up to you so! I'd thought you were
everything that was large-minded and noble and generous and incapable of
pettiness. Oh, that you and I should come to an open quarrel--and for
such a reason!"

He was as horrified as she was hotly scornful. "Lily----"

But her expression as she stared at him was genuine now, unbelievably
so; it was the look of a dainty woman who turns on the light and finds a
centipede upon her pillow. "No; no! So this is how my first great
friendship ends! 'Feeble-minded' because he praised _me_ and was severe
with _you_!" She swept to the door. "I could have borne your not
trusting me; but there are things that can never be explained and never,
never forgotten. 'Feeble-minded'! At least I know one thing; you're out
in the open and Eugene and I won't count on you. Hereafter what you can
count on from _me_ is a strictly business relation in the theatre.
Goodbye!"

To-night she was at no great pains to make the closing of the door
noiseless.

The gentleman left staring at its varnished panels was unfortunately
still young enough to feel insulted, still young enough to be indignant
on his own behalf, young enough indeed to be as proud as she.
"Certainly!" he said in a hot voice, apparently to the door. "Strictly
business relations in the theatre henceforth, and nothing more!"




CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


By no means was he prepared to agree with the author of Ecclesiastes
that all is vanity, for the ancient deduction sweepingly includes mere
self-respect, or necessary honorable pride, under the head of vanity.
The distinction Owen made was that Lily, in the new outrageous vanity
puffed into her by two Somerville audiences and the egregious Leland,
had wounded his pride beyond all bearing; thus he was sure that her
feeling was vanity and his own no more than a decent pride. Keeping it
unhealed in his bosom he sat in the theatre through two performances of
"Catalpa House" on the day after the wounding and marvelled sorely in
half-dazzled, half-grudging admiration as he watched her. He had no
speech with her on the train to Binghamton, nor any during the three
days of his play's presentation there, and, so far as his distant
observation went, Lily was both haughtily and cheerfully indifferent to
her loss. On the morning after the conclusion of the company's
engagement in Binghamton he discovered that not he alone had become
aware of a change in her.

The players, their leader, their assistants and their author were again
upon the road, traveling in a train of day-coaches and scattered through
it casually; but in the smoking-car Owen found Ord, Harry Vokes and
Morton sitting together, and he joined them. They had reversed the back
of one of the seats and thus made a vis-a-vis for four; he asked if the
vacant place was pre-empted, the three urged him to occupy it, and he
did. "Thank heaven!" the fat young comedian said, as the playwright sat
down beside him. "That'll keep Jack from sitting here again if he comes
back. He was up and down so many times while he was here he got that
side of my clothes all ragged. Bad night. Drank the ice-water-cooler in
this car empty and gone back to see what he can do towards vacuumizing
the others. My, my! These restless Romeos!"

Young Morton shook his head gloomily. "Oh, well--he has his reasons. I
don't blame him for splashing a little red over yon village last night.
It's the devil to be on a train and feel like that." He sighed aloud.
"Week of one-night-stands! New York looks a thousand years away."

"Let it!" old Joe said loudly, set his high hat a little more to one
side upon his venerable bush of hair and laughed so sonorously that
several of the passengers turned to stare at him with interest. "Present
my compliments to the City of New York and inform it that Joseph Ord
begs as a slight favor that it will slide over into Hell Gate and stay
there until further notice from said Joseph. Give me the road, laddie,
the road! I love it!"

"Me? No," Harry Vokes said. "The only road that I adore is Forty-fourth
Street, walking west. Poetry, see? Improvisation. The only road that I
adore is walking west on Forty-four. Metre kind o' rotten, what? Anyhow,
me holding with Jimmy in respect unto the tanks, one-night-stands and
the road generally. Sweet life, not! Pack grips, cab, rattling train,
hotel, theatre, bar-room! next day pack grips, cab, rattling train,
hotel, theatre, bar-room; day after that, pack grips, cab, rattling
train, hotel, theatre, bar-room some more, so on and so on. Nothing
different except the bartender in one town's name's Mike and the one in
the next's name's Heinie, but both got the same moustache. One week of
it and me asking, 'Say, what town's this we're in now?' Not that I care,
but so as never to go there again if avoidable. Two weeks of it and me
asking, 'What State do we seem to find ourselves in modernly? Are we
down South among the cotton where my dear old Mammy, colored but just
like one of the family, brought me up on Bourbon; or are we 'way up
North among the cold bankers and evergreens and pinched-bottle Scotch?
Or maybe in the soft-coal cough-belt where every night the old
horse-cough blobs out your big laugh for you?' Insides chugged with
hotel food out of canary bird bathtubs, head dizzy, cold on chest from
damp sheets, cinders in both eyes, same cutie at the hotel newsstand
asking, 'Say, what does it feel like to be an actor?' Me answering in
nasty voice, 'Like hell!'"

"And calls himself a trouper!" Ord exclaimed. "Harky now, chop-house
cockney! Never was nor shall be any great player or true fellow of the
stage that hates the road; the road's in his blood from ancient
strolling and if he doesn't love it better than he loves his Broadway
finnan-haddie, why, then he's a renegade. The road's our home and I'll
pay you this compliment: there never was a fat man that wasn't a good or
goodish actor and never a good actor that didn't love the road. Ergo,
you lie in your teeth when you say you hate it. For a' that and a' that
an actor's a man and it's a man's nature to love his home. When actors
become citizens and are no more on the road, or if the road should
perish, look out! They'll be business men, or servants of business men,
not actors. Booth, Forrest, MacCullough, Jefferson, the Florences, where
have they best lived but on the road? Look at John Drew; look at Otis
Skinner--do they hate the road? Why, look at our own chief, the Guv'ner,
himself nine-parts artist to one-part manager. Do you think George hates
the road?"

Vokes put a fat white hand upon the top of his head, and, pretending to
push downward, sank his chin into his striped collar as far as the
fatness of his neck permitted. "Danger!" he said. "Back into the
carapace, turtle-head! Liable to get stepped on and squashed into being
a millionaire business man instead of a comical actor. Guv'ner likes the
road, does he? Enough to be on this jolty train with us poor serfs of
his? Me, if I'd been in his place and had a choice I'd have waited for
the two-twenty which sports a parlor-car and a buffet."

"No, he's on the rear car," Morton said, and smiled broodingly. "More
honors for the new Grand Duchess. Guv'ner drove her and duenna to
station in two-horse hack. Sitting with her now in last car, she
becoming more up-stage every minute. Poor Jack, he got his, last night,
and took it hard. Tried to be hail-fellow-well-met, like last week.
Zowie! Right in the face! Chisel 'Slain by a Snub' on his headstone, and
he hoping maybe he was high man with her! Anyhow he went out and got
spifflo. Too bad."

"Take some thought, Jimmy." Harry Vokes looked uncomfortable. "Adoptive
uncle or something of party mentioned sitting right here amidst us, you
know."

"I beg your pardon," Morton said to the playwright. "I didn't mean----"

"Not at all," Owen interrupted. "I'll only say that I believe the
phenomenon's not wholly unprecedented."

"No, not wholly," Vokes agreed good-naturedly. "Pausing only to admire
polished authorish expressions such as 'not wholly unprecedented
phenomenon' so on and so on, would state I've been considerable of such
a phenomenon myself, historically speaking. Springing from maternal lap,
all fresh and everything, played 'Zuzu' in the 'Little Wizard', Chicago
opening. 'Zuzu' one loud long scream--Chicago blushing at my feet--me
the first big laughing event since the Great Fire. Enlarged myself from
rooming-house to Florentine Suite in costly caravanserai on account of
head no longer able to be pushed through rooming-house door. Associate
with humble former confrres of the company? Me? 'Untouch me that
shoulder, fellow! What, wist you not said shoulder personal part of
Henri Vokes, heir-apparent of Michigan Avenue and Sim Brangin's fair pet
princeling? Untouch me, scullion!' Heigh-ho! Also hlas! After three
weeks business not so good--not so good, what! Choo-sizz-poof! Slight
noise of 'Little Wizard' blowing up. Me back across the river from
Jersey City trying to work fascinating fat personality over on agents
and managers that hadn't heard the Brangins telling how rotten everybody
was in the 'Little Wizard'. Head all depreciated down to where I could
get it right under my bureau when I lost a collar-button. No, not wholly
unprecedented; but all the same----" He paused, looked doubtfully though
genially at Owen, and went on, "Well, all the same I'm afraid I never
did see quite as big a painful change as the one that's come over the
little lady since Somerville."

"No," Morton agreed, shaking his head gloomily. "Neither did I. I don't
mean to say it hits the rest of us as hard as it does Jack; but--well,
it does hit. It's worse because--oh, I don't know. I just know it hurts
rather worse than it usually does when such things happen."

"That's good," old Ord said quietly and seriously. "You boys'll have
scars for souvenirs and so you'll never forget you were present at the
opening of a true artist's career. You've just been seeing something
important, you lads--like the unveiling of a statue by a fine sculptor,
only this statue's the sculptor, too, and so is mortal and can't live,
except presently as a name on a yellow old program on the shelf of some
collector of theatre rubbish. Oh, I'll be solemn for you on this
subject; damn me for it if you like! I tell you we work in such
perishable goods it's as if we made wax flowers in a hot oven; but when
I see one of our bouquets glorious for an instant before it vanishes,
off goes my hat! Well, that's what she's done and you saw it. That
little scene in a stiff chair and the exit with their never getting more
than a hint of her face from out front--ah, not so often, friends, not
so often! A true daughter of the theatre--and the young sprig-players
pout because they're daft about her as a pretty girl that's been kind to
them but now grows too earnest in her work to have time for them. Let
her be! What if she does feel she's a little important? It's the truth;
she is. Just remember she's been your comrade for a while, and that's an
honor. Haven't we grace enough to stand back and bow when a new
priestess comes into the temple?"

Young Morton's face flushed; he turned and stared at the old man; Harry
Vokes sat open-mouthed. Then Morton coughed and said in a low voice,
"Glad you did that, Joe. I'll try to remember it and pass it on to Jack
and Tom." He laughed a little emotionally. "Us younger geniuses maybe
need a bad old example like you to set us straight on certain matters
sometimes."

"Yes, the old soak!" Harry Vokes assented huskily. "We get you, Joe.
'Nough said. You've seen a good many and when you say, 'Hats off!' we
don't wear any. Besides that, you're right about it. 'Not so often,
friends, not so often', indeed! We'll quit beefing and just say hurrah
for her." He made a gesture toward Ord, and, with a childlike and
dissolute smile of singular sweetness, turned to the playwright.
"Sentimental old mugger, isn't he? Couldn't get him to bed at three
o'clock this morning because he was telling the night clerk all about a
twin brother he lost in Eighteen Seventy-two through eating green
apples, and said he couldn't leave till he'd got the night clerk to
crying. Let's sing 'Ever of Thee'."

He began to hum and immediately Ord and Morton, leaning forward with
their heads close to his, joined voices with him softly in a trio.
Traces of emotion were visible upon the faces of all three of the
actors, and, as for the playwright, he felt himself not entirely unmoved
by what had touched them. He liked these players, and liked them all the
better for the generosity of spirit that made them sensitive and
volatile. He was glad that he had no superiority, himself, to the
quality in them that made them readily susceptible to sentiment; but,
reticent and inexpressive as he was, he felt himself privileged to know
and share their feeling and to be their comrade.




CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


When the journey ended and the playwright was about to step into a
horse-drawn old coup at the station, he caught a glimpse of Isabelle
and Eugene getting into another at a little distance from him. He had
only a momentary glimpse of them; but there was a bleakness in
Isabelle's face that shocked him. Eugene wore the acutely annoyed yet
brooding expression of a man apprehensive that the emotions of a woman
companion may at any instant make them both publicly conspicuous, and he
seemed anxious to get the door of their vehicle closed upon them as
quickly as possible. Nearby, at the same time, the playwright saw Hurley
putting Lily and Miss Lebrun into a motor taxicab. The manager's face
was beaming ruddily; he was in high content and waved a hand to Owen
detainingly as Lily and the older actress drove away.

"Here!" he said to Owen, joining him briskly. "Pink'll take your grips
up to the hotel in his cab. You and I'll walk. I want to talk to you.
I've got an idea."

"Yet another?" the playwright asked dismally, as they set forth. "One
you'll want me to write into the script so we can rehearse it before
to-morrow night's performance?"

"Part of it, maybe," Hurley answered cheerfully. "Might get some in we
could run over to-night with the company, and some more to-morrow and
during the rest of the week. Might be quite a good deal of it before we
get as much worked in as we can." He glanced about him with an approving
eye. "Nice place, this. Always did like these moderately prosperous
smaller American cities where you see the young couples all dressed up
on Sunday and pushing the baby-carriages back home from having Sunday
afternoon dinner with the old folks. Pleasant sight, don't you think
so?"

"No; peculiarly repellent. What sort of an idea, George?"

"Well, it may require some thinking on your part," Hurley admitted.
"Watching the performance this week I can't help believing this play's
got a weaker backbone than I thought."

"Oh, murder! Its whole backbone, George?"

"Don't get jumpy. 'Hawkins' and 'Hester' are the backbone of your play.
'Hester's' half of it and there simply isn't enough life and vigor to
that part."

"No? Not in the part itself as written, you mean?"

"Listen!" Hurley said. "I don't care whether it's in the part or in the
woman who plays it; something's got to be done. If we go into New York a
week from to-night with the part of 'Hester' flivvering out on us the
way it's been doing this past week, I know what we'll get! The Death
Watch----"

"Ah, that First Night Juggernaut again! Not to speak of trying to
practise an art, must our life's work be done to please one single
handful of crotchety people, outsiders who've appointed themselves to
talk noisily about the theatre?"

"There you go, hi-yi! Be a little practical, will you? Take a statue
some fellow makes and exhibits, it's got a chance against the lads that
get up on a soap-box and begin telling everybody whether it's a good or
bad statue. If they say it's bad it doesn't vanish; ten years later it
may just suit the fashion a new crowd of soap-boxers are telling
everybody is a good fashion, so it can be brought out and all the
sheep'll go around bleating 'Good! Good!' because they've heard the
soap-boxers say so. Ten years after that, it'll likely be a 'bad' statue
again; but anyhow it's still a statue. A play's different. Every night
we make a pie; on the road the people come in and eat it and like it,
and that's all there is to it. Trouble is, New York's the fashionable
pie-eating centre and we can't get enough pie-eaters in on the road
until after they hear that everybody in New York's rushing to eat our
pie. Well, if we can put a little fresh flavor into our pie without
getting clear out of the fashion in pies that the Death Watch understand
this year they'll get up on the soap-boxes and recite enthusiastically
all the declamations that have ever been written about nice-tasting
pies. If they don't do that for us, all we'll have is a pie recip in
the waste-basket. What I'm trying to do----"

"Pie!" Owen exclaimed bitterly. "A painter or a novelist isn't bound
down to flour and blueberries to suit this year's taste of a few----"

"Now for God's _sake_!" Hurley cried. "Try not to interrupt me, will
you? The way it stands, I can't get another ounce out of Isabelle; every
time I try it at rehearsal I get less from her. She simply hasn't got it
left in her. When we get to the hotel just take the script and look over
that part and see if you can't find some places where you could make it
more interesting and more alive. Give her something more important to do
wherever you can and try to get a little more vitality into her lines.
Just take a few hours on it to----"

"I've spent some hundreds of hours trying to do that, I should say,
since I first began writing the play, George."

"There you go!" the manager said with prompt irritation. "The minute I
begin trying to save a play they commence telling me how good they are
and how much harder they work than anybody else ever did! Now for God's
sake can't you simply----"

"Oh, of course I'll try. Is that the idea you----"

"Part of it, part of it," Hurley said, and again became cheerful.
"Listen! I've been working it out in my mind and it's a good deal like
this. Suppose you were drowning and had two ropes to hold to and it took
both of 'em to keep you up, and one was a slim little new rope and the
other a good deal thicker and more important-looking but getting worn
out and not dependable, you'd put all the weight you dared on the new
little one, wouldn't you? That's what I mean. We'll do all we can to
brace up the part of 'Hester'; but in the meantime we'll build up the
part of 'Myra' so that----"

"So that it enfeebles 'Hester' more and more?" Owen asked, interrupting
with some sharpness. "Don't you see that's precisely what's the matter
with 'Hester' already?"

"Listen!" Hurley said. "Don't tell me the play's out of balance; I know
it is and I'm trying to deal with that. Just forget your script for a
while, will you, and realize we're working now in what values we can get
out of a certain few human beings at our disposal. If I can't get one
value, I've got to have another to take its place. Well, I've got that
other and it's a gold mine." His tone had become enthusiastic and now he
spoke eagerly. "Listen! That part of 'Myra' runs through the play like a
vein of pure gold. They want more of it, more of it, I tell you! If
other parts let down, more of 'Myra' is our chance to carry the play.
When you wrote that part of 'Myra' you did better than you knew.
It's----"

"Thank you, George."

Hurley disregarded the interruption. "It's like some lovely melody that
rings out over a lot of discords and carries people's hearts away. What
I mean, you take the script and wherever you get a chance give her
another telling line or two. She'll make it count; you can depend on
that! See if you can't work in another scene between her and Ord, played
for drama and suspense--something rather tense with a lift up in it, and
I think you could give her a new short one with Harry, for comedy."

"But, George, if I----"

"Ah, God, he's going to argue with me!" the manager said despairingly.
"All right. Let the play flatten out and----"

"Oh, no; of course I'll do what I can. I don't see any other remedy
myself for the slumping poor Isabelle's been----"

"That's right!" Hurley beamed again, paused to light a cigar, drew upon
it with satisfaction, and, as they walked on, resumed his theme.
"Lily'll play it, whatever you give her. You'll get a performance. A
manager makes a little money sometimes, and about five times as often he
loses his shirt; but when he gets a performance he has a reward. I give
you my word I'd have gone to shovelling coal long ago if it hadn't been
for that's happening every once in a long while. Somebody surprises you.
Gives you something to remember. Maybe even something to look forward
to. It's like struggling along, mile after mile, on a dusty hot road
till you're half dead, and then, when you aren't looking for it and
don't expect it, you find a diamond--and then another, and then another,
so you know somebody's walking ahead of you and putting 'em there for
you and going to put more. That's what her performances have been every
night since we opened; every one just a little finer and brighter than
the night before. You noticed how she's worked with that part? Just to
get one more word a little truer and with a little more meaning in it,
yet never the least shade exaggerated or artificial. She never stops,
and that's because she never stops thinking. What's rather remarkable to
me is the wonderful character that's behind it all; I mean the girl
herself."

"You think----"

"Rather remarkable, rather remarkable to find a girl of as noble and
self-sacrificing a character and with all the qualities that go to make
up a fine, old-fashioned, well-bred _lady_, and yet with actual genius.
Don't see that combination often." His manner became confidential yet
remained enthusiastic. "I didn't really know her story till to-day. Got
her to talking about herself; usually I won't listen to that, but there
are exceptions. She's modest about it, too; no self-puffery--told it in
a pretty wonderful sort of way, I thought, a pretty wonderful sort of
way. It was rather extraordinary."

"Was it? I thought I'd given you an outline of her history, myself, some
time ago; but----"

"So you did, so you did; but not like this. I mean not like hearing it
from the child herself. Not that she gilded it or made herself out a
heroine--not in the slightest. All the more touching for that. I don't
think she had the slightest idea herself of what a picture of nobility
and self-sacrifice she was painting. Those years of shut-in girlhood--no
young friends, nothing but devotion to the invalid mother, and then her
struggle to get on the stage so that she could take care of the mother
and sister--and to think that at first I was stupid enough to take her
for nothing better than just another 'society amateur'! Something rather
grand about a life like that, even though there've been only these few
years of it, rather grand! It isn't usual for youth to be
self-sacrificing--rather touching, rather touching. I'll give her a
little surprise in the way of a contract with a real salary some time
during the first week in New York. Some of 'em'll be nosing around
trying to get her away from me before long; but she strikes me as a
loyal little thing. Notice how she works for the play as well as for
just 'Myra'? Coperates to get Joe's points over in that scene with him
and helps Harry build up his laughs. Rather extraordinary, her
team-work." He mused for a moment and then, uttering a meditative
chuckle, astonished the young man at his side. "Lord! What a 'Hester'
she'd make if she ever played that part!"

"If she ever did!" Owen exclaimed. "But you've 'featured' Isabelle!"

"Oh, of course it's not to be thought of; I was only imagining. Eugene's
letting it down, too; not so much but nevertheless a shade more every
night, confound him! He tries not to; but he doesn't seem to be able to
help it, and the reason's pretty apparent. Isabelle doesn't play up to
him and so he can't get the lift out of her that he needs. I was only
thinking that if he had somebody like Lily Mars opposite him in that
part he'd be rather wonderful, because if he didn't look out he'd find
himself playing up to her, not she to him. Altogether it might be rather
colossal; but of course it's not to be thought of. We might talk of it
for another play, though, some day. You could just bear it in mind if an
idea strikes you. There; that's all," he said, for now they were
entering the hotel's principal outer doorway. "Get your script out of
your grip and try to do something really a little interesting with it,
while I ruin my oesophagus over at the theatre trying to get that change
in the second act lighting right. Hi-yi, it's the life! Go to it now!"

In his room Owen went to it as well as he was able, in spite of a dismal
conviction that he was not able at all. By this time the mere sight of
his manuscript lying open on a table, like some invalid survivor of a
thousand operations still miraculously just alive and awaiting more
knifings in the operating-room, had become repulsive to him. He worked,
sighing with repugnance, paced the floor and sighed again, then worked
again, then paced again. Striving for coherent thought, he found Lily
continually defeating him.

Still proud, still angry with her, he became dizzy when he asked himself
if he had so much as done her justice. Had she indeed been presumptuous
when she assumed the air of being a great person, talked of playing
"Hester", graciously bade him count upon her friendship, airily
commissioned him to write a play for her and contemplated Eugene as her
own leading man? After all, hadn't Hurley, a powerful manager, just been
warranting all these presumptions of hers? If she was, as she indeed
seemed to be, a very genius of the theatre, are geniuses vainglorious
when they perceive their own quality? Ah, but her interpretation of
himself--that he chided her because of a jealousy roused in him by the
mouthings of the unspeakable Leland! Owen could have forgiven her except
for that. The sting was as sharp as ever and smarted with every word he
wrote emphasizing and enhancing the mischief-making part of "Myra".

Eugene came in, looking hag-ridden, and threw himself down in a chair,
with his long legs extended drearily. "What's it all mean?" he said.
"What's it all about? Life, I mean. Why were we sent to this earth and
made to live, anyhow? Do you see anything in it, yourself, Owen?"

"I don't know." For some moments the two successful young men looked at
each other morbidly; then the playwright added, "I don't see anything
before me just now except about seven more days of play-surgery and then
a short ride to the morgue. What's been happening to you?"

"George--among other things. Giving me the devil again for letting it
down; yet he knows as well as I do I can't help it. Those scenes with
Isabelle! Night after night I try and try to keep from getting flatter
and flatter; but good God! I can hear myself, can't I? All I do is just
talk faster and louder. Speed and noise! They never put anything
over--never! It can't be done, I tell you! You can't be out there with
somebody going dead on you, deader and deader every minute, and not die,
yourself. I beg and beg her to lift it; but what's the use? Maybe she
couldn't if she would; but certainly now she wouldn't if she could." He
laughed deploringly. "All my spirited scenes with her are off the stage,
not on. Plenty of them, I can tell you! I'm at the end of my string."

"That's pleasant news," the playwright said. "I'm glad you came in to
tell me. Really, it's all I needed to help me go at another mutilating
of this manuscript with a fresh inspiration. Any other jolly thing on
your mind, Eugene?"

Eugene paid no attention to the satiric inquiry. "It's such a devilish
good part, too!" he groaned. "Exactly what I needed for a step up. I'm
at a crisis in my career--oh, I realize that!--if I stay where I am,
merely 'featured', it's ominous; but with a really solid hit in this
piece the next thing I play would put my name into electric lights on
top of the theatre. George knows he'd have to do it or somebody else
would. If it's a flivver--God knows! Might be the beginning of the down
grade for me. Probably would, I should think. Here's a curious thing; I
believe, on my soul, that a woman who loves me wants just that to happen
to me--the down grade! I do believe that, Owen; on my soul I do! Yes,
and what's more hideous to contemplate, I believe she's trying to make
it happen. Which is it, comedy or tragedy, when the woman you've loved
tries to pull you down--you and herself together? In all my life I've
never done or wished to do a single thing to injure anybody; I've always
wanted to help everybody. Why do such things have to happen to _me_?"

"To you?" Owen laughed; but the sounds he uttered were more rueful than
sympathetic. "Death loves a shining mark, and so does misfortune; but
don't be vain over being struck, because it doesn't prove you glitter,
since both of 'em hit everybody, 'Gene. You might observe that if you're
pulled down now the whole structure falls with you--'Catalpa House' and
all its parts--Ord, Lily, Vokes and all the rest of us, including me,
the distracted architect, and possibly even the burly owner and builder,
Hurley himself--nobody knows what his stake in it is or how hard the
loss might hit him. Doesn't it cheer you to know you won't be alone
among the ruins?"

Eugene jumped up and struck the palms of his hands together in a smack
of desperation. "Ruin!" He began to pace the floor, striding rapidly.
"That's the one thing I could never forgive a woman--never! That she'd
ruin the career of the man she loves! God, what irony--to be ruined by a
woman's loving you! I'm at my wit's end, I tell you! She harries me
without rest. You can't care for a woman as I did for Isabelle, so long
and so devotedly, without its becoming an attachment. Of course I'm
attached to her! I may not be in love with her any more, but I can't
help being attached to her, can I? She can't be in anguish without
that's agonizing me, you see. Yes, and she counts on it. Every instant
I'm with her she suffers at me incessantly! Tears my heartstrings
because of this attachment to her that I can't get over. A thousand
hints that she'll do away with herself--horrible! Every night out there
with her on the stage, every dead line she gives me is one more agony of
reproach at me. George asks me to act? Good God! Always, always until
now, she's built me up, worked for my career; we've worked for each
other. For an artist, the unforgivable thing is an injury to his art. Do
you understand that? Do you understand that at all, Owen?" He came to a
halt before the table where sat his friend and struck his fist upon its
littered top. "Ah, let me play that part just once with a woman who'd
lift it and give it back to me and inspire me! I'd show you something!"

Owen stared up at him. "You mean with Lily Mars?"

"Ah, how she'd play it! What we two, together, could do with this play!
I'd show you something you've never seen in your life, I tell you! I'm
not bragging; I know what I could do with it--they'd go out crying their
eyes out for 'Sam Hawkins' and remember him the rest of their lives! Let
me play it with Lily in New York and you'd see a First Night you'd never
forget! Let me play it with Lily just once----" He flung out his arms,
uttered a laughter so high-pitched it was almost falsetto and struck
himself upon the forehead with an open palm. "Insanity! Can't be done! I
wonder I don't really go crazy! Oh, the irony of it, the irony--here's
the material for a great success--Lily--and it can't be used. Or even if
Isabelle could play it as she's shown she could in those earliest
rehearsals--she was going to be good; she _gave_ it to me then, showed
she could lift it to me! Now that's gone and can't come back and she
wouldn't let it if it could. I've got to get some peace of mind before I
can act, I tell you! How can I, between two women who hate each other
and love me? Two women who----"

Owen interrupted in a lifeless voice. "You're sure they both----"

"Love me? Sure?" Eugene laughed again. "All I dare give Lily now is a
hidden glance sometimes; but do you think that contents her? Not since
she discovered what she could do with 'em out front and that now she's
George's pet child. She's sweet--oh, she's angelic, she's my life!--and
what I feel for her rends and tears me--I want to worship her openly, to
take her and to love her. And it's what she wants, too; I'm her life and
she'd die if I changed--die! Hasn't she showed me? Hasn't she as much as
told me so time and again? She knows as I do it can't be--daren't
be--not yet! But she can't help being a woman, can she? No woman can
help that, I tell you, no woman at all! They can't, can't help it, Owen;
they just can't! She doesn't intend to goad Isabelle; but sometimes she
says something to me at rehearsal, or in passing, where Isabelle can
hear, and there's proprietorship in the very way she speaks my name.
Isabelle writhes--and then it falls on me! On me! On me! I swear to you,
all my life I've been paying that penalty!"

"Penalty?"

"For mere responsiveness!" Eugene explained with a bitter emphasis. "For
liking people, for caring about them, for wanting them to be happy--for
being interested in women and showing that I want them to be happy!
Never," he went on, with increased feeling, "never since I was fourteen
years old have I had a moment of real peace, I swear to you! Not one!
Sometimes I think the worst curse the gods can lay upon a man is to
create him with----" Again he flung out his hands but this time let them
fall despairingly and turned toward the door. "Well, I'll let you alone;
you want to work. Doing this cry-baby act on you won't help things any
and I daresay you may have burdens of your own."

"I may," Owen admitted. "It's just possible."

Eugene glanced at the manuscript and the scribbled sheets of paper
beside it, smiled sadly and shook his head. "That's it! We all think our
own bothers are the worst things that can happen, I suppose, and you
probably feel that putting us through some fresh tortures at rehearsal
is a great weight on your shoulders." His smile became mournfully
superior, as he opened the door and passed out to the corridor. "Go
ahead with your terrible sufferings. It's the life!"




CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


The playwright returned sadly to his task, finished the enlargements of
the part of "Myra" by nightfall; then began a struggle to invigorate
Isabelle by scribbling. At best, all that he did with "Hester", writing
and rewriting in hotel bedrooms and on trains for the next four days,
was paraphrase; and it proved ineffective. Hurley delivered this verdict
upon it after a spiritless rehearsal in Rochester on Thursday afternoon.

"No, you haven't got it," he said, in private conference with Owen.
"Weakened it if anything. Doesn't get anywhere. There's nothing to be
done but to go back to the original 'Hester'. Sent Pink to tell her so.
Of course now she's learned a good deal of this new stuff she'll feel
around for her lines and mix up the cues and play hob generally, trying
to get back to the old version; but it can't be helped. Best we can hope
is that she won't get the rest of 'em rattled up there Monday night.
Monday night, the Forty-first Street Theatre and the Death Watch!
Hi-yi!"

Upon the subject of the elaboration of the part of "Myra", however, he
spoke with a different air. He brightened warmly, growing ruddier; the
handsome Napoleonic profile was suddenly benign. "Extraordinary! Rather
remarkable, rather remarkable, what you did with that. You'll see, when
we put it in on Saturday night. She wanted me to let her do it in the
full company rehearsal to-day; but not for me, thank you! I don't care
for any more interviews with Isabelle than I've absolutely got to have,
these days; and if she doesn't find out how we've built 'Myra' up until
Saturday night she'll only have the one day, Sunday, to have a fit in
before the New York opening, Monday night, and she'll simply have to be
good. Neat job, not having the new stuff for 'Myra' change any of
Isabelle's cues--you show symptoms of something almost like penetration
sometimes! Lengthens the play four or five minutes; but we can work in a
few cuts--one or two on Isabelle she won't notice maybe--and trim down
that carafe scene and Worthington. He's so hoarse they don't get half of
what he says, anyhow. Of course Harry and Joe just eat their new stuff
alive. Pink and I rehearsed 'em with Lily privately this morning, and
really they get some rather wonderful effects. Really rather wonderful,
what she does, rather wonderful! You watch it from out front Saturday
night in Albany when we put the new stuff in and see what you'll see.
I've got an idea you're going to feel rather pleased and rather proud of
that little girl of your mother's." He laughed aloud in sheer
exhilaration; then twitched down the soft brim of his hat and up-slanted
his unlighted cigar till the two almost touched, and said in a
reflective tone, "Yes, sir. Rather proud--rather proud of Lily Mars!"

This enthusiasm of his, more deep-seated every day, though he sometimes
strove hard to modify his expression of it, nevertheless led him into an
inaccuracy as a prophet. Pride of any kind held no part in the
playwright's emotions that Saturday evening as he sat in the theatre and
watched the last performance of his play before it went to its mortal
ordeal in the theatrical metropolis. He was not proud of Lily nor proud
for her; though she dazzled him and he watched her in wonder and
sometimes in amazement. Under her touch the new scenes became triumphant
comedy; she brought the new words to life, kept the old ones alive and
made both brilliant as she herself was brilliant. The spell she cast was
so strong that he found himself leaning forward tensely toward the stage
whenever she was upon it. When she was not there, he slid into a dull
relaxation, and at such times the play, now indeed out of balance,
seemed given over entirely to interludes so perfunctory that they should
have been omitted altogether.

"Catalpa House" had become not like the forest one cannot see for the
trees but like a dead orchard that should have been cut away behind the
one glorious young tree in roseate blossom. More, he had smarting
twinges of impression that Lily knew all this, herself. On the stage
before him there seemed to be a bright cruelty, lovely and heartlessly
triumphant in its merry consciousness that Isabelle of all dead trees in
the orchard was the deadest and most deserving of the axe. Moreover,
with Lily Mars as a person he seemed never to have had any real
acquaintanceship at all. As an actress she was close to his eyes and
shining upon him dazingly yet intimately; but as a person she appeared
to him as a strange being never to be known or by any means
comprehended--only to be glimpsed vaguely and from a remote and hazy
distance.

After the descent of the final curtain he sat in his place until the
audience had gone; then made his way slowly through the empty house,
went behind the scenes and encountered a jovial Hurley who seized him by
the arm. "Go and tell her! Go and tell her about it! Guess she deserves
it from her playwright, doesn't she? Take off that long face! What are
you looking like that for, anyhow?"

"George, this play's now so out of balance I know the audience feel it.
It's damaging for a minor part to stand out like that, beyond all the
others; it confuses them out front, and to-night I could tell that
they----"

"Idiot!" Hurley almost shouted. "Did you ever hear of a play called
'Parisian Romance' when a minor part did that? It made Richard
Mansfield, didn't it? Take off that long face and go and tell her what
you ought to tell her. She told me to send you. Go and tell her!"

In her dressing-room Lily had another amazement waiting for the worried
young man; again she stood facing the door, still wearing her costume
and with her "make-up" unremoved. "Owen Gilbert!" she cried, flung
herself upon him impetuously, kissed him repeatedly, clung to him almost
violently, laughed and was at the same time near sobbing in the
extremity of her happiness and gratitude. "You darling, darling angel!
Oh, you precious Guardian Angel! Oh, the beautiful, beautiful life
you've given me to-night! Angel, angel, angel!"

He extricated himself as soon as he could and stepped back from her
angrily. "Lily, why do you do that?"

"Kiss you? Why, I could kiss everybody in this world! But you--after
you've written so divinely for me? After you've given me this----"

"No! After what you said to me in Somerville the last time we had speech
together!"

"What?" She was genuinely unaware of his meaning. "What did I say to you
then?"

In his incredulity, Owen without knowing it echoed a frequent outcry of
Hurley's. "For God's _sake_! You don't remember that? You don't remember
accusing me of being jealous of you because the Somerville critic,
Leland, had panegyrized you and wrote pompous nonsense about the play
itself?"

"No. Did I?" She seemed lightly to search her memory, then laughed
affectionately and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Yes, I remember I
did say something nasty, you foolish old thing. But then _you'd_ said
things that made me cross, you know, so I----"

"What? Is this all you have felt about----"

"Nonsense!" she said, still laughing. "Don't you know me well enough yet
to understand you mustn't pay any attention to things I say when I get
cross? I remember all about it--we did have a ridiculous little quarrel,
didn't we? You mustn't mind, of course. I've said things like that to
Mother and Clara and everybody a thousand times; but they know I never
mean anything and don't pay any attention. You poor lamb, you've been
moping over it, haven't you? Answer me! You've really been taking that
little pouting of mine seriously?"

"Yes, I have; but you----"

"I? I didn't even know you were moping, poor darling, because you see
I've never been so busy every instant and so excited and so happy in my
whole life! I'll make it up to you, you'll see! Ah, now you're cross
because you think I ought to've realized you were upset about it. You
must never take anything I say seriously; don't you know that? Just
think of what I do, not of what I say, and you'll always know I love
you. I do, really, Owen. Of course I'm _in_ love with Eugene--oh,
wildly! he's my life; I'd die for him!--but really, with my spirit, I
love you better than anybody. Oh, better than anybody at all; I know I
do! You and George. You two are my gods!"

"Are we?" he said, and against his will laughed dolorously. "George and
I----"

"You two above all! Don't you see what raptures you and he are showering
upon me? Did you ever see anybody caught up in such enchantments as you
and George are making for me? Ah, don't you want my adoration, you poor
dear darling?"

He had no response ready for this, and, before he was able to form a
verbal one, there came a sharp rap upon the door, Lily cried "Entrez!"
and Isabelle's mulatto "dresser" appeared. Lily became serious. "You
wish to speak to me, Ernestine?"

"Message," Ernestine replied. "Mr. Hurley wants Mr. Gilbert to come to
Miss Hedrington's dressing-room immediately. Mr. Hurley asks Miss Mars
not to leave the theatre until he's seen her."

"Not until he's seen me?" Lily said slowly, and found the request
significant of high import, for she turned upon Owen the wide-eyed,
questioning look of one who divines the impending of almost incredible
good fortune. "Why, he might mean--might mean that she's not--he might
mean that--that 'Hester'--he might mean----"

"He means something's the matter," Owen said shortly, striding by
Ernestine in the doorway.

"Yes, sir," the mulatto girl assented. "Something is."

Something was indeed grievously the matter; so much so that he went no
farther than the threshold of Isabelle's dressing-room before he stopped
and stood aghast. Isabelle, half-dressed, lay flat upon the floor, and
Hurley knelt beside her, fanning her face with his soft hat. Pinkney
Monk stood looking down upon them, and nearby, upon the floor, was a
wreck of torn and crumpled silk, the costume Isabelle had worn in the
last act.

Hurley gave Owen a brief glance. "Shut that door!"

It was Monk who obeyed the command. "Fainted," he whispered to Owen. "We
came in to soothe her down and she went entirely wild. Said she wanted
you--something about knowing you were suffering, too; I don't know what.
George sent Ernestine for you, to humor her; but it didn't do any good.
Said the costume she wore in the last act was poisoning her, burning
her, because it had touched Lily Mars in their stage embrace. Screamed
it was scorching her, tore it off and tried to tear it to pieces, then
keeled over. George just barely caught her. She's coming out of it;
eyelids been flickering. Her heart's good, too; but this is bad--nerves
gone too queer. I don't think she can play the part Monday night,
myself."

Isabelle opened her eyes. "What's all this?" she asked feebly, and
muttered, "I see. Must have fainted." Then she saw Owen, lifted a
shaking hand and pointed at him. "Look at his cheek! Smear on it." She
uttered weak sounds of hysterical laughter. "Kissed _him_, too!"

Hurley continued to fan her. "Look here!" he said. "Listen! We've told
you all about that, Isabelle. What's it matter if you saw her kiss
Eugene, since she's just been kissing everybody in sight? That's exactly
what makes it all right. She couldn't help herself, I tell you! You saw
her kiss me, too, right afterward. Didn't she even kiss Pink Monk? Why,
she'd have kissed you yourself if you hadn't run to your dressing-room;
she was so excited I swear she'd have kissed the stage-hands if they'd
been standing there with the rest of us, after all those calls! You just
quiet down now. I've seen you do almost the same thing. Be a little
reasonable, can't you, dearie?"

Isabelle paid no attention to him; her heavy gaze remained upon the
playwright. "I'm sorry for you, Owen," she said, little better than
whispering. "It's because you're going through just a shadow of the
suffering that's finished me. I've lost my career, my art, my love and
maybe my life. You've lost your play and your love, so we're something
alike. The difference is that you'll get over it and write new plays;
but I--I----" Her glance moved vaguely from him to Hurley and to Monk.
"You all see now that I'm finished, don't you? Yes, you know it's the
end of me, I see. You know now I can't play the part Monday night." Then
she closed her eyes, sighed and whispered, "Thank God I can't!"

Hurley looked solemnly at Monk as if for confirmation of a thought; Monk
shook his head, and Hurley said softly, "No; she can't." He made a swift
gesture that sent the stage director to open the door, and Ernestine
came in; whereupon Hurley got to his feet and spoke in a low voice. "Let
her lie flat on her back for a few minutes more and then give her some
aromatic ammonia and get her into a chair and dress her." He sighed,
looking down pityingly upon the stricken figure at his feet, muttered,
"Hi-yi, it's the life!" then said, "Come on!" in a sharp undertone, and,
stepping noiselessly, led the way out of the tragic little room.

The stage was already bare. A high and wide doorway in the rear brick
wall stood open, and through it stage-hands and teamsters were passing
great forms of painted canvas, placing the scenery for "Catalpa House"
upon trucks that waited in a drizzle of rain outside in the midnight
darkness of the alley. Across the stage Paradene and Briggs and Smith,
the property man, conferred seriously; from upper dressing-rooms old
Ord, Vokes and one or two others of the company were seen descending,
bringing their traveling-bags with them and turning up the collars of
their overcoats as they heard the falling rain. Young Lancey had an
umbrella, and, as he came near the stage door, prepared to unfurl it;
but was stopped instantly by an appalling roar from old Joe. "Out,
Murderer! What! Open an umbrella in the theatre? Sure death for us all
on Monday night. Out, blasphemer, tempter of destiny, out!"

Hurley called loudly, "Paradene!"

"Yes, sir!" the company manager shouted instantly, and, in response to a
sharpness in the commanding voice, came hurrying across the stage.

"Paradene, get a carriage for Miss Hedrington and her maid. Have it at
the stage door in twenty minutes. Ask Miss Carlin to come to Miss
Hedrington's dressing-room and go with them in the carriage. Call
rehearsal for the whole company, except Miss Hedrington, at noon
to-morrow at the Forty-first Street Theatre. Tell 'em on the train we'll
be rehearsing all to-morrow and all day Monday. Get hold of O'Mahoney
the first thing to-morrow morning in New York and tell him to see me at
once. There's a change in the cast. I'll have Adler announce it in front
of the curtain Monday night; but I don't want the papers to get it until
after the opening. T's all!"

"Yes, sir," Paradene said, and departed.

Hurley turned to Monk. "Is the understudy up in her lines? How good is
she?"

"Bement? I've been over the part of 'Myra' with her this afternoon;
she's all right. Better than either Meadows or Hoyt."

"Take her right from the train to the theatre to-morrow morning and run
over it with her before the company rehearsal. Get every ounce you can
out of her. Go back to the original version. We play 'Myra' as it was in
the first place without the new scenes we put in to-night. That's all
out. We----"

"All out?" Owen said, weakly intervening. "You're cutting----"

Hurley turned upon him imperiously. "I was coming to you. All that new
stuff's out. Make the cuts on the train but don't go back to the
original version wherever it deals with any auburn hair. No more wigs.
Fix that all up and to-morrow morning get three or four stenographers
from Roselle's at work on it. Get Briggs a fresh script of the whole
book of the play by to-morrow afternoon; the book he's holding on 'em
now'll drive him crazy if you try to fiddle these cuts into all the
other mixed-up fussing you been doing with the script. It's a horrible
sight, horrible!" Abruptly his manner changed; he smiled, and a rosiness
benevolently tinged his complexion. "Now, do you want to tell Lily Mars
she's to play 'Hester' before a New York First Night audience Monday
night, or shall I?"

"You," Owen said, spared a sick glance for the closed door of Isabelle
Hedrington's dressing-room, and added an implication that was lost upon
the enthusiastically brightening manager. "I doubt if she needs anybody
to tell her, though."




CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


Hurley had not exaggerated the fact when he said that Lily knew by heart
every word of "Catalpa House"; though old Briggs expressed a foreboding
upon this point when the tired playwright handed him a new copy of the
play on the stage of the Forty-first Street Theatre just before noon.

"Puts a terrific responsibility upon me," Briggs said importantly but
privately, behind his hand. "Terrific! Hope I won't be the Patsy to get
picked on every time I have to give her a line if she fluffs. She's
wonderful, wonderful; but I regard it as a very dangerous experiment, a
very dangerous experiment. Too young and too inexperienced, Mr.
Gilbert." Then he giggled confidentially. "What can you expect? I've
seen good properties like this go to pieces often and often, in my time,
for the same reason."

"For the same reason?"

"Ah, we have an old saying in the profession, Mr. Gilbert. 'When the
manager falls in love----'"

The repetition of the old saying, however, was not completed. Pinkney
Monk was rapping sharply upon the table, and Briggs, obediently calling,
"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" hastily returned to his post in the wings.

His responsibility was far lighter than he expected it to be. During the
whole rehearsal of the play, that Sunday afternoon, Lily was prompted
twice only, and then not because her memory failed her but because of a
nervousness among her colleagues that confused the cues she received. A
tensity in the company was perceptible, for, with the ordeal so close
upon them, the actors naturally found a change of leading ladies
unsettling--Lily alone had lost no whit of poise. Instead, she seemed to
have gained in poise as she had gained in everything. Although she had
the slightly preoccupied and mechanical manner customary with her at
rehearsal, her adequacy in presenting the emotionalism of "Hester" made
the light comedy scenes she had acted as "Myra" seem comparatively
child's-play, almost unworthy of such an actress's power. In the house
Hurley sat motionless and silent through scene after scene; nothing
could more eloquently have proved his anxious concentration.

"Rehearsal's the devil," he said to Owen, during an interlude between
Monk and Miss Bement on the stage. "It's like a band serenading a Deaf
and Dumb Asylum. When an actor's got something to give he's got to have
someone to give it to. Adler's all worked up about these moving
pictures--getting bigger audiences, stealing our business--thinks we
ought to get into it. Not me! Not for all the money there is! It'd be
like never producing anything but rehearsals. You see how remarkably
she's doing it to-day; but wait till to-morrow night when she's got them
out there to give it to--ah, that'll be different! I know what we'll get
from her. As sure as God made little apples she'll give us a magnificent
performance, the kind that makes my life worth living. Don't you see she
will?"

"Yes; I don't doubt it, George. Nobody will question her
extraordinariness."

"Nobody in the world! She just happens to be one of those three or four
unaccountably gifted people that get born in a generation, and it's your
good fortune and mine that we've somehow stumbled into getting her into
this play." Hurley chuckled wonderingly, and added, "Another thing. You
notice how the whole play pulls together now and falls into its proper
proportions?"

"Yes, George, I've been noticing that."

"Why, absolutely," Hurley said, unaware of any dryness in his friend's
response. "The part of 'Myra' is exactly the way it ought to be, now.
This little Bement girl's very good, very good indeed; but with her in
the part it's merely a pleasant, amusing, interesting minor rle, the
way it should be. Notice the difference in Eugene? Of course he's uneven
to-day; that's natural. He's up and down in his performance; he's got a
fine, sensitive nature and of course there's a wringing of his
heartstrings at times when he can't keep himself from thinking about
poor Isabelle. Other times, with Lily lifting him, you can see him
getting the inspiration and playing 'Hawkins' as splendidly as the early
rehearsals of the play showed he could. He'll play it all that way
to-morrow night; you'll see."

"I hope so, George."

"You needn't worry; I know him. With an audience in front of him and an
actress opposite him that lifts it up to him, he'll be enormous. Of
course she's going to get the piece away from him before she's through
with it. She'll be a sensation; that's all there is to it--and when he
sees that, he'll let it down again; but by then it won't matter so much,
because we'll be established as a hit and they'll all be coming in to
see Lily, anyhow." He sighed. "Poor Isabelle. I sent Dr. Coombs to see
her--nerve specialist--and he told me to get a trained nurse for her; so
I did. Said not to put her to bed but just let this nurse go round with
her and let her do whatever she wanted to for a while. The nurse is
supposed to keep her mind off the theatre as much as she can, take her
out walking--and talk about botany and astronomy to her, I suppose!
Hi-yi, I don't blame 'Gene for having the poor creature on his mind.
Can't get her out o' my own whenever I dare let myself think of it!"

"No," Owen said; and the monosyllable, though spoken unemotionally, was
in reality a profound groan of his spirit. Isabelle was in his mind all
the time, haunting him avengingly; for was it not through his agency
that her ruin had been wrought? Hurley had spoken of Eugene as
"sensitive"; but this vocally inexpressive playwright was more acutely
so and Isabelle's haunting of him carried with it a pressure of
questioning. Was this, then, the theatre? Must there always be a
torture-chamber below stairs where someone moaned while the dance went
on above? What would mean the triumphal progress of a play that left a
crushed woman twitching in the dust behind it? Up there on the stage
before him Lily, as "Hester", was playing the last act scene with
"Myra", and Hurley whispered excitedly, "Watch that! Nobody out front'll
look at 'Myra' to-morrow night! They'll never look an instant at
anything but Lily. She's got it!"

Owen saw and knew that Lily had it. Yes, she would be the forefront
figure in a triumph and, radiant, would be crowned with laurel. Had she
no thought at all of Isabelle? So far as he could discern, she had none
and seemed concentrated upon the task in hand, all that critical
afternoon; but when it was done and the rehearsal ended, Owen discovered
that the displaced leading lady was indeed in the mind of Lily Mars.
Hurley called to the actors, "Very good, thank you! Let you rest
to-night. Once more, to-morrow morning at ten, and after that I don't
think any of us need worry, ladies and gentlemen. T's all!" He waved a
cordial dismissing hand, strode up the aisle, departing; the players
dispersed, moving toward the stage door, and the brooding playwright,
after sitting alone a moment or two longer in the body of the house,
rose and walked slowly toward the doors that opened upon the lobby. Just
before he reached them Lily came from the deeper shadows of the side
aisle and spoke to him in a hushed voice that betrayed some
perturbation.

"Owen?"

"Yes."

"I was afraid you'd gone. I'm so glad you hadn't. I----" She laughed
nervously. "I'm--I'm afraid I'm a little frightened!"

"What's the matter?"

"It's Isabelle," she said tremulously. "Of course I've been so terribly
sorry about her. I couldn't help anything that's happened, of course--it
hasn't been my fault in any way, I know. Everything just happened. Of
course I couldn't help being terribly happy for myself that it did
happen, could I? But all the same it isn't pleasant that it's happened
at someone else's expense. I had to keep her out of my mind while I was
working this afternoon; but it was hard to do it. You see, last night I
had a note from her."

"She wrote you----"

"Nothing. She didn't say anything in it at all except that she wanted to
see me again before we opened. She didn't say anything else; but of
course it couldn't help making me rather nervous because--Well, it would
be pretty awkward and it wouldn't do any good, and I'd told Rita Carlin
to tell her how sorry I was and everything. There couldn't be anything
for either of us to say, really. Things just are as they are, and you
can't alter them by talking, can you?"

"No; I think not."

Seeming to have become all at once dependent and timid, she put a hand
upon his sleeve appealingly. "You'll stay with me, won't you? George
went out so quickly I couldn't get round in front in time to----" She
paused, then repeated her appeal. "You won't leave me alone, will you?"

Mystified, he understood that for some reason she thought she needed a
protector and, with a twinge, he understood that she had first sought
Hurley. "No, I'll not leave you," he said, and could not forbear adding,
"I'm sorry I don't look enough like Napoleon to inspire complete trust
in an emergency. What's wrong?"

Lily shivered perceptibly. "A little while ago when I wasn't on the
scene a young woman came behind and spoke to me. She said she was a
trained nurse in attendance on Miss Hedrington and was very much puzzled
because she couldn't see anything the matter with her except she seemed
to be sad. Said she didn't understand the case at all and her
instructions were to just be around with Isabelle and let her do as she
pleased but try to keep her from talking about the theatre as much as
she could. Then she said Isabelle had insisted on walking here to the
Forty-first Street Theatre and the nurse didn't know what to do about
it, because of course she had to humor her and didn't know how to stop
her anyhow. So they'd come in from the street and Isabelle had told her
to go behind and ask me to come out and speak to her. She's in the
theatre manager's room right next to the box-office, now, waiting for
me."

Owen was startled. "She is? You told the nurse you'd come there?"

"I didn't know what else to say. It'd look dreadful if I didn't,
wouldn't it? If I let her say that I wouldn't even see her when she was
in such a state and asked me to--it'd look as if I was either
heartless--or afraid. She--she could tell people----"

"It doesn't matter what she could tell people, Lily. I think what
matters is whether the effect on her would be----"

"But there's the effect on me to be considered, too," Lily urged with
some pathos. "I've got this part to play to-morrow night, haven't I? The
trouble is, I know I've got to go in there and see her. I just don't
dare not to, because it would look perfectly horrible if I didn't. But,
Owen, I don't want to. I----" She hesitated, greatly disturbed. "I--I
don't know what to do. I've got to go in there; but I'm--Owen, do you
think she might do something queer? I don't know what she might do--I
really don't."

He was grave. "Of course I'll go with you and the nurse'll be there. I
don't think you need apprehend anything except that it mayn't do
Isabelle any good to see you. For yourself you needn't be afraid,
certainly."

"Well--but I am. I am afraid. Owen, I'm terribly afraid!
Suppose--suppose she did something to me that would keep me from playing
'Hester' to-morrow night!"

"Nonsense!" He took her hand, steadying the delicate fingers that
twitched in his clasp, and now his interpretation of her agitation was
that it came from a fanciful but actual fear of physical danger.
"Steady, Lily! There's absolutely no----"

"But there is!" she said piteously. "You don't understand. You don't
know what an effect on me it might--on _me_--oh, I know I've got to go
through with it. I've got to! I've got to!"

"Well, then, we'd better----"

"Better get it over!" she gasped. "Come on!" She took his arm closely
and they passed out into the short lobby of the theatre, where a cold
late afternoon light came faintly through the opaque glass of closed
outer doors. "How queer it is in here," she said. "How lonely a theatre
is on Sunday when there's no rehearsal going on! I don't suppose there's
a soul in the whole place except that one old man back there, and now
he's turned out the lights on the stage." She glanced behind her. "Yes,
it's all dark back there. It'll be dark outdoors, too, very soon, won't
it? It's near evening, and twenty-four hours from now I ought to be
getting ready to come to the theatre to play 'Hester'. Ah, these ups and
downs; they could be tragic, couldn't they? Owen, do you think she----"

"See here!" he said. "I think Isabelle has a right to ask to see you,
though I wish she hadn't wanted it. But if it's going to unnerve you
like this you'd better go straight home and let me tell her you couldn't
do it. I'll speak to her."

"No," Lily whispered desperately. "It's got to be done!"

"Very well." He opened a door near the closed box-office window and they
went into the small room where Isabelle waited. A lamp with a green
porcelain shade stood upon a table and had been lighted; Isabelle sat
beside the table, and the nurse, a jolly-looking fat girl modishly
dressed, rose from a chair near her as the door opened.

"I'll be just in the lobby," she said tentatively, "if you----"

Isabelle spoke to her but looked at Lily. "Yes, if you please, Miss
Knowles. I'll keep you waiting only a few minutes." She did not rise,
herself, but nodded gravely, as the nurse went out to the lobby and
closed the door. "Thank you for coming, Lily, and I'm glad you brought
Owen with you."

"Isabelle----" he began.

"No," she said in a gentle voice, and looked up at him with a smile that
wrung his heart. She sat in a stooping posture, as if bending her back
and shoulders somewhat eased an incessant pain; but she was quiet,
collected and haggardly sweet. "Let me do the talking--while I can.
Curious." She looked about her musingly. "It was in the room like this,
over at the Netherlands, that we played our great apology scene, wasn't
it, Lily? How long ago that was! Does it seem as long ago to you, I
wonder, as it does to me?"

Lily's hands clasped themselves tightly together upon her breast and
trembled there. "Isabelle, if I could only tell you how my heart aches
for you! If I could only----"

"No, dear," Isabelle said in the same small, sweet voice. "Let me
speak--I'm not very strong. I'll never see you again and there's
something I must tell you before I go where I'm going."

"Where you're going? Isabelle, you----"

"No, Lily, please. Just let me say it." With her hand Isabelle made
toward Lily a pleading slight movement that oddly recalled to Owen
gestures Lily had used, night after night, when these two had played
their last scene together in his play. "I want you to know something and
I can't go where I'm going until you do know it."

"Don't talk that way!" Lily gasped in a whispering violent protest. "I
can't bear it! Don't you see I can't bear it? Isabelle, you know I can't
bear it! You shan't----"

"Wait, dear! Just hear me. You think I've hated you, and I did; but not
now. Nothing that's happened has been your fault at all. There's even
nothing for me to forgive you. I've tried to fight against youth and
genius--and I have neither. I'm just a used-up woman, Lily. It's all
been inevitable--inevitable. Nothing's left but to get out of the way.
'Hester's' yours and he's yours, too--a used-up woman couldn't keep
either."

"A 'used-up woman'? You've no right to call yourself that to me! You
mustn't----"

"Hush, dear. May I tell you a funny little thought I've been having
lately, Lily? Such a funny little thought, dear. My father was an
old-fashioned evangelistic preacher and I was brought up to believe that
when we die, if we've done wrong, we go into hell; but lately it's
seemed to me that when we were born we'd really died out of a better
life and come into hell, so that perhaps when we die out of this life
we're really escaping from hell. Don't you think maybe I'm right, dear,
and that this life is really the hell we've been sent into for doing
something wrong before we were born? I'm almost sure of it, myself, and
that I----"

"No! No! You mustn't say such things!"

"Not even if they're true, Lily? But you'll understand, won't you, that
I must find peace? Before peace comes to me--when I go away--I must know
that you believe there's no hate in my heart for you. I want you to say
of me, instead, 'She had good will toward me.' You'll believe it, won't
you, Lily?"

Lily began to cry passionately. "Isabelle! Don't you see what you're
doing to me? I can't stand it! You mustn't----"

"Ah, please, please, dear!" Isabelle rose, and, though she still
stooped, there was a strange brightness upon her face; a ghostly
sweetness seemed all about her. "I'm just telling you goodbye and giving
Eugene to you forever. I want you both to remember that what I wanted
most, now at the end, was that you both should be happy. To-morrow night
in the triumph that you and he will have together I want you to spare
just a single little thought to me. You'll have such a wealth of
flowers--toss just one tiny spray of rosemary to me and say, 'Perhaps
she knows this and is glad for us.'"

"You mustn't do this to me!" Lily sobbed. "You can't----"

"Now will you let me kiss you goodbye, Lily?" Isabelle stepped close to
her and kissed her upon the cheek; but, upon this, Lily uttered a loud
cry of sharpest lamentation, and, as Isabelle moved on toward the door,
sought to detain her.

"No, no, you shan't do it! You shan't go like this! You shan't----"

But Isabelle was already at the door and had opened it. "Yes, Miss
Knowles," she said quietly; the nurse came to her and the two
disappeared in the darkened lobby.

Lily flung herself upon Owen, and he could not comfort or quiet her.
"Don't you see what she's _done_ to me?" she cried over and over. An
agony of self-reproach had seized her. "Who am I?" she sobbed. "What am
I? You asked me--but nobody knows! I'm poison--I bring a curse on
everything I touch! I ruined Minnie Bush and now I've ruined Isabelle.
You heard what she said--she'll kill herself! I don't want Eugene! I
don't want anything! Mother--Clara--I haven't sent them a penny--I
haven't even written them a decent letter! Somebody ought to put me to
torture--somebody ought to kill me--I'm a thousand times more unfit to
live than Isabelle is! I despise myself! Oh, oh, oh, everybody'll
despise me! I ought to be working at Vance's--dying at Vance's--at
Vance's--at Vance's!"

"You'll be all right to-morrow," he told her again and again, and once,
when she heeded him enough to cry out that she'd never be all right
again, he stormed at her. "You've _got_ to be, Lily! You've got to make
up to your mother and Clara now at last for how you've treated them!
You'll get hold of yourself and be in shape for to-morrow morning's
rehearsal or you'll botch to-morrow night, and that _will_ ruin them and
yourself, too, and all the rest of us! Do you hear me?"

"To-morrow night!" she cried, in a voice grown hoarse. "You don't see!
You don't see! You don't see!"

She became incoherent and was not able to explain to him what it was
that he didn't see. He had ado to quiet her enough to get her out to the
dark street and into a cab, within the half hour. She cried steadily and
incoherently, and was incoherent still as he drove with her to Madison
Avenue and left her sobbing in the arms of Jennie Lebrun.




CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


Dining alone at a corner table in the Sunday evening quiet of the
Players' grill-room, he thought appreciatively of Jennie Lebrun, of her
easy competence on the stage and her calmness off of it. The passage of
"Catalpa House" to this final phase had been like that of a vessel
through cyclonic waters; typhoons had struck, the Captain had worked
resourcefully, but even now at the harbor mouth two of those upon whom
the safety of the ship depended seemed distractedly about to sink her.
Ah, if all the crew had half the cheerful steadiness of Jennie Lebrun
and Rita Carlin! Then, to be no more than just, he thought that poor
Isabelle herself might have been as steady and cheerfully dependable as
Jennie and Rita if wild young genius hadn't thrust among the company.

He had done his best to assuage Lily's fear that Isabelle intended to
make away with herself, though Lily had paid no heed to him and much of
her choking and sobbing incoherence had seemed to revert to this theme.
Owen's own apprehension upon the point was slight; he had the impression
that people who plan self-destruction do not speak of it beforehand with
the insistent almost poetic pathos that Isabelle had used. It seemed to
him that she had been as pathetic as she possibly could be, so much so,
indeed, that she had been almost deliberately pathetic. This did not
mean, of course, that her suffering was not heart-rendingly actual;
nevertheless, it appeared that the evidences of her true anguish had
been unable to resist being put forth with an artistic touch. He was
sympathetic and understood that Isabelle had sought relief in expression
and in wringing a rival's heart; she had followed a pressing impulse to
ease her unbearable misery a little by playing a scene of abnegation,
and playing it well--even so well that she had unconsciously borrowed
from Lily herself small half-gestures and a broken-looking back, that
posture in the stiff little chair!

"These people!" he said once more to himself; but he said it now sadly
and with a larger and more indulgent comprehension than he had been wont
to say it. After all, too, even if Isabelle had been acting when she
spoke of suicide, wasn't it possible that she had meant what she said?
He thought not; yet the possibility troubled him, bothered him the more,
the more he thought of it, and finally, late in the evening, worried him
into going to the telephone and calling Hurley.

The manager's voice sounded wearily irritated. "Well, what's the matter
now? What's on _your_ mind?"

"Isabelle. I'm afraid she----"

"Oh, my cripes! _You're_ going to tell me not to let her jump off a
dock, now, are you? Listen! She isn't----"

"Suppose you listen, yourself, George!" Owen interrupted, nettled and
puzzled, too. "How the devil did you know that was what I was going to
talk to you about?"

"Oh, Lord! Lily's been calling me up, having spasms about it. Told me
you were there when Isabelle talked to her. What the devil'd you let it
happen for, anyhow? Why didn't you send Lily home and tell Isabelle
you'd taken the responsibility, on account of not wanting the child to
get in the state of mind she _is_ in with a First Night hanging over
her?"

"But, George, I felt that Isabelle had a right to----"

"Fiddlededee! If I can ever find just one single grain of common sense
in anybody connected with the theatre I give you my solemn word--I'll
take any oath you can think of--I'll----"

"You're wasting time," the annoyed playwright said sharply. "What I want
to----"

"I know! I know! Listen! Listen and don't make me yell my head off into
this instrument. Isabelle isn't the type that does it and isn't in that
condition of mind, either. Understand me? She isn't. I've just had Dr.
Coombs call Lily up to tell her so. Lily's been at me every fifteen
minutes on the telephone. I had to make Coombs go around and see
Isabelle again and he says it's damn nonsense to anticipate any such
thing and besides he's instructed the nurse to look out, though he knows
it isn't going to occur. _I_ knew it wasn't, of course; but I did it to
try and calm Lily down, and a whole lot of calming it's done! Sounds
like a five-year-old child with its doll's head off! Says she knows
Isabelle's going to do it just about the time the curtain goes up
to-morrow night! My cripes! Told Jennie Lebrun to put her to bed and sit
by her till she gets to sleep--if she does! Fine condition you've let
your leading lady get into, with her opening night right----"

Owen interrupted again and spoke with an increased sharpness. "I won't
discuss the question of responsibility. I don't think you perceive that
it involves a question of ethics that----"

"Ethics? My cripes!" The telephonic instrument at the playwright's ear
seemed to tingle and its sound became tinny. "Now, for God's sake! Don't
you realize that the child's nerves were already like fiddle strings
tuned up too high and in danger of breaking, because of playing a
colossal part in a New York opening on a few hours' notice? Think she's
made of iron? Then on top of that, you had to let her walk into a scene
with a wild woman that would get anybody's nerve, even without being all
worked up over an opening--and now you want to tell me all about ethics!
For God's _sake_! As sure as God made little apples and lets me live, I
give you my solemn word and I'll take any oath the meanest lawyer on
earth ever thought of or ever _will_ think of, I'll give a million
dollars if I ever find one single infinitesimal morsel of common sense
in anybody connected with----"

"Goodnight, George!"

Thus the unamiable interview closed with the click of a metal prong.
Owen Gilbert went to an uneasy bed and woke in the morning to a
conviction of calamity. In dreams already forgotten he had been a
witness of disasters that left their shadows in his mood; he seemed
possessed of foreknowledge that "Catalpa House" was to be murdered and
that when evening came the stage of the Forty-first Street Theatre would
be as dark as his own depression. He had coffee sent to his room and
partook of it hurriedly, for with it was brought a written message from
the clerk in the office downstairs. "Mr. Hurley just telephoned saying
he wouldn't wait for you to answer but to ask you please come to his
office in the Netherlands Theatre Building as soon as you can get
there."

"Ah, what now, what now?" the playwright groaned; but increased his
haste.

In Hurley's office he found Pinkney Monk and Eugene; they stood
confronting the manager, who sat at his desk, and their backs were
toward the door. But they turned as Owen came in, and Eugene's face was
paler than he had ever seen it. "You're in at the death," the actor said
bitterly. "I hope you'll enjoy my last throes; I'm through with the
stage forever!"

"Oh, you are, are you?" Monk asked satirically, and for the first time
in Owen's acquaintance with him showed irritation. "Seems to me I've
heard actors say that before--just a few times! Haven't we got enough on
our hands, damn it! without your wasting our time talking balderdash?"

Eugene became tragic. "Balderdash! All I want to do now is to go
straight to the devil! Is it balderdash when an actor does that? Ah,
yes! He's only an actor, so what does it matter? Only an actor! Who
cares when he goes to the dogs? Only an----"

"Listen!" Hurley shouted, and, glowering, struck the desk powerfully
with his fist. "Quiet down, will you? You've got about twenty-five
minutes to get your nerve in shape before the last rehearsal of this
play."

"Rehearsal?" Eugene laughed wildly. "Rehearsal? Who'll I rehearse
_with_? How do I rehearse with nobody opposite? Do I play 'Hawkins' and
'Hester' too? Both parts? Do I----"

Owen interrupted him. "Is Lily ill?"

"Ill?" Eugene laughed again. "Ill? No, she isn't ill! Do you want to
know what she's done?"

"I believe that would be the inference," Owen said, with grimness; but
before the response came he knew what it would be. He had a flash of
revelation and reminiscence mingled together, and his mind's eye saw
Lily dancing gayly into the front door of the "double house" at night,
saw her agonizing over Minnie Bush in his mother's library the next
morning, saw swift-flitting pictures of the scene of renunciation and
atonement Lily had played so ardently and irresponsibly then; he knew
that now she had done the same thing again, this time upon a grander and
more dazzling and destructive scale.

"She's gone!" Eugene cried. "She's struck me down; she's struck me down
to the very gutter! She's where we can't get hold of her--can't, can't,
can't! She's at least four hundred miles away by this time! She couldn't
get back if she wanted to, herself! She's on a train! On a train, do you
hear me? On a train! On a train! On a _train_! On a----"

"Hush up!" Hurley said quietly, and spoke to Owen. "Jennie thought she'd
got her quieted down and almost asleep a little after eleven. About
half-past twelve she went into her room again and she wasn't there. The
landlady was sitting up, reading, downstairs in the parlor and said
Lily'd come down with her grips, borrowed a railroad time-table, paid
her bill, got a cab and gone. Left a letter on her pillow for Jennie to
hand to me. Here it is."

Owen read it.

    "For hours I've known I must do this thing--there's no other way
    out of it all--no other way--no other way George dear, no other
    way--it's the only way. When you read these words it will all be
    over and I'll be far far away from you on the train. What is
    left of my shattered life must be given to making-up to my
    mother and sister for my heartless neglect of even writing to
    them in this brief span of glory that has been so absorbing I
    was thoughtless of them but now I go in shame and remorse to
    atone to them by giving them what is left of my life and the
    labor of my hands.

    "I lay down this jewelled happy life you have given me like a
    glittering garment I am not fit to wear for if I kept it upon me
    it would be at the cost of another's life because I am sure she
    would go that far--no matter what the doctor says. So I must do
    this thing to keep from going crazy--I must save her and give
    her back all I have taken from her.

    "My tears have dried and a kind of paralysis of calmness has
    come upon me. I do the thing that I must do and they will be
    brought together again by it and she will shine in the triumph
    that was to have been mine. Her despair will turn to joy when
    she hears that I am gone and though she is a few years beyond
    her first youth and perhaps would not have either as keen
    suffering or happiness such as younger people feel I hope and
    believe this act of mine will bring her true and great
    happiness. Tell her this for me George dear and oh please say
    farewell for me to all the others--to dear Owen and Pink and Joe
    and Harry and Jennie and Rita and Eugene and dear Tom-Jim-Jack
    and poor old Mr. Briggs for I love them all so. Ask them to
    spare me one thought sometimes when I shall be standing all day
    at work where my darling sister used to stand until the work
    ruined her health.

    "All the dear faces of the company come before me as I write
    Goodbye and yours dear George so kind and so great it is hard to
    believe I shall not see it any more. Oh goodbye George
    dear--goodbye--goodbye--goodbye from


    "Your grateful broken Lily"




CHAPTER THIRTY


"Again!" was Owen's sickened thought as he read.

The difference was that when the remorseful Lily had made her great
renunciation for Minnie Bush no damage had been done, though that was
not much to her credit; but this time she had really accomplished a
catastrophe and pulled the house down with her. Mere wreckage was
left--Mrs. Mars, Clara, himself, his play and all the actors who were to
have played their parts in it eleven hours hence.

Eugene made a gesture bitterly futile, a slap of his fingers upon the
open sheet of paper in Owen's hand. "That's how it ends!" he cried.
"That's what comes of trusting a big property to a giddy-headed little
girl that knows no more of the traditions of the stage or its
responsibilities than I do of Euclid! I blame you, George! I blame you,
Pink, and I blame you, Owen! Damn it, I blame everybody! My God, I think
we've all been crazy! On my soul, I believe we've been bewitched! That
we'd let an inexperienced, unknown amateur turn our heads, tear the play
to pieces, step into the shoes of a tried and true and capable leading
woman--thrown out with her health wrecked to make room for a totally
irresponsible, unknown, hare-brained child who can't be relied on for
two minutes and doesn't care enough for anybody not to blast his career
in a crisis--why, damn it, George, you talk about common sense, I'd like
to ask you what's become of your own! If you think you've shown any----"

"Hush up!" Hurley said again, took the letter from Owen and placed it in
a breast-pocket. "You and Pink get on over to the Forty-first Street
Theatre, will you?"

"I?" Eugene struck himself upon the breast. "What for?"

"For rehearsal. Don't keep the company waiting."

"No? Who've you got for 'Hester'? Bement?"

Eugene made the room noisy with satiric laughter; but Hurley merely
sighed. "I've got Isabelle, of course."

"Isabelle? My God! Don't you know she's under the care of a nerve
specialist? Don't you know she's got a breakdown, shot to pieces and
can't even talk connectedly? Don't you know she's watched every minute
by a trained nurse? Do you think Isabelle can _act_? My God! What do you
expect of her?"

Hurley looked at him with a tired eye. "What would you expect of
Tantalus if somebody offered him a magnum of champagne? Do you think de
Soto would have taken a bath if he'd discovered his Fountain of Youth?
Isabelle's got both and she's over there waiting for you to rehearse. Go
along with him, will you, Monk."

Eugene said "My God!" again, stared protuberantly, seized Monk's arm and
strode with him from the room; but the playwright was almost unaware of
their departure. Preoccupied, he was looking doubtfully yet with a
profound respect at Hurley; the doubt was of the manager's intelligence;
the respect was for his indomitableness.

"What's the use, George?" he asked, when they were alone. "Just to die
game? Of course the whole thing's gone, so why----"

"Gone? I don't know; I don't know. Your play's been polished up on the
road; but otherwise it's just where it was before Lily came into it, and
it looked fairly good then."

"Yes, perhaps--before it became the mess it is now!"

"Mess?" Hurley repeated, oddly remaining mild. "Think I've made a mess
of it?"

"You? I mean without Lily----"

"Without Lily? Out front to-night they won't know what she'd have done
with it; people that haven't been to Switzerland think the White
Mountains are pretty high mountains. We'll go over to the theatre in a
little while and see what it looks like. Let's talk about something else
a minute." A railway time-table lay unfolded on the desk before the
manager; he studied it and made a dot upon it with a pencil. "She must
have got a train out at twelve-twenty; that'd bring her into Cleveland
this morning. She'd have to lay over there until afternoon--leave there
at four-fifty and get home to-night at one fifty-five. Two o'clock
to-morrow morning. Here's the fast through train; it leaves here at
three-twenty this afternoon and gets there at noon to-morrow--only about
ten hours after her." He looked up at Owen speculatively. "I was just
wondering----"

"Wondering if you couldn't get her back to take Isabelle's
place--again--by Wednesday or Thursday night?" Owen asked, with a
piteous spurt of mockery.

The manager's face flushed; but he was in a strange mood and made no
retort. On the contrary he spoke musingly in a gentle tone. "You see
what she's done is rather magnificent, rather magnificent."

"Is it? Magnificently considerate of all of the rest of us, would you
call it, George? Considerate of her mother and her sister, too--going
back to save them by getting ten dollars a week at a department
store--if she can get even that!--after she's involved them in debts
that nothing except her success here could possibly have paid? And all
for a gesture!"

"Gesture?"

"One of execrable, ruthless vanity!" the playwright cried, vehement in
this release of pent indignation. "The one thing on earth she can't bear
is not to be picturesque. Oh, she must be not only that; she must at all
times be the very most picturesque person in sight--she'd give her life
and everybody else's for that!"

"What! You're out of your head! She----"

"Hark to me, will you? I think I know her at last; this act reveals her.
Yesterday Isabelle became the more picturesque of the two. She'd lost
the rle of leading lady on the stage; but she got it back in the 'real
life' scene she played with Lily. She was the heroine, the spiritual
superior, the great romantic sufferer and self-sacrificer--put Lily in a
hole and made her look like a little pig. Unendurable! Lily _had_ to get
back the rle of heroine! I don't mean she didn't have any genuine
remorse for what she'd inevitably done to Isabelle. She did--she really
suffered horribly, of course; but what impelled her to action was the
necessity to make a great romantic gesture. It's the breath of her life
to hold the centre of the stage--to make the centre wherever _she_ is!"

Hurley interrupted him. "But for an actor, that's only----"

"Listen to me, will you?" Owen stormed. "She wanted me to write a play
for her about a woman's great self-immolation. That's her foremost
artistic admiration, and I tell you she's so incarnately an actress she
hardly knows when she's on the stage and when she's off it! She can
hardly distinguish between being that woman and playing that woman! She
doesn't know where reality ends and unreality begins in herself! So, to
take it away from Isabelle again and to hold the stage as the heroic
abnegator, she sends herself and everybody else to the devil in this one
supreme 'magnificent' gesture! A gesture, I tell you--nothing on earth
but a gesture!"

Hurley's thoughtfulness was not altered by his friend's outburst.
"That's not such a bad idea, you know. You might think it over, Owen."

"Think what over?"

"That idea for a play," Hurley said. "A woman's self-sacrifice. Old
theme, of course; but I mean if you treated it in a new way--gave her
some lightness and comedy but with an underlying capacity for heroic
sacrifice that would come out on her at a crisis and give her a rather
enormous last act climax. Take what you just said about reality and
unreality. Who does know where one ends and the other begins in himself?
I mean in any act of self-sacrifice people don't have to be actors to be
doing such a thing partly as a gesture. The important thing about Sydney
Carton on the scaffold isn't that he sees something of the
picturesqueness of what he's doing; the important thing is that he's
_on_ the scaffold. Suppose you treated such a supreme act that way, in a
play. What I mean, let her see herself it's partly gesture, but
nevertheless does it; and the big thing is that she does do it. See what
I mean? It might be rather fresh. Might turn out to be rather an
extraordinary part, rather extraordinary!"

"George! If you're crazy enough to think I'll ever write another
play----"

"Listen," Hurley said, and now looked at him with a peculiar, appealing
earnestness. "What I was wondering--I was thinking the child'll be in
pretty complete misery out there when she gets home. However much truth
there may be in what you've been saying, however much gesture and
picturesqueness there may have been in what she's done, and however much
harm comes of it, the act itself is noble. If she did it as an actress,
a lesser one couldn't have done it. Only a really great actress could
have done it. You understand? She did go to the scaffold. Well, I was
just wondering---- If ever anybody in the world needed a friend to be
with her and do a little admiring and cheering up, she does now--I was
just wondering whether you wouldn't like to get off on that three-twenty
this afternoon and be there to-morrow only ten hours after she's home
and see what you can do about it."

Owen was incredulous. "What? With this half-dead play staggering toward
to-night and the rocks and----"

"But why not?" Hurley asked, with a friendly urgency. "Somebody ought to
stand by her. I was thinking that if you'd go out there and kind of get
it into her mind that you might develop a play on these self-sacrifice
lines for her and that it wouldn't necessarily be too much to hope that
Adler and Company might present her in it----"

"I think you're insane!"

"I don't know about that," Hurley said mildly. "I don't know about that
at all. You've had a lot of experience lately and I think you might get
rather a good play out of it; really something rather remarkable.
Anyhow, _she'd_ think you could and you'd get her mind off her misery.
Listen. Why don't you take the three-twenty? There isn't anything you
can do here; there isn't another thing on earth either you or I can do
to help 'Catalpa House' now. We'll go round and just look at it
presently; but our work's done--it's out of our hands now and up to the
people that are going to play it." His earnestness increased. "I never
go to the theatre myself on a New York First Night--all there is to do
is to suffer. You don't want to hang around there to-night, do you, and
hide somewhere when the ushers start the 'Author! Author!' shenanigan?"

"No, I don't!"

"All right. Then why don't you take the three-twenty and go out there?
Wouldn't you like to?"

"No! I would not!"

Hurley made a gesture of philosophic acceptance. "All right," he said
abruptly, folded the time-table, placed it in a pocket, put on his hat
and rose. "Let's get over to the Forty-first Street Theatre."

                 *        *        *        *        *

...To the author of "Catalpa House" its last rehearsal was a jumble
of unmeaning sights and sounds accompanied by a memorable pain in that
symbol of the emotions we call the heart and also in his physical head.
From eyebrows to spine he developed a headache so acute that he was
almost indifferent to the hints of nausea that now and then added
themselves to it; but he sat in a back row chair until the work was
over, being too miserable to move except of necessity. During the
progress of the last act Harry Vokes sat beside him for a time and was
voluble.

"Don't take it so hard," the comedian said. "We could all feel like that
if we'd let ourselves; but we've got a First Night to play. If it
weren't for that--zowie! You remember that second time George pretended
to fire her, and me telling you how we didn't have anything to play up
to? Everybody all let down, what? Light gone out of the room, see? Might
as well give up the silly old play and all such and such, so on and so
on. Not to-day, though. 'Don't give up the ship', see? She's out of
it--vacated--took all the nice pictures and furniture out of the house.
Us up there making empty reverberations, what? _But_ high degree of
stimulus from old Joe and other parties involved. Everybody slapping
everybody else on the back, see? First Night! On your toes, no matter
what! What, isn't an actor an actor for a' that and a' that? Toot, lad!
Toot, lass! Save the day! Save friendly author and best of managers!
Save our own bacon, what? Brighten up, ye heroes! Maybe we'll put it
over for you, anyhow."

Owen could only murmur, "You think so?"

"Oh, there's a chance! Might." Vokes chuckled confidentially. "Get
Isabelle? Grand performance off. Plays all her scenes firm on feet but
slight stagger indicating diseased feebleness or something immediately
upon exit. Rush of stout nurse to assist. Broken reed business of
leaning on plump shoulder, and oh, such faint, brave sweetness! Strong
as an ox, see; but preserving attitude of having been out of company a
few passing hours on account of accidental illness, which caused Lily
Mars to be rehearsed yesterday as desperate last-chance substitute in
case leading lady not recovered in time to play to-night as per
schedule. Kissed half the company in enthusiastic greeting, though
leaning on nurse during osculation. Now get this, because it's good.
Appears to notice absence of Mars with slight surprise and inquires with
sweet languor; then pulled this line to Rita, 'Gone home? I'm so sorry!
I suppose George knows what he's doing; but _I_ think she was the best
of all the Myras we've tried, next to Mabel Meadows.' Now you tell me
one as good as that."

"I can't!" Owen groaned. "I don't know any!"

"No, it's a prize. Anybody told you about great emotional reconciliation
scene in star's dressing-room, just before Pink hammered for school to
take up? No spectators, see; but fine effect of fat nurse waiting
outside door and spoiling everything by giggling. Us lounging
about--business of showing indifference and not rubbering, just had to
go and catch flies or something in that region of theatre, but ears
extended and groping the way a crab does with his eyes. Rewarded by
sound of loud manly sobs. 'Gene doing his big act of Grateful Gabriel
getting taken back on old footing by Faithful Fanny. Fat nurse busting
with snickers and trying to make believe she's only laughing at me, the
funny man--then having the nerve to give me the eye! 'Fie, hussy!' I
told her. Heigh-ho!" Vokes became serious and rose from his seat beside
the playwright. "Cue coming. Don't be too downhearted. We're all sure
she'll come back in something else some day and be It. She didn't lay
down on us, you see; Jennie's got the dope. An actor takes another's
place every day; but this--well, she got the big head for a while but
she's a good-hearted girl, and she knew she'd have to play the part if
she stayed. She couldn't do it. Knew she'd feel like hell from now on if
she gave Isabelle the big knock-out. Couldn't do it! Couldn't do it, God
bless her! G'bye."

Owen, sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands,
presently grew aware that the actors' voices were no longer heard. He
sat up painfully and saw nobody on the stage except Pinkney Monk talking
to an electrician; the players had gone and so had Hurley. In the dazed,
hot eyes of the playwright the dimly revealed rows of vacant seats
appeared as a wavering, choppy sea ominously glimpsed before the storm.
"To-night will engulf--engulf what is left," he thought, crept out,
feebly signalled a hansom cab and drove to the Players'. There, in the
fine old bedroom that had once been Lawrence Barrett's, he drooped into
an easy-chair and gave himself up to a torpor that took little account
of anything except physical anguish. He had nausea, was fevered, then
damply cold, then was hot again, and his cephalic pain was like a sharp
toothache enlarged into a headache. When he thought that the afternoon
must surely be gone and nightfall approaching he looked at his watch and
it astoundingly informed him that the time was not quite three o'clock.

"Lily's half way home now," he thought vaguely. "In the morning she'll
be down town applying at Vance's."

He got himself out of the chair, into a dressing-gown and lay upon the
canopied bed. The dreadful afternoon somehow wore itself out; the light
through the windows waned at last; but before it was quite gone he had
to make himself rise in answer to a knocking. When he opened the door he
confronted a tall, dark, middle-aged man whose manner and thoughtful
look were of a fine, unobtrusive distinction.

"I thought you mightn't mind my bringing up a telegram that's just come
for you, Mr. Gilbert. If I may say so, when you entered the club it
struck me you weren't feeling very well, possibly, and now that I'm here
might I inquire if you wouldn't wish to have dinner brought up to your
room for you, Mr. Gilbert? Perhaps you'd prefer a pot of tea and----"

"No, Walter, thank you. Nothing at all."

"Very well, sir. Perhaps if there are telephone calls or messages you'd
prefer not to be disturbed?"

"I won't come down again to-night or answer the telephone; but if there
are any messages please send them up."

"Yes, Mr. Gilbert." Walter withdrew, closing the door gently, and Owen
lighted the lamp on the table and read the telegram. It was from Mrs.
Gilbert.

    HER MOTHER HAS JUST RECEIVED TELEGRAM FROM CLEVELAND SHE IS ON
    WAY HOME TO OBTAIN POSITION VANCE AND NEVER LEAVE HER AGAIN
    EVERYTHING UPSET AT THEIR HOUSE IN CONSEQUENCE HER TELEGRAM
    MAKES NO MENTION WHY SHE HAS DONE THIS AND AS I CLEARLY FORESEE
    HER ACCOUNT ON ARRIVAL WILL BE EMOTIONAL AND CONFUSING WILL YOU
    PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY CLARIFYING CAUSE OF SUCH A TERRIFIC
    PROCEEDING AND WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING TO YOUR PLAY.

"Write immediately?" Owen groaned. "I wish I could!" He placed a hot
hand upon his hotter forehead as if in explanation of his inability,
dragged himself to the bed and again reclined upon it. At midnight, when
a second communication was brought up to him, he had found no surcease
from his torment, though he had helplessly tried a series of wet towels
as palliatives. It was with one of these mere adornments about his head
that he read the note from O'Mahoney.


    MANAGER'S OFFICE
    FORTY-FIRST STREET THEATRE

    Monday night about 11:25.


    "Dear Mr. G.

    "George left word to keep you informed, so tried to telephone
    you after third act curtain but they wouldn't call you. Final
    curtain about 11:05 but the piece will run shorter after this. A
    good deal of the loss of time was due to calls after all the
    acts--fourteen after the third act and even five after the last
    curtain. Of course First Night calls don't mean much; but
    nevertheless congratulations! We all feel that the piece is put
    over and has a fine chance for a pretty good run. I circulated
    among the critics high and low, old and young, as much as
    possible to get the drift and really they were nearly all quite
    well pleased and positively we are going to get a good press
    to-morrow. You needn't worry at all, because the audience
    genuinely liked it--the suspense held and the comedy went over
    to a lot of laughs, and really the play is mighty interesting
    itself--so with them rooting for it and a good press we're sure
    to do box-office.

    "The company did their darnedest and went over strong. 'Gene
    really outdid himself and was the Big Boy. They got him out
    after the climax curtain and he made a lovely speech with strong
    compliments for you and George and Isabelle. She was really
    bully in the part and looked about ten years younger. Could
    hardly get in her dressing-room for the bouquets--mainly, I
    gather, from 'Gene. Myself, I liked old Joe's work best of the
    bunch; but they were all good and without being over-optimistic
    I'm sure I can give you my solemn word and take any oath, as the
    Governor says, you can now go out and celebrate the victory or
    turn in and dream sweet dreams of ducats in your purse, just as
    you choose.

    "Scrawlingly yours

    "O'M."


Owen read incredulously, re-read with bewilderment; then read once more
and found that he was no longer feverish; miraculously, the pain in his
head seemed bearable. He freshened a towel with cold water, got himself
into bed and felt that his headache had almost worn itself out. At
least, it had lost the acuteness that interferes with coherent thinking,
and his thoughts were crowding, as were his feelings.

He thought of old Joe Ord, of Harry Vokes, of Eugene and Isabelle, and
of all the players who had bravely given to "Catalpa House" the span of
life that now seemed assured for it. More, he thought of all actors and
of one for whom the room next to that wherein he lay was kept as a
memorial shrine ever to be reverently visited by the "profession". The
princely, gentle player who had died there had given this splendid
house, his home, to his fellow-actors, keeping only the one room for
himself; a few steps through the hallway would have brought Owen to that
shrine, where lay the last book Edwin Booth read, with the book-mark in
its place where he had left it when he read no more. "These people",
practicing, through lives often hand-to-mouth, the most personal and the
most perishable of all the arts, following it with ever in their ears
the noise of public criticism of what they did and of themselves, and
continually subjected to a thousand incitements to cherish vanity and
vanity's deadly twin, jealousy--ah, they were a great people, after all!

Thus he came to the thought of that most characteristic of all their
qualities, their generosity. Even Isabelle in her writhing had made the
gesture of abnegation for another's sake, and what indeed is a pose but
a poor human creature's attempt to seem what he yearns to be. Isabelle
had yearned to be like that. Lily had gone further; so much further that
hadn't she indeed gone higher? She had not only yearned to be like that;
she had actually been like that, and suddenly her flight shone upon him
with the brightness of a broken star crossing the sky. Such a star goes
into the darkness; so had she done that--and her mother had put her into
his hands. Worse, he had refused when even Hurley had asked him to go
and comfort her.

Owen found himself made up of littlenesses. One of them was the smart he
had felt because her despairing letter had been written to the manager,
not to himself, and another was the prickling within him because she had
sought Hurley first when she knew that she had to face Isabelle and was
rightly frightened. She had turned first to Hurley because she had
thought he would more powerfully protect her, would indeed actually save
her. Moreover, that was what Hurley would have done, no question, and,
if he had happened to remain in the theatre fifteen minutes longer on
Sunday afternoon, Lily would have been the heart of a triumph to-night.

Owen Gilbert remembered the vow he had taken after the first time she
had waited for him and kissed him for writing the part of "Myra".
"Whatever you do to me, I'll never fail you--not after that!" So he had
promised and had failed her continuously ever since. No wonder she had
turned to the sturdy Hurley who failed nobody! In him she had recognized
not only the artist whose materials were actors, playwrights, directors,
scene painters, electricians and even property men; she had perceived
the masterly man who would preserve her if for no other reason than that
he intended to use her. But there were other reasons; for obviously
Hurley found in her not only his finest, most exquisite material but a
nobility of spirit that satisfied his passion to make the theatre noble.

Owen knew what was the matter with himself. He had been a lover, but a
lover "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought", a lover all
scrutinies and analyses--and in the name of heaven what sort of a lover
was that!

In the morning, sound in head though possessing a low opinion of
himself, he telephoned to the manager's office and was told that Mr.
Hurley had not come in. "When he comes, give him this message," Owen
said. "Tell him that Mr. Gilbert has decided to do what he wished him to
do, is taking the afternoon train and will be there to-morrow at noon."




CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE


The red-faced fat old dpt hackman was delighted to see him, and, in a
blackly glistening rubber overcoat under a copious autumnal drizzle,
kept the door of the hack open for a moment's conversation after the
young playwright was seated upon the mouldy green cushion within.

"Glad to get back in God's country, I guess! Ain't been so well since
you been away, have you? Well, sir, this climate we got out here'll fix
you all right. Feel better a'ready, I expect. Saw your mother out ridin'
couple days ago with them two fat old bays and that white-necktie old
darkey; she was lookin' well--yes, sir, lookin' first rate! Newhouse and
Treadwell's up to ten stories and I hear they expect to have the roof on
by Thanksgiving. Yes, sir, a lively old burg we got here, a mighty
lively old burg! Well--on account the rain expect I better take you
right into the driveway when we get there. Land you right up close to
the front porch. Goin' to be with us some time, I guess?"

"I don't know."

"Expect you'll make it as long as you can. Yes, sir, it's a great place
to be, a great place to be!"

The hackman laughed as an expression of good will, closed the door,
passed a shining wet fat finger across his wet moustache, dislodging
drops of water, then climbed to his box. Inside there was green dimness,
a musty smell never smelled elsewhere, and a rumbling that became
heavier as the horses changed from a walk to their patient trot. Looking
out at the umbrellas and rain-coats of the hurrying midland people on
the sidewalks, a picture a little contorted by the running water upon
the hack's windows, the pale young passenger felt that an abrupt, vast
transportation of himself had taken place; all at once he seemed to be
at an immense distance from the theatre--from all its life, from old Joe
Ord and Eugene and Isabelle and Harry Vokes, from Hurley and the
"Players'", and from "laughs" and "sides" and "scripts" and "sets" and
"foots" and "borders" and "amber" and grease-paint and stage doors and
bright dressing-rooms. Yet (and his breath came quicker) he was in the
same town with Lily Mars!

After the hack had crossed the broadest and most turbulent of the town's
commercial avenues and as it joggled by the open square where the
fountain competed sadly with the rain and falling, brown leaves, he had
a momentary experience that startled him. A closed, large automobile,
passing the hack and like it going north, faintly seemed to be familiar,
possibly one of the three, all alike, he had hired from Foudray's to
carry the "Skylark" company to dine at his mother's upon an evening a
long, long time ago. Then suddenly his heart was in his throat. The
profile and figure of a lady sheltered in the passing car seemed to be
Lily's; there was a glimpse of a bouquet of violets upon a dark fur
coat. "Illusion!" he thought, as the quick picture fled by; Lily
couldn't be hiring automobiles at Foudray's nor wearing furs or violets.
"Ah, me! Now I'm near her, I'll be seeing her everywhere! Every girl in
the distance will be Lily--till she comes closer. But will she ever come
close to anybody, or will anybody in the world ever come close to her?"

The eight hoofs plod-plod-plodded upon the wet cedar blocks, the iron
tires of the four wheels deepened the rumble in the playwright's ears,
and his heart was wistful with the memory of Lily's odd, sweet voice
speaking a thrilling, queer word, that evening so long ago.

    _"And place your hand below your husband's foot;_
     _In token of which duty, if he please,_
     _My hand is ready, may it do him ease."_

"Husband!" He could conjure up no vision of Lily's hand ready to be
placed beneath a husband's foot, and he laughed at the preposterous
idea. "If I should ask to be that husband--" he thought, and was
frightened. He would and he would not!--and thus he knew the truth of
the trouble that had been in his breast from the first. He would and he
would not; yet he couldn't bear the prospect of a life without her.

The iron tires left the wooden pavement, crunched the gravel of his
mother's driveway and he heard a hoarse voice bellowing harshly at
somebody; then more moderately calling, "Whoa!" The hack stopped and the
red-faced hackman opened the door. "One o' them hiring automobiles from
Foudray's standin' here by the path to the porch," he explained. "Had to
make him drive on down towards the stable. Lemme help you in with them
bags; I'll be glad to." They divided the burden between them; the
hackman set the bag he carried beside its fellow on the stone floor of
the verandah, departed gratefully, and Owen, after a tentative glance at
the bell handle, thought better of it and tried the bronze knob of one
of the carved walnut doors. The knob turned, the door opened and
immediately he breathed a varied perfume of flowers.

When he came into the hall he stopped and stared. There were flowers in
vases on the mahogany console-table near the door; to the left, he saw
vases of flowers on the mantel in the "reception room" and vases of
flowers on the two tables within his view in that room; he saw vases and
bowls of flowers through the open doors of the "library" on his right;
there was a great jar of white chrysanthemums on the floor beside the
newel of the stairway--roses, chrysanthemums, lilies, dahlias, pansies,
gardenias, orchids in great quantity--he was struck with astonishment
and dismay. So many flowers were like a wedding--or a funeral!

Mrs. Gilbert, crying out happily, came rushing from the library to
embrace him. "Owen! Dearest! Had your telegram only an hour ago and
didn't know what train to meet. Ah, poor boy, you look so tired! But
you'll----"

"Mother!" he said, stepping back from her. "What's it all about? Are you
having a party? I never saw so many flowers in my life! Are you----"

"No; nothing. Not going to have any party and haven't had any. The
flowers are just--just a token. They came this morning and were intended
to convey a message--of gratitude. A gratitude of considerable
vehemence, shouldn't you say? They came from Mr. Hurley."

"From Hurley! From New York----"

"No," she said. "He's here. I don't mean here in the house, but here in
town. He got here yesterday on the same train that you just----"

"Hurley? Yesterday? Hurley came out here----"

Mrs. Gilbert laughed and nodded gayly; then put a hand upon his shoulder
and turned him toward the open doorway of the library. "She's there. I
sent her word you were coming and she came to--to tell you goodbye for a
little while."

"What!" He strode into the library, saw more flowers and Lily--Lily,
with a bunch of violets upon her dark fur coat--Lily, radiant, extending
her arms to him. She did more than extend her arms; she threw them about
his neck, kissed him, left tears upon his cheek, laughed, and began to
chatter.

"You darling! You darling precious Guardian Angel! Oh, you'll be a
thousand times my Guardian Angel when you bring me that beautiful play
you're going to write for me! He said you would. He came yesterday. He
said there was only one way to manage me! He said he could only control
me this way! What can anybody say to such a man? You know what he's
like; I won't tell you. I've only just this minute to look at you and
tell you I love you--he's waiting for me at Mother's and we've got to
catch a train. He said it'd be too embarrassing if he came, too; he said
he'd take any oath I could think of he wasn't going to come and hear you
laughing at him, and there was so much he hadn't said to Mother, anyhow,
he didn't have time. He wants to know if you can have that play before
March--ready for rehearsal, he meant. He says he'll engage that
wonderful Hugh Picard for leading man. He'll write you about it next
week. Oh, we both will! Say you'll do it!"

"Lily!" he gasped. "I don't know what you're talking about, but if you
think I'll ever again write another play as long as I live----"

She kissed him again. "Yes, you will! Think what you'll have from
'Catalpa House'! He said to tell you he's had a wire this morning it's
picked up a lovely advance. You'll always write plays, and 'I swear if
God lets me live' I'll never play in any but yours!" She laughed and
wept together as she quoted the managerial oath; but, not pausing, went
on breathlessly, "You hated my silliness about Eugene--you'll find out
some day that such nonsense really means just nothing to me. Eugene's a
man of great talent of course; but _really_ all that was just the same
as Charlie Bright to me. Of course I was in love with him--but not
_really_, I mean! You'll understand some day."

He cried out, protesting. "I? I never shall! I don't understand now what
you're saying!"

"Yes, you do! It's that I'll always love you; you'll always be my one
dearest, dearest best friend." For an instant--only for an instant--she
was wistful and gave him a richly hazel, glamouring, deep look of
infinite sadness, to mean: "Ah, it might have been!" Evidently, she
couldn't help doing this or prevent herself from adding, in the tone of
one who bravely does not reproach, "I've known all along that's how
you'd rather have it, Owen."

"I!" he cried. "No! No, you mustn't say that to me! I know now that all
I want in this world is----"

"Goodbye!" she said suddenly. "Oh, I must run, run, run!" With that,
suiting the action to the word, she ran half way to the door, swung face
about with a beautiful impetuosity and ran back to him. "Ah, kiss me
goodbye, can't you?" He could, and did; again she left tears upon his
face and again laughed. "It isn't for long! Stay here and write the play
for me, angel? Goodbye!"

This time she ran all the way to the front door and opened it. Mrs.
Gilbert brightly appeared near it, offering an umbrella, which Lily
seized. "No! No!" the radiant girl cried, and pushed Owen back as he
pressed to go with her. "You shan't get wet! Your mother'll tell you
everything about me. You shan't come out! It's only a step to the car.
Hold him, Aunt Anne! I love you both! Goodbye!"

She ran out, slammed the door behind her to prevent his following her,
and was gone. Mrs. Gilbert, laughing, had obediently clutched her son's
sleeve. "Don't go. It's only a step, as she said. You don't look well
enough to be running out in the rain!"

"Mother! She said you'd tell me 'everything' about her. What did she
mean?"

Mrs. Gilbert looked at him solicitously but nevertheless merrily. "I
think you'd better sit down before I tell you. I had to, myself, when I
heard it was going to happen!" They went into the library and sat,
facing each other. "Dear boy," she said, "this is to be the most
confidential information you've ever had. It's a secret known to only
five people in the world, and you're to be the sixth. The first five are
Lily and Mr. Hurley and Mrs. Mars and Clara and I, because we were
there." She paused, then added reflectively, "Dear me, though, five? No;
there were six, of course--no; there were more than that, because in the
first place there was the Reverend old Doctor Burgess of their church,
and then of course somebody down at the court house would have to know
about it. But anyhow, it's a terrific secret and----"

"George Hurley?" Owen asked in a faint voice, as he grew paler.
"She--and--and George----"

"Yes." Mrs. Gilbert leaned forward and patted his hand. "Married last
night at her mother's. Oh, oh, oh, but isn't he the man for her!" She
jumped up briskly, smiling brilliantly. "I'm going to tell Martha to
make some coffee for you before lunch. Nelson'll bring it in here.
She'll have corn-fritters for you for lunch; your favorite. You dear
thing--only to think you're here with me again! This time you'll stay,
won't you?"

"I--I think so."

"What happiness!" She gave him a lively tap upon the shoulder, and,
looking dumbly up at her, he had the strange impression that radiant as
Lily had been, his mother was even more radiant. She beamed down upon
him joyously. "All the uncles and aunts and cousins'll be so glad! Such
a nice band of cousins; you've never half appreciated 'em. Of course
you'll stay--you'll stay here and write that beautiful play they
want----"

"They--" he half-whispered, when she had left him alone in the big,
fragrant room. "That beautiful play they want? They?" Thus he must think
of her, then, in the plural, for the rest of his life? No--it couldn't
be done. With wan eyes he looked about him, and everything was touched
with exquisite color by George Hurley's flowers; yet the room had the
bereft air of vacancy felt in every place where that glowing presence
had been and had been withdrawn.

He got up and went to his dead father's desk, near a window that looked
out upon the big yard where wet leaves lay under old beech trees that
grew bare in the rain. No, he couldn't think of her as "they". If he was
ever indeed to make a play beautiful with the heart-breaking beauty he
saw at last in her and must impart to it, he must always and always,
like the world that was to be hers, think of her longingly and adoringly
as Lily Mars.






[End of Presenting Lily Mars, by Booth Tarkington]
