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Title: My Actor-Husband: A true story of American stage life

Author: Anonymous

Release date: January 1, 2011 [eBook #34814]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by the
        Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State University
        Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY ACTOR-HUSBAND: A TRUE STORY OF AMERICAN STAGE LIFE ***




Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by the
Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State University
Libraries.)









MY
ACTOR-HUSBAND

_A TRUE STORY
OF
AMERICAN STAGE LIFE_

NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
1913

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
JOHN LANE COMPANY

To
PROFESSOR CHARLES T. COPELAND
Of Harvard University




FOREWORD--A RETROSPECT


In presenting this autobiography to the public, the author feels it
incumbent upon herself to impress upon her readers the fidelity and
strict adherence to the truth, relative to the conditions which surround
the player. In no instance has there been either exaggeration or a
resort to imaginative creation. It is a true story with all the ugliness
of truth unsoftened and unembellished. Nor is the situation presented an
exceptional one. One has but to follow the career of the average actor
to be convinced that the dramatic profession is not only inconsistent
with but wholly hostile to the institution of marriage. Managers and
actors alike know and admit this to be the truth--amongst themselves.
What they say in print is, of course, merely so much self-exploitation.
The success of any branch of "the show-business" is dependent on the
bureau of publicity.

To one intimately acquainted with the life, the effusions of certain
actors' wives, which from time to time appear in magazines for women,
are ironically humourous. They are to be put down as the babbling of the
newly-weds or the hunger for seeing their names in print. To hear the
wife of a star declare that she always goes to the theatre and sits in
the wings to watch her husband act is to presage the glaring head-lines
of a divorce in the not-far-distant future. If it be not now, yet it
will come, for those players who go through life with but one, even two
marriages to their credit are the great exception to the rule. The
actor's life precludes domesticity and without domestic life there can
be no successful marriages.

Every community has its stage-struck girls. Year after year the
Academies of Divine Art turn out graduates like so many clothes-pins.
Neither aspirant nor parent appears to question her fitness for the
career to which she aspires. Both are ignorant of the conditions which
confront the tyro or they have a wholly erroneous idea of theatrical
life--ideas culled from the articles which appear from time to time in
the magazines over the signature of a prominent actress. The average
reader has no way of knowing that these articles are not written by the
actress herself, but by a needy scribbler to whom she grants permission
to use her name, for the free advertising she will get in return. "My
Beginnings," "Advice to Stage-Struck Girls Who Plan to Go on the Stage,"
etc., are alluring head-lines. The subject matter is a mass of
glittering and trite generalities. Of the real conditions, the pitfalls,
the drawbacks to be met, the outsider hears nothing. And when once in a
decade a scribe dares to express himself truthfully concerning the moral
atmosphere in the theatrical profession--(vide Mr. Clement Scott)--the
air is rent with expostulations, denials and protestations from the
members of "the profession." Interviews and letters pack the
enterprising press. Many of those who protest the loudest have the least
to lose.

It has been said that art bears no relation to morals: as well might it
be declared that the blood bears no relation to health. Art must forever
be imbued with the spirit of its delineator.

The moral status of the stage may not be a whit worse than that of half
a dozen other professions. It is possible, but hardly probable. The very
exigencies of the player's life make for a laxity and freedom from
restraint. And in no other profession are the lives of the individual
members so intimately concerned. The popular contention that a good
woman can and will be good under any and all circumstances is a fallacy.
The influence of environment is incomputable. I believe that my little
friend Leila was fundamentally a good girl: in any other walk of life
she would have remained a good girl. I believe that fundamentally my
husband was a good man: in any other environment he would have been a
good husband. The fantastic, unreal and over-stimulated atmosphere which
the player breathes is not conducive to a sane and well-balanced life.

And if, in a ruthless rending aside of the tinselled illusions which
enthrall the stage-struck girl, I have rendered a service, my own
suffering will not have been in vain.




CHAPTER I


It was our first separation. All day I had fought back the tears while I
helped Will pack his "Taylor" trunk. Neither of us spoke; once in every
little while Will would stop in the act of folding a garment, and smile
at me in approval. Then his arm would steal around my shoulders and he
would pat me tenderly.... I would turn away, pretending to busy myself
with other things, but in reality to hide the freshet of tears his
silent expression of sympathy had undammed.... Will had signed with a
star to play Shakespearean répertoire. The question of wardrobe was a
source of worry, until I volunteered my services; I was a good
needlewoman, and, from the sketches Will made, I was able to qualify as
a full-fledged costumier. For days I had pegged away, refurbishing the
old and making new ones, and sometimes Will would lend a hand and run
the machine over the thick seams.... I once read that the women of the
Commune wove the initials of those they hated into their knitting;
well, I sewed the seams of Will's dresses thick with love, and hope, and
ambition ... and dampened them with tears.... Then when the expressman
came for the trunk ... it seemed as if they were taking away a
coffin....

Not until that night, after we had gone to bed, and I felt Will's deep,
rhythmical breathing beneath my head, which lay pressed against his
breast, only then did I give way to my grief. I crept to the other side
of the bed and turned my face to the wall--I shook with convulsive sobs.

Now and then Will would half waken, and would reach out and dreamily pat
my face and smooth back my hair, as one soothes a sorrowing child. At
such times I would hold my breath, and wait until he was again quiet....

Every incident of our short married life passed in review before my
burning eyes. We had closed our season late in April, and had come back
to New York with less than seventy-five dollars between us. But what we
lacked in money was more than balanced by our enthusiasm and
illusion--the illusion of two young persons very much in love with each
other. I had been in New York only once before, and the thought of
living in the great city, of becoming an integral part of it, made me
thrill with excitement. Will and I stood on the front of the ferry-boat
and watched the panorama; he pointed out the various tall buildings with
an air of familiarity. When we passed close to a great ocean liner,
which was being swung into her dock by two fussy little tug-boats, even
Will got excited. He told me which was "fore," and "aft," and named
various other parts of the boat which I didn't understand. When we had
taken our last look, he tucked my hand under his arm and told me that
one day he and I should take a trip abroad....

Owing to the shortage in our money supply, we had decided to go to a
theatrical boarding house. Will was depending on his father to send him
an allowance throughout the summer, and while it would be sufficient for
his needs, now that he was married--well, we should have a chance to
test the saying that two can live as cheaply as one. Our marriage had
been a secret one--besides the "star" and one or two members of the
company, we had taken no one into our confidence. Will's family--his
father, a sister and brother--his mother having died about the time I
came into his life--all were intolerant of the stage and its people.
Though I was not yet a "really truly" actress, the fact that Will had
met me "in the profession" would have prejudiced them against me; added
to this was the fact that Will, himself a tyro, taking a wife at the
very threshold of his career would not be looked at through our
love-coloured glasses. The effect my marriage might have upon my own
relatives never troubled me; my father and mother belonged to that great
class of incompetent parenthood which brings children into the world
without any actual love for them. Never questioning their fitness for
child-rearing, they divine no greater responsibility than providing
bodily necessities and a more or less superficial education. When, at
the restless age of sixteen, I announced my determination to become an
actress, there was some surface opposition, but no effort was made to
enquire into my fitness for the dramatic profession, or the fitness of
the dramatic profession as a career for any innocent and unprotected
young girl. I had been highly successful as an amateur, and, as it was
not necessary that I earn my own living, the stage appeared to their
insapient minds an interesting playground for a dilettante daughter....

One week in a theatrical boarding-house was all we could endure. I
wonder why it is that the rank and file of the theatrical profession are
at such pains to impress one another with their importance. The flippant
familiarity with which they referred to "Charley" or "Dan" Frohman; the
coarse criticism of their fellow-actors, which Will called "knocking";
their easy disregard of the conventions, especially between the sexes; a
bombastic retailing of their own exploits, as "how I jumped on and saved
the show, with only one rehearsal"; talking "shop" to the exclusion of
every other subject in the world. I overheard one of the actresses at
the next table say we were "very up-stage," which Will interpreted as
"not sociable, and having too good an opinion of one's self." Neither of
us was happy in our new surroundings, and I felt a sense of relief when
Will suggested that we look for a furnished flat. I did not mean to be
critical of my husband's profession--I endeavored to agree with him that
every profession has its undesirables.

We spent days in climbing narrow stairs to look at dark, closet-like
apertures with no ventilation; even the strength-sapping humidity of
the streets seemed fresh in comparison. At last, we found something less
undesirable than the others. The building was new, and the apartment in
the rear gave upon a row of private houses with small yards; there were
flowers and a few trees--little oases in a desert of brick and mortar.
The janitor told us there were three rooms: the bedroom was an alcove
affair, divided from the parlor by pea-green portières; the kitchen
beyond was as large as the pantry in our house at home; and the
furnishings--! The whole outfit might have been removed from a Seventh
Avenue show-window, where they advertise "Complete furnished apartment
for $49.99." The near-gold-leaf chairs were so frail that one was afraid
to sit upon them. The general atmosphere of the parlor reminded me of
the stage-settings one comes across in one-night-stand theatres.
However, the vistas of the trees and flowers decided the momentous
question. We paid a month's rent, then and there; it made a terrible
hole in our last and only fifty-dollar bill, but neither of us worried
much about it. For the next week the "show-business" was relegated to
the background. We played "house" like two children; we arranged and
rearranged the furniture, and Will made a comfortable divan from two
packing cases. We went out to market on Ninth Avenue and Will carried
the basket on his arm. Then we tried our hand at cooking; Will carried
off the honours for coffee--and hard-boiled eggs. I washed and Will
dried the dishes--I can see him now, with an apron tied high under his
arm, declaiming Shakespeare, and juggling with the landlord's dishes.

Our greatest problem was the lack of bathing facilities. We solved it by
bathing in the wash-tubs; to be sure it was a bit hazardous standing on
a sloping bottom, in danger of falling out of the kitchen window if one
leaned too much to the right, or of toppling over to the floor if
veering a bit too much to the left. But it was a bath, and, as Will
said, preferable to the communal affair in the boarding house.

The summer passed all too quickly. Those were happy, happy days....
Sometimes the money market was tight--very tight; especially when Will's
father was careless about sending Will's allowance. I cried bitterly the
first time Will went to a pawn-shop; it seemed so humiliating to have
him do it. Will laughed, and said he regarded it as so much experience.
Several times a week we donned our best clothes and made the rounds of
the theatrical employment agencies. Will had had several offers during
the summer, but we wanted a joint engagement; we had promised each
other, when we married, that nothing should cause us to be separated.
Will and I felt that to the enforced separation of married persons--the
husband in one company, the wife in another--was due the great number of
divorces in the theatrical profession. Our "star," when apprised of our
marriage, had followed his good wishes and congratulations with a heart
to heart talk with Will.

"It's all right, my boy," he said, "don't blame you a bit. She's a
charming girl, and you're in love with her. If it were any other
business but the show-business, I'd say you're a lucky dog, but--I'm
going to be frank with you--a man or a woman in the theatrical business
has no right to marry. It's all very lovely so long as you're together,
but you can't _be_ together. The chances are against it--you may be
lucky enough to get a joint engagement one season, but the next season
you're off on the road, while she's playing in New York or in another
part of the country. And what does this separation lead to in the end?
You're a human being; you crave society, companionship; gradually you
become weaned away and the inevitable happens. It's propinquity and home
ties which make marriage a success; the life of an actor precludes
domesticity. The very exigencies of his profession are not only
inconsistent with, but hostile to, the institution of marriage."

When Will retailed all this to me, it sounded very big and very
dreadful--and also very vague. Any danger from separation seemed in the
far, distant future.... We agreed that a man and wife who permitted
themselves to become estranged because of temporary separations knew
nothing of real love--such love as ours, at any rate.... And now, with
the summer going on apace and no joint engagement in sight, the fear
assumed a tangible shape, the dread of separation hung over me like a
pall. Will tried to reassure me by saying it was still early, and that
we would hold out.... I believed what he said with a child-like faith.
Indeed, I am not so sure that in these days I did not worship Will with
the same idolatry that I offered up to the Virgin Mary.... The whole
world had merged into one being--my husband. My love for my husband was
the absorbing passion of my life. Never happy in my home--my father had
married a second wife--all the pent-up tenderness and passionate love
found an outlet in my marriage. I sometimes wondered what had become of
my ambition: this, too, had centred upon him. To be sure I meant to
succeed as an actress, but I now thought of success only in the light of
an assistance to him. It was already settled between us that I should be
his leading lady, once he became a star. There should be no separations
in our life....

The weeks flew by ... the summer waned. Will became less reassuring--he
took on a worried look. I began to awaken of mornings with a sickening,
intangible apprehension. After a while I stopped going to the agencies.
It seemed so futile. And then, one day, late in the summer, when the
theatres along Broadway had begun to remove the signboards from their
entrances--it came. I knew something had happened when Will opened the
door. Instead of kissing me at once, as was his habit, he passed on to
the bedroom without looking at me, saying, "Hello, Girlie." There was
always something infinitely tender in the way he said these words, but
to-day there was a new note in his voice. It took a long time to put
away his hat and cane; then he came out and kissed me.

I was peeling potatoes. He drew up a chair so that our knees met; then
he laid a hand on each shoulder and his fingers gripped me. We looked
into each other's eyes.... After a while I managed to say, "Well, dear?"
... and when he replied his voice seemed far away. I had the sense of
returning consciousness after a blow.... I suppose I was a little
dazed....

"Well, dear, I've signed with----" (he named a boy-Hamlet, well known
throughout the middle west), "the salary is good and I'll play the King
in Hamlet, Buckingham in Richard, and, if we do the Merchant, I'll be
cast for Gratiano.... The best thing about it is the possibility of
coming into New York for a run. The star wants to play Hamlet on
Broadway, and I've been told he's got good backing.... So, little
girl.... it may not be for so long after all...."

Neither of us referred to the subject again that day; neither did we
try to make believe at being cheerful. We understood each other's
silence ... and respected it. Outside the rain poured. Will stood at the
window looking out, but I am sure he did not see the rain....

All these details passed before my mind like moving-pictures. When at
last I fell asleep, it was to dream the incongruous, disjointed stuff of
which the actor's dreams are made; the sense of being late for a cue, or
hearing the cue spoken, to realize that one is but half-dressed, or,
again, to rush upon the scene only to find the lines obliterated from
one's memory.... When I awoke, I heard Will in the kitchen; there was
the smell of boiling coffee. For a moment there was no consciousness of
my "douleureuse," then memory swept me like an engulfing wave. I cried
aloud; then Will took me in his strong arms and kissed my swollen eyes,
oh, so tenderly....

To recall the moments preceding and following Will's departure
causes--even at this late day--a tightening around the heart. There were
some red roses in a cheap glass vase on the mantle; Will had bought them
from a street vendor that morning when he went out for the papers. He
had pinned one in my dark hair.... After many false starts, and bidding
me, "Cheer up--it won't be for long," he closed the door after him....
It was our first separation.




CHAPTER II


The red roses had withered; their crisp petals lay scattered over the
mantel and about the floor. Stooping to gather them, I was seized with a
giddiness; it dawned on me that I had not eaten for--I did not know how
long. I went into the kitchen; the table lay as we had left it that
morning at breakfast. There was his chair and the morning paper. I
didn't cry--I felt only a heaviness, a numbness. Mechanically I set
about to put the house in order; I realized that I must get myself in
hand if only to please Will. I even managed a laugh at my own stupidity
when, after neatly folding and placing my kitchen apron upon a shelf in
the dish-cupboard, I hung the sugar bowl on a peg where the apron should
have gone, and was drenched with a shower of sugar for my pains.

For several days I lived on milk, which the janitor sent up on the
dumb-waiter. I could not muster sufficient courage to go out to market.
The sunlight mocked me--I resented the happy laughter of the family
across the hall. The postman's ring, several days later, put new life
into me. I knew the letter was from Will. I caught the postman almost
before he stopped ringing, and, carrying the letter to my room, gave
myself up to devouring it.

It was filled with interesting gossip about his opening, and gave
humourous little side-lights of the star and personnel of the company.
He bade me cheer up and not take our separation too seriously; he
promised to write every day, and asked that I do likewise. I marked this
precious epistle with a large "1" in blue pencil and tucked it away with
the rose-leaves. Then I sat down to write--I wrote reams. It is wondrous
the many modes of expressing "I love you." To distil those many pages,
written in the thin, slanting hand of my girlhood, would be to extract
the very essence of my life's romance--or, shall I say, tragedy.

I lived for the postman's ring. Sundays were the hardest to bear; there
was no mail delivery. The weeks dragged on at snail's pace. Finally,
loneliness and isolation drove me to a state of desperation, which, in
turn, gave me the necessary courage to visit the agencies. Will was
reluctant to have me take an engagement alone; he made me promise that I
would not take such a step without first consulting him. Indeed, had he
but known it, the thought of again travelling alone in a theatrical
company was distasteful to me; naturally sensitive and of a retiring
disposition, my first season in the dramatic profession had left some
unpleasant memories. It was difficult to accustom myself to enter an
hotel lobby alone, or, if in company with other members of the
organization, to hear our party referred to as the "troupe." The
ubiquitous drummer lounging at the hotel desk regarded us with brazen
audacity, and made audible comments. Then, to enter a dining-room
unattended, either to be corralled at a table with the other members of
the company, or, if seated elsewhere, to be further subjected to the
advances of a "travelling salesman." Again, when walking to the theatre
or to the railroad station, to see the town-folk turn curiously,
regarding the players with a condescending smile, which curled the
corners of the mouth downward as they whispered, "Show people." In
larger cities these marks of opprobrium are less pronounced, but,
nevertheless, exist. I resented this attitude towards the theatrical
profession until I became better acquainted with it. There be those who
mistake liberty for license, and seemingly the freedom from restraint
and the lack of conventionality, which the life affords, appear to be
one of the chief attractions for adopting it.

However, it was expedient that I should work. I dangled before my
willing eyes the reward of the future--that time when my husband and I
should play together. I even planned that we should be an example to
others in our devotion and high moral purpose; and so, by reducing
expense of maintaining two establishments--the flat in New York and
Will's living on the road--we should be better equipped to hold out for
a joint engagement for the following season.

One morning, while waiting in the office of an agent to whom Will had
introduced me, I was drawn into conversation with an actress whose
photographs adorned the walls of the room. There was an air of
importance about her, quite distinct from that of the other women who
were waiting; these women wore an abject expression. They had relaxed
the mechanical expression of "bien être" as the weariness of waiting
wore upon them; in spite of the make-up--more or less skilfully
applied--their faces were drawn and strained. Their clothes, too, told
of the attempt to keep up appearances. I felt a sympathy and fellowship
for these unemployed; I wondered whether they too, were, by the force of
circumstances, separated from their loved ones.

Miss Burton, the lady of some importance, broke my train of thought by
precipitately asking me to "come and have a cup of tea." She assured me
she would not let me miss "old Tom"--calling the agent by the familiar
diminutive--and that having sent for her he was bound to wait. "It makes
all the difference in the world whether they send for you, or whether
you go to them for an engagement," she told me, with a sententious nod
of her head. She was so bright and vivacious, and so wholly
un-selfconscious that, for a moment, I was drawn out of my dreamy
loneliness.

We went to a near-by hotel. "You take what you like," she said,
summoning the waiter. "Beer for mine!"

I took tea.

While we sipped our respective beverages she told me about herself. She
was a well-known comédienne--"'soubrettes' they called them in the old
days," she volunteered. She had been with "Charley" Frohman off and on
for years, and expected to go back to him.

"I've been in his bad books," she went on. "I had a good thing, and I
didn't know it. When I think how I got in wrong all on account of those
two big stiffs--!" My inability to follow her was probably expressed in
my face, for she immediately rattled on: "You see, it was like this.
When Jack and I were married we were in the same Company. He was what
they call the 'Acting Manager,' travelled on the road and represented
the New York office--understand? Well, the next year we didn't get an
engagement together; he went off on the road and I created a part in a
New York production. It was simply--hell! We used to make the most
God-forsaken jumps, just to be together over Sunday. Why, once I can
remember I rode all night in the caboose of a freight train to some
little dump of a town where Jack's Company had played on Saturday night.
Can you beat it? Oh, I tell you, I had it bad." And Miss Burton buried
her feeling and her face in the stein of beer. After a pause she
continued: "Well, the same devilish luck followed us the next season; we
couldn't dig up an engagement together for love or money--and we
slipped a nice little roll to several of the agents, too. It just seemed
as if managers were dead set against having a man and wife in the same
company. Some of 'em acknowledge it right out loud, if you please! They
claim a man and wife in the same company make trouble; either they want
to share the same dressing-room, or the husband kicks if his wife gets
the worst of it in the dressing-room line. Or, if the husband happens to
be a manager, there's the temptation to favour his wife, and somebody
else kicks up a row. Oh, they've got excuses enough, whether they're
justifiable or not. Anyway, that's the kind of bunk you're up against
when you marry in the profession.... Where was I?... Oh Well, after two
seasons of separation, it dawned on me that Jacky wasn't so keen about
making long jumps to see wifey; pretty soon I began to hear gossip--he
was carrying some fairy's grip in the company he was with. Then I began
to watch him ... I caught him with the goods all right.... Exit,
hastily, Jacky!" and, with an expressive wave of her hands to indicate
his departure, Miss Burton called for another stein.

I fear I appeared a perfect idiot in the voluble little lady's eyes. I
could not muster a comment of any description. Miss Burton, however, did
not notice my omission, for she raced on with the same energy of
expression.

"That blow pretty nearly killed Mother, I can tell you. I was in love
with Jack all right.... It broke me all up to have him throw me down for
a second-rate soubrette like that. I wish you could have seen it--one of
these 'I'm so temperamental' kind of dopes. She threw him down as soon
as she'd used him for what he was worth.... I took to the booze. Whew! I
did go it hard for a while! That's what queered me with C. F.... Then,
what d'ye think I did?" Miss Burton leaned forward to better impress me
with the importance of her revelation: "I tried it a second time....
This one was an actor: one of those handsome, shaving-soap advertisement
kind of faces--beautiful teeth, and workin' the smile overtime to show
'em!... Black curly hair, high brow, chesty--you know--the real thing in
heavy men.... Mash notes, society ladies making goo-goo eyes at him, and
forgetting to invite me to those little impromptu suppers. Ha!... don't
ask me! It was worse than the first.... No, ma'am, matrimony and the
stage don't mix. They ought to nail over every stage door this warning:
'All ye who enter here, leave matrimony outside.' Yes, I know what you
are going to say--that there are happy marriages among stage folks, and
you'll name some of the shining examples. The domestic felicity of Mr.
Great Star and his wife makes up well in print. But, wait awhile....
Have you finished with your tea? Let's step in the ladies' room--I'm
dying for a smoke."

On our way back to the office, Miss Burton asked me about myself. When I
spoke of Will, she turned sharply and looked at me with a hurt
expression.

"Why, you poor kid! Why didn't you tell me you were married? Now, don't
you let anything I said worry you a bit. Everybody is apt to draw
general conclusions from personal experiences. There's always the
exception to prove the rule. Besides...." She slipped her arm through
mine and gave me a reassuring pressure.

The agent received her in his private office, and when she came out she
was in high spirits. Calling me to her, she put me on a friendly
footing with the agent, who promised to keep me in mind. I thanked her
for her kindly interest, and went home.

Desolate as the little flat was, I found strange comfort within its
protecting walls. The power of Will's personality had impregnated the
place, and I felt its soothing influence. I devoted the evening to
writing to my husband a long letter, but, strangely enough, I did not
repeat the conversation I had had with Miss Burton. That night I prayed
that he and I might be the exception to prove the rule....

The next day I visited another agency. The presiding genius was a
corpulent person, with cold blue eyes which cowed at the first glance.
She stood behind the rail which divided the office from the waiting
applicants with an air of a magistrate dispensing justice not altogether
tempered with mercy. There was something insolent in the way she shut
off the opening speeches of the applicants with, "No, nothing for you
to-day; nothing doing, Mr. Blank." Then, as a highly scented and
berouged person entered, clanking the gold baubles of her chatelaine as
she swished by, the majoress-domo swung open the gate and greeted her
with, "Come right in, dearie; I've been waiting for you." They
disappeared into the sanctum sanctorum.

The little wizened lady who sat next to me snorted with impatience:
"Humph! I suppose that means another half hour!" She fell to gossiping
with a man whose very face suggested his "line of business"--that of
Irish comedian. It was impossible not to overhear their conversation.
The gorgeous creature who had been received with such open arms was a
pet of the establishment, because of her generous and regular "retaining
fees." She had been a more or less prominent society woman from Chicago;
after a sensational divorce, she turned to the stage for the proper
outlet for her superabundant "temperament." Willing to work for a salary
upon which no self-supporting woman could exist, and able to dress her
parts "handsomely," she found no difficulty in securing an engagement.
The "retaining fees" no doubt facilitated her progress.

I afterwards learned from Will's experience that a cheque enclosed in a
letter of application to one of these dramatic employment agencies
stimulated their interest in the sender. And, even after an actor has
made a "hit," it is good business to lubricate the dispenser of gifts.
I could not quite grasp the _modus operandi_ until it was explained to
me by Miss Burton. "You see, when a manager contemplates engaging a
company, he sends to an agent for a list of names. Perhaps he wants a
leading man or a character actor, and he may direct the agent to
communicate with a certain actor whom he believes to be best suited to
the part he has in mind. Now this particular actor may not be in the
good books of the agent, or there may be another actor playing the same
line of business who is regular and liberal with his 'retaining fees.'
It is not difficult to understand which of the actors will be
suggested--even cried up--to the manager." Our own experience had been
to negotiate direct with the managers. But, in many cases, the managers
themselves send the actors whom they engage to a favoured agent to
complete the negotiations. In this way the agent is able to collect a
week's salary from the actor.

The Irish comedian figured the average income of an agent who "placed"
several hundred actors, with salaries ranging from thirty to three
hundred dollars a week, at $5,000 a year. "And from the fish-hand they
give you when you come lookin' for an engagement you'd think _we_ were
the grafters--damned old parasites!"

When, at last, the lady agent returned from her conference, I timidly
made known my wants. Perhaps I looked like a "non-retainer," as the
comedian dubbed them, for the corpulent person looked me over
suspiciously.

"Had any experience?" she broke in.

"One season," I responded.

"Well, you might leave your address," she snapped, and directed me to an
assistant.

I went back to Miss Burton's friend. Mr. Tom was an Englishman, with the
manners of a gentleman to commend him if nothing else. He greeted me
pleasantly and asked me to wait. My heart bounded in anticipation.
Presently he handed me a letter. I recognized the address upon the
envelope as that of a prominent manager. I was told to go to his office,
present the letter and return to report the outcome to the agent. I
rushed off with my mind in a whirl. Already I was outlining a telegram
to Will, telling him of my engagement. I began to plan how I should
remake my last season's dresses to avoid the expense of a new wardrobe.
Only once before had I gone direct to a manager for an engagement. I
look back upon the incident I am about to relate with amusement at my
own expense. To anybody and everybody who is interested in the stage the
name of Charles Frohman was and still remains a kind of magic. When it
was determined that the stage was to be my avocation--I use the word
advisedly, since I had never been taught to look upon any profession in
the light of a vocation--I came direct to New York with the purpose of
calling upon Mr. Frohman, and placing my talent at his command. I
remember I dressed myself carefully. I even powdered my face heavily, to
give the ear-marks of intimate acquaintance with the make-up box. When I
entered the office in the Empire Theatre Building, the office boy was
engaged in pasting newspaper clippings in a scrap-book. A pretty, pert
girl was type-writing at the other end of the room. The office boy
looked up enquiringly. I took my courage in both hands.

"Is Mr. Frohman in?" I enquired.

The boy shuffled into the adjoining room. I busied myself by looking at
the photographs of the actresses which lined the walls; my heart was
pumping fiercely, but I "acted" the part of a young lady with plenty of
_savoir faire_. The boy returned, followed by a middle-aged man who
smiled pleasantly upon me.

"Mr. Frohman?" I ventured.

"Mr. Frohman is not in," he responded with a bland smile.

I was about to enquire when he was expected when I caught the reflection
of the office boy in a mirror on the wall. He was winking broadly to the
girl at the typewriter; I felt the blood rising to my face, and I fear I
made a somewhat confused exit.

Will had many a good laugh over my credulity. I had come all the way
from an Indiana town to see Mr. Frohman, and there was about as much
chance of being admitted to his presence as the proverbial camel has of
slipping through the needle's eye. Needless to say, I never mustered
sufficient courage to call on Mr. Frohman again.

To-day, however, I was forearmed. The manager to whom I had been
recommended by the agent sent out word that I was to wait. A half hour
later I was conducted to his presence. As I entered, he was seated in a
revolving chair, one foot resting on a small sliding shelf on his desk,
and a large black cigar in the corner of his mouth. He did not rise,
but nodded to me and motioned me to the seat opposite. While he read the
agent's letter he removed his leg from the table and crossed it over the
other. He was a short, heavy man, with a preponderance of abdomen. He
had thick, loose lips, and his head was as round and as smooth as a
billiard ball; his eyes were black and snappy, and threw out as much
fire as the huge diamond he wore on his little finger.

"Well," he finally said, looking at me and shifting the big cigar to the
other corner of his mouth, "that reads all right. So you're an
_ingénue_" (he pronounced it as if it were spelled _on-je-new_), "are
you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, you look the part all right.... How much experience have you
had?"

"One season on the road with Mr. O'Brien's Company, but of course I've
played in amateur theatricals for...."

"Voice strong?" he bellowed, tilting himself back in his chair.

"Oh, yes, sir," I responded, using the loud pedal to prove my assertion.

"Don't sound like it."

"Perhaps not now, but--" I hesitated.

"But what?" he queried, smiling indulgently at me.

His smile gave me courage, and I answered truthfully: "Well, I think I'm
a little scared just now."

"Scared? What of?" He removed his cigar while he spat out an end he had
been chewing. Then he lighted a match and continued talking. "You don't
want to be scared of _me_--I'm the easiest thing you ever saw...." Here
he winked at me. Then for the next minute he puffed at his cigar and
looked at me. "Stand up," was his next injunction.... "You're not very
big ... you'll look the part all right."

"What kind of a part is it?" I ventured.

"Didn't Tom tell you about it?... It's a pretty part--one of them
innocent country maidens that never saw the streets of Cairo--that kind.
She falls in love with a villain who takes her to the great city, and
then throws her down--hard. The poor girl's afraid to go back to home
and mother, and just as she's about to commit suicide a good-natured
sucker comes along and marries her. It's sympathetic and appealin'--goes
right to the heart. Can't help but make a hit. Dressin' ain't much, and
we expect to run all season in New York."

"What's the salary?" meaning to appear business-like.

"Twenty-five in New York, and thirty on the road."

I did not reply, for my mind was making rapid calculations. Twenty-five
dollars a week, with the prospect of running all season in New York!
Why, I should be able to pay my own expenses and lay aside a little
besides.

"That's a good salary," began the manager, taking my silence for
dissent. "If you make a hit, I'll raise it five. I tell you what I'll
do: I'll give you a letter to the stage manager. They're rehearsing now.
The dame we engaged for the part, way last summer, got married on the
quiet, and has got to retire for family reasons." He winked at me again,
as he took up his pen. I waited uneasily while he wrote. "Here's the
letter," he said, moistening the flap of the envelope with his lips.
"Now, run along and see Mr. Thompson at the Academy. He's the doctor."
He rose by way of dismissal, and indicated a door other than which I had
entered. I thanked him and assured him my voice was quite strong.

"You're a pretty little thing," he said as he accompanied me to the
door. "Pretty little figure ... what d'ye weigh?"

"I don't know really how much, but I think about one hundred and ten
pounds," I answered with some confusion.

"As much as that? Where do you carry it all?" He ran his fat, stubby
hands over my shoulders and down about my hips. His smile became a leer.
Before I could realize what was happening he had taken me in his arms,
and his heavy, wet lips were pressed against my mouth. His hands played
over my body, and, though I struggled to cry out and to release myself,
I was unable to do either. It seemed as if my senses were deserting me;
then, the muffled bell of the telephone sounded, and he released me.

"Damn that bell," he said. Nauseated with disgust and fright, I cowered
in the corner; he tried to draw my hands from my face, laughing as he
whispered: "Like it, like it, do you?" Then with another oath at the
continued call from the telephone, he crossed to his desk. "Run along
now," he directed, without a look....

I never knew how I found my way down the stairs to the street. I did not
wait for the elevator. I saw that people looked at me as I hurried
along the street--whither I did not ask myself. Only when I collided
with someone on the stairs did I realize that I had gone straight to the
agent's office.

"Hello, little lady!" I recognized Miss Burton's voice. "My, we're in a
hurry! For God's sake, child, what's happened to you? What's the matter?
You look as if you were going to throw a fit! Here--let's go to a drug
store."

After a dose of sal volatile, Miss Burton called a hansom and insisted
on taking me home. I did not want her to accompany me. I wanted to be
alone. When we were safely in the house I lost all control. She let me
have my cry out without asking a question. Then, when I was calmer, I
told her what had happened.

"The old blackguard! The old blackguard! I've heard that about him
before. Why didn't you hand him one? Why didn't you smack his face?"

"I'll leave that to my husband," I replied with tearful dignity.

Miss Burton contemplated me between violent puffs of her cigarette. Then
she shook her head. "Um-um, girlie; no, sir ... you mustn't tell your
husband."

"Why not?" I demanded.

"Well, if you tell your husband, and he's the man I think he is, he'll
go straight up and knock the old beast down. That will get him in bad;
this manager is a power and controls a dozen attractions, as well as
theatres. Your young man may find it difficult to get an engagement in
the future."

Miss Burton paused to allow the idea to percolate into my brain.

"Then there's another side to it. If you tell your husband and he does
not go up and knock the fresh gentleman down, you'll despise him for it
... oh, yes you will! You would not acknowledge it even to yourself,
but, way down deep in the bottom of your heart, you would never forgive
your husband for not resenting the insult to you.... Better not tell him
at all...."

We both were silent for some time. I was struggling with a thousand
conflicting emotions.

"You see, girlie, you've got an awful lot to learn. You're new to the
game. That's the reason these things go so hard with you."

"Do you mean that 'these things' are a part--a regular part--of the
business?" I began, with a burst of resentment. "I don't believe it! I
can't believe it! I'm sure my experience was exceptional. I know that
girls who typewrite for a living, clerks and even housemaids have
unpleasant experiences, for I have read about it in the papers. There
are bad men in all walks of life. I travelled nearly a whole season
before I was married, and--"

I stopped short. My mind visualized a situation. When I joined the
company in which I met my husband I was singled out for marked attention
by the star. I believed this attention to be a kindly interest in a
novice. It never occurred to me to question the intent and purpose. I
was the understudy for the leading woman; the star had told me that I
had exceptional talent, and with the proper direction I should develop
into a splendid emotional actress. Quite often we would have private
rehearsals--sometimes in the theatre, but more often in the star's
apartment in the hotel. Invariably we rehearsed alone. I was flattered
and sincerely appreciative of the star's efforts to develop my talent;
we played scenes from Romeo and Juliet, and my star played Romeo with
such fervour that I quite forgot my lines. When the star's wife joined
the company the rehearsals were suspended; it seemed quite natural to me
that the star wished to devote his time to his wife. She was still a
beautiful woman, though her face was sad and bore a discontented
expression. She kept aloof from the Company, and it was said that she
did not approve of stage-folk, especially the women. I wondered why she
had married an actor. Later, when Will and I became friends, he
questioned me about these private rehearsals; then I began to notice
that he managed to drop in for a call on the star when we rehearsed at
the hotel, or he would wait about the stage when we were in the theatre.
This happened frequently as our courtship progressed. I recalled how,
one day when Will was discovered in the wings, that the star called out
to him quite irritably, "You were not called for rehearsal, were you,
Mr. Hartley? You're not needed, and your presence makes Miss Gray
self-conscious."

Shortly after that Will insisted upon announcing our betrothal to the
star. I never went to rehearsals unattended after that, and the calls
became less frequent. Soon they were abandoned altogether. Now, for the
first time, I understood Will's watchfulness--perhaps I understood why
the star's wife had so sad a face....

"And what?" Miss Burton repeated after me.

"I was thinking, that was all."

"Girlie, you'll never get on in the show business, unless ... look here,
I'm going to open your eyes to a few things that may come handy to
you.... I've been on the stage since I was a kiddie; I was born in it. I
made my first appearance in my mother's arms, and they say I never
waited for cues, but yelled right through other people's lines. I grew
up in railroad trains, hotels and theatres. I was wise to the game
before I was out of short skirts. Anything I did was done with my eyes
wide open. I was never stage-struck, like you, and so many fool girls
who look on acting as a 'divine art.' I had to make my own living, and
the stage offers a pretty good living if you are willing to play the
game." Miss Burton looked at me significantly.

"Play the game?" I asked.

"Yes, that's just what I mean.... Virtue and chastity have about as much
chance in the show-business as that famous little snowball of
purgatorial fame. I don't know of any other profession where immorality
is a virtue. I suppose that's what you call a paradox. Virtue and
success do not go hand in hand in this business--even our mothers
recognize the truth of the statement and wink at it. Your average stage
mamma values virtue in the ratio of the advancement its possession
assures. Let any star or manager cast covetous eyes upon her daughter,
let her but scent leading lady--or stardom--and she will not only lend
herself to intrigue but encourage it. She knows the game; she knows that
a girl, no matter how pretty, how talented, cannot get on in the
show-business without 'giving up.' She's got to have money or influence,
or both. I don't know what there is about the stage that brings out the
baser passions, but I do know that it's rotten to the core. And the
worst of it is, that the good is sacrificed to the bad. Girls like you
are drawn to the stage by its illusion and romance. With others, it's
the looseness, the freedom from restraint that appeals. There never was
a woman with a screw loose in her moral machinery who didn't hanker for
the stage. Why? Because it's a convenient place to show goods. Every
millionaire, every fur-tongued man about town looks upon the women of
the stage as his legitimate prey. You've only got to mention the fact
that you are, directly or indirectly, connected with the show-business,
to lay yourself open to the advances of the male creature who thinks he
is sporty. You may be as chaste as ice and as pure as snow, but the
chances are against it, if you are on the stage."

I felt choked with indignation. "I don't believe you, I don't believe
it's true," I stormed. "Look at such women as--" (I named a number of
prominent women stars). "They are honoured and respected----"

"You mean their accomplishment, their art is honoured. Each and every
one of these women has been grist to the mill. Do you suppose that side
of it ever reaches the public? No, and what's more, it's none of the
public's business. These women are successful. The price they have paid
is their own secret. Don't misunderstand me--I'm not sitting in judgment
on the women of the stage, any more than I would sit in judgment on you
if you went wrong. I'm telling you the conditions that exist--conditions
which every woman who enters the theatrical profession has got to face
sooner or later. You had your first experience to-day...."

It had grown quite dark in the room. Miss Burton got up and moved about
in the twilight. I almost hated her. I could not prevent myself from
saying, "Do you think it is nice to befoul your own nest?"

She answered me gently: "You don't understand my motive, girlie. I
wouldn't say these things to an outsider for anything in the world. Why,
if a thing like this were to be given to the public, the whole
theatrical profession would rush into print to deny it. There would be
an awful noise, but _each and every one of them knows it's the truth_,
_God's truth_, _and nothing but the truth_." We were again silent. Miss
Burton sighed heavily.

"You know, girlie, if I were an artist I should like to paint my
conception of the 'divine art.' The divine art is a soulless procuress;
she takes your youth, your beauty and your virtue. She saps you dry,
and, at the first signs of age, she turns you out."

Miss Burton stopped in front of the large photograph of Will which
adorned the mantel. After a lengthy scrutiny, she said:

"Fine head! Looks as if he would have made a good lawyer."

"He was educated for the law," I answered proudly.

Miss Burton looked out of the window with a far-away look. Then she came
to me and took both my hands in hers.

"Little girl, why don't you persuade him to give up the stage and go
back to the law?"

"Because he does not like the law, and because he has a great career as
an actor ahead of him," I retorted, feeling myself on the verge of
tears.

After Miss Burton had donned her hat and gloves, and stood with her hand
on the door-knob, she spoke again:

"I'll see Tom to-morrow, and have him set you right with that old
beast."

"Set _me_ right!"

"Yes, for not showing up at the Academy. I'll say you got in a trolley
jam, and when you arrived there they had gone. You can show up bright
and early to-morrow--don't you intend to take the engagement?"

"Not if I never got another engagement in my life!" I declared, with a
wave of disgust passing over me.

Miss Burton drew me into her arms and kissed me impulsively: "Stick to
that, girlie, and God bless you!" and she rushed off....

I didn't sleep much that night. Early the next morning came a telegram
from Will, saying he expected to be home on Sunday. His Company was to
"lay off" and rehearse two weeks, preparatory to "the assault" on
Broadway, as he expressed it. The knowledge that I should soon feel his
arms around me acted like a tonic. My resentment against Miss Burton
gave way to pity. Why were not all husbands and wives as much in love
with each other as were Will and I?




CHAPTER III


The boy Hamlet failed to attract the public. After two weeks on Broadway
the notice went up. The Company was to reorganize, which, in this
instance, meant reducing expenses--and "back to the woods." Will agreed
to double the King with the Ghost for a small rise of salary and the
condition that I be added to the roster. In return for my railroad fares
I played one of the strolling players and the Player-Queen. The Company
made one night stands only; we made early and long jumps to
out-of-the-way towns, which Will declared were not on the map. The
hotels were often so bad that we were driven to patronizing the village
grocer, and to supplement our meals with chafing-dish messes. Through
rain, snow and slush we plodded our way to the railroad stations;
sometimes there was a hack and the women rode back and forth. The
theatres were cold and the dressing-rooms filthy. The stage entrance
invariably gave upon a foul-smelling alley, and a penetrating draught
swept the stage when the curtain was up. Once, after Will in the
character of the King had been killed by Hamlet and lay dead upon the
stage, he sneezed explosively. The audience appeared to enjoy the
situation. But, in spite of the physical discomforts and the stultifying
grind, we were happy--we were together.

By the end of the season we had saved almost three hundred dollars. Then
Will played a few weeks with a summer stock company--a "summer snap," as
it is termed--and in the autumn we were able to make a stand for the
much-desired joint engagement.

When the Company gathered at the railroad station bound for a city of
the middle West, it more resembled a family party than a theatrical
organization. The manager himself played a part, and his wife was the
lady villain. The comédienne and the stage carpenter were man and wife,
and the leading lady--a girl not much older than I--was chaperoned by
her mother. Will was the leading man and I the ingénue. There was the
prospect of a pleasant season ahead. I smiled a little contemptuously
when I thought of Miss Burton's terrible arraignment of the stage. She
had been unfortunate in her association, that was all, I told myself.

The comédienne and I shared dressing-rooms. She was a beautiful woman
with a strain of Latin blood. I loved her from the first moment I met
her. I was disappointed in her husband; her superior breeding and
education caused me to wonder at her choice. Later, when I better
understood the needs of the woman, I grew to like him; he was
clean-minded and sincere--virtues I later discovered to be rare ones
among actors.

It was about the second week of the season when our family party first
showed signs of incompatibility. There had been some gossip connecting
the leading lady's name with that of the manager, but as she was
protected by her mother it appeared to me ridiculous and unwarranted.
One night, as the curtain fell on the first act, the manager's wife
ordered the leading lady's mother out of the wings. Immediately there
followed a war of high-pitched voices which penetrated the walls of our
aerial dressing-room. The curtain was held and the orchestra played its
third overture.

During the wait Margherita, my dressing-room mate, told me the
circumstances of the case. The leading lady's mother was the "friend" of
the "angel" of the Company; in this capacity she assumed privileges
which were galling to the manager's wife. Adding to this the fact that
her husband was too obviously interested in the leading lady, the
outbreak was not to be wondered at. The manager himself was one of those
round, flabby men, suggestive of a fat, spineless worm. Physique is
often coindicant of character.

This night the mother had been more obnoxious than usual. It was her
habit to stand in the wings while the manager's wife was on the scene,
and by petty distractions to goad the actress to expression.

Gradually members of the Company were drawn into the dissension; it was
an intolerable situation. Our sympathies were with the manager's wife,
but we diplomatically held aloof. Matters finally reached a climax. One
night during the performance there was a stage wait. In vain Will and
the heavy man filled in the hiatus. The manager's wife had surprised the
leading lady in the arms of her husband somewhere behind the scenes, and
thereupon slapped the girl's face. A moment later she came upon the
stage to play her "big" scene; she was labouring under great emotion,
and I thought she had never acted so well. In a speech to me (I played
her daughter)--it was part of the stage business that I take her hand in
mine; I am not sure that I did not press her hand in silent sympathy.
She drew me towards her; in another moment the lady villain was sobbing
in my arms, and there was an emotional storm not indicated in the
manuscript of the author. I led her up stage as the house fairly rose to
her splendid acting. When the storms of applause had died away we went
on with the scene as if nothing had happened.

I wonder why it is that women invariably punish their own sex and exempt
the man? Do they instinctively demand a higher code of honour from their
kind while meekly acquiescent to the conventional license for men?

Subsequently the "angel" joined the Company, and, to all appearances, an
adjustment was reached. For a time peace was restored. The leading lady
assumed an air of injured innocence, and left off rouging her cheeks to
heighten the effect. Then, suddenly--or gradually, I never realized how
it came about--it became obvious to all that the leading lady was
"making a play" for Will. Her attentions became so marked that the men
of the Company chaffed him about it, declaring the manager would
presently challenge him to mortal combat, or--and what was more
likely--discharge him from the Company. Will accepted their allusions in
good part, but I observed the subject was distasteful to him. To me he
called the woman "a little fool," and was irritated with being placed in
so ridiculous a position. Indeed I think Will suffered as much as I did.
Without being rude or boorish, there was nothing he could do to check
her advances. She was planning her _début_ as a star the following
season, and made Will a proposition to become her leading man; she
consulted him concerning the new plays which were being submitted to
her, and planned for the current season special matinées of classic
plays with which Will was familiar. She called him to preliminary
rehearsal and discussions in her rooms at the hotel; sometimes, between
the acts of the performance, called him to her dressing-room, where she
received him in a state of _négligé_. New bits of stage business were
introduced, or the old elaborated; she would run her fingers through
his hair, or prolong the kisses which the rôle demanded; or, in his
embrace, she would draw her body close to his and writhe about him to a
point of indecency. In countless, intangible ways she brought her
blandishments to bear upon him. Will declared she was playing him
against the manager, whose relations with her had become strained since
his wife had interfered. In all things she was aided and abetted by her
mother, who fawned on Will and made his position the more equivocal. My
own emotions were confused; it was inconceivable that I should be
jealous of the woman. No, the sensation she aroused was nothing more
than disgust. To be jealous of my husband connoted a lack of faith, and
he had done nothing to betray my trust in him.

Jealousy had always appeared to me a debasing and an undignified
emotion.... I resented the position in which my husband was placed; I
would not add to his discomfiture by hectoring. I had promised myself
when I married that never should I be jealous when I saw my husband
making stage-love to another woman--perhaps in the back of my mind was
the hope that I should always be the other woman, his leading lady.
Nevertheless, I was determined to stand the test without flinching. It
was high time that I began to realize that the conditions which
confronted me were but a part of the game--the _game_! The word was
reminiscent of Miss Burton. I fought down the suggestion blindly,
passionately.... I began to dread going to the theatre; often, while I
was making up, I found Margherita's eyes fastened wistfully upon
me--they told how she longed to comfort me. Unhappily I could not talk
about the thing which was troubling me. What was there to say? There are
emotions which never find tangible expression. Then the idea of asking
my husband to resign from the Company suggested itself. I endeavoured to
look at the question from a material standpoint: it would not be easy to
find another engagement in mid-season, besides, there were the expensive
railroad fares back to New York--we were then touring California--and
probably another separation....

Perhaps it was the strain of hard travel, or it may have been the
certainty of my condition which I had heretofore only suspected, or a
combination of both, which made me lose my self-control. I had always
believed strongly in the influence of suggestion upon the unborn child,
and the unclean atmosphere in which I was living preyed upon my mind
until it became an obsession. I grew to hate the woman and her
witch-like mother. We had had some racking railroad jumps, and the loss
of sleep was telling on every member of the Company; the leading lady
was stimulating on champagne. Her mother stood in the wings, bottle and
glass in hand, and applied the restorative whenever the girl came off
the stage. One night, under the influence of the wine, she became more
brazen in her advances to Will; she took liberties which made even her
mother, watching in the wings, gasp with amusement. Something she said
_sotto voce_ to her mother reached my ears. I began to watch her. As the
act progressed she elaborated the detail with ever-increasing audacity,
and, when the action required her to throw herself in Will's arms, she
flung me a look of laughing defiance, coincident with a broad wink to
her mother--old Hecate of the wings--then fed upon his lips like a
vampire sucking blood.

I am not sure that I responded to the cue which some seconds later
brought her into my arms. (We were fellow Nihilists under arrest.) The
contact of her hand against mine ... Will told me afterwards he would
never have believed me possessed of such physical strength. I choked
her.... I drove my nails into her flesh.... I dragged her to the wings
and beat her with my fists.... I vented upon her the long pent-up
fury.... Oh, the shame, the ignominy of it! I, who resented a vicious
influence upon my unborn child--I, its mother, had descended to the
level of a fishwife!... It was Margherita who brought me back to
consciousness; it was she who restored to me a modicum of my
self-respect. I believe she was secretly pleased at what I had done.

That night, as she sat beside my bed, she told me something of herself.
As a young girl she possessed a wonderful singing voice. Her
parents--poor Italians--who came to America when she was a babe in arms,
could not afford proper masters. She went on the stage to support
herself, hoping to earn enough to pay for her musical education. Her
beauty attracted a patron "of the arts"; at least, that is the way he
was referred to in the newspapers. But it was not Margherita's art that
he cared about--it was the woman. He considered his money a fair
exchange for her body; Margherita was not willing to pay the price. She
struggled on, and one day, after several years of hazardous existence,
she found herself stranded in a far Western city without money, without
friends. In a state of despondency she had walked to the outskirts of
the town, and there in a lonely wood she sat down to fight out a choice
between life and death. In a moment of emotion she burst forth into
song; her troubled soul found solace in Gounod's _Ave Maria_. At the end
her voice broke, and she sobbed. A hand was laid on her shoulder. It was
a big hand, strong and sinewy. The man that went with it was big--"big
all the way through," Margherita said proudly. They were married not
long after; ever since he had remained at her side, helping to fight for
a clean career ... making her life's work his.... Dear Margherita! I can
see you now, with your glorious black eyes, your coronet of raven hair
with the poppies over your pretty ear.... Oh, the pity of it! Weakened
by the hardships and privation her life entailed, she died a few years
later....

When Will came into the room that night, he held a paper in his hand. It
was our resignation. His eyes twinkled with humour when he told
Margherita that he was taking the bull by the horns, and sparing us the
ignominy of dismissal. I was glad to see he was not angry with me. Then
Margherita whispered something into his ear. He came to the bed and took
me in his arms, and what he said concerns only a man and wife....
Margherita stole away, but before she went she kissed us both, and there
were tears in her eyes.

On the way back to New York, Will and I sat hand in hand looking out at
the monotonous stretch of desert-land. "I'm glad to have it over--I'm
glad that's out of our life," he reiterated, pressing my hand. "It was
rotten!" Suddenly he burst out laughing. He continued long and
sonorously. "Do you know, girlie," he said, "do you know that with a
little more fullness of figure and a pair of two-inch heels, you'd make
a grand Lady Macbeth? Phew!" and he laughed again.




CHAPTER IV


The question of bearing children had given me many a bad hour. My
husband felt that the coming of a child, at the outset of his career,
would be a burden and a handicap; once he was established and could
afford to maintain a home, it would be time enough, he declared. He felt
that, at best, children born and reared in the theatrical profession
were the victims of unnatural conditions. It was not practicable to
carry a young child about the country, and, if left behind, to the care
of either relatives or hired attendants, the child was robbed of its
natural protection. Obviously I must make up my mind to separate from
one or the other--my child or my husband--until the little one was old
enough to travel.

Here arose another knotty problem. Children are little human sponges;
they absorb the atmosphere of their environment. A stage-child is no
more immune to the vicious influences about it than to a scarlet-fever
germ. Should I then be willing to expose my child to dangers of more
far-reaching consequences than physical ailments, and at a time of life
when character is formed? My husband and I discussed these problems at
length, and finally concluded that, since the inevitable had happened,
the wisest course was to make the best of it. How many children, I
wonder, are conceived in the same spirit? How many births the result of
accident? How few planned with the wish to bestow the best of one's
flesh and spirit upon the little stranger? Can the influence of
unwelcome conception upon the child itself ever be computed? May not
criminal tendencies and moral delinquencies be traced to such a source?
If, at the beginning, I were guilty of misdirected sentiment, I set
myself to right the wrong as the weeks grew into months. I no longer
chafed at separation; I lived in a kind of spiritual exaltation. My
plans and dreams of the future were now transferred to the coming of my
child.

Will was so fortunate as to secure another engagement almost
immediately. His success led to the opportunity he most desired, and in
the early autumn he played his first engagement as leading man of a New
York production. The Company opened out of town; in theatrical parlance
this is what they call "trying it on the dog."

Our boy was born during Will's absence. It must have been very hard for
Will to have the nervous strain of a first night's performance and the
worry of my illness at the same time. I had gone to the hospital alone.
Will had made the arrangements before he left town. He said he would
feel better if he knew I was in skilled hands and not at the mercies of
a lodginghouse-keeper. It seemed cruel to be alone at such a time. I
cried a little when the big, cheery nurse held my boy for me to kiss....
I wanted Will's arms around me as I had never longed for them before--or
after.... The little chap had black hair like Will's, and his forehead
bulged in the same way. I had always admired Will's forehead....

Baby was six weeks old when his father first saw him. I laughed when he
held the boy in his arms--he appeared so awkward. After a successful New
York opening, the play settled down for a run. We moved from our
furnished room to an apartment. Will found it difficult to sleep with a
crying baby in the same room. With the coming of the child, and the
"front" Will's new position demanded, it was hard to make both ends
meet; for a long time I did the housework except the washing, but when
my health began to fail Will made me hire a servant.

Will was very fond of our little boy. Even as a small baby, the child
showed his preference for his father; he would stop crying the moment he
heard Will's voice. Indeed, I believe that when temptation lured him in
her most attractive form it was the child who held him close to me.

Temptation there was plenty; his success had been unqualified. The
critics hailed him as a young man with a great future. His pictures
began to appear in the magazines and in the pictorial supplements of the
Sunday papers. He joined an actors' club, where he dined on matinée
days. Will's family developed a pride in him, hitherto carefully
suppressed. They had shown decided disapproval of our marriage when it
became expedient to announce it to them. My introduction to the family,
during the week our late-lamented Company had played Will's home city,
was strained and unsatisfactory. Now, however, the sight of the family
name in print gave unalloyed joy to Will's father, who collected
newspaper clippings for Will's scrap-book with more zeal than did Will
himself. Will said this sudden interest reminded him of a story he had
heard at the club. It ran like this:

A handsome young Irishman of humble parentage had long yearned for the
footlights. Unable longer to restrain himself, he confided his ambitions
to his mother. Now, the old lady was an ardent church-goer, and looked
upon the stage as a quick chute to perdition.

"Jimmie, Jimmie, me boy! To think you'd want to be an actor! To think
you'd want to bring shame on your old mother, this disgrace on your dead
father's good name!"

The old lady rocked herself to and fro in her grief. In vain Jimmie
endeavoured to soothe her. Finally the idea occurred to him.

"But, mither, mither, darlin'," he caressed, "I'll not bring disgrace on
your name--you know actors always change their names when they go on the
stage, and no one will ever know who I am."

The old lady stopped her moaning and was silent for a moment.

"But, Jimmie," she protested, "Jimmie, supposin' you became a gr-r-e-at
mon, supposin' you became a great lion, with your pictures in all the
papers--and adornin' the fences ... then, Jimmie, how'll they know
you're me son?" ...

It was at a matinée that I first saw Will in his new part. It was the
first time since our marriage that I had not heard his lines or helped
him with his costumes. He had told me all about the play, and I knew the
cue for his first entrance almost as well as he himself. My heart
thumped so hard and fast I feared my neighbour would guess who I was.
His entrance was greeted with a burst of gloved applause, accompanied
with such exclamations as, "There he is!" "Isn't he a love!" ... "Just
wait until you see how he can make love!" I confess I hardly knew
whether to be proud, or indignant. The familiarity with which they
discussed him grated on me; I resented the proprietary tone. Then I
smiled at my silliness, for I realized that this very interest made for
popularity, the most valuable of the actor's assets. I listened to the
gush of the matinée girls, and their discussion of the private lives of
theatrical people with a good deal of amusement.

Coming out of the theatre, I heard one woman ask another whether Will
was married. I wondered what difference that would make in his
popularity.

After the matinée I went back to Will's dressing-room. Will had planned
what he called a little junket. We were to dine together at a
restaurant--a pleasure we could not often afford. While Will washed up I
told him the nice things I had overheard. I predicted he would become a
veritable matinée idol--a term which he scorned. There were some letters
lying on his make-up table. I picked them up idly; Will followed my
action.

"Read them," he said. "You'll be amused. They are my first mash-notes."
There was so much roguishness in his smile that I laughed back at him.
Some of the letters were innocent enough, written in girlish hand, with
requests for autographs and autographed photographs. One or two asked
Will's advice about going on the stage, and there was one from a
tooth-powder firm, wanting the right to use Will's picture in which his
teeth showed. There was one--a violet-scented note on fine linen,
written in the large loose vertical scrawl so much affected by smart
women--without signature. It ran as follows:

     "If you will pardon this somewhat unconventional method of making
     your acquaintance, my dear Mr. Hartley, I shall be most happy to
     have you join me at tea, after the matinée, at Sherry's (other
     drinkables not excluded). I was present at the opening night of
     your play, and was quite carried away by your splendid acting.
     Where _did_ you learn to make love? I have occupied the right hand
     proscenium box every Saturday matinée since the opening. Isn't that
     a proof of my devotion? Do I flatter myself that I have caught your
     eye once or twice as the curtain falls? I invariably dress in black
     and wear gardenias. If you are interested, you will have no
     difficulty in identifying me. For family reasons I withhold my name
     for the present. Do come, Mr. Hartley."

As I folded the letter and replaced it in its cover, I recalled that
Will _had_ glanced towards the right hand proscenium box several times.

"I think I'll put you on a car and send you home," began Will, but
something in his voice belied his words, and I made him an impudent
_moué_. "How do you like being married to a matinée idol?" Will asked,
giving the final touch to his dress.

I did not reply; I was asking myself the same question.




CHAPTER V


Will made friends easily. Perhaps it were better to use the word
"acquaintances." At any rate it was not long until he received more
invitations than he could accept. He was called on to give his services
for charitable purposes, but I noticed these hostesses never received
him in their homes. It must be said that Will rarely accepted an
invitation which did not include me, though I often realized I was
invited as a necessary evil. After supper the guests invariably played
poker, and I knew nothing about cards. The late hours sapped my
strength, and my boy always wakened early in the morning. Sometimes the
suppers were held at a well-known restaurant, like Rector's or Martin's.
I had not the proper clothes for such occasions; it was imperative that
Will dressed well, and I did not want it said that his wife was shabby.
The other women wore wonderful gowns and much jewellery.

After a winter's round of these parties, I was able to distinguish one
particular set from another. There is a smart set, a fast set and a
loose set which, though none of them can be said to be strictly "in
society," form a kind of brass-band appendage or fringe to it and differ
one from the other only in their gradations--or degradations--of moral
laxness. It is the loose set to which the actor is drawn, or inclines.
One finds in this particular stratum the artist, the journalist, the
divorcée and semi-detached woman whose name is legion. The lady who
maintains a handsome apartment and entertains lavishly is probably a
"kept" woman with an ambiguous past. Occasionally one finds a multiple
divorcée with money, playing at patroness to some impecunious
song-writer or handsome actor with more brawn than brain. But the "kept"
lady predominates. She is ubiquitous. She dresses à la mode, she is an
habituée of the smart restaurants, an inveterate first-nighter. Her
"particular friend" may be a married man of the "my
wife-don't-understand-me" brand, or he may be one of the "get-rich-quick
floaters" who joyride across the financial horizon into oblivion. It is
to this set the stall-fed woman of the leisure class turns to whet her
jaded appetite. And a hostess' Sunday AT HOME is highly suggestive of
the "obit" of a Town Topics. Individually and collectively they are
rotten. Mistaking the sex-heat aroused and stimulated by cocktails and
other alcoholic beverages for real love and passion, they wallow in the
erotic mire to their heart's content. Nobody criticizes; nobody cares;
the faster the pace the greater the joy.

It was upon this subject that my husband and I encountered our first
real rift. He had commented rather flippantly on the moral tone of a
recent supper party. We fell to discussing the players' status in
society. I had observed that with one or two notable exceptions the
actor is not received by "our best people." To be sure there are a few
cities outside of New York where quite respectable families, bored by
the drab routine of conventional society, entertain the actor as a kind
of _sauce piquante_ to their monotonous lives. But this is the exception
and not the rule. Wholly misinterpreting my motive, Will defended his
profession with a blind prejudice. After that he did not ask me to
accompany him to the various functions. It became quite a common thing
for him to telephone me from the Club that he would not be home until
late that night. I was sorry that I had expressed myself so plainly to
Will; if only I could make him understand that I wanted him to be true
to the best that was in him.... It hurt me to hear him speak lightly of
the women with whom he associated, and still continue to go among them.

Miss Burton was now a frequent visitor at our home. She adored the boy
and never failed to bring him a present when she came. She took upon
herself to lecture me for not going out with Will, declaring I was
spoiling him, and that I would make him selfish. I thought over what she
said, and resolved that I would go with Will when next he asked me. Also
I began to formulate a little circle of my own. There was a sculptor to
whom I was particularly attracted. He was a Western product, and was
preparing to go abroad to study. I had always had a fondness for
sculpture, and during my enforced retirement I amused myself at moulding
with clay. A baby's hand I had made attracted his attention one day he
had called on Will. He advised me to continue my efforts. Miss Burton
sent me a wonderful outfit and I took up my work of sculpturing in
earnest. My sculptor friend brought other friends with him, and it
became a regular thing for me to receive my friends on Sunday afternoon.
I saw that Will enjoyed my little parties, though they were simple and I
made no pretensions.

One day--it was at Christmas time--Miss Burton sent me a beautiful gown;
with the package came a characteristic note: she begged me to accept the
gown and not to feel hurt, that she was dead broke and could not afford
to make me a "decent" Christmas present. The gown, she said, had been
spoiled by the dressmaker, who had made it much too tight, and it would
make her happy if I would accept it with her love....

It was so pretty--all creamy white and fluffy, and there were little
pink flowers scattered over the net. I put it on ... and, as I looked at
myself in the mirror, I felt quite pleased with the reflection. White
was always becoming to me.... I did not tell Will about my present, but
the next time he casually mentioned an invitation to dinner I accepted
with an alacrity which surprised him.

When Sunday came, I dressed with the excitement of a conspirator, and
when Will called me to help him with his tie I walked into his room
with an air of unconcern worthy of a star. Will was delighted with my
appearance.

When we entered the house of our hostess I no longer felt the desire to
hide myself; instead, I felt quite mistress of myself. It's wonderful
what a difference clothes will make in one's feelings. Miss Burton told
me once that, whenever she was down on her luck and felt depressed, she
forthwith went on a sartorial debauch. She bought everything in sight.
Her new clothes re-established her self-respect, and somehow, some way,
a good engagement came along and helped her to pay for her prodigality.

We were a little late in arriving, and when I came down from the
bedroom, where I had left my wrap, the second round of cocktails was
being passed. Will was standing at the foot of the stairs talking with
his hostess. A large nude figure carrying softly shaded lights decorated
the newel-post, and screened me from view of the woman who was talking
to Will.

"You handsome dog!" I heard her say. "What have you been doing to Alice?
She's gone clean off her head--threatens to leave her husband, and is
drinking like a fish!"

"I haven't done anything," Will began, but at that moment our hostess
saw me and nudged Will, who joined me and we entered the drawing-room.

I felt Will's questioning eyes on my face, but I did not look at him;
instead, I gave my hand rather impulsively to my sculptor friend who was
standing alone, and I did not notice the returning pressure until my
wedding ring cut into the flesh, and made me wince. I was wondering who
"Alice" could be and what Will had to do with her. Our hostess's
"friend" was present. He was a middle-aged man with a ruddy complexion,
iron gray hair and a closely cropped moustache. I had once seen him at
the Horse Show in one of the boxes, and he had been pointed out to me as
a prominent railroad man. He greeted Will noisily.

"Hello, Hartley," he yelled, "you're late on your cue. I suppose you
wanted to make an effective entrance!"

At the table I sat next to the sculptor; on my other hand was a dentist
who had leaped into fame by having been expelled from a certain European
country where he had set up a successful practice. A _liaison_ with the
wife of a man close to the throne had led to his downfall, and he had
returned to his native land to be received with open arms by the set in
which we were now travelling. He had a face such as I imagined Molière
conceived for his Tartuffe; his voice was caressing and made me sleepy.
Opposite me sat a well-known star. He was famous for his magnetism.
Although I could not discern it, there must have existed something of
the sort, for every leading woman who engaged with him, sooner or later,
succumbed to his charm. I myself knew of one girl whose life was almost
ruined when he took up with another woman who had joined his Company to
play a special engagement. This girl was one of the prettiest I ever
saw; she was "chaperoned" by a complaisant mother. This irresistible
gentleman was married, but his wife refused to live with him and made
her home abroad. For the sake of the children she refused to divorce
him.

A comic opera singer sat beside the hostess. The dentist, assuming that
I knew the situation, asked me, _sotto voce_, how long I thought it
would be before "papa took a tumble to himself." When I confessed my
inability to follow him, he proceeded to enlighten me. The hostess was
infatuated with the singer, who was as poor as Job's turkey, and while
her protector was absent--(he was married and had several grown
children)--the lady consoled herself with song. This easy,
matter-of-fact way in which these topics were discussed, the utter lack
of restraint between the sexes, no longer shocked me. I was on the point
of asking my purveyor of illicit news whether he could tell me who Alice
was; instead, I turned to the bored man at my right, and by degrees I
got him to tell me of his ambitions, his work and his ideas of life. I
found we had much in common.

While we were talking, there was a noisy argument going on at the other
end of the table.

"I wouldn't stand it for one minute!" rang out the voice of our hostess,
and I saw her shoot a meaning glance at the singer.

"Ask an actor's wife! Ask Mrs. Hartley!" bellowed the host. "Mrs.
Hartley?"

"Yes?" I responded, not knowing the subject of conversation.

"Pardon me for interrupting so interesting a conversation, won't you,
Calhoun," he said, addressing my sculptor friend with exaggerated
courtesy. "I'll give her back to you in a minute.... Mrs. Hartley, the
ladies want to know how it feels to watch your husband make love to
another woman?"

I caught Will's eye. At another time I should have been embarrassed.
To-night, however, I felt a strange self-control.

"Oh dear, what an old chestnut!" I answered flippantly. "I believe
that's the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time I've answered that
question this season." I noticed that my voice took on a bored tone.

"Well, tell us!" urged mine host.

"To tell the truth," I began, "I never give it a thought."

Will's eyes twinkled; he was seated at the far end of the table between
two stall-feds.

"It's a part of the business," I continued, "just as dictating to his
typewriter is a part of the routine of a business man. Does every wife
suspect her husband's stenographer?"

"Yes! yes!" came the chorus from the curvilinear gentlemen at the other
end of the table.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Very well, then, it seems to me, since you
gentlemen won't behave, that it is up to the women to see that you do!"
I sat down. I felt ashamed of my vulgarity. Our host suggested a toast
and scrambled to his feet. "Here's to our wives and sweethearts--may
they never meet!"

There was more laughter. The dentist murmured something about moss-grown
jokes, and the hostess asked why husbands and lovers were excluded. I
felt my mouth drawing down at the corners, and I buried my lips in the
American Beauty rose the sculptor had purloined from the centre-piece.

It was probably the frequent replenishing of the wine glasses which led
the doctor-dentist to level all his batteries of fascination upon me. He
moved nearer and closer, until even the hostess noticed his efforts; she
thought it funny. Finally, he slipped his hand beneath the table and let
it rest upon my knee. I arose and asked the sculptor to exchange seats
with me. I think he understood, for as I passed him he said to me in a
low, intense tone, "Is that beast annoying you?" I did not answer. In my
confusion I upset a glass of wine, and the wine-agent across the table
told me he was sorry I didn't like his wine.

As the dinner progressed some spicy stories were exchanged. The time we
lingered at the table seemed interminable. Mr. Calhoun told me I should
take a drink of brandy, for I was growing quite pale. He could not, of
course, realize that at that moment I had suddenly noticed that Will's
companion was dressed all in black and wore gardenias. A moment later
the hostess had called her "Alice." ... She leered at Will with
wine-shot eyes, her breath coming in quick, short gasps, and I noticed
that his right and her left hand were under the table....

As we left the table I had asked Mr. Calhoun what time it was. When he
told me it was after eleven I ran quickly up the stairs to the room
where I had seen a telephone. It was my habit to awaken my boy at
half-after nine every night to give him nourishment. He was put to bed
at five o'clock, and the period between that and morning was too long to
go without food. I wanted to ask my maid whether she had remembered my
instructions. The telephone was in a kind of closet off the hostess's
bedroom; beyond the bedroom was her boudoir, reached by a door from the
corridor. I had finished with my message, and was about to go
downstairs, where the singing had begun, when I heard someone enter the
boudoir beyond. I stopped and drew back, why, I do not know. A moment
later there were footsteps on the stairs, and Will entered the room. He
came quickly and began speaking at once.

"My dear Alice," he said, "this thing can't go on. You are making a fool
of me and of yourself. The first thing you know your husband will get on
to it and there will be the devil to pay!"

"That's right! Make it harder for me," the woman answered. "Why do you
always bring my husband into the conversation? You know how it is
between us. We haven't lived as man and wife for years. He's never
understood me and I can't go on with him any longer. I won't--that's
all!"

There was a pause before Will spoke again.

"Come on, don't go on like that; everybody will know what's happened.
You'll spoil your eyes."

Another pause. I think these silences were the hardest to bear....

"You had no right to let it go this far if you didn't care," the woman
went on resentfully.

"This far? How do you mean? There has been nothing that you need be
ashamed of--nothing that you couldn't tell your husband if it came
right down to it," answered Will.

The woman laughed angrily. "Is that so? I suppose you count a few motor
rides and a few suppers on the side nothing. I suppose you wouldn't mind
telling your wife that you had held me in your arms and kissed my eyes
and my hair...."

"Good Heavens! neither of us meant anything wrong! We were just carried
away for a few minutes--you're a fascinating devil--and the wine helped
some.... Now, don't do that, don't do any of that foolish business with
me...."

What was she doing, I wondered? Did she intend to kill him or kill
herself? I almost started to Will's rescue, then--she laughed.

"Powder your nose and let's go down. Somebody will notice our absence."

Evidently she obeyed, for there was another pause.

"You needn't worry about your wife," she said. "The giant from the West
is keeping her busy. Better keep your eye on him."

Will did not reply. My eardrums seemed on the point of bursting from the
surging of the blood to my head.

They came out into the corridor. At the head of the steps she stopped.

"I suppose it amuses you to make women love you," she said.

"My dear woman, you don't love me; I don't flatter myself to that
extent."

She laughed sneeringly.

Would they never go?

"Kiss me good-night and good-bye," she half whispered.

"This is the last one," he answered, "the last, remember."

There was a stifled cry as she clung to him, and I saw Will release
himself and run down the steps. A few minutes later she followed. I
found my way down the servants' stairs and entered the dining-room from
the butler's pantry. When Will came to look for me I was drinking brandy
frappée with the wine merchant.... That night I slept on a couch beside
my boy's crib.




CHAPTER VI


After that memorable dinner party things were never quite the same
between Will and me. I am sure, however, that Will was unconscious of
the fact. He went about as usual. At this juncture Boy came down with
scarlet-fever. The enforced quarantine acted as a bar to any intimacy
between my husband and me. I welcomed the isolation. My feelings had not
yet recovered from the bruise I had received. How many times I had
re-lived the scene to which I had been an unwilling eavesdropper! I
blamed myself for not at once having made my presence known. I excused
myself on the ground that to have done so would have placed Will in a
ridiculous and embarrassing situation. For some inexplicable reason the
idea of embarrassing my husband was repugnant to me. My resentment was
concentrated against the woman. I felt sure she was to blame. I invented
all kinds of excuses for Will and at the same time I recognized that
they were pure inventions. I could not bring myself to kiss my
husband--at least, not for a long, long time. His arms no longer
connoted a haven. How utterly wretched I was--how lonely and
heart-hungry! Only a fierce struggle with my self-respect kept me from
throwing myself into my husband's arms and crying out my hurt against
his breast.

After Boy had recovered, Will one day remarked that I was looking tired.
He said I was stopping indoors too closely--would I not accompany him to
a little ... I tingled all over my body. I dared not trust myself to
look at him. Instead I forced a smile and shook my head in negation.

"I reckon you don't like the bunch," he quizzed.

"I fear I'm not even a little bit of a sport," I answered.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. The glance was
characteristic of Will. Often I had seen this same expression when some
one had recognized him on the street or in a restaurant. It was a
curious blend of boyish self-consciousness and exaggerated unconcern.

With the coming of summer began the annual hunt for an engagement. A
walk along that part of Broadway known as the Rialto during the early
months of the heated term leaves the impression that there has been a
lock-out of the whole theatrical profession. Actors block the corners
and hem the sidewalks. The supply far exceeds the demand. Year after
year they make the weary rounds of the agencies. Season follows season
with but a few weeks' employment for many of them. One wonders that the
impermanency of his profession does not drive the actor to other
vocations--perhaps "trades" were the better word, since the rank and
file are better adapted to plumbing than to acting. The microbe which
infects the actor is as deadly in its effect as the Tsi-tsi fly. It
produces an exaggerated ego from which the victim never recovers. The
only palliative is the lime-light. Retirement from the stage is never
permanent. Farewell tours of prominent players, like the brook, go on
forever. It is the spirit of make-believe with which the actor is
saturated which leads him to make a front even to his confrères. "Signed
for next season?" one overhears, edging one's way through the crowd.

"No, not yet--I've had several good offers, but not just what I want.
I'm in no hurry," and he twirls his cane with a nonchalant air, though
he may not have the price of next week's board-bill. And so it goes, ad
infinitum. His is the kingdom of bluff.

Will was one of the fortunates. After several weeks of haggling over
salary, he was engaged by "America's foremost producer." The actor of
established position--"established" being a mere figure of speech, since
at best the actor's position is an aleatory one--those of prominence
usually demand to read the play before signing a contract. In this
instance Will waived this privilege. Absolute secrecy was maintained as
to the character of the play. The reason for this lay in the fact that
the manager was at war with the Theatrical Syndicate. His grievances he
had made known to the public. As a lone, solitary Saint George of _art_,
fighting the monster dragon, _commercialism_, he made a "play" for the
public's sympathy--and won it.

The momentous question of employment disposed of, we started for our
summer holiday. It was Will's first idea to go to a village on Nantucket
Island. Here a group of more or less successful actor-folk had
established a summer colony. Some of them owned comfortable bungalows
or were in the throes of buying them. After maturer deliberation Will
concluded he wanted a change of "atmosphere." In other words he wanted
to get away from "shop." A residential park in the Catskills was finally
decided upon. The cottagers were for the most part staid Brooklyn
families and Will felt in this environment he was reasonably sure of
privacy. The delusion was a short-lived one. As we left the train and
made our way to the 'bus which was to convey us to the Park I heard a
whisper and titter from a bevy of pretty girls who had come to the
railway station to watch the new arrivals. "There's Mr. Blank, the
actor!" and Will understood that he was "discovered." Some of the girls
climbed into the 'bus, others followed on foot. All giggled and made
significant remarks. At the Inn it was immediately noised about that an
actor was in "our midst." We became the cynosure of all eyes. Curious
maiden ladies looked us over--at a respectful distance. Our most
insignificant movements were under observation. Now, it is one thing to
be stared at on the stage; quite another to have the minutest detail of
one's private life under constant surveillance. Will, who had planned
to live the simple life, which he had construed for himself as going
unshaved for days at a time, wearing baggy trousers and flannel shirts
all day and dining in that garb if it so pleased him, now found himself
donning white ducks (the salvage of a former season's wardrobe), playing
tennis, bridge, or lounging about the piazza answering endless inane
questions concerning the stage and its people. If we went for a walk we
were soon overtaken; if we planned a quiet day in the woods there was
arranged an impromptu picnic-party to accompany us. To be sure the
attention thrust upon us was of kindly intent, though Will declared the
pleasure was theirs and more or less selfishly bestowed. An actor and
his family at close range is a novelty apparently as much coveted as a
man at a seaside after the week-end hejira back to town.

One week of the cuisine at the Inn drove Will to dyspepsia tablets.
Instead of fresh vegetables, home-grown fowl and the other concomitants
of the country-board illusions, we were served with such delicacies as
creamed cod-fish, canned salmon and johnny cake. I came to the
conclusion that the housekeeping and servant problems had driven the
Brooklynites to a state of submission where even the fare provided by
the Inn was better than Bridget's dictation.

The rooms of the caravansary were veritable cockle-shells. The
partitions were so thin that we carried on all conversation in subdued
whispers. We wished that other guests would emulate our example, alas
and alack! Up with the lark and early morning sunbursts were not in
Will's curriculum. He said he did not object to a sunrise if he could
sit up all night with convivial friends to await it. And, when a man is
in the habit of lying abed till noon, it is difficult to change his
régime. He soon developed nerves. One morning, after futile attempts to
sleep, Will dragged himself into his clothes and disappeared. When
finally he returned he had the roguish face of a boy who had been
stealing little red apples. He had found a farm-house and after some
"dickering" on both sides he had rented house, farm and all for the
remainder of the season.

"Just think, girlie," he enthused, "what a circus it will be! There's a
garden with all kinds of vegetables, there's a cow, bushels of
chickens, an old nag, a dog, to say nothing of the pigs and----"

"Who," I gasped, "who is going to care for this menagerie?"

"We are--you and me. Besides I need the exercise. I want to take off a
few pounds of this embonpoint or I'll lose my 'figger.' Of course
there's a hired man who'll come in to do the milking and the heavy work,
and his sister will cook and 'tidy up' for us. It'll be great!" He
stopped long enough to throw out his chest, inhale deeply and to exhale
noisily while he pounded his lungs--a little trick he had of expressing
a sense of well-being. "Fresh vegetables, fresh eggs and the cow--think
what the cow will do for the kiddie! You never saw me work, did
you?--man with the hoe business, I mean. I used to love that kind of
thing when I went home to visit the old folks in the summer. Come along,
girlie, let's get things together. The coach and four will be here
soon."

He swung Boy over his shoulder and carried him pick-a-back to our room.
While we packed he told me the details of his "find." The farm belonged
to an old man and his wife, whose children--three sons--had yielded to
the call of the city. Bit by bit the lonely old couple had sold the
land, not being able to work it themselves and unsuccessful in their
attempts to induce the children to return to their heritage. For a long
time they had "hankered" to visit the boys in Brooklyn, but money was
scarce and the little farm with the live stock could not be left uncared
for. The old man had advertised the homestead for rent, furnished. "The
few who came to see had one excuse or another for not wanting it," the
old man had told Will. "Most of 'em wanted a bath and runnin' water and
they shied at the oil lamps."

"They evidently wanted the simple life with all modern appliances," Will
continued. "After talking it over with Ma whilst I waited on the porch
drinking buttermilk, Pa returned and asked if I meant business. I
assured him I did and proved it by offering to pay the summer's rent in
advance."

I caught my breath. Mental arithmetic failed me. Will had told me before
leaving New York that we were "playing pretty close to the cushion," and
I knew what that meant. If Will noticed my perturbation he evinced no
sign, but went on in the same enthusiastic vein. "Pa and Ma talked it
over again, 'If Ma ain't lost her taste for visiting Brooklyn,'--Ma
hadn't, but she wanted a week to get ready. Pa said he could pack all he
wanted in a paper bag. I said I must have the place at once or not at
all--and--here we are." I was not surprised at our sudden change of
base. Will always acted on the impulse of the moment.

When Will went down to pay our hotel bill it was lunch-time. Nearly all
the cottagers in the Park had assembled. Much regret was expressed at
our desertion of the Inn. (I quite understood that "our" was a mere form
of courtesy, inasmuch as I was looked upon as only an appendage hitched
to a star.) Will laid our desertion to the Boy. "He needs a cow," he
explained blandly to a group of admirers. "A child of his age needs one
brand of milk. One can't be too careful in hot weather, you know," and
Will's whole bearing portrayed paternal solicitude. The farm wagon
arrived opportunely. Will winked at me. He had told me that he was
"side-stepping" the lunch of dried lima beans and creamed cod-fish. "I
wanted to do it gracefully, of course. They are all nice people and it's
good business. That's the kind of thing that gives an actor his
following; just the same I'm glad to get away and relax. This being
always on parade--! They simply won't concede an actor any privacy. They
won't let you be natural. They expect you to act 'on' and 'off.'"

It was a long and bumpy drive to the farm. We could have walked it in a
third of the time by cutting 'cross country. The poor old horse driven
by Aaih, the farm hand, looked moth-eaten and worn. It hurt my
conscience to add to his burden, so Will and I climbed down and walked
the rest of the way. Will, carrying Boy first on his shoulder and then
on his back, reminded me of pictures I had seen of early settlers making
their way through the wilds in search of a home. Once in every little
while Will would burst forth in a lusty halloa which made the welkin
ring. "Halloa" came back from the echoing hills. Even Boy saluted the
great god Pan. There was an exhilaration in the air which made one glad
to be alive.

It was a noisy trio which swung into the lane leading to the farm house.
Ma was on the front porch awaiting us. She made a quaint picture in her
rusty black alpaca with her gingham apron half turned back under her
arm. At her neck there was an old daguerreotype set in a
brooch--probably a likeness of a child she had lost. The lack-lustre
eyes were kindly, almost pensively so, and the red spots in her cheeks
indicated the excitement under which she laboured. While we sprawled on
the porch she bustled about for buttermilk. Boy had taken a shine to
Aaih, and refused to leave him for the "one brand of milk," the virtues
of which Will had expounded to the lady cottagers. Pa called out a
friendly greeting from the kitchen where he was "poking up the fire" in
response to orders from his wife. The odour of cooking things whetted
our already keen appetites. "I had Pa kill a chicken at the last
minute," the dear old lady explained, "for everybody who comes to the
country hankers for fried chicken." I shot a glance at Will. Will was "a
nice feeder" and I devoutly hoped his epicurean tastes would not balk at
a freshly-killed fowl. It would be a sin not to appreciate the old
lady's kindliness. Mentally I resolved to eat every helping if it killed
me.

I fear there was poor picking for Aaih after we left the table. I helped
Ma with the dishes and after they were cleared away she showed me the
run of the house. Later we joined the men folks out of doors and made a
tour of the farm. There was something pathetic in the way they asked us
to take good care of Snyder, whose mixed breed reminded one of the much
advertised pickles. Old Ben, we were told, was not fast but he was
trust-worthy even in the face of automobiles. Good laying hens were
pointed out, but I could never remember one from the other. We made the
acquaintance of Bossy and were warned that the other cow with a calf was
not so friendly. We talked so long that at the last moment Ma got
flustered. She came very near forgetting the home-made jelly she was
taking to her niece at Kingston where they were to stay the night, going
on to New York on the morrow. When at last they drove away to take the
train, we followed the buggy to the end of the lane, then watched them
out of sight with much waving of hands and repeated good-byes. The sun
was dropping behind the peaks. Across the valley spiral coils of smoke
showed gray against the blue-green hills. How calm, how serene it was!
Neither spoke. Will was leaning against the snake-rail fence,
thoughtfully ruminating. Presently he fell to whistling softly. I
smiled. "Give my regards to Broadway, remember me to Herald Square" was
ludicrously out of joint with our surroundings. Will divined my thoughts
and smiled quizzically at me over his shoulder. "It's a long way from
Broadway, eh, girlie?"

"Not nearly long enough!" I responded. And I was right. If, upon leaving
the Inn we had deluded ourselves with the idea of retiring from the
public eye, we soon discovered our mistake. Our retreat was unearthed;
our privacy intruded upon. At inopportune moments passers-by would
appear ostensibly to inquire their way, obviously to get a glimpse of
the actor "at play." It came to be an annoyance, especially after Will
was caught in the act of clearing out a duck pond or helping Aaih to
whitewash a chicken-house. When Will indulged in manual labour he
relieved himself of all superfluous clothing. When a hero does this sort
of thing on the stage he manages somehow to look pretty. But a matinée
idol with streaks of whitewash laid across his sweating brow, sundry
snaggs in disreputable trousers, a handkerchief around his neck with
utter disregard of artistic effect, is a treat reserved for the bosom of
his immediate family only. So, after repeated offences, whilom visitors
were warned off by the threatening admonition--in more or less uneven
lettering--

    "PRIVATE PROPERTY--NO ADMITTANCE."

Experience Dorset was Aaih's sister. She might have been his twin, so
alike were they. The only apparent difference was that plainness in a
man becomes homeliness in a woman. In so far as we were able to
discover, Experience belied her name. True, she made delicious bread and
crullers, and one never felt her apple dumplings after forty-eight
hours, but, other than these, Experience's experience was as drab as her
complexion. She was slow of speech--and exhaustive. Her invariable "Now,
ma'am, what'll I fly at next?" was contradictory to her deliberation.
Nothing ruffled her. In a temperamental family this asset is not to be
despised. To Experience Will was an enigma. She confided to me, soon
after allying herself with our household, that she was never sure when
Will was making believe and when he was himself. She felt certain he
must sometimes mix himself up. It was her way of explaining a dual
personality.

Will liked to play golf. Several times a week we tramped across the
hills to the Club, some two miles distant. We never left the links
without several girls in our train. It was impossible to shake them off.
Sometimes they accompanied us to the house and sat on the porch to rest.
Later they discovered that afternoon tea was an institution with me. I
am sure that Experience enjoyed these little tea-parties as much as did
the girls. Punctually at four o'clock she would appear on the porch,
neatly dressed. With scissors in hand she raided the flower-beds for
lady-slippers and clove-geranium with which to adorn the table. The
stone jar in which she kept the cookies was never empty. And when the
girls came trooping up the lane she was the first to hear them and to
rouse Will from his siesta.

Will said he felt like a bull in a china shop at these informal teas. I
thought he was charming and agreeable though he pretended he was bored.
After tea we would wander out of doors. Nearly all the girls took
snap-shots of Will. He tried to find a new pose for each of them. "The
man with the hoe" showed Will among the cabbages, resting on the handle
of the hoe. "Under the old apple tree" was effective even if the apple
tree was an oak. Reclining on a mound of hay, carted for the purpose by
the faithful Aaih, was labelled "In the good old summer time." "The
actor at play" showed Will with a golf-stick in his hand. Later Will
autographed the pictures.

Many were the questions we were called upon to answer concerning the
stage as a career. We were asked to verify all sorts of silly gossip
about players. It was well-nigh impossible to convince them that all
male stars were not in love with their leading ladies and vice versa. It
goes without saying that I should not escape the inevitable question,
"How did I feel when I saw my husband making love to another woman?" It
amused me to watch the little subterfuges to which the girls resorted to
win my favour. Bon-bons were the bribes most in vogue. One day I
overheard a newcomer to our circle tell another girl, "You didn't tell
me he was married--and a baby, too. How terribly unromantic! I'll never
go to see him act again as long as I live."

Will and I laughed over the situation, albeit there is a considerable
ground for the managerial contention that actors and actresses should
not marry, or, if married, the fact should be suppressed rather than
advertised. Indeed, who likes to think of her Romeo as dawdling a
colicky baby during the wee sma' hours about the time he should be
exclaiming with unfettered fervour, "What light from yonder window
breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!" I recall a tragedy of my
own romantic youth upon discovering that a favourite actor was not only
a father, but that he wore--O, horrible, most horrible--a toupee!

There was no escaping the amateur theatricals. I predicted it early in
the summer. The proceeds of the entertainment were to be applied toward
the discharging of the debt of the Golf Club. Will was asked to take
entire charge of the programme. His position was no sinecure.

It was their first intention to give "As You Like It" in the open, but
as every young woman thought herself particularly adapted to the
requirements of Rosalind, Will found himself in a delicate position. The
young men of the community themselves cut the Gordian knot. They aspired
to be comedians. Vaudeville was finally decided upon. A quartette of
college students blacked up and gave a minstrel show. Some of the jokes
were local and aimed at the idiosyncrasies of the cottagers. Others were
purloined from Jo Miller's joke-book. There was a trombone solo by the
village farrier, several vocal duets and a selection from the Mikado.
Will contributed several monologues. But the star feature of the evening
was the performance of Dolly in a scene from the Wizard of Oz. She was a
dainty creature with Dresden china beauty and bovine eyes and had been
much admired by the male contingent of the colony. Everybody felt sure
there was a treat in store for them. There was. When Dolly entered,
leading the amiable Bossy, a gasp reverberated through the erstwhile
bowling alley. Dolly's short skirt revealed nether extremities which
would have done great credit to Barnum's fat lady or a baby grand piano!

Our vacation passed all too quickly. The day approached when we needs
must bid good-bye to our retreat.... The memory of the old farm-house
lingers still. The chill in the air at nightfall; the warmth of the
log-fire; the sense of comfort and content; the green paste-board shade
on the lamp; the rag rug on the floor. In my mind's eye I see the old
couple sitting here of winter nights; Ma, piecing together the
vari-coloured rags for the summer weaving; Pa, nodding over last week's
news; Snyder stretched out in front of the fire, whimpering in his
dreams. How far removed from the feverish walk of our life, with its
hopes, its struggles, its heart-burns, and its empty fame! Yet, they, as
we, were "merely players."




CHAPTER VII


Rehearsals for the new play began in August. The days were wilting but
the theatrical world up and doing. Every available stage, hall and loft
was requisitioned. Several companies shared the same stage, dividing the
hours between them. Will's manager had his own theatre and the
rehearsals were all-day affairs. Will studied his part at night after
"the family" had retired. Sometimes I would lie awake and listen to him,
talking aloud, reading a line first with one inflection and then trying
another. Will's voice was one of his greatest assets.

Experience had come back to town with us. Before leaving the mountains,
Will had jestingly asked her whether she would like to see Broadway. She
took him at his word. We flattered ourselves she had become fond of us.
We discovered later that it was the profession, not the family, which
lured her. She had found a new volume of faery lore. Will was the faery
prince. Sometimes I wondered just how Experience reconciled Will's
morning grumpiness with her preconceived notion of a hero. I recall how
after seeing Will in a new rôle he had asked her how she liked him. She
expressed herself as pleased with the play in general and with him in
particular. But after he left the room she confided to me the following:
"Ain't he the naturalest thing when he yells at that man with the
powdered hair, Jackwees or somethin' like that--'Jackwees, bring me my
sword!' I declare, ma'am, I jumped a foot and started for that sword! It
was so natural; that's just the way he yells when I forget the morning
papers."

The reliability of Experience brought me more leisure. I was free to go
about without worry over the boy. I felt that intellectually I needed
stimulus and I planned a winter's work. Of course everything depended
upon the play "getting over," to use the vernacular. Will said he did
not see how it could fail. Everyone connected with the production said
the same thing. Success was in the air. Several times I had dropped in
to see a rehearsal. I was interested to know the "method" of this
particular manager about whom so much had been written. His productions
were always effectively mounted. Magazine articles, full-page interviews
had from time to time printed his recipes for evolving successful stars
as well as money-making plays. One thrilling account in
particular--supposedly his own words--told of the strenuous training of
the tyro; how he aroused in his actors the precise degree of emotion
necessary to a given scene. "I dragged her by the hair!" or "I pictured
her own mother lying dead, foully murdered, before her until she cried
aloud at the picture I had conjured." Again, "I tied my wrists together,
I rolled about the floor, struggling to free myself; I wanted to feel
just what a man would feel under similar conditions!" These and other
highly coloured statements had from time to time been served up to the
public. It is amazing how gullibly the public bites at the press-agent's
worm. In nearly all such instances nothing could be farther from the
truth. My own observation convinced me that the man's genius lay in his
ability to select the right person for the right place. Having made the
selection he played upon the _amour propre_ of his puppets. He led them
to believe he had supreme confidence in their ability. The ruse was
successful. It is the better part of human nature to want to measure up
to the good opinion of others.

His methods of conducting a rehearsal were the simplest. He had infinite
patience and perseverance. He left nothing to chance. A scene or an
effect was repeated until the "mechanics" became automatic. His voice
never rose above a conversational tone. He knew that to command others
he must first be in command of himself. He left the roaring to petty
understrappers with inflated ideas of their own importance. Once in a
blue moon he let go. The effect was electrifying. I strongly suspected,
however, that there was more or less "acting" in these outbursts. Just
as his reluctant appearance before the curtain on first nights was a
"carefully prepared bit of impromptu acting." The frightened expression
of his face; the quick, nervous walk; the almost inaudible voice when he
thanked his audience, "on behalf of the star, the author (or co-author),
the musicians, the costumers, the scenic artists" and so on down the
line; this with his mannerism of tugging at a picturesque forelock, this
alone was worth the price of admission. First and last he was a good
showman. The star who was the stepping stone to his fame and fortune
was a lady with a past. She had entered the stage door through the
advertising medium of the divorce court. After several unsuccessful
attempts at starring she placed herself under the tuition of the
manager, then allied with a school of acting. Possessed of abundant
animal vitality--"magnetism," if you prefer--as well as "temperament,"
the ugly duckling developed into a star of first magnitude. When Will
joined the company she was at the height of her success--a success which
later dulled the finer artistic restraint and listed toward a fall. But
act she could, playing upon each reed, each stop of the emotional organ,
with a conviction of which few actresses are capable. In the choice of
plays the genius of the man again displayed itself; the right play for
the right person. Doubtless, he understood that temperament, after all,
is but the flood-tide of our natural predilections.

To the layman a rehearsal is a bewildering and murky affair. Seated in
the "front of the house," in the clammy shadow of shrouded seats, a
student of human nature finds much to interest him. Under the light of a
single "bunch" or the "blanching" irregular foots, the players look old
and insignificant. The blue white light has a cruel way of exposing the
lines and seams. They sit about or stand in groups, the blue-covered
typewritten parts in hand awaiting the call of the first act. A youngish
man, probably the assistant stage-manager, sets the stage; that is, he
marks the entrances and the boundaries with plain wooden chairs and
stage-braces. The homely wooden chair plays many parts; now it stands
for a fire-place or a grand piano, again it may be a rocky pass beyond
which are the mountains.

A fagged looking man enters the stage door with a hurried, important
air. By the bundle of manuscript under his arm shall you know him. It is
the stage-manager. He greets the members of the company with a curt,
preoccupied air and hurries down to the prompt stand. There are
consultations with the working staff and perhaps with one or two of the
players. While he is thus engaged let us enquire into the personnel of
the company; that tall good-looker in the well tailored gown is a
newcomer to the stage. She has been given a small part--a half dozen
lines at best. On twenty dollars a week she carries a maid--and a jewel
case. No, she does not _have_ to work for a living; neither is she the
spoilt child of a multi-millionaire. She belongs to that great class of
women who have no class. Time hangs heavily on her hands. It looks
better to be connected with some kind of a profession; a legitimate
profession. Besides, her vanity makes her "want to do something." The
stage has always appealed to her. With a little "influence" she gets a
part. Salary is no object. Perhaps the management has saved five or ten
dollars a week on the deal. At any rate a good-looker adds "class" to
the personnel. She drives to the theatre in a taxi; sometimes she comes
in a big limousine car accompanied by an elderly gentleman with watery
eyes. On the opening night he will send her great boxes of American
Beauty roses. After the show they will sup at Rector's, and his friends
who have been in front with him will tell her how pretty she looked. Of
course she will not go on the road with the company. Dear no! She will
leave that to some other girl who is not so young, not so pretty, but
who needs the money.

The white-haired lady with the sweet face and the stern old man who has
brought her a chair are man and wife. Theirs is one of the few stage
marriages which have endured. Perhaps it is the very rarity of the case
which makes them so popular and well-beloved. One hears them invariably
referred to as "Dear old Mr. and Mrs. So and So." One looks at them
wistfully and wonders at the secret of their success....

The actor with the monocle, oddly cut clothes and the overpowering
savoir-faire is an English importation. Managers assert that the average
English actor plays the gentleman more effectively than his American
cousin. It all depends on what kind of a gentleman the rôle demands.
When an Englishman is called upon to portray a gentlemanly officer of
the United States Army the effect is incongruous to say the least. The
American manager, vulgar and uncouth himself, is impressed by the
English complacency. A bluffer, he has a sneaking respect for anyone who
throws a bluff and gets away with it.

The several youngish men with a hint of effeminancy in their make-up
might be called the "stationaries" or "walking gentlemen." One of this
_genre_ is to be found in nearly every company. Too proud for the ribbon
counter, too erratic for commercial life, he drifts into the profession
because he feels the call of the artistic temperament. He plays small
parts, disseminates gossip, flatters the star--or the leading
lady--reads a little, sleeps much--and drinks more.

That beefy looking man is the leading heavy. Not many years since he was
a leading man. Now when a leading man takes on flesh he is marked for a
reduction in value. The first step down in his career is the day he
begins to play heavies. To be sure, there are heavy men who never have
been leading men; these, however, come under the head of character
heavies. The gentlemanly heavy unfailingly aspires to heroic rôles. The
present incumbent of villainy had "fallen on his feet." Some seasons
previously he had played an inconsequential engagement under the same
management. The star took a fancy to him. Henceforth his engagements
were assured--until the fancy waned. Everybody understood; they shrugged
their shoulders and smiled. Nobody cared. Neither did the heavy man.

Character actors without exception are envious of the leading man. "Call
that acting?" demands the man behind the make-up. "Call it acting to
walk on and play yourself? Why, it's a cinch!"

"_O, is it?_" retorts the leading man. "You ought to try it. It's the
most difficult thing in the world to walk on and be perfectly natural.
I'd like to see some of you fellows who hide behind your wigs and queer
make-ups go on and play a straight part. Why you wouldn't know what to
do with your hands!" ...

There was something plaintive about the woman who sat in the shadow of
the set-pieces, piled high against the wall. The rouge on her cheeks but
accentuated the lines in her face. The brassy gold on her hair showed
gray against her temples. "Better days" was clearly stamped all over
her. Perhaps she was thinking of those days--when _she_ was a star; when
being a star meant something more than an animated clothes-horse. Her
mother had been a great actress in the Booth and Barrett days. She,
herself, had lisped some childish lines with them. Later, she had become
a soubrette and a star in merry little plays in which she sang and
danced and "emoted," all in one evening. There are no soubrettes
nowadays. The term has degenerated into a slangy sobriquet. "Ingénue"
has replaced it; nothing is required of an _ingénue_ but saccharine
sweetness and vacuous prettiness--and youth, youth, _youth_! O, the
harvest of age! The public which she had amused for years has forgotten
her. They scarcely recall her existence: not even a hand of recognition
on her entrance. Occasionally a reviewer will dig her out of the dust of
the past--only to speak of her as "in Memoriam." Managers, too, hesitate
to engage her. There are so many has-beens and so few parts to fit them.
Besides, there are freshly spawned pupils from the divine academies to
be had for the asking. Why waste money?...

A psychical ripple disturbs the ether. Necks crane toward the door. The
star arrives. She comes slowly, with the air of one assured of an
effective entrance. She punctuates her animated conversation with the
manager with smiles and nods. That meek-looking person bringing up the
rear is the author. He gropes his way through the dark passage to the
front of the house and is lost in oblivion.

"First act!" calls the prompter. _"First act!_"

       *       *       *       *       *

The play opened out of town. The working force was sent ahead with the
scenery and the baggage. There was a special train for the company.
Besides the regular staff there were costumers, flash-light
photographers, relatives of the players and guests of the management.
The guests included several critics from certain New York journals. One
of these had an ambitious wife who was a member of the company. The
other, rumour had it, was on the salary list of the management. This may
or may not have been true. Subsequent effusive reviews and the manner in
which these critics took up the cudgels against the enemies of the
manager did not, however, indicate unbiased opinion. "Subsidized or
hypnotized"--that was the question. The persuasive art of "fixing" is
not confined to politics.

When the train arrived in----, there was barely time for a hasty bite
before rushing off to the theatre. One felt the thrill of excitement at
the very stage door. Even the back doorkeeper was infected. When Will
stopped to look through the pigeon-holes for mail, the keeper of the
sacred portal was exhibiting a brand new litter of kittens. "Everyone of
'em black; just like their mother. Your show'll be a big success--talk
about your mascots!" Stage-folk are as superstitious as a nigger mammy.
A whole chapter might be devoted to their lore. One of the greatest
hoodoos is to speak the tag of a play before the opening night. The tag
of a play is the last several words immediately preceding the final fall
of the curtain. When it comes to the tag, the actor to whose lot the
final lines fall either stops with a gesture or perhaps he purloins
Hamlet's last words--"The rest is silence."

Back on the stage there was the sound of hammers, the shouts of the
stage-hands to the men in the flies, "drops" being adjusted, calls of
warning to some reckless person about to come in contact with a sandbag
at that moment lowered from the flies. Abrupt blasts of the orchestra
reach one's ears. The music cues are being rehearsed, the director
shouting against the din on the stage. On the "apron," with a bottle of
milk in his hand and surrounded by a half dozen coatless and perspiring
men, is the producer. A shaft of light darts from the spot-light machine
in the gallery, and hovers over the stage like a searchlight at sea.
Green, yellow, red and blue slides are tried and a weird waving moving
picture effect brings a shout of laughter from the privileged watchers
in front. In the dressing-rooms the players are making up. The wardrobe
mistress hurries from one to another, needle and thread in hand. There
are impatient calls for the head costumer; "Props" taps at the doors and
delivers the properties to be carried by the various actors in the play.
The actors talk across the partitions or run through lines of a "shaky"
scene. "Fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes!" warns the assistant stage
manager making the rounds. Below stage, the supers or "extra people" sit
about in noisy groups awaiting the call. Some of them are as "nervous as
a cat," to use their own expression. These are not the rank and file of
supernumeraries. The promise of a long run in New York ofttimes tempts
women who have "spoken lines" to go on as extra ladies. As a sop they
are given a leading part to understudy. The excitement is infectious.
With the lowering of the curtain and the first strains of the orchestra
one instinctively shifts forward to the edge of one's seat.

It is either the lights or a missing prop or a hiatus between speech and
action which the first acquaintance with the scenery develops or a
"jumbled" ensemble or something unexpected which brings the rehearsal to
an abrupt halt. The dialogue stops like a megaphone suddenly shut off.
The director hurries down the centre aisle, the prompter's head appears
at the proscenium arch. "Loved I not honour more!" repeats the actor,
looking expectantly off stage. "Loved I not honour more!" bellows the
stage-manager, getting into the game. "That's _your_ cue, Mr. Prime
Minister. Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones! Where _is_ Mr. Jones?"

"Jones! Jones!" reverberates about the stage and in the flies.

"Here I am! I hear you!" answers a muffled voice up-stage. "I can't get
through. The entrance's blocked with a sacred elephant!" There is a rush
of stage hands in the direction indicated. Simultaneously Mr. Jones
appears L. I. E. "I'm sorry," he says, "but I couldn't butt in through
the stone walls of the castle, now could I?" indicating the boxed set
which formed the outer walls of the scene.

The obstruction is removed amidst a heated confab and the stage cleared
for action. "Go back--go back to Miss Melon's entrance." Miss Melon
enters. The scene starts flatly enough. It is difficult to pick up a
scene and get back into the atmosphere at once. One must "warm up to
it."

A star requires an effective entrance. The audience must be apprised of
her approach. "Here she comes now!" (accompanied by a look off stage.)
Or, a flunkey enters and solemnly announces, "His Highness, Prince of
Ptomania, mounts the steps." These helpful hints prepare the reception
which the ushers start at the psychological moment. Many persons are
backward about applauding for fear of making a mistake: just follow the
usher. The supporting actors understand that they are expected to
"humour" the applause, either upon an entrance or for a scene. Stars,
however, do not always encourage applause for their supporting actors.
Some of them go so far as to "shut it off" by flashing on house light on
a curtain in which they do not figure, or dimming the foots or directing
the actors to "jump in" with the next speech.

In the midst of a scene which sends little shivers up and down one's
spinal column the star hesitates, stammers, repeats, then interpolates
while she searches frantically among the papers on the table for the
missing prop. "Where's the knife--the fatal dagger?" she demands,
dropping the rôle as one would step out of a petticoat. The man about to
be killed joins in the hunt for the deadly weapon. "I can't kill you
very well without a knife, can I, Jack? Unless I stab you with a
hatpin--" There is something so incongruous in the rapid contrasts that
everyone, including the star herself, gives way to laughter. Meanwhile
the stage-manager's yells for Props have brought that culprit from the
flies where he has been touching up a damp cloud with a paint brush.

"The knife!" a chorus hurls at him.

"What knife?" he demands, continuing to mix the silver lining to the
cloud.

"The dagger! I told you the last thing not to forget it!" fumes the
bumptious stage-manager.

"Aw, what's the matter with you?" replies Props witheringly. Then he
ambles down to the star, who by this time is lost in a little side-play
with her heavy man. "Miss Blank," he begins with punctuation marks
between each word, "Miss Blank, didn't you tell me to leave that knife
on your dressing table so you could place it where you wanted it on the
table centre?"

"I did, I did! I apologize, Johnny--I beg everybody's pardon!" She makes
a contrite bow toward the front of the house. Johnny shuffles off,
muttering to himself, and Madame's maid enters with the missing link.
"Let's begin at your cross," Madame says to the heavy. "Just before you
say, 'Darling, my life, my love, you're mine at last!' And Jack--I hope
your wooden chest protector is in place, for I'm going to strike
to-night just as I am going to do to-morrow night and turn it r-r-round
and r-r-round, as if I loved your blood--and Mr. Director," she glides
to the foots and shades her eyes from the glare, "Herr Director, can't
you play a little more _piano_ just at that point? I want my gurgle of
delight to get _over_--understand?... O, Mr. Hartley, while I think of
it----"

She toys with the ornaments on his dress as she speaks. "In our next
scene give me a little more room; play farther down stage. It's better
for our scene." Mr. Hartley smiles to himself as he disappears in the
wings; he is "on-to" the little tricks of stars and leading ladies. To
make a _vis-à-vis_ play the scene down stage is to rob him of any
effective participation in the scene. "To hog" is the vulgar but
expressive infinitive applied to this trick of the trade.

After many false starts, the end of the act is finally reached. The
players are then posed in certain effective scenes from the play and
the flash-light pictures are taken. Then comes a change of costume and
the second act is set. During the long wait members of the company come
in front to get a glimpse of the scenery or to discuss the play and the
performance with their friends. I recall an instance which will
exemplify the jealousy of one star for another, especially those under
the same management. During the early years of Will's career he had
played with a summer stock company. The leading woman of the
organization was now one of the stars under Will's present management.
She had come on from her country home--(her own season had not yet
opened)--and was an interested spectator of the dress rehearsal. She and
Will had kept up a desultory interest during the intervening years and
were on a friendly footing. "What do you think of the play?" he asked,
sitting down beside her.

"It's a sensation," she predicted. "How does your part pan out?"

"O, it's a fair part. I've got a couple of big scenes, but the _heavy_
makes circles all around him. If I had read the play before I signed, I
believe I should have turned it down."

"What do you care--you're the _hero_, and that is what counts with the
women. It fits you like a glove; and, speaking of parts, what do you
think of _that_ for a star-part? Did you ever see anything like it?
She's the whole show.... When I think of the _also-ran_ I am playing for
a star part ... let me tell you--just between ourselves--that he'll have
to hand me out something fatter next season or there'll be something
doing in another direction. Little Abe's syndicate has been making eyes
at me and--you never can tell. Glory! I never saw such an acting part in
my life! Why, she isn't off the stage two minutes during the whole first
act!"

       *       *       *       *       *

It is past midnight when the curtain goes down on the second act. The
lights have worked badly and for an hour the electricians have been put
through the paces until the desired effect is reached. Spirits begin to
flag. The Englishman's wife sets up a tea basket; friends and relatives
are sent out for sandwiches and "something to wash 'em down." At this
stage of the siege one becomes a mere machine. There is no attempt at
acting. It is now a mechanical perfection. When the scenic effects
refuse to act on cues or "anticipate" the same, or the supers jumble and
everybody grows cross and "on edge," one shudders to realize that the
opening night is close at hand. One hopes and prays things will not go
like this to-morrow night. There is consolation in the old adage: "A
poor dress rehearsal--a good first night."

We leave the theatre when the milkman is making his rounds. A day of
fitful sleep with its undercurrent of tension; the opening night with
nerves tuned to the highest pitch, then success or failure, who can
tell? The box office is the arbiter.

The opening night is not the only strain attendant upon a new
production. One is on tenter-hooks for days, perhaps weeks, to learn
whether the play has "caught on" or not. Favourable, even laudatory,
reviews will not drag the public into the theatre if they do not like
the offering. Stars may have a certain drawing power, but "The play's
the thing." No star ever yet saved a bad play from oblivion or spoiled a
good play with bad acting.

I am sure that Will and the members of the company watched the "houses"
from the peep-holes in the curtain as eagerly as the star and the
management kept an eye on the box-office receipts. "How was the house
last night?" was the daily question I put to Will with his morning
coffee. Finally we settled back with the assurance of a season's run
ahead of us. I set in motion the plans I had outlined for myself. I
induced Will to study languages with me for a time, but his hours were
so uncertain that he finally dropped out. Music was a passion with me. I
went through a whole season of the Opera treat I had promised myself for
years. Will was fond of music, too, and sometimes we would go together
to the Sunday night concerts at the Metropolitan. Of course there were
still the dinner-parties and the supper-parties and matinées for
benevolent purposes. Will seemed to have tired of the parties and spent
more and more of his time at the Lambs. He never came home to supper
after the theatre nowadays. I missed my little talks with him across the
supper table. There was no longer any need to throw cold water in my
face to keep myself fresh until his coming. Sometimes when I was wakeful
I would hear him come in; it was generally daylight. Sometimes, on
Sunday morning, if he found me awake he would hand me the Morning
Telegram. No wonder they call it "the chorus girl's breakfast." Among
other things I did not like about the Lambs was that irritating way the
telephone boy had of asking "Who's calling, please." Will said they do
that at all Clubs.




CHAPTER VIII


By this time I had my own little _coterie_ and I prided myself it was a
cosmopolitan gathering which graced our little apartment on the second
and third Sundays of the month. There was so much to learn, the
interests were so diversified that I eagerly welcomed members of other
professions than our own--if they were worth while. Our sculptor friend
brought men who had travelled in remote parts of the world; they in turn
brought others. We numbered several army and navy officers, a German
scientist, men and women journalists, a cartoonist and an artist, women
engaged in Settlement work and the quaint old French professor who
taught me the language. When we could overcome his diffidence he was a
mine of information. He had witnessed the Commune of Paris and was
working on a book on that subject.

It is an interesting study to divide the _pastiche_ from the real. The
time-killers and the curious soon dropped out. It was not difficult to
limit our _coterie_ to the dimensions of our home. I could not but
contrast my simple "at homes" with those of the Dingleys. We had
received several cards for their Sundays and Will said we must go to at
least one of them. The Dingleys had sprung from humble beginnings. They
were jocosely referred to as the "ten, twent' and thirt's."

When I was a little girl in short skirts they were members of a
répertoire company which played our town during County Fair week. The
répertoire comprised such good old timers as The Two Orphans, the
Danites, East Lynne, the Silver King, Streets of New York, Camille and
The Ticket-of-Leave Man. Mrs. Dingley was the leading lady and her
husband the utility man. She was my ideal of a heroine--in those days.
Her hair was very golden, and as the weepy heroine she wore a black
velvet dress with a long train. That black velvet (later experience told
me it was velveteen) played many parts. It was a princess, and for
evening wear the guimpe had only to be removed. Or, when the heroine was
ailing, as becomes a persecuted woman, the princess, with the help of a
full front panel, was converted into a tea-gown. Again, it was used as a
riding habit, draped up on one side and topped by husband's silk hat
wound round with a veil. With a good deal of crêpe drapery from the
bonnet, the same gown passed muster as widow's weeds. Mentally, I
resolved that when I became an actress I should have just such a
prestidigital gown in my wardrobe.

By dint of hard work on Mrs. Dingley's part and unmitigated nerve on the
part of her husband they had finally arrived on Broadway. They had
recently acquired a large house in the older part of the city and I
understood it was Mrs. Dingley's idea to establish a _salon_. Certainly
she was successful in drawing a crowd. The house was strikingly
furnished. There was much gold furniture and antique bric-à-brac;
canopied beds and monogrammed counterpanes. After a personally conducted
tour of the house and an enlightening dissertation upon the real worth
of and prices paid for the fittings, one retained a confusing sense of
having had an exercise in mental arithmetic.

It seemed rather catty of the women to make fun of the Dingleys behind
their back and at the same time accept their hospitality. Two smart
looking women whom I recognized as members of Mrs. D's. company appeared
to get no little amusement out of the coat of arms on Mrs. Dingley's
bed. "Why didn't they purloin a beer-stein, quiescent on a japanned
tray?" I heard one say.

"Or a Holstein bull rampant on a field of cotton," the other giggled.

I failed to grasp the significance of their remarks, though I saw the
humour in their allusion to the empty book-shelves which lined the walls
of the library. "Why not buy several hundred feet of red-backed books,
like a certain politician who wanted to fill up the wall space in his
library?"

"Pshaw! It would be cheaper to use props," scoffed the other.

I myself thought a dictionary and a few grammars a sensible beginning,
as Mrs. Dingley was a veritable Mrs. Malaprop. Later I committed a _faux
pas_, though I meant no offense. In my effort to say something nice to
my hostess I remarked that I had seen her years ago during the early
days of her struggle and that I had been one of her ardent admirers. The
way she said, "Yes?" with the frosty inflection made me understand she
did not care to remember her beginnings.

While we were drinking tea out of priceless cups--the history of which
was being retailed by our host--there was a commotion and a craning of
necks toward the stairs. The hostess hurried forward to greet the late
arrival. There was considerable nudging and innuendo exchanged as a
small pleasant-faced man with a Van Dyke beard entered the room. Our
host greeted him jovially, almost boisterously. "Here comes the
king--here comes the king!" hummed the two actresses, winking
significantly at me. There was a buzz of voices while Mrs. Dingley
paraded the lion of the occasion about the room with an air of playful
proprietorship. The little man had a penchant for pretty girls and
flattery. He got both. Everybody fawned on him, Mr. Dingley laboured
heroically to be witty. My curiosity finally drove me to ask my
neighbours who the little man was.

"Is he a manager, or a producer, or?--?" I whispered.

There was a peal of laughter before I was answered.

"O, he's a producer, all right! Why, don't you know who he is? He's the
goose that laid the golden egg!" taking in the gold furniture with a
comprehensive sweep of her hand. She lowered her voice and leaned toward
me. "He's Mr. ----!" I recognized the name of the multi-millionaire. "Is
he?" I queried, trying to get another look at him.

The women relapsed into their confidences. "How do you suppose she
explains it to ----?" calling Mr. Dingley by his first name. The other
woman shrugged her shoulders. "She doesn't have to explain; money
talks."

On the way home I asked Will what they meant.

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "They do say that the little man
is an 'angel.'"

"Well, suppose he is?" I began indignantly. "There is such a thing as
clean-minded men of the world: patrons of art without ulterior motives.
All art needs fostering, and who better able to help the climbers
than ----?"

Will laid his hand on mine, a little way he had when he wanted to
reassure me.

"I haven't a doubt in the world that there are clean-minded men of means
without 'ulterior motives,' as you express it. I also believe that hen's
teeth are rare."

       *       *       *       *       *

There were other near-salons to which we were invited. Some of them were
highly temperamental gatherings. Every large city has its artistic set,
but New York may safely claim the medal for the half-baked neurotics who
wallow in illicit cults which they sanctify in the name of art. One of
the most typical and, by the same token, the most amusing of these
esoteric feasts was presided over by a lady-like creature who had spent
some time in the Far East. We were met at the outer portal by a jet
black, down-South negro done up in full Eastern regalia. An air of
mysticism permeated even the box couches against the wall. They had a
peculiar "feel" to them and one sank into their enfolding depths as one
is taught to sink into the arms of Nirvana. It must have been awful for
short, fat persons to scramble to their feet, after once being beguiled
into sitting on these couches. The mysticism was enhanced by burning
incense, shaded lights, draperies, and the host himself, who received us
in Eastern garb, resplendent with the famous jewels, a gift from some
potentate or other. We were conducted to a dais where the guest of
honour--an oily, complacent Swami--received us. If we were pretty, the
Swami held our hands longer than the amenities of good society demand.
Some of the guests were highly sensitized beings. Some were lean like
Cassius; perhaps they "thought too much." There was a preponderance of
Greek and other classic dresses, over un-classic figures. (Why _will_
doctors condemn the corset?) Hair-dressing was simplicity itself; in
fact, the simplicity suggested a lick and a promise. Sometimes there
were beads woven in the scrambled mess.

The sockless damsel was in evidence and nobility was represented by a
certain antique Baroness with a penchant for baby blonde hair. Affinity
hunters abounded. By the dreamy longing of their watery eyes shall ye
know them. Some there were who had made several excursions into the
realms of free and easy love, but _all_, all had returned empty-handed,
unsatisfied. O cruel Fate! And so they go, hunting, hunting....

After a call to silence, the Swami with the ingratiating smile and good
front teeth made an address. It was a mystical, tortuous, rambling
discourse which sounded to me a good deal like an advocation of free
love. He told what ailed us; he said we didn't love enough. He assured
us it was O, so easy to get our slice of the wonderful, all-pervading
ether with which we were saturated. We simply didn't know how to use it.
He had come to teach us: his the mission to prescribe for us.
Electricity had been harnessed, why not love? I shuddered when I thought
of the possibilities of a love-trust. Of course it would be cornered by
some of the millionaires.

After the address everybody clustered around the dispenser of Oriental
pearls. The Swami slipped little printed matters into the palms of the
neophytes. They told how farther enlightenment could be attained, on
given days at given hours and given prices.

Later our brute element was fortified by wafers and a mysterious punch.
I felt sorry for the late-comers who missed the intellectual feed and
arrived just in time for the refreshments. Wafers are not very
sustaining. The punch was a mysterious and subtle concoction with a
tendency to promulgate the tenets of the Swami's new religion. Before we
took our leave I thought the eyes of the new disciples had grown more
languishing and were considerably lit up. It may have been, of course,
that the Swami had taken the lid off a few vats of his cerulean ether
which was too highly rarefied for those present. As we closed the door
and stepped out into the winter night, we instinctively inhaled the cold
air, which, though it may not be full of love, is full of common-sense
ozone.

"When Boston people want to be naughty they go to New York." Our hostess
nodded sententiously across the table as she made the statement.

"Why confine it to Boston? Why not Philadelphia, Washington or ----?"

"Because I don't know anything about those cities, and I do know my home
city," interrupted his wife.

"I guess you're right," Mr. Mollett answered. "It's the same spirit
which keeps alive Le Rat Mort, or Maxim's, or any of those resorts in
Paris. You rarely meet a Parisian at these show-places. If it were not
for the foreigners--principally Americans and English--they'd have to
shut up shop."

"That's precisely my contention. One does things in Paris or New York
one would never think of in Boston."

Will had met Mr. Mollett at a Lambs' Gambol one Sunday night during the
recent season in New York. They had taken a shine to each other, to use
Mr. Mollett's expression, and had exchanged cards. "I liked your husband
from the start," Mr. Mollett once said to me. "He's not a bit like an
actor; he's natural and not a bit of a _poseur_." It appears that when
anyone wants to pay an actor a particularly high compliment he tells him
he is not a bit like an actor! This is not flattering to the rank and
file of players, who labour under the misapprehension that to be
effective they must act on and off the stage.

On the opening night of the following season in Boston Will was pleased
to find a card from Mr. Mollett and a note from his wife, asking whether
I was in town; if so, would I waive the formality of a call and join
them at "beans" on Saturday night after the performance.

Mrs. Mollett's Saturday suppers were as much of an institution as the
beans themselves. Our hostess was a bright, intelligent little woman
without the pretense of the intellectual. Externally, she had all the
ear-marks of a Boston woman. She wore the practical but disfiguring
goloshes of a Boston winter and she carried a reticule. Her dress might
have been made in Paris, but it had a true New England hang to it. It
wasn't a component part of her; it was _a thing apart_. Her skin was
rough and fretted with pin-wrinkles. I never saw a jar of cold cream on
her dressing-table.

The Molletts enjoyed a comfortable income which they appeared to use
judiciously. Their home was comfortable and in good taste. Their library
was a treat; not merely fine bindings and rare editions. The volumes
showed an intimate acquaintance with the owner. By the process of
elimination they had formed a selected chain of the better class of
actors, who found a warm welcome awaiting them whenever they played
Boston. The Molletts' leaning toward the artistic had no taint of the
free-and-easy predilection. The element of illusion furnished by their
player friends was precisely the variety needed to counteract the
monotony of their daily routine. Both sides benefited by the exchange.

Boston was the first stand on tour. The second season had opened with a
six weeks' engagement in New York and one, two or more weeks were booked
in the larger cities. The original company was advertised and--rare
integrity--maintained. Will decided that it was cheaper to carry the boy
and me on the road than to keep up two establishments. Luckily we sublet
our apartment. I was for sending Experience back to her home, though I
had become sincerely attached to her and so had Boy. Will declared we
could not manage without a nurse. I assured him we could. "You don't
suppose you can carry that Buster around in your arms, do you? And
wouldn't I look nice climbing on and off trains, and coming into hotels
with a baby in my arms? Pretty picture for a matinée idol! No, ma'am,
Experience remains. Besides," he smiled at me, "a nurse and a valet help
to make a good front. It'll keep the management guessing."

Unfortunately the management were not the only ones kept guessing. Good
hotels were expensive and Will's position did not permit him to stop at
any other kind. It worried me a great deal to see Will's envelope come
in on Tuesday and scarcely anything left on Wednesday when we had paid
the bills. I suspected, too, that Will had some debts hanging over from
last season. I knew he had drawn on the management during the summer. We
foolishly took a cottage at Allenhurst on the sea, where we spent our
holidays. The week-end parties proved expensive. It was easily
accessible to New York and I never knew how popular Will was with the
profession until that summer. I regretted we had not gone back to the
farm in the Catskills.

I saw a great deal more of Will on the road than I had in New York.
There was no Lambs' Club and, though Will had guest-cards to clubs in
various cities, there was not the lure of intimate association. We took
long walks together, browsed in the book-shops, visited public buildings
such as the library in Boston, and sometimes lunched or "tead" with
friends. Will did not care to accept invitations to dinner; he said it
made him "logey" to dine late and interfered with his evening
performances. Altogether we came nearer to the old intimacy and
comradeship than we had known for several years. At Christmas time we
planned the boy's first tree. We believed he was now old enough to
appreciate it. Santa Claus now became a name to conjure with; it acted
as a bribe to good behaviour or a threat of punishment.

Will and I went shopping together. The big toy-shops proved the most
fascinating things in the world. We spent hours looking at the wonders
of toy-land which the present-day child enjoys. Will said it made him
feel like a boy and surely it brought out all the youth in his nature.
His eyes would snap and sparkle with delight over a miniature railway
with practicable engine and carriages, electric head-lights, block
signals and the like. "Gee! What wouldn't I have given for an outfit
like that when I was a kid!" he would exclaim. As for me, I couldn't
make up my mind which I enjoyed the most; the pretty children who
crowded the shop or the toys they came to see.

We made several visits to Santa Claus land without being able to decide
what would best please Boy. Experience advised us to have him make his
own choice. When Experience took him for a tour of the shops he decided
upon everything in the place. Suddenly the whole world faded into
insignificance: "Senyder!" he stuttered, pointing imperiously to a dog
whose breed seemed as indeterminate as the prototype. All dogs were
Snyders to Boy, but perhaps the perpetual motion of the tail which
wagged automatically reminded him most strongly of the original. It did
no good to tell him that Santa Claus would bring Snyder down the
chimney. Boy had his own ideas about fairies and their ilk. He refused
to leave the shop without the dog. Needless to say the dog went home
with us. Will never could endure Boy's shrieks. But, in extenuation,
let it be said that not one of the toys Boy found grouped about his tree
on Christmas morning--and their name was legion--gave him the joy he
found in the mongrel pup. Miss Burton sent a box from far-off San
Francisco, where she was playing. The Chinese dolls interested him for a
moment, but his heart was true to Snyder. He slept with him, shared his
food with him, sobbed out his childish grief with Snyder in his arms,
and refused to part with his faithful friend even when old age robbed
him of his woolly coat and shiny eyes.

The star gave a party on Christmas Eve. When the curtain went down on
the last act, the applause was choked off by the flashing on of the
house lights. The stage-manager gave the order to strike, and in a short
time the stage was clear. The carpenters then put together the
improvised banquet board--great long planks of lumber resting upon
saw-horses. From the iron landing of the first tier of spiral stairs
upon which Will's dressing-room gave I watched the caterer's men lay the
table. I had spent the latter part of the evening in the cubby hole--a
rare occurrence, since I seldom went behind the scenes except with
friends of Will's who had attended the performance and who wanted to
see what the back of the stage looked like.

Shortly before twelve o'clock the members of the company and a few
outside guests assembled on the stage--where they were received by the
star-hostess. In the midst of the chatter the lights went out. At first
everyone thought it an accident until a bell in the distance chimed the
witching hour. As the last stroke died away a faint jingle of sleigh
bells wafted across the air. Nearer and louder they came, interspersed
with the snap of a whip. A great shaft of light from above shot
obliquely across the stage. From out of the clouds, as it seemed, a
full-fledged Santa Claus descended like a flying machine. With the aid
of a little "sneaky" music furnished by the orchestra and the faithful
spot-light which dogged his very footsteps, Santy placed the huge tree
in the centre of the table and unloaded his pack. With many a grotesque
antic he surveyed his labour of love and finally, having sampled the
contents of a decanter which graced the table, he rubbed his much padded
pouch in satisfaction, laughed merrily, shouted a "merry Christmas to
you all," and disappeared into the clouds. The effect was so bewitching
and so eerie that old Kris received a spontaneous "hand" on his exit.

I thought of Boy and how much he would have enjoyed the scene. Myriad
little lights twinkled like stars upon the wonderful trees. A warm, red
glow poured from imaginary fireplaces off stage. To the accompaniment of
ohs! and ahs! and a merry potpourri from the orchestra we took our seats
at table. I am sure any audience would gladly have paid a premium for
tickets to this special performance.

The supper proved to be an eight-course dinner. There was everything
from nut-brown turkey to hot mince pie. The drinkables were varied and
plentiful. I noticed that after the third or fourth course everybody was
telling everybody else what a good actor he or she was. It developed
into a veritable mutual admiration society. Will kicked me under the
table several times when the character man told him what a good actor he
was; it was common property that the character man "knocked" Will behind
his back. The tall, good-looking girl I had noticed at rehearsals passed
around a new diamond pendant she had just received from her friend in
New York.

"He's just crazy about you, ain't he?" chaffed one of the actors. The
good-looking girl laughed and winked.

"He sure is," she answered, "and I never even gave him as much as
_that_," measuring off an infinitesimal speck of her thumb nail.

A shout of laughter greeted her remark. A little later when she got
warmed up she made eyes at Will across the table and threw him violets
from her huge corsage bouquet. "Ev'ry matinée day I send thee violets,"
she paraphrased in song, the significance of which was lost on me until
some days later.

Toward the end of the dinner the packages were opened. Each memento was
accompanied by a limerick hitting off the idiosyncrasies of the
recipient, who was asked to read it aloud. Whoever composed the
limericks was well paid for sitting up o' nights, for they caused a deal
of merriment even if they were not entirely free from sting. After
dinner there was vaudeville. The star gave some imitations of a _café
chantant_ which brought down the house. The musical director had
composed a skit which he called "Very Grand Opera." The theme hinged on
a leave-taking of one or more characters from the other. The book
consisted of one word; _farewell_. I had never realized how long-winded
the farewells of opera are until I heard the parody. The humour of it
quite spoiled the tender duos, trios and choruses of the genuine
article.

Dear old Mr. and Mrs. ---- contributed a cake-walk. No one suspected the
grumpy old gentleman to have so much ginger in him. A good old Virginia
reel and "Tucker" limbered everybody into action.

Before we dispersed, old Santa Claus--impersonated by one of the walking
gentlemen--again donned his beard and buckskin and accompanied by a
noisy crew carried the great tree to the boarding-house where the
child-actress of the company was staying. At the street end of the alley
which led from the stage-entrance a big burly policeman stopped them;
they _were_ noisy to be sure. But even the officer laughed when Santy
touched him on the arm and in a "tough" dialect asked him, "Say Bill, do
youse believe in fairies?"

If Will had any experiences in Boston only one came under my notice;
rather, it was forced upon me. It was during the second week of the
engagement that Will began to bring me violets. Now, he had not shown me
this attention for several years. I was too much flattered at the time
to notice that the flowers always came on matinée days, after the
performance. Will generally took a walk after a matinée. He said it
refreshed him for the evening performance. He would come in, glowing
from the exercise, simply radiating health and energy. I knew what time
to expect him and I would sit listening for the elevator to stop on our
floor. I knew Will's step the minute he came down the hall. When he
opened the door I instinctively sniffed the fresh air he brought in with
him. I liked to feel his cold cheek against mine ... and to hear him
puff and growl to amuse Boy as he pulled off his heavy coat. He was
irresistible. The violets came in a purple box with the imprint of the
florist in gold letters. The first time he brought them he set the box
on the table without handing them to me. One of my weaknesses is
flowers.

"What's this?" I asked, pouncing upon the box.

"Open it and see," he answered with one of his quizzical sidelong
glances.

"For me?" I asked a little dubiously. I lost no time in opening the box.
If the shadow of a thought that an admirer of Will's had sent him the
flowers flitted across my mind it was lost in Will's smile as he
answered,

"For my best girl."

I buried my face in their cool depths. "Violets! O, the beauties! I like
the single variety best, don't you, Will? They're so fresh and woodsy."
Then my conscience smote me. Violets are expensive this time of year.
"Will--weren't they _horribly_ expensive?" Just the same I was pleased
to death--as I had heard matinée girls say--and I made up my mind to
forego something I needed to offset Will's flattering extravagance. I
nursed and tended those violets until the next matinée day came round.
When they faded I pressed them between blotting paper, intending when I
got back home to put them away with other flowers Will had given me....

It was on Tuesday, the day after Christmas. I had gone out with Mrs.
Mollett to tea at a woman's club. The violets Will had brought me after
the Christmas matinée were reinforced by some lilies of the valley. The
huge bouquet looked particularly smart against my fur coat. Mrs.
Mollett and I were late in getting back. I felt sure I should miss Will,
who was going out to dinner with some friends at a club. As I passed
through the hall to the lift a bell-boy overtook me. He told me there
was someone in the parlour waiting to see me. I asked for a card but
none had been sent. Wondering who could be calling on me--I had so few
acquaintances in Boston--and anticipating a pleasant surprise I followed
the boy to the parlour on the second floor. It was a large room and I
stopped in the portièred doorway half expectantly. The only occupant of
the room was a tall person--whether woman or girl I could not discern.
She stood with her back to the door, looking out the window. As she
glanced over her shoulder with no sign of recognition I turned to go.
The bell-boy, however, had waited behind me. "That's the lady who asked
for you over there." He approached the girl, who turned timidly.

"You wanted to see Mrs. Hartley, didn't you? This is she."

It was probably the surprise of hearing correct English from the lips of
a bell-boy which diverted my attention for a second. When I looked at
the visitor I saw that she had flushed and was overcome with confusion.

"There is--there appears to be some mistake," she stammered, addressing
herself to the retreating boy and averting my gaze. "I asked to see Mr.
Hartley--Mr. William Hartley," she called after the boy, though her
voice was scarcely audible. She looked toward the door in a bewildered
manner as if her only desire was to get away. There was something so
distressing, so pathetic about her embarrassment; not a modicum of
_savoir faire_ or bluff to help her out. I found myself saying in a
kindly tone that only added oil to the flames: "I am Mrs. Hartley; Mrs.
William Hartley. Is there anything I can do?"

For a full minute we stood and looked at each other. Under the full
light, which the boy had switched on as he went out, her face and figure
were sharply limned. A tall woman has always the best of it in any
controversy, though I am sure my _vis-à-vis_ did not realize her
advantage. If her mind was as confused as her face indicated she was to
be pitied. She was not merely a plain woman; she was the epitome of
plainness. Nature had not given her a single redeeming feature; there
was not even a hint of sauciness to the upturned nose; not a
speculative quirk to the corner of the mouth or a fetching droop to the
eyelids which sometimes illuminates the plainest of faces. Perhaps she
realized the niggardliness of her gifts. There was an evident attempt at
primping. Her hat sat uneasily upon a head unaccustomed to the
hair-dresser's art. The shoes, too, I felt, were painful: they were so
new and the heels so high, and unstable--a radical departure from the
common-sense last which was as much a component part of her as the feet
themselves. I visualized her home, her life and her commonplace
associates ... the eternal illusion of the stage ... Will's magnetism,
combined with the perfections and never-failing nobility of the stage
hero.... I saw it all as clearly as I saw the strained,
vari-expressioned face before me. All this in a brief fleeting moment. I
smiled encouragingly. Her eyes met mine, then wavered and drooped, and
drooping rested upon the violets--and we both understood....

"Won't you sit down?" I said, leading the way to a divan with the idea
of easing the situation. "Do have a pillow!--there, is that more
comfortable? These sofas seem never to fit in to one's back.... I'm
sorry Mr. Hartley is not in. Usually he _is_ in at this hour, but
to-night he is dining out. I know he will be sorry to have missed you,
for I am sure he wants to thank you in person for the lovely flowers.
Yes, he told me all about it and we both appreciated your sweetness in
sending them. I hope Mr. Hartley wrote and properly thanked you,"--I
rattled on, hoping to give her time to recover herself. "He is, as a
rule, quite punctilious in these matters, but with the holidays and the
extra matinées--" I finished with an expressive shrug. There was a
disheartening silence.

"I think I must be going," she faltered at last, waiting for me to rise.
"I'm afraid I've kept you too long.... You've been very kind.... I hope
you haven't been shocked by ... by ... the unconventional way I...." Her
speech came in jerks.

"Not at all," I answered, jumping in and anticipating my cue. "Not at
all!" I reiterated, injecting more warmth in the confirmation than I
intended. I walked with her to the elevator. "I'm sorry it is so late or
I would ask you to stop for a cup of tea. But you will come again, won't
you?--perhaps you'll telephone me one morning--not _too_ early----" I
laughed a little as I pressed the button--"we're not early risers, and
we'll arrange a time when Mr. Hartley can be with us. I want you to meet
the boy--O, yes, we've got a baby, too! Of course, _we_ think him the
most wonderful baby in the world. Aren't parents a conceited lot?" ... I
pressed her limp hand and smiled good-byes as the lift bore her out of
sight.

Then the smile went out of me. I felt angry with myself: I felt I had
overdone it. What was the woman to me that I should exert myself to put
her at ease with herself? She was but one of the silly creatures who
"chase" the actor and pander to his vanity. I regretted the impulse
which prompted me to ask her to tea. Truly, I had made a fool of
myself.... At least, I had prevented her from making a farther fool of
herself--and of me....

I went to my room but did not turn on the light for fear of attracting
Experience, whose room was across the court. She was probably waiting
for me. I wanted to be alone. I removed the violets from my coat. My
first impulse was to throw them out the window; then I thought better of
it--and of her. They represented a woman's illusions--no, two women's
illusions.... Will had deliberately fooled me; even Miss Merdell, the
tall good-looker, knew he was fooling me. That was what she meant when
she chaffed him about the violets at the Christmas party. Perhaps it was
not of great consequence, but, does a woman ever forgive a man for
wounding her self-respect?...

I did not look at Will when I told him of the visitor. He extricated
himself gracefully. He said he thought my perspicacity would have made
me tumble to the truth and when I didn't he concluded it was a shame to
put me wise. And, after all, what did it matter? He had brought the
flowers home to me when it was an easy matter to have turned them over
to the extra girls....

Miss Gorr--that was her name--came to tea; in fact, she came several
times. Will declared she was in a fair way of becoming a bore.

"For Heaven's sake, don't turn her loose on me," he expostulated. "I'm
willing to give her photographs and advice but I don't want to be seen
about with a freak like that!"

I caught myself wondering--and I was ashamed of the thought--whether
Will would have been bored were Miss Gorr not so hopelessly plain. Alice
was _smart_ and there had been others and would probably be more to
come. I reached the point where I could shrug my shoulders
indifferently. It was all a part of the game and I was learning to play
it....




CHAPTER IX


Following Boston, the company played Philadelphia, Baltimore and
Pittsburgh. Each city has its distinguishing characteristics, but
certain types are to be found all over the country. There is always the
"fly" married woman hanging about hotel lobbies, lying in wait for the
actor or any dapper visitor who, like herself, is seeking diversion. She
drops in for a cock-tail or a high-ball and looks things over. She has a
sign manual of her own. The headwaiters know her and wink significantly
when she comes in with her friends. These women are not prostitutes in
the general acceptance of the word. They are products of our leisure
class. Their husbands are business or professional men in good standing.
With comfortable, even luxurious homes, or a stagnant life in a modern
hotel, time hangs heavily upon their hands. They have no intellectual
pursuits other than bridge and the "best seller." They pander to their
worst desires and wallow in their alcoholic-fed passions. These are the
_stall-feds_; the drones; the wasters; the menace to the womanhood of
America. These are they who are grist to the divorce mills; who clog the
yellow press with prurient tales of passion; who stigmatize innocent
children and handicap them even before birth; who breed and interbreed
with such unconcern that it is indeed a wise child that knows its own
father. And in the end, when the Nemesis of faded charms overtakes them,
the army of harlots is swelled.

The "neglected wife" has become a hoary old joke. It is worked to death.
My husband is responsible for the statement that in nine cases out of
ten women use this excuse to condone their own infidelity. "My husband
doesn't understand me; he knows nothing but business, business,
business. He doesn't realize there is another side to my nature which is
utterly starved." Or, "My husband is interested elsewhere. What am I to
do? For the sake of the children I don't want a divorce, and I am too
proud to let him see how I feel it. I am only human."

That there are neglected wives a-plenty is a truism. But it is a
spurious brand of pride which sends a woman roaming, seeking the
consolation of the Toms, Dicks and Harrys of the world. As for the
children, there are greater evils than divorce. The influence of a house
divided against itself, the surcharged atmosphere of deceit and
degrading quarrels cannot fail to impregnate a child's mind, and
probably at a time when character is being formed.

It is a lucky thing for the honour of the family that the actor is not
less scrupulous. "They who kiss and run away may live to kiss another
day" is probably indicative of the worst of his peccadillos. He takes
the goods the gods provide and credits so much popularity unto his
irresistible self. If occasionally he is "caught with the goods" it
makes good copy for the yellows. Incidentally it advertises the actor.
The woman pays the piper. "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the
gander" is likely to remain a nebulous supposition.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is only one Chicago. Other cities--Pittsburgh and Cincinnati
notably--may be commonplace or vulgar, but Chicago is the epitome of
commonplace vulgarity. It struck me forcibly as I looked over the
first-night audience. The men are commonplace; the women vulgar. The
women impress one as ex-waitresses from cheap eating houses or
sales-"ladies" who have married well. Few of the male population appear
to own a dress-suit. The women wear ready-made suits with picture hats
and a plentiful sprinkling of gaudy jewelry. Some of them "make-up"
atrociously. Their manners are as breezy as the wind from the lake and
they "make you one of them" the first time you meet. If there is a
cultured set in Chicago the actor never meets them; it probably resides
in Chicago through force of circumstances, not through choice. The
middle class is super-commonplace. The smart set isn't smart; only fast
and loose. Chicago is a good "show-town." It might be better if managers
kept their word to send out the original companies. The Western
metropolis resents a slight to its dignity.

Will's management, therefore, played a trump card when it sent the New
York production and players. The house was sold out for weeks in
advance. It was evidenced on the opening night that Will had left a good
impression in Chicago from former visits. He received a hand on his
entrance. When a supporting actor is thus remembered it proves his
popularity.

After the performance we went to the College Inn with some friends of
Will's. Everybody who is _anybody_ goes to that ill-ventilated hole
below stairs; one gets a sort of _revue_ of the town's follies. Chicago
is hopelessly provincial. There is a profound intimacy with other
people's affairs. Such purveyors of privacy as the Clubfellow and Town
Topics must find it no easy matter to get copy which is not already
common property, with the edge taken off. Our host and hostess of the
evening kept up a running fire of gossip concerning the people about us.

At a table near-by sat a gross looking woman with a combative eye. Her
escort was a pliable, colourless youth, who, I assumed, was her son.
This person was on bowing terms with many of the _habitués_ of the Inn.
A number of actors lingered at her table and laughed effectively at her
sallies. When Will told me she was a certain female critic on a Chicago
newspaper I understood the homage paid her. I did not understand,
however, her reason for marrying the youth I assumed was her son. Our
hostess said something about the "grateful age" which I didn't
understand. The lady critic wrote with a venomous pen when mood or
grudge impelled her. Many an actor writhed under her lashes. It was
rumoured, however, that her bark was a great deal worse than her bite
and that if one approached her "in the right way" "she would eat out of
your hand."

Ever since a person revelling under a euphonious _nom de plume_, which
recalls to mind the romantic days of Robin Hood, perverted the function
of dramatic criticism, imitators have sprung up all over the country.
"Imitation is the truest flattery." To be caustically funny at the
expense of truth, to deal in impudent personalia, to lose one's dignity
in belittling that of others is the construction of the gentle art of
criticism which American reviewers reserve unto themselves.

Will's friends were a convivial lot. Before the evening was over our
party had been considerably augmented. Each newcomer added another round
of drinks. "Have one with me" is a strictly American characteristic.
When we broke up I had a handful of cards and a confused list of tea,
dinner and supper engagements. Fortunately I was not the only one to
get mixed. Several of the whilom hostesses simplified matters by
forgetting the invitations they had extended.

While we were waiting for the automobile one of the women chaffed Will
in the following manner: "Why, you sly, handsome pup! You never told me
you were married when you were here before."

"I supposed you knew," was Will's response.

"O, you did! Um! I never say anything about being married, either, when
I go away for a lark.... Never mind, I'll forgive you if you'll call me
up. Where are you stopping? How long is your wife going to be in town?"
The rest was drowned in the approach of the car.

We did not go to Mamma Heward's this time. Heretofore when Will played
Chicago we had lived at a theatrical boarding-house kept by a dear
little old Scotch lady. Her's was one of the few good ones throughout
the country. Unfortunately one had to take a long trolley ride to reach
her house and Will's performances ended late. Then, too, he had heard
that the table had gone off and that the service was inadequate. I
imagine, however, that Will felt he had outgrown the boarding-house
days. He decided upon a family hotel on the north side.

During the week I called on Mamma Heward and took Boy with me. It was
the first time she had seen him and she raved over him sufficiently to
satisfy even a young mother's vanity. She enquired after Will and had
kept in touch with his progress. She had always been fond of him and had
dubbed him Bobby Burns, whom he somewhat resembled. I saw she felt hurt
by our apparent desertion and tried to assure her that we should be much
happier and more comfortable with her; that if it were not for the
distance from the theatre----

The dear little old lady patted my hand as if to spare me further
dissemblance.

"That's the excuse they all give, but it's no farther than ever it was
and the theatres are as near as ever they were," she said sadly, the
Scotch burr falling musically upon the ear. "It isn't that.... They're
forgetting me now they're getting up in the world. It didn't use to be
too far when they couldn't pay more than eight or ten dollars a week for
their board ... and the little suppers Mamma had waiting for them after
the theatre...."

She sighed but there was no trace of bitterness. "It's what you must
expect when you get old and worn out.... It's the way of the world and
God was always harder on women than he is on men."

There was no answer I could make; I could not have spoken had there been
anything to say. I felt choked and on the verge of tears. It was all so
pitiful. There was an air of desolation about the place. The warmth
which prosperity radiates was no longer evident. Where formerly there
had been leading players, even a star or two, now there were only the
lower ranks, and but few of them. Nothing remained of the good old days
save the rows and rows of photographs which lined the walls, all of them
autographed and inscribed "With love, to Mamma Heward." Arm in arm we
reviewed this galaxy of players.

"There is ----," she said, stopping in front of a well-known actor. "And
that's his first wife. She was a dear, good girl. I'm afraid Herbert
didn't treat her as well as he should. Many's the time she has cried out
her heart in Mamma's arms.... She's married again--no, not an
actor--and she's got two boys, the littlest one the size of yours....
Now could you ever guess who that is? Yes, that's ---- when he was leading
man with Modjeska. The women were crazy about him.... And he was a
dear--such a kind-hearted man. I remember once how he kept the furnace
going when our man got drunk and disappeared for three days. If only I
had a picture of him shovelling in coal--his sleeves rolled up and
spouting Macbeth at the top of his lungs.... Dear old Morry! He was his
own worst enemy...."

She sighed heavily over the actor's bad end. "And there! Do you
recognize that? And isn't the boy the livin' image of his father?"

I looked more closely at the photograph. Boy's resemblance to his father
was even more clearly marked in some of Will's earlier pictures.

"Do you remember the first time you came to me? You hadn't been married
long. You had a dog, a bull terrier pup. Let me think, now, what was his
name? Yes, Billy, that's it! And do you mind how ye locked him up in
your bathroom when you went to the theatre and how he ate the matting
off the floor while ye was gone?"

We both laughed at the recollection, though I had not laughed at the
time. I was in fear lest Billy be relegated to the cellar where he would
cry out his puppy heart. But Mamma Heward was never in a bad humour. She
was all kindness and consideration ... and now she was getting old and
could no longer please an exacting clientèle. The cost of living had
gone up; rents were higher; but the little old lady could get no more
for her rooms. To make both ends meet she dispensed first with one
servant, then with another, until she and one frail daughter shared the
entire work of the house. It was no easy matter to cook and serve a
dozen breakfasts in the rooms at any and all hours; to cater and prepare
meals and then to wait up until midnight that the players might have a
hot supper after the performance. How many of those whom she had tided
over the hard times, how many who had "stood her up" for a board bill,
or whom she had nursed in times of illness, remembered her now in her
time of need?

"I'm not finding fault," she said softly, breaking a long silence while
we looked beyond the pictures. "I don't blame them for not coming here
to live ... only--I wish they'd drop in to see me sometimes when they
come to town, just for auld lang syne...."

When I told Will of my visit he looked very serious. I am sure he felt
sorry we had not gone back to her. The next day we went together to see
her. Will took her a bottle of port wine. Later he sent her two seats
for the performance and I promised her that the next time we came to
Chicago we should stay with her, even if Will were a star....




CHAPTER X


Will's friends certainly provided one continual round of pleasure, if
dissipation may be classed under that head. I was brought to wonder how
they found time for "the petty round of irritating concerns and duties"
of life. They appeared always to be dining or lunching out. One met them
in the various restaurants at all hours, drinking round upon round of
cocktails, and polishing them off with cognac. The Pompeian room at the
Annex between five and six in the afternoon is Chicago typified. The
artistic gentleman who conceived the decorative scheme of the Pompeian
room had a sly sense of the eternal fitness of things. He also knew his
Chicago. The great bacchic amphoræ--copies of those classic receptacles
utilized as relief stations by old Romans who had wined too well--are
concrete reminders of his sense of humour. I have seen more women in
Chicago under the influence of liquor than in any other city in the
world. This probably accounts for their low standard of morality as
well as for the emotional debauches in which they indulge.

There was one couple typical of the class of high-flyers in which
Chicago abounds. The husband was a throat specialist with a splendid
practice. He was popular among stage-folk. Will had met the doctor and
his wife during a former engagement. The wife expressed herself as
"strong for" Will. Scarcely a day passed without a telephone message or
a call from Mrs. Pease. She would drop in at the most inopportune times.
"Don't mind me," she would say, settling herself comfortably. "I've seen
gentlemen in dressing-gowns before. That red is very becoming to your
peculiar style of beauty, sir. Nothing if not artistic."

Mrs. Pease was a tall woman, built on the slab style. She affected
mannish tailormades and heavy boots. When she sat down she invariably
crossed her legs. The extremities she exhibited were not prepossessing.
She was also expert in innuendo and _double entente_. She flirted
outrageously with Will and made me feel like the person in the song,
"Always in the way." In fact I came to the conclusion that wherever we
went I was accepted as a necessary evil--among the women. There was
always a "pairing off" after dinner or supper; surreptitious
_rendezvous_ in the obscure cosey corners; _sotto voce_ conversations,
not intended for my ears. I found myself getting the habit of talking
stupid nonsense with persons in whom I was not interested, simply to
cover the follies of the others.

The men flattered me. Flattery is a habit with men; they think most
women expect it--and they do. After a little practice a woman can tell
to a certainty just what a man is going to say under certain conditions.
How can any one be flattered by the saccharine platitudes which are
ground out automatically like chewing-gum from a slot-machine? So few
women have a sense of humour. They have less self-respect.

Chicago lake-wind claimed me for a victim. I came down with a bad
throat. Will insisted upon my consulting his physician friend. He was a
handsome chap--this popular Doctor Pease--as blonde as Will was dark,
but already marked with the ravages of dissipation. He had a genial
raillery which made it almost impossible to take him seriously. I did
not know whether it was a part of the treatment to unbare my throat and
shoulders and sound my lungs and to let his hand linger on the uncovered
flesh, but I didn't like it. Neither did I believe my age, my weight and
my bust measure had any connection with my throat trouble. Of course I
didn't tell Will anything about it, but the next time I needed treatment
I asked him to accompany me. Will liked the doctor, so I kept my own
counsel.

One noon-day Mrs. Pease telephoned that they were going off on a motor
trip for a tour of the country clubs, at one of which they had planned
to dine. They wanted me to join them and after the matinée they would
send a car to pick up Will, and return him in time for the evening
performance. I told Will I did not want to go, giving the excuse that my
throat was still sore. Mrs. Pease answered that the doctor said the air
would do me good and that he would be responsible for me. I endeavoured
to compromise by promising to meet them at the theatre after the matinée
when they picked up Will, but the doctor himself came to the 'phone and
Will decided for me.

When the telephone announced the arrival of the party I went down to the
reception room, where I found the doctor awaiting me. He bundled me
into my great fur coat and insisted upon my wearing a fur cap his wife
had sent me. He cautioned me to wrap up well, as the car was an open
one. When we went out, as I supposed, to join the others, I was
surprised to find that the doctor was alone.

"The rest of them have gone on ahead," he answered my enquiring look. "I
was detained at the office and told them not to wait on us. We'll
overtake them if the car is in good shape."

I felt strangely uncomfortable as I took my seat beside him in the
racing machine. He secured the robes about me with his easy familiarity
and tucked me in with a good deal of care. As he seated himself at the
wheel and drew on his gloves he smiled at me and asked whether I was
timid. He said he made it a rule to kiss a woman whenever she screamed.
That was not a propitious beginning, I thought. The doctor drove
skillfully, although recklessly.

The boulevard system of Chicago is an excellent one. We covered miles of
smooth paving, from which the snow had been removed, before we reached
the country roads. After he had "let her out a bit" and showed me what
she could do, he slowed up and turned to me with a little laugh, "That's
going some, isn't it?" It struck me at the time that "going some" was
probably the motto on the city's escutcheon. Everybody wants to be
faster than everybody else.

The air _was_ exhilarating. My face tingled from the contact with the
wind. The doctor's glances made me uncomfortable. "You look like a
rosy-cheeked boy," he said. "I'd like to bite you." I silently thanked
the stars the car was an open one.

Farther on we stopped at a country club. The doctor said it was a long
time between drinks. As we drove into the club-grounds I noticed another
motor under the shed. I hoped it might belong to other members of the
party. The doctor made straight for the shed. When I looked at the deep
snow, and only a narrow path cleared to the club house, I apprehended
some silliness on the part of my host.

Disregarding his suggestion to sit still while he put up his machine, I
climbed down and picked my way over the slippery path. I had not gone
far when the doctor overtook me and, seizing me from behind, lifted me
in his arms. Not even the presence of the men shovelling snow prevented.
My first impulse was to free myself, and I believe I administered a kick
or two. The more I remonstrated the more he laughed. The picture of
making a ridiculous show of myself made me submit to being carried the
rest of the way.

After ushering me into the living-room the doctor had the good sense to
leave me alone for a while. By the time he appeared I had sufficiently
recovered my equilibrium to receive him frostily. My dignity was lost on
him. He pulled up a great armchair in front of the roaring fire and bade
me drink the hot scotch the waiter at that moment brought in. A subdued
titter from an obscure corner of the room sent the doctor in search of
other occupants. He discovered them behind a screen.

"Aha!" he greeted them in mock-seriousness. "Discovered!"

"Stung"; responded a masculine voice. "So this is why you wouldn't join
our party, eh? You sneaked off by yourselves. I didn't think anybody but
me would have the nerve to try this place so soon after the snow-storm."

"Neither did we!"

"For Heaven's sake don't give us away, will you?" It was the woman who
spoke.... "Who've you got with you?" she added in a lower tone.

"O, a little friend of mine," answered the doctor. "Come over and meet
her. I think you know her husband--Hartley, the actor."

I fear the couple whose _rendezvous_ we had discovered were not
impressed with the popular actor's wife. My conversation was limited to
monosyllables. The omission, I fancy, was not serious. They had their
own topic of conversation. It revolved chiefly around the tenth
commandment. In fact, one might conclude with perfect assurance that the
seventh and the last of the commandments are the _raison d'être_ of all
conversation among that set.... I lost count of the drinks. The doctor
said that in the future he would provide Maraschino cherries by the
bottle for my especial delectation.

When we left the club it was dark. The doctor's friends went at the same
time. They had a chauffeur. The doctor's bloodshot eyes made me wish we,
too, had one. The cold air, happily, set him right. He drove more
carefully than earlier in the day. Perhaps he recognized his own
condition. Once he slowed down and looked at his watch.

"We're going to be late," he said. "I've half a mind to telephone that
we've picked up a puncture and have gone back to town for repairs. What
do you say?" He appeared to be turning the matter over in his mind, but
I could see that he was not taking me into consideration.

"No, we can't do that," I said without too much emphasis. "Mr. Hartley
would be worried."

He smiled at me as he replaced his watch. "Yes, I guess you're right; it
will have to wait until some other time." He patted the covers above my
lap. "Little Girl," he murmured, rather too tenderly. I was glad I could
not see his eyes. The car shot ahead. For the next half hour I had a
bewildering sense of flying over the snow-clad earth, coming now and
then in contact with it as the car struck a rut. The lights, striking
against the stalactited branches of the trees and foliage, scintillated
like the tiara of a comic-opera star--or the Diamond Horseshoe on
society night at the Metropolitan.

We were the last ones to arrive at the country club where we were to
dine. This time the doctor dropped me at the door. Someone was drumming
the piano as I came in. By the time I had taken off my wraps the doctor
joined me. There was a general noisy greeting when we entered the great
hall. Nearly all of the women I had met before. "I thought the doctor
had smashed you up," one of them said. "Or punctured a tire and gone
back to town," another added, giving the doctor a broad wink.

"Leila's gone back to town to get Mr. Hartley," volunteered someone
else. (Leila was Mrs. Pease.)

I settled myself in a niche of the chimney-seat, hoping to thaw out
eventually. I was chilled to the very depths of my being, and it was not
altogether physical. There were lots and lots of cocktails before
dinner. Judging from the spirits of the company there had been a few
before we arrived. When I heard that Mrs. Pease herself was driving the
car in which she had gone to fetch Will, I had visions of his being
dumped into a snow-bank or of colliding with a trolley. It seemed an
interminable time until they appeared. We had reached the entrée. There
was a noisy greeting and a round of sallies.

"Explain yourself!"

"We thought you'd eloped or got locked up for speeding!"

"Stopped on the road, I'll bet," said the doctor, who had risen and
grasped Will's hand. Will waved to me across the table.

"O, you actor!" came from the woman at my right but one. I recognized
the person who had reproved Will after the supper at the College Inn on
the opening night.

When the champagne was served Will raised his glass to me.

"Drink it--it won't hurt you; you look tired," he said, in a stage
whisper.

"Stop flirting with your wife!" remonstrated Mrs. Pease. "Doc--_Doc_!"
(The doctor was busy with a little blonde lady on the left.) He turned
enquiringly to his wife's bleat. "You're neglecting your patient.
Handsome Willy here says his wife is pale and wants to know what you've
been doing to her!"

The doctor leaned over me solicitously. "Never mind--I'm the doctor."
For the rest of the meal he devoted himself to me.

During the dinner a party of five came in and sat at another table. Two
of them proved to be the couple we had met at the other country club.
The man winked discreetly to the doctor.

"Ye gods!" exclaimed the woman at my left but one. "It's Sid!--and I'm
supposed to be home, sick in bed with a headache!"

She looked at the man I had met and I assumed he was "Sid." "Damn such a
town, anyway, where you can't go out without running into your own
husband. Doc, who's he got with him?" She leered across the room at
"Sid's" good-looking companions.

"Never mind, Bell," soothed the doctor, "neither of you have got
anything on the other."

Bell blew him a kiss. "Dear old pain-killer!" she purred.

A little later "Sid" came over to the table and the doctor joined the
other party. Sid's wife started to introduce him to me.

"I've met the lady," he interrupted, not giving me credit for any
discretion.

"O, you have," she said in an unpleasant tone.

As he passed on behind her chair he said to her _sotto voce_,
"Headache, eh? I like the way you lie."

"O, you go to hell!" was the gentle rejoinder. There was still a trace
of the anger which illuminated her bleary eyes when she turned to me.
"What do you think of him trying to put it over me?"

She steered back to the subject which was on her mind. Where had I met
her husband and when? I told her I didn't recall--that he was probably
mistaken. She knew I was lying. I am sure I don't know why I did it.

Someone started telling funny stories. They were not really funny; only
smutty. The women were more daring than the men. Will always declared
that women were "whole hoggers" when once they started. I presume they
labour under the impression that it is sporty or that it pleases the men
"to go them one better." Ever since Eve was made for Adam's pleasure the
female sex has been as pliable as the original mixture of mud and a
floating rib. Women, generally, are what men want them to be....

As time went by I began to fret lest Will be late for the evening
performance. Finally I caught his eye and he understood my message. He
looked at his watch and jumped to his feet. "Doc, what's the best time
your machine can make? I've got precisely twenty minutes before the
curtain goes up."

"I'll get you there," answered the doctor as he left the table.

"I'll drive him in," called the doctor's wife.

"No, I guess not!" he answered over his shoulder. I devoutly, if mutely,
thanked heaven. I am sure the doctor realized that his wife was "three
sheets to the wind"--to use Will's favourite expression.

I made my adieus and rose to follow Will.

"Where are you going?" called Mrs. Pease. "No, you don't--you don't
shake us like this! Willy, tell your wife to sit down and behave
herself." In vain I expostulated that I must go back to the baby. "Never
mind the kiddie; he's asleep and don't even know he's got a mother." She
followed us into the hall where the doctor and Will were hurrying into
their fur coats.

"You can't go this trip, little lady," and the doctor pushed me out of
the draughty doorway. "There's no room in the car and we're going to
ride like hell." I appealed mutely to Will, who drew me aside.

"Stick it out a little longer, girlie. They'll feel hurt if you don't.
You can telephone to the hotel if you're anxious about the boy." He
kissed me lightly. I felt on the verge of rebellion.

"Shall you be late?" I managed.

"No--unless something breaks down on the way. I'm not on until after the
rise, and if necessary I'll go on without my make-up."

"Come on, Hartley!" The doctor was already at the wheel. We watched them
spurt ahead.

"I hope your husband's insured," gurgled one of the women.... I felt
sick and wretched. I wanted to go home, even if it were only a hotel
room. Home was where Boy was. I had a wild impulse of stealing out
unnoticed and asking my way to the nearest trolley line. Then I
remembered I had not a cent in my purse.

The return of the doctor relieved my mind as to Will's safe arrival. I
comforted myself with the thought that the party would soon break up.
The diners across the room had joined us before the return of the
doctor. There was another round of liqueurs and at last someone moved to
break up. "Sid's" wife, whose tongue was getting thick, suggested that
we all go for a drive and end up by having supper at Rector's. There was
general acquiescence. "Let's make a night of it," was the slogan.

While the others were dividing themselves to suit the accommodation of
the various automobiles, Mrs. Pease and I went to the dressing-room.
"Lord! Don't I look a sight?" she exclaimed, scanning her reflection in
the mirror. "That's the worst of booze; it makes me white around the
gills." She daubed on a bit of rouge and patted it over with a powder
puff. I took advantage of our tête-à-tête and asked her if she would be
so good as to arrange to drop me at my hotel on the way back.

"Why, my dear, you're not going home yet; you're going right along with
us."

"I really must not.... Mr. Hartley wouldn't approve, I know. I have not
been well and----"

"Rot! You leave that to the doctor. He'll stop and leave a note at the
theatre.... Doc! _Doc!_ Come here...." The doctor peeped in the doorway.

"O, come in--we're only powdering our noses," Mrs. Pease called to him.
"Say, look here! Mrs. H. thinks hubby might not approve of her going on
with us----"

"I didn't mean--" I began.

"I tell her you'll fix it up with him," she interrupted.

"It's fixed--long ago. I told your husband we'd come for him after the
show. He'll want a bite to eat anyway, and why not be sociable? He told
me to tell you to be a good little sport and wait for him." He laid an
arm around my shoulders and Mrs. Pease, still busy in front of the
mirror, laughed in mock seriousness.

"O, don't mind me!"

"Did Mr. Hartley--did my husband say he expected me to wait?"

"Sure Mike," broke in Mrs. Pease. "Doc, you go pilot that bunch so they
don't butt into my preserves. Saidee is soused, and when Saidee gets
soused she gets nasty drunk." The doctor disappeared. "I can't stand for
women who don't know their capacity," Mrs. Pease continued, working on
her complexion. "You're a wise little gazabo to go slow on the fizz. I
watched you to-night, and the way you manipulated the glasses was a
scream.... Do you know you made a great hit with the doctor? You're
just his style--dark eyes, full bust and not 'higher than his heart.'
... O, I'm not jealous! The Doc and I are on to each other." She winked
at me and led the way to the hall.

"On to each other." ... I mulled over the expression as I watched
husbands and wives pairing off with and showing their preference for
someone else. Everybody seemed to be "on to each other." It was a game
of _stalemates_.

I drove back with the doctor. There was no way out of it without making
a scene. "Sid" and the doctor engaged in a brush along the road. The
reckless speeding fitted in with my mood. There were moments when I
almost wished that something would break and land me with some broken
bones, if nothing more. I was smarting under Will's obvious lack of
consideration; He knew the atmosphere was not a congenial one, yet he
sacrificed me to it without hesitation. I wanted with all my heart to
have him popular and sought after; I was willing to play the game--up to
a certain point. But when the game entailed a loss of self-respect, of
confidence, or of equivocation with one's better instincts, there I drew
the line. It ceased to be worth the candle.

I could no longer shut my eyes to the encroachments upon our happiness
the very exigencies of his profession demanded. My passionate and
childish efforts at blind man's buff were not convincing. The time had
come when my husband and I must have a complete understanding. I must
make clear to him how I felt. After that, if he were still blind to the
dangers which threatened our life--no, I would not dwell on such a
contingency. I felt sure Will would see things at their true valuation.
For the first time that day I settled back to something approaching a
state of composure. One always feels less perturbed after determining
upon a course of action. I resolved to see the evening through with as
much equanimity as possible. There was something grimly humorous about
the situation: if Will really wanted to make a sport of me I was
"cutting my eye-teeth" with a vengeance.

So engaged was I with my own thoughts I had not noticed that we had
slowed up. Coincidentally the car came to a stop. The doctor rose to his
feet and looked behind him.

"Anything wrong?" I questioned.

"No; I only wanted to make sure the coast was clear."

He knelt with one knee on the seat and pulled the robe about me from
behind. With his free hand he raised my face close to his, and held me
there.

"I'm going to have one kiss from those luscious lips--if it takes a
leg," he said.

The doctor was a strong man. Will had often remarked that no one would
suspect me of having so much strength. Yet I was a mere child in the
doctor's hands. He pinioned my arms beneath the weight of his body. He
kept his lips on mine until the strength oozed out of my finger-tips
from sheer suffocation. When he raised his head it was only to look at
me and breathing hard again to fasten himself upon me with a fiercer
tremor which shook his whole frame.... Only once or twice in all our
married life had Will kissed me like that. I had believed it an
expression of purest love. I realized now that it connoted other
emotions less pure.... "Baby! Baby!... Put your arms around my neck....
You haven't fainted, have you?" ... He lifted me to my feet. I could not
repress a hysterical sob. "There--that's better! I didn't mean to be so
rough, but I'm mad about you. You drive me crazy! Kiss me of your own
free will...."

I succeeded in holding him back while I looked him in the eyes,
struggling to express what my lips refused to say.... "O ... O...." I
finally stammered. "Is it right?... Do you think it's right?..."

Wholly misconstruing my words, he strained me to him and kissed me more
tenderly, endeavouring to soothe me. "Right? Little boy, who the devil
cares whether it's right or not! It's nice, isn't it? Don't you love
it?"

"My husband ... do you think it's right to him?..."

Something of the disgust I felt must have pierced him, for he released
me with a change of expression.

"O, come now--don't spring that old gag on your friend the Doc.... What
do you care as long as he doesn't get on to it?... You know as well as I
do that a good-looking fellow in his profession has it thrown at him
from all sides. You don't think he turns 'em _all_ down, do you? You've
got too much sense for that.... Come on, now ... let's understand each
other.... You're as safe with me as a babe on its mother's breast....
I'll call you up on Saturday and we'll go off some place together ...
where we can talk it over.... God, Baby! I'm crazy about you!..."

       *       *       *       *       *

When Will and I walked into our rooms at the hotel the little travelling
clock on my bureau pointed the hour of three. I slipped out of the fur
coat the doctor had loaned me and left it in a heap upon the floor. I
don't know how long I stood contemplating space.... Then I heard him
cross the room and pick up the coat. I felt his eyes fastened upon me. I
roused myself and went into the bedroom, where I began to take down my
hair in front of the mirror. Will followed me and I saw that he was
watching me in the glass. After a moment he spoke to me.

"Girlie ..." his voice was kind.... "You'll have to learn to gauge your
capacity.... You're not a tank like the rest of the crowd.... Look at
your face; it's as red as a red, red rose--and has been all evening."

He patted me on the arm and went into the bathroom. I felt as if I were
going to shriek.... _Will thought I was drunk...._ I looked at myself
in the glass.... My face was drawn and there were red burning spots in
my cheeks.... My eyes peered but like two burnt holes in a blanket....
Yes, it was plain to see that I was not myself.... I smothered a burst
of hysterical laughter.... I started toward the bathroom where Will was
preparing for bed. I intended to tell him that in all, during the entire
day, I had taken only one glass of champagne--and that at his
request.... Then I stopped. I did not dare to trust myself.... I knew he
would laugh and pet me and say he had not meant to criticize and then he
would take me in his arms ... and I would cry it all out upon his
heart.... I would tell him the whole miserable experience ... and he ...
what would _he_ do? If he called the doctor to account there would be a
scandal.... It would be degrading.... I could never endure it.... _And
if he did not call the Doctor to account--if he merely cut him without
demanding satisfaction_, I should _despise_ him--I should _hate_ him....
"O, yes you would--you _know_ you would, though you wouldn't acknowledge
it even to yourself" ... it was Miss Burton's voice.... "Take my
advice--better not tell him at all." I switched off the light, so that
Will could not see my face....

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XI


I revelled in the heavy cold which kept me indoors. No amount of urging
or cajoling on the part of my husband could induce me to see the doctor.
Were I to express a preference for some other physician, Will's
suspicions might be aroused. Experience applied old-fashioned remedies
and in a few days I was able to be about the room. Mrs. Pease telephoned
daily and called several times in person. Will saw her, but Experience
had been instructed that I could see no one. During my retirement I had
turned things over in my mind, arguing _pro_ and _con_ the advisability
of a thorough understanding with Will. It appeared to me that the danger
of such a proceeding lay in the tearing down of barriers which could
never again be replaced--a rending aside of all illusion between us.
Heretofore I had refrained from any expression of animadversion of his
profession or his conduct. If he suspected any dissatisfaction on my
part he preferred to let it pass without comment.

Spasmodically he indulged in bursts of confidence--confidences of the
kind not calculated to improve my opinion of his profession. At such
times he appeared fully to appreciate the corroding atmosphere in which
he lived. He even contemplated retiring from the stage. These phases
were rare, however, generally attending a disappointment in a rôle,
discontent with an engagement or unfavourable criticism of his work. The
mood soon passed and he appeared to be content with the ephemeral joys
of the moment.

The longer I brooded over the subject the less sure I became of any good
to be attained by a frank expression of my mind. Were I to eliminate all
circumlocution and say: "My husband, there is something fundamentally
wrong with a profession which demands a compromise with one's best
instincts," or "the class of people with which you come in daily contact
make for your ultimate degradation," or, again, "I do not approve of
your petty deceits, the complacency with which you accept moral
obliquity, the low standard which permeates our entire life," this would
call for amplification, an indulgence in personalities which could
result only in a greater breach between us. I might even be accused of
jealousy, inconsideration for his future, and a lack of faith in the
man.

It had often occurred to me that there was such a thing as too great
intimacy, a too careless frankness between husband and wife! A lack of
reserve which ended in a secret contempt for each other's weaknesses. To
be tolerant of and to respect these weaknesses while striving to
stimulate the best in each other's nature; in short, to be a complement,
each to the other, this appeared to me the basic principle of marriage.
And as I had done in the past I again fell back upon my inner self. I
wanted, O, I so wanted to develop the best that was in him ... and there
was much, nearly all of him was good. The danger lay in environment....

One day--it was a week later that Will had planned to dine at the Press
Club--I lay on the couch watching Boy. He sat on a fur rug on the floor,
playing with Snyder. Experience had gone down to an early dinner. There
was a knock on the door. I called out, "Come in." It was the doctor.

"I took advantage of my professional capacity and came up unannounced,"
he said, easily, without directly looking at me. He removed his coat
and tickled Boy's face with the tail of the fur lining. Boy drew up his
nose and laughed at the sensation, and the doctor dropped the coat upon
the floor for him to play with. Then he squatted beside him while Boy
stroked the fur and called it "cat." For several minutes the doctor
busied himself with the child, deploring the deformities of Snyder and
imitating a dog's bark.

"Great boy, that!" he concluded, rising to his feet and taking a long
breath.

"Now, then, tell me all about it," he said, drawing up a chair in a
purely professional manner and looking at me without a trace of
self-consciousness. "You're pale; that's what you get for not sending
for the doc. How's your pulse?" He reached for my hand and held it
regardless of my frowning face.... "Rotten ... you need a tonic. I'll
write a prescription right off." There was silence while he wrote. Then
he rose, placed the slip of paper on the table, tossed the boy in the
air and crossed back, looking down at me with his hands in his pockets.

"Well, little girl, what have you got to say for yourself?... I suppose
you're still sore on me ... forget it and forgive. I apologize. I acted
like a beast, I know.... It was the booze. It got the better of my
judgment. Just the same, _in vino veritas_, I was most terribly stuck on
you--and still am--no, sit still! I'm cold sober.... I thought, of
course, you were like the rest.... Come, shake hands with me and say all
is forgiven. I saw your husband to-day and he told me to come and see
you.... I knew then that it was all right.... I felt sure you had too
much common sense to tell hubby.... When are you coming out of the
nunnery?..." He threw himself into the chair and smiled genially. I was
holding fast to something he had said: "I thought of course you were
like the rest." ...

"Doctor, will you answer me a question--truthfully, I mean?"

"I will if I can," he flashed back at me.

"You said a few minutes since that you had thought me like the rest. Who
did you mean by 'the rest'--women as a class--the class you go about
with--or the women of the stage?"

"Well ... if you want the honest truth--I had actresses in mind when I
spoke."

"You believe actresses are any worse, even as bad, as the women I met
at dinner last week?"

"Um ... ye-s ... I think actresses would go farther."

"_Go farther!_"

"Yes. None of these women--at least not many of them--you've met would
really go the limit. They do a good deal of playing around the edge, but
it's only once in a while they get into a scrape.... Look here! I don't
hold a brief for judging the relative virtues of women. I don't blame
anybody for squeezing all the enjoyment they can out of life--for you
don't know what's coming hereafter."

The doctor showed signs of irritation....

A sound from Boy suggested my next remark.

"Suppose one has children?"

"That's a horse of another colour.... Though when you come right down to
it I don't see that a family cuts much ice. Children are for the most
part accidents. They just happen. Their conception is the result of
carelessness or laziness. Their ultimate arrival is accepted a good deal
like a deluge or a fire; you do everything you can to stop it--to the
verge of self-destruction--then you throw up your hands and accept the
inevitable. There isn't one love child in a million. I mean a child of
love in the sense of premeditated and welcome conception. Men and women
marry for one of a half dozen reasons, most commonly because they
believe they are in love. When the honeymoon wanes and you get right
down to commonplace, every-day life in all its ugliness, we begin to
feet that we've been buncoed. If we are truthful with ourselves we
acknowledge a share of the bunco game. Way back in our subconscious mind
the sensation of our courtship, the pursuit and the first mad moments of
possession have stuck fast.... We fairly throb at the thought of them.
We begin to hanker for a repetition of these sensuous dope-dreams....
Presently we are off hot for the chase ... and a little dash of the
forbidden fruit acts as a stimulant. Like all stimulants it becomes
necessary to increase the dose after a while to insure efficacy. That's
where we begin to slop over...." The doctor leaned back with the air of
one who is satisfied with his diagnosis.

"We are getting away from the subject," I remarked caustically.

"Not a bit of it ... we're running along converging lines. The stage is
the mart for the prettiest and most magnetic of women. A pretty woman
may be moral, but the chances are against it. Every man looks upon her
as so much legitimate loot. They differ only in their methods of getting
away with it. Sometimes they effect a legitimate sale: this is what our
social system calls marriage. More often the rate of exchange is
usurious on the part of the man. It varies from a bottle of wine and a
few pretty clothes to a diamond necklace and equally brilliant
promises.... Now here's where our lines converge. The stage is a good
place to show goods. Our eternal chase bids us go in and look 'em
over--and--if you are in a mood to trade--to say nothing of having the
price--you'll find a bevy of ambitious beauties with a keen eye to
business."

"You infer, then, that the society lady sins for love only--and that the
actress bestows her affection for purely mercenary motives?"

"I don't make any such broad distinction as that--but I believe the
actress has always an eye on the main chance and that she wouldn't let a
little thing like love interfere with business.... The society woman, on
the other hand, usually goes wrong because she's unhappily married and
tries to make up for what's missing by stealing a little happiness on
the side."

"Then I am to believe that the stories one reads about lovers who
present other men's wives with bejewelled gold purses and other little
feminine gew-gaws are wholly fictitious; pure emanations from the brain
of newspaper reporters--or the French dramatist ... and from the divorce
records?"

The doctor threw back his head and roared like a lion....

"Perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me under what head you classified
me--being neither a love-lorn society lady nor an ambitious actress with
an eye to the main chance...."

The doctor sobered to the point of anger. "I have told you that I am
sorry.... I have apologized.... After all, what are we rowing about?
You've proved an alibi--you're not like the rest--so let's forget it."

"I _can't_ forget it.... You are judging a whole class by a few
individuals who share your perverted ideas ... individuals who would be
immoral in a nunnery.... Would any of the women of your set--name any
one of them--would she--_could_ she be less moral on the stage?
Impossible! I don't believe you when you say none of them would 'go the
limit!' Women who drink as much as they do; women whose tongues are
furred with vulgar stories; women who proclaim they are '_on_ to their
husbands' and that their husbands are _on_ to them and still continue to
live under the same roof, occupy the same beds; women who write other
women's husbands love letters and arrange places of assignation ... do
you mean you do not _know_ these women 'go the limit'?" ... My
indignation and resentment had swept me like a storm and left me weak
and bedraggled. The doctor made no response.... I felt that he was
watching me. After a while I proceeded more quietly....

"The trouble with you, doctor, is that you form your opinions from the
newspapers. The man who writes the head-lines believes it is his bounden
duty to accentuate any and everything pertaining to the stage. The most
obscure chorus girl is 'an actress.' Every divorcée whose antics have
emblazoned the hall of ill-fame expects to become an actress and the
newspapers record her aspiration in large type. A police court
magistrate in New York once told me that three-fourths of the women
arrested on the streets for accosting men gave their occupations on the
police blotter as 'actress.' Do you think any yellow sheet ever let an
opportunity like that go by?... If all the petty affairs of your clients
or your friends and casual acquaintances, both scandalous and innocuous,
were printed from week to week, do you think there would be an
appreciable difference between the standard of morality of the doctors,
the dentists, the butchers and bakers and that of the actor?... I don't
think you take into consideration that the actor's life is public
property. He is denied the right of privacy in all matters. Nothing is
too trivial, too delicately personal, to be shared with the public."

"And who's to blame for that, my lady, but the player himself? Publicity
is his stock in trade. He's got to advertise, or drop out.... If ever I
want a divorce, I'll dig up an actor as co-respondent: not because there
may not be others, but because the actor would appreciate the
advertisement." ... The doctor leaned toward me to better enjoy my
discomfiture, then laughed tormentingly.

I rose to my feet; he accepted his congé lingeringly.

"Well, at any rate I've done you good; your face has got back its
colour." ... He stood contemplating me for a second.

"You know ... you've got a good deal of think works under that dusky
head--only don't think too much.... It's bad business for a woman of
your temperament." He turned to pick up his coat. Boy had fallen asleep
upon it, nestling close to the warm fur. "What a shame to disturb
him--don't do it. I can do without the coat until I get home." I lifted
Boy gently and carried him still asleep to the bedroom beyond. The
doctor followed to the alcove and stood watching while I covered the
child. Then he picked up his coat and threw it over his arm.

"I guess you're equal to holding Handsome Bill by the leading strings,
all right.... Hartley's a fine chap; one of the nicest actors I ever
knew, and I'm downright fond of him." ...

I could not repress a sneer in the safety of the twilight. It was not
lost on the doctor.

"I know what you are thinking about," he said quietly, "but you know as
well as I that where there's a woman in the case there's about as much
honour among men as there is among thieves." ... He stretched out his
hand. "Good-bye, little girl.... I'm glad to have had this talk with
you; it's better than dodging each other and arousing suspicion. Aren't
you going to shake hands?... O, well if you look at it in that light ...
just the same, I'm yours to command whenever you feel the need of me."
... Exit doctor.




CHAPTER XII


Toward the end of the engagement in Chicago it became expedient that I
undergo a minor operation. Will suggested I enter a private hospital
near at hand, that he might be in daily communication with me. I
preferred, however, to return to New York, and place myself under the
care of our family physician. Our apartment being still occupied, I
decided on one of the smaller hotels, which abound on the cross streets
between Twenty-fourth and Forty-fifth. Will's company was booked for a
week in Cleveland following the Chicago engagement.

I received daily letters from Will telling me how lonely he was without
Boy and me, and every other day he wired me some nice little greeting.
The operation was simple and, as Experience was permitted to bring Boy
to visit me during given hours of the afternoon, the time passed
quickly.

By the end of the week I was able to leave the hospital and I had
apprised Will of my intention. Consequently I was not surprised to find
a telegram awaiting me at the hotel. Experience said it had probably
been delivered while she was on the way to fetch me. I waited until I
had made myself comfy in a big arm chair which Experience had ready for
me, and while she made a cup of tea over our alcohol lamp I settled back
to enjoy Will's message. It was a long one, I saw at a glance.
Experience turned enquiringly at my ejaculation. The telegram had been
sent from Cincinnati, where Will was now playing, following Cleveland.
It read: "Come at once if you are able to travel. Not ill, but need your
presence. Have wired money to bank. Best train Big Four Limited leaving
at six-thirty p.m. New York Central. Telegraph on departure. Love,
Will."

I read and reread the message. My perturbation grew. What did Will mean
by "need your presence"? He forestalled any alarm about his health by
saying he was not ill, but had he told the truth? Perhaps he had met
with an accident, a terrible disfiguring--surely I was letting my nerves
run away with me.... But why did he urge me to come to Cincinnati when
we had planned to meet the following week in St. Louis, his home city,
and where there was to be a kind of reunion of the family relatives? It
was obvious that he expected me, as he had taken the care to look up
trains and had telegraphed the money.

There was something very much the matter.... I glanced at the clock. It
lacked a few minutes of five, and the train left at half after six....
The bank was closed, but I could get a check cashed. Whatever had
happened it was my duty to be with Will. I jumped to my feet, forgetful
of my convalescence. The weakness had vanished. I felt strangely well.
"Experience ... never mind the tea.... We leave for Cincinnati at
once...."

Experience set down the kettle and looked at me with her hand on her
hips.... I made no explanation, but began to don the clothes I had only
a moment since removed. The necessity for immediate action finally
seeped into Experience's brain. "Then I guess I'll have to fly at
packin' up.... Law-zee, if this ain't seein' the country!..."

Will met us at the station. The first glimpse of him through the iron
grill relieved my suspense concerning his health. He was not ill, and
appeared to be whole and undamaged. He was solicitous about my
condition. I _did_ look a bit of a wreck. After the excitement of
getting off had subsided and there was nothing to do but listen to the
monotonous clickety-click of the speeding train, I had collapsed. The
reaction was too great. It was not until we were in sight of our
destination that I dragged myself to my feet and steeled myself to meet
whatever emergency confronted me.... Naturally I asked no questions
during the drive to the hotel. The general aspect of Cincinnati was
typical of my state of mind: an unsunned sky and a smoke-filmed
atmosphere.... It occurred to me how fallacious was Milton's conception
of "evil news." ... "For evil news rides post while good news baits." It
has always appeared to me the other way about. Good news flashes on to
its destination gathering impetus as it goes, while harbinger of bad
lags on behind, retarding the very hours by its sable weight.... The
mental rack of suspense, of waiting, while the imagination conjures an
endless chain of dire probabilities.... When, at last, Experience and
Boy were settled in an adjoining room Will closed the door and turned
to me. It seemed an interminable time before he spoke. He seemed to be
bracing himself for the effort.

"First I want to thank you for coming without question.... I only hope
you will not suffer a relapse...."

I waved aside the preamble....

"Well," I said....

       *       *       *       *       *

I think I was stunned. Nothing seemed quite real about the room. Even
Will's voice sounded remote. I had experienced the same sensation coming
out of the ether after my operation. The doctor's assuring "It's all
right, little lady; just open your eyes" reached me from across spanless
space. Then, as now, followed a great wave of nausea, whirling me into a
relentless undertow, leaving me limp and racked with pain....
Mechanically I re-read the clipping Will had thrust into my hand by way
of preparing me for what followed. It was an excerpt from "The Club
Window" and ran as follows: "A certain clique of rough-riders allied
with a North Side country club are laying odds on a high-stepping filly
of their set who for some time past has been riding for a fall. The
inevitable cropper will involve a certain actor who for the past month
has been delighting Chicago audiences with his manly pulchritude as well
as his histrionic ability. The lady in the case showed marked preference
for the society of the actor during one of his former visits to the
Windy City. From time to time there has reached the ears of the
seat-warmers in the Club Window gossip of certain little junkets to New
York during the past winter. It may have been purely coincidental that
the actor was playing a season's engagement in the metropolis but--be
that as it may--the advent of the company to our parts was watched with
considerable gusto. Likewise it may have been purely chance that the
husband of the third part was away on a hunting trip. 'The best laid
plans of' and so forth; the unexpected happened when the actor's wife
accompanied him on his visit to us. The affair was for the moment in
abeyance. _But_--no sooner had the wife returned to New York than the
fire broke out with renewed ardour probably fanned by the previous
adverse winds of cruel fate. When the company left for another city the
fair Chicagoan was missing from her accustomed haunts. Subsequent
investigation affirmed the rumour that the lady was a guest at a
leading hotel in Cleveland. Incidentally her suite of rooms was on the
same floor as that of the actor. Let us hope that some busy bee does not
buzz about the head of the mighty hunter and bring him back gunning for
the destroyer of his peace. Verily, verily, the actor hath power to
charm."

"You must realize, girlie, that I wouldn't have worried you with this
nasty business if I hadn't been afraid of letting us both in for
something worse.... What do you think of the damned cat who cooked up a
thing like that? It was pure spite work. You see it was like this: When
I met this female reporter two years ago she was all for me. You
remember the nice things she wrote about me when I played Chicago the
last time? Well, she came on to New York last winter and I took her to
lunch and showed her other little attentions just to keep on the good
side of her. About the same time the other dame blew in, and I felt it
was up to me to discharge some of my social debts to her. Here's where
the elderly spinster reporter got sore. She thought she had a corner on
the market. It's hell to be such a fascinatin' devil!..."

Will winked at me, albeit a little dubiously, sensing a probable lack
of appreciation on my part.

"When I came back to Chicago this trip," he continued, "I received a
note from my quondam friend and later she came back to my dressing-room
to see me. She made some pertinent remarks about the other woman, hinted
at some persons being ingrates after all she had done to boom them when
they were 'also rans' and, now that they had got there, threw down their
old friends. I lost my temper a bit and we parted bad friends. The
result was she transferred her booming to ----" (Will named the character
actor of his company) "and proceeded to lay it over me on every possible
occasion.... These damned women are always worse when they get along in
life...."

"What did this 'club' woman expect of you?... What did she want?"

Will looked at me blankly, then batted his eyes....

"Why ... why, I suppose the old hen wanted me to make love to her: she
made a play for me and I threw her down hard."

He took the clipping from my fingers and replaced it in his wallet.

"Did you know that the--_the_ lady was coming to Cleveland?" I asked.

"Why--not exactly; she said something about it while we were still in
Chicago but I thought she was bluffing. As a matter of fact I thought
she had more sense than to do a thing like that."

"What led you to believe she had better sense?--anything in her past
performances?"

"No--but women are pretty foxy: they generally take care to cover their
trails no matter how reckless they pretend to be. Not many of them want
to lose their homes in spite of their protestations about giving up
everything for 'thou'...."

"Why did you not insist on her returning home at once? Couldn't you have
gone to another hotel?"

"What good would that have done? She would have followed. When she
turned up in Cleveland I handed it to her straight, you may imagine. I
didn't mince matters a little bit."

"Was she afraid to go back home?"

"I don't know; she said she'd left for good and that she'd never live
with her husband again. I told her she could do as she pleased about
_that_, but I didn't propose to become involved. Then she threatened to
commit suicide--throw herself in the lake. I told her to go ahead and
then she had hysterics all over the place. I had a fine tea-party, I can
tell you.... Somebody sent me a marked copy of the Club Window. I knew,
then, it wouldn't be long before her husband would get wise to it and I
didn't know what kind of a game he'd spring on me. I guess it's not the
first time the lady has kicked over the matrimonial traces, according to
reports. Maybe he's looking for just such an opening."

The room was thick with tobacco-smoke. Will was burning up one cigar
after another.

"She made a fine spectacle of herself and of me by showing up at the
railway station looking like a boiled owl. After our scene she capped
the climax by getting a peach of a jag.... By George, I never will hear
the last of it from the members of the company." He pulled down a window
from the top and stopped at the desk, where he took a telegram from his
portfolio--a Christmas present I had made him.

"Yesterday morning I received this." I read the message:

     "Call me long distance Friday noon sharp. Important.

     (Signed) DOC."

"It was decent of the Doc, wasn't it? Well, I got him on long distance
and the first thing he asked me was whether the lady were with me.
'Well, not exactly _with_ me, but I can't shake her,' I shouted back.
'You've got to,' the Doc went on, 'for your wife's sake you mustn't get
landed with the goods.' The Doc is one of these 'from-Missouri'
gentlemen and wouldn't believe I was innocent under oath. Just the same
he's a good fellow. He told me he knew all about my predicament and that
he'd taken time by the forelock and got hold of madame's sister, who was
standing beside him while he talked. She had her grip with her, ready to
start for Cincinnati at once. I told him to send her by the fastest
express. The Doc said that madame's husband had returned to town
unexpectedly--just as I had anticipated--and after a stay of twenty-four
hours had again disappeared. No one at his office or at his home knew
where he had gone. The sister said he had called her up and inquired
where his wife had gone and had rung off abruptly. Then the Doc quizzed
the stenographer, who was an old chum of his, and she confided to him
that the husband's secretary had bought a ticket to Cleveland.... 'He's
on the trail,' the Doc warned, 'and there's only one thing for you to do
... send for your wife if she's able to travel.... Make her get to
Cincinnati before he does. Your wife is a level-headed little woman and
if you put it to her straight she'll play up.... Together you can cook
up something to placate the irate husband....' Can't you just hear the
old Doc roar? Well, I thought his advice good and I wired you at once."

... "Has the sister arrived?" ... I found it difficult to make myself
heard. My voice was dry and grated harshly....

"Yes, she's here; they're on the floor below." Will poured a glass of
water and handed it me. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and waited.
It was his turn to be silent. He seemed to have talked himself out....

"Which of them is it?... Do I know her?"

"Yes; we had dinner at her house one Sunday night."

"Blonde?"

"Um--yes...."

"Art's triumph over Nature, I suppose." ... I could not resist the
thrust ... suddenly I sat bolt upright.

"Will ... _Will_.... Not--Mrs F.--not the woman with the two little
girls ... not the mother of those children...."

He nodded and raised his shoulders with a gesture which was half
deploring, half deprecating.

"O!!!...." I covered my face with my hands ... the picture was _too_
revolting.... "Children don't cut much ice," the doctor had said. I
stopped up my ears to shut out his voice....

"How did it begin?" I said at last.

"O ... the usual way ... supper--or dinner, I've forgotten which--a
little flirtation, lots of booze, motor-rides, rendez-vous while you
listen to the neglected wife song and dance, more dinners and suppers
and motor-rides ... and the first thing you know the fool woman is in
love with you, or thinks she is, which is worse.... I hope you don't
blame _me_. I can't help it if women make fools of themselves over me."
... Something in Will's tone--a _sang froid_--almost a
_braggadocio_--sent the blood to my face with a rush of anger. I leaned
forward in my chair and looked him in the eyes.

"Will ... do you mean to tell me that you never encouraged this woman?"

"How do you mean--encouraged?"

"In God's name don't juggle with your words--don't equivocate! You know
what I mean as well as I do!--to encourage in a hundred intangible ways;
to show that you are flattered by a woman's attention; to let her
believe that _you_ believe you are the only one upon whom she has
bestowed her favours; to let her tell you that you are the first man for
whom she has betrayed her husband, though she has been neglected and
unhappy for years and years; to cram down your throat the intimate
confidences of her married life and to tell you she has never sought
consolation elsewhere; to let her do all these without giving her the
lie when you know in your heart she was lying. That's what I mean!... O,
believe me I am beginning to understand the intricacies of the game ...
and if you have gone the limit ... I don't ask you to confess it ...
fidelity does not hinge upon the sexual act, alone--though you men
place that above every other virtue in a woman--but I do ask you for the
sake of your manhood, for your own self-respect, don't, _don't_ play the
part of a cad!"

Will winced as if I had struck him in the face. His face had grown quite
pale and his lips were compressed. When he spoke his voice cut the air
like a fine blade of steel.

"So that's what you think, is it?... I've obviously made a mistake in
sending for you ... but I did so more for your sake than for my own ...
to prepare you and save you from a shock if there was a blow-out.... I
never knew before what a poor opinion you had of me."

"Don't distort my words, Will, if you please...."

He paced back and forth, beating the back of one hand against the palm
of the other.

"I know you're sick and weak.... I'm trying to make every allowance for
your state of nerves. Up to date you've played up like a brick. I've
often watched you and secretly admired the way you handled things,
but--if you're going to spoil it all by developing into a jealous woman
at this stage of the game...." I turned on him quickly.

"I'm sure you can't say that I've ever annoyed you in that line."

"No, I'll admit, you've been a level-headed woman ... but remember I've
played square with you and I think you'll admit _that_. I've never had a
serious affair with any woman--and the Lord knows I have it thrown at me
from all sides. The woods are full of Potiphar's wives.... If you had
some men to deal with ... how many of 'em can stand up against that sort
of thing without losing their heads?... why, I've had people tell me we
were a model couple ... and, here, the first time I get into anything
like a serious predicament----"

"Then you admit other predicaments?"

"Why, of course, there's been ... O, hell--what's the use of trying to
argue with a woman! You're like all the rest!--when it comes to a
show-down they're not deuces high!" ... He crossed to the telephone and
called a waiter.

"I've got to order an early dinner; I'll have a fine dose of indigestion
as it is--after all this infernal row.... Of course, if it came to a
show-down and he named me as co-respondent it wouldn't do _me_ any
damage but it would upset the pater and the rest of the family all
along the line. You know how they feel about the stage...."

"What about me?" was on the tip of my tongue but I did not voice it or
the thoughts which followed. How should I feel to see a home broken up
and to know that my husband shared in the wrecking?--whether directly or
indirectly--the results were the same. And the woman--and the two little
girls ... what of them?... A knock at the door caused my very heart to
contract. Had the husband arrived to demand Heaven only knew what?...
The waiter entered with a menu. I had completely forgotten that Will had
summoned him. When the waiter had taken the order and gone, Will crossed
and laid his hand on my arm.

"Come now, girlie--we musn't let this fool thing come between you and
me. It isn't worth it! You know I love you ... you're the only woman
I've ever loved ... ever _will_ love...."

O, wise husband! He knew I could no more resist his tenderness than a
flower resists the warm sun.... He let me revel in my first fierce burst
of tears and comforted me mutely; then, still holding me in his arms,
he went on talking:

"Sometimes I hate this damned business and feel that I'd like to chuck
it altogether ... but what's a man to do after he's given the best years
of his life to one thing? It takes a long time to get established in any
profession, nowadays ... and I'm getting older every day.... I'm sorry I
was ugly ... _my_ nerves are a bit frazzled, too ... but I'll be all
right, now that you and I understand each other ... come, now ... let's
forget it.... Come in the bath-room and bathe your eyes. I've ordered a
nice little dinner and a bottle of fizz; it'll buck you up. Then, before
I go to the performance, we'll outline some plan of action...."

"What do you want me to do?" I asked, as I came out of the bath-room a
little later.




CHAPTER XIII


When I entered the room I had no intention of engaging in a slanging
match. I had telephoned my coming and her sister was awaiting me. I felt
almost sorry for the girl standing beside the bed, her eyes meeting mine
uncertainly, her lips forcing a greeting.

"Won't you sit down? Fannie, here is Mrs. Hartley...."

The woman in the bed turned and raised herself on her elbow. Her face
was swollen, the lips blue and loose, and her eyes had the look of
watery gelatine. Without meeting my eyes, she moaned theatrically and
buried her face in the pillows.

"What--_what_ must you think of me?" she whined.

"I think you're a fool!" slipped out before I could prevent it.

"All women are fools--we're all fools over some man," she exclaimed,
pounding the pillows with her fist and working herself up to a Zazaesque
brand of hysteria.

"Mrs. F., I did not come here to listen to a dissertation on the
sex-question nor to hold your hand while you have a fit of nerves.
You've got to pull yourself together or I'll wash my hands of the whole
affair. I've come all the way from New York to help you out of a nasty,
a _dirty_ scrape. If you wish to hear what I have to say you'll stop
that silliness and act like a full-grown woman with a modicum of
discretion.... Your husband is apt to walk in at any moment and it may
be well for all concerned that we arrive at some plan of defence."

Her sister, who had retired to a corner of the room behind me when I sat
down, now crossed to the bedside.

"Mrs. Hartley is right, Fannie--Frank is liable to show up at any
minute."

Fannie fished for her handkerchief under the pillows and sniffed
tearfully while her sister arranged the pillows.

"Please pardon me, Mrs. Hartley; my nerves are all gone."

"I have a few nerves, myself," I thought. I found myself grasping the
arms of my chair as one sometimes does at the dentist's and my teeth
fairly ached from the clinching of my jaws. When Mrs. F. had folded and
dropped her hands into her lap with the air of a long-suffering woman, I
proceeded.

"Mr. Hartley and I have decided that you are my guest: that it was at my
invitation you went to Cleveland with us and that I urged you to
continue on the trip until your husband returned from his hunting trip.
On your arrival here, you contracted a heavy cold which developed into
the grippe; grippe will answer as well as anything else and is not
sufficiently serious to call in a physician. Are you familiar with the
symptoms of the grippe?" Mrs. F. nodded.

"Very well. When you began to grow worse you telegraphed your sister."

"But," interjected the sister, "that won't do; that won't hold together
because Frank called me up on the telephone a few moments after he
returned to Chicago and I told him I didn't know where Fannie was...." I
stopped to think....

"Then we'll have to make the telegram reach you immediately _after_ he
telephoned and, as he disappeared so abruptly without telling even his
office force where he was going, you have an explanation for not being
able to reach him.... Now, about the Cleveland week: you didn't know
that your sister had gone away because you yourself were out of town. I
believe that really was the case, was it not?"

"Quite true," replied the sister. "I was spending a few days at
Wheaton."

"Then so far, it is clear, is it not?... Mr. Hartley will take care of
the article which appeared in the Club Window ... and if your husband
arrives, I'll try to take care of him.... Now, ... let us think: are
there any points we have overlooked?" There was a silence while each of
us reviewed the situation. It was Mrs. F. who spoke first.

"Suppose--suppose Frank has set detectives on my track and they find out
that you've not been to Cleveland! O, I'm sure he'll do it! It's just
like Frank! You don't know what a brute he can be. O, it's all very well
to say that I am to blame--that I am in the wrong, but if you had lived
with Frank for eight years as I have you'd understand some things--and
not treat me as if I was a ----"

"Stop that!" I felt my eyes snap with the blaze she had kindled. She
snivelled and sobbed a bit, then relaxed into sullen silence.

"If your husband _has_ employed detectives we'll have to meet the
contingency by standing together. In other words we'll perjure ourselves
like--perfect ladies. Mr. Hartley says--and being a man he ought to
know--that no man would have the courage to tell me I was not telling
the truth, even if he thought so."

"We'll never get away with it--we'll never get away with it," wailed
Mrs. F.

It was the sister who spoke next.

"And suppose Frank does not show up--suppose he doesn't come at all but
waits for the detectives' report and----"

"And begins action for divorce without even saying a word about it!" It
was Madame who interjected this possibility. "Wouldn't that be just like
him! Wouldn't that be Frank just down to the ground? Edith knows how
cold-blooded he is, don't you, Edith? O, it's too awful! I never could
live through such a thing! I wouldn't live! I'd kill myself--I'd throw
myself into the lake! I'd----"

"Don't you think you are wearing that threat a little threadbare?" I
asked quietly, henceforth addressing myself to the sister.

"In the event that your brother-in-law does not come or that we hear
nothing from him, there is only one thing left: you must take your
sister back to Chicago ... and I'll go with you...."

I believe my voice petered out before I completed the sentence. The idea
was repugnant, but was it not all revolting in the extreme? I had given
my promise to Will to "see it through" and I intended to do so to the
best of my ability. Mrs. F.'s sister broke my train of thought. She
stood before me with averted eyes struggling to keep back the tears, and
twisting her hands nervously.

"Mrs. Hartley ... I don't want to appear maudlin ... but I think ... you
understand how I feel.... It seems almost inane to say ... how much we
... appreciate what you are doing.... For my sister's sake I thank you
... I...."

"I'm not doing it for your sister's sake"--I tried to speak gently but
everything in me seemed to have grown hard and unyielding--"nor for my
husband's sake; neither for my own; I've got a boy--a son ... and there
are two little girls...."

A volley of sobs smote our ears and shook the bed.

"My poor babies! The poor darlings!... I wish they had never been born!"
...

"It's too bad you didn't think of them before, Fannie," her sister
answered caustically. It was the first expression of censure she had
voiced. Mrs. F. bounced to a sitting position: yes, _bounced_ is the
only adequate description. Grief had made a quick shift to anger. She
glared at her sister.

"So you've turned against me, too, have you? I might have expected it:
that's the gratitude you feel for all I've done for you. Where would you
be if it were not for me?--you'd be pounding somebody's typewriter for
five dollars a week! This is the thanks I get for sacrificing myself for
the whole family! Every one of them will blame me for the whole
business. What right have you to judge? How does anybody know what I've
suffered for years living with that man?... literally starving for
affection, ... he never took the trouble to understand my temperament
... he neglected me, he----"

"Hah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-" ... It was my turn to indulge in hysteria, only
mine was of the laughing variety: I laughed until the tears came--until
I sank back from sheer exhaustion. From their expression Madame and her
sister thought I had gone suddenly mad.

"What are you laughing at?" she snapped, glaring at me with suppressed
rage.

"My dear," I responded feebly, "my dear, don't you realize what an awful
old chestnut that neglected wife story is? Mr. Hartley says they all use
it ... it is the cardinal excuse, the subterfuge all married women
resort to, to justify their own infidelities."

"Did--did Mr. Hartley intimate----?"

"O, no! Mr. Hartley betrayed none of your confidences ... but, tell me
honestly ..."--I leaned forward and clasped my knees to better
accentuate my words--"do you really expect a man of the world to believe
that--or care whether you are neglected or not? You know that men gossip
and bandy women's names about their clubs--not in so many damning words,
but with a knowing wink, a shrug of the shoulder, this head-shake, or,
'by pronouncing some doubtful phrase ... or such ambiguous giving out'
... my dear ... I have a rare collection of mash-notes which my
actor-husband has from time to time tossed laughingly into my lap. Their
character varies like the colour of the paper on which they are
written. There is the white, the pale blue, and several shades of
lavender.... The actor's world is full of lavender ladies of the Bovary
type: the wonder of it is that so many of them 'get away with it' as you
have so elegantly expressed it. Suppose _you_ don't get away with it ...
suppose your husband divorces you ... what will become of you? How will
you live? You're not equipped to make your own living. You couldn't even
typewrite--like your sister. Suppose I were to divorce my husband,
naming you as co-respondent: do you flatter yourself he would marry you?
And let us assume that he did: How long do you think it would last? He
is a poor man. His profession is a purely speculative one. His income is
assured for only two weeks at a time, except in rare instances. He
couldn't give you the jewels, the furs, the motors and the luxuries you
now enjoy. How long do you believe your mad passion would endure,
stripped of little appurtenances like wine suppers and suites of rooms
in the best hotels?... Perhaps you'd become an actress like so many
women who look on the stage as an open sesame to a life of
immorality.... Like so many women with a screw loose in their moral
machinery ... no, don't you say a word! This is my scene--and I am going
to hold the centre of the stage for once in my career!... I know your
kind, mi-lady.... You belong to that great class of over-fed and
under-bred women who make life so hard for the rest of their sex. You're
one of the wasters; you waste what does not rightfully belong to you;
what you usurp in your greediness, in your pandering to your vanities,
in your compromise with your better instincts, in your connivance with
the very devil who finds some mischief still for idle hands to do! You
stimulate your passions with alcohol and mistake the fumes for love! You
haven't the courage to come out and be a genuine prostitute, but you ply
the trade in the rôle of an adulteress. For God's sake, wake up! Look
yourself in the eyes before it is too late! If you have no self-respect,
no respect for your sex, try at least to respect the rights of those
little souls you've brought into the world without their asking. O, yes,
cry!... Crocodile tears and alcoholic drool!... It's a mistake to
believe that all women have the maternal instinct ... so have female
cats and dogs--and rabbits." ...

I had risen as my fury sought to master me. I stood beside the bed
looking down at her ... making an ineffectual last-ditch fight for my
self-control. Something about the woman ... the very quality of her
night-dress--the heavily jewelled fingers--maddened me. The poison
coursed through my veins like quick-silver ... once before in my life I
had felt it ... before my boy was born ... _then_ I had succumbed to a
desire to wreak physical vengeance ... the same madness seized me now
... I saw her shrink from me....

"O, you--_you_ ----!"

... I didn't say it; I caught myself in time. The blood stained my face
with shame--shame with the very coarseness of the thought; shame with
the whole revolting situation. Was I, too, become impregnated with the
corroding influence of my environment? I turned and walked toward the
door. As I reached for the knob, it opened and some one entered
abruptly. I jumped aside to avoid being struck.

I knew who he was though I had never seen him before. The next moment I
had reached for his hand and grasped it impulsively, at the same time
laying a warning finger on my lips and indicating the bed.

"O, Mr. F., you don't know how glad I am to see you. We've been worried
to death ... she's asleep now, after the most racking night ... do you
mind not waking her for the present?... of course if you'd rather ..." I
waited while he looked at the figure of his wife, lying helpless with
her face to the wall, while his eyes roved to question those of the
sister, then back to mine with the single word:

"Sick?... How long has she been sick?"

"Ever since we arrived here; it's the grippe, I think, though we
couldn't induce her to see a doctor. She's been so upset at not hearing
from you.... Do you mind stepping into the hall where we can talk more
freely without danger of disturbing her?... Edith will call us if she
awakens, won't you, Edith?" ...

       *       *       *       *       *

Edith did not call. The hall was draughty; I managed a sneeze. Mr. F.
suggested that we go down to the grill and have a drink. In the elevator
I saw him glance furtively at me.... I was humming softly to myself. I
watched his eyes in the mirror; they had a confused look not unmixed
with suspicion. Not until after the second cocktail did he thaw a bit.
He asked me whether I had dined. I told him I had not. After he had
ordered, he leaned back in his chair and gave me a penetrating look. I
met his eyes and smiled a little.

"You look tired," I said.

"I am--rather. These sleeper jumps take it out of a fellow."

"They surely do ... and I presume you've been worried to death about
Fannie." The name slipped glibly from my lips. He shot me a quick glance
which told me the familiar use of his wife's name had been effective. He
shifted uneasily in his seat as he answered.

"Well, yes----"

"We have been fairly living on the long distance telephone trying to
reach you. What on earth was the trouble? Edith received Fannie's
telegram a minute after you called her up and when she tried to reach
you--well, she couldn't, that's all...."

"There was something the matter with the connection ... it's been off
for several days ..." he replied.

"Of course we could have telegraphed but we didn't want to alarm you," I
went on, meeting his own brave lie with another. "As a matter of fact I
think we all were more scared than hurt. Fannie had had a cold while we
were still in Chicago--that's a trying climate in the winter. Then when
we reached Cleveland, there wasn't much of an improvement in the matter
of weather and I felt a bit guilty in having urged her to go with us." I
toyed with, the celery and wiped off imaginary soot.

"Were you in Cleveland?"

I looked up at him in mild surprise.

"Why, of course. It was at my invitation that Fannie accompanied us. She
was bored to death in Chicago ... it must be deadly monotonous--this
same routine day after day ... the same faces and nothing new to talk
about.... You know--you know if you were my husband I shouldn't let you
run away on hunting trips and leave me behind.... I don't think you men
realize how stupid it becomes with no change of menu--as it were...."

I reproved him with a smile. For the first time his eyes sent back a
glint of warmth.

"How long have you known Fannie? It's odd that I've never--had the
pleasure of meeting you before." (The pleasure was an after-thought.)

"O ... I've known Fannie for ... let me see ... nearly three years...."
(I made a mental note of this for "Fannie's" benefit.) "We met when Will
played Chicago two seasons since. We took quite a fancy to each other,
and last winter when she came to New York we went about together and
became quite good friends.... I presume you were away on one of your
hunting trips last winter ... naughty sir ... that's the reason I didn't
meet you.... This trip I brought Boy to Chicago.... You haven't seen my
young son, have you? You must make his acquaintance to-morrow. We're
most awfully vain about him ... think he's the only boy in the world. I
suppose you feel that way about your little girls ... they _are_
beauties. They've got your eyes, though they have inherited Fannie's
regular features...."

Would my tongue never stop wagging? What manner of woman had I suddenly
become? I did not recognize myself. Was it a case of self-hypnosis and
was I really feeling the interest and friendliness I pretended? He was
not precisely an Adonis; there was something rough, almost uncouth,
about him in spite of the veneer his money had brought. But there was a
kindliness, a wholesouledness that made itself felt. Under any other
conditions I should have liked him.... I saw him look at his watch.

"What time is it?... The performance will soon be over and Mr. Hartley
will wonder where I am.... Wouldn't he be surprised to walk in here and
see me dining with a strange man?... I hope you're not afraid of getting
yourself talked about...."

"No, I guess not," he laughed back. I was silent for a time, while I
wrestled with the breast of a squab. I felt his eyes upon me. When I
looked at him I saw that he was revolving something in his mind, and I
sensed the subject. I gave him time to think it over. After a while I
leaned back in my chair.

"I'm sorry to confess it, but I'm beginning to feel a bit tired," I
sighed. "Even your genial presence will not keep my eyes open much
longer.... Edith I'm sure is feeling the strain, too. Well, we'll all
sleep better to-night--after our worry. 'All's well that ends well'--and
that reminds me--my husband and I were admiring a set of Shakespeare you
have in your library."

"Um--yes; I remember it. I bought it for the binding. Don't believe I
ever saw the inside of it...." He freshened my glass of wine.

"You're not much of a drinker, are you?"

"Haven't got brains enough to stand it," I answered flippantly.

He laughed; it had a true ring to it.

The game was in my hands.

"I guess you mean you've got brains enough to _with_stand it."

Would the dinner never come to an end? I thought. My body seemed to grow
old with the minutes. At last the waiter cleared the table. When he had
gone for a liqueur, Mr. F. took some letters from his pocket. From the
packet he selected a piece of printed matter. He laid it face down upon
the table while he replaced the letters. Then he looked at me, drumming
with his fingers over the spot where the clipping lay. The waiter
returned. Mr. F. drained the cognac glass and called for another. While
it was being brought he folded his arms upon the table and leaned toward
me.

"I wonder whether I'd better show you something...."

I assumed the same attitude; it was conducive to confidence.

"Show me what?"

His drumming became louder.

"No, I guess I won't!" ...

"Now, I call that unkind--to pique my curiosity and leave me suspended
in mid-air."

He folded the clipping and rattled it between his fingers.

"Is that what you were going to show me? Wait a moment." ... I leaned
toward him to better examine the paper, then relaxed against the back of
the chair and smiled.

"I think I know what it is.... Will you lay me a wager? What will you
wager that I can guess what that paper is the very first time?"

He sprawled and tilted back his chair good-naturedly.

"O, I'll bet you a box of candy or a bunch of violets."

"A five-pound box of candy--I don't like violets. Agreed?"

He nodded.

"It's a clipping from the Club Window...."

"Then you've seen it?"

"Of course I've seen it, silly man--hasn't everybody seen it? And wasn't
my Willy furiously angry? He wanted to take the first train back to
Chicago and clear out the whole establishment. It was all Fannie and I
could do to calm him.... He said he was going to see you about it
because he thought you and he should get together and take some kind of
action against the slanderous sheet. I tell him he's foolish to pay any
attention to it; just let it die of inanition. Don't you think so?"

"Well, I was a little upset myself when I read it. I didn't know what
the devil to think...."

"Well, I know you've got too much sense to believe anything wrong about
your wife.... I can appreciate how you and Will feel about it and that
you'd like to make them retract--but--isn't it best to ignore it?--so
long as _we_ know it's a malicious lie.... It's a shocking thing the way
the press in this country construes license for freedom.... The libel
laws are wholly inadequate. They manage that sort of thing much better
in England.... There are so many evil-minded people in the world--don't
you find it so?"

"Well, I confess, there's always somebody hanging around anxious to
disseminate gossip, though I've never observed any of them helping along
the nice things you hear."

"Now that we are on the subject, I'll tell you how this happened; the
woman who concocted that libellous attack is an ugly perverted
creature--she must be perverted or she would not be earning her
livelihood in such a questionable way, don't you think so? Several years
ago when she met my husband she volunteered to write some nice little
personalia about him. He wasn't as well known then as now and every
little bit helps, you know.... Well, Will kept up a desultory
acquaintance with the woman and saw her from time to time. She was in
New York when Fannie was there last winter, by the way. I don't know
just how it came about, but the spinster scribbler developed a jealous
streak and upbraided Will for being ungrateful for all she had done for
him. I'm sure she could not have done a great deal for anyone in a
wretched paper like the Club Window. To tell you the truth she was
infatuated with Will. To use his own words--she made a play for him and
he threw her down hard! Mr. Hartley is not given to that sort of
thing--and if he were--you may be sure I should have something to say
about it." I nodded sententiously.

"Yes, I guess you'd make it pretty warm for any poacher on your
preserves!" We both laughed. I believe I even jerked my head pertly to
mark my cocksureness. And, as I turned away, my eyes settled upon Will.
He was standing in the doorway, evidently having just entered, since he
still wore his overcoat and carried his hat in his hand. I half-rose. My
host followed my move.

"It's Will--it's Mr. Hartley ... come in, Will...." I beckoned to him
and stole a glance at Mr. F. No, there was no hesitation on his part. He
rose and crossed to meet Will with outstretched hand. My hand shook so
that I could hardly raise the wine glass to my lips. I drained the last
drop and sank into my chair. The game was won....

       *       *       *       *       *

It was nearly an hour later when I rose to leave the table. Will had
eaten the supper which Mr. F. had insisted upon ordering and they were
still calling for wine. I had steered the conversation clear of the
perilous rocks and felt that I could now safely leave the two men
together. They rose with me.

"I'm sorry to leave such delightful company--I believe I said something
like that an hour ago, did I not, Mr. F.?... I want to drop in on Edith
and make my peace with her. I fear she'll feel neglected. If you require
my services during the night please don't hesitate to ring me up, though
I feel sure Fannie will be ever so much better now that you've arrived.
I presume you two gentlemen want to talk things over--that wretched
slander, I mean--only--" and at this point I assumed a mock-serious
attitude--"don't do anything until you hear from me, will you?... Now,
please don't move.... I'll find my way.... Good-night, sir ... and don't
forget that you owe me five pounds of the best candy in Cincinnati."

When I reached Mrs. F.'s room, her sister had already opened the door.
She had heard the elevator stop and was waiting. The girl's face was
drawn and the circles under the eyes had deepened. Mrs. F., too, showed
the strain of waiting.

"Mr. F. and my husband are downstairs; they were exchanging funny
stories when I left ... there will be no pistols--nor a divorce on this
count ... now, if you have another spell of hysterics I think I shall
kill you.... Edith ... we had better begin calling each other 'dearie'
and that sort of thing to accustom ourselves, for we've known each other
three years ... please repeat it after me so that you won't forget
it.... Edith, should you mind pouring me a dose of Fannie's valerian?...
I think I took a wee drop too much ... my teeth are fairly chattering
... now let me think.... I'll begin at the moment we left the room
together ... please don't interrupt unless there is something you do not
grasp ... he may come at any moment...."

       *       *       *       *       *

I went to the telephone directly I entered my room and called for the
room clerk. I told him I wanted another room on the same floor. While I
waited for the bell-boy to bring the key I wrote a note and pinned it on
the mirror where it would attract Will's attention. "I have gone to
another room. Don't disturb me, please. We'll talk it over to-morrow."

When I had turned the key in the lock and had surveyed my own domain I
felt strangely light in the head. I opened a window and mechanically
arranged my toilet articles. Then I disrobed, unpinned my hair and
cleansed my face with cold cream. At least, I _assume_ that I did all
these, for the next day, when I awoke to consciousness, everything was
in place, my hair was braided in two pig-tails, and my face still
showed traces of cold cream. From the moment I had locked myself in I
had no recollection of what followed. The doctor called it "syncope."




CHAPTER XIV


         "St. Louis, Mo., March 10th.

     "Darling Girl:

     "I am taking for granted that you arrived safely. There has been no
     word from you since you returned home a week since. I hope you
     found the apartment in good shape and that things did not suffer
     too much wear and tear at the hands of our late tenants.

     "Just as I predicted, the folks were much disappointed at not
     seeing you here. There was a regular family reunion. Grandma Murray
     came on from Indianapolis and two of my paternal aunts all the way
     from Kansas. As none of the relatives has ever seen Boy you may
     imagine how disappointed they were. However, it couldn't be helped.
     Naturally I did not tell them that you had been to Cincinnati. I
     let them infer that you were not sufficiently recovered from the
     effects of your recent operation to permit your making the trip. I
     fully appreciate the state of your nerves and that a relapse was
     inevitable; just the same I think you should write me and keep me
     informed of your condition. Take it quietly for a few weeks and
     you'll come out all right. Don't let that Cincinnati affair prey on
     your mind: a little later when your health is better, you won't
     take it so seriously. Now don't jump at the conclusion that I
     don't appreciate the way you played up, or the narrow escape I have
     had. You may feel sure that sort of thing will never happen again.
     And that reminds me: I had a letter from Mr. F. saying he had
     consulted his lawyer about taking action against the Club Window
     and had been advised to let the matter drop. (_Requiescat in
     pace!_) He wished to be remembered to you.

     "The weather is depressing. I'm not feeling up to my standard. I
     suspect I have been eating too much and exercising too little.
     Well, Girlie, the train leaves in an hour and I have still some
     odds and ends to look after. I enclose our route to follow Kansas
     City. Now write me at once or I shall begin to worry about you. A
     bunch of kisses to Boy from his Dad, reserving all you want for
     yourself, of course.

    "With all my love,

    "Your devoted husband,

        "WILL."

This letter was a week old. I had made several attempts to answer it but
all had ended in the waste-basket. Following my home-coming, I had been
glad to lie quietly in bed in obedience to the doctor's orders. A heavy
inertia lay upon me. My nights were an amorphous jumble of improbable
situations; I awoke of mornings with a nausea at heart. My mind was
furred with unpleasant memories. It revolved in circles. The more I
thought the faster it whirled, resulting in complete confusion. Inner
adjustment seemed impossible. I realized in a hazy way that I must
arouse myself or fall a prey to melancholia. Even Boy's laughter as it
was wafted to me from another room unleashed a thousand apprehensions.
The effulgence his being had shed into my life was now dimmed by fears
for his future. Should I be able to steer his craft, even launch it
safely, _preparedly_ on the turbulent sea of life? It was, probably, in
the very nature of things that I should exclude my husband from any
participation in my plans for the child. A fierce, almost a defiant,
sense of proprietary right began to assert itself in relation to our
son. The inertia gave way to a state of turbulence, which burned like a
consuming fever. To Will's numerous letters and enquiries I at last
responded by telegraph, "All well," I said.

One day there came a bulky envelope addressed in Will's handwriting. It
enclosed a letter from John Gailbraith, the sculptor, who was still in
Paris. Across the top Will had written: "This will interest you." Under
separate cover came a package of photographs, reproductions of the
colossal work he had recently completed for the Spring Exhibition at the
Salon.

     "I have great hopes for this," he wrote. "(Hope is always
     promise-crammed, isn't it?) You will see that I have called it
     'Super-Creation.' It was conceived like a lightning flash but the
     working out, the compelling cold, hard stone to express clearly
     what I intended to convey is the result of a dogged grind of nearly
     three years' incessant toil. Have I succeeded, do you think? Of
     course you have not seen the original, but the photographs are
     excellent work, having been taken at various angles and positions
     and under my supervision. You will observe that the work is--well,
     nothing short of monumental will express it. And, unless a
     government or an institution is moved to buy it, I shall probably
     have to build a house around it! However, I'm not discouraged
     though I've gone in debt for years to come and mortgaged almost my
     soul in order to get the wherewithal to complete the work. I
     suppose this is what you call 'the artistic temperament.' But I
     simply had to do it--I had to get it out of my system and in doing
     so I feel that I have lived up to the best that was in me. After
     all there is some consolation in the thought that one _has_ lived
     up to one's best instincts. How goes your own work? And your
     missus? Ask her to write me and tell me without circumlocution what
     she thinks of my effort, especially the conception on the whole. I
     should like to have discussed it with her and to have had her
     opinion in the making. Over here one gets only the one-sided
     opinion of one's confrères or the unimaginative view-point of a few
     moneyed Americans who want names (_BIG TYPE_) to fill up the bare
     wall-spaces.... I should like to ask your wife whether she is
     pursuing her work in earnest or whether like so many lady
     _dilettantes_ she is only amusing herself.... How I should like to
     see you both here this coming summer! Is it not possible? I'll turn
     over my ménage to you if that is an inducement. Let me hear from
     you soon and send me the latest picture of the son and heir.

     "Yours fraternally,

         "J. G."

I had thrilled at the mere suggestion of a trip abroad but relegated the
thought to a background of remote probabilities and gave myself up to an
eager contemplation of the photographic reproductions of the sculptor's
work. Following the numbers indicated on the back of each, I arranged
the photographs consecutively across the wall.

The form appeared to be a kind of spiral, each step or incline complete
in itself yet suggesting a connecting thread. At first glance I was
struck with the multiplicity of figures, all nearly life size. But as my
eagerness gave way to soberer perspective, something I had overlooked
now asserted itself: _In the score of characters represented there were
but two faces--that of one man and one woman!_ That is to say, the two
faces were reproduced ... yet ... or did one's fancy play at tricks?...
I applied the magnifying glass.... Yes, there were but two faces, both
repeatedly used by the artist, but with what wondrous and illuminating
difference! Starting from the left and lowest plane--symbolic of the
theme--there was embodied in the figures of the man and maid the lowest
form of love.... The youthful prettiness of the girl, the soft roundness
of her form, the maiden breast ... all these but accentuated the
undeveloped soul. Her very attitude, the abandon as she lay smiling,
half-hid amongst the leaves and blooms ... here, indeed, was "a parley
to provocation." ... Above her towered the figure of a man. In his
spare, sinewy form, conscient of its strength, vibrant with sex, the
young male was epitomized.... "Instinct" need not be carved across the
base.... Instinct, the first and lowest form of love.

From the grassy knoll the path ascended to a rocky promontory, bleak,
arid. Straining 'gainst the fury of the storm, the man and woman
climbed; his muscles tense, confusion limned upon his face; the woman,
crouching in her fright, hiding her face in her wind-tossed hair; while
underfoot they trampled on a mask, the leering mask of former self ...
and, riding on the wind, half cloud, half god, a phantom with veiled
face laid on the lash.... Confusion.... Chaos....

The path led on and up through thorny underbrush; a parched earth; the
cactus plant; some blanched bones, a horned toad. He stood apart with
sullen mien; his features thick and brutalized; his muscles lax and
loose, as if impotent rage had yielded to dumb apathy. The woman, lying
prone, distorted with revolt and fright, seeking to shut out from view
the hideous deformity at her breast--half man, half beast; its clenched
fists, contorted legs raised to rebel; the grotesque mask miming its own
despair. And in the background, poised on abyss-edge, a Hecate band
whirled in orgy-dance.... Where is the tutelary goddess now--the Better
Self, the Soul of Things? And even as I asked I followed in the path
which, still inclining, reached a broad plateau. In the foreground, the
man--gaunt and grim--the grimness of despair; his muscles knotted, his
horny hands, the poised axe. Through the matted woods a skulking
wolf.... Beyond, the woman; haggard of face, drawn with fatigue; no
longer full and round of form. Dropping seeds on fresh-tilled earth; a
living burden on her back; around her neck two chubby arms. And at the
entrance to the cave, half blended with the rocks, the Inscrutable One
stood guard.... "The Will to Live" was written here....

The path winds on, steeper, more tortuous still; by cliffs, abyss,
_impasse_, bald peaks, the Mount is reached ... and here they rest....
Like complements they stand, hand clasping hand, looking out and beyond;
serene of brow, though scarred with age. An august peace, the harvest
yield. A straight firm youth hangs on his mother's arm ... and in that
life is blent the best of both--the purpose of the race. The mantle of
the clouds half moulds a form; the hands reach forth to stroke their
eyes.... It is _the awakening_....




CHAPTER XV


When Experience came in some time later, bringing a cup of chicken
broth, she found me at my writing desk. Commenting on my flushed cheeks,
she urged me back to bed. But a feverish energy had seized upon me: to
work, to accomplish, to be independent of another's maintenance. There
was a prescience that in the not far distant future I should have need
of such resource, materially and spiritually. I shook off the foreboding
as a connotation of my physical condition. To take my place in the
world's work was the grandiose euphemism with which I lulled my
uneasiness. That same night I unearthed my working kit from the closet
in which it had been stored. One of the rooms of our apartment bearing
the honorary title of "boudoir" had a southern exposure, and, as we were
on the first floor nearest heaven, the light was good even on gloomy
days, which abounded at this season of the year. I shall never forget
the sense of exhilaration with which I cleared the decks for action. It
was as if some great force had breathed the vital impetus into my
nostrils. When I had donned my brown overall-apron I paused and inhaled,
deep and long. It was the first free breath I had drawn for weeks.

In reviewing the busts I had made of Boy while he was still a baby I was
struck with the child's likeness to his father. Even Experience
commented on it. I set to modelling other heads. Inspired by the example
of our sculptor friend I essayed studies in expression. Boy, in a
laughing mood; Boy, crying; sulking, in a temper; Boy asleep, his head
pillowed on Snyder--Snyder, now so altered and disfigured by painless
surgery at the hands of Experience as to be hardly recognizable. From
the face and head I turned to a study of the hands. It had always
appeared to me that there was more of the real character written in the
human hand than in any other feature of the human form. I studied,
absorbingly, the expression the artist had portrayed in the hands of the
Inscrutable One as they emerged from the cloud-like drapery in the final
grouping on the Mount. Strength, firmness, a certain largeness and
benignity and withal a caressing tenderness.... It pleased and
surprised me to observe, how, with each new effort, the clay responded
more readily to my touch. Sometimes I made experiments with modelling
wax; a pinch here, a pressure there and the whole expression changed.

When my touch had mastered a certain sureness and deftness I planned a
nude of Boy with the idea of later executing it in marble. I worked
unceasingly; a relentless energy urged me on--to what purpose it never
suggested itself to enquire. In my ardour I hardly paused to eat. But,
conception is one thing; execution another. I began to understand the
"dogged grind" the sculptor had spoken of. A kind of despair flagged my
spirit. At such times I dragged myself out of doors. Sometimes Boy would
accompany me on these walks, but for the greater part I went alone. I
liked the overcast, drizzly days best. There was a quiet, a solace, in
the unfrequented paths and woodsy corners of the upper boundaries of the
Park. I spent hours sitting upon the rocks feeding the friendly
squirrels, or tramping in the leaf-mouldy tangle. And by degrees my
spirit yielded to the balm of solitude. Once again life fell into a
groove. I told myself I had reached a readjustment of my life. For
Boy's sake, if for no other, my husband and I should go on together. The
fact that I still loved my husband I placed as a parenthetic
consideration, in my plans. Boy was the capstone of our married life.
Having brought him into the world without the desire or power of
selection on his part, obviously our first duty was to the child.
"Honour thy father and thy mother" had always appeared to me in dire
need of amendment. Why honour parents who are not qualified to command
either respect or affection? "Be fruitful and multiply": whether saint
or sinner, breed! breed! breed! Paugh! When will a Wise Prophet arise to
reveal a doctrine of eugenics?--to preach that _quality, not quantity_,
makes for the betterment of a race--that to be well born is the rightful
heritage of the unborn....

With the resolution to write my husband out of the fullness of my
convictions I hurried homeward. The wind had shifted, and sharp bits of
sleet cut against my face. Hearing me come in, Experience had brought me
a cup of tea. I smiled at the ginger-bread dogs--all replicas of
Snyder--which she told me she had made with the hope of amusing Boy. He
had been querulous and quite unlike his happy self; she feared he was
not well, though at this moment he was sleeping quietly. I tip-toed into
his room and, discerning no unnatural symptoms, I left him undisturbed.

The letter written, I gave myself up to the quiet hour: it was dusk, and
with night a soothing hush seemed to pervade the activities of man. In
the shadows of the room the whiteness of the plaster casts gleamed like
tombstones, the lonely sentinels of the dead. I recall I shuddered at
the thought and forthwith switched on the light. Once in every little
while I looked in upon my Boy. When at last he opened his eyes and
smiled at me, I hugged him to my breast with such vehemence as to make
him cry out. His bedtime bath had always been the signal for a romp.
To-night, however, he seemed disinclined to play. A hot dryness of his
skin caused me to take his temperature. I found nothing disquieting in
the slight rise, and in response to his mood I lay down beside him to
wait for the sand-man. All night he tossed. In the morning the
temperature had risen to an alarming degree. I sent for the doctor. He
came twice during the day. In the night Boy was seized with a
convulsion. When the doctor arrived in answer to a summons by
telephone, he looked grave. Something clutched about my heart. It was
with almost superhuman effort I framed the words.... "Shall I ... send
for his father?..." The doctor nodded. "How long will it take him to get
here?" he said....




CHAPTER XVI


In a driving rain, under a weeping sky, we followed the little white
casket to the grave--the three of us. There, in the presence of only the
mole-faced grave-diggers and the man of professional black, we yielded
him up. Experience had asked, with a kind of awe, whether she should
call in a minister. I could have shrieked at the mere suggestion! A
minister? On what pretence? To mumble platitudinous euphemisms, worn
thread-bare from usage--to essay to comfort me with specious consolation
ground out like a gramophone: "Be brave, my child! He has gone to a
better world," or "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," or, again,
"You are not alone in your affliction; other mothers have suffered their
dear ones to be removed," et cetera, et cetera. Words! Words! Words!...

As they lowered him in the grave, his father held me close and, in a
voice tremulous with tears, he quoted reverently: "And from his fair
and unpolluted flesh may violets spring." ... And when the earth thud
harshly 'gainst the coffin lid, closing him away forever ... never again
to hold him in my arms--never again to feel his cheek on mine.... O,
Death! your sting lies buried in the hearts of those who stay behind ...
and then to leave him there ... alone ... in the heavy silence of the
dead ... so cold ... all unresisting, his roguish laughter hushed ...
his lips, once red, now blue and drawn ... the wax-like lids shadowed
with heavy fringe ... my Boy ... my Boy ... whose coming we had
deplored, whose little life had so entwined itself about my heart as
made a part of me--the better part.... Well ... he had not tarried
long.... Boy ... _Boy_....

In the overwhelming grief which had come to me, life appeared a void; a
vacuous, heavy-footed thing, with moments of suspended thought, a
merciful numbness of despair, a sound, a familiar sight, a rush of
memory, a freshet of tears, each overlapped the other, so fast they
followed. One of the unpardonable and most resented slights to those in
affliction is the even tenor with which the world wags on its way,
callous and indifferent. One would have it stop, take heed, upheave....
So, when Will announced that it were expedient to rejoin his company
almost immediately I felt a sacrilege was about to be committed. His
rôle was being played by an understudy, who, after the manner of
understudies, was neither prepared nor equal to the emergency which had
suddenly confronted him. Will urged me to accompany him, pointing out
that to remain in the apartment alone with ever-present reminders of my
loss were to nurse my grief and keep the wound always fresh

    "Unnumbered cords, frail strands full fraught with pain,
    That join the soul to things of time and sense."

The thought of leaving all that held the nearness of his spirit was
repugnant to me. I wanted to be alone with my grief. Gradually I came to
realize that it was for the best. Experience, too--simple, honest
soul--was shaken by the suddenness and swiftness of our loss. I decided
to send her to her home for a rest and change of scene. After all, what
did it matter where I went?... Boy was not there....

The season dragged by, drab and comfortless. Will's devotion to me was
the only ray of light in the murkiness of my spirit. Our common grief
had bridged the gulf between us. All the gentleness, the tenderness in
his nature seemed to revive. He never left me to accept invitations in
which he knew I could not share; something like the old camaraderie was
restored between us. I found a kind of balm in the thought that, if the
death of my son had been the means of bringing my husband and me closer
together, the sacrifice had not been in vain--and yet--and yet ... in
the inner consciousness of my heart I knew the truth: had I been called
upon to choose, the sacrifice had not been Boy. Truly, life is a
continuous compromise.

The season ended, we returned to New York. Because we could not afford
to move--there being the usual deficit in the family budget--we opened
the apartment. To dwell upon the resurging pain which the reminders in
my home undammed were to make fetish of my grief. Neither did I ask
Experience to return. She, too, belonged to the past of things.

Will had determined to leave his present management and seek new fields.
The company for the next season was to be curtailed and the cast
cheapened, an extended tour of one-night stands. The summer was passed
in New York, and luckily, except for periodic waves of tropical heat,
the weather was not unendurable. Will spent a goodly part of his time at
the Lambs' Club, where he said he kept in touch with the activities of
the managerial world. The season promised to be backward. Plans appeared
to be slow of consummation. The tedium began to tell on Will's nerves
and his temper, especially when he found himself suspended from the
Lambs for non-payment of dues. None of his colleagues came to his
rescue. That the theatrical profession is a fraternal organization is
another of those popular fallacies. There can be no spirit of fraternity
in an overcrowded profession.

It became expedient that Will appeal to his father for financial
assistance, a resort which he postponed as long as possible, since the
old gentleman invariably accompanied his grudging remittances with
advice, censure and no little contumely. Will could not understand why
he was not "snapped up" at once, so he expressed it. He had made good in
his last engagement, had kept himself well advertised (_vide_ the
press-agent) and it would appear that, as a natural sequence, his
services should be in demand. He commented on the statement made by
several managers, viz.: they had nothing in his line. It was evident
that in making a pronounced success in a certain _genre_ of plays he had
become identified with the one type of hero and the managers could "see"
him in no other. Managers are, with rare exceptions, an unimaginative
lot. In no other way can one explain the deluge of plays patterned on
the same type: for example, let a manager by hit or miss produce
successfully a play built around the Far West, immediately there spring
up a dozen of the ilk. Or, again, let a play of farcical construction
score a hit; the public is immediately surfeited with a run of farces.
So with the actor. Let him once become identified with heroes of
romantic drama and the manager fears to entrust him with the dress-suit
rôle, and vice versa.

More and more I was impressed with the ephemeral quality of the actor's
success. At best the actor's is an aleatory profession and, as in all
games of chance, the losses score highest.

It was well along in the autumn when Will signed and immediately began
rehearsals. The star was a petulant little lady who, by grace of her
marriage with a manager, had been hoisted to her present position, a
position to which she was not equal either by training, personality or
talent. For several seasons the husband-manager had invested--and
lost--large sums of money in the attempt to build up a following for his
wife. The present venture was a kind of last straw. That there was more
or less "feeling" between the couple was evinced by their frequent
_passages d'armes_ of a personal nature, at rehearsals. Accustomed as he
was to the thoroughness of the stage-management under which he had
worked during the past two seasons, Will found the hit and miss methods
of his new affiliation disconcerting and irritating. In addition to
this, the husband-manager-director had a picturesque if not a literate
command of the language. He was in the habit of standing in the centre
aisle or at the back of the theatre and shouting his directions to the
members on the stage. When, as sometimes happened, a member resented the
manager's method of criticism in no uncertain terms, that personage
would back down and with tearful, if blasphemous, appeal explain
himself. On opening nights, in response to the persistent calls from the
claque, the manager reluctantly (!) appeared before the curtain to bow
his acknowledgment--in shirt sleeves--his air of exhaustion contrasting
sharply with his jaws which worked a piece of chewing-gum like a
ticket-chopper in rush hours. It would seem that the vanity of actors is
not an exclusive attribute.

The metropolitan reception of the play and star was not one of
unmitigated joy. The husband-manager, not liking the opinions of the
press, talked back both in print and from the stage. Two ghastly weeks
in New York, playing to a papered house or empty seats, and the company
took to the coal regions. Another fortnight was spent sparring for open
time, reluctantly doled out to the weak, and the company gave up the
ghost. Obviously Will had entered upon a cycle of bad luck. I took upon
myself to look for an engagement. Not only on account of the material
consideration, but because the emptiness and loneliness of my life had
become no longer endurable. Self-imposed tasks palled. My mind refused
to concentrate upon the line of study I had outlined. "And thus the
native hue of resolution is sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought."
The career I once planned for myself had been consigned to the dump
heap of lost illusions. I could not touch the clay which once had
thrilled me with ambition.

Will went about with me on my visits to various managers. He encouraged
me in my intention and I was glad to interest him, to take him out of
himself, as it were. His run of hard luck had preyed on his nerves and
frayed his temper. There was reason for me to suspect he was drinking
more than was good for him. Finally there came an offer of a small part
in a musical comedy which had settled down for a run in New York. The
fact that I was possessed of no great amount of vocal equipment did not
preclude me from the field. The manager intimated that what I lacked in
voice I made up in pulchritude, though I recall he referred to it as
"shape." The salary was to be thirty-five dollars a week. The gowns were
furnished--those worn by my predecessor--though I was called upon to
supply my own shoes, silk hose and gloves. In reality I was to be
nothing more than a show-girl, with a few lines to speak.

Will was in front the night I made my début. After the performance we
went to a restaurant, there to talk it over. Congratulating me on my
"getting away with it" and telling me how "peachy" I looked, he
laughingly predicted a line of Johnnies at the stage door, flowers, and
the usual perquisites of the chorus girl.... "If you weren't wise to the
game, I'd give you a few pointers," he said, ... "but" ... and here he
reached across the table and patted me on the hands.... "I reckon you're
equal to any situation, old pard.... Just sit tight until I again land
on my feet and then you can cut it out, if you like."

I did not find myself subjected to any fierce onslaughts on the part of
the Johnnies or _viveurs_ about town. Once or twice I received a note
accompanied with flowers. The former I destroyed; the latter I promptly
presented to the least pretty of my five dressing-room mates. She wore
them on the stage and made eyes at the donor, who occupied an upper box,
much to my amusement and to his confusion. I discouraged intimacies of
all kinds, with one exception. But of this more hereafter. The stage
director never attempted to chuck me under the chin or call me "baby,"
as he did other members of the cast. I had had my little run-in with him
at rehearsal when he essayed to yell at me after the manner of his kind.
I stopped short, the orchestra petered out in discord and, walking to
the apron of the stage, I modulated my voice, so that it reached him
quietly but effectively, where he stood in the back of the theatre. "Mr.
M----," I had said, "if you have any further suggestion to offer, you
will please do so in a less offensive manner. My hearing is good and I
believe I have the average amount of intelligence." There was an ominous
silence and the martinet started down the aisle. Behind me I heard a
buzz of approbation from the girls who had suffered at his hands. Just
why the bully changed his mind I never knew. At any rate the rehearsal
was continued. Later the manager chaffed me about the incident. The
manager was an undeveloped little person--as if some hereditary blight
had nipped him in the bud--distinctly Semitic in all his traits. Will
had known him from the time he had abandoned haberdashery for theatrical
management; indeed, I believe he had been a member of the manager's
first venture into the field.

One feature which stands out most prominently in retrospect was my
adaptability to my surroundings. Conditions which once had shocked me no
longer left an impression. Obviously the finer edge of my nature had
worn blunt. Things appeared to me in a kind of impersonal light. My
present path had been chosen from necessity; a part of the scheme of
things, yet a thing apart. The commonplace round of concerns and duties
went on, but life, real life, for the time being lay fallow.
Occasionally, when I caught myself dropping into the slang and jargon I
had absorbed from my fellow workers, I mused a bit and pulled myself up
with a sharp curb. But, as I have said, I was no longer disturbed or
impressed with conditions which once had sent the blood to my cheeks.

The easy familiarity between the sexes which I had thought sufficiently
deplorable in the "legitimate" branch of the theatrical profession was
in the comic opera world flagrantly increased. I have heard a
distinction made between immorality and unmorality, but I fail to
observe any slight deviation from the general result. Vulgar stories,
steeped in smut, went the rounds. Each new one was welcomed and passed
down the line. If one betrayed her disapproval by ignoring the
_raconteur_, she was laughed down and thereafter referred to as "very
up-stage." In the dressing-rooms modesty of person was an unknown
quantity. Not infrequently I found "extra" gentlemen performing lady's
maid service for one of the girls. On one occasion when I slipped on the
iron stairway leading to the stage, badly wrenching my ankle, a sturdy
stage-hand picked me up, carried me to my dressing-room, and, before I
realized what he was about, had pulled off my shoe and was in way of
removing my stocking when I protested. "O, well, if you're that fussy--"
he said as he went out....

One of the most pernicious influences to be contended against by the
girl who tries to go straight is the never-ceasing topic of "men" and
"money." The man behind the bankroll is the basis, in one form or
another, of all the chorus-girl conversations. To be picked out by a man
of means to marry, or, failing this, to be set up in a "swell" apartment
and "put it all over" the girls of her acquaintance, is the hope which
springs eternal in the chorus-girl breast. Even in hard times, when the
champagne appetite needs must be quenched with beer, she dreams of
diamonds. Standing in the wings, waiting for the cue, one hears an
exchange of banter such as this: "Heard you was at the Abbaye last
night.... Where'd you pick him up?... Say, don't you believe anything he
tells you! Henny knows all about him and he says that for a tight-wad
he's got Russell Sage skinned to death!" Or ... "I was at Morrisheimer's
to-day; they're havin' a sale of models. I gotta three-piece velvet suit
for thirty-five dollars, marked down from seventy." ... "Say! He must be
good to you. Why don't you introduce me to some of your gentlemen
friends?"

I once asked a chorus girl of considerable notoriety how she had come to
enter the profession. "O," she replied, "my folks was the poor but
respectable kind. There was a big family of us, and I, bein' the oldest,
had to help out. I didn't get much schoolin' and, after tryin' half a
dozen things like bein' a chamber maid, waitin' in a restaurant and that
kind of business, I tumbled to the fact that I wusn't bad lookin'.
That's all I had; my face and my shape, and the stage was the best place
to show 'em."

My dressing-room mates were typical show-girls; manièré, self-conscious
and always on parade. It was painfully evident they felt themselves
above the chorus, though some of them were pleased to forget the fact
that they were but recently graduated from that class.

One of these girls afterward married an English baronet. I have since
wondered what disposition was made of the baronet's mother-in-law. I
made her acquaintance in the dressing-room one evening, whither she had
come to mend her daughter's wardrobe. She was a splendid specimen of the
complaisant stage-mamma. Clad in rusty black, her portly figure bulging
from ill-fitting stays, one might mistake her for the type of
scrub-woman one sees about the large office buildings of early mornings,
but never, never would one suspect her of being the mother of this
near-Vere-de-Vere. Voluble to a point of madness, she would acquaint you
with the family history, the cause and intimate details of her husband's
untimely taking off and the great hopes she entertained for her
daughter's "getting on." Sometimes she brought with her the youngest of
her offspring, a little girl of six who had already made her début as a
child-actress. Like all children of the stage, she was precocious and
most unchild-like. In the enactment of laws which are aimed to protect
the child-labourer, an attempt is being made to bring about an exemption
of their application to the stage-child. That the child-actor receives
better pay, that he or she works less hours and under more sanitary
surroundings than do children in other trades and professions, cannot be
gainsaid. But is the economic welfare of the child the prime and only
consideration? Is the physical protection the one and uppermost
consummation to be desired? What of the spiritual, the moral side of the
stage-child? If environment bear the strong influence on human life we
are led to believe, then should the stage-child be removed from its
infectious surroundings. The old saw to the effect of pitch and
defilement is here most applicable.

I have referred elsewhere to the exception I made in my discouragement
of intimacies. On that morning at rehearsal when I had resented the
stage-director's mode of criticism, among others who had approved my act
was a girl whose face had at once attracted me. She was pretty and of
less common type than the chorus averages. There was something
individual about her. Her appearance was neat and I had observed that
her clothes were neither so new nor so extreme as were those of her
colleagues. Also I was impressed with a quiet refinement of manner and
her usage of good English. As we became better acquainted she sometimes
waited for me after the performance and we walked together to the
underground station, where our lines diverged. Later I had asked her to
dine with me on a Sunday when Will was away on a week-end motor trip.
She appeared to enjoy the home atmosphere and visited with me in the
kitchen while I was preparing dinner. Feeling that with our reduced
income we could not afford it, I had dispensed with a servant. And as
Will rarely, if ever, dined at home, my housekeeping duties were not
onerous.

"This is what I have always longed for--a little home all my own," Leila
had remarked, smiling wistfully.... It was after dinner and we had
settled ourselves for a chat.

"Then, in the name of common sense, dear girl, why did you go on the
stage? Home life and a stage career are as antipodal as the poles."

"And yet you manage to blend the two rather charmingly," she retorted.

"Absurd! I'm not trying for a career, and as for home life ... my dear
child, it's the merest pretense. Half the time we are not at home and
the flat has either to be let or remain closed. One never knows from day
to day when the furniture will be packed off to storage."

"Yes ... I presume you are right.... How did I come to go on the
stage?... Well, I suppose it was because I wanted a career of some
kind.... I wanted to _do something_; you know how empty and shallow the
average girl's life is, with the endless round of parties, visits, fancy
work and that sort of thing. I was an only daughter, too. Father was
well-to-do and wrapped up in the affairs of the small city in which we
lived. After he died, mother thought she would like to travel. We went
abroad. It was over there that the idea of a career took a stronger hold
on me. About the only talent I could lay any claim to was music. I had
always played and sung at our home concerts and church sociables.... But
mother didn't encourage me in my ambitions. She argued that, since
father had left us comfortably fixed, why should I want to worry my head
about work? Besides, she said my first duty was to her as long as she
lived. So there it rested.... We just drifted from place to place ...
vegetating...."

"Some parents are like that," I commented.

Leila rested her chin in her palms and went on.... "After mother died I
resolved to go after that career. I returned abroad to study...." She
chuckled a little, probably, at the remembrance.... "Of course, the
_teachers_ said I had a great future ahead of me ... with application
and patience ... infinite patience. Meanwhile I must study--and pay
exorbitant prices for my tuition. The income which had been ample for my
needs heretofore did not go very far under the new régime. I found it
necessary to cut into the capital, realizing the danger of such a move,
but soothing my fears with the dream of my great future.... Well, honey,
the splendid career as you see has ended in the chorus.... And, what's
more, I'm living on my salary." She picked up Will's guitar and began
strumming on it. "What I can't understand," she continued after a while,
"what I feel most is the fact that I don't seem able to pull myself out
of it. I see other girls lifting themselves to better positions; I know
I can sing better than any one of them.... There was Miss Nelson whom
you succeeded. As soon as I heard she was to retire I went to the
manager and asked for her place. He sent me to the musical director,
who heard me sing, commented favorably and said he would report to the
manager. That was the last I heard of it until rehearsal was called and
I learned that you had been engaged.... Tell me, honestly, what's the
matter with me? Why don't I get on? Is it because I haven't any _pull_
or because--" She did not finish her sentence, but switched to
another.... "Take our prima donna for example: three years ago she was
playing a part not bigger than yours. Now look at her! My voice is as
good as hers, if not better, but I can't get them to let me even
understudy her." ...

A vision of the prima donna passed before my eye; an insipidly pretty
woman whose sudden rise to fame had turned her empty little head. Vain,
impetuous, over-keyed, already the marks of dissipation were leaving
their indelible stamp. Whenever I saw her, resplendent in sables,
dangling her jewelled gold-mesh purse, my mind reverted to a well-known
club-man's comment on virtue: "I always measure the chastity of the
unprotected female by the size of her gold-mesh bag; the larger the bag
the less the virtue."

Leila, bent on relieving her mind and heart, went on: "When I went into
the chorus it was a choice between that and Macy's. Of course I'd heard
things about the life, but I told myself that a girl who wants to can go
straight in any walk of life. I had all those copy-book maxims at the
tip of my tongue: 'Virtue is its own reward,' and 'Then let us be up and
doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn
to labour and to wait,' or something like that.... Willie Stewart--you
know the little black-eyed girl who plays next to me on the left--it was
she who gave me my first eye-opener. Seeing that I was new at the
business, she came to me shortly after we opened and asked me if I
didn't want to meet some gentlemen; that she had been asked to bring
some of the girls with her to a beefsteak party which was to be pulled
off that night. I thanked her and told her I did not care to go. Willie
squinted her eyes a little in sizing me up, then treated me to the
following advice: 'Look here, angel child, you'd better go back to home
and mother. This is no place for a minister's daughter. If you haven't
got sense enough to take a chance when it's brought to you on a silver
tray--well, all I've got to say is that you're in wrong. Managers want
the girls that are popular and the way to be popular is to mingle. Just
remember that you don't get anything for nothing in this business or in
no other, as far as I've been able to observe. It's give up--_give up
all along the line_ and it's only the foxy dame that gets what's comin'
to her, even then!'"

"Willie has a very large gold bag, I have noticed," I said.

"And a sealskin coat," Leila added. Then she jumped to her feet and
struck at the sofa pillows viciously.... "It isn't the clothes and that
sort of thing that appeal to me. It isn't the fact that I'm living in a
dingy little room and trying to make ends meet; I'd live on a box of
Uneeda Biscuits a day if I saw any hope, the faintest ray of hope that I
could win out clean, on merit alone, in the end.... Sometimes I think
I'm wrong and that they are right--"

"Leila! You don't think anything of the sort! You know you are right!
Hold on a little while longer; you're sure to win! Why, with a voice
like yours, and your beauty, I should feel so sure of winning that
nothing else would matter--and it doesn't, Leila, nothing else really
counts if you live up to the best that's in you!" I had worked myself
up to a state of enthusiasm where I almost believed my own words. I took
her by the shoulders and held her at arm's length. We looked into each
other's eyes, each trying to pierce the veil behind which are concealed
our true thoughts.

It was nearing the holidays when Will signed for the engagement which
was destined to play such an important rôle in our future lives. The
star was of foreign origin, with a fascinating accent and a steadily
increasing reputation for eroticism. Under the guise of "high-brow"
drama she revelled in the portrayal of abnormal femininity. Her
adeptness in "suggestive" scenes, to which she lent a startling
verisimilitude, soon gained for her a large, if not altogether
intellectual, following. Will was not altogether satisfied with his
rôle, but what actor ever is? I consoled him with the fact that the
salary was good and that but little of the present season remained.

With Will on the road, left to myself in the empty apartment, the blue
devils renewed their lease. And when the approach of the Christmas
season began to manifest itself in shop-windows and in holiday rush, my
heartache increased manifold. Leila and I were much together in those
days. My little friend's increasing depression, instead of augmenting my
own, acted as a spur to brighter moods. Together we made the round of
the shops or tramped through the snow in Central Park. Sometimes we
lingered to watch the young people skating on the ice; again we hitched
ourselves to sleds to the merriment of small folk. Coming home alone
from a matinée I would find myself following a party of children out on
an ante-holiday survey. Standing close to them I listened to their
prattle and eager expectancy of a visit from Santa Claus.... If the
tears came I swallowed hard. No one was near to heed. In the seclusion
of my home I fought it out alone.

It had been my intention to carry a box of flowers to the dear one's
grave on Christmas morning. Passing one day through a wretched quarter
of the East Side in search of a dilatory laundress, my steps halted in
front of a cheap toy-shop. Beside me stood a small boy, clinging to the
hand of an older girl, their eyes riveted upon the display within. With
one grimy little hand, stiff and rough from the cold, the small man
smeared the tears from his eyes and snivelled. His threadbare coat,
sizes too large for his meagre frame, his toes showing through his
shoes. The girl's face was peaked and old, as if the despair of life had
already left its stamp. There was something infinitely tender in the way
she held the boy close to her, mutely comforting his grief, her eyes
meeting half defiantly the tinselled magnet of the shop-window, her lips
compressed to stop their mutinous tremble. When at last I brought myself
to break in upon their thoughts, they looked at me like startled
fawns....

The overture was on when I rushed into the theatre that afternoon. With
Leila's help I was in time for my cue. And it was with Leila's help that
I dressed the toys and trimmed the tree and between us, late on
Christmas Eve, we toted a big basket on and off the cars, up the dingy
stairs where Maggie kept house for "me brudder" while their mother went
out to work.... It was Boy's offering, not mine....




CHAPTER XVII


Coming out of the stage door after the performance one night shortly
after the New Year, the back-door keeper met me with the information
that a gentleman was waiting to see me. Before I could frame a reply a
bulky figure emerged from the gloom. I recognized Mr. F. of Chicago.
There was something akin to embarrassment in the way he proffered his
hand, though his grip was not lacking in geniality. Of the two I was the
more self-possessed. To my polite inquiries about his family he murmured
something about their being all right, he guessed, and abruptly changed
the subject by asking me to "come jump in a taxi and let's go somewhere
for a bite of supper." I did not understand why I so readily acquiesced.
On the way to Rector's--he himself having made the choice of
restaurant--we exchanged amenities. I believe I deplored the fact that I
was not dressed for the occasion, and he had replied with a flattering
speech intended to salve my vanity. After he had ordered the most
expensive items on the menu, he settled back in his chair, toyed with
his fork, looked at me searchingly, then broke out laughing. The
laughter was not pleasant to the ear; it left an unpleasant
apprehension. He leaned across the table with a confidential air and
smiled quizzically....

"Do you remember the last time we had supper together?"

I nodded and coaxed a smile.

"Perfectly," I responded.

A silence, while Mr. F. traced strange hieroglyphics on the napery.
After a while he tossed aside the fork with the air of one casting off
unpleasant memories, and settled back in his chair.

"Tell me about yourself," he commanded. "How is the world using you?
What in the name of wonder ever took you on the comic opera stage? I
couldn't believe my own eyes when I spotted you to-night, and, of
course, the name on the programme meant nothing to me. I shook my
friends as soon as the performance was over and interviewed the
back-door keeper. He told me you were Mrs. Hartley in private life....
Well, what's the answer?"

"There's nothing mysterious about my present occupation. Mr. Hartley
hasn't been especially lucky this season, and when a chance to help out
a bit presented itself I took it ... that's all.... I presume you know
that we lost our boy...."

"Yes--yes ... I knew, of course." His tone was curt, but I understood
his reluctance to dwell upon the subject. The return of the waiter ended
a painful silence. After that Mr. F. kept up a running fire of gossip
and questions about stage life. But beneath the surface I sensed and
lent him tacit aid in his effort to steer clear of the topic I knew to
be uppermost in his mind. From time to time rumours of a fresh rupture
with his wife had reached me. In fact, it was Will who had acquainted me
with the news of their final estrangement. He confided the details of
the lady's latest excursion into the realm of the illicit, with the
sententious air of, "There! Didn't I predict what would happen?" and a
shrug of the shoulders. I am not sure that it was not Will's intent to
sympathize with himself as a victim of circumstances over which he had
no control. Indeed, the occasional bursts of confidences which he thrust
upon me, and in which he discussed quite frankly the indiscretions of
certain lion-hunting ladies, were made, I felt, with the hope of
impressing upon me the pitfalls with which a man in his profession is
surrounded. Or was it vanity, or a desire to fan the old flame of
passion he once had aroused--a passion, which, if the paraphrase is
pardonable, was now "tame and waited on judgment?"

In some way--I am not certain how it came about, since "made"
conversation is at best disjointed and lacks in sequence--a random
remark inspired a challenge from Mr. F., who offered to lay a bet that I
was in the wrong. "O, no," I had replied, "I don't want you to lose;
besides, you do not pay your gambling debts promptly. Do you know you
never sent me that box of candy I won from you in Cincinnati? Mr. F....
you're not a good sport!" With a shock I realized I was in shallow
waters.... He looked at me with his eyes narrowed to mere slits....
"Well, little woman, I can't say that of you, can I?... I can't say that
you're not a good sport--after that performance in Cincinnati." ...

I flushed but made a heroic effort to control my voice. "I don't think I
follow you." Mr. F. beat up the bubbles in his glass and watched them
come to the surface before he answered.

"Of course you've heard about her latest affair with that Italian opera
singer.... Well, I caught her with the goods this time.... For the sake
of the children I'm letting her get the divorce...." He left off
frowning and contemplated me with an amused smile. "Say, little woman,
you did put it all over me there in Cincinnati, didn't you?... I suppose
you're wondering how I got wise to it? Well, I wrung the confession out
of her; I wouldn't let her get the divorce until she told me the truth,
and then I checked it up through her sister, who's a pretty good
sort.... All my life I've had a deep-rooted respect for a game sport....
When I look at that pretty little face of yours and think of the job you
cooked up at a moment's notice--well, I take off my hat to you, that's
all!... Look here, little woman: if anything ever goes wrong between you
and handsome Bill--and by Gad! I thought it had when I saw you on the
stage to-night--if ever you need a friend, just tap the wires. There's
my club address ... and, little lady--don't be afraid that I'll ask
anything in return--do you follow me? I'm not any better than the rest
of my kind, but I think I know the real thing when I meet it."

While donning my wraps in the cloak-room some time later, I was
surprised to see my little friend Leila enter and present her coat-check
to the maid. She flushed a little in surprise as she greeted me: "Why,
Mrs. Hartley! I didn't know you were here! Where were you sitting? Why
didn't you tell me you were coming?"

"I didn't know myself. I found an old acquaintance waiting, and of
course he wanted to see 'where the soubrettes hang out.'"

"How funny! My coming was unexpected, too. I'll tell you all about it
to-morrow." She hurried away, a little eagerly, I thought. As I passed
out in response to a beckon from Mr. F. I saw Leila being helped into a
handsome fur coat.

I told myself it was none of my business; that Leila knew perfectly well
what she was doing and that any amount of advice from me would not only
not be acted upon, but would be resented. Already she avoided me. To my
pleadings that I was lonely--would she not dine with me at my home?--she
responded with ever-ready but piffling excuses and subterfuges. I would
see her emerge from her dressing-room after the performance, prettily
dressed, get into a waiting taxicab and be whirled away. The situation
preyed on my mind. Once I took courage in both hands and called at her
lodging-house only to be told that Miss Moore had moved away a month
since. I got the new address from the back-door keeper, and when my
little friend was out of the cast through illness I seized the
opportunity to call on her.

It was one of those smaller apartment hotels in the West Forties; I was
taken up in the elevator without challenge. The coloured maid who
cautiously opened the door said she did not know whether her mistress
would see me. Something in my manner, however, caused her to stand aside
and let me enter. The rooms were tastefully if cheaply furnished. Leila
was lying on a couch, propped with pillows and clad in a dainty silk
kimono. She was taken by surprise and flushed a little as she extended
her hand. The maid placed a chair for me.

"I--I thought you had forgotten me," she stammered as I offered the
flowers I had brought. "How good of you!"

"They're only seconds, Leila, but the best I could afford." And,
compared to the big American Beauties reposing in a vase near at hand,
they certainly did look shop-worn.

"It's a beastly day, isn't it? Let me send for a cup of tea or maybe
you'd like a high-ball...."

I declined both. The maid disappeared. Leila squirmed about on her
pillows....

"I'm sorry to see you ill, Leila," I ventured by way of breaking the
ice.

"O, I'm not really ill ... only a slight cold. I'm a bit run down and
the Judge--that is--the doctor thought I should rest for a while. I'm
not going back to the theatre this season.... It's awfully good of you
to bother about me...."

"Leila?" I said finally.... "Leila, is it worth it?"

"Is what worth----"....

"All this." I indicated the apartment, the piano, the silk négligée--and
the ring on her finger.... "Is it worth the price you are paying?" I
asked gently. She lifted her shoulders.

"I don't know!" Her tone was half question, half defiance.... "I _do_
know that the other way wasn't worth the sacrifices, the scrimping and
mean pinching. I couldn't go on like that--I couldn't! I am young; I
want some of the good things of life while I am still young ... and I
was lonely. I didn't fit into my environment."

"I understand, Leila.... Perhaps I appreciate the loneliness, the
rebellion, better than you think.... You see other girls enjoying the
good things of life and apparently happy. But, after all, happiness is
purely relative, and what makes for their happiness might not make for
yours. Leila, dear girl, couldn't you make up your mind to stick it out
just a little while longer?... Things were sure to come your way--or,
perhaps, you would meet the right man and marry and settle down in the
little home of your own which you told me you have always craved."

"The right kind of men don't marry chorus girls. The exceptions are
rare. And what manner of men are they who _do_ marry a girl out of the
chorus? Old worn-out roués, almost senile from the debauched lives they
have led. They crave something young and fresh as an elixir of life.
Sometimes it's a young blood with money; a black sheep of the family who
drinks and sports, and in the end there's divorce if nothing worse....
I couldn't marry a man like either of these.... It's a mistake to be too
fastidious...."

"Is--is--he married?"

"He--O.... Yes, he's married--in a way. His wife and he have not really
lived together for years. For the sake of the family they keep up
appearances.... She doesn't understand him...."

"Did _he_ tell you that--and you _believe_ it?"

"But I know it's true! You'd believe it, too, if ever you were to see
her. He married her when he was young and poor."

"I presume they loved each other then; she probably pinched and scrimped
in those days to help him--to help him get where he is to-day."

"I don't know anything about that, of course. But I do know that I
admire him; he has a wonderful mind. It's a privilege to be associated
with a man like him. If you knew him, you would not think so badly of
the--the arrangement."

I left my chair to sit beside her on the couch.

"Dear girl," I said, slipping my hand in hers, "Don't misunderstand me.
I'm not sitting in judgment, neither am I criticizing you. But I want
you to think of the future. Have you ever thought of the time when you
will be no longer young? Have you never observed that type of woman one
finds hanging around restaurants or hotel corridors, hoping to pick up a
man, any man, it doesn't matter what kind of a man so long as he has a
little money? These women are getting along in years, taking on flesh,
hiding the ravages of time and dissipation with rouge, hair-dyes and
more dissipation. They are fighting life and getting the worst of it,
having put into life only their worst: thrown from one man's arms into
another's: down the line--always down grade, lower and lower
until--until what remains? The streets, the work-house, or suicide....
Have you thought of that?"

"No! _No! No!_--and I don't want to think of it!" She pounded her fists
vehemently together.... "I'm tired of thinking of the future! I've done
nothing all my life but think and live in the future--and now I'm going
to get what there is--all there is--out of the present, if it's only a
pretty gown, only a bright flower! What incentive has a girl like me to
be good? Go away! Go away, please, and don't bother about me!" ...

As I walked up Fifth Avenue on my way home, the shops and various
dressmaking establishments were disgorging their workers: pale girls,
for the most part, poorly clad. Here and there one prettier than the
rest, showing in her dress the innate love of display; passing the
well-dressed saunterer along the way with a pert glance, an inviting
eye; dreaming of the silks she had handled all day; longing for the
comforts of life which money alone can buy.... After all, is it a
question of morals or economics which leads these girls astray? As my
little friend had put it, "What incentive have they to go straight?"




CHAPTER XVIII


Will's season closed early. My own promised to run well into the summer
months. Will's return was marked by a happier frame of mind and a
corresponding good humour. He had been re-engaged for the coming year,
and the fact that his maternal grandmother had recently died and left
him a small legacy, which would be made over to him during the summer,
relieved his mind of the worry over money matters which had been
oppressing him. With characteristic prodigality he invested in a
complete new wardrobe--to be paid for when the legacy arrived. Also he
contemplated buying a motor-car, though I endeavoured to point out to
him that a trip abroad would be a better investment, if spend his money
he must.

It was well along in June when--with a silent _Te Deum_--I saw the
notice posted. One of those periods of tropical heat had descended upon
New York and brought the run of the opera to an abrupt close. It was a
welcome relief to be allowed to remain at home for days at a time. I
set about to refurnish my summer wardrobe. With the acquisition of an
automobile still pending in his mind, Will spent much of his time away
from home, trying out various makes of cars.

It was during one such week-end hejira that John Gailbraith returned
from abroad. He had only that morning disembarked, and after settling
himself in a downtown hotel had come to call on us. I hailed his advent
with delight. Our long talks, the exchange of ideas, his alert mind
refreshed and stimulated my own. Will once laughingly remarked that I
had developed into a veritable human question mark. But in no other way
could I induce our friend to talk about himself or his art. He had
travelled much and when once started on the subject would retail his
experiences in foreign lands. My interest was kept on the _qui vive_.
Then there was his work and achievement. Long were the discussions and
criticisms of the "Super-creation" and the thoughts and ideas which had
led to its conception.

As yet, I had not been inclined to resume my own work which my son's
death had caused me to lay aside. Now, under the influence of my
master's encouragement and sympathy, the old ambition quickened. As the
summer progressed we came to see a great deal of John Gailbraith.
Indeed, he became a part of our daily life. A genuineness which made
itself felt, a cleanliness of mind and speech, together with a quiet
humour and a gift of sympathetic understanding, endeared him to his
friends. Will shared my feeling, else he had not thrown us so
continuously together.

"John Gailbraith is one of the few men in the world to whom I would
entrust my wife's honour," he had said one day. I had chided Will for so
repeatedly throwing me upon our friend for amusement or companionship.
It had become a common thing for Will to hail his friend thus: "Old man,
if you haven't anything better to do to-night, take my missus out to
dinner, will you? I have an engagement to hear a play read," or, "I say,
Jack old boy, look after the missus while I'm away. I've been asked to
go on a motor-trip for a few days and I know it's punishment to drag the
poor girl along." (Parenthetically Will rarely asked me to join him on
these motor-trips.) It was on such an occasion that I had reproved Will
for saddling John Gailbraith with a responsibility which may not have
been to his liking. "There may be other friends to whom he may wish to
devote himself; besides is it wise that I be seen so continually in his
company and without my husband? You know how malicious the world is.
People will say----"

"O, Hell! I believe with Bernard Shaw: 'They say--what do they say? Let
them say!' People will always find something to criticize. So long as I
am satisfied it's nobody's business. I'm not afraid, girlie, of anyone
taking you away from me." And he dismissed the subject.

My husband not only encouraged the idea of my working under the guiding
hand of the sculptor but developed an enthusiasm which quite took away
my breath. In one of his impulsive moods he rented a studio from an
artist member of the Players' Club, who was planning to go abroad for a
year. "It's just the thing she needs; something to occupy her mind.
Besides, any little pleasure I can throw her way is coming to her, after
the way she stood by when I was down on my luck. It isn't every wife who
can support her husband, is it, old man?" And Will slipped his arm
about my shoulders with an amused wink. He was in high humour these
days.

There was a great scrubbing and cleaning before I pronounced the studio
habitable. Will said I was not a true artist. I failed to find art and
dirt synonymous or mutually connotating each the other.

The building which housed the studio was in a small street or, more
properly, an area-way in the vicinity of lower Fifth Avenue within a
stone's throw of Washington Square. John Gailbraith said it was his
favourite part of the city. It came to be mine. Sometimes, after we had
taken luncheon at a near-by restaurant, we would stroll in the square or
sit on one of the benches. Our lounging neighbours were interesting
studies in real life. John would point out the various foreign types and
compare them with their countrymen on their native heath. At other times
I would have our recently acquired cook-lady prepare a dainty lunch
basket, which I carried to the studio, and at the noon-hour, while John
made the tea, I laid the table. Here we would linger, absorbed in the
discussion which with passing days grew more frank and intimate. I no
longer felt cramped or warped. Expansion had become an almost
measurable sensation. During our vari-toned _pour-parler_, one subject
was by seemingly tacit consent taboo. No reference or allusion was ever
made to my conjugal affairs. Whatever John Gailbraith thought or knew
concerning Will's peccadillos, he gave no intimation. It was not
possible that he had not heard of my husband's various _liaisons_. In
fact, Will, himself, made no attempt to conceal the attentions of
certain women who rang up at his home under flimsiest pretence. He joked
lightly about their indiscretions and commented on the fact that he "was
getting to be the real thing in the way of a matinée idol." The period
following upon my son's death when Will had devoted himself to me with
something of the sweetness of our early married life was short-lived.
And if I closed my eyes and ears to the recurring lapses of his fidelity
it was because I still hoped that some day he would need my love.
Whether John Gailbraith believed there was an understanding between my
husband and me I could only surmise. To have him regard me in the light
of a complaisant wife gave me many uncomfortable moments, yet I could
not touch upon the subject. The truth lovingly told is that I came
nearer to being happy during those summer months than I had been
for--how many years had passed since Will and I had set up housekeeping
in the little furnished flat of halcyon days?...

When Will's absence from home became more frequent and of long duration
I exerted myself to greet his return with a pleasant word and a serene
face. And if, sometimes, I felt John's eyes upon me--those great gray
eyes with large iris and the black fringed lids--I strove the harder to
dissemble.

Sometimes Will would swoop down on us with a noisy party in tow and
insist upon an impromptu dinner in the workshop. The suggestion was
invariably hailed with delight by the women, who regarded the studio as
an open sesame to forbidden fruit and free speech, while to the men it
connoted models in the nude and bacchanalia.

On one occasion Will brought his star to see the minute whirling figure
the sculptor had but recently completed in refutation of the criticism
that his work was effective only in large design. Posing as a
_connoisseur_, the lady had expressed the wish to see John's work. I
think I hated her at first glance. There was something snake-like even
in the movement of her body and in the craning of her long, thin neck
from which a sharp jaw projected. She fascinated while she repelled.
Being temperamentally reserved in the presence of strangers--and the
lady temperamentally interested in the opposite sex--I had an
opportunity to study her. My scrutiny was not unobserved. Indeed, she
was always conscious of self, though apparently not self-conscious.

In the act of taking her leave she stopped quite suddenly and addressed
herself to me: "And so you are _Meesus_ Hartley.... What fine eyes you
have ... such ... what _ees_ the word? Yes, tangled, tangled depths ...
and the shadows!... If I were a man I should make love to _Meesus_
Hartley...." She shot a glance at John Gailbraith, then dropped her lids
over her eyes. But the suggestion was not lost. It was not meant to be.

"Madame has a pleasing way of expressing herself," I drawled, meeting
the much affected wide baby stare of her orbs with a like expression.
Suggestion is insidiously effective. From the moment my husband's star
had dropped the seed--thoughtlessly or maliciously, who shall say?--it
took root. The calm surface over which I had been gliding during the
past months ruffled and disturbed my equilibrium. The old _camaraderie_
between John Gailbraith and me gave way to self-consciousness on my
part. I felt what I imagined might have been the sensation which
overwhelmed Mother Eve after eating of the Tree of Knowledge. For the
first time during our intercourse I looked upon John Gailbraith as
man--myself, woman. I caught myself expecting, anticipating, parrying
any indication on his part which might be construed as a prelude to
tenderness. My attitude became constrained, unnatural; his, more
gracious, gentle, tactful. Perhaps he analyzed my mood as the natural
result of gossip which connected my husband's name with that of the
"star." That he pitied me heaped coals of fire upon my head--and his. I
was glad of the opportunity which took him to Washington in response to
a letter from a prospective patron and left me to myself.

With mathematical precision I questioned myself: Why should I permit the
insinuations of a not disinterested woman to mar a friendship which had
become dear to me and which I had hoped to retain all my life? Was
friendship between persons of opposite sex not possible? Can there be
no relationship between man and woman disassociated from sex? Had this
man by look or word professed other than friendship for me? Had I
professed or felt any emotion other than which I indicated? Then why
permit the bond to be severed by a wholly suppositious breach? I
resolved that upon John's return to the city I should take up the thread
where I had left off. There was consolation in the determination.

The time had arrived when I was to begin the nude of Boy in marble. It
was to be my winter's work and I was eager to be well advanced with it
before John went abroad again. I looked forward to his going with
genuine regret. More and more Will had estranged himself from me:
whether deliberately or not I was not prepared to answer. The relentless
examination continued. What was it which held me to my husband? Did I
still love him despite his infidelities, his ever-increasing neglect and
selfishness? Or was it the tender memories of our youthful love at whose
altar I worshipped, feeding the smouldering embers with incense of
bruised and crushed illusions? Might I not, after all, with patience,
devotion, tolerance and a single-heartedness of purpose lead his
wandering steps back to me? If life was barren now, what should it be
without him? No, I must find my solace in my pride in him; must squeeze
what comfort I might in helping him on to success; always with the
hope--hope!--the promise-crammed!

It had become a custom of mine to carry my perturbation of heart and
mind to my boy's grave; there, in the silence and the nothingness of
life, to find a balm and fortitude. It was upon such a mission I set out
one day late in September. Under the early autumn haze the meadows lay
carpeted with golden rod and fleecy lace of the Queen's handkerchief.
Soothed by this tryst with my loved one I returned to town prepared to
take up the battle. Arriving at the Grand Central Station I decided to
telephone to Will's club with the hope of finding he had returned during
my absence. Stopping to pay the toll I glanced listlessly around the
waiting-room. A familiar figure caused me to start forward, then draw
back. There, coming through the station was my husband and his "star."
From the handbags he carried--one of which I recognized as his--it was
evident that they had come direct from the train. I recalled that Will
had mentioned the fact that the star had recently bought a country
residence. And, too, it recurred to me that, when on Saturday night Will
had telephoned me that he was at a Turkish bath and would remain there
all day, his voice had a far-away sound to it, as if the message were at
long distance. Sunday and Monday had passed with no word from him. I now
understood where he had been.... I watched them drive away in a
hansom.... Then I took a car home.




CHAPTER XIX


It had never before suggested itself to me that divorce was the only
solution. Divorce had always appeared to me an acknowledgment of
failure--failure of married life. When my son was taken from me I had
cherished the delusion that our differences lay buried in his grave;
that an adjustment of our married life was imminent.... Divorce! To give
him his freedom; to turn me upon the world without anchor, ballast or
compass.... A kind of terror took possession of me--not the terror of
being thrown upon my own resources for a livelihood, since I was not
dependent upon my husband for maintenance, a consideration which
prevents many women from severing a bond which has become repugnant to
them--but the terror of loneliness. I had already tasted of this
bitterness--was I now to be surfeited with it? If only Boy had been
spared to me! O, God, the pity of it all!... And yet, there was no other
way. To carry on the farce of married relationship; to submit to him,
feeling only revulsion, repugnance, was nothing short of prostitution.
And had I not already prostituted the best that was in me? Already the
corroding influences around me had begun to tell. Even John Gailbraith
had noticed the change in me and had alluded to it under the veil of
kindly intent. If I were to save anything from the wreckage I must begin
now, at once--before it was too late. I had seen women, good women,
stronger women than myself, break under the strain of neglect and
loneliness.... Well, I should not break. Pride should sustain me.... The
future ... no, I dared not yet think of the future. It made me quail and
falter in my purpose--a purpose I determined to make known to my husband
on his return.

Arriving at the studio the next morning earlier than was my custom (Will
had not yet put in an appearance and the delay but strengthened my
purpose), I found that John had not yet returned from breakfast. His
small sleeping-quarters, giving upon the studio proper, were open and,
without meaning to be curious, I paused in the doorway. A charcoal
sketch caught my eye. It was my own likeness. Scattered about the room
were other sketches in various stages of development. I turned away,
closing the door behind me. A warm flush suffused my being. I told
myself it was shame at having intruded where I had not been bidden....
The various models of my son stood about the room and beckoned me. I ran
my fingers over the little head, the pouting lips, and laid my cheek to
his in silent salutation. The flood-gates strained and throbbed,
threatening to break through.... A hand closed over mine.... I knew the
hand.... In my complete immersion of thought I had not heard him come
in.... I bent and pressed my lips upon his hand.... We stood looking at
each other. Something of the shock I felt was mirrored in his eyes....
"Margaret ... Margaret," he had said ... and I, all unyielding, had
sought the solace of his arms....

Some time later he placed a chair for me and forced me gently down ...
still quivering under the shock of revelation--revelation, not of what I
had done, but of what I _felt_! The spurious sentiment which had held me
to the past of things shook me with its last convulsive gasps....
Seated in front of me, his hands clasping mine, he read the confusion in
my mind: confusion which speech alone could dissipate....

"I want you to know what is in my mind and heart.... Doubt, a great
question over-shadows all else. I ask myself, can a woman love more than
once? Is there a love for youth, a love for maturity?... You see, I am
not sure that I really love you. I am haunted with the fear that my
loneliness, my wounded pride, my unsatisfied life have caused me to seek
consolation. And I have come to you for that consolation because I
respect and admire you. Propinquity has proved that we are companionable
and that we have much in common. But love demands something more than
companionship, respect and admiration. _You_ would demand something
more.... Whether I am prepared to give you that which you demand is the
question. As I feel now, I could not give you all the marriage relation
implies. Do you understand my scruples? I have the feeling that to go
from one man's arms to another's is nothing short of indecency. Perhaps
time will alter the perspective. But I don't know, John, I don't know!
You see I want to be honest with you. I want to promise nothing about
which I am not sure.... Then, there is your side of it. Can I give all a
man expects from the woman he makes his wife? What have I to give? The
bloom of my womanhood, the ardent passion of youth is forever gone. What
is left may not satisfy you.... It is right that you should go away at
once ... but I shall be lonely.... God and my heart alone know how
lonely I shall be...."

"Margaret, I thank you for your frankness. It only adds to my love for
you. I appreciate and respect the feeling which bids you send me away at
this time. Only don't sacrifice yourself to a prudish modesty; don't
make a fetish of the past. Conserve your tender memories, if you will,
but strip them of overvaluation.... You ask what have you to give.... Do
you believe that because the bloom of your womanhood, your first passion
and its fruition have belonged to another, that there is nothing left to
give? Shall I be giving, does any man give, what he demands of a woman
as the prerogative of his sex? You see, little woman, we are the victims
of a false education. There is one standard for woman, a different
standard for man. It is this faulty double standard which is responsible
for so many unhappy marriages. Some day this will all be changed. There
are signs even to-day of the awakening.... Rid your mind once and for
all of the spectre that the past will stand between us. Don't stultify
your womanhood with a sentimentalism which is the curse of your sex.
Life lies before you. The motherhood which your nature is crying out for
is your rightful heritage. Look ahead, dear. Be true to the best that is
in you ... and remember ... I am waiting...."

I bade him good-bye--and had lingered. His strong hands clasped mine
once more and held me there.... Mutely we looked into each other's eyes
... and thus my husband found us.... Coming in unannounced--whether
intentionally was of small moment. We did not start; instead, I think he
held me closer and met the other's sneer with a clear gaze....

"Drop my wife's hand! Drop it, I say!" Will raised his cane to strike. I
heard it snap and saw the bits in the other's hand. They clenched and
glared at each other....

"It is not necessary to indulge in heroics," I interposed.... "Suppose
we talk it over--sensibly."

As we seated ourselves in preparation for the "_pour-parler_" the ironic
humour of the situation came to my rescue. There was something absurdly
theatrical about Will's attitude: a stentorian breathing; his stride
across the room; a certain punctuated deliberation in the way he
relieved himself of hat and gloves. I had seen him do thus in "strong"
scenes on the stage, many and many's the time. I felt as if I were
waiting for a cue....

"So!" Will began after placing his chair firmly centre.... "So this is
the way you abuse my confidence in you both!... My God, where is your
sense of honour? If I hadn't trusted you so implicitly it wouldn't be so
bad ... but to deliberately strike me from behind!" He rose, strode left
centre and back again. "And you--my wife! _My wife!_ I would not have
believed it of you! I would never have believed it possible that my wife
could so deceive me.... I've been warned about this.... I've been warned
that such a thing as this might happen, but I refused to listen to
gossip ... and nobody had the nerve to tell me the truth.... It's the
same old story ... a husband is always the last one to hear of his
wife's infidelity.... Margaret! _Margaret!!!_"

He stopped and waved his hand tragically in the direction of the models
of Boy....

"How could you.... How could you!... Here under the very eyes of our
little son! Have you no shame, have you no reverence for the memory of
that sainted child?... O, my God! Woman!..."

The mention of the child electrified me ... his cheap grief was
revolting....

"Stop that! Stop your acting! I'm sick, _sick_, _sick_ unto death of the
theatre!... Haven't you one honest, sincere emotion in your nature? Play
the plain, rugged manly hero for once in your life, if act you must!...
You wouldn't believe it of your wife ... _your_ wife.... Do you think
_your wife_ is not made of flesh and blood and sensibilities like other
human beings? What right have you to expect _anything_ from your wife?
How dare you conjure with my son's name?... you, fresh from the arms of
that--that creature!..."

Will eyed me narrowly.

"O ... so you've been listening to gossip, have you? You've been
discussing me between you, is that it? No doubt our friend, here, has
done his best to put you wise, eh? I've had enough of this...."

"You shall stay and hear me out!... It may surprise you to know that our
friend, here, has not even intimated that he knew of your flagrant
liaison.... It may shock you to know that it was your wife, the
gutta-percha doll, who made the first declaration of tenderness, and I'm
glad, I'm glad that I had so much real passion left! I'm glad to realize
that after all I am a human being still, capable of feeling" ... (a
sudden weariness overcame me and left me limp and exhausted). "The
trouble is--you are so impregnated with the rottenness about you, that
you judge all by your own standard.... Let's have done with this!... Any
further discussion will be carried on in the privacy of our home.... I
am sorry ... sorry to have subjected you to this humiliating scene." My
last words were addressed to the man who, tall, gaunt and pale, looked
on--and waited. Through a blur of tears I held out my hand to him....
"Good-bye," I said and left them together.

It was dark when Will returned. I heard him softly close the hall-door
after him. He came into the room where I was lying and sat down beside
me.

"Girlie ... I have something to say to you...." His speech showed a
little thickness and I smelled the liquor on his breath. His tone was
kindly and I felt my rancour soften.

"First, don't let us lose our heads again ... it doesn't help
matters.... Gailbraith and I have talked it over ... and the kindest
thing I can do is to give you a divorce.... That sounds cold-blooded,
doesn't it, between you and me?... but it's the only thing ... the only
right thing. Gailbraith says I'm not playing fair by you; that I am
ruining your life and cheating you out of happiness which I can't give
you myself ... and I guess he's right.... I guess Gailbraith's right....
We've drifted pretty far apart--I realize that now ... but--I want you
to believe me when I say you are the only woman I have ever loved--or
ever will love. The rest are just--experiences; some of them fascinating
while they last, but none of them the real thing. No one will ever
replace you in my heart ... that's certain.... It's too bad--too damned
bad.... It's this hellish business! There ought to be a law to prevent
actors from marrying.... Now for the business end of it: I know you
won't drag in any names as corespondents. We'll fix that up later. I'll
give you a lump sum, now--it can't be as large as I should like it to
be, for there isn't much left. When my season opens I'll make you a
weekly allowance until--until such a time as you are able to dispense
with it. I'll see my lawyer--to-morrow, and fix things up with him.....
Don't you think it might be well for you to go away for a few days to
avoid the newspaper blow-up?"

I nodded. I could not speak....

"There, old pard ... don't take it so hard.... I guess that's all for
the present. I'll be at the club any time you want me....
Good--good-night, Girlie ... and God bless you...."

In the days which followed I appeared to myself like a rudderless ship
in a choppy sea. I did not see John Gailbraith again. He sailed within a
few days after the scene in the studio. In a letter written from the
boat he told me he had not forced himself upon me, knowing my wishes and
respecting them. "Be true to yourself is all I ask," the letter ran,
"and know that whatever you may decide as best for yourself that shall
I abide by."

Following the serving of the papers on Will for absolute divorce, I left
town. Those wretched days were spent on railroad trains, fast trains,
flyers. I got off one only to board another. The sense of "going
somewhere" was in keeping with my mood. When I returned to New York,
worn and relaxed, I appreciated the quiet of what once had been home....
Will had already installed himself at the club. The dismantling of the
apartment was a nerve-racking task. Memories, bitter, sweet, crowded on
each other's heels, "so fast they followed." Will had left a list of
books and trinkets which were to be packed and sent to storage in his
name. In an old trunk, buried beneath dust and grime in the bin, below
stairs, I found endless souvenirs of my married life. Photographs,
letters, my wedding flowers; press-notices, carefully preserved in a
large scrap-book; costumes I had made for Will in the early days of our
struggle; Boy's first shoe.... This inscription on the back of a large
photograph Will had given to me on the day of our betrothal: "To Girlie
from her Boy--until death do us part and even in eternity." ...
Letters, breathing hope and fears and always--love.... Damp with tears,
I gathered the symbols of the wreck and plied a match. I watched them as
they burned ... and crumbled to ashes ... ashes....

       *       *       *       *       *

I sat in the rear of the dim theatre where I had slipped unnoticed,
after the lights were lowered. I had come to see him as a kind of
leave-taking. To-morrow, the open sea ... a new world.... His voice
thrilled me as before: I smiled at familiar little tricks and
mannerisms.... His features had coarsened somewhat; his figure taken on
flesh, but it was the same Will ... the same handsome lover of my youth.
The scene faded from my view.... I lived again in the past; all rancour
dead, a great tenderness and regret--regret that it should be so.
Silently I stole away, while the lights were low. "God bless you, dear,"
I whispered in my heart, "God bless and keep you, dear."


THE END


Transcriber's note:

Beside a few typographical errors, the following changes have been made:

How long with=>How long will

woman as my right=>woman at my right


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