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Title: The Fair Rewards

Author: Thomas Beer

Release date: December 9, 2019 [eBook #60885]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David E. Brown and The Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by The
        Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAIR REWARDS ***




Produced by David E. Brown and The Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









  THE FAIR
  REWARDS




_NEW BORZOI NOVELS_

_SPRING, 1922_


  WANDERERS
    _Knut Hamsun_

  MEN OF AFFAIRS
    _Roland Pertwee_

  THE FAIR REWARDS
    _Thomas Beer_

  I WALKED IN ARDEN
    _Jack Crawford_

  GUEST THE ONE-EYED
    _Gunnar Gunnarsson_

  THE GARDEN PARTY
    _Katherine Mansfield_

  THE LONGEST JOURNEY
    _E. M. Forster_

  THE SOUL OF A CHILD
    _Edwin Björkman_

  CYTHEREA
    _Joseph Hergesheimer_

  EXPLORERS OF THE DAWN
    _Mazo de la Roche_

  THE WHITE KAMI
    _Edward Alden Jewell_




  THE
  FAIR REWARDS

  THOMAS BEER

  “_Tell arts they have no soundness
      But vary by esteeming
  Tell schools they want profoundness
      And stand too much on seeming_”--

                                       RALEGH

  _“Eh, sirs,” says Koshchei, “I contemplate the spectacle
  with appropriate emotions.”_

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  ALFRED·A·KNOPF
  1922




  COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
  ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

  _Published, February, 1922_


  _Set up and electrotyped by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N.Y._
  _Paper furnished by S. D. Warren & Co., Boston, Mass._
  _Printed and bound by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass._


  MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




  To

  M. A. A. B.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER

     I MANUFACTURE OF A PERSONAGE,      9

    II HE PROGRESSES,                  23

   III FULL BLOOM,                     47

    IV PENALTIES,                      78

     V MARGOT,                        104

    VI GURDY,                         135

   VII “TODGERS INTRUDES,”            170

  VIII COSMO RAND,                    192

    IX BUBBLE,                        214

     X THE IDOLATER,                  250

    XI THE WALLING,                   272




I

Manufacture of a Personage


John Carlson began the rehearsals of “Nicoline” in early August of
1895. For a week he tried to correct the hot labours of the whole,
large company. He was nervous about this production. His digestion
interfered. His temper grew explosive. The leading woman was alarmed
for her gentility. The leading man disliked his part of a cheap rake.
Carlson abandoned the minor folk to his stage manager, Rothenstein,
and nursed these two clumsy celebrities toward a certain ease. But his
stomach suffered. He attended the opening night of “The Prisoner of
Zenda” at the Lyceum, fainted during the second act and was revived
with brandy in Mr. Frohman’s office. The brandy gave him fever; he
spent the six days remaining before “Nicoline” opened, in his bed. Yet
on a warm Monday night he dressed his gaunt body gorgeously, shaved
his yellow face, thrust an orchid into his coat and dined at Martin’s
with young Mr. Fitch who had adapted “Nicoline” from the French.
Carlson swore in Swedish when agony seized his stomach. Mr. Fitch,
sipping white Burgundy, observed that it must be pleasant to swear
incomprehensibly.

“Sure,” said Carlson, shivering, “but what was you sayin’?”

“You’ll feel better by midnight,” Mr. Fitch murmured, “You’ve worried
too much. This’ll be a hit. It’s been a hit in London and Paris. The
critics”--the adapter smiled--“won’t dare say anything worse than that
it’s immoral. And Cora Boyle will make them laugh in the third act, so
that’ll be safe.”

“Boyle? Who’s she? That black headed gal that plays the street walker,
y’mean? She’s no good. Had her last winter in Mountain Dew. Common as
dirt and no more sense than a turnip.”

Mr. Fitch answered in his affable whisper, “Of course she’s common as
dirt. That’s why I asked you to get her. Why waste time training some
one to be common when the town’s full of them?”

“But that ain’t actin’, Clyde!”

“It’s quite as good. And,” Mr. Fitch declared, “she’s what the women
like.”

“You always talk as if women made a show pay!”

“That happens to be just what they do, Mr. Carlson. That’s why Richard
the Third doesn’t make as much money as Camille or East Lynne. Women
come to a play to see other women wear clothes they wouldn’t be seen
in and do things they wouldn’t dream of doing. Please try to eat
something.”

“You’re all wrong,” Carlson said, chewing a pepsin tablet.

Mr. Fitch shrugged, arranged his moustaches and mentioned a dozen
actresses whose success was built on the art of enchanting their own
sex. Carlson had a respect for this playwright’s opinion and while
the two early acts of “Nicoline” played he saw from his box that
Cora Boyle’s swagger carried some message to the female part of the
audience. For her, women laughed loudly. They merely sniffled over the
well bred woes of the heroine. The heroine’s antics were insupportable.
The second curtain fell and Carlson descended to the dressing room of
this unsatisfactory gentlewoman, gave a rasping lecture that scared her
maid away. He had to help hook her gown and yelled over the powder of
her advertised shoulders, “If you want that sassy Boyle gal to be the
hit of the show, go on! You act like you’d lost your last cent on the
races and had sand in your shoes. Now, you!” A feeling of heated blades
in his stomach stopped the speech. He heard the stage manager knock on
the dressing room door. The actress moved weeping past his anguish.
He leaned on the table and saw his sweating face in the tilted mirror.
The thin, remote music of the orchestra began behind the curtain. This
third act was set in the rowdy café of a small French city. If it went
well, the play was safe, would last out the winter, make him richer. He
should go up to his box and show himself unperturbed to rival managers
civilly tranquil in their free seats. But he leaned, looking at his
wet, bald head with a sick weariness. What was the use of this trade?
He wore down his years trying to teach silly women and sillier men to
act. He got nothing from living but stomach trouble and money. The
money would go to his sister in Stockholm when he died. He had never
liked his sister, hadn’t seen her in thirty years. He pitied himself so
extremely that tears wriggled down the spread of seams in his yellow
face. Life was an iniquity contrived for his torture. Carlson deeply
enjoyed his woe for five minutes. Then Mr. Fitch came in to urge that
Cora Boyle be corrected before her present entrance.

“What’s the good, Clyde? She ain’t any sense. She’s a actress, ain’t
she?”

“She’ll spoil the act if she carries on too much,” said Mr. Fitch and
at once Carlson thrilled with an automatic anxiety; the act mustn’t
be spoiled. He hurried up the iron stairs to the platform, wiping
his face. Cora Boyle was standing ten feet back from the canvas arch
that was, for the audience, the street door of the Café Printemps. She
patted the vast sleeves of her gaudy frock and whispered to a fellow in
blue clothes. Carlson had to pull her from these occupations and gave
his orders in a hiss.

“Don’t you laugh too loud when Miss Leslie’s tellin’ about her mother
or talk as loud as you’ve been doin’, neither. This ain’t a camp
meetin’, hear?”

The black haired girl grinned at him, nodding. She spat out a fold of
chewing gum and patted her pink sleeves again. She said, “All right,
boss, but, say, don’t the folks like me, though?”

Fitch chuckled behind the manager. Carlson wouldn’t be bested by an
impudent hussy who was paid thirty-five dollars a week and didn’t
earn it. He stared at Cora Boyle, biting his lips and hunting words
wherewith to blast her. She let him stare unchecked. A false diamond on
its thin chain glittered and slid when she breathed into the cleft of
her breasts. She was excellently made and highly perfumed. Her black
eyes caught a vague point of red from the rim of a jaunty hat that
slanted its flowers on the mass of her hair. She had rouged her chin to
offset a wide mouth. Carlson jeered, “Better get somebody to show you
a good makeup, sister, and quit talkin’ through your nose. You sound
like you’re out of New Jersey!”

Cora Boyle giggled. She glanced at the fellow in blue and said, “I was
boardin’ at Fayettesville, New Jersey, all summer. Wasn’t I, Mark?”

The fellow bobbed his head, shuffling his feet. His feet were bare and
by that sign Carlson knew him for the supposed peasant lad who would
bring the heroine news of her dear mother’s death at the end of the
act. Cora Boyle gave this unimportant creature a long, amorous look,
then told Carlson, “I was boardin’ with Mark’s folks. He--”

“Your cue,” said Mr. Fitch and the girl, with a splendid swagger,
marched into the lit scene beyond this nervous shadow. Her finery
shimmered and directly the women outside the hedge of footlights
laughed. The audience tittered at her first line and Mr. Fitch, a hand
on his moustache, smiled at Carlson.

“She’s got a voice like a saw,” Carlson snapped and walked down the
steps. At the bottom a roar halted him. The audience laughed in a
steady bawl. He grunted but the noise came in repeating volleys every
time the girl’s shrill speech rose grinding and these bursts had an
effect of surging water wonderful to hear, soothing his conceit. But as
he listened a spasm took his stomach. Fitch helped him to a cab and
the cab delivered Carlson trembling to his valet in 18th Street.

The attack lasted all night and did not wane until twilight of next
day when Carlson could drink some drugged milk and roll a cigarette.
He bade his valet bring up the morning papers and was not surprised
when Fitch preceded the man into the room, walking silently on his trim
feet, a flower in his blue coat and his white hands full of scribbled
foolscap.

“I’ve been writing two scenes in the library,” he said, in his usual,
even whisper, “and I’d like to read them, if you feel well enough.”

“Two scenes?”

“One’s for the first act and one’s for the last. I’d like a full
rehearsal in the morning, too.”

Carlson lifted himself and slapped the counterpane. He cried, “Now,
Clyde, listen here! That Boyle gal’s got enough. I expect she hit but
she’s a sassy little hen. I’m not goin’ to spoil her with--”

“Nom de dieu,” said the playwright, “I didn’t say anything about the
Boyle girl. No. These scenes are for young Walling. He can come on with
some flowers for Nicoline in the first act and say something. Then he
can bring the dogs in at the last, instead of the maid. We might dress
him as a gamekeeper in the last act. Green coat, corduroy breeches--”

Carlson screamed, “Cord’roy pants? Who the hell you talkin’ about?
Walling? Who’s Walling?”

Mr. Fitch lit a cigar and selected a paper from the bundle the valet
held. He bent himself over the back of a cherry velvet chair which
turned his suit vile purple in the dusk and began to read genially....
“‘Into the sordid and sensuous atmosphere of this third act there
came a second of relief when the messenger brought Nicoline news of
her mother’s death. We too rarely see such acting as Mr. Walling’s
performance of this petty part. His embarrassed, sympathetic stare at
Nicoline, his boyish, unaffected speech--’” The playwright laughed and
took another paper, “That’s William Winter. Here’s this idiot. ‘This
little episode exactly proves the soundness of Carlson’s method in
rehearsing a company. I am told that Mark Walling, the young actor who
plays the rôle, has been drilled by Mr. Carlson as carefully as though
he were a principal’--I told him that,” Mr. Fitch explained, changing
papers. “‘One of the best performances in the long list of forty was
that of Mark Walling as’--”

Carlson lay back dizzy on his pillows and snarled, “What’s it all
about, for hell’s sake? This feller comes on and gives the gal the
letter and says the funeral’ll be next day. Well?”

“Well,” said his ally, “I’d just put you in your cab. I was out in
front, standing. This boy came on. They were still laughing at Cora
Boyle. The minute Walling spoke, every one shut up. He gave his line
about the funeral and some women commenced snivelling. Wiped his nose
on his sleeve. Some more women cried. I thought they’d applaud for a
minute. He’s in all the papers. Nice voice. It’s his looks mostly.”

“Never noticed him. Where did we get him?”

Mr. Fitch blew some smoke toward the red velvet curtains and chuckled.
“We didn’t get him. He belongs to Cora Boyle. She brought him to
Rothenstein at the first rehearsal and asked for a part for him. She
kidnapped him down in Jersey.”

“She--what?”

“Kidnapped him.” The playwright assumed a high drawl and recited,
“Cora, she was boardin’ with Mark’s folks down to Fayettesville. Mark,
he used to speak pieces after supper. Cora, she thought he spoke real
nice--So she kidnapped him. She mesmerized him--like Trilby--and
brought him along. She’s got him cooped up at her boarding house. She’s
married him. He says he thinks acting’s awful easy”--Mr. Fitch again
drawled, “cause all you gotta do is walk out, an’ speak your piece.
He’s got a brother name of Joe and his mamma she’s dead and sister
Sadie she’s married to Eddie something or other. I heard his whole
family tree. I went to see him this morning. Some one else is likely to
grab him, you know? He told me his sad story in a pair of blue drawers
and one sock. He’s scared to death of Cora Boyle.”

“But--can he act?”

The playwright shook his head. “No. He hasn’t any brains. Are you well
enough to get dressed?”

At half past ten an usher came into the box office where Carlson was
sitting and summoned the manager to the rear of the house. Fitch stood
at the throat of an aisle, his pallor made orange by the glow from the
stage on which Cora Boyle was chaffing the sinful heroine. Amusement
sped up this lustrous, stirring slope of heads. It was the year of
Violette Amère among perfumes and the scent rolled back to Carlson with
the laughter of these ninnies who took Cora Boyle for a good comedian.
Carlson chafed, but when the lad in blue walked into the light of the
untinted globes, this laughter flickered down. Fitch whispered, “Hear?”
and promptly the boy spoke in a husky, middling voice that somehow
reached Carlson clearly. Close by a woman gurgled, “Sweet!” and Carlson
felt the warm attention of the crowd, half understood it as the few
lines drawled on. The boy stood square on his brown, painted feet. His
flat face was comely. He had dull red, curling hair. As he tramped out
there was a faint and scattered rumour like the birth of applause, cut
by the heroine’s shriek.

“You see?” Fitch smiled.

Carlson said, “I ain’t a fool. Tell Rothenstein to call a rehearsal for
ten in the mornin’, will you.” He then went briskly to hunt down this
asset. It took some minutes to locate the dressing room Mark Walling
shared with five other small parts. He found Mark peeled to faded,
azure cotton underclothes and talking happily to a tall, fair rustic
who slouched on the wall beside the sink where Mark scrubbed paint from
his feet with a sponge. Their drawls mixed and shut from them the noise
of Carlson’s step, so the manager regarded his prize stealthily. Mark
was a long lad, limber and burly, harmlessly good looking. His nose was
short. His insteps and arms were thick with muscle. He smiled up at his
rural friend who said, “But it ain’t a long trip, Bud. So I’ll get your
papa to come up nex’ week.”

Mark shifted the sponge to his other hand and sighed. The sound touched
Carlson who hated actors not old enough to court him cleverly. But this
was a homesick peasant. He listened to Mark’s answer of, “Wish you
would, Eddie. I ain’t sure papa likes my bein’ here. Even if I do--”

The rustic saw Carlson and mumbled. Mark Walling hopped about on one
foot and gave a solemn, frightened gulp. Carlson nodded, inquiring,
“That your brother, sonny?”

“No, sir. Joe’s home. This is Eddie Bernamer. Well, he’s my
brother-in-law. He’s married with Sadie.”

Eddie Bernamer gave out attenuated sounds, accepting the introduction.
The manager asked lightly, “How many sisters have you, son?”

“Just Sadie. She’s out lookin’ at the play.”

“And you’ve married Cora Boyle?”

“Well,” said Mark, “that’s so.”

He seemed rather puzzled by the fact, suspended the sponge and said to
Eddie Bernamer, “She ain’t but two years older’n me, Eddie.”

“I guess Mr. Carlson wants to talk to you, Bud,” his relative muttered,
“So I’ll go on back and see some more.”

“But you’ll come round an’ wait after the show?” Mark wailed.

“We’ll have to catch the cars, Bud. Well, goo’ bye.”

Mark stood clutching the sponge and sighed a monstrous, woeful
exhalation after Eddie Bernamer. His grey eyes filled. He was
hideously homesick, certain that Fayettesville was a better place than
this cellar that stunk of sweated cloth and greasy paint. And Cora
hadn’t been strikingly pleased by the news of him in this morning’s
papers. She was odd. He wiped his nose on a wrist and looked hopelessly
at Carlson.

“Rather be back on the farm, wouldn’t you?” the gaunt man asked.

Mark sat down on the floor and thought. His thoughts went slowly across
the track of six weeks. He plodded. For all its demerits this red and
gold theatre was thrilling. People were jolly, kind enough. The lewd
stagehands had let him help set a scene tonight. The man who handled
the lights had shown him how they were turned on and off to make stormy
waverings. Cora was exciting. Winter at home was plagued by Aunt Edith
who came out from Trenton to spend the cold months at the farm and who
lectured Mark’s father on Methodism. And here was this easy, good job.
If he worked hard it might be that Mr. Carlson--who wasn’t now the
screaming beast of rehearsals--would let him run the lights instead of
acting. Mark said, “Well, no. Just as soon stay here, I guess.”

“How old are you, sonny?”

“Goin’ on seventeen, sir.”

“I’ll give you forty a week to stay here,” said Carlson, “Fitch tells
me you think acting’s pretty easy.”

“I don’t see any trick to acting,” Mark mused, absorbing the offer
of forty dollars a week, “There ain’t nothin’ to it but speakin’ out
loud.... Yes, I’d like to stay here.” He wanted to show himself useful
and got up, pointing to the bulbs clustered on the ceiling in a bed of
tin, “I should think you’d ought to save money if you had them down
here by the lookin’ glasses instead of this gas, y’see? The fellers
don’t get any good of the electric light while they’re puttin’ paint
on, and--”

“Rehearsal at ten in the morning,” said Carlson, “Good-night.”

Marked gaped at the black and empty door. Then his homesickness swelled
up and he sighed, squeezing the sponge. His body trembled drearily. He
lowered his head as does a lonesome calf turned into strange pastures.




II

He Progresses


“Nicoline” lasted until April, 1896. Mark played the country boy in
“Mr. Bell” all the next season and, duly coached by Sarah Cowell
LeMoyne, figured as the young duke in “The Princess of Croy” when
Carlson imported that disaster in the autumn of 1897. Its failure
afflicted Mark less than his private griefs. He played for four months
in Carlson’s Boston stock company. This was penible. He had never been
so far from his adored family. True, freed of Cora, he could send
ten or twenty dollars a week to his father but he missed Sundays in
Fayettesville and the Boston wind gave him chilblains. The friendly
women of the Stock Company found him shy and here began the legend of
Mark’s misogyny. He read novels and tramped about Boston, surveyed the
theatrical setting of Louisburg Square and sidelong admired the ladies
walking rigidly in sober hats on Commonwealth Avenue. Such persons,
he mused, would never fling hot curling irons in a husband’s face and
it wasn’t possible to imagine them smoking cigarettes in bed. But he
hated Boston and the war was welcome as it honourably pulled him back
to a New Jersey Infantry regiment.

In June, 1898, he sat on a palmetto trunk in the filthy camp of Tampa
watching Eddie Bernamer pitch a ball to Joe Walling. Mark had every
satisfaction in the sight and liked his piebald uniform much more
than any costume hitherto. The camp pleased him as a problem. There
would be plays made on the war, of course, and it wouldn’t be easy to
mount them. These bright trees and the muddle of railroad ties could
be effected but the theatre lacked lights to send down this parching
glitter on black mud and strolling men. He sighed for realism. He had
spent hours in Davidge’s workshop while the grass of “The Princess
of Croy” was being made. It hadn’t the right sheen. The sunset had
turned it blue and the sunset was all wrong even though the critics
had praised it. Mark swung his gaiters and pondered irreproducible
nature. But it would be nice to counterfeit all this--the glister of
remote tin roofing, the harsh palms, the listless soldiery. The police
would object to exactness of course. Brother Joe was pitching the ball
with great flexures of his bronze, naked chest. Eddie Bernamer swore
astoundingly when he ripped his undershirt. One couldn’t be so honest
on the stage or echo the sharp, unreal note of mail call sounding.
Mark ran off to see if the wayward postal service had brought him a
letter. There was a roll of newspapers addressed to his brother-in-law
and Bernamer, a bad reader, turned them over to Mark and Joe. It was
Joe who found the pencilled paragraph Mark rather expected. He slapped
Mark’s back and grunted, “Well, so there y’are, Bud.”

Mark read, “The suit for divorce begun by Mark Walling, the well
known young actor against his wife, Cora Boyle Walling, was concluded
yesterday. Neither party to the action was present in court. Miss Boyle
is touring the West with the Jarvis Hope Stock Company. Jarvis Hope is
named as co-respondent in the case. The action was not defended. Mr.
Walling is now with the --th N.J. Infantry. The divorced couple were
married in August, 1895. They have no children.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said Eddie Bernamer, “and don’t you let
the next woman looks at you haul you off to a preacher, neither.”

Mark felt dubious. There had never been a divorce in the family. He
said, “I guess if we’d had a baby, she wouldn’t of--Dunno.... It’s kind
of too bad.”

His relatives denied it. They had never liked Cora Boyle. She wasn’t
a lady and her clothes had shocked Sadie’s conservative mind. They
pointed out that a stable and meritorious woman wouldn’t have seduced
Mark before marriage. They were glad to see the boy free and were
puzzled by his mournfulness. He agreed with their judgments. But his
eyes moistened for all their affectionate pawing. He muttered, “She was
awful good lookin’,” and sat moody while they indicated advantages.
He could save his pay, now, and wear respectable, black neckties, as
a Walling should. He wouldn’t be bullied or have hot curling irons
flung in his face. He could come home on the Saturday midnight train
and stay until Monday afternoon. And Joe reasonably assured him that
women were plentiful. But Mark mourned, in his tangled fashion, the
collapse of beauty. Cora, he choked, didn’t match her outside. She was
ruthless, disturbing. She cared nothing for Mark’s pet plan of an ideal
lighting system for theatres. She had spilled coffee on his smudged,
laborious chart of a stage to be made in hinged parts. She called his
sacred family a parcel of mossbacks and left the flat when Sadie and
Bernamer brought their baby to town for a day. Still, Mark was mournful
and often missed her for several years. He shuddered from marriage as a
game more complicated than golf.

He was playing golf in May, 1902, with Ian Gail when the English
playwright checked his grammar. Mark flushed. The Englishman fooled
with a putter for a second, considering this colour. He said, “I say,
old son, d’you mind my giving you some advice?”

“Go ahead.”

“Carlson’s closing the play next week, he tells me. What will you do
with yourself, all summer?”

“Go home.”

“Where’s that and what’s it like?”

Mark sat down on the green and chattered of the farm, and his family
with particular mention of his nephew George Dewey Bernamer (born May
15, 1898) who called himself Gurdy. About Joe Walling’s baby daughter
Mark wasn’t as yet enthusiastic. He talked with broad lapses into New
Jersey singsong. His grey eyes dilated. He babbled like an upset pail.
The lean Englishman didn’t seem bored. Other people--Mrs. LeMoyne, old
Mrs. Gilbert--had scolded Mark about these explosions. Gail let him
talk for twenty minutes of warm noon and then said, “Quite right, old
son. Stick to your people.... You’re a sentimental ass, of course. I
dare say that’s why you can put up with dinner at Carlson’s in that
seething mass of red plush.”

“But I like Mr. Carlson. Been mighty good--”

“Of course he’s good to you. And it was good of you to make him mount
my last act so decently.... For some reason or other you’ve an eye
for decoration. That’s by the way.--Now, I’ve a female cousin in
Winchester, a Mrs. Ilden. She writes bad novels that no one reads and
her husband’s in the Navy. I’m going to write her about you. You run
across after the play stops. She’ll put you up for a month and you’ll
pay her--I suggest a hundred pounds.”

“Pay her for what?”

“Her conversation, my boy. She’s quite clever and fearfully learned.
Shaw likes her. She’s an anarchist and a determinist and all that and
much older than you. She makes a business of tutoring youngsters who
need--doing over a bit. You seem to have been reared on Henty and
Shakespeare. Even Carlson says you need pruning. There’s no use being
antediluvian even if you are a rising young leading man.... God, how I
hate the breed! I shouldn’t waste these words on you if you didn’t show
vagrom gleams of common sense now and then. So I most seriously beg of
you to go and let Olive--Mrs. Ilden, tutor you for a fortnight.”

Mark was always docile before authority. He asked, “What’ll she do to
me?”

“She can tell you anything you want to know and explain Winchester. The
history of Winchester is the history of England,” Gail said, “and, of
course, that’s the history of the world.”

Thus, in early June, Mark was driven through Winchester and landed at
the door of a brick house painted plum colour. A grey wall continued
on either side of the ruddy front and nameless vines waved on the
coping. Mark’s head ached from a supper at Romano’s the night previous
but he admired the house and the obvious romance of the curving lane
stippled with sunshine in plaques of honey. He rang the bell, gave a
fat parlour-maid his card and waited for Mrs. Ilden in stolid terror.
The hall had white panels of an approved stage pattern and was dotted
with photographs. Mark was looking at the face of a bearded man whose
eyebrows had a diabolic slant when Olive Ilden came in from her garden.

She came in a bad temper, deserting the discussion of Chamberlain’s
Imperial policy about her tea table. She was prepared for a repetition
of her last paying pupil, the one son of a Rand millionaire, a cub who
wore five rubies on one hand and who talked racing at four meals a day.
Mark unsettled her by his wooden stare and the black decency of his
dress. His clothes were English. He was always tanned. The scar of Cora
Boyle’s curling irons lay in a thread along his left jaw. Olive revised
a theory that Americans were short and looked up at him.

“I’ve some friends at tea,” she said, “Of course, I don’t wish to
impose tea on a Yankee.”

“I think I’d like some,” Mark said miserably and followed her trailing,
white skirts down an endless garden. He thought her gown distinctly bad
and sloppy. She must be older than she looked or she wouldn’t be so
careless. The girdle was crooked and the gauze across her shoulders was
too tight. But it was a fine body, tall and proportionate. Her hair was
a lustreless black. Meanwhile he had to think about this scene of an
English garden. It phrased itself simply. Wall, rear. Tower of church,
right background. Two small children playing with a kitten. Tea-table.
Three ladies. Young man in tweeds. One clergyman.--It was like the
garden set for the “Princess of Croy.” Mark braced himself, bowed and
murmured in the manner of Mrs. LeMoyne, leaned on one of the limes in
the manner of Herbert Kelcey, and drank his tea in the manner of Mr.
Drew. The minor canon gave him a cigarette and Mark said, “Thanks so
much.” The youth in tweeds asserted that it was beastly hot for June
and Mark admitted, “Rather.” He stood sombre against the lime and the
group was chilled by his chill. Two of the ladies fancied him a poet by
the red curling of his hair. The guests withdrew. Olive Ilden fiddled
with a teaspoon and frowned.

“I rather expected you on Tuesday.”

“Had to stay in London. Mr. Carlson wanted me to look at a couple of
plays he’s thinkin’ of bringing over.”

“Really, I don’t see why you Yankees always import our nonsense. One
hears of the Pinero rubbish playing for thousands of nights in the
States. Why?”

“The women like it,” he wildly said, quoting Carlson. “Are those your
kids?”

“Mine and my husband’s,” Olive laughed and called Joan and Robert
Ilden from their game with the kitten. Mark played with them in all
content for half an hour, didn’t glance at Olive, and told her blond
children about his best nephew, Gurdy Bernamer. The bored infants
broke his watch chain and their puzzled mother took Mark to walk. She
led him down through the college and wondered why he paused to stare
at the cathedral walls where the sunshine was pallid on the weathered
stone.--He was thinking that bulbs tinted straw colour might get this
glow against properly painted canvas.--His eyes opened and his drowsy
gaze pleased the woman. She said, “Do you like it? The cathedral?”

“The tower’s too small,” he said.

“Clever of you. Yes, architects think so. Glad you noticed.”

“Anybody could see that. Is that the Bishop?” he asked, seeing black
gaiters in motion on a lawn.

“A mere dean. And the birds are rooks. All the best cathedrals have
rooks about. Shall we go in?”

“I’d just as soon,” he nodded, regretting that the queer shade of the
elms wasn’t possible on a backdrop.

The interior charmed him. He forgot his headache. His thoughts hopped.
Church scenes never went well. No way to capture this slow echo for the
stage. The upper brightness made him raise his eyes. This range of high
windows where the lights melted together was called a “clerestory.”
The mingled glory almost frightened him. He saw a white butterfly that
jigged and wheeled, irreverent, solitary on the far shadows of the
vault. Mark smiled. Small Gurdy Bernamer named butterflies “bruffles”
and was probably chasing one, now, across the hot perfume of the
Fayettesville garden. The fancy made him homesick. He blinked. The
woman watching him saw crystal wetness point his lashes and hastily
stated, “This is William de Wykeham’s tomb.”

Mark examined the painted tomb, wished he could sketch the canopy and
the pygmy monks who pray at the Bishop’s feet. Gurdy Bernamer would
like the monks and would break them. He rubbed his nose and chuckled.

“I suppose,” Olive said, “that all this seems rather silly to you.
You’re a practical people.”

“It’s good lookin’. I don’t see how a good lookin’ thing can be silly,
exactly. I was thinkin’ my kid nephew’d like those monks to play with.
But he’d bust them.--Isn’t King William Rufus buried here?”

“You’ve been reading a guide book!”

“Oh, no. That’s in history. They lugged him here on a wagon or
something and buried him. Where’s he plant--buried?”

Mark wished that the dark lady would stop frowning as she steered him
to the glum, polished tomb in the choir. He must be offensive to her.
She said, “This is supposed to be the tomb. They’re not sure,” and Mark
stared at the raised slab of ugly stone with awe. The organ began to
growl softly in a transept. It was solemn to stand, reflecting on the
Red King while the organ moaned a marching air. William Rufus had been
dead so long. History was amazing.... When he had a theatre of his own
Mark meant to open it with Richard III or with Henry V. Carlson told
him that no one would ever play Richard III again as Booth had gone
too high in the part. But the Walling Theatre would be opened with a
romantic play full of radiant clothes and scenes that would match the
playhouse itself. The Walling would have a ceiling of dull blue and
boxes curtained in silk, black as a woman’s hair. The lamps should
wane in the new manner when the acts began and there would be mirrors
rimmed in faint silver to gleam in far nooks of the balcony--something
to shimmer in corners and shadows of his dream.... Mark stared down the
nave and built his theatre against the grey age of this place until
Olive sat in a heap of muslin on the tomb of William Rufus.

“One doesn’t have to bother about such an indifferent king. There are
some more in those tins--I mean caskets--on top of the choir screen.
Edmund and so on.”

“More kings? But won’t a--a sacristan or something come an’ chase you
off of here?”

“What do you know about sacristans?”

“Cathedrals always have sacristans in books.”

“I dare say you read quantities of bad novels,” she observed.

“Well, I like Monsieur Beaucaire and Kim better’n anything I’ve
read lately,” said her bewildering pupil, “Say, who was Pico della
Mirandola?”

“I don’t think I can talk about the Renascence in Winchester choir,”
Olive choked and took him away.

Save for the studied clarity of voice he showed no theatrical traits.
He resented the sign of The Plume of Feathers beside the West Gate
because “it spoiled the wall.” He asked if the Butter Cross was a well
and bought several postcards at a shop where the squared panes arrested
him. Olive made conjectures. She was twenty-six. She had known actors
in some bulk. This wasn’t an actor, observably. She guided him back
toward the college and through a swarm of lads in flannels. At these
Mark looked and sighed.

“Why that sob?”

“Dunno. I s’pose because kids are havin’ such an awful good time and
don’t know it. I mean--they’ll get married and all that.”

“Are you married?”

Mark said cheerfully, “Divorced.”

“Tell me about it.”

“D--don’t think I’d better, Mrs. Ilden.”

“Is that American?”

“Is--is what?”

“That delicate respect for my sensibilities.”

“Don’t know what you mean exactly. I had to divorce Cor--my wife and
I’d rather not talk about it.”

Olive felt alarmed. She said, “I’m supposed to tutor you in art and
ethics and I’m merely trying to get your point of view, you know? Don’t
look so shocked.”

“I don’t see what my gettin’ divorced has to do with art and ethics....
Oh, was this man Leighton a better painter’n Whistler?”

His questions ranged from the salary of canons to professional cricket.
He wore a small and single pearl in his shirt at dinner, sat eating
chastely and stared at Olive between the candles that made his grey
eyes black in the brown of his face. The parlour-maid brought him the
silver bowl of chutney three unnecessary times. He timidly corrected
Olive’s views on farm labour in the United States with, “I’m afraid
you’re wrong. I was brought up on a farm.”

“Really? I was wondering.”

“Fayettesville. It’s up in the woods behind Trenton. Say, what’s the
Primrose League?”

For a week Olive tried to outline this mentality. He plunged from
subject to subject. Economics wearied him. “What’s it matter what kind
of a gover’ment you have so long as folks get enough to eat and the
kids ain’t--don’t have to work?” Religion, he said, was all poppycock.
His “papa” admired Robert Ingersoll and “What’s it matter whether folks
have souls or not?”

“You’re a materialist,” she laughed.

“Well, what of it?”

“I’m trying to find out what your ethical standards are. Why don’t you
cheat at poker?”

“Because it ain’t fair. It’s like stealin’ a man’s wife.”

“Some one stole your wife, didn’t he?”

Mark finally chuckled. “You’d hardly call it stealing. She just walked
off when she knew I’d--heard about it.”

He blushed, hoping he hadn’t transgressed and hurriedly asked whether
Bernard Shaw was really a vegetarian. He had no opinion of Shaw’s
plays but thought “The Devil’s Disciple” a better play than “Magda.”
“The Sunken Bell” was “pretty near up to Shakespeare.” He was
worried because “Treasure Island” couldn’t be dramatized and recited
“Thanatopsis” to the horror of Olive’s children. Olive interrupted the
recital.

“That’ll be quite enough, thanks! Wherever did you pick up that
sentimental rot?”

“Just what is bein’ sentimental?” Mark demanded.

“Writing such stuff and liking it when it’s written! I suspect you of
Tennyson.”

“Never read any. Tried to. Couldn’t, except that Ulysses thing. Let’s
go take a walk.”

“Too warm, thanks,” said Olive, wanting to see whether this would hold
him in his basket chair under the limes.

“I’ll be back about tea time,” Mark promised, paused on his way up the
garden to kiss Bobby Ilden’s fair head as the little boy reminded him
of Gurdy Bernamer and vanished whistling “The Banks of the Wabash.”

“All his clothes are black,” said young Joan Ilden, “but I was helping
Edith dust in his room this morning and he has the nicest blue pyjamas.”

“Do go pull Bobby out of the raspberries,” Olive said and fell into a
sulk which she didn’t define. She lounged in her chair watching the
light play on the straight bole of a tree behind the emptied place
where Mark had been sitting.... Rage succeeded the sulk. This was a
stupid augmentation of her income. Olive disapproved landholding but
it would be easier every way when Ilden’s uncle died and he came into
the Suffolk property. Then she would be able to live in London instead
of flitting there for a breath of diversion. She hoped Mark would go
to London soon.... He had the mind of a badly schooled stock-broker!
Olive lifted her portfolio from the table and penciled a note to her
husband. “I do wish you could slaughter your dear uncle, Jack. Ian
Gail has sent me a silly Yankee to educate. I hope I have no insular
prejudice against the harmless, necessary Colonial but this cad--” Then
she thought. “What am I saying here? I don’t mean it. I’m lying,” and
tore up the paper.

Mark went swimming in the Itchen and did not come home until seven.
He dressed in six minutes and found Olive clad in black lace by the
drawing room mantel of white stone. He said, “Say, I ran into a flock
of sheep an’ an old feller with a crook. Do they still do that?”

“Do?”

“Crooks. And he had on a blue--what d’you call it?--smock?”

Olive laughed and lifted her arms behind her head.

“Did you think some one was staging a pastoral for your benefit? But
you didn’t come home to tea and there were some quite amusing people
here. I kept them as long as I could.”

“Too bad,” said Mark, “I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t lie so. You’re not at all sorry. You’re bored when
people come and you have to play the British gentleman. And there are
so many other things better worth doing.”

“That’s in Shaw,” Mark guessed, “Clyde Fitch was talkin’ about it. But
what’s wrong with actin’ like a gentleman?”

“What’s the use? Your manners are quite all right. If you’d talk to
people and collect ideas.... It’s so much more important to straighten
out your ideas than to stand and hold a teacup properly. A butler can
do that. I could train a navvy to do that. And--”

“That’s an awful good looking dress,” he broke in, “Nicest you’ve had
on since I’ve been here.”

Olive let an arm trail on the mantel where the stone cooled it. “I’m
talking about your intellect and you talk about my frock.”

“I know something about dresses and I don’t know a thing about
intellect. You ought to wear dark things because you’ve got such a nice
sk--complexion.”

“I don’t bother about clothes except when Jack’s at home and I want to
keep his attention.... You were in Cuba, you said? Did you kill any
one?”

“Don’t know. Tried to. Why?”

“I was wondering whether you’d mind killing an old duffer in Suffolk.
He keeps my husband out of twelve hundred a year and a decentish house.
Would you mind?”

Mark saw this was meant as a joke and laughed, studying her arm which
gleamed white on the white stone.

“My husband’s uncle. He’s easily eighty and he’s very Tory.”

“Haven’t got any uncles. Got an aunt that’s pretty awful. She’s a
Methodist.”

He wouldn’t look at her. He still stared at the arm sprawled on the
mantel and smiled like a child. Olive wanted to hurt him suddenly, to
rouse him. The glowing stare was too childish. She drawled, “I went
into your bedroom to see that they’d swept it decently. Are those the
family portraits on the desk? Who’s the fat girl with the baby?”

“Sadie. My sister. She’s puttin’ on weight. Papa keeps two hired
girls now and she don’t have to cook. The yellow-headed fellow’s her
husband--Eddie Bernamer. Awful fine man.”

He beamed at Olive now, doting on Eddie Bernamer’s perfections. Olive
tried, “And the lad with the very huge pearl in his scarf is your
brother? And they all live on your father’s farm? And you go down there
and bore yourself to death over weekends?”

“Don’t bore myself at all. I get all the New York I want weekdays. Fine
to get out and ride a horse round. Nice house. We built a wing on when
Joe got married last year.”

The parlour-maid announced dinner. Mark gave Olive his arm and wanted
to stroke her arm white across the black of his sleeve. He talked of
his family through the meal and after it, leaning on the piano while
Olive played. He tortured her with anecdotes of his and Joe’s infancy
and with the deeds of Gurdy Bernamer. He sighed, reporting that Sadie’s
oldest girl had died.

“You mean you’re wearing mourning for a six year old child!”

“Of course,” said Mark.

“And then you ask me what a sentimentalist is!” Olive struck a discord
into the Good Friday Spell and sneered, “I dare say you think life’s so
full of unpleasantness that it shouldn’t be brought into the theatre!”

“No. I don’t think that, exactly. But I don’t think there’s any
sense in doin’ a play where you can’t--can’t--well, make it good
lookin’. These plays where there’s nothin’ but a perfec’ly ordinary
family havin’ a fight and all that--A show ought to be something
more.--You get the music in an opera. Carmen’d be a fine hunk of bosh
if you didn’t have the music and the Spanish clothes. Just a dirty
yarn!... There’d ought to be somethin’ good lookin’ in a play....
Nobody believes a play but girls out of High School.... If you can’t
have poetry like Shakespeare you ought to have something--something
pretty--I don’t mean pretty--I mean--” Olive stopped the music. Mark
descended rapidly and went on, “I don’t care about these two cent
comedies, either.”

“You don’t like comedy?”

“Not much. Truth is, I don’t catch a joke easy. I’ve tried readin’
Molière but it sounds pretty dry to me. Haven’t tried--Aristophanes?--I
guess that’s deeper’n I could swim--”

“Rot! You mustn’t let yourself--what is it?--be blinded by the glory of
great names. Any one who can see the point in Patience can understand
Aristophanes.... But you haven’t much humour. But you’ve played in
comedy?”

“Some. I’d just as soon.”

Olive began “Anitra’s Dance” knowing that he liked melodrama and
watched his eyes brighten, dilating. She said amiably, “A fine
comedian’s the greatest boon in the world. Women especially. Is it true
that women who’re good in comedy are usually rather serious off the
stage?”

“Can’t say--Well, my wife was pretty damn serious!”

His huge sigh made Olive laugh. She asked, “You’ve no children?”

“No. Guess that was the trouble.--Play that Peer Gynt Mornin’ thing.”

“I’ve played enough,” said Olive. “You say Mr. Carlson sent you over to
look at some plays for him? He must trust your judgment.”

Mark answered happily, “Sure. He says that if I take to a play so’ll
every one else. He says I’ve got lots of judgment about plays.”

Olive shut the piano and rose. Her face wrinkled off into laughter. She
said, “You dear thing! I dare say he’s quite right about that. Good
night.”

She strolled out of the drawing room and Mark could see her passing up
the long stairs. She moved splendidly against the white panels. One
wrist caressed the rail. The black gown dragged gently up the rosy
treads. She vanished slowly into the dark and Mark said, “Golly,” as he
went to get his hat. He wandered over to the bar of the Black Swan and
drank cold ale while he meditated.

He mustn’t fall in love. Eddie Bernamer and Joe disapproved of
affairs with married women. They were right, of course. And nothing
must interfere with his tutelage. And Ilden was at sea. But this was
vexatious! He wished she did not stroll so lazily up stairs, across
gardens. He wished that her hair wasn’t black.--He found himself
blushing at breakfast when she came in with a yellow garden hat on the
black of her hair. Now that he’d begun to think of it she looked rather
like Cora Boyle.

He thought of Cora Boyle again in the garden after luncheon. The
children had left a green rubber ball on the turf. Mark rolled it about
with one sole and watched Olive trim a patch of dull blue flowers. His
place and the ball underfoot recalled something cloudy. He worked to
evolve a real memory and laughed. Olive quickly glanced up.

“You keep asking about my wife. She was boardin’ with us at the farm.
First time she ever spoke to me I was kicking a ball around, in the
garden. This way. I was barefoot. Cora said, ‘Ain’t you too old to go
barefooted?’ I forget what I said.”

“But with the ball that day you played no more?”

“That sounds like a piece of a play,” said Mark.

“It’s from a comedy,” Olive snapped, “Do get your hat and take a walk.
I’ll be busy for an hour. Look at the Deanery garden. The Dean’s gone
to Scotland.”

“Got to write a letter first. Boat from Liverpool tomorrow.”

He mailed a letter to Joe’s wife, born Margaret Healy, tramped down to
the Close and examined the Dean’s garden. It would make a neat setting,
the mass of the Cathedral to the left, the foliate house to the right.
A maid in black and white passed over the grass and reminded him of
Joe’s wife again by a certain dragging gait. He went into the cathedral
and studied the Wykeham tomb from all angles. Some tourists hummed in
the nave; a guide in a frock coat ambled after them descanting thinly
of dead kings. Mark fell into a genial peace, leaned on a column,
smiling at the far roof. The feet of the tourists made a small melody
among the tombs and this seemed to increase. He heard a rapid breath
and saw Olive with his coat over her arm. She panted, “I’ve packed your
things. They’re in the cab. At the gates. Hurry. You’ve hardly time to
get to the station. Do hurry! I’ll telegraph to Liverpool and ask them
to hold a cabin--stateroom--whatever they call them.--Oh, do hurry!”

“What’s happened?”

“Oh, this!--I didn’t look at the cover--thought it was from Jack--”

Mark snatched the telegram and read, “Joe and Margaret killed wreck
Trenton come if--” then rolled the paper into his palm. Olive saw his
eyes swell and gasped, “Who’s Margaret?”

“Joe’s wife. Where’s cab?”

“At the gates. Run.”

He dashed into the sun beyond the open doors then the red hair gleamed
as he came wheeling back to gulp, “Send you a check from--”

Olive spread her hands out crying, “No! I shan’t take it!” and saw
him rush off again. The cab made no noise that she could hear. She
shivered as if a warming fire died suddenly in winter and left her
cold. Presently she struck a palm on the stone beside her and said,
“Sentimentalist! Sentimentalist!” while she wept. She made use of Mark,
though, in her next novel, The Barbarian, which began her success. Mark
was rather flattered by the picture and glad that he hadn’t insulted
this clever, wise woman by making love to her. He thought of Olive as
exalted from the ranks of passionate, clutching females and often wrote
long, artless letters to her.




III

Full Bloom


The family council prudently allowed Mark to adopt his brother’s
orphan, Margaret. He sometimes borrowed Gurdy Bernamer to keep the dark
child company in his New York flat. By 1905 the borrowing settled into
a habit. Gurdy provided activity for a French nurse and then for an
English governess despatched by Olive Ilden. He was a silent, restless
creature. He disliked motorcars for his own unrevealed reason that
they resembled the hearses of his uncle’s funeral. He had a prejudice
against small Margaret because she looked like her dead mother, an
objectionable person smelling of orange water, and because Mark made
a fuss over the child. He learned to read newspapers, copying Mark’s
breakfast occupation, and in September, 1907, noted that Carlson and
Walling would tonight inaugurate their partnership by the presentation
of “Red Winter” at their new 45th Street Theatre. “Inaugurate” charmed
Gurdy. It conveyed an image of Mark and the bony Mr. Carlson doing
something with a monstrous auger. Mark had for ever stopped acting in
May, would henceforth “manage.” Curiosity pulled Gurdy from the window
seat of his playroom in Mark’s new house on 55th Street. He waited for
a moment when the governess, Miss Converse, was scolding young Margaret
and wouldn’t see him slide down the hall stairs. He scuttled west,
then south and navigated Broadway until he reached the mad corner of
45th Street where a gentleman took him by the collar of his blouse and
halted him.

“Where are you going?”

Gurdy recognized a quiet character who came to luncheons now and then.
He said, “H’lo, Mr. Frohman,” dutifully and looked about for the
theatre. The stooping man detained him gravely.

“I thought you weren’t old enough for shows.”

“I’m looking for Mark.”

Mr. Frohman chuckled, leaning on a stick. He said, “He’s in his office.”

“Where’s that?”

Gurdy stared past the pointing stick and saw a cream face of columns
and windows. He saw the stone above a ring of heads. People were gaping
at his calm acquaintance as if this plump, tired man was a kicking
horse. He remembered civility and asked, “How’s your rheumatism?”

“Better,” said Mr. Frohman and limped away.

Gurdy pushed scornfully through the gapers and trotted into the white
vestibule of the theatre where men were arranging flowers--horseshoes
of orchids, ugly and damp, roses in all tints, lumps of unknown bloom
on standards wrapped in silver foil. A redhaired, hatless youth listed
the cards dangling from these treasures and told Gurdy to go to hell
when Gurdy asked for his uncle but another man nodded to stairs of
yellow, slick marble. On the landing Gurdy found a door stencilled
in gold, “Carlson & Walling.” The door opened into a room hung with
photographs where Gurdy saw Mark sitting on a table, surrounded by men.
Mr. Carlson, already sheathed in winter furs, bullied a carpenter who
corrected the lower shelf of a bookcase. Gurdy stood wondering at the
furious shades of neckties and the grey hard hats which Miss Converse
thought vulgar.

“My God,” said Carlson, “Mark, look at that comin’ in!”

Mark groaned. He had a compact with Mrs. Bernamer that the borrowed boy
shouldn’t enter a theatre until he was twelve. He was tall enough for
twelve but he was only nine. He stayed in the doorway, studying the red
walls of the room, his white socks far apart and his hands thrust into
the pockets of his short, loose breeches. The callers stared at the
tough legs brown from summer on the farm. The boy’s one patent beauty,
his soft, pale hair, was hidden by his English sailor cap and his white
blouse was spotted with ink stains. But the men grinned and chuckled,
admiringly. Gurdy made no sound when Carlson set him on the top of the
bookcase but gazed contemptuously at the crowding men and let himself
be petted.

“When d’you inaugurate, Mark?”

“Eight fifteen, when you’ll be in bed, sonny.”

Gurdy drawled, “I don’t get to bed till quarter of nine and you ought
to know that by this time.” He frowned, partly closing his dark blue
eyes, as the men laughed. “What are all those flowers for?”

A man in a corner lifted his white face from a book and whispered,
“Those are gifts the Greeks brought.” This caused stillness, then
unpleasing chuckles. Gurdy climbed down from the bookcase and went
to talk to Mr. Fitch. They talked of French lessons and the vagaries
of governesses. The other callers complimented Mark on the boy’s
good looks. The flattery was soothing after the strain of the last
rehearsal. Mark knew it for flattery. Gurdy’s face was too long,
his sober mouth too wide and his jaw prematurely square. But the
compliments were the due of a successful actor turned manager. He sat
for a little watching Mr. Fitch lazily chat with the boy as though he
were a grown man. On the playwright’s warning he had lately published
a careful interview announcing Gurdy and Margot as adopted children
and his relationship to them. But people still probably reported Gurdy
an illegitimate son and Margot his daughter by Cora Boyle. Mark sighed
and took Gurdy down through the flowers to see the cream and gold play
house where men were squirting perfume from syringes along the red
aisles, killing the smell of paint. He let Gurdy have a syringe and
went into the vestibule. The redhaired clerk listing the gifts of other
managers handed him the card wet from its journey in a ball of pink
roses.

“Mrs. Cosmo Rand.... Who the devil’s Mrs. Cosmo Rand, Billy?”

The clerk scratched his ear and grinned. “You’d ought to know, sir.”

“But I don’t. Cosmo Rand? Heard of him. Loeffler’s got him in
something. Who’s she?”

“Miss Cora Boyle,” said the clerk and strolled off to insult a
messenger bringing in more flowers.

Mark had a curious, disheartening shock. He didn’t bow to Cora Boyle
on the street. What right had she to send him flowers? It must be a
passing rudeness. She might remember that he disliked pink roses. Mark
rested on the ledge of the box office, brooding. But she might mean to
be pleasant. Her manager, Loeffler, was on bad terms with Carlson.
This might be a dictated, indirect peace offering. Mark patted the
florid carved stone of the ledge and thought. Cora’s new play wasn’t
a success. The reviews had been tart. She might be tired of Loeffler.
Mark was perplexed but the hunt for motives always wearied him. A
scarlet petticoat went by outside the vestibule and led off his mind.
He bade his treasurer telephone for the motor and stood joking with the
man through the box office window until a flat stop in the noise behind
him made Mark turn his head. The florists and clerks were motionless,
regarding the street. A coupé had stopped. A footman was helping a
woman and a tumult of varied flowers to the sidewalk. She came toward
the doors gallantly, her face quite hidden in the enormous bouquet but
the treasurer said, “By gee, I’d know her in hell, by her walk,” and
chuckled. She tripped on the sill and screamed gaily to Mark, “Au s’
cours!”

Mark jumped to catch the sheaf of yellow roses. Miss Held waved her
grey gloves wide and dipped her chin. “Je t’ apporte une gerbe vu que
t’es toujours bon enfant, Marc Antoine! And ’ow does Beatriz get along
to teach you French?”

“Pretty fair. Haven’t had much time lately. Thought you’d taken your
show on the road, Anna?”

“Nex’ week.” Up the staircase some one began to whistle “La Petite
Tonkinoise.” The little woman vibrated inside the grey case of her lacy
gown and pursed her lips. “Oh, but I am sick of that tune! Make him
stop.” The whistler heard and ceased. Miss Held swayed to and fro among
the flowers, noting cards. She adopted a huge orchid for her waist and
smiled down at it. A dozen grins woke in the collecting crowd. Mark
was aware of upholsterers oozing from the theatre. Miss Held hummed
from gift to gift, murmuring names--“Le Moyne.... ton institutrice....
Ce bon vieux David.... Nice lilies.” She moved in a succession of
swift steps that seemed balanced leaps. One of the florist’s girls
sighed a positive sob of envy. The curving body and the embellished
eyes kept the crowd still. The soft gloves drooped on the hard lustre
of the stirring arms. Mark wondered at her cool, sardonic mastery of
attention. She was bored, unwell and her frock was nothing new. She was
Anna Held and the people were edging in from the sidewalk to look at
her.

“Like to see the house, Anna?”

“Oh, no. I very well know what that would be. All red, and gold fishes
on the ceiling, eh? No. I must go away.” She strolled off toward her
carriage, chattering sudden French which Mark did not understand. He
heard an immense discussion surge up in the vestibule as he shut the
coupé door, walked through it into the theatre where two upholsterers
were quarrelling over the age of the paragon and where Mark bumped
against a man in brown who seemed to inspect the gold dolphins of the
vault.

“Clumsy,” said the man, briskly.

“Didn’t see you, sir.”

“I meant the decoration.” The man flicked a hand at the ceiling and
the red boxes, “Like Augustin Daly’s first house but much worse.
We should have passed that. Gilt. It’s the scortum ante mortum in
architecture.” He jammed a cigarette between the straight lips of his
flushed face and went on in a rattle of dry syllables. “Some one should
write a monograph on gold paint and the theatrical temperament. Plush
and passion. Stigmata.... Sous un balcon doré.... Can you give me a
match?... Where’s Carlson’s office?” He bustled out of the foyer.

Mark wearily tore Cora Boyle’s card in his tanned fingers and nodded.
The stranger was right. This new theatre was stale. The gold sparkled
stupidly. The shades of velvet were afflicting. But Carlson liked it.
Mark sighed and thought, rather sadly, that his patron’s whole concept
of the trade was vulgar and outworn like this gaudy expense. Red
velvet, heavy gold, bright lamps--the trappings of his apprenticeship.
Old actors told Mark that this was a variant of the first Daly theatre.
The stranger was right, then. Mark wondered and went upstairs to the
office but the flushed man was gone.

“That feller Huneker was in tryin’ to get me to hire some orchestra
leader,” Carlson said.

“But I thought Huneker was a young man,” Mark answered.

Mr. Fitch whispered from his corner, “He hasn’t any particular age.
What was that riot downstairs, Mark?”

“Anna Held dropped in and left some flowers. She ain’t lookin’ well.”

The playwright closed his magazine and lifted himself from the chair,
assuming his strange furry hat. “We have just so much vitality. She’s
losing hers. But if she died tomorrow it would make almost as much
noise as killing a president. And that’s quite right. Presidents never
make any one feel sinful. Good night.”

Carlson asked, “You’re comin’ tonight, Clyde.”

“Not feeling right, thanks.”

Mark followed the bent back down the stairs. Fitch was stopped by a
lounger at the doors, loaned the old fellow ten dollars and passed,
unobtrusive, along Forty Fifth Street. He went shadowlike in his vivid
dress. Liking the man, Mark frowned. The exhausted courtesy, the slow
voice always left him puzzled; it was as though the playwright’s
prosperity kept within it a dead core of something pained, as if the
ghost of an old hunger somehow lived on under the coloured superfluity.

Mark’s motor arrived outside. He went to whistle Gurdy up from an
investigation of the orchestra pit. All the bulbs burned about the
house. For a second Mark liked the place then the gilt and the mulberry
hangings bothered him. He chased Gurdy up an aisle to the vestibule.
The treasurer slipped from the box office to say, “Young Rand just
called up. I said you wasn’t here.”

“Who?”

“Cora Boyle’s new husband. That English kid.”

Mark shrugged and shoved Gurdy into the dull blue limousine at the
curb. The motor took him away from the theatre and away from several
beckoning hands on the sidewalk. His shift to managership had changed
the fashion of salutes. People now beckoned him with a posture of
confidential affection and earnestness. They had friends to recommend,
deep suggestions. Carlson had warned him, “Mind, you’re a kid with a
pocketful of candy, now. You’ve stopped bein’ just one of the gang.
Better ride in cabs if you want to get anyplace.” Well, the motor, with
its adorable slippery blue crust, kept people at a distance. Mark
wound an arm about Gurdy and pulled himself into a corner of the seat.
The car was hampered by a dilatory van that lurched ahead of its hood.
The chauffeur cursed in Canadian French and a messenger boy on the
van’s tail cursed back, joyously foul, emptily shooting accusations of
all sins in a sweet, sexless howl that pierced the glass about Mark and
made him grin, absently amused.

“He’s mad,” said Gurdy, dispassionately.

“No. He’s just talking, son.”

“Huh,” Gurdy grunted, trying to match the words with ordinary
conversation. This messenger boy was plainly an accomplished fellow.
The van rolled off over Broadway in a shock of light and dust. Gurdy
saw “Red Winter” on a poster and asked, “Is this Red Winter a good
play, Mark?”

“Pretty fair, honey.”

“Well, can I come to it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Too dirty,” Mark said, then, “All about killin’ folks, son.”

Gurdy argued, “Well, Lohengrin’s all about killing people and Miss
Converse took me to that and it was in Dutch.”

“German, sonny.”

“I like French better’n German,” Gurdy yawned, waving a leg in the air
and went on, “I think Broadway’s ugly.”

“You’re right,” said Mark, enchanted by such taste.

Yet Carlson really liked to stroll on Broadway and Cora Boyle had
often led Mark for dusty hours through this complexity of hesitant,
garrulous people, along these sidewalks where there was nothing to be
seen. He rubbed his jaw and thought of Paris, viewed last summer, of
the long, swooping street at Winchester gilt in an afterglow. Oh, after
dark Broadway was tolerable! Then the revolving people were shapes of
no consequence and, with a little mist, these lights were aqueous,
flotillas of shimmering points on a hovering, uncertain vastness. Now,
the roadway was a dappled smear of bodies wheeled and bodies shod. The
sidewalks writhed, unseemly. But Cora Boyle liked it. The pretty, black
haired dancer just then lodged at Mark’s cost had rooms overlooking the
new width above Forty Second Street. And she liked that.... And she
liked the scenery of “Red Winter.” Poor stuff, he thought. He cursed
scene painters. Charles Frohman had heard of a fellow who’d studied
the art in Berlin and made astonishing sets. He must telephone Frohman
and get the man’s name. He was tired. “Red Winter” had tired him.
The leading woman had a way of saying “California” through her nose
that had vexed him all week. A poor play. His head was full of jagged
swift ideas, of memories; Eddie Bernamer milking a young cow against
a sulphur wall and laughing when Mark tried to sketch him on the fly
leaf of an algebra; Cora Boyle swaggering into Rector’s in a blue
dress; Clyde Fitch telling little Margaret that her name was Margot;
Stanford White shouting with laughter because Mark softened the ch of
“architecture.” Why hadn’t they given White a billion dollars and let
him build the whole city into charms of tranquil, columnar symmetry?...
Gurdy knew that his uncle was oppressed. When Mark thought hard he
stroked the scar on his jaw. Gurdy wanted to talk, now, and tossed a
leg over Mark’s black, rocky knee.

“What’re you thinkin’ about, Mark?”

“Just bosh. What’s Margot been doing all day?”

“Havin’ a bellyache.”

That terrified Mark. He sweated suddenly and called through the tube
bidding the driver hurry. Spinal meningitis, he read, began with
nausea. But when he ran into the panelled library of his house Margot
was playing with her largest doll and the angular governess assured
him, in simple French, that a pill had set things right. Margot lifted
her black eyes and said, rubbing her stomach, “I was ill, papa,” in
her leisurely way.

“Ate breakfast too fast,” Gurdy said, in grim displeasure, watching
Mark double his lean height and begin to cuddle Margot.

Margot stared at her cousin with an aggrieved, brief pout and then
wound herself into Mark’s lap. The large doll was named Aunt Sadie for
Mrs. Bernamer. Margot said, “Miss Converse fixed Aunt Sadie’s drawers,
papa,” and her brown face rippled as she displayed three stitches. Then
she righted the doll and gazed at Mark devotedly, solemnly, preening
her starched skirt of pink linen. Pink went with her black hair and
her tawny skin. Mark touched a roaming mesh of her hair and her face
rippled once more. Her skin had this amber haze like the water of a
pool in the pine forest behind the farm. In that pool he had bathed
with her father through endless afternoons, idling on until other
boys lagged off and the shadows were ink on the crumbled ocher clay
of the margin where pink boneset grew. And now Joe was dead and his
blackhaired wife was dead ... an unskilled cook before marriage, half
Irish, half Italian, a good, sleepy woman who ate with her knife and
wore a chaplet blessed for her Roman mother by some Pope. Margot would
never know them. He kissed her hair. She was this warm bubble enclosed
in his arms.

“Love me any, sister?”

“’Course,” said Margot.

Gurdy snorted and stalked away. Mark talked to the stiff governess and
patted Margot. Miss Converse sewed and chatted about Conrad’s novels,
then getting fashionable. She assented, “Very interesting. Romantic, of
course. I dare say the colour attracts you.”

“Of course,” said Mark, “and what if they are romantic?”

She had some vague objection. If she bored him, Mark was still grateful
that she hadn’t tried to marry him. She was necessary to the training
of the children but her buff, bulky face wasn’t alluring and her gowns
hurt him by a prevalence of mole embroidery and rumpled lace. She was a
gentlewoman, wonderfully learned and obliging about his pet airs on the
piano. Mark talked and wished that he could escape, like Gurdy who went
to practice handsprings in the white hall and slid downstairs at the
note of the doorbell.

Gurdy slid along the handrail of black wood so admired by callers and
jumped for the dining room which had doors of glass coated in blue
silk. These doors opened into the drawing room which Gurdy despised
for its furniture all black and silver and its hangings of cloudy
tapestry, impossibly noiseless when one bounced balls against them.
Yet people called it a lovely room. And now, peering through a rift
of the blue silk Gurdy saw the butler turn a visitor into this space
and the visitor looked about with brown eyes, seeming to admire. Gurdy
speculated and decided that the slight man was an actor come to talk to
Mark about a part. His hair curled, his overcoat clung to his middle
neatly, his white gaiters were unspotted, his pale moustache didn’t
overhang his little mouth. He was visibly an actor. Gurdy had examined
many through this spyhole. And like many the fellow went to glance at a
circular mirror above the cabinet with tiny doors which Miss Converse
called “Siennese.” As Mark’s feet descended, the man straightened
himself and began a smile. Gurdy listened to the jar of his high voice
against Mark’s fuller drawl.

“Mr. Rand?”

“Yes. Don’t think we’ve ever met. Daresay you know who I am and all
that?”

“Yes,” said Mark.

Gurdy noted the long pause. He held that actors were a talkative lot.
Mr. Rand worked with his moustache an indefinite time before he spoke
again.

“My wife sent me along--I’m a sort of ambassador, you know?... Matter
of business, entirely.”

Mark said, “I see,” wondering how old the man was. The moustache had an
appearance of soft youth. He smiled, wanting Cora’s third husband to be
at ease, and nodded to a chair.

“Oh, thanks no. Mrs. Rand wants to know if you’d mind meeting her. At
her hotel, for instance?”

“I don’t mind at all,” Mark lied, “Glad to. Any time.”

“Then she may let you know? Thanks ever so. Good luck to your play
tonight,” said the young man and walked out gracefully.

Gurdy came through the glass doors and asked, “Who’s he?” Mark lifted
the pliant, hard body in the air. He fancied that Gurdy must feel
something odd, here.

“How old would you say he was, darling?”

“Dunno. Who’s Mrs. Rand?”

“An actress.”

“Put me down,” said Gurdy, “My pants are comin’ off.”

Mark breathed comfortably, helped the boy on his knee tighten the white
trousers and passed into dotage. Eddie Bernamer and Joe Walling had
begotten these bodies. The fact mattered nothing. Mark was a father.
He had possession. When things went wrong he could come home to gloat
over Margot and Gurdy. He promised, “I shan’t be busy now for a week.
We’ll ride in the Park and feed the squirrels, sonny.”

“All right. Say, Mark, you’re all thin.--There’s the doorbell,
again.--Oh, say, a lady telephoned s’noon. Her name was Miss Monroe and
she wanted you to call her up.”

“I like her nerve!”

Gurdy jumped at this loud snort of his uncle.

“Who’s she?”

“She’s an actress,” Mark stammered, hoping the boy wouldn’t go on, and
Carlson came in, his yellow face splotched as though he’d been walking
fast.

“That Rand squirt been here?” he yelled at Mark.

“Yes. Why?”

“I passed him. What’s he want?”

“Me to meet her.”

“You goin’ to?”

“Guess I better, Mr. Carlson.”

Carlson jabbed Gurdy’s stomach with his cane and panted, “I can tell
you what she wants and don’t you listen to it, neither. She’s had a
fight with Billy Loeffler. He won’t put this whelp she married in her
comp’ny. I bet she quits Loeffler. Her show’s no good, anyhow. Well, I
won’t take her on. She’s a second rater. She’s an onion. I won’t have
her for nothin’. Don’t you get sentymental about Cora Boyle any more,
son!”

“You needn’t worry,” said Mark, patting Gurdy’s ear.

Gurdy sat up and inquired, “Is that the Cora Boyle grandpapa says was
a loose footed heifer?” So Carlson broke into screaming mirth. Mark
flushed and mumbled, sent the boy away and scowled respectfully at his
partner. Sometimes Carlson’s crude amusement stung him.

“For God’s sake don’t talk of her in front of the kids, sir!”

“All right, son. Goin’ to let Gurdy come to the show tonight?”

“Not much!”

The old man lounged into a chair and jeered at his fosterling. Mark’s
horror diverted him. He yapped, “Still think it’s a dirty show, do you?”

“Yes.... Oh, dunno! If there was anything to the slop but that second
act, I wouldn’t care. Nothing but Sappho over again. Old as the hills.”

“What’s new in the show business, son?”

“The Merry Widow is,” Mark laughed, “and you wouldn’t buy it. Savage
is bringing it in week after next. They were playing the music at
Rector’s last night.--Look here, the set for the last act’s all wrong,
still. Those green curtains--”

“You and your sets! God,” said Carlson, “you’d ought to’ve been a scene
painter!”

“I wish I could be, for about one week!” Mark let a grievance loose,
slapping his leg. “These people make me sick! You tell them you want
something new and they trot out some sketch of a room that every one’s
seen for twenty years. They never think of--”

“You ain’t ever satisfied! You act like scenery made a show--”

Mark sighed, “Well, we’re not giving the public its moneysworth with
this piece. The scenery’s--mediocre.--Come up and see Margot.”

The old man poked Margot’s doll with a shaking thumb and called her
Maggie to see her scowl, like Mark. The little girl’s solemn vanity
delighted him. He was also delighted by Gurdy who became an embodied
sneer when Mark fondled Margot. The boy watched Mark kiss this female
nuisance then walked haughtily out of the library and set to work
banging the piano in the upper playroom.

“All you need’s a wife and a mother-in-law and you’d have a happy
home,” Carlson said when Mark let him out of the front door.

“Think I haven’t?”

“I suppose you have. Ain’t any truth in this that you’re goin’ to marry
that Monroe gal?”

“No. I gave her a ring, last week. I suppose she’s been airing it.”

“Sure.--You big calf,” the old man said with gloom, “you always act
so kind of surprised when one of ’em brags of you. You ain’t but
twenty-nine and you’re a fine lookin’ jackass. Of course, she’ll show
off her solytaire! A gal’s as vain as a man, any day. One of ’em’ll
get you married, yet.--Yell at that cab, son. My legs are mighty
tired.--See you at eight sharp. Now, mind, I won’t have nothin’ to say
to Cora Boyle.”

Mark waited until the opening night of “The Merry Widow” for more news
of Cora Boyle. She deserted her manager, Loeffler, while “Red Winter”
was in the first week of its run at the 45th Street Theatre. Mark
saw her lunching in the Knickerbocker grill with her young husband
and a critic who always touted her as the successor of Ada Rehan. A
busybody assured Mark that Cosmo Rand was twenty. Cora was thirty
one. All three of her husbands, then, were younger. The oddity of
theatrical marriage still alarmed Mark. In Fayettesville it was a fixed
convention that girls should be younger than their husbands. But she
was luscious to see at the “Merry Widow” opening. Mark thought how well
she looked, hung above the crowd in the green lined box. She found
novel fashions of massing her hair. That night it rose in a black
peak sustained by silver combs. She kept a yellow cloak slung across
one bare shoulder concealing her gown. Against the gentle green of
her background appeared three men. Rand wore a single eye-glass that
sparkled dully when the outer lights were low. Through the music and
the applause Mark was conscious of the box and of Cora’s red feathered
fan. Her second husband, a thin Jewish comedian, went up to shake hands
in an entr’acte. Women behind Mark giggled wildly. He wandered into
the bronze lobby where men were already whistling the slow melody of
“Velia.” He was chaffed by an Irish actor manager born in Chicago whose
accent was a triumph of maintained vowels.

“An’ why don’t you go shake hands with Cora, bhoy?”

“Shut up, Terry. Come have a drink?”

He steered his friend to a new bar. The Irishman was rather drunk but
vastly genial. He maundered, “A fool Cora was to let go of you, bhoy.
They’re tellin’ me you’ve made money in the stockmarket, too.”

“A little,” Mark admitted.

“I’ve had no luck that way. Well, a fool Cora was.--And how’s it feel
bein’ a manager, lad?”

“Fine.”

The Irishman looked at Mark sidelong over his glass, then up at the
gold stars of the ceiling.

“Ho!--Yes, it’s a fine feelin’.--Well, wait until you’ve put on a
couple of frosts, bhoy! And have to go hat in your hand huntin’ a
backer. You lend money, easy.--You’ll see all the barflies that’ve had
their ten and their twenty off you time and again--You’ll see ’em run
when they see you comin’. Well, here tonight and hell tomorrow.--So
Cora’s quit Billy Loeffler, has she? The dhear man! May his children
all be acrobats! ’Twas Gus Daly taught the scut every trick he knows.
The Napoleon of Broadway! I mind Loeffler runnin’ err’nds for Daly in
eighty five.--Well, you wanted to be a manager and here you are and
here’s luck.--It’s a fine game--the finest there is--and, mind you,
I’ve been a practicin’ bhurglar and a plumber. Drink up.”

They drank and returned to the green theatre, resonant with the prelude
of the next act. Mark was struggling in the half lit thresh of men
strolling toward their seats when Cosmo Rand halted him.

“You’d not mind coming to supper in our rooms at the Knickbocker?”

Mark accepted. The scene of the Maxim revel was lost to him while he
wondered what Cora wanted. He wouldn’t engage her. Carlson’s prejudice
was probably valid. The old man swore that she was worthless outside
light comedy. Yet she had good notices in all her parts. She was
famous for clothes. She signed recommendations for silks and unguents.
She had made a dressmaker popular among actresses. She had played in a
failure in London whence came legends of a passionate Duke. The Duke’s
passion might be invented, like other legends. He mused. The flowing
waltz music made him melancholy. What sort of woman was Cora, nowadays?
Every one changed. He, himself, had changed. He was getting callous to
ready amities, explosions of mean jealousy. He knew nothing of Cora,
really. She might be a different person, better tempered, less frank.
Women were incomprehensible, anyhow. He would never understand them,
doubted that anyone did and sighed. He walked to Cora’s hotel with a
feeling of great dignity. She had mauled him badly, abused him, lied to
him and now she was seeking peace. Then, rising in the lift, he knew
that this dignity had a hollow heart; he was afraid of Cora Boyle.

“This is awfully good of you,” she said, shaking hands. Then she
rested one arm on the shelf filled with flowers and smiled slowly,
theatrically, kicking her rosy train into the right swath about her
feet. Mark felt the display as a boast of her body. She resumed,
“There’s really no sense in our looking at each other over a fence, is
there?”

His face, seen in a mirror among the flowers, cheered Mark to a grin.
He looked impassive and bland. He drawled, “No sense at all,” and
stepped back. But she confused him. He had to speak. He said, “That’s a
stunning frock.”

“You always did notice clothes, didn’t you? Cosmo, do give Mr. Walling
a drink.”

Her voice had rounded and came crisply with an English hint. But it was
not music. It jangled badly against Rand’s level, “What’ll you have,
sir?” from the table where there were bottles and plates of sandwiches.
Mark considered this boy as they talked of “The Merry Widow.” He saw
man’s beauty inexpertly enough. Young Rand was handsome in the fragile,
groomed manner of an English illustration. His chin was pointed. His
eyes seemed brown. His curls lay in even bands. He had neither length
nor strength. But he talked sensibly, rather shrewdly.

“There’ll be a deal of money lost bringing over Viennese pieces, of
course. This thing’s one in a thousand. Quite charming.”

Mark asked, “You’ve not been over here long?”

“I?” Rand laughed, “Lord, yes. I’m a Canadian. Born in Iowa, as a
matter of fact. I’ve been a good deal in England, of course.--Oh, I was
at your new piece the other night. Red Winter, I mean. How very nicely
you’ve mounted it. I really felt beastly cold in that second act. The
snow’s so good.”

Mark bowed, selecting a sandwich. The critics had praised the snow
scene. Rand might truly admire it. If the snow hadn’t satisfied Mark it
had pleased every one else. He lost himself in thoughts of snow. Cora
trailed her rose gown to the table and poured water into a glass of
pale wine. A broad bracelet on her wrist clicked against the glass. She
said, “You and Carlson own all the rights to Red Winter, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to send it to London?”

He laughed and put down his glass. “London? What for? It’d last just
about one week!”

Cora smiled over a shoulder, retiring to the shelf of flowers.

“It would do better than that, Mark. I’ve played in London.”

“I’ve never played there but I’ve been there enough to know better.
California Gold Rush! They don’t know there was such a thing!”

“Oh, I say,” said Rand.

Cora sipped some watered wine. The light shot through the glass and
made a pear of glow on her throat. She was motionless, drinking. She
became a shape set separate from the world in a momentary gleam. He
knew that she was acting. Then she said sharply, “I’ll buy the English
rights if you and Carlson’ll make me a decent figure.”

“Oh, look here! You’d lose. I was talking to Ian Gail about it, last
night. It wouldn’t make a cent in England. They wouldn’t know what it’s
all about. And--it’s such a rotten play! There’s nothing in it!”

She asked, looking at him, “Can I have it?” and her flat voice took
fire in the question, achieved music. She must want the poor play
badly. Rand’s pink nails were lined along his moustache, hiding its
silk. The room fell silent.

“Oh, sure,” Mark said, “You can have it, Cora. I’ll see Mr. Carlson in
the morning.... But damned if I can make out what there is in the play.”

“It’s not the sort of thing you like, I know. But I’m sick of comedy
and that’s all I’m ever offered, here. And I’m sick of New York. Well,
make me an offer of the English rights--Only--I’m no bank, Mark.” She
swaggered to the piano and tamely played a few bars of the Merry Widow
waltz. She hadn’t Olive Ilden’s grace, so seated, and the rose gown
seemed sallow against the black of the piano. She had finished her
scene. Mark saw the familiar stir of her throat as she hid a yawn. He
promised to hurry the business of the English rights to the melodrama
and took his leave.

What had he feared? He tried to think, in the corridor. Recapture,
perhaps, by this woman who wasn’t, after all, half as wicked as others.
Her new elegance hadn’t moved him. The stage did refine people! Cora
had the full air of celebrity. She was now controlled, vainer. She
might still be a shrew. He saddened, ringing for the lift, and thought
of Cosmo Rand’s future if “Red Winter” failed in London. The elevator
deposited a page with a silver bucket and this went clinking to Cora’s
door. Rand and she would drink champagne. Mark sank pondering to the
lounge and stopped to buy a cigar, there. It was almost one o’clock.
Many of the lights had been turned out. The threaded marble lost sheen
in the smoky gloom. Parties ebbed from the supper room and a wedge
of dressed men waved to Mark. A candy merchant in the lead bawled
to him and Mark went to be introduced to an English actress on the
millionaire’s arm. She swayed, gracious and tipsy, involved in a cloak
of jet velvet, her voice murmurous as brushed harp strings emerging
from the pallor of her face above the browning gardenias on the cloak.
She asked, “Like this wrap? Makes me feel like a very big black
cigar--I should have a very broad red and gold band.” The men pressed
about her fame sniggered, respecting this lovely myth. She was assigned
in legend to the desire of princes. The candy merchant grinned,
cuddling her hand on his waistcoat. She tapped the brass edge of the
turning door with a gardenia stem and smiled at Mark’s silk hat, then
at the millionaire. “Am I talking too loud, cherished one?”

“Shout your head off,” the candy merchant said, “It’s a free country.”

“Oh, only the bond are free,” she proclaimed. She told Mark, “Bond
Street’s getting frightfully shabby. Max Beerbohm says--I do look
rather like a very big black cigar, don’t I?--Do stop pulling my arm,
you dear, fat thing!”

“The car’s here, honey.”

“How dear of the car! We’re going to sup somewhere, aren’t we? Oh, no,
to bed.--Like a very big, black cigar--”

She was drawn through the brazen doors away from Mark. The men pushed
after her avidly. She went tottering to the great motor, was engulfed.
Mark blinked in the waning smell of gardenias, waited for the motor to
be gone and walked into the street. He saw rain falling. There was no
taxicab in sight along the street. From the west an orange palpitation
flooded this darker way. Steam from a clamorous drill blew north about
the white tower of the Times building. Wet cabs jerked north and south
along the gleam of rails. The higher lights were gone. The rain dropped
from an upper purple and rapped the crown of his hat as Mark strolled
to the corner. Some one began to talk to him before he reached
Broadway. Mark glanced at this beggar carelessly and paused to dig in a
pocket for change. The shivering voice continued.

“... ain’t like I’d come bothering you before. I ain’t that kind. But
you’ve got comp’nies on the road and honest, Walling, I’m as good as
ever I was. You’ve mebbe heard that I’m taking dope. Not so. Some
of that bunch at Bill Loeffler’s office have been puttin’ that out.
Honest--”

Three white capped young sailors blundered past, all laughing, and
jarred the shadowy body away from Mark. The man came shuffling back and
clung to Mark’s sleeve, his face lavender in the rainy light above a
shapeless overcoat. He whispered on, “Honest, some of the things that
bunch at Loeffler’s place say about you and Carlson! But I ain’t takin’
nothing, Walling. Had a run of bad luck. I’m on the rocks. But you’ve
seen me run a show. You know I can handle a comp’ny--”

“The light’s so bad,” said Mark, “and your collar--I’m not just sure
who--”

The man gave a whimpering laugh. “Oh, I thought you was actin’ kind
of chilly to an old pal. I’m Jim Rothenstein. You know? I was stage
manager for Carlson back when you was playin’ the kid in Nicoline. You
know. I gave you your job. Cora Boyle she brought you in to me and
asked if there wasn’t a little part--Honest, I ain’t takin’ dope. That
bunch--”

Mark gulped, “Of course you’re not.” Some harsh drug escaped from the
man’s rags. This was nightmare. Mark found a bill and held it out,
backing from the shadow. “Come round to my office some day and I’ll see
what--”

A hansom rolled to the curb and the driver raised his whip. Mark ran to
shelter, crying his address. The grey horse moved toward Broadway. Mark
shoved up the trap and shouted to the driver, “No! Go up Fifth Avenue!”




IV

Penalties


Cora Boyle played “Red Winter” in London for two years. She began her
run in May of 1908 with a popular English male star as her hero. He
presently retired from the company and Cosmo Rand replaced him. Olive
Ilden wrote an opinion to Mark from her new house in Chelsea: “It
seems to me that your one time wife is a competent second rate actress.
She--or someone near her--must have intelligence. She has perfectly
applied our musical comedy manner to melodrama. She is languid and
rude to the audience and is enormously, successful, naturally. Ambrose
Russell is painting her. If you knew London you would understand that
to have Ambrose Russell paint one implies entire success. He alternates
Gaiety girls and Duchesses and has acquired a trick of wonderful
vulgarity. I met Miss Boyle at his studio on Sunday. We talked about
you and she rather gushed. Her infantile husband stood by and said
Rawther at intervals like an automatic figure on a clock. A pretty
thing.... Of course I prefer London to Winchester. Ecclesiastical
society is only amusing in Trollope. My husband got our house from a
retired Admiral and it has a garden. I have fallen in love with him--my
husband, not the Admiral. He has written a book of Naval tales on the
sly and to my horror they are quite good. Having scorned him as a mere
gentleman all these years it upsets me to have to consider him as an
artist. I hear from Ian Gail that your plays all make quantities of
money because they are utter rubbish in lovely settings and that your
house is an upholsterer’s paradise. Very bad for the children who are
probably spoiled beyond hope or help.”

Mark wrote four pages of denial and received: “Nonsense! Of course
you do not have courtesans to lunch but leading ladies come and swoon
on your drawing room floor and the children are pointed out in your
Central Park as Mark Walling’s brats. Your parasites fawn on them.
Their world is made up of expensive motors, sweets and an adoring idiot
as God. The little boy reads theatrical reviews over his porridge and
the little girl probably does not know that she is a mammal and liable
to death, spanking or lessons. They live in a treacle well.... Your one
time wife has taken a house near me and her pictures, eating breakfast
in bed with a Pom on the pillow, adorn the Sketch. I danced with her
husband last night.”

Cora Boyle’s photographs in the London Weeklies made old Carlson sneer.
He lounged in Mark’s library and derided: “A fine figger and a pair
of black eyes. Actress? Sure. She makes pictures of herself. And what
the hell else do folks want, huh? Just that. They want pictures. You
say they want fine scenery and new ideas about lights and all? Bosh,
son! They want to see a good lookin’ gal in good clothes--and not much
clothes--with all the lights in the house jammed on her. Act? Make ’em
cry a little and they think it’s actin’. Margot’ll be the boss actress
of the United States when she’s twenty--Come here, Maggie, and tell me
how old you are.”

“Seven and a half,” said Margot, “and I don’t want to be an actress.”

“Huh. Why not?”

“Aunt Sadie says actresses aren’t nice,” Margot informed him.

Carlson wrinkled his yellow face and chuckled out, “Ask Mark what he
thinks of ’em, sister.”

She turned her eyes up to Mark gravely and smiled. She was unlike her
father, most like her mother. Mark bent and lifted her in the air,
kissed her bare knees and put her hair aside from the little ears,
faintly red, delightfully chilled for his mouth from a walk in the
Park. She said, on his shoulder, “Oo, that’s a new stickpin, papa!”

“Diamonds get ’em all,” Carlson nodded.

“It’s a sapphire,” said Mark.

“Nice,” Margot approved and Mark felt glorified. Children were
certainly a relief after the arid nonchalance of women who took money,
jewels or good rôles and asked for more donations over the house
telephone. Margot played with the sapphire square a moment and then
scrambled down from Mark’s shoulder to his knee where she sat admiring
him while he wrote checks. He smiled at her now and then, let her blot
signatures and kissed her hands when she did so.

“You’d spoil a trick elephant,” Carlson muttered, “Ain’t Gurdy old
enough to go to school?”

“He started in at Doctor Cary’s last week. They’ve got him learning
Latin and French, right off.”

“What’s Doctor Cary’s?”

“It’s a school in Sixtieth Street.”

“Hump,” said Carlson, “Private School? Well, you’re right. Public
schools teach hogwash. They got to. They teach hogs. But why didn’t you
send him to one these schools out of town while you were at it? Get him
out of New York.”

“My G--glory,” Mark cried, “He’s only nine!”

Margot corrected, “Ten, papa. He was ten in May.” Then she told
Carlson, “Papa’d just die if Gurdy went away to school. He told Miss
Converse.” She slid from his knee and curtsied to Carlson with, “I must
take my French lesson, now. So, good afternoon.” She was gone out of
the room before Mark could kiss her again. She was always within reach
of kisses and her warmth, curled on his lap was something consolatory
when he did send Gurdy away to Saint Andrew’s School in September 1910.
Villay, his broker, and his lawyer advised the step. Olive Ilden wrote
to him: “I am glad you have done the right thing. God knows I am no
cryer up of the Public School System. But a Public School (I forget
what you call private kennels for rich cubs in the States) is the only
thing for the boy, in your situation. Ian Gail tells me that Gurdy
is rather clever. I can imagine nothing worse than to be the son by
adoption of a theatrical manager and a day scholar at a small New York
school. But I know how miserable you are. Every one has sentimental
accretions. I dislike seeing old women run down by motors, myself. No,
I know how badly you feel, just now. But these be the fair rewards of
them that love, you know? My own son is, of course, as the archangels.
I hear through his Housemaster at Harrow that he smokes cigarettes and
bets on all the races.”

Mark tried to take Gurdy’s absence with a fine philosophy. His broker
and his lawyer assured him that Saint Andrew’s was the best school in
the country. But the red, Georgian buildings spread on the New England
meadow and the impersonal stateliness of the lean Headmaster seemed a
cold nest for Gurdy. He missed the boy with a dry and aching pain that
wasn’t curable by work on five new plays, Margot’s plump warmth on
his knee or contrived, brief intoxication. All his usual enchantments
failed. He wore out the phonograph plates of the Danse Macabre and
the Peer Gynt “Sunrise.” He worried wretchedly and the disasters of
October and November hardly balanced his interior trouble. Two, the
more expensive two of the five Carlson and Walling productions failed.
Carlson cheerfully indicated the shrinkage of applicants for jobs,
hopeful playwrights and performers in the office above the 45th Street
Theatre. Mark regretted twenty thousand dollars spent for shares in the
Terriss Pictograph Company. Yet young Terriss was a keen fellow and
Carlson thought something might come of motion pictures after a while.
His friends sighed about Mark that the “show business was a gamble” and
on visits to the farm Mark tried to be gay. A Military Academy had been
built in Fayettesville on a stony field owned by Eddie Bernamer, the
only heritage from Bernamer’s Norwegian father. Gurdy’s brothers were
transferred to this polished school and Mark was soothed, in thinking
that he’d made his own people grandees. He wished that he could ape the
composure of the Bernamers and said so on a visit near Christmas time.

“But, great Cæsar,” Bernamer blinked, kicking balled snow from a
boot-heel, “this Saint Andrew’s is a good school ain’t it, even if it
is up by Boston? The buildin’s are fire proof, ain’t they? Gurdy can’t
git out at night and raise Ned? Then what’s got into you?”

“Oh, but--my God, Eddie!... I miss him.”

“You’re a fool,” said his brother-in-law, staring at Mark, “You’re
doin’ the right thing by the boy. You always do the right thing--like
you done it by us. Sadie and me’ve got seven kids and I love ’em
all.... They got to grow up. Stop bein’ a fool.... You don’t look well.
Thin’s a rail. Business bad?”

“We lost about forty-five thousand in two months.”

“That countin’ in the thousand you gave Sadie for her birthday?”

“No--Lord, no!”

Bernamer looked about the increased, wide farm and the tin roofed
garage where Mark’s blue motor stood pompous beside the cheap family
machine. He drawled, “Well, you’ve sunk about twenty-five thousand
right here, bud. You let up on us. Save your money and set up that
theatre of your own you want so. And I’m makin’ some money on the side.”

“How?”

The farmer grinned.

“That no good Healy boy--Margot’s mamma’s cousin, come soft soapin’
round for a loan last summer. He and another feller have a kind of
music hall place in Trenton. A couple of girls that sing and one of
those movin’ picsher machines. They wanted five hundred to put in more
chairs. I fixed it I’d get a tenth the profit and they’ve been sendin’
me twenty-five and thirty dollars a week ever since--and prob’ly
cheatin’ the eye teeth out of me. Dunno what folks go to the place
for--but they do.”

“Funny,” said Mark.

A bugle blew in the grey bulk of the Military Academy. Boys came
threading out across the flat snow between ice girt tree trunks. A
triple rank formed below the quivering height of the flagpole where
the wind afflicted the banner. The minute shimmer of brass on the blue
uniforms thrilled Mark. The flag rippled down in folds of a momentary
beauty. He sighed and turned back to the pink papered living room where
Gurdy’s small, fat legged sisters were clotted around Margot’s rosy
velvet on a leather lounge. Old Walling smoked a sickening cheroot
and smiled at all this prettiness. Margot’s black hair was curled
expansively by the damp air. She sat regally, telling her country
cousins of Mastin’s shop where Mark bought her clothes. She kissed
every one good-bye when Mark’s driver steered the car to the door and
told Eddie Bernamer how well his furred moleskin jacket suited him. In
the limousine she stretched her bright pumps on the footwarmer beside
Mark’s feet and said, “Oh, you’ve some colour, now, papa!”

“Have I? Cold air. D’you know you say na-ow and ca-ow, daughter, just
like you lived on the farm the year ’round?”

Margot gave her queer, chiming chuckle which was like muffled Chinese
bells. “Do I?”

“Pure New Jersey, honey. I used to. Mrs. Le Moyne used to guy me about
it when I was a kid.”

“Miss Converse says ‘guy’ is slang,” Margot murmured.

“So it is, sister. We ought to go to England some summer pretty soon
and let Miss Converse visit her folks.”

“I’d love to.... I’ve never been abroad,” she said, gravely stating it
as though Mark mightn’t know, “And every one goes abroad, don’t they?”

“And what would you do abroad?”

She considered one pump and fretted the silver buckle with the other
heel. “I’d see people, papa.”

“What people, sis?”

“Oh,” she said, “every one!”

It set him thinking that she lived pent in his house with her stiff,
alien governess. She was infinitely safe, so, but she might be bored;
he recalled hot and stagnant evenings on the farm when his mind had
floated free of the porch steps and his father’s drawl into a paradise
of black haired nymphs and illustrious warriors dressed from the
engravings of the Centennial Shakespeare. Perhaps she should go to
school? He consulted the governess, was surprised by her agreement,
began to ask questions about schools for small girls.

“Miss Thorne’s,” said his broker, Villay, “She’ll really be taught
something there.... Miss Thorne was my wife’s governess. I’ll see if I
can manage....”

“Manage what?”

The broker clicked his cigarette case open, shut it and laughed, “You
know what I mean, Walling.”

“No, I don’t.”

“It was one thing getting Gurdy into Saint Andrew’s. The Headmaster’s a
broad minded man.... My dear boy, you’re Walling--Walling, of Carlson
and Walling and you used to be a matinée idol.... I don’t like hurting
your feelings.”

“You mean you’ll have to go down on your knees to this Miss Thorne to
get her to take Margot?”

The broker said, “Not exactly down on my knees, Walling. I’ll have
it managed. The school’s a corporation and my wife owns some stock.”
Mark groaned and was driven uptown thinking sourly of New York. Things
like this made Socialists, he fancied, and looked with sympathy at an
orator on a box in Union Square. But Gurdy was arriving by the five
o’clock train at the Grand Central Station and the lush swirl of the
crowd on Fifth Avenue cured Mark’s spleen. Snow fluttered in planes
of brief opal from the depth of assorted cornices above the exciting
lights. A scarlet car crossed his at Thirty Fourth Street and bore
a rigid, revealed woman in emerald velvet, like a figure of pride
in a luminous shell. Her machine moved with his up the slope. Mark
examined her happily. She chewed gum with the least movement of her
white and vermilion cheeks. He despised her and felt strong against
the pyramidal society in which Walling, of Carlson and Walling, was
disdained. A cocktail in the Manhattan bar helped. The yellow place
was full of undergraduates bustling away from Harvard and Yale. The
consciousness of dull trim boots and the black, perpetual decency of
his dress raised Mark high out of this herd. At least he knew better
than to smoke cigarettes with gold tips and the oblique, racy colours
of neckties had no meaning for him beyond gaudiness. He strolled to
the clapboards and icy labyrinthine bewilderment of the station, found
the right gate and beheld uncountable ladies gathered together with
children in leather gaiters, chauffeurs at attention smoking furtively.
Here, he knew, was good breeding collected to take charge of its sons.
The cocktail struggled for a moment with cold air. Mark retired to the
rough wooden wall and watched this crowd. The mingling voices never
reached plangency. The small girls and boys stirred like low flowers in
a field of dark, human stalks. Colours, this winter, were sombre. The
women walked with restraint, with tiny gestures that revealed nothing,
with smiles to each other that meant nothing. He had a feeling of
deft performance and a young fellow at the wall beside Mark chuckled,
lighting a cigarette.

“A lot of rich dames waitin’ for their kids from some goddam school up
in Boston, see?”

Mark nodded. The young fellow gave the grouped women another stare and
crossed the tight knees of his sailor’s breeches. The nostrils of his
shapely, short nose shook a trifle. He tilted his flat cap further
over an ear and winked comradely at Mark, “Wonder who the kids’ fathers
are, huh? A lot of rich dames....” He spat and added, “Well, you can’t
blame ’em so much. Their husban’s are all keepin’ these chorus girls.
But it’s too much money, that’s what. If they’d got to work some and
cook an’ all they wouldn’t have time for this society stuff. It’s too
much money. If they’d got to cook their meals they wouldn’t have time
for carryin’ on with all these artists an’ actors an’ things--” He
broke off to snap at a girl who came hurrying from a telephone booth,
“Say, what in hell? Makin’ another date?”

“Honest, I was just phonin’ mamma,” the girl said.

“You took a time!--Phonin’ her what?” He scowled, dominating the girl,
“Huh?”

The girl argued, “I’d got to tell her sump’n, ain’t I, Jimmy? I told
her I was goin’ to a show with a gerl fren’--”

“Some friend,” said the sailor, laughed at himself and tramped off with
his girl under an arm. The girl’s cheap suit of beryl cloth shook out a
scent of cinnamon. Mark sighed; she was young and pretty and shouldn’t
lie to her mother about men. But perhaps her mother was bad tempered,
illiberal. Perhaps the flat was crowded with a preposterous family and
exuded this slim thing often, hoping a fragment of pleasure. A man
couldn’t be critical. Mark went to meet Gurdy and immediately forgot
all discomforts in seeing that the boy had grown an inch, that the
lashes about his dark blue eyes were blackening, in hearing him admit
that he was glad to be at home again.

Gurdy’s schoolmates had sisters at Miss Thorne’s, it seemed, and Mark
waited, fretting, through the Christmas holidays until his broker wrote
that Miss Thorne would be pleased to have Margot as a pupil. Miss
Converse, the governess, asked Mark bluntly how he had managed this
matter.

“You Americans are extraordinary,” she said, “You’re so--so essentially
undemocratic. It’s shocking. But we must get Margot some decent frocks
directly.”

The bill for Margot’s massed Christmas clothes lay on his desk. Mark
started, protesting, “But--”

“I’ve been meaning to talk of this for some time,” said the governess.

“Her clothes?”

“Her clothes.--My people were quite rich, you know, and I had things
from Paris but really--O, really, Mr. Walling, you mustn’t let her have
every pretty frock she sees! I must say you’ve more taste than most
women--quite remarkable. But what will there be left for the child when
she comes out?”

He wanted to answer that no frock devised of man could make Miss
Converse other than a bulky, angular female but gave his meek consent
to authority. He resented the dull serges and linens of Margot’s
school dress and Sunday became precious because he saw her in all
glory, flounced in rose and sapphire. She was a miracle; she deserved
brilliancies of toned silk to set off the pale brown of her skin, the
crisp thickness of her hair. But in June on the _Cedric_ he heard one
woman say to another, “Positively indecent. Like a doll,” when he
walked the decks with Margot and the other woman’s, “But she’s quite
lovely,” didn’t assuage that tart summary of Margot’s costume. An
elderly actress told him, “My dear boy, you mustn’t overdo the child’s
clothes,” and a fat lady from Detroit came gurgling to ask where he
bought things for Margot. He knew this creature to be the wife of a
motor king and looked down at her thoughtfully.

“I suppose you have daughters, yourself?”

“Yes, three. All of them married. But they still come to me for
advice.--Mastin’s? I thought so. Thank you so much.”

He watched her purple linen frock ruck up in lumps as her fat knees
bent over the brass sill of a door and pitied her daughters. He was
playing poker in the smoke room when Gurdy slid into the couch beside
him and sat silently observing the game. The boy was lately thirteen
and gaunt. His silence coated an emotion that Mark felt, disturbing
as the chill of an audience on an opening night. Gurdy was angry. The
milky skin below his lips twitched and wrinkled. The luncheon bugle
blew. The game stopped and, when the other players rose, Mark could
turn to him. “Was that fat woman in tortoise shell glasses talkin’ to
you?” The boy demanded.

“Yes.”

“Well, it was a bet. I was reading in the parlour place. It was a bet.
One of the women bet you got Margot’s things in New York and the rest
of ’em said Paris. And that fat hog--” Gurdy’s voice broke--“said she
didn’t mind slumming. So she went off and talked to you. They all
s-said that Margot looked like a poster.”

This was horrible. Mark saw some likeness between Margot’s pink
splendour and the new posters clever people made for him. He must be
wrong. He uncertainly fingered the pile of poker chips and asked Gurdy,
“D’you think sister’s--too dressed up?”

Gurdy loosed a sob that slapped Mark’s face with its misery and dashed
his hand into the piled chips. He said, “D-don’t give a dam’ what they
say about her. I hate hearin’ them talk about you that way!”

Mark waited until the nervous sobs slacked. Then he asked, “Do they
ever talk about me at your school, sonny?”

“No. Oh, one of the masters asked me why you didn’t put on some play.
Is there a play called the Cherry Orchard?”

“Russian. It wouldn’t run a week.” Mark piled up the chips and said, “I
may be all wrong--Anyhow, don’t you bother, son ... God bless you.”

Olive Ilden gave him her view while Margot and Gurdy explored the
garden that opened from her Chelsea drawing room. She sat painting her
lips with a perfumed stick of deep red and mimicked his drawl, “No,
her things ar-r-ren’t too bright, old man. She isn’t too much dressed
up. It’s merely that this thin faced time of ours isn’t dressed up to
her. She’s Della Robbia and we’re--Whistler. It’s burgherdom. Prudence.
It’s the nineteenth century. It’s the tupenny ha’penny belief that
dullness is respectable. Hasn’t she some Italian blood? Now Joan--my
wretched daughter--simply revels in dowdiness. She’s only happy in a
jersey or Girl Guides rubbish. She’s at Cheltenham, mixing with the
British flapper. When she’s at home she drives me into painting my face
and putting dyed attire on my head. If I had to live with Margot I
shouldn’t wear anything gayer than taupe.”

He stared out at Margot whose pink frock revolved above her gleaming
silver buckles on the crushed shell of the walk. Olive saw his face
light, attaining for the second a holy glow. It was a window in the
wall of dark night. He looked and doted. The woman wondered at him. He
had all the breathless beauty of a child facing its dearest toy. His
grey eyes dilated. In her own eyes she felt the dry threat of tears and
said, “Old man, I’m sorry for you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re such a dear and because you’re a pariah. I don’t
know that all this garden party petting is good for our player folk
but--over in your wilderness--no one seems to investigate the stage
except professors and the police. It must be sickening.... What’ll
become of Margot when she’s grown up?”

It had begun to worry him on the _Cedric_. He loosely thought that her
friends from Miss Thorne’s school would be kind to her. Wouldn’t they?
He said, “She’s only ten, Olive,” and sat brooding. It wasn’t fair.
Smart society, the decorous women of small gestures, hadn’t any use
for him. He looked at Olive who wrote letters to him and called him
old man. She wrote books. She knew all the world. She had been to the
king’s court and laughed about it. He went to shelter in her strange
kindness and sighed, “It isn’t fair. She ought to have--she ought to go
anywhere she wants to.”

“She probably will if there’s anything in eyelashes,” said Olive, “and
Gurdy will go anywhere he wants to, by the shape of his jaw. I’ve been
dissecting American society with horrific interest. It seems to have
reached a lower level than British! You haven’t even an intelligent
Bohemia.”

“There ain’t many literary people,” Mark reflected, “and they mostly
seem to live in Philadelphia and Indiana, anyhow. Or over here. What’s
a man to do? I can’t--”

“You can’t do anything. Whistle the children in. There’s a one man
show. Stage settings. Italian. I haven’t seen them and you should.” She
threw the stick of paint away and set about cheering him. She liked
him, muddled in his trade, labouring after beauty, unaware of his own
odd sweetness. She gave up the last weeks of the season, guiding him
about London, watching him glow when Margot wanted a scarf of orange
silk in Liberty’s, when Gurdy demonstrated his Latin, not badly, before
a tomb in Saint Paul’s. Margot was the obvious idol, something to be
petted and dressed. But the child had a rich attraction of her own,
graces of placid curves, a quiet loveliness that missed stupidity.

“You don’t like Margot,” Olive told Gurdy in a waste of the British
Museum.

The boy lied, “Of course I do,” in his cracked voice but Olive took
that as the product of good schooling, like his easy performance of
airs on the piano. He was jealous of Margot and showed it so often that
the woman wondered why Mark didn’t see. But this wasn’t the usual boy.

“You let him read anything he likes,” she scolded Mark.

“Sure. Where’s the harm? I haven’t got the Contes Drolatiques at the
house or any of those things. Aunt Edith used to make me read the Book
of Kings when I was a kid. Oh, Gurd knows that babies don’t come by
express,” said Mark, “He’s lived in the country, too much.”

“I thought the American peasantry entirely compounded of the Puritan
virtues, old man.”

“You missed your guess, then. You read a lot of American novels, Olive.
Some day or other some writer’s goin’ to come along and write up an
American country town like it is. The police will probably suppress
the book.... My father and Gurdy’s mamma are sort of scared because
I’ve got the kid at a rich school. You mustn’t believe all the stuff
you see in the American magazines and papers about the wicked rich,
Olive. I’ve met some of the rich roués at suppers and so on. Put any
of ’em alongside some of the hired men and clerks and things that were
in my regiment in Cuba--or alongside Tommy Grover that’s blacksmith
at Fayettesville and they’d look like Sunday School teachers. I sort
of wish the poor folks in the United States’d leave off yawping about
the wicked rich and look after their own backyards a while! No, I
don’t take any stock in this country virtue thing. The only girl in
Fayettesville that ever run off with a wicked drummer had morals
that’d scare a chorus girl stiff. Who’s the fellow that hangs ’round
the stage door of a musical show? Nine times out of ten he’s a kid
from the country that’s won twenty dollars at poker. Who’s the fellow
that--well--seduces the poor working girl? Once in a hundred it’s a
rich whelp in a dinner jacket. Rest of the time it’s the boy in the
next flat. When I was acting and used to get mash notes from fool
women, were they from women on Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue? Not much!
Stenographers and ladies in Harlem that had husbands travelling a good
deal. You believe in talking about these kind of things out loud and I
expect you’re right.”

“Gurdy’s not handsome,” said Olive, “but he’s attractive--charming
eyes--and women are going to like him a goodish bit, bye and bye. And
man is fire. What moral precepts are you going to--”

“Just what my father told me. I’m going to tell him that he mustn’t
make love to a married woman and that he mustn’t fool after an innocent
girl unless he means matrimony--but God knows it’s getting pretty hard
to tell what an innocent girl is, these days! Nine tenths of ’em dress
like cocottes.”

“Old man, where did you pick up that very decent French accent?” Olive
saw his blush slide fleetly from his collar to the red hair and added,
“I hope it was honestly come by. You’re a good deal of a Puritan for a
sensualist.”

“Oh ... I am a sensualist, I guess. But, I ain’t a hog.”

Olive said, “No, that’s quite true, my son. There’s nothing porcine
about you. My brother has a house this season and he’s giving a dance
tonight. There might be some pretty frocks.”

“Didn’t know you had a brother!”

“Sir Gerald Shelmardine of Shelmardine Cross, Hampshire. He’s rather
dreary. Will you come?”

She took him to several evening parties and his wooden coldness
before a crowd was enchanting. It occurred to her that individuals
wearied the man. He eyed pretty women, striking gowns, studied the
decoration of ball-rooms. He confessed, “I’ll never see any of them
again and shouldn’t remember them if I did. My memory for people’s no
good--unless they’re interestin’ to look at. My god, look at that girl
in purple. Her dressmaker ought to be hung! Skirt’s crooked all across
the front.” He gave the girl in purple his rare frown then asked,
“Well, where’s some place in France, on the seashore, where I can take
the kids until August?”

She recommended Royan and had from him a letter describing Margot’s
success among the ladies of a quiet hotel. His letters of 1912 and 1913
were full of Margot. Snapshots of the child dropped often from the
thick blue envelopes. When he sent his thin book, “Modern Scenery” in
the autumn of 1913 it was dedicated, “To my Daughter.” The bald prose
was correct, the photographs and plates were well selected. Mark wrote:
“Gurdy went over it with a fine tooth comb to see if the grammar was
O. K. Mr. Carlson is not well and we have four plays to bring in by
December. Spoke at a lunch of a ladies’ dramatic society yesterday.
Forgot where I was and said Hell in the middle of it. They did not
mind. Things seem to be changing a lot. I am pretty worried about one
of our plays.”

Olive saw in the New York _Herald_ some discussion of this play and a
furious reference to it on the editorial page, signed by a clergyman.
This was at Christmas time when she was entertaining her tiresome
brother at Ilden’s house in Suffolk. She folded the newspaper away,
meaning to explore the business. She forgot the accident in the hurry
of her attempt to reach a Scotch country house where her daughter Joan
died of pneumonia on New Year’s Day. The shock sent Olive into grey
seclusion. Her husband was on the China station with his cruiser.
She suddenly found herself worrying over the health of her son, then
in the Fifth Form at Harrow, so took a cottage in Harrow village and
there reflected on the nastiness of death while she wrote her next
novel. The cottage was singularly dismal and the daughters of the next
dwelling were pretty girls of thirteen and fourteen, with fair hair.
“Sentimental analogy is the bane of life,” she wrote to her husband,
“I went to town yesterday for some gloves and saw the posters of
Peter Pan on a hoarding in Baker Street. Joan liked it so. So I went
to the theatre and squandered five sovereigns in stalls and gave the
tickets to these wretched girls who would infinitely prefer a cinema,
naturally. However I managed to laugh on Saturday. The news had just
reached Mark Walling by way of Ian Gail who is in the States trying to
sell his worst and newest play. Mark cabled me a hundred words quite
incoherent and mostly inappropriate.”

Three days later Olive came in from a walk and Mark opened the door of
the stupid cottage. When she drew her hands away from his stooped face
they were hot and wet.

“But, my dear boy,” she said, presently, “what blessing brought you
over? In the middle of your season, too.”

“I’m in trouble. See anything in the papers about the Mayor stoppin’
a play we put on?--I don’t blame the Mayor, for a minute. Mr. Carlson
wanted it.... Well, it was stopped and some of the newspapers took it
up. And then Mr. Carlson had a sort of stroke. His mind’s all right
but his legs are paralyzed. Won’t ever walk again.” His voice drummed
suddenly as if it might break into a sob. He passed his fingers over
the red hair and went on, “I’ve got him up at my house.”

“Of course,” said Olive.

“Sure. The doctors say he’ll last four or five years, maybe.--Say
you’ve always said we’re a nation of prudes. Look at this,” and he
dragged from a black pocket a note on formal paper. Olive read: “The
Thorne School, Madison Avenue and Sixty Sixth Street. December 28th,
1913. My dear Mr. Walling, Will you be so good as to call upon me when
it is possible in order to discuss Margaret’s future attendance. It
seems kindest to warn you that several parents have suggested that--”

“What is this nonsense?” Olive asked, “What’s the child been doing?”

“Doing? Nothin’! It’s this damned play!”

“You mean that there were women who seriously asked this Miss Thorne
to have Margot withdrawn because you’d produced a risqué farce? But
that’s--”

His wrath reached a piteous climax in, “Oh, damn women, anyhow!... Well
I took her out. My broker could have fixed the thing up. What’s the
use? Well, I brought her over with me. She’s at the Ritz. What’s the
best girls’ school in England?”

Olive said, “Oh, I’ll take her,” saw him smile and began to weep.




V

Margot


Gurdy Bernamer kept his twentieth birthday in a trench. The next week
his regiment was withdrawn from the line to a dull village where Gurdy
was taking a warm bath in a zinc tub behind the Mairie when a German
aeroplane crossed above and lifted his attention from a Red Cross
copy of “The Brook Kerith” which he read while he soaked. He dropped
the dialectics of George Moore and watched, then saw the whitewashed
wall of the yard bend in slowly, its cracks blackening. He spent a
month in hospital getting the best of the wandering, deep wound that
began at his right hip and ended in his armpit. He wrote to Mark, “I
kept trying to remember a quotation from Twain’s Tramp Abroad. ‘Not
by war’s shock or war’s shaft. Shot with a rock on a raft.’ They dug
a piece of zinc out of me. I feel fairly well. Mrs. Tilford Arbuthnot
has the Y. M. C. A. cafeteria in Bordeaux. Her brother was with me at
Saint Andrew’s. She brings me novels and things. I think she has a
secret passion for you. She says you were a great actor. My nurse also
thinks you were. Her name is Zippah Coe and she looks it. She says the
immorality of French women is too awful for words. She is coming to
take my temperature.” The temperature displeased the nurse and Gurdy
passed into a daze. The wet hemlocks beyond the window sometimes turned
cerise, inexcusably. Pneumonia succeeded his influenza.

Through all this lapse he meditated and drew toward a belief that
life was a series of meaningless illusions, many painful. He expanded
“All the world’s a stage.” Suicide wasn’t universal as some of the
players acquired a thrilling interest in their parts, rose to be
directors--Wilsons, Northcliffes, Millerands. It was satisfactory to
know this at twenty. His education was complete in its departments
passional, athletic and philosophical. Saint Andrew’s school. Two and a
half years of Yale in smart company. The miscellany of his regiment. He
must certainly begin maturity as a critic. He lay composing an essay on
the illusory value of passion in a loop of paradoxes which vanished as
his pulse improved. Then he was conscious that a surgeon took interest
in him. Orderlies came from the hospital adjutant inquiring. Gurdy sat
up, read the papers and accepted five thousand francs in mauve and blue
bills from a bank agent. It seemed that Mark had run him to earth by
cabling. Soon he was uniformed again and given orders that assigned him
to duty in a Paris military bureau. There Gurdy found Mark’s broker,
decorated as a Major.

“Of course, I got you up here,” said Major Villay. “Why not?”

“But--” With recovery Gurdy had shed some sense of illusions. He stood
thinking of his regiment rather sourly, rather sadly.

The broker-major grunted, “Rot, Gurdy. You’re all Mark’s got--Son, and
all that. Dare say Margot’ll marry some Englishman. Anyhow, it’s all
over. Bulgaria’s on the skids. Mark thinks too much of you.”

Gurdy was subtly pleased. He stood thinking of Mark fondly, with
annotations in contempt. Mark was nothing but a big blunderer among
the arts, a man who couldn’t see the strength of Russian drama or
disillusioned comedy, who didn’t admire Granville Barker’s plays. But
if Margot stayed in England Gurdy could steer his uncle toward proper
productions. Mark meant well, very well. He had done some fine things,
had a feeling for vesture, anyhow.

“I see the Celebrities people have bought the Terriss Pictograph,” said
Major Villay, “Exchange of stock. Funny. Mark hates the movies so and
he makes twenty thousand a year out of them. And the movie people gave
him fifteen thousand for that rotten Gail play. Here, take this stuff
and translate it. I can probably get you a pass over to London if you
want to see Margot.”

Gurdy didn’t want to see her. His last view of Margot had been in the
stress of her removal from Miss Thorne’s school. Mark had gone five
times to England on visits of a month, reported her beautiful, witty,
petted by Mrs. Ilden, by Mrs. Ilden’s friends. But he wrote her a
note dutifully and got an answer in three lines. “Glad you are out of
the silly mess. Try to run over. Frightfully rushed catching a train
for Devon. More later.” He was not offended. He thought that Margot
disliked him as he disliked her. He threw the note into the waste
basket and went on translating French political comments into English.

The Armistice broke on the third week of this employment. The bureau
became a negation of labour. Gurdy roamed contentedly about the
feverish, foolish city with various friends--young officers, sergeant
majors on agreeable posts. He was tall, still pallid from sunless
convalescence. His uniform happened to fit a long, loosely moving body
and he liked dancing. He equably observed male diversion with his
dark blue eyes and was often diverted. This might be the collapse
of known society, the beginning of a hygienic and hardworked future.
This churning of illusions might bring something fresh. Men might
turn to new programs of stupidity, exhausting the old. He danced and
was courted. He wrote to Mark, choosing words: “There will be plays
about this, I suppose. I do not think any one will believe it fifty
years from now. It is an upheaval of cheap pleasure. I keep thinking
how Carlson calls people hogs.” He hesitated, continued: “I do not
know that there is an excuse for all of it. Some of the Americans
make bigger hogs of themselves than is necessary.” Then he destroyed
the letter. After all, Mark was your typical patriot. He took America
seriously, the American soldier seriously, the American Red Cross had
profited by his sentiment. There was no point in hurting Mark. Gurdy
wrote a gay tale of driving through Paris in a vegetable cart with a
drunken Australian colonel and went to dine at Luca’s.

From Luca’s his party retired to the Opera Comique, stopped to drink
champagne in the bar and stayed there until it wasn’t worth while to
hear the last act. “And,” said a youth from San Francisco, “we can go
to Ariana Joyce’s. She’s giving a party.”

“But she’s dead,” Gurdy objected.

“Damn healthy corpse! Come ahead and see if she’s dead!”

They floated in a taxicab along Paris. The machine slipped from the
lavender rush of some broad street up a slope and Gurdy stumbled into a
brilliance of laughing people where his guide pushed him toward a green
dais and hissed, “She won’t know you from Adam. Tell her you’re from
Chicago.”

Her rounded beauty had come to death under much fat. She lolled in
a red chair waving a peacock fan. Gurdy’s friend kissed the arm she
thrust out and told her, “You look awfully well, Miss Joyce.”

The dancer nodded, beaming down at her painted feet in their sandals
of blue leather. Through her nose she said, “Feelin’ fine,” then in
throaty refinement, “Do get Choute Aurec to dance. She’s so difficult
now she’s had a success. So very difficult--Rodin used to say--” Her
empty and tired stare centred on Gurdy. With a vague dignity she asked,
“Do I know you?”

“Corporal Bernamer’s from Chicago,” the guide said.

Miss Joyce planted a thumb under her chin and drawled, “De mon pays!”
then her eyes rolled away. She reached for a silver cup on a table and
forgot her guests. Looking back, Gurdy saw her famous head thrown back
and, for a moment, comely as she drank.

“Bakst,” said his friend, jerking a hand about to show the walls of
grey paint where strange beasts cavorted among spiked trees, above the
mixed and coloured motion of the crowd. An American was playing ragtime
at the gold piano, in a clot of women. Choute Aurec was teaching a
British aviator some new dance. Beyond, a mass of women and officers
surrounded a lean shape on a divan. They gazed, gaped, craned at the
young man. His decorations twinkled in the glow. His blue chest stirred
when he spoke and his teeth flashed. Gurdy’s companion murmured, “They
say he’s got ten times more sense than most prize-fighters.... I think
that thin man’s Bernstein--the one with a dinner jacket. You get drinks
in the next room. Oh, there’s Alixe!”

He ran off. Gurdy slid through the mingling harlots and warriors
into the next, cooler room, fringed with men drinking champagne. An
American colonel glared at him over a glass, shifted the glare back to
a handsome ensign who had penned a blond girl in a corner. Gurdy found
a tray covered with sandwiches and ate one, pondering. He wondered
whether the ensign would go on trying to kiss the girl if he knew
that she had been, last month, on trial for the technical murder of
an octogenarian general. Well, morals were illusory, too. Some one
slapped his shoulder. He saw Ian Gail. The playwright was dressed as a
British captain. “Intelligence,” he said, “I’m too old and adipose for
anything else. And we shouldn’t be here, should we? A poisonous place.”

“Funny mixture.”

“Pride,” said Gail, “The poor woman can’t stand being neglected so she
gives these atrocious parties. But it’s nice running into you, old
son. I’d a letter from Mark yesterday. He told me you were here and I
was coming to look you up tomorrow in any case. I’m just from London.
Olive Ilden and Margot are hoping you’ll get leave to come over for
Christmas. Can’t you?”

“I don’t quite see how I can, sir.”

“But do try. I think you’d cheer Olive up. Margot’s a jolly little
thing but frightfully busy celebrating the peace. How decent of Mark
to let her stay with Olive! I fancied he’d take her back to the States
directly the war began.”

“Submarines,” Gurdy said, “But why does Mrs. Ilden need cheering up,
sir? She used to be an awfully cheerful sort of person.”

“Oh,” said Gail, “her boy--Bobby.”

“I hadn’t heard he--”

“Fell a year ago. Do try to run over.... How pretty Margot is!”

Gurdy ate another sandwich, correcting champagne. There would be long
illusions after this war. Grudges, idealized memories of trivial folk.
But he was sorry for Olive Ilden. He said, “I’ll try to get over.
I’ll--”

Choute Aurec ran through the doorway, yelped, “Ariane va danser,
messieurs, dames!” and darted out again.

“What did that incontinent little brute say?” Gail asked.

“I think Miss Joyce is going to dance,” said Gurdy.

“It’s disgusting,” the Englishman snorted, “Some cad always flatters
her into dancing and the poor woman falls on her face. Don’t go.”

The doorway filled with watchers. Women giggled. Some one played
slowly the first bars of the Volga Barge song. There was an applausive
murmur--then a thud. “She’s fallen,” said Gail and suddenly Gurdy
remembered that this was an American, that he had seen her dance to the
jammed ecstasy of the Metropolitan. The women in the doorway squealed
their amusement. The crowd parted and he saw the green gauze wrapping
her limp body as two Frenchmen carried her back to her throne. The
crowd applauded, now.

“Swine,” said Gail.

Gurdy summoned up his philosophy and shrugged. The young prize-fighter
came through the press and snapped to a civilian, “Je me sauve,
Etienne!”

“Mais--”

“C’est nauséabonde! Elle était artiste, vois tu? Allons; je file!”

“The boy’s right,” said the playwright, “Sickening. Come along.” They
passed through the beginning of a dance in the great chamber and down
the stairs into an alley where motors were lined. In a taxicab Gail
concluded, “End of an artist.”

Gurdy thought this sententious but a queer oppression filled him. It
was hideous that any one should finish as a butt with a prize-fighter
for apologist. Of course, life was nothing but a meaningless spectacle.
Money, something to drink, a dancing floor drew this crowd together.
The fat dancer was rather funny, if one looked it all over. Mark could
contrive the whole effect on a stage if he wanted.

“Mark writes that he’s almost decided to build his theatre in West
Forty Seventh.”

“I wish he’d hurry,” said Gurdy, “He’s been planning the Walling
for years. Funny. He told Mr. Frohman all about it just before the
_Lusitania_.”

“Poor Frohman,” the Englishman murmured, “Awfully decent to me.”

There should be a certain decency, a cool restraint in life, the
philosopher mused. He thought of this next morning when Choute Aurec
telephoned hopefully for a loan of a thousand francs. By noon he had
discovered that he was flatly homesick for Mark and thought of Margot
in London as the nearest familiar creature. The bureau permitted his
departure. He crossed a still Channel and made his way to London
in the company of an earnest Red Cross girl from Omaha who wanted
Fontainebleau turned into a reform school for rescued Parisian street
walkers. She had a General for uncle and Gurdy feared that she would be
able to forward her plan to the French government.

“D’you really feel that we’ve any business telling the French what to
do with their own homes?”

“But Fontainebleau could be made into a real home, Corpril!”

“So could Mount Vernon.”

“It’s too small. Fontainebleau’s so huge. All those rooms.”

“You don’t think that it’s any use just letting it stay beautiful?”

“But it isn’t really beautiful,” the young woman retorted, “It’s so
much of it Renaissance, you know?”

He was still hating this vacuity when the taxicab left him at Mrs.
Ilden’s house in Chelsea. The butler told him that “Lady Ilden” was not
at home and guided him through grey halls to a bedroom. Gurdy washed,
tried to recall Ilden’s rank in the British navy and the name of
Olive’s last novel. He strolled downstairs and met Margot in the lower
hall without knowing it. He saw a slim person in stark yellow reading
a letter and was startled when the girl said, “Good God, they didn’t
tell me you’d got here! Come and help me stick this holly about in the
library.”

She thrust a bowl filled with small sprays of holly into his hands and
frowned between the wings of her black, bobbed hair. He remembered her
plump. She was slender. She still wore glittering pumps with silver
buckles. When she chuckled it was in the former chime. She exclaimed,
“Of course! Uncle Eddie was born in Norway, wasn’t he?”

“I think dad was born in the steerage, coming over,” Gurdy said.

“You’re not at all American, anyhow,” she announced, “and that’s a
relief. I’m quite mad about Scandinavians. Only sensible people in
Europe. Come along. There’s a rehearsal in half a minute and--”

“Rehearsal?”

“Charity show. Barge along. This way.”

He grinned and followed her into the long library where she tossed bits
of holly to and fro on the shelves. She said, “Cosmo Rand’s rehearsing
us. Better not tell that to dad. He mightn’t like it.”

“Who’s Cosmo?”

“Cora Boyle’s husband. They’re playing here. Don’t get shocked about
it.”

“Don’t see anything to get shocked about. So Cora Boyle’s over here
again? What’s she playing?”

“A silly melodrama. She’s at the Diana. Saw her the other night. She’s
getting fat. Ought to be a law against fat women wearing old rose.”

“You’ve lost some weight,” Gurdy said.

“Work, old thing, work! Sewing shirts for snipers. Dancing with
convalescents.--It’s beastly you’ve got so tall. I hate looking up at
men.”

Gurdy laughed down at her and asked, “When did Mrs. Ilden get to be
Lady Ilden?”

“Jutland. It’s just the Bath, not a baronetcy. Olive’s at church.”

“I thought she was agnostic?”

Margot said gently, “It takes them that way, rather often. She’s been
to church a goodish bit ever since Bobby--”

“Oh, yes. Young Ilden was killed.--What sort of person was he?”

“One of the silent, strong Empire builders--but nice about it....
Olive’s aged, rather.” She planted the last holly spray on the lap
of a gilt Buddha then smiled at Gurdy across a yellow shoulder, “I’d
forgotten how blue your eyes are. Almost violet. Goes with your hair.
Very effective.... Your chin’s still too big.... Oh, a letter from Dad
this morning. He was thinking of running over. But Carlson’s worse....
D’you know, it’d be a noble deed to poison Carlson. There he is stuck
in the house. Why don’t useless people like that dry up and blow away?”

“I don’t think he’s useless,” Gurdy argued, “He makes Mark put on a
comedy now and then. He swears better than any one I know. And you
ought to be grateful to him. If Mark hadn’t had him for company you’d
probably have been hauled home long ago.”

Margot opened a Russian, lead box on a table and lit a cigarette. She
said, “Don’t think so. Dad’s never made the slightest sign of hauling
me home. Especially after Mr. Frohman.... Ugh! I almost had nervous
prostration, when I heard Dad had sailed after the _Lusitania_!” Her
lids fell and shook the astonishing lashes against the pale brown of
her cheeks. Then she chuckled, “The joke is, I’d as soon have gone
home long ago. I’m mad about Olive, of course. And I’ve had all sorts
of a good time. But I’d rather be home.... How’s your mother?” He
was answering when the butler barked names from the doorway. Margot
whispered, “Run. The rehearsal. Go hide in the drawing room. These are
all bores.”

He passed out through a group of men and girls, encountered a Colonel
of the British General Staff in the hall and was cordially halted. He
stood discussing military shoes with this dignitary as Olive Ilden let
herself into the hall. Gurdy recalled her slim and tall. Now that he
looked down, she seemed stout, no longer handsome but the deep voice
remained charming as it rose from her black veils. She led him off into
the drawing room and said, at once, “Margot’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Mark’s been raving about her but I thought--”

“You thought he was idealizing, after his customary manner? He sent me
a picture of you, so I’m not surprised. Don’t sit in that chair. It’s
for pygmies.... I want to talk about Margot and it’s likely we won’t
have another chance. You two don’t write each other letters. Had you
heard from Mark that she wants to play?”

“Play?”

“Be an actress. I thought I’d better warn you,” Olive laughed, “I
don’t know when it started. I know Mark wouldn’t like it. Otherwise
the child’s the delight of my life.” She sank into a couch and asked,
“Now, what are these diplomatic idiots doing in Paris? I don’t like the
look of things.”

“Arranging for another war.”

“I do hope they’ll arrange it for twenty years from date. I’ll be past
sixty then and I won’t care. I’ll be able to sit and grin at the women
who’re going through what--Only, of course, I shouldn’t grin. I’m a
true blue Briton of the old breed when it comes to an emotion. I simply
can’t enjoy an emotion when it’s my emotion.... Had you ever thought
that that’s why bad plays and cinema rubbish are so popular? It’s the
unreality of the passions.... I dare say that’s why I’ve just been to
church.... Perhaps that’s why Margot wants to go on the stage. She’s
never had an emotion worth shedding a tear for. Well, how’s Mark?”

“Putting on three plays after Christmas and thinks they’re all winners.”

She drew her hands over her eyes and murmured, “Mark’s extraordinary.
Endless enthusiasm. Like a kiddy with a box of water colours. I suppose
it’s belief. He really believes in his job.... I once thought he
needed education.... If he’d been educated, he couldn’t have believed
so hard.... There has to be something childish to get along in the
theatre.... If he were worldly wise he’d have known half these plays
were rubbish and the rest not very good.... But I’m not sure what a
good play is, Gurdy. Tell me. You’re young, so you should know.”

He flushed, then laughed and asked what play Margot and her friends
rehearsed. The loud, spaced voices came across the hall. He felt an
unruly curiosity stir.

“It’s a one act thing of Ronny Dufford’s--Colonel the Honourable Ronald
Dufford. Quite a pal of Margot’s. That was he talking to you in the
hall just now--the Brass Hat. What are you laughing at?”

“Wondering what would happen to an American General Staff man if
he wrote plays.... Dufford? Mark put a thing of his on in nineteen
sixteen. It failed.”

“His things are rather thin. He’s been nice to Margot, though. He took
her about when I was in mourning--He’s a good sort. Forty eight or
so. I dare say he lectured Margot on the greatness of Empire and the
sacredness of the House of Lords. It didn’t hurt her. She hears enough
about the sacredness of the plain people, in the studios.”

“I thought you were an anti-imperialist and an anarchist?”

The tired woman laughed, “So I am.... It was tremendous fun being all
the right things when I was young and anarchists were rather few. I
expect you’re a cubist and a communist and agnostic and don’t believe
in marriage. So many of them don’t. Then they get married to prove the
soundness of their theory and get hurt; then they’re annoyed because
they’re hurt and get interested in being married. Most amusing to
watch.... The world’s got past me and I’m frightened by it.--We had
such a good time railing at the Victorians and repression. And now all
the clever young things tell their emotions to cab drivers and invent
emotions if they haven’t any.--All the gestures have changed and I
feel--You look rather like Mark. You know he was stopping at Winchester
when he heard Margot’s father’d been killed. I tried to shock him.
He.... Oh, do go and watch them rehearse, Gurdy!... I’ve just come from
church.... The music’s made me silly. I don’t know what I’m saying....”
The artifice smashed into a sob. Gurdy swung and hurried across the
hall. Certainly, the woman’s illusion of pain was notably real.

He sat smoking on a window seat of the library and tried to follow
the rehearsal at the other end of the wide room. The men and girls
strode about talking loudly. A slender man in grey broke the chatter
from time to time and gave directions in a level, pleasing voice. This
must be Cosmo Rand, the husband of Cora Boyle. Gurdy looked at him
with interested scorn but the amateurs took his orders in docile peace
and only Margot answered him from a deep green chair, “Rot, Cossy! I’m
supposed to be lost in thought, aren’t I? Then I shan’t look interested
when Stella giggles. Go on, Stella.”

Gurdy became intent on her posture in the dark chair. She was smoking
and her hair appeared through the vapour like solid, carved substance.
She seemed fixed, a black and yellow figure on the green. A vaporous
halo rose in the lamplight above her head. He stirred when she spoke
again, shifting, and a silver buckle sent a spark of light flitting
across the rug. He remembered that she had Italian blood from her
grandmother. She looked Italian. Mark was right. She was beautiful in
no common fashion. The other girls vibrating against the shelves were
mere bodies, gurgling voices.--The butler stole down the room and spoke
to Cosmo Rand who, in turn, spoke aloud.

“I say, Margot, Cora’s brought the motor around. Might I have her in?
Chilly and she’s been feeling rather seedy.”

A tall woman in black velvet entered as if this were a stage and
reposed herself in a chair. Gurdy had never seen Cora Boyle perform.
She was familiar from pictures when she drew up a veil across an
obvious beauty of profile and wide eyes. Presently she commenced a
cigarette and the motion of lighting it was admirably effected. An
expanding, heavy scent of maltreated tobacco welled from the burning
roll between her fingers. The line of her brows was prolonged downward
with paint. The whole mask was tinted to a false and gleaming pallor.
Grey furs were arranged about the robustness of her upper body. She was
older than Mark, Gurdy’s father said. She must be passing forty. She
should be weary of tight slippers. A glance stopped Gurdy’s meditation.
He looked away at Margot’s effortless stroll along the imagined
footlights. Cora Boyle spoke to him in a flat and pinched whisper.

“Isn’t your name Bernamer?” He bowed. She came to sit with him on the
window seat and dusted ash from her cigarette into the Chinese bowl.
Her eyes explored his face with a civil amusement. “You look awfully
like your father. You startled me. Let me see.... You and Miss Walling
live with Mark, don’t you? Sweet, isn’t she? And how is Mark? I’ve
played over here so long that I’ve rawther lost touch. Mr. Carlson’s
still alive?”

“Oh, yes. He’s bedridden, you know? Lives with Mark.”

She inhaled smoke, nodding.

“That’s so characteristic of Mark, isn’t it? But of course, Carlson was
kind to him. The dear old man’s bark was much worse than his bite. Good
heavens how frightened I was of him! I see that Mark acted in a couple
of Red Cross shows? I expect that all his old matinée girls turned out
and cried for joy.... But I do think that Mark was something more than
a flapper’s dream of heaven. Still, he must like management better.
He never thought more of acting than that it was a job, did he?” She
sighed, “One has to think more of it than that to get on.”

Gurdy wished that this woman didn’t embarrass him, resenting her
perfumed cigarette and the real, frail loveliness of her hands. The
embarrassment ended. Rand told the amateurs that they weren’t half bad
and departed with his wife, a trim, boyish figure behind her velvet
bulk. Colonel Dufford implored the grouped players to learn their
lines. Margot was much kissed by the other girls, dismissed them and
came in a sort of dance step to ask Gurdy what he thought of her acting.

“Couldn’t hear you. I had to talk to Miss Boyle. Ugly voice she has.
Are people really crazy about her here?”

Margot frowned and pursed her lips, tapping a cigarette on a nail.
“Oh, she has a following. They don’t dither about her as they do over
Elsie whatsername and some of the other Americans. Dull, isn’t she?”

“Very. She made a point of talking about Mark.--Lady Ilden’s all broken
up, isn’t she?”

“She’s too repressed,” Margot explained. “Tried not to show it when
Bobby fell and so she’s been showing it ever since. And Sir John’s been
at sea constantly and that’s a strain. He’s in Paris, now.--You don’t
show your feelings at all, do you? I was watching you talk to the Boyle
and you beamed very nicely. And you must have been bored. One of those
rather sticky women. Come and play pool. There’s an American table.”

He played pool and stolidly listened to her ripple of comments. She
had a natural disrespect for the American army that flashed up. “The
men did all they could, I dare say, but, my God, Gurdy, what thugs the
officers were! Some of them turned up at a garden party where the King
dropped in and he went to speak to one. The thing was cleaning its
nails in a corner and it shook hands with its pocket knife in the other
hand. I fainted and Ronny Dufford lugged me home in a taxi. I say, do
let me have St. Ledger Grant do a pastel of you. Dad would love it and
St. Ledger needs ten pounds as badly as any one in Cheyne Walk.”

“Who’s Sillijer?”

“Artist. Poor bloke who got patriotic and lost a leg in the Dardanelles
mess. Serve him right and so on but he’s ghastly poor.”

“You a pacifist?”

“Rather!”

“That’s why you like the Scandinavians? Because they stayed out?”

“Right. I forgive you though because you’re young and simple and your
legs are rather jolly in those things.” She twisted her head to stare
at his leggings and the black hair rose, settled back into its carved
composure below the strong, shaded lamp. The clear red of her lips
parted as she laughed, “Not a blush? Made the world safe for democracy
and aren’t proud of it? How did your friends get through? That rather
sweet lad who used to come to lunch when you were at school? Lacy--?”

“Lacy Martin. Lost a leg.”

She frowned. “Doesn’t matter so much for a chap like that with billions
but--the artists. I must have St. Ledger do you. We’ll go there
tomorrow. I had Cosmo--Rand have himself done.”

Gurdy made a shot and said, “Rand’s a much prettier subject than I’d
be.”

“Don’t get coy, my lad! You’re rather imposing and you know it.--Like
to meet Gilbert Chesterton? You used to read his junk. I can have you
taken there. Never met him, myself.”

“No thanks.--What’s that bell?”

“Dress for dinner. You can’t. I must.--I say, you’re altogether
different from what I thought you’d be.”

“What did you think?”

“I couldn’t possibly tell you but I’m damned glad you’re not. The
butler can make cocktails. Dad taught him in nineteen seventeen.”

The butler brought him an evil mixture. Gurdy emptied it into the
fireplace and leaned on the pool table wondering what Margot had
expected. It didn’t matter, of course. Yet she might recall him as a
sixteen year old schoolboy much absorbed in polevaults and stiff with
conceit for some acquirements in English letters. How people changed
and how foolish it was to be surprised at change! Sophomoric. Mark
really knew a pretty woman when he saw one. A man of genuine taste
outside the selection of plays.--She must know London expertly. She
must have a sense of spectacle. She must meet all conditions with this
liberal, successful woman as a guide. If she wanted a pastel made for
Mark she should have it. Gurdy dusted chalk from his leggings, evenly
taped about the long strength of his calves, strolled into the drawing
room and played the languid movement of the Faun’s Afternoon. Illusory
or not there was always beauty in the blended exterior of things. A
man should turn from the inner crassness to soothe himself with the
fair investiture, with the drift of delicate motions that went in
colour and music.--Olive thought him like Mark as she came in. She was
worried because Gail had written of meeting the boy on Montmartre.

“You’ve been enjoying Paris?”

“More or less. It’s a holy show, just now. I don’t suppose the
barkeepers--and other parasites--will ever have such a chance again.”

“I hope you’ve not been in too much mischief. Ian Gail wrote me that he
met you in some horrid hole or other.”

“A party at Ariana Joyce’s. I wasn’t doing any more harm there than the
rest of the Allied armies. But it was pretty odious.” The memory jarred
into the present satisfaction. He halted his long fingers on the keys
and Margot came rustling in, her gown of sheer black muslin painted
with yellow flowers and gold combs in her hair.

“Were you playing L’Après Midi?--And he’s only twenty, Olive! Most
Americans don’t rise to respectable music until they’ve lost all their
money and have to come and live over here. Any nails in your shoes,
Gurdy? We’re going to a dance.”

“Where?” asked Olive.

“Something for war widows at Mrs. Rossiter-Rossiter-Rossiter’s--that
fat woman from Victoria. I promised some one or other I’d come. We’ll
go in time for supper.”

The charity dance seemed less fevered than dances in Paris. There were
ranks of matrons about the walls of a dull, long room. At midnight
Margot rescued him from a girl who was using him as an introduction to
American economics and found a single table in the supper hall. Here
the batter of ill played ragtime was endurable and the supping folk
entertained him.

“The country’s so ghastly with houses shut and no servants that most
people have stuck to town,” Margot said, refusing wine. “Lot of
eminences here. Who’re you looking at?”

“The dark girl in pink. She’s familiar.”

“She should be. She has a press agent in New York. Lady Selene Tucker.
She’s going to marry that man who looks like a Lewis Baumer picture in
Punch as soon as every one’s in town again and she can get Westminster
Abbey and he can get his mother shipped to New Zealand, or somewhere.
His mother will drink too much and then tell lies about Queen Victoria.
She’s rather quaint. She sues for libel every time any one writes a
novel with a dissolute peeress in it. Frightfully self-conscious. Don’t
people who insist on telling you how depraved they are make you rather
ill? They always seem to think they’ve made such a good job of it. And
I could think of much worse things to do.--How nice your hair is! Like
Uncle Eddie’s.”

“Thanks. Who’s the skinny woman with the pearls?”

Margot put aside the palm branch that shadowed her chin and frowned.
“It looks like my namesake, Mrs. Asquith, from this angle.--No, it’s
Lady Flint. Oh, look at the big brute in mauve. Lovely, isn’t she?”

He looked at the shapely, fair woman without interest. The round of
Margot’s forearm took his eyes back.

“Lovely? Why?”

“So glad you don’t think so. One gets so sick of hearing women gurgled
about as wonders. I think it was Salisbury who said she was the most
beautiful woman alive. And she goes right on, you know? Once you get
fixed here as frightfully beautiful or witty you can die of old age
before they stop saying so. Such a fraud! It’s just what dad says about
all the managers and stars in New York being myths. All those legends
about his being a woman hater and--who’s the man who’s supposed to
never hire a chorus girl until he’s seen her au naturel? Such piffle!”

“But they like being myths,” Gurdy laughed.

“Oh, every one does, of course. Some one started a yarn about me--don’t
tell dad this--that I was the daughter of some frightfully rich
American banker and that my mother was a Spanish dancer. Olive was wild
with rage. But it was rather fun.--I say, I’m sick of this, Gurdy. Do
make dad order me home.” She lit a cigarette, let her lashes drop and
ignored a man who bowed, passing. Gurdy thought this was Cosmo Rand
and said so. Margot shrugged. “He rehearses us every day. Decent sort.
People like him.--But do make dad have me come home.”

Gurdy pondered. Mark now knew a few gentlewomen, the wives of authors
and critics. He had mannerly friends outside the theatre, had drilled
smart war theatricals. The girl could move beyond this wedge of
certainty wherever she chose. But Gurdy said, “You might not like New
York.”

“But I want to see it! It’s hardly pleasant seeing dad about once every
year for two weeks or so. I happen to love him. You mean I shan’t be
recognized as a human being by the fat ladies in the Social Register?
That’ll hardly break my heart, you know? The world is so full of a
number--Is that God save the--”

The supping people rose in a vast puff of smoke from abandoned
cigarettes. Officers stiffened. The outer orchestra jangled the old
tune badly. The sleek gowns showed a ripple of bending knees. The
prince went nodding down the room toward an inner door with a tiny
clink of bright spurs as his staff followed him.

“They say he’s going to the States. I should like to be there to see
the women make fools of themselves. And Grandfather’ll be so furious
because every one’ll talk about a damned Britisher.--Finish your
coffee. I want to dance again.”

She danced with a smooth, lazy rhythm and Gurdy felt a brusque jealousy
of all the men who danced with her, after him. He was angry because
he so soon liked her, against reason. It was folly to let himself
be netted by a girl who showed no signs of courting him. He watched
her spin, her black skirt spreading, with Cosmo Rand. The man danced
gracefully, without swagger. He might be amusing, like many actors.
Gurdy pulled his philosophy together and talked about Mark’s plan of
the Walling Theatre while they drove home.

“Dad’s wanted a shop of his own so long,” she sighed, “And it’ll be
quite charming. He does understand colours! Wish he wouldn’t wear black
all the time.... I always feel fearfully moral at two in the morning.
I’m going to lecture you.”

“What about?”

“You’re so damned chilly. You always were, of course. Don’t you like
anything?”

They came to the Ilden house before he could answer and Margot didn’t
repeat the question all the week he stayed in London. They were
seldom alone. Lady Ilden seemed to want the girl near her. There
were incessant callers. Men plainly flocked after the dark girl. Her
frankness added something to the wearisome chaff of teatime and theatre
parties, to the dazing slang of the young officers. Gurdy speculated
from corners, edged in at random dances. But his blood had caught a
fresh pulsation. He felt a trail of mockery in the artifice of Lady
Ilden’s talk as if the tired woman observed him falling into love and
found it humorous. She said once, “I was afraid you’d grown up too
fast. And you’ve not,” but he let the chance of an argument slide by
his preoccupation with the visible flutter of Margot’s hands pinning a
tear in her yellow frock. His resistance weakened although he hunted
repugnances, tried to shiver when the girl swore.

“Profanity’s a sign of poor imagination,” he told her.

“The hell you say,” said Margot. “Haven’t turned out on the heavy
side, have you, Gurdy? I bar serious souls. War shaken you to the
foundations? Cheeryo! You’ll get over it.” And she walked upstairs
singing,

  “There ayn’t a goin’ to be no wa-ah,
    Now we’ve got a king like good King Hedward,
  There ayn’t a goin’ to be no wa-ah.
    ’E ’ates that sort of fing,
  Muvvers, don’t worry,
    Now we’ve got a king like Hedward,
  Peace wiv ’onor is ’is motter,
    So, God sive the king!”




VI

Gurdy


In mid March the lease of the ground in West 47th Street was brought to
Mark’s office. He signed it and gave the attorney his check. A wrecking
company was busy with the destruction of the cheap hotel that stood
where the Walling Theatre would stand complete in November. The notary
and witnesses withdrew. Mark sat drumming his fingers on his desk,
trying to rejoice. Irritations worked in him; Carlson would be the only
audience of his joy; the ground was bought with money made too largely
in moving pictures. He was so close upon the fact grown from his dream
that it frightened him. The Walling was real, at last. He should bubble
with pleasure and couldn’t. He sighed and strolled over to West 45th
Street where he watched the final act of “Redemption” for the sake of
the dive scene, got his usual happy shudder from this massed, intricate
shadow and the faces suddenly projected into the vicious light. He must
have such scenes at the Walling. He must find somewhere a play made of
scenes, many and diverse, changing from splendour to dark vaults. Why,
this was the secret of the abominable movies! They jerked an audience
out of one tedious place into a dozen. He walked toward Fifth Avenue,
thinking, roused because the streets seemed more speckled with olive
cloth. Some transport had disgorged soldiers freshly into the city
tired of gaping at them. Mark enjoyed their tan in the crowded pace of
Fifth Avenue where women showed powder as moist paste on their cheeks
in a warmth like that of May. A motion picture star detained him at
a crossing and haughtily leaned from her red, low car demanding the
rights of a play for her company. Mark couldn’t follow the permutations
of these women. She had been a chorus girl one met at suppers. Now she
was superb in her vulgar furs with a handsome young Jew beside her and
a wolfish dog chained on the flying seat. Mark got himself away and
came home to the panelled library where Carlson was stretched under
three quilts on his wheeled chair gossiping with an old comedian about
the merits of Ada Rehan. Soon the elderly caller left. Mark took his
chair by Carlson and wondered what he would do if his patron died
before Gurdy got back. Carlson couldn’t last much longer, the doctors
said, but his mind was active. He yapped, “I’ve got a hunch, sonny.”

“Go on.”

“You’re goin’ to see Gurdy pretty dam’ quick. I had a nap before
Ferguson came in. Dreamed about the kid.”

“He’d have cabled if he’d sailed,” Mark said, “No, he’s still stuck
in the mud at Saint Nazaire. By God, it’s enough to make a man vomit,
reading about those damned embarkation camps! And he ain’t an officer.
They say the enlisted men don’t even get enough to eat!” He suddenly
fumed.

“Well, don’t cry about it, you big calf,” said Carlson, “Honest to
God, I never saw a feller that can cry like you do! You cried like a
hose-pipe when the kid got shot--and from all I hear it wasn’t nothin’
but a scratch on his belly. And I used to spend hours trying to teach
you to shed one tear when you was actin’! You was the punkest matiny
idol ever drew breath of life!”

Mark chuckled, “I suppose I was,” then a hand slid down over his
shoulder and an olive cuff followed it. Mark’s heart jumped. He dropped
his head back against Gurdy’s side and began to weep idiotically as he
had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t. Old Carlson surveyed the end of
the trick delightedly. He privately cursed Gurdy for standing still and
pale when it was clearly the right thing to make a fuss. The cub was
too cool.

“Son, son,” said Mark.

Gurdy hoped that the man would not repeat that illogical word in his
husky, drumming voice. The repetition brought the illusion of joy too
close. He chewed his lip and wriggled, gave in and stooped over Mark.
He got out, “Here, I’ve not had any lunch, Mark,” and that turned Mark
into mad action, sent him racing downstairs to find the butler.

“Why the hell didn’t you kiss him?” Carlson snarled.

“I’m twenty--”

“You’re a hog,” the old man meditated. His eyes twinkled. He sneered,
“Well, wipe your eyes. Here’s a handkerchief if you ain’t got one.”
He relished the boy’s blush, watched him blink and went on, “Now,
don’t tell Mark about all the women you ruined, neither. He prob’ly
thinks you been a saint. And don’t go spillin’ any of this talk about
goin’ to work on your own like some of these whelps do. Mark’s got a
three thousand dollar car comin’ for you and he’s goin’ to pay you
a hundred a week to set in the office and look wise. And don’t tell
him you didn’t win the war, too. He knows you did. Christ, it was bad
enough when I’d got to listen to how Margot was runnin’ the Red Cross
in London! After you went off I come pretty near callin’ up the express
company and havin’ myself shipped to Stockholm! The big calf! Chewin’
the paint off the walls every time he heard there’d been fightin’!
Sentymental lunatic! Your papa and mamma’ve got three times more sense
about you. Get out of here. I got to make up sleep.” He shut his eyes.
Two tears ran and were lost in the sharp wrinkles of his face. Gurdy
gulped and walked downstairs, abashed by the sheer weight of idolatry.

Mark was twisting the cork out of a champagne bottle in the dining
room. At once he said, “They’ll have some eggs up right away, sonny.”

“My God but you’re thin, Mark!”

“No exercise. Haven’t had time to play golf. Now, we’d better get the
car and run down to Fayettes--”

“I talked to mother from Camp Merritt. Be in Camp Dix tomorrow. I’ll
see them there. They can motor over. Only twelve miles. Heard from
Margot lately?”

His uncle beamed saying, “Says she wants to come home, son. I’ve got to
talk to you about that. What d’you think?”

Gurdy said quickly, “Let her come, Mark. The fact is, I think she’s
bored. You haven’t seen her since last year? She’s got a gang of men
trailing after her and she isn’t a flirt. Chelsea’s full of bright
young painters and things. They all come and camp on the doormat.
Lady Ilden’s a sort of fairy godmother, of course.” He lapsed into a
sudden state of mind about Margot, fondling his glass of champagne.
Untrimmed discourse on women had amused his first days in the army.
But the week’s return in the jammed transport had sickened him with
the stuffy talk of prospective and retrospective desire. It had been
musky, stifling. He wondered how women, if they guessed, would value
that broad commentary. And how men lied about women! The precisian was
annoyed to a snort and Mark filled his glass again, smiling.

Of course, having seen her, the boy wanted Margot home. Mark said, “She
wrote me you’d turned out better looking than she thought. Knew she’d
think so. And Olive was pleased to death with you, of course. How’s
your side feel?--My God, what are those fools doing to the eggs!”

He rushed into the pantry. Rank pleasure swelled in Gurdy. There was no
use doing anything with the incurable, proud man who drove him back to
Camp Merritt at dusk with two bottles of champagne hidden in his motor
coat, invited confessions and beamed constantly.

“Only don’t act like you’d ever kissed a woman in front of your mother,
son. Country folks. Shock her to death. You any taller? I’ll call up
Sanford about some clothes for you. Good night, sonny. You go straight
to the farm when you’re discharged. I’ll be down Sunday.”

An illusion of happiness beset Gurdy. He stood in the green street of
the half empty camp staring after the motor, the wine bottles wrapped
in paper under his arm. It was astonishing how foolish Mark was, to
be sure. But wine or emotion warmed the chill air about Gurdy like
the pour of a hot shower. If Mark wanted to be an ass over him, it
couldn’t be helped. He kept thinking of his foolish worshipper in the
transfer to the sandy discomfort of Camp Dix. There the Bernamers
appeared in a large motor with grandfather Walling furred and mittened
in the back seat. The illusion of happiness deepened into a sensuous
bath, although his mother had contracted more fat and his sisters were
too brawny for real charm. Gurdy struggled for righteous detachment
while his brothers candidly goggled their admiration and his father
examined the purple scar that passed dramatically up Gurdy’s milky
skin. He found himself blinking and got drunk on the second bottle of
champagne when his family left. But it seemed wiser to surrender to the
flood of affectionate nonsense for a time. It was even convenient that
Mark should send a tailor down to Fayettesville with clothes rapidly
confected. On Sunday Mark arrived with a small car lettered G.B. in
blue on its panel.

“Just the blue Gurdy’s eyes are,” Mrs. Bernamer drawled.

Gurdy understood that maternal feeling was a rather shocking symbol
on the charts of analysts and that Mark probably doted on him for
some trivial resemblance unconsciously held and engrossed. But it was
pleasant, being a symbol. He drove Mark down into Trenton and talked of
Margot while they drank bad American Benedictine in a seedy hotel.

“I don’t know whether she’s very clever or simply sensible,” he said,
achieving detachment by way of Benedictine. “Anyhow, most cleverness
is just common sense--perception.” His eyes darkened. Mark thought in
lush comfort that Gurdy would marry the girl. Gurdy had friends among
the right sort of people. Poor Carlson would die pretty soon. Gurdy and
Margot would live at the house, which were best adorned freshly. The
Benedictine gave out. They drove into the twisted lanes behind Trenton
and Gurdy talked levelly of France. “Damned humiliating to get laid
out by a hunk of zinc off a bathtub. Margot joshed me about it....
Paris was perfectly astonishing! American privates giving parties for
British admirals and stealing their women.--I ran into a Y. M. C. A.
girl who wanted to have Fontainebleau made into a reform school. Margot
says she found one that wanted to have George turn Windsor Castle into
a hospital for the A. E. F.... You mustn’t mind Margot swearing. All
the flappers seem to.--Oh, I met Cora Boyle.”

“How’s she looking?”

“Handsome.” Gurdy thought for a second and then inquired. “What did
you--”

Mark comprehended the stop. He said, “She was the first woman ever took
any notice of me.--Why, I suppose she was a kind of ideal. I mean, I
liked that kind of looks. Lord knows what she married me for. Wonder,
is that Rand kid still married to her? Is? I guess she’s settled down
in London for keeps. Well, I want you to look at the plans of the
Walling, son. They’ve made me a model. Tell me if you see anything
wrong.”

He simmered with joy when Gurdy approved the whole plan except the
shape of the boxes. The boy ran back and forth between Fayettesville
and the city in his car, asked seemly young men to dine in Fifty Fifth
Street, read plays and wandered with Mark to costumers. People stared
at him in the restaurants where Mark took him to lunch. His tranquil
height and his ease drew glances. His intolerant comments on the motley
of opening nights made Mark choke. Sometimes, though, Mark found the
boy’s eyes turned on him with surprise.

“You seem to hang out in Greenwich village a lot, Mark.”

“I kind of like it. Don’t understand some of the talk. The show
business is changing, sonny. It’s changed a lot since nineteen
fourteen. If you’d told me five years back that a piece like Redemption
could have a run I’d have laughed my head off. Or that you could mount
a play like Jones has fixed up this thing at the Plymouth--all low
lights and--what d’you call it?--impressionist scenery.... The game’s
changed.--Oh, the big money makers’ll always be hogwash, Gurdy! Don’t
bet any other way. I ain’t such a fool as to think that Heaven’s opened
because you can put on a piece with a sad ending and some--well,
philosophy to it and have it make a little cash. No such luck. Only
it’s got so now that when some big, fat wench in a lot of duds starts
throwin’ his pearls back at the man that’s keepin’ her in the third
act--why, there’s a lot of folks out front that say, Oh, hell, and go
home. Of course, there’s a lot more that think it’s slick.--Lord, I’d
like to put on ‘Measure for Measure’ when we open the Walling!--You
could make that look like something.--I’ve got to find something _good_
to open with. This kid Steve O’Mara’s sending me up a play about a thug
that gets wrecked down in Cuba and steals a plantation. Ten scenes
to it, he says. One of ’em’s a lot of niggers havin’ a Voodoo party.
Sounds fine. I picked _him_ up down in Greenwich village.”

“I should think all those half married ladies and near anarchists would
shock you to death.”

“Bosh, brother. I don’t like ’em enough to get shocked at ’em. What’s
there to get shocked at? They think so and so and I think the other
way. If you took to preaching dynamite I’d be pretty worried--like I
would if your mamma bobbed her hair and ran off with a tenor. I’m not
an old maid just because I’m in the show business.” He lit a cigarette
and added. “Fifty per cent of theatrical managers are old maids.”

“Just what do you mean?”

“Why, they are. This way. They get used to a run of plots and they
can’t see outside that. For instance, here’s a dramatist--forgotten his
name--was trying to sell a piece last year. I couldn’t use it but I
thought it was pretty good so I sent him over to Loeffler with a note.
Next day, Loeffler called me up and said I ought to be hung for the
sake of public morals. This play knocked round the offices and every
one thought it was awful. Why? The hero’s a chauffeur that’s tired of
working, so he marries a rich old woman. It’s something that happens
every other day in the papers. There ain’t a week that some fifty year
old actress doesn’t marry a kid step dancer but they all carried on as
if this fellow’d written a play where every one came on the stage stark
naked and danced the hoochy coochee. It wasn’t a nice idea but where’s
it worse than nine tenths these bedroom things or as bad?”

“Why wouldn’t you use it, Mark?”

“Oh, hell, there wasn’t but one scene and that was an interior!”

Gurdy asked, “Mark, wouldn’t you like it if the playwrights would go
back to the Elizabethan idea--I mean thirty or forty scenes to a play?”

“Certainly,” said Mark, “and those bucks were right.” He sat for a
little silent, scrawling his desk blotter with a pencil, then shyly
laughed, “Supposing some one made a play out of my married life? What
you’d call the important episodes happened all over God’s earth. Cora
got me on a farm in Fayettesville, N. J., married in Hoboken. Started
quarreling in Martin’s café. Caught her kissing a fellow at Longbranch.
Never saw him before or since. Owned up she’d lived with three or four
men in our flat--twentieth Street, New York. Big scene. God, how sick
that made me! I was at tea at Mrs. LeMoyne’s when Frank Worthing got me
off in a corner and told me about her and Jarvis Hope. I was sittin’
in the bath tub when she chucked her curling irons at me and said she
was through. That’s the way things go. Shakespeare was right. Crazy?
No.--Come in.” His secretary brought Mark a thick manuscript lettered
“Captain Salvador: Stephen O’Mara.” and withdrew. Mark went on, “But my
married life wouldn’t make much of a show--green kid from the country
and a--a Cora Boyle. Pretty ordinary.” He reflected, “But I don’t
know. It’s always going to be pretty tragic for a kid to find out he’s
married a girl thinkin’ she was pure--as pure as folks are, anyhow--and
finds she hadn’t been. Wasn’t her fault, of course. Started acting when
she was fourteen. Awful jolt, though. She lied about it, too. She was
the damnedest liar! I hate liars. Well run along and play squash or
something, sonny. I want to see what O’Mara’s handed me.”

He bought the rights to “Captain Salvador” two hours later. Gurdy was
willing to rejoice with him after he read the Cuban tragedy. Carlson
yapped, “The women’ll hate it, Mark. Where’s your clothes?”

“Bosh,” said Mark, “there weren’t any women’s clothes in Ervine’s ‘John
Ferguson’ and the women ate it alive!”

“But that fellow Ervine’s an Englishman, you big calf! You ain’t going
to open the Walling with a sad piece by an American where there ain’t
any duds for the women to gawp at! You’re off your head. Ain’t I told
you a million times that the New York woman won’t swallow a home grown
show that’s tragic unless it’s all dressed up? Stop him, Gurdy!”

“It’s a damned good play, sir,” said Gurdy.

He thought it high fortune that Mark should find anything so adroit
and moving for the Walling’s first play. Some of the critics believed
in O’Mara’s talent. Several artists in scenery were asked to submit
designs. The pressmen began a scattering campaign of notes on O’Mara
and hints about the play. A procession of comely young women declined
the best female part as “unsympathetic.”

“That means no clothes to it,” Carlson sniffed.

“But they’re fools,” Gurdy insisted, “It’s a good acting part.”

“My God,” the old man screamed, “don’t you know that no woman wants
a part where she can’t show her shape off and wear pearls! And these
hens that got looks don’t have to act any more. They go to California
and get in the movies. You talk like actresses were human beings! Women
don’t act unless they ain’t good lookin’ or’ve got brains. You’ll have
to go a long ways if you want a good lookin’ wench for that part. God,
you keep talkin’ like actin’ was some kind of an art! It ain’t. It’s a
game for grown up kids that they get paid for. An actor that’s got any
brains never gets to be more’n some one smart in comedy. A tragedian’s
nothin’ but a hunk of mush inside his head. Catch a girl that’ll act
tragical when she can sit on a sofa in a Paris gown and have some
goop make eyes at her!--And Mark’ll have a fine time at rehearsals
makin’ any leadin’ man wear a stubble beard and eat with his knife,
like in this play. Art!” and the old man fell asleep snorting. Yet his
bedroom behind the panelled library was dotted with photographs of dead
actors and actresses. Sometimes his dry voice trailed into a sort of
tenderness when he spoke of James Lewis or Augustin Daly.

“Softhearted as an egg,” said Mark, hesitated and resumed, “He’s got
fifty thousand apiece for you and Margot in his will, sonny. Rest of it
goes to his sister’s children in Sweden.--What’s this you were saying
about running out to Chicago?”

“I’d rather like to. Lacy Martin--remember him? I roomed with him
freshman year at college--Lacy lost his leg in France. He’s rather
blue. His mother wrote me that she’d like me to come out. I thought I
would.”

“Well.--I thought I’d surprise you with it. Got a cable from Olive
Ilden Thursday. Margot sailed Friday. Ought to land day after
tomorrow.” He saw the orange level of Gurdy’s cocktail flicker. Then
the boy set it down and brooded. Mark made his face stolid to watch
this. The butler served fish and retired without noise to his pantry.
The tapestry of Chinese flowers behind Gurdy’s chair stirred in the
May wind. The boy was immobile, fair and trim in his chair. He seemed
strangely handsome--a long, easy lounging gentleman who hated sharp
emotions.

“Really think I’d better go out to Lake Forest, Mark. I more or less
promised I would. I shan’t be gone more than a--couple of weeks.”

Triumph dragged a chuckle from Mark. He covered it with, “Oh, sure!
If Lacy’s got the blues, run ahead out and cheer him up.” The boy was
in full flight from love, of course, and didn’t want to admit it.
Mark doted on him, drawled, “Got all the money you’ll need?” and was
pleased by Gurdy’s confession that he needed a good deal. He gave
the boy errands about Chicago to aid the retreat. “There’s a girl
named Marryatt playing at the La Salle. Some of them think she’s got
distinction. And poke around and see if you can rake up a scenery man.
Take the directions for Captain Salvador along. If you find any one
that ain’t just copying Bobby Jones or Gordon Craig make him send me
sketches. And there’s this poet on a newspaper--he’s named something
like Sandwich--no, Sanbridge. See if he’s got a play up his sleeve.
O’Mara was talking about him.”

He saw Gurdy off for Chicago, the next noon, then set about making
lists of successive luncheons for Margot. This return must be an
ample revenge for her waygoing. She wasn’t, now, the small girl whose
presence in Miss Thorne’s school had frightened matrons. She was some
one protected by his celebrity and trained by Olive Ilden. He must
contrive her content until she married Gurdy. She was democratic--Olive
had seen to that. Mark had watched her chaff a knot of convalescent
soldiers in Hyde Park. She wouldn’t care that one of his best friends
had risen toward management from the rank of a burlesque dancer, that
another had been an undertaker in Ohio. She wouldn’t mind things like
that. He marshalled the cleverest of the critics and the young women
who dealt in publicity. Gurdy would bring proper men to call, when he
came back from his flight. The expanse of her future opened like an
unfurling robe of exquisite colours. She strolled in Mark’s mind most
visibly. He hummed, inspecting his house.

“Yes,” Carlson sneered, “she’s been footloose amongst a pack of dukes
and things and you think she’s going to like bein’ mixed up with a lot
of--”

“She won’t mind,” said Mark.

She seemed to mind nothing. She landed on the twentieth of that cool
May, kissed Mark on the nose and told him she had three cases of
champagne in the hold. The customs inspectors were dazzled stumbling
among her trunks. A file of other voyagers came to shake hands. A great
hostess kissed the girl, smiled at Mark and said gently that she hoped
Mr. Walling would bring Margot to luncheon next fall.

“She’s quite nice,” Margot assured him in the motor, “She probably kept
your photograph with a bunch of violets in a jar in front of it when
you were a matinée--Oh, how you hate that word! How nice your nose is!
Where on earth’s Gurdy?--Lake Forest? Oh, that’s where all the Chicago
pig kings live, isn’t it? They have chateaux and moats and exclude--But
it’s rather rotten he isn’t here. I’ve a couple of awful French novels
for him. He speaks such rather remarkable French. I can’t make the
right J sounds. He’s such a stately animal. I was awfully frightened of
him in London. Such a ghastly crossing!”

“Why, honey?”

She stared at him with wide black eyes and said more slowly, “How
nicely you say things like that.--You’re really awfully glad I’m back,
aren’t you?”

Mark choked, “Here’s Times Square.”

She shrugged and leaned back on the blue cushions. “Horrible! But the
theatre district in London’s worse, really. The Walling’ll be on a side
street, won’t it? I’d loathe seeing Walling in electric bulbs along
here. Be rather as though you were running about naked. Did I write you
about Ronny Dufford’s new play? Been a most tremendous success. You
should bring it over. That’s the Astor, isn’t it? What colour’s the
Walling to be inside? Blue? Rather dark blue? And swear to me that you
won’t have Russian decorations!”

“I swear, daughter.”

“You old saint,” said Margot, “and you’re still the best looking man in
the known world!”

Her lips had a curious, untinted brilliance as though the blood might
burst from them. Dizzy Mark told himself that she wasn’t the most
beautiful of women. Her brown face was like his face and her father’s
face, too flat. Her hands weren’t small, either, but she wore no rings.
Her gown was dark and her tam o’shanter of black velvet was inseparable
from her hair in the mist of his eyes. Silver buckles swayed and
twinkled when her gleaming feet moved about his house and she smiled in
a veil of cigarette smoke.

“You’ve simply natural good taste, dad. Born, not made. Don’t think I’m
keen on that Venice glass in the dining room. Too heavy. Where does
Gurdy sleep?--I snore, you know?”

“I don’t believe it. He sleeps on the top floor where the old playroom
was.”

She threw her head back to laugh and said, “Where he used to make such
sickening noises on the piano when he thought you were petting me too
much? He’s a dear. It wouldn’t be eugenics for me to marry him, would
it?”

“See that, Mark?” Carlson squealed, “She ain’t been ten minutes in the
country and she’s huntin’ a husband? That’s gratitude!”

“Oh, you,” said Margot, spinning on a heel, “If you were ninety seven
years younger I’d marry you myself.”

She teased the old man relentlessly. She teased Mark before his guests
at the first luncheon. Her variations appalled the man. She seemed
to know all the printable gossip of New York. She spoke to older
women with a charming patience, played absurd English songs to amuse
Mark’s pet critic and got the smallest of the managers in a loud good
temper by agreeing with his debatable views on stage lighting. Most
of these, his friends, had forgotten that she was Mark’s niece. Their
compliments were made as on a daughter. He felt the swift spread of a
ripple; editors of fashion monthlies telephoned to ask for photographs;
the chief of a Sunday supplement wanted her views on the American Red
Cross; a portrait painter came calling.

“Silly ass,” said Margot, “I met him in Devonshire. I hate being
painted. You’ve never had a portrait done? Dreary. One has to sit and
smirk.” She went fluttering a yellow frock up the library to find an
ash tray, came back smoking a cigarette, neared Mark’s chair then
veered off to pat Carlson’s jaw.

“You used to set like a kitchen stove in one spot for an hour at a
time,” Carlson said, “Now you’re all over the place.”

“One has to move about in England to keep warm. Dad, I wrote Ronny
Dufford to send you a copy of his play. Ronny’s land poor, you know?
It’s made mountains of money but I don’t think he’s half out of debt,
yet. Such a nice idiot. He liked Gurdy such a lot. What the deuce an’
all is Gurdy doing in Chicago? Bargin’ about with the pigstickers?”

She shed her mixture of slangs when his broker’s wife came to luncheon.
Mark didn’t think it affected that she mainly talked of titled folk
to the smart, reticent woman. Mrs. Villay invited her to Southampton
before leaving. Margot shook her hair free of two silver combs and
shrugged as the front door shut. “I suspect her of being a ferocious
snob. Sweet enough, though. Fancy she doesn’t read anything but Benson
and the late Mrs. Ward.--Oh, no, Mrs. Ward isn’t late, is she? Simply
lamented.”

Mark laughed, “Let’s go talk to Mr. Carlson.”

“You always call him Mister. Just why, darling?”

“Well, he’s forty years older than me, sister. And he made me. He--”

“Tosh! You made yourself! Let’s walk over and see how the Walling’s
getting on.”

He wallowed in this warm enchantment for ten days. Margot dismissed
herself to Fayettesville on the first breath of heat. He went down to
see her established in the gaping adoration of the family. He thought
it hard on the Bernamer girls. He had hinted boarding school for these
virgins but the Bernamers, trained by moving pictures, were wary. Yet
Margot was clearly born to captivate women. He wrote to Gurdy at Lake
Forest: “It was nice to see her tone herself down for your grandfather
and your mother. I told her she had better not smoke except with your
dad in the cowbarn. You kept telling me I must not be shocked. What is
there to get shocked at? Young girls are not as prissy as they were
when I was a pup.--Hell of a row coming on with the actors. We are
trying to keep things quiet but it looks like a strike. But some of the
men still think an actor is a cross between a mule and a hog. Letter
from Olive Ilden says she is going to Japan pretty soon and will come
this way. I see in the London news that Cora Boyle has signed up with
the Celebrities and is coming over to be filmed as Camille or The Queen
of Sheba. You are wrong about ‘Heartbreak House.’ It is a conversation,
not a play. I wish Shaw would do something like Cæsar and Cleopatra
again. They start work on the sets for Captain Salvador next week at
the studio. Shall have two sets made for the Voodoo scene and try both
on the road before we open the Walling.”

Gurdy reflected that it was time to come home. Then he put it off.
Lake Forest was pleasant. He was fond of his host. It was prudent to
test the pull of this feeling for Margot. The thing augmented now that
he couldn’t talk of her. A strict detachment from passion was silly,
after all. But he was annoyed with himself as the passage of any tall
and blackhaired woman across a lawn would interrupt the motion of his
blood. He set his brain tasks, meditated the girl at Fayettesville,
hoped that she wouldn’t singe the acute American skin of his young
brothers by comments on the national arms. His sisters had probably
made their own experiments with cigarettes. They were sensible lasses,
anyhow, if given to endless gush about moving pictures. His young
host’s sisters, amiable, blond girls were much the same thing, rarified
by trips to Europe, suave frocks and some weak topics in the cerebral
change. They held Dunsany a fascinating dramatist and thought there was
something to be said for communism. Chicago puzzled him with its summer
negligence and the candour of its wealth, with the air of stressed
vice in the Loop restaurants and the sudden change from metropolis
to a country town within the city limits. It seemed absurd that the
listless, polished wife of a hundred million dollars should return from
Long Island to give a dance in honor of a travelling English poet held
lowly in Chelsea, described by Olive Ilden as a derivative angleworm.
At this dance he heard of Margot from an unknown woman with whom he
waltzed.

“I saw you in London, last winter.”

“I was there. Funny I don’t remember--”

“You were in uniform with Margot Walling and Lady Ilden. At a play.
Margot was wearing one of her yellow frocks. I was the other side of
the gangway. I wondered about you, rather. Margot always snubs me. I’m
a countess of sorts and it always interests me when Americans snub
me.--Let’s get something to drink. I don’t dance well and you must be
in torments--What’s your name?”

She was a lank, tired creature in a rowdy gown sewn with false pearls
that hissed theatrically as she slumped into a chair on the lit
terrace.

“Cousin, eh?--Well, Margot amuses me. She’s the genuine aristocrat,
you know? Take what you want and to hell with the rest. Pity so few
Americans catch the idea. Imagine any continental woman coming a
thousand miles to give a dance for a cheapjack penny poet like this
sweep. Afraid he won’t mention her in his travel book, I dare say.
Run and get me a drink. Something mild.” A youth at the buffet told
him this was the Countess of Flint. She sipped wine cup, refused a
cigarette and asked, “Where did you go to school? Saint Andrew’s? My
brothers did Groton. Beautiful training wasted on the desert air.
That’s the trouble with the American game. Did you ever think how much
good it would have done the beastly country to have had about four
generations of a hard and fast aristocracy--plenty of money, no morals,
quantities of manner? It’s simply a waste of time and money to train
lads and then turn them loose in a herd of rich women all afraid of
their dressmakers. What a zero the average American woman is!”

“Hush,” he said, “That’s treason! You’ll be shot at sunrise!”

“Unsalted porridge. Utter vacuum. Not a vacuum either because she’s a
bully, usually. And a prude.--Is Margot going to marry Ronny Dufford?”

Gurdy jumped, inescapably startled. He said, “Colonel Dufford? The
General Staff man who writes plays? I’m sure I don’t know.”

“It wouldn’t be a bad thing. Ronny’s all right--the gentleman Bohemian
touch and I dare say she has money.” The lank woman coughed, went on,
“She’ll take on an Englishman in any case, though.”

“She’s in New York.”

“Oh, she’ll get fed with that directly and trot home.” The woman
locked her gaunt arms behind her careless hair and yawned at the
amber moon above the clipped pines. “New York’s frightful! Stuffed
middle westerners squatting in hotels trying to look smart. Place is
absolutely run by women. Getting more respectable every time I go
through. Haven’t had any patience with New York since the Stanford
White murder. Imagine all the bloods running to cover and swearing
they’d never even met White because he’d been shot in a mess about a
woman! Imagine it! I always bought Harding Davis’s books after that
because he had the sand to get up and say he liked White, in print.
But that’s Egyptian history.” She began to cough fearfully. The pearls
clattered on her gown.

“You’ve taken cold.”

“No. Cigarettes. Are you married?”

“Good lord, no. Only been twenty-one a couple of weeks.”

“How odd that must be! Twenty-one a couple of weeks ago. And you went
to France and got shot. Singular child!”

“Why singular?”

“Oh, I’ve been amusing myself at Saranac--at a house party, with a
social register and an army list. A war where eighty per cent. of the
educated men--I mean the smart universities--the bloods under thirty
all went and hid themselves. It’s not pretty.”

“Aren’t you exag--”

“Not in the least. I had fifty American officers convalescing at my
husband’s place in Kent and half of them were freight clerks from Iowa.
What can you expect when the American woman brings her son up to be
a coward and his father makes him a thief? And naturally the women
despise the men. Who on earth wants an American husband?”

“They seem to find wives, somehow.”

She coughed, rising, “Oh, travel’s expensive.” Then she gestured to
the orange oblongs of the ballroom windows. “D’you think any one of
those women would hesitate a minute between being the next lady of the
White House or the mistress of the Prince of Wales? Of course not! Give
Margot my love. Good-bye. Too chilly out here.” She rattled away.

Gurdy dropped into the chair and stared after her. He should tabulate
this woman at once with her romantic illusions of aristocracy and
patriotism. Margot supervened and seemed to move across the moony
stones of the terrace. He thought frantically of Colonel Dufford. He
thought solidly of marriage for ten minutes. Beyond doubt he was in
love with Margot. He stirred in the chair, repeating maxims. Passion
wasn’t durable. He might tire of her. He argued against emotion and
blinked at the gold lamps on the bastard French face of this house. He
was too young to select sensibly, didn’t want to be sensible, suddenly.
His pulse rose. He marvelled at love. In the morning he announced his
present departure. At noon he had a special delivery letter from his
youngest brother, Edward Bernamer, Junior, a placid boy of thirteen
interested in stamp collecting. The scrawl was the worse for that
complacency.

“Dear Gurd, For the love of Mike come on home and help take care of
Margot E. Walling. She has got mamma and the girls all up in the air.
Grandfather is getting ready to shoot her. I heard him talking to dad
about writing Uncle Mark to take her away. I sort of like her. Eggs and
Jim think she is hell.”

Gurdy came whirling east to New York and found Mark at the 45th Street
Theatre, humming over the model for a scene of “Captain Salvador.”
But plainly Mark knew nothing of any fissure in the sacred group at
Fayettesville. He was busy rehearsing a comedy, had been to the farm
only once. In any event Mark mustn’t be hurt. Gurdy took breath and
delicately put forth, “I want you to do something damned extravagant,
Mark.”

“Easy, sonny. Just got the estimate for the mirrors at the Walling. Not
more than ten thousand, please!”

“Not as bad as that. Get a cottage on Long Island for July and August.
The farm’s all right for Margot for a while. But grandfather goes to
bed at nine. The kids play rags on the phonograph all afternoon. It
gets tiresome after a while. I--”

“Oh, son,” said Mark, “I’m not so thickheaded I can’t see that
sister’ll get bored down there.” He beamed, thinking Gurdy superb in
grey tweeds, his white skin overlayed with pale tan. “No, I expect
I’d get bored with the cows and chickens if I was there enough.--And
we ought to have some kind of a country place of our own.--There’s
some friend of Arthur Hopkins has a place on Long Island he wants to
let.--Olive Ilden’ll be here in July and we ought to have a cottage
somewhere. I don’t think your dad and Olive’d have much to talk over.”
Mark grinned. Gurdy laughed, curling on a corner of the desk, approving
the man’s common shrewdness. Mark patted his palms together. “Look,
you pike on down to the farm. Margot’s got your car there. You fetch
her up in the morning and you two go look at this cottage. I’ll ’phone
Hopkins and find where it is. Oh, here’s this piece Margot’s friend
Dufford’s sent over. I hear it’s doing a fair business in London but
nothing to brag of. Read it and see what you think. Get going, son. You
can catch the three o’clock for Trenton.”

Gurdy strove with this fragility in neat prose all the way to Trenton.
It had to do with a climber domiciled by mistake in the house of
a stodgy young Earl. It was wordy and tedious. The name, “Todgers
Intrudes,” made him grunt. He laughed occasionally at the tinkling
echoes of Wilde and Maugham. It might be passable in London where
the lethal jokes on “Dora” and “Brass Hats” would be understood. He
diligently tried to be just to Colonel Dufford’s art which served
to keep his pulse down and his mind remote from the approaching
discomfort. Margot wasn’t perfect. She had upset the family. It was
best to get her quickly away from Fayettesville. He hired a battered
car at Trenton. The Fayettesville Military Academy was closing for the
summer, by all signs. Lads bustled toward the station towing parents
and gaudy sisters in the beginning of sunset. He overtook his three
brothers idling home toward the farm and gave them a lift. No one spoke
of Margot directly. Edward, his correspondent, smiled sideways at
Gurdy and drawled, “Must have been having a damn good time in Chicago,
Gurd,” but nothing else was said. The car panted into the stone walled
dooryard. His grandfather waved a linen clad arm at Gurdy from the
padded chair on the veranda. His sisters accepted the usual candy and
hid a motion picture magazine from him, giggling. Mrs. Bernamer was at
a funeral in Trenton. Gurdy found Bernamer in the dairy yard studying a
calf. It was always easy to be frank with the saturnine, long farmer.
His father didn’t suffer from illusions. They sat on the frame of the
water tower and lit cigarettes, before speech.

“How’s Margot been behaving, dad?”

“You sweet on her, son?”

“I like her. How’s she been acting?”

Bernamer pulled his belt tight and lifted his hard face toward the
sky. Gurdy felt the mute courtesy of his pause. The man had a natural
scorn of tumult. He lived silently and, perhaps, thought much. He said,
“This is just as much Mark’s place as it is ours. He’s the best feller
livin’. We all know that. And she’s Joe’s daughter.” Something boiled
up in his blue eyes. He cried, “What in hell! You’re as good as she
is, ain’t you? You can come home and act like we wasn’t mud underfoot!
Who the hell’s she?” His wrath slid into laughter. He pulled his belt
tighter and winked at Gurdy. “It’s kind of funny hearin’ her cuss,
though.”

“She over does that, a little. Just what’s the trouble, dad?”

“I can’t tell you, son. She’s sand in the cream. It ain’t her smokin’.
I miss my guess if the girls ain’t tried that.--She kind of puts me
in mind of that Boyle wench Mark married. She’s got the old man all
worried. Your mamma’s scared to death of her. So’s the girls.--She
ain’t so damned polite it hurts her any.... Say, I wouldn’t hurt Mark’s
feelings for the world--And I notice she don’t carry on so high and
mighty when Mark’s here, neither.--Ain’t there some place else she
could go?”

Gurdy had a second of futile rage that divided itself between Margot
and his family. This wasn’t within remedy. She had absorbed the
attitudes, the impatience of worlds exterior to the flat peace of the
farm. He grinned at his father.

“Yes. I’m going to take her off. Mark’s got more sense than you think,
dad.”

“Sure. Mark’s got plenty of sense when he ain’t dead cracked over a
thing. Don’t tell him I’ve been squalling. Mebbe that Englishwoman
spoiled her, lettin’ her gallivant too much. Mebbe it’s her father
comin’ out in her. Between us, Joe was tougher’n most boys. You’ll
likely find her down in the orchard smokin’ her head off. It’s all kind
of funny ... and then it ain’t.”

She wasn’t smoking. She sat with a novel spread on her yellow lap and
the bole of an apple tree behind her head. There was a shattered plate
of ruddy glow about her. The pose had the prettiness of a drowsy child.
She was, her lover thought, a bragging child, lonesome for cleverness,
annoyed by stolidity. In the vast green of the orchard she seemed
small. He whistled. She rose, her hair for a moment floating, then
laughed and threw the book away.

“Thank God, that’s you! I thought it was one of--O, any one!”

There was a shrill, unknown jerk in her voice. She came running and
took his arm.

“Tell me something about civilization--quick! You don’t want to talk
about the fil-lums do you? Or whether Jane Rupp’s going to marry that
Coe feller or--”

“Bored?”

“Oh--to death! How do you stand it? How do you stand it?... I knew
they’d be common but I didn’t think they’d be such bloody--”

“Look out,” said Gurdy.

But the girl’s red lips had retracted. She was shivering. She had lost
her charm of posture. She cried, “Oh, yes! They’re our people and all
the rest of that tosh! I’m not a hypocrite. It’s a stable! A stable!”
Her breath choked her. She gasped, “Get me out of here! I’m used to
what you call real people!”

She loosed his sleeve and patted her hair. But some inner spring shook
her. Scarlet streaks appeared in her face. She babbled, “He must be
mad! Of course he’s sentimental about them--about the place--the old
place--It’s the way he is about Carlson! My God, why should he think I
can stand it!”

Something hummed in Gurdy’s head. His hands heated. He stood
shuffling a foot in the grass and looked from her at the green
intricate branches. He must keep cool. He whispered, “Can’t you find
anything--well, funny in it?”

“It’s all funny rather the way an old dress is!--Why should he think I
could stay here? Three weeks! Of course, he hasn’t any breed--”

“Shut up,” said Gurdy, “That’ll be all! We were born here. Mark took us
and had us dressed and looked after--trained. I’m not going to laugh
at them. I can’t.--I’ll be damned if I’ll hear you laugh at Mark. Yes,
he’s sentimental! If he wasn’t, d’you think he’d have bothered about
taking care of you--of us? The family’s sacred to him. He loves them.
He’s that kind.--Stop laughing!”

He hated her. There was no beauty left. Her face had shrivelled in this
fire. She was swiftly and horribly like an angry trull. She said,
“Sentimentalist! You’re a damned milk and sugar sentimentalist like--”

“Ah,” said Gurdy, “that’s out of some book!... All right. Mark’s going
to take a place on Long Island. We’ll go up in the morning.”

He tramped off. The orchard became a whirl of green flame that seared
then left him cold. He was tired. His body felt like stone, heavy and
dead. The illusion of desire was gone out of Gurdy.




VII

Todgers Intrudes


Olive Ilden was detained and surrendered her mid July sailing. Her
brother died. This did not grieve her; they had been on strained terms.
But she was unwilling to offend his daughters. Offence had grown
hateful with years. The personal matter flung to and fro among critics
wearied her. It wasn’t amusing to hear that an elderly novelist was “a
doddering relic of the Victorian era.” She envisaged the man’s pain.
Thus, she bore the formalities of her brother’s passing and so missed
three liners. About her, London recaptured something of its tireless
motion. She wished for Margot and the youth Margot had kept parading
through the quiet house. She hoped that the girl’s frankness never
shocked Mark and puzzled again over the rise of that frankness. In
her first two English years the child had been sedate, almost solemn,
reading a great deal and talking primly. Then her conversation had
risen to a rattle. It must be rattling mightily in New York which
Olive still fancied a place of cheerful freedom. Letters recorded
the change from Fayettesville to a cottage on the Long Island shore:
“Cottage was frightful but dad behaved quite as if he was mounting a
play in a hurry. We drove from shop to shop and all the stuff came
roaring along in motor trucks. I went to Southampton and camped with
a rather nice woman, Mrs. Corliss Stannard, who picked me up coming
across. It was dull as Westminster Abbey as every one kept cursing
the Prohibition amendment. But dad had the cottage--(fourteen rooms
and four baths)--all decorated by the time I got back. Some decentish
friends of Gurdy live near here. The men are all Goths and the women
are fearfully stiff but a broker proposed last night at a dance and I
felt rather silly, as he has just been divorced two days and I hardly
knew his name. But dad has bought an option to ‘Todgers Intrudes.’”
Then, “Dad very busy in town. The actors are threatening a strike.
Gurdy pretends that he does not like ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ For a man who
did a smart school and who knows his way about Gurdy is rather heavy.
Rather decent lunch today. Dad brought down one of the other managers
who talks through his nose and is a duck. He taught me how to do a
soft shoe step.” And later, “Dad very émotionné about a tragedy he is
putting on in the autumn. It is rather thrilling. He means to open The
Walling with it. Gurdy does not fancy ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ He thinks
himself a Bolshevik or something and I dare say the county family
business in it annoys him.”

Immediately after this, while the letter was fresh in mind Olive met
Ronald Dufford on Regent Street. He took her congratulations on the
American sale of his play with a dubious air, swung his stick and said,
“Thanks. Fancy Margot made her guv’nor take it on. Between ourselves it
hasn’t more than just paid. You’re going to the States, aren’t you?”

“Next week. Yes, I think Margot had her father buy the play, Ronny.
It’s my sad duty to warn him that it hasn’t been what the Yankees call
a three bagger--whatever that means.”

The playwright grinned amiably, saying, “Rather wish you would. My
things haven’t done well in the States. I’m not so keen on being known
as a blight, out there. Walling’s paid me two hundred pounds, no less,
for American rights. Charitable lad he must be!--I say, I hear that
Cossy Rand’s gone over to play for him.”

“Who’s Cossy Rand?”

“Cora Boyle’s little husband. Nice thing. You’ve met him? He rehearsed
us for that thing of mine at Christmas. A thin beggar with--”

“Of course. I’ve even danced with him but he passed out of the other
eye.”

“But isn’t it rather odd for Walling to take on his ex-wife’s
present husband? Bit unusual? You’ve always told me that Walling’s a
conservative sort.”

“Why shouldn’t Walling take him on, Ronny? The man’s rather good, isn’t
he?”

“Fairish. Frightfully stiff. He played the Earl in ‘Todgers’ while Ealy
was fluing.--What I meant was that it seems odd Walling should cable
him to come over. But I’ll be awfully bucked if old ‘Todgers’ gets
along in the States. ’Tisn’t Shaw, you know?”

Olive was lightly vexed with Margot. The girl was irresponsible when
she wanted something for a friend. But the trait was commendable; Olive
still ranked personal loyalty higher than most static virtues. But
“Todgers Intrudes” was a dreary business. She spoke of it to Mark when
he met her at the New York pier. The idolator chuckled.

“The actors have struck. I hope Margot’ll forget about the thing before
the strike’s over. She likes Dufford? Well, that’s all the excuse she
needed. She isn’t--”

“Are you letting her stamp on your face, old man?”

“It don’t hurt. She don’t weigh a heap. She says Dufford’s poor.”

His eyes were dancing. He wore a yellow flower in his coat and patted
Olive’s arm as he steered her to the lustrous blue car. “We’ll go up to
my house for lunch. Mr. Carlson’s crazy to see you. Mustn’t mind if he
curses at you. We’ll go on down to the shore after lunch. Where’s Sir
John, m’lady?”

“Malta. Shall I see Gurdy? The nicest child!”

“Ain’t he? I’ve got him reading plays.” Mark soared into eulogies, came
down to state, “This is Broadway,” as the car plunged over the tracks
between two drays.

“If that’s Broadway,” Olive considered, “I quite understand why
half of New York lives in Paris. I do want to see Fifth Avenue. The
sky-scrapers disappointed me but Arnold Bennett says Fifth Avenue’s
really dynamic.” A moment after when the car faced the greasy slope of
asphalt she said, “Bennett’s mad.”

Mark sighed, “It’s an ugly town. But this street’s nice at sunset,
in winter. It turns a kind of purple.... It was bully when the women
wore violets. They don’t wear real flowers any more.--You used to
smell violets everywhere. Violets and furs and cigar smoke. I used to
like it.” His eyes sparkled on the revocation. He smiled at the foul
asphalt and the drooping flags of shops where the windows gave out a
torturing gleam.

“You great boy,” said Olive.

“Boy? Be forty-one the second of November.--Oh, awful sorry about your
brother, Olive.”

“I’m not. Gerald was null and void. I never even discovered where he
found the energy to marry and beget daughters. Margot’s lived more at
the age of eighteen than Gerald had at fifty. I don’t suppose that you
can understand how I can slang my own family.”

“Oh, sure. Because my folks are all nice it don’t follow I think every
one ought to be crazy about theirs. Did he have a son?”

“No. The land goes to our cousin--Shelmardine of Potterhanworth--that
idiot his wife pushed into Peerage. She was one of the managing
Colthursts. Loathsome woman. Her son’s a V.C. though.--Oh, this
improves!” The car passed Forty Fifth Street. Olive gazed ahead,
cheered by the statelier tone of the white avenue. Mark wondered how
a woman who had lost both children could yet smile at the dignity of
Saint Patrick’s and again at the homesick bewilderment of her maid
getting down before his house.

Old Carlson bobbed his head to this lady, abandoning his ancient fancy
that she had been Mark’s mistress. He studied her grey hair and the
worn, sharp line of her face. Then he cackled that she was to blame
for turning Margot into a “sassy turnip.”

“My dealings with turnips have always been conducted through a cook.
Has she been shocking you?”

“Ma’am,” said Carlson, “You can’t shock me. I was in the show business
from eighteen sixty-nine to nineteen fourteen. I lugged a spear in the
‘Black Crook’ and I was a gladyator when the Police arrested McCullough
for playin’ Spartacus in his bare legs. No, Margot can’t shock me any
more’n a kitten.” He rolled a cigarette shakily, spilling tobacco on
his cerise quilt. Olive held a match for him. He coughed, “But you’d
ought of seen her ballyrag Mark into buyin’ this English piece--What
the hell do you call it, Mark?”

“Todgers Intrudes.”

“That’s a name for you! Gurdy don’t like it. I say it’s hogwash.
Maggie, she set on a table smokin’ her cheroot and just made the big
calf buy it.... She did, Mark. So don’t stand there lookin’ like
Charlie Thorne in ‘Camille’!”

Mark was stirring with laughter at the old man’s venom. He said, “I
told Olive Margot made me buy it.”

“Oh,” Olive said, “if you let Margot run your affairs you’ll have
strange creatures from darkest Chelsea mounting all your plays and
flappers who’ve acted twice in a charity show playing Monna Vanna. She
made my poor husband buy a cubist portrait of Winston Churchill some
pal of hers painted. When he found it was meant to be Churchill he took
to his bed.”

“Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Williams,” said the butler against Mark’s swift, “Ask
’em to go to the drawing room. ’Xcuse me, Olive. Got to go talk strike
a minute.”

She looked about the sinless library with its severe panels and blue
rug then at Mark’s patron--an exhumed Pharaoh, his yellow hawk face and
bloodless hands motionless, the cigarette smoking in a corner of his
mouth. He had just the pathos of oncoming death. He squeaked, “Mark’s
busy as a pup with fleas. Actors strikin’! The lazy hounds! It’s enough
to make Gus Daly turn in his grave!”

“You’ve no sympathy with them?”

“Not a speck! The show business is war and war’s hell. Here’s this
Boyle onion Mark was married to, Bill Loeffler sends for her to come
back from England and get a thousand a week to play in a French piece.
Pays her passage. Then what? Minute she sets foot on land she grabs a
movie contract and pikes off to California. She’s a hot baby, she is!
Actors!”

“I hear that Mark’s engaged her husband.”

“That slimjim sissy from Ioway? Not much!”

“Is Rand an American?”

“He-ell, yes! He’s old Quincy Rand’s Son that used to run the Opera
House in Des Moines. He run off with a stock comp’ny that played
Montreal and got to talkin’ English. I told Margot that and she was mad
enough to bust.--Say, you British are cracked, lettin’ a pack of actors
loose in your houses like they was human--” He fell asleep. The nurse
came to take the cigarette from his lips. Olive strolled off to examine
the shelves packed tightly with books. Here was the medley of Mark’s
brain--volumes of Whyte Melville mingled with unknown American novels,
folios on decoration, collected prints from the European galleries. A
copy of “Capital” surprised her but she found Gurdy’s signature dated,
“Yale College, November, 1916,” on the first page. Gurdy came up the
white stairway and saw the black gown with relief. Lady Ilden could be
a buffer between Margot and himself. There would be less need of visits
to the seashore house. He led the Englishwoman into the broad hall.

“Something odd has just happened, Gurdy.”

“Mr. Carlson swear at you?”

“Before, not at. But he tells me that Mark did not send for Cosmo Rand
to act in something over here whereas Ronny Dufford most distinctly
told me that Mark did. It interested me because Mark’s so coy about his
old wife and it seemed queer that he’d cable for her husband.”

“I expect Rand’s lying a little, for advertisement. No, Mark didn’t
send for him. He never engages people to come from England. Has Rand
come over? According to Margot he’s such an idol in London that it’d
take an act of Parliament to get him away. Miss Boyle’s here. We saw
her at lunch in the Algonquin and she patronized Mark for a minute.
Didn’t Rand play some part in this ‘Todgers Intrudes’ piffle in London?”

“Which reminds me,” said Olive, “Margot made Mark take that? Is she
making him cover her with emeralds and give masked balls?”

Gurdy said honestly, “No, not at all. We’ve had some house
parties--some friends of mine and some of the reviewers and so on. She
seems to be amusing herself.”

“And she hasn’t shocked Mark?”

“Why should she?” Gurdy laughed, leaning on the white handrail, “she
doesn’t do any of the things he dislikes seeing women do. She doesn’t
drink anything, for instance, and she doesn’t paint. When did she go in
for pacifism--not that I’ve any objection to it.”

“That was a way of helping me out when my boy fell, I think. She raged
about the war as a sort of outlet for me. Really, she enjoyed the
war tremendously. As most girls did. Is she still raving about the
slaughter of the artist?”

“The slaughter of actors. Some Englishman--an actor--said that too many
actors slacked and she lit on him. He mentioned half a dozen--can’t
remember them.--You told me in London that she wanted to act?”

“Yes. Has she been teasing Mark--”

“No. But I think she could.”

“My dear boy, I’ve seen her in amateur things twice and she was
appalling! Vivacity isn’t ability. Of course she has a full equipment
in the way of looks.--You mustn’t get dazzled over Margot, Gurdy.” His
face was blank. Olive chanced a probe. “I forbid you to fall in love
with her, either. You’re cousins and it’s not healthy.”

“I’m not thinking of it,” said Gurdy, red, and so convinced Olive that
he was deep in love. But the dying blush left him grave. He stood
listening to the slow drawl of Mark’s voice below them and wondering
what tone would overtake its husky music if Margot should turn on the
worshipper, screaming and hateful. He wondered at himself, too. His
passion had blown out. It had no ash, no regret. He was free of anger,
even, and he had done the girl mental justice. He didn’t want her back.


“You look rather done up, old man.”

“War nerves. We’ve all got them. And I’m reading plays and some of them
make me howl. Such awful junk! ‘Don’t, don’t look at me like that. I’m
a good woman, and you have taken from me the only thing I had to love
in the whole world.’ That sort of stuff. And the plays for reform are
as bad as the ones against it. I don’t know why people always lose
their sense of humour when they start talking economics!”

“Old man, when you’ve lived to be forty you’ll find out that only one
person in a thousand can resist a sentimentalism on their side of the
question. And it’s almost always a sentimentalist who writes plays on
economics. But you do look seedy. Are you coming to the country with us
after luncheon?”

“No.”

But he drove with Mark and Olive to the half finished front of The
Walling in West 47th Street. Mark pointed out the design of Doric
columns and bare tablets. Olive guessed at a simple richness and stared
after Mark when he walked through groups of hot, noisy workmen into
the shadow of his own creation. His black height disappeared among the
girders and the dust of lime.

“Did it all himself,” said Gurdy. “The architects just followed what
he wanted done.--You called him a kid with a box of paints. You should
see him fuss over a stage setting!--D’you know--my father’s an awfully
observant man. He was talking about Mark the other day. Dad says that
when Mark was a kid he used to draw all the time. And they’ve got some
pictures he drew in old school books and things. They’re not bad. Dad
says that before Mark married Cora Boyle and came to New York they all
thought he was going to turn out an artist.”

“Is it true that his whole success is because he decorates plays so
well?”

“No. The truth is, he’s an awfully good business man. And I’ve seen
enough of the theatre to see that some of the managers and producers
aren’t any good at business. They mess about and talk and--He’s coming
back.”

She saw Gurdy’s eyes centre on Mark with a queer, tense look. The boy
stood on the filthy pavement studying the theatre as the car drove east.

“Crazy about the place,” said Mark, brushing his sleeve, “I do think
people will like it, Olive. Won’t be so dark that they can’t read a
program or so light the women’ll have to wear extra paint.--My God, I’m
glad Margot don’t daub herself up! Well, she don’t have to. And I’m
glad she don’t want to act.”

“Why?” Olive asked, “You were an actor. You live entirely surrounded
by actors. It’s an ancient and honourable calling--much more so than
the law or the army.”

Mark rubbed his short nose and grinned.

“I’m just prejudiced. I suppose it’s because I used to hear how
tough actresses were when I was a kid. And because Cora Boyle made a
doormat of me. Ain’t it true we never get over the way we’re brought
up?--That’s what Gurdy calls a platitude, I guess.”

“Gurdy’s horridly mature for twenty-one, Mark.”

“Thunder,” said Mark, “He was always grown up and he’s knocked around a
lot for his age. Enough to make anybody mature!--And he’s in love with
sister up to his neck. You should have seen him take a runnin’ jump and
start for Chicago the minute he heard she was landing! Simply hopped
the next train and flew! Stayed out there a month, pretty nearly.
Brings his friends down over Sundays and then sits and watches them
wobble round Margot like a cat watching a fat mouse. Love’s awful hard
on these dignified kids, Olive.”

“You want them married?” she murmured.

“Of course.--I know I’m silly about the kids but I don’t see where
Margot’ll get any one much better. Don’t start lecturin’ me and say
that there’s ten million eight hundred thousand and twenty-two better
boys loose around than Gurdy. You’d be talking at a stone wall. Waste
of breath. And he’s sensible about her too. A kid in love ordinarily
wouldn’t argue about anything the way he did about this play of Colonel
Duffords. They had a regular cat fight and Gurdy’s right. It’s a pretty
poor show.--This is the East river.”

The car moved diligently through the heat. Olive thought that Gurdy
had belied his outer calm by his flight to Chicago. But it was hard to
think of anything save the thick air. Mark’s tanned face was damp and
he fanned Olive steadily. They swung past a procession of vans where
the drivers lolled in torn undershirts. The rancorous sun on the houses
of unfamiliar shingle dizzied her. She saw strange trees in the country
as the suburbs thinned and the blistered paint of billboards showed
strange wares for sale.

“Movie plant over there,” said Mark, “Like to be movied for one of
the current event weeklies? Lady Olive Ilden, the celebrated British
authoress?”

“Horrors! Drinking tea with a Pom in my lap. Never!--Good heavens,
Mark, is it like this summer after summer? Why don’t people simply go
naked?”

“Margot does her best. If her grandmother Walling could see her
bathsuit she’d rise from the tomb.”

“How long has your mother been dead, old man?”

“Since I was eight--no, nine.”

“Do you look like her?”

“No. Joe--Margot’s dad--looked something like her. His hair was nearly
black and he had brown eyes. She was nice. Used to take her hair down
and let me play with it. Black.” He smiled, did not speak for minutes
and then talked of Gurdy again, “He’s mighty nice to his father and
mother. Eddie and Sadie are scared he’ll marry an actress on account
of his bein’ in my office. Gurdy was teasin’ them last week--They
came up to do some shopping. Said he’d got hold of a yellow headed
stomach dancer. Called her some crazy French name.--My lord, haven’t
things changed on the stage since we were kids! I remember when Ruth
Saint Denis was doing her Hindoo dances first and people were kind of
shocked. I dropped in one afternoon and the place was packed full of
women. Heard this drawly kind of voice behind me and looked round. It
was Mark Twain and Mr. Howells. Ruth did a dance without much on and
the women all gabbled like fury. But they all applauded a lot. Mr.
Howells was sort of bored. He said, ‘What are they making that fuss
for, Sam?’ ‘Oh,’ old Clemens said, ‘they’re hoping the next dance’ll be
dirtier so they can feel like Christians.’ My God, he was a wonder to
look at!--Ever think how much good looks do help a man along?”

“I can’t think unless you fan me, Mark. My brain’s boiling. How many
more miles to a bath?”

“Twenty.”

“I’ve always been fond of you,” said Olive, “but I never realized what
a brave man you were! You _work_ in this furnace? Fan me!”

The cottage stood on a slope of presentable lawn that ended in a pebbly
shore. The motor rushed through a fir plantation, reached the Georgian
portico and Olive gladly smelled salt wind rising from the water fading
in sunset.

“There she is,” said Mark and whistled to a shape, black and tan
against the sound, poised at the lip of a whitewashed pier. Margot
came running and some men in bathsuits stared, deserted. The girl
raced in a shimmer that reddened her legs to copper. Olive wondered if
anything so alive, so gay existed elsewhere on this barbarous shore
crushed by summer. Mark saw them happy, wiped his silly eyes and went
down to chat in guarded grammar with the three young men from across
the shallow bay. Inevitable that youngsters should come swimming and
these were likeable fellows. Gurdy vouched for them. They slid soon
like piebald seals into the water and swam off in a flurry of spray and
bronze arms. Delicate wakes of fine bubbling spread on the surface.
The wet heads grew small in this wide space of beryl. Again he watched
irreproducible beauty.... It was right that the best makers of scenes
wouldn’t paint the sea on back-drops. Let the people fancy it there
below the vacancy of some open window. He must have the Cuban seas
suggested thus in ‘Captain Salvador.’ He wished that Margot didn’t
dislike the tragedy. Perhaps its stiff denial of lasting love afflicted
her. It afflicted Mark. And yet the poet was right. The passion in the
play would be a fleet, hot thing, engrossing for a week, a month and
then stale for ever. Lust went so. He nodded and picked up Margot’s
black and yellow bath wrap, a foolish, lovely cape in which she looked
like an Arab. Then she called to him and he walked back to where she
sat on the tiled steps reading a letter.

“Olive brought me a note from Doris Arbuthnot. Lives in Devonshire.
She’s a dear ... rather like aunt Sadie but not quite so hefty. All the
Wacks have come home from France, now, and they won’t work. They sit
about and talk to the heroes about France. Doris owns gobs of land and
she’s having a poky time.--What are you laughing at?”

“Your hair, sister.”

She passed her hands over the sponge of black down and shrugged,
“Sorry I had it bobbed. All the typists do, over here. Olive’s
frightfully done up. Gone to bathe.”

“Glad to have her, ain’t you?”

“Ra--ther!--Oh, Cosmo Rand called up.”

“What the--deuce did he want?”

“Ronny Dufford gave him a heap of notes about ‘Todgers Intrudes.’
I told him he’d best leave them at your office.--Shall you start
rehearsing ‘Todgers’ as soon as the strike’s over?”

She sneezed, the efflorescence of her hair flapping. Mark tossed the
wrap about her, kissed her ear and sat down on the steps. He said,
“Don’t know, daughter. Fact is, this piece of Dufford’s hasn’t played
to big business in London. I’ve got a report on it. Gurdy don’t think--”

“Oh, Gurdy! He simply can’t like a play unless it’s about the long
suffering proletariat or Russia!--Why didn’t he come down?”

“Got a party with some men.”

“And I wanted the brute to show me putting tomorrow! D’you put well? Of
course you do!--Oh, I know ‘Todgers’ isn’t a new Man and Superman, of
course. But it’s witty and it isn’t commonplace--don’t laugh.”

Mark marshalled words, lighting a cigarette. “Honey, that’s just the
trouble with the thing. It is commonplace. It’s all about nothing.
And it’s too blamed English. You and Gurd seem to think it’s the
bounden duty of every one to know all the latest English slang off
Piccadilly--or wherever they make slang up. It ain’t so. We’ll have
to have some of this piece translated as it is. Suppose you were a
stenographer going to the play? You wouldn’t have been abroad. You
wouldn’t know an Earl beats a Baron. You wouldn’t know that Chelsea’s
a big sister to Greenwich village and the slang’d bore you to death.
There’s that three speech joke about Gippies and Chokers in the second
act. I expect that raised a laugh in London. How many folks in the
house here would know it meant cigarettes? I didn’t till you told me.
Now in London with Ealy playing the Earl--he did, didn’t he?--Well,
with a smart man like that to play the Earl, the thing might go pretty
well. If I had some one like that--”

Margot yawned, “Why not try Cosmo Rand? He played the Earl in London
while Ealy was having the flu and had very good notices. He was awfully
good in the scene where he rows with his wife. The poor devil’s had a
good deal of practice, they say. Cora Boyle leads him a dog’s life.
Ronny Dufford tells me that she’s horribly jealous. Mr. Rand’s had a
success on his own, you know? He’s not her leading man any more.--She
doesn’t like his getting ahead of her.--Now what are you laughing at?”

“The leopard don’t change her spots,” said Mark.

“Poor dad!”

“Oh, well,” he said in a luxury of amusement, “She wasn’t raised right.
Her folks were circus people. I guess you couldn’t imagine how tough
the old style circus people were if you worked all night at it. This
Rand’s a nice fellow, is he?”

“Very pleasant. He rehearsed a lot of us in a show and we were all
rather rotten and he was very patient.--I do wish Gurdy had come
down!--We shan’t have four for bridge. Might have Olive’s maid play.
She’s dreadfully grand, you know? She’s the Presidentess of the Chelsea
Lady Helpers Association. Used to be in the scullery at Windsor and
Queen Alexandra spoke to her once. I’m rather afraid of her.”

“Is there any one you are afraid of, sister?”

She rose, the yellow and black gown moulding in, and gave her muffled,
slow chuckle, patting the step with a sole. “Don’t know. Gurdy, when
he’s grouchy. I must go dress.--Oh, I had whitewine cup made for
dinner. That’s what you like when it’s hot, isn’t it? Do put on a white
suit for dinner, dad. Makes your hair so red. God be with you till we
meet again.”

She wandered over the white and red tiles of the portico, leaving a
trail of damp, iridescent prints in the last glitter of the sun. She
hummed some air he did not know and this hung in his ear like the
pulse of a muted violin when she herself was gone. The man sat dreaming
until the night about him was dull blue and the wind died. He sat in
warm felicity, guarding the silent house until the rose spark of the
light across the bay began to turn and a silver, mighty star flared
high on the darker blue of heaven.




VIII

Cosmo Rand


On Saturday Gurdy brought down three young men who hadn’t met Margot.
He busily noted the chemistry of passion as two of his friends became
maniacal by Sunday morning. Against the worn composure of Lady Ilden,
the girl had the value of a gem on dim velvet. The third young man
wanted to talk Irish politics to the Englishwoman who evaded him and
retired to write a letter in her bedroom above the lawn.

She wrote to her husband at Malta: “I had always thought that Margot’s
success in London was due to her exotic quality. But she seems quite as
successful on her native heath. This leads me to the general platitude
that boys are the same the world over. I am a success here, too. Many
callers, mostly female, in huge motor cars. The American woman seems
to consider frocks a substitute for manners and conversation. Mark is
anxious that Margot should marry Gurdy Bernamer and Gurdy is plainly
willing. It would be suitable enough. The boy has smart friends and
will inherit £10,000 from old Mr. Carlson. Margot can float herself
in local society no doubt. She is now playing tennis with two young
brokers and a 22 year old journalist whose father owns half of some
State. I have mailed you a strange work, ‘Jurgen’ by some unheard of
person. Do not let any of the more moral midshipmen read it.” She
stopped, seeing Gurdy saunter across the lawn toward the beach and
pursued him to where he curled on the sand. “You frighten me,” she
said, taking her eyes from the scar that showed its upper reach above
his bathshirt, “you lie about two thirds naked in this sun and then
tell me it’s a cool day.--But I want to be documented in American
fiction. I’ve read five novels since Wednesday. It seems to be
established that all your millionaires are conscious villains and all
your poor are martyrs except a select group known as gangsters. That’s
thrilling when the reviewers so loudly insist that your authors flatter
the rich.”

“Some of them do,” Gurdy said, lifting his legs in the hot air.

In a bathsuit he lost his civilized seeming, was heroic, sprawled on
the sand. Olive told him: “You’re one of those victims of modernity,
old son. You belong to thirteen forty. Green tights and a dark tunic
trimmed with white fur. Legs are legs, aren’t they?”

“Heredity’s funny,” he said, “I look exactly like my father.”

“Margot’s Uncle Eddie? She talks of him a good deal and of your mother.
I was rather afraid her metropolitan airs and graces would shock your
people but she seems to have had a jolly time down there--New Jersey’s
down from here, isn’t it? She enjoyed herself.--Metropolitan airs and
graces!--That’s a quotation from something. Sounds like the _Manchester
Guardian_.--Should I like your people?”

“You might. Grandfather’s an atheist. Dad’s a good deal of a cynic.
They’re awfully nice small town people. My sisters all wish they were
movie stars and my kid brothers think that a fighting marine is the
greatest work of God.”

“And Margot says they all think you’re the last and best incarnation of
Siegfried. I should like to see them.”

Gurdy shuddered. Grandfather Walling and Mrs. Bernamer held Lady
Ilden responsible for the ruin of Margot as a relative. He imagined
her artifice and her ease faced by the horrified family--a group of
frightened colts stumbling off from a strange farmhand. He poured
sand over his arm and lied, “You’d scare them. Mark’s always talked
about you as though you were the Encyclopædia Brittanica on two legs.
You might be interested, though.--I say, Mark’s decided that he will
produce ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ Thinks he’ll have Cosmo Rand play the Earl.
Can Rand really act?”

“Oh,--well enough for that sort of tosh. He’s handsome and he has a
pleasant voice. But it’s rather silly of Mark to force such a poor play
on the public because Margot wants Ronny Dufford out of debt. But he’s
so intoxicated with Margot just now that he’d do murders for her. Why
didn’t he come down for the week-end?”

Gurdy got up and yawned, “Oh, his treasurer’s wife ran off with a
man last Wednesday--while he was down here. He’s trying to patch it
up.--You know, he isn’t at all cynical, Lady Ilden. He’s very easily
upset by things like that.”

“I suppose he likes his treasurer? Then why shouldn’t he be upset? The
treasurer can’t be enjoying the affair.--I wonder if you appreciate
Mark’s noble strain, Gurdy? I think I must send you a copy of the
letter he wrote me after he’d packed you off to school. I showed it
to my husband who has all the susceptibility of the Nelson monument
and he almost shed tears. It took something more than mere snobbery
or a desire for your future gratitude to make Mark send you away.
It horribly hurt him. If paternal affection’s a disease the man’s a
walking hospital!--There’s the luncheon bell.”

Gurdy ran into the water and furiously swam. Unless Lady Ilden was
making amiable phrases Margot had lied to her about the family at
Fayettesville. It was natural that she should tell Mark how she’d
enjoyed the farm. That was prudent kindness, no worse than his own
gratitudes when Mark gave him sapphire scarf-pins and fresh silver
cigarette cases that he didn’t need or want. But Margot shouldn’t
lie to Lady Ilden. Gurdy avoided the next week-end and went to
Fayettesville where his family worried because Mark was losing money
through the actors’ strike.

“And he’ll need all he can lay hands on with Margot to look after,”
said Mrs. Bernamer, rocking her weight in a chair on the veranda, “It
ain’t sensible for him to--to bow down and worship that child like he
does. Oh, she’s pretty enough!”

“Get out,” Bernamer commented, “He’d be foolish about her if she’d got
to wear spectacles and was bowlegged. Gimme a cigarette, Gurd. How
near’s the Walling finished?”

“Two thirds, Dad.--Grandfather, you’ll have to come up and sit in a box
the opening night.”

The beautiful old man blinked and drawled, “I wouldn’t go up to N’York
to see Daniel Bandmann play ‘Hamlet’--if he was alive. How’s old Mr.
Carlson get on?”

Gurdy often found the contrast between his grandfather and Carlson
diverting. The dying manager, a cynic, wanted Heaven in all the
decorations of the Apocalypse. The old peasant lazily insisted that
death would end him. He got some hidden pleasure from the thought of
utter passage. Gurdy found this content stupendous. The farmer had
never been two hundred miles from his dull acreage and yet was ready
to be done with his known universe while Carlson wanted eternity. He
cackled when the striking actors made peace and ordered wreaths sent to
the more stubborn managers. His bitter tongue rattled.

“Why don’t more writers write for the theatre, Gurdy? Ever been in
Billy Loeffler’s office? Five thousand bootlickers and hussies squatted
all over the place. I sent that fellow Moody that wrote the ‘Great
Divide’ to see Loeffler. Had to set in the office with a bunch of song
carpenters from tin pan alley and a couple of tarts while Loeffler was
prob’ly talkin’ to some old souse he’d knew in Salt Lake City. And then
Loeffler looks at the play and asks is there a soobrette part in it
for some tomtit his brother was keepin’! A writer’s got a thin skin,
ain’t he? Here Mark gets mad because this writer Mencken says managers
are a bunch of hogs. Well, ain’t they? Four or five ain’t. Sure,
they’re hogs. Human beings. Hogs. Same as the rest of mankind. Good
thing Christ died to save us.” He contemplated redemption through the
cigarette smoke. His Irish nurse crossed herself in a corner. Carlson
went on, “Say, that feller Russell Mark’s got drillin’ that English
comedy is all right. Was in to see me, yesterday. Good head. Knows his
job. Says this Rand pinhead is raisin’ Cain at rehearsals. Better drop
in there and see what goes on. Mark’s so busy with that Cuban play he
ain’t got time.”

Rehearsals of “Todgers Intrudes” went on at a small theatre below
Forty Second Street. Gurdy drifted into the warm place and watched the
director, Russell, working. On the bare stage five people progressed
from point to point of the tepid comedy. Russell, a stooped, bald man
of thirty-five, sat near the orchestra pit. Gurdy had watched the
rehearsal ten minutes before Russell spoke. “Don’t cross, there, Miss
Marryatt. Stand still.” Then, “still, please, Mr. Rand.” On the stage
Cosmo Rand gave the director a stare, shrugged and strolled toward
the cockney comedian, the intrusive Todgers of the plot. Russell said
nothing until a long speech finished, then, “You’re all rushing about
like cooties. Go back to Miss Marryatt’s entrance and take all your
lines just as you stand after she’s sat down. Dora isn’t pronounced
Durrer, Mr. Hughes.” Gurdy was thinking of the long patience needed in
this trade when Russell spoke sharply, “Mr. Rand, will you please stand
still!”

“My God,” said Rand, “must I keep telling you that I played this part
in--”

“Will you be so good as to stand still?”

Rand continued his lines. Gurdy walked down and slipped into a chair
beside the director, aware that the players stiffened as soon as they
saw Mark’s nephew. The handsome Miss Marryatt began to act. Cosmo Rand
sent out his speeches with a pleasant briskness. Russell murmured,
“Glad you happened in, Bernamer. This was getting beyond me. School
children,” and the act ended.

“Three o’clock, please,” said the director. The small company trickled
out of the theatre. Russell lit his pipe and stretched, grinning.
“Rand’s very capable and a nice fellow enough but he’s difficult. Fine
looking, isn’t he? Come to lunch with me.”

It was startling to be taken into an engineer’s club for the meal.
Russell explained, “I was an engineer. It’s not so different from
stage directing. You sometimes get very much the same material. I’ve
often wanted some dynamite or a pickax at rehearsals. Nice that you
floated in just now. I’ve a curiosity about this piece. Does Mr.
Walling see money in it? I don’t.”

“He thinks it may go,” said Gurdy.

“It won’t. It’s sewed up in a crape. If you had a young John Drew and a
couple of raving beauties playing it might run six weeks. And Dufford
hasn’t any standing among the cerebrals. We might try to brighten the
thing with some references to the Nourritures Terrestres or Freud. It’s
a moron. Prenatal influence. Mr. Walling tells me we’re to open in
Washington, too. My jinx! I went down there to offer up my life for the
country and got stuck in the Q.M.C. supervising crates of tomatoes. Did
you ever argue with a wholesale grocer about crates? It’s worse than
staging a revue.”

“That’s a dreadful thing to say!”

Russell broke a roll in his pointed fingers and shook his head. “No....
The revue’s a very high form of comedy when it’s handled right. It gets
clean away with common sense, for one thing. And it hasn’t a plot.
I hate plots unless they’re good plots. That’s why this miserable
‘Todgers’ thing affects me so badly. I hoped Mr. Walling would let me
help him with ‘Captain Salvador.’ But it’s his baby.”

“Is Rand giving you as much trouble as that every day?”

“Trouble? My dear man, you’ve never rehearsed a woman star who had
ideas about her art! Rand’s merely rather annoying, not troublesome.
He’s got no brains so his idea is to imitate the man who played the
part in London. And he’s never learned how to show all his looks,
either. But very few Americans know how.”

Gurdy liked the director and spent several afternoons at the
rehearsals. Cosmo Rand fretted him. The slight man was obdurate. He
raced about the stage until Russell checked him. His legs, sheathed
always in grey tweed, seemed fluid. The leading woman had an attack of
tonsilitis and halted proceedings. It was during this lapse that Gurdy
encountered Cosmo Rand in a hotel lounge and nodded. The actor stopped
him, deferentially, “I say, I’m afraid poor Russell’s sick to death of
me. I’m giving him a bit of trouble.” Gurdy found no answer. The actor
fooled with his grey hat, rubbed his vivid nails on a cuff, corrected
his moustache and said, “The fact is--I do most sincerely think that
Russell’s wrong to drop all the English stage directions. Couldn’t
you--suggest that Mr. Walling drop in to watch sometime when Miss
Marryatt’s better and we’re rehearsing again?”

His soft, round bronze eyes were anxious. He spoke timidly, the rosy
fingernails in a row on his lower lip. He was something frail and
graceful, a figure from a journal of fashions. Gurdy wondered whether
Cora Boyle ever assaulted her poor mate and smiled.

“Mr. Walling has a good deal of confidence in Russell’s judgment, Mr.
Rand. But I’ll speak to him if you like.”

“I’d be most awf’ly grateful if you would, Mr. Bernamer. The play’s
such a jolly thing and one would like to see it do well. Ronny
Dufford’s rather a dear friend and--so very broke, you know?”

The rosy, trim creature seemed truly worried. Meeting Russell at the
45th Street office the next day, Gurdy told him that Rand’s heart was
breaking. The director grimaced, patting his bald forehead.

“The little tyke’s worrying for fear he won’t get good notices. And if
this rubbish should fluke into a success he’ll be made into a star.
Have you ever observed the passion of the American public for second
rate acting? Especially if it happens to have a slight foreign accent?
Modjeska, Bandmann, Nazimova?--Well, Miss Marryatt’s all right again.
We’ll rehearse some more tomorrow. Come and look on.”

Mark had gone to Fayettesville for a few days. Gurdy attended the
morning rehearsal of “Todgers Intrudes.” Cosmo Rand trotted about the
stage determinedly and Russell turned on Gurdy with a groan of, “This
is beyond me. I’m getting ready to do murder. He’s throwing the whole
thing out of key. I shall have to get your uncle to squash him.”

“I’m beginning to see why Mr. Carlson loathes actors so,” Gurdy
whispered.

“Oh, Holy Moses,” the director mourned, “look at him!--Slower, please,
Mr. Rand!--It’ll be awkward if I get Mr. Walling to squash him,
Bernamer. You never can tell how these walking egoisms will break
out. He may run about town saying that Mr. Walling’s oppressing him
cruelly.--My God, he’ll be crawling up the scene in a minute!”

On the stage, Rand had excited himself to a circular movement about a
large divan in the centre. He had somehow the look of a single racer
coming home ahead of the other runners. The men and women standing
still suggested a sparse audience for this athletic feat. It was
ludicrous. Worse, Mark would never scold Cora Boyle’s husband. Gurdy
took a resolve. Margot had made Mark waste time with this silly play.
She had proposed Rand for the part. She should help. He hurried to the
station and reached the cottage in mid afternoon. A warm October wind
made the fir trees whistle. He found Margot in a silk sweater of dull
rose putting a tennis ball about the dry lawn. She smiled, tilting the
golfstick across a shoulder, and swayed her slim body back to look up
at Gurdy.

“Dad just telephoned from the farm, old son. Wanted to know if you were
here. It was something about ‘Captain Salvador’.”

“Oh, yes. I was hunting a tom tom for the Voodoo scene. He doesn’t like
the one they’re using. Doesn’t thud loudly enough.--Can I talk to you
about ‘Todgers Intrudes’ without having a fight?”

“Of course you can.”

“All right. It’s going very badly. Mr. Russell, the director, has a
free for all row with Mr. Rand every day. Rand acts like the last of a
ballet. He’s putting everything back. He’s out of the picture all the
time. Word of honour, Margot, the play hasn’t nine lives. It’s thin.
It’ll take a lot of work to make it go. Russell’s one of the best
directors going and he knows what he’s doing. Rand simply runs all over
the stage like that clown at the Hippodrome.”

“That’s rather the way it was played in London. Of course, that’s no
excuse. Have dad scold Rand.”

“Be pretty awkward for Mark--scolding Cora Boyle’s husband.”

Margot said, “What utter tosh!”

“No, it’s not. Mark’s old fashioned--sensitive about things like that.
And Rand might take it as spite. Cora Boyle’s back from California,
Russell tells me. She’s a fearful liar. If she hears that Mark jumped
on her husband she’ll tell all her friends that Mark’s simply a swine.
You don’t know how gossip travels and gets--distorted. Once last May
Mark said that he didn’t like a gown that some woman was wearing in
a play we’d been to the night before. He said that at lunch in the
Claridge. Next day the woman’s husband came into the office and wanted
to thrash Mark. By the time the story got to him it had swelled up like
a balloon. This fellow had got it that Mark said his wife looked like a
streetwalker and acted like one.--It’s all very awkward. Couldn’t you--”

“Oh, look here! Because I suggested Cossy Rand for the Earl I’m not
going to drynurse him!--I think you’re frightfully hypersensitive about
his being married to Cora Boyle. They’re hardly ever together. It’s
taking a theatrical menage as seriously as--”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Gurdy broke in, watching the red streaks mount
her face, “I’m sorry! Let’s drop it. You know Rand. I thought you
might write him a line and tell him to calm down. That was all. Mark’s
working himself sick over ‘Captain Salvador’ and that’s an important
production. Every one’s interested in it. Some of the critics have
read it and think it’s the best American play in years. After all, you
got Mark into this ‘Todgers’ thing. He’s doing it to please you. He’ll
worry if he has to--”

Margot laughed, whipped the ball away neatly with one foot and tossed
her hair back. She said, “I’ll write Rand, of course. Of course I don’t
want ‘Todgers’ to get a black eye. I’ll send him a note and tell him to
carry on. Perhaps he’s rather opinionated. Where’s he stopping?”

“The Knickerbocker.”

She yawned, “I’ll write him, then. Staying for dinner?” She turned and
roamed off in her swaying fashion. Directly, a motor swung about the
house. One of the neighbours had come to take the girl driving. She
waved to Gurdy and disappeared. He resented the waving of the brown
hand. It was impossible not to resent her kind mentions of his mother
and sisters before Lady Ilden and Mark.

He resented, too, the airy changes from tart rage to suavity. Their
talks became a tedious, uncertain duet with one performer unwilling.
Gurdy strolled into the cottage and Olive Ilden looked up from a novel.

“What have you been quarrelling with Margot about?” she asked.

“Not quarrelling.”

“Nonsense. I could see you through the doors. You were quarrelling and
she began it. Tell me.”

She closed the book and regarded him, not smiling, from her wicker
chair. There was an odd alarm in her eyes under which hollows showed.
The negligent trail of her black gown was dusted with cigarette ash.
Gurdy stared, upset.

“We weren’t quarrelling. Cosmo Rand’s making an ass of himself at the
rehearsals. She rather planted him on Mark. Mark’s so sensitive about
Cora Boyle that Russell--the man who’s rehearsing ‘Todgers’--and I
don’t want to worry Mark with the mess. I wanted Margot to write Rand
a note and tell him to buck up. He’s holding the rehearsals back. Here
it’s almost the first of November. Mark’s got a theatre in Washington
for a couple of weeks from now and the play isn’t half ready.”

Olive tapped a cigarette holder on the walnut, Dutch table and looked
at the floor. Then she raised her eyes and smiled, spoke without
artifice.

“I shan’t let her write to Rand, Gurdy. She’s too much interested in
him. I don’t like it. She cabled him to come over here as soon as she’d
bullied Mark into buying the rights to ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ The little
idiot thinks him a great actor. I’m sure I don’t know why. I don’t at
all like this. I only found it out yesterday. Mark wouldn’t like it.
The man’s married and if he happens to tell people Margot sent for
him--I quite understand theatrical gossip, Gurdy. Mark’s a great person
and it would make quite a story. And of course there are rats who don’t
like Mark.”

“How did you find this out, Lady--”

“In the silliest way. I was talking about Ronny Dufford and Margot
began to argue that this wretched play is really good. She rather lost
her temper. She told me you’d tried to persuade Mark not to produce
the thing to spite her. I--” Olive laughed unhappily, “I hadn’t the
faintest idea that you’d quarrelled. You’re rather too cool, old man.
I’ve been teasing you all this time fancying that you were wildly in
love with the child and it seems that you’re at odds.--Oh, It’s all
utter nonsense, of course! But I don’t like it. It’s a pose. She rather
prides herself on being unconventional. And the silliest part of it is
that she feels she’s done Mark a favour.”

“She’s probably cost him about fifteen thousand dollars,” said Gurdy.

This was antique, this tale of a handsome, dapper actor and a girl gone
moonstruck over his pink face. Gurdy grunted, “We can’t tell Mark this.
He’d be upset. It’s idiotic.”

Olive laughed, “Oh, you mustn’t get excited over it, Gurdy. The play
will fail and she’ll drop Rand. It’s a gesture, you see? The clever
girl doing the unconventional thing.” She became comfortable, then
artificial. “You mustn’t take Margot at her own valuation, dear. She’s
the moment--the melodramatic moment. What’s that American slang? She’s
no--no ball of fire! She admires people easily and drops them easily.
She’s eighteen. She was quite lost in adoration of the Countess of
Flint two years ago and then the poor woman did something the child
didn’t like--wore the wrong frock, probably--and that was all over.
The poor lady died in Colorado yesterday.--That means consumption,
doesn’t it? I read the notice to Margot at breakfast and she said,
‘Really.’ Rand flattered her about her acting, I fancy, and she thinks
he’s remarkable in return for the compliment. Every normal female
gets mushy--I’m quite Americanized--over an actor at eighteen. When
I was eighteen I wrote a five act tragedy and sent it to--Merciful
Heaven--I’ve forgotten who he was! Beerbohm Tree, probably. But I
must congratulate you on your attitude. You had a frightful row at
Fayettesville. She said, herself, that she was to blame. She hurt you.
And you’ve not shown it in the least.”

“It didn’t amount to much.--But, Mark wouldn’t like this business. And
of course some people don’t like him. They’d be ready to talk if they
thought she was flirting with--”

“But she isn’t! If she was I’d drag her off to Japan with me. She’s
hardly spoken to the man except at those rehearsals last winter. It’ll
die a swift death when the play fails, old man. We’ve no use for
failures at eighteen.”

Olive laughed, repeated the prophecy in a dozen turning phrases and
drove with Gurdy to the station after dinner. But she was oppressed.
She could imagine Mark’s bewilderment clearly. He found Rand a somewhat
comic person, a frail young poser towed after the robust beauty of
his wife, perhaps bullied. The car brought Olive back to the white
portico of the cottage and she found Margot distracting a middle aged
sugar broker. It was time for bed when the addled man’s car puffed
away. Margot yawned and mounted the brown stairs in a flutter of
marigold skirts. The living-room fell still. Olive settled at a table
and commenced a letter to Ilden. “I shall not start for Japan for
some time. Margot is behaving rather queerly. Having fancied that I
could follow the eccentric curves of her mind I am much annoyed to
find that I can not. This cottage will be closed next week. Heaven
knows what will become of the furniture unless Mark should use it in
a play. I have a curiosity to see the opening of his new theatre. He
is working frantically over the play for its opening. Gurdy Bernamer
tells me that a New York first night is like nothing else on earth for
bounderishness. He says that awful and obscene creatures come creeping
from nowhere and flap about in free seats and that all the cinema
queens appear covered with rubies. It--”

The telephone on the table clicked but did not ring. Olive glared at
the instrument. She abominated the telephone since it had brought
her news of her son’s death. She finished her letter and climbed the
stairs, aching for bed after a nervous day. Then she heard Margot
talking behind the closed door of her room. The girl hadn’t a maid.
Olive’s own maid was visible in her chamber at the end of the corridor.
Olive passed on. She came back on impulse and heard “All right,
Cossy. Carry on. ’By--ee.” Then the small clatter of Margot’s bedside
telephone set on the glass of a table. Olive opened the door and saw
the girl subsiding into the mass of her pillows.

“I’ve just blown Cosmo Rand up properly, Olive.”

“I wondered why you were talking.”

Margot yawned, “Gurdy asked me to write him. I’d rather talk. His dear
wife’s back from California and his voice sounded as though they’d been
throwing supper dishes at each other. He didn’t seem pleased.”

“My dear, I don’t see why Mr. Rand should be pleased to be lectured on
his art over the telephone at midnight!”

“It’s rather cheeky, isn’t it? But Gurdy made such a point of it. And
all I could say was that he mustn’t be too difficult at rehearsals.
But that’s all I could have said in a note. It seems to me that it’s
distinctly dad’s business. But Gurdy’s such an everlasting old woman
about dad! And I am rather responsible for bringing ‘Todgers’ over.
Dare say I ought to help out, if I can.”

Olive slung a dart carelessly, asking, “What’s Rand’s real name, dear?”

“Rand.”

“I meant the Cosmo. That’s not an American name at all.”

“Don’t know, I’m sure. I don’t like it, anyhow. But it might be his
own. He’s from some town in Iowa and they name children fearful things
like Eliander and Jerusha, out there.” She chuckled, slipping a tawny
shoulder in and out of her robe. Her face rippled, “I really think
Cosmo’s a rather ghastly name. Sounds like a patent soup. Wonder why
they named dad Mark? Gurdy’s real name’s George.” She yawned, “I
suppose all actors get rather opinionated.”

“As they’re mostly rank egotists,” said Olive and closed the door.

Perplexity remained in her strongly wrestling with the desire for
sleep. She lay composing a letter to Cosmo Rand--“As your position
toward Mr. Walling is delicate and you are under obligations to Miss
Walling may I suggest that you maintain a purely formal relation
toward--” It wouldn’t do. Words to a shadow. She knew nothing of the
man. He was a graceful figure at parties in London, considerably
hunted by smart women for Sunday night dinners before the war. If the
comedy failed and Mark dismissed him Rand might make an ill-tempered
use of such a letter. Olive shrugged off the idea lay wondering why a
pleasant voice and a head of curly hair seen across footlights should
convince Margot that here was a great actor. It was disappointing.
Olive had thought Margot steeled against crazes. The girl had a general
appreciation of the arts as seen about London. Olive faintly sighed.
But the pleasing man might embody some fancy or other, fulfil some
buried wish. We go groping and stumbling among fancies, the woman
thought, and see nothing very clearly. She consoled herself with the
platitude and went to sleep.




IX

Bubble


“Todgers Intrudes” now went smoothly. Mark came to one of the last
rehearsals, approved Russell’s method but, as they walked up Broadway,
told Gurdy that this was a “lousy” play. All plays were just then
nonsense beside “Captain Salvador.” Mark’s absorption seemed to
exclude even Margot of whom the idolator once gently complained. The
dark goddess had returned to town, been a week at the Fifty Fifth
Street house and was sitting with Olive at the rear of the 45th Street
Theatre. Her voice reached Mark clearly where he stood assembling the
picture for a scene, a leg swung over the rail of the orchestra pit.

“She don’t seem so much interested in ‘Salvador,’ Gurd. Why’s that?”

“Rather heavy for her, perhaps.”

Mark rubbed his nose and accepted wisdom. A girl of eighteen mightn’t
care for this tale of shipwrecked ruffians, frantic negroes, moonlit
death. And what innocent girl of eighteen could know or believe that
men got tired of women? Gurdy understood and was helpful, had found
a wailing negro song for the shipboard scene of the first act. Mark
beamed at Gurdy, then turned to the stage and patiently corrected
the six negro actors timid among the white folk of the big company,
pathetic in sapphire and sage green suits.

“You boys in a circle ’round the table, left. Keep looking at Mr.
Leslie.”

He picked spots for the grouping. His brown fingers pointed. He named
attitudes, dropping his lids as he built the picture with glances at
the water colour sketch in his hand. An intricate chatter began on the
stage. Gurdy slipped up the aisle and joined Olive under the balcony.

“How careful he is,” she whispered, “like a ballet master.”

Gurdy nodded, “No one’ll move without being told to. The whole thing’s
planned. He’s going to run the lights himself in Boston, next Monday.”

“You’ll go up there with him? He looks dreadfully thin.” His black
height made a centre against the footlights. His mastery of this
human paint was impressive, admirable. He visibly laboured, silent,
listening. She asked, “Would he work as hard over an ordinary,
commercial play?”

“No. Oh, he’d work hard but not as hard as this.”

Margot glanced across Olive, then at her watch. She said, “Let’s clear
out, Olive. Teatime.”

“I’d much rather stay here. Fascinating.”

“But you told Mrs. Marlett Smith you’d come.”

Olive sighed and gathered her furs. It was important that Margot should
go to this tea at the Marlett Smith house. Mrs. Marlett Smith was a
liberal, amusing woman who had met Mark by way of some playwright and
had called on Olive at the seaside cottage. They left the theatre and
Gurdy came to open the door of the blue car. To him Margot suddenly
spoke, “How will dad open this silly thing in Boston, Monday night and
get to Washington by Tuesday night to open ‘Todgers’?”

“We’ll be there,” he said and closed the door.

Olive looked back at his colourless dress, his shapely head and
vanishing grave face with a frank wistfulness. “I don’t see why you
should make such a point of annoying Gurdy. And why call this play
silly when it’s so plainly good?... I’ve carefully refrained from
asking you why you quarrelled with Gurdy. He behaves charmingly to you
and keeps the peace.”

“Paying him back for being nasty about ‘Todgers Intrudes.’”

“But he’s not been nasty. He’s very sensibly given his opinion that
it’s feeble. As it is.--The man’s taking us down Broadway. Loathsome
sewer!”

The motor slowly passed toward Forty Second Street and across that
jam. Olive saw lean and stolid Englishmen stalking in the harsh, dusty
November wind that blew women along in the whirling similitude of
rotted flowers. Margot got notice, here. There was a jerk of male heads
from the curb. Empty faces turned to the girl’s brilliance in rose
cloth. A tanned sailor flapped his white cap. Yet in the Marlett Smith
library on Park Avenue Margot was prettily discreet for half an hour
below Chinese panels, among gayer frocks where she lost colour, merged
in a fluctuation of dress. On the way home her restraint snapped into a
“Damn!”

“Very stiff,” said Olive, “One reads about the American informality.
Tea at Sandringham is giddy beside this. But Mrs. Marlett Smith’s
clever. Who were those twins in black velvet who so violently kissed
you?”

“The Vaneens. Ambrosine and Gretchen. Knew them at school. They come
out in December.--But what maddens me is this everlasting jabber
about France! Some of those girls know Gurdy. Their brothers were at
Saint Andrew’s with him. He seems to have made himself frightfully
conspicuous about Paris.--No, I’m bored with Gurdy. If dad tries to
make me marry him I’ll take poison and die to slow music. Such tosh! He
made a gesture of enlisting--”

“You’re being silly,” Olive said, coldly hurt, “and I’m sick of the
word, gesture. Pray, was the gesture of third rate artists and actors
who wouldn’t leave their work anything madly glorious? I can understand
a man conscious of great talent preferring to stick to his last. And I
can understand a complete refusal to mix in the--abominable business.
But I’ve no patience with dreary little wasters who shouted for blood
and then took acetanilid to cheat the doctors. As for Gurdy’s military
career he’s very quiet about it. I dislike this venom against Gurdy.”

Margot chuckled, “Perhaps I’m jealous,” and got down before the house.
She opened the door with her latchkey and they entered a flow of minor
music from the drawing room. Gurdy was playing. Mark leaned on the
curve of the piano and his brown hands were deeply reflected in the
black pool of its top.

“Listen to this, Olive. Nigger song Gurdy raked up for ‘Captain
Salvador.’ Sing it, sonny. Don’t run off, Margot. Listen.” He caught
the girl to him, held her cheek against his chin. A scent of mild
sandal and cigarettes ebbed from the black hair into his nostrils. He
was tired after the tense rehearsal and chilled from half an hour in
the cold of the Walling. This moving warmth and scent was luxury. Mark
shut his eyes. Gurdy chanted in plausible barytone.

  “Life is like a mountain railway,
  From the cradle to the grave.
  Keep yoh hand upon the throttle
  An’ yoh eyes--upon--the--rail....”

It would sound splendidly in the dim forecastle of the first scene. It
would float and die under the blue vault of the Walling. He had just
seen the lights turned on a recession of faint silver rims in the dull
cloud of that ceiling. He was still drugged by the sight. His theatre
was like a desirable body promised to his arms. Gurdy played again the
slow air in curious variations, flutters of notes. Mark opened his eyes
to watch the slide of the long fingers on the keys. Olive was smiling.

“Delightful. Very moral, too. Sound advice. How well you play, Gurdy!”

“Always did,” said Mark, “He could play like a streak when he was ten.
Come along up and have a fight with Mr. Carlson, daughter.”

Olive let Margot’s voice melt into the old man’s cackle above. Gurdy
said, “We went to the Walling after rehearsal, Lady Ilden. Honestly,
it’s a corker. The ceiling’s nearly finished. Theatres don’t last,
worse luck. But there’s nothing like it in the city. Mark’s worked like
a pup over it.--How was your tea?”

“Very decent. Varieties of women, there. Almost no men. A débutante
told me she admired Walt Whitman more than most English poets and was
rather positive that he was English. I can’t understand the American
tabu on Whitman.”

“Immoral.”

“But--good heavens!--I fascinated two elderly girls by telling them
I knew Swinburne. Swinburne was lewd. Poor Whitman was merely rather
frank.”

“But Algie was a foreigner,” Gurdy laughed, “so it was all right.
Margot have a good time?”

Olive asked, “What were you and Margot rowing about in the library last
night? I could hear her voice getting acid.”

Gurdy commenced a waltz and said, “We weren’t rowing. Mark asked me
whether Cosmo Rand was in the British army. He wasn’t and I said so.
She seemed to think I was sniffing at Rand and blew me up a little.
That was all. We made peace. I rather like Rand, you know, now that
he’s stopped making an ass of himself at rehearsals. Russell and I had
lunch with him today. He talks well. He knows a lot about painting,
for instance. These actors who’ve been all over the landscape and
don’t think they’re better than Richard Mansfield--pretty interesting.
There’s not much to Rand but he isn’t a--a walking egotism.”

Olive laughed, “Come back to Margot. She’s pointedly offensive to you
and rather assertive about it. I hope you’ll go on being patient and
try to remember how young she is. You’re very mature for twenty-one.
You never bray. I brayed very wildly at Margot’s age. I horribly recall
telling Henry Arthur Jones how to improve his plays and one of my
saddest memories is of telling a nice Monsieur Thibault what a poor
novel Thaïs was. He quite agreed with me. I didn’t know he was Anatole
France until he left the room. I’ve all the patience going with youth.
You’re almost too mature.”

“Don’t know about being mature,” said Gurdy, “I’m not, probably. But
every other book you read is all about youth--golden youth--youth
always finds a way--ferment. Get pretty tired of it. Makes me want to
be forty-nine. And some of the poets make me sick. Hammering their
chests and saying, Yow! I’m young!... Not their fault. I’m not proud of
being six foot one. Runs in the family.”

“That’s a very cool bit of conversation, old man. You’ve taken me away
from Margot twice, very tactfully, so I’ll drop it. Play some Debussy.
His music reminds me of a very handsome man with too much scent on his
coat. Can’t approve of it. Rather like it.”

He evaded discussions of Margot until Sunday night when he went with
Mark to Boston for the opening of “Captain Salvador” there. On Monday
night he sat, a spy, in the middle of the large audience. A critic
had come from New York to see this play before it should reach the
metropolitan shoals. Gurdy saw the slender, sharp face intent. The ten
scenes of the Cuban romance passed without a hitch before the placid
Bostonians. Mark was directing the lights that raised peaks of gloom
on the walls, sent shimmerings along the moonlit beach where the hero
squatted in a purple shadow. About him Gurdy heard appropriate murmurs.
A fat woman whimpered her objection to the half naked celebrants of
the Voodoo scene. An old man complained that this was unlike life. Two
smart matrons chatted happily about a Harvard cabal against some friend
while “Captain Salvador” effected his wooing. A thin boy in spectacles
wailed an argument that true art wasn’t possible in a capitalistic
nation. A girl giggled every time the sailors of the story swore and
almost whinnied when the word, “strumpet” rattled over the lights. But
this herd redeemed itself in heavy applause. The thin boy wailed a
blanket assent to the merits of the plot and the setting, “After all,
Walling’s Irish and he studied under Reinhardt in Berlin. The Kelts
have some feeling for values.” Still the fat woman thought, loudly,
that the play didn’t prove anything and Gurdy decided that one of his
future satires must be named, The Kingdom of Swine. He found Mark in
high delight behind the scenes, snapping directions to his manager,
his leading man and the electrician in the New Jersey singsong. “Have
the tomtom some louder for the Voodoo, Ike. Bill, you send all the
notices special delivery to the Willard in Washington. Mr. O’Mara’s in
Hayti if the _Transcript_ wants an interview. Beach scene blue enough,
Gurdy? All right, Ed, I told you it was. Now, Leslie, take your fall
at the end quieter, a little. You’re all right, the rest of it. Come
along, Gurdy. Taxi’s waiting.” In the taxi, he cried, “Damn this lousy
‘Todgers’ thing, son! I want to stay here. People liked it, huh?”

“They did.--Oh, you’re Irish and you learned all your business from
Reinhardt.”

“Sure! Blame, it on Europe!--My God, didn’t the tomtom business go like
a breeze?--Oh, this ‘Todgers’ thing’ll be too bad. Tell you, I’ll play
it in Washington and Philadelphia. Baltimore, if it don’t just roll on
its belly and die. Sorry if Margot gets sore.--She and Olive went to
Washington s’afternoon, didn’t they, huh?--Was the ship scene light
enough, sonny?”

He sat in their stateroom on the train, his eyes still black with
excitement and drank watered brandy. He dreamed of “Captain Salvador’s”
first night at the Walling and tremors of applause mounting to the blue
vault of that perfected ceiling. He was so tired that he struggled,
undressing.

“Mark, you’re thin as a bean! Nothing but some muscles and skin.”

Mark flexed his arms, beamed up at the tall boy’s anxiety and rolled
into his berth. The mussed red hair disappeared under a pillow. Gurdy
smoked and stared humbly.... This was surely half of an artist,
laborious, patient, contriving beauty. The man had this strange
perception of the lovely thing. He should do better and better. If his
trade was that of the booth, the sale of charming sensualities, he
raised it by his passion. He begot fondness. He created. Gurdy tucked
the blankets over the blue silk pyjamas and planned a long talk on the
purpose of the theatre for the morning, then wondered what that purpose
was and put the lecture off. They fled all morning down the land and
came to Washington in time for late lunch with Russell at the Shoreham
where Mark halted to look at a pretty, dark woman in the suave, grey
lounge smelling of flowers, fell behind Gurdy and Russell, found
himself suddenly lifting his hat to Cora Boyle. She wore a cloak banded
with black fur and a gold hat too young for her paint. Mark smiled,
rather sorry for the blown coarseness of her chin, asked how she liked
California and heard her flat voice crackle.

“A nightmare! All these girls who were absolutely no one last week in
ten thousand dollar cars! No, I’m glad they brought me east. I’m taking
three days off to see Cosmo start this. Tells me it plays here the rest
of the week, then Philadelphia.--When are you bringing it into New
York?”

He shifted a little and said, “Can’t say, Cora. Hard to get a house in
New York, right now. This thing I’ve got at the Forty Fifth Street is
doin’ big business. Todgers’ll be on the road two weeks, anyhow, before
I decide what’ll become of it--”

“What are you opening the Walling with?”

“‘Captain Salvador.’ Opened in Boston last night. Best play I’ve ever
touched! Say, remind me to send you seats when it opens the Walling.”

“That’s dear of you.--But couldn’t you get one of the small houses
for Cosmo? The Princess or the Punch and Judy? Intimate comedy. Cosmo
really does better in a small house. And--” she smiled--“you could take
a bigger one after a month or so.”

He had an awed second of wonder. She’d been almost thirty years on the
stage and she thought “Todgers Intrudes” a good play! He began to say,
“But, do you think this will--” Then two men charged up to shake hands
with the actress. Mark scuttled down the stairs toward the grill. If
she was quarrelling with Rand her manner didn’t show it. “Cosmo really
does better in a small house.” He joined Russell and Gurdy at their
table, puzzled and said, “Say, if she’s fighting with Rand it’s funny
she’d come down to see him open this flapdoodle.”

“Habit,” Russell shrugged, “They’ve been married twelve years. But are
they fighting? I had breakfast with them this morning and she almost
crucified herself because his tea wasn’t right.”

Mark wondered why Margot thought that Rand and the woman quarrelled.
But he shed the wonder. He liked Washington especially as the pale city
showed itself now in a vapour where the abiding leaves seemed glazed in
their red and yellow along the streets. Olive knew people here. There
was a tea with a British attaché. Margot’s rose cloth suit gleamed
about the dancing floor of the restaurant. Gurdy had friends who were
produced, fell subject to Margot and came between the acts that night
to lean over the girl’s chair in the box of the big theatre. “Todgers
Intrudes” went its placid course. Rand gave, Mark fancied, an excellent
imitation of an English conservative. The packed house laughed at the
right points. Margot’s face rippled so eagerly that Mark wanted to kiss
it and covertly held her hand below the rail. Why, this was the pretty,
gentle sort of nonsense eighteen years would relish! A pity it had no
staying wit. A pity this fragile, polished man she so admired wasn’t a
real comedian. Mark looked at Gurdy’s stolid boredom and the fine chest
hidden by the dinner jacket beyond Olive’s bare shoulders. It might be
as well to let Gurdy tell Margot the play wouldn’t do for New York.
Mark shrank from that. Gurdy could put the thing much better in his
cool, bred fashion.--Here and there men were leaving the theatre with
an air of final retirement. In the opposite box there was a waving of
feathers. How well Cora Boyle could use a fan!--A youngster with curly
orange hair slipped into his box as the second curtain fell. Gurdy
introduced young Theodore Jannan to Olive and Margot, then to Mark. Mr.
Jannan had come over from Philadelphia to do something in Washington.
This play--the Jannan heir bit off a “rotten”--was advertised as coming
to Philadelphia next week.

“Opens there Monday,” said Mark.

“My mother’s giving a baby dance for my sister. Couldn’t you bring Miss
Walling, Gurdy? Monday night.”

How smoothly Margot said she’d like to come to a dance at Mrs. Apsley
Jannan’s house in Philadelphia! The nonsense of social position! An
illusion. A little training, a little charm, good clothes.--A Healy,
one of Margot’s cousins, had risen to be a foreman in one of the Jannan
steel mills.--Gurdy had played football with this pleasant lad at Saint
Andrew’s school. Who on earth would ever know or care that Margot and
Gurdy were born on a farm? The last curtain fell. Margot wanted to
dance. Russell came to join the party. They went to a restaurant and
found a table at the edge of the oval floor. Margot’s yellow frock
was swept off into the florid seething on Gurdy’s arm. Russell poured
brandy neatly into the coffee pot and shrugged to Mark.

“Bad sign. Fifteen or twenty men left in the second act. We’ll
have a vile time in Philadelphia, Lady Ilden. It’s a queer town on
plays.--There come the Rands.”

A headwaiter lifted a “Reserved” sign from a table across the floor.
Cora Boyle and her husband appeared in the light threaded by cigarette
smoke. The actress draped a green and black skirt carelessly, refused
to dance with a British officer in a trim pantomime, bowed slowly
to Mark who was taken with fright. She’d want to talk about this
drivelling play and before her slight, quiet husband. He slipped a bill
under the edge of Russell’s plate.

“Bring Olive back to the hotel will you Russell? I’m all in. ’Night,
Olive.”

His retreat through the smoky tables was comic. Russell fingered his
chin. Olive ended by laughing, “He’s ridiculously timid about her.”

The director patted his bald forehead and drank some coffee. He said,
“It happens that he’s got some reason. Miss Boyle’s bad tempered and an
inveterate liar. She’s fond of her husband and she seems to think this
comedy will have a New York run. Mr. Walling means to let it die on the
road, naturally. She won’t like that. She’ll talk. Her voice will be
loud all up and down Broadway.”

“But--surely he’s callous to that sort of thing?”

“Do you see anything callous about him? I don’t.” The director nodded
to the floating of Margot’s skirt. “This is the first time I’ve ever
directed a play put on to please a débutante, Lady Ilden.--No, Mr.
Walling seems mighty sensitive to gossip.--And Cora Boyle’s in a strong
position. She’s a woman--obviously--and she can make a good yarn.
Spite, and so on. She’s quite capable of giving out interviews on the
subject. She can’t hurt Mr. Walling but she might cause any quantity
of gossip,--which he couldn’t very well answer. She can play the woman
wronged, you see?”

“What a nation of woman worshippers you are!”

“Were,” said Russell, “We’re getting over it.”

“I don’t see any signs of it.”

Russell said, “You can’t send two million men into countries where
women--well, admit that they’re human, not goddesses, anyhow, without
getting a reaction. My wife’s a lawyer. She helped a young fellow--an
ex-soldier--out of some trouble the other day and he told her she was
almost as nice as a foreigner--Ten years ago if Cora Boyle had wanted
to have a fight with Mr. Walling she could have taken the line that he
was jealous of Rand and she’d have found newspapers that would print
front page columns about it. She’d get about two paragraphs now.--But
she probably has better sense. Beastly handsome, isn’t she?”

“Very--brutta bestia bella. Gurdy tells me she’s paid a thousand
dollars a day to play Camille for the cinema. Why?”

“Oh ... she’s the kind of thing a lot of respectable middle aged women
adore, I think.--Look at them.”

There were many women in the rim of tables. They stared at the flaring
green and black gown, at the exhibited bawdry of gold wrought calves,
at the feathers of the waving, profuse fan. There was an attitude of
furtive adventure in the turn of heads. They stared, disapproved,
perhaps envied.

“‘Some men in this, some that, their pleasure take, but every woman is
at heart a rake,’” Olive quoted.

The director laughed, “You’re right.--And I often think that the movie
queens take the place of an aristocracy in this country. Something
very fast and bold for the women to stare at. Now Rand, there, is the
ideal aristocrat--in appearance, anyhow, don’t you think? And nobody’s
looking at him. I wonder if Miss Walling would dance with me?”

He relieved Gurdy close to the Rand table. When the boy joined Olive
she asked, “Mr. Russell isn’t a typical stage director, is he?... I
thought not. One of the new school in your theatre? A well educated
man?... Rather entertaining.”

“He writes a little. Been an engineer. Stage directors are weird. One
of them used to be an Egyptologist.--I say, help me keep Mark here the
rest of the week, will you? He’s dead tired. Did he run when he saw
Cora Boyle coming?”

“Yes. He seems positively afraid of her!”

Gurdy said, “He is afraid of her. Great Scott, he was only sixteen when
he married her and dad says he was--pretty blooming innocent. Mark’s
all full of moral conventions, Lady Ilden. Ever noticed that?”

“When you were in pinafores, my child! I always thought he’d shed some
of his Puritan fancies. He doesn’t.”

“Grandfather’s awfully strict, even if he is an atheist. And mother
... isn’t what you’d call reckless. They brought him up. And he still
thinks their ... well, moral standards are just about right.--I’m the
same way. Got it pounded into me at school that bad grammar and loud
clothes were immoral. Don’t suppose I’ll get over that.--Mark says he’s
never flirted with a married woman in his life.”

Olive yawned, “I don’t suppose that he has, consciously. Oh, to be
sure, I can understand why Mark would think of Miss Boyle as the
Scarlet Woman. The Puritan upbringing.--We never quite get over early
influences, Gurdy. I always find myself bristling a bit over dropped
H’s even when a famous novelist does the dropping.--Mark prophesies bad
reviews for the play, in the morning. Do leave word to have the papers
sent up to me. I’m so sleepy I shall forget about it.--Thank heaven,
Margot’s stopped dancing.”

In their double bedroom at the New Willard Margot talked jauntily of
“Todgers Intrudes,” until Olive fell asleep wondering why the girl
should interpret amiable laughter as the shout of success. In the
morning two newspapers arrived with breakfast. The critics praised
the acting and both sniffed at the play. Olive read the columns over
her tea. Both critics dealt kindly with Rand. One thought his manner
resembled that of Cyril Maude, the other said that he imitated George
Arliss. Margot came trailing a green robe from the bathtub and stood
pressed against the brass bedfoot reading the comments. The sun
redoubled on her silver girdle and the numerous polychrome tassels of
the foolish, charming drapery inside which her body stirred before
she cried, “How American! Thin! It’s no thinner than that rot dad has
running at the Forty Fifth Street!”

“My darling Margot, that’s thin American comedy. It’s something
national, comprehensible. As for ‘Todgers,’ why--why should you expect
a pack of American war office clerks and provincials to care whether
a Baron precedes an Earl or no? I can’t help being surprised that
so many of them seemed to know what it was all about! The play is
thin--horribly thin. I’m sure it did well at home on account of Maurice
Ealy’s following. The critics say rather nice things about Rand, all
things considered.... Well, were you impressed with him last night? Do
you still think he’s a fine actor?”

Margot tilted her face toward the ceiling and the sun made a visard
across her narrowed eyes. She twisted the silver girdle between her
hands and stood silent. Olive felt the final barrier between creatures,
suddenly and keenly. She had lived in intimacy with the girl for five
years. Here was a strange mind revolving under the black, carven hair
and the mask of sun.

“No, I didn’t think him very good, last night. Nervous.--And perhaps
the play did seem rather thin.... But it’ll do better in New York. More
civilized people, there.”

Olive lifted her breakfast tray to the bedside table and thought. Then
her patience snapped, before the girl’s sunny and motionless certitude.
She said, “New York! Do you think Mark will risk bringing this poor
ghost of a thing to New York? Hardly! He told me last night it will be
played in Philadelphia and Baltimore, then he’ll discard it.--You’re
silly, dearest! The play’s wretched and Rand’s no better than a hundred
other young leading men I’ve seen. He appeals to you for some reason or
other. He seems very, very feeble to me. He has no virility, no--”

The silver girdle broke between the tawny hands. Margot’s face rippled.
She said loudly, “This is all Gurdy! He doesn’t like the play! He’s
made dad dislike it. He--”

Olive cut in, “I shan’t listen to that! That’s mere ill temper and
untrue. The play is a waste of Mark’s time and of his money.--Between
your very exaggerated loyalty to Ronny Dufford and your liking for
this doll of an actor you’ve probably cost Mark three or four thousand
pounds. He produced this play entirely to please you. Don’t tease him
any farther. Don’t try to make him bring this nonsense to New York.
You’ve a dreadful power over Mark. Don’t trade on it! You’re behaving
like a spoiled child. You disappoint me!”

The black eyes widened. Margot pushed herself back from the bed with
both hands, staring. She said, “I--I dare say.... Sorry.”

“You should be!... He’s done everything he can to keep you amused. He
isn’t a millionaire. You’ve been treated like a mistress of extravagant
tastes, not like a daughter! There is such a thing as gratitude. He’s
humoured you in regard to this silly play and in regard to Rand. Gurdy
and Mr. Russell tell me that Cora Boyle can make herself a disgusting
nuisance now that the play’s a failure. You’ve pushed Mark into this
very bad bargain. Don’t make it worse by whimpering, now, and don’t--”

“Oh, please!”

“Then please bite on the bullet and let’s hear no more of this. When
Mark tells you he’ll drop the play, don’t tease him.”

Margot said, “Poor Ronny Dufford! I thought--”

“I’m sorry Ronny’s broke. It’s the destiny of younger sons whose
fathers had a taste for baccarat. I shall start for Japan as soon as
I’ve seen the Walling opened. I shan’t go in a very easy frame of mind
if I feel that you’ve constituted yourself a charitable committee of
one with Mark as treasurer.”

Olive laughed. Margot said, “Yes, m’lady,” and made a curtsey, then
fluttered off to telephone for breakfast, began to chuckle and the
delicate chime of that mirth was soothing, after the rasp of Olive’s
tirade. The girl seemed unresentful. Olive had never so seriously
scolded her. Now she thought that she should talk to Mark about
his folly. This idolatry was delightful to watch but unhealthy, a
temptation to Margot. The girl had other pets in London. There was
an amateur actress constantly wobbling on the edge of professional
engagements. Two or three of the young painters experimented in stage
setting. She deliberated and listed these artists to Mark while they
were driving about the broad city in a hired victoria.

“All nice children and hopeless dabblers, old man. Beware of them or
you’ll have the house filled with immigrants. Rand’s a giant beside any
of them.”

“The little man ain’t so bad. Guess I’ll put him in as leading man for
a woman in a Scotch play I’m going to work on after Christmas. That’ll
shut Cora Boyle up. He’ll do, all right. I’ll offer him the part when I
tell him ‘Todgers’ goes to Cain’s.”

“To--where?”

“It’s a warehouse in New York where dead plays go--the scenery,
I mean.” Mark pointed to a full wreath of steam floating above
the Pan American building, “Watch it go. No wind. Ought to last a
minute.--Busted,” he sighed, as the lovely cream melted. “But I ain’t
sorry this happened, Olive. Teach her she don’t know so much about the
show business. ‘Todgers’ll’ make a little money here because the town’s
packed full. But I’m afraid Philadelphia’ll be its Waterloo. Well,
the Boston _Transcript_ had three columns on ‘Captain Salvador.’ It’s
in the biggest theatre in Boston and they had standing room only last
night. Gurdy got a wire from a kid he knows in Harvard that a couple of
professors came out of the woods and told their classes to go see the
thing.”

His talk came turning back to “Captain Salvador” for the rest of the
week. He was bodily listless after the strain of the Boston production.
Gurdy forced him to play golf and tramp the spread city when Olive and
Margot were at teas in the British colony. Russell often walked and
every night dined with them, examining Margot with his sharp hazel eyes
so that Gurdy fancied the man exhaling her essence with his cigarette
smoke. He sat with Gurdy on Monday afternoon in the smoking car on the
road to Philadelphia and observed, “Miss Walling’s very much interested
in ‘Todgers.’ How will she take the blow when it fails, here? It’ll be
a flat failure, tonight, Gurdy. See if it isn’t.”

“Margot and I are going to a dance. We shan’t see it flop.”

“It’ll flop very flat and hard. I’m a Philadelphian. You should warn
Miss Walling.”

Mark startled Gurdy by warning Margot during tea in the small suite of
the Philadelphia hotel while she stood at the tin voiced piano rattling
tunes with one hand. Mark said nervously, “Now, sister, if ‘Todgers’
is a fluke here--why, I can’t waste time and cash fooling with it any
longer.” He coughed and finished, “I’ll send your friend Dufford a
check and--amen.”

“You’re an old duck,” said Margot, “and I’ll be good. Shan’t ever try
to choose another play for you--never, never, never.” She tinkled the
negro song from “Captain Salvador” tapping one foot so that the silver
buckle sparkled. “Wish I could sing.... Life is like a--what’s good old
life like, Gurdy?”

“Like a mountain railway.”

“That a simile or a metaphor?--I say, I must get scrubbed. Six o’clock.”

She passed Gurdy, leaving the room. He saw her teeth white against the
red translucency of her lower lip and carmine streaks rising in her
face, but her door shut slowly.

“Took it like a Trojan,” Mark proudly said, “Guess the Washington
papers opened her eyes some. Well, let’s go see if Russell’s
downstairs, Gurd. He’s got a room on this floor. Gad, Olive, I wish we
were goin’ to a dance tonight instead of this--junk.”

“Margot should wear something very smart for this dance, shouldn’t
she?” Olive asked. “The Jannans are the mighty of earth, aren’t they?”

“Old family. Steel mills,” Gurdy explained.

“I’ve met some of them in Scotland. Wasn’t there a Miss Jannan who
did something extraordinary? I remember a row in the New York papers.
Didn’t she--”

Mark laughed, “Ran off with a married man. They’ve got a couple of
kids, too.”

“Doesn’t that domestic touch redeem the performance, Mark?”

Mark chuckled and drawled, “Now, here! You make out you’re a wild eyed
radical and so on. Suppose some girl that ought to know better came and
lived next you in Chelsea with a married man. Ask her to dinner?”

“I cheerfully would if I thought her worth knowing, gentle Puritan!
If I thought she was simply a sloppy, uncontrolled sentimentalist I
should no more bother myself than I would to meet a society preacher or
some hero of the Russian ballet who’s paid a hundred guineas a night
to exhibit his abdominal surface in the name of art.... Six o’clock. I
should tub, myself. I’ve several cinders on my spine. Run along, both
of you.”

Mark said on the way to the elevators, “Olive’s a wonder, ain’t she,
bud? Don’t know why but she always puts me in mind of your dad. Calm
and cool.--Oh, say, tomorrow’s your mamma’s birthday!”

“It is. And I’m going up to the farm, after lunch. ‘Todgers Intrudes’
has got me--”

“Shut up,” said Mark, seeing Cosmo Rand ringing the button for the
elevator. He beamed at the actor and asked in the car, “Mrs. Rand went
back to New York?”

“Yes. Just been talking to her by ’phone. They started the film of
‘Camille’ today. Very trying, she said. They’ve some promoted cowboy
playing Armand.--I say, I’ve some quite decent gin in my flask. We
might have a cocktail.”

Gurdy thought how clever the man was to wear grey, increasing his
height and embellishing his rosy skin. He understood dress expertly. At
the Jannan dance, toward midnight, a girl told him that she’d just come
from a “simply idiotic play” but praised Rand’s appearance. “Englishmen
do turn themselves out so well.”

The dance was supported by sparkling Moselle and Gurdy didn’t have
to perform with Margot. She found friends. He was summoned to be
introduced to a young Mrs. Calder who at once invited him to dine
the next evening. Gurdy excused himself on the score of his mother’s
birthday. As they drove away from the emptying house Margot explained,
“Peggy Calder’s nice. She was in the Red Cross in London. You’re really
going up to the farm?”

“Certainly.”

She said nothing, restless in her dark cloak for a time then chattered
about the Jannan grandeur. She enjoyed spectacles. The great suburban
house and the green ballroom pleased her. “But you people drink too
much, you know? Mrs. Jannan’s a second wife, isn’t she? Rather pretty.
Heavens, what a long way back to the hotel!”

“You’re tired.”

“Frightfully. And blue.... Can’t you make dad try ‘Todgers’ in New
York, Gurdy?” Directly and with a sharp motion she added, “No. That’s
utterly silly. I’ve no business asking it.... But I do feel--And yet I
don’t know the New York taste--You really think it wouldn’t do?”

“I really don’t, Margot. And you can’t get a theatre for love, blood or
money. They’re even trying to buy theatres to bring plays into. Mark
would have to run the play on the road for weeks--months, perhaps,
before he could get a theatre.”

She dropped the matter, spoke of the dance again and at the hotel
hurried up the corridor to her rooms. Mark sat up as Gurdy slid into
the other bed of his chamber and passed a hand across his throat, “Oh,
son, what an evening! ‘Todgers’ to the boneyard! Crape on the door!”

“Fizzled? People were knocking it at the Jannan’s.”

“Awful! Every one coughed. I will say Rand worked hard. No, it’s dead.
I’ll let it run tomorrow night and then close it.--Stick with me
tomorrow. I’ll have to break the bad news to Rand.”

He broke the news to Rand just as Gurdy was leaving to take the train
for Trenton, after lunch. The actor strolled up to them beside the
door, a grey furred coat over his arm and his bronze eyes patently
anxious.

“Going away, Bernamer?”

“The country.”

“Decent day for it.... I say, Walling, they weren’t nice to us in the
papers.”

Gurdy saw Mark begin to act. The voice deepened to its kindest drawl.
Mark said, “Just called up the theatre. Only sold two hundred seats for
tonight and its almost three, now. That’s too bad.”

Rand passed the polished nails along the soft moustache. The sun of the
door sent true gold into his hair. He murmured, “Shocking bad, eh? We
play Baltimore, next week, don’t we?”

“No,” said Mark, easily, “It’s too thin. I’ll close it tonight.--Now,
I’m putting on a piece called the ‘Last Warrior.’ English. Start
rehearsals after Christmas. Good part for you in that. Marion Hart’s
the lead. Know her? Nice to play with and a damned good play.”

“Oh--thanks awfully.--Yes, I know Miss Hart.--Thanks very much, sir....
You shan’t risk bringing ‘Todgers’ to New York?”

“No. I’m sorry. You’ve worked mighty hard and I like your work. You’ll
be a lot better off in this other play.... ‘Todgers’ is too thin, Rand.
Might have done five or six years back.”

The actor nodded. “Dare say you’re right, sir. Bit of a bubble, really.
And awfully good of you to want me for this other thing. Be delighted
to try.... Yes, this was rather bubblish:--Anyhow, this lets me out of
Baltimore. I do hate that town. Well, thanks ever so. Better luck next
time, let’s hope.”

He walked off, grey into the duller grey of the columned lounge. Mark
nodded after him. “Took it damned well, Gurdy. He’ll be all right in
this other show and Cora can’t say I haven’t been decent to him. Well,
hustle along. Got that whiskey for your dad? Give ’em my love.--Look at
that pink car, for lordsake! Vulgarity on four wheels, huh?--So long,
sonny.”

Gurdy was glad that Rand hadn’t whined. This was a feeble, tame fellow
without much attraction beyond his handsome face. Perhaps it was for
this mannerly tameness that Margot liked him. Perhaps that fable of
women liking the masterly male was faulty. Margot liked to domineer.
She had bullied Rand a trifle at the rehearsal in London. Perhaps
Cora Boyle liked the tame little creature for some such reason. Gurdy
dismissed him and the theatre. There was vexing sadness in the
collapse of even so poor a play. Russell and the actors had worked.
It came to nothing. Bubble! Expensive, futile, unheroic evanescence.
Margot’s fault. He mustn’t let Mark do such a thing again. The girl
must confine her restless self to dances and clothes. She had looked
very well at the Jannan party. She had smartness, instant magnetism.
She was still asleep and would dine with her acquaintance, Mrs. Calder,
tonight. Gurdy yawned as Trenton foully spouted its industry toward
the sky. Bernamer was waiting with the car at the station, gave him a
crushing hug and told him that he looked like hell.

“Danced all night.”

“I see you did in the _Ledger_. Among those present at the Apsley
Jannan’s party. Your mamma’s all upset about it. Saw a movie of
a millionaire party with naked hussies ridin’ ostriches in the
conserv’tory. She thinks Margot’s led you astray. How’s this ‘Tod’ play
done?”

“It’s all done, dad. Closes tonight.”

Bernamer sent the car through Trenton and cursed Margot astoundingly.
“Ten or twelve thousand dollars! The little skunk! Cure Mark of
listening to her. Say, he still wanting you to marry her, bud?”

“Afraid he is, dad.”

“Sure. Next best he could do to marryin’ her himself. Funny boy. Likes
her ’cause she’s pretty. Black hair.--This English woman’s blackheaded,
ain’t she?... Well, you sic’ some feller onto Margot and get her off
Mark’s hands. If you fell in love with her again, your mamma’d puff up
and bust.”

“Again?”

Bernamer gave him a blue stare and winked, wrinkling his nose. His
weathered face creased into a snort. “Sure, you were losin’ sleep over
her ’fore she got back from England.”

“Not now, daddy.” Gurdy wondered about the absolute death of his
passion. His father, who so seldom saw him, knew it was done. Mark saw
him daily, talked to him of Margot urgently and saw nothing.

“Well,” said Bernamer, “Mark’s awful fond of you. And you ain’t bad,
reelly. Don’t you get married until you catch one you can stand for
steady diet. Oh, your mamma’s gone on a vegetable diet and lost four
pounds in two weeks. Ed’s got a boil on his neck--bad, too, poor pup.
Jim done an algebra problem right yesterday and made a touchdown
Saturday. He’s got his head swelled a mile.”

The man’s tolerant dealing with his family impressed Gurdy. Here was a
controlled and level affection, not Mark’s worship. It was a healthier
thing. He watched his father’s amiable scorn while Mrs. Bernamer and
the whole household fussed variously over young Edward’s inflamed
neck after supper. The boil was central in the talk of the red living
room. Grandfather Walling tried to think of some ancient remedy and
fell asleep pondering. The two bigger lads hovered and chuckled over
the eruption. The sisters neglected some swains who came calling. Mrs.
Bernamer sat mending the grey breeches of the military uniform Edward
wasn’t wearing. The boil maintained itself over gossip of the village,
the Military Academy and female questions about the Jannan dance. At
ten Bernamer said, “Go to bed, all of you. Got to talk business to
Gurdy.” The family kissed Gurdy and departed. Grandfather Walling’s
snore roamed tenderly down into the stillness. Bernamer got out the
chessboard and uncorked a bottle of vicious pear cider. They smoked and
played the endless game. At twelve the telephone bell shore off his
father’s sentences. Gurdy clapped a palm on the jangling at his elbow
and picked up the instrument. Olive Ilden spoke in her most artificial,
clearest voice.

“We’re in New York, dear. The doctor telephoned about eight and we came
up directly. I think you’d best come, Gurdy.”

“Mr. Carlson?”

“Yes. He’ll be gone in a few hours. Mark’s so distressed and--the old
man asked for you.”

Bernamer said, “No train until three thirty, son.”

“I’ll get there as fast, as I can,” Gurdy told her, “Margot there?”

“No. She’d gone to dine with her friend--Mrs. Calder--and Mark didn’t
want her here. I’ll tell Mark you’re coming, then. Good-bye.”

Gurdy rang off. His father nodded, “Mark’ll miss the old feller. Been
mighty good to him. Funny old man. Always liked him. Poor Mark! Well,
you say this Englishwoman’s sensible. That’s some help.”

Gurdy was glad of Olive’s sanity, wished that the thought of this death
didn’t make his heart thump for a little. His father would drive him
into Trenton at two. They played chess again. Bernamer made sandwiches
of beef and thick bread. The red walls clouded with cigarette smoke. It
was two when the bell again rang.

“Dead, prob’ly,” said Bernamer.

The operator asked for Gurdy. There was a shrill wrangling of women
behind which a man spoke loudly and savagely. His impatience cracked
through the buzzing. It wasn’t Mark when the man spoke clearly at last.


“This is Russell, Gurdy. Can you hear? You must come here at once.”

“To Philadelphia? What’s happened? Mr. Carlson’s dying and--”

“I know. And I can’t bother Walling. You must come here as fast as you
can. Can you speak German?... I’ll try to talk French; then.”

After a moment Gurdy said, “All right. I’ll come as fast as I can. Get
hold of the hotel manager. Money--”

“The detective’s got a check. That’s all right. Hurry up, though.”

Gurdy found himself standing and dropped the telephone. It brushed the
chessmen in a clattering volley to the floor. His father’s blue eyes
bit through the smoke.

“When’s a train to Philadelphia, dad?”

“That damn fool girl gone and got herself into--”

“This actor!... Of course she has! Of course! Oh, hell! In her room!
When’s there a train to Philadelphia?”




X

The Idolater


Olive left the telephone table and strolled across the bright library
to the fire. The sussuration of dragged silk behind her moving gown
gave her a queer discomfort; there had been no time to change in the
rush; it seemed improper to attend a death-bed in evening dress. And
she was intrusive, here, and helpless. Mark’s pain was calm. He would
suffer later, at the end of these hours or minutes. The bored, plump
doctor came into the library, closed the door and lit a cigarette,
joining Olive at the warm hearth.

“He was asking for Miss Walling, just now.”

“Ah? She’s in Philadelphia. She was dining with some friends at the
Ritz, there, so we left her.”

The doctor said, “Very sensible,” and blew a smoke ring. Under its
dissolution his eyes admired Olive’s shoulders then, the pastel of
Gurdy in a black frame on the mantel.

“Tell me,” Olive asked, “how--how far is he conscious?”

“It would be interesting to know. In these collapses we’re not
sure. His conscious mind probably asserts itself, now and then. The
unconscious--I really can’t say. Still, before you and Mr. Walling
came he spoke in Swedish several times. And that’s the unconscious. He
forgot his Swedish years ago. Been in this country ever since eighteen
sixty-eight. But he spoke Swedish quite correctly and very fast. I’m a
Swede. It surprised me.”

“Indeed,” said Olive and shivered before his science, cool, weary, not
much interested.

The doctor looked at his watch, murmured, “Twelve thirty,” and tossed
his cigarette in the fire. He observed, “But the old gentleman’s in
no pain. The reversion’s very interesting. He was talking to some
one about Augustin Daly. Very interesting.” The clipped, brisk voice
denied the least interest. The doctor went from the library as Olive
heard wheels halt outside. This couldn’t be Gurdy. She looked through a
window and recognized her maid paying a taxicab driver. The black and
yellow taxicab trembled behind a car entirely black and windowless; the
undertaker awaited Carlson’s body. Olive drew the curtains across the
glass, shook herself and went down to speak with her maid.

“Margot hadn’t come back from her dinner when you came away, Lane?”

“No, m’lady. Such a noosance getting the luggage to the station, down
there.... Might I have some tea in your pantry, Mr. Collins?” the woman
asked Mark’s butler as Olive turned away. These two would sit in the
butler’s pantry drinking tea and discussing deaths. Olive went up the
soft stairs and into Carlson’s bedroom behind the library. She entered
an immutable group. The two nurses sat in a corner. The doctor examined
one of the framed, old photographs that pallidly gleamed on the walls
made brown by the lowered light. Mark stood with his hands clutching
the white bedfoot. His black seemed to rise supernatural from the
floor. He was taller, thinner. He glared at the stretched length of his
patron. To Olive the dying man appeared more like an exhumed Pharaoh
than ever. The yellow head was unchanged. She had a dizzy, picturesque
fancy that his eyes might open, that he might speak in some unknown,
sonorous dialect of the Nile. As she dropped a hand beside Mark’s
fingers on the rail the old man spoke without breath in a sound of torn
fabric yet with an airy, human amusement. “All right, Mister Caz’nove.
Don’t git flustered. I’ll tell Miss Morris.”

Mark writhed. The plastron of his shirt crackled. He gripped Olive’s
arm and drew her from the room. In the hall he panted, “Augustin
Daly’s prompter--a Frenchman--I guess he meant Clara Morris.” But in
the cooler hall, away from the insufferable bed, he was ashamed. This
was bad behaviour, unmanly, ridiculous. He smiled timidly at Olive who
suddenly put her hands on his face and kissed him.

“I talked to Gurdy. He’ll be here as soon as he can, dear.”

“Thanks. Got to go back.” Mark sighed, “You go to bed, though.”

“No.”

Mark didn’t want her to go to bed. He smiled and went back to his
watch. Odious time passed. The smell of cigarettes crept from the
walls and the furniture. Carlson had smoked many thousands here. One
of the nurses clicked a string of beads. The tiny cross was silver and
lustrous as it swung. The beads seemed amethyst. What good did the
woman think she was doing? But she had liked Carlson. She was praying
for his soul and Carlson thought he had a soul. Let her pray. The
amethyst flicker soothed Mark, took his eyes from the bed. The voice
surprised him with his name.

“Mark.”

“Yessir.”

“It’s a poor house. Rain....”

Mark’s throat was full of dry fire. He gripped the rail, waiting. But
the voice did not come again. After four the doctor nodded. One nurse
yawned. The Irishwoman fell gently on her knees under the large, signed
photograph of Ada Rehan in the frilled, insolent dress of Lady Teazle.
Olive led Mark quickly from the room into the library. He pressed his
hands on his eyes. He wouldn’t cry over this. Carlson had too often
called him a crybaby, a big calf.

“Dear Mark.”

“Oh ... can’t be helped.--God, I did want him to see the Walling! Won’t
be any funeral. Body goes straight to Sweden.... He’s left Gurdy and
Margot some money.... Awful kindhearted.... Lot of old down and out
actors’d come here. Gave ’em money. Awful kind to me.... No reason.”
His husky speech made a chant for his old friend. Olive’s eyes filled.
He was childish in his woe, charming. She wished that he’d weep so she
could fondle the red hair on her shoulder. This would hurt his pleasure
in the new theatre and the splendid play. The butler came in after the
heavy, descending motion of men on the stairs was over and the dull
wheels had rolled off from the curb. He brought a small, gold capped
bottle and two glasses on his tray.

“Doctor Lundquist said to bring this up, sir.”

The champagne whispered delicately in the glasses and washed down the
muffling, dry taste from Mark’s tongue. He smiled at Olive and said,
“Dunno what I’d have done without you bein’ here.” What a brave woman!
Her daughter had died swiftly of pneumonia before Olive could reach
her. Her son had been blown to pieces.

“I’m glad Gurdy didn’t get here,” she said, “He’s seen quite enough of
death and he was fond of Mr. Carlson.”

“Of course. Fonder than Margot was. Bein’ a man, though, he never
showed it so much.”

Olive hoped that Margot would never tell him how she disliked the old
man’s coarseness, his manifold derisions. She said, “But go to bed,
Mark. You really should. These things strain one.”

“Awful. They packed me off to Aunt Edith’s when mamma died. First time
I ever saw any one I liked.... Frohman was drowned. Clyde Fitch died in
France. Good night, Olive.”

He wished she would kiss him again and watched her pass up to her
rooms. Then he went to bed, without thinking, and slept. He slept
soundly and woke slowly into warm, luxurious sun that mottled the blue
quilt. He said, “Hello, brother,” to Gurdy who leaned on the dresser
between the windows, solemn and grieved in a dark suit, his pale hair
ruffled and gay with light. Gurdy must be cheered up. “Well, you
missed it. He didn’t have a pain. When did you get here?”

“A while ago. I--dad’s here.”

“Eddie? Well, that’s good of him.”

Bernamer came about the bed and dropped a hand on Mark’s chest. He said
nothing, but grinned and sat down. His seemly clothes and cropped head
made him amazingly like Gurdy. Mark beamed at both of them. “Had your
breakfast?”

“Hell, yes,” said Bernamer, “Had two. Got some coffee in Philadelphia
and then Lady Ilden made us eat somethin’ when we got here.”

Mark swung out of bed and ordered Gurdy, “Tell ’em to bring me up some
coffee in the library, sonny. Oh, Margot ain’t got here?”

“Yes, she’s here,” said Gurdy and quickly left the room.

The sun filled his showerbath. Mark cheered further, babbled to his
brother-in-law while he shaved and wondered what Bernamer had talked
about to Olive at breakfast.

“Oh, we just talked,” said the farmer, curtly, “Nice kind of woman.”

He leaned in the door of the bathroom and rolled a cigarette in his
big, shapely hands. Now that he had five hired men his hands were
softer and not so thick. A fine, quiet man, full of sense.

“Awful good of you to come up, Eddie. I ain’t makin’ a fool of myself.
The old man was eighty. It’s a wonder he lasted as long.”

“Better get some coffee in you, bud. You look run down.”

“Been workin’ like a horse, Eddie.”

Mark knotted his tie, took Bernamer’s arm and hugged it a little,
walking into the library. Olive dropped a newspaper and told him he
looked “gorgeous” in a weary voice, then poured coffee into his cup on
the low stand by a large chair close to the fire. She was smoking. The
vapour didn’t hide yellowish hollows about her eyes.

“No, I didn’t sleep well, old man. Rather fagged.”

“We waked you up pretty early,” said Bernamer, “Sit down, bud, and
drink your coffee.”

Mark lounged in the deep chair. Bernamer asked Olive if she had liked
Washington but stood patting Mark’s shoulder and rather troubled the
drinking of coffee. Gurdy came down the blue rug with some mail.

“Look and see if there’s anything important, sonny. Probably ain’t....
Hello, sister!”

Margot roamed down the library in a black dress. But she paused yards
from his stretched hand and frowned incomprehensibly. Gurdy turned at
the desk with a letter against his grey coat. Margot said, “I suppose
Gurdy’s told you.”

Gurdy thrust his jaw up toward the ceiling. Olive rose with a flat,
rasping “Margot” and Bernamer hissed, his fingers tight on Mark’s
shoulder. Mark set down his coffee cup and looked at them all.

“Oh, no one’s said anything?” Margot put a knee on a small chair and
stroked the velvet back. “Well, we’d better get it over. I was turned
out of the hotel in Philadelphia last--”

“Shut up,” said Bernamer, “Shut your mouth!”

She went on, staring at Mark, “I’m going to marry him as soon as he
can get a divorce, dad.... No use trying to lie about it. I belong to
Cosmo and--and that’s all.” She passed a hand over her mouth. Then her
bright slippers twinkled as she walked out of the room. Mark blinked
after her. Something had happened. He looked up at Bernamer whose face
was rocky, meaningless. Gurdy ran to Mark and spoke in gasps, beating a
fist on his hip.

“Russell called me at the farm about two--Dad went down with me.--We
talked to the manager--We bribed him.--Russell gave the hotel detective
a check for a thousand dollars--”

“I guess they’ll keep their mouths shut,” said Bernamer, “Told
’em they’d each get another check in six months if we didn’t hear
nothin’.--Now it ain’t so bad, bud. Margot says this feller can get a
divorce from Cora Boyle--He was gone and we didn’t see him. It might be
worse.”

“Stop hittin’ your leg, Gurd. You’ll hurt yourself,” said Mark.

He rose and began to walk up and down the tiles of the hearth. One of
his hands patted the front of his coat. His face was empty. He seemed
wonderfully thin. Olive watched him in terror of a cry. Gurdy and his
father drew off against the shelves of still books. Bernamer commenced
rolling a cigarette. After a while Mark said, “It’s the way I was
brought up, Olive.”

“Oh, Mark, try to--to see her point of view. She loved him. She sees
something we don’t--It’s--”

“Sure. That’s so.--Oh, you’re right.”

He walked on, aware of them watching, helpless. Things passed and
turned in his head. He was being silly, old-fashioned. Ought to collect
himself. Ought to do something for Gurdy who wouldn’t have her, now.
Get the boy something to do. Get his mind off it. “Call the office,
sonny. Tell them to close ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ Give the company two
weeks’ pay. Have Hamlin write checks--Didn’t try to thrash this Rand,
did you?”

“We didn’t see him. He’d gone.”

“That’s good. Call the office.”

The boy went to the telephone, far off on its desk and began to talk
evenly. Mark stumbled over to Bernamer and mumbled, “Keep him busy.
Awful jolt for him, Eddie. Takes it fine.”

“He ain’t in love with her, bud.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Set down, bud. Better drink--”

“No.--Ain’t been any saint, myself. Girls are different.--Maybe he’s a
nice fellow.--Took it nice about the play being closed.--I’m all right,
Olive. Sort of a shock.”

He walked on. Then he was too tired to walk and Bernamer made him sit
in the chair by the hearth. He stared at the blue rug and it seemed
to clear his head. He became immobile, watching a white thread. The
world centred on this wriggle of white on the blue down. He lapsed into
dullness, knowing that Gurdy stood close to him. He should think of
things to say, consolations. The boy must be in tortures. He was dull,
empty.

Bernamer beckoned Olive. They went out of the library and the farmer
shut the door without jarring the silver handle. Olive found herself
dizzy. She said, “You have something to--”

“Let’s get downstairs where I can smoke. You’re sick. This is as bad on
you--”

He helped her downstairs into the drawing room and was gone, came back
with water in which she tasted brandy. The big man lit his cigarette
and spoke in a drawl like Mark’s but heavier.

“I don’t understand this business. The little fool says she’s been in
love with this feller a long time--a couple of years. He ain’t made
love to her ’til last night. Well?”

“I don’t understand it any more than do you. I’m--horrified. I knew she
admired his acting. He’s handsome. Very handsome.”

The man nodded and his blue eyes were gentle on her. He drawled, “Why
the hell didn’t he stay and face the music? The manager told him to get
out. Mr. Russell says he just packed up and left.--I can’t make this
out. Margot had Mr. Russell waked up because she hadn’t any money to
come home with.”

“I must talk to her.... Why did we leave her there?”

“You thought she’d got sense enough to know better. It ain’t your
fault. I got to go home because I don’t want the family to know about
this. But there’s something damn funny in it.--Will you please get it
out of Mark’s head that Gurdy’s in love with that girl? Make him feel
better.”

“I’ll do all I can.”

He said in scorn, “She ain’t worth fussin’ with,” and held the door
open. Olive shivered, passing the library where there was no sound.
She climbed to Margot’s room and found the girl sitting on the edge of
the sunny bed, still, smiling.

“You must be very tired, darling.”

The red lips a little parted. Margot said, “Oh ... no,” in a soft
whisper. The faint noise died in the sun like the passage of a moth.
Olive stood fixed before the sleek tranquillity of the black hair
and the contented face. The restless stirring was gone. She smiled
in beautiful contentment. The gold cord which was the girdle of this
velvet gown hung brilliant and rich about the straight body. The sunny
room made a shell of colour for the figure. The hair had a dazzling
margin against the windows. She was untroubled, happy.

Olive dragged at her own girdle, biting her lips. She asked, “Where is
Mr. Rand, dear?”

“He was coming to New York today,” Margot said in the same voice.
She lifted an end of the trailing gold, then let it fall. She seemed
asleep, lost in a visible dream. But she roused and spoke, “He’s loved
me ever so long, Olive. I didn’t know....” and was still again. Olive
choked before this happiness, turned and went down the stairs. There
was no use in artifice, reasoning. Mark must accept what was done.
His good sense would come back, the shock would ease into regret. His
convention was outraged, of course. It was dreadful to see him in
pain. Olive thrust back her own pain, a vast and weary disappointment.
This wasn’t the man for the girl. This was senseless. She entered the
library and Mark raised his face from the long stare at the floor,
dreading Margot.

“Oh,” he said, “it ain’t your fault, Olive. Don’t cry.--I’m bein’ a
fool.”

He rose and walked again, began a circular tramp about the room. He
passed through a whispering tunnel, completely black. He was marching
in the dark and knew that Olive and Gurdy watched him, that Bernamer
came into the room with his hat in a hand. Yet he walked in blackness.
He would go mad of this! She had lied to him. She had thrown herself
to a married man. Well, girls did that. Things were changing. People
did queer things. He was jealous for Gurdy, that was the trouble. He
had wanted her married to Gurdy. She had said such good things of
Gurdy.--All this time she’d been lying. She was in love with this pink,
married actor.--The talk would roll among the restaurants, in the
offices. People would laugh. Awful names! All the other noises would
slacken and fail in this whispering. They would sneer when the Walling
opened.--She couldn’t care anything for him or she wouldn’t have lied.
Gurdy didn’t lie. Mark tore himself out of the black whispering and
went to take Gurdy’s sleeve.

“Don’t you mind, sonny. She--she’d ought to have told you she liked
this--”

“Oh, Mark, I don’t care about her.”

“All right to say that--but don’t you mind.”

Bernamer came across the room and took Mark in his arms. He said, “Now,
bud, don’t upset yourself. I got to go home. The fam’ly don’t know
nothin’. I shan’t say a word.--What you do is this. Get hold of Cora
Boyle and give her money to let this feller divorce her, see? That’ll
save talk and trouble.”

“That’s right, Eddie. Yes, good idea.”

Bernamer hugged him and left the room. Mark’s head cleared. There was
no black tunnel. Eddie was right. He must make the best of this. It
could be hushed up. Women like Cora needed money for clothes. He nodded
to Gurdy, “You’ll never be any smarter than your dad, son. Ain’t he a
nice fellow, Olive?”

“Of course, dear.”

“And I’m bein’ a fool. I know it. Only there’s lots of men that feel
like I do about these kind of things.--One o’clock.--You and Gurdy have
some lunch.”

Olive said, “Mark, would you like to talk to her?”

He cried, “No!--I--might say something. You folks go have lunch.” They
went away and at once he wanted them back, walked the floor with
his hands clenched. He was afraid that Margot might come in, now. He
dreaded seeing her. He wished her out of the house and away. The wish
bit him. He had been fooled. He had to love her, help her. Couldn’t she
go away? To the farm, where no one knew and--But they might find out.
They would shrink from her as bad. They weren’t knowing and tolerant
like Bernamer. He mustn’t stop loving her or let her see that he was
hurt. Nothing eased him. The afternoon lagged along. Gurdy played the
piano downstairs. Gurdy and Olive drifted in, out, consoling him. It
was sunset. A van full of boxes went slowly past the house and the
shadows on the pine were amethyst. Some friend of Gurdy’s came calling
in a yellow, low car that turned ochre as the light failed. Its lamps
made ovals on the street as it drove away.--He mustn’t let this sour
the boy.--In the darker room the whispering began again. It might be
the blood in his ears. Gurdy brought him up dinner and white wine.
Olive came afterwards and tried to make him eat, lit all the soft
lamps. He drank some wine and smoked a cigarette.

“Gurdy takes it well, doesn’t he?”

“Perhaps he didn’t care as much as you think, Mark.”

Mark laughed, “Awful cool outside. No, he’s bein’ brave to--cheer me
up. And I feel better, honest.... My God, Olive, if that woman wants to
make a scandal!”

“Don’t think of it, Mark.”

He was tired of thinking. He said, “I’ll try not to,” and smiled at
Gurdy coming in. But he now thought of Cora Boyle.--Perhaps she liked
Rand, wouldn’t give him up. He examined the rosy face, the trim grey
suits. Yellow haired. Perhaps these dark women liked yellow haired men
best. He was afraid of Cora. She could lie to her friends and make
things worse. He stared at a lamp a long time and his mind fell dull
again.

“Mark, it’s after ten. Go to bed,” said Olive, “Please, old man.”

“You folks go.--Not sleepy.”

They left him. He was lonely. He sat by the hearth and lit a cigarette.
Above him there was a slow noise of Gurdy strolling about, getting
undressed. The ripple of little sounds kept Mark company, then deserted
him. Mark shuddered in the peace of the lit room. Something worse would
happen. What? He must save Gurdy more pain. The boy was too young for
this. Mark’s throat ached suddenly and he began to weep, spent in his
chair. The lamps of the room swelled like luminous pearls melting and
through the mist came Gurdy in white pyjamas that flapped.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mark! Bed!”

“I’m scared,” said Mark, gulping, “Gurd, I’m scared of Cora. Suppose
she likes him? Suppose she won’t let go of him? She’s bad tempered,
sonny. You don’t know her.--It’s the talk--the talk. People ain’t as
broad minded as you and Olive think. The women, especially.--And she’s
a young girl.... It ain’t like she was one of these women that’ve been
divorced three or four times.... If Cora makes a fuss--”

Gurdy pulled him up out of the chair and gently shook him. “You must
come to bed.”

“All right.--Making a fool of myself.... Only, you’re in love with her.
It’s hard on you.”

“I’m not in love with her, Mark!”

Mark thought this a splendid sort of lie but he shivered. “Somethin’
else might happen. I feel.... Come and get me in bed, son.”

He became limply ashamed of himself. Gurdy helped him to strip and he
found the boy buttoning his jacket for him as he sat on the edge of
his bed. He watched the long, wiry fingers at work on the buttons and
the holes of the blue silk. The cold linen of the pillow caressed his
neck. He smiled, wanting Gurdy to stay there until he fell asleep. The
doorbell rang with a steady and ripping insistence.

“Damn,” said Gurdy and went into the hall where the cold air mounting
from the opened door chilled his bare feet. The butler ascended like a
shadow on the white wainscot.

“A Mr. Fuller, sir.”

“He can’t see Mr. Walling. He’s asleep.”

“He says he must see Mr. Walling, Mr. Gurdy.” The butler held out
his salver. Gurdy read the card, Henry Fuller. Fuller and Marcovicz,
Attorneys at Law. Under the engraving was pencilled, “For Miss Boyle.”

Gurdy walked down the stairs into the drawing room. A burly man in a
furred coat was standing by the Siennese cabinet running a thumb over
the smooth panel of its little door. The light made his grey hair
glisten slickly. He turned a broad, pleasing face on Gurdy and nodded.

“Sorry to get ’round here so late at night. Pretty important I should
see Mr. Walling right away.”

“That’s absolutely impossible. He’s ill and in bed. I’m--”

“Oh ... you’re his nephew, ain’t you? Mister--Bernamer?”

“Yes.”

The man nodded and undid his coat. He wore a dinner jacket with a
fluted shirt. Gay stones were blue in the soft pleats of the bosom.
He stated, “I’m from Miss Boyle--legal representative. You tell Mr.
Walling that Miss Boyle’s willing to not bring an action against Miss
Walling--Understand what I mean?”

“Yes.”

The lawyer continued his air of genial discretion, getting a paper
from some pocket. “Miss Boyle’s willing to overlook this business in
Philadelphia and not sue her husban’ or Miss Walling provided that
this play’s brought into New York by New Year’s Day and Mr. Rand is
featured--name in electric lights and so on. Soon as the play’s opened
in New York she’ll live with her husban’ again. Condonation, see? And--”

“Blackmail,” said Gurdy.

The genial man went on, “I’ve got a memorandum, here. All Mr. Walling’s
got to do is sign it. I’ll read it. N’York City, November eighteenth,
nineteen hundred nineteen. My dear Miss Boyle, In pursuance of our
agreement I promise you that ‘Todgers Intrudes’ will be presented in
New York City before January first, nineteen twenty and that Mr. Rand
will be featured in the usual manner. Yours very truly.--All he has to
do is to put his name to that and there you are.”

Gurdy hated this fellow. He rubbed a foot on the carpet and sighed,
then asked, “What’s the good of this? It’s a bad play. It’ll fail. Why
does Miss Boyle want this?”

“Don’t ask me. Yes, I hear it’s a bum show. I guess she wants her
husban’ featured. I don’t know.”

“If Mark--if Mr. Walling won’t sign this?”

“Then Miss Boyle’ll bring her action in the morning. There’s no
defence, either, Mr. Bernamer. Miss Boyle’s got a written statement
from Mr. Rand and testimony from his valet.”

Gurdy was sick, now. An unconquerable tremor made the muscles of his
back rigid. It was a trap. Margot was caught in a trap. He said,
“Blackmail.”

“No. Miss Boyle’s foregoin’ a legal right to bring her action. She
ain’t askin’ a cent of money. There’s lots of ladies wouldn’t be so
easy to settle with. Better see what Mr. Walling says, hadn’t you?”

For a second Gurdy stood hopeless. Then he said, “It’s a dirty trick,”
and took the paper. But he should keep cool. He smiled and inquired,
“You say you’ve got a written statement from Mr. Rand--”

“Got a copy with me. Like to read it?”

Gurdy glanced at the transparent typed sheet. He shook his head and
walked up stairs. Mark picked up the note as Gurdy dropped it on the
blue quilt, read it frowning. Then he flushed and his mouth contracted
hideously. He whispered, “Old trick! Happens all the time. I ought to
have known what’d happen.... Gimme a pen, sonny.” He signed his full
name, Mark Henderson Walling. There couldn’t be any more pain, after
this. He shut his eyes and fell through warm darkness. He could not
sleep but he must rest. He slept.

When Gurdy came back into the bedroom, Mark was slowly breathing, sound
asleep. The boy made the place dark and went up to his own room. In the
upper black of the hall some one caught his arm. Olive followed him and
shut the door. She had cast a black fur cloak over her night dress and
her grey hair was loose. She looked at the boy without a word, leaning
on the door.

“Blackmail. She sent her lawyer. She’s got a confession from Rand.
Mark’s signed an agreement. He’ll bring that play into New York and
she’ll live with Rand as soon as it opens.”

“Ah!... Oh, the cad!... Oh, Gurdy, take care of Mark!”

She walked down the hall. Gurdy followed her and heard her pity crash
into miserable sobs behind her door. He stood listening for a while
then raised his arm and pressed it against his mouth.




XI

The Walling


On Saturday afternoon, Olive and Margot started for Seattle. Gurdy
drove with them to the station and Margot spoke to him for the first
time since the journey from Philadelphia. She said, “What theatre will
dad bring ‘Todgers’ into?”

“I don’t know. It’ll be hard to find one.”

She murmured, “It ought to be a great success,” and Gurdy admired her
stubborn air. She sat stiffly in a suit of yellow cloth and walked
stiffly down the great stairs of the station, gathering eyes, moved
ahead of Olive and himself to the coach and stood in the vestibule,
motionless, uninterested when Olive drew Gurdy away to the edge of the
concrete and raised her veil.

“Mark need never see the child again unless--”

“Oh, he’ll be all right,” Gurdy decided, “but it’s been an awful jolt.”

The Englishwoman put a hand to her mouth which shivered.

“Awful.... Oh, I don’t know, Gurdy!”

“Don’t know what, Lady Ilden?”

“I don’t know that he’s right in sacrificing himself.... I don’t know
that he’s wrong. Chivalry.... I can’t understand how two people can be
such beasts as this woman and her husband.... Deliberate torture....
Isn’t it revenge?”

Gurdy didn’t answer but asked, “You’ll go on from Japan to--”

“South Africa. I’ve some friends at Capetown.... She’s that brutal age,
when it doesn’t matter if we get what we want.... Oh, my dear boy, this
is hideous! It’s revenge!”

“I don’t think so,” he said, “I saw Russell at the office this morning.
‘Todgers’ doesn’t open in Baltimore until Monday. He says that Rand
talked to him in Philadelphia before this happened and wanted Russell
to persuade Mark to risk bringing the play to New York and that was
after Mark had told him he wouldn’t bring it in. Russell thinks
she--Cora Boyle--is simply crazy over Rand. Russell’s seen a good deal
of them. He says Rand talked to her by ’phone from Philadelphia on
Tuesday. She may have put him up to this. I don’t think it’s revenge.
She’s got nothing to revenge. Mark’s always been decent to her.”

Olive smiled and then whispered, “Do take care of Mark.” A porter came
bawling, “All aboard,” and groups broke up along the train. Margot
swung and vanished into the coach. Olive said, “She’s stunned. She
won’t realize she’s been a beast to Mark for a while.” Gurdy mumbled
something about points of view. The tired woman cut him short with,
“Rot, old man! She didn’t play fair. She lied. Do take care of Mark.
Good-bye.”

Gurdy walked away and a clerk from Mark’s office brushed by him with a
papered load of yellow roses. The boy turned and saw Olive take these
against her black furs. She stood graciously thanking the clerk for
a moment, smiling. Then she stepped into the vestibule and the train
stirred. Gurdy walked on. The colossal motion of the crowd in the
brilliant station was a relief and a band hammered out some military
march by a Red Cross booth. His spirit lifted; the strained waiting
of three days was done; Margot was gone; Gurdy wouldn’t have to watch
Mark’s piteous effort at normality. He found his uncle alone in the
office at the 45th Street Theatre, studying a model for a scene and
swiftly Mark asked, “I sent Jim with some--”

“He got there.”

Mark sighed and rubbed his hair. Everything confused him. He hoped
Olive would forgive him for not coming to the station. That had been
cowardly. He said, “Ought to have gone along, son.... Afraid I’d say
something I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have let you do it alone. This is
worse on you than it is on me. I--”

“Mark, on my honour, I’m not in love with Margot!”

He lied so nobly that Mark wondered at him and brought out a thin
chuckle. “You’re a card, son!... If I didn’t know better I’d almost
believe you.... Well, take a look at this set. That left wall looks
kind of dark to me. It’s ox blood and it might light up with spots on
it. What d’you think?”

Callers interfered. Gurdy went down the stairs into the lobby packed
with women who came out from the matinée. All these decorated bodies
flowed left and right about a dull blue placard announcing, “Early
in December The Walling Theatre will open with ‘Captain Salvador’ by
Stephen O’Mara,” and some women paused, drawing on gloves, fussing with
veils. A slim and black haired girl stared boldly at Gurdy, passing
him. She wasn’t like Margot but he hated her for an instant and then
stalked up Sixth Avenue where the lights of restaurants roused in the
dusk and the crowd of Saturday evening brayed. In ten cool blocks Gurdy
captured his philosophy, held it firmly; Mark was unreasonably hurt--in
fact, Mark was an old-fashioned, unphilosophic fellow who hadn’t
progressed, was still a country boy in essence, hadn’t even gained the
inferior cynicism of his trade and friends. He was letting himself be
bullied by Cora Boyle on an antique concept. Why should he let himself
be laughed at and lose money for this immaterial thing? Gurdy succeeded
in getting angry at Mark and tramped about the blue library preparing a
lecture, saw a glove of Margot’s on a table and tossed it into a waste
basket. He could imagine Mark shedding tears over that empty glove and
its presence in the copper basket fretted Gurdy. He plucked it forth
and flung it into the fire of cedar logs where it made a satisfactory
hiss, blackening. It must have been perfumed. A scent floated out of
the fire. Gurdy grinned over the symbol and poked the remnant which
crumbled and was nothing. He stood reducing Margot’s importance to
logical ash and so intently that he jumped when the butler told him
that Russell was downstairs. The director strolled in and looked about
the room before speaking.

“Nice walls,” he said, “Well, Gurdy, I’ve just seen Miss Boyle.”

“Where?”

“At her hotel.--I’m mixed up in this and I thought I might help Mr.
Walling out. So I went to see her and had a talk. It didn’t come to
anything.” He sat down in Mark’s fireside chair, stooped his head and
brooded, “I’d a sneaking idea that this game was a sort of revenge.
Walling’s been good to her--done things for her. That might rankle.
Well, I pointed out that ‘Todgers’ is a waste of time. I did my best to
make her see that. It was funny.... She sat on a lounge and rocked a
cushion as if it were a baby--in her arms--Has she ever had a child?”

“I think not.”

“And she’s ten or eleven years older than Rand.... It’s no good. She
thinks he’s great in this play and she thinks it’ll run all winter
in New York. And there we are, Bernamer. She’s set on the thing. Mr.
Walling had better get it over as soon as he can. If he doesn’t, she’ll
be ugly. I’m mighty sorry.”

Gurdy blazed up in a mixture of wrath and impatience, “Oh, it’s all
such damned rot! Mark’s one of the best producers in the country and he
shouldn’t do this!... He should tell her to go to hell. It’s blackmail!
I’m going to tell him--”

After a moment Russell asked, “What?” and laughed kindly. Gurdy
shrugged and flinched before the laughter. The man was right. Mark
would go through with the beastly deal, wouldn’t consider risking
Margot’s name. There was no use in argument. He snapped, “Chivalry!”

“And you wouldn’t do it?”

“No,” said Gurdy, “No! It’s too thick. It is ironical. And he can’t
tell any one. Everyone’ll think he thinks this is a good play--worth
doing. The critics’ll jump all over him. They’ll--”

“The other proposition being that Miss Walling will lose her
reputation? She’s a young girl and not very clever or very
sophisticated, to judge by her talk. She’s read the smart novels, of
course. Quotes them a good deal.... You say you wouldn’t do this for
her? The world being as it is? Tell it to the fish, Bernamer!” Gurdy
felt weak before the cool, genial voice. Russell lit a pipe and went
on, “I feel the way you do. Only the world’s full of shorn lambs and
the wind’s damned cold.... Can you come to a show tonight?”

“Lord, no,” said Gurdy, “I’ve got to stay with Mark. He’s got to have
some one with him. Needs taking care of--”

Russell said, “To be sure,” with another laugh and went away. He sent
Gurdy the notices from the Baltimore papers after “Todgers Intrudes”
began its week there and with them a note: “Miss Boyle came down for
the opening. She is still sure this is a great play. Maternal feeling.
Rand seems nervous and loses his lines a good deal. He is probably
ashamed of himself. His English accent peels off now and then and he
talks flat Middle West American,” but the same mail brought a letter
from Olive Ilden, written at Denver, and this maddened Gurdy, as last
proof of Margot’s inconsequence.

“Dear Gurdy, The reaction has started. She is now certain that Rand
planned the whole filthy trick. She is so angry that there is nothing
left unsaid. He is a cheap bounder and a slacker etc. An actor can not
be anything else, she says. Everything is Mark’s fault or mine for
leaving her alone in Philadelphia. Do try to pity her a little, old
man. She has made a fearful fool of herself and knows it. The whole
thing is still horrible to me. I wish Mark had more humour or more
cold blood. Anything to help him through. I keep trying to remember a
quotation from Webster I threw at his head once. ‘These be the fair
rewards of those that love.’ It may be from Shakespeare. Did you try to
argue him out of making the production in New York? That would be your
logical attitude. But do take care of him.”

Gurdy tore the note up and went to pull on his riding clothes. The
frost had melted. Mark wanted a ride in the warm park. The boy thought
proudly that Mark hadn’t complained. He seemed quietly busy, arranging
advertisements for “Captain Salvador” which toured New England after
its week of Boston. Rumours of a triumph crept ahead of the play. Its
success, its investiture of light and colour would soothe Mark while
he still needed soothing. Gurdy rattled downstairs and Mark laughed at
him, “You look mighty well in ridin’ things, son!”

“So do you,” said Gurdy, in all honesty, and watched Mark beam,
settling his boots, the fit of his black coat. They rode into the empty
Park. Mark talked about horses and then about Gurdy’s brothers. One of
them wanted to be a soldier.

“You did that with your scar and all,” Mark said.

“Funny how easy a kid gets an ambition. Only thirteen. He’ll get over
it.”

“What did you want to be when you were thirteen, sonny?”

Gurdy strove to remember. He had probably wanted to be a theatrical
manager. He said, “I wanted to be a barber when I was nine or ten, I
remember that. And then I wanted to be an aviator--and now I want to
write plays....”

“Hurry and write me a good one, brother.”

Then Mark was silent. They cantered along in the creamy sunlight. A
great lady of artistic tastes reducing her weight bowed jerkily to
Mark from her burdened gelding and called, “Can you bring Miss Walling
to luncheon Sunday?” Gurdy saw Mark’s mouth twist. It needed courage
to call so easily back, “She’s gone to Japan.” But a hundred yards
afterward Mark reined in and stared at the sun, his face tormented.

“Sonny, I may have to open the Walling with ‘Todgers Intrudes’.”

“No!”

“Fact. I can’t take a chance with Cora gettin’ nasty. I can’t risk it.
And I can’t get a house for love or money. I tried to buy the show out
of the Princess last night. There ain’t a house empty.... I may have to
use the Walling--open it with this--this--” He slashed his crop though
the air, was ashamed of himself and sat chewing a lip. Gurdy could keep
his emotions so well covered just as he now hid and nobly lied about
his heartbreak over Margot. Mark’s sense of hurt swelled and broke out,
“Oh, women are hell! If they want a thing they’ll do anything to get
it! They--they scare me, Gurd! When they want a thing!... And look how
she treated you!”

“Oh, Mark, honestly, I wasn’t in love with her!”

Mark knew better but Gurdy’s brave mendacity cheered him. He grinned
and rode on. He must think of ways to make Gurdy forget the girl. When
they reached the house he telephoned the gayest folk he could find
and summoned them to a luncheon. He worked in a fever, keeping Gurdy
busy with new plays, ritual lunches at the Algonquin and motor trips
to country inns where they hadn’t been with Margot who somehow wavered
in Mark’s mind. He began to lose an immediate, answering picture of
her. It was hard to recall her phrases of later time. Things she had
said and poses of her childhood rose more clearly. She merged in his
perplexed hunt for a theatre. When he found, on the first of December,
that he couldn’t rent or beg a playhouse for “Todgers Intrudes”
he hated Margot for an hour and tramped his library in a sweat of
loathing. He must defame the Walling with this nonsense, finish his
bargain by dishonouring himself and his dream, for the Walling was not
altogether real. He roamed the shell where workmen were covering the
naked chairs with dull blue, in a haze. The smell of banana oil and
turpentine made him dizzy. The silver and black boxes seemed vaporous
like the mist of the ceiling when the lamps were tried on its surface.
He had moments of sheer glory through which came burning the thought
of Cora Boyle and Margot, in this queer alliance. His offices were
transferred to broad rooms by the white landing of the wide stairs in
the Walling. There was an alcove for Gurdy’s desk and here Mark told
him suddenly, “Goin’ to bring ‘Todgers’ in here next week, son.”

Gurdy paled, leaned on the new desk and flexed his hands on his fair
head. He said, “Oh, no!”

“Got to, son. I’ve tried all I know.”

The boy babbled, “Don’t do it!... Oh, damn it! You’ve been working for
this place for years and--It’s not worth it! Look here, let me go talk
to this damned woman!”

“No. I’ve got some pride left, son. You shan’t go near her. You go down
to the farm and stay with the folks.”

Gurdy wanted nothing more. All the pressmen and underlings were puzzled
by Mark’s maintenance of the English comedy on the road. It was not
making money. The theatrical weeklies had warned New York how bad was
“Todgers Intrudes.” Gurdy drove his motor down to Fayettesville on
Saturday, had a fit of shame and hurried back on Sunday. On the face
of the Walling the dead electric bulbs told the news, “Mark Walling
Presents Todgers Intrudes With Cosmo Rand” and Mark’s treasurer came
out of the white doors to expostulate.

“I don’t get this. Your uncle’s playin’ for a dead loss, Mr. Bernamer.
It’s no damn good.”

“Where is he?”

“Went up to New Haven yesterday. ‘Captain Salvador’ played there last
night. Say, what’s the idea? This ‘Todgers’ ain’t done a thing but eat
up money. Every one knows it’s a frost!” The man worried openly.

There could be no explanation, Gurdy saw. The critics would jeer.
Mark’s friends would chaff him. The boy patted his wheel and asked,
“What night does it open?”

“Wednesday, like ‘Captain Salvador’ was to. Honest, Mr. Bernamer, this
is hell!”

Gurdy drove off to a restaurant for dinner and here a critic stopped
him on the sill to ask whether Mark had gone “quite, quite mad?” Monday
was barren anguish, watching Mark’s face. “Captain Salvador” would play
in Hartford and Providence all week. On Tuesday there was a rehearsal
of “Todgers Intrudes” and Gurdy found a black motor initialed C. B.
when he came to the Walling. Workmen were polishing the brass of the
outer doors and the programs for tomorrow night were ready. Everything
was ready for the sick farce. On Wednesday morning Mark ate breakfast
with heroic grins and talked of playing golf in the afternoon. But he
hadn’t slept well. His eyes were flecked with red. Bone showed under
his cheeks. His black had an air of candid mourning.

“The best joke’d be if the damned thing made a hit,” he said.

“I think that would be a little too ironical,” Gurdy snapped.

“This is what you’d call ironical, ain’t it? Well, I’m going down to
the office for a minute. Don’t come. Send for the horses and we’ll go
riding about eleven.”

He walked to the Walling, was halted a dozen times and found the
antechamber full of people. Some had appointments. He sat talking
for an hour and then started downstairs. But he saw Cosmo Rand on the
white floor of the vestibule, slim in a grey furred coat, reading a
newspaper. The blue walls of the stair seemed to press Mark’s head.
He turned back into the office and sent for his house manager. When
the man came Mark said, “I’m not going to be here tonight, Billy. Tell
anybody that asks I’m sick as a dog and couldn’t come.”

“All right. Say, sir, would you mind telling me just why--”

Mark beamed across the desk and lied, “Why, this fellow Dufford that
wrote this is a friend of mine and he’s poor as a churchmouse. I
thought I’d take a chance.”

The manager shuffled and blurted, “It’s a damn poor chance.”

“Mighty poor, Billy. Well, the show business is a gamble, anyhow.”

Rand was gone from the vestibule. Mark walked seething over Broadway
and into Sixth Avenue. He must think of something to do, tonight. He
couldn’t sit at home. The flags on the Hippodrome wagged to him. He
went there and bought two seats. The tickets stayed unmentioned in his
pocket all the deadly afternoon. At six he said shyly to Gurdy, “Think
you want to see this tonight, son?”

“Might as well, sir.”

The “sir” pleased Mark. It rang respectfully. He stammered, “I got a
couple of seats for the show at the Hippodrome and--”

“That’s good,” Gurdy said, “We needn’t dress, then.”

But Mark sat haunted in the vast theatre, watching the stage. He had
deserted his own, run from disaster. The Walling revenged itself. He
saw the misty ceiling wane as lights lowered and the remote rims of
silver mirrors fade in the corners of the gallery. The glow from the
stage would show the massed shoulders of women in the black boxes. Cora
Boyle would be sitting in the righthand box. She might wear a yellow
gown. He would risk seeing that to be mixed in his dream. It was the
best theatre of the city, of the world. He blinked at the monstrous
evolutions of this chorus, peered at Gurdy and saw the boy sit moodily,
knee over knee, listless from grieving, his arms locked. The time
ticked on Mark’s wrist--The critics would be filing into the white
vestibule where men must admire the dull blue panels of clear enamel,
the simple, grooved ceiling and the hidden lamps. The yellow smoke
room would be full. He wanted to be there in the face of derision.
A dry aching shook Mark. It was like the past time when Gurdy first
went to school or when Margot had gone to England; the Walling was
his child. He had desired it beyond any woman. He adored it out of
his wretchedness. He pressed his shoulder against Gurdy for the sake
of warmth and Gurdy grinned loyally at him. There was no one so kind
as Gurdy who began to tell silly tales when they came home and sat on
Mark’s bed smoking cigarettes. In the morning the boy brought up the
papers and said gruffly, “Not as bad as I thought--”

“Oh, get out! I bet they’re fierce,” Mark laughed, “Read me some.”

Gurdy dropped the damp sheets on the quilt, glared at them and dashed
his hand against the foot of the bed. He cried, “I don’t give a d-damn
what they say about the play! They’ve no right to talk about you like
that!”

Immense warmth flooded Mark. He sat up and said, “Sure they have. For
all they know I thought this thing was fine.... God bless you, son!” He
wanted to do something for Gurdy directly. “Say, for heaven’s sake,
brother, those clothes are too thin for winter. We’ll run down and
order you some. And let’s go down to the farm. I ain’t seen dad and
your mother in a dog’s age.--And hell, this ain’t so bad, Gurdy. The
thing’ll dry up and blow away. We’ll bring ‘Captain Salvador’ in. I’ve
had worse luck on a rabbit hunt.”

But at Fayettesville where his father asked why Margot hadn’t come
to say good-bye, Mark was still plagued by visionary glimpses of the
Walling, half-filled by yawning folk, the black boxes empty. The flat
country was deep in moist snow. Snow had to be considered. Audiences
laughed nowadays at the best paper flakes. He talked to Gurdy about it
on Saturday morning.

“Pale blue canvas with the whitest light you can get jammed on it. That
might work.”

“Mark, if you couldn’t have scenery for a play would you--”

Mark scoffed, “What’s a play without scenery?--Hey, look at the red
car.... No, it’s a motor-bike.”

A lad on a red motorcycle whipped in a bright streak up the lane and
through a snow ball battle of Gurdy’s brothers. He had a telegram for
Mark from the house manager of the Walling: “No sale for next week.
Miss Boyle requests play be withdrawn. Instruct.”

“Got her bellyfull,” Mark said and scribbled a return message ordering
“Todgers Intrudes” withdrawn then another to the manager of “Captain
Salvador” in Providence. He told Gurdy, “Now, she can’t say a thing.
Well, let’s get back to town, son. We’ll have a lot to do, bringing
‘Salvador’ in next Wednesday.”

His motor carried them swiftly up New Jersey. Gurdy lounged and
chattered beside Mark who couldn’t feel triumphant though he tried.
The drive had been made so often with Margot and now he saw the child
in all clarity, her bright pumps and the silver buckles she so liked
stretched on the warmer close to his feet. Her older beauty flickered
and faded like some intervening mist. Pain stabbed and jarred him. The
snow of the upland gave out. Rain began. When they reached Broadway its
lights were violet and wistful in the swirl above umbrellas.

“God, what an ugly town,” said Gurdy.

“Ain’t it? Don’t know what people that like something pretty’d do if it
weren’t for the shows--and the damned movies.”

They dined in a restaurant and another manager chaffed Mark about
“Todgers Intrudes” leaning drunk on the table.

“And I hear it goes to the storehouse?”

“Yes ... but the show business is a gamble, Bill.”

“Ain’t it? Say, have you seen this hunk of nothin’ I’ve got up to my
place? Have you seen it? God, go up and take a look at it! I get a
bellyache every time I go near it. Turnin’ them away, though. Well,
here today and hell tomorrow.”

His treasurer came to meet Mark in the glittering vestibule where a
few men smoked forlornly against the blue panels. Mark glanced at the
slip showing the receipts and laughed, commenced talking of “Captain
Salvador.” His force gathered about him. Gurdy strolled away. A petty
laughter rattled out of the doors and Gurdy passed in. The lit stage
showed him a sprinkle of heads on the sweep of the seats. There was no
one in the boxes. Two ushers were rolling dice by the white arch of the
smokeroom. A couple of women left the poor audience and hurried by the
boy dejectedly. He walked out through the vestibule where more men were
collecting around Mark’s height and the swift happiness of his face
as he talked of next week. Gurdy marched along the proud front of the
theatre and turned into the alley that led from street to street. One
bulb shone above the stage door and sent down a glistening coat for the
large black motor standing there. Gurdy kept close to the other wall.
There was a woman smoking in the limousine. The spark made a heart
inside the shadow. Gurdy stared and was eaten by rage against her. He
stood staring.

The stage door opened. The few performers began to leave. They moved
up or down the alley to join the bright motion of the glowing streets
outside. Their feet stirred the pools of rain on the pavement. Their
voices ebbed and tinkled in the lofty alley. At last a slim man in
a grey coat ran from the door and jumped into the black motor which
moved, now, and slid away, jolted into the southward street. Gurdy was
moving, too, when other lights woke high on the brick wall. An iron
shutter grated, opening, and men appeared in the fissure. They bellowed
down to the old doorkeeper, “Ain’t them guys from Cain’s got here, yet?”

“They ain’t to come ’til eleven fifteen.”

“Hell, it’s after!”

The stage hands cursed merrily. One of them mimicked Rand’s English
accent to much applause. Then the great drays from the storehouse came
grinding along the alley in a steam as the horses snorted. The stage
hands and carters swore at each other. The vast screens were slung and
handed down. The fleet quality of this failure bit Gurdy. He leaned
dreary on the wall and saw Mark standing close to him, face raised to
the lights, an odd small grin twisting his mouth. Mark did not move or
speak.

He was thinking confusedly of many things. It was hard to think at all.
One of the stage hands whistled a waltz that people liked. The melody
caught at Mark’s mind and drew it away from the moment, forward and
back. He hunted justice. Things went wrong. People weren’t kind. Next
week the new play would glitter and people would applaud. Gurdy might
come to write plays, the best possible plays. He watched the wreck
melt. People would forget this. It would sink into shadow. No one would
understand but they would forget. It was trivial in his long success.
It horribly hurt him. He had been fooled in love. It was laughable.
Things happened so. One must go on and forget about them. One of the
horses neighed and stamped. A blue spark jetted up from the pavement,
above a pool.

“Here goes nothin’,” a stage hand yelled, letting down the last screen.
The iron shutter closed over the laughter. The carters whined and the
drays were backed down the alley. The rain fell silently between Mark
the red of the wall making it purple--a wonderful colour. The guiding
lights went out. Mark sighed and took Gurdy’s arm. They walked together
toward the gleaming crowd of the street. Yet feeling this warmth beside
him Mark walked without much pain.


THE END




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.







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