^PLAYERS/ 
 
 VIRGINIA ? 
 
- 
 
 vayjl 
 
MERELY PLAYERS 
 
STORIES OF STAGE LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 VIRGINIA TRACY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1909 
 
Copyright, 1909, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1906, 1907, by P. F. Collier and Son. 
 
 Copyright, 1907, by The Frank A. Munsey Company. 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by Chas. Scribner>s Sons. 
 
 Published, May, 1909 
 
TO 
 MY MOTHER 
 
The players come, the players go, 
 Out of the shadows they advance 
 To meet the laughter and the dance, 
 The light, the song, the happy chance 
 Of hero 's death or prince 's woe ; 
 They have their moment to entrance, 
 To lose the world or catch its glance, 
 Then they are gone; the lights sink low, 
 And to all you who cheered them so 
 They still are nothing but a show. 
 
 This is the humble voice and small 
 
 Of one who sat behind the scene, 
 
 Who saw the rough woof of the screen, 
 
 Pierrot in tears, the discrowned queen, 
 
 The hopes that faint by the high wall, 
 
 The luck that leaps it, unforeseen, 
 
 The common joys that kiss between 
 
 The tragic, tired shadows tall; 
 
 Who yet, at every curtain's fall 
 
 Said to her heart, "I loved it all!" 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE LOTUS EATERS . . . 3 
 
 A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 43 
 
 THE TAMELESS TEAM 65 
 
 IN AUGUST 89 
 
 THE PRINCESS KOSALBA 105 
 
 THE INTERPRETRESS 151 
 
 A DANGER OF DELAY 171 
 
 NOBILITY OBLIGES 193 
 
 ABOVE RUBIES 223 
 
 AN INDISCRETION OF His MAJESTY 247 
 
 THE CANDLE'S FLAME 257 
 
 THE PROFESSIONALS . 285 
 
 [Thanks are due to Collier's Weekly, to Scribner's Magazine, and to 
 Munsey's Magazine for their permission to reprint these stories. 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 
 
MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 THE LOTUS EATERS 
 
 4t A ND leaves me to starve," said Estella, cutting 
 /\ off a leg of the chicken and throwing it to the 
 nearest dog. ''Leaves me to starve in the gutter and 
 leaves Regina, his own flesh and blood look at that 
 child, Kate, look at her ! What sort of a brute could de- 
 sert a child like that? Was her mother's comfort, yes, 
 she was! leaves Regina without a rag to her back." 
 She absent-mindedly put a piece of chicken into her 
 mouth and leaned her elbows on the table. 
 
 ' ' I really don 't know what we shall do about the rent, ' ' 
 said Mrs. Donnelly. "When he came for it this morn- 
 ing he told Barbara he'd be back this afternoon, and 
 it's a hot day for anybody to be out, let alone a fat 
 fellow like him. You can't put off the landlord himself 
 like you can an agent, anyway. I could pay ten dollars 
 on account next Saturday night. If he won 't take that, 
 or your alimony doesn't come, I don't know what will 
 become of us." 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know either," said Estella. "It 
 seems such a nuisance to move. Speak for it then?" 
 "Woof! Woof!" said Dooley, the fatter of the Scotch 
 terriers "I thought we were going to be so happy here, 
 
 3 
 
4 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 too, when we first came. He seemed such a nice, unas- 
 suming sort of man." 
 
 Tony, who was washing the household linen in the 
 kitchen, put his head through the doorway. It was 
 rather a lordly little black head and belonged to a young 
 fellow of a slender middle height, motions extraordinarily 
 light and free, and blue, humorous, inquisitive, confiden- 
 tial eyes. Said he: "I beg your pardon, Estella, but 
 the big dishpan has it gone to heaven ? ' ' 
 
 "It's out on the fire-escape," replied Estella, ''with 
 gasoline in it. I put all the old gloves I could find into 
 gasoline this morning, so that if any of us should happen 
 to get an engagement, they 'd have clean gloves anyway. ' ' 
 
 Tony withdrew. He had not looked at Estella, but 
 at Barbara, the Beauty, who sat in the window-sill and 
 continued to look neither at him nor at Estella nor at 
 the riot of the dogs and the chicken-bones and Regina 
 upon the uncarpeted floor, but across the shining roof- 
 tops to the Palisades. 
 
 The mistress of this Harlem flat was Mrs. Baker, 
 Estella Cortelyou in stage life. Mr. Baker was divorced. 
 He was a prosperous person and paid a considerable 
 alimony, with which he was not always sufficiently 
 prompt. "With Mrs. Baker lived her infant daughter, 
 Regina Rosalys, and her younger sister, Barbara Floyd. 
 Also she had as summer boarders Mr. Anthony Regnault, 
 a young actor who seldom happened to be out of work, 
 Mr. Fred Donnelly, not much older, who seldom hap- 
 pened to be in it, and Mrs. Kate Donnelly, an elderly 
 typewriter, who had married a brother Donnelly, de- 
 ceased. All the boarders paid far more than their 
 board, when they had it, and nothing at all when they 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 5 
 
 had not. At the present moment, they had been some 
 time through lunch without having as yet cleared away 
 its remains, and Estella and Mrs. Donnelly, whose em- 
 ployer was away on his own vacation, had been regaling 
 the company with accounts of the Kussian coronation, 
 which they read from the newspapers that strewed the 
 room. Fred Donnelly, who was busy pinning the edge 
 of his tie over a spot he had just discovered on his shirt- 
 front, gloomily commented upon Estella 's last remark: 
 "I guess it'll be a long enough day before any of us get 
 an engagement!" 
 
 "You forget Tony!" said his sister-in-law. 
 
 "I ain't ever let to," Fred responded with some 
 savagery. "I can't you stop gorging on those papers 
 a minute ? They 're two months old. ' ' 
 
 "That makes 'em all the lovelier," replied Estella. 
 "Tony threw them off the kitchen shelf this morning, 
 and I felt so good to read it all over again. You feel 
 sure, then, that it's all true." 
 
 "Tony's generous with his old newspapers. That's 
 because he's signed for a job. But he don't begin till 
 November. November Lord! you can't believe there's 
 ever going to be such a month." 
 
 "Oh, we may all be working by then," cried Estella 
 in her voice of tragic fire. ' ' You can 't tell. You don 't 
 suppose we're going to go on like this, do you?" 
 
 "Not if we don't pay the rent, we ain't," said Fred. 
 "We'll have fifteen dollars the week after next, Bar- 
 bara and me, if we pose for those kinetoscope things. 
 But we owe all that now, in little bills. ' ' 
 
 "That reminds me, Tony," Estella called, "I wish you 
 could get both the tablecloths ironed by to-night, 'cause 
 
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 you can't do it to-morrow. No; they're going to shut 
 off the gas to-night; we had a notice from 'em yester- 
 day." 
 
 "Well, this fellow was just right," declared Mrs. Don- 
 nelly, glaring up from her newspaper; "this one that 
 refused to kiss the Czarina's hand. It's a nasty, silly 
 thing to do. They'll never catch me doing it." 
 
 "Nor me, I'm afraid," said Tony, reappearing with 
 a bucket that brimmed wet tablecloths. He paused for 
 a moment in the doorway and leaned there, exceedingly 
 comfortable and cool. Indeed, on this midsummer after- 
 noon, when the unshaded dining-room appeared alto- 
 gether huddled and tousled and hot, there was in the look 
 of this very competent amateur laundryman something 
 so tranquil, so airy and sylvan, that it might have sug- 
 gested a beneficent gentleman-dryad but for the absurd 
 great pipe which was hanging out of his mouth. "I'll 
 take these up to the roof now, Estella; I've just hung 
 out the smaller pieces. We can 't tell but that later Bar- 
 bara '11 help me take them down. But I do hope, Stella 
 Cortelyou, that the next flat we appropriate will have a 
 coal range. If we are to have no fire to iron with to- 
 morrow, how shall we cook?" 
 
 ' ' I suppose we '11 have to go out to our meals. I 've got 
 my wedding-ring yet. He can force me to part with 
 that, Tommy Baker can, but he can't force me to let 
 our child starve. ' ' 
 
 * ' That must be very disenchanting for Tommy, ' ' Tony 
 answered. "But I think I'll leap out with a chair or 
 two before it comes to our eating up your wedding- 
 ring, Estella." 
 
 Regina Rosalys, who was at that moment recuperating 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 7 
 
 from her wrestling matches with the dogs, said suddenly : 
 
 "Anny Bobs gah go ring." 
 
 "No, no, darling. Poor Auntie Barbara hasn't got 
 any ring at all. You lost Auntie Barbara's little blue 
 ring down the stationary washstand, don't you remem- 
 ber?" 
 
 "No, no, Anny Bobs gah go ring. " Regina's fat little 
 hands formed an oblong about the size of a cucumber. 
 "Big," she persisted, nodding. 
 
 ' ' She means that Indian bracelet, ' ' said Estella. Tony 
 looked anxiously and a little fearfully at Barbara, and 
 forgot to joke. At that moment the door bell rang. 
 Tony leaned back into the kitchen and pressed the little 
 electric' button which opened the street door. 
 
 "Oh!" cried Estella, "that's the expressman with my 
 money now." She rose and ran into the hall. 
 
 There was a waiting silence. Tony continued to lean 
 on the doorway and look at the girl in the window-seat. 
 She had gray eyes of a miraculous, deep clearness, but 
 she kept these turned away in a far-off quiet, profound 
 enough to strike cold upon a suitor's heart. Tony had 
 to content himself with the faint bright color in the oval 
 of her cheeks ; the pale rose of her faded and shrunken 
 cotton blouse stopped in a little drawn circle at her 
 throat; the throat itself was very white and regal look- 
 ing under the piled fairness of Barbara's brown hair. 
 One hand dropped, motionless, against her old gray skirt, 
 and Tony smiled to it wistfully. It was a modest smile, 
 under a trick of audacity. Tony was three-and-twenty, 
 and all women except Barbara had done their best to 
 spoil him, except Barbara, who had remained silent the 
 summer through before his love. By the community be- 
 
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 fore which so much of it had, perforce, to be carried on, 
 the love-making was encouragingly ignored, but the com- 
 munity was beginning to get restless, because from the 
 lady it received no confidence. The summer was sunning 
 itself away, and still Barbara rested, whether or not to 
 be wooed, passive, idle, enigmatic, lovely; and still 
 prayerfully, and with deft derision, Tony continued pub- 
 licly to woo her. Now, though he could not catch her 
 glance, his eyes spoke declarations twenty times a min- 
 ute, and formally proposed to her. They besought, com- 
 manded, laughed at her, adored her. Suddenly, when 
 there seemed least hope, she turned round and looked 
 at him. It was a very steadfast, searching look, and 
 Tony tingled and rejoiced to meet it. He lifted his head 
 happily, with a singular pride, and at the little motion 
 the girl put her hand sharply to her throat and turned 
 away. 
 
 ' ' He 's a long time coming upstairs, ' ' said Fred. 
 
 At that moment Estella ran back into the hall of the 
 flat and closed the door with the effect of a subdued 
 cyclone. 
 
 "It's not the expressman!" she called, in a shrieking 
 whisper. "The top of his head looks like the milkman, 
 and his bill's due." Tony laughed aloud. 
 
 "Tell him to come again," suggested Kate Donnelly, 
 still fortified by immersion in the coronation glories. 
 
 "Told him that last time," said Fred. 
 
 "Oh, well, maybe he wasn't coming here," said Es- 
 tella, listening a moment, and continued. "Maybe it 
 was only the janitor, after all. Once before the alimony 
 didn't come, and then it turned out the expressman had 
 brought it two or three times, only the downstairs bell 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 9 
 
 didn't ring, so to-day I asked the janitor to ring the 
 bell every time he went past, so I 'd feel quite easy. ' ' 
 
 The upstairs bell unkindly rang. 
 
 "Ssh!" hissed Bstella; " pretend we're out." 
 
 "Is he to suppose the downstairs door was opened by 
 a spook?" Tony whispered. 
 
 "Well, you needn't talk. You did it." She came 
 back into the dining-room, and sat down with infinite 
 non-rustling precautions. ' ' I 'm sure I 'd like to pay him 
 as well as anybody. Indeed, nobody has the horror of 
 debt I've got. I tremble with it when I wake in the 
 night. It 's born in me, I don 't know why. But I can 't 
 pay what I haven't got, not if I was to coin my blood 
 for it." The bell rang again. "Well, he can just tire 
 himself out at that," Estella added. "I should think 
 he'd know we'd have opened it before if we'd wanted 
 him." 
 
 Tony 's eyes overran with laughter. Begina threw her- 
 self into Barbara's lap, and Barbara put her face into 
 the black mop of Regina's curls, and began to whisper 
 a story to her. 
 
 "I wish I was out of the whole business," muttered 
 Fred: "out of the profession, I mean. I wish I knew 
 another durned thing to do. I had a chance to be a 
 dentist once, but I was too good for it then. When 
 that old aunt of mine in Ireland dies, I bet I take my 
 share of what she leaves and buy an interest in a busi- 
 ness. And when you're all down on your luck, you 
 can come to me, people, and I'll help you out." 
 
 "My share in that pneumatic tire '11 be worth thou- 
 sands of dollars by then," said Mrs. Donnelly, refolding 
 her newspaper. "They've got a backer for it now who's 
 
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 going to put it right on the market. Will Knowles says 
 there 's a fortune in it, and he 's an inventor. ' ' 
 
 "I was thinking the other day it would be nice to 
 invent something," replied Estella; "but I never get 
 mine finished, somehow." 
 
 The enemy without gave a final knock and ring, and 
 departed. He was pursued downstairs by the barks of 
 the terriers and the shrieks of Regina, who at that mo- 
 ment rushed, all three, into each other's arms. 
 
 "Look here," said Fred; "are you sure it wasn't Mr. 
 Bates, come for the rent ? He told Barbara he 'd be here 
 at three o'clock." 
 
 "Mercy! Look out of the window, Barbara, and see 
 who it was." Barbara leaned out and down, watching. 
 
 "Well, I vow!" said Mrs. Donnelly. "Do you know 
 what those Gostioffs, or whatever their name is, have been 
 doing? The Czar said everybody could make their 
 crowns out of silver-gilt, because some of 'em are as 
 poor as church mice, and those Gostioffs have been over 
 to Paris and had theirs made out of solid gold ! ' ' 
 
 "Who told you?" 
 
 ' ' It 's in the paper. And he 's just come of age, a while 
 ago, and paid all his debts." 
 
 ' ' Seems rather an excessive person, ' ' Tony commented. 
 
 Mrs. Donnelly made a little clucking noise to her 
 newspaper: "Tsu! Tsu! well, poor boy, he does all 
 he can." 
 
 ' ' Who ? ' ' demanded Fred. 
 
 "The Emperor of all the Russias," answered Tony, 
 laughing from under his eyelashes at Kate. "Kate's 
 very partial to him. I sometimes feel quite piqued. ' ' 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 11 
 
 "Well, I don't care. He's a very good man; he 
 wants 
 
 "They say," remarked Estella dreamily, "that she's 
 got a gold typewriter set with diamonds." 
 
 "It was the milkman," announced Barbara, drawing 
 in her head. 
 
 Estella had picked up an illustrated weekly, and she 
 now passed it with a tender smile to Mrs. Donnelly. 
 "Wouldn't Barbara look sweet fixed just the way the 
 Czarina is? Those pearl ropes I'll bet they're yards 
 long they 're just the sort of thing that suits Barbara. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Donnelly gravely regarded the Czarina's like- 
 ness. "She looks very handsome," she said. "I hope 
 she'll be happy. She's got a kind of a sad look. I 
 knew a girl once, a nice, pretty girl as could be she 
 looked something like our Barbara, too, only Barbara's 
 the handsomest of the lot had something that same 
 look at her wedding, and before the very first year was 
 out he had run off to Canada with a pot of money 
 he was a partner in a wholesale bicycle business and 
 another woman, and she, poor thing, had to take in 
 boarders. ' ' 
 
 Estella sat up, clutched her floating yellow dressing- 
 sack about her neck, and with the other hand shoved 
 back the toppling mass of her black hair. ' ' Well ! ' ' she 
 cried, "I'd like to know what you mean by that, Kate 
 Donnelly! I didn't think I should ever be insulted at 
 my own lunch-table by people talking as if it were a 
 disgrace to take boarders! You ought to honor me for 
 it, or any other honest way of making my living. I've 
 got my fatherless child to support, and I'm proud of it, 
 
12 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 and as God is my witness, I think a woman can be a lady, 
 no matter how little money she has. And if you mean 
 to insinuate anything against Tom Baker, I can tell you 
 that whatever my troubles with my husband may have 
 been and I think you might have had more considera- 
 tion for Regina than to mention a woman there never 
 was a breath against his honesty, and he never quar- 
 relled with but one of his employers in his life, that 
 would bring men he knew home, drunk, to sleep in the 
 office, and that diamond bracelet I gave him to get 
 the doctor's bill on once when he was out of work, he 
 went and got out and gave it back to me as soon as I 
 got my divorce!" 
 
 There was a glass pitcher full of lemonade on the 
 table. Estella helped herself to a long drink, and added : 
 "And even so, I shouldn't call you exactly boarders, 
 anyway. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Donnelly arose in trembling majesty and took her 
 hat off the mantelpiece. * ' I '11 send you my address, Es- 
 tella Baker," she said, "as soon as I get one. And you 
 can send your bill in when you like. I wouldn't speak 
 to a dog as you've spoken to me, and I wouldn't take it 
 from you if you were the Queen of England. And as 
 for calling us boarders, I should think you wouldn't, 
 with Tony working like a black slave, and Fred putting 
 off the butcher, and me paying regular every Saturday. 
 I wouldn't have stayed here to have my ears deafened 
 the way you screech, Estella Baker, for anybody but 
 Tony, that was the sweetest child I ever saw when I used 
 to go on as extra in the Amazon marches at his father's 
 theatre, before that sneaking hound of a Gillespie got it 
 away from him though I've worked hard here to help 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 13 
 
 you, and glad to do it, as you well know. I hope, when 
 I'm gone " 
 
 "Before you go, Kate, dear," said Tony, putting his 
 pipe on the mantelpiece, "we'd better clear the table, 
 or I fear Barbara will be forced to work. ' ' 
 
 Barbara rose hurriedly, but like a creature moving in 
 a sleep, and Mrs. Donnelly snatched up a plate with one 
 hand, and with the other pushed the young girl back 
 into the window-seat. "Stay where you are," said she, 
 and strode majestically into the kitchen. Her brother- 
 in-law, who had not bestowed so much as a glance upon 
 the previous debate, now lifted a newspaper in his turn. 
 "There's a cut of the Felix house," he said. "Down 
 below, you know, on Riverside Drive, the white stone 
 place. Good print, isn't it? I wish I'd gone in for 
 photography when I had that chance three years ago. ' ' 
 
 "I never thought I'd much care about having that 
 house, ' ' said Estella. * ' The windows come so low down, 
 I'd always be afraid Regina would fall out. Still, of 
 course, you could put wires across them." 
 
 "Forgot the tablecloths," cried Tony, running in and 
 snatching up the bucket. "None of you thought of 
 them, of course loafers! If I have a sunstroke on the 
 roof, say I died true." Tony peered into the pitcher 
 of lemonade as he passed it. "Oof! Little drops of 
 lemon. Nothing more spirited for the laborer, the poor 
 laborer, Mrs. Tommy?" At the hall door "I will re- 
 turn to you, Barbara, ' ' he said to the back of that young 
 lady's head, and vanished. 
 
 "Tony gone pok?" asked Regina. 
 
 "I wonder," said Estella, "if Tony's written those 
 words for Barbara to sing Sunday night." 
 
14 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Anny Bobs ta Rina pok?" Regina persisted. 
 
 "No, no," said Estella, "Auntie Barbara can't take 
 Regina to the park now; it's too hot." 
 
 "Too hot?" 
 
 "Yes; too hot. Make Auntie sick. Poor Auntie." 
 
 "Poo Anny; Anny Bobs ta Rina pok?" 
 
 "No; now, Regina, you're naughty." 
 
 Regina puffed out an under-lip and nodded: "Rina 
 awn do finey aws," said she plaintively. 
 
 "Oh, Regina, why don't you learn to talk plainer? 
 Oo bid dirl, ess oo is, oo bid dirl! You mostly know 
 what she says, Fred." 
 
 ' ' She said, ' Regina wants to go on the flying horses. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, darling, mamma hasn't any money for that 
 No, indeed, Barbara, car-fare and everything! You 
 can go on the flying horses when mamma gets an en- 
 gagement. Here here's a nickel. You can play with 
 that." 
 
 Regina turned the nickel over and over in the creases 
 of her little warm hand, and Fred returned to his former 
 statement "I guess it'll be a long day before any of 
 us get an engagement." 
 
 "I'll bet you anything you like," cried Estella, "that 
 I'll be starring in my own play before the year's out. 
 That play's bound to succeed, because it speaks right 
 to people's hearts. I wrote every word of it out 
 of my own soul. There isn't a line in it without a 
 throb, and yet the comedy interest's good, too. I think 
 Barbara '11 be quite sweet in that. She's a little tall for 
 comedy, but then . You know Dick Tannehill. He 
 says it 's the greatest play that 's been written in America 
 since 'The Banker's Daughter.' " 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 15 
 
 Mrs. Donnelly, who had been going to and from the 
 kitchen with the dishes, now swept away the tablecloth, 
 and Estella, still clutching the lemonade, and waving the 
 butter-knife, leaned back to give her free play. She 
 concluded, "He asked me why I didn't let Olga Nether- 
 sole have it." 
 
 "Well, dearie," said Mrs. Donnelly, "Why don't you? 
 I 'm sure you deserve a little luck. ' ' 
 
 "Well," said Estella, "I guess not. Nobody '11 ever 
 play that part but me. There's plenty of managers 
 would be glad to take the play, and put their own old 
 stars into it; night and day I'm afraid some one will 
 steal my ideas. If I could only get a good part in New 
 York and show people just once what I could do, there 'd 
 be plenty of managers ready to back me in my play 
 afterward ! ' ' 
 
 Fred yawned. "Stella," said he, "when you do get 
 an engagement, you quarrel with the stage-manager and 
 come home." 
 
 Estella planted her elbows on the table. "That's be- 
 cause they've got such old fuss-budgets of stage-man- 
 agers. I guess after I've sat up all night, wearing my- 
 self to pieces studying my art, I'm not going to be dic- 
 tated to by those ignorant things. It was mean of that 
 old Dawkins-, though, to fight with me, when I 'd had my 
 pink crepe dress made for their old piece, and I hadn't 
 even got it paid for yet. Wasn't that 1 a sweet dress, 
 Kate? I wore my real coral and gold belt with it, that 
 Tommy gave me while we were married. He always 
 said he did like me to look nice, Tommy did. I've got 
 plenty of clothes to take an engagement, if I could only 
 get one. I wish the dogs hadn't broken Whopper, and 
 
16 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 I'd ask her when we any of us were going to get any- 
 thing." 
 
 "We always ask her that, and she always lies. We'd 
 better ask her when the alimony 's coming. ' ' 
 
 Estella looked at the pieces of the broken planchette 
 which were scattered over the floor. "They looked so 
 cunning breaking it up and Tony would name her 
 that, ' ' she added, with apparent irrelevance. ' ' Hand me 
 the cards, Fred, and let me see if I can see anything. ' ' 
 
 As she shuffled the pack, her mind went back to the 
 pink crepe. 
 
 "If she likes to fix it over, I'll let Barbara wear that 
 dress to Helen Graham's Sunday night, and I can take 
 her blue waist ; you know, Kate, that one you made out 
 of the old pair of sleeves. ' ' 
 
 She looked cordially at Barbara, but the girl did not 
 answer nor turn her head. 
 
 ' ' She 's dreaming, ' ' said Fred. ' ' Love 's young dream, 
 Barbara ? Estella, do you see a dark man ? ' ' 
 
 "Let her be," pleaded Mrs. Donnelly; "maybe she is 
 really thinking about Tony." 
 
 "You make me tired, Kate!" said the fraternal Fred. 
 "You bet Tony can do his own love-making. You bet 
 he can look after himself. I wonder," he added in a 
 half -voice, "if she says things to him, though, when 
 they're alone. He keeps on so." 
 
 "You never can tell," Estella sighed. 
 
 "She might be very glad to have the chance of him!" 
 Mrs. Donnelly almost cried aloud. 
 
 "I guess my sister doesn't need to be glad of any- 
 body, Kate Donnelly, and he's very unsettled and ex- 
 travagant; I've always heard so." 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 17 
 
 "Oh, rot!" said Fred, getting in ahead of his sister- 
 in-law. "What of it? He's only a boy, and most of 
 the year he's more money than he knows what to do 
 with. I don't know why it should be worse for him 
 to throw gold dollars around than for anybody else to 
 do it." 
 
 "Slander loves a shining mark," said Mrs. Donnelly 
 sententiously. 
 
 Fred laughed. "Well, there's nothing so very shining 
 about Tony, except a first-class job with the great Engle 
 in the fall. But, of course, he's lucky to have that, at 
 his age; and I daresay it's his luck and his good looks 
 and those kid ways of his starts those notions. He's 
 really a corking fellow, Tony is, and straight, as far as 
 I know. But if he buys a girl a pair of gloves and I 
 don't say he doesn't like a pretty girl there's as much 
 cackle as if another man had bought her Fifth Avenue. 
 And he's too easy-tempered; he lets stories, get around 
 about him, things that matter. Look at that old gander 
 last week at Reilly's said it was Mrs. Rexal who got 
 him that part with Rexal, and you know what people 
 say." 
 
 "Oh!" said Barbara, "it's all cowardly. It's a lie." 
 ("Why, she's awake after all," laughed Fred.) She 
 turned in upon them from the window, and her live 
 voice broke into the room with its curious, little throaty 
 richness. "I I don't deceive myself about Tony. I 
 daresay he 's wild, I daresay he 's unreliable, but we must 
 all know that he was never base." Her face flushed 
 and paled, her hands clinched* in her lap. "We're un- 
 steady and extravagant ourselves, Estella, and what 
 we have done this summer, who would have given 
 2 
 
18 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 us any pleasure, who would have helped us, who would 
 have worked for us, what should we have done here, with- 
 out Tony? I remember all the time, even if we're only 
 a caprice of his, even if he doesn't mean a word he 
 says, we are his debtors a thousand, thousand times ! ' ' 
 
 The hall door opened, and they heard Tony banging 
 the bucket and whistling "My girl's a high-born lady," 
 as he went into his own room. 
 
 "My dear! my dear!" Estella warned her. 
 
 "That's right, Barbara," said Fred. "I tell you the 
 truth, I didn't think you had so much sense. There's 
 nothing the matter with Tony except a first-class appetite 
 for being happy. Look at him all this summer till his 
 next season 's manager puts a stop to it goes and makes 
 a darned jockey of himself, for ten dollars a week, riding 
 their plug steeplechasers in a backwoods melodrama. 
 Does anybody say a word for him about that ? Why, no. 
 You 'd think they all did it ! But he went to dinner at 
 the Waldorf last night with a fellow I know that had 
 made some money at Brighton, and a couple of girls, 
 and I'll bet you everybody on Broadway's talking about 
 it." 
 
 ' ' At the Waldorf ? Is that where he was ? " cried Bar- 
 bara. "Last night ! ' ' She leaned forward and stared at 
 Fred intently. Something in her accent recalled to the 
 assemblage their own last night's dinner; the little, hot, 
 untidy dining-room, and the scramble in getting the 
 dishes washed up, and the fact that the ice had given out. 
 Only Estella remembered for the first time that Barbara 
 had dressed her hair elaborately yesterday afternoon, and 
 had tried to press out her white lace waist, and had 
 scorched it. She remembered in the same flash that the 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 19 
 
 morning before, Tony had praised the stately habit 
 of dressing for dinner. She pushed away the cards, 
 and in her turn looked at Barbara, as Barbara was 
 looking at Fred. 
 
 "Was that where he was?" said the girl again. 
 
 "I'm sure he had every right to be!" cried Kate. 
 
 "I'm sure we should be the last to question that 
 right," Barbara said. 
 
 " 'Feathered like a peacock, just as gay,' " sang 
 Tony 's whistle, clipped suddenly by the sound of splash- 
 ing water. 
 
 "That boy's got his head under the faucet again!" 
 exclaimed Mrs. Donnelly. "He'll give himself neu- 
 ralgia. ' ' 
 
 "Why, Barbara!" Estella cried; "yesterday was " 
 
 "Oh, yes," she moved her hands helplessly in her lap, 
 "I was twenty yesterday." 
 
 "Oh, dearie! I'm so sorry! I never thought of it." 
 
 ' ' Tony never knew of it, ' ' said Kate. 
 
 "Why, no," Barbara replied; "why should he?" 
 
 ' ' Here he comes now, ' ' said Fred. 
 
 He came in as radiant with idleness as he had lately 
 been with work, and very fresh from his encounter with 
 the faucet, whose drops were still shining, bright and 
 cold, in his black hair. There was what Estella called 
 a divan at one side of the room ; Tony composed himself 
 upon its cushions with a fan and a glass of lemonade, 
 and lounged there, staring at the ceiling like a contented 
 child. He found a considerable diversion in teaching 
 himself to drink without changing his attitude and, 
 while he was acquiring this art, the talk tried to jerk 
 itself past his interruption. Everybody had been a lit- 
 
20 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 tie startled by Barbara's outbreak, everybody felt that 
 Fred would better have kept his knowledge to himself, 
 and a little uneasy bewilderment, as at a treachery to 
 Tony, shadowed more lively interests and quieted the 
 loud talk. They looked rather gravely at the profile 
 view which was once more accorded them of Barbara's 
 head. 
 
 "What's the matter, Estella?" asked Tony, glancing 
 at the newspapers. "Aren't there any murders?" At 
 the continued silence he lifted his head. "Hello! 
 What's the scandal?" 
 
 "You are!" said Estella. "The idea of you being 
 around here, anyhow, and me with a sister that's just 
 twenty!" 
 
 "There has to be somebody to watch Fred," said Tony. 
 
 "It's Fred's been giving you away. Oh, he didn't 
 mean to ! But he says you throw your money around. ' ' 
 
 "He wants to show you what a beautiful nature I 
 have," said the accused. He looked lovingly at Fred, 
 because he had black murder in his heart. He looked 
 with anxious stealth at Barbara, but Barbara seemed not 
 to notice. 
 
 "He says people say things about you," Estella con- 
 tinued. 
 
 "Slander loves a shining mark," repeated Mrs. Don- 
 nelly, with solemn emphasis. 
 
 "Nice Kate!" said Tony. He went and sat down on 
 the floor by her chair, and stroked her hand. "Good 
 Kate! Pretty Kate!" 
 
 "I'm sure," continued Mrs. Donnelly, pretending to 
 push him off, "nobody could be a better boy around 
 the house than he is. Could they, now could they? I 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 21 
 
 bet you'd all want him back, fast enough, if he went 
 away! I've known him since he was no bigger than 
 that," measuring about the height of a footstool, "and 
 never saw a cross word come out of his mouth, and I can 
 tell you, if this never having a cent is hard on us, 
 he's had more money to throw away when he was a 
 child on a rocking-horse than would pay this miser- 
 able old rent time and again, and not a complaint out 
 of him." 
 
 "Good Tony!" said that gentleman. He added in a 
 tone of profound conviction, ' ' Noble Tony ! ' ' 
 
 Estella studied him with her chin in her hand. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "you're a very sweet boy. But 
 you're Irish." 
 
 "I once had a father, Mrs. Baker, and he was French." 
 
 "Well, goodness, that only makes it worse!" 
 
 "Oh, dear!" said Tony drowsily, "where French and 
 Irish meet, and make a mixture that is not discreet. 
 That's for you, Barbara, who love the poets!" He 
 opened his eyes and stared sadly at his hostess. "It's 
 inelegant to display such a prejudice against the for- 
 eign, dear Estella." 
 
 "I hope you've written those new verses to Gus 
 Nevins' song, since you're so smart; Barbara won't have 
 time to learn them for Sunday night, Tony Regnault, 
 if you've put them off again, and she won't sing the old 
 ones. Mr. Nevins 's going to be there to hear her, Sun- 
 day, and he's going to sing, himself." 
 
 ' ' Dear me, how unnecessary of him ! ' ' said Tony. He 
 went back to the couch where his banjo lay, and began 
 to touch an air upon it as he spoke the lines. Certainly, 
 he looked at Barbara. 
 
22 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 " The sleeping princess quiet lay 
 And dreamed the empty years away, 
 
 Her love delayed; 
 
 And princes came and princes went, 
 And mighty kings magnificent 
 As they above her beauty bent 
 
 Were all afraid, afraid. 
 
 "And no man knew what word would wake, 
 Nor for what fortune's golden sake, 
 
 Or deed of love, 
 
 That shining princess would arise, 
 Unveil the kindness of her eyes, 
 And stretch the hand that he would prize 
 All worlds above, above. 
 
 " A beggar at the palace gate 
 Had a light heart to tempt his fate 
 
 And entered in; 
 
 He wished no other joy but this, 
 And this for death he would not miss; 
 He touched her sweet mouth with a kiss 
 
 She waked for him, for him! " 
 
 "Oh!" cried Mrs. Donnelly, "isn't that lovely!" 
 
 "That last line doesn't rhyme, Tony," said Estella, 
 with severity. 
 
 "Will you sing it, Barbara?" Tony asked. 
 
 "Thank you," she said. "It is very charming. You 
 were very kind to write it. But I don't think I shall 
 sing it. I don't think I shall sing at all." 
 
 Said Tony: "That pink thing you have on is very 
 becoming to you, my own. ' ' 
 
 "You mustn't call Barbara that, Tony!" cried Es- 
 tella. "It doesn't sound well. I can't have it." 
 
 "Not even when it isn't true?" Tony pleaded. "Not 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 23 
 
 even to please Barbara? If you'll move over a little, 
 Barbara, I '11 sit by you a minute. ' ' He secured to him- 
 self a part of the window seat, and remained there, 
 swinging his heels and playing "Daisy" on the banjo. 
 Barbara's slim young stateliness, aided by her trailing 
 skirts, made her look almost as tall as he, and far more 
 resolute. She seemed to him, as he studied her out of 
 the corner of an eye, to be very pale and very tragically 
 sweet. 
 
 "I'm glad, Estella," he said, "that you are begin- 
 ning to awaken to a sense of your responsibilities about 
 us. We shall be almost grown up in a minute. 'These 
 pretty babes went hand in hand!' you remember what 
 happened to their wicked guardian, Mrs. Baker, after 
 the robin-redbreasts had covered them with leaves? I 
 am afraid Barbara would be rather long for robin-red- 
 breasts ; she would keep them busy. ' ' 
 
 Estella smiled disdainfully. "You look like a yard 
 of pump-water, the both of you, ' ' said she. 
 
 "The each of us, Estella. And it's still incorrect to 
 be cross with my physique Napoleon was once slender. 
 Barbara's, to be sure," lifting Barbara's lovely wrist 
 between his thumb and finger, and critically regarding 
 it "Barbara's, to be sure, is no great shakes." 
 
 She did not smile, she did not even withdraw her 
 hand. Tony laid it carefully in her lap. "Cheer up, 
 Anny Bobs ! " he whispered. 
 
 At this moment the entire apartment was filled with 
 the roar of Regina 's rage. ' ' Mahmu a my nicky-Mahmu 
 a my nicky." 
 
 "What?" said everyone; "what is it?" 
 
 "Mahmu a my nicky! A my nicky! Bah Mahmu!" 
 
24 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 Fred was stooping over Regina. "Mohammed ate my 
 nickel," lie translated. Mohammed was the older ter- 
 rier. 
 
 "A my nieky," assented Regina. 
 
 "Ate her nickel? Heavens, swallowed it? It'll kill 
 him!" Estella fell on her knees and glared down the 
 throat of Mohammed, who wagged his tail feebly. "Bah 
 Mahmu!" cried Regina, beating the air and howling 
 lustily. "Amynicky! Mahmu a my nicky!" 
 
 "Do you think it'll kill him?" persisted Estella; 
 "was Stella's old boy? Did want doctor?" 
 
 ""Wa my nicky!" entreated Regina. 
 
 "It seems to me extremely forehanded of him," said 
 Tony to Regina. "You know you nearly ate it your- 
 self." 
 
 Regina stopped crying and stared at him. She began 
 slowly to smile and dimple, and presently extended a 
 hand. "Nicky," said she. 
 
 Tony laid a copper on her palm. "Penny," he said; 
 "not nicky. Nough." 
 
 Regina went over to Estella and pulled her arm. 
 "Mah-ma, nicky." 
 
 Estella closed Mohammed's mouth with her fingers 
 and kissed his nose. "Him eat nickels?" she inquired. 
 "No, I haven't got another nickel for you, Regina, I 
 haven't got Oh, don't cry. Here, you can have my 
 pearl heart. And here," reaching for a clean napkin 
 and a blue pencil from a crowded trunk-lid at her back, 
 "we'll make rag-dolly, shall we?" 
 
 Tony leaped upon her, and wrenched the napkin from 
 her grasp. "I would never wish to interfere with any 
 of your little diversions, Estella, ' ' said he, returning in 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 25 
 
 triumph to his seat, "but it is I who wash the linen." 
 
 "Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, oh, Lord!" yawned Fred. 
 ' ' What a deadly drag it is ! I wonder shall I ever work 
 again?" 
 
 "I wonder," said Estella, "why it's always us who 
 can't get parts? We can all act." 
 
 "Well," said Fred, "we could if we were let. But 
 the question now is Mr. Bates told Barbara he'd be 
 here, after that blamed rent, at three o'clock, and it's 
 about that now ; what are we going to tell him ? ' ' 
 
 "If I could only get a backer for my play " began 
 Estella. "Oh, I do wish you'd stop fooling with that 
 banjo, Tony, you put me out so ! " 
 
 "Say, look here, Tony!" cried Fred, "since you've got 
 a job coming to you I know it isn't the proper thing, 
 but couldn't you get something in advance from your 
 management ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh!" cried Mrs. Donnelly, "and start out in debt 
 and be all the season getting even ! ' ' 
 
 Tony looked hopefully at Barbara, but Barbara 
 positively frowned. 
 
 "Unh-unh!" said Tony, shaking his head at Fred. 
 "Nev-er bor-row from the man-age-ment. If you do, 
 you'll never save a cent" he struck a discreet tinkle 
 from the banjo, and added: "In the mean-time, who 
 will pay the rent?" 
 
 Without turning her head round to the company, 
 Barbara said; "I daresay we shan't have to pay the 
 rent at all, if I marry Mr. Bates. ' ' 
 
 They were too surprised to speak, but as they grad- 
 ually recovered their breath they turned and stared at 
 her; all but Tony, who went on touching the banjo 
 
26 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 and looking at it carefully. Estella leaned forward 
 and knocked on the table with the handle of the butter- 
 knife. 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" she said. 
 
 Barbara put up one hand and smoothed her back hair 
 with deliberate fingers. "When I went into the hall 
 this morning to see if I couldn't inveigle him to go 
 away" Tony lifted his head quickly and angrily, and 
 frowned from Barbara to Estella "as I was asked 
 to do," Barbara continued, "he asked me if I would 
 marry him. Or rather he asked me to think about it. 
 He's coming back at three to to help us think about it. 
 He wants to speak to you, Estella. ' ' 
 
 "Well, I'm not going to have anything to do with 
 it!" Estella cried. "And you needn't frown at me, 
 Tony Regnault, for I was taking the curling-irons out 
 of the gas-range that very minute, or I would have 
 gone out to him myself. Nobody shall ever say I forced 
 her into it. I wouldn't wreck the life of my own sister, 
 not if he was to pay me for it in diamonds ! But God 
 knows, Tony, what's to become of her, the way 
 things are; for even if ever she can make up her mind 
 and marry you, you're all alike, you actors; I wouldn't 
 trust a girl's heart to the best of you, though it's true 
 'Jim Folso did take care of his mother till the day she 
 died I know that myself sent her ten dollars a week 
 year out and in; he's had to borrow it from Tommy, 
 many a time. No, sir, she'll have to decide it for her 
 own self, Barbara will." 
 
 And at this moment, as though by special arrange- 
 ment with a dramatic deity, there was a ring at the front 
 door. 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 27 
 
 "It needn't be he, you know," said Estella, confront- 
 ing a circle of stricken faces. 
 
 But it was he. Fred went to the door, and ushered 
 in a large, plump, blond gentleman in the elder middle 
 years. He had his coat on his arm and his hat in his 
 hand, and he was mopping his face and forehead with 
 a huge clean handkerchief. 
 
 "Good-day, all," said he. "No, don't trouble your- 
 self for me, ma'am," to Estella, who had risen, mute 
 and regal, and was schooling herself to the manner of a 
 dowager empress. He accepted a chair, however, and 
 looked around with simple confidence upon the company. 
 "It is hot ! When you come to my time of life, you feel 
 the stairs." 
 
 "You'll have a glass of lemonade, Mr. Bates," said 
 Tony. He had brought a glassful and his own fan to the 
 landlord, and the two men looked at each other as the 
 glass changed hands. 
 
 "Thank you," said Mr. Bates, "I don't object." 
 
 An embarrassed silence followed these civilities. 
 Tony had cuddled on to the couch again with his in- 
 evitable banjo, and the terriers had come forward and 
 were sniffing at Mr. Bates 's legs. Dooley drew back 
 suddenly and showed his teeth; Mohammed instantly 
 broke into a volley of shrill yelps. 
 
 "Knows I'm the landlord," tactfully remarked Mr. 
 Bates, setting down his glass and smiling jovially around. 
 He snapped his fingers at Dooley, "Nice boy, good fel- 
 low." The dogs thrust their bodies back and their 
 heads forward and continued to grumble and to growl. 
 "Well, I guess from what Miss Barbara told me this 
 morning, you didn't want to see me to-day." 
 
28 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "I'll be frank with you, Mr. Bates," said Estella. 
 "My allowance hasn't come yet. God is my witness, I 
 expected it the day before yesterday. Though why I 
 should expect it from a man that forsakes his own child, 
 and that I never would have married if I hadn't been 
 infatuated with him a girl's infatuation, Mr. Bates, 
 you know what that is I don't know. But I was so 
 sure it would come to-day, while that lace sale was on 
 at Siegel & Cooper's I thought of dressing to be ready 
 right after lunch didn't I, Barbara? But it hasn't 
 come. I'm sure you're the last man, Mr. Bates, that 
 would want me to take the bread out of my child's 
 mouth. ' ' 
 
 "Must be a pretty mean man," said Mr. Bates; "won't 
 send money to keep his own little girl. But you know, 
 Mrs. Baker, I know people talk, especially the Irish, but 
 owners have to make their property pay, someways. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, well," said Estella, "after all, this isn't a flat 
 you could really expect much rent for. If I'd had my 
 money this month, there 's a lot of things I 'd have spoken 
 to you about. We haven't any awnings, for one thing, 
 and it makes the place like a bake-oven, and it makes it 
 look like a tenement ; though, for that matter, there isn 't 
 a tenement but what has awnings. And that woman in 
 the flat over us, you'll have to speak to her. She says 
 insulting things about my dogs, down the airshaft. Yes, 
 she does ; she means to insult me, because I told her she 
 ought to be ashamed to let her parrot use such language. 
 I couldn't let Regina listen to it, Mr. Bates, indeed I 
 couldn't. And the storeroom leaks, or a pipe's burst 
 in it, or something, and I shan't pay my rent at all if 
 my Saratoga trunk is -damaged, for there's a lot of ward- 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 29 
 
 robe in it, and things no money could replace. My white 
 satin I only wore it two weeks is in there, and my 
 husband's miniature's in that trunk. I shouldn't like 
 to see that damaged." 
 
 "Well, well," said Mr. Bates, heartlessly putting the 
 miniature of Mr. Baker to one side : "I guess you know 
 it isn 't altogether about the rent I came. I guess maybe 
 Miss Barbara's told you about what I said to her this 
 morning. No, ma'am, no, gent 'men, don't go. I know 
 it's not the usual thing, but you've always seemed sort 
 of like a family here, and I know you'll all talk about 
 it when I'm gone, so might's well have it now. And 
 I'm counting that maybe you'll kind of help me out. 
 I'm not supposing" he turned a pair of patient eyes 
 on Barbara, and the tame, kindly lovingness in them 
 seemed at once to shield and to caress her "I'm not 
 supposing Miss Barbara's what's called in love with me. 
 'Twouldn't be natural. But I think she might like me 
 if she came to know me and gave me a fair show. Es- 
 pecially when she knows more o ' the way people get along 
 than she does now ; she 'd see how different I 'd treat her 
 from the way a lot of men do that have got wives and 
 don't know how to use 'em. I always thought this was 
 a kind of a rough world for women, and I'd like to do 
 what's really right by one of them." 
 
 Nobody answered, but Tony lifted a long grave look 
 to his. 
 
 "And so I thought," continued Mr. Bates, "that some 
 of you who haven't such fancy ideas as it's natural 
 enough she's got, would speak to her, and tell her that 
 if if you don't see something as pretty as you'd like, 
 it's best to take something that's all wool." 
 
30 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 He was greatly pleased at this flower of speech, and 
 looked up quickly and brightly at Barbara, and Barbara 
 smiled. She had a slow smile of infinite possibilities, 
 and Mr. Bates looked at it a little before he proceeded : 
 ' ' I 've got money ; a couple of hundred thousand, one way 
 and another, and more making and I've got health and 
 good habits, and the store I set by her, you wouldn't be- 
 lieve it. Well, I guess she's kind of notiony and high- 
 spirited, and I don't seem much to her, but I'm relying 
 you'll tell her those are things make life comfortable 
 and worth having just the same; and I should think 
 you, Mrs. Baker, that's had your own troubles in 
 your time, would feel kind o' scared to have anything 
 so pretty and so kind of high-headed and proud, around 
 like this." 
 
 "God is my witness, Mr. Bates " began Estella lean- 
 ing forward. 
 
 "Not," hurriedly continued the suitor, "not as I've 
 got anything to say against your profession. Those that 
 like it why, let 'em, I say. But it ain't the life for a 
 woman, is it ? Now, is it ? Nor, I shouldn 't think my- 
 self, for a man either. I don't mean any disrespect, 
 but it does seem to me a lady like Miss Barbara's got 
 something more coming to her than this, and what's 
 more," he added, meditatively, "it seems like it don't 
 pay." 
 
 Tony, who was leaning on his knees with his chin in 
 his hands, lifted his guileless eyes, and said sweetly; 
 "It's only fair to the profession, Mr. Bates, to tell you 
 that we are not its most victorious exponents. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Likely, likely, ' ' admitted Mr. Bates, a little mystified. 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 31 
 
 "But we can keep a woman out of it, Mr. Reeno, and 
 take her clean away from all this stage business." 
 
 "You don't think," inquired Tony this was the only 
 base advantage Tony took "you don't think she ought 
 to have anything to say about it, herself the being 
 taken clean away from all this stage business?" 
 
 "Not when she's got a man to look after her," said 
 Mr. Bates, "and give her a comfortable home." 
 
 " Oh ! " admitted Tony, and confided a twinkle to the 
 flooring. 
 
 "Well, my dear," said Estella, "it's a very great 
 responsibility for me, and I don't want to urge you. 
 But if I'd married Mr. Fettercamp when he wanted me 
 to, we'd all be rolling in our own carriages this minute. 
 There was his sister married an Italian prince, and she 
 wasn't a circumstance to Barbara. She's dead, now, 
 poor girl, but she married him. But, no, I would have 
 Tommy Baker because I loved him indeed, I did, Bar- 
 bara Floyd, I loved him madly but there's no use mar- 
 rying for love when you can't even be sure he'll send 
 you your alimony right. And because I wrecked my 
 life, Barbara, I'd like to see you marry somebody 
 worthy. I'd say the same if it was Regina. Regina 
 Regina Baker, don 't you put that penny in your mouth. 
 Come here come here to mamma." 
 
 Regina advanced slowly, and Estella gathered the curls 
 out of her warm little neck and hastily polished off her 
 face with a handkerchief. ' ' Don 't you know Mr. Bates, 
 darling? What do nice little girls say to gentlemen?" 
 
 Regina ducked her head, made an unintelligible sound 
 and extended her hand. 
 
32 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "How-de-do, miss," said Mr. Bates, shaking the hand. 
 " I 'm sorry I didn 't think to bring you some candy. Bet- 
 ter luck next time, eh? Why, why, you mustn't begin 
 to cry, little girl. Don't you want to be friends with 
 me!" Regina nodded. "Don't you want to grow up 
 and have a pony to ride, and learn the piano?" 
 
 "Awn go finey aws," said Regina. 
 
 ' ' She wants to go on the flying horses, ' ' translated the 
 patient Fred. "Merry-go-round, you know." 
 
 "And so she shall!" assented Mr. Bates. 
 
 Regina glowed with joy. "An Anny Bobs?" 
 
 "And Auntie Barbara?" Mr. Bates repeated after 
 Fred, "why yes, indeed." 
 
 Regina, in a kind of vacuous triumph, smiled around 
 the room and had an inspiration. ' ' An Tony ? ' ' 
 
 "Why," responded Mr. Bates hesitatingly, "maybe 
 he wouldn't want to." 
 
 A perfect torrent of joyous sounds, intended to be 
 affirmative, burst from Regina 's lips. In the vigor of 
 her confidence she flung herself upon the legs of Mr. 
 Bates and beat his knees. ' ' Oh, yef ! As time, as time, 
 aw lone, Rina an Anny Bobs and Tony go finey aws, 
 go roun an roun an roun, an Tony caw go ring!" 
 
 There was a suspicion of thickness in the voice of the 
 translator: "Once, last time, nobody else happened to 
 be there. Tony and Barbara rode, too, and Tony caught 
 the gold ring; you know, with those little blunt 
 swords. ' ' 
 
 "Why, he's a very clever young man," Mr. Bates af- 
 fably replied. 
 
 Regina smote his knees and shrieked with joy. "Oh, 
 yef!" she repeated, "an Anny Bobs gah go ring." 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 33 
 
 "You said it was Mr. Tony caught the gold ring, little 
 girl." 
 
 ' ' That 's what she means to say, ' ' said Fred. 
 
 "No! no!" Regina passionately insisted. 
 
 "Anny Bobs gah go ring! Anny Bobs gah go ring 
 now! Rina fine it." 
 
 "Well, well, Regina," Estella interrupted, "Mr. Bates 
 can 't talk to you all day ! ' ' 
 
 "I paid it her as a reward of merit. I assure you, 
 I gave the man a dime for it," said Tony, softly, with a 
 little blush. 
 
 Mr. Bates passed over the insignificance of Tony's 
 shabby boyhood with the good temper of a potentate. 
 "Well," said he, giving his face a final wipe, "I guess 
 I've said what I laid out to. I didn't come here to talk 
 soft. That part of it's just my business, and hers 
 if she '11 have it. ' ' He got up and took his hat and went 
 over to Barbara. ' ' Miss Barbara, ' ' he said, ' ' if you can 
 make out to like me like me well enough to have me 
 you'll never regret it." He held out his hand, and 
 Barbara gave him hers with her long boyish clasp. 
 Kate followed him to the door and let him out. 
 
 An unpleasant silence settled upon the company. Its 
 members were suddenly set face to face with decision 
 and responsibility; they were crowded and jostled and 
 made to feel strange and ill at ease, here, in the dilap- 
 idated cheer of their own home, by the encroaching wis- 
 dom of other worlds. Barbara continued to sit idly in 
 the blinding sunshine, like a person passive before the 
 issue of events and indifferent to it. The fierce light 
 seemed to set her apart from counsel and from tenderness 
 and to blare aloud her beauty. 
 
34 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 Estella, after two or three clearings of her throat, in- 
 quired with a kind of trembling pomp : "And what do 
 you think about it yourself, my dear?" 
 
 Barbara rose and came slowly to the table. She stood 
 stroking the edge of it with her hand, and finally she 
 said: "I'll tell you what I think. I think that if I 
 were married to Mr. Bates, I shouldn't have to run out 
 into the hall to ogle landlords to cheat them out of their 
 rent. I think I shouldn't have to pretend to be out 
 when the milkman comes, nor wheedle the butcher, nor 
 have the gas turned off. I shouldn 't have to walk out of 
 a hateful mess like this" Estella gasped "dressed as 
 if I were going to a beauty show, because I wanted work, 
 and into offices where I should be looked over as if I 
 were a horse. I think I shouldn't owe every stitch I 
 wear and everything I put into my mouth to my sister's 
 divorced husband. That's what I think. I think I 
 should be looked out for and taken care of and kept 
 away from hurt, as other women are ! ' ' 
 
 Estella began: "Well, of all the" 
 
 "And I think," continued Barbara, her voice rising 
 to a hysteric pitch, "that my husband would be re- 
 spected everywhere, and would work for me and be true 
 and good, and not depend for his pleasure upon a 
 friend's getting some money, and taking him out to 
 dinner with girls " 
 
 "Oh, oh! Barbara!" cried Fred. 
 
 It was such a good dinner, Barbara ! ' ' said Tony. Un- 
 questionably, his smile was coming back. 
 
 The dogs at the same moment began to quarrel over 
 a bone and their voices rose in ear-splitting dispute. 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 35 
 
 Estella cuffed one of them and the other carried the bone 
 into the sitting-room, from whence issued ecstatic lick- 
 ings and crunchings. 
 
 In the comparative pause Mrs. Donnelly's tearful in- 
 dignation burst upon Barbara : "We all know what you 
 mean by that last, Barbara Floyd," she cried. "And I 
 guess there are other people, besides you, in this house 
 that are sick and tired of being poor, and the fuss there 
 is about meals, and that have spent all their money on 
 you, and whose fathers were rich and famous, and 
 thought nothing of living at Delmonico's, before ever 
 you were born. If the butcher is swindled out of his 
 meat, I don't see but you eat your share of it. If you 
 think it's messy here, why don't you get up and clean 
 it? Tony's scrubbed the kitchen while you've been 
 lolling there, and you wouldn't know how to cook any- 
 thing but a boiled egg and a pickle to this day if it 
 wasn't for Tony. You're a bad, ungrateful girl, Bar- 
 bara Floyd, and Tony " 
 
 Estella pitched her voice above the voices of Mrs. 
 Donnelly and the dogs: "Don't you try to bully my 
 sister, Kate Donnelly, she " 
 
 Tony struck the table sharply with his hand. ' ' Come, 
 Barbara," he said. "We must get the washing down 
 now." He held the door open for her, and without 
 looking round she went past him into the hall. 
 
 At the head of the top flight of stairs there was a 
 door with a heavy, sliding weight, and Tony, who had 
 run upstairs in advance, pushed it open, and with a 
 wave of the hand, like a lavish host, welcomed Barbara 
 to the great, shining roof. It was very wide and hot 
 
36 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 and silent, and little airs that the sidewalk never knew 
 drifted over its cornices. Said Tony: "To where, be- 
 yond the voices, there is peace." 
 
 Barbara stepped out fearlessly between the glare of 
 the red roofs and the glare of the blue and golden sky. 
 With a happy breath she turned her unshielded face up 
 to the light. This stretch of gleaming tin had long been 
 their private garden, and they had known it in many 
 kinds of weather. ' ' Oh, Tony ! ' ' she said, in a little soft, 
 fluttered, laughing voice, "we needn't bother about the 
 washing yet, need we ? " 
 
 "Come," said Tony. "I've found a place where we 
 can see the river. I found it for us this morning. 
 Mustn't tell!" 
 
 "No," she said, and put her hand out to him, like 
 a child. "Show me." 
 
 Behind its newer and broader substitute an old chim- 
 ney rose out of the roof's western bulwark, from which 
 it parted company a few feet above the ground in an 
 angle of crumbling brick and mortar. Tony jumped into 
 the niche of this angle and held down a hand to Bar- 
 bara. "Step up and I'll lift you," he directed. She 
 was beside him in an instant, and found herself breast- 
 high above the parapet, which served as an elbow rest. 
 It was too broad to let them see straight down into the 
 common, cluttered street, and beyond the shops and the 
 low buildings over the way stumbled the vine-smothered 
 huts of squatters; past a bit of leafy, broken ground 
 the wide green of market gardens was dotted with the 
 gold of sunflowers and the scarlet of geraniums, a single 
 close-shorn lawn was banked with the white and the 
 mystic blue of hydrangeas. Further yet, between the 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 37 
 
 shimmer of poplars and the frown of purple hills, the 
 river flashed and drifted. 
 
 "It's good here," said Tony. 
 
 Barbara stretched her arm across the parapet as 
 though she stretched it into the coolness of fresh water. 
 "There's a yacht a white one; watch! Going down 
 the river! Let's pretend it's going straight to sea, 
 Tony what fun ! Across the sea. ' ' 
 
 "We're going with it, you know. Just ourselves, of 
 course, and a telescope, maybe, and plenty of honey 
 wrapped up in a five-pound note. All the little fishes 
 will come and beg us for the honey, and you '11 give it to 
 them out of your hands, till I shall be jealous. It isn't 
 nice to be jealous. I wouldn 't let even a little fish suffer 
 it, if I were you, Barbara Why, Barbara ! what foolish- 
 ness you talk ! And you don 't even hear me ! " 
 
 ' ' I wish I could see all this from my own window, ' ' she 
 said. 
 
 "Ah, but you can 't ! I had to show it to you, Barbara. 
 It was quite easy to find, but you know you never found 
 it." The little rosy ruffle of Barbara's sleeve lay on 
 the rough edge of the parapet, and Tony bent his head 
 and kissed it. "I was sure you'd like it here. Be 
 good," he said. 
 
 The voices of some children singing ring-games on 
 a near fire-escape rose with an accent of their own na- 
 tures to the two truants on the housetop. Otherwise 
 they seemed the only living souls in a universe made 
 up of two expanses; below them, the wide, sparkling, 
 burning roofs, with one distant fringe of leaves and 
 waters, and above, the radiant, hot blue, luminous and 
 quivering, and scarcely tinged by the white clouds which 
 
38 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 slowly sailed across it and banked themselves on the 
 horizon into palaces and temples. Toward the west, 
 where the sun blazed in a splendor that even the eyes 
 of lovers dared not meet, the heavens were almost white 
 not in pallor, but effulgence, like light incarnate. 
 Small, lazy breezes floated through the sunshine, and 
 brushed, fresh and sweet, against their faces. 
 
 "Barbara," said Tony, leaning forward and catching 
 her by both wrists, "where did Regina find my ring?" 
 
 She was startled both by the suddenness of his attack 
 and by the strength of his hold, and straining back upon 
 his grasp she remained alert and silent, like a deer. He 
 waited a moment, but she continued passionately quiet, 
 passionately studious of his face. In the pause, the 
 voices of the children arose with a new clearness: 
 
 " And on his breast he wore a star, 
 Pointing to the East and West." 
 
 "Barbara!" 
 
 "Hush!" she insisted. Her breath was fluttering on 
 her lips, and her eyes shining into his : 
 
 " Go choose your East, go choose your West, 
 Go choose the one that you love best." 
 
 "You kept that ring!" he said. "You kept it be- 
 cause of me ! ' ' Almost as he spoke she had leaped down 
 and away from him, and was running across the roof. 
 
 He caught up with her on the low platform of wooden 
 slats amid the flutter of the wet linens. 
 
 "Help me take these in," she called to him: "Estella 
 will be angry." She was struggling with the clothes- 
 pins, and their fingers met over a row of pillow-slips. 
 
 "They're not dry yet. Listen, I " 
 
THE LOTUS EATERS 39 
 
 "There's a breeze come up. It will dry them in a 
 minute." She was moving further and further away. 
 
 "Why, see, my sweet, you don't know what you're 
 saying;! I want to tell you " 
 
 "Oh," she cried, pausing oppressedly, "what does 
 everybody tell me? That you are idle, that you are 
 extravagant, that you that you that girls " 
 
 "Barbara," he said, "though they follow me in their 
 thousands and their ten thousands, though their dead 
 bodies strew my pathway, I will be blind to them. I 
 love you, Barbara." 
 
 She retreated again, making as though to reach the 
 door, and he stood still in a sudden bitterness, with a 
 little wound in the dignity of his love. The next instant 
 he was startled to see her, who was so light and true of 
 step, stumble and lose her footing on a broken slat and 
 sink down in a heap with her hands over her face. 
 
 He ran up and bent over her without touching her. 
 1 ' Oh, my dear ! " he asked ; ' ' what is it ? Are you hurt ? 
 Or were you angry? Would you like me to go away? 
 What is it?" 
 
 She lifted her face to his and put her arms around 
 his neck. 
 
 "I was thinking of you," she said. 
 
 Half an hour later as they still sat on the platform 
 the roof rang with their names, and from under their 
 damp canopy of tablecloths and towels they perceived 
 Estella in the doorway. 
 
 ' ' Come on ! " she called. ' ' Why, whatever 's kept you ? 
 Come on! The alimony's come, and we're all going to 
 Coney Island for dinner ! ' ' 
 
40 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Don't be so noisy, Estella!" said Tony. "We're en- 
 gaged. ' ' 
 
 "Really? Really, Barbara? Well, I'm glad of it- 
 Yes, Regina," she called over her shoulder, "come up. 
 Mamma's here. Well, I'm very glad. And I'll have 
 my white satin cleaned for her as soon as I can. How 
 jolly we're going out to dinner! Like a party for you, 
 Barbara. ' ' 
 
 "Splendid!" said Tony. "The alimony baked meats 
 did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." 
 
 He sprang up and handed Barbara to her feet. There 
 fell to the ground something Barbara had been showing 
 Tony a slender ribbon, as long as a watch-chain, and, 
 dangling from its end, a great, clumsy, ridiculous gilt 
 ring. Regina, who came staggering through the door- 
 way, fell upon this latter object with a shriek of joy- 
 ous recognition. "Anny Bobs gah go ring!" she cried. 
 "Rina awn go finey aws, go finey aws, go roun an roun 
 an roun ! ' ' 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 
 
 "^VTOBODY was further from my mind than Regal 
 1 i| Cocks, commonly called "His Shakes," when, on 
 a raw day in late October, I alighted at the little bare 
 depot of Steele, Michigan. 
 
 Hartaling, the tragedian, with his customary light- 
 some disregard for practical affairs, had had no heavy 
 man in readiness when Leffitt's notice was almost ex- 
 pired. Our arrangements had been made by telegraph, 
 and joining the company at Steele, I was to play lago 
 the next night. It was only recovery for me, and I had 
 acted with Hartaling before. 
 
 The company was late in getting in and I missed its 
 arrival. At supper time, as I was walking through the 
 chilly and almost empty dining-room of the town's one 
 hotel, somebody at a table waved a hand and called: 
 * ' Rogers, old man ! ' ' 
 ' ' Why, Lawrence ! ' 3 
 
 We had never been more than ordinarily friendly, but 
 a one-night stand is a very hothouse for intimacy. I 
 flung myself, metaphorically, into the arms of Norman 
 Lawrence and sat down at the place next his. 
 "Glad you've come; expected to find you here." 
 ' ' Expected to find you here, if it comes to that. ' ' 
 "Huh! Didn't leave Grand Rapids till noon." 
 "What a fool jump! No earlier train?" 
 
 43 
 
44 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 ' ' The Lord knows. Saved a couple of dollars on fares, 
 perhaps." 
 
 "The saints preserve us! Hartaling getting eco- 
 nomical ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, it isn't Hartaling; it's Freelman. He runs the 
 company. Says he's keeping the old boy straight. The 
 governor can't comb his hair unless he tells him to." 
 Freelman was the business manager. 
 
 ' ' How is the governor ? Getting portly ? ' ' 
 
 "No, but a little coarse in the grain. Telfair says 
 he's the healthiest Hamlet extant." 
 
 Telfair still playing juveniles?" 
 
 "Yes, and the heavy woman not within ten years of 
 her." 
 
 ' ' Who else is with you ? Anybody that I know ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' No, I think not. Except perhaps Nevins. Well, you 
 know Cocks, I suppose?" 
 
 ' ' What ! not Regal ? Not His Shakes ? ' ' 
 
 "The same." 
 
 ' ' Why, what 's Hartaling doing with him ? ' ' 
 
 "Supporting him." 
 
 I laughed, but recollections crowded out my mirth. 
 "Lawrence," said I, "that man's a mystery to me." 
 
 "Well, he isn't to me; I'm sick of his airs ugly old 
 bungler ! What 's he ever been but a hanger-on ? Booth, 
 Barrett, Adams, all these men he talks about and sniffs 
 at behind their backs ; what was he with 'em for? Why, 
 to go on in mobs, because they were sorry for him ! And 
 this eternal Shakespeare business it isn't funny to me, 
 Rogers, it's maddening. He hasn't got a patent on 
 Shakespeare, and, what's more, he knows no more about 
 the only William than my terrier does. He can bam- 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 45 
 
 boozle the boys by quoting at 'em all day long, but not 
 me. He doesn't understand ten lines of Shakespeare." 
 
 "I know," I said, "but that's it. Isn't there some- 
 thing interesting in a man making himself the high priest 
 of the Unfathomable?" 
 
 "But, Lord love you, he thinks he's the One Great 
 Fathomer ! He thinks he could teach Booth every time ! 
 He thinks God put him on this earth for the sole pur- 
 pose of interpreting Shakespeare!" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "you're sneering, but he does think 
 that. And he rolls out those great mouthfuls of tragedy, 
 just as he might roll out lines from Dante without un- 
 derstanding Italian, for the sound of it." 
 
 ' ' Ach ! You can take my word for it it 's pose ! 
 You can't make me believe a man's crazy over poetry 
 that won't spend fifteen cents for a drink! However, 
 since it'll flatter you, the liking's reciprocal. You're 
 one of the few people Cocks is willing to let live." 
 
 Before I could answer, two or three of the men came 
 in and then the heavy woman a Miss Marsh tall, thin, 
 with candid eyes, young and very serious. She ate 
 sparingly and soon retired. Almost as she left, Teresa 
 Telfair came in. 
 
 Miss Telfair was also tall, with a faded face, color- 
 less and pretty. She looked tired and rather peevish, 
 and her shoulders were muffled in a whitish woolen 
 shawl which she drew round her with something not 
 sufficiently decided to be called a shiver. There was 
 about her a sort of boneless, shiftless, wavy dignity 
 that somehow suggested an old silk waist. She acknowl- 
 edged my presence in a soft, fretful monotone, and con- 
 versation languished. I myself was nervous and un- 
 
46 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 comfortable. The ineffable desolation of a one-night 
 stand settled upon me like a cold mist. 
 
 Suddenly, as I was gulping down some pinkish tea, 
 I felt upon my shoulder a rather claw-like pressure, and 
 a deep, cracked, much-mannered voice of inextinguish- 
 able melancholy tolled out the words : ' ' Once again our 
 very good friend is with us. Not all the discomfort of 
 the day weighs with this hour." 
 
 I reached for Cock's hand, and he took the chair next 
 me. Lawrence rose to go, and nodded his head to me. 
 ' ' Coming in front ? ' ' said he. 
 
 "I don't know, but I may be around for the last act, 
 after I've finished up on lago, oh, but, sit through 
 Ingomar ! at this stage of the game ! Can I ? " 
 
 " It is a tale, 
 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
 Signifying nothing." 
 
 intoned Cocks with his funereal smile. 
 
 "Lord, Cocks!" fretted Miss Telfair, rising and pull- 
 ing at her shawl with a languid viciousness, "we get 
 enough of that in the theatre. Do let us have a rest 
 at meals." Cocks sat back mute. There was a sug- 
 gestion of the martyr in his manner which was inex- 
 pressibly irritating. Miss Telfair trailed from the room, 
 and His Shakes and I were left alone. 
 
 My friend toyed meditatively with his spoon before 
 he spoke. "Is it not wonderfully grateful to you," 
 he began, "to return to the fountain-head, Mr. Rogers. 
 To drink of the waters and to pass the cup to others? 
 Especially after the empty vulgarity that you have 
 known?" 
 
 "Yes," I returned, "it is. I think a man who is 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 47 
 
 brought up in the legitimate, Mr. Cocks, hankers after 
 it always." 
 
 His Shakes sighed. ' ' The legitimate ! I had thought 
 from your remark to Mr. Lawrence, my dear sir, you 
 were of the stricter faith." 
 
 I could not repress a smile. "Ah, well, Mr. Cocks," 
 said I, ' ' give other blank verse a chance ! Alas ! man 
 cannot live by the best alone." 
 
 His Shakes made a slight gesture as though he had 
 refused a dish. " To the nature alien from the Mas- 
 ter, there is food in the servants' hall," he said. 
 "Doubtless in this company there is a great drawback, 
 the character of the chief interpreter, a wine-bibber, 
 a witless Falstaff." 
 
 A stab of indignation wounded my pity for the man. 
 He was a pensioner on Hartaling's bounty, a useless 
 filler of a position coveted by better men, a con- 
 ceited, prating old ingrate. "Hartaling is my em- 
 ployer," said I curtly. 
 
 Cocks plucked at the tablecloth with thin, weak- 
 jointed fingers. His eyes were shining. "It is that 
 which so offends me," he replied. "The man is a 
 son of ignorance, a butcher, while you are, you you 
 love Shakespeare." 
 
 He said this last with a sudden simplicity, with a 
 flush and tremor that touched and startled me. When 
 I left Regal Cocks for lago, it was that last note of in- 
 disputable, all-excusing sincerity which remained with 
 me. I do not think it was my vanity which could not 
 dislike the man. 
 
 As the weeks went by, this sensation of pity, not un- 
 touched with admiration, indicated my habitual attitude 
 
48 MERELY PLAYER& 
 
 toward Cocks, and indeed I thought the company, as a 
 whole, behaved kindly to the old man. But then, though 
 he was weak and had a racking cough and life must 
 have been one long discomfort on his tiny salary, he 
 was always ready to do a service, and if his courtesy was 
 somewhat ceremonious, it was full of a pleasure which 
 gave it dignity. Get him away from his one hobby a 
 hobby that even beyond the ordinary engendered a super- 
 cilious aggression and he was as simple as a child. His 
 mind puttered about, continually, among roseate 
 dreams and little witless faiths. He could never have 
 known the meaning of guile, and at sixty his heart was 
 all romance. He went through life as blindly as he 
 had gone through Shakespeare, and as confidently; even 
 his little affectations were so natural it would have been 
 an affectation to subdue them. Now most of these pe- 
 culiar, pedantic old gentlemen are at heart egotists, 
 and encased in a panoply of conceit which our best di- 
 rected rudeness cannot penetrate; but His Shakes was 
 gentle, shrank before a slight, and must be approved 
 by everybody. 
 
 The gossip about him ran as to whether or no he was 
 a hypocrite; whether the Shakespeare matter were a 
 pose in which case it was not altogether without prece- 
 dent or a vitality, which seemed impossible. After 
 a time he answered that question to our satisfaction, and 
 this was the manner of the answer. 
 
 II 
 
 Our little-respected, much-liked star, Thomas Harta- 
 ling, was a gentleman who eared for nothing on earth 
 but what he called "his fun." On account of his blond, 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 49 
 
 heavy, showy beauty and huge voice, he had a certain 
 following all over the country and more especially in 
 the one-night stands; but he would sacrifice business, 
 reputation and even appearance to ' ' his fun. ' ' He liked 
 to break up serious scenes by guying, to play practical 
 jokes on newspaper men, to tease his audience. Worst 
 of all, he had an overweening partiality for the cup that 
 cheers and too frequently inebriates. Now, his chief 
 idea of "fun" was to make other men drink of that 
 cup with him. It is so detestable a trait that I scarcely 
 know how to account for it in that big, stupid, generous 
 heart, but it was there ; and almost to have incapacitated 
 a man of his own company, a man who bore a share in 
 a performance which raised or lowered Hartaling's own 
 income, was to him the best joke in the world. Many 
 and many a night he and his confederate would arrive 
 at the theatre almost as the overture began, and would 
 scuttle on to the stage with thick utterances and blotchy 
 make-ups. But this was mainly before Freelman's day. 
 Now, during the latter part of the fall and well into 
 the winter, Freelman had been keeping a pretty tight 
 hold on Hartaling. He was a lean little man, with a 
 keen, dry manner, and he had a wholesome influence 
 over the big barbaric duffer who employed him. It was 
 with considerable uneasiness that he left us on the 22nd 
 of December and went on to await us in Dennerton, 
 where we were to open with a Christmas matinee of 
 "Hamlet" and play three nights. It was not his place 
 to go, but Tommy Baker, the advance man, who had been 
 released only the week before to go to a funeral, was now 
 ill with the grippe, and Dennerton was a big place and 
 worth working. 
 4 
 
50 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 For a day or two Hartaling kept straight, and then, 
 on Christmas Eve, he came to the theatre in the condi- 
 tion Sir Walter Raleigh engagingly describes as "mod- 
 erate pleasant." Nevins was pleasant also, but scarcely 
 moderate. The rest of us were virtuously cross. Every 
 one was miserable at the thought of the night's traveling, 
 for we were to leave on the midnight train and to reach 
 Dennerton at six in the morning. 
 
 When we assembled in the cold, half-lighted depot, 
 every one was present except Hartaling and Nevins. 
 Reilly, the poor little stage manager, burdened with un- 
 sought responsibility, was fretting about the platform, 
 when, ten minutes before train time, a boy arrived with 
 a note, the contents of which Reilly was glad to share 
 with us. It ran : 
 
 " Take company through to Dennerton. Nevins with me. 
 Will follow by morning train. 
 
 " HARTALING." 
 
 I suppose the rest of the company thought as little 
 about the affair as I did until noon next day. People 
 who are doing one-night stands think as little as possi- 
 ble about anything. I entered the theatre at 1 :30 on 
 Christmas afternoon and found the atmosphere resolutely 
 gay and little presents flying about among the women. 
 Ten minutes later a vague and questioning agitation had 
 crept into the dressing-rooms and made itself felt by 
 scurryings and little silences. But the truth, when it 
 came, was none the less a blow: Hartaling was not in 
 town. 
 
 Gasp by gasp the story came out. Freelman and his 
 subordinate had met the noon train in vain. Telegrams 
 elicited the fact that Hartaling had not been to his hotel 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 51 
 
 all night. His whereabouts were still unknown. Nevins 
 was also missing. And in the front of the house the 
 biggest audience of the season was already seating itself. 
 
 About the time that the overture should have been 
 rung in, Freelman, pale and with twitching lips, walked 
 into the corridor between the dressing-rooms. He went 
 from door to door with a single question, and the an- 
 swer was invariably in the negative. Young Maltham, 
 who played Rosencrantz, was already making up in lieu 
 of Nevins for the ghost, but no one was ready with Ham- 
 let. In a company of legitimate actors, where were old 
 stagers ripe with experience, and young amateurs afire 
 with ambition, it still seems incredible, but it was so. 
 Presently Freelman came into my room, and found 
 there old Mrs. Mathers in her street dress, myself, a cou- 
 ple of the other men, and Tess Telfair, ready for Ophelia, 
 throned upon my trunk. ' ' Rogers, ' ' he said, ' ' can 't you 
 save an eight-hundred dollar house can't you go on for 
 Hamlet?" "Freelman," said I, "I could place any 
 line in the repertoire if you started it for me, but I'm 
 blest if I could get even rough perfect in Hamlet under a 
 couple of hours." 
 
 "Couldn't you wing it, Roggie?" asked somebody. I 
 shook my head. Freelman sucked his lips. One of the 
 boys sniggered. "Why don't you go to His Shakes?" he 
 said. "I'll bet he's up in every line." 
 
 Freelman looked up with his face working. Then he 
 went suddenly out of the room. Miss Telfair started up 
 with her hands clinched. "If they send on that old 
 man," she declared, "I don't put a foot on the stage." 
 She looked superbly angry; arrayed for the stage, she 
 was a different creature from the listless lady of the ho- 
 
52 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 tels. She was aglow with life and color, and something 
 primitive and feminine shone in her and glorified her 
 easy rage. 
 
 Freelman returned in a minute or two. "Cocks," he 
 said, with his odd, cold excitement, ' ' is going to play the 
 part. I rely on all the ladies and gentlemen to assist 
 him." 
 
 Tess looked at him. "You are going to make an apol- 
 ogy to the audience?" she demanded. 
 
 Freelman 's eyes shifted a little. "These are er 
 holiday people, not regular theatre-goers. They don't 
 er know Hartaling. " 
 
 "You are going to make an apology to the audience, 
 or I don 't put a foot on that stage. ' ' 
 
 "Miss Telfair " began Freelman through his teeth. 
 
 She continued, not more loudly, but with increasing 
 vehemence: "I am not going to be made more ridic- 
 ulous than I can help by playing opposite to any dodder- 
 ing old idiot that you may shove on because you can't 
 find your star." She collapsed into her ordinary man- 
 ner of private life. ' ' Get another Ophelia if you want, ' ' 
 she said. 
 
 "Oh! Tess, Teresa!" I cried, "don't be so unprofes- 
 sional!" I dodged both her look and Freelman 's and 
 leaving them to fight it out, went to see after His Shakes. 
 
 I found him in what should have been Hartaling 's 
 dressing-room, surrounded by willing helpers. The poor 
 old face had never looked so shrunken and the curls of 
 the blond wig seemed to leer at him. He had black 
 tights and sandals of his own, but Hartaling 's great 
 doublet hung around him in a manner that would have 
 excited the derision of a. guinea-pig. He looked so fool- 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 53 
 
 ish, frail and old that the great chain with the locket 
 seemed to weigh down his shoulders, and yet, at that 
 moment, he was the happiest man in Dennerton. 
 
 "You come most carefully upon your hour," he cried 
 out to me. "I am glad that you have come. Will you 
 walk with me to the stage ? ' ' 
 
 When we arrived there, we found that the gallant Tess 
 had carried her point and Freelman was just then step- 
 ping before the curtain. Freelman 's speech was very 
 brief. He said that Hartaling's train had been delayed, 
 that he would certainly be there for the evening's per- 
 formance, and that the character of Hamlet would be 
 essayed that afternoon by Mr. Regal Cocks. The usual 
 kindly flutter of applause followed the name, but a man 
 in the gallery crowed shrilly and raised a laugh. Cocks 
 himself did not even hear it. Freelman added that the 
 dissatisfied might claim their money at the box office, but 
 very few went out. An audience once seated wants its 
 performance, if not the better, the worse. 
 
 During the battlement scene, Cocks stood waiting for 
 the change of set with his hand on my arm. He was 
 nervous, not with apprehension, but with a heady, fine 
 excitement, and his eyes shone gratefully through tears. 
 He mumbled to himself a little, and then he said: "If 
 at the end they should require from me a few poor words, 
 it were not well to grudge them. I would dwell on my 
 apprenticed years, on the dear drudgery, on my great 
 love " His voice broke, and when he spoke again it 
 was with one of his sudden fine simplicities. "I do not 
 blush at my emotion," he said, "this is the crown of all 
 my life. ' ' 
 
 The inexorable slipping by of time went on, and the 
 
54 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 moment came when from my wooden throne I looked 
 down with an almost unmanning concern upon that 
 doomed enthusiast. The moment he took the stage there 
 went through the audience something too faint and in- 
 definite to be called a titter, but yet a something, and 
 that derisive. His cracked, melancholy voice intoned the 
 simple opening lines without giving much offense, for 
 they are not lacking who conceive of Hamlet as a Dead 
 March in a monotone, but he no sooner reached ' ' this too, 
 too solid flesh" than a surprised smile arose, and at 
 ' ' The king, my father ! ' ' which Cocks gave in an amaz- 
 ing guttural outcry and with an extraordinary crackling 
 of joints, a girl giggled aloud and two or three near her 
 sniggered. 
 
 I kept out of Cock 's way during his wait, but when his 
 scene with the ghost came on my curiosity got the better 
 of me, and I sat down in the entrance. I began to wish 
 we had never entered upon this anxious expedient, but 
 yet I had an interest in seeing it through. Of the scene 
 itself I have no words to tell. Many a burlesque is not 
 so funny, but the tragedy was what rose in my mouth 
 and tasted bitter. For here was a man, old, weak and 
 gentle, indifferent to his painful and ridiculous appear- 
 ance, divesting himself of the last rags of dignity, strut- 
 ting, mouthing, twisting and bellowing so that one 
 blushed for him ; for him, the devotee and martyr ! The 
 audience, even that audience, continually stirred and 
 rustled, and at his entrance with the sword there was an- 
 other burst of giggling. The curtain went down in quite 
 a little gale of laughter and applause, and when I took 
 His Shakes into my room to- rest I found, from his tri- 
 umphant tremor, that it was only the latter he had heard. 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 55 
 
 His skin was hot and dry, and he looked at me with 
 burning eyes. "Ah!" he said, "they are coming my 
 way! They needed but the guidance! At first they 
 knew not how to take me, but now they are set thinking. " 
 
 Their state of mind, truly enough, was changing. It 
 grew from a jesting incredulity to the good-humored 
 contempt of an American crowd; from that to a noisy 
 but still half-amused disgust ; and from that to anger 
 an anger to be reckoned with. By the end of the second 
 act an ominous silence, a portentous common under- 
 standing, had spread among the audience. 
 
 When I went on for the third act I was aware of this. 
 They were too tensely still, too polite; they were wait- 
 ing. After our exit, I stood in the wing gripping Tes- 
 sie's shoulder, uncomfortably eager for Cocks to enter, 
 and, even as I watched him do so, came the advance- 
 guard of the storm. He was greeted with a thunder of 
 applause ; above this rose the sound of men 's voices crow- 
 ing; in that corner of the gallery which I could see the 
 Growers stood up and flapped their bent arms like wings. 
 His Shakes bowed slightly. He disliked the interruption 
 and was puzzled by its form, but he did not in the least 
 recognize it. 
 
 "To be, or not to be " he began. A perfect yell of 
 "Not! Not! Nit!" stopped him. His Shakes looked 
 around the audience with a deeply speculative glance. 
 Even in the parquet men were laughing loudly, and some 
 few were joining in the crows and cat-calls. Here and 
 there a woman said, ' ' Oh, don 't ! " but with smiling lips. 
 His Shakes gathered himself together and went on amid 
 a rain of jeers, of laughing comments and mocking ad- 
 vice. His conception of the soliloquy was an active one. 
 
56 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 When he came to the phrase ' ' No more, ' ' he gave it with 
 a wild, whining bellow and a backward shudder that was 
 almost a leap. And at that the audience rose en masse 
 and in a deluge of cat-calls, hisses, whistles, Growings 
 and derisive yells the Hamlet of Regal Cocks, nicknamed 
 His Shakes, was drowned forever. 
 
 For at last he realized what all this was. Then in its 
 sudden sharpness, the poor old face seemed really to fall 
 in, and to leave unduly prominent the horror of his eyes 
 eyes so full of bewilderment, of shock and misery, of 
 reproach and anguish and surprise. And if any had 
 thought him other than a brave man, this was no time 
 for them ; he stood looking into that pit of howling faces, 
 and he went on again with his lines. Ah! poor "His 
 Shakes!" destined to be undignified even in heroism! 
 How he screamed, and shook with his screaming ! Above 
 the continued, growing tumult his voice, that was now a 
 sharp treble, could occasionally be heard: "Flesh is 
 heir to ... To die, to sleep . . . what 
 dreams " He stopped suddenly with one hand on his 
 breast and the fingers of the other trembling round his 
 mouth. Reilly, with an insane loudness which did not 
 carry, was calling, "Ring down! Ring down!" In 
 front, the ordinary, good-natured men and women were 
 turned for the moment to mere wild beasts, frenzied with 
 their own wit and daring, and were determined to let 
 nothing go forward. "Ring down !" yelled Reilly, danc- 
 ing and waving his arms. His Shakes heard and mo- 
 tioned a negation. He lifted his head and in a bray that 
 sounded above the din he shot out the words, "When we 
 have shuffled off Again he stopped; again he put 
 one hand to his breast and the other to his mouth. At 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 57 
 
 that moment Reilly's efforts succeeded; the curtain be- 
 gan to descend and, as it fell, His Shakes fell also and 
 lay, a strange little crumpled heap, upon the stage ! 
 
 Though confusion, uproar, reproaches, perplexity and 
 terror may have been as regnant before the curtain as 
 behind it, their subjects were not left long to doubt, nor, 
 if their inclinations that way lay, to triumph. While 
 people were still fumbling with their outdoor things, the 
 edge of the curtain was moved back, and, with a sudden 
 splendid gesture, Tess Telfair stepped before the audi- 
 ence. All in white, her heavy hair streaming over her 
 shoulders, her beautiful bosom rising and falling with 
 long puissant breaths, she was a figure to catch even the 
 complacent, victorious brutality of that crowd, as well as 
 its dazed distress, and set it gazing. With a single motion, 
 confident and free, she conquered every look and spoke. 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, "men and women, if 
 there are any among you who care to bear those titles, I 
 am here to tender you an apology and to offer satisfac- 
 tion. Your Hamlet, ladies and gentlemen, was turned 
 into a farce, but do not think you shall be defrauded of 
 your tragedy. The old man who offended you will never 
 do so again he is dying." 
 
 The audience drew in its breath with a sharp gasp. 
 
 "I have to say in his behalf that he was not a volun- 
 teer ; that he went into this afternoon 's trial at the com- 
 mand of his superior, as a soldier goes into battle. He 
 was doing his best. He was old he was ill. He did 
 what he did that you might not be disappointed of your 
 Christmas entertainment. I hope it may be a great sat- 
 isfaction to you that you have killed him ! ' ' 
 
 She stood for a moment gazing at them with her great 
 
58 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 impassioned eyes, and then she courtesied deeply and 
 was gone. The hushed audience gathered up its wraps 
 and slunk away. Once on the sidewalk, little groups 
 spoke quietly, but with consternation. Here and there 
 a woman's eyes filled with nervous tears. There was 
 many a Christmas appetite spoiled that day. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Behind the scenes the last act of the tragedy drew 
 simply to its' close. The supporting company might be 
 hysterical, but the chief actor was quiet enough, and had 
 at last achieved "repose." He lay in his dressing-room 
 upon a bed hastily improvised upon two trunks with 
 skirts and draperies. He was quite conscious when the 
 doctor came, and answered the grave "This is not your 
 first hemorrhage?" with a shake of his head. "The 
 third?" 
 
 The head of the aged Hamlet nodded indifferently, 
 his eyes closed, and he drifted into a faint. The mem- 
 bers of the company looked at one another. If he had 
 talked an insufferable deal about Shakespeare, he had at 
 least kept his own complaint out of the conversation. 
 
 The conscientious Miss Marsh spoke to the doctor in 
 the hall, and his answer spread like the cold breath of a 
 fog : " It is a question of a few hours. ' ' 
 
 It was not yet six o 'clock. Most of the company went 
 back to the hotel for something to eat. Tess, Miss Marsh 
 and myself stayed with the sick man. I had supper sent 
 in to us. Miss Marsh ate nothing; Tess and I touched 
 little, except the cocktails. Miss Marsh sat in one corner, 
 most of the time with her face buried in her hands, I 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 59 
 
 walked up and down the corridor outside and there was 
 no noise but the sound of my own footsteps. Over every- 
 thing there was an air of waiting. 
 
 About half -past six the backdoor man, stepping softly, 
 came to me with a bouquet in his hand. "A lady and 
 gentleman brought it," he said. "They hope Mr. Cocks 
 was not so ill as was first reported, and they begged to 
 assure him of their respectful sympathy. ' ' The respect- 
 ful sympathy of the man 's own manner was such that we 
 could not manage to look each other in the face. 
 
 When I brought the flowers to Tess, she began to cry. 
 It was the first time that I had ever seen her do any 
 thing of the kind and I stood by embarrassed. She laid 
 the fragrance of their soft bloom against his unrespon- 
 sive face and, "Do you think he'll come to, a minute, 
 Roggie ? ' ' she sobbed. ' ' Just a minute, don 't you think, 
 to see his flowers ? ' ' And then suddenly, ' ' Couldn 't we 
 make him believe " She sprang up and fetched me 
 her purse, ' ' Get more. Get a lot. All our own people '11 
 give you some money. Different bouquets, as if they 
 came from strangers. ' ' And she hurried me away. 
 
 It was going on for eight when I returned. Tess had 
 changed her dress and freshened her make-up, for the 
 duty of presenting an unruffled front to the audience 
 comes before all other duties whatsoever. I had made my 
 purchases with an eye mainly to quantity, and the bare 
 little room soon bloomed like a flower-show. But still 
 there was that hush of waiting in it. 
 
 The night 's performance was far gone before the mind 
 of His Shakes came back to his world, to bid it good-bye. 
 When, in response to such a rumor, I hastened to him 
 
60 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 from my exit, I found him wide awake among his flow- 
 ers; one bouquet in his hand and Tess kneeling beside 
 him with his fingers in her comfortable clasp. 
 
 "All for me? All from the public?" I heard him 
 say. 
 
 "Yes, from the public the educated people lots of 
 them have been asking after you. The ones that have 
 been to the theatres in New York they're ashamed of 
 those barbarians ! ' ' she cried. 
 
 And at that the breath of Regal Cocks fluttered with 
 eagerness; his wide eyes stared hungrily into her face. 
 "You think then," he whispered, "it was merely their 
 ignorance? You think if I'd played it on Broad- 
 way " 
 
 The actress looked me in the face, calmly and proudly. 
 "Broadway would have known that you were great," she 
 told him. 
 
 In the doorway behind me Hartaling loomed up, with 
 Lawrence and young Maltham in his wake, and she chal- 
 lenged their attention, too, as she said, "That's the way 
 the whole company feels, that you were great. Why, 
 it's genius, isn't it, that the mob always hates? That's 
 proof. You were the best Hamlet we ever saw, and it's 
 been a lesson to all of us in acting Shakespeare. Isn't 
 it so, boys, isn 't it ? Tom, you tell him. ' ' 
 
 "That's right, Cocks," Hartaling said. "The whole 
 company says so. They're going to give me some points 
 bits of business, readings, you gave. You were great. ' ' 
 Tess looked at Hartaling with tear-filled, grateful eyes. 
 
 But the pale face of His Shakes was alight with an 
 ineffable happiness, a kind of noble complacency. In a 
 weak and slow fashion that was still charged with some- 
 
A VOTARY IN MOTLEY 61 
 
 thing mannered and oratorical he began, "I endeavored 
 to do justice to " His voice failed, then with a little 
 smile he breathed, "His Majesty shall have tribute of 
 me." They were the last words we heard him speak. 
 
 And Tess just had time to read the news in the face 
 of the hurriedly summoned doctor when she was called 
 for the mad-scene. 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 
 
 THOUGH half-hour had been called, Miss Elsie Lee 
 had not arrived when Miss Victoria Marsh stopped 
 at the back door to get their key. That young lady, 
 knowing all there was at stake, proceeded slowly upstairs 
 and entered their dressing-room with a meditative step. 
 It was no affair of Victoria 's, but she was a fond friend. 
 The loveliness of the spring afternoon filtered through 
 the smear of paint over the window-panes which was sup- 
 posed to do duty for a curtain. Victoria flung up the 
 sash and leaned out. She was confronted across the 
 alley by blank walls of begrimed brick; the March mud 
 lay deep between; at the alley's either end there was a 
 faint clang of trolley cars and busy streets. But the air 
 was full of spring, stirred with it, fainted with it, and 
 whispered against human faces like a promise. Vic- 
 toria moved uneasily, wondered at Elsie, looked up, lin- 
 geringly, toward the pale brightness of the skies. When 
 she looked down again, it was because the alley was full 
 of oaths and of noises that squashed and slid heavily. 
 "The Tameless Team," she thought with amusement, 
 even before she beheld the two fat, drowsy, piebald 
 ponies that were placidly refusing to enter the theatre. 
 Boards had been laid into a slanting run for them, men 
 led them and men pushed, but the ponies, up to their 
 ankles in mud, turned their mild, cowlike eyes upon their 
 
 servants and stood still, " the 
 
 5 65 
 
66 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 dunderheaded hogs ! ' ' said the property man who was at 
 
 their heads; ''they never take a step, 
 
 em!" Victoria smiled. It was Elsie's Ned who had 
 called the title of "The Tameless Team" from an old 
 programme "The Tameless Team of Arab thorough- 
 breds driven by Miss Leonard in the third act are from 
 the celebrated Muskewon Stables, Delevan." That was 
 some years ago, when Miss Leonard had not been above 
 advertising her play like a circus. She did not like Ned 
 for unearthing that programme; she did not like Elsie. 
 Victoria wished that Elsie would come. 
 
 The wish recalled to her the lateness of the hour ; she 
 slid off her black street skirt that it might be pinned 
 across the window to shut out the daylight, and, as she 
 mounted on the sill with her mouth full of pins, she 
 perceived, turning the corner into the alley, the figure of 
 a very young girl, darkly dressed, light of movement, 
 pretty, with brown curls, and instinct with a small, shy, 
 shabby elegance. That was Elsie. Victoria observed 
 concernedly that Ned was not with her. 
 
 She turned on the gas and the electric lights and 
 plunged with such vigor into her make-up that, when 
 Elsie came in, she glittered with cold cream from her 
 hair to her collar-bone, and her severity was a little oiled 
 and softened by it. "Half -hour's been called!" she 
 said. 
 
 Elsie came forward unheedingly. There was expect- 
 ancy in her face, and excitement, and a vague fright, not 
 unhappy. ' ' He went, ' ' she informed her friend. 
 
 "Well," said Victoria, "so I supposed. He went 
 what then? Did he see Engle? you'd better get 
 dressed, it's almost fifteen minutes." Elsie began to 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 67 
 
 take off her things and hang them up. She moved a lit- 
 tle as though she were dreaming. 
 
 "He saw Olive Jervis," she replied, "and Mr. Jervis 
 introduced him to Engle. Mr. Jervis said that Ned had 
 the right personality for the part, and, if he could act 
 at all, he was the man they had been looking for. And 
 Mr. Engle he read Ned's letter of introduction to Mr. 
 Jervis Mr. Engle 's going to be here in Philadelphia to- 
 morrow night, anyhow, and Mr. Jervis is coming with 
 him to see Ned in his part." She hung up her dress 
 and sat down with her elbows on the make-up shelf ; the 
 gaslight gleamed softly over the whiteness and slimness 
 of her young arms and throat, and, glimmering higher, 
 disclosed the fact that her eyes were full of tears. 
 
 Victoria gave a long sigh. ' ' Well, it 's been worth it ! 
 Jervis has the complete say about the casts for his pieces ; 
 if he wants Engle to take him, Engle '11 have to. And if 
 ever Jervis sees Ned in this part Well, it was worth a 
 trip to New York, now that he's safe back. But I did 
 worry for you, Elsie. If he'd spent the money for the 
 trip and then hadn't seen Engle, or if he hadn't got 
 back here, in time for the matinee " 
 
 Elsie looked drowsily at her rouge-paw. "He isn't 
 back," she said. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Not yet!" 
 
 ("Fifteen minutes," called the property boy down the 
 hall; "fifteen minutes.") 
 
 "Then how did you know?" 
 
 "He telegraphed. I went to the station with him last 
 night, and when we found that if he saw Mr. Jervis at 
 
68 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 ten o'clock he could hardly hope to catch any train back 
 here before the 11.30, he said he would telegraph so I 
 would know how things went, before I left the house for 
 the matinee. I I had to know." 
 
 "Then," said Victoria, "he won't get into this city 
 until two o 'clock ! ' ' 
 
 "A little before two, and he isn't on till the second 
 scene of the third act. You know how quick he is with 
 his make-up. Of course I know, Victoria, that he 
 oughtn't to have gone. I think Miss Leonard would be 
 quite right to fine him, if she comes to know about it. 
 But one has to risk a fine, doesn 't one, when one 's whole 
 life depends on it ? " 
 
 "I suppose you do. And that letter to Jervis was so 
 strong how far's the depot from here?" 
 
 "About ten minutes." Elsie stuck the tip of her lit- 
 tle finger into her lip-rouge and began absent-mindedly 
 to trace the curves of her lips with it. "Victoria," she 
 said, "if he gets that part under such a manager as 
 Engle and you know if ever Mr. Jervis sees him in this 
 piece he has got it we'll be married at the end of this 
 season. ' ' She looked down at her little engagement ring 
 and up into Victoria 's face as though she had announced 
 a new heaven and a new earth. "We've got money 
 enough saved, if we knew he had signed for next season, 
 to have the whole summer to ourselves in the country. 
 And you know a play by Clive Jervis runs nearly a 
 whole season in New York, and we could have a flat, and 
 I never need go away from him to act unless I should 
 just want to, Victoria." 
 
 "Suppose his train should be late?" 
 
 "Victoria!" 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 69 
 
 "Suppose his train should be late and he doesn't get 
 here for the third act and Miss Leonard discharges him. 
 Then when Engle and Jervis come on to-night they'll 
 see somebody else in his part and hear he's been dis- 
 charged for neglecting his business ? ' ' 
 
 " Victoria!" 
 
 "You know trains have been late, Elsie." 
 
 The brown grease-paint that Elsie was heating on the 
 end of a hairpin melted over at this prospect and fell in 
 a nasty blot on the fresh little starched ruffles at Elsie's 
 breast. "There!" said Elsie, as though Victoria had 
 aimed, throughout, at this disaster. 
 
 ("Overche-w-er," screamed the property boy doing 
 duty for the stage-manager's invalided assistant, "Over- 
 chewer. Everybody down to begin.") 
 
 "Nearly two!" said Elsie. "His train's just about 
 coming in." 
 
 Victoria stifled a "maybe." "You're pretty late 
 yourself," she said; and she went over to Elsie and 
 let down her little knot of curls and began pinning them 
 into the way they ought to go. 
 
 She followed Elsie downstairs when the first act was 
 called and they came upon Miss Leonard, large, opu- 
 lent, and handsome, in the entrance. Miss Leonard was 
 so angry that the very jewels on her breast spit fire, 
 and she flung a scrap of conversation even to the two 
 girls. 
 
 "What do you think of their bringing those ponies 
 here at this hour?" she demanded. "To have people 
 falling over them and making them nervous and feeding 
 them nasty, dirty sugar till the third act Mother's 
 comforts ! ' ' she called to the ponies. 
 
70 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "I saw the men getting them in," said Victoria with 
 great demureness. 
 
 Miss Leonard, still seething at the universe, went back 
 to her dressing-room. The Tameless Team, from their 
 dark and remote corner, regarded her with a mild sur- 
 prise. 
 
 The curtain had gone up by this time and, as the act 
 continued, it could not be denied that Elsie was playing 
 with a distraught mind. At twenty-five minutes past 
 two she was free to run upstairs again, and she went a 
 flight higher than her room and knocked at Ned's door. 
 No one answered her. "Ned," she called, and knocked 
 again and pushed the door open. The room was empty. 
 The street clothes of the other young fellow who dressed 
 there hung on one wall, but Ned's were not there, only 
 an old red sweater, a brigand's cloak left from another 
 play and carried for an occasional curtain to the door- 
 way, and his stage uniform. Elsie felt that pitiful sink- 
 ing away of the universe with which our nerves acknowl- 
 edge our helplessness. The worst had happened the 
 train must be late ! The question was, how late ? The 
 hope contained in a mere number of minutes began to 
 rise in her as she leaned against the door-frame and her 
 drowning spirits caught at and floated with it. In the 
 infinite divisibleness of time suggested, for instance, by 
 railway tables, anything was possible; she remembered 
 long jumbles of trains starting and arriving at 7.09 and 
 4.03 ; they showed at what odd minutes things could 
 happen. A man need not be hours late because he was a 
 little bit behind time. Ned's train might have come hur- 
 rying in fifteen, seventeen minutes after schedule, and 
 he be now flying in a cab to save himself, or entering 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 71 
 
 the back door at that moment. She ran to the window, 
 opened it and looked out, and had as sharp a pang of 
 disappointment at the empty alley as though she had 
 just heard Ned's chariot wheels. 
 
 She lingered in the window, for it was warm in the 
 pale sunshine ; the air was gently fresh, and yet after the 
 hard winter it acted like a drug a dim, inattentive kind- 
 ness seemed to pervade the world, so that she could not 
 believe the cruelty of its emptiness to be quite final, and 
 the little birds that nestled in Elsie's heart began to sing 
 again. She was drowsy with spring air and with nearly 
 twenty-four hours of happy, high-strung and excited 
 nerves, and all her hopes and fears, and her whole ca- 
 pacity for feeling began to take on a tone of unreality. 
 It was like a dream that she should be standing there 
 watching for Ned Ned the protective, the independent, 
 the capable and gay there was something dreamy in the 
 look of the dusty room, lighted by that strange mingling 
 of gaslight and of sunshine, the make-up on the shelves 
 showing crude and raw in so much glare, the oddly as- 
 sorted clothes of differing times and countries dangling 
 unconvincingly on the walls, the quiet intensified by 
 fragments of sound from where, three flights below, there 
 was so much warmth and mellow brightness, and strenu- 
 ous, romantic action sweeping inexorably on, and round 
 the whole that other world of the street noises, and the 
 cool, indifferent sunny afternoon. 
 
 Victoria's voice sounded at the door: "Elsie ?" 
 ' ' Come on, ' ' she continued. ' ' You come down and dress 
 for the second act." 
 
 "He may come yet," said Elsie, following her; "He 
 has lots of time. ' ' 
 
72 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Oh, I guess so," Victoria answered, vaguely. 
 
 They met the stage manager on their own landing. 
 "Oh, Miss Lee," said he, "is Mr. Farnum upstairs?" 
 
 "No," said Elsie. "I expect him every moment." 
 
 "Well, in case I don't see him, I wish you'd tell him 
 Miss Leonard wants him not to anticipate his cue the 
 way he does. He enters on her 'That is my answer' and 
 it cuts right into her climax. ' ' 
 
 ' ' That 'a the cue in his part, ' ' said Elsie. " It 's always 
 been done that way. ' ' 
 
 "Well, Miss Leonard says he shouldn't do it any more. 
 He can take Miss Graham 's next lines and enter on that. 
 If you see him I wish you would tell him. He ought to 
 be here now." 
 
 " I '11 tell him, ' ' replied the girl, " I 'm sure to see him. ' ' 
 
 She had begun to wake, and while she changed her 
 dress two panoramas moved simultaneously and with 
 equal clearness in her mind. She saw the nine years of 
 Ned's apprenticeship, their obscurity, their drudgery, 
 their poverty, and suddenly this great light upon the 
 road, this door set wide a New York opening and the 
 favor of the great Engle ; and she beheld upon the other 
 side the emergency, the flight of time, Ned shackled 
 somewhere, helpless, and the powerful Miss Leonard 
 awaiting an occasion to destroy him. 
 
 ' ' Second act, ' ' came the noise of the call-boy above the 
 distant orchestral droning of "Reveries After the Ball" 
 "Second act." 
 
 When she reached the stage she found Miss Leonard 
 feeding the ponies with her maid at her elbow. "A 
 moment, please, Miss Lee, ' ' said the star, severely. ' ' My 
 stage manager tells me that Mr, Farnum isn't here?" 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 73 
 
 ' ' He has a whole act yet, ' ' said Elsie, speaking the top 
 of her thought. 
 
 "There was a notice put up on the call-board that 
 every member of this company was to be in the theatre 
 by seven-thirty for the evening performances, and one- 
 thirty for the matinees. ' ' 
 
 She spoke as though Elsie were in some way guiltily 
 responsible for this fact, and Elsie answered meekly, 
 "As Ned isn't on till nearly four, he thought possibly 
 it didn 't include him. ' ' 
 
 ' ' And I hope he won 't come bursting on in the middle 
 of my line any more," continued Miss Leonard, "but 
 will wait for the cue as he was rehearsed. Of course " 
 [the ponies, as they chewed the apples she held out to 
 them, spit and slathered over her hands, and as she 
 talked she extended these to her maid to have them 
 wiped] "Of course he gets a reception, or the situation 
 gets it, he's been talked about so much, and I have to 
 stand around like a dummy on my own stage. Good 
 God, Felice! Have you got pins in your hands? Oh, 
 yes, that ring always does do that. And where is he, at 
 any rate, at this time of day ? ' ' 
 
 "Why," said Elsie, "he went to the dentist's." 
 
 She uttered this astounding lie with the same bright 
 airiness that was instinctive in the gentleness of 
 her voice, the soft pride of her pretty movements. As 
 to how it came into her head or out of her mouth she had 
 no idea whatever, but the moment it was spoken she per- 
 ceived its possibilities of extension. Ned overcome by 
 gas, Ned fainting, unconscious and so blameless and she 
 caught her breath almost with a sob. 
 
 "Matinee day's a funny time to go to the dentist's," 
 
74 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 said Miss Leonard, and Elsie's leaping heart sank low 
 again and acknowledged the justice of the suggestion. 
 
 "He's been every day this week," she declared, 
 and gazed with an appalled and impersonal wonder at 
 her own mendacity. 
 
 "Well, I hope he won't come on to my stage smelling 
 like a hospital. Ahhn, angh, Naughty!" to the greed- 
 ier pony. "He'll get in here late, and come on with a 
 blotchy make-up. Tell that super to go away! Tell 
 him to go away. Orion will kick him ! ' ' 
 
 "Never in this mortal world," said Sammy Torrance, 
 the young fellow to whom this last appeal had been ad- 
 dressed. "Neither Orion nor Jupiter ever did anything 
 so forth-putting in their blameless lives." He cast a 
 glance after the slowly departing super and said: "I 
 am far more likely to kick him if he and his friends don 't 
 march a little faster in the Floral Fete. One of them is 
 always under my feet when Ned Farnum enters. ' ' 
 
 "Something was the matter with my carriage-wheel 
 last night," said Miss Leonard. "I thought we should 
 never get across. The way Potter runs that stage I 
 daresay he'll be delighted when we stick in the middle 
 of it some night. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh, but you won 't do it, will you ? ' ' cried Sammy 
 he was the villain in the play. "You wouldn't spoil the 
 only scene that the Tame that Jupiter and Orion have 
 got, by stopping before I stopped you and Ned had 
 stopped my stopping you, just to gratify Potter, would 
 you?" 
 
 Miss Leonard hesitated between the phrases. "You 
 think you're funny, don't you?" and "I hope Mr. Far- 
 num will be here for his entrance," and had just de- 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 75 
 
 cided upon the latter as the more dignified, when the 
 stage manager bowingly attracted her attention. 
 
 ' ' Your cue, Miss Leonard, ' ' said he, in a tone suggest- 
 ing conscious iniquity in bringing such a circumstance 
 to her notice. 
 
 As she swept away, the young villain laid a kind hand 
 on Elsie's shoulder. "Keep up!" he whispered, "he'll 
 get here." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Elsie, in gratitude. Tears of nervous- 
 ness gathered in her eyes and overflowed. 
 
 With a ' ' Have pity on your make-up ! " he had to 
 leave her in his turn, and she stood blotting the destruc- 
 tive teardops with her hand and trying not to shiver. 
 This was becoming a life and death business, and the 
 world was hard. 
 
 Her best bit of comedy came next, and she played it 
 woodenly with her eyes behind the scenes. The theatre 
 was one of those where the backdoor opens directly from 
 the right hand of the stage onto the alley. The door hyp- 
 notized Elsie with the feeling that it might open at any 
 moment to admit Ned. Here and there during the scene 
 she could catch glimpses of it, and once or twice a draught 
 across the stage told her that some one had tiptoed 
 through it, though she could not see whom. She fretted 
 at being on till the end of the act, but when the curtain 
 fell she wished it might have stayed up a little longer. 
 If he were upstairs, all was well with the world, but if 
 he were not upstairs, if She could hardly bring her- 
 self to mount the steps, the chattering, hurrying crowd 
 jostled around her and pushed past, and she crept up- 
 ward clinging to the baluster, a little hysterical and a 
 little sick. 
 
76 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 Suddenly, as she was starting up the third flight, she 
 was aware of Victoria coming down, and Victoria shook 
 her head. Elsie sat down on the stairs and piteously 
 regarded the other girl. Her lips and her hands trem- 
 bled, for a minute she could not speak, and when she 
 could, she said, ''What shall I do, Victoria? Victoria, 
 what can I do for him ? ' ' 
 
 "I want to speak to you," said Victoria. She drew 
 the girl back into their own dressing-room, pushed her 
 into a chair and shut the door. "Elsie," she began, 
 "you can't keep on like this. You can't let the third act 
 go on unless Ned's here. You've got to tell the man- 
 agement ! ' ' 
 
 "No!" cried Elsie, and sprang to her feet and stood 
 facing Victoria as though Victoria were Miss Leonard 
 and the world. 
 
 "You've got to. The whole third act, the whole 
 climax of the piece, depends on him. If they expected 
 him to enter and he didn't, they'd have to ring the cur- 
 tain down. They couldn't finish the piece. Why, 
 they 'd make it their business to kill him with every man- 
 ager in the country, and they'd have a right to. It 
 would ruin him ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' He said he 'd be here, ' ' persisted Elsie, ' ' and he will. 
 I know he will. He said so." All her pretty lady 
 airs were rent and useless, and fluttered in her manner 
 like torn laces. Her face was drawn and wild and trem- 
 bled foolishly ; it had a kind of childish obstinacy and a 
 childish terror in it. 
 
 ' ' And see here ! ' ' went on Victoria. " It 's natural you 
 should do all you can for yourself and Ned, Elsie, no- 
 body knows what it means to you better than I do ; but 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 77 
 
 after all, you're on the salary list of this company, and 
 you sort of owe it to the whole thing not to let the per- 
 formance go to pieces. It's only decent you should be 
 honest about this. ' ' 
 
 "I'd rather be honest to Ned than to Miss Leonard," 
 said Elsie. 
 
 ' ' Honest to Ned ! And what do you think Ned would 
 say? I'll bet wherever he is, he's comforting himself 
 thinking one thing. ' I 'm not there, but Elsie is ; she '11 
 do her best for me. She'll make some excuse to Miss 
 Leonard in time, and they'll fix up my understudy and 
 get the piece through somehow, and very likely there 
 won't be anything worse than a big row when I do get 
 there?' " 
 
 The habit of quick changing is so old and so strong 
 that all the time they talked the two girls had been un- 
 dressing, and Victoria's last words came muffled through 
 the skirt she was sliding over her head. The hook caught 
 in her hair, she felt Elsie disentangle it, and when she 
 had emerged from it Elsie was looking at her more stead- 
 ily, and saying, "Miss Leonard's always hated him. 
 But you're quite right, Victoria." 
 
 "That's a good girl. Now you hurry up. They'll be 
 calling the act in a minute, and you're not half dressed. 
 OH!" For at that moment the yowl of the property 
 boy calling the third act sounded almost at their door. 
 
 "You dress!" said Victoria to Elsie, and sticking her 
 own head out of the door, "Grady," she called to the 
 property boy. 
 
 "Third act," continued that vocalist, "third huh?" 
 
 "Grady, come here, I want to speak to you. Grady, 
 won't you please stop calling the act and run down to 
 
78 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 Mr. Potter and tell him not to ring up not to ring up 
 on any account till Miss Lee 's dressed. Tell him to have 
 another overture." 
 
 "What's the matter with 'er?" asked Grady. 
 
 "She's got to tell Miss Leonard something very im- 
 portant. She 's got to ! " 
 
 "Aw, well," said Grady, "act's called third act." 
 
 "Oh, hush! See here, Grady, Mr. Farnum's not 
 not here!" 
 
 "Hey? Oh, God!" said Grady, and they could hear 
 the haw-haw of his ill-judged mirth as he hurriedly clut- 
 tered down the stairs. 
 
 Still hooking and buttoning, Elsie ran after him with 
 Victoria in her wake. On the first landing the girls were 
 stopped by the sound of the curtain-music and the next 
 instant they beheld Grady ascending toward them, 
 spreading out his arms and widening his features in deri- 
 sion and dismay. "Act's on!" said he. 
 
 It was the irrevocable. Elsie put her hands over her 
 face. 
 
 "Not my fault," said Grady. "I seen her and Potter 
 in the entrance and I hollered to him, ' Mr. Potter, don 't 
 ring up!' She was lettin' out her jaw on him, about 
 the band not bein' loud enough in the Flawral Fete, an' 
 he didnun hear me. 'Mr. Potter,' I says, an' just then 
 he gave the signal an ' up she goes. ' ' 
 
 "Thanks, Grady," said Elsie. She put her hand on 
 his sleeve as she went past him, and he turned quietly 
 and followed her. 
 
 At the same time a super who had started upstairs 
 stopped at the sight of her and said, "They're calling 
 you, Miss Lee." 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 79 
 
 "Miss Lee! Miss Lee!" cried Mr. Potter. "Hurry, 
 Miss Lee ! ' ' 
 
 "Where's Miss Leonard?" said Elsie. "I must see 
 her. Ned's" 
 
 "Go on ! the stage is waiting ! ' ' and Mr. Potter in his 
 most justifiable wrath gave her a little push. The young 
 fellow who played opposite to her was already glancing 
 off the entrance, and she went forward to meet him and 
 spoke her line. 
 
 Grady, who was watching her beside Victoria, whis- 
 pered: "It'll finish Farnum with the management." 
 
 "Yes. Wait! I'll who's Mr. Farnum 's under- 
 study?" 
 
 "Johnson, he's home with the grip. One o' the boys 
 is goin ' on for him. ' ' 
 
 "We can't do anything then," said Victoria, and she 
 turned and went to walking by herself behind the back- 
 drop. 
 
 Meanwhile, Elsie, after her first speech, had turned her 
 back on the audience and whispered to young Maltham, 
 her partner in the comedy scene, "Play it slow I beg 
 of you ! ' ' she added. 
 
 The bewildered gentleman endeavored to comply, but 
 it is not so easy to play a scene slowly which one has 
 carefully learned to play fast, and, with every will to 
 oblige, the boy found himself speaking nimbly. Not so 
 Elsie. She was like a person in the first stage of intox- 
 ication, when the mind is miraculously clear, quick, and 
 light, full of resource, deft of accomplishment, and cour- 
 ageous in a singular detachment from the world. She 
 invented "business," and did it with ease; she spoke 
 slowly, she made tremendous pauses, and yet she was so 
 
80 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 pretty and her face was so bright with laughter, and she 
 filled in her stops with motions and grimaces so arch and 
 cunning that the audience scarcely knew how the scene 
 dragged. The poor young man stumbled after her in 
 bewilderment; behind the canvas-drop of their little 
 front scene the "Floral Fete" was being set with bumps 
 and clamor, and the sound of pounding ropes that 
 would not lash, and all the time that Elsie coquetted with 
 her lines she seemed to herself to be only a sense of 
 hearing, which listened for a footfall and the closing of 
 the stage door. She believed that she would be able to 
 hear him, that she would know if he came in; she was 
 conscious of nothing but her listening, and the color 
 blazed up under her rouge and her eyes were bright as 
 fever. 
 
 Miss Leonard came out of her dressing-room and said 
 to Grady, ' ' Ned Farnum come yet ? ' ' 
 
 Grady looked her blankly in the face and said: 
 "Yes'm." When she turned away he put his tongue in 
 his cheek, but he rolled his eyes in a terror that could not 
 have been wholly simulated. 
 
 "What's the matter with that girl?" said Miss Leon- 
 ard. "She's dragged that scene three minutes." And 
 just then Elsie, able no longer to put off the inevitable, 
 made her laughing exit with the young man; the dark 
 change pounced upon the house, withdrew again and dis- 
 closed the Floral Fete. 
 
 This was heralded as among the most elaborate, as it 
 was certainly among the prettiest, of stage settings. The 
 scene represented a park in some old town whose foreign 
 quality was indicated by palms and white umbrellas. 
 Besides the painted drops and properties, trailing vines, 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 81 
 
 potted plants, and stands of bright-colored foliage were 
 everywhere, a crowd in gay summer fineries prome- 
 naded and chattered in a manner ingenuously sugges- 
 tive of a comic opera, and a band, composed of all the 
 musicians in the orchestra, sat in a bandstand draped 
 with pink bunting, and faced across the stage, the judges 
 in their platform decked with flags and flowers. Nightly 
 some few hired horses, pranked out just prettily enough 
 and drawing carriages filled with extra girls, defiled 
 across the stage; nightly, after an appreciable interval, 
 Jupiter and Orion, glossy and combed and crimped, half 
 hidden in white roses and streaked with silken reins, 
 came ambling to their triumph; they dragged a little 
 basket-phaeton above which swayed two eagles bearing 
 in their beaks a canopy of the American flag, and the 
 eagles, the flag and, seemingly, the phaeton were made 
 of flowers; nightly, in this bright bower, Miss Leonard 
 sat erect, all satin and lace and gems, her reins in one 
 hand, her useless blossoming parasol in the other; and 
 nightly, by her side, in meeker organdie, Elsie, as the 
 ingenue and friend, made herself as small as possible. 
 
 Then would the judges rise inthralled and, being 
 seemingly partial to the Stars and Stripes, award to this 
 equipage the crown for the best decorated carriage. 
 Then would the band descend and place itself at the head 
 of Jupiter and Orion, and to the tune of the "Star 
 Spangled Banner," the conquerors would sweep once 
 and a half around the stage. 
 
 In the middle of the second turn, as the carriage 
 reached the center, out would come the villain clutching 
 at Orion's bridle, calling upon the fete to cease, and 
 falsely denouncing as an adventuress and a political spy 
 
82 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 the lovely heroine, an American lady of an innocent but 
 clouded past. Then Ned Farnum, in his American 
 naval uniform, would push through the crowd and burst 
 into the defense of that wronged lady, and thence would 
 the scene sweep to its finale, Miss Leonard and Ned car- 
 rying all before them, and the leading man, up in his 
 dressing-room, denouncing to himself "these 'bits' that 
 come on and hog everything!" 
 
 Now, as usual, as the round of applause for the pret- 
 tiness of the stage died away, Miss Leonard stepped into 
 the phaeton and Elsie crawled in after her and sat down. 
 
 As long as she lived she would remember the sickness 
 and the terror of that time, for she was not courageous, 
 and she had inwardly committed herself to a desperate 
 expedient. She was going to take Ned's old cue, stand 
 up in the phaeton and faint. She bitterly reflected that 
 if she should fall out of the side of the phaeton and 
 break her neck, it would be the best thing possible; at 
 the same time the prospect seemed a trifle dolorous. In 
 a side light of hysteria she saw Miss Leonard having her 
 swept out of the way like a dustheap and pushing for- 
 ward with the scene; in any event she knew she should 
 do the thing badly. She saw herself, with her eyes glued 
 together, trying to deceive the doctor, and she saw her- 
 self found out, with her engagement lost as well as 
 Ned's; but through these dismal counsels she held fast 
 to the idea that it was one more chance for Ned, that it 
 was all she could do for him, and she felt the phaeton 
 move forward into the familiar scene, and kept her hold 
 upon her resolution. 
 
 All went as usual. The gay little equipage received 
 
83 
 
 its customary tribute, Miss Leonard smacked gently 
 at the Tameless Team to quicken their pace, and the 
 Tameless responded by going a little slower and ogling 
 down at their plump feet with their huge sleepy eyes. 
 The judges were as enthralled as ever, the crown was be- 
 stowed, the phaeton began to creep forward again on its 
 triumphal course, with Miss Leonard bowing to the 
 plaudits of the stage crowd, and Elsie, an inert mass of 
 ruffles and misery, cowering beside her. Step by step 
 poor Elsie was being drawn nearer to the abyss, bit by 
 bit the ground was being broken from beneath her feet. 
 and when the carriage stopped before the onslaught of 
 the villain she knew the last dear barrier was down and 
 she began to gather in her skirts with a trembling hand, 
 preparatory to her leap into that gulf of terror. She 
 saw Victoria, anxious-eyed, sitting on a bench; she 
 heard the voice of the villain, oddly weak and nervous 
 in his knowledge and his kind dismay ; she saw him fling 
 out his arm in denunciation without his usual calculated 
 care, and she saw it strike against the cornet of a man in 
 the band who was standing too near to him. The man, 
 in the unapproachable apathy of an "extra," had been 
 gaping into space, the cornet flew out of his hand and 
 landed with a surprising clangor at Jupiter's very feet; 
 the horror of the noise reverberated in Elsie's heart as 
 she closed her eyes, clutched her skirts and forced her 
 stiffening bones to rise when the heroine should reply, 
 and at that moment, as though by an upheaval of the solid 
 earth, she was thrown back upon the seat, swept round 
 in a strange, grinding turn and swung against the side 
 of the phaeton, with the phaeton itself whirling toward 
 
84 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 the footlights. Fate and the cornet had done what nei- 
 ther blows nor bribes had yet achieved, and the Tame- 
 less Team had quickened its pace at last. 
 
 The ponies were headed straight for the audience. In 
 one moment of pandemonium, strangely brief, strangely 
 prolonged, Elsie beheld the crowded faces before her, 
 paling, screaming, rising and huddling into one blur of 
 terrified people, heard shouts before and behind her, had 
 a strange bewildered notion of the blackness of the audi- 
 torium and of the intervening band of glare, felt herself 
 quakingly, exhilaratingly aware that even in this une- 
 ventful, mortal life the old, impossible bugaboo was to be 
 realized, that the ponies were really going to go over the 
 footlights, that, good heavens ! they were going over them 
 and in the same instant with a terrific, joggling jar she 
 was arrested upon the brink of this gulf as upon that 
 of the other, and the phaeton, having crashed into the 
 footlights, remained there tipped a little forward, while 
 the hind hoofs of the ponies, who were suspended by 
 their harness, threshed in madness on the floor of the 
 orchestra and knocked the musicians' chairs to splinters. 
 
 Elsie sat there in the phaeton and gaped down at the 
 ponies in a shaken bewilderment and relief. She saw the 
 broken carriage-pole sticking up out of the ground into 
 which in some way it had jammed itself, but the amount 
 of luck which the fact contained was lost upon her, and 
 indeed it was almost in the moment of their pause that 
 Miss Leonard ejaculated "Out !" and pushed her smartly 
 from the phaeton. People were already round as she 
 scrambled to the stage, for the scattered Floral Fete had 
 turned again toward the scene of action, and Victoria 
 had already gotten hold of Elsie's hand when the voice 
 
THE TAMELESS TEAM 85 
 
 of Miss Leonard pierced and shrilly commanded the hub- 
 bub; ''Don't you hurt those horses! Don't you touch 
 'em!" 
 
 The people in the audience were now beginning to 
 realize that they were not going to be trampled to death ; 
 those who had left their seats returned slowly toward 
 them, the gallery boys shouted advice, a woman gave way 
 to hysterical laughter and some few men came speeding 
 down the aisles bent on assistance. 
 
 Of these last Miss Leonard took stock in a brief sur- 
 vey and then turned an eye upon the stage. "You, 
 Grady!" she called, "you and Jake help me Here!" 
 to an amateur assistant at the orchestra rail, "there's a 
 chair, there, under the box. You come into the orches- 
 tra and hold it for me hold it!" Whereupon, with 
 a wholly matter-of-fact display of white silk stockings, 
 she climbed briskly to the ground. . 
 
 Jake and Grady followed her, but it was she who came 
 the quickest to the closest quarters, who cut straps and un- 
 buckled them with the deftest hand, and threw her rapid 
 orders here and there with a decisive tongue. The two 
 shirt-sleeved stage hands and their more decorously cos- 
 tumed assistants made an obedient group about Miss 
 Leonard's tall, plump figure in its satin and jewels and 
 lace and with the crown of the Floral Fete tumbling 
 askew in her bleached hair. When they drew back from 
 her she held the trembling, shivering Orion by his bridle, 
 and, in the hands of Jake and Grady, the still rearing 
 Jupiter stood close behind. 
 
 "You must all keep quiet and keep back while I lead 
 'em out, ' ' she called to the audience ; and it was she who 
 coaxed Orion from the orchestra and led him up the 
 
86 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 aisle and out into the street. Grady and Jake followed 
 cautiously with Jupiter, and in the tense stillness of 
 their exit Elsie heard the bang of the stage door and 
 the sound of a footstep racing up the stairs. 
 
 Miss Leonard came back smiling and wiping her hands 
 on her skirt. She regained the stage by a door behind 
 the boxes, and she said to the stage manager, who was 
 gasping over this most disturbing incident of his career : 
 " You'd better ring down a minute, Potter." 
 
 It was only for a minute. The phaeton was already 
 being rolled away, one of the hired rigs with its mere 
 livery-stable horse was brought back onto the stage, and 
 Miss Leonard and Elsie got into it. ' ' Oh, Ned ! ' ' cried the 
 tempest-tossed heart of Elsie. ' ' Oh, Ned, hurry, hurry ! ' ' 
 
 Ah, but there was applause and plenty of it when the 
 curtain rose and the audience beheld Miss Leonard, to 
 the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner," once more 
 driving round the stage ! Once more the villain stopped 
 her progress and accused her, and once more she replied. 
 Just then there was a little movement near the entrance, 
 and as Miss Graham, the villainess, gave the new cue, 
 the crowd was pushed aside, and, in his American uni- 
 form, with his bright, boyish, adventurous look of the 
 young rescuer, Ned Farnum stepped upon the stage 
 and spoke his first line. 
 
 That night, when Victoria came downstairs for the 
 third act, she found Ned and Elsie feeding finely sliced 
 carrots to the Tameless, who had sunk once more into 
 apathy. Victoria smiled grimly. 
 
 "Well," said she, "it seems about the least you can 
 do for them." 
 
IN AUGUST 
 
IN AUGUST 
 
 WESTON toiled up the long stairs of the boarding- 
 house, through halls whose dingy twilight seemed 
 like benevolence after the torrid street. Several open 
 doors gave glimpses of gay, untidy rooms; past these 
 Weston cautiously, morosely skulked. He was afraid of 
 being haled in to rest and cheer, and he had no stomach 
 for the indifferent, kindly pity of strange actors 
 actors who had work, actresses who were strong and 
 well and not married to unsuccessful, worthless hus- 
 bands. When he reached the threshold of that fourth- 
 floor back where his wife would be smiling to him from 
 the sofa, he stopped outside the door, got his breath, 
 wiped his face, and called up a nervous, unconvincing 
 cheeriness of aspect. 
 
 But she was, after all, asleep. He assured himself 
 of this by a second glance; noticing that the sun from 
 the open window was beating on her face, he crossed 
 the room and pulled the blind a little lower before he 
 dropped into a chair and sat staring at her as if she 
 had been incarnate fate. It seemed to him that she 
 looked not so much ill as thoroughly and absolutely tired 
 of the world. This fatigue, this indifference, made him 
 almost afraid of her. He told himself that she had no 
 grasp of life, that she would let it slip from between her 
 fingers with as little interest as she had the open letter 
 which had 'fallen beside her lounge. He felt himself 
 
 89 
 
90 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 Shiver in the hot room ; then he felt the fever, the stifled 
 threatening of the day, more appallingly than before. 
 In a passion of unreason he cursed the house and the 
 inhuman creatures in it who had let her lie there so 
 near the window in the streaming heat; his glance 
 strayed from the dropped letter to the envelope which 
 lay farther along the carpet in front of the door; he 
 thought that probably a breeze had blown away the en- 
 velope as it closed the door, and then he cursed them 
 that they had let her lie there in a draught. The whole 
 miserable universe was conspiring to take her from him ! 
 He had been all day at the agencies. His conscience, 
 since they had begun to owe the landlady, had made 
 rather a point of his not being at home for lunch; but 
 he had forgotten his appetite, at any rate, in that search 
 for work. He had been searching for it so long! He 
 had worn out the whole summer climbing those stairs, 
 hanging in those doorways, trying to crack jokes across 
 the damnable wire fences behind which sat enthroned 
 those oracles of life and death who held close behind 
 their complacent lips the secrets and the favors of the 
 managerial gods. He had been prowling there in the 
 early spring when the gaily dressed crowds were 
 threaded every now and then by brisk celebrities; he 
 had seen the crowds melt and vanish in the summer 
 heat, gone to Europe after clothes, to farmhouses to 
 economize, to summer stock companies, not one of which 
 wanted "Weston though they seemed to want plenty of 
 other people a good deal like him, except that they were 
 apt to be less competent and could not be had so cheap. 
 He saw the time when, during the long fainting days, 
 almost nobody came into the offices, and he was left face 
 
IN AUGUST 91 
 
 to face with the relaxed awfulness of the agents, who 
 took to cigars and newspapers, or to tatting, according 
 to their sex. And now the time had come when the 
 crowds were back again, and once more the managers 
 threw their handkerchiefs, and once more Weston stood, 
 unchosen, in the mob. It was the last stage and the 
 worst. He had been welcome for his company in July's 
 empty offices where, as he told his wife, he had con- 
 sistently practised that engaging motto for the shy: 
 "Assume an easy and familiar manner, especially with 
 ladies." But now with the advance of the autumn 
 business, the rush and tug of managers who wanted 
 actors and actors who were wanted, Weston was forgot- 
 ten; when he endeavored to recall himself, he became 
 something of a bore. In the twentieth century even 
 oracles must eat, and, though you may have the friend- 
 liest wishes toward him, there is no profit to anybody 
 in sending a man to see managers whom managers do not 
 want to see! 
 
 He and Grace had not foreseen quite such a future 
 when, five years ago, she had flown in the face of Provi- 
 dence and married him. It was her father (who had 
 kept a candy store in Milwaukee, next door to a theatrical 
 boarding-house) who had shown himself astonishingly 
 alive to the situation, and had accurately and enthu- 
 siastically pointed out to her the disadvantages of marry- 
 ing an actor. What! one of that idle, extravagant, 
 shiftless lot, a man who would lie in bed late and want 
 his breakfast brought up to him, who would bring beer 
 into the house in a pitcher, and play pinochle for money ! 
 Had he anything to support a wife on? Now that she 
 had got herself fairly established in her profession, 
 
92 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 lucky for her if he did not hang around out of work 
 half the time and expect her to support him, yes, or 
 take her money, as like as not, and spend it on other 
 women! At least wait till she was twenty-five, the 
 family council had implored, before she married and 
 began having children and dropping out of her busi- 
 ness for a year or two at a time that was the sort of 
 thing that did for you on the stage! Weston's whole 
 tired figure gave a twitch; he seemed to feel his son's 
 little body crowding on his heart, the bits of fingers 
 creeping and searching over his face. They had had 
 to send the child back to Grace's family when typhoid 
 had ravaged the mother in the winter that was past: 
 Weston could not but suppose that it would have found 
 her a less easy victim if she had ever been really well 
 since the baby came. Her people had been very kind 
 about the baby; they could not blame Weston for the 
 necessity of parting him from his mother since other 
 persons beside married actresses are subject to typhoid ; 
 at the same time it all seemed to them only another mesh 
 in that web of dreariness and failure in which they felt 
 he had entangled her. Up to the very present Weston 
 had never failed to send back a little money for the 
 boy's expenses, but that was no longer possible. The 
 child was almost nothing to him as yet, in comparison 
 with the mother, but he could not have known for nearly 
 two years that helpless life of his first son and not feel 
 the sting of ceasing to be its providence. Justly or un- 
 justly, he saw himself with the eyes of men who could 
 at least pay their families' board bills; he thought of 
 one fellow in particular who used to hang around Grace 
 in Milwaukee, but who had married since then and whose 
 
IN AUGUST 93 
 
 wife, from her new automobile, had nodded condescend- 
 ingly to Grace the last time they had met. He wondered 
 if Grace sometimes remembered whose automobile that 
 might have been ; he himself remembered very well how 
 he used to guy the fellow to her! His heart sank now 
 with shame, and yet with a touch of the old stupid 
 jealousy, and he had such a sense of hatefulness in him- 
 self that there seemed no distance great enough to divide 
 him from her. He moved his chair a little closer to the 
 couch. 
 
 The hand of the dollar clock on the mantlepiece pointed 
 to five. To-morrow would be Saturday, and most of the 
 offices would close at noon. Practically another week 
 was gone, and at this time of year that meant another 
 week nearer to the gulf. He went over to himself the 
 managers he had seen lately: Melville, the romantic 
 star, who had thought Weston too tall to play with him ; 
 'Jervis, the author, who had really wanted him for 
 "Captain Bryee," if only he had been large enough for 
 a guardsman; Hendricks, who saw him in reference to 
 the juvenile with Kate Erskine, but who had confided 
 to a friend that he would make her look like his grand- 
 mother; the Einslers, who had been favorably impressed 
 with him, but who hedged on hearing him ask a small 
 salary and feared to trust him with the part ; and Lister, 
 who had sent for him, but who, having employed him 
 when he first went on the stage, refused with indignation 
 to pay him anything beyond the meagre salary of that 
 time. He had gone back to Lister the next day, but 
 the part was filled. He would never have let the miser- 
 able chance slip in the first place if he had not been 
 filled with hope by Ted Chesney's negotiations with 
 
94 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 Joseph Lemuel, if Ches had not encouraged him by the 
 wild fantasia of getting him a job in those exalted re- 
 gions. "If he comes to my terms," Ches had declared, 
 "I shall have charge of the whole show, of every nail 
 they drive on this side of the footlights. It's that for 
 me, or nothing." What a fool he had been to suppose 
 that a good fellow like Chesney would ever get any such 
 terms, that Melville would endure tall men about him, 
 that Jervis would prefer art to weight in the presentation 
 of a guardsman ! Chesney 's contingent offer had been his 
 dearest hope ; he took out of his pocket, reread and tore 
 into bits yesterday's note which told him that the deal 
 with Lemuel was off. Well, one thing was clear ; chance 
 after chance, they had all slipped out of his hands like 
 water. It was all very well to make excuses for each 
 individual instance, but if he dared look in the face the 
 testimony of the whole summer one thing was certain; 
 whatever else he was he was not desirable. 
 
 But why ? That was what he could not help torment- 
 ing himself with why? What was it? He put aside 
 at once all question of his ability. In that he did not 
 doubt himself, and, if he did, he had only to observe 
 the work of other men in higher places, to know that 
 it was not their ability which had put them there. Was 
 there something wrong with him then, personally ? Was 
 there something distasteful in his appearance, in his 
 manner, differentiating him from acceptable heroes and 
 lovers? For a long time now he had searched his face, 
 observed his carriage, hated his own smile, his own voice, 
 suspected in every stirring of his personality some pe- 
 culiar and invidious distinction. And yet, if that were 
 so, it was one in which Grace also shared. She, too, 
 
IN AUGUST 95 
 
 when she was able to go out, had looked for work and 
 unavailingly she who was sweet to see and of so ap- 
 pealing a delicacy and charm! Or had he grown in- 
 capable of judging her, and was she, too, mysteriously 
 marked for failure? Were they cut off from the rest 
 of mankind, they two, and left standing upon some mys- 
 terious plague-spot? He told himself that this was a 
 delirium of weariness, but the delirium remained. 
 
 The strangeness of it was not so much that they could 
 get nothing good to do as that they could get nothing 
 at all. It had not always been so, and yet they did not 
 ask for so much now as they used to do ; their fine spirit 
 about not taking engagements except in the same com- 
 pany had been broken, and he remembered old scruples, 
 fastidious standards of independence or loyalty, which 
 had sometimes stood in their way and which now seemed 
 to him like silly, sentimental dreams. He remembered 
 a big chance which he had once given up because the star 
 he was then playing with would not release him. She 
 had had no contract to hold him by, and now he moved 
 his lips in a sick derision of that honesty. In the fu- 
 ture, if there were such a thing, he and Grace would 
 take what they could get, and hang on to it like other 
 people. If there came to be something lost between 
 them in a mutual faith and pride, at least they would 
 know where their next meal was coming from. He told 
 himself, looking dryly with his hot eyes upon the thin- 
 ness of his wife's face, that he was willing to pay any 
 price, and then he saw that he was already paying all 
 he had. He realized with a sharper sickness than before 
 that in his desperate determinations he was no more 
 powerful than a child determining to be a pirate, and 
 
96 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 that whatever he might do he was no more able to buy 
 a little ease, a breath of peace, for her than to go back 
 and leave her on the pleasant path where he had found 
 her. He started up with a restless shudder, and going 
 over to the further window leaned there frowning down 
 into the dreary litter of the far-away backyards. He 
 asked himself if he were an admitted failure in this busi- 
 ness; come now, what was the next move? Was there 
 any other business that he knew, any trade which he 
 understood, any chance which, if it were offered him, he 
 would know how to take? Somewhere in the neighbor- 
 hood people of thrift and foresight were getting in coal. 
 Would anybody trust him to drive a coal-wagon? His 
 whole soul sickened after manual success, and cried out 
 against genteeler accomplishments, the unmanly arts of 
 pleasing in which, he must suddenly remember, he had 
 wholly failed to please. But along middling lines then, 
 in shops and offices, was he capable of nothing? Well, 
 fairly capable of a good deal perhaps, with a little time, 
 a little opportunity and direction, all the things most 
 lacking in this crisis. But to put out his hand securely 
 and seize something no, nothing in the world. The 
 world, he saw, was too big and hard for him and Grace, 
 for life or death they did not count in it. The gorging, 
 struggling masses of success, the whole blind, opulent, 
 and crushing earth rolled down upon them, rolled over 
 them, and he had no strength at all to shield her. 
 
 He had now for sometime been absently gazing at the 
 letter which had dropped from Grace's hand, but it was 
 only at this moment that he perceived it to be a single 
 sheet of paper with some kind of business heading. 
 With an agonizing pang of hope he picked it up. ' ' The 
 
IN AUGUST 97 
 
 Elmside Dairy 21 quts." it was the milk bill, and it 
 had not been paid for three weeks! He recalled the 
 doctor's words: "At least a quart a day, Mrs. Weston, 
 if you are to gain as we wish. ' ' Three weeks ! A dol- 
 lar and sixty-eight cents ! He had still four dollars from 
 his watch, which was the last thing they had had to 
 pawn. A dollar and sixty-eight cents out of four dol- 
 lars he would have to stop the milk! But that was 
 impossible she needed it ! Was it really true that she, 
 Grace, could not have what she needed, when it cost 
 only fifty-six cents a week, and that rich concern was 
 dealing it away, day after day, to multitudes? It was 
 quite true. They had cut out their evening car rides a 
 long while ago; last week they had decided to indulge 
 in no more breaths of air on the ferry he caught sight 
 of her last bottle of medicine on the wash-stand; it had 
 cost sixty cents only a few days ago, and it was almost 
 gone! Weston felt himself beginning to grapple with 
 a mingled fright and anger at the absurdity of their 
 affairs. Why, she must give up everything; after all 
 that he had contrived for her she must slip back again 
 and get worse, and this time nothing could be done to 
 help her, though she should actually suffer! It seemed 
 unbelievable. He had pitied such things often enough 
 when he had heard them about other people vaguely 
 called "the poor," but about themselves it was a thing 
 that stopped his breath. He saw clearly, for the first 
 time, to the actual end of his four dollars, and realized 
 that sum to be all that remained between them and want. 
 Not another penny in the world What were they to do 
 then? My God! What was to become of them! The 
 blank horizon gaped at him. 
 7 
 
98 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 On the instant he was shaken by one of those waves 
 of panic which summer in the city sends upon human 
 nerves to break and drown them. His spirit was ground 
 and beaten to pieces in that fierce rush of horror; his 
 sense of common life deserted him; he was blind with 
 fear; sick and shaking, his whole being one shrieking 
 pandemonium of hysteria, he sat staring at his wife 
 and knocking with his knuckles on his open mouth. 
 " Oh ! oh ! oh ! " kept on the alternate pound and flutter 
 of his heart. "What is to become of us? What is to 
 become of us? What shall I do? What shall I tell 
 her? When the time comes that the money is all gone 
 what shall I say to her ? Where shall we go ? What will 
 they do with us?" Struggle as he would there was no 
 way out, nothing that he could see between them and a 
 misery beyond death. Death, indeed, how easily people 
 talked about that, as if it were quick and reliable and 
 met with overnight! It was not death he feared, but 
 the length of its approach which was impracticable. 
 There must be something to be done something there 
 must be other people did things money was made 
 but oh, how, how? What to try? Where to turn? 
 What next ? His heart was gasping open and shut like 
 the gills of a dying fish, but the dollar clock ticked on, 
 indifferent, like fate, and no other answer sounded 
 through the frenzied whimper of his brain. He began 
 to crave some signal of human nearness, he felt as if 
 he must go mad indeed if some one did not speak to him 
 and prove him still capable, at least, of communication 
 with his kind. And suddenly he wondered at Grace's 
 sleeping so soundly, so long. He had been at home now 
 for sometime and she had not moved; it seemed to him 
 
IN AUGUST 99 
 
 as if she had not breathed. All the jangling nerves in 
 him were stricken quiet by a single fear. If she He 
 put out his hand and touched her; her skin was moist 
 and warm, she sighed and stirred a little. And at that 
 he lost all grip upon happiness or unhappiness, sub- 
 merged in a kind of terrible relief. He remained bent 
 forward, shuddering, and after a time, when he began 
 to recover consciousness, to rise to the surface, he found 
 himself holding desperately to some idea, some plank of 
 safety. 
 
 This idea turned out to be that he had been making 
 a fool of himself for nothing, that no matter what hap- 
 pened Grace was provided for, that she could always go 
 back to her people. It was an abhorrent thought, but 
 he clung to it, still quaking, it was true, but reassuring, 
 quieting himself. Why, what a fuss he had been mak- 
 ing ! What was all this deathly fear he had been drown- 
 ing in? She was not going to die, she was not going 
 to want, what had he been thinking of? She was not 
 going to sink, here, with him, no, no ; she could go home 
 to decency, security. He began to breathe evenly, he 
 sat up and wiped his face and head, that were all cold 
 and drenched with the sweat of nightmare. Why, that 
 was it, that was the way! He would write to-night to 
 Grace's father and ask for money for her ticket home, 
 and as soon as she was gone he would give up the room. 
 A man alone could always manage somehow until 
 Well, he would try; there might be something, some- 
 where, that he could do. He got slowly to his feet and 
 began to walk up and down, gravely, and with judicial 
 calm, sobered from having touched the depths. God 
 knew it would be hard to tell her that she must go 
 
100 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 home! That was a thing she had always kept out of 
 her mind. Poor Grace! poor girl! They would give 
 her enough to eat and a place to stay in, in the bustling, 
 strident little house, but they would make her very un- 
 happy. He knew the family circle well, its thrift, its 
 sound, comfortless comfort, its unresting, cheery con- 
 tempt for weakness, for failure. When they were not 
 confiding their sentiments about him to Grace she would 
 still hear them confiding in the neighborhood, and she 
 would have to go to them for car fare, for postage 
 stamps. His child, too, and his wife ! No wonder peo- 
 ple were contemptuous of him. Contempt for himself 
 had long been in him like a poison, and yet within him, 
 too, something rose to combat that contempt. He had 
 done his best, he would do his best still. She would 
 understand. He looked long at her pale face and told 
 himself that he had loved her as faithfully and given 
 her as true a joy, as if he had been able to serve her 
 better. He took a little comfort, but he was too tired 
 and too sad for hope. He saw her whole nature shrink 
 from the bitter resignation which was growing in his 
 heart, and he said aloud, "I can't help you." As he 
 spoke his glance fell again upon the envelope which 
 lay face downward on the floor, and this time he saw 
 that it was not an envelope only, but an unopened letter. 
 
 He read the signature first, and then in a kind of 
 apathy the whole note, from which, presently, particular 
 phrases began to stab through him in flashes of great 
 joy "At the eleventh hour . . . all O. K. . . . 
 Lemuel perfectly agreeable ... to sign contracts 
 . . . office, ten to-morrow . . . Chesney." 
 
 The twilight deepened and deepened in the quiet 
 
IN AUGUST 101 
 
 room. Weston sat down on the floor beside the sofa 
 and nestled a hand among the folds of his wife's dress. 
 She stirred again, opened her eyes, and smiled drowsily 
 down at him. With a long, light breath she moved her 
 hand in a little gesture of welcome, and reassured by 
 his presence, she let her lashes droop again. He con- 
 tinued to sit there in the soft evening, silently waiting 
 to give her this news when he should wake her, and 
 rested his cheek against her skirt. 
 
THE PRINCESS KOSALBA 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 
 
 tint TY dear Bob," said Miss Austin, "you should 
 1V1 try managing a circus, not a Pinero actress. I 
 don't know what I can do for you that is more sensa- 
 tional than to lose my jewels ! ' ' 
 
 Her young business manager stopped in his wrath- 
 ful promenade up and down her dressing-room, and 
 favored her with a tremendous frown. "Is this a time 
 to joke?" he said. He turned imperiously to the grave 
 personage at the door. ' ' Tell it again, ' ' he said. ' ' And 
 be careful. Don't miss a point." 
 
 The personage cleared his throat. "I went back in 
 the carriage, sir, as directed, to fetch Miss Austin's 
 necklace. When I reached the hotel I went to the 
 desk for the box to be gotten out of the safe. The clerk 
 was there, and another person, and there were some 
 persons whom I scarcely observed, leaning upon the 
 desk. I presented Miss Austin's order, and when the 
 clerk handed me the box, I unlocked it with Miss Aus- 
 tin's key, in full view of those present. The box was 
 packed with pebbles, empty pill-boxes and such trifles. 
 Miss Austin's ornaments had disappeared. And I 
 drove here to report, Mr. Daley." 
 
 "You see!" cried the business manager, waving an 
 accusing hand at his principal. "Not even an adver- 
 tisement in it! Nothing! A bald, impossible state- 
 
 105 
 
106 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 merit. Not a clue, not an incident! nobody will be- 
 lieve it ! They will say it is a fake ! ' ' 
 
 "My dear Robert," said Miss Austin, "try to re- 
 member that it is not my fault. I would have lost my 
 jewels more romantically for you, if I could." She 
 turned slowly toward the personage and regarded him 
 gravely and softly, tapping on her mouth with her long 
 fingers. "When you unlocked the box, Thomason, the 
 key turned as usual? You do not think the lock had 
 been tampered with?" 
 
 "No, madam, quite as usual." 
 
 "And no one had asked at the office for my box, since 
 I saw you put it there, myself, last night?" 
 
 "No one, madam." 
 
 "I packed it myself," she said, turning to the man- 
 ager. "Hannah was busy with a ruffle I had stepped 
 on, and I always like to handle jewels, so I put them 
 away myself. I drove home with the box in my lap, 
 and I gave it to Thomason at the hotel door. I saw 
 the clerk put it in the safe." 
 
 "The hotel is liable," said Daley. "It's a clear 
 case. ' ' 
 
 Miss Austin made a movement of distaste. "It is 
 terrible to have it narrowed to the clerks. An indefinite 
 criminal doesn't matter, but when it comes to people 
 one has seen Did they examine the other things in 
 the safe? Were they intact?" 
 
 "As far as could be seen just then, madam. There 
 was even an envelope from that music-hall person with 
 some money in it, not a large sum, quite undisturbed, 
 madam. ' ' 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 107 
 
 "That music-hall person?" 
 
 "She was there, madam, and counted it. She said 
 she was sorry your jewels were gone, as she had wished 
 to see them on you to-night, madam." 
 
 "To-night? oh, yes. If you mean Miss Montresor, 
 Thomason, kindly call her so." 
 
 "Yes, madam. And she does look above her station, 
 certainly, madam. A very well-appearing young 
 woman " 
 
 "You sent her a box, of course, Bob," Miss Austin 
 interrupted. 
 
 He nodded. "Higgins, her representative, wrote for 
 one. She has had some kind of a kick-up with the 
 people at the Orpheum, and they've put an injunction 
 on her, so she's not dancing at all. How many stones 
 in that necklace of yours, Mary?" 
 
 "Thirty. And they had nothing whatever to say 
 at the office, Thomason ? ' ' 
 
 "Nothing to signify, madam." 
 
 ""Well, they're saying something by this time, I bet. 
 I guess the catechism's easy to what those detectives 
 are springing on 'em by this time. I guess your law- 
 yer will have something to say to them about break- 
 fast time, that'll take away their appetites. And now 
 when the fellow gets here from the police force, Mary, 
 it'll be Hoffman or Harkinson, one of their best men, 
 and I want you to smile at him, and treat him right, 
 and hearten him up a little, as though he was one of 
 those little devils of newsboys, or waiters, or washer- 
 women that you always lay yourself out for. It's 
 really nothing against a man that he's got influence, 
 
108 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 you know." He looked quizzically at her with his 
 shrewd and charming smile. 
 
 "Very well, Bob," she said. "And certainly it has 
 to be left to the police. And I am afraid it will have 
 to get into the papers." 
 
 "Into the papers! Get into the papers! You bet 
 there isn't going to be anything else in the papers! 
 I'll have headlines that'll knock the public right be- 
 tween the eyes. If there ain't a story in the thing, I'll 
 make one that'll send up the price of padlocks. 
 I'll have this whole town seeing diamonds in its sleep. 
 I'll have all the boarding-house and Harlem flat people 
 that don't know a pigeon-blood from a jew's-harp 
 stuffed and boozy on descriptions of your jewelry. I'll 
 have every sporting man on Broadway cracked on his 
 own notion of who's the thief. By George, I swear if 
 I can't get 'em back for you, Mary, I'll have every 
 woman in New York putting up her good two dollars 
 to see the woman that lost 'em! Say, Thomason " 
 he looked up from his hurried scribbling at his star's 
 little travelling-desk, "carriage outside still?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Daley." 
 
 "Well, you jump into it and go after that policeman 
 and ride him up here. You give him to understand 
 we didn't want him to get his boots muddied. Oh, and 
 stop at the florist's, and tell Miss Austin's maid, if 
 she's got those roses grown yet, Miss Austin wants 'em 
 for the first act, not for her funeral. ' ' He turned back 
 to the star as the door closed upon the correctness of 
 Thomason. "Your list ready for the papers, Mary?" 
 
 She handed him a pencilled slip. "Will this do?" 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 109 
 
 He glanced at it. "Well, I'll fix it up for you. 
 What a pity you went in for oddity, arrangements and 
 workmanship and all that, instead of stones!" 
 
 "It couldn't make much difference, now," she re- 
 minded him. 
 
 "Well, it would sound a lot better." He began to 
 read aloud: 
 
 "1 necklace, diamonds and sapphires, $10,000. 
 
 1 necklace, diamonds, $5,000. 
 
 1 brooch, cluster, rose diamonds, set with white dia- 
 monds, $1750. 
 
 1 brooch, cluster, yellow diamonds, set with white 
 diamonds, $1600. 
 
 1 star sapphire brooch, set with diamonds, $3,000. 
 
 1 tortoise-shell comb set with topaz, $325. 
 
 1 hair ornament, pendant, rubies and diamonds, 
 $2,000. 
 
 1 string turquoise matrix, intersected by pearls, $200. 
 
 1 lace pin, opal and diamonds, $125. 
 
 1 lace pin, single pearl, $100. 
 
 1 belt buckle, jade and brilliants, $150. 
 
 1 small gold cross (it was ten dollars, Mary). 
 
 1 necklace, rubies, set in little bangles of rose gold, 
 $4,000. 
 
 1 pendant, topaz, set with pearls and diamonds, $500. 
 
 "$35,600 and odd dollars, by Jove!" 
 
 "Yes," she said. "Every cent, all of my profits 
 that I dared. I love bright stones. One of my fore- 
 bears, Robert, must have come out of the East. I've 
 been an extravagant hussy!" she demurely added. 
 
 ' ' Extravagant ! Not a bit. I shall have to touch 'em 
 
110 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 up as it is. You couldn't offer the public less than a 
 clean fifty thousand dollars ' worth. Think what they 're 
 used to being gulled with. ' ' 
 
 "It will sound so dull," she smiled at him, ''for 
 me to have bought them all myself. Couldn't you 
 imagine a few young lords and millionaires to have 
 given me some of them? It would make more sensa- 
 tional reading." 
 
 He replied, "I guess we can cut that all right." 
 
 She put her hand on his shoulder, and leaning over 
 him, watched his flying pen. "There seem to be some 
 points, Bob," she said, softly, "on which your adver- 
 tising instincts fail!" She went on, teasingly. "Still, 
 officially, a few czars and sultans and so on would be 
 quite respectable." 
 
 "There's one thing about rubies and diamonds," he 
 unheedingly continued; "you can work 'em up to al- 
 most anything. Say a hundred thousand, all told. 
 You're wearing your rings?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, and my watch, and one little brooch. Bob, 
 listen. Did you hear what Thomason said about that 
 girl, that Rosie Montresor, or whatever she calls herself ? 
 Well, if I hadn't been meaner than the meanest cad 
 about her being in front to-night, I'd have brought my 
 jewels to the theatre as usual, and worn what I chose. 
 But I thought I wouldn't wear any. I knew she would 
 be covered with diamonds from her head to her heels; 
 all New York has gone out of its mind about her, you 
 know, just as London did. It's worse than after the 
 opera, getting past the Orpheum while she's there; and 
 Miss Dallis was in front one night during her song 
 when the men stood up in their seats and took the 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 111 
 
 flowers out of their button-holes and threw them to 
 her! I suppose I'm an old bad-hearted cat, I suppose 
 I'm jealous; but I couldn't bear to go on weeping 
 through a Sudermann enchantress with what little pieces 
 of one sort that I own stuck about me, and that little 
 song-and-dance girl in the box outshining us, and 
 priding herself on it! And then after I got here I 
 thought what a cheap-minded fool I was, and sent back 
 for my necklace." 
 
 Mr. Daley laughed. "I guess we're all human, 
 Mary," he said. "And I guess the stones were gone 
 before you left the hotel. Let's be thankful you sent 
 back for 'em and found it out when you did. What 
 gets me is the lot of time the fellow must have had, 
 what a lot of time the safe must have been open to 
 him. He must have had the combination, he must 
 have been able to count on controlling it; there's no 
 way out of that. You see, he doesn't take box and 
 all, he doesn't break the lock; no sir. He takes out 
 all the little cases, and fools round, wadding the whole 
 thing up again, by George! It's like you to take it 
 quietly, but why, Mary!" 
 
 "It's nothing," she reassured him. She took and 
 put aside the glass of water that he fetched her, and 
 smiled upon him, somewhat unsteadily. " I was a little 
 dizzy. It's gone. But so much of my money, my hard, 
 slow, weary money, was in those jewels, and I'm getting 
 an old women, Bob ! ' ' 
 
 "You!" he jeered fondly at her. "You!" 
 
 His hands were still outstretched and she took hold of 
 his wrists and looked up, with pensive mischief, into his 
 face. ' ' Think of it ! My little gold cross that you gave 
 
112 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 to me before you ever proposed to me, gone at one swoop 
 with the pearl pin I oughtn't to have let you give me, 
 after you had stopped proposing altogether! What a 
 long time it took you to grow up, Bob ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' I '11' give you another cross and another pin, if you '11 
 let me propose again ! ' ' 
 
 "Well, that's very pretty of you," said she. She was 
 a little displeased, and she walked slowly across the 
 room, pretended to adjust some furs that were drooping 
 from a nail, came back again, and took a seat in front 
 of him. Her clothes made little silky, crepy whispers 
 as she moved; when she sat down the laces of her 
 dressing-gown creamed out in a languid, trailing foam 
 over the cheap little kitchen chair. Mr. Robert Daley 
 stood looking down upon her with the mingled tolerance 
 and awe with which, when she is decoratively pre- 
 sented, simple-hearted masculinity regards the intellec- 
 tual lady. 
 
 "I'm glad, after all, that I brought this up, Bob," 
 she said at last. ' ' I thought you had gotten over the no- 
 tion that you had anything to get over. But I see I 
 must try to find it in my eloquence to convince you 
 that you are not in love with me at all, that you never 
 were in love with me. No ; now be quiet. I thought you 
 knew it long ago. You are a full-fledged, successful 
 business man now, and it is time you were graduated 
 from that idea. When we were both very young and 
 very poor, you fell in love with my unhappiness, with 
 your ability to cheer me up and be good to me; you 
 were perfectly faithful to me during all those famished 
 years, not because of anything in me, Bob, only be- 
 cause you are an entirely chivalrous and romantic per- 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 113 
 
 son ; and now, you see, you have fallen in love with the 
 notion of being faithful." 
 
 He was turning her little cloisonne inkstand round 
 and round upon the make-up shelf, and she took it 
 smartly out of his hand and put it beyond his reach, as 
 though he were a naughty child. 
 
 "You have simply got to rid yourself of that idea," 
 she persisted. "It was not at all bad for you for a 
 long while, but now you are coming to the fulness of 
 your power. It's a real power, you're making a big 
 name for yourself, and I simply will not have all your 
 energies and prospects identified with me. This fancy 
 of yours of putting all your money into my business and 
 making me what was it? 'the greatest actress living, 
 if it took your last dollar to do it,' I won't have you 
 wasting yourself in that futility. We can't work to- 
 . gether; your methods aren't mine " 
 
 "Too noisy, I suppose," said Mr. Daley with great 
 good humor. 
 
 "Much too noisy. And my dramatic reputation is an 
 established concern now; it was all very well for you 
 to manage me on a salary, but when you start in for 
 yourself it must be in your own way, and you must have 
 a new star, a new piece, something you can make a big 
 push, and dazzle people with. I let you come with me 
 this year because I thought if you saw me day out and 
 in, reeking with opulence and snarling at my maid, it 
 would fade out the last shadow of your allegiance, but 
 I am still black and pale and thin and older than you 
 now, come, you know I am! so I suppose you still 
 contrive to pity me. ' ' 
 
 She looked up at him, her mouth crooking itself at 
 
114 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 the corner in the little upward slant of tender drollery 
 with which she was accustomed to smile at his bigness 
 and his boyishness. He looked very fresh and strong 
 and comely in his scrupulous evening dress, and buoy- 
 antly young younger, she stoically remembered, than 
 even he had quite the right to look. He observed her, 
 his arms folded, with a gentle superior glare, his atti- 
 tude not unsuggestive of a champion pugilist before the 
 camera, and spoke. "Well, Mary, I guess you don't 
 want to marry me, all right. But now, you won 't enter- 
 tain the idea of our being business partners ? ' ' 
 
 "Thank you, no; I will not." 
 
 "Well, that's clear." 
 
 "I want it to be. I want you to understand " 
 
 "Hold on; it's up to you, this time, to be still a min- 
 ute. I'm not arguing with you. I've said all I think 
 about the business deal before, and I see it don't take 
 hold of you ; and as for the other, I don 't want to bully- 
 rag any woman into liking me. But pity you! You 
 know a lot, but you don 't know everything. Pity you ! 
 Why, there's nobody like you! You're a wonder! 
 There isn't another woman on God's earth has got the 
 brain you have! And you're the bravest woman and 
 the best and the best actress. Look at the grip you get 
 on your audience from the word go ! I never come into 
 the house and look across that crowd of people that I'm 
 not proud of you from the ground up. You snarl at 
 your maid ! Why, you 're dead easy ! Look at the time 
 it's taking her to buy you some flowers! Another 
 woman would have her life ! Look at that down-east af- 
 fair you lug around the country with you, that Thom- 
 ason, looks like a walking funeral " 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 115 
 
 "Thomason, " said Miss Austin, laughing, "is an es- 
 timable person. He has seen better days. I believe he 
 was educated for the ministry, or for school-teach- 
 ing, or something far more respectable than acting, 
 Bob. And he isn't a Yankee, he's a Scotch Cana- 
 dian." 
 
 "I don't care how much of a Canadian he is; he looks 
 like the pictures of that New England lantern-jaws 
 you know; the one that wrote the essays " 
 
 "Oh Emerson?" 
 
 "Yes; and he gets on my nerves. He's too sancti- 
 monious. By George, if you hadn't put those jewels 
 away yourself " 
 
 She held up her hand. "Here's Hannah." 
 
 The maid knocked and entered. "Gracious, Han- 
 nah," said Miss Austin, "how late you are, child!" 
 She took the roses from the girl's hand and put them 
 into water herself. "I shall be rather rushed," she 
 said to the departing manager. "If you don't mind, 
 Bob, I wish you 'd ask Bartlett yourself to be sure about 
 those blue footlights." 
 
 She resigned herself into the hands of her maid, pen- 
 sively contemplating herself in the long mirror. "Oh, 
 for some pretty girl!" she thought; "some good pretty 
 girl to open Bob 's eyes. Dear Bob ! I can 't have him 
 wasted. I'm so fond of him. I can't have him trailing 
 about after a bony middle-aged lady who reads Maeter- 
 linck. But he will" 
 
 "Is it true, Miss Austin," said the maid, speaking 
 breathlessly up from her kneeling position at her mis- 
 tress's skirts; "is it true that your diamonds and rubies 
 and everything, they're all lost?" 
 
116 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Oh!" said Miss Austin, with a start. "Why, yes; 
 so they are!" 
 
 By a quarter of eight the news of the lost jewels had 
 penetrated to the remotest dressing-room. The atmos- 
 phere was tremulous and ablaze ; people scarcely minded 
 the old dreariness of making-up, in the lively interest of 
 the news. Miss Austin was on good terms with her com- 
 pany, and all its members were sorry for her. Old 
 Mrs. Mathers went downstairs to her room to see if there 
 wasn't something she could do for her better than Han- 
 nah could ; Farnum, her heavy man, daringly sent forth 
 and procured her a cocktail, which she accepted with 
 gratitude; the property boy, who was very young, 
 rushed away when he ought to have been setting the 
 stage, and brought her back a call a lily, stuck in a bot- 
 tle. And she never seemed so important, so resplendant, 
 so romantic to the general imagination ; the value of her 
 loss and its intrinsic beauty clung about her like an 
 exotic charm, and lighted her personality with an elec- 
 tric brilliance. People made way for her as for a de- 
 throned queen; her slim pale arms and throat, without 
 a jewel, were imaginatively more impressive than if they 
 had outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind. 
 
 As usual, the house was crowded. Miss Austin's 
 audiences were always large, and what is commonly 
 called "brilliant"; she was somewhat of a fad; some- 
 thing languorous and pensive in her personality made it 
 seem cultured to admire her, people who really cared 
 about acting basked in the ensemble of her presenta- 
 tions, her stage management; women flocked in a panic 
 of anticipation to view her long, lacy, trailing gowns. 
 
THE PRINCESS EOSALBA 117 
 
 Taken statistically, she was thin, colorless, ugly; long 
 after people had forgotten her acting it was the strange- 
 ness of her beauty which drew them back to her. She 
 was the idol of the stage-hands, of young girls, and of 
 boys not quite grown up; older men disliked her 
 were aware in her of something caustic, something 
 clear-sighted and judicial, something that was not 
 caught by their charm. She was respected, but not 
 popular. 
 
 The highly bred can never get themselves to the 
 beginning of a play, no matter at what time the play 
 begins, and rustling streams of fashion continued to 
 flow down the aisles and over the feet and past the eyes 
 of the punctual vulgarians during the first half of the 
 first act. Miss Austin found herself unusually, unduly 
 exasperated by this. Directly after her first entrance 
 she almost tapped her foot in irritation, and she soon 
 began to be aware that she was losing her grip upon her 
 audience, that she was mechanical, inattentive, out of 
 the picture. It took a certain amount of effort to con- 
 tinue speaking her lines. She detected in herself a tend- 
 ency to peer about, to stop and listen. The loss of 
 the jewels had gotten into her nerves, her mind kept try- 
 ing to follow them; at first, she had felt only rather 
 blank, but now she began to realize that they were gone, 
 shining under other eyes, handled by other fingers, mar- 
 shalled and hidden by complacent thieves in a malicious 
 triumph. She was a hard worker, a strict disciplina- 
 rian; her company, accustomed to a sharp supervision, 
 a steady, central grasp, was a little chilled, a little 
 thrown out, the tension was relaxed, good team-play be- 
 came impossible. 
 
118 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 The first box on the stage-right was still empty ; Miss 
 Austin whispered to the astonished ingenue that Miss 
 Montresor's interest had evidently departed with the 
 jewels. At that moment, with a great sweep and rustle 
 and flash, Miss Montresor came into the box. 
 
 The act dragged on. Miss Austin went through the 
 mechanism of her work, her voice sounding in her own 
 ears far away, unconvincing, flat. She no longer blamed 
 the audience for its inattention, but the curiosity and 
 comment excited by Miss Montresor's entrance, the 
 opera-glasses which were levelled at that elaborate head, 
 the rustle and clatter and flounce of the stiff satin and 
 jet as the young woman seated herself in the extreme 
 front of the box where public curiosity might glut it- 
 self upon her, made Miss Austin a little sullen and 
 touched her mettle. Her instinctive antipathy to the 
 girl became, in her irresponsible and nervous state, a 
 coldness which was almost conscious opposition. She 
 tried to collect her forces, and she avoided looking into 
 the box. It was a little time before she realized that 
 there was something new going on, an excitement, some- 
 thing alert and whispering in the distraction of her 
 associates. Little exclamatory noises exploded in the 
 left first entrance, people dodged in and out of it 
 against her express orders. She was beginning the last 
 speech of the first act, in which she stood almost facing 
 this left entrance, and she was annoyed, she wondered 
 if she were jealous, at finding that the people in it were 
 staring past her at the inevitable Miss Montresor. Sud- 
 denly she saw that the ingenue, whose hand she held, 
 was staring in that direction, too. Something in the in- 
 genue's look startled her, she turned slowly toward her 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 119 
 
 bedizened rival, and met the kindly pity and disap- 
 pointment of a pair of round blue eyes. The next mo- 
 ment her mouth dropped open, her voice caught and 
 died away. Miss Montresor was in full evening dress 
 with a picture hat; she leaned forward, conspicuous, 
 serene, a little stiff, like a beautiful Dutch doll, radiant 
 in her popularity and her youth, rosy and shining in 
 the dark box in her white and pink and golden loveli- 
 ness; and there, in her black dress, in her plumed hat, 
 on her beautiful bare wrists, on her arms, in her hair, 
 and deep about her breast and the length of her slender 
 throat glittered and sparkled the entire glory of Miss 
 Austin's precious stones. 
 
 The actress felt her blood quicken in her like a wave 
 of warmth. A strong human pleasure of excitement 
 glowed within her; she turned gently away from the 
 box again, and finished her climax in a swift incisive 
 fire of delivery. The audience was startled into ap- 
 plause. The girl in the box turned and said something 
 to a man sitting behind her, and the curtain came down. 
 
 "My maid has gone for her," Miss Austin said to 
 the police officer in plain clothes, "to say I should like 
 to speak to her. But will she come?" 
 
 "I guess she'll come all right," said the officer. "It 
 won't be her game to make a scene she'd get the worst 
 of it in not before the audience. But you mustn't 
 think, ma'am, that the rest is going to be very pretty. 
 If she came by the things honestly, she'll make a strong 
 fight for them. She's not the kind, you understand, 
 that most any sort of publicity can do any harm to; if 
 there's been, any fellow hard up enough, and cracked on 
 
120 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 her enough, to have stolen your things for her, it'll be 
 just another advertisement for her." 
 
 "Surely he wouldn't have dared, for her sake, to have 
 given them to her without some kind of warning. ' ' 
 
 "You can't tell what a man '11 do, when he's crazy. 
 But I must say myself it don't look to me like chance. 
 "Well, if she wore those stones here to-night on pur- 
 pose, she's got some pretty deep game afoot. And 
 they'll play it for all its worth, she and the man that 
 runs her." 
 
 "Oh, yes!" said Mr. Daley, with sudden avidity; 
 "her manager, Higgins. Let's have him in here, too!" 
 
 "Oh, he won't get away. I've got that box pretty 
 close watched, I can tell you. But we want the woman 
 alone first. What I want to put you on about is any 
 sympathy racket. She's a mighty handsome girl " 
 
 ' ' She looks like an angel ! ' ' said Mr. Daley. 
 
 "Well, it's just those angel faces can do the dirty 
 work. She's been travelling round with this fellow for 
 years, dancing in the provinces, singing and dancing in 
 all sorts of queer dives. And when he got a chance to 
 bring her out in London she was what you might call 
 a nine-days' wonder there, the same as here. She left 
 there all of a sudden, they said on account of the fancy 
 prices over here, but before she left there was some sort 
 of a muss about a bracelet some young swell gave her, 
 or didn't give her, and she handed it back to him again. 
 She seems to turn people's heads easy enough. I sup- 
 pose she doesn't shake this Higgins because he puts her 
 onto all her rackets." 
 
 "But what possible motive could she have for letting 
 me know she had my jewels ? ' ' 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 121 
 
 "Well, I can't really say yet, ma'am. It might be a 
 case of blackmail, same as Sir George Lorton worked on 
 his wife, who was an actress. She used to wear the 
 family jewels on the stage as a sort of ' ad. ' Sir George 
 lit out for Australia with them and pawned them, and 
 then swore they were imitation, and actually scared some 
 money out of his wife by threatening to expose her for 
 cheating the public with false pretences ! ' ' 
 
 "But Miss Austin's jewels weren't imitation," said 
 Curtis. 
 
 "No more were the others," said the officer. "It was 
 just a trick Sir George played to get a little pocket- 
 money." 
 
 "The connection does not seem so very likely," Miss 
 Austin demurred. 
 
 "Well, ma'am," said the officer, "it doesn't seem 
 very likely, any way you take it. And so long as there's 
 something queer, somewhere ' 
 
 There was a knock at the door. The little dressing- 
 room fell strangely silent, and its silence was penetrated 
 by the wistful, suggestive music of the entr'acte waltz. 
 Miss Austin shuddered. She moved to the door, and 
 opened it herself. Miss Montresor, still shimmering 
 in her stolen gorgeousness, stood smiling on the thresh- 
 old. 
 
 "Miss Montresor," said Miss Austin, "will you come 
 in. You need not wait at present, Hannah," to the 
 maid. "I am very sorry," she said to the visitor, as 
 Mr. Daley pulled forward a chair, "to have to put you 
 to this inconvenience." 
 
 "It's no inconvenience at all. I'm sure I thought it 
 very civil of you," said the girl. Her voice, though it 
 
122 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 was fresh and soft with a little living note of gaiety 
 and sweetness,, was thinned throughout by the cockney 
 twang which, carefully beaten away from the actual 
 aitches, survived in the lengthening and sharpening of 
 every vowel, and the sing-song lilt of every phrase. 
 She inclined her head with a small, stiff graciousness to 
 Mr. Daley, and rustled into the chair. 
 
 Miss Austin, sitting opposite, and regarding her with 
 care, felt a disarming kindness for the ignorance of a 
 girl scarcely out of her teens, and for some other quality 
 which she could not name, but of which she had been 
 aware at the first glance. And yet, was the girl, in her 
 flaunting prosperity, really ignorant, or only shame- 
 less? Nothing was to be learned from her excessive 
 prettiness, which was of that obvious and almost imper- 
 sonal kind that blunts perception and defies judgment 
 like a mask. She was tall, and of a young, rounded 
 slenderness; on her little Clytie head the hair was 
 crimped into close, solid ripples, like a barber's block, 
 and glistened thick and golden and smooth down to the 
 preposterous great bun at the back of her neck. Her 
 bright, natural complexion looked false at a first glance, 
 it was so evenly pink and white; her round eyes, very 
 mild and full, regarded the world with a baby stare ; 
 she had a gentle, rather rigid dignity, like that of a 
 good child. Miss Austin could make nothing of that 
 imperturbable radiance ; whether it was strangely stupid, 
 or strangely daring, she could not guess, but yet there 
 was something, some poignant reminiscence connected 
 with it, and suddenly she remembered, and almost ex- 
 claimed. When she was a little girl, a very morbid, 
 lonely, intense little girl, there had been raffled at a 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 123 
 
 church fair near her home, a great wax doll. The sick 
 and dreamy child had admired it beyond the pictures of 
 angels. It had worn a long, black rustling dress, and it 
 had had a round pink and white face, flat, rippled golden 
 hair. In manner it had had a pleasing stiffness, a polite 
 smile. Somehow or other, she had gotten a ticket for 
 that raffle; she had lain awake night after night, clasp- 
 ing, in imagination, the doll in her arms; all the long 
 days she had dreamed of nothing else; she had started 
 a wardrobe for it; out of an old fairy tale which years 
 after people made into an operetta, she had named it 
 to herself, a sweet name, Rosalba. And then, someone 
 else drew the right number. She never saw the doll 
 again; she never cared for any other doll. All her 
 childhood Rosalba gleamed before her, an imperishable 
 regret. And now, directly opposite, and beautiful, ex- 
 actly as a child conceives of beauty, she beheld the equiv- 
 alent of that long-desired presence. She remembered 
 that Miss Montresor was called Rosie, and looked at her 
 with that slanting smile which was generally reserved 
 for Robert Daley. At that moment the police officer 
 drew a chair jauntily in front of the door and sat down. 
 Miss Austin suddenly felt as though she herself were in 
 a trap. 
 
 She was seized by a swift, absurd determination. 
 The dancer, if she surrendered, should know what she 
 was doing. 
 
 "Miss Montresor," said the star, "I wanted not only 
 to speak to you myself, but to introduce to you these 
 gentlemen, Mr. Robert Daley, my manager," Miss Mon- 
 tresor once more statelily inclined her head, "and Mr. 
 Murtha, of the police." 
 
124 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Of the police!" Miss Montresor somewhat coyly 
 echoed. "My word!" She turned and looked at Mr. 
 Murtha with an interested amusement in which she al- 
 most winked at him. 
 
 The officer made a little gesture of displeasure and 
 impatience. He felt that Miss Austin's information had 
 been premature. 
 
 "Oh!" continued the young lady, "about your jew- 
 els, to be sure ! Well, Mr. Officer, I hope you make 
 short work of finding 'em. It's an awful thing for a 
 girl to see everything she's got go into somebody else's 
 pocket. It knocks one a bit silly, I should think." 
 
 "I think it has knocked me altogether silly," re- 
 sponded Miss Austin. ' ' I scarcely know what to believe. 
 I wish I might be dreaming. ' ' 
 
 "Fancy! I saw you were a bit off at first. 'Poor 
 soul!' I said to Higgins, 'she's thinking of her loss, and 
 no wonder,' I said." 
 
 "How did you know Miss Austin had lost her jew- 
 els?" asked the officer. 
 
 "I was there when they found out." 
 
 "Didn't you think the stones were pretty?" 
 
 "Why, how should I know? I never set eyes on 'em, 
 did I?" 
 
 "You wouldn't know them if you should see them?" 
 
 "Why, no!" said the girl, with an impatient laugh. 
 ' ' What 's the man driving at ? " 
 
 Miss Austin leaned forward. "There is something I 
 should like to ask you." She waved an explanatory 
 hand toward the long string of pearls and turquoises the 
 girl was at that moment loosening about her throat. 
 ' ' How did you come to wear these here to-night ? ' ' 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 125 
 
 "There!" cried Miss Montresor, "that's what I said 
 to Higgins. ' 'Iggins Higgins,' I said, 'what's the use 
 o* wearing all these there to-night? It'll only remind 
 her of her pretty things, ' I said. But he wouldn 't have 
 it. He's got a regular taste for something sparkly, he 
 has; and he keeps me always looking like I was on 
 parade." She shook a string of diamonds that was 
 twisted round her wrist. "But they are pretty," she 
 smiled. 
 
 "You seem very fond of jewels," said Miss Austin. 
 "It seems to me that you have bought a great many for 
 a young girl. ' ' 
 
 "My word! I didn't buy 'em! I've got a lot else 
 to do with my money, I have! Luck was never much 
 my way before, and you never can tell when it'll stop, 
 you know. I daresay I shan't be drawing a hundred 
 pounds a week for very long, I shan't." She looked 
 down, musingly, at the surprising glitter on her breast. 
 "These were only given to me to-dye to-day," she 
 affably corrected herself. 
 
 "Given to you!" implored Miss Austin; "0! By 
 whom?" She added, with growing confidence, "To- 
 day! What, all at once?" 
 
 The girl colored. "Wy yes," she said. 
 
 "You must have struck it rich!" said the officer. 
 "Who gave them to you?" 
 
 "W'y!" cried Miss Montresor, "wot's that to you? 
 You mustn't try any of your police manners on me, my 
 man." 
 
 Miss Austin said very gently, "I am afraid you will 
 have to answer." 
 
 The girl's eyes flashed. She stood up. "See 'ere!" 
 
126 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 she cried, "wot is this? You're all pretty queer, I 
 think!" 
 
 Her excitement was contagious; the officer and Miss 
 Austin also rose; Mr. Daley came a step nearer to the 
 girl, and fell back again. Miss Austin observed his dis- 
 comfort with sympathy; it was a new business for Bob 
 to be in, the worrying of a woman. 
 
 Miss Montresor observed the position of the officer. 
 "Wot are you doing in front of that door?" she de- 
 manded. She gathered up the lace and jet of her skirts, 
 as though to go. "Get away! I've 'ad enough of it 
 'ere," she declared. But she did not move. 
 
 "I'm not going to get away," said the officer, "and 
 neither are you ! ' ' 
 
 She questioned Daley and Miss Austin with quick 
 looks. ' ' Wot does he mean ? ' ' 
 
 Miss Austin clenched her hands. "Don't be afraid," 
 she began. 
 
 " I 'm not af rayd ! ' ' said the girl, lifting her head. 
 
 "Well, then," said the officer, "look here. This 
 lady's lost close onto forty thousand worth of precious 
 stones, and you're covered with 'em this minute like a 
 shop window. What have you got to say about it?" 
 
 There was a long pause. Miss Montresor turned at 
 last from the officer to look at Miss Austin and her man- 
 ager. "And was this the reason that you asked me to 
 come and speak to you?" 
 
 "We hoped you would clear yourself," said Miss 
 Austin. 
 
 "You didn't. You 'oped I should give myself 
 awye!" 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 127 
 
 "Possibly," answered Miss Austin, with an exas- 
 perated flare of temper. "I wanted my jewels!" 
 
 "And do you think if I'd stolen 'em, I'd be wearing 
 them under your nose ? I should be a silly, I should ! ' ' 
 
 "Well," broke in the officer, "there was never any- 
 thing done so queer and so deliberate as that for noth- 
 ing. There's games and games in your business. I 
 know pretty well what yours is, and before I'm through 
 with you, you can rest easy I'll know the whole of it. 
 You've overreached yourself this time, you and Hig- 
 gins." 
 
 "Is this," said the girl, continuing to overlook the 
 officer, ' ' is this wot both o ' you think ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, my dear," said Miss Austin, pitifully, "there 
 are the stones ! "What are we to make of that ? ' ' 
 
 "Well, wot are we? They're mine, I s'y. You s'y 
 they're yours. It's even, isn't it? You expect me to 
 believe you, why don 't you believe me ? If you ask me 
 for things to prove it, why shouldn't I ask you? Wot's 
 the difference between us ? " 
 
 She turned her little wax-doll head slowly from side 
 to side, searching their faces. Then she said to Miss 
 Austin. "I see. It's the kind of a girl I am. It's 
 natural to think I'd tyke 'em. Only, w'y didn't you 
 'ave me arrested in the box, business-like ? W 'y did you 
 ask me to come into your own room, o' my own self. I 
 was that pleased! I thought you were that kind to do 
 it, and not snubby to me like some of 'em 'ave been! 
 But I don't call you a woman at all, I don't not now. 
 W'y, I came o' people never 'ad a chance at all in this 
 world, people you wouldn't wipe your feet on, I dare- 
 
128 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 s'y, but there isn't one of 'em but would give a girl 
 fair pl'y, or wouldn't be ashymed to have treated 'er 
 like you 'ave treated me ! " She had scarcely raised her 
 voice, but now she broke into a loud angry laugh. 
 "And these," she cried, touching the jewels, "won't 
 you look a pretty fool w 'en they come to look at them ! 
 Not to know your own things, nor so very much about 
 'em, either. These! w'y these aren't precious stones at 
 all, not one of 'em ; these are only imitytion ! ' ' 
 
 She looked about, eager for a sensation, but no one 
 stirred. Only a little chill settled upon two of her audi- 
 tors. The officer snorted grimly. "Imitation, eh? 
 What did I tell you?" 
 
 Miss Austin spoke in her soft, frozen voice of anger 
 and distaste. "May I ask you to let me examine that 
 belt buckle?" 
 
 ' ' No ! ' ' cried the girl. She looked defiantly round 
 at the passive, expectant figures. Then, with a shrug, 
 she unfastened the belt and handed it to Miss Austin. 
 Miss Austin pressed a brilliant; the jade slipped back 
 and revealed a plain gold plate heavily engraved with 
 the letters M and A in monogram. The girl looked at 
 this in silence, and grew very pale. 
 
 "Imitation, eh!" chuckled the officer. "That's 
 news." He called their attention with a pointing fin- 
 ger to the dancer's concentrated thoughtfulness. They 
 watched it grow into something more lively, more pain- 
 ful ; for the first time a nervous shadow fell across her 
 face, she began to betray the fluttered passion of a sensi- 
 tive creature which feels itself entrapped, which sees 
 walls closing closely around it. Her nostrils distended 
 a little, fear crept into her round, pretty eyes. Still 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 129 
 
 studying her face, the officer said to Miss Austin, 
 " Could you get me that fellow who saw her in the 
 office?" 
 
 Miss Austin went to the door. ' ' Please tell Mr. Bart- 
 lett I'm not ready yet," she commanded, ''and send 
 Thomason here. He can wait outside until I call him." 
 
 "Now," said the officer, not unkindly, "now, Miss 
 Montresor, these things were given to you, you say?" 
 
 "Ye yes, they were." 
 
 "Well, then, all you've got to do is to tell us who 
 gave 'em to you. Don't you hesitate on his account. 
 He's treated you pretty bad, and the only thing for you 
 to do is to tell us who he is." They waited; she made 
 no sign at all. "Because, if you don't, we'll have to 
 keep you under arrest until you do. Now, you don't 
 want that, do you? You don't want me to think this 
 is all a fake, and you were in the business from the 
 beginning? And be sure," the officer added sternly 
 as she tried to speak and failed, ' ' be sure you tell me the 
 right fellow, or you'll be worse off than ever, in the 
 end." 
 
 "I thought they were imitytion," she persisted. She 
 moved slowly to Miss Austin's dressing-place, where she 
 began to take off the jewels, and lay them piece by 
 piece upon the shelf. As the glimmering pile glistened 
 and grew, her eyes filled higher and higher with tears; 
 she put down the last ornament and covered her face 
 with her hands. ' ' There ! I 'aven 't 'urt 'em. Let me 
 go." 
 
 "Not by a long shot," cried the officer. 
 " Oh ! oh ! oh ! " said the girl. She began to sway a lit- 
 tle way back and forth, with her face still hidden. 
 9 
 
130 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 Miss Austin regarded her with the pity which she 
 might have felt for some lovely, noxious animal in pain. 
 "I have my jewels," she said to the officer. "They are 
 all I want. I do not wish to press the charge. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh, well, ' ' said the officer, ' ' I guess I got to hold her 
 all right. She" 
 
 "Ow! w'y?" cried Miss Montresor. "They're not 
 yours. They're 'ers, and she's got 'em. That's all she 
 wants. I'm very sorry I took them." Mr. Daley 
 started, and she saw him, but she only blenched at the 
 slip without endeavoring to retrieve it, and Miss Aus- 
 tin smiled at him in a disconsolate sympathy. "I'm 
 very sorry. They were so pretty. And I thought they 
 were imitytion. It 'asn't 'urt 'em for me to wear 'em 
 a few hours. Wy can't I go?" 
 
 "Ain't you the innocent!" said the officer. "That 
 may go down with the lady and gentleman, but none of 
 it in mine. You never stuck yourself all over with those 
 things an' wore 'em here as conspicuous as a headlight, 
 because they were so pretty. And you never did it 
 on your own lead, either. You and that fellow of yours, 
 that Higgins, have got something up your sleeves, and 
 we've got a pretty good idea what it is." He winked 
 covertly at Daley, as he said, "We know all about it 
 except one or two little details, see? And if you tell us 
 those before he does, it'll be the better for you." 
 
 The girl dropped into a chair and crouched there, 
 crying wildly, her head on her knees and enfolded by 
 her arms; her huge feathered hat knocked and swung 
 about rowdily and ridiculously on her golden little head. 
 The sound of her sobbing was dreadful with a shamed, 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 131 
 
 frightened horror, and with the childish little "oh's" 
 which every now and then escaped her. 
 
 ' ' My God ! ' ' said Mr. Daley. He came up to her, and 
 touched the jet cap of her sleeve. "Please don't!" he 
 said. "Don't cry. It's a nasty business. But maybe 
 we don't understand about it yet. Mary!" he cried. 
 "Why don't you speak to her!" 
 
 "What do you want me to say?" Miss Austin asked. 
 
 "Oh, Mary. You'd be quick enough to understand 
 her and be patient with her if she was a part you were 
 going to play, if she was in a book. I don't believe 
 we 've got any right, any of us, to make her cry like this. 
 When I was a pretty big kid I used to think it great 
 larks to cheat the street-cars out of my fare, and you, 
 Mary, once you thought a hotel had overcharged you, 
 and you took away three towels; I remember it per- 
 fectly. And it's all the same thing, if we had the sense 
 to see it, and there's no reason why she should carry on 
 like this before us, poor little girl, poor little girl ! ' ' 
 
 The officer smiled to Miss Austin, and raised his eye- 
 brows. "She don't want to go to jail. That's what 
 she 's crying for, all right. ' ' 
 
 The girl sat upright and controlled herself by an ef- 
 fort which seemed to sear and stiffen the young gentle- 
 ness of her look. To Mr. Daley she paid no attention 
 whatever, and he continued to stand awkwardly behind 
 her chair. She said to the officer, "I don't 'ave to tell 
 anything now, do I ? I can get somebody, can 't I, that '11 
 advise me?" 
 
 "You mean you refuse to tell us anything?" 
 
 "Well, I don't know wot trouble I might get myself 
 into, do I? I should think you've got enough out of 
 
132 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 me, you 'ave. You've made me tell you I took 'em, 
 w'en I only wanted 'em for a minute wot more do you 
 want?" 
 
 "I want to know how you got 'em, and what you 
 wore 'em here to-night for!" 
 
 A little laugh dimpled over the girl's face, and tilted 
 up the piteous, pale bow of her soft mouth. "Well!" 
 she said, "you are greedy, you are! You can talk to 
 my solicitor," she added. 
 
 "You'll have to come with me, you know," said the 
 officer. 
 
 ' ' I should 'ave to do that any 'ow, shouldn 't I ? "Would 
 someone get my cloak ? It 's in the box. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Daley stepped directly in front of her, and 
 looked her steadily and severely in the eyes. "Don't 
 you want to say good-bye to Mr. Higgins?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Ow! no!" she cried. "Wot for?" 
 
 "Officer," said Mr. Daley, "there isn't a man going 
 respects law and order more than I do, but if this lady 
 is taken out of this room before that Higgins comes into 
 it, there 's going to be a fight. ' ' 
 
 "I won't see 'im!" cried the girl. 
 
 "I guess you're about right," said the officer to Mr. 
 Daley. 
 
 "Ow, very well," said the girl, quieting herself. 
 "You can't get anything out o' 'im. 'E thinks some- 
 body's made me a 'andsome present. Poor 'iggins; 'e 
 will get a shock, 'e will ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, he's got that some time ago," said the officer. 
 "He's outside with my men." 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 133 
 
 Another overture was ordered, and as it struck up, 
 Higgins was produced. He proved to be a tall, pale, 
 pulpy man, with mutton-chop whiskers, and he looked 
 badly frightened. He was fifteen or twenty years older 
 than Miss Montresor, and there was something cheap 
 and slightly sickish in his well-groomed opulence. 
 
 The girl dried her eyes and waved her hand to him, 
 with a kind little motion of reassurance. "Don't look 
 so put about, my dear," she said. "I'm all right." 
 
 The man's features puffed into a spasm of temper. 
 "And what about me?" he asked. "What's the mean- 
 ing of this outrage? It must be something you've said. 
 
 It's that pigheadedness of yours! Why didn't 
 
 you tell the truth?" 
 
 The girl's mouth opened a little, her chin dropped, 
 the hand which she had been raising to her hair folded 
 itself against her breast. "I have told it," she slowly 
 and carefully announced. "You can't help me. Let 
 it be." 
 
 He still looked puzzled. "Did you tell this lady and 
 gentleman your ornaments were only imitation?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You see !" he appealed to them, with extended hands. 
 "Just what I have been telling your men, constable. 
 Not Miss Austin's jewels. Not jewels at all. Only 
 imitation." 
 
 Miss Austin looked sadly at Daley, and met a candid 
 defiance in his eyes. 
 
 "That's the gag the girl tried to give us," said the 
 officer; "and it don't work." He pointed toward the 
 pile of trinkets. "You say they're imitation?" 
 
134 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 ''Certainly," persisted Mr. Higgins. "I bought the 
 entire collection this morning for a matter of three hun- 
 dred dollars." 
 
 " 'Iggins!" The unguarded warning leaped from 
 the girl's lips. 
 
 ' ' Oh ! " said the policeman. ' ' You bought them your- 
 self, did you?" 
 
 11 Certainly." 
 
 "Who did you buy 'em of?" 
 
 "A man who makes a specialite of fine imitations 
 a man named Ferguson." 
 
 "What's his address?" 
 
 "Thirteen eleven, Maiden Lane." 
 
 "There's no such number," cried Daley. 
 
 "Never mind," said the officer. "This is your story, 
 Mr. Higgins. You bought these ornaments this morn- 
 ing for three hundred dollars and gave them as a present 
 to this young woman. And was it at your suggestion 
 she wore them here to-night?" 
 
 "Exactly." 
 
 "Well, now, that's queer. The young woman has 
 just testified that she stole those jewels herself, and lied 
 to you about them, and that you knew no more of where 
 they came from than a child." He leaned back and 
 smiled complacently. "Hitch somewhere!" he said 
 gaily. 
 
 Mr. Higgins 's angry face had gone clay-color. He 
 looked at the girl with an animosity that stammered and 
 faltered on his lips. "You fool, you! A nice mess 
 you've got me into ! What did you tell a yarn like that 
 for, eh?" 
 
 "I'm sorry," said the girl. 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 135 
 
 "You've made me look a liar, you have. If I'm 
 jailed up here in this beast of a country, it'll be your 
 tongue got me into it. You're a fool, you are!" 
 
 "I'm very, very sorry," she replied. 
 
 "You ought to have got your story better fixed up 
 between you," jeered the officer. 
 
 "Do you mean to say you won't take my word !" cried 
 Mr. Higgins. "Do you mean you're going to arrest 
 me ! To put me in jail ! Me, a respectable man ! W 'y, 
 it'll ruin me!" 
 
 "Yes, you!" said the officer, a little tartly. "And 
 how about the lady, here?" 
 
 "She!" cried Mr. Higgins. "She's got me into this 
 with that tongue of hers ! After all I done for her, 
 her!" 
 
 Miss Austin arrested Mr. Daley's movement, and said 
 to the officer, "That fellow mustn't speak so to that 
 child." 
 
 She looked commiseratingly at the dancer, and sighed 
 forgivingly. 
 
 "Mary," said Mr. Daley, "you're the best woman in 
 the world, and always were, but you're all mixed up 
 on this. She don't want that kind of pity. She don't 
 need it from anybody. Why, Mary, and you, too, offi- 
 cer, can't you see how it all is? That fellow there 
 didn't steal the jewels, and whoever did has got into a 
 funk and sold 'em to him for imitation. But we've 
 frightened Miss Montresor, not on her own account, you 
 bet, but on his; when she found the jewels were real, 
 after all, and were yours, she thought he'd stolen them, 
 and stolen them for her, and she yes, she lied to shield 
 him. Don't you remember what she said at first? 
 
136 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 'They were only given to me to-day.' Don't you see? 
 She's been trying to shield him, that's all!" 
 
 "He's just as likely to put on all this bluster to try 
 and shield her," said the officer. "It's six to the half- 
 dozen, that way. And I should like to see the profes- 
 sional thief that would sell forty thousand worth of 
 graft for three hundred, no matter what tree he was up. 
 Nay, nay ; it won 't work ! ' ' 
 
 Mr. Higgins's complexion had been growing pastier 
 and pastier, and now he gave forth an embarrassed 
 laugh. 
 
 "Well, constable," he said, "it's not my fault if 
 you're too clever for me. I couldn't deceive you, could 
 I? I am not the first man that's lost his head about her, 
 as is well known. I did the best I could for her, but I 'm 
 not bound to go to jail for her, am I ? " 
 
 "You mean her story was correct?" said the officer. 
 
 Mr. Higgins shifted, and decently hesitated. "You 
 said so yourself," he suggested. 
 
 The officer rose with a disgusted smile. "I guess 
 we'll all march along," he said. 
 
 Mr. Daley went up to the girl and held out his hand. 
 "Miss Montresor, I don't ask you to take back any- 
 thing you 've said, because I know you won 't. But, bye- 
 and-bye, we'll prove what's true. May I get your 
 cloak?" 
 
 She gave him a long smile out of her wet, grave eyes. 
 "Any 'ow," she said, "you're a man, you are." She 
 laid her hand in his. 
 
 Somehow he did not start for the cloak. Nobody hur- 
 ried him. There was a vague hope in the air that now 
 she was going to do something, that now she was going 
 
THE PEINCESS ROSALBA 137 
 
 to clear herself. Almost in the instant she seemed to 
 have forgotten Daley, and it was the look she bent upon 
 Mr. Higgins which arrested attention, a look of gather- 
 ing passion, like a great tide, growing and rising in her 
 face. She stepped up close to him, and touched him 
 with the tips of her fingers. "I'm done with you, 
 'iggins, " she said. "Do you 'ear wot I'm telling you? 
 I 'm done with you, I thank Gawd ! ' ' 
 
 Mr. Higgins made an indeterminate sound. 
 
 "I want you to know," she continued slowly, and 
 speaking at first with the greatest care ; " I want you to 
 know how I've always felt about you. Ever since I 
 could walk, almost, I danced for money; when I fol- 
 lowed the hand-organs in the street, and danced, you 
 know, with the other little kiddies, it was me people 
 would throw the pennies to. My father never could 
 abide it, I '11 say that for him ; many a whack he 's given 
 me for it, he has. I used to run off and dance the 
 'ighland fling in public 'ouses when I wasn't as 'igh as 
 the back of a chair, and come home with a great lot of 
 coppers, and I'll say this, there never was a soul laid a 
 finger on me at a public 'ouse, nor spoke a word to me 
 that wasn't proper. And then father had his accident, 
 and used to sit at home in a corner, a bit out of his mind, 
 as you might say, as useless as a dummy, poor soul, and 
 'aving to 'ave his mouth wiped every little while. I 
 dream about 'im like that sometimes, I do. We 'ad that 
 kind of a time for years that I can't put a name to. I 
 got singin' and dancin' to do at music 'alls queer lit- 
 tle 'oles nobody 'd know the name of, and as I got a bit 
 older, I'd get away for a week or two, with some little 
 tupenny thing that was trying to tour the provinces. I 
 
138 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 never had any schooling, nor any rest, nor any chance. 
 Meat was a great treat for me, it was, and I used to do 
 my own clothes in a wash- 'and basin. You see, 'iggins, 
 I'm not forgetting wot you took me out of. When I 
 was fifteen I was making thirty shillings a week, and 
 I took out a life-insurance for my mother, I remember. 
 Ow, I had a good enough time; I was always a jolly 
 little monkey, I was. And I wasn't only dancing then, 
 I was acting, which I was good at you know very well 
 I was, Freddy 'iggins! I was playing Rosalba," Miss 
 Austin started and almost flushed, "in the Princess 
 Rosalba, that I took my first name out of, for my own 
 name's Susan," Miss Montresor continued, "singing 
 and dancing and acting the leading part for thirty 
 shillings a week, and the manager not always 'andy 
 with that, either ! But you saw me in it and people told 
 me afterwards wot you said 'Lord! there's a fortune 
 in the girl!' And just about then the manager's wife 
 lost the job she 'ad in another company, and he put 
 'er into my part to save a salary, and I was chucked 
 out. Wen 'e told me, I thought I should 'a' died! 
 I can shut my eyes and feel like that now, like I was 
 seein' blood. And then you took 'old of me. You 
 said you were sorry for me, you said I had talent and 
 you couldn't see it go to waste, and you were always 
 pleasant-spoken and gentle, and never ashymed to take 
 me out a bit, though my talk was so ignorant those days. 
 You made a contract with mother and me for five years, a 
 rise of salary every year ; I wouldn't 'a' called the Queen 
 my cousin! And you got me lessons in dancing and 
 in singing; you've made an artist of me, 'iggins, I'll 
 say that for you. You managed me for all you were 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 139 
 
 worth. In two years we 'ad our 'ands full, the prov- 
 inces were wild for us, we could 'ardly keep up with 
 our engygements. You sent my father to a 'ospital 
 and he died comfortable there, and you gave him a 
 'andsome funeral, you did, and you sent Cissie and 
 Bess to school, and you set up Tom in that bit of a 
 shop, so mother could live with 'im, and look after 
 'im, like I never was looked after. I was cryzy gryte- 
 f ul ! I thought you were the best man in the world, 
 I thought you were and the Lord knows I don't speak 
 it lightly I thought you were like Gawd ! I studied 
 my business like a mad thing; I tried to speak like a 
 lydy, and I do w'en I'm careful, and I never drop an 
 aitch on the styge, as you well know. I would 'a' 
 worked till I died, for you, and glad to do it. And 
 all this time I never asked w'ere the money went to. 
 I 'ad so much more than ever I'd 'ad in my life, I 
 didn't give a thought to the rest, and didn't know I 
 was p'ying you back with interest. We kept to our 
 original contract, you an' me, an' you payed me the 
 salary you'd agreed to, and I took it, an' no more. 
 Eight pounds a week I get this year, an' me drawing 
 a hundred from the Orpheum and more offered me 
 every day! You've paid some carriage bills and things 
 on the outside, very liberal, you 'ave! But it's not 
 the money!" 
 
 There was a slim gold chain about her neck, she 
 broke it with a snap and handed it to him; then they 
 saw a cheap little ring hanging from it. 
 
 "When I was about sixteen," she went on, "you said 
 you wanted to marry me. It never cyme to me to 
 say no. I didn't like it much, but I didn't care much, 
 
140 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 either, not then, and I was used to minding wot you 
 said. But I never could abide you to come near me, 
 you remember, and I put it off, time and again, one way 
 an' another, and w'en I got older, I said I'd marry you 
 w'en the five years were up. It was the farthest I 
 could think of. And it wasn't till after we got to 
 London, and men began tyking me out a bit, and 
 s'ying things to me, that I began to understand wot 
 people were s'ying about about you and me." 
 
 Mr. Daley had been turning a tumbler round and 
 round upon the wash-stand; it now fell into the basin 
 with quite a crash and broke to pieces. Mr. Daley 
 scooped out the pieces, cut himself, and continued to 
 stand sucking his finger, a picture of foolishness, as 
 the girl went on. 
 
 "I ought to 'ave expected it, I s'pose, for it looked 
 that w'y. There's many a poor girl in my plyce, bet- 
 ter than me, most likely, but not so stubborn, it would 
 'ave been true of; it, and the other things that got 
 said, that would 'a' made my father turn in his gryve. 
 I like a lark, I do, w'en it's right; I was as ignorant 
 a fool as ever stepped, I know that, but in my business 
 a man can tyke a girl out after 'er work's over, and 
 get 'er a glass o' beer, and no 'arm done. I didn't 
 know it was different with other people. And it was 
 you introduced all those young swells to me, and I 
 was jolly glad to go about with 'em a bit, and w'en 
 I began to come to you with things, you said, wot did 
 I know about swell w'ys? You said the social racket 
 was the one to work so as to get a'ead in business. 
 'Don't I know 'ow to tyke care o' you?' you said. 
 'Ain't I goin' to marry you?' And I knew it was my 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 141 
 
 fault we weren't married already, and every time you 
 spoke o' marriage, it was like you'd put a wet cloth 
 over my 'ead. And then there cyme that business with 
 Lord Lackam, an' you know w'y I gyve 'im back 'is 
 brycelet, 'iggins you know!" The color flamed over 
 her face, her voice died in her throat and rose again 
 in a swelling rush of pain. 
 
 "Look at me!" she said. Her stare into the mirror 
 ran over her great feathered hat, her bare shoulders, 
 her costly, glittering dress. "You've 'ad me round in 
 carriages, in boxes, in restaurants, to myke a show of 
 me, you've 'ired jewelry for me to wear, you've made 
 me laugh and carry on in my songs like I didn't like, 
 and yet I trusted you, I did, and I thought it was all 
 a part of the business, like kissin' people in a love- 
 scene. All the time you kept on makin' love to me, 
 and I believed you, and I thought of all you'd done 
 for me, and 'ow Bessie and Cis were at school yet, and 
 'ow everything you myde me do was for me, to myke 
 me fymous; and times I could 'ardly 'elp seein', and 
 yet I didn't see. Ow, I've been a wretched, wretched 
 girl, these months! I was 'appier w'en I was pl'yin' 
 the Princess Rosalba in a old green rag with silver 
 fringes on it, and a pink wreath in my 'air, than 
 ever I've been in all these splendid clothes! But I 
 thought it would be all right w'en we were married at 
 the end o' this year; you were goin' to let me act some 
 parts then, like I did Rosalba w'en you were dead 
 sure o' me, you see! and I swore I'd marry you, if 
 I died for it and I'd rather 'a' died, for I couldn't 
 but feel you were unmanly and foolish and mean 
 because you 'ad my word and you kept on syin' you 
 
142 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 loved me, you loved me, but ' she crossed her arms 
 on her breast with a soft triumphant laugh "you 
 don't; you've shown me that, to-night. That's all that 
 matters. Money was wot you wanted, and money 
 you've 'ad. No matter 'ow all the rest o' this turns 
 out, I'm free. I don't care if I go to jyle, and st'y 
 there: you don't love me, you don't love, and I'm free 
 of you, for always!" She covered her face with her 
 hands again, and stood there, trembling. 
 
 It was the police officer who spoke into the crowded 
 silence. "Well, I hope you were fooling us, and we 
 get hold of Ferguson, Miss!" 
 
 Miss Austin slowly turned her head, her mouth opened 
 in excitement. "Ferguson! Fergu I wonder!" She 
 sprang to the door and flung it open. "Thomason!" 
 she called. Her voice rang out loudly, searchingly, 
 about the stage. "Thomason!" 
 
 Mr. Daley's face lightened. "By George, Mary," he 
 cried, ' ' you 've got the greatest brain ! I thought there 
 was something queer about that fish," he added to the 
 officers. 
 
 "Thomason isn't here ma'am," answered the stage- 
 hand. "He left this note, please." 
 
 ' ' Miss Austin, ' ' said the stage manager, ' ' they 've sent 
 around twice from the front of the house. I can 't hold 
 this audience much longer. They won't stand it." 
 
 "Oh, tell them I've fainted, or something," said she, 
 impatiently. 
 
 She shut the door again, and tore open the envelope. 
 Beside the letter there was an enclosure which she 
 looked at with a puzzled laugh. She read the letter 
 aloud : 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 143 
 
 "Miss AUSTIN: Madam You are of course aware 
 that before I sank to the menial position which I have 
 occupied with you, I took, with even my humble means, 
 an active part in many charitable concerns. The re- 
 demption of the unfortunate has been, I may say, my 
 vocation. During the years when I had every reason 
 to suppose that I should always be in possession of a 
 sufficient competence, I pledged myself to a certain 
 meritorious society to pay three hundred dollars a year 
 for five years toward a training school and House of 
 Help which it was desirous of assisting. In the 
 popularity resultant upon this offer, I was elected presi- 
 dent of the society for the term of ten years. The 
 society was faithful to me in my worldly misfortunes 
 and I did not withdraw from my high office. This 
 week was the time when my last yearly payment be- 
 came due. You will be the first to understand, madam, 
 that no such payment was possible to me. It was at 
 the time of this extreme necessity that by one of those 
 extravagant expressions, due, probably to the general 
 lax effusion of your profession, you led me into a 
 serious error. One evening when I had brought you 
 your jewel-box, you folded it in your arms as though 
 it were an infant, and when Mr. Daley remonstrated 
 with you, you said, as I well remember, "0, yes, yes, 
 I know. False and fair, all paste, all gauds, all glitter- 
 ing dust!" and you laughed in that disdainful manner 
 so many observe in you. What was I to infer? I sup- 
 posed .that the public was being deluded at a nominal 
 cost, and that the young people, of whom, unfortunately, 
 a great many witness your performances, were being 
 falsely attracted toward the stage, toward a life of 
 
144 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 prodigality and vain show. While I was in this con- 
 dition of mind it occurred to me that these meretricious 
 counterfeits of which the custody was always forced 
 upon me, were worth more than the small amount neces- 
 sary to avert ignominy from a faithful and industrious 
 career. I am aware that minds habituated to merely 
 mundane considerations will regard my next action with 
 deeply rooted prejudice. I procured a lock-box suffi- 
 ciently similar to your own, packed it to a correspond- 
 ing weight, carried it last night in the hand of the arm 
 over which I carried my overcoat, and while I was 
 walking behind you into the lobby of the hotel, I ex- 
 changed the boxes, leaving my own in the hotel safe. 
 This morning I sought out Mr. Higgins as a probable 
 purchaser and sold them to him, as the imitations I sup- 
 posed them to be, for three hundred dollars. I thought 
 them worth probably more, but I scorned to gain 
 a penny for my personal aggrandizement. My idea was 
 to remain in your employ until I had saved another 
 three hundred, or, if possible, the exact value of the 
 ornaments, which I should then have paid to you in 
 their place. It was merely a question of time. I have 
 made some small investments which will eventually as- 
 sist me to independence. But this evening, when I ap- 
 prehended that Mr. Higgins and Miss Montresor had 
 forced an unexpected issue, and were certain to be ar- 
 rested, when I learned that the jewels were real, and 
 that I could never repay you for them, and when I 
 looked at her from the entrance and saw how admirably 
 they became her, and imagined her beautiful distress, 
 I decided upon my present course. I have left town 
 on the half past eight train. With the foregoing com- 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 145 
 
 plete information, I return the three hundred, which 
 I shall be obliged to you if you will hand to Mr. Hig- 
 gins, as I could not, in honor, allow him to suffer 
 financially. If you should desire to send me the week's 
 salary almost due me, it will reach me care of the so- 
 ciety, as below. As I have observed in you many hu- 
 mane, though unconsidered qualities, I trust the re- 
 covery of your jewels will afford you gratification. 
 "Your obedient servant, 
 
 JOSEPH THOMASON." 
 
 "My word!" said Miss Montresor. 
 
 Between the second and third acts there was a heavy 
 change of scene, but the heroine did not change her 
 travelling dress, and Miss Austin returned to her dress- 
 ing-room with plenty of time to converse with Miss 
 Montresor, whom she had asked to wait for her there. 
 The officer and Mr. Higgins had long since departed, 
 but she found Mr. Daley pacing up and down, sentinel- 
 wise, outside the door. 
 
 She went into the room, and smiled at the girl, who 
 rose at her approach. 
 
 "Miss Montresor," she said, "could you care to go 
 in front for the rest of the piece? Mr. Daley is wait- 
 ing to take you back to your box." 
 
 "Thank you," said the girl. "I should be very- 
 glad. " She spoke with the dignity of humble sadness, 
 out of an immense gentleness and reserve. 
 
 "And," said Miss Austin, "it's a good deal to ask, 
 but those people out there have seen you in these 
 jewels. I can't bear they should see you without them, 
 this same evening." 
 10 
 
146 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Thank you; you're kind to think of it. But I'm 
 done with all that, with being like wot did he say, 
 'like a shop-window'; that was never my choice, that 
 wasn't." 
 
 Miss Austin came up and put her hands on the girl's 
 shoulders. "My dear," she said, "we've made you 
 suffer a great deal here to-night, between us all. But 
 we suffered a great deal for you, too; and if I didn't 
 quite believe in you, as Mr. Daley did, I'm a good bit 
 older than either of you, and sometimes I don't quite 
 believe in myself. It's been a great happiness to me 
 to find you out, and I hope and pray we shall be 
 friends." She lifted caressingly in her hand the clus- 
 ter of rose-diamonds; the lovely flush trembled like a 
 living breath in the pure stone. "Please keep this," 
 she insisted. "It's like you, you know, and like like 
 your name, Rosalba. Won't you take it?" 
 
 There was a little pause, and then, "I don't mind!" 
 said the girl. Suddenly she put her face against Miss 
 Austin's shoulder. 
 
 After a minute or so, "I shall be a guy to go in 
 front with Mr. Daley, shan't I?" said Miss Montresor. 
 She produced a powder puff, and patted her nose. 
 
 Miss Austin drew her to the door and opened it. 
 The girl 's fingers were still clinging to the elder woman 's 
 hand, but she moved forward to Mr. Daley, at once 
 serene and shy amidst her liquid clatter of tinkling 
 jet. In the breast of her black dress the rose-white 
 diamonds made a little nest of light. 
 
 Miss Austin smiled to the manager. "Take care of 
 her, Bob. Good-bye." 
 
THE PRINCESS ROSALBA 147 
 
 "I'll try," said Mr. Daley. "We'll be back after 
 the piece." 
 
 "Good-bye, Bob," she replied. 
 
 He opened the door that led to the box, and stood 
 aside for the girl to pass. She stepped forward with 
 her sweet, mannered bow, and he lifted his head and 
 followed her. 
 
 Miss Austin went back into her dressing-room and 
 stood at her make-up shelf packing up her jewels, the 
 care of which she suddenly, somewhat indifferently, con- 
 fided to her maid. The light on the big looking-glass 
 was very strong. It seemed to her that her face had 
 never looked so long or so lined, so hollowed, so full 
 of creeping shadows. She took up her rouge-paw. As 
 she did so her eye fell upon a phrase of Thomason's 
 communication which lay open on the shelf "When 
 I saw how admirably they became her, and when I 
 imagined her beautiful distress " Singly, in the 
 letter, it had a genuine and human ring. The fresh, 
 docile femininity of the girl seemed to float in it like 
 a fragrance; she saw the bright little head, the kind 
 face, rosy and young, the round, blue, courageous eyes. 
 
 "Ah, Thomason, even you!" she said with a smile, 
 and sighed. 
 
 The stage was not yet set. A shabby old volume of 
 Ibsen lay open on the shelf, and she sat down and be- 
 gan to read. 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 
 
 U A MOMENT, if you please!" The cool voice 
 J~\ of the star rose above that of her stage 
 manager, above the mingled noises of the big scene 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, the rehearsal is dismissed." 
 
 Among the shadows of the bare stage her auditors 
 stopped short with the lines stricken on their lips. Lit- 
 tle groups, waiting for their cues, turned and stared; 
 the stage-hands, who were carrying out old scenery on 
 its way to the storehouse, wondered stolidly what had 
 got into her ; men looked up from their newspapers with 
 startled eyebrows, and a privileged old lady who was 
 doing fancy work in a corner, dropped it and gaped. 
 The star turned with one of her long sweeping move- 
 ments that were so potent to command scattered atten- 
 tions. "At ten to-morrow, ladies and gentlemen, if you 
 please." 
 
 She could not escape, nor they restrain, their whis- 
 pers, their hurried speculations, but they seized upon 
 their good luck with promptitude, gathered up their 
 belongings and were off. Only Hilary Ives, her hus- 
 band and sub-star, remained sitting on the rail of the 
 box at the stage-right, and he was regarding her with 
 a wondering but unperturbed amusement. As she came 
 down toward him, she was stopped by her stage man- 
 ager, who called her by that long-honored trade-mark 
 of her maiden name which he had not yet learned how 
 to neglect. 
 
 151 
 
152 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Miss Austin," he said; "Miss Austin, not ill, I 
 hope?" 
 
 She had stopped at the first sound of the name, and 
 she answered him tranquilly ' ' No, Bartlett, thank you ; 
 I'm taking a day off. At a little before ten to-morrow, 
 will you, please?" 
 
 As she stood in front of her husband they were prac- 
 tically alone, and he continued to sit looking up at her 
 with the contemptuous tolerance of his faint, antici- 
 patory mirth. 
 
 "I am afraid you don't know why?" she said. 
 
 "To be quite candid, Mary, no. You're so little 
 given to holidays, you see. Still," he added, as though 
 in conciliation, "it was very dramatic of you. It was 
 nicely done." 
 
 "They're fixing the lights in my room. May we 
 go to yours 1 I want to speak to you. ' ' 
 
 He rose at once, and she followed him upstairs in 
 silence; that short flight, she remembered, had been one 
 of his reproaches to her. "Why," he had asked her, 
 "did she take a theatre where there was only one stage 
 room? Did she want to corral all the newspaper men 
 for herself?" When she had recently put on "The 
 Marble Faun" for him, she had offered to build him a 
 room on the stage ; but he had said, ' ' No, there wouldn 't 
 be any window in that." 
 
 He entered ahead of her and exclaimed at the stuffy 
 darkness. He flung up the window and in doing so ad- 
 mitted rather infelicitous noises the cries of children 
 playing in the alley, the thumping and banging of scen- 
 ery, of crated "properties" as they were loaded on the 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 153 
 
 waiting trucks ; hastily he shut them out again with one 
 of the nervous frowns in which, of late, he too frequently 
 indulged, and lighted some incense in a Persian saucer. 
 Then, as she still lingered on the threshold, he pushed 
 forward a chair for her with a charming little assump- 
 tion of the formal host. 
 
 The room was small, but, despite its smell of make-up, 
 it was strangely luxurious for a dressing-room ; the walls 
 were even covered with graceful things, and chief among 
 them, in happy and unconscious ease, were several pho- 
 tographs of the occupant. These latter were by an art 
 photographer who had made his reputation through his 
 pictures of Hilary Hilary as Bacchus, as the Cupid 
 whom Psyche loved, as Narcissus, as Endymion, as Gala- 
 had. They had been taken a few years before, and the 
 artist had caught in them the look by which Hilary had 
 walked triumphing a look of wild, elusive innocence, 
 like the innocence of the elements, knowing neither good 
 nor evil. Hilary, who adored them, was fond of laugh- 
 ing at them; he kept them, he said, so as to remember 
 what he had had to fall from. 
 
 His wife looked at them as she sat down, and then she 
 looked at him. He had dropped upon the lounge, and 
 was leaning toward her, smiling, with his hands clasped 
 on his knee. He was four years younger than she, and 
 it had long been a public commonplace that he seemed 
 the merest boy. Now she told herself, impartially, that 
 he was exceedingly handsome, but no longer strangely so. 
 There was a light gone out of his beauty ; it was as though 
 a heavy hand had been laid upon it, and had formed it 
 into more distinct and more insensitive outlines. ' ' I am 
 
154 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 afraid," he had lately said to her, with a quirking of 
 his lip, "I am afraid I am getting to look like other 
 people ! ' ' 
 
 "Well," he asked her now, "which is it to be this 
 morning, dearest? Reproaches, reminiscences, or 
 threats ? You don 't mind if I smoke ? ' ' She continued 
 to lie back in the deep chair, and his eye ran over her 
 with pride. "You wear those trailing things confound- 
 edly well. It's a pity so few women have your dis- 
 tinction. ' ' 
 
 "I am afraid," she began, "that you will think it a 
 little of all three. ' ' He moved his lips in a delicious ges- 
 ture of protesting tolerance, and nestled back among the 
 sofa cushions. "And yet, I don't know that it won't be 
 merely an attempt to justify myself for a resolution. I 
 made up my mind quite suddenly this morning in fact, 
 just a moment ago, on the stage that we should have to 
 separate, Hilary. Don't don't move. I don't wish 
 you to be inconvenienced. I should wish you to have all 
 that I could give you out of it, at the worst. Of course 
 it would have been a great deal better for both of us if 
 I could have brought myself to this before, but it 's only 
 now that I can, because I don 't' love you any longer. ' ' 
 
 He sat up hastily, a little horrified, a little shocked. 
 The last words startled him, where he had expected to be 
 only bored. It was not that he believed them, but their 
 very existence was like a desecration of himself. The 
 separation in question, an improbable thing which a 
 finality in her voice made possible, appealed to him as 
 somewhat of a pity, and somewhat of a relief. 
 
 "Of course," she went on, "you wtm't contest it?" 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 155 
 
 "You're not thinking," he ejaculated, "of an actual 
 divorce ? ' ' 
 
 "An absolute divorce. I must have either you or my- 
 self, Hilary. I've lost you, my you, already. So I will 
 cherish myself. ' ' 
 
 He tried to put aside her coldness, or her pose of cold- 
 ness, as something to be considered later on, and to con- 
 centrate his attention upon practical issues. Smoking 
 thoughtfully, he rose, and began to walk up and down, 
 reflecting; he even paused at the window, gazing with 
 blank eyes at those noisy waifs that played about the 
 waiting trucks and under the horses' very feet. Well, 
 her coldness would not be put aside; it baffled and dis- 
 torted everything ! If it had not been for that, he would 
 scarcely have opposed her demand; gossip, he thought, 
 with tolerant amusement, had granted it to her long ago. 
 It was all too bad, and yet there were desirable aspects. 
 He relied without so much as a thought upon her gen- 
 erosity toward his material interests, and, strangely free 
 as he had always been, there was something gracious in 
 the mere name of freedom. Still, it seemed impossible 
 that the break could be made without those scenes and 
 accusations whose presence" he would have so scathingly 
 deplored. Surely, she couldn 't keep it up ! He was be- 
 fore all things a dramatic artist, and he yielded an ad- 
 miration to so bold a stroke. But every now and then 
 he strove to bring things back to a center of gravity by 
 asking himself "Wkat has she found out?" 
 
 His wife, in the meanwhile, sat looking at him at his 
 quick slenderness, his black little head with its blue, Irish 
 eyes, at all the droll, tender, sparkling graces of his 
 
156 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 face; she looked at them as though she had never seen 
 them before. She acknowledged to herself how unequal 
 it had been to match them with her pale darkness, with 
 her long, tired movements; she was glad to admit that 
 whatever heavy dailiness had concerted with the blunt- 
 ing years to distort that gracious and that airy presence, 
 still, at least, he could make no movement which did not 
 become him, which did not plead for him, like a virtue. 
 
 "You know," she said, with what would have been 
 suddenness in another woman, "there will have to be a 
 great deal of business done, and settlements, and so on. 
 You will want to realize, won't you, on most of our out- 
 side stuff ? You will need a good deal of money for buy- 
 ing plays." 
 
 "But," he declared with a flash of sweetness, "there 
 will be nobody for me to play them with. ' ' 
 
 " I 'na sorry, Hilary, for one thing. I want you to have 
 everything else, all that I can give you, without crip- 
 pling myself. But I must have my theatre, my plays, 
 everything that is essential to my own life. And that 
 will be rather hard on you. You you are rather inti- 
 mately associated with them." 
 
 He remembered suddenly the part in the piece she had 
 contracted for with Forster. He controlled a blinding 
 rush of blood, and said, ' ' I play Roy Feverel, of course. ' ' 
 
 "No. No, we don't play together after this piece." 
 
 He came and stood over her. Suddenly their ages 
 seemed quite equal. 
 
 ' ' Oh, yes we do ! I Ve let you go on as far as this be- 
 cause you've stunned me. I don't know what damned 
 ideas you've got in your head, but you'll have to get 
 them out again. Separate if you want to ; I don 't care 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 157 
 
 what the deuce you do, in private, but I won't be made 
 a public laughing-stock. Sulks or not, you're my wife; 
 you shan 't snatch things away from me as though I were 
 a pet dog. I play Roy Feverel, understand that. I 
 don't give that up for any devilish theory you've got 
 hold of." 
 
 She slipped her hand among the mysterious laces of 
 her gown, and brought out a letter. The envelope was 
 addressed in a woman 's name in his handwriting. 
 
 ' ' She brought me this just as I was coming to the thea- 
 tre. It was a curious, and, as we will agree, an incon- 
 siderate thing to do, Hilary, but she seems to be ex- 
 tremely intemperate in affection, and she is very nearly 
 mad. I was jealous enough at first, so I don't know 
 what forgiveness I mightn't have stooped to, in the end, 
 as other women do. You told her when you left her, I 
 believe, that your nature couldn't be compassed by any 
 one woman. I thought she liked you rather well; it 
 seems we're pretty good at that, at any rate. "What you 
 have written her here doesn't treat her very well, nor 
 me, nor yourself. I did the usual sort of suffering, and 
 then, just now, at rehearsal, it all came over me, or 
 dropped away from me. All your contradictions, all the 
 things I had endured and cheated myself into denying 
 they were all quite clear. There were some phrases of 
 that letter going over and over in my mind, and all of a 
 sudden I saw, I saw you, you, just as you are, that's all. 
 It doesn't seem real that I don't love you, but I don't." 
 
 "So it appears," ne muttered. "She's a liar!" he 
 suddenly burst forth. "She's forged that. It's black- 
 mail. I'll have her jailed! And you, Mary, I'm sur- 
 prised at you. I thought you were the last woman to 
 
158 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 believe every piece of malignant gossip. And about me, 
 too ! After all the promises you 've made me ! I thought 
 you were above this kind of thing. Before Heaven, 
 Mary, it isn't as bad as it looks! You're such a good 
 woman, and good women don't understand, always, 
 darling. ' ' He slid his hand down her arm as though in 
 a reverent caress of pleading. "Give me another trial. 
 Don't degrade me. Think what you're doing. Don't 
 ruin me now. ' ' 
 
 "Very well," she said, "take the play." 
 
 "Oh, don't try the generosity act! You know well 
 enough what you're about. Forster wouldn't give me 
 the play without you. Nobody '11 take me as a star with- 
 out you!" He dropped down on the couch like a con- 
 quered child and covered his face with his hands. 
 
 ' ' What a long time I was blind ! ' ' she said. 
 
 He lay thus, minute by minute, wounded and shaken 
 through and through, and struggling with a sense of 
 dizziness. His luxurious, well-ordered life, replete with 
 opportunity, was slipping away as though he had builded 
 on a landslide, but in truth he suffered most from a 
 sense of embarrassed strangeness. He found himself in 
 a country without a landmark, and the vanity which had 
 unified his world staggered in terror and bewilderment. 
 In their few scenes of quarrel hitherto, she had struck 
 to monotony one note "Because I love you. ! I love 
 you so much!" And now he was forced to grasp that 
 it was not his misdeeds but himself to which she re- 
 mained cold; her deliberate quiet rejected not only the 
 character and the intelligence that she had once cele- 
 brated in words which had fired him like jewels, but 
 those bodily graces, those endearing manners, with which 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 159 
 
 he had been secure to damage hearts. How was it pos- 
 sible that he was not admired ! 
 
 For the past few years he had had in every trouble 
 and perplexity one comfortress, and he reached out to 
 her now. He caught her knee with an unsteady hand, 
 and held her sharply. 
 
 ' ' Do you know what you 're saying ? You don 't. You 
 drop it. You're unnatural." He tried to give her a 
 little shake. ''Wake up, old girl, you're crazy!" 
 
 Her glance scrutinized his hand. ' ' I have waked up, ' ' 
 she said. 
 
 "No; listen. You've gone a bit daffy over thinking 
 well, over finding that I was not what they call 
 faithful to you " 
 
 "Over what?" she mocked, and laughed out loud. 
 She raised her eyes in her laughter and they looked sud- 
 denly upon the pictures of Narcissus and of Galahad. 
 " ! " she cried, ' ' how faithful have you been to your- 
 self?" 
 
 "Ah! but if she was to come to you and tell you it's 
 not true?" 
 
 "I am afraid that makes no difference now," she re- 
 minded him. "I'm not jealous. Only, it's over." 
 
 "So, we've come to it at last, by God! You want to 
 get rid of me ! I believe you 've trumped it up between 
 you ! You 're not jealous, no ? No ! but there are more 
 kinds of jealousy than one, my girl. How about the 
 kind they call professional? You must have your thea- 
 tre, your plays, everything for your life, yes; and you 
 must have them to yourself ! It 's a handsome thing be- 
 tween man and wife, professional jealousy! Believe me, 
 I couldn't help making hits, Mary, neither could you 
 
160 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 help my making them. Do you think people won 't know 
 why you've thrown me over? Since this infernal wom- 
 an's turned on me, I suppose you'll be able to. But 
 on my soul, you 've chosen a pretty time ! The best part 
 I ever had. I should have made the hit of my life in 
 it. I've never treated you badly. I've only done what 
 all men do. And this is a nice, womanly, wifely sort of 
 revenge to take to snatch away the one thing I want, 
 to ruin all my prospects, to break my career 
 
 "Who gave you a career?" she said. 
 
 It was though something had leapt at him. He was 
 struck almost physically, as by a blow, with the change 
 and passion of her face. ' ' Hush ! " he exclaimed, though 
 her tone had not been loud. 
 
 "No!" she said. "Let's talk of it of me. Don't 
 you think it's about time? Your career, always, only, 
 in your heart ! Then, what were you when you came to 
 me? 0, you were a beautiful, a God-given creature, 
 Hilary, and I was older than you yes, that's what they 
 must have been saying all this time, she was older than 
 he was, and she got stuck on him! I did, indeed. I 
 made you my leading man, the best I ever had, that's 
 true. And then we were married. What an old story, 
 what a joke it must have been to every one. How they 
 must have smiled at the changes we made in our billing 
 every year: Mary Austin and a company including 
 Mr. Hilary Ives: that was when we were engaged; and 
 then Mary Austin, supported by Mr. Hilary Ives: that 
 was when we were just married your twenty-ninth 
 birthday, you remember ; and then Mary Austin-Ives and 
 Hilary Ives. You didn't know they were each a festival 
 to me? You didn't? Each time, at least, I knocked 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 161 
 
 away one step from the pedestal above you that I had no 
 right to. And this year it was to have been Mr. and 
 Mrs. Hilary Ives. That was what I wanted. It was 
 myself I fought for when I fought for you in that. Was 
 it my fault if people wouldn't have it inserted into the 
 contracts? But you never forgave me. You thought 
 I was jealous of you I, who thanked God day and 
 night that you existed. You didn't believe me when I 
 tried to tell you that the new contracts should be made 
 out equally. Equally! Would that have satisfied you? 
 It was yourself you thought of. You didn't care what 
 became of me. I'm not giving you up because of this 
 woman, nor because of fifty women, nor because you've 
 tired of me and ceased to love me, but because you never 
 loved me, because you're worthless, worthless, and never 
 loved anything but to be pushed and helped and made 
 a star of, and I know, now, that that was what you mar- 
 ried me for ! ' ' 
 
 He did not answer, but he moved his shoulders in a 
 brief, discomfortable shrug. 
 
 "Don't do that!" she said. "Don't pretend that it 
 was all my fault. I took you as God's gift, it's true, 
 but I never reached out my hand for you. You made 
 love to me Oh, what love you did make, Hilary ! Maybe 
 I let you see too plainly, too soon. I never hid my love 
 for you. I was proud enough to feel that however many 
 must love you, I was elected out of all the world to love 
 you best. But don't forget that you chose me, that you 
 sought me ; if it was only advancement that you wanted, 
 don 't forget that you used all of you to get it. I would 
 have given you the advancement, Hilary, if that had 
 been what you asked me for you were worth that, 
 11 
 
162 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 heaven knows and not have come to wish us dead for 
 shame, as I do now." 
 
 He looked up sharply at her breaking voice, and she 
 added, "Don't think I'm crying. I've shed my last 
 tears for you. But when I think of what I was then, of 
 my hopes, of my thankfulness that was what I had 
 been waiting for, all my poor girlhood: love, to give it, 
 to feel it, and then, all of a sudden, I had passed the time 
 and the temper when I was likely to get it, and I had 
 nothing but my work and success flooded in upon me, 
 and then there you were. You were there by a miracle. 
 And you worked a miracle, fulfilled life, and gave it to 
 me, brimming, and all I asked was to give it back again 
 to you, to have you know my divine right of realizing 
 you, of interpreting you to the ignorant universe that 
 was waiting for you; that I should give you, in all I 
 had made of myself and for myself, some little part of 
 what was owing to you from the world. ! when I think 
 of what you were to me, Hilary, everything, every- 
 thing " she had no tears, but her breath tore into sobs, 
 and she stood, shaking. 
 
 He came over to her, and took her hand from her eyes. 
 
 ""Well," he said, "and how has your interpretation 
 turned out ? What am I ? If you are disappointed, do 
 you think I'm not disappointed, too? Do you think I 
 like this thing I've made of myself? I don't look at it 
 often, but since you're bent on showing it to me, I'll own 
 I don't like it. But don't forget that you, too, have 
 failed to make it any different! Do you suppose I 
 didn't have some hopes? Do you think I wasn't over- 
 whelmed to know what sort of a creature you were, and 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 163 
 
 that you loved me ? What if I didn 't love, if I 've never 
 loved you, I was only a boy, and I brought you a boy's 
 homage. I was flattered half out of my senses by what 
 you made me seem to both of us; I swam in glory, and 
 when I was with you, it seemed that I only needed to be 
 with you to become what your love made of me. I had 
 had adulation, plenty of it, but oh ! how facilely it came, 
 and what poor stuff it was when it did come I knew 
 the honor of yours, believe me ! If you think I ever 
 smiled at it, if you think I ever boasted of it, you do 
 wrong to both of us. I had never had a thing I wanted 
 in my life, I had never even had my chance. Was I to 
 refuse that because such a thing as your love came with 
 it? 
 
 "Well, you were too good to me, Mary, you gave me 
 too much. You treated me like a mixture of a god and a 
 spoiled child. Somehow, I got used to it." He had be- 
 gun to play with some lace that hung from her sleeve, 
 and he looked at it with a little tremulous deprecation. 
 ' ' I suppose, somehow, I got tired of it. Your ideal asked 
 a good deal, you know, and I fell to having even no more 
 moments of it to give, and then I was bored by it. But 
 if you're sorry for what you used to be, I'm sorry, too, 
 for my lost boy. He had a very pretty trick of vi- 
 sions. You couldn't keep him, and I couldn't, I shall 
 be less and less like him all my life. I'm awful bad, 
 Mary ; I wish I wasn 't. But I had my dreams, too. ' ' 
 
 "A lie that is half a truth," she said. 
 
 "You were always good at quotations!" he cried with 
 a sneer, and flung angrily away from her. 
 
 He sat down upon the window sill and looked out sulk- 
 
164 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 ily at nothing, but bye-and-bye his invincible apprecia- 
 tion began to lighten his discomfiture, and he lifted his 
 glance to hers in a humorous acceptance of defeat. 
 
 "That was the best I could do," he said, with a little 
 resigned motion of his hand. 
 
 "I know. And you did it very well. I'm sorry for 
 that lost boy, too. I '11 do the best I can for him. ' ' 
 
 She had dropped back into her former quiet, and 
 now Hilary, too, remained passive, lost on a strange 
 sea, following with his bodily eyes the departure of the 
 first load of scenery and telling himself that he would 
 go when it had vanished ; now it was turning the corner, 
 now it had disappeared, and yet he did not go. He was 
 aware of a senseless annoyance at their having loaded 
 the second truck too high ; the man who stood on top of 
 it, receiving great boxes of properties, was a fool not, at 
 least, to stop them now the load would be too heavy, 
 too unsteady, and they would have to delay and take 
 part of it off again. Hilary now told himself that he 
 would put off going till they had finished with this sec- 
 ond truck. But as the gay French clock upon the make- 
 up shelf struck one with a pretty tinkle, Mary Austin 
 said, ' ' I wonder if I may turn you out, Hilary. I should 
 like to borrow your room this afternoon, if I may. 
 There's no window downstairs, and you can't think how 
 little I feel like going home. ' ' 
 
 He rose at once, picked up his hat, stood a moment, 
 irresolute, and then, with a small, broken gesture of dis- 
 may, dropped down again upon the sill. ' ' It seems very 
 strange to leave you like this, ' ' he said. 
 
 She came over to him, and her hand touched his shoul- 
 der, lightly, coolly, but once it had closed it settled there, 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 165 
 
 as if in an ancient, inalienable security and kindness. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said. "Thank you for the room. 
 Please go." 
 
 He laid his cheek against her fingers, and then he sud- 
 denly stood up and shook hands with her. "I've been 
 awfully proud of you, old girl," he said, and with that 
 he left her. 
 
 She stood quite still for a little, because there seemed 
 no reason for anything at all. She had meant to 
 reassure him once more, as they parted, that she would 
 do her best for him, but the words had fainted in her 
 throat. She had wished to be alone to think, but that 
 morning's gift of insight had done all her thinking for 
 her. A peculiar sense of blankness and detachment was 
 as near as she could come to any definite emotion. She 
 walked over to the window, and as she leaned against it, 
 Hilary came through the stage-door beneath. He 
 looked dull and tired yes, and strangely old; he did 
 not return the door-keeper's salute, and when a child, 
 turned off from clambering over the trucks, leaped from 
 a wheel and cannoned into him, Hilary's frown mingled 
 with the sharp snarl of his oath. He pushed the child 
 from him with a violence as malevolent as a blow. It 
 was curious to remember that whatever he should do 
 now, it could be neither to her shame nor to her pride. 
 
 Nevertheless, she was startled by a sudden cry. It was 
 Hilary's shout of warning as he instinctively leaped for- 
 ward, his eyes raised to the man atop of the laden truck ; 
 the man cried out, too, for, just as he was grasping the 
 upper end of a heavy case of rifles, he had slipped and, 
 struggling for his balance, lost his grip on the case. 
 The men who had been handling it from beneath stood 
 
166 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 upon a crate near the curbstone and were powerless to 
 avert the sickening downward crash of the thing, death- 
 dealing as some narrowed avalanche, right upon the child 
 whom Hilary after all had not frightened away. It was 
 Hilary alone, therefore, in a boyish, a glad surrender to 
 excitement, who, flinging himself forward, sent the child 
 spinning into safety this time just as he himself was hit 
 full upon his breast and upraised arm by that quick 
 fate; it struck him down remorselessly enough and his 
 wife saw how still he lay beneath it. 
 
 She reached the alley just as they were lifting him, 
 and she made them carry him into that little stage dress- 
 ing-room which he had envied her so much. People 
 remarked in talking it over that she never shed a tear 
 nor laid a hand upon him. Some thought he was still 
 breathing when he was lifted, but by the time he was laid 
 down again and the electric glare flooded over him, he 
 was quite dead. She had seemed to know this from the 
 first, and after a moment of their poor restoratives, they 
 also recognized it. Some of them drew back in tears, 
 and many of them, in the reverent pride of common 
 humanity, moved about him with bared heads. "He 
 looked like it was fun to do it ! " said one man. Another 
 replied, "That's the kind that does it." 
 
 They had sent for an ambulance, and there was a 
 minute or two when the waiting crowd scarcely drifted 
 across the threshold, and it was as though he and she 
 were really alone. She stood looking down upon him, 
 not very near, a marvel to the people who knew her and 
 her long frenzy of devotion. There was a storm rising 
 in her; it would break when she should touch him, but 
 for the present she was still bound in a smothered quiet. 
 
THE INTERPRETRESS 167 
 
 For in her tired heart she was watching, yet, his mo- 
 ment 's impulse, the readiness with which he had jumped, 
 and the bright, unthinking courage of his face. The 
 brightness was there still, like something hallowed; it 
 was as though, leaping with both hands outstretched, he 
 had not only seized death in them but had recaptured a 
 lost illumined grace, the light and the wonder of his 
 beautiful youth. That grace and that death had been 
 her last gifts to him, since it was she who had first de- 
 tained and then sent him away to that decisive moment ; 
 they formed the final version of his complexities, her 
 last interpretation. 
 
 To the accusing pain that began to break her strength 
 to pieces, as if it were the reproach of Hilary's voice, 
 she answered, ' ' I did the best I could for you ! ' ' 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 
 
 stage manager looked ruefully at the sealed 
 1 envelope of the telegram, and stuffed it into his 
 pocket. The back doorkeeper, who had been hoping that 
 Mr. Edward Farnum, the person to whom the telegram 
 was addressed, would get there first and secure his prop- 
 erty, went on chewing his toothpick, and looked with 
 ostentatious indifference at his finger-nails. 
 
 In the little hall the gaslight flared and wavered ; over 
 the dust and unset stage beyond some obscure window 
 shed a draggle of daylight. The time drifted nearer and 
 nearer to the matinee hour ; the ingenue entered and the 
 stage manager smiled at her in vague propitiation of the 
 universe. She selected her letters from the rack and 
 went cheerfully on her way. She had glanced a little ap- 
 prehensively at the pigeon-hole labelled F, but there was 
 nothing there. The stage manager continued to fidget 
 uneasily about. 
 
 A thickset man in a light overcoat came in, got his 
 key and a postal card and stopped to speak to the 
 stage manager. "Nevins tells me there's going to be 
 a big matinee, Potter," he said. "I hope you won't 
 mind keeping that property man of yours awake. Last 
 night he didn't work the horses' hoofs till I spoke with- 
 out 'em, and then he started in and drowned out my 
 speech. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, certainly. I'll speak to him." He puttered 
 171 
 
172 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 restlessly after the newcomer, and presently called to 
 him across the darkness of the stage, ' ' Rogers ! ' ' 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Oh a You said there was going to be a big 
 house ? ' ' 
 
 "Packed, they tell me." Rogers paused with a foot 
 on the stair and looked sharply at the stage manager. 
 "I suppose there's no news come about Farnum 's wife." 
 
 "No." 
 
 The actor made an anxious little noise with his lips, 
 and went up to the dressing-room, which he shared with 
 Farnum. The room was damp and chilly, and he lighted 
 the two gas-jets to warm it. As he turned on the elec- 
 tric light in its wabbling little globe, he perceived that 
 Potter had followed him upstairs and stood uneasily in 
 the open doorway. He was very much astonished and 
 Potter favored him with a hesitating, incompetent smile. 
 "It's a horrible responsibility, Rogers. There there 
 has a telegram come for Farnum. I can't tell him so, 
 you know!" 
 
 "What in did you tell me for, then! I don't 
 
 want to know!" He was very much distressed and 
 troubled, and he looked at Potter with a savage frown. 
 "You're not going to give it to him till after the matinee, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "Not ah not till after to-night's performance. It's 
 my orders, you know, Rogers. They've been pretty 
 blamed strict at the office since Teresa Telfair got a 
 telegram that her husband was run over and walked 
 right out in the middle of a performance. These blamed 
 women, you can 't tell what they '11 do ! " 
 
 "I can tell you what a man tried to do, all right. 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 173 
 
 Ned tried to go East last night. There wasn't any train ; 
 there won't be until three something, this afternoon. 
 That 's what 's saved your matinee. ' ' 
 
 "Good Lord!" panted Mr. Potter, wiping his fore- 
 head. "If he had got away! I don't know what I 
 should have said to the office. Look here, Rogers, it's 
 about half-hour you don't think he's gone to the de- 
 pot, do you ? You think he 's coming here all right ? ' ' 
 
 "He'll come here, if it's only to look for mail. I 
 left him hanging around the hotel, waiting for his tele- 
 gram. He doesn't suppose that brother-in-law of his'd 
 be fool enough to send it here. Though he 's fool enough 
 to do anything, Sullivan. The telegram he sent that boy 
 last night he ought to have been hanged for; 'Opera- 
 tion a failure. Elsie can only live a few hours. Will 
 telegraph!' God! Will telegraph! If she had to die 
 in a few hours, why couldn't he keep it to himself till 
 she was well, dead, poor little soul? It would have 
 saved Farnum all this suspense suspense without any 
 hope in it; it's enough to drive him mad. He's a good 
 fellow, Ned is, or the way he feels he 'd go to-day anyhow. 
 But a man with two little kids to take care of I said 
 to him last night, 'You had a rotten season last year 
 and look how you've had to economize all this fall, 
 just to keep things going. Have you been to a good 
 hotel? Have you got a decent overcoat? Haven't you 
 lied to your wife about your salary, so she'd think you 
 kept enough for yourself? And all to pay current ex- 
 penses. Have you paid for this operation? Have you 
 saved for the summer yet? If you go now you lose 
 your engagement at the beginning of the winter, when 
 you can't get another, and this company belongs to 
 
174 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 the Trust ; they 'd never have you again ; you know what 
 that means. Besides they've taken a fancy to you, 
 signed you for three years at an increase of salary, 
 promised you the bulliest lead, next year, that ever 
 came across the water why, you'll never have another 
 such chance! Now, can't you make up your mind to 
 stay here for your children's sakes?' He looked right 
 past me, and said, 'Yes, if I can't reach her.' ' 
 
 "We could let him go for the funeral," Mr. Potter 
 mumbled. "We could let him go to-night after the 
 piece, if there was a train. Somebody could get up in 
 the part by Monday. But these two performances " 
 
 "Well, if he knew she was dead, he'd play your two 
 performances; we're used to that kind of thing in this 
 business. But if he thinks there's the least chance of 
 his setting eyes on her alive, there isn't any reasoning 
 or any management can hold him. The children, the 
 operation, the winter, every mortal thing will go by the 
 board, and I can 't say I blame him. A doctor that came 
 into the hotel office as we got back from the depot last 
 night told us if the facts were such and so she might 
 live a couple of days. Well, it's a three days' trip, 
 you know. Farnum wired them it was about two in 
 the morning 'Next train to-morrow afternoon. How is 
 she now?' and again at five, 'Is she alive now?' and 
 you've got the answer in your pocket !" 
 
 ' ' Ssh ! ' ' cried Mr. Potter fumbling with the envelope. 
 But Farnum was not within hearing. On the stage be- 
 low the scenery was being slammed into place, and above 
 the jumbled noises rose the voice of the leading lady 
 screaming for the property-man; no pursuing footstep 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 175 
 
 was tracking Mr. Potter down. "I wonder what she 
 wants now?" said Mr. Potter. 
 
 " That's only Stella. Why couldn't you keep this 
 business to yourself, Potter. You haven 't got to dress 
 with the man." 
 
 "It's my orders," reiterated the unfortunate stage 
 manager. 
 
 "But what did you tell me for? You'll have to come 
 in or go out, Potter, I 've got to make up. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Potter wavered miserably out and disappeared, 
 and Rogers kicked the door to and stood drumming on 
 the make-up shelf with violent fingers. What was he to 
 do? After all, ought Ned to know about the telegram? 
 Even if he did know, Potter wouldn't surrender it, and 
 if there was a fuss, he, Rogers, might lose his position ; he 
 would be done for, with that management at any rate, 
 and that management was in with the Trust. Surely 
 it wasn 't his fault if Sullivan was unreliable and didn 't 
 send his messages in the way they should go! But he 
 did not know how he should face Farnum. What did 
 the telegram say? Was she really dying, poor little 
 girl, or was she already He always thought of the 
 Farnums as adventurous children, and he remembered 
 almost with a start that their boy was four years old. 
 "We marry too young in this business!" he ejaculated. 
 
 The theatre was beginning to grow populous and busy ; 
 its damp despondency was threaded by brisk voices and 
 thawed into comfort with the warmth of gas. Rogers 's 
 dressing-room was above the prompt entrance, close to 
 the auditorium; he could hear the boys tearing up to 
 the gallery, calling and stumbling. The steam had just 
 
176 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 been turned on, and it spit and rumbled in the crackling 
 pipes. The afternoon was settling to the trivial, homely 
 business of a matinee the business which, in the work- 
 aday life of acting, it is so difficult to believe can really 
 be interrupted. With something of a sigh, Rogers, too, 
 prepared for harness. He took off his coat, and then 
 loitered before the make-up shelf with his necktie hang- 
 ing. How pretty Elsie Farnum was! What a kind, 
 hopeful, girlish look she had! Suppose that she were 
 still alive and expected that this telegram would bring 
 her husband to her? Fred Donnelly, the comedian, 
 knocked at the door, and wanted to know if Farnum had 
 come, if there was any news of Farnum 's wife? No, 
 Rogers said, no news. The comedian said there was go- 
 ing to be a cracking audience out front and departed. 
 Looking after him, Rogers began to experience the emo- 
 tions which had driven Potter to seek a confidant. 
 
 He took out his watch. It was past half -hour. Very 
 like Farnum would not come in till overture was called. 
 What kind of state would he be in, when he did come? 
 How ghastly it would be if he talked about her! How 
 ghastly it would be if he didn't! Rogers was fond of 
 Ned Farnum; he liked Elsie as he liked few women. 
 Ned had known that, and it had led him to some few 
 intimate talks of her. She moved in Rogers 's conscious- 
 ness sweet with the qualities which Ned had taught him 
 to admire and expect a kind heart, an innocent courage, 
 gentleness, constancy, a bright, cordial way of speech, 
 a certain fall of her hair over one temple, a certain line 
 of her wrist as she shook hands. There was another 
 knock, and the ingenue, little Mabel Rose, came in hur- 
 riedly and sat down on Farnum 's trunk. 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 177 
 
 "Mr. Rogers," she said, "poor Mr. Farnum hasn't 
 any news yet, has he, about his wife ? ' ' 
 
 "I'm afraid not." 
 
 "Isn't it all dreadful? I heard about it this morn- 
 ing. Mr. Farnum *s so sweet and good. I saw Mrs. 
 Farnum at the station. She's very pretty don't you 
 think so ? like a young girl. They 've got two children, 
 haven't they?" 
 
 "Yes, one's a baby. God knows what they'll do with- 
 out her." 
 
 "He's very fond of her," said Miss Rose, softly. 
 
 " If he hadn 't been so fond of her, ' ' said Mr. Rogers, 
 with a kind of hoarseness, "he mightn't have to stay 
 away from her now. It's no wonder she looks like a 
 young girl. It 's been his one thought to keep her happy 
 to keep her gratified and light-hearted. I had dinner 
 with them before we left ; they 've got the prettiest little 
 flat you ever saw, and when he's away her mother lives 
 there with her, and they've got a servant and the Lord 
 knows what. I said to Farnum it was no wonder she 
 and the children were always dressed to kill, if his wife 
 had nothing to do but to make clothes, and he gave me 
 one of those grandee looks of his and said: 'I didn't 
 marry her to keep her in the kitchen' I didn't marry 
 her to that's all very well, but who's Farnum, and 
 what kind of salary does he get that they should all 
 trot off to the country in the summer, and people here 
 and there to dinner, and a fur coat down to her knees 
 that he smuggled in from Canada one thing and an- 
 other, I tell you it costs money! And if you admire 
 anything about the place, you'd think they'd cut the 
 whole thing out of an old cigar-box! Ned built the 
 12 
 
178 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 couch, and Ned painted the woodwork, and Ned made 
 the piano out of a toothbrush, I daresay, and Elsie 
 picked this up for a dollar and ninety-nine cents, and 
 Elsie saved so many thousands of watermelon seeds and 
 made portieres of 'em it's not so funny, is it? Poor 
 old Ned, poor boy!" 
 
 The ingenue sighed. "I wish the telegram would 
 get here in time for him to catch the three o 'clock train. 
 Mr. Maltham says he might reach her yet." 
 
 "Oh! Sullivan could keep it from getting here on 
 time, if anybody could. He's an adept at anything 
 clumsy, Sullivan is." 
 
 She sighed again and rose. "Well, I must Why, 
 what's the matter!" 
 
 They listened; Rogers with the nervous apprehension 
 of hearing Farnum in a fight. Suddenly he smiled. 
 ' ' Stella wants the steam turned off, that 's all. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course," said Mabel Rose. "It's Miss 
 Cortelyou. Well, I 'm late. I must go and dress. ' ' 
 
 The door closed after her, and Rogers plunged into 
 his make-up. It was blotchy and ineffective ; all his ef- 
 forts to improve it made it worse. If only he had not 
 got started about that flat of the Farnums ! He remem- 
 bered it so well and all the happiness it had held; the 
 little Sunday dinners when, the servant being out, Elsie 
 Farnum waited on the table and everybody helped with 
 the dishes; the evenings, when people came to play 
 cards, and sing, and eat Welsh rabbits, feeding little 
 Eddie with forbidden mouthfuls ; and then the quiet flat 
 last June, with Elsie in the steamer-chair at the window 
 and her baby on her breast. Rogers 's unfortunate mem- 
 ory recalled a walk he had taken with the Farnums one 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 179 
 
 warm September night. They had gone into the park; 
 Rogers had come up from a Twenty-eighth Street board- 
 ing-house, and it seemed infinitely remote and late and 
 tranquil in the sweet whispering darkness of the trees. 
 And on the way home Mrs. Farnum had lost her locket, 
 and had made them turn back to look for it, and had 
 mercilessly walked and peered and scrambled in the 
 search. It was Rogers who found it, lying open and a 
 little battered, under an electric light, and he saw what 
 it contained. Flattened like a mat under the little glass 
 was what Rogers prosaically described as "a great 
 hunk" of Farnum 's thick, fair hair. When the boy him- 
 self saw into the locket under the high white light there 
 were tears in his eyes, he Rogers flung on a coat and 
 went downstairs and knocked on the door of Miss Cor- 
 telyou, the leading lady. "Stella!" he called, "get 
 something on, will you? I've got to talk to you." 
 
 The leading lady had come to the eyelash stage of her 
 make-up, and she waved Rogers to a seat with the hand 
 that held a tiny brush. "Sit down, Roggie," she said. 
 "I'm trying a new make-up. Spencer wrote me about 
 it." Spencer was her second husband. 
 
 Rogers drew a stool to a confidential nearness and 
 sat looking at her. What she had ' ' got on ' ' was a blue 
 kimono expensively embroidered with gold birds; she 
 had gained in position of late, in influence, she was still 
 young and very handsome, very popular; just now she 
 could not be lightly dealt with, nor easily* replaced; if 
 it were she now who would tell Farnum he recoiled 
 from the shabbiness of the thought. He had only come 
 to talk things over with her. ' ' 
 
 "You paint them on with this dear little brush," said 
 
180 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 Miss Cortelyou. "You don't put anything on your 
 lashes, and then you paint lashes down on to your 
 cheeks like shadows; they say it's the way they do in 
 Paris. Now look, Roggie, do you suppose they'll show 
 from front? Now look! What were you going to say 
 when you came in?" 
 
 "Stella," said Mr. Rogers, "there's a telegram here 
 for Farnum." 
 
 "Oh, my Lord!" said Miss Cortelyou. She plumped 
 her hands down on the make-up shelf and stared into 
 Rogers 's face. 
 
 "And Potter's got it." 
 
 "Potter's got it?" she said blankly; and then, "Oh! 
 they won 't let him go. ' ' 
 
 "Of course they won't." He beat a nervous tattoo 
 upon the make-up shelf. "But what did they tell me 
 for?" 
 
 "He's a fool, that Potter," declared Miss Cortelyou 
 extricating Potter from the managerial plural with ener- 
 getic contempt. "I'm not going to put a foot on that 
 stage if he lets them turn the steam on like this again. 
 He doesn't even know enough to ring up and ring down, 
 he What did you tell me for, Roggie? Do you want 
 me to tell Farnum?" 
 
 ' ' My dear girl ! It 's no affair of yours ! ' ' 
 
 "But if he doesn't see her again! My baby's eight 
 years old to-day, ' ' she inconsequently added, choking up. 
 
 A silence fell. Miss Cortelyou carefully dried her 
 eyes ; she blew her nose, and put some more powder on it. 
 
 "When he does get that telegram," she began with 
 growing cheer, "there'll simply be the devil to pay. 
 And I should think there would! It's a good thing 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 181 
 
 for them they never tried any of those tricks on me! 
 Do you suppose if my baby, if Regina was in danger, 
 and that was my telegram what did you tell me for, 
 Roggie? You've made me sick. I shan't be able to 
 act!" Her mouth quivered. She looked at it in the 
 glass and touched it up with the end of a finger she 
 had dipped into the lip-rouge. "It wouldn't take me 
 two minutes to tell him if I thought she was alive" 
 "If I knew she was alive," continued Miss Cortelyou, 
 her self-esteem mounting with the sound of her own 
 voice, " I 'd tell him if I did it under Hendrick 's nose ! ' ' 
 Joseph Hendricks was the manager and owner of the 
 company. 
 
 Mr. Potter's voice was raised outside: "Mr. Farnum 
 come yet?" A voice replied, "Been in and out two or 
 three times, sir." 
 
 "You hear that? Don't you know what that boy's 
 suffering ? ' ' 
 
 Mr. Rogers looked casually at his watch-chain and 
 discovered that his nervousness had broken it. "But 
 there's nothing to be done," he insisted. 
 
 "Isn't there?" 
 
 Rogers looked at her in bewilderment as she snatched 
 out her hairpins, dexterously divided the front hair from 
 the back, and having jammed up the latter into position 
 for the matinee, jumped up and stuck her head out of 
 the door. 
 
 "Here!" she called to a stage-hand. "You ask Mr. 
 Potter to come here a minute, will you? Mr. Potter, 
 yes, the stout gentleman, the stage manager. Say Miss 
 Cortelyou wants to speak to him." 
 
 She illumined her face at the young man with the 
 
182 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 smile that played most of her parts for her, and, as she 
 came back to her dressing-place, her nostrils dilated 
 with heroism. "I just guess I count for something in 
 this company, and I'm not going to try to act with that 
 boy when he's being kept away from his wife's death- 
 bed. They'll find they don't play any of their tricks 
 when Stella Cortelyou's around!" she said. 
 
 "Now, don't make a fool of yourself, Stella!" said 
 Mr. Rogers with considerable disquiet. ' ' What are you 
 going to do?" 
 
 " 1 11 tell you one thing I 'm not going to do ; I 'm not 
 going to put a foot on that stage until Farnum has his 
 telegram ! Oh, yes ! now get up and jerk about ! You'll 
 see!" 
 
 "What's the use of making such a bluff? You'll 
 only" 
 
 "Bluff! You people in this company don't know 
 me yet. You think Cortelyou's so easy-going that you 
 can always get around her, but I want to tell you that 
 when I say a thing I mean it." She was continuing to 
 get ready for the performance, moistening little sections 
 of hair into points as a preparation for the curling iron. 
 She thrust the iron fiercely into the gas as she said to 
 Rogers: "I'm very slow to get worked up, but once 
 I'm started, Hendricks nor Engle nor the whole Trust 
 couldn 't stop me ! If I make up my mind to close this 
 theatre to-day, it won't be the first time I've kept a 
 house dark. If Spencer were here, he could tell you 
 There was a knock at the door. Miss Cortelyou lowered 
 portentously at Rogers from under the curling-iron. 
 ' ' Come in ! " she cried. 
 
 Mr. Potter entered. "You wanted to speak to me, 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 183 
 
 Miss Cortelyou." He looked with some surprise at 
 Rogers. 
 
 "Mr. Potter," said Miss Cortelyou, with volcanic 
 calm, "is it true that you are detaining a telegram ad- 
 dressed to Mr. Farnum?" 
 
 Mr. Potter's eyes popped forward, and he came as 
 near to stiffening himself as the gelatinous quality of 
 his physique would let him. But privately he stood in 
 mortal terror of Farnum and the inescapable moment of 
 their reckoning, and he almost instantly collapsed. 
 "You had no business to tell her!" he quavered re- 
 proachfully to Rogers. 
 
 "You had no business to tell me either." Rogers 
 extracted what comfort he could from this reflection. 
 
 Miss Cortelyou waved him out of the discussion. 
 "You needn't suppose he's backing me up in this. I 
 don't expect any help from anybody in this business, 
 least of all from any of the men in it. I just sent for 
 you, Mr. Potter, to tell you I wasn't going to put a 
 foot on that stage till Ned Farnum gets his telegram." 
 
 A sense of the inadequacy of human speech surged 
 upon the brain of Mr. Potter and overpowered it. As 
 he looked into the face of Miss Cortelyou and beheld its 
 mingled fury and complacence, he was tremulously and 
 impotently aware of his desire to strike her. He felt 
 that he would have given a week's salary to let her 
 know for once what a silly thing he thought her. What 
 he said was : ' ' Oh, come, come ! Miss Cortelyou ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' All right, ' ' said Miss Cortelyou. ' ' If you think you 
 can give this performance without me, you give it. 
 You've got an understudy, I suppose. She can wear 
 all my dresses if she wants 'em." She knew very well 
 
184 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 that no understudy work had been assigned as yet and 
 she threw back her head in triumph. "If you'd at- 
 tended to your business, you could let Farnum go as 
 well as not and put his understudy on. Where are your 
 understudies, anyhow? Bring out your " 
 
 "Miss Cortelyou!" The exasperated Potter found his 
 voice. "I never heard of such unprofessional conduct! 
 I never heard of such a thing in all my life! How 
 how dare you? How dare you carry on like this about 
 no affair of yours?" 
 
 "Well, I guess I'll make it my affair then, when that 
 poor woman's dying off there, and got two little bits 
 of children, poor, sweet, pretty things! People always 
 say to me, 'Stella Cortelyou, you've got a great, big 
 heart, that's what you've got!' and it's kept me back 
 in my career ; I know that ; but I don 't care. And when 
 I think maybe that poor little soul's dead this minute, 
 and you with her message in your pocket What does 
 it matter about your miserable performance? What 
 does it matter to Hendricks if he does lose a few hun- 
 dred dollars ? Just suppose it was your own wife ! You 
 wouldn't care a hang for any audience, you " 
 
 "Miss Cortelyou," cried Mr. Potter, "I oughtn't to 
 stop and argue with you one minute, but see here I do 
 know, well enough, what I'd do, or any other man, and 
 it's because of that, because he'd throw over everything, 
 and leave us in the lurch, with no performance to-day, 
 that, for my own wife 's sake, I don 't dare tell him, Miss 
 Cortelyou. ' ' There was a little silver toy of a whiskey- 
 flask mixed up with a package of lime-drops on the make- 
 up shelf, and Mr. Potter wabbled a flabby hand at it as 
 he continued : "I won 't deny it was my own weakness 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 185 
 
 lost me my position two or three years running, and I 
 don't suppose I'll ever get back to what my wife had 
 a right to expect when she married me. But I promised 
 her this season, when I got in with the Trust again, I 
 wouldn't let anything on God's earth put me out this 
 time, and I won't. I'm as sorry for Farnum as any 
 man, but it's my wife and children against his, and 
 I 'm going to look out for mine ! ' ' 
 
 "Fifteen minutes!" The stage manager's assistant 
 tapped at the door; "fifteen minutes, Miss Cortelyou." 
 
 "You hear the time," she said, and raised her brows. 
 
 When Mr. Potter attempted to be firm, he invariably 
 blustered. "All right!" he cried, "please yourself. 
 But if I were you, I 'd pay some attention to the time on 
 my own account. You can work a bluff once too often, 
 Miss Cortelyou, and the management's getting pretty 
 tired of this sort of thing. A man 's at his wits ' end with 
 you. But for me, I'm through. This matinee 's the 
 best house this season, and I'm not going to have the 
 curtain held one minute. ' ' 
 
 "Aren't you?" said Miss Cortelyou. "What are you 
 going to do about it ? " 
 
 "I'm going to have it go up on schedule time; and 
 when your cue comes you'll go on for it, as you always 
 do. I notice you've never missed a performance yet." 
 
 "Oh, you reproach me with that, do you!" As she 
 talked Miss Cortelyou had been cramming into her al- 
 ready elaborate tresses the hairpins attached to several 
 formless little bunches of false curls. She now drew 
 back, completed, from the mirror, and gazed into it for 
 one last scrutiny. Satisfied, she kicked off her slippers, 
 and put on a stage pair, glanced at her first-act dress as 
 
186 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 it hung ready and waiting on the opposite wall, and 
 flung herself into a chair. In an excess of formal feel- 
 ing she drew her kimono across her petticoat and fastened 
 it with a hatpin. She folded her arms. "Now, Mr. 
 Potter, let 's see you make me go on ! " 
 
 Mr. Potter fumbled with the door, wondering whether 
 it would be wise to go out and bang it. He had no 
 great fear that Miss Cortelyou would carry out her 
 threat to its extremity, but she might carry it out far 
 enough to delay the performance to make two or three 
 overtures necessary, for instance and get him into 
 trouble with "the front of the house." Mr. Freelman, 
 the business manager, was not a person to be trifled with. 
 
 "It's getting late, Roggie," said Miss Cortelyou. 
 ' ' You 'd better dress, in case there 's a performance. ' ' 
 
 "No," said Mr. Rogers; "it don't take me long. I 
 got you into this nonsense, Stella, and I'll sit it out." 
 
 A little travelling clock on the make-up shelf ticked 
 steadily. Miss Cortelyou discovered that her rings had 
 got into the powder-box, extricated them, blew on them, 
 polished them with her handkerchief and slipped them 
 on her fingers. The contrast between the silence of the 
 little room and the noises of the busy stage outside be- 
 came intolerable. On the floor above, Farnum must be 
 making up by now, miserable, passive, unconscious of 
 the battle, and three days' journey to the east a girl 
 lay dead, or, dying, waited for him. Miss Cortelyou 
 sat in an ominous quiet and turned up her nose. 
 
 Suddenly the overture was called. The assistant 
 hailed Potter from without. "It's overture, Mr. Potter. 
 Shall I ring in?" 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 187 
 
 "Yes. Or no wait a minute. Well, yes; I guess 
 you'd better." 
 
 ' ' Huh ! ' ' said Miss Cortelyou. 
 
 A footstep with a peculiar drag in it passed the door. 
 
 "There's Ned," said Rogers. 
 
 "Why, that's not his step." 
 
 "Yes, it is. He's been up all night, you know." 
 
 The overture burst forth. Even through the closed 
 doors it had a sound of exasperating triumph, security, 
 and inevitable procedure. Miss Cortelyou stirred un- 
 comfortably. 
 
 The overture played itself out. Mr. Potter must go 
 forth now, if ever, to give the signal for the lights and 
 to ring up the curtain. He delayed. Miss Cortelyou 
 moved her fingers nervously, but he was no observer. 
 The stage manager sank to an appeal. "Good Lord, 
 Miss Cortelyou, do hear reason. I " 
 
 "Potter." It was the voice of Freelman, the busi- 
 ness manager. He gave a sharp little rap and entered. 
 His quick, unhurried nod was all that acknowledged 
 Rogers and Miss Cortelyou. "Potter, anything wrong? 
 You haven't rung up." 
 
 "Why," said Mr. Potter, "Miss Cortelyou I ah 
 Farnum well, really!" 
 
 "Miss Cortelyou," said Mr. Freelman, turning to her. 
 He spoke in the manner of a school-teacher who allows 
 the next child to explain itself. 
 
 "Why," she hesitated, "I think that boy ought to 
 have his telegram. I think it's wicked. Yes, I do. I 
 couldn't act," she stopped, biting her lips. The easy 
 tears crept into her frightened eyes. 
 
188 MERELY PLAYEES 
 
 ' ' She has refused to go on ! " cried the stage manager, 
 puffing up. 
 
 "That's entirely your affair, Miss Cortelyou," said 
 Mr. Freelman. "The curtain is going up at once. I 
 have no time to communicate with the office now. If 
 the performance comes to a standstill at your entrance 
 cue, you must settle with them afterward. Ring up, 
 please," he said to Potter. 
 
 The leading lady burst out crying, "If Spencer only 
 had an engagement! If I only had my little girl's 
 school-bills paid! Well, I can't go on in a kimono, can 
 I?" she cried. 
 
 "You want another overture? It will have to go 
 into your report to the office, Mr. Potter." 
 
 "Well," she sniffed, "if you'll get out I've got time to 
 put my dress on after the curtain is up. But I swear to 
 Heaven if it was my baby who was sick, or if it was even 
 Spencer " 
 
 The conquerors started to withdraw. Rogers rose to 
 follow them as Freelman 's satisfied voice again issued 
 his command to Potter, "Ring up!" 
 
 At that moment the door opened and Ned Farnum 
 stepped into the room. 
 
 Every one stood still. Farnum closed the door and 
 looked at them. He himself looked extraordinarily ill 
 and quiet. It was not the quiet of rigidity, but of a 
 fatigue so entire that it acted on his manner like a 
 drug. A terrible weight depended upon his smallest 
 movement; there appeared in him an excessive com- 
 posure, dreary and formidable, and when he spoke his 
 voice dragged heavily with the ineffable languor of a 
 
A DANGER OF DELAY 189 
 
 man who is done with life. Rogers noticed that he had 
 on a particularly careful make-up. 
 
 ''Any message for me, Potter?" he said. 
 
 "Why, what do you mean, Mr. Farnum? Why, no." 
 
 Farnum's look travelled from one face to another. 
 Then he answered : ' ' That 's a lie, isn 't it ? " 
 
 The assistant called "Mr. Potter, shan't I ring up, 
 sir?" 
 
 ' ' There may be a message to-night, Farnum, ' ' said the 
 business manager; "there's none now." 
 
 "Oh!" said Farnum, gently, turning toward the 
 door; "then I must start, anyhow." 
 
 .The business manager stepped in front of the door- 
 way, and the stage manager lumbered after him. "One 
 moment," said the business manager; "let's talk sense!" 
 
 "I wouldn't stand there, if I were you," said Farnum. 
 
 Miss Cortelyou ran to him and began to sob aloud. 
 ' ' Oh, Farnum, do think what you 're doing ! You can 't 
 get to her, you know you can't get to her, Farnum, 
 anyhow!" She put out a timid hand and pulled his 
 sleeve. "Think of your children " 
 
 "She's my wife." He turned on her with a jerk. 
 He had lifted his eyes, and the cruel life in them was 
 somehow a relief and comfort to her. "Do you under- 
 stand what that means? She's my wife. I didn't 
 marry her to let her die all alone. ' ' His mouth shook in 
 a kind of spasm, and he stopped speaking. Rogers, 
 coming up to him, put a hand on his arm and said: 
 * ' Potter 's got your telegram, Ned. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Potter had neither youth nor desperation, nor 
 had nature fashioned him for mortal combat. He fell 
 
190 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 back out of Farnum 's grasp minus the telegram and feel- 
 ing of his throat. No one noticed him, not even Freel- 
 man. All eyes were bent on Farnum, on the telegram. 
 It was so still that the impatient shuffling and stamping 
 of the big audience came clearly into the hot little room. 
 Farnum slit the envelope and drew out the paper, he 
 smoothed it with a steady hand and read the message 
 through. His face did not change and he read it through 
 again. Suddenly the paper dropped to the ground; 
 he flung himself into a chair, with his face in his arms, 
 and broke into wild and noisy weeping. 
 
 They were all at a standstill. With an apologetic 
 gesture of necessity, Freelman picked up the telegram, 
 and in a low voice read it to the others: "No need to 
 come now " ("Oh, God!" sobbed Miss Cortelyou. 
 "Oh, poor ") "No need to come now. Alarm a little 
 hasty. Crisis past. Sudden change for the better. 
 Thought you ought to know. Sullivan." 
 
 There was a long pause. Mr. Freelman frowned 
 gently and sucked in his mouth. The stage manager 
 loosened his damaged collar, took his breath and blew 
 his nose. "Mr. Potter," implored the assistant, "do 
 you want me to ring up? The audience is getting as 
 mad as the deuce. Shall I ring up, sir?" 
 
 Mr. Potter glanced at the chair where Farnum was 
 still making noises into his hands. "No!" he called. 
 ' ' Let 'em wait, then. Give 'em another overture. Curse 
 'em, let 'em wait!" He went over and flopped an in- 
 effectual hand upon the breadth of Farnum 's shoulders. 
 "Why, now!" he said; "why, there!" 
 
 The first notes of the second overture rang gayly out. 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 
 
 GRADY was the property boy of Miss Temple's 
 company, but, emotionally, he had tumbled from 
 his high estate. He had foresworn his joyous and con- 
 temptuous manhood and lost independence, poise and 
 caste ; he had fallen in love with the star. 
 
 Of course this was not quite so degrading as if he 
 had selected any other star. Charlotte Temple was a 
 class by herself. All her stage-hands bragged of her, 
 of her big wages, her quick tempers, even her exact 
 and strenuous requirements, of all the generous condi- 
 tions of her service. Walters and Grady gloried in tell- 
 ing the newer men how last winter the management had 
 arbitrarily attempted to reduce the working staff, but 
 "she put up such a holler" that not a man had lost his 
 job. They bragged even of that crown-prince, her son, 
 sturdy and lovely and brave like his mother, who rode 
 with Grady when he exercised the horses that were used 
 in the second act procession in "India," and who fed 
 the elephant without a tremor. Marvelous playthings 
 were concocted in the property-room for this young 
 Alexander Alexander Halcott was his portentous name 
 and his mother encouraged him in going to ball games 
 with ' ' the boys. ' ' Four years before his father, the elder 
 Halcott, had drunk himself out of the front seat of a 
 "society" woman's automobile and into his expectant 
 grave ; now that the boy was six years old, all sorts and 
 13 193 
 
194 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 conditions of fathers had been known to offer themselves. 
 But Sharlie Temple folded her arms as if she clasped 
 her son in them, and said, No. Her manager, Mr. Lis- 
 ter, a very powerful and persuasive person, had become 
 pressing. But she slipped out of every knot he tied 
 for her and kept to her undignified habit of lunching 
 with obscure youths. She was neither very tall nor very 
 old, but among all the perils of a truly big career, she 
 steered straight forward like a ship in full sail. The 
 spoiled child of popularity, the despair of managers, 
 the enfant terrible among syndicates, free-lance and 
 even freebooter that she was, Sharlie Temple was the 
 captain of every creature in her army. So alive, so 
 beautiful, when she stood on her own stage and cried 
 to Sam to lift a border or directed Walters to brace a 
 run, it was as if her bugles called ' ' Follow me ! " Thus 
 she was wooed, not as a fortune alone, but by true lovers. 
 All things considered there were excuses for Grady. 
 
 But Grady overdid it. Not only did he encroach 
 upon the spheres of the carpenter and the electrician by 
 building new steps, that would not creak, to her third act 
 throne and by putting up lights in her room according 
 to her capricious fancy, just as if he had no union to pro- 
 tect him from these things, but the very marrow of his 
 deportment weakened. In that world where the actors 
 are afraid of the stage manager, the stage manager of 
 the stage hands and the stage hands of nobody, Grady 
 had already exchanged his hauteur for humility, his jo- 
 cosity for sensitiveness, his shirking slap-dash take-it-or- 
 leave-it manner of performing his duties (the manner of 
 a man whom these hireling affairs are constantly dis- 
 tracting from more important business of his own) for a 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 195 
 
 desire to please. People began to wonder if he were ill. 
 No more did he consider the members of her company 
 cranks because they wanted their properties whole, nor 
 the stage manager too fresh because he desired punctu- 
 ality and peace; he no longer swore in the theatre at 
 least not often nor did he spit on the stage; he had 
 ceased to stomp about during quiet scenes, he did not 
 occupy the one chair in sight if he saw an actress stand- 
 ing, and he even began to think of acting as a trade with 
 rights of its own, and not as if it existed only as a source 
 of revenue to virtuous stage hands. Whom the gods de- 
 stroy, they first make mad. The time came when Grady 
 was not only cheerful about the delivery of baggage upon 
 one-night-stands, but when he remonstrated with the 
 men who threw it headlong down stairs. Then the com- 
 pany began to be disturbed. People said something must 
 be going to happen to Grady. And it did happen. His 
 union called a strike. 
 
 It was on the morning of the first night in New York. 
 Everything was just as usual; the gray stage, the gray 
 auditorium with the cleaners puttering about among the 
 holland swathings, the men and women on the stage 
 standing in the disaffected attitudes, and speaking in the 
 curiously detached voices of people who were saving 
 themselves for the night, and then suddenly the opening 
 of the stage door, the entrance of the walking-delegate 
 and the reversal of a world. Grady had felt first a shud- 
 der of the nerves, a chill of the heart, then, raising his 
 eyes from the cannon he was cleaning, he saw the dele- 
 gate and knew. The consequences were immediate; the 
 advance of the implacable figure, a few sententious words 
 
196 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 bombastic and surly manager, bombastic and surly 
 delegate slapping at each other in a couple of irrelevant 
 insults and then the company stricken motionless, the 
 stage in disorder, the working staff throwing down its 
 tools, reaching for its overcoats, the strike declared, the 
 strike in full force, the production paralyzed, a revolu- 
 tion accomplished, and Grady's occupation gone. As for 
 Miss Temple, the last glimpse Grady had had of her was 
 as she had sat at the prompt-table opening her mail ; near 
 her, as ever, the boy Alec playing pirate on a roll of car- 
 pet, near her alas, as ever ! towering the patient Lister, 
 sedulous, attentive, the fur cloak that she had thrown off 
 making a throne out of her chair and all things hanging 
 on her nod. He did not look at her again. Instead he 
 passed one hand over the mouth of his beloved cannon ; 
 his, and hers. He kept his head bent, because he was not 
 much more than a boy, and there were things in his eyes 
 which were not for exhibition. He stumbled over a 
 stagebrace, cursed it gloriously, tried to kill it, so to 
 speak, with a kick, and nearly broke his foot. 
 
 In the property-room he scowled about him, his spirit 
 sinking in the cold and faint daylight, the disheartening 
 atmosphere of chilly dust and drying glue. It was a 
 mean enough place, perhaps, but it was home to leave. 
 He turned away from Sam and Walters who lingered on 
 the threshold. The little dull room brimmed with prop- 
 erties, his own props, his beauties ; some that he had only 
 tended and packed and furbished and known how to 
 place, some that were the work of his hands. There they 
 all were ; weapons and banners, Indian bric-a-brac, idols, 
 jars, screens, the howdah of the elephant, the scarlet pon- 
 pons of the horses, a rapier that Miss Temple used, the 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 197 
 
 trick fan for her to break, the coronet she trod upon, her 
 palanquin, and garlands of undying flowers; he knew 
 them all by name and by heart, knew every tack and bit 
 of paint, tinsel and lacquer, velvet and muslin and brass. 
 Only last night at the dress-rehearsal, still hoping all 
 would be well, he had set them out so fondly, so care- 
 fully, he had been so proud of them, and now to lose 
 them, to leave them all to some darned scab! And his 
 cannon! Oh, the cannon! he had not thought of that! 
 She was bound to it in the second act! Why she 
 wouldn't trust anybody but him to bind her to it, to fire 
 it! No, you bet your life, nor he wouldn't trust them 
 either! As it was, her dress had got scorched twice be- 
 fore the leading-man could yank her away. What ! trust 
 a new props, a man nervous with an opening night ! He 
 felt his heart beats thicken horribly, and he had a wild 
 impulse to fly at the throat of the union and shake out 
 of it the permission to do this one thing, just this one, 
 not to take any money for it, not to be employed for it, 
 but just to do it, just not to leave her, in danger, to a 
 scab ! He could not bring himself to go. 
 
 Into this conflict Alec ran, cast himself violently about 
 Grady's legs, and roared upward: "It isn't true, 
 Grady, is it! We are going to the football game, ain't 
 we, Grady?" He lifted a wet and stormy face, dark 
 with the same tender fire as his mother's. "Get out, 
 kid," said Grady, and pushed him away, a little roughly. 
 
 The child caught his arm and shook it. " It 's a nasty 
 strike. I thought strikes was nice. They're not. 
 They're nasty. That old Mr. Lister says you didn't 
 ought to go 
 
 "Hadn't ought to go," corrected Grady, responsibly. 
 
198 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Hadn't ought, and he" 
 
 ' ' Alec ! ' ' said a voice from the doorway. The child still 
 held Grady's hand and leaned against him and "Come 
 here, Alec," Mr. Lister's dignity insisted. 
 
 Alec looked past him "Oh, mamma, I want to go to 
 the football game with Grady. I don 't want Grady to go 
 away. ' ' 
 
 "Grady," said Miss Temple, "and you, too, Walters, 
 and you, Sam, I want only to be sure of something. Your 
 quarrel isn't with me, nor with Mr. Lister. You don't 
 complain of anything that I can remedy ; I, nor my man- 
 agement. You 're leaving me, at a time like this, because 
 the men that belong to the theatre are leaving out of 
 sympathy with some other men at some other theatre 
 isn 't that true ? Well, then, I want to tell you, boys, that 
 I don 't need you. Mr. Lister knew you better than I did. 
 He has got a corps of men ready drilled against this 
 emergency. They will be protected by police. If any- 
 thing should happen to them, I and my company will 
 play this performance, in this theatre, to-night, without 
 scenery. If anything happens to the theatre, we will 
 play it in the street. ' ' She faced them, pale with temper, 
 the sort that goes down with its flag. But an older per- 
 son than she or Grady might have seen that she could 
 scarcely refrain from tossing her head and crying 
 ' ' Yah ! ' ' Then ' ' Oh, boys ! ' ' said she, on a deep note of 
 her voice, and her mouth shook. 
 
 ' ' When there 's a strike you 've got to go on it. ' ' Alec 
 pronounced, with sad decision. 
 
 Sam and Walters snorted and left. 
 
 Mr. Lister flicked his fingers. "You see the type of 
 notion he picks up. I, really, Sharlie " 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 199 
 
 Miss Temple said, ' ' Shake hands with Grady, son, and 
 come to mother." 
 
 They shook hands. "So long, old man. Be good," 
 said the bigger boy. 
 
 "So long, Grady," Alec replied and bravely smiled. 
 He lifted his mouth to be kissed and Grady, rather shyly, 
 kissed him. Mr. Lister put out an impatient hand, and 
 drew Miss Temple's son to his side. Already he could 
 not resist the attitude of authority over Miss Temple's 
 private life. 
 
 It was with this authority, public and private, that he 
 added as he was leaving, "And now that you are going, 
 Grady, just see that you don't come back. Whatever 
 terms are come to with the other men, Miss Temple has 
 had enough of you. After the length of time you've 
 been with her and all she 's done for you, and the way in 
 which she has allowed her son to be with you, you've 
 shown her how much she can rely on you. So now 
 you're cleaning out, stay out." He started away. 
 
 Grady used always to be a cross, rough-tempered boy ; 
 at this moment he was extravagantly white and could not 
 trust himself to speak. And even then he had to won- 
 der why Lister hated him so, him in particular ? ' ' Why 
 is it me he's always got it in for? And she lets him! 
 It sure isn't she can't think they don't suppose are 
 they onto me?" thought Grady, and was swept by a 
 horrible flame. He would have been cut in pieces, he 
 would have died a million deaths rather than betray the 
 secret of his heart. Then he remembered the cannon, 
 and cast the thought of himself away. 
 
 "Mr. Lister," said he very quietly, "just a minute. 
 It 's about the cannon sir. In the third act. ' ' 
 
200 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Well?'' 
 
 "It ain't safe really, Miss Temple, you know it ain't! 
 I mean, if I'm not there. It's hard to time I never 
 touch it off till Mr. Lawrence 's started to pull her away. 
 A new man, he's apt to lose his head. I know it's only 
 powder, but, if it did go off too soon my lord!" 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Lister, "have you anything to sug- 
 gest?" 
 
 The manager was a man of excellent capacities, and 
 he thus bound Grady and gagged him, branded him as 
 a deserter and an ingrate, at once traitor and busybody, 
 by a single phrase. Had he, who was leaving her to 
 this, had he anything to suggest? Silenced and shamed 
 he watched Mr. Lister, with Alec in his hand, lead the 
 way back to the stage. 
 
 But when he perceived Miss Temple still upon the 
 threshold, when he actually caught her eye, he appealed 
 to her in a smothered breath "He means it's up to 
 me?" 
 
 She regarded him very sweetly, very distantly, "Ah, 
 Grady," said she with a melancholy, maternal gracious- 
 ness, like an empress in distress, "a man cannot serve 
 two masters!" 
 
 She was sorry for him! Why? Did she really un- 
 derstand one's difficulties or "Is she onto me?" 
 thought Grady again, and the thought went racketing 
 about his heart. His eyelids dropped. Did she surely 
 see him as a man who loved her? And did she think 
 that a man, indeed, would have stood by her? Without 
 looking at her he saw her very well, standing there like 
 a real queen, and yet just the sweetest woman God ever 
 made, and they had been for so long oh, she would be 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 201 
 
 the first to say so! kind of partners. For all around 
 her were his precious props, his stack of Japanese para- 
 sols toppling at her back, at her feet his prettiest red 
 rug he had just mended, and her cloak touched his 
 spangled gauzes, piled so tastily in pinks and blues. 
 They made, all together, an elegant frame for a lady, 
 as if to show him just what he was leaving, and beyond 
 them he was aware of a length of leaden daylight in 
 which dawdled, strangely unreal and far away, a dingy 
 shadow the stage's open door and the dreary figure of 
 the delegate. Miss Temple stirred, turned, moved away, 
 she was going, going back onto the stage, to the cannon, 
 to the cannon and the scab property-boy ! and she had 
 trusted him, she had almost asked him to stay ! He felt 
 an unpleasant stiffness creep over him and struck out 
 for dear life. For dearer life ! For the delegate was 
 turning up his coat collar; then he started into the 
 street. And after all, Grady knew the real thing, the 
 thing a man has got to stick to, the thing you can't talk 
 about maybe, but still, you know "I could not love thee, 
 dear, so much " he followed the delegate. 
 
 After such austere conduct, Grady, in a better world 
 than this, would have achieved something worthier than 
 the fate which later overtook him. By that evening 
 Grady had got drunk. It was more than two years since 
 he had had a drop too much, and even then he had never 
 gone in for the stuff enough to be on his guard. The 
 scene-shifters who had asked him to have a drink with 
 them had seemed to him at first decent, friendly fellows, 
 but a little tough, then they had become charmers, hearts 
 of gold, and then the brothers of his soul. 
 
202 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 He swaggered out into the street, and the cold night, 
 black and clear, rushed into his eyes, into his nostrils, 
 into the throat and blood and soul of him like another 
 elixer, like another bracer. He stood still, breathing 
 deep. Stars, frost and crowds, electric light and clang- 
 ing cars and crispy pavements Who was going to boss 
 Grady ? Who was going to dictate to him ? And about 
 his private affairs, too ! His cannon and all ! Whose 
 business was it, anyhow! Miss Temple was a friend of 
 his, and why should he stand for her being dragged 
 around and set on fire by a scab property-man? Well, 
 he guessed he would see about that ! Lister had said he 
 should never come back shouldn 't he, though ! What ? 
 What were those fellows bothering about now? Want 
 somebody to go home with him? No! Certainly not! 
 Sure he could get along? Yes, of course, he could. 
 Troublesome, meddlesome gang ! How did he get mixed 
 up with that lot, anyhow ? He started off to get rid of 
 them. Promise to go right home? He promised, and 
 they were gone. He had them fooled. For he was a 
 long sight too clever for them. He wasn 't going home at 
 all no indeed. He was going to the theatre ! 
 
 He had it all fixed up. He would just go quietly in, 
 and he would ask politely, like a gentleman, for the 
 property-man; then he would follow that scab, he would 
 stand by him every move he made, and see that he did it 
 right. She could trust him, he would look out for her. 
 And the scab would be glad enough to have somebody to 
 help him, to teach him his business, particularly a man 
 like him, like Grady. Only it must all be polite and 
 peaceable, perfectly peaceable. Yes, at the theatre they 
 would be glad to see him. 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 203 
 
 Fifteen minutes later the half-set stage rang to the 
 sounds of a free fight. This fight, followed by the pale 
 helmet of a policeman, fought and clawed its way up 
 the stage, till it was opposite the property-room and 
 within twenty feet of Miss Temple's door. And sud- 
 denly that door flew open upon it and it felt her presence, 
 like a spell of might, swoop on it with a rush. She was 
 motionless, but the high wind of her spirit bore down 
 upon the touzled, scuffled, snorting mob and withered it, 
 scattered it. Only one man, his collar torn and his hat 
 on the back of his head, faced her and grinned tran- 
 quilly ; thus publicly confronted, Miss Temple and Grady 
 stood eyeing each other, measuring each other and say- 
 ing Ha ha ! among the trumpets. "What Miss Temple 
 said in words was, ' ' Grady ! ! ! Come here ! ' ' 
 
 Grady set her an example in manners by replying, 
 "G'd evenin', Miss Temple." He lugged off his 
 smashed hat and amiably continued, "I wan' see prop- 
 'ty-man." 
 
 ' ' Come here ! ' ' said Miss Temple. 
 
 Grady started forward, Mr. Lister stepped across his 
 path. "If you go any nearer that lady, I will have 
 you put under arrest!" 
 
 ' ' Aw to hell, you ! ' ' said Grady pleasantly. ' ' She tole 
 me to come, didn 'in she ? ' ' Pie put Mr. Lister gently out 
 of the way and "You can't turn that hose onta me, ole 
 gen'leman," he dropped back over his shoulder. 
 
 "Officer " Mr. Lister began. 
 
 "You come, too," said Miss Temple simply. She 
 nodded in dismissal to the policeman and the mob. "I 
 am much obliged to you, officer I will manage my 
 stage, ' ' said she to the crowd, and it faded. She turned 
 
204 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 upon the offenders now within her gates and clicked the 
 latch behind them. ' ' Well ? ' ' 
 
 "I wan' see prop 'ty-man, " Grady insisted. 
 
 "Indeed! And what do you propose to do with him 
 when you do see him ? Dynamite him ? You seem to have 
 very nearly knocked the theatre down already. ' ' 
 
 A phrase, battered into familiarity by incessant in- 
 junctions of the union loomed upon Grady 's mind, and 
 he said hazily, but with decision, "No violence!" Then 
 his mouth shut with more of a shock than he had in- 
 tended, and his eyes closed. Something was wrong with 
 him. The stimulus of the drink was gone, the stimulus 
 of the fight was going, there remained only the confus- 
 ingness of his anxieties and the fierce heat of the close, 
 blazing little room. Through that same mist of the sa- 
 loon he could now hear Mr. Lister telling Miss Temple 
 how he, Grady, had worried past the stage-doorman, how 
 he had followed the new props about, intimidating him, 
 until Mr. Lister had to be sent for, and Mr. Lister had 
 sent for the police. How he, Grady, had come there to 
 have his revenge by tampering with the cannon (let her 
 believe that, if she could !) and how the new man was so 
 frightened that he had locked himself into the property- 
 room " "He won' lisen!" Grady interrupted. 
 "Prop 'ty-man won' lis'en. I splain how lo' cannon. 
 Ole timer! Ole fool! Dunno! I wan' see prop 'ty- 
 man. " He halted, appalled to find himself struggling 
 with a sob. The horrible heat that was what it was, of 
 course! made him dizzy and his legs wavered under 
 him. He was too much of a gentleman to sit down un- 
 less he was asked. But there was a chair near him and 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 205 
 
 his whole body yearned to it. "I won ' leave cannon ! ' ' 
 He added with sad explosive love, "My cannon!" 
 
 And then a terrible thing happened. Miss Temple 
 turned on him, and her face was a tempest of reproach, 
 "Why, Grady!" she cried "Why, Grady, you disgust- 
 ing boy, you're drunk!" 
 
 What he! Grady! Why, Miss Temple She rolled 
 one glance at him and he went dumb, all his momentary 
 triumph, his self-respect, his bluff, his soul collapsed 
 together, stabbed through by a white wench's black eye. 
 Grady could not play up to a tragedienne. 
 
 She put out one hand and gave him a disdainful push ; 
 he toppled mildly, then he sank into that coveted 
 chair, and his head dropped forward on his breast. 
 Slumber approached him, wooingly. "Won' leave can- 
 non ! ' ' said he, ' ' Wan ' see prop 'ty-man ! ' ' 
 
 "Why, he can't stand up!" cried the lady. "The 
 beast ! Grady ! Grady, wake up ! " He rose with a 
 martyr's obedience and stood wavering before her. 
 "Look at me, you miserable object! Don't you know 
 you're a disgrace? How dare you come here like this? 
 You that have been with me two years! I am ashamed 
 of you, I am ashamed to have anybody see you, you're a 
 disgrace to me and yourself and my company and every- 
 body! What am I to do with you? What am I to do 
 with you? I don't wonder you can't answer! Mr. 
 Lister, take him and put him out quietly. I wouldn't 
 have Alec see him like this for the world You don't 
 seem to put him out ! Oh, I forgot that you had tried 
 that!" 
 
 Mr. Lister pulled himself together, and as the enemy 
 
206 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 stretched out an arm Grady spurred his sleepy spirit. 
 
 ' ' Come, get out of here ! ' ' 
 
 "Aw, brush by!" said Grady. "Won' leave can- 
 non!" 
 
 Miss Temple looked at them, the one and the other. 
 ' ' Neither of you will obey me, I see. ' ' 
 
 "Sharlie! My dear girl," cried the unhappy man- 
 ager. 
 
 Grady said to him, ' ' Ferry-house f 'yours, Reshinald 
 No, ma 'am. No, Miss Temple. Won ' leave cannon ! ' ' 
 
 "Very well, then, you shall stay here and see how you 
 like that! What's that you say? You want to see the 
 property-man? Well, you'll not see him for some time 
 to come, nor anybody else. Nor is anybody going to see 
 you. Perhaps you will be so good as to sit down again. 
 You do not shine at standing. Larson," to her maid, 
 "unfold that screen." 
 
 "Won' leave cannon !" mumbled Grady, and sank into 
 the chair. 
 
 Miss Temple, with flashing eyes and heaving breast, 
 began tugging at the screen, which was a Japanese em- 
 broidery of gold and silver swallows on a silken field of 
 pink. She helped Larson bring it forward, and as she 
 did, she asked excitedly, "Now, sir, do you see this 
 screen ? Well, I am going to put it around you because 
 you're not fit to look at do you hear what I say? not 
 fit to look at. And don't you try to leave this chair, 
 you wretch! You're to stay here the whole perform- 
 ance, do you understand that? I forbid you to leave! 
 I wouldn 't have you passing out again among my men ! 
 I'd be ashamed to! I wouldn't have Alec see you for 
 the world! You are to stay here till the last person is 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 207 
 
 gone, it will do you good, it will teach you a lesson! 
 And don 't you put your head round that screen, Grady ! 
 you can amuse yourself by looking at these pretty lit- 
 tle birds. You can just sit there and meditate upon 
 you're coming here in this condition not able to stand, 
 and intimidating all my poor stage hands and my man- 
 ager and the police ! Oh, yes, I can perfectly well keep 
 him here, Mr. Lister, thank you ; I am not afraid of him. 
 Take a hat-pin, Larson, and if he tries to come out, give 
 him a little stick. Certainly. I approve of everything 
 you do for me. I am greatly obliged. Only, perhaps, 
 the next time there is a difficulty in the management of 
 my stage, you will consult me. You see how simply I 
 have settled it. You are coming behind after the first 
 act ? I shall be so glad And as for you, sir, behind the 
 screen, I hope you are ashamed of yourself, ashamed of 
 yourself for the exhibition you have made if ever you 
 could have seen " She closed the door after Mr. Lister 
 and leaning up against it, her hands over her heart, gave 
 herself up to noiseless laughter. 
 
 From behind the gold and pink and silver of Japan, 
 "I wan' see prop'ty-man!" suddenly demanded the 
 screened voice of Grady. 
 
 Long afterward, for many years afterward, Miss Tem- 
 ple remembered all the little crowding details of that 
 night. There were so many of them that they made her 
 late for her entrance in the third act ; in the first place 
 the property-man couldn't find the soap to load that 
 everlasting cannon, and the stage manager couldn't find 
 it either; and then Norman Lawrence, her leading man, 
 had come to her, wild-eyed, under the misapprehension 
 
208 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 that he was the only person affected by the night's de- 
 lirious scramble, and told her that the new props mustn 't 
 wait for him to give the cue to fire, for, really, he was 
 so upset at the risk that she was running, that, really, 
 he could hardly depend upon himself to give it at all; 
 and then she had had to be very sweet to Mr. Lister, be- 
 cause she wanted him to keep an eye on Alec until the 
 child's nurse came to take him home he had only come 
 to affiliate with the elephant and the horses, which had 
 been taken away at the end of the second act. That girl 
 ought to have come by then, and it was just as she heard 
 her entrance-cue that Miss Temple saw Mr. Lister again 
 and hung back to whisper to him, "Did Carrie take Alec 
 home ? ' ' Mr. Lister had said only, ' ' Oh, yes, yes, some- 
 time ago," and yet she had been an instant late; long 
 enough to be thrown out of her part, and to be unable 
 to get into it again. So she became aware of the great, 
 richly-dressed audience, leaning toward her, poring 
 upon her, oppressing her a little with its packed inter- 
 est, at once single and multitudinous, of the crowded 
 stage and the organized movement, of the mechanism of 
 things, the realities that were so unreal and created in 
 her divided mind a sort of daze. She saw her leading 
 man, the Indian prince, simulating the struggle between 
 love and duty, come forward to lead the English woman 
 to her death; she remembered suddenly that she ought 
 to have waked Grady about the soap ; she thought, idly, 
 as she saw the property-man fussing with the cannon, 
 ' ' Why, he 's using one of those old paper wads ! ' ' She 
 surrendered herself to Lawrence, the Indian prince, who 
 led her forward, and as she went she saw in his eye the 
 same hysteric nervousness with which the poor over- 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 209 
 
 cautioned props puttered at his cannon, and as she saw 
 she said to herself, "The creature is going to make a 
 mistake ! ' ' She turned her back to the cannon 's mouth, 
 two extras stepped forward with the rope, and at that 
 instant the leading man opened his distracted mouth, 
 and out of it shot, thus prematurely, the property-man's 
 cue to fire. The report came so quick upon the cue, that 
 she seemed to hear them in a single flash of dismayed 
 disgust, and with the flash, something leaped past her 
 over her shoulder, so close that the hot breath of it struck 
 her on the cheek, and there, across the stage, before her 
 face, a gleaming ball dashed itself high against the can- 
 vas, then fell, blazing, on a grass-mat, and where it 
 struck and where it fell flame leaped and ran and spread 
 and grew like a living, brightening, laughing thing, glad 
 to be free. The old-time paper wad had played its old- 
 time trick, had caught and burned, had hit upon the 
 frayed edge of a drop, and set the scene afire. 
 
 The lady that Grady loved was a brave woman. She 
 went down toward the footlights "Ring down!" said 
 she, and when the curtain struck the stage she stood 
 before it. She forsook all that was dear to her, all the 
 people she had lived among and worked with, who de- 
 pended on her and who were hers, for that first of obliga- 
 tions, "the audience," the crowd of strangers who were 
 in her house. She was proud that among her own peo- 
 ple no one had screamed, no one had run. Now the cur- 
 tain was down, they could look out for themselves. But 
 these others she faced, she dominated, she controlled. 
 She saw the great crowd rising and swaying and break- 
 ing, with calls and shrieks, and then she saw it catching 
 14 
 
210 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 itself, holding itself again, and then pouring out through 
 the great doors which the ushers, pale boys with their 
 distended eyes on her, flung open wide. At last she 
 faced an empty house. Then as the lights in a single 
 swoop went out, some people came from behind the cur- 
 tain, her own people; the men called to her as they 
 jumped into the orchestra, she jumped too, and they 
 caught her and she ran up the aisle with them, and out 
 of the side-door after the audience. 
 
 When Mr. Lister put her into the carriage which was 
 to take her to the hotel, she was trembling like a little 
 girl, and clinging to his arm. "Oh, thank God," said 
 she, "that you had sent Alec home for me, before it be- 
 gan ! Oh, thank God ! " If his blood froze with a sud- 
 den recollection, he did not betray it, his face was turned 
 away from her, and she did not see it go a greenish- 
 white with horror, with some sick apprehension. For 
 a moment the best that was in him struggled to break 
 loose. But he looked back at that smoking pit which 
 was the theatre, and "I'll offer the firemen anything, 
 anything, ' ' he soothed himself. He answered Miss Tem- 
 ple hurriedly, and the carriage drove away. 
 
 The mist which had been bothering Grady for so long 
 began to press down upon him mightily, like a feather 
 bed smothering him, like a wall baffling him; it was 
 blinding him in the eyes, it was strangling him in the 
 throat, it was binding him down, crushing him in, chok- 
 ing out of him that life, that sense and spirit, which 
 fought in him so fiercely, struggling to wake him. He 
 did not know that he was trying to wake but he did try, 
 he was not conscious of the noises, the movements, which 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 211 
 
 had nevertheless roused him to beware the one noise in 
 particular, repeated over and over and over, striking 
 upon his sense so familiarly, and yet so sharply, as a 
 man 's own name will strike him to attention. The noise 
 was that of a very little voice calling ' ' Mamma ! Mamma ! 
 Mamma ! " as loud as it could for terror, the voice of a 
 child. It called Grady up through the thick waters that 
 were drowning him, so that he came gasping to the 
 surface in a nightmare of darkness and smoke, where he 
 knew nothing, where he was hopelessly bewildered and 
 at bay, so that he sprang up, striking before him with his 
 arms wide, and thus sent crashing the Japanese screen, 
 beyond which he then saw by the light of a candle still 
 tranquilly burning on Miss Temple's make-up place, 
 the outlines of the dressing-room, the open door, the 
 stage beyond the stage beyond! Fear swept over 
 Grady like a cold wave, sobering him, waking him at 
 last for good and all, and with the fear the terrible sense 
 of being trapped, deserted, sacrificed. He ran out of 
 the room and along close by the wall to the property- 
 room; beside that door he knew there was a cooler of 
 ice water; under the cooler was a bucket of drippings, 
 two-thirds full. Grady tore off his woolen sweater, and 
 standing in his shirt and trousers emptied this bucket 
 over himself. He knocked the cover off the cooler, and 
 soused his sweater in the ice water, then he made the 
 sweater into a sort of mask for his face and head; it 
 covered one shoulder, too, and part of the arm which 
 he held before his eyes, and thus strangely costumed he 
 made his way along the back wall toward the stage-door. 
 Parallel with this wall hung the back drop, and the drop 
 was afire. Grady. slunk along close against the bricks, 
 
212 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 making toward the draught of the open door; the fire 
 seemed to close in around this door, to surround it like 
 a thicket, but it would not do to hesitate, it was getting 
 worse every minute, and the instant's pause he gave 
 himself was only to gather up his strength, the obedience 
 of his will and muscles for a dash that meant his free- 
 dom. For this was a prison indeed, where they had all 
 run away and left him while he was so helpless, where 
 she had run away and left him. As he drew himself 
 together for his leap there came through the purring 
 and blowing, the crackling and snapping of the fire, 
 something faint and yet heart-breakingly shrill, the sound 
 he had heard in his sleep, the child's voice calling 
 ''Mamma! Please come! Please! Mamma!" calling 
 for help. Grady was struck still by it like a man who 
 hears his doom. For he did not come of the deliberating 
 classes and he did not think twice. He only turned 
 and ran back again, crouching as before from the flaming 
 drop, running with his head down, onto the fire, into 
 the fire, following the little voice. 
 
 It had seemed, as he remembered it in Miss Temple's 
 room, to come from some place above his head, and he 
 guessed at once that Alec was on the little balcony over 
 the first entrance, where he could have had a good view of 
 the stage. This balcony itself was iron, but the cor- 
 ridor which led to it, and the old-fashioned stairs were 
 wood, and the stairs had caught from a falling border. 
 Grady could not see the little boy : he called to him and 
 got no answer. He cast a measuring eye upon the stairs ; 
 these he could still see plainly by spurts of the fierce 
 light; in fact they were marked by a flameless column 
 of smoke which poured from them. He took what breath 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 213 
 
 he dared, drew the wet sweater closer round his face, 
 and climbed, with a blind hurry, into the smoke. He 
 had gone only a step or two when he choked, but he 
 kept on and suddenly stumbling over something, pitched 
 forward, and, clutching the heated banister, saved him- 
 self on his knees and one hand. This hand had hold of 
 something, a soft thing like an arm ! What, this easy ! 
 He could see nothing in that reeking darkness, but he 
 ran his fingers over the little shoulders and into the close 
 crop of curls yes, Alec! He sprang up, grasped the 
 sweater he had almost lost, muffled the boy in it, hiding 
 him in his breast, and began stumbling, springing some- 
 how, down again. This time from the foot of the stairs, 
 high waves of fire closed eagerly around him. 
 
 When he came through on the other side, he was for 
 the time a different man ; he had fought so hard that he 
 was not brave any longer; he was only fearless. He 
 could see plainly that the fire was spending itself on 
 the back of the theatre, the drop had fallen and lighted 
 the flooring, exit that way was hopeless, and even toward 
 that side where he stood, the flames had licked up a few 
 pieces of scenery and thrown out a crazy arm to reach 
 the flies. Over on the prompt-side the main wall, 
 though it was luridly lighted half way lip by a red 
 reflection, rose clear and bare and quite untouched, but 
 the stage itself was a downright furnace; the curtain 
 puffed a little, caught and blazed and yet a little while 
 it hung there, flaming, while the black pit of the house 
 stared stolidly at this strange sight. Grady rushed along 
 to the first entrance; as he gained the passage by the 
 boxes the fire suddenly moved with him, its eager gobble 
 of the scenery crowding toward the orchestra and swayed 
 
214 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 forward by the draught. He flung himself against the 
 box door leading to the front; it was locked. He drew 
 off and kicked"*the lock with a steady passion, but it held. 
 He flung himself against it, for though he did not know 
 that the exits had been opened, he meant to try for 
 them the fire leaped the orchestra and ran wildly up 
 the aisles, catching up whole rows of seats in hot em- 
 braces. Grady's heart was gripped for the first time 
 by despair. He dropped to his knees with the child 
 crushed in his arms; there was an instant when he 
 crouched in simple frenzy, then he was trying to see 
 beyond the little island where he knelt. As before it 
 was only across on the prompt-side that there was still 
 something clear. There the solid wall still rose, plainly 
 visible above the smoke, and suddenly a sharp picture 
 of that wall flashed on him with a window in it. A 
 window looking into the fly-gallery and out upon the 
 thoroughfare ! As soon as he remembered, he was ready. 
 There was a climb before him where he would need both 
 his hands; he swung the boy to his back, binding him 
 there with the sweater, the sleeves of which he brought 
 forward under his own arms, and tied upon his breast, 
 the wet wool making a knot like a rivet. He felt the 
 backward pull of the boy's weight and lapped Alec's 
 sturdy legs across his left arm, as a woman might carry 
 her train ; then, stooping down and forward, he ran into 
 the roaring fury of the stage. 
 
 After a hundred years of minutes he brought up 
 against the opposite wall, and without pause or thank- 
 fulness groped upon it for his salvation. Ah ! his fingers 
 closed on the thin iron rounds, his feet took hold on 
 them, he had started up them! This narrow ladder, 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 215 
 
 upright as a mast, set so flat, so close to the wall, as 
 to be almost in it, hardly affords hold or standing room 
 at any time, and now he could not see the slight rounds 
 of metal in the smoke. Nevertheless, for the first dozen 
 feet he almost ran. He then turned back to the fire with 
 a snarl of triumph, and yet there it was ! it had moved 
 as fast as he, and its advance-guard of smothering black- 
 ness was at his feet. He was spurred by a mere hatred 
 of the thing, and scrambled up and up with the child's 
 heavy body still hanging from his shoulders to his hips, 
 weakening his arms in their hold upon the ladder, pull- 
 ing, pulling, just as if it meant to do it, back and down 
 to the Inferno. He gained on the smoke and his brain 
 cleared again ; he was nearly half way up. He lowered 
 his face into the knot of wool on his breast; dear God, 
 it was damp yet! He breathed in its sponginess and 
 for one gorgeous minute sucked its moisture. As he did 
 so the first flames burst through the curtain of smoke 
 and came licking round the ladder's lower rungs. The 
 iron and the brick wall did not give them much food, 
 but they had run up the wings like mad, and the smoke 
 from these was already closing round him on a level; 
 he struggled through another four or five feet, swaying 
 with an aching faintness he looked up for a glimpse of 
 the dim window, far away-like heaven, and as he looked 
 a flame shot from a wing to the first border still high 
 beyond him, danced along that and lighted on the wooden 
 hand rail of the fly-gallery that he was making for. 
 Something staggered in his head. He no longer saw well, 
 even allowing Well, no use falling back, no use falling 
 back, better keep on, better keep on, yes, better His 
 head kept saying something over and over inside itself 
 
216 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Oh God! God! God!" praying, maybe. He couldn't 
 bear to lift his arms again, and then his feet, he couldn 't 
 do it! He did not know if he was burned, but he be- 
 gan to be dimly aware that he was suffering some spe- 
 cial pain ; he did not know what, nor where, but he re- 
 sented it because it might delay him. Then the smoke 
 from above, below, all sides, rushed in and covered him, 
 and he swung, choking. 
 
 All this time he had had no idea whatever of any help 
 from the outside. That this wall alone separated the 
 child and him from a shouting, struggling crowd, fren- 
 zied over their fate; that it separated them, moreover, 
 from a few devoted men toiling for them like giants, like 
 heroes, never occurred to him at all. From the time he 
 had first started into the fire he had been as much alone 
 as if there were no other creatures in the world, he 
 had thought as little about human sympathy as an ant 
 struggling up a mountain with a fly upon its back. He 
 knew, dimly and yet with agony, that he was working 
 toward an end a place where there was air and time 
 to lie down. The lost world of men presented to him 
 absolutely no other features. 
 
 He came to in a spasm of gasping from the weight of 
 his own head falling backward. Terrified, he climbed 
 on, panting. But it was only a matter of moments now 
 when he must lose consciousness for good and all. He 
 began to be crazed with hatred of this thing upon his 
 back, that kept pulling at him and would not help itself. 
 He was sick with the desire to strike it, to tear it off; 
 he felt that it would be impossible to save Alec with 
 that thing still hanging on ! For all he knew the face so 
 close to his might be grinning at him! He turned his 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 217 
 
 head to look, and seemed to see a flame reaching to- 
 ward Alec's boots. He clutched them upward with a 
 desperate tenderness, made a last stagger and swung, 
 reeling, at the ladder's top. 
 
 His mind was suddenly as clear as when he started. 
 The ladder ran a few feet higher than the little gallery, 
 he had only to drop from its rungs to the boards which 
 were not yet blazing. In doing so he struck dangerously 
 near to that wide cutting in the planks through which 
 the ladder rose, lost his balance, toppled back toward the 
 cutting, by a fearful effort swung himself once more for- 
 ward and lunging his full length dashed himself against 
 the blessed window, and flung it open, the free air blow- 
 ing on his face. He draggd Alec out of the sweater, and 
 set him before him on the window-sill. Climbing after 
 him he held the child in with one leg while he himself 
 stood upright on the sill, the better to be seen. For in 
 that moment the sense of his kind, of common humanity 
 came back to him ; he knew why he had been struggling 
 to that window and what he had expected; he was con- 
 tented, not surprised, when there swept up to him such 
 a welcome as even that venerable theatre had never heard 
 before, the heart of the crowd crying out in the voice 
 of the crowd, "Wait ! Don't jump ! "Wait, wait, they're 
 coming to you!" 
 
 A carriage had driven back full speed to the corner 
 of that street, but it could get no further, so the door 
 of it flew open and some one jumped out and made her 
 way like a crazy woman through the crush. Blind and 
 rough and senseless as she was, those who recognized her 
 made way for her, but when she began to struggle with 
 the policeman at the fire-line, the officers told her to look 
 
218 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 up, and men and women called out to her, "It's all 
 right! See! Look! It's all right he's got him!" 
 She raised her frantic eyes and saw, she sank to her 
 knees on the pavement and staring upward, quieted, for 
 the first time began to weep. Grady had seen her as she 
 came, and as she looked up he looked down. He slid 
 softly to a sitting posture in the window and took Alec 
 into his lap. ' ' Hold on, old man, ' ' said he, somewhat ir- 
 relevantly, to the child. 
 
 Grady and the fireman who got to the window first 
 were rather snubby to another fireman, who met them 
 half way down and insisted upon helping them. When 
 his feet touched the earth Grady began to feel foolish. 
 There was a puddle over there by an engine and he 
 wanted to lie down in it and go to sleep. He knew that 
 he was in a good deal of pain somehow or other, also 
 he seemed to be standing in a wide dark circle; then 
 suddenly some one ran into this circle and came up to 
 him. It was Miss Temple ; they stood there face to face, 
 her eyes all shiny and full of tears. He could see 
 that she was trying to speak and could not. She 
 had Alec in one arm. Suddenly she reached up 
 and lifted her face and threw her free arm round 
 Grady 's neck and kissed him. For just one instant 
 Grady came fully wide awake, and was aware to 
 the very bone of everything; the fire and the night, 
 the sea of faces, the danger he had been through, 
 tempering his heart and the kiss of the young woman 
 holding her child. Then it was all gone again, things 
 became ordinary and then confused. "It's all right, 
 Miss Temple," he told her, "why I had to bring him 
 of course, of course, I had to." "Ah, yes, you Grady," 
 
NOBILITY OBLIGES 219 
 
 he heard Her say, "of course, you had to." And then 
 the black circle tilted again and swayed, swung up and 
 closed over his eyes. At the end of the night and the 
 end of the world, Grady had fainted. 
 
 All things considered it was not remarkable that that 
 threat of Mr. Lister's never got carried out: when the 
 union would let him, and when he had got slowly, slowly 
 well, Grady came back to Miss Temple's company and 
 worked his cannon as of yore, and Alec rode with him 
 again, and went to ball games with him, and picked up 
 Grady 's unseemly notions about obligations, just as he 
 had done before. 
 
 And thus it came about that in the life of Charlotte 
 Temple there was no marriage with Mr. Lister. Justly 
 or unjustly, she had conceived a spite against that gentle- 
 man ; she said she was afraid she was fussy, but she had 
 a prejudice in favor of a husband who could look her 
 property-boy in the face. When she became engaged 
 to a grand young man who came out of Africa covered 
 with medals, a sensational paper raked up the story of 
 the fire, and included, among other pleasantries, the in- 
 cident of the kiss. A confidential friend of Miss Tem- 
 ple 's suburban school-days, who had become the head 
 of a sort of Temple-aesthetics cult in the neighborhood, 
 wrote to inquire if this statement were correct, and on 
 being promptly informed in the affirmative, wrote again. 
 Miss Temple read this second letter late one night sitting 
 alone in her bedroom before a grate of glowing coals. 
 The letter was warmly commendatory and sentimental, 
 not to say gushing; it declared that nothing could have 
 been nobler, nor more truly, poetically refined, than for 
 
220 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 a famous actress, before a street full of people, to be 
 carried away by gratitude, and kiss one of her mechanics. 
 "Noblesse oblige!" ran this effusion. ''Such a thing 
 must have been shockingly against all your instincts and 
 delicacies, and we think it all the finer because it must 
 have been so intensely disagreeable to you of course, 
 dear girl, we all know that." Miss Temple paused and 
 looked into the firelight ; fully, clearly, she saw that mo- 
 ment the dark, enormous, gusty, rowdy night and the 
 flaming theatre which lighted it, the snorting engines, 
 the huddled cars, the crowds, all commanded by the 
 omnipotent firemen, among whom Grady alone moved as 
 an equal; and she saw the bold young figure breathing 
 life and death, bearing her the world in his arms, and 
 then with his cross and curly head bowed down to hers. 
 She sat very still ; the light of her hearth dreamed over 
 her white laces, her white hands, her glimmering rings, 
 her little silk-shod feet, and a small, a mischievous and 
 pensive smile came creeping and dimpling into her face ; 
 "It must have been so intensely disagreeable to you 
 of course, dear girl, we all know that. ' ' 
 "The devil they do!" said the lady softly. 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 
 
 SUSIE had pulled a chair in front of the bureau, and 
 she revolved upon it as steadily as possible, look- 
 ing into the mirror at the hang of her skirt. Susie was 
 a most delicate and spirited little person, and looked 
 only about twenty, though she was twenty-six. Her hus- 
 band lolled on the hard and bulging sofa and fanned 
 himself, for the day was hot. Climax, the fox terrier, 
 was getting too fat, and he also felt the heat ; he panted 
 patiently on the floor in the midst of a crumbling desert 
 of dog-biscuit. The baby, in her night-gown for cool- 
 ness' sake, tottered amiably but unsteadily near the 
 dog ; every now and then her father would lean out from 
 the sofa, and with a swoop of his fan between her fingers 
 and her opening mouth, would intercept a piece of dog- 
 biscuit and wave it to a distance. Susie, expertly re- 
 volving in her fresh white dress and deciding in a capable 
 glance that it hung perfectly, had something like a flash 
 of realization that an ingenue, however prosperous, is 
 a little excessive in allowing herself so many encum- 
 brances. She jumped down and took up her hat. Susie 
 was going to make the round of the theatrical agencies, 
 as she did three days a week; she was looking, with a 
 growing desperation, for an engagement. 
 
 Four years ago, before Miss Suzanne Grayce had mar- 
 ried Mr. Walter Bates, she had been one of the most 
 
 223 
 
224 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 promising ingenues in the profession. No one had been 
 quite as promising since, except perhaps this new girl, 
 Mabel Rose, who seemed not only to have taken Susie's 
 place but to walk directly ahead of her, closing the 
 gate of every opportunity. Well, she herself had once 
 walked into the stronghold of success, and she had done 
 it so smoothly, so easily, that success had seemed the 
 only thing natural to her; she had lived in a kind of 
 pleasant, progressive game in which she had always gone 
 higher with each move, and in which she was to go 
 much higher still. Then, in a mood of thinking that she 
 was living rather extravagantly "for a young girl," she 
 had allowed herself to be advised out of her pretty hotel 
 into a blowzy boarding-house, and there she had met 
 Walter Bates and had fallen in love with him and mar- 
 ried him. He was out of an engagement and in debt, but 
 he, was very gentle and good-looking and he had excel- 
 lent intentions; his intentions were still excellent, and 
 he had kept his good looks and his gentleness. Susie 
 was now also in debt and out of an engagement. 
 
 This state of affairs was not due to any spiritual de- 
 ficiency in Mr. Bates. He tried very hard ; he had some 
 small talent for playing parts, but none whatever for 
 getting them. Whenever he was out of work he re- 
 alized this to such an extent that he was apt to become 
 quite pale about it. Unfortunately, for any claim upon 
 sympathy, he was apt at the same time to become a little 
 puffy. If he did not get fat, he at least spread, unap- 
 pealingly. So that, in a time of such poignant useless- 
 ness as the present, he continued to lounge upon the 
 sofa and to grow paler and puffier from moment to mo- 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 225 
 
 ment. An unquenchable amusement at the eccentricities 
 of life lurked, aimlessly, in his expression. 
 
 ' ' Wallie, ' ' said his wife, suddenly observing him as she 
 drew on her gloves, "I do wish I could afford you some 
 fencing lessons. You need something, I 'm sure. ' ' 
 
 ' ' While you are wishing, Susie, ' ' said Mr. Bates, ' ' wish 
 that I could afford some for myself." 
 
 His wife looked at him with a fond frown. "Don't 
 worry, ' ' said she brightly. ' ' If only one of us can make 
 some money it doesn't matter which one it is." 
 
 "Not at all," said Mr. Bates. "Angh-angh, Geral- 
 dine drop it ! It would be a good deal of a luxury to 
 me personally, to support my family myself, and who am 
 I to afford luxuries? I don't know if you want her to 
 swallow that button, dear, but she's doing it." 
 
 Geraldine was deprived of her button and placed 
 upon the bed. Her mother poked at her, and rolled her 
 over and over until she screamed with joy, and then 
 suddenly deserted her and went over and stood beside 
 the sofa. She had taken up her parasol and stood strok- 
 ing the sofa with the point ; she was growing rather pale 
 herself. 
 
 Finally she said: "Wallie, do you feel quite com- 
 fortable about going down to dinner here ? ' ' He did not 
 answer, and she quivered out with : ' ' We shall have to 
 pay Mrs. Lexis. She 's been very patient and she '11 have 
 to have it." She stopped again, and then: "Walter, 
 if I don't get an engagement pretty soon, what will be- 
 come of us?" He had not and could not have any- 
 thing to say, but he stooped for the handkerchief she 
 had dropped, and she took it from him with a little 
 15 
 
226 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 shiver. "Do you think," she cried, and her voice tore 
 on the words into a furtive sob, "do you think I shall 
 have to sell my ruby bracelet ? ' ' 
 
 "You may even get the engagement to-day," said he, 
 and smiled upon her. 
 
 She remembered that perhaps she might, and remem- 
 bering also the charming little figure, impeccably ar- 
 rayed, which had revolved before her in the glass, she 
 took heart, brightening at him and giving his sleeve a 
 small twist of confidence as she moved away. He got 
 up and opened the door for her and, "Of course," said 
 she, with a punctilious loyalty, "if I don't get anything 
 to-day, you may get something to-morrow. 
 
 He looked at her a moment in amused surprise, and 
 then with a sudden gravity took her face a little form- 
 ally and distantly between his finger tips and, stooping, 
 kissed her. 
 
 "I'll take care of the baby!" he called jauntily after 
 her. 
 
 II 
 
 Susie's spurt of elation carried her down Broadway 
 and up the stairs that lead to Mrs. Meade's agency. 
 There it deserted her, immediately and altogether. 
 
 It was Monday morning, so the agency was very full 
 and the crowded room was hot, with the sticky, humid 
 heat of the late summer. Beyond the low wire fence 
 which protected the authorities from invasion there was 
 a little breathing space; the bold and hardy pushed up 
 to the fence, made themselves heard over the click of 
 the typewriters beyond and were answered by shakes of 
 the head from haughty employees within. The agent 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 227 
 
 herself, Mrs. Meade, was immured with a manager in 
 her private office. Susie saw that the women were 
 greatly in the majority, and her sense of individuality 
 failed her just when she most required it; she seemed 
 to sink indistinguishably into a sea of needy ingenues. 
 She stood back against the wall, fanning herself with 
 her handkerchief and rather aggressively getting her 
 breath after running upstairs. Susie had been in the 
 habit of pitying girls thus trying to appear at ease, as 
 she had once pitied their elaborate toilettes elaborated 
 in order to hide the indications of pretense and make- 
 shift which had always frayed Susie's nerves. "Oh," 
 she remembered once having said to Walter, "oh, an 
 anxious-looking dress! I never could endure that!" 
 Those were the days when she had plenty of offers, but 
 refused all which did not include him. She wondered, 
 now, what sort of dress, what sort of anxieties, she 
 might presently be obliged to endure. There is nothing 
 like standing about agencies to wilt the starch out of 
 superiority. 
 
 Mrs. Meade herself, when she finally came forth, was 
 not nearly so haughty as her employees. She said, 
 "Good morning," and, "No, nothing, not a thing, my 
 dear," to each person in turn, and when one loquacious 
 girl said that the weather was so hot it took all the curl 
 out of one's hair, she said: "Oh, don't curl it, dearie! 
 Try the water-wave!" She shook hands with Susie, 
 whom she remembered having told to come in to-day, 
 and said at once : ' ' Oh, they 've filled that part, my 
 dear; yes, they've engaged Grace Weston." There was 
 nothing for Susie but to look as if she didn't care and 
 to get away as quickly as possible. At the next agency 
 
228 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 it was the same story, and at the next and the next. 
 Susie knew people in every office, and she was aware that 
 her smile of greeting was becoming forced. She hated 
 herself for it, and yet she knew she was losing her nerve ; 
 persistence seemed so useless and the world so impene- 
 trable a wall. Some of the stairways leading to the 
 offices bore upon each step a sign which said, "No 
 loiterers, tramps, or peddlers allowed in this building," 
 and Susie began to creep past these signs with a certain 
 sense of guilt. At the most successful of the agencies 
 she glanced through the door and beheld many thriving- 
 looking Thespians, elect ladies in rocking-chairs, fanning 
 themselves and discussing new plays. Susie did not see 
 how she could face the cold eye of an aristocracy to 
 which she had once belonged; she faltered on the 
 threshold, then: "No, I can't go in there!" she ad- 
 mitted to her sinking heart, and, turning, fled. 
 
 At the corner of the street she was hailed by a girl 
 she knew, a Miss Marsh, Victoria Marsh, who got pretty 
 good engagements now through being such a friend of 
 those prosperous Farnums, and they loitered together 
 for a moment in front of a shop devoted to confec- 
 tionery and ice-cream. Miss Marsh said that she was 
 waiting for Eddie Clark; he had gone in somewhere to 
 get some cigarettes. She managed to convey a certain 
 proprietorship of Eddie by the tone in which she men- 
 tioned him, which was re-enforced by his having left her 
 to straggle alone in the street, and she presently began 
 telling Susie how near he had come to getting that splen- 
 did part in Granger's Number Two Company of 
 "Alaska," only Norman Lawrence had gone up the day 
 before Eddie was to sign and offered to go for half 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 229 
 
 Eddie's salary, and Granger had taken him. Susie felt 
 that beating of the blood about her temples which she 
 always suffered under contact with something treacher- 
 ous. "Lawrence ought to be turned out of the profes- 
 sion," she declared, with more violence than becomes an 
 ingenue. She had always rather disliked Eddie, but 
 now she felt quite fond of him. "That sort of thing," 
 she said and shut her teeth. 
 
 "It's awful," said Miss Marsh, "and people are get- 
 ting more like that every day ; Helen Graham 's own sis- 
 ter worked her out of a part last week by telling the man- 
 ager Helen was subject to laryngitis. The way people 
 in this business are beginning to scheme and go on, you'd 
 think they were all managers. What do you go with 
 yourself, Susie?" 
 
 "I haven't signed," said Susie. 
 
 "Well, come in here and have some soda," cried Miss 
 Marsh, cheeringly. 
 
 "Oh, thanks, I guess I" 
 
 At this moment there flashed out of the confectioner's 
 a young girl in pink organdy with roses in her hands. 
 She was followed by two nice-looking boys, one carrying 
 her parasol and the other some vague thing of pinky flut- 
 ters. Sailing past, radiant, the girl smiled to Susie and 
 waved her hand. 
 
 Miss Marsh exclaimed: "Wasn't that Mabel 
 Rose?" 
 
 "Yes," said Susie; "isn't she pretty?" 
 
 ' ' They say that in this new piece of Jervis 's she 's got 
 the greatest part ever was written. Nice for Kate Er- 
 skine when she's to star in it." 
 
 "Jervis writes good parts," said Susie softly. 
 
230 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "And good parts make good actresses," Miss Marsh 
 announced. "Well, Eddie." 
 
 Eddie said: "Well, girls," and that he had just seen 
 old Emmons, who had told him if he came round at three 
 to-morrow there might be something doing. On the 
 strength of this statement Eddie wanted to know if Vic- 
 toria, if the girls, would come somewhere and have a 
 drink, but Miss Marsh plucked him sharply up to the 
 ice-cream standard and they went into the confectioner's. 
 
 As they sat at their ease nibbling the lady fingers with 
 which Eddie had delicately provided them, Miss Marsh 
 said to Susie: "It's you ought to be playing this part 
 Mabel Rose has got." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not so particular," Susie laughed. "Most 
 any part would do for me." 
 
 "Well, if that's the way you feel, you'll never get 
 anything," Miss Marsh austerely commented. "I don't 
 believe you've got any push, Susie. You ought to go to 
 see everybody and you ought to put on a good front." 
 She looked a little deprecatingly at Susie's mild white 
 dress. "How about your have you still got oh, there 
 it is ! What do you hide it for ? ' ' She pointed sternly, 
 and Susie shook her ruby bracelet free of her sleeve. 
 
 "Well, I thought in the daytime." 
 
 "Not at all," said Miss Marsh, whose naturally con- 
 cerned and conscientious spirit seemed especially on edge 
 that day. "You want to wear it flash out so as to show 
 people that you've got it yet. People never want to give 
 engagements to people unless they look as if they didn't 
 want them. Have you been, around to the agencies this 
 morning ? ' ' 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 231 
 
 "Yes, to Mrs. Meade's, and to Spaulding's, and to 
 Paul's, and" 
 
 "To Miss Reagle's?" 
 
 "No," hesitated Susie. "I I just couldn't go in 
 there, so many people 
 
 "Well, she has the best of everything. You ought to 
 go there. Things won't come to you, you know. You 
 ought to go there and stay there. It 's just cowardice not 
 to, Susie." 
 
 "Have some more cream, Miss Grayce," said Eddie 
 Clark. 
 
 ' ' I want Susie to promise me she '11 go to Miss Reagle 's 
 right away," insisted the strenuous Miss Marsh. "She 
 can break the ice by asking if there's any mail for her. 
 She ought to go there; you can never tell what might 
 happen." 
 
 Susie felt that her friend was right, and she decided to 
 make use of this first aid to the self-conscious ; she would 
 at least pretend to look for mail at Miss Reagle 's. Forti- 
 fied by Mr. Clark 's hospitality, she walked, as soon as she 
 was alone, directly back to Miss Reagle's, and once ar- 
 rived upon the threshold she took a deep breath, thrust 
 forth her ruby bracelet, and entered the office. 
 
 The mail-box was behind the railing, and Susie pointed 
 to it and said to a proud minion : * ' May I see if there 's 
 anything for me?" The minion stared blankly, but 
 handed her the letters, and Susie ran them over. The 
 door of the inner office was open ; Susie could hear Miss 
 Reagle 's voice ; and for a moment her eyes met those of 
 the manager to whom Miss Reagle was talking. He was 
 a Mr. Hendricks, for whom Susie had once played. 
 
232 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 She made him a little bow, returned the mail, and 
 walked out. "When she was half-way downstairs she 
 heard someone call her name, and turning she observed 
 the proud minion hanging over the banister and entreat- 
 ing her : "Miss Grayce ! Miss Grayce ! "Will you come 
 back a minute, please ? ' ' 
 
 Susie, puzzled, but pliable, returned. A kind young 
 lady at the typewriter said: "Just step into the office, 
 please." At this moment the manager came out of the 
 office. ' ' How are you, Miss Grayce ? " he said. ' ' Where 
 have you hidden yourself all this while?" He went on 
 without waiting for an answer ; Susie, for the first time 
 in many a weary day, stepped into the inner office and 
 Miss Reagle motioned her to a chair. 
 
 "My dear," said Miss Reagle, "it's a good thing you 
 came in ! I was just going to send for you. Hendricks 
 was in here looking for an ingenue, and I mentioned your 
 name." Susie remembered the surprised recognition 
 growing into attention in Hendriek's glance and she 
 demurely cast down her eyes. "They want somebody 
 right away for Mabel Rose's part. They're rehears- 
 ing now." 
 
 "For Mabel Rose's part!" To Susie her own voice 
 seemed to come from a long way off. She was so sur- 
 prised that she scarcely knew if she was even pleased. It 
 was as though somebody had handed her the moon. 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Reagle, "I'll give you a note to 
 the stage-manager. But don't go to the stage door. 
 Hand in the note at the box-office; they'll put you in 
 front somewhere, to watch the rehearsal. Are you a 
 quick study ? ' ' Susie nodded. Coherency still swam be- 
 yond her grasp. 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 233 
 
 "For you'll have to get up in it like lightning. There 
 are so many openings to-night and to-morrow night 
 they've deferred theirs till Wednesday. They've 
 played the piece three nights out of town, and they're 
 not satisfied with Rose, and they've grabbed this chance 
 to make a change. Somebody will take your card in 
 to Wallis he's putting on the piece and as soon as 
 rehearsal's over you can settle everything with him and 
 Hendricks. They furnish the clothes." 
 
 "Have you any idea what I ought to ask them, Miss 
 Reagle?" asked Susie, dropping toward the earth. 
 
 "Well, of course, you can ask them seventy-five, but 
 you're a fool if you stick at salary, child. It's the 
 chance of your life." Beginning to write the note, she 
 said: "You will have a rehearsal with Wallis or with 
 Potter, the stage manager, directly the other rehearsal's 
 over." Finishing the note, she handed it to Susie. 
 "You go right round there now, my dear," said she; 
 "they're expecting you." 
 
 Susie went "right round there," preserving while in- 
 doors a tremulously radiant decorum, but, as soon as 
 she reached the sidewalk, she flew. Her feet seemed 
 scarcely to move of themselves ; the air seemed to sparkle. 
 Her spirit at once sang and shivered in an ecstasy of 
 nervousness; when she spoke she feared that her heart 
 would tremble in her voice. Then the thought of return- 
 ing home, of kissing the baby, of telling Walter ah, of 
 telling Walter! softly flooded her with warmth. Her 
 eyes filled with tears. She flitted up the lobby of the 
 theatre and gave in the note at the box-office. 
 
234 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 III 
 
 Seated at the back of the large auditorium, Susie 
 eagerly surveyed the peopled stage. She could not find 
 Mr. Jervis, the author, but Mr. Potter, the stage man- 
 ager, sat at the prompt-table fumbling with the manu- 
 script; "Wallis, the producer, the Stage-Manager Ex- 
 traordinary, sprang here and there with impassioned, 
 shirt-sleeved gestures, correcting, expounding, arrang- 
 ing. The back door was open and the rear of the stage 
 was gray in the daylight ; forward, by the prompt-table, 
 a big bunch light shed a warm yellow mistiness. As the 
 actors advanced into this limited brightness Susie en- 
 deavored to make sure of their identities; suddenly a 
 girl, a familiar, airy figure, came into the magic circle. 
 She turned her face to the light, and Susie recognized 
 Mabel Rose. Susie's heart gave a sick little jump. 
 " They haven 't told her !" 
 
 It was now abundantly clear why she had been sent, 
 with so mysterious a hush, through the front part of the 
 house. Miss Rose still expected to play the part. They 
 had not dared to discharge her before they had acquired 
 Susie, and, moreover, it was invaluable to the newcomer 
 to see the part rehearsed. Susie's hot scorn of such 
 tactics was quickly cooled by her helplessness beneath 
 them, and after a single throb of indignation she set to 
 work seriously at absorbing the rehearsal. 
 
 But as beneath her scrutiny the action slowly cleared 
 and settled, she became aware of something truly terri- 
 fying. Miss Rose was unsatisfactory in the part not be- 
 cause she was bad in it, but because she was too good. 
 To her successor this was appalling but indisputable. 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 235 
 
 And it was all the author's fault. Commissioned to 
 write a play for Katherine Erskine, his star part was 
 wood and putty; he had fallen in love with his ingenue 
 as he wrote her, and she had taken life and breath, she 
 had grown into beauty and laughter beneath his hands. 
 He would always insist that the part be well played. 
 Miss Erskine, with less frankness, would see to it that it 
 was not. The management, bedeviled and befogged, 
 would hang fire between the two. Yet, it was Miss 
 Erskine most certainly who was to be exploited. To 
 keep the position one must never play the part for all it 
 was worth, and innocent Miss Rose, tiptoe with the 
 ecstasy of triumphant work, knew no other way to play 
 it. 
 
 But Susie knew. The situation was not pleasant, but 
 Susie believed herself mistress of it. She leaned for- 
 ward, "spotting" breathlessly the points that she was 
 sure pricked Miss Erskine sorely and must be blunted; 
 the other points than the author, the stage manager, the 
 whole set of bunglers would insist upon, and which she 
 would drive home at any cost. Here was a laugh that 
 could be lost, there was a round of applause that could 
 be stifled. Let them go, she could spare them! What, 
 what a bag of tricks there still remained ! The darling 
 part seemed, like a jewel, to sparkle the more, the more 
 it was cut. Miss Rose, amid the intricacies of the situa- 
 tion, rode high on her popular personality; but Susie, 
 the competent, the experienced, the expert, smiled to her- 
 self demurely, and knew her way. 
 
 The rehearsal drew toward its close, Susie still ob- 
 serving it with mounting ardor. Then she heard it dis- 
 missed, and the call given for a dress-rehearsal the next 
 
236 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 night. She shrank from seeing the stage manager call 
 Miss Rose aside as she would have shrunk from it had he 
 carried a knife in his hand, and between the horror of 
 this and the dread of the call which the next few minutes 
 would make upon her own resources, she crouched back 
 in her seat, a little sick. And, immediately, she ob- 
 served Miss Rose pausing at the stage door, flaring out 
 her pink beruffled parasol and blithely issuing forth, 
 with at least three of the young men of the company 
 prancing at her heels. Still she had not been told! 
 They must mean to send her a note. Susie's heart was 
 getting higher and higher, thicker and thicker in her 
 throat. She could spare no more thought for poor Miss 
 Rose. In another moment oh, if she had only had the 
 part for a few days! If only she had had those three 
 nights on the road! A hand touched her on the shoul- 
 der. A man's voice said: "Miss Grayce, Mr. Potter 
 says will you please step back onto the stage?" The 
 young man was waiting to escort her ; she shut her eyes, 
 swallowed, smiled, rose, acquiesced inaudibly, and fol- 
 lowed him. 
 
 IV 
 
 Late that afternoon Miss Folsom and Mr. Potter ac- 
 companied Susie across the stage and up the stairs to 
 the manager's office, with a smiling flutter more signifi- 
 cant than trumpets. Mr. Hendricks was sitting at his 
 desk, and Miss Erskine gave Susie a caressing push over 
 the threshold and then addressed Mr. Hendricks over 
 Susie's head. "Here's your little ingenue." 
 
 Mr. Hendricks caught her tone, glanced at the corrob- 
 orative face of Mr. Potter, and then turned cordially to 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 237 
 
 Susie. ' ' Wallis and I saw part of your rehearsal, ' ' said 
 he ; ' ' I guess we can consider things settled. ' ' He drew 
 a chair face to face with his, and waved a friendly hand. 
 "Sit down here." Susie sat down; Potter continued to 
 hang about the threshold; Miss Erskine wandered dis- 
 creetly to a desk across the room and began to read a 
 newspaper she found there. Susie and her fate faced 
 each other. "Well," said Mr. Hendricks indulgently, 
 "you understand you haven't got much time to get up 
 in this part, Miss Grayce, but we '11 help you out the best 
 we can. Now, how much salary are you going to hold 
 me up for?" 
 
 "Seventy-five dollars," said Susie. 
 
 "Correct," said Mr. Hendricks. Susie settled herself 
 in her chair. It seemed a facile world. 
 
 "Now about the clothes. We furnish the dresses. 
 But for shoes and gloves and so on " Susie opened 
 her mouth and hastily closed it. Mr. Hendricks looked 
 sharply at her. ' ' Do you want an advance ? " he asked. 
 Susie faltered. He took out a check-book, wrote and 
 handed her a check. "Well, I was going to say, you're 
 a little bit smaller than Miss Rose, but we '11 have one of 
 Mme. Durand's ladies down here at the dress-rehearsal, 
 and she can take up each dress while it 's on you ; every- 
 thing '11 be ready for you all right for Wednesday 
 night." " Everything '11 be ready for you." After the 
 tyranny of preparation for the weekly change of bill in 
 the stock company where Susie had last played, after all 
 the grinding economies and contrivances of the summer, 
 here was peace, plenty, balm to one's self-respect here 
 was high life. She put the check in her pocketbook. 
 
 Mr. Hendricks was saying: "I'll get Potter to give 
 
238 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 you a copy of the manuscript and do you want to re- 
 hearse some to-night?" 
 
 "Oh," cried Susie, "if I may." 
 
 "You got anything on for to-night, Miss Erskine?" 
 Hendricks called out. "Could Miss Grayce come and 
 run over the lines with you awhile ? She and Potter ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, why, to be sure she can," Miss Erskine sweetly 
 responded. ' ' Come at about eight, my dear. ' ' 
 
 "You're sure you oughtn't to take this evening to 
 study?" Mr. Hendricks asked. "How much do you 
 think you can be up in, by the morning?" 
 
 "Oh, I'll take all night to study," Susie laughed. 
 She made a hasty calculation. Wallie would sit up with 
 her and hear her the part; he could make black coffee 
 and keep them both awake. "There won't be any trou- 
 ble about my lines," said she. 
 
 ' ' Isn 't she a treasure ! ' ' cried Miss Erskine. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Hendrieks, "you come down about 
 ten to-morrow, and you and Potter can hammer at it all 
 day. I 'spose you couldn't come down awhile, Miss 
 Erskine?" 
 
 "Um-umh, n-no, I don't think I could. The dress- 
 rehearsal is not until eight. Not that I shall dress, of 
 course. Still, I've got to have some rest." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Hendricks again, "I guess we can 
 depend on Miss Grayce, anyhow." 
 
 Miss Erskine rapturously reiterated: "Isn't she a 
 little wonder!" 
 
 "You see, I know her of old," said Mr. Hendricks. 
 "She played an ingenue lead with me in 'Vermont 
 Girls.' " He turned to Susie. "I was telling Miss Rea- 
 gle a while ago that that was the last part you'd 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 239 
 
 played in New York, but she said no, you made your 
 biggest hit the spring afterward in 'Men and Money.' ' 
 
 1 'So she did," exclaimed Miss Erskine, "that was 
 when we wore those great long trains ; she looked like a 
 doll in one, I remember. Of course, I was nothing but 
 a child then myself. ' ' 
 
 At this point Mr. Wallis appeared, embracing all 
 salutations in one curt nod. Susie, who was speaking 
 mechanically, continued : ' ' The very last thing I played 
 in New York was Dora in Brinton's 'Kansas.' ' She 
 had said the same thing that summer to managers and 
 agents a dreary score of times, and had not won a flicker 
 of recognition, but now Mr. Potter smiled propitiat- 
 ingly and said: "I saw you in that Mr. Staples, the 
 treasurer, said to me just now as you came in : ' Isn 't 
 that the little girl that played in Kansas?' " "And I," 
 chimed in Mr. Wallis, "I said 'yes, if any one should 
 ask you.' ' 
 
 Susie stood there breathing quickly, her eyes bright- 
 ening from one speaker to another. It seemed as if to- 
 day 's engagement had acted like a calcium on her career. 
 No effort of hers for months had been able to bring her 
 past out of the shadow of her obscure present, but now 
 it seemed as if people had been only waiting to recognize 
 her; all of a sudden they remembered her perfectly, re- 
 membered the successes she had made, the very dresses 
 she had worn; she was as well known again as if she 
 had never left Broadway. The change of air was wel- 
 come to her; she drank it in greedily. 
 
 "And wore my hair in long curls," Miss Erskine 
 was saying; "they used to tell me 
 
 "All right," said Hendricks; "then you understand 
 
240 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 about everything, Miss Grayce? You be at Miss Er- 
 skine 's at eight this evening. Here first, second, fourth ; 
 where's the third act, Potter? Oh, here's the manu- 
 script. To-morrow, here at the theatre, at ten. Dress- 
 rehearsal to-morrow night, at eight. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Yes, sir, ' ' said Susie. 
 
 Potter began to cough. "Don't you think," he in- 
 tervened, "we might give Miss Grayce till a little later, 
 till we have got as far as ah " His face was drawn 
 almost into a point with the effort to be significant. 
 
 "Later!" Susie cried, "and with dresses I've never 
 seen ! Why, I '11 be here at six o 'clock ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Lord, no!" cried Miss Erskine; "Rose 'ud be 
 onto us in a minute ! ' ' 
 
 A dreadful silence followed this extraordinary remark. 
 Everyone was excessively jarred, but Susie, on whom 
 the real blow had fallen, was in the grasp of something 
 cold and stiff; she felt neither hope nor dread, only a 
 horrid pounding of the heart. So, it was not an ordi- 
 nary case of discharging one girl and engaging another. 
 They were still intentionally deceiving Miss Rose; they 
 were going to play her some trick at which she, Susie, 
 was to connive. She put out one hand and gripped the 
 edge of Mr. Hendrick's desk. "You have not dis- 
 charged Miss Rose ? ' ' she asked. 
 
 "Miss Grayce!" Hendricks reprovingly turned his 
 back on her and lighted a cigar. He said over his shoul- 
 der : ' ' That 's about up to the management. ' ' 
 
 "No," said Susie. 
 
 Miss Erskine cried out: "Well, I never." 
 
 "No," persisted Susie, "we can't both be engaged for 
 the part. Who is?" 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 241 
 
 At this Miss Erskine came forward, with a laugh, and 
 threw a protective arm round Susie's shoulders. "Oh, 
 see here. What are we all stewing about? Little Miss 
 Grayce only wants to be sure she's got the part, and in 
 1 this profession I don't blame her." The managerial 
 brow cleared; Hendricks believed Miss Erskine 's sug- 
 gestion, and he allowed her to go on talking. "Why, 
 look here, Miss Grayce, it'll be all right. You can be 
 perfectly sure she's not going to play that part the first 
 night in New York. If the worst comes to the worst, we 
 can give her two weeks' salary and let her go. Only we 
 should have such an awful time afterward with Jervis. 
 His being out of town makes it just right." 
 
 "Out of town!" cried Susie. "He won't be here till 
 the dress-rehearsal ? Oh, he won 't be here for the dress- 
 rehearsal. ' ' 
 
 "Well, what does he want of a dress-rehearsal?" 
 Something in Susie's voice had startled her. She threw 
 her parasol angrily on the desk. "Hasn't he seen us 
 three nights on the road? He's gone to Boston for the 
 opening of his other piece. My God, does she think I 'm 
 keeping him away ! ' ' 
 
 "Miss Erskine!" Hendricks interrupted. 
 
 She recalled her amiability. "But we shan't have 
 to do anything. Rose '11 go of herself fast enough when 
 she finds her best scene cut out " A slight general 
 movement gave her pause. "Oh, well, of course, it 
 won't really be cut " 
 
 "Miss Erskine, when you've finished confiding in Miss 
 Grayce " Hendrick's tone cowed her a little. She stood 
 muttering. He looked at Susie. "You will meet Miss 
 
 Erskine at her apartment at eight this evening. ' ' 
 16 
 
242 MEEELY PLAYERS 
 
 Susie stood still. So that was what they depended 
 on ! With the author determined to have Miss Rose play 
 the part, they were prevented from discharging her 
 without notice, and so, at this last rehearsal, conducted 
 without him, they meant to put upon her this extreme 
 affront, this trumped-up cause for a quarrel they had 
 resolved to pick, a quarrel which would force her to give 
 up the part, which would force her to discharge herself. 
 And at this late date they would not dare to quarrel with 
 her unless, now, Susie swore herself in with the plot and 
 stood ready. She was not accepting an empty place, 
 she was crowding out someone else like Norman Law- 
 rence, like Helen Graham's sister. She knew the ver- 
 dict of Broadway, high and low had herself pro- 
 nounced it many a time. Still resting passive, she 
 looked at Miss Erskine, then at Potter, then at Wallis, 
 at Hendricks. She saw what she was doing. Her pause 
 was rousing in these people an implacable offense. Sud- 
 denly she was among enemies. And they and their al- 
 lies were the masters of her life, dealers of bread to her 
 and to her baby; behind them the dreadful barriers of 
 the great Trust stretched from horizon to horizon of her 
 world. A favorite phrase of Walter's rattled across her 
 mind "It's up to you, Susie." 
 
 "I'm sorry," she said. Her little face went white 
 and the life withered in it, but she got the check out of 
 her purse, and laid it with the manuscript upon the desk. 
 "I wish I could have done it." She smiled faintly 
 at them and gravely inclined her head as a farewell. 
 Though it was she who had -won out, she went meekly 
 from the room and down the stairs ; she fairly ran across 
 the stage. But in the doorway, where Miss Rose had 
 
ABOVE RUBIES 243 
 
 hoisted her pink parasol, she paused a moment. After 
 the dark theatre, there was a kind of tawdy squalor in 
 the day, in the hot glare of the late sun. Among those 
 shadows she had felt a horrid sensation that the world 
 had come to an end ; here, the trouble was that it had not. 
 The surging, snatching terrors of that real life to which 
 she was returning streamed before her in a choking tide ; 
 she stood for a moment clinging to the door-frame and 
 then plunged forward into the street. 
 
 In the little boarding-house where Susie lived, the 
 fumes of dinner were already straggling through the 
 halls, that grew dingier and dingier in their sultry dusk. 
 Half-way up the stairs a disheveled infant rose from the 
 step where it had been sitting, and with an ardent 
 snuffle cast itself about Susie's knees. Geraldine was a 
 heavy girl, but Susie picked her up and staggered to the 
 landing with her. Here they were met by Mr. Bates, 
 pale, perspiring, and in his shirt-sleeves. "It's extraor- 
 dinary how she manages to get away from one," said 
 he, and he took the crushy and sticky bundle out of 
 Susie's arms. 
 
 In their own room, when the door was shut and Gerald- 
 ine once more relegated to the bed, Susie placed the sub- 
 missive Mr. Bates in the rocker and stood humbly before 
 him. She lifted a strained little voice above the yelps and 
 leaps of Climax, and told her story. Walter beheld her, 
 waiting, as it were, the verdict. He stood up and tapped 
 her on the shoulder. "Well, Mrs. Bates," said he, "I 
 am glad that you consider yourself something besides a 
 meal-ticket. I am subject to better moments my own 
 
244 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 self. Oh, for God's sake, don't cry! Susie, don't cry! 
 Don't you know you're rather small, dear, to provide 
 fortunes for the Bateses? What? "Well, cry well, 
 cry away then, honey." He felt with a deep sting of 
 tenderness the despair in which she clung to him, and 
 then he made out she was gasping with big sobs : "What 
 ever will be come of us ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, now," said he, "you can't possibly prove that I 
 shan't get something. There are still the dark, unfath- 
 omed caves of the stock companies. And if I don't, 
 there is still " he stopped. 
 
 She pulled a little away from him, and then with an 
 "Oh, yes," she took off her ruby bracelet and put it in 
 his hand. "Take it, to-morrow, so we can pay Mrs. 
 Lexis. But, Wallie, don't try to sell it. Pawn it. If," 
 she was still crying very hard, "if you should get any- 
 thing to do, maybe we can get it back ! ' ' 
 
 And Mr. Bates replied, "Oh, sure to." 
 
AN INDISCRETION OF HIS MAJESTY 
 
AN INDISCRETION OF HIS MAJESTY 
 
 THE threat that had come with the dawn had grown 
 as the day grew, so that even in the early morn- 
 ing the country lay exhausted beneath the conquering 
 heat. By breakfast time the long trip that stretched 
 before a certain theatrical company seemed unbearable, 
 an impossible thing to be averted somehow, anyhow, if 
 only by some awful miracle of nature. 
 
 But at ten o'clock balm descended. For at about that 
 time various of the actors, straggling reluctantly into 
 the little railway station, discovered that an accident had 
 happened, dazzling though dreadful: by some awe-in- 
 spiring blunder "His Majesty's" special car had been 
 left behind! His Majesty's car! the star's car! That 
 is to say, his rich region, his plenteous space, his privacy 
 and peace and very royalty, secluded within which, re- 
 mote, august, he was want to luxuriate and keep cool. 
 And now it was gone ! For the worst jump of the sea- 
 son a jump which any listener would have hitherto 
 supposed to be arranged between His Majesty and Provi- 
 dence because of a special spite they had against the 
 company here was His Majesty reduced to the level of 
 the common herd ! The herd began to wink and to ad- 
 mit that Providence might be on its side. For the 
 blessed privilege of seeing the great man's impotence, 
 of watching him fume and rage, yes, and swelter and 
 stew with the rest of them, and grow grimy, too, and 
 
 247 
 
248 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 perhaps fall asleep with his mouth open, for this gratifi- 
 cation the members of his company entered willingly, 
 even joyously, the fiery furnace of that western accom- 
 modation train. 
 
 His Majesty entered with them, his acute conscious- 
 ness of their pleasantries stiffening his gait. There were 
 few things in life of which His Majesty was not con- 
 scious, and at present he knew perfectly well the picture 
 of balked privilege which he presented to a gloating 
 proletariat. The breath of nervous ill-temper stirred 
 his nostrils. But, perhaps unhappily, his frozen de- 
 meanor could not chill the atmosphere. 
 
 The train was very late, of course, and crowded. 
 There was some sort of German excursion which alone 
 pretty well filled it, and the newcomers scrunched their 
 way through popcorn and peanut-shells in a scramble 
 for seats. His Majesty was too self-conscious to scram- 
 ble, but the divinity which hedges stars saved him a 
 whole seat. His heavy man sat crowded onto the arm 
 of one at a little distance. His Majesty knew that the 
 heavy man saw the vacant place, and hated him for his 
 diffidence. ' ' Am I such an ogre ? ' ' thought His Majesty, 
 and left the man to his discomfort. 
 
 The train steamed and bumped slowly forward, stop- 
 ping to take on coal, or to take on water, or whenever it 
 saw a couple of sheds, or whenever it got to the middle 
 of a nice, open, sunny field. Whenever it stopped or 
 started, the old cars heaved and groaned and grumbled ; 
 through the open windows hot waves of dusty air tossed 
 the cinders that seemed cleaner than the velvet of the 
 seats. Stars might sit as tight as they would, but the 
 atmosphere, the stain of the place, was pervasive, in- 
 
AN INDISCRETION OF HIS MAJESTY 249 
 
 escapable. At the rear of the car a little girl, still a 
 baby, pricked to tempest by an insufferable universe, 
 quarreled with her guardian, emitting loud howls, and, 
 subsiding, was allowed to run clattering up and down 
 the aisle. There were a great many other children, from 
 whom the fathers in their heavy best clothes seemed 
 hopelessly alienated ; the weary mothers began to get out 
 lunch baskets. The noise, jar and grime, the rank, evil 
 heat, all the horrors of compressed humanity, sickened 
 His Majesty with a sense of futile pity and distaste. 
 
 Out under that scorching sky, and closer, too, beside 
 the track, men were at work. His Majesty, always dis- 
 dainful of his fastidious luxury, was tragically aware of 
 their moiled dog-weariness and felt the rebellion and 
 oppression of it as if it were his own. All his sympa- 
 thies lay that way, with toil, with pain, and with the 
 honorable stupidity of crushing labor; on the stage no 
 one else could play them as he could. He had no sympa- 
 thy whatever with the stupidity of his pretty young 
 leading woman who was making herself extremely con- 
 spicuous by challenging public admiration for the vi- 
 vacity of her badinage with the heavy man; there was 
 even a moment when His Majesty feared that she was 
 about to break into song. She whispered something to 
 two of the actors, who burst out laughing, and His 
 Majesty wondered if they were laughing at him ! As a 
 matter of fact, nobody dared to tell him a joke nor offer 
 him a sandwich. Not for nothing did His Majesty con- 
 ceal, beneath the troublesome unconventionality of a 
 moustache, the sensitiveness of a mouth that was his best 
 feature. He concealed it so well that perhaps His Maj- 
 esty's life was a little homesick in the world: a place 
 
250 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 with which he had never been able quite to identify him- 
 self. And so he pretended to read a newspaper. 
 
 He was soon interrupted by a sound at his elbow ; the 
 lately obstreperous infant was standing at the end of his 
 seat, and now laid upon it's edge a small, moist, pudgy 
 hand. His Majesty looked at her through his half-shut 
 eyes. Through very wide eyes indeed, light blue and of 
 a marble calm, the child judicially regarded him. 
 
 She was an inexpressibly German child, with firm, red 
 cheeks, a solid figure and a large, round head. The ab- 
 sence of her hat displayed side locks gathered into 
 diminutive pig-tails and fastened on the top of her head 
 with a large blue bow, while, around her fat little warm 
 neck, indefinite lengths of blonde hair straggled vaguely. 
 She wore a brown cashmere dress much too long for her, 
 trimmed with rows and bows of light blue ribbon; in 
 her hand she clutched a few dusty dandelions. Her 
 grave, ruminating face was still flushed with past 
 tragedy, and damp circles still emphasized her crumpled 
 eyelids. There was apparent in her clumsy grace an 
 intangible German something of innocence, goodness, 
 femininity. 
 
 She regarded His Majesty for a long time in medi- 
 tative silence, and then stepped close to him and laid 
 her hand on his knee. His Majesty was embarrassed, 
 for he was afraid of children. And suddenly this one 
 spoke. 
 
 "What did you say?" asked His Majesty. The child 
 tried again, but what she said was in baby German, and 
 His Majesty could not understand. There was a sugges- 
 tion, however, in the inclination of her plump little 
 figure, and His Majesty vaguely remembered having 
 
AN INDISCRETION OF HIS MAJESTY 251 
 
 seen children standing about on the seats of cars. He 
 laid his hand questioningly on the red velvet of the seat 
 and the child instantly held up her arms. His Majesty 
 drew himself nervously together, seized her with a grip 
 of iron helow the armpits and the next moment she stood 
 beside him, safe ! His Majesty sat back with a long, re- 
 lieved breath. 
 
 It was the window which the little girl desired, not 
 the mere seat. With a grave and gentle cumbrousness 
 she grasped His Majesty's shoulder and planted her 
 sturdy little foot upon his leg. This bearing the test, 
 she stood a single triumphant instant on his knees. At 
 that moment the car gave a jolt, and down plumped the 
 baby, with wide-eyed serenity, full into His Majesty's 
 lap. There she sat and there she stayed. There, from 
 the favored spot of her selection, she radiated moist and 
 sticky content. Her solemn, joyous eyes followed the 
 landscape. 
 
 After a while, amused members of His Majesty's com- 
 pany began to nudge each other and make signals of 
 wonderment; the comedian commented, "Generally, eats 
 'em alive." His Majesty gave no sign. The leading 
 lady, desirous of making a particularly gracious picture, 
 knelt down to play with the baby and spoke sweetly to 
 her. The baby regarded her long and seriously, and, 
 having evidently found her wanting, returned calmly 
 to the study of nature. The car heaved forward, and 
 the leading lady went away. His Majesty remained 
 passive and listened with what he supposed to be an 
 impenetrably matter-of-fact expression to the remarks 
 which the child occasionally addressed to him in her 
 imperfect German; she required no answer of him, ex- 
 
252 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 cept a smile. With the stub of a finger she pointed out 
 to him, in utter confidence of his appreciation, an oc- 
 casional cow, duck or black dog. She propped herself 
 against his breast with her little cashmered elbow, and 
 loved the world. And presently His Majesty did a 
 tremendous thing. Perhaps to steady her, or to save 
 her from sliding to a fall, he put his arm around the 
 waistless little body and drew it closer to him. The 
 earth was not shaken by this event, nor the baby as- 
 tounded. 
 
 It grew hotter and hotter in the crowded car, and 
 the odor of peanuts became more and more aggressive. 
 The fat little child with her sticky mouth and hands 
 sank more and more heavily against His Majesty, and 
 bye-and-bye the lids began to droop over her sweet light 
 eyes. Then, with a little round sigh, her head pillowed 
 itself upon that elegant waistcoat and she slept. 
 
 His Majesty sat still for a long time and looked at 
 nothing. The car shook and rumbled and swore and 
 smoked. In the midst of her sleep, the child lifted her 
 hand with a sort of fretfulness, and waved it vaguely 
 across her forehead. With a fierce pang of self-reproach 
 he saw that the sunlight struck full in the baby's face. 
 He put up his free arm, the one nearest the window, and 
 tried to pull down the wooden blind, but found it, as 
 usual, immovable. He was terrified at not being able 
 to do something quickly. 
 
 Above all, he mustn't wake her. There was a news- 
 paper on the back of the next seat, and, by infinite 
 precautions, he got it into his grasp without disaster. 
 With the fingers of both hands, he pressed it into some- 
 thing fan-shaped and manageable, and held it before 
 
AN INDISCRETION OF HIS MAJESTY 253 
 
 the window like a screen. He was indescribably soothed 
 to find it successful, though his elbow was propped on 
 layers of grime and cinders, and, as time went on, his 
 unshielded arm and hand quivered in the sun. The day 
 waxed to its full strength, the arm round the child 
 grew first prickly and then numb, while from her own 
 little hand her withered dandelions slipped to the floor, 
 and slowly perished there. And still His Majesty pos- 
 sessed his soul and his heart was quiet in him. 
 
 At about three o'clock a stir followed one of the con- 
 ductor's spasms of announcements; fathers began to col- 
 lect bundles, and mothers to worry their children 's head- 
 gear. A young German woman smilingly approached 
 His Majesty, and laid a heavy, gentle hand on the child's 
 shoulder. "T'ank you, sir," she said, and drew the 
 sleepy little figure to her own arms. 
 
 The child half awoke, and the mother was turning 
 away with her, when she felt His Majesty's detaining 
 fingers on her arm. He had gathered up the handful of 
 dead dandelions, and he extended this treasure towards 
 its owner with a slight, grave inflection. The child sud- 
 denly sat up, wriggled, and descended to the earth with 
 something of a flop. She took the flowers out of His 
 Majesty's hand, but her look still lingered on his serious, 
 questioning smile. Suddenly she thrust them back again, 
 and, holding up her face, threw herself into His Ma- 
 jesty 's arms. His Majesty bent the big, black head that 
 people were fond of saying was too large for his hat, 
 and she covered his mouth and cheeks with damp, little, 
 vigorous, emphatic kisses. 
 
 The car was nearly empty after the excursionists had 
 gone. What tired travelers remained were quieter, 
 
254 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 though still, out in those heavy fruitful fields, the work 
 of the world went on. Even there the torpid delirium 
 of mid-afternoon began to weaken, and the throttled 
 land to breathe more freely. The day's tyranny was 
 gradually nearing its death, and at last the end of the 
 journey loomed a tangible thing, soon to be reached. 
 But still His Majesty immovably regarded a landscape 
 that he did not see, and the blossoms of the little dead 
 weeds were still closed in his hand. 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 
 
 "'Tishere!" 
 
 " 'Tis gone!" 
 
 Griscom, the chief of English dramatic critics, had 
 crossed the Atlantic to see Miss Valliant in her new 
 play. The play was called in this translation ''The 
 Water-Lily"; Griscom had seen its premiere in France 
 as well as its London production and he was fresh from 
 its two hundredth performance in Berlin ; it was a poetic 
 tragedy with many lighter moods of fantastic and ethe- 
 real mirth, and though these were popularized to the 
 general by a riot of scenic display the critic was curious 
 to see just which of its qualities carried farthest in the 
 new glaring country which he had never before visited, 
 where they were already giving its name to champagnes 
 and patent medicines, and where the rush for seats was 
 so great that the police had to be called in to keep 
 order at the box-office. Yet it was not really the play 
 which had brought Griscom to New York, but the fact 
 that he had never seen Sophia Valliant act. Miss Val- 
 liant ! Sophia Valliant ! the great Sophia ! after all her 
 triumphal visits to London ! It seemed impossible, but 
 some perverse fate had always kept them apart. 
 
 Conceive then with what a shock he heard on landing 
 that she had been ill, had suffered heart-attacks of such 
 violence that there had been danger of her losing some 
 17 257 
 
258 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 performances. It seeined like fate again, but, no, they 
 told him, though the pain had been so acute that her 
 understudy had been kept up to the mark day and 
 night lest Miss Valliant should be unable to finish an 
 act, her wonderful vitality had won out. She was well 
 again and so triumphantly that she was almost young 
 again. 
 
 Griscom was to view the performance from the box 
 of that celebrated old comedienne retired, Mrs. Davitt. 
 On the night before the event Mrs. Davitt came to sup- 
 per with him and there in the great restaurant's opal- 
 escent shadows beneath the cover of the music, Griscom 
 made her a confession. It was just after the old lady, 
 who could remember Sophia Valliant 's glorious girl- 
 hood, had finished an anecdote of its greatness with a 
 sigh, and had added that she was afraid these nervous 
 attacks had been brought on by the first hot-spell of 
 the spring atop of that too arduous production in which 
 Sophia had never spared herself, that Griscom took 
 what he felt was his life in his hands and confided that 
 though he had never seen Miss Valliant act he had al- 
 ways doubted her genius. 
 
 He was humbly aware of the fatuity and futility of 
 such a statement and he was prepared for the eloquent 
 silence that followed it. He tried to explain and Mrs. 
 Davitt listened to him with the thunderous calm of one 
 who says, ' ' God give me patience. ' ' He could end only 
 by apologizing; now, at least, he said, like a hero of 
 modern romance, he had travelled four thousand miles 
 to see her. 
 
 Mrs. Davitt then said, "You wouldn't believe me, of 
 course? No, very likely, I, as an old timer come under 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 259 
 
 the same difficulty. What! Oh, you've seen me act! 
 For actors, that's it, of course seeing is believing. The 
 million men who have seen can't convince the one man 
 who came late. Well, see her. She will convince you. ' ' 
 
 ''But if she's ill not in good form I dread doing 
 her an injustice " 
 
 "She's not ill. The hotel people exaggerated that to 
 the reporters because there were so many inquiries and 
 cables from celebrities and school-children and million- 
 aires and settlement-guides and foreign courts, it made 
 them feel like the center of the civilized world. Sophy 
 you don't know her power." 
 
 The theatres were letting out and as the restaurant's 
 flower-scented light began to gloat upon pale draperies 
 and immaculate shirt-fronts that advanced among the 
 tables, here and there Mrs. Davitt stopped a friend or 
 two and acquainted them with Griscom's heresy. They 
 all stared at him with a kind of polite alarm as if he 
 had been an illustrious lunatic. He was glad when 
 it was time to leave the restaurant. They stepped out 
 into a street that was opposite Miss Valliant's theatre 
 and that was jammed with the carriages and motors of 
 her audience. "The Water-Lily" was so long a per- 
 formance that it was barely over. There for the moment 
 high above them the name of Sophia Valliant stamped 
 the sky in letters of flame ; then it went out. 
 
 At her own door, "You will see her," Mrs. Davitt 
 repeated. "She will convince you. To-morrow even- 
 ing then." 
 
 "To-morrow evening." 
 
 "It all depends on Miss Valliant, mamma." 
 
260 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Certainly. If she wants you to get the part you'll 
 get it; if not, you won't." 
 
 "She must know they've given it to someone else." 
 
 "Well, I intend to ask her what they mean by it, 
 anyhow." 
 
 The figures of Lucille LeGrande and of her daughter 
 Cecilia, Cecilia Rowan, Miss Valliant 's understudy, were 
 becoming almost painfully familiar on Broadway. 
 Though they were thus branded together, it was the 
 mother's onslaught for Cecilia, not Cecilia's for herself, 
 which the managers dreaded. Cecilia, though two-and 
 twenty, was in many ways a great baby ; her slenderness 
 drooped or swayed in the wind of her mother's vigor; 
 she had a lazy roving eye and in the mocking drowsi- 
 ness of her smile, its sensitive and exquisite friendliness 
 was too shy for careless recognition; the loveliness of 
 her face was never remarked or reckoned with, and 
 afterwards people at large remembered that they had 
 never seemed to catch her eye; it was as if they had 
 always seen her veiled and this veil was in part thrown 
 round her by the passionate absorption with which her 
 mother hung over her, guarding her alike from shadow 
 and from sunshine. In less words, Cecilia was something 
 of a negligible quality. Not so Lucille LeGrande. 
 That lady during her youth had played leading busi- 
 ness with her first husband, a star whose popularity had 
 been so great that at his death his fortune was found to 
 have been entirely dissipated by his convivial relations 
 with the world; his widow, nothing daunted, put forth 
 in "La Belle Russe," "East Lynne" and "The Clemen- 
 ceau Case." Occasionally funds became so low that it 
 was necessary to save a salary by having Cecilia play 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 261 
 
 Little Willie, but it was such a point of pride with Miss 
 Legrande to deny this that sometimes she denied it to Ce- 
 cilia herself. When Cecilia was twelve the mother began 
 to be anxious for the daughter 's future and promptly lost 
 all the money she had on a Broadway venture. Still 
 undiscouraged she fell in love with Ned Carey a wid- 
 ower with a little son a man younger than herself, in 
 whom she believed she had discovered a luminary fated 
 to put out the light of Edwin Booth. They were mar- 
 ried, but as they were both now completely poor she 
 was never able to get his light from under its bushel. 
 If he was a genius he was so only on one-night-stands, 
 where nobody ever saw him and whence nobody ever 
 heard of him. He was not very strong and he was 
 very "intense"; and whether or not it was the com- 
 bination that killed him, he died quite unnoticed some- 
 where between Manungachunk and Canaldover when 
 Cecilia was nineteen. Miss LeGrande then put her step- 
 son, Teddy, to live in Cincinnati with her elder daugh- 
 ter, a grass-widow with two babies, all largely dependent 
 on Miss Legrande for their livelihood, and having thus 
 comfortably arranged a somewhat heterogeneous family 
 and having decided that Cecilia had been "buried long 
 enough," took up that young lady in one hand, so to 
 speak, and carried her to Broadway. For the fortunes of 
 the rest of the family having thriven there so well, Ce- 
 cilia was also upon the stage. "If once she can get her 
 chance ! ' ' the mother had said. That was three years 
 ago, but the chance had not come yet; Miss LeGrande 
 was still battling in her daughter's name at managerial 
 doors. At first she had supposed that many a hand 
 would be held out to Cecilia for her father's sake, but 
 
262 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 that great popularity of handsome Jimmy Rowan had 
 been swallowed in the quicksand of the years; Cecilia, 
 as far as any claim from her stage ancestry and rearing 
 were concerned, was but a disinherited child, the first 
 "society" woman with a divorce case, the first show-girl 
 with a letter of introduction stepped past her into her 
 hereditary chance. And now the great creatures in 
 their offices, dealing out fates and fortunes with Olym- 
 pian nods, began to dread the advent of mother and 
 daughter, the persistent appeal, the hackneyed reason- 
 ings they were so weary of ; according to the good man- 
 ners that the last few years have brought in, they did 
 not always refuse to see the two women, but they were 
 so tired of them that they would not have given Cecilia 
 anything if they had had it; the precedent of refusing 
 her had become legendary. Not indeed that employment 
 had been wholly lacking during these years. Miss 
 LeGrande had no longer money for starring, nor pres- 
 tige for even a decent engagement, but they spent the 
 winters in repertoire companies in one of which Cecilia 
 played eleven parts including an evil Russian countess 
 and an Irish apple woman in the same piece and 
 dressed them all elaborately for twenty-five dollars a 
 week; there were certain superior dog-days when by 
 playing in stock twice a day with rehearsals every morn- 
 ing, Sundays included, they had escaped the horrors of 
 a penniless summer in New York; there was even one 
 affluent winter when Cecilia played the lead in "No 
 Wedding Ring For Her." But every spring and fall 
 and all the unoccupied time between was devoted to their 
 hunt after the Chance. And the Chance not only con- 
 tinued unyielding both to the mother, strident and ag- 
 
THE CANDLE 'S FLAME 263 
 
 gressive for her girl, and to the listless girl herself, 
 but became more remote than ever as they grew to be 
 more and more marked at agencies and along the staring 
 Rialto blocks, where they bore all the terrible parapher- 
 nalia of their kind the plumed, elaborate heads, the 
 durable smile, the careful excessive clothes, seldom quite 
 fresh, seldom quite "smart." Miss Legrande had never 
 been able wholly to break away from the standards of 
 "La Belle Russe" and "Lady Isabelle"; on herself it 
 is true she wasted neither cash nor time, but she spent 
 herself on silks and beads and feathers for Cecilia. 
 Cecilia, who guessed better, did not protest. She cast 
 sheep's eyes at the long laces and the silvery furs in the 
 shop windows, at the pale crepes and the fresh lawns 
 with their faintly flushed embroideries and yearned for 
 them with a sickness of desire that no one dreamed of. 
 Failing these, makeshifts were a matter of indifference 
 to her. She continued to choose in the shop-windows 
 ' ' If I had a good engagement ' ' and sometimes she had 
 quite a sense of disappointment when her selections dis- 
 appeared before she had bought them. But Cecilia was 
 not particularly unhappy. She had adored her brilliant 
 young stepfather, and he had made a world for her; 
 she still lived in it, took her pleasure in it with every 
 drop of -cool water when she was thirsty, with every 
 shimmer of colour that gladdened her patient eyes. The 
 girl had an infinite capacity for joy, and Ned had known 
 how to cultivate it. Then too, though she had been 
 kept at school every winter while he was alive, in the 
 summers he had taught her how to act. He had taught 
 her Ophelia when she was thirteen. For months at a 
 time in their little travelling stock her mother had given 
 
264 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 up the leading parts to her; she had hosts of beautiful 
 women, sisters of hers, closed in her heart, and she 
 could feel their breath parting her lips, longing to speak 
 as they had been spoken for by her under Ned's eyes, 
 and these women were not only Viola and Juliet and 
 Rosalind, those good, great ladies, but Carmen and 
 Paula Tanqueray and the Lady with the Camelias. It 
 may be inferred that this society would keep Cecilia 
 not only entertained, but busy; in the material world, 
 however, she was managed by her mother rather like 
 the child of Stevenson's observation "towed forward 
 sideways by the inexorable nurse"; it was rather hard 
 on the nurse, who sometimes felt the languid child heart- 
 breakingly heavy on her hands. For you must keep a 
 sharp look-out on Broadway if you are going to see 
 your Chance! 
 
 To-day, however, they were not on Broadway, but 
 at home in their murky little furnished flat. Miss Le- 
 Grande alone was going out. The business to-day was 
 extremely disagreeable and Miss LeGrande gathered all 
 possible disagreeables, as did Arnold Winkelreid the 
 bayonets, into her own breast; thus might Cecilia pass 
 on unscathed to conquest. She was going after the 
 Chance which had been quite near, but which now 
 seemed about to evade them. Although Miss LeGrande 
 had had but a brief engagement that winter, Cecilia was 
 playing a little part, just a line or two, with the great 
 Miss Valliant. Miss Valliant had given it to her after 
 weeks of stalking and entreaties and in place of an- 
 other part, still small but fairly conspicuous, with which 
 she had closed Miss LeGrande 's mouth by promising it 
 to Cecilia for next season. Then she had given Cecilia 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 265 
 
 the understudy, and, when she had been ill, Cecilia had 
 rehearsed till she was ready to drop, in the hope of let- 
 ting the stage manager see what she could do, of prov- 
 ing herself worthy of next year's promotion. And then 
 at noon to-day Miss LeGrande had read in The Re- 
 flector the name of a girl who was engaged for next 
 season for that part! Miss Legrande was now going to 
 urge Miss Valliant to keep her word and she was so 
 anxious to look prosperously imposing and she was so 
 shabby on account of Ned's boy's dentist's bill, that 
 she had got out her old Clemenceau Case purple broad- 
 cloth cape, expensively embroidered in jet and brushed 
 it up ; a slight odour of gasoline, a slight glaze of serv- 
 ice distinguished it. The errand was a nauseous one 
 and Miss LeGrande quailed before it, and put on a 
 little rouge ; when it is considered that she pushed her- 
 self forward by the recollection that she was bearing up 
 the rights and hopes of her young daughter, all the com- 
 ing days of the children in Cincinnati, neither the Mar- 
 celle wave nor the picture hat borrowed from Cecilia 
 nor the light gloves she had burst out of are wholly 
 funny. 
 
 "If I 'm later than a quarter of five," she said to 
 Cecilia, "you'll have to start the dinner. I'm sorry 
 Malty won't be here to show you, but his rehearsal will 
 keep him late. I don 't know but it 's better in a way, and 
 don't keep asking him to go out for butter and drib- 
 drabs at the last minute as you did yesterday, Cissie. 
 The poor fellow's willing enough, but when he isn't any 
 relation and when he can't pay a cent toward his food 
 it doesn 't seem quite delicate. You can make some fresh 
 coffee and there's a little rice you can warm over. I 
 
266 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 can't trust you to cook a potato. It isn't much, but 
 we have got a good steak and he'll just have to make 
 out with it. After she's seen me with 'em on I shan't 
 care I'll stop and put up my earrings on the way 
 home and to-morrow we'll have chicken. Cecilia, you're 
 letting your head hang again!" She gave Cecilia the 
 minutest directions about the steak and about lighting 
 the gas-range, but Cecilia never seemed able to grasp 
 directions about concrete things. "Sometimes she looks 
 quite thick-headed!" thought the poor mother. "Now 
 you do your voice exercises while I'm gone," she said, 
 "and don't forget listen, Cissie don't forget to hold 
 your head up. Cecilia, listen to me !" 
 
 Cecilia supposed herself to be listening as hard as she 
 could and she was going so far as to dramatize all the 
 outward and visible signs of listening, but she was really 
 wondering whether her mother would get her the part. 
 She did not believe that Dave Engle or even his subor- 
 dinate managers cared much about it, one way or the 
 other. ' ' It all depends on Miss Valliant, ' ' she told her- 
 self. 
 
 When Cecilia was alone, she went back into the little 
 sitting-room and did her voice exercises conscientiously. 
 But she was glad to be rid of them. She was surpris- 
 ingly unstrung by this new anxiety, and when she tried 
 to calm herself her nerves were ravelled without her 
 knowing why, by the useful, workshop disorder of the 
 room; books and plays, newspapers and sewing ma- 
 terials and trunks-in-eruption were everywhere. Every- 
 thing suggested uncompleted effort. Miss LeGrande was 
 cutting over her old black brocade and spangling the 
 yoke of it for Cecilia. It was a little shiny even without 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 267 
 
 the spangles; Cecilia looked at it with her idle smile 
 "And the desert shall blossom like the rose," she said 
 softly. It did not occur to her to clear anything up; 
 they always lived in this surprising litter. "When I 
 get a good engagement," she told herself, "I'm going 
 to have lots and lots of room " They had no room 
 now, only a presentable address and a telephone for 
 the agents, for the managers. Cecilia began to forget 
 to hold her head up ; she was not very strong and what 
 hope she had was not active; her head did not hang 
 exactly, but it swayed and drooped to one side like the 
 head of a tired flower. She took up her book Maeter- 
 linck 's "The Princess Maleine. " Cecilia did not read 
 so much for the literary as for the dramatic effect. She 
 presented every scene to herself as she went along and 
 mentally acted the characters that appealed to her, in 
 clear detail and with a passion that wore out her vitality 
 because it was smothered. But she was so intently 
 nervous that she could not read consecutively ; she tried 
 a magazine, but she turned the pages without seeing 
 anything. The suspense was dreadful. 
 
 On the girl's impressionable nature the mystic miser- 
 ies of the doomed young princess had left a sense of 
 haunting oppression; she had now no confidence in her 
 mother's success, and failure in this instance seemed like 
 the end of the world. Her mother had said that Cecilia 
 could not stay with ' ' The Water-Lily ' ' on the road next 
 season without the larger salary of the better part; she 
 could not travel on the salary she was getting now. 
 And Cecilia was in love with "The Water-Lily"; she 
 was content to serve the play, however humbly, and the 
 little worn volume in the original French, which she 
 
268 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 had bought long before even Miss Valliant played the 
 translation, she still handled with as devout a touch 
 as that of any musician for his violin. But in all this 
 devout humility she was extremely jealous, considering 
 the play as at once her highest altar and her private 
 property; she was jealous of other people's connection 
 with it, of their chatter about it, and their opinions 
 which they did not recognize her authority to mould; 
 people, indeed, with the effrontery to pretend that they 
 understood it as well as she did! Even for the per- 
 formances of the great Sophia she cherished a senti- 
 ment like that of a slighted mistress this other woman 
 was superior in every way, but, Oh! she could not 
 love so much! When Cecilia had finally got her little 
 foothold in the production she had felt as if it were a 
 crucial thing; to leave it and New York now without 
 having accomplished anything, taken one step higher 
 in her profession, seemed like a definite abandonment of 
 hope, a final resignation to a life of what Malty called 
 "back to the woods." 
 
 Cecilia shivered. She got up and began to drift rest- 
 lessly about. At the dining-room window which looked 
 into a court no bigger than an air-shaft she stopped 
 and looked aimlessly down. In doing so she caught the 
 eye of a lean black cat which came there every day to 
 have dinner thrown to it; the cat immediately opened 
 its mouth at her, devouringly, but without a sound, as if 
 its impatience was beyond speech. Cecilia went into the 
 kitchen, but she could find nothing except the cold rice ; 
 she did not think the cat would value that. She longed 
 to cut a strip off the raw steak, but she was afraid 
 that would look rather slighting to Malty. There 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 269 
 
 would be plenty after dinner and certainly the cat's 
 arrival was premature. Its pantomime, however, was 
 peremptory and Cecilia did not feel equal to reasoning 
 with it. She decided to keep away from the window. 
 She said to herself, "If I had a good engagement I'd 
 pay that cat's board out at that nice veterinary 's in the 
 country, where Miss Fiskins boards Augustus, until I 
 bought that place up the river for Gertie and the chil- 
 dren, and then it could go to live with them." She 
 had said this every day since the cat began to come. 
 Cecilia, however physically frail, was extraordinarily 
 tenacious in her ideas. 
 
 Just before she left the kitchen there was a crash 
 overhead, where the Cass family was living rent free 
 in the flat of an absent and philanthropic actress, and 
 then came a child's windy howl. ''Gladys has broken 
 something again and her mother has slapped her," 
 thought Cecilia. "Gladys seems to have all the troubles 
 of a stage-child and a home-child combined." She did 
 not altogether blame Mrs. Cass, the woman was young 
 and poor and pretty, ignorant and quick-tempered and 
 incompetent; her only idea seemed to be to dress up 
 to please her husband. "But she isn't fit to take care 
 of Gladys, ' ' said Cecilia to herself. Gladys was getting 
 even fresher than most stage-children on account of 
 this rasping home-life. Cecilia, forgetful of her own 
 youth and Little Willie, thought with the queer pride 
 of theatrical elders, that she and her mother and Gertie 
 had always managed to keep the children off the stage. 
 Oh, some way or another they must manage to send 
 Teddy to college! When people asked Miss LeGrande 
 if she meant him to go on the stage she always shook 
 
270 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 her head ominously. "It killed his father!" Cecilia 
 would have liked him to go on for that very reason and 
 trample upon the heads of the profession, but she wanted 
 him to go to college first. "When I get a good engage- 
 ment" she promised herself. A phonograph across the 
 court twanged forth with "Oh, mother, mother, mother, 
 pin a rose on me," and Cecilia fled from it to the sit- 
 ting-room. 
 
 On her entrance a large photograph of Sophia Valliant 
 fell to the ground. Cecilia picked it up and looked at 
 it, grudgingly enchained by the extraordinarily arrestive, 
 magnetic despotism of the face. She glanced from it to 
 a copy of the same picture which formed the cover of 
 the theatrical magazine she had been looking at. The 
 latter version was all glare, the magnificent costume 
 flaming in crude colours, but the face still compelled. 
 Cecilia, who had long worshiped that expression, strug- 
 gled to rebel. Was she a little tired of it? No, she 
 could have watched Miss Valliant act forever, but per- 
 haps she was a little tired of encountering her in cata- 
 logues and advertisements, standing for a silk-velvet 
 or a hair tonic, in the great monthlies pouring out 
 reminiscences, in the mouths of shop-girls and of for- 
 eign celebrities being interviewed. Yesterday's evening 
 paper had blown to the floor along with the photograph ; 
 it was open at a cut of Miss Valliant and when Cecilia 
 flounced it over it was only to encounter an anecdote of 
 Miss Valliant 's dog; in that fashion magazine by which 
 Cecilia's mother was trying to remodel their wardrobe, 
 Miss Valliant had an article giving advice to stage- 
 aspirants. Cecilia started up and began to walk to and 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 271 
 
 fro Oh ! when would her mother come and tell her what 
 Miss Valliant had decided? For here was the nip, the 
 oppression which Cecilia was experiencing to-day, the 
 source of her rebellion against her star, that the star 
 held Cecilia's life in her hand. If a tiger was advanc- 
 ing upon you through the jungle it would be beautiful, 
 wonderful, perfect, but your feeling would not be un- 
 resenting admiration. Will it strike, or will it pass? 
 that is all. Cecilia's soft hair clung to a forehead 
 that was damp with unhealthy excitement. Only yes- 
 terday when she had read that review comparing with 
 Miss Valliant to their disadvantage all the great ac- 
 tresses of the past, Cecilia had not contended against 
 a single blast of praise, but now she felt as if she must 
 set up some other champion, someone to keep Miss Val- 
 liant from usurping everything, or there would be no 
 room for anyone else to stand, to breathe. Yet Miss 
 Valliant was the only truly great person she had ever 
 seen except one, Ned Carey, Cecilia 's stepfather ! Yes, 
 he and Miss Valliant, they alone were equals. "And 
 to think I can't prove it!" said Cecilia. For she at 
 least had seen him and knew, and though she stood be- 
 tween those two clear lights of genius with her own 
 flame not yet burning, she did not hesitate to judge them 
 equal and wholly great, the one old and heaped with 
 honor, and the other without honor and young and 
 dead. Well, then, she was not between two lights after 
 all, only a light and a darkness Ned's flame had gone 
 out with his breath. For where was the work, the monu- 
 ment, that he like other artists had left behind, his book 
 or picture, statue or bridge or song? "I can't prove 
 
272 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 him," Cecilia repeated, "no one can. Nothing can." 
 And she turned spiritlessly to answer a sharp and spas- 
 modic ring at the upstairs door. 
 
 On the threshold she found a small figure, lanky, in 
 a soiled white dress that was too short for it; an enor- 
 mous bow of washed-out blue ribbon straddled in the 
 tow-coloured thinness of its hair. "Oh, Miss Rowan," 
 it said in a tin-pipy wizened kind of voice, "can I 
 come in and sit in your kitchen for a while and listen to 
 the phonograph? It don't sound so plain upstairs." 
 
 Cecilia flung the door open and made her a great 
 bow. ' ' Enter Gladiola, ' ' she said, ' ' the house is yours ; 
 the furnished flat is yours, Lady Gladys." But she 
 could not make Gladys play. 
 
 In the kitchen she supplied the guest with a chair 
 and a glass of milk, and that young lady as she sat down 
 spread her limp skirts with quite an air. Over the edge 
 of the glass she said in the tone of polite conversation in 
 the making, "Business keeps up something wonderful, 
 don 'tit?" 
 
 "Yes, Gladys." 
 
 "I hear you're turning 'em away." 
 
 "So we are, Gladdy." 
 
 "Well, I wish I could play in a first-class show for 
 once!" 
 
 Cecilia was endeavoring to sustain conversation at this 
 altitude when the nasal ping of the phonograph droned 
 forth into the Miserere. "That's a cute tune!" cried 
 Gladys, her eyes brightening. Cecilia escaped and left 
 her to its cuteness. 
 
 But the little sitting-room seemed to meet and close 
 in upon her with a cage of fears and hopes. Cecilia 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 273 
 
 pacing that cage felt at last in her sweet blood the sting 
 of that fierce fighting greed which had hardened her 
 mother's face these many fugitive lean years. She must 
 have that part, she must get on, she couldn't fall back! 
 Cecilia knew how rapidly her youth was slipping through 
 her fingers and that she was not able to seize one year 
 of it for happy profit. And was it to be the same in- 
 terminably, forever, with those coming after, whom she 
 loved and whose road she ought to have made smooth? 
 Gertie's babies and Ned's boy and those years of her 
 mother's life which that mother was straining to meet. 
 She looked at the clock. Oh, her mother must be with 
 Miss Valliant now, the great personage must be pro- 
 nouncing judgment Cecilia could have screamed. The 
 charming, cool current of her whimsical spirit was turn- 
 ing hot and dry with rebellion, with desire. She scarcely 
 knew what she answered when Gladys called to her, 
 "How does Mr. Maltham like his job?" Nevertheless 
 this turned her thoughts toward Malty. If only he 
 would come in and talk to her! Dear Malty, dear old 
 Malty! He was not yet thirty, but Cecilia always 
 thought of him in this sober light. She considered him 
 rather conventional, perhaps that was why. Last year 
 when she was ill and her mother was out of town and 
 Malty and two other boys had nursed her and cooked 
 for her and kept house for her, that sweet Malty was 
 such an old fuss that he had paid his own money to 
 the janitress to come up and stay all night with them 
 in the flat now wasn't that ridiculous? Yet Cecilia, 
 rather patronizingly, loved him for it. She hated his 
 having work so far beneath him as this spring engage- 
 ment in "The Diamond King"; he was such a good 
 18 
 
274 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 actor, but he had been out of work all winter and was 
 frightfully in debt. If Cecilia only had a good engage- 
 ment where she could meet people of influence and in- 
 troduce him a little just one little push, with his ap- 
 pearance and ability, would make his way for him so 
 easily! Cecilia was afraid that if he kept on in these 
 howling melodramas he would lose in art, he would for- 
 get how to act, the spirit would go out of him. She 
 knew that was what had happened to her mother who had 
 been kept out of New York and dealing in cheap ma- 
 terial until her method of handling" that material had 
 become one with it. Ned Carey had come too late for 
 her, her true little flame had gone out. And suddenly 
 that drooping head of Cecilia's lifted and stiffened like 
 a snake 's, she put her hand over her mouth. Gone out, 
 extinguished, not the mere success, but the real thing, 
 the actual acting fire! was this what was to happen 
 to her, too? She swung to the right about on her heel 
 and made for human society in the kitchen. 
 
 "It don't generally work in the daytime," said 
 Gladys, pripking an ear at the phonograph. Once more 
 she spread her skirts. "I dressed up myself. Papa's 
 loaded again and mamma's locked herself in the bed- 
 room to spite him. Much he cares!" Cecilia was get- 
 ting the steak out of the ice-box and the child looked at 
 it. "I didn't have any lunch," she said; "mamma was 
 to the dressmaker's then; psha! when I grow up, I'm 
 not going to marry any piano-tuner like him. I 'd sooner 
 marry an actor, they're away most o' the time any 
 way. I'd just as leaves stay to dinner." 
 
 "I meant to write you an invitation," said Cecilia, 
 "but my pink paper's all gone. Let's just shake 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 275 
 
 hands on it." She took and pressed the dirty little 
 paw. 
 
 "You're kind o' dumpy, to-day, ain't you?" in- 
 quired the guest, still holding the hand of her hostess 
 and regarding her gravely. "I think you're terribly 
 pretty. I don't know why managers don't think so. 
 Or some fellar. If your little niece was on here, I'd be 
 awful nice to her. I'd take her to all the shows. I 
 take mamma now, she signs my name for passes. Tour 
 little niece ain't on the stage, is she?" 
 
 "No," said Cecilia, clutching at a noncommittal 
 courtesy of tone. 
 
 Gladys looked at her sharply, "I don't see but what 
 I'm just as well off on the stage as I am at home," she 
 volunteered. "Say, did you know maybe my aunt was 
 going to be wardrobe-woman with your company ? Yes, 
 the extras are so fresh with their costumes, this one can 't 
 manage 'um at all. You bet my aunt '11 manage 'um, 
 all right. When I'm acting with her I lay abed late 
 and she brings me up my breakfast, an' I have to take 
 naps an' walks and do lessons. Sometimes I kind o' 
 like it. Sometimes when you're on one-night-stands an' 
 there's just a woman to look after the children, and 
 you know she don't give a cent for you, sometimes it's 
 kind o' fierce. Say, I wish I could get that little boy's 
 part in your company along with her an' you." 
 
 "Oh, honey-bunch, I wish you could. Isn't Bessie 
 going to stay?" 
 
 "Not next season. She's getting too big, she's got to 
 go to school. I'm near nine myself, but I'm small for 
 my age. I can play little boys a long while yet. When 
 I grow up I'm going to play 'Zaza.' They say stage- 
 
276 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 children never grow up to be anything, it's all squeezed 
 out of them when they're little, but here, let me show 
 you." Cecilia had given a little nervous squeal at the 
 puff of the gas-range and Gladys capably arose and 
 lighted it for her. 
 
 "Gladdy," said Cecilia, when the steak was on the 
 broiler, "when I get a good engagement I'm going to 
 have a place in the country I'm going to rent it right 
 away, first, and then buy it and build and I'm going 
 to have my brother and my sister and her children there 
 to live, and I want you to come and spend a whole sum- 
 mer with them. Will you?" 
 
 "Yes," said Gladys with flat and alarming prompti- 
 tude. "When you going to have it?" 
 
 "Oh oh, I don't know! When I get a good en- 
 gagement." 
 
 "Oh say, before then, you couldn't say a word for 
 me about that part to Mr. Engle, could you?" 
 
 "No, dear," said Cecilia sadly, "I never even see Mr. 
 Engle, you know." 
 
 "No, I know. I told mamma so. But people that 
 ain't in the business, you know, you can't make 'um 
 understand. Do you like your steak rare?" 
 
 "Yes, but we have to have it well done for Mr. Mal- 
 tham." 
 
 They set the table and Cecilia put on the water for 
 the coffee and got the rice ready to warm. "You'd bet- 
 ter turn that steak, ' ' said the guest. 
 
 As Cecilia obeyed her, the cat in the court-yard sent 
 up a fervid summons. "Oh, dear!' 9 said Cecilia, "I'm 
 nervous enough about getting dinner, what shall I do 
 about that cat!" 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 277 
 
 Gladys looked out of the window, " Couldn't you lower 
 her some milk in a bottle ? ' ' 
 
 On a second appeal it was decided that Gladys should 
 carry down the milk, bearding the janitress. Then it 
 was discovered that Cecilia had given her the last drop 
 and that she had drunk it. There was a guilty pause. 
 Then Cecilia flew in the face of Providence and brought 
 forth a half -bottle of cream. "I daren't take any off 
 the steak," she said, "but I just will off the cream. He 
 can't possibly notice that if I serve the rest in a pitcher. 
 Here, you won't spill any out of this." She poured 
 a part of the cream into a kind of silver cuspidore that 
 was meant for a butter dish and engraved with the 
 names of Junius Brutus Booth, Charlotte Cushman and 
 so on a souvenir of an Actor 's Fund Fair. Gladys took 
 it and departed. Cecilia measured out the coffee. Her 
 mother, oh, her mother ! what news was she bringing ? ' ' 
 
 Presently Malty came. He looked very pale, but be- 
 tween the future and the cat Cecilia was too wrought 
 up to notice it. He was scarcely seated before she be- 
 gan confiding in him. ' ' I just can 't stand it any longer. 
 After dinner, when there's some steak, I'm going down 
 and get it, and it 's going to live right here. If I have to 
 leave town before I can get money to pay its board, 
 why, it'll just have to be chloroformed, that's all. If 
 only mamma would get home and tell me, but that's 
 always the way. I never know anything and she doesn 't 
 come, it's simply Malty, what's the matter?" 
 
 "I've lost my job, that's all. Fired. I didn't have 
 ginger enough for them. ' ' He dropped his head on his 
 clinched fists and if he did not sob it was because he 
 was really a dear fellow. Cecilia put her hand blindly 
 
278 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 on his shoulder and gave him a little twitching shake. 
 But she was powerless. And whatever would become 
 of him now? She could not follow his secret bitter- 
 ness, that he had just been going to touch the manage- 
 ment for twenty-five and take the two ladies to supper 
 at Rector's! They would never know that now Malty 
 was no braggart. He felt Cecilia stiffen with excite- 
 ment at the sound of Miss LeGrande 's key in the door. 
 
 Miss LeGrande came slowly and heavily into the room. 
 Her face was dark with pain and she turned stony eyes 
 upon her daughter. "Who did you think you were," 
 said she, "that a star should keep her word to you?" 
 
 Cecilia opened her lips and closed them again with- 
 out speaking. Malty asked, "What did she say?" 
 
 "Say! I didn't even see her. She'd gone motoring. 
 Her secretary knew nothing about it. But who do you 
 think this girl is that's announced to play the part? 
 Miss Valliant's cousin!" 
 
 They said nothing more, there was nothing to say. 
 The floor heaved a little under Cecilia's eyes and then 
 settled again to the deadly flatness of every day. Light 
 as is the step with which hope leaves us, it shakes our 
 house to its foundations. And Cecilia felt that it was 
 time to acknowledge a fact; there wasn't room enough, 
 Miss Valliant filled all space, the world was hers and 
 it was filled by her and hers completely. 
 
 Gladys rang and Malty let her in. "I waited for the 
 saucer " said the guest. "Gee, your steak's burnt!" 
 
 Miss LeGrande cast one glance at Cecilia and fled for 
 the kitchen. The worst was true. Now indeed might 
 Cecilia hang her head. The steak was no longer even 
 a burned steak, the fierce fire to which Cecilia had ex- 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 279 
 
 posed it, had annihilated it. No one reproached her, but 
 it was the last straw, the unbearable. She covered her 
 shamed face and wept. Even Malty was too crushed 
 to comfort her. Her mother made the coffee and they 
 sat down to that and the warmed rice in silence. It 
 was time to light the gas, but no one lighted it. Miss 
 LeGrande's face did not relax. Cecilia continued to 
 drip tears into her plate; she lifted her rice bravely 
 to her mouth but she could not swallow it. The phono- 
 graph, a chronic bromide, contributed, "There was I 
 a waiting at the Church." Again the cheated and cer- 
 tainly exacting cat lifted up its voice and in that sound 
 Cecilia heard the lament of all the creatures whom she 
 had failed, whom she had disappointed, whom she had 
 presumed to think of helping and whom she had robbed 
 of food. The voice of her own life was not lacking in 
 the cry. The janitress rang the telephone and called up 
 a complaint of Gladys, but the second time Malty an- 
 swered it he said, "It's somebody for you, Cis." 
 
 Cecilia took up the receiver and sniffled into the phone. 
 "Hello, yes," they heard her say; "yes, it is. "Well. 
 Yes. I understand. Certainly. All right." She hung 
 up the receiver and turned round upon them, dead- 
 white in the glooming dusk; her teeth knocked against 
 each other as she paused, but the trained voice did not 
 shake. "Miss Valliant's got another attack," she told 
 them, " I 've got to play the part to-night. ' ' 
 
 Long afterwards Griscom remembered the horrible 
 sick surge of disappointment, thrilled, nevertheless, by 
 that strange sense of fate, with which he heard the 
 stage-manager's announcement. But longer afterwards 
 
280 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 still there was something he would remember a thou- 
 sandfold, and that was the moment when there came 
 forward before Sophia Valliant's audience, the woman 
 in her place: a woman as tall as she, slender like her, 
 but how much younger and of a how much more inno- 
 cent and tender beauty ! She lifted a voice remote and 
 cool, she stood with slightly drooping head among the 
 pale lights and greeneries of the scenic woodland like 
 like a water-lily, Griscom thought, where Sophia Val- 
 liant's vitality must have burned like a sun-flower. She 
 wore Miss Valliant's famous gown, straight and soft 
 from the shoulders, but massy like flexible armour, with 
 green embroideries and clustered jewels. About her 
 breast and neck her hair lay thick and was all caught 
 with pearls and trembling emeralds, and as she moved, 
 these and the palely gleaming pendants of her gown 
 clashed in a faint clear noise like the tinkle of drop- 
 ping water. The audience, happily startled, leaned for- 
 ward to make sure who this might be. Thus did Cecilia 
 come into her own. 
 
 It was the night when that famous Frenchman, the 
 author, was in front. After the third act while the great 
 management hustled about getting out statements for the 
 newspapers in which it knocked a couple of years off 
 Cecilia's age and referred picturesquely, but with the 
 most dramatic delicate restraint to the obscurity from 
 which Cinderella sprang, the audience demanded the au- 
 thor and then again they demanded someone else. 
 Whereupon the author, in a generously smiling pomp, led 
 out Cecilia, tremulous, but flower-sweet and proud and 
 startled like a deer. The house rose at her, a great adoring 
 wave that longed to hold and realize her, to catch her 
 
THE CANDLE'S FLAME 281 
 
 down into itself. Cecilia swayed like a reed to the breath 
 of that tumult. It broke upon her in a rain of blossoms, 
 the women in the boxes cast her those they carried, those 
 they wore, the men who had bought out the neighbor- 
 ing florists since they saw her, flung her great odorous 
 sheaves. There was no veil about Cecilia now, she shown 
 there all light and bloom, with a thousand gleams and 
 airy shadows breaking and blending about her brows; 
 knee-deep in a foam of flowers, she came at last face 
 to face with the world and they regarded each other 
 with a magnificent friendliness. Droop your head now 
 if you will, Cecilia, and there shall be none to say 
 you nay ; they will photograph that droop as the crown 
 of art, grand ladies shall try to imitate it! Spill, if 
 you like, out of the chalice of your potent little hands, 
 wealth and ease for your household with green fields 
 for its children yes, and for the piano-tuner's child 
 help and recognition for your poor friends who are 
 artists, cream and catnip and planked shad if necessary 
 for the lean cat in the courtyard, blessings and refresh- 
 ment out of a golden horn ! Give and enjoy, you have 
 a right to, for there is plenty; it is a strange word to 
 you, but it speaks true there is plenty plenty! And 
 do you, at last, unrivalled, unquestioned, as one having 
 authority, hold commune with and interpret your own 
 " Water-Lily," the lady of your heart! 
 
 An usher brought the note of a spectacularly-minded 
 friend to Mrs. Davitt's box. She read it and leaning 
 to Griscom touched his arm. "Sophia Valliant is 
 dead!" she said. "What? How did you hear? How 
 sad!" His eyes were shining and his throat was dry, 
 for he could be an enthusiast, and he glanced back 
 
282 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 eagerly to the stage. Mrs. Davitt addressed him no 
 more. She looked at the crazy audience that had been 
 Sophia Valliant's; it was greedy for Cecilia and for 
 Cecilia only, and her old face settled into harsh lines. 
 When the performance was over they stood waiting for 
 their cab where the name of Sophia Valliant lighted 
 that night for the last time still blazed a little moment 
 above their heads. "That girl!" said the old woman 
 lialf aloud. "A sweet girl! A most lovely actress ! So 
 young I wonder who taught her ? But Sophia Valliant 
 was a genius. She was as far above this child as the 
 sky is." 
 
 Griscom heard her and turned on her with a hard 
 little flash. " Prove it!" said the critic. 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 
 
( Still may I look with heart unshook 
 On blow brought home or missed 
 Still may I hear with equal ear 
 The clarion down the list, 
 Still set my lance above mischance 
 And ride the barriere: 
 Or hit or miss, how little 'tis ! " 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 
 
 IT was a Saturday at Alderson's. The great pleas- 
 ure gardens in those long days of summer seemed 
 like the playground of the whole west; the holiday 
 crowds were pouring there now, out from the vigorous 
 city whose youth is never tamed by summer heat, by 
 the months that are only fresh and golden in that high 
 country. To reach Alderson 's the trolleys shot for more 
 than three miles over the brilliant meadows, crossed the 
 shallow, shining river and brought up with something 
 of a grand-stand bump almost on the mountain's slope. 
 A man toiling in their wake looked after them wistfully ; 
 then he stared out over the fields upon fields of wild 
 white poppies that danced in their dreams, nodding to 
 the breeze and shimmering to the sun. Here and there 
 was the gold of the dwarf sunflower ; here and there the 
 blue of that great headed blossom which later would 
 cover the land with royal glory. There was not much 
 woodland, but the birds, that were everywhere, made 
 what they could of the low copses and the cottonwoods, 
 and the whole morning rocked with their melody; this 
 would be followed by solemn happy silences broken in 
 their turn by flitting trolleys with their calling, laugh- 
 ing burdens. A hundred sun-steeped odours of growth, 
 of fertility, of an abundance giving itself lightly to the 
 wilderness, streamed mingling together in the fresh, 
 warm air. The man had come out from the rich mar- 
 
 285 
 
286 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 kets of the town, he had passed vegetable gardens where 
 the thick, mammoth leaves seemed ready to burst with 
 their own fulness; the bloom had fallen from the sur- 
 rounding orchards but their fruit waxed heavier with 
 every noon and before him, as he knew, the gardens of the 
 pleasure-seekers were one sweet bewilderment of flowers. 
 In that wholesome and romantic air there was some- 
 thing indescribably vigorous and pure and fortunate, 
 like a good wind. For this was the very land of milk 
 and honey, of plenty and youth and gold even the dust 
 was gold, warm too, and fragrant and clean like the full 
 summer, and where it dispersed lightly about the man's 
 old shoes and rested on his worn cheap clothes and 
 stained and colored the grim pallour of his face, it was 
 like a shining, fairy essence, as if the spicy, winey air 
 of that keen climate springing so sharp at every dawn 
 and warmed through by how many thousand suns had 
 been dried into some quintescent philtre of itself. This 
 lively powder, this bright dust was like the very grain 
 of that country where everything is at once careless and 
 precious and everything gives life. The man was not 
 a countryman and he was tired, for he had walked to- 
 ward Alderson's through the whole night, and he knew 
 it to be well for him that it was no eastern road he fol- 
 lowed, and no eastern air that his spirit seemed to lean 
 upon unshielded under that ardent sky. Yet he sighed. 
 Where he could he followed the car track. Now and then 
 a spot of shade or the frollicking silver and plash of an 
 irrigation ditch invited him to rest, but he kept on with 
 a kind of dogged hope like a man who has staked every- 
 thing on the end of his road. 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 287 
 
 In the meanwhile the crowds were thickening about 
 the gates of Alderson 's. The proprietors of the gardens, 
 fearing the effect upon the populace of the summer 
 theatre's abrupt closing during the illness of the stock- 
 star, had done all that was possible in the way of out- 
 door attractions, and in these gay hordes they be- 
 held their reward. The multitude, however, showed a 
 disposition to settle also upon Poley's, the little restau- 
 rant, vaguely foreign, across the road. Whenever the 
 leader of a party discovered that the man who took 
 tickets at Alderson 's was too busy to answer a certain 
 question he went over to the open-fronted, table-strewn 
 space at Poley's, which two or three steps might have 
 dignified into a verandah, and asked his question there 
 over a drink a soft drink if he stayed with the families 
 in the open, or the real thing if he stepped into the lit- 
 tle planked back-room behind the simple light blue cur- 
 tain which did duty for a license. In either case the 
 question was always the same. "You think Frank 
 Brainerd's going to appear out here this morning?" 
 To this would come the cautious reply, ' ' He 's advertised 
 to." 
 
 Frank Brainerd unlike that other man down the 
 road whose heart was also set on Alderson 's was some- 
 thing of a local celebrity and this question was fre- 
 quently developed by bystanders. "His partner, Mil- 
 ler, has just got down here to meet him. " ' ' Did he say 
 he would perform?" "Oh, at the hospital they said it 
 "ud be another month before he got out.", "They've 
 sent a carriage for him from Alderson 's just the same." 
 "Oh, he'll make a little fortune if he's here to show of? 
 
288 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 those snakes and that thing to-day. He'll be here all 
 right." "Yes, but if he lost his life by it," said a 
 woman, "or they had to cut his arm off " 
 
 From these scattered commentators there emerged a 
 particularly bumptious lady, at once incredulous and 
 greedy, pitting herself against the uncommunicative 
 Poley, Jr. "Aw now, do you mean to tell me he was 
 ever really bit by any Gila Monster?" 
 
 "That's what he was," Joe Poley so far forgot him- 
 self as to proclaim. 
 
 "I never. And did he really break out in purple 
 spots size of a silver dollar, the way they say he did?" 
 
 "That's what they say," relapsing into his normal 
 caution. 
 
 "An' did they have to pour a whole quart of whiskey 
 down him really?" 
 
 "So they say." 
 
 The eyes of several listeners brightened enviously and 
 the domestic, vine-shadowed cigar-stand of Mr. Poley, 
 its pop-corn balls and ginger beer, began to glitter with 
 a borrowed and a lurid glory. 
 
 The lady's stout person quivered with excitement. 
 "An' do you mean to tell me he's alive to-day and com- 
 ing out here to handle that thing again and his hand 
 cut off already an' him the only man that was ever bit 
 by one an' didn't die in six months slowly paralysed?" 
 
 "He's advertised to." 
 
 "It ain't six months yet," volunteered a hopeful 
 spirit. 
 
 " I 've heard say the thing itself was took sick, ' ' a wit 
 drawled. 
 
 Joe Poley, disdaining to deny or affirm, frothed a 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 289 
 
 lemonade in his shaker and jogged up the small boy who 
 had ordered it but whose attention had been lured away 
 by this talk of the fabulous Brainerd. 
 
 A gentleman of more social pretensions peering hope- 
 lessly among the nickel cigars, asked: "This Brainerd 
 the man that runs the snake-show?" 
 
 "Yes, him and Miller. Miller's new at the business, 
 though, and he ain't never been bit by anything beyond 
 a rattler. Brainerd 's the fellow they all want to see." 
 
 The gentleman, appeased by a cigarette from some 
 hidden hoard, listened with a faint smile to the outcries 
 of the stout lady "But that's his only chance, isn't it? 
 that it made itself sick. If it was to die, wouldn't that 
 be a sign he's going to get well? You may think you're 
 funny, but it said so in the papers! He's got such a lot 
 o' old snake bite poison in him that they kind o' hope 
 it'll be stronger than the Gila Monster's, an' if it dies, 
 that 's a sign that 's so. Ain 't I right ? ' ' she appealed to 
 Joe Poley who replied, * ' That 's what they say. ' ' 
 
 "It won't die, I imagine," smiled the gentleman. 
 
 "Get out!" shot forth the small boy over the straws 
 of his lemonade; "a copperhead bit him the week be- 
 fore, 'cause I saw it, an' it died!" Everybody looked 
 with chilliness at the small boy as if he had no right of 
 speech in so informed and august an assemblage. 
 
 The eye of the gentleman, travelling over the heads 
 of the little picnicky groups, rested upon a round table 
 occupying a corner at once the most airy and the most 
 sheltered ; about this, two young men and a girl, dressed 
 with a certain sophistication in riding clothes, sat at 
 their refreshments in light-hearted ease. Upon his 
 reaching and saluting them, the gentleman was at once 
 19 
 
290 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 asked to sit down and have something; but he was too 
 superior to the sunny, rowdy spirit of the day for that, 
 and he said no, he had promised to meet some friends at 
 the Casino inside the gardens and he supposed he would 
 have to go and look them up. 
 
 "At the Casino? Oh, then," said the apparent host, 
 _who was the very handsomest of the young fellows, 
 "you will see Clara Louise in all her glory!" 
 
 "Clara Louise?" 
 
 "Yes, Miss Folsom, our heavy woman. Some of the 
 prominent citizens are giving her a luncheon. Posi- 
 tively for this day only her foot is on her native heath 
 and she has returned to doing the society act." 
 
 "She was never a society woman!" indignantly ejacu- 
 lated the gentleman. And "Oh, I daresay not," the 
 other easily replied. 
 
 The second young man added, with a quaint twist of 
 his mouth : ' ' There must be lots of divorcees, when you 
 come to think of it, who really aren't society women." 
 The handsome young man stirred uneasily and looked at 
 the speaker with reproach ; he was not sure that divorcee 
 was a proper term to use before little Miss Waters. 
 This was Miss Waters' first season on the stage, and you 
 couldn't be too careful of her. 
 
 "Who's giving the luncheon?" asked the gentleman. 
 
 "Oh, well, if you come down to that, I daresay they 
 aren't society people either. There is something sug- 
 gestively characteristic in their name of Packer in which, 
 probably, they don 't rejoice. But I should be disturbed 
 to hear they weren't very rich." 
 
 "The Packers!" exclaimed the gentleman in disdain, 
 "The T. B. Packers! Oh, they're rich enough but 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 291 
 
 why should you distress yourself about such people?" 
 
 "Because a friend of mine, an actor, Dan Herron 
 you may have heard of him? well, that doesn't matter 
 is engaged to marry Miss Packer. Must be married 
 to her, come to think of it, by this time." 
 
 The gentleman with the cigarette was not interested. 
 ' ' What news of your star ? ' ' said he. 
 
 "Oh, Wentworth's better. We shall be playing 
 again before long. It's been an awful nuisance to her, 
 poor little woman, just as she was getting to be such a 
 favorite out here." 
 
 "And she has the theatre on her hands, I under- 
 stand, for the whole summer? It must be a terrible ex- 
 pense." 
 
 "Her darkest symptom," said Donnelly, "is that 
 she 's paying us our money while she 's ill. I don 't believe 
 a woman can expect to get well in this world who does 
 a thing like that." 
 
 "I understand it's a frightfully expensive cast." 
 
 "Oh, surely! These all star-stocks that really do con- 
 tain one or two members who have failed in that capacity 
 can't be got for nothing even in summer. But 'tis she 
 that's the old-timer ! She was so brought up in the busi- 
 ness that she prefers actors to scenery, and we haven't 
 had an electric fountain nor a real elephant the whole 
 season. Only, she was taken ill as Lady Babbie and 
 she means to return as Fedora, and her company are 
 kept limber by the exercise." 
 
 "You must be glad of the rest." 
 
 Donnelly, Miss Waters and the handsome Torrance 
 all looked vague and serious, and said Oh yes, they were. 
 
 The gentleman asked them if they were waiting for 
 
292 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 the concert and Torrance answered No, that they were 
 supposed to be resting their horses. Some of the others 
 who had gone for over Sunday to Silverton were to 
 join them on the mountain that afternoon; they them- 
 selves were due at the Whip and Saddle Club for din- 
 ner; there was a moon expected to ride back by, in time 
 for the tail end of the evening concert. However, what 
 they were really waiting there for, Torrance concluded, 
 was a sight of Frank Brainerd. 
 
 The gentleman lifted his eyebrows. Did they really 
 believe the man had been bitten by a Gila Monster, or 
 that if he had, he would really come back there to-day 
 and handle the thing again for exhibition! 
 
 "That's what they say," Torrance quoted after him 
 in a jeering cheerfulness as he moved away, protesting. 
 
 The actors were left to themselves and the shining 
 hurly-burly of the day. Before them, across the sorrel- 
 coloured road and through the rustic gates, the crowd 
 still poured and mingled in its motley joy. Starched 
 and frilled families, pink and blue, with lunch baskets 
 and flower-wreathed hats the mothers in plaid silks 
 or straining shirt waists scrambled from the flag- 
 decked trolleys and made for Poley's or into the gar- 
 dens for the picnic grove; automobiles swept hissing 
 up in green or scarlet pomp and deposited the floating 
 elegance of veiled ladies, whose pale laces shimmered 
 mystically under their light, long cloaks; these were 
 escorted towards the Casino, presently to occupy seats 
 at the concert; ordinary foot-passengers in crisp duck 
 and limp lawns, in frock-coats and flannels, moved like 
 royalty amid the haze of golden dust; the national ban- 
 ner streamed from the park gates above their heads, 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 293 
 
 airy little winds scattered the soft snow of the cotton- 
 woods and the distant strains of the brass-bands; out 
 from the gardens the perfume of heliotrope and verbena, 
 of mignonette and roses came like a greeting and a 
 promise; everywhere there was movement and chatter, 
 laughter and colour, youth, frolic, life. All things 
 lifted up their hearts to the sun. 
 
 "I'm sure Miss Wentworth must be all right soon," 
 said little Miss Waters, suddenly. "I don't see how 
 anybody can be sick here." 
 
 Mr. Torrance smiled upon her with a paternal eye. 
 He was not quite thirty, and though he was known to 
 his entire profession merely and fondly as "Sammy," 
 yet to the public he was already that celebrated, expen- 
 sive leading man, Donald S. Torrance. Therefore, his 
 experience in the natural course of his conspicuous 
 pulchritude had led him into a chivalrous convention- 
 alism toward women a serious young protectiveness 
 toward the too perishable reputations of a careless sex. 
 In pursuance of this scrupulous policy, when he had in- 
 vited little Miss Waters to be his guest for the day, he 
 had brought along Fred Donnelly as chaperon. Mr. 
 Donnelly was a gentleman of about twenty-five with a 
 lugubrious north-of-Ireland countenance and an allur- 
 ing all-Irish smile. These two gentle cavaliers sat pa- 
 tiently in the eye of day and cast never a glance upon 
 the thin blue curtain and the normal joys behind it; 
 little Miss Waters sipped her lemonade in an atmosphere 
 of the most abstemious propriety. She would herself 
 have been thankful for a drop of claret in its chill 
 thinness, but she could not look at Sammy Torrance 's 
 seraphic cast of countenance, bright and clear as the 
 
294 THE PROFESSIONALS 
 
 light of the first dawning, and acknowledge anything so 
 gross; and so the gentlemen continued to survey their 
 ginger beer with natural but restrained shudders. 
 
 "I don't wonder people come here to get well," 
 the girl continued. "It's enough just to breathe out 
 here. They're always saying the air is like a tonic, but 
 it's like something more wonderful than that. It's 
 like waking and finding that everything's come right 
 waking into a good dream, if you know what I mean, 
 and finding that you're able to do, all of a sudden, 
 everything that you 've always wanted to do. ' ' 
 
 "I never found that it made me learn my lines any 
 easier," said Mr. Donnelly. "But I guess you've got 
 it down all right, just the same. Here's where Mr. De 
 Leon ought to have struck his fountain instead of down 
 in those Florida fogs." 
 
 "I keep thinking about Herron to-day," said Tor- 
 ranee. "He was lucky to land out here. The doctors 
 all said he could get well if he stayed west long enough. 
 But he couldn't earn his living here, of course. And 
 then he gets the chance to marry this girl ! ' ' 
 
 "Do you think," asked Donnelly, "that if I could 
 work up a hacking cough a millionairess might take a 
 fancy to me? In this sun I could get hold of a hectic 
 flush in no time." 
 
 ' ' Oh, but Dan had other qualities, ' ' Torrance laughed. 
 "Did you ever see him play a love-scene? He'd have 
 been starring long ago only that he seemed to be just 
 naturally unlucky. Well, luck's made it up to him now. 
 Queer we haven't seen anything of him all summer. I 
 hope he isn't getting proud. They don't seem to be 
 married yet." 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 295 
 
 "No," said Miss "Waters. "Miss Folsom said, from 
 the few times she met her, she wouldn 't even have known 
 Miss Packer was engaged. She thought Miss Packer 
 seemed crazy about professional people and just took a 
 fancy to her on that account. You know the Packers 
 were to have gone to Europe two weeks ago and then 
 something happened to keep Mr. Packer here awhile. 
 If they don't start to-morrow, Miss Folsom is going to 
 introduce me to them." 
 
 The mouths of Miss "Waters' knights opened and 
 closed. They did not approve of Clara Louise Folsom 
 as a sponser for a little girl. However, Donnelly said 
 only, " I 'm glad Clara Louise thinks of herself as a dis- 
 tinctly professional person! From boudoir to foot- 
 lights and yet, Lord, why shouldn't she? See what 
 her money and her notoriety and her having three names 
 has done for her in two years!" 
 
 "Wasn't she awfully well known as an amateur be- 
 fore she went on?" asked the young girl. 
 
 "Yes, and that's the way she always will be known. 
 In another two years she will have gone starring, mar- 
 ried more money and retired. She's no natural born 
 fakir. One-night stands are not for her." He began 
 mischievously to chant 
 
 " Al though she shakes the tambourine, 
 Yet she is no actorine; 
 Oh no she cannot chew a scene " 
 
 "Europe!" Torrance mused, "that looks queer, too. 
 He hasn 't been out here long enough to risk Europe yet. 
 I wonder if it can be off?" 
 
 " Off ! No, you bet he wouldn 't let it be. He couldn 't 
 
296 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 afford to. What a chance for Herron, after all he'd 
 been through to sit and face consumption in New York 
 yes, and most of the time since he's been sick without 
 a job in a hall bedroom and now to pick up millions 
 and his health, too, in a place of glory like this. But 
 I pity the girl." 
 
 "Oh, come now! I don't know " 
 
 "Well, I do know. When Herron isn't way down on 
 the earth earthy, he's all up in the air. He's either a 
 freak or a genius, and I wouldn't like to have the job 
 of keeping him amused for life. ' ' 
 
 "Well, Miss Folsom's never seen him," their com- 
 panion insisted, "and she thinks Miss Packer's terribly 
 unhappy. Didn't you think, when they got out of their 
 motor, a while ago, and went into the gardens, that Miss 
 Packer looked awfully, awfully pretty but a little too " 
 
 "Isn't that Brainerd's partner?" Donnelly bluntly 
 interrupted her. 
 
 Torrance looked up and hailed the partner. "Oh, 
 Miller! Sit down. Have something. Any news of 
 Brainerd?" 
 
 "I expect him every minute. If anything should 
 happen to keep him, I don't know how I'm going to 
 handle this crowd." He acknowledged Miss Waters' 
 presence and gloomily accepted some sarsaparilla. "No- 
 body believes he '11 be here ; and then if he is here, they '11 
 believe it never bit him. I wish it would die. It's 
 twice as nasty looking lately; it's so sick. I wouldn't 
 handle it for a farm. I 've spoken to him about it, times 
 enough, but pshaw, you couldn 't keep him from mauling 
 it when there's a show on, not if he was dying. It'll 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 297 
 
 kill him yet you can tie to that all right." Uttering 
 these doleful sentiments Mr. Miller took a swallow of 
 ochre-coloured refreshment and cast a jaundiced eye 
 upon the crowd. "Not that they care!" he added with 
 the full effect of a banshee's curse. Himself a brave 
 man, his devotion to Brainerd, his pride in him, were 
 casting a gloom upon his point of view. He regarded 
 ruefully the clipped end of his own thumb. "That was 
 just a rattler," he explained. "Rattlers are enough 
 for me." 
 
 As he spoke there was a little quickening change and 
 motion in the crowd. A trolley flung itself forward 
 and back for an instant with a vibrating jerk, and all 
 eyes were fastened on a spare, broad-shouldered man 
 who stood on the back platform and whose keen eyes 
 smiled out at the public above the sling that bound his 
 arm. Miller sprang to his feet. ' ' There 's Frank now ! ' ' 
 and with a hasty motion of leave-taking started toward 
 his friend. The faces of the actors brightened. They, 
 too, rose. A simultaneous motion to desert little Miss 
 Waters was heroically checked. But Miss Waters was a 
 noble creature and urged them on; together they made 
 their way with adroit pushes through the crowd and 
 then Brainerd 's unhurt left hand met Torrance's grasp. 
 "For the love of the Lord, Brainerd," said Torrance, 
 "you're not going to do any such durn fool thing as to 
 monkey with that beast again to-day ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I've got to, I guess. There's no danger at all. 
 How are you?" nodded the hero of the day here and 
 there over Torrance's shoulder. "You can bring the 
 lady up to the tent all right, if she'd like to see 
 
298 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 the show; there won't anything happen, of course. 
 After a little everybody '11 be in at the concert and I can 
 show her round." 
 
 Suitable acknowledgments and excuses were made. 
 It began to be clear that Miller was anxious to get his 
 partner away, half because he dreaded for him the fa- 
 tigue, the press, the prolonged handshaking under the 
 hot noon, and half in the necessity of catching for the 
 snake show the stragglers before the concert. As Brain- 
 erd let his attention wander between public acclama- 
 tion and the exordiums of his partner, the keenness of 
 his roving glance lighted for a moment upon a smallish 
 thin man, very shabby, dark as night and covered with 
 dust, who came with a kind of weary energy up to the 
 gates of Alderson's and stood reading the old casts and 
 posters with a strange greed in his eye. The strain of 
 his long tramp back there after the trolleys showed in 
 the heavy droop and drag of his still hopeful step; he 
 stood within six feet of the blithe trio of actors, a somber 
 contrast to their radiant ease, but without noting them 
 or catching their notice. It was Brainerd who ob- 
 served that the man had a kind of mark about him such 
 as he himself still bore, for despite an essential vigor in 
 his fatigue he was more gaunt than was quite seemly 
 and there was a depth of pallor under his tan "Bet 
 he's not long out of a hospital," thought the snake 
 tamer. There was something else, too; Brainerd 
 thought the man looked hungry. Yet, lifting his eyes 
 from the posters, he paid his dime for entrance-fee and 
 went through the gates. 
 
 Brainerd forgot about the stranger in hearing Tor- 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 299 
 
 ranee say, "I suppose it's no use, old man, to argue 
 about this Gila Monster business?" 
 
 "Oh, I guess not," said Brainerd again. He yielded 
 to Miller's solicitations and started for the gardens. 
 
 ' ' Well, you deserve all you get, ' ' Torrance called after 
 him in fond admiration. 
 
 "Oh, well business, you know." 
 
 The old orchard, which, clipped into decorative utility, 
 formed the natural aisles of green spreading inward 
 from the entrance to Alderson's, had long since shed its 
 weight of blossoms, but its shade, deep in the noontide 
 heat and quiet, was drenched with the warm sweetness 
 of innumerable blooms. From the rich and odorous 
 shelter of flowering vines the birds still called; the bees 
 were droning softly round the crimson poppies, shoul- 
 der high, through which the wanderer of Brainerd 's 
 notice took his way. He came out at length on lawns 
 of a fresh green upon which white peacocks spread their 
 fans of glory. Far on either hand were bear-pits and 
 shooting galleries, bicycle courses, ponds, fountains, base- 
 ball grounds. These again were bounded by groves 
 and thickets and discountenanced by the elegant pseudo- 
 rusticity of the Casino ; but here and in the middle dis- 
 tance were only the flowers, the dense, bosky beauty of 
 tall trees and the smooth, stately lawns. At the end of 
 their full sweep rose the theatre. The man recognized 
 it and stood still, his eyes resting on it with the look of 
 Christian gazing on his City Beautiful. Then he went 
 to it like an arrow. He passed its front without a glance 
 and made for the little vine-covered porch at the side; 
 
300 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 this was an opening in a high fence which let at once 
 into a yard of beaten earth across which one saw the 
 stage door. In the middle of the yard some men were 
 gilding an old throne; on the velvet of its discarded 
 cushions a kitten lay asleep. Through the open door 
 the vast empty stage lay bare in the draggly light, and 
 from the carpenter 's shop at the rear came the pounding 
 and banging and sawing that are generally reserved to 
 interrupt rehearsals and the sound of them came to 
 that man's ears like the song of the grace of God. He 
 was for the moment content simply to stand there and 
 take in all that was alien to that happy land : the dust, 
 the glue, the faint, floating, watery light, the hurried 
 noise, the folded scenery canvas-side out, the prompt-table 
 shoved to one side with some torn scrolls of music lying 
 on it, the vast, void, ugly business-like interior, ready as 
 an empty shop in that fresh light, in that rich air, that 
 noon, that garden, it was with these he warmed his heart 
 and made peace with his soul. 
 
 Presently he turned to a stage-hand and said, with his 
 voice lingering voluptuously on the words, "The per- 
 formance at two?" 
 
 "Concert's at two-thirty," said the stage-hand, who 
 had been eyeing him with a lenient curiosity, "Ain't 
 any performance." 
 
 "No performance!" said the man. 
 
 "Nup." 
 
 "No matinee on Saturday?" 
 
 "No, no show at all, matinee nor night." 
 
 "Kate Wentworth's company's playing here, isn't 
 it?" insisted the man with a kind of frightened stub- 
 bornness. He made his voice very commanding as 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 301 
 
 though he could snub fate into submission by snubbing 
 the stage-hand. 
 
 ' ' It was playing here ; she 's been sick and the theatre 
 closed over two weeks ago. ' ' 
 
 The stranger stood staring at the stage-hand, and 
 when the latter moved away he continued to stare at 
 the same place as if he were not aware of any change, 
 but bye-and-bye he looked at the ground a few feet in 
 front of him instead ; then without another question, an- 
 other word, but with a lagging and crumpled gait, he went 
 out of the yard. On the outside of the fence he stood 
 about blindly for a little and then, aimlessly, he dropped 
 onto a big boulder that stood on the edge of the path, 
 pulling his hat over his eyes. 
 
 In the meantime Brainerd and his partner had reached 
 the snake-tent. It had been a longish walk, stopped 
 as it was at every step or two by good wishes and con- 
 gratulations, and as this was Brainerd 's first day out 
 of hospital it had tired him. But being followed into 
 the tent by a whole tillful of dime-giving visitors and 
 being eagerly received by a number already there, he 
 climbed at once over the wire barrier of ' ' the den ' ' which 
 was fenced off in the center of the tent and picked up 
 a copperhead. The bright-coloured, pretty little deadly 
 thing coiled about his wrist and cuddled beneath his 
 cuff; he slipped it gently out again, explaining its qual- 
 ities to the fascinated interest of his audience; he 
 followed this up with the more apparent evil of a cotton- 
 mouthed moccasin; here and there he loaned a non-poi- 
 sonous snake a "king" or a "garter" to some greed- 
 ily heroic child whose parents were then filled with the 
 same immediate consternation as the reptile ; he took up 
 
302 MEEELY PLAYERS 
 
 in pure idleness the biggest of the bull snakes, sick 
 and savage and stone-blind in its scaling time, and 
 scuffed some of its dead skin for it while he talked; he 
 showed them the skin of the python's splendid mate 
 who had died slowly of the cold under the flame of an 
 August sun ; he made the coach-whips lash up with their 
 braided bodies the sand of the floor. Loose and at their 
 ease in the den the serpents were better tempered than 
 when kept in cages, still "Don't they fight each other?" 
 people were continually asking Brainerd, and "Not in 
 captivity," he would patiently reply; the doomed and 
 comfortable white rats, mistaking their foes for dirt, 
 pushed them about or prodded and dug in their sides 
 with impunity. But in one corner some humourous 
 spirits had driven the rattlers to fury by flicking hand- 
 kerchiefs against the guarding screen ; this was now cov- 
 ered with the fine purple film of venom which the snakes 
 spat against it as they writhed and hissed, crouched 
 and sprang in madness. Reproving these jesters some- 
 what tartly, Brainerd trod carefully among soft little 
 supine bodies till he reached the group of rattlers, which 
 he lifted in a twisted, wriggling bunch. One was spit- 
 ting and fuming above the rest; the others he let slide 
 carefully down his leg to the ground; that one he kept 
 in the hollow of his hand, of his bent arm, where at once 
 it lay quiet and at peace. There was a moment 's silence 
 in the tent. 
 
 But the crowd, however thrilled and edified by this 
 entertainment, was still restively curious and expectant; 
 even the children were not contented by the rabbits that 
 munched in corners nor by Brainerd 's pet eagle, not 
 yet full-grown, which flirted with them from its perch, 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 303 
 
 winking its golden eyes; the public was afraid of being 
 cheated, could not believe that it would not be, and 
 Brainerd presently called out, "Well, where is he, Mil- 
 ler? I don't see our little friend this one," he added 
 sardonically, good-humouredly, touching his empty 
 sleeve. The crowd rustled like the snakes themselves 
 and drew as eagerly together. 
 
 "It's over there," said Miller, grudgingly, indicating 
 with his thumb a distant cage. 
 
 "Psha!" said Brainerd. "Kept him caged up!" 
 
 He clambered out of the den and opening the cage 
 door drew out the small and horrid squat figure of the 
 Gila Monster. 
 
 The eyes of the crowd snapped with gratified expect- 
 ancy at the same time that its bodies shrank and shud- 
 dered. "You been sick, hunh?" said Brainerd to the 
 thing. He carried it to the edge of the den, and Miller 
 brought him a small wooden table on which to exhibit 
 it. He was running his fingers along the creature's 
 puffy, bloated belly which seemed to press gratefully 
 against them. "You haven't warmed his milk lately," 
 he said to Miller in an undertone. "I wish it had 
 died!" Miller growled. Brainerd continued rubbing it 
 for a moment with a soft but rather absent-minded 
 touch; then he set it down on the table and gave his 
 brief lecture on its natural history. It looked, squatting 
 there, like nothing more nor less than a large bead purse 
 woven in a grotesque pattern of pink and black, and 
 yet there was something in its chunky clownishness that 
 excited instinctive loathing as if it were some horror of 
 Egyptian fancy, some ancient and outraging carica- 
 ture of innocence. It was so still and so bestial, so 
 
304 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 mild, so mighty and so inert, sluggishly breathing death 
 out of its open stupid mouth! Brainerd's accustomed 
 hand moved it, lifted it, turned it over, set it down. 
 The crowd was warned not to touch it, but the warning 
 was unnecessary; people even begged Brainerd to desist 
 the public had seen what it wished to see and was 
 satisfied and lifted its thumb. The python was then 
 displayed, twined round Brainerd's legs and waist and 
 heaped over his shoulders in the orthodox poster fashion, 
 but even this was an anticlimax and the show was 
 over. 
 
 The partners were content to be alone. In the in- 
 terval before the next audience Brainerd lighted his 
 pipe and stretched himself on a bench. ''It's good 
 to get back," he said to Miller, and he repeated this to 
 himself after Miller had gone to the Refreshment Pa- 
 vilion for his lunch. He was quite willing that no one 
 should come along for a while ; he was glad to lie there 
 in the warm yellowness of the tent under the sun and 
 feel himself his own man again; he thought lazily of 
 Roekville, where they would give the show next week, 
 of its prospects and his friends and of how one of them 
 had got an option on an armadillo for him ; he whistled 
 a little to his eagle; once he turned on his side to scat- 
 ter a cracker for the loping foraging rabbits ; he breathed 
 in with joy the mingled odours of the sand and sawdust 
 and tan-bark; he was soothed by the silent company 
 of the myriad quiet living things which were his care 
 and his livelihood. Miller was gone some time, for it 
 was difficult to get waited on in the crush. Bye-and-bye 
 Brainerd rose and went to the opening of the tent and 
 stood there leaning on the ticket-box, or rather cash- 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 305 
 
 box, and smoking; he could see a good stretch of the 
 bright, shady grounds and it pleased him to watch the 
 gaily-dressed groups, the busy, idle crowd. The stream 
 was now well set for the concert; his eyes wandered 
 among its myriad shades of colour, among the glancing 
 beams struck out by the sun from the ornaments of 
 young fashion, from the puffings and plumings of wom- 
 en's hair; to his ear idle coquetries of the breeze flung 
 over the heads of the multitude snatches from the dis- 
 tant bands, bubbles of stray tunes floated near among 
 leaves and branches, green shadows, pools of light. 
 When Brainerd looked toward the theatre the first thing 
 he noticed was a lonely figure sitting on a boulder by 
 the road. 
 
 It was the same man he had noticed by the gate and 
 his fancy was attracted to him now as then by a note 
 of something lively and desperate in his quiet figure. 
 For the strange man was rousing from his knock-down 
 blow; while Brainerd was still watching him he himself 
 began to watch the people as they mounted the theatre 
 steps, and presently he got resolutely up and crossed to 
 the lobby, where he stood alert. When there was a little 
 pause in the procession he went over to the box-office 
 and Brainerd could see that he was getting angry as 
 he talked there ; but then everybody who does not thrive 
 on snubs gets almost as angry at a box-office as at the 
 desk of a hotel; this man stuck it out, however, kept 
 paying people waiting, smiled, at first sarcastically and 
 then with genuine fun, took off his shabby hat with a 
 flourish of mock gratitude and came down the steps 
 again, growing moodier as he came. Brainerd supposed 
 that he had been asking for a pass and was surprised 
 20 
 
306 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 to find himself sympathizing with him, for to expect a 
 pass on a holiday is shamelessly unprofessional. Brai- 
 nerd did not know just why or when he had become 
 aware of the man's being an actor; first he was not 
 thinking of it and then he did not doubt it. The man 
 strolled to the prairie-dog's enclosure with a lighter step 
 than hitherto, as though any altercation, even at a box- 
 office, was enough to buoy him up, and he stood regard- 
 ing the little figures with a brotherly intelligence and 
 sensibility that warmed the heart of the snake-tamer 
 accustomed to the gaping emptiness of silly wonder. 
 But Brainerd's attention, as he still stood smoking on 
 his threshold, drifted once more to the strong current of 
 the crowd; when Miller came back he sent him away 
 again to take charge of their little booth of snake-skins 
 which Miller's wife had been tending. She ought to 
 have a while off, Brainerd said; nobody was likely to 
 come in here till the concert was over no, he didn't 
 want any lunch, he'd had something just before he left 
 town. After Miller had gone he went inside and looked 
 at the Gila Monster again, and felt it softly as before. 
 It was still horribly sick-looking and hatefully blown 
 and puffed. "Burn him!" said Brainerd sympatheti- 
 cally to the reptile, in reference to the antipathy of Mr. 
 Miller, and dropping the sufferer into his pocket he 
 went behind the tent, where there was a chest and an oil- 
 stove, and with his one hand poured some milk into a 
 pan and began to warm it. "I think a lot of Miller," 
 he said to himself, "but a man that feels that way about 
 a business, what made him come into it? here." A 
 sucking gurgle of infinite satisfaction rewarded him as 
 the Monster came in contact with the milk. When the 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 307 
 
 last drop was gone he once more carelessly spilled the 
 Monster into his pocket and lit another pipe. When he 
 got out to the front of the tent and lifted his eyes 
 again from the kindling tobacco he found that they were 
 looking into the bright dark eyes of the strange actor. 
 
 Neither of the men moved. Then Brainerd nodded 
 shortly and smiled. The other man nodded, too. Their 
 grace was that of a couple of awkward little strange 
 boys, but behind this was the ease, the assurance of 
 grown vagabonds. Presently Brainerd took the Mon- 
 ster out of his pocket and set it on top of the cash-box 
 just as if it had been a prize ally or a dead rat or any 
 of the illustrious seductions of boyhood. The newcomer 
 became rigid with revolt and interest. "God!" said 
 he, "it looks bored." 
 
 "It's sick." 
 
 "What do you call it?" 
 
 "It's a Gila Monster." This was said with the ex- 
 cessive indifference of great pride. 
 
 The stranger whistled, so he must have had some 
 acquaintance with western legend. He came a cautious 
 step nearer and looked at the reptile with dazzled 
 curiosity. 
 
 "Don't touch it!" Brainerd warned him sharply. 
 "It's dangerous." 
 
 "It's filthy." 
 
 "It's nothing of the sort!" retorted the showman 
 after a shocked glance of concern. 
 
 The strange man smiled and when he did that his 
 face was lighted with the most extraordinary life and 
 sweetness. "I meant it looks rotten," he explained in 
 all fellowship and examining it again. "Very queer 
 
308 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 gentry!" he concluded. "You touch it yourself 
 though." 
 
 "It's my business to well, yes, I do kind of like the 
 little buster, I 'm so used to him. ' ' 
 
 Conversation lapsed again until Brainerd volun- 
 teered: "It's a great day all right." 
 
 "Oh, the weather '11 do." He added without enthu- 
 siasm: "The summer's pretty much always like this 
 out here once it gets settled. ' ' 
 
 Brainerd studied him out of slanting eyes. He saw 
 that the man's interest was easily roused and easily 
 lost, that he suffered from the restlessness of an in- 
 tense vitality condemned to inaction. Brainerd chose 
 to recognize the friendliness, the susceptibility, and to 
 pass over the lapses into self-absorption ; he was touched 
 and roused, without knowing why, by the man's voice, 
 which was in reality the most expressive instrument 
 he had ever heard. Now he saw that the man's poor 
 clothes could hardly hold together and he believed more 
 and more firmly that the man was hungry. He made 
 another advance ' ' You like to see the show ? ' ' 
 
 The stranger looked up at him with a surprised, ques- 
 tioning flash and the showman confidentially added, 
 "Not a soul in there." 
 
 "Thank you," said the stranger, comprehending now 
 the whole extent of Brainerd 's cordiality and making 
 neither denial nor defense. He went past Brainerd into 
 the tent and sank down on a bench in the quiet and 
 the ruddy shadows ; he stretched a weary arm along the 
 back of the bench and put a hand over his face. 
 
 He was roused by his host's voice saying, "Here 
 you are," and by a revivifying odour. "Water in it?" 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 309 
 
 He shook his head and his hand closed sharply round 
 the glass; the rough, stinging whiskey plunged down 
 his throat like molten strength, there came a glow 
 through his starved blood which was like a triumphant 
 answer to fatigue and poverty and disappointment. 
 Yet he was weaker than Brainerd could have guessed; 
 the drink, the shelter, the kindness produced an extraor- 
 dinary relaxation in a spirit which had been screwed 
 to too tense an independence, a self-sufficiency ; Brainerd 
 had a moment's terror that he would make some pas- 
 sionate gesture or that the mist which rose luminously 
 in his eyes would brim over into tears. What he did 
 say was, "That's good!" 
 
 Then afterwards, after the crackers and cheese that 
 Brainerd managed to munch at too, and the milk req- 
 uisitioned from the Gila Monster, over the glow of 
 Brainerd 's tobacco the stranger told about himself. He 
 said he supposed Brainerd knew somehow or another 
 that he was an actor and anybody could see he was out 
 of work; his name was Herron, Dan Herron; he had 
 come out west a lunger, but had got cured there; that 
 had cost a good deal and as soon as he could he had 
 gone with the first company he could get a birth in, 
 so as to get east anyway the company had been headed 
 for San Francisco, but if you could make money in 
 San Francisco it was as good a way to New York as 
 any other; he didn't care what road he took so that 
 it landed him on Broadway ! Well, that company broke 
 up before it ever saw the coast and it hadn't paid 
 salaries; he got about just the same from one place to 
 another ; in these little towns you never knew when you 
 might light on a ten-twenty-and-thirty and perhaps get 
 
310 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 a week's work, and he'd recited, too, while his clothes 
 held out "Little Jim," "Ticket o' Leave," "The 
 Coast Guard," yes, and even "Mandelay" and "The 
 Raven, ' ' that they took to just as well as to the chromos 
 at fairs, at exhibitions and church entertainments, 
 which when you came to think of it was rather rummy. 
 Oh, he had got on! Still, he didn't deny that he was, 
 as they used to say in this rich, present neighborhood, 
 "strung on wires," and he had managed to get run 
 down and to pick up the first drainage-fever that had 
 been lying round up the state; that had kept him what 
 you might call occupied ever since, though he could 
 get a doctor's certificate, if necessary, that it was not 
 the old lung racket. They had let him out of the hos- 
 pital three weeks ago with six dollars and a half; he 
 had started for New York on that, but you couldn't 
 hire more than one automobile a minute with it and this 
 was as far as he'd got. He'd paid out the last dime 
 he had on earth to pass the gate here at Alderson's. 
 
 All this had come out casually between puffs of happy 
 smoke, but he waited a minute, studying the doorway of 
 the tent, while from the den to which it was relegated, 
 the Gila Monster regarded him with a chilly eye, before 
 he added that what he had counted on at Alderson's 
 was finding a lot of his own people here Wentworth 
 and Sam Torrance and the whole crowd. What he had 
 deeply hoped, of course, through all the tramp of get- 
 ting there, was to find a job, but, failing that, at the 
 worst they would, of course, have seen him through. 
 He had made a point of getting there to catch them at 
 the matinee, so that the calf would have time to be 
 fatted and prepared for dinner; he had seen himself 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 311 
 
 presently scattering blessings on their heads from the 
 platform of a Pullman going east. Well, man that is born 
 of woman and so on they had preferred going to Rock- 
 ville and Silverton and Whip and Saddle Clubs, the 
 devil take them, and missed their immortal chance ! 
 After he had risen to the company's being only laid 
 off, not disbanded, he had fawned on the fresh lad in 
 the box-office for their addresses, but that cherub would 
 only say that they would all be back on Monday. He 
 didn't mind telling his host that but for him, Brai- 
 nerd, Monday would have found him a lantern- jawed 
 corpse ! Did Brainerd know of any boot-blacking or 
 peanut-selling that he could get to do till that loafer of 
 a Torrance turned up again? 
 
 Brainerd rose without answering and extricated a 
 small lame rabbit from a newspaper in which it had 
 lost its way. ' ' They bring you these here for the snakes 
 to eat and then you get fond of 'em and have to keep 
 'em and get them something to eat," he said complain- 
 ingly to Herron. The young eagle sidling on its bench 
 began to peck and fight at a tin cup and Brainerd filled 
 the cup with water. He came back to his seat near 
 Herron again, still carrying the rabbit which settled on 
 his knees and began to wash its face, a distracting per- 
 formance. Brainerd watched it from under slanting 
 eyelids. "Keeping so many's kind of unbusiness-like, 
 there's no getting round it Why," he suddenly be- 
 gan, "the best thing you can do is to stay right here, 
 Mr. Torrance '11 be back for the evening concert sure, 
 some of the others will be, too, and they always drop 
 in to see the snakes. I'll want something to eat before 
 long and if you don't mind you can take change here 
 
312 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 while I'm gone tell anybody comes in I'll be back soon 
 and keep 'em for me and then when I get back you go 
 get your own dinner." He spoke with complete mat- 
 ter-of-factness, striving to convey to Herron that there 
 was nothing unusual in his entrusting his own and his 
 partner's business to a strange man out of the street; he 
 wanted no dinner but he meant to get out and settle 
 Miller and to tell them at the Casino not Poley's nor 
 the Refreshment Pavillion, but the actual Casino to 
 charge up Herron 's meal to him, he wanted to make sure 
 of its being a good one. Even his impulsive kindness, 
 however, was rather slapped by Herron 's exclamation: 
 "What! Leave me in charge of these heathen!" 
 
 "Only to tell people I'll be back." 
 
 "You don't expect me to handle them?" 
 
 "The snakes? No!" 
 
 Brainerd could not be but aware now that there might 
 be drawbacks on the sympathetic side in his new friend, 
 a concentration on the personal point of view as in- 
 stinctive as a drowning creature's clutch, but not so 
 pardonable ; you might not have a very pleasant time if 
 you stood in Mr. Herron 's way, or if you asked him, 
 with whatever generosity of intention, to stand for a 
 moment outside of it himself. Yet, Brainerd thought, 
 he didn't know when he had liked anyone so well, had 
 such a strong kind of fellow-feeling, yes, and curiosity ; 
 he believed Herron 's story, but he suspected something 
 underneath it, and then suddenly he remembered some- 
 thing : the actor who had been going to marry old Pack- 
 er's daughter! Herron was that it? The papers had 
 been full of their engagement and then had let it drop 
 quite a while back someone had told him that the 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 313 
 
 fellow hadn't behaved himself and old Packer had 
 kicked him out, Herron Herron yes, he guessed that 
 was the name. That would account for a good deal, all 
 this hunt for work, all this hard-upness and for some 
 thing about him besides that made you think he was 
 naturally an extravagant kind of fellow, pretty quietly 
 sure of himself, but nothing disagreeable, used to high 
 living and a lot of style, the sort of natural high tone 
 that you could imagine some of these foreign fellows 
 having that had got knocked off their thrones, not that he 
 talked that way. And Brainerd could not but wonder 
 how on earth such a man had let himself be kicked out 
 like this, how on earth he had come to take any chances 
 and what for a sick man that couldn't live out of 
 that very climate, poor as a rat evidently, without any 
 work, without any prospects, why a marriage like that 
 would be just a providence to him ! For what on earth 
 had he risked it? How, with his greedy way of hold- 
 ing to his own notion, had they been able to cut loose 
 from him? Not that Brainerd couldn't easily imagine 
 his guest doing some devilish thing, only, why hadn't 
 he been too smart to ? just when laying low and holding 
 on meant his life, very likely! "I wonder how they 
 got rid of you? " he thought, in a twinkling of his 
 shrewd eye which still did not take back any of its 
 kindness. Glancing round the den he picked up their 
 talk. " 'Fraid of them?" 
 
 "Afraid of them!" Herron easily repeated. "You 
 can lay to it I'm afraid of them. However, if you as- 
 sure me that they can't get out I'll be glad to stay," 
 he said suddenly, humbly, in one of his soft and grave 
 transitions. 
 
314 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "All right Oh, there'll be a lady in very likely while 
 I'm gone, one of the actresses, Miss Folsom, may be 
 you know her?" 
 
 "I never met her, but I know who she is she burst 
 onto the stage about the time I first dropped off it. ' ' 
 
 "Well, she's going to star next year in a show where 
 a snake bites her she puts it on her, I understand, 
 suicide or some such thing, and she comes in here and 
 handles the little garters to get used to 'em. She said 
 she might be in to-day during the intermission, she's 
 at the concert!" 
 
 "All right, so long as she doesn't expect me to fetch 
 'em for her. ' ' 
 
 Brainerd's pride of craft was a little hurt. "Of 
 course, a fly's dangerous to what they are!" he said. 
 "I wouldn't let anybody lay a finger on a poisonous 
 snake, unless he was a professional." 
 
 "Do professionals bear a charmed life?" 
 
 "Heh? oh, well, it's different. We're used to it, 
 you know, and so are the snakes to us. Nine chances 
 out of ten they don't bite and if they do, after your 
 system's got used to it, you make for the whiskey or 
 you give up a finger and it all comes out in the wash. 
 If you haven't got that kind of system better get an- 
 other job. Mostly, snakes know their friends." He 
 surrounded himself with rolling smoke. Herron 
 reached over and touched the drop of Brainerd's sleeve. 
 "Louder than words," he said. 
 
 "Oh, that! that's an accident. Bound to have 'em 
 in the best regulated business. This is the way it hap- 
 pened. A party came in one day (two women and a 
 man thirty cents worth, by George!) to see the show. 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 315 
 
 Of course you can imagine the gabble always goes on 
 with jays about the snakes being kept on ice or their 
 'fangs extracted' and all that. I never can get used 
 to it somehow, and mostly I carry a pencil round with 
 me to jab their mouths and make 'em spit. But I'd 
 been showing 'em a good deal that morning and I wanted 
 to let 'em alone. I put up with all the little songs 
 I could hear the man giving the two ladies till I took 
 up the Gila Monster and then all in a minute, when he 
 laughed and let out, 'Oh, you can't take us in! That 
 thing's doped!' all the blood came up in my head. I 
 couldn't find my pencil and 'Doped, is he?' I said, 
 and stuck my finger clean into the Monster's mouth. 
 He 's such an easy old soak most of the time, very likely 
 I wouldn't have thought of any trouble, even if I'd 
 thought at all, but this was the time it made him mad. 
 I ask you straight if it wouldn't have made you or 
 anybody mad if you'd been in his place? Oh, he bit 
 me all right. But you see he didn't do for me, quite, 
 and here I am." 
 
 "The danger's all over?" 
 
 "Yes, I guess so." 
 
 "Guess so?" 
 
 "Why, they do say you can't be really sure till the 
 six months are up. But I don't imagine it's going to 
 kill me, after all's been done for me. It's not any 
 way likely to." 
 
 "Well, you're a sport all right!" said Herron, a 
 trifle palely. 
 
 "Rot! Anybody's a sport when it comes to business. 
 How about doctors and soldiers and firemen and en- 
 gineers and burglars? Don't they run risks? Did you 
 
316 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 never hear of any accident happening in a factory or 
 a mine, at a picnic or a church sociable or crossing the 
 street? How are you going to steer clear of 'em? Do 
 people sit home because trains smash and boats go 
 down ? No, you bet they don 't, and I don 't see but what 
 women have children quite a few! And as for that 
 six months, do you, say, or Mr. Sam Torrance or Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt, know what sort of way you'll be in six 
 months from now? But you're not shedding any tears 
 about it that I can see ? All the talk there 's been about 
 me lately, it makes me sick! 'The hero of the day' 
 one of the papers called me this morning, because I 
 was advertised to handle the Gila Monster again. And 
 what would I do, I 'd like to know, if I didn 't handle it ? 
 Sit still and squeal, make my life all over again, in- 
 side a safety appliance, and wish I was dead, sure 
 enough! 'There must be a great fascination in it!' 
 they say to you fascination! ach, they're enough to 
 turn your stomach ! unless there 's a fascination in eat- 
 ing your breakfast or in a man riding down to his office 
 in a trolley or doing any of the other things that are 
 all in the day's work." 
 
 "Oh well, if that's the way you feel about it," said 
 Herron, "you're lost. I congratulate you." 
 
 "Heh?" 
 
 " 'A great fascination in it!' ' Herron rose and 
 stretched himself. He lounged over to the flap of the 
 tent and stood there, gazing across the lawns, to the 
 now empty lobby of the theatre. "A great fascination, 
 yes, that's what they call it, the outsiders!" 
 
 "Oh here, shut up!" said Mr. Brainerd to a rattler. 
 He lifted the snake a moment to pacify it and then 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 317 
 
 when he had looked at his watch he said he guessed 
 he would go get his dinner; he went away, amused by 
 Herron's frank reluctance to be left with the snakes. 
 That gentleman, however, was one to be drawn rather 
 than alienated by fear, and, once in privacy, he walked 
 about the den, the cages, and stooped here and there 
 to peer, to examine with a fidgety, boyish daring, "Not 
 for me!" he said pleasantly, conversationally, to the 
 reptiles. 
 
 Nothing, however, could hold him long but his own 
 case. You could see the thought of that returning now 
 as he strode up and down the tent in the bright rest- 
 lessness of his dark eyes, in the re-tautening and keying 
 up of that body, at once so virile and so frail, which 
 only exhaustion could relax. It was but a thin and 
 worn scabbard for the sword of so keen a spirit, the 
 conjecture was very pertinent, under any but the soft- 
 est, the stillest, the easiest conditions, how long it would 
 last. Yet it was difficult not to believe that the robust 
 life itself was independent of its dwelling. At length 
 he dropped down on a stool behind the cages and sat 
 there, his strong muscles still strung to rigidity, star- 
 ing at a single spot of earth as if evolving from it some 
 dear imperative, inexorable image well" might Brai- 
 nerd marvel as to what could have parted him from his 
 heart 's desire ! 
 
 And thus locked away from everything but his own 
 mood he was unaware of approaching steps and 
 rustlings, even had he noticed them he would have set 
 them down to the anticipated Miss Folsom; he would 
 never have suspected the fumbling, hesitating entrance 
 of a man and a girl who appeared tentatively in the 
 
318 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 doorway; he, looking about expectantly and with his 
 expectation evidently confirmed by the presence of the 
 snakes, leading the advance and she following, in a 
 vague obedience, after him. The man was middle-aged 
 or elderly and dressed in expensive common clothes; 
 he was a thick-set, big creature with an excellent, though 
 somewhat heavy jaw, and a bold forehead. The girl, 
 beautiful as a statue and of something the same weight, 
 moved forward with a dull and apathetic indifference 
 so natural, so unconscious as to be a kind of grace; 
 the overblown beauty of her face was as sweet as a 
 heavy rose; under its weight of plumes, of azure vel- 
 vet roses, her magnificent blond head sagged dispir- 
 itedly, her light blue finery, on which it would have 
 been difficult to stick another rosette or flounce or 
 beaded ornament, trailed limply on the dirt floor of 
 the tent and swept its dust over the rhine-stone buckles 
 of her large tan-colored pumps. She dragged a fes- 
 tooned parasol behind her. 
 
 "There's no one here," said the man. ''But it's the 
 place. There's a bench, my dear." 
 
 Herron lifted his head and his jaw dropped. He 
 listened in a cold sweat of expectancy, but the girl did 
 not speak. 
 
 Her companion added, "Do you feel better? This 
 is a queer place. We ought to have gone to the Casino 
 as I wanted. But you wait here for Miss Folsom and 
 I '11 go get you a glass of wine. ' ' 
 
 "Please don't get anything, papa," said the girl, and 
 Herron 's heart winced at the voice. "I couldn't go to 
 the Casino, it's so crowded. That was what was the 
 matter with the concert. I guess I'll be all right by 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 319 
 
 the time Miss Folsom comes. I'm glad she stayed till 
 the intermission." She looked round her with a torpid, 
 even an acquiescent distaste. "She says she likes to 
 practice here." 
 
 Herron's eye measured all the distances of the tent, 
 the possibilities of a seam in the walls, of a sudden 
 retreating run, and found nothing. His back presently 
 caught the eye of the girl's father, who, walking dis- 
 contentedly about, had veered near the cages and then 
 exclaimed, "Why hello! ' and at that Herron got to 
 his feet and came quickly forward, confronting them; 
 the girl, turning, was struck still again in the very act 
 of recognizing him, with a little formless cry like that 
 of some meek animal in pain. 
 
 Between these two there could immediately be no 
 doubt of a poignant relation, of a past in which it was 
 the man who had been wrong and the woman who 
 had suffered, of a present in which he had the grace 
 to feel a deepening shame, but in which she wished 
 nothing but to forgive. The girl's face was painfully 
 flushed, but a kind of light swam in its tears, the man 
 looked sick though braced and ready, and a really re- 
 markable nervousness and restiveness twitched in his 
 mouth, in his lean fingers. Neither of them spoke. 
 It was the father who stiffly raised his hat as if to 
 indicate that here was an occasion for formality and 
 nothing more. "Mr. Herron," he said in a chill salu- 
 tation. "Come, Amelia." 
 
 Herron paid no attention to him, his eyes were glued 
 to the girl's eyes. Her father laid her passive hand 
 within his arm and tried to draw her away, but she 
 stood her ground with a kind of stolid resistance and 
 
320 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 now her face began to work and a little sobbing breath 
 crept into her throat. 
 
 Herron 's hand lifted itself and fell again, desperately, 
 "Milly!" he said, "I you don't don't take her just 
 yet. I want to tell her " He paused, biting his lip. 
 
 "You can have nothing to say to Miss Packer, sir," 
 retorted the father. "Come, Am el " he too paused. 
 The young woman, still inarticulate and still looking 
 only at the young man, began fumbling at the breast 
 of her dress, from which she presently drew forth a 
 little embroidered silken case, and as she glanced at 
 it her tears began to flow. An expression of the most 
 intense annoyance darkened her father's face. "This 
 is some property of yours, sir. I am sorry my daugh- 
 ter has had so little sense of dignity as to to keep it 
 in that way. I urged her to give it to me when it 
 first came. We didn't, of course, know where to send 
 it," he concluded with a sudden business-like probity. 
 
 Herron continued to look in the girl's face. Her 
 large hands were working with the little case ; it dropped 
 on the ground and she held out a letter. "Is it for me, 
 Milly?" he asked with a gentleness that seemed to put 
 some other question. 
 
 1 ' Yes, ' ' she replied in her inexperienced, unmodulated 
 voice, "it's for you. It came five weeks ago. It's from 
 that New York. It 's from one of your theatre men. ' ' 
 
 At the same moment with her words Herron's eyes 
 lighted on the little business stamp in one corner of the 
 envelope and a most extraordinary change came over 
 him. He went very pale, his shame, his reasonableness, 
 his gentleness vanished at a stroke, a fathomless vitality 
 flamed in his eyes and he snatched the message with 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 321 
 
 a complete indifference to the hand that held it. He 
 threw away the envelope, the few lines of the letter 
 seemed to set him on fire. 
 
 "Five weeks ago!" he said to himself. "Five weeks 
 ago, good Lord!" He made a quick calculation, look- 
 ing blankly at his companions. "And to-day ! Is 
 there a telegraph office in the grounds?" he inquired 
 of them, casting now a glance of savage eagerness into 
 their faces. 
 
 "Yes," said the father quietly. "At the gate." 
 
 Herron ran from the tent. However, "Wait a mo- 
 ment," he flung over his shoulder as he went. 
 
 Except for the snakes, the rabbits, the white rats, 
 the young eagle and the ghostly, pervasive, filtering 
 sunlight that was almost a presence, Mr. Packer and 
 his daughter were left alone. "Well, Mealy," said her 
 father with unspeakable bitterness, "are you convinced 
 now? Are you satisfied now, now that you've shown 
 that man that he's broken your heart, that you're just 
 crazy about him and so wild to get him back that 
 you've even got to carry his mail in pfa! And he's 
 shown you what you amount to to him beside a letter 
 from one of his theatrical managers! You're not in 
 it, that's plain enough for anybody I should think. 
 I've got that to thank him for anyhow." 
 
 "It wasn't because it was his mail, papa," sobbed 
 Amelia. "It was just all I had. All that was left 
 between us. I just had that. And now it's gone. I 
 haven't got anything." The little embroidered bag 
 which she had treasured on her bosom lay empty at 
 her feet. 
 
 "Well, what are you going to do about it?" demanded 
 21 
 
322 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 her father. "What next? What is it you want? 
 Don't simply stand there blubbering, for God's sake. 
 Now that you've seen how much he thinks of you, can't 
 you begin to haul yourself together? You've said all 
 along you had to find him, to give him his letter. 
 Well, now you've given him his letter. He's thanked 
 you for it very politely, very gratefully, just like him- 
 self; he's got it and gone off with it and the thing's 
 finished, it's over, it's done. Come on." 
 
 "Oh, papa, I can't go away. He said to wait a 
 minute." They had both forgotten Miss Folsom. "He 
 wants to speak to me, I want to see him again, papa!" 
 
 Her father stood still and regarded her with a rage 
 of which the desperation silenced him. "Oh my God 
 Almighty!" he broke out at last, "you want to see him 
 again ! What for ? What for ? can 't you answer me ? 
 To have him come back and find you waiting for him 
 and put him to the trouble of having to tell you more 
 clearly that he's through with you, thrown you over, 
 that he don't want you, you can't have him, you're not 
 good enough for him, he can 't see where you come in ! " 
 At each phrase he shook her a little by the full and 
 lovely wrists which in his pain and pity and outraged 
 pride he had very sharply seized. 
 
 She held back a little, not stubbornly, but with a 
 yielding whose laxity was so complete that it was ef- 
 fectually opposition. "Why, papa," she sniffed, "I 
 can 't go out in the street this way ! ' ' and he yielded to 
 an argument out of his sphere, but which, with a coarse 
 man's fine eye for the proprieties, he recognized as 
 cogent. 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 323 
 
 Amelia, still weeping, fastened her dress and settled 
 her hair and her hat; she opened her gold hand bag 
 and took out her powderpuff; she made some brave 
 and ineffectual dabs with it at her poor quivering face, 
 under the coldly steady eyes of the Gila Monster and 
 amid the continuous purr and rustle of the softly 
 writhing snakes. Her father waited for her with an 
 impatient patience. Before she had done a shadow was 
 flung across the dusky light and Dan Herron came 
 rapidly into the tent. 
 
 ' ' Is Brainerd here, ' ' he said at once. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "No, I see he isn't. I can't' find him." He turned 
 round on the older man. "Mr. Packer, I've got to ask 
 you to lend me eighty cents. The man won't send my 
 telegram collect." 
 
 "What's that to me, sir?" Mr. Packer responded. 
 
 Herron turned without the slightest hesitation to the 
 girl. "Have you got it?" 
 
 "Oh, Dan," she broke out, "what are you going to 
 do with it? And eighty cents! Haven't you got 
 eighty cents, Dan? Why, what can you have been do- 
 ing and what's the matter? How have you been get- 
 ting on if you haven't got even eighty cents? Oh, 
 you're not not suffering, are you, Dan? Not in 
 want?" She kept coming closer to him and at some- 
 thing she saw in the stillness of his face she cast her- 
 self with a soft wail upon his breast. He put his arms 
 around her as if he were glad to have her there in his 
 clasp, but there was, nevertheless, a faint suggestion, of 
 preoccupied haste in his manner, which was in strong 
 
324 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 contrast to his abashed deference before he had received 
 his letter. "No, no, I'm all right. I just want to send 
 a telegram, that's all, Milly, don't cry." 
 
 "Well, but I don't know what it's all about, nor 
 what you're trying to do with the telegram; I'm afraid 
 it's something about your going back on the stage and 
 I don't want you to do that, I want you to stay here 
 with me " 
 
 "Amelia!" cried her father. 
 
 "Well, but I do, papa, why you know very well I 
 do! And besides, look how thin and poor he looks and 
 what horrid clothes he's got on, my darling! Why 
 can't you make it all up with us and come with us and 
 have everything you want and be comfortable and happy 
 like you were you know you were, you used to tell me 
 so! And you do love me, I know you do!" 
 
 "Yes, I do love you, Milly," said the young man, and 
 he regarded the proud radiance of triumph which she 
 cast upon her father with a tenderness which did not 
 prevent him from adding: "Will you give me that 
 eighty cents?" 
 
 "Oh, but I can't give it to you if it's to go back 
 on the stage with!" 
 
 "All right, then. I must find somebody who will." 
 
 She cried out and her father began to tear her from 
 Herron's neck, who relinquished her with a kind of 
 fond haste and another kiss. 
 
 "Come, come, Mealy!" Mr. Packer urged. 
 
 "Oh no! oh wait!" his daughter cried, "maybe I 
 will. What was in the letter?" 
 
 "It's an offer," said Herron, pausing. "An offer 
 of an engagement to me, that they thought out of the 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 325 
 
 running, and yet they take the chance. They haven't 
 forgotten me, there, in all this while. There's a friend 
 of mine in the office, Ted Chesney but you don't know 
 him and he wrote on the chance as I say even of my 
 getting the letter and he says he'll hold the part open 
 for me up to this very day, to-day, do you see, that 
 you've brought me the news. If I don't let him know 
 for certain to-day he'll have to give it to some one 
 else, I'll have lost my chance, it'll be gone, out of my 
 hand. If I telegraph him that I'll play the part they'll 
 be glad enough to send me my fare home. He says, do 
 you see, that it's a part made for me and he knows me, 
 but maybe that's not so, maybe that's just talk and 
 the part's nothing; it's a new firm, and a new piece, 
 maybe it won't last, but no matter, it's a chance, an 
 opening, it'll take me home to the east, to Broadway, 
 to God's country, it's work, it's my work Oh, my God, 
 my girl, how can you stand there and pretend to love 
 me, and not help me ! ' ' 
 
 The girl was visibly shaken. "And you'll be a great 
 success ? ' ' 
 
 "Very likely." 
 
 "Why, I thought you were sure you'd be!" 
 
 "Oh, what does it matter? "Well, yes, then, Milly, I 
 mean to be." 
 
 "And you'd be perfectly happy?" 
 
 "I'd be satisfied." 
 
 "But if you got sick again, away off there all alone 
 and couldn't take those hateful parts?" 
 
 "Ah, at least, I'd be there, there with the others, in 
 the thick of it, I'd be at home." 
 
 "At home?" 
 
326 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "'Where the watchful bugles play!'" He stood 
 looking at her, through her, beyond her, in a fondness 
 and a detachment equally cruel, and standing so, he 
 softly, raptly, fiercely quoted, "If I shall never have 
 been remarked upon a breach at the head of the army, 
 at least I shall have lost my teeth on the camp 
 bread!" 
 
 "I don't understand you," said poor Milly. 
 
 "To be sure! but trust me, trust me!" 
 
 She wrung together the fingers that were heavy and 
 agleam with jewels and he took them into his hard, thin 
 hand. "Once for all, Milly, if you love me, trust me. 
 That work there's what I need, what I must have. It's 
 all I want, it's all that makes me worth while or that I 
 am. Will you give it to me ? ' ' 
 
 The girl with her eyes fallen to his breast said pres- 
 ently in a half whisper, "But I can't, anyhow. The 
 doctor says you'll die, dear, if you go east." 
 
 "Die! die!" cried he with a great impatient change. 
 "What of it? I'll die if I don't! I've died here 
 every hour for two years. ' ' 
 
 "Oh!" she cried in outraged tenderness and put her 
 hands over her face. 
 
 "You ungrateful hound!" cried Mr. Packer. "How 
 dare you say such a thing to my daughter? What do 
 you mean by breaking her heart and then insulting 
 her? I picked you out of the gutter because she took 
 a fancy to you, I bought you for her yes, and with 
 your consent, I notice! just as I would buy any other 
 cursed thing she took a fancy to. You lived in my 
 house for over a year on the fat of the land, better 
 than my own son, and you repaid me by sneaking away 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 327 
 
 like a thief, like a damn thief ! How dare you turn on 
 her now ? What do you mean by it ? " 
 
 "How dare you trust her to a husband that you 
 could buy?" retorted the young man. "How dare you 
 make such degrading, such impossible conditions to 
 her engagement? Give up the stage ! Why, what 
 was there left of me then for her to care for? Oh! 
 I know I 've wronged her, you can 't tell me that ! But 
 if you see me stricken by meeting her and ashamed to 
 face her, it's not because I had the decency to run 
 away from her, it's because I ever came into her pres- 
 ence, was cad enough to claim her society, her sweet 
 goodness on such slavish terms they dishonor her too ! 
 Your daughter's husband ought to be a man, not a 
 nice oily piece of your machinery. Why didn't you 
 like me better when I came to you and told you that I 
 couldn't abide by our agreement, that I had to live my 
 own kind of a life by my own kind of a trade, why 
 didn't you see that it was then that I was worthy of 
 her? It's you that insult Amelia when you try to bind 
 her to a man without work, it's you that have made her 
 unhappy!" 
 
 "Amelia," said the older man, "is this what you be- 
 lieve too? What do you mean, either of you? What 
 do you blame me for? I didn't want my daughter to 
 marry an actor and I took you and gave you a place in 
 my business, put you over the heads of better men 
 than you, put you in the way of making more money 
 than you'd ever dreamed of, made a man of you. Do 
 you reproach me with that ? I didn 't want her to marry 
 a consumptive and I got you the best doctors and the 
 best living and the best exercise money could buy and 
 
328 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 kept you out here in God's good open air and put 
 some blood into you and gave you a constitution and 
 maybe cured you. Is that what you reproach me with ? 
 No, I'll tell you what it is it's the low company I 
 took you away from, it's the drinking and carousing 
 and the loafers you belong with that you want to get 
 back to, the lazy, idle, drunken, irresponsible life that 
 had made a wreck of you before you came out here 
 oh, I know what actors are, I know your kind ! It 's the 
 decency and regularity and discipline and the hard 
 work you're running away from 'work' you say you 
 want, didn't I give you plenty of it? Did I ever take 
 any of it away from you except the silly monkey-shines 
 you happen to like? Come, what's your idea in all 
 this to-day ? What do you want ? Do you think there 's 
 something else you can get out of me now? 
 
 "Well," said Herron, "lend me that eighty cents and 
 you shall be stark clear of me on the instant. Heaven 
 and earth!" he burst out, "did you think it was for 
 your stupid money, for your great ugly house and its 
 horrible society that I wanted her ? I put up with them 
 because I loved her and for no other reason. I was 
 tired out, it's true, and empty of every kind of hope, 
 and longing for something to hold to and so you were 
 able to buy me, I was able to deceive myself for a little 
 with your ideas. But look at me. Do I look like a 
 man that's chosen luxury? I look like a beggar, and 
 I am a beggar, I haven't a cent for a bed to-night nor 
 a meal and I don't care, I'm happy; I've tramped on 
 foot for weeks without money, if you've any notion 
 what that means, creeping a little bit nearer and nearer 
 to the east, and I'll walk there, maybe, but I'll get 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 329 
 
 there oh, I'll get there all right," he cried with a 
 sudden change of tone. "I'll get back to the stage 
 again, Milly, be sure of that, and the question is only 
 whether I do it with your, help or without. Listen to 
 me. When I left you without seeing you, without ask- 
 ing you to stand by me or giving you any choice, I 
 did you a grave wrong. Well, now then, let me make 
 it up to you. We've another chance, choose. Will you 
 marry me?" 
 
 The girl gave a shocked, strangling cry and swayed 
 a little; the father's remonstrance allowed itself to be 
 outfaced by the passion of grim quiet in the young man. 
 "Will you come with me?" Herron continued. "You 
 tried to impose your life on me and now I should have 
 to impose mine. If I get this part I shall have money 
 enough to look out for you, if not I'll do all I can, 
 Milly; I love you, I want you, I'll try to make you 
 happy. You shall have every thing that I can get 
 you and the chances are that I can get a good deal. 
 But the stage I stick to. It's for life. Will you risk 
 it?" 
 
 There was a long, unhappy pause. The girl was 
 leaning against her father with his arm around her 
 waist and her face hidden in her own arms which she 
 had folded on his shoulder. Out of the sobs with which 
 she shook, certain gasping words became audible. "Oh! 
 Oh! Oh! what shall I do? Oh, papa, don't you think 
 I could? Don't you think maybe it will be> all right, 
 papa ? If he had me there to look after him and every- 
 thing and keep him from getting sick? And you'd give 
 us plenty of money, wouldn't you, and all, papa?" 
 
 "Not a dollar, Amelia," said her father. 
 
330 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 "Oh, papa! oh! oh! not when it would make me so 
 happy?" 
 
 4 'It wouldn't make you happy, my dear. Oh, Amelia, 
 Amelia Packer, I think you must be crazy. Why can't 
 you see, you poor silly girl, that that's just what this 
 fellow's counting on. He thinks if he can get you east 
 that I'll never let you want and that he'll have his 
 own way and he'll have you and the money too. He'd 
 be able to neglect you and spend your money on other 
 women without anybody 's interfering with him and, even 
 if you left him after he'd broken your heart, and came 
 home to me, you 'd never have the same spirit about any- 
 thing, and there 'd be children and all to give him a 
 hold on you, sickly children very likely, that you'd al- 
 ways be watching and dreading for him to crop out in ; 
 he'd always have some way of getting money out of us 
 till he'd drunk himself to death on it. Why, you've 
 got enough good jewelry on you to take you east and 
 keep you in clover till he's had quite a fling; do you 
 think he doesn't see it! But no, sir," said the older 
 man looking now into the younger 's face across his 
 daughter's heaving shoulders, "let him be careful how 
 he tries to take you away from me, for I warn him if he 
 does he'll have to keep you. The worse he treats you 
 and the more you have to starve and suffer the quicker 
 it'll cure you and the better I shall like it. Then when 
 I take you back it'll be on my own terms. Not one 
 cent of mine will ever go to keep you together and I 
 guess he knows whether he can believe me." 
 
 "Well, Milly?" said the young man. 
 
 "Oh, but, papa, how can I I love him so, I love him 
 so, what can I do ? I 'm so unhappy, if you only knew 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 331 
 
 how unhappy I am, papa! I can't bear it. I'll just 
 die too. Isn't there some way that you can fix it, 
 papa ? some way isn 't there ? ' ' 
 
 "Mr. Herron," said Mr. Packer at length, and the 
 convulsions of soul through which his daughter was 
 dragging him writhed pitiably in his strong eyes, 
 "you've made a fool of my poor child and she makes 
 a fool of me. She thinks she can't do without you 
 and I'll make you one more proposition. It's my be- 
 lief and hope that you won't take it, but I want this 
 girl to see what she's worth to the two of us. Now 
 then, she won't marry you, of course, unless you stay 
 with us, where your health's good, but you needn't 
 have anything to do with my business, you needn't do 
 anything at all unless you want to. You two can have 
 a house of your own, since mine's so distasteful to 
 you, and built in any new-fangled way you fancy; I 
 don't say I'd keep you tied down here altogether; you 
 could go away in reason ; you could travel a winter in 
 Europe, any of those southern parts, mind you, that 
 would agree with you. If you like I could buy you a 
 newspaper out here, or anything o' that kind that you've 
 a taste for. You should have an income besides, of 
 course; say " and he named a surprising figure, "for 
 you and my daughter to make a good appearance on. 
 So there's your case there's your precious health and 
 there's what's a fortune to you and good work if you 
 want it and there's the girl you claim you love, against 
 this tomfoolery of yours. What do you say?" 
 
 The actor breathed a quick, impatient sigh and turned 
 away. 
 
 It was at this moment that Clara Louise Folsom swept 
 
332 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 into the tent. Herron turned to her without a pause, 
 "I beg your pardon, madam," he said, "will you be 
 so good as to lend me eighty cents?" 
 
 "Oh, don't do it!" Amelia cried in a fresh burst of 
 tears, ''it'll kill him!" 
 
 Poor Miss Folsom was naturally embarrassed, "Mr. 
 Herron ? ' ' she inquired, to gain time. 
 
 "Ah, if you know me, so much the better! You're a 
 professional, perhaps? I want " 
 
 "He wants to go east and die," Amelia interrupted. 
 "He'd rather do that than stay here with us, he thinks 
 papa's so mean to him. He wants to go back onto 
 that terrible stage that's almost killed him already, 
 where all those horrid, pretty women are!" 
 
 "Please don't look at me like that, Mr. Herron," 
 Miss Folsom smilingly temporized. "If we were alone 
 I believe you'd snatch my purse." 
 
 "Ah, if I had the chance!" 
 
 " Oh ! he 's not particular, ' ' Mr. Packer contributed. 
 
 "Particular! Of course I'm not particular! What 
 do I care how I get it so long as I get it?" 
 
 "But about going east, Mr. Herron, if your best 
 friends " 
 
 "I'm no friend of his," said Mr. Packer; "I don't 
 give it to him, because I'm going to take my daughter 
 to Europe to-morrow and I don't want him hanging 
 around in New York and working on her sympathies 
 the very day we go and the first thing we get back. 
 Let him eat his heart out here, like he's left her to do 
 for months." 
 
 "Oh!" Herron cried to Miss Folsom in an agony, 
 "oh, be quick! It's four o'clock already!" 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 333 
 
 Amelia Packer suddenly ceased her tears and laid her 
 hand with a deep look of sense and majesty upon Miss 
 Folsom's arm. "If you do," she said, "and he dies, 
 you'll be responsible. Now you choose." 
 
 ' ' I can 't take such a responsibility, ' ' Miss Folsom said 
 decisively to Herron. 
 
 His face went a most dreadful white and he stood 
 gaping at her, with his breast rising and falling in long 
 breaths ; then he shook off once more the disappointment, 
 the despair, and started for the doorway. 
 
 "Oh, thank you, Miss Folsom!" Amelia cried. "Oh, 
 God bless" 
 
 "Folsom!" Herron paused to cry with a profound 
 bitterness of amusement and relief. ' ' Oh, an amateur ! ' ' 
 and as he turned again, Bralnerd, with his good hand in 
 his pocket, made his leisurely and unheroic entrance. 
 
 "I heard the last of it out by the ticket-box," he said; 
 "I'll lend you the money!" He pulled out a dollar 
 and handed it to Herron, who sped without a word. 
 
 "I suppose you know," Miss Folsom said to him se- 
 verely, "that that was a case of life and death." 
 
 "Oh, I guess so," Brainerd replied. 
 
 Late that night, after the evening concert, Sammy 
 Torrance's party was once more seated about a table 
 at Poley's. Miss Folsom, weary of Amelia's lamenta- 
 tions, had attached herself to them and the group was 
 now behind the blue curtain drinking beer. Little Miss 
 Waters was drinking it too. How could poor Mr. Tor- 
 ranee prevent her ? after all, it wasn 't as if her people 
 weren't in the business. 
 
 They had sat late and they were alone in the little 
 
334 MERELY PLAYERS 
 
 room where the lamplight lay soft on the plank walls, 
 a bare little room, coolly redolent of new wood and wild 
 flowers and the delicate still freshness of the night. 
 Through the open window at their side, the tender 
 radiance of moonlit fields seemed to breathe and bloom 
 in sweetness; now and then its whiteness was obscured 
 by a friendly policeman who had no ideas about licenses 
 and who leaned in to pass the time of night, with his 
 hands still full of the clover that his horse, thrusting in 
 its own noble head, ate over his shoulder. 
 
 "I don't see how you can agree with that snake- 
 man," Miss Folsom was saying to Torrance and Don- 
 nelly and little Miss Waters. "I don't see how under 
 the circumstances you could want him to go east." 
 
 "But he had a job!" they chorused at her in amaze- 
 ment. * ' He had a job ! ' ' and they regarded each other, 
 she and they, with bewildered eyes. 
 
 Brainerd came in, paused for a moment at their table, 
 conversed in passing with the policeman's horse, and 
 dropped into a seat across the room. As he gave his 
 order he took something out of his pocket and set it 
 on the table, holding it there with his good hand. It 
 was the Gila Monster. "And some milk," he added 
 to Joe Poley, "warm." 
 
 Those at the other table continued talking about 
 Herron, and Donnelly instanced it as particularly 
 felicitous that Sam Torrance had returned in time to 
 send him east at once, so that he should not start out 
 in debt to the new management. The horse crunched 
 a lump of sugar from little Miss Waters' hand; she and 
 the policeman exchanged gratified smiles. Torrance 
 
THE PROFESSIONALS 335 
 
 looked at his watch. "Well," he said, "he's three 
 hours nearer to New York. ' ' And with that there came 
 a little hush upon the company. It was as if some- 
 thing stirring, imminent, vital had been said. "The 
 shadow of an eagle passed" over the lamplit room. 
 They became dimly more aware of their smallness in 
 the wonderful still night, they saw in imagination the 
 train speeding alone over the great prairies like a 
 courageous human thing bent on its own ends amid that 
 cool immortal majesty of moon and darkness. Far at 
 the other end of its road they saw the monstrous garish 
 huddle of the old town, its cruel, sordid, grinding ugli- 
 ness gleaming with coloured lights, torn with infernal 
 noises, stained with dust, with sweat, reeking with heat 
 and shaking with effort, with fear and greed. It was 
 really there, as actual as the peace and beauty that 
 seemed now to breathe its consolation to them from 
 the fields shimmering and silvering in the light, sweet 
 air. In the blessing of that difference there seemed to 
 be summed up all their happy weeks, all their gay, 
 friendly leisure, here in this young country which was 
 so spacious and so bright. "He's three hours nearer 
 to Broadway," Torrance repeated, and then Fred Don- 
 nelly said, "Lucky dog!" 
 
 "What!" cried Miss Folsom, torn from contemplat- 
 ing all the time during which she was drawing pay for 
 doing nothing. She saw Torrance and little Miss 
 Waters looking quickly into Donnelly's face with the 
 eyes of kindred and she gave a puzzled laugh. She 
 added, "I can't understand you!" 
 
 They brought Brainerd his supper and the milk. 
 
336 
 
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 "Did you warm it?" he asked. He tested and then 
 poured it into a saucer. "Here," he said, and gave it 
 to the Gila Monster. 
 
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