HARLEQUIN AND COLUMBINE

By Booth Tarkington

I

For a lucky glimpse of the great Talbot Potter, the girls who caught itmay thank that conjunction of Olympian events which brings within theboundaries of one November week the Horse Show and the roaring climaxof the football months and the more dulcet, yet vast, beginning of theopera season. Some throbbing of attendant multitudes coming to the earsof Talbot Potter, he obeyed an inward call to walk to rehearsal by wayof Fifth Avenue, and turning out of Forty-fourth Street to becomepart of the people-sea of the southward current, felt the eyes of thenorthward beating upon his face like the pulsing successions of anexhilarating surf. His Fifth Avenue knew its Talbot Potter. 

Strangers used to leisurely appraisals upon their own thoroughfares areapt to believe that Fifth Avenue notices nothing; but they are mistaken;it is New York that is preoccupied, not Fifth Avenue. The Fifth Avenueeye, like a policeman's, familiar with a variety of types, cataloguesyou and replaces you upon the shelf with such automatic rapidity thatyou are not aware you have been taken down. Fifth Avenue is secretlypopulous with observers who take note of everything. 

Of course, among these peregrinate great numbers almost in a stupor sofar as what is closest around them is concerned; and there are those, too, who are so completely busied with either the consciousness of beingnoticed, or the hope of being noticed, or the hatred of it, that theytake note of nothing else. Fifth Avenue expressions are a filling mealfor the prowling lonely joker; but what will most satisfy his cannibalappetite is the passage of the self-conscious men and women. For here, on a good day, he cannot fail to relish some extreme cases of theirwhimsical disease: fledgling young men making believe to be haughty tocover their dreadful symptoms, the mask itself thus revealing what itseeks to conceal; timid young ladies, likewise treacherously exposed bytheir defenses; and very different ladies, but in similar case, beingretouched ladies, tinted ladies; and ladies who know that they arepretty at first sight, ladies who chat with some obscured companion onlyto offer the public a treat of graceful gestures; and poor ladiesmaking believe to be rich ladies; and rich ladies making believe to beimportant ladies; and many other sorts of conscious ladies. And men--ah, pitiful!--pitiful the wretch whose hardihood has involved him in crueland unusual great gloss and unsheltered tailed coat. Any man in hisovercoat is wrapped in his castle; he fears nothing. But to this huntedcreature, naked in his robin's tail, the whole panorama of the Avenue ismerely a blurred audience, focusing upon him a vast glare of derision;he walks swiftly, as upon fire, pretends to careless sidelong interestin shop-windows as he goes, makes play with his unfamiliar cane only tobe horror-stricken at the flourishings so evoked of his wild gloves; andat last, fairly crawling with the eyes he feels all over him, he mustdraw forth his handkerchief and shelter behind it, poor man, in thedishonourable affectation of a sneeze!

Piquant contrast to these obsessions, the well-known expression ofTalbot Potter lifted him above the crowd to such high serenity his facemight have been that of a young Pope, with a dash of Sydney Carton. Hisglance fixed itself, in its benign detachment, upon the misty top of theFlatiron, far down the street, and the more frequent the plainly visiblerecognitions among the north-bound people, the less he seemed awareof them. And yet, whenever the sieving current of pedestrians broughtmomentarily face to face with him a girl or woman, apparently civilizedand in the mode, who obviously had never seen him before and seemed notto care if it should be her fate never to repeat the experience, TalbotPotter had a certain desire. If society had established a rule thatall men must instantly obey and act upon every fleeting impulse, TalbotPotter would have taken that girl or woman by the shoulders and said toher: "What's the matter with you!"

At Forty-second Street he crossed over, proceeded to the middle of theblock, and halted dreamily on the edge of the pavement, his back to thecrowd. His face was toward the Library, with its two annoyed pet lions, typifying learning, and he appeared to study the great building. Oneor two of the passersby had seen him standing on that self-same spotbefore;--in fact, he always stopped there whenever he walked down theAvenue. 

For a little time (not too long) he stood there; and thus absorbed hewas, as they say, a Picture. Moreover, being such a popular one, heattracted much interest. People paused to observe him; and all unawareof their attention, he suddenly smiled charmingly, as at some gentlepleasantry in his own mind--something he had remembered from a book, no doubt. It was a wonderful smile, and vanished slowly, leaving a raptlook; evidently he was lost in musing upon architecture and sculptureand beautiful books. A girl whisking by in an automobile had time toguess, reverently, that the phrase in his mind was: "A Stately Home forBeautiful Books!" Dinner-tables would hear, that evening, how TalbotPotter stood there, oblivious of everything else, studying the Library!

This slight sketch of artistic reverie completed, he went on, proceedinga little more rapidly down the Avenue; presently turned over to thestage door of Wallack's, made his way through the ensuing passages, andappeared upon the vasty stage of the old theatre, where his company ofactors awaited his coming to begin the rehearsal of a new play. 

II

"First act, please, ladies and gentlemen!"

Thus spake, without emotion, Packer, the stage-manager; but out in thedusky auditorium, Stewart Canby, the new playwright, began to tremble. It was his first rehearsal. 

He and one other sat in the shadowy hollow of the orchestra, two obscurelittle shapes on the floor of the enormous cavern. The other was TalbotPotter's manager, Carson Tinker, a neat, grim, small old man with adefinite appearance of having long ago learned that after a littlewhile life will beat anybody's game, no matter how good. He observedthe nervousness of the playwright, but without interest. He had seen toomany. 

Young Canby's play was a study of egoism, being the portrait of a manwholly given over to selfish ambitions finally attained, but "atthe cost of every good thing in his life, " including the loss of his"honour, " his lady-love, and the trust and affection of his friends. Young Canby had worked patiently at his manuscript, rewriting, condensing, pouring over it the sincere sweat of his brow and the lightof his boarding-house lamp during most of the evenings of two years, until at last he was able to tell his confidants, rather huskily, thatthere was "not one single superfluous word in it, " not one that couldpossibly be cut, nor one that could be changed without "altering thesignificance of the whole work. "

The moment was at hand when he was to see the vision of so many toilsomehours begin to grow alive. What had been no more than little black markson white paper was now to become a living voice vibrating the actualair. No wonder, then, that tremors seized him; Pygmalion shook asGalatea began to breathe, and to young Canby it was no less a miraclethat his black marks and white paper should thus come to life. 

"Miss Ellsling!" called the stage-manager. "Miss Ellsling, you're on. You're on artificial stone bench in garden, down right. Mr. Nippert, you're on. You're over yonder, right cen---"

"Not at all!" interrupted Talbot Potter, who had taken his seat at asmall table near the trough where the footlights lay asleep, like therow of night-watchmen they were. "Not at all!" he repeated sharply, thumping the table with his knuckles. "That's all out. It's cut. Nippertdoesn't come on in this scene at all. You've got the original scriptthere, Packer. Good heavens! Packer, can't you ever get anything right?Didn't I distinctly tell you--Here! Come here! Not garden set, at all. Play it interior, same as act second. Look, Packer, look! Miss Ellslingdown left, in chair by escritoire. In heaven's name, can you read, Packer?"

"Yessir, yessir. I see, sir, I see!" said Packer with piteous eagerness, taking the manuscript the star handed him. "Now, then, Miss Ellsling, ifyou please--"

"I will have my tea indoors, " Miss Ellsling began promptly, striking animaginary bell. "I will have my tea indoors, to-day, I think, Pritchard. It is cooler indoors, to-day, I think, on the whole, and so it willbe pleasanter to have my tea indoors to-day. Strike bell again. Do youhear, Pritchard?"

Out in the dimness beyond the stage the thin figure of the newplaywright rose dazedly from an orchestra chair. 

"What--what's this?" he stammered, the choked sounds he made notreaching the stage. 

"What's the matter?" The question came from Carson Tinker, but his tonewas incurious, manifesting no interest whatever. Tinker's voice, likehis pale, spectacled glance, was not tired; it was dead. 

"Tea!" gasped Canby. "People are sick of tea! I didn't write any tea!"

"There isn't any, " said Tinker. "The way he's got it, there's aninterruption before the tea comes, and it isn't brought in. "

"But she's ordered it! If it doesn't come the audience will wonder--"

"No, " said Tinker. "They won't think of that. They won't hear her orderit. "

"Then for heaven's sake, why has he put it in? I wrote this play tobegin right in the story--"

"That's the trouble. They never hear the beginning. They're slammingseats, taking off wraps, looking round to see who's there. That's why we used to begin plays with servants dusting and'Well-I-never-half-past-nine-and-the-young-master-not-yet-risen!"

"I wrote it to begin with a garden scene, " Canby protested, unheeding. "Why--"

"He's changed this act a good deal. "

"But I wrote--"

"He never uses garden sets. Not intimate enough; and they're a nuisanceto light. I wouldn't worry about it. "

"But it changes the whole signifi--"

"Well, talk to him about it, " said Tinker, adding lifelessly, "Iwouldn't argue with him much, though. I never knew anybody do anythingwith him that way yet. "

Miss Ellsling, on the stage, seemed to be supplementing this remark. "Roderick Hanscom is a determined man, " she said, in character. "He ishard as steel to a treacherous enemy, but he is tender and gentle towomen and children. Only yesterday I saw him pick up a fallen crippledchild from beneath the relentless horses' feet on a crossing, at therisk of his very life, and then as he placed it in the mother's arms, he smiled that wonderful smile of his, that wonderful smile of his thatseems to brighten the whole world! Wait till you meet him. But that ishis step now and you shall judge for yourselves! Let us rise, if youplease, to give him befitting greeting. "

"What--what!" gasped Canby. 

"Sh!" Tinker whispered. 

"But all I wrote for her to say, when Roderick Hanscom's name ismentioned, was 'I don't think I like him. ' My God!"

"Sh!"

"The Honourable Robert Hanscom!" shouted Packer, in a ringing voice as astage-servant, or herald. 

"It gives him an entrance, you see, " murmured Tinker. "Your script justlet him walk on. "

"And all that horrible stuff about his 'wonderful smile!'" Canbybabbled. "Think of his putting that in himself. "

"Well, you hadn't done it for him. It is a wonderful smile, isn't it?"

"My God!"

"Sh!"

Talbot Potter had stepped to the centre of the stage and was smiling thewonderful smile. "Mildred, and you, my other friends, good friends, " hebegan, "for I know that you are all true friends here, and I can trustyou with a secret very near my heart--"

"Most of them are supposed never to have seen him before, " said Canby, hoarsely. "And she's just told them they could judge for themselveswhen--"

"They won't notice that. "

"You mean the audience won't--"

"No, they won't, " said Tinker. 

"But good heavens! it's 'Donald Gray, ' the other character, that trustshim with the secret, and he betrays it later. This upsets the whole--"

"Well, talk to him. I can't help it. "

"It is a political secret, " Potter continued, reading from a manuscriptin his hand, "and almost a matter of life and death. But I trust youwith it openly and fearlessly because--"

At this point his voice was lost in a destroying uproar. Perceivingthat the rehearsal was well under way, and that the star had made hisentrance, two of the stage-hands attached to the theatre ascended tothe flies and set up a great bellowing on high. "Lower that strip!""You don't want that strip lowered, I tell you!" "Oh, my Lord! Can't youlower that strip!" Another workman at the rear of the stage began to sawa plank, and somebody else, concealed behind a bit of scenery, hammeredterrifically upon metal. Altogether it was a successful outbreak. 

Potter threw his manuscript upon the table, a gesture that caused theshoulders of Packer to move in a visible shudder, and the company, alleyes fixed upon the face of the star, suddenly wore the look of peoplewatching a mysterious sealed packet from which a muffled ticking isheard. The bellowing and the sawing and the hammering increased in fury. 

In the orchestra a rusty gleam of something like mummified pleasurepassed unseen behind the spectacles of old Carson Tinker. "Stage-handsare the devil, " he explained to the stupefied Canby. "Rehearsals borethem and they love to hear what an actor says when his nerves go topieces. If Potter blows up they'll quiet down to enjoy it and then do itagain pretty soon. If he doesn't blow up he'll take it out on somebodyelse later. "

Potter stood silent in the centre of the stage, expressionless, whichseemed to terrify the stage-manager. "Just one second, Mr. Potter!" hescreamed, his brow pearly with the anguish of apprehension. "Just onesecond, sir!"

He went hotfoot among the disturbers, protesting, commanding, imploring, and plausibly answering severe questions. "Well, when do you expect usto git this work done?" "We got our work to do, ain't we?" until finallythe tumult ceased, the saw slowing down last of all, tapering offreluctantly into a silence of plaintive disappointment; whereupon Packerresumed his place, under a light at the side of the stage, turning thepages of his manuscript with fluttering fingers and keeping his eyesfixed guiltily upon it. The company of actors also carefully removedtheir gaze from the star and looked guilty. 

Potter allowed the fatal hush to continue, while the culpability ofPacker and the company seemed mysteriously to increase until theyall reeked with it. The stage-hands had withdrawn in a grieved mannersomewhere into the huge rearward spaces of the old building. Theybelonged to the theatre, not to Potter, and, besides, they had a union. But the actors were dependent upon Potter for the coming winter's workand wages; they were his employees. 

At last he spoke: "We will go on with the rehearsal, " he said quietly. 

"Ah!" murmured old Tinker. "He'll take it out on somebody else. " Andwith every precaution not to jar down a seat in passing, he edged hisway to the aisle and went softly thereby to the extreme rear of thehouse. He was an employee, too. 

III

It was a luckless lady who helped to fulfil the prediction. Technicallyshe was the "ingenue"; publicly she was "Miss Carol Lyston"; legally shewas a Mrs. Surbilt, being wife to the established leading man of thatilk, Vorly Surbilt. Miss Lyston had come to the rehearsal in a conditionof exhausted nerves, owing to her husband's having just accepted, overher protest, a "road" engagement with a lady-star of such susceptiblegallantry she had never yet been known to resist falling in love withher leading-man before she quarrelled with him. Miss Lyston's protesthaving lasted the whole of the preceeding night, and not at allconcluding with Mr. Surbilt's departure, about breakfast-time, avowedlyto seek total anaesthesia by means of a long list of liquors, whichhe named, she had spent the hours before rehearsal interviewing femaleacquaintances who had been members of the susceptible lady's company--aproceeding which indicates that she deliberately courted hysteria. 

Shortly after the outraged rehearsal had been resumed, she unfortunatelyuttered a loud, dry sob, startlingly irrelevant to the matter in hand. It came during the revelation of "Roderick Hanscom's" secret, and Potterstopped instantly. 

"Who did that?"

"Miss Lyston, sir, " Packer responded loyally, such matters being part ofhis duty. 

The star turned to face the agitated criminal. "Miss Lyston, " he said, delaying each syllable to pack it more solidly with ice, "will you begood enough to inform this company if there is anything in your lines towarrant your breaking into a speech of mine with a horrible noise likethat?"

"Nothing. "

"Then perhaps you will inform us why you do break into a speech of minewith a horrible noise like that?"

"I only coughed, Mr. Potter, " said Miss Lyston, shaking. 

"Coughed!" he repeated slowly, and then with a sudden tragic furyshouted at the top of his splendid voice, "COUGHED!" He swung away fromher, and strode up and down the stage, struggling with emotion, whilethe stricken company fastened their eyes to their strips of manuscript, as if in study, and looked neither at him nor Miss Lyston. 

"You only coughed!" He paused before her in his stride. "Is it yourpurpose to cough during my speeches when this play is produced before anaudience?" He waited for no reply, but taking his head woefully in hishands, began to pace up and down again, turning at last toward the darkauditorium to address his invisible manager:

"Really, really, Mr. Tinker, " he cried, despairingly, "we shall have tochange some of these people. I can't act with--Mr. Tinker! Where's Mr. Tinker? Mr. Tinker! My soul! He's gone! He always is gone when I wanthim! I wonder how many men would bear what I--" But here he interruptedhimself unexpectedly. "Go on with the rehearsal! Packer, where were we?"

"Here, sir, right here, " brightly responded Packer, ready finger uponthe proper spot in the manuscript. "You had just begun, 'Nothing in thisworld but that one thing can defeat my certain election and nothing butthat one thing shall de--"

"That will do, " thundered his master. "Are you going to play the part?Get out of the way and let's get on with the act, in heaven's name! Downstage a step, Miss Ellsling. No; I said down. A step, not a mile!There! Now, if you consent to be ready, ladies and gentlemen. Very well. 'Nothing in this world but that one thing can defeat my certain electionand noth--'" Again he interrupted himself unexpectedly. In the middleof the word there came a catch in his voice; he broke off, and whirlingonce more upon the miserable Miss Lyston, he transfixed her with aforefinger and a yell. 

"It wasn't a cough! What was that horrible noise you made?"

Miss Lyston, being unable to reply in words, gave him for answer anobject-lesson which demonstrated plainly the nature of the horriblenoise. She broke into loud, consecutive sobs, while Potter, very littlethe real cause of them, altered in expression from indignation to theneighborhood of lunacy. 

"She's doing this in purpose!" he cried. "What's the matter with her?She's sick! Miss Lyston, you're sick! Packer, get her away--take heraway. She's sick! Send her home--send her home in a cab! Packer!"

"Yes, Mr. Potter, I'll arrange it. Don't be disturbed. "

The stage-manager was already at the sobbing lady's side, and she leanedupon him gratefully, continuing to produce the symptoms of her illness. 

"Put her in a cab at once, " said the star, somewhat recovered fromhis consternation. "You can pay the cabman, " he added. "Make her ascomfortable as you can; she's really ill. Miss Lyston, you shouldn'thave tried to rehearse when you're so ill. Do everything possible forMiss Lyston's comfort, Packer. "

He followed the pair as they entered the passageway to the stage door;then, Miss Lyston's demonstrations becoming less audible, he haltedabruptly, and his brow grew dark with suspicion. When Packer returned, he beckoned him aside. "Didn't she seem all right as soon as she got outof my sight?"

"No, sir; she seemed pretty badly upset. "

"What about?"

"Oh, something entirely outside of rehearsal, sir, " Packer answered inhaste. "Entirely outside. She wanted to know if I'd heard any gossipabout her husband lately. That's it, Mr. Potter. "

"You don't think she was shamming just to get off?"

"Oh, not at all. I--"

"Ha! She may have fooled you, Packer, or perhaps--perhaps"--he paused, frowning--"perhaps you were trying to fool me, too. I don't know yourprivate life; you may have reasons to help her de--"

"Mr. Potter!" cried the distressed man. "What could be my object? Idon't know Miss Lyston off. I was only telling you the simple truth. "

"How do I know?" Potter gave him a piercing look. "People are alwaystrying to take advantage of me. "

"But Mr. Potter, I--"

"Don't get it into your head that I am too easy, Packer! You thinkyou've got a luxurious thing of it here, with me, but--" He concludedwith an ominous shake of the head in lieu of words, then returned tothe centre of the stage. "Are we to be all day getting on with thisrehearsal?"

Packer flew to the table and seized the manuscript he had left there. "All ready, sir! 'Nothing in this world but one thing can defeat'--andso on, so on. All ready, sir!"

The star made no reply but to gaze upon him stonily, a stare whichproduced another dreadful silence. Packer tried to smile, a lamentablesight. 

"Something wrong, Mr. Potter?" he finally ventured, desperately. 

The answer came in a voice cracking with emotional strain: "I wonderhow many men bear what I bear? I wonder how many men would pay astage-manager the salary I pay, and then do all his work for him!"

"Mr. Potter, if you'll tell me what's the matter, " Packer quavered; "ifyou'll only tell me--"

"The understudy, idiot! Where is the understudy to read Miss Lyston'spart? You haven't got one! I knew it! I told you last week to engage anunderstudy for the women's parts, and you haven't done it. I knew it, Iknew it! God help me, I knew it!"

"But I did, sir. I've got her here. "

Packer ran to the back of the stage, shouting loudly: "Miss-oh, Miss--Iforget-your-name! Understudy! Miss--"

"I'm here!"

It was an odd, slender voice that spoke, just behind Talbot Potter, andhe turned to stare at a little figure in black--she had come so quietlyout of the shadows of the scenery into Miss Lyston's place that no onehad noticed. She was indefinite of outline still, in the sparse light ofthat cavernous place; and, with a veil lifted just to the level of herbrows, under a shadowing black hat, not much was to be clearly discernedof her except that she was small and pale and had bright eyes. But eventhe two words she spoke proved the peculiar quality of her voice: it waslike the tremolo of a zither string; and at the sound of it the actorson each side of her instinctively moved a step back for a better viewof her, while in his lurking place old Tinker let his dry lips opena little, which was as near as he ever came, nowadays, to a look ofinterest. He had noted that this voice, sweet as rain, and vibrant, butnot loud, was the ordinary speaking voice of the understudy, and thather "I'm here, " had sounded, soft and clear, across the deep orchestrato the last row in the house. 

"Of course!" Packer cried. "There she is, Mr. Potter! There'sMiss--Miss--"

"Is her name 'Missmiss'?" the star demanded bitterly. 

"No sir. I've forgotten it, just this moment, Mr. Potter, but I'vegot it. I've got it right here. " He began frantically to turn out thecontents of his pockets. "It's in my memorandum book, if I could onlyfind--"

"The devil, the devil!" shouted Potter. "A fine understudy you've gotfor us! She sees me standing here like--like a statue--delaying thewhole rehearsal, while we wait for you to find her name, and she won'topen her lips!" He swept the air with a furious gesture, and a subtlefaint relief became manifest throughout the company at this token thatthe newcomer was indeed to fill Miss Lyston's place for one rehearsal atleast. "Why don't you tell us your name?" he roared. 

"I understood, " said the zither-sweet voice, "that I was never to speakto you unless you directly asked me a question. My--"

"My soul! Have you got a name?"

"Wanda Malone. "

Potter had never heard it until that moment, but his expression showedthat he considered it another outrage. 

IV

The rehearsal proceeded, and under that cover old Tinker camenoiselessly down the aisle and resumed his seat beside Canby, who wasuttering short, broken sighs, and appeared to have been trying with fairsuccess to give himself a shampoo. 

"It's ruined, Mr. Tinker!" he moaned, and his accompanying gesture wasmisleading, seeming to indicate that he alluded to his hair. "It's allruined if he sticks to these horrible lines he's put in--people told meI ought to have it in my contract that nothing could be changed. I wastrying to make the audience see the tragedy of egoism in my play--andhow people get to hating an egoist. I made 'Roderick Hanscom' adisagreeable character on purpose, and--oh, listen to that!"

Miss Ellsling and Talbot Potter stood alone, near the front of thestage. "Why do you waste such goodness on me, Roderick?" Miss Ellslingwas inquiring. "It is noble and I feel that I am unworthy of you. "

"No, Mildred, believe me, " Potter read from his manuscript, "I wouldrather decline the nomination and abandon my career, and go to live insome quiet spot far from all this, than that you should know one singlemoment's unhappiness, for you mean far more to me than worldly success. "He kissed her hand with reverence, and lifted his head slowly, facingthe audience with rapt gaze; his wonderful smile--that ineffable smileof abnegation and benignity--just beginning to dawn. 

Coming from behind him, and therefore unable to see his face, Miss WandaMalone advanced in her character of ingenue, speaking with an effect ofgayety: "Now what are you two good people conspiring about?"

Potter stamped the floor; there was wrenched from him an incoherentshriek containing fragments of profane words and ending distinguishablywith: "It's that Missmiss again!"

Packer impelled himself upon Miss Malone, pushing her back. "No, no, no!" he cried. "Count ten! Count ten before you come down with thatspeech. You mustn't interrupt Mr. Potter, Miss--Miss--"

"It was my cue, " she said composedly, showing her little pamphlet oftypewritten manuscript. "Wasn't I meant to speak on the cue?"

Talbot Potter recovered himself sufficiently to utter a cry of despair:"And these are the kind of people an artist must work with!" He liftedhis arms to heaven, calling upon the high gods for pity; then, witha sudden turn of fury, ran to the back of the stage and came mincingforward evidently intending saturnine mimicry, repeating the ingenue'sspeech in a mocking falsetto: "Now what are you two good peopleconspiring about?" After that he whirled upon her, demanding withferocity: "You've got something you can think with in your head, haven'tyou, Missmiss? Then what do you think of that?"

Miss Malone smiled, and it was a smile that would have gone a long wayat a college dance. Here, it made the pitying company shudder for her. "I think it's a silly, makeshift sort of a speech, " she said cheerfully, in which opinion the unhappy playwright out in the audience hotlyagreed. "It's a bit of threadbare archness, and if I were to play MissLyston's part, I'd be glad to have it changed!"

Potter looked dazed. "Is it your idea, " he said in a ghostly voice, "that I was asking for your impression of the dramatic and literaryvalue of that line?"

She seemed surprised. "Weren't you?"

It was too much for Potter. He had brilliant and unusual powers ofexpression, but this was beyond them. He went to the chair beside thelittle table, flung himself upon it, his legs outstretched, his armsdangling inert, and stared haggardly upward at nothing. 

Packer staggered into the breach. "You interrupted the smile, Miss--Mi--"

"Miss Malone, " she prompted. 

"You interrupted the smile, Miss Malone. Mr. Potter gives them the smilethere. You must count ten for it, after your cue. Ten--slow. Count slow. Mark it on your sides, Miss--ah--Miss. 'Count ten for smile. Write itdown please, Miss--Miss--"

Potter spoke wearily. "Be kind enough to let me know, Packer, when youand Missmiss can bring yourselves to permit this rehearsal to continue. "

"All ready, sir, " said Packer briskly. "All ready now, Mr. Potter. " Andupon the star's limply rising, Miss Ellsling, most tactful of leadingwomen, went back to his cue with a change of emphasis in her readingthat helped to restore him somewhat to his poise. "It is noble, " sherepeated, "and I feel that I am unworthy of you!"

Counting ten slowly proved to be the proper deference to the smile, and Miss Malone was allowed to come down the stage and complete, undisturbed, her ingenue request to know what the two good people wereconspiring about. Thereafter the rehearsal went on in a strange, unrealpeace like that of a prairie noon in the cyclone season. 

"Notice that girl?" old Tinker muttered, as Wanda Malone finishedanother ingenue question with a light laugh, as commanded by hermanuscript. "She's frightened but she's steady. "

"What girl?" Canby was shampooing himself feverishly and had littleinterest in girls. "I made it a disagreeable character because--"

"I mean the one he's letting out on--Malone, " said Tinker. "Didn'tyou notice her voice? Her laugh reminds me of Fanny Caton's--and DoraPreston's--"

"Who?" Canby asked vaguely. 

"Oh, nobody you'd remember; some old-time actresses that had theirday--and died--long ago. This girl's voice made me think of them. "

"She may, she may, " said Canby hurriedly. "Mr. Tinker, the play isruined. He's tangled the whole act up so that I can't tell what it'sabout myself. Instead of Roderick Hanscom's being a man that peopledislike for his conceit and selfishness he's got him absolutely turnedround. I oughtn't to allow it--but everything's so different from whatI thought it would be! He doesn't seem to know I'm here. I came preparedto read the play to the company; I thought he'd want me to. "

"Oh, no, " said Tinker. "He never does that. "

"Why not?"

"Wastes time, for one thing. The actors don't listen except when theirown parts are being read. "

"Good gracious!"

"Their own parts are all they have to look out for, " the old maninformed him dryly. "I've known actors to play a long time in parts thatdidn't appear in the last act, and they never know how the play ended. "

"Good gracious!"

"Never cared, either, " Tinker added. 

"Good gr--"

"Sh! He's breaking out again!"

A shriek of agony came from the stage. "Pack-e-r-r-! Where did youfind this Missmiss understudy? Can't you get me people of experience?I really cannot bear this kind of thing--I can not!" And Potter flunghimself upon the chair, leaving the slight figure in black standingalone in the centre of the stage. He sprang up again, however, surprisingly, upon the very instant of despairing collapse. "What do youmean by this perpetual torture of me?" he wailed at her. "Don't you knowwhat you did?"

"No, Mr. Potter. " She looked at him bravely, but she began to grow red. 

"You don't?" he cried incredulously. "You don't know what you did? Youmoved! How are they going to get my face if you move? Don't you knowenough to hold a picture and not ruin it by moving?"

"There was a movement written for that cue, " she said, a littletremulously. "The business in the script is, 'Showing that she istouched by Roderick's nobleness, lifts handkerchief impulsive gesture toeyes. '"

"Not, " he shouted, "not during the SMILE!"

"Oh!" she cried remorsefully. "Have I done that again?"

"'Again!' I don't know how many times you've done it!" He flung his armswide, with hands outspread and fingers vibrating. "You do it every timeyou get the chance! You do it perpetually! You don't do anything else!It's all you live for!"

He hurled his manuscript violently at the table, Packer making awonderful pick-up catch of it just as it touched the floor. 

"That's all!" And the unhappy artist sank into the chair in a crumpledstupor. 

"Ten o'clock to-morrow morning, ladies and gentlemen!" Packer calledimmediately, with brisk cheerfulness. "Please notice: to-morrow'srehearsal is in the morning. Ten o'clock to-morrow morning!"

"Tell the understudy to wait, Packer, " said the star abysmally, andPacker addressed himself to the departing backs of the company:

"Mr. Potter wants to speak to Miss--Miss--"

"Malone, " prompted the owner of the name, without resentment. 

"Wait a moment, Miss Malone, " said Potter, looking up wearily. "Is Mr. Tinker anywhere about?"

"I'm here, Mr. Potter. " Tinker came forward to the orchestra railing. 

"I've been thinking about this play, Mr. Tinker, " Potter said, shakinghis head despondently. "I don't know about it. I'm very, very doubtfulabout it. " He peered over Tinker's head, squinting his eyes, and seemedfor the first time to be aware of the playwright's presence. "Oh, areyou there, Mr. Canby? When did you come in?"

"I've been here all the time, " said the dishevelled Canby, comingforward. "I supposed it was my business to be here, but-"

"Very glad to have you if you wish, " Potter interrupted gloomily. "Anytime. Any time you like. I was just telling Mr. Tinker that I don't knowabout your play. I don't know if it'll do at all. "

"If you'd play it, " Canby began, "the way I wrote it--"

"In the first place, " Potter said with sudden vehemence, "it lacksPunch! Where's your Punch in this play, Mr. Canby? Where is there anyPunch whatever in the whole four acts? Surely, after this rehearsal, youdon't mean to claim that the first act has one single ounce of Punch init!"

"But you've twisted this act all round, " the unhappy young manprotested. "The way you have it I can't tell what it's got to it. Imeant Roderick Hanscom to be a disagr--"

"Mr. Canby, " said the star, rising impressively, "if we played that actthe way you wrote it, we'd last just about four minutes of the openingnight. You gave me absolutely nothing to do! Other people talked at meand I had to stand there and be talked at for twenty minutes straight, like a blithering ninny!"

"Well, as you have it, the other actors have to stand there likeninnies, " poor Canby retorted miserably, "while you talk at them almostthe whole time. "

"My soul!" Potter struck the table with the palm of his hand. "Doyou think anybody's going to pay two dollars to watch me listen to mycompany for three hours? No, my dear man, your play's got to give mesomething to do! You'll have to rewrite the second and third acts. I'vedone what I could for the first, but, good God! Mr. Canby, I can't writeyour whole play for you! You'll have to get some Punch into it or we'llnever be able to go on with it. "

"I don't know what you mean, " said the playwright helplessly. "I neverdid know what people mean by Punch. "

"Punch? It's what grips 'em, " Potter returned with vehemence. "Punchis what keeps 'em sitting on the edge of their seats. Big love scenes!They've got Punch. Or a big scene with a man. Give me a big scene with aman. " He illustrated his meaning with startling intensity, crouching andseizing an imaginary antagonist by the throat, shaking him and snarlingbetween his clenched teeth, while his own throat swelled and reddened:"Now, damn you! You dog! So on, so on, so on! Zowie!" Suddenly hisfigure straightened. "Then change. See?" He became serene, almostaugust. "'No! I will not soil these hands with you. So on, so on, soon. I give you your worthless life. Go!'" He completed his generosityby giving Canby and Tinker the smile, after which he concluded much morecheerfully: "Something like that, Mr. Canby, and we'll have some realPunch in your play. "

"But there isn't any chance for that kind of a scene in it, " theplaywright objected. "It's the study of an egoist, a disagree--"

"There!" exclaimed Potter. "That's it! Do you think people are going topay two dollars to see Talbot Potter behave like a cad? They won't doit; they pay two dollars to see me as I am--not pretending to be thekind of man your 'Roderick Hanscom' was. No, Mr. Canby, I accepted yourplay because it has got quite a fair situation in the third act, andbecause I thought I saw a chance in it to keep some of the strength of'Roderick Hanscom' and yet make him lovable. "

"But, great heavens! if you make him lovable the character's ruined. Besides, the audience won't want to see him lose the girl at the end and'Donald Grey' get her!"

"No, they won't; that's it exactly, " said Potter thoughtfully. "You'llhave to fix that, Mr. Canby. 'Roderick Hanscom' will have to win herby a great sacrifice in the last act. A great, strong, lovable man, Mr. Canby; that's the kind of character I want to play: a big, sweet, lovable fellow, with the heart of a child, that makes a great sacrificefor a woman. I don't want to play 'egoists'; I don't want to playcharacter parts. No. " He shook his head musingly, and concluded, thewhile a light of ineffable sweetness shone from his remarkable eyes:"Mr. Canby, no! My audience comes to see Talbot Potter. You go overthese other acts and write the part so that I can play myself. "

The playwright gazed upon him, inarticulate, and Potter, shaking himselfslightly, like one aroused from a pleasant little reverie, turned to thewaiting figure of the girl. 

"What is it, Miss Malone?" he asked mildly. "Did you want to speak tome?"

"You told Mr. Packer to ask me to wait, " she said. 

"Did I? Oh, yes, so I did. If you please, take off your hat and veil, Miss Malone?"

She gave him a startled look; then, without a word, slowly obeyed. 

"Ah, yes, " he said a moment later. "We'll find something else for MissLyston when she recovers. You will keep the part. "

V

When Canby (with his hair smoothed) descended to the basement diningroom of his Madison Avenue boarding-house that evening, his tablecomrades gave him an effective entrance; they rose, waving napkins andcheering, and there were cries of "Author! Author!" "Speech!" and "Chermaitre!"

The recipient of these honours bore them with an uneasiness attributedto modesty, and making inadequate response, sat down to his soup with noimportunate appetite. 

"Seriously, though, " said a bearded man opposite, who always broke intoeverything with "seriously though, " or else, "all joking aside, " and hadthereby gained a reputation for conservatism and soundness--"seriously, though, it must have been a great experience to take charge of therehearsal of such a company as Talbot Potter's. "

"Tell us how it felt, Canby, old boy, " said another. "How does it feelto sit up there like a king makin' everybody step around to suit you?"

Other neighbors took it up. 

"Any pretty girls in the company, Can?"

"How does it feel to be a great dramatist, old man?"

"When you goin' to hire a valet-chauffeur?"

"Better ask him when he's goin' to take us to rehearsal, to see him inhis glory. "

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, " said the hostess deprecatingly, "Miss Cornish istrying to speak to Mr. Canby. "

Miss Cornish, a middle-aged lady in black lace, sat at her right, at thehead of the largest table, being the most paying of these paying guests, by which virtue she held also the ingleside premiership of the parlouroverhead. She was reputed to walk much among gentles, and to have a hightaste in letters and the drama; for she was chief of an essay club, hada hushing manner, and often quoted with precision from reviews, or fromsuch publishers' advertisements as contained no slang; and she was amember of one of the leagues for patronizing the theatre in moderation. 

"Mr. Canby, " said the hostess pleasantly, "Miss Cornish wishes to--"

This obtained the attention of the assembly, while Canby, at the otherend of the room, sat back in his chair with the unenthusiastic air of aman being served with papers. 

"Yes, Miss Cornish. "

Miss Cornish cleared her throat, not practically, but with culture, aspreliminary to an address. "I was saying, Mr. Canby, " she began, "thatI had a suggestion to make which may not only interest you, butcertain others of us who do not enjoy equal opportunities in somematters--as--as others of us who do. Indeed, I believe it will interestall of us without regard to--to--to this. What I was about to suggestwas that since today you have had a very interesting experience, notonly interesting because you have entered into a professional as wellas personal friendship with one of our foremost artists--an artist whosework is cultivated always--but also interesting because there aresome of us here whose more practical occupations and walk in life mustnecessarily withhold them from--from this. What I meant to suggestwas that, as this prevents them from--from this--would it not be afavourable opportunity for them to--to glean some commentary upon theactual methods of a field of art? Personally, it happens that wheneveropportunities and invitations have been--have been urged, other dutiesintervened, but though, on that account never having been actuallypresent, I am familiar, of course, through conversation with greatartists and memoirs and--and other sources of literature--with theprocedure and etiquette of rehearsal. But others among us, no doubtthrough lack of leisure, are perhaps less so than--than this. What Iwished to suggest was that, not now, but after dinner, we all assemblequietly, in the large parlour upstairs, of which Mrs. Reibold has kindlyconsented to allow us the use for the evening, for this purpose, andthat you, Mr. Canby, would then give us an informal talk--" (She wasmomentarily interrupted by a deferential murmur of "Hear! Hear!" fromeverybody. ) "What I meant to suggest, " she resumed, smiling graciouslyas from a platform, "was a sort of descriptive lecture, of course whollyinformal--not so much upon your little play itself, Mr. Canby, for Ibelieve we are all familiar with its subject-matter, but what wouldperhaps be more improving in artistic ways would be that you give usyour impressions of this little experience of yours to-day while it isfresh in your mind. I would suggest that you tell us, simply, and inyour own way, exactly what was the form of procedure at rehearsal, sothat those of us not so fortunate as to be already en rapport withsuch matters may form a helpful and artistic idea of--of this. I wouldsuggest that you go into some details of this, perhaps adding whateveranecdotes or incidents of--of--of the day--you think would giveadditional value to this. I would suggest that you tell us, forinstance, how you were received upon your arrival, who took you to themost favourable position for observing the performance, and what wassaid. We should be glad to hear also, I am sure, and artistic thoughtsor--or knowledge--Mr. Potter may have let fall in the green-room; oreven a few witticisms might not be out of place, if you should recallthese. We should all like to know, I am sure, what Mr. Potter's methodof conceiving his part was. Also, does he leave entire freedom to hiscompany in the creation of their own roles, or does he aid them? Manyquestions, no doubt, occur to all of us. For instance: Did Mr. Potteroffer you any suggestions for changes and alterations that might aid todevelop the literary and artistic value of the pl--"

The placid voice, flowing on in gentle great content of itself (whileall the boarders gallantly refrained from eating), was checked by aninterruption which united into one shattering impact the effects oflese-majeste and of violence. 

"Couldn't! No! No parlour! Horrib--"

The words mingled in the throat of the playwright, producing anexplosion somewhere between choke and bellow, as he got upon his feet, overturning his chair and coincidentally dislodging several articles ofchina and glassware. He stood among the ruins for one moment, publiclywiping his brow with a napkin, then plunged, murmuring, out of theroom and up the stairway; and, before any of the company hadrecovered speech, the front door was heard to slam tumultuously, itsreverberations being simultaneous with the sound of footsteps runningdown the stoop. 

Turning northward upon the pavement, the fugitive hurriedly passedthe two lighted windows of the dining-room; they rattled with aconcussion--the outburst of suddenly released voices beginning whatwas to be a protracted wake over the remains of his reputation as agentleman. He fled, flinging on his overcoat as he went. In his pocketswere portions of the manuscript of his play, already distorted sincerehearsal to suit the new nobleness of "Roderick Hanscom, " and amongthese inky sheets was a note from Talbot Potter, received just beforedinner:

Dear Mr. Canby, Come up to my apartments at the Pantheon after dinner and let me seewhat changes you have been able to make in the second and third acts. I should like to look at them before deciding to put on another play Ihave been considering. 

Hastily y'rs, Tal't Potter. 

VI

Canby walked fast, the clamorous dining-room seeming to pursue him, andthe thought of what figure he had cut there filling him with horror ofhimself, though he found a little consolation in wondering if he hadn'tinsulted Miss Cornish because he was a genius and couldn't helpdoing queer things. That solace was slight, indeed; Canby was onlytwenty-seven, but he was frightened. 

The night before he had been as eagerly happy as a boy at Christmas Eve. He had finished his last day at the office, and after initiating theyouth who was to take his desk, had parted with his employer genially, but to the undeniable satisfaction of both. The new career, openingso gloriously, a month earlier, with Talbot Potter's acceptance of theplay, was thus definitely adopted, and no old one left to fall backupon. And Madison Avenue, after dark, shows little to reassure a newplaywright who carries in his pocket a note ending with the words, "before deciding to put on another play I have been considering. " It wasBleak Street, that night, for young Stewart Canby, and a bleak, bleakwalk he took therein. 

Desperate alterations were already scratched into the manuscript; plansfor more and more ran overlapping one another in his mind, accompaniedby phrases--echoes and fragments of Talbot Potter: "Punch! What thisplay needs is Punch!" "Big love scenes!" "Big scene with a man!" "Greatsacrifice for a woman!" "Big-hearted, lovable fellow!" "You dog! So on, so on!" "Zowie!" He must get all this into the play and yet preservehis "third act situation, " leniently admitted to be "quite a fair" one. Slacking his gait somewhat, the tormented young man lifted his hat inorder to run his hand viciously through his hair, which he seemed toblame for everything. Then he muttered, under his breath, indignantly:"Darn you, let me alone!"

Curious bedevilment! It was not Talbot Potter whom he thus adjured: itwas Wanda Malone. And yet, during the rehearsal, he had not once thoughtconsciously of the understudy; and he had come away from the theatreoccupied--exclusively, he would have sworn--with the predicament inwhich he found himself and his play. Surely that was enough to fill andoverflow any new playwright's mind, but, about half an hour after he hadreached his room and set to work upon the manuscript of the secondact, he discovered that he had retained, unawares, a singularly clearimpression of Miss Malone. 

Then, presently, he realized that distinct pictures of her keptcoming between him and his work, and that her voice rang softlyand persistently in his ear. Over and over in that voice's slendermusic--plaintive, laughing, reaching everywhere so clearly--he heard thedetested "line": "What are you two good people conspiring about?" Overand over he saw the slow, comprehending movement with which she removedher hat and veil to let Talbot Potter judge her. And as she stood, withthat critic's eye searching her, Canby remembered that through someuntraceable association of ideas he had inexplicably thought of adrawing of "Florence Dombey" in an old set of Dickens engravings he hadseen at his grandfather's in his boyhood--and had not seen since. Andhe remembered the lilac bushes in bloom on a May morning at hisgrandfather's. Somehow she made him think of them, too. 

And as he sat at his desk, striving to concentrate upon the manuscript, the clearness with which Wanda Malone came before him increased; shebecame more and more vivid to him, and she would not be dismissed; shepersisted and insisted, becoming first an annoyance, and then, as hefought the witchery, a serious detriment to his writing. She became partof every thought about his play, and of every other thought. He did notwant her; he felt no interest in her; he had vital work to do--and shehaunted him, seemed to be in the very room with him. He worked in spiteof her, but she pursued him none the less constantly; she had gone downthe stairs to dinner with him; she floated before him throughout thetorture of Miss Cornish's address; she was present even when he explodedand fled; she was with him now, in this desolate walk toward TalbotPotter's apartment--the pale, symmetrical little face and the relentlesssweet voice commandeering the attention he wanted desperately to keepupon what he meant to say to Potter. 

Once before in his life he had suffered such an experience: that ofhaving his thoughts possessed, against his will, by a person he did notknow and did not care to know. It had followed his happening to see anintoxicated truck-driver lying beneath an overturned wagon. "Easy, boys!Don' mangle me!" the man kept begging his rescuers. And Canby recalledhow "Easy, boys! Don' mangle me!" sounded plaintively in his ears fordays, bothering him in his work at the office. Remembering it now, hefelt a spiteful satisfaction in classing that obsession with this one. It seemed at least a step toward teaching Miss Wanda Malone to know herplace. 

But he got no respite from the siege, and was still incessantlybeleaguered when he encountered the marble severities of the PantheonApartments' entrance hall and those of its field-marshal, who paradedhim stonily to the elevator. Mr. Potter's apartment was upon the twelfthfloor, a facet stated in a monosyllable by the field-marshal, andconfirmed, upon the opening of the cage at that height, by Mr. Potter'svoice melodiously belling a flourish of laughter on the other side ofa closed door bearing his card. It was rich laughter, cadenced and deepand loud, but so musically modulated that, though it might never seemimpromptu, even old Carson Tinker had once declared that he liked tolisten to it almost as much as Potter did. 

Old Carson Tinker was listening to it now, as Canby discovered, aftera lisping Japanese had announced him at the doorway of a cream-colouredLouis Sixteenth salon: an exquisite apartment, delicately personalizedhere and there by luxurious fragilities which would have donecharmingly, on the stage, for a marquise's boudoir. Old Tinker, inevening dress, sat uncomfortably, sideways, upon the edge of a wickerand brocade "chaise lounge, " finishing a tiny glass of chartreuse, whileTalbot Potter, in the middle of the room, took leave of a second guestwho had been dining with him. 

Potter was concluding the rendition of hilarity which had penetrated tothe outer hall, and, merely waving the playwright toward Tinker, sweptthe same gesture upward to complete it by resting a cordial handupon the departing guest's shoulder. This personage, a wasp-figured, languorous youth, with pale plastered hair over a talcum face, flickedhis host lightly upon the breast with a pair of white gloves. 

"None the less, Pottuh, " he said, "why shouldn't you play Othello as amulatto? I maintain, you see, it would be taking a step in technique;they'd get the face, you see. Then I want you to do something really andtruly big: Oedipus. Why not Oedipus? Think of giving the States a thinglike Oedipus done as you could do it! Of coss, I don't say you couldever be another Mewnay-Sooyay. No. I don't go that far. You haven'tMewnay-Sooyay's technique. But you could give us just the savour ofAttic culture--at least the savour, you see. The mere savour would besomething. Why should you keep on producing these cheap little playsthey foist on you? Oh, I know you always score a personal success inthe wahst of them, but they've never given you a Big character--andthe play, outside of you, is always piffle. Of coss, you know whatI've always wanted you to do, what I've constantly insisted in print:Rostand. You commission Rostand to do one of his magnificent things foryou and we serious men will do our part. Now, my duh good chap, I mustbe getting on, or the little gel will be telephoning all round thetown!" He turned to the door, pausing upon the threshold. "Now, don'tlet any of these cheap little fellows foist any of their cheap littleplays on you. This for my stirrup-cup: you cable Rostand tomorrow. Dropthe cheap little things and cable Rostand. Tell him I suggested it, ifyou like. " He disappeared in the hallway, calling back: "My duh Pottuh, good-night!" And the outer door was heard to close. 

Canby, feeling a natural prejudice against this personage, glanceduneasily at Talbot Potter's face and was surprised to find that finebit of modelling contorted with rage. The sight of this emotion wasreassuring, but its source was a mystery, for it had seemed to theplaywright that the wasp-waisted youth's remarks--though horriblydamaging to the cheap little Canbys with their cheap little "RoderickHanscoms"--were on the whole rather flattering to the subject of them, and betokened a real interest in his career. 

"Ass!" said Potter. 

Canby exhaled a breath of relief. He began to feel that it might bepossible to like this man. 

"Ass!" said Potter, striding up and down the room. "Ass! Ass! Ass! Ass!"

And Canby felt easier and happier. He foresaw, too, that there would beno cabling to Rostand, a thing he had naively feared, for a moment, asimminent. 

Potter halted, bursting into speech less monosyllabic but no lessvehement: "Mr. Tinker, did you ever see Mounet-Sully?"

"No. "

"Did you, Mr. Canby?"

"No. "

"Mewnay-Sooyay!" Potter mimicked the pronunciation of his adviser. "'Mewnay-Sooyay! Of coss I don't say YOU could ever be anotherMewnay-Sooyay!' Ass! I'll tell you what Mounet-Sully's 'technique'amounts to, Mr. Tinker. It's yell! Just yell, yell, yell! Does he thinkI can't yell! Why, Packer could open his mouth like a hippopotamus andyell through a part! Ass!"

"Was that young man a-a critic?" Canby asked. 

"No!" shouted Potter. "There aren't any!"

"He writes about theatrical matters, " said Carson Tinker. "Talky-talkwriting: 'the drama'--'temperament'--'people of cultivation'--quotesLatin or Italian or something. 'Technique' is his star word; he plays'technique' for a hand every other line. Doesn't do any harm; in fact, I think he does us a good deal of good. Lots of people read thattalky-talk writing nowadays. Not in New York, but in road-towns, wherethey have plenty of time. This fellow's never against any show much, unless he takes a notion. You slip 'dolsy far nienty' or something aboutDanty or logarithms somewhere into your play, where it won't delay theaction much, and he'll be for you. "

Canby nodded and laughed eagerly. Tinker seemed to take it for grantedthat "Roderick Hanscom" was to be produced in spite of "another play Ihave been considering. "

"There aren't any critics, I tell you!" Potter stormed. "Mounet-Sully!"

"Well, " said old Tinker quietly, "I'd like to believe it, but peoplemaking a living that way have ruined a good many million dollars' worthof property in this town. Some of it was very good property. " He paused, and added: "Some of it was mine, too. "

"Good property?" said the playwright with fresh uneasiness. "You meanthe critics sometimes ruin a good play?"

"How do they know a good play--or good acting?" Tinker returnedplacidly. "Every play you ever saw in your life, some people in theaudience said they thought it was good; some said it was bad. How docritics know any more about it than anybody else? For instance, how cananybody that hasn't been in the business tell what's good acting andwhat's a good part?"

"But a critic--aren't critics in the bus--"

"No. They aren't theatrical people, " said Tinker dryly. "They'rewriters. "

"But some of them must have studied from the inside, " Canby urged, feeling that "Roderick Hanscom's" chances were getting slighter andslighter. "Some of them must have either been managers for a while, oractors--or had plays pro--"

"No, " said Tinker. "If they had they wouldn't do for critics. Theywouldn't have the heart. "

"They oughtn't to have so much power!" the young man exclaimedpassionately. "Think of a playwright working on his play--two years, maybe--night after night--and then, all in one swoop, these fellows thatyou say don't know anything--"

"Power!" Potter laughed contemptuously. "Tinker, you're in your dotage!Look at what I've done: Haven't I made my way in spite of everythingthey could do to stifle me? And have I ever compromised for one moment?Haven't I gone my own way, absolutely?"

"Yes. " Tinker's face was more cryptic than usual. "Yes, indeed!"

"Power! Haven't I made them eat out of my hand? Look at that ass--gladto crawl in here and nibble a crust from my table to-night! Ass!" He hadhalted for a second in front of the manager, but resumed his pacing witha mutter of subterranean thunder: "Mounet-Sully!"

"Hasn't the public got a mind?" cried Canby. "Doesn't the publicunderstand that a good play might be ruined by these scoundrels?"

Old Tinker returned his chartreuse glass to the case whence it came, aminiature sedan chair in silver and painted silk. "The public?" he said. "I've never been able to find out what that was. Just about the time Idecided it was a trained sheep it turned out to be a cyclone. You thinkit's intelligent, and it plays the fool; you decide it's a fool, andit turns out to know more than you do. You make love to it, and it maysidle up and kiss you--or give you a good, hard kick!"

"But if we make this a good play--"

"It won't be a play at all, " said Tinker, "unless the public thinks it'sa good one. A play isn't something you read; it's something actors do ona stage; and they can't afford to do it unless the public pays to watch'em. If it won't buy tickets, you haven't got a play; you've only gotsome typewriting. "

Canby glanced involuntarily at the blue-covered manuscript he had placedupon a table beside him. It had a guilty look. 

"I get confused, " he said. "If the public's so flighty, why does it takeso much stock in what these wolves print about a play?"

"Print. That's it, " old Tinker answered serenely. "Write your opinion ina letter or say it with your mouth, and it doesn't amount to anything. Print's different. You see some nonsense about yourself in a newspaper, and you think I'm an idiot for believing it. But you read nonsense aboutme, and you believe it. You don't stop and think; 'That's a lie; heisn't that sort of a man. ' No. You just wonder why I'm such a darnfool. "

"Then these cannibals have got us where--"

"Dotage!" Talbot Potter broke in, halting under the chandelier. "Tinker's reached his dotage!" He levelled a denouncing forefinger atthe manager. "Do you mean to tell me that if I decide to go on with Mr. Canby's play any critic or combination or cabal of critics can keep itfrom being a success? Then I tell you, you're in your dotage! For onepoint, if I play this part they're going to say it's a big thing; Idon't mean the play, of course, because you must know, yourself, Mr. Canby, we could bribe them into calling it a strong play. We know itisn't, and they'll know it isn't. What I mean is the characterization of'Roderick Hanscom. ' I tell you, if I do it, they're going to call ita big thing. They aren't all maniacs about everything made in France, thank heaven! Rostand! Ass! I'm not playing parts with a clothespin onthe end of my nose!" And again he mimicked the departed visitor: "'Thisfor my stirrup-cup: you cable Rostand tomorrow. ' My soul! Does he thinkI want to play CHICKENS?"

Sulphurously, he resumed his pacing of the floor. 

Old Tinker seemed unaffected by this outburst, but for that matter heseemed unaffected by anything. His dead gaze followed his employer'sto-and-fro striding as a cat's follows a pendulum, but without thecat's curiosity about a pendulum. He never interrupted when Potter wasspeaking; and Canby noticed that whenever Potter talked at any lengthTinker looked thoughtful and distant, like a mechanic so accustomedto the whirr and thunder of the machine-shop that he may indulge inreveries there. After a moment or two the old fellow ceased to followthe pendulum stride, and turned to the playwright. 

"I'll tell you the two surest ways to make what you call the public likea play, Mr. Canby, " he said. "Nothing is sure, but these are the nearestto it. Make 'em laugh. I mean, make 'em laugh after they get home, orthe next day in the office, any time they get to thinking about it. Theother way is to get two actors for your lovers that the audience, youngand old, can't help falling in love with; a young actor that the femalesin the audience think they'd like to marry, and a young actress that themales all think they'd like to marry. It doesn't matter much about thewriting; just have something interfere between them from eight-fifteenuntil along about twenty-five minutes after ten. The two lovers don'tnecessarily have to know much about acting, either, though of courseit's better if they happen to. The best stage-lover I ever knew, and theone that played in the most successes, did happen to understand actingthor--"

"Who was that?" Potter interrupted fiercely. "Mounet-Sully?"

"No. I meant Dora Preston. "

"Never heard of her!"

"No, " said the old man. "You wouldn't. They don't put up monuments topretty actresses, nor write about them in school histories. She droppeddead in her dressing-room one night forty-two years ago. I was thinkingof her to-day; something reminded me of her. "

"Was she a friend of yours, Mr. Tinker?" Canby asked. 

"Friend? No. I was an usher in the old Calumet Theatre, and she ownedNew York. She had this quality; every man in the audience fell in lovewith her. So did the women, too, for that matter, and the actors whoplayed with her. When she played a love-scene, people who'd been marriedthirty years would sit and watch her and hold each other's hands--yes, with tears in their eyes. I've seen 'em. And after the performance, one night, the stage-door keeper, a man seventy years old, was caughtkissing the latch of the door where she'd touched it; and he was sober, too. There was something about her looks and something about her voiceyou couldn't get away from. You couldn't tell to save you what it was, but after you'd seen her she'd seem to be with you for days, and youcouldn't think much about anything else, even if you wanted to. Peopleused to go around in a kind of spell; they couldn't think of anything ortalk of anything but Dora Preston. It didn't matter much what she did;everything she did made you feel like a boy falling in love the firsttime. It made you think of apple-blossoms and moonlight just to look ather. She--"

"See here, Mr. Canby"--Talbot Potter interrupted suddenly. He droppedinto a chair and picked up the manuscript--"See here! I've got an ideathat may save this play. Suppose we let 'Roderick Hanscom' make hissacrifice, not for the heroine, but because he's in love with the othergirl--the ingenue--I've forgotten the name you call her inthe script. I mean the part played by that little Miss Missgirl--Miss-what's-her-name--Wanda Malone!"

Canby stared at Potter in fascinated amazement, his straining eyesshowing the whites above and below the pupils. It was the look of a manstruck dumb by a sudden marvel of telepathy. 

"Why, yes, " he said slowly, when he had recovered his breath, "I believethat would be a good idea!"

VII

For two hours, responding to the manipulation of the star and histhoroughly subjugated playwright, the character of "Roderick Hanscom"grew nobler and nobler, speech by speech and deed by deed, while theexpression of the gentleman who was to impersonate it became, in preciseparallel with this regeneration, sweeter and loftier and lovelier. 

"A little Biblical quotation wouldn't go so bad right in there, " hesaid, when they had finally established the Great Sacrifice for a Woman. "We'll let Roderick have a line like: 'Greater love hath no man thanlaying down his life to save another's. '" He touched a page of themanuscript with his finger. "There's a good place for it. "

"Aren't you afraid it would sound a little--smug?" Canby asked timidly. "The way we've got him now, Roderick seems to me to be always seeinghimself as a splendid man and sort of pointing it out to the--"

"Good gracious!" cried Potter, astounded. "Hasn't it got to be pointedout? The audience hasn't got a whole lifetime to study him in; it's onlygot about two hours. Besides, I don't see what you say; I don't see itat all! It seems to me I've worked him around into being a perfectlynatural character. "

"I suppose you're right, " said Canby, meekly scribbling. 

"Biblical quotations never do any harm to the box-office, " Potter added. "You may not get a hand on 'em, but you'll never get a cough, either. "He looked dreamily at the ceiling. "I've often thought of doing aBiblical play. I'd have it built around the character of St. Paul. That's one they haven't touched yet, and it's new. I wouldn't do it witha beard and long hair. I wouldn't use much makeup. No. Just the face asit is. "

"You can do practically anything with a religious show, " said Tinker. "That's been proved. You can run in gambling and horse-racing andballys, and you'll get people into the house, night after night, thatthink the theatre's wicked and wouldn't go to see 'Rip Van Winkle. ' Theydo a lot of good, too--religious shows--just that way. "

"I think I'd play it in armour, " Potter continued his thought, stillgazing at the ceiling. "I believe it would be a big thing. "

"It might if it was touted right, " said Tinker. "It all depends on thetouting. If you get it touted to the tank towns that you've got a playwith the great religious gonzabo, then your show's a big property. Sameif you get it touted for a great educational gonzabo. Or 'artistic. 'Get it touted right for 'artistic, ' and the tanks'll think they likeit, even if they don't. Look at 'Cyrano'--they liked Mansfield and hisacting, but they didn't like the show. They said they liked the show, and thought they did, but they didn't. If they'd like it as much asthey said they did, that show would be running like 'Uncle Tom's Cabin. 'Speaking of that"--he paused, coughed, and went on--"I'm glad you've gotthe ingenue's part straightened out in this piece. I thought from thefirst it would stand a little lengthening. "

Potter, unheeding, dreamily proceeded: "In silver armour. Might silverthe hair a little--not too much. Play it as a spiritual character, butnot solemn. Wouldn't make it turgid; keep it light. Have the wholeplay spiritual but light. For instance, have room in it for a religiousingenue part--make her a younger sister of Mary Magdalene, say, with St. Paul becoming converted for her sake after he'd been a Roman General. Ibelieve it's a big idea. "

Canby was growing nervous. All this seemed to be rambling farther andfarther from "Roderick Hanscom. " Potter relieved his anxiety, however, after a thoughtful sigh, by saying abruptly: "Well, well, we can't gointo a big production like that, this late in the year. We'll have tosee what can be done with 'Roderick Hanscom. '" He looked at the door, where the Japanese was performing a shrinking curtsey. "What is it, Sato?"

"Miss Pata. "

"Who?"

"Miss Pata. "

A voice called from the hallway: "It's me, Mr. Potter. Packer. "

"Oh, come in! Come in!"

The stage-manager made a deferential entrance. "It's about Miss--"

"Sit down, Packer. "

"Thank you, Mr. Potter. " Evidently considering the command a favour, Packer sat. "I saw Miss Lyston, sir--"

"I won't turn her adrift, " said his employer peevishly. "You see, Mr. Canby, here's another of the difficulties of my position. Miss Lystonhas been with me for several years, and for this piece we've gotsomebody I think will play her part better, but I haven't any other partfor Miss Lyston. And we start so late in the season, this year, she'llprobably not be able to get anything else to do; so she's on my hands. I can't turn people out in the snow like that. Some managers can, butI can't. And yet I have letters begging me for all kinds of charitiesevery day. They don't know what my company costs me in money likethis--absolutely thrown away so far as any benefit to me is concerned. And often I find I've been taken advantage of, too. I shouldn't be atall surprised to find that Miss Lyston has comfortable investments rightnow, and that she's only scheming to--Packer, don't you know whethershe's been saving her salary or not? If you don't you ought to. "

"I came to tell you, sir. I thought you might be relieved to know. Wedon't have to bother about her, Mr. Potter. I've been to see her ather flat, this evening, and she's as anxious to get away from us, Mr. Potter, as we are to--"

The star rose to his feet, his face suffusing. "You sit there, "he exclaimed, "and tell me that a member of my company finds theassociation so distasteful that she wants to get away!"

"Oh, no, Mr. Potter!" the stage-manager protested. "Not that at all!She's very sorry to go. She asked me to tell you that she felt she wasgiving up a great honour, and to thank you for all your kindness toher. "

"Go on!" Potter sternly bade him. "Why does she wish to leave mycompany?"

"Why, it seems she's very much in love with her husband, sir, VorleySurbilt--"

"It doesn't seem possible, " said Potter, shaking his head. "I know him, and it sounds like something you're making up as you go along, Packer. "

"Indeed, I'm not, Mr. Potter!" the stage-manager cried, in simpledistress. "I wouldn't know how. "

"Go on!"

"Well, sir, it seems Vorly Surbilt was to go out with Mrs. Romaley, andit seems that when Miss Lyston left rehearsal she drove around till shefound him--"

"Ah! I knew she was fooling me! I knew she wasn't sick! Went to drivewith her husband, and I pay the cab bill!"

"No, no, sir! I forgot to tell you; she wouldn't let me pay it. She tookhim home and put him to bed--and from what I heard on Broadway it wastime somebody did! It seems they'd had an offer to go into a vaudevillepiece together, and after she got him to bed she telephoned thevaudeville man, and had him bring up a contract, and they signed it, though she had to guide Vorley's hand for him. Anyway, he's signed upall right, and so is she. That's why she was so anxious about fixing itup with us. I told her it would be all right. "

Potter relapsed into his chair in an attitude of gloom. "So they'vebegun to leave Talbot Potter's company!" he said, nodding his head withbitter melancholy. "For vaudeville! I'd better go to farming at once; Ioften think of it. What sort of an act is it that Miss Lyston prefers toremaining with me? Acrobatic?"

"It's a little play, " said Packer. "It's from the Grand Guignol. "

"French!" Potter this simply as an added insult on the part of MissLyston. "French!"

"They say it's a wonderful little thing, " said Packer innocently, butit was as if he had run a needle into his sensitive employer. Potterinstantly sprang up again with a cry of pain. 

"Of course it's wonderful! It's French; everything French is wonderful, magnificent, Supreme! Everything French is HOLY! Good God, Packer!You'll be telling me what my 'technique' ought to be, next!"

He hurled himself again into the chair and moaned, then in a dismalvoice inquired; "Miss Lyston struck you as feeling that her conditionin life was distinctly improved by this ascent into vaudeville, didn'tshe?"

"Oh, not at all, Mr. Potter! But, of course, " Packer explaineddeprecatingly, "she's pleased to have Vorly where she can keep an eyeon him. She said that though she was all broken up about leaving thecompany, she expected to be very happy in looking after him. You see, sir, it's the first time in all their married life they've had a chanceto be together except one summer when neither of 'em could get a stockengagement. "

Potter made no reply but to shake his head despondently, and Packer satsilent in deference, as if waiting to be questioned further. It wasthe playwright who presently filled the void. "Why haven't Mr. And Mrs. Surbilt gone into the same companies, if they care to be together? Ishould think they'd have made it a point to get engagements in the sameones. "

Packer looked disturbed. "It's not done much, " he said. 

"Besides, Vorly Surbilt plays leading parts with women stars, " oldTinker volunteered. "You see, naturally, it wouldn't do at all. "

"Jealousy, you mean?"

"Not necessarily the kind you're thinking of. But it just doesn't do. "

"Some managers will allow married couples in their companies, " Pottersaid, adding emphatically: "I won't! I never have and I never will!Never! There's just one thing every soul in my support has got to keepworking for, and that is a high-tension performance every night in theyear. If married people are in love with each other, they're going tothink more about that than about the fact that they're working for me. If they aren't in love with each other, there's the devil to pay. I'dlet the best man or woman in the profession go--and they could go tovaudeville, for all I cared!--if I had to keep their wives or husbandstravelling with us. I won't have 'em! My soul! I don't marry, do I?"

Packer rose. "Is there anything else for me, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes. Take this interlined script, get some copies typewritten, and seethat the company's sides are changed to suit it. Be especially carefulabout that young Miss--ah--Miss Malone's. You'll find her part isaltered considerably, and will be even more, when Mr. Canby gets thedialogue for other changes finished. He'll let you have them to-morrow. By the way, Packer, where did you find--" He paused, stretched out hishand to the miniature sedan chair of liqueurs, took a decanter and tinyglass therefrom, and carefully poured himself a sparkling emerald ofcreme de menthe. "Will you have something, Mr. Canby?" he asked. "You, Tinker?"

Both declined in silence; they seemed preoccupied. 

"Where did I what, Mr. Potter?" asked the stage-manager, reminding himof the question left unfinished. 

"What?"

"You said: 'By the way, where did you find--'"

"Oh, yes. " Potter smiled negligently. "Where did you find that littleMiss Malone? At the agents'?"

Packer echoed him: "Where did I find her?" He scratched his head. "Miss"--he said ruminatively, repeating the word slowly, like a mantrying to work out the solution of a puzzle--"Miss--"

"Miss Malone. I suppose you got her at an agent's?"

"Let's see, " said Packer. "At an agent's? No. No, it wasn't. Come tothink of it, it wasn't. "

"Then where did you get her?" Tinker inquired. 

"That's what I just asked him, " Potter said, placing his glass upon atable without having tasted the liqueur. "What's the matter, Packer?Gone to sleep?"

"I remember now, " said Packer, laughing deferentially. "Of course! No. It wasn't through any of the agents. Now I remember--come to think ofit--I sort of ran across her myself, as a matter of fact. I wasn't justsure who you meant at first. You mean the understudy, the one that'sto play Miss Lyston's part, that Miss--Miss--" He snapped a finger andthumb to spur memory and then, as in triumphant solution of his puzzle, cried, "Ma--Malone! Miss Malone!"

"Yes, " said Potter, looking upon him darkly. "Where did you sort of runacross her, come to think of it, as a matter of fact?"

"Oh, I remember all about it, now, " said Packer brightly. "Why, she wasplaying last summer in stock out at Seeleyville, Pennsylvania. That'sonly about six miles from Packer's Ridge, where my father lives. I spenta couple of weeks with him, and we trolleyed over one evening to see'The Little Minister, ' because father got it in his head some way thatit was about the Baptists, and I couldn't talk him out of it. It wasn'tas bad a performance as you'd think, and this little girl was a prettyfair 'Babbie. ' Father forgot all about the Baptists and kept talkingabout her after we got home, until nothing would do but we must go overand see that show again. He wanted to take her right out to the farm andadopt her--or something; he's a widower, and all alone out there. Factis, I had all I could do to keep him from going around to ask her, andI was pretty near afraid he'd speak to her from the audience. Well, tosatisfy him, I did go around after the show, and gave her my card, andtold her if I could do anything for her in New York to let me know. Ofcourse, naturally, when I got back to town I forgot all about it, butI got a note from her that she was here, looking for an engagement, thevery day you told me to scare up an understudy. So I thought she mightdo as well as anybody I'd get at the agent's, and I let her have it. " Hedrew a breath of relief, like that of a witness leaving the stand, andwith another placative laugh, letting his eyes fall humbly under thesteady scrutiny of his master, he concluded: "Of course I remember allabout it, only at first I wasn't sure which one you meant; it's such alarge company. "

"I see, " said Potter grimly. "You engaged her to please your father. "

"Oh, Mr. Potter!" the stage-manager protested. "If you don't like her--"

"That will do!" Potter cut him off, and paced the floor, virulentlybrooding. "And so Talbot Potter's company is to be made up of actorsengaged to suit the personal whims of L. Smith Packer's father, oldMister Packer of Baptist Ridge, near Seeleyville, Pennsylvania!"

"But, Mr. Potter, if you don't--"

"I said that would DO!" roared Potter. "Good-night!"

"Good-night, sir, " said the stage-manager humbly, and humbly got himselfout of the room, to be heard, an instant later, bidding the Japanese anapologetic good-night at the outer door of the apartment. 

Canby rose to take his own departure, promising to have the new dialogue"worked out" by morning. 

"He is, too!" said Potter, not heeding the playwright, but confirming anunuttered thought in his own mind. He halted at the table, where hehad set his tiny glass, and gulped the emerald at a swallow. "I alwaysthought he was!"

"Was what?" inquired old Tinker. 

"A hypocrite!"

"D'you mean Packer?" said Tinker incredulously. 

"He's a hypocrite!" Potter shouted fiercely. "And I shouldn't besurprised if his father was another! Widower! I never saw the man in mylife, but I'd swear it on oath! He is a hypocrite! Packer's father is adamned old Baptist hypocrite!"

VIII

With this sonorous bit of character reading still ringing in hisears, Canby emerged from the cream-coloured apartment to find thestoop-shouldered figure of the also hypocritical son leaning wearilyagainst the wall, waiting for a delaying elevator. The attitude wasnot wholly devoid of pathos, to Canby's view of it. Neither wasthe careworn, harried face, unharmoniously topped by a green hat sosparklingly jaunty, not only in colour but in its shape and the angleof its perch, that it was outright hilarious, and, above the face ofPacker, made the playwright think pityingly of a St. Patrick's Day partyholding a noisy celebration upon a hearse. 

Its wearer nodded solemnly as the elevator bounced up, flashing, andsettled to the level of the floor; but the quick drop through the longshaft seemed to do the stage-manager a disproportionate amount of good. Halfway down he emitted a heavy "Whew!" of relief and threw back hisshoulders. He seemed to swell, to grow larger; lines verged into thetexture of his face, disappearing; and with them went care and seemingyears. Canby had casually taken him to be about forty, but so radicalwas the transformation of him that, as the distance from his harrowingoverlord increased, the playwright beheld another kind of creature. Inplace of the placative, middle-aged varlet, troubled and hurryingto serve, there stepped out of the elevator, at the street level, adeep-chested, assertive, manly adventurer, about thirty, kindly eyed, picturesque, and careless. The green hat belonged to him perfectly. 

He gave Canby a look of burlesque ruefulness over his shoulder, thecomedy appeal of one schoolboy to another as they leave a scoldingteacher on the far side of the door. "The governor does keep himselfworked up!" he laughed, as they reached the street and paused. "If itisn't one thing, it's some thing!"

"Perhaps it's my play just now, " said Canby. "I was afraid, earlier thisevening, he meant to drop it. Making so many changes may have upset hisnerves. "

"Lord bless your soul! No!" exclaimed the new Packer. "His nerves areall right! He's always the same! He can't help it!"

"I thought possibly he might have been more upset than usual, " Canbysaid. "There was a critic or something that--"

"No, no, Mr. Canby!" Packer chuckled. "New plays and critics, they don'tworry him any more than anything else. Of course he isn't going to bepleased with any critics. Most of them give him splendid notices, butthey don't please him. How could they?"

"He's always the same, you think?" Canby said blankly. 

"Always--always at top pitch, that is, and always unexpected. You'll seeas you get to know him. You won't know him any better than you donow, Mr. Canby; you'll only know him more. I've been with him for fouryears--stage-manager--hired man--maid-of-all-work--order his meals forhim in hotels--and I guess old Tinker and I know him as well as anybodydoes, but it's a mighty big job to handle him just right. It keeps ushopping, but that's bread and butter. Not much bread and butter anywherethese days unless you do hop! We all have to hop for somebody!" Hechuckled again, and then unexpectedly became so serious he was almosttruculent. "And I tell you, Mr. Canby, " he cried, "by George! I'dsooner hop for Talbot Potter than for any other man that ever walked theearth!"

He took a yellow walking-stick from under his arm, thrust the manuscriptPotter had given him into the pocket of his light overcoat, and badehis companion good-night with a genial flourish of the stick. "Subway toBrooklyn for mine. Your play will go, all right; don't worry about that, Mr. Canby. Good-night and good luck, Mr. Canby. "

Canby went the other way, marvelling. 

It was eleven; and for half an hour the theatres had been releasingtheir audiences to the streets;--the sidewalks were bobbing andfluttering; automobiles cometed by bleating peevishly. Suddenly, throughthe window of a limousine, brilliantly lighted within, Canby saw theface of Wanda Malone, laughing, and embowered in white furs. He stopped, startled; then he realized that Wanda Malone's hair was not red. Thegirl in the limousine had red hair, and was altogether unlike WandaMalone in feature and expression. 

He walked on angrily. 

Immediately a slender girl, prettily dressed, passed him. She clungcharmingly to the arm of a big boy; and to Canby's first glance she wasWanda Malone. Wrenching his eyes from her, he saw Wanda Malone acrossthe street getting into a taxicab, and then he stumbled out of theway of a Wanda Malone who almost walked into him. Wherever there was agraceful gesture or turn of the head, there was Wanda Malone. 

He wheeled, and walked back toward Broadway, and thought he caught aglimpse of Packer going into a crowded drug-store near the corner. Theman he took to be Packer lifted his hat and spoke to a girl who wassitting at a table and drinking soda-water, but when she looked upand seemed to be Wanda Malone with a blue veil down to her nose, Canbyturned on his heel, face-about, and headed violently for home. 

When he reached quieter streets his gait slackened, and he walkedslowly, lost in deep reverie. By and by he came to a halt, and stoodstill for several minutes without knowing it. Slowly he came out of thetrance, wondering where he was. Then he realized that his staringeyes had halted him automatically; and as they finally conveyed theirinformation to his conscious mind, he perceived that he was standingdirectly in front of a saloon, and glaring at the sign upon the window:

ALES WINES LIQUORS AND CIGARS

TIM MALONE

At that, somewhere in his inside, he cried out, in a kind of anguish:"Isn't there anything--anywhere--any more--except Wanda Malone!"

IX

"Second act, ladies and gentlemen!" cried Packer, at precisely teno'clock the next morning. 

About a dozen actors were chatting in small groups upon the stage;three or four paced singly, muttering and mildly gesticulating, withthe fretful preoccupation of people trying to remember; two or three, seated, bent over their typewritten "sides, " studying intently; and afew, invisible from the auditorium, were scattered about the rearwardrooms and passageways. Talbot Potter, himself, was nowhere to be seen, and, what was even more important to one tumultuously beating heart "infront, " neither was Wanda Malone. Mr. Stewart Canby in a silverynew suit, wearing a white border to his waistcoat collar and otherdecorations proper to a new playwright, sat in the centre of the frontrow of the orchestra. Yesterday he had taken a seat about nine rowsback. 

He bore no surface signs of the wear and tear of a witches' night;riding his runaway play and fighting the enchantment that was upon him. Elastic twenty-seven does not mark a bedless session with violet arcsbelow its eyes;--what violet a witch had used upon Stewart Canby thismorning appeared as a dewey boutonniere in the lapel of his new coat; hewas that far gone. 

Miss Ellsling and a youth of the company took their places near thefront of the stage and began the rehearsal of the second act with adialogue that led up to the entrance of the star with the "ingenue, "both of whom still remained out of the playwright's range of vision. 

As the moment for their appearance drew near, Canby became, to his ownrage, almost uncontrollably agitated. Miss Ellsling's scene, which heshould have followed carefully, meant nothing to him but a ticking offof the seconds before he should behold with his physical eyes theliving presence of the fairy ghost that had put a spell upon him. He wastremulous all over. 

Miss Ellsling and her companion came to a full stop and stood waiting. Thereupon Packer went to the rear of the stage, leaned through an opendoorway, and spoke deferentially:

"Mr. Potter? All ready, sir. All ready, Miss--ah--Malone?"

Then he stepped back with the air of an unimportant person making wayfor his betters to pass before him, while Canby's eyes fixed themselvesglassily upon the shabby old doorway through which an actual, breathingWanda Malone was to come. 

But he was destined not to see her appear in that expectant frame. Twenty years before--though he had forgotten it--in a dazzling roomwhere there was a Christmas tree, he had uttered a shriek of ecstatictimidity just as a jingling Santa Claus began to emerge from behindthe tree, and he had run out of the room and out of the house. He didexactly the same thing now, though this time the shriek was not vocal. 

Suffocating, he fled up the aisle and out into the lobby. There headdressed himself distractedly but plainly:

"Jackass!"

Breathing heavily, he went out to the wide front steps of the theatreand stood, sunlit Broadway swimming before him. 

"Hello, Canby!"

A shabby, shaggy, pale young man, with hot eyes, checked his ardent gaitand paused, extending a cordial, thin hand, the fingers browned at thesides by cigarettes smoked to the bitter end. "Rieger, " he said. "ArnoldRieger. Remember me at the old Ink Club meetings before we broke up?"

"Yes, " said Canby dimly. "Yes. The old Ink Club. I came out for a breathof air. Just a breath. "

"We used to settle the universe in that little back restaurant room, "said Rieger. "Not one of use had ever got a thing into print--and me, Ihaven't yet, for that matter. Editors still hate my stuff. I've kept myoath, though; I've never compromised--never for a moment. "

"Yes, " Canby responded feebly, wondering what the man was talking about. Wanda Malone was surely on the stage, now. If he turned, walked aboutthirty feet, and opened a door, he would see her--hear her speaking!

"I've had news of your success, " said Rieger. "I saw in the paper thatTalbot Potter was to put on a play you'd written. I congratulate you. That man's a great artist, but he never seems to get a good play; he'salways much, much greater than his part. I'm sure you've given him areal play at last. I remember your principles: Realism; no compromise!The truth; no shirking it, no tampering with it! You've struck out forthat--you've never compro--"

"No. Oh, no, " said Canby, waking up a little. "Of course you've got tomake a little change or two in plays. You see, you've got to make anactor like a play or he won't play it, and if he won't play it youhaven't got any play--you've only got some typewriting. "

Rieger set his foot upon the step and rested his left forearm upon hisknee, and attitude comfortable for street debate. "Admitting the truthof that for the sake of argument, and only for the moment, because Idon't for one instant accept such a jesuitism--"

"Yes, " said Canby dreamily. "Yes. " And, with not only apparent butgenuine unconsciousness of this one-time friend's existence, he turnedand walked back into the lobby, and presently was vaguely aware thatsomebody near the street doors of the theatre seemed to be in a temper. Somebody kept shouting "Swell-headed pup!" and "Go to the devil!"at somebody else repeatedly, but finally went away, after reaching avociferous climax of even harsher epithets and instructions. 

The departure of this raging unknown left the lobby quiet; Canby hadgone near to the inner doors. Listening fearfully, he heard throughthese a murmurous baritone cadencing: Talbot Potter declaiming theinwardness of "Roderick Hanscom"; and then--oh, bells of Elfland faintlychiming!--the voice of Wanda Malone!

He pressed, trembling, against the doors, and went in. 

Talbot Potter and Wanda Malone stood together, the two alone in thegreat hollow space of the stage. The actors of the company, silentand remote, watched them; old Tinker, halfway down an aisle, stoodlistening; and near the proscenium two workmen, tools in their hands, had paused in attitudes of arrested motion. Save for the voices of thetwo players, the whole vast cavern of the theatre was as still as thevery self of silence. And the stirless air that filled it was chargedwith necromancy. 

Rehearsal is like the painted canvas without a frame; it is more like aplaster cast, most like of all to the sculptor's hollow moulds. It needsthe bronze to bring a statue to life, and it needs the audience to bringa play to life. Some glamour must come from one to the other; some windof enchantment must blow between them--there must be a magic spell. Butthese two actors had produced the spell without the audience. 

And yet they were only reading a wistful little love-scene that StewartCanby had written the night before. 

Two people were falling in love with each other, neither realizing it. And these two who played the lovers had found some hidden rhythm thatbrought them together in one picture as a chord is one sound. Theyplayed to each other and with each other instinctively; Talbot Potterhad forgotten "the smile" and all the mechanism that went with it. Thetwo held the little breathless silences of lovers; they broke thesesilences timidly, and then their movements and voices ran togetherlike waters in a fountain. A radiance was about them as it is about alllovers; they were suffused with it. 

To Stewart Canby, watching, they seemed to move within a sorcerer'scircle of enchantment. Upon his disturbed mind there was dawning aconviction that these inspired mummers were beings apart from him, knowing things he never could know, feeling things he never could feel, belonging to another planet whither he could never voyage, wherestrange winds blew and all things lived and grew in a light beyond hisunderstanding. For the light that shone in the faces of these two was"the light that never was, on sea or land. "

It had its blessing for him. From that moment, if he had known it, thisplay, which was being born of so many parents, was certain of "success, "of "popularity, " and of what quality of renown such things may bring. And he who was to be called its author stood there a Made Man, unlesssome accident befell. 

Miss Ellsling spoke and came forward, another actor with her. Thescene was over. There was a clearing of throats; everybody moved. Thestage-carpenter and his assistant went away blinking, like men rousedfrom deep sleep. The routine of rehearsal resumed its place; and oldTinker, who had not stirred a muscle, rubbed the back of his necksuddenly, and came up the aisle to Canby. 

"Good business!" he cried. "Did you see that little run off the stageshe made when Miss Ellsling came on? And you saw what he can do when hewants to!"

"He?" Canby echoed. "He?"

"Played for the scene instead of himself. Oh, he can do it! He's an oldhand--got too many tricks in the bag to let her get the piece away fromhim--but he's found a girl that can play with him at last, and he'll useevery value she's got. He knows good property when he sees it. She's gota pretty good box of tricks herself; stock's the way to learn 'em, butit's apt to take the bloom off. It hasn't taken off any of hers, thedarlin'! What do you think, Mr. Canby?"

To Canby, who hardly noticed that this dead old man had come to life, the speech was jargon. The playwright was preoccupied with the fact thatTalbot Potter was still on the stage, would continue there until therather distant end of the act, and that the "ingenue, " after completingthe little run at her exit, had begun to study the manuscript of herpart, and in that absorption had disappeared through a door into therear passageway. Canby knew that she was not to be "on" again until thenext act, and he followed a desperate impulse. 

"See a person, " he mumbled, and went out through the lobby, turned southto the cross-street, proceeded thereby to the stage-door of the theatre, and resolutely crossed the path of the distrustful man who loungedthere. 

"Here!" called the distrustful man. 

"I'm with the show, " said Canby, an expression foreign to his lips and aclear case of inspiration. The distrustful man waved him on. 

Wanda Malone was leaning against the wall at the other end of thepassageway, studying her manuscript. She did not look up until he pausedbeside her. 

"Miss Malone, " he began. "I have come--I have come--I have-ah--"

These were his first words to her. She did nothing more than look at himinquiringly, but with such radiance that he floundered to a stop. Therewere only two things within his power to do: he had either to cough orto speak much too sweetly. 

"There's a draught here, " she said, Christian anxiety roused by theparoxysm which rescued him from the damning alternative. "You oughtn'tto stand here perhaps, Mr. Canby. "

"'Canby?'" he repeated inquiringly, the name seeming new to him. "Canby?"

"You're Mr. Canby, aren't you?"

"I meant where--who--" he stammered. "How did you know?"

"The stage-manager pointed you out to me yesterday at rehearsal. I was soexcited! You're the first author I ever saw, you see. I've been in stockwhere we don't see authors. "

"Do you--like it?" he said. "I mean stock. Do you like stock? How muchdo you like stock? I ah--" Again he fell back upon the faithful olddevice of nervous people since the world began. 

"I'm sure you oughtn't to stand in this passageway, " she urged. 

"No, no!" he said hurriedly. "I love it! I love it! I haven't anycold. It's the air. That's what does it. " He nodded brightly, with theexpression of a man who knows the answer to everything. "It's bad forme. "

"Then you--"

"No, " he said, and went back to the beginning. "I have come--I wantedto come--I wished to say that I wi--" He put forth a manful effort whichmade him master of the speech he had planned. "I want to thank you forthe way you play your part. What I wrote seemed dry stuff, but when youact it, why, then, it seems to be--beautiful!"

"Oh! Do you think so?" she cried, her eyes bedewing ineffably. "Do youthink so?"

"Oh--I--oh!--" He got no further, and, although a stranger to thecontext of this conversation might have supposed him to be speaking ofa celebrated commonwealth, Mother of Presidents, his meaning wassufficiently clear to Wanda Malone. 

"You're lovely to me, " she said, wiping her eyes. "Lovely! I'll neverforget it! I'll never forget anything that's happened to me all thisbeautiful, beautiful week!"

The little kerchief she had lifted to her eyes was wet with tears not ofthe stage. "It seems so foolish!" she said bravely. "It's because I'm sohappy! Everything has come all at once, this week. I'd never been in NewYork before in my life. Doesn't that seem funny for a girl that's beenon the stage ever since she left school? And now I am here, all atonce I get this beautiful part you've written, and you tell me you likeit--and Mr. Potter says he likes it. Oh! Mr. Potter's just beautiful tome! Don't you think Mr. Potter's wonderful, Mr. Canby?"

The truth about Mr. Canby's opinion of Mr. Potter at this moment was notto the playwright's credit. However, he went only so far as to say: "Ididn't like him much yesterday afternoon. "

"Oh, no, no!" she said quickly. "That was every bit my fault. I wasfrightened and it made me stupid. And he's just beautiful to me to-day!But I'd never mind anything from a man that works with you as he does. It's the most wonderful thing! To a woman who loves her profession forits own sake--"

"You do, Miss Malone?"

"Love it?" she cried. "Is there anything like it in the world?"

"I might have known you felt that, from your acting, " he said, managingsomehow to be coherent, though it was difficult. 

"Oh, but we all do!" she protested eagerly. "I believe all actors loveit more than they love life itself. Don't think I mean those that nevergrew up out of their 'show-off' time in childhood. Those don't count, in what I mean, any more than the 'show-girls' and heaven knows what notthat the newspapers call 'actresses'. Oh, Mr. Canby, I mean the peoplewith the art and the fire born in them: those who must come to the stageand who ought to and who do. It isn't because we want to be 'looked at'that we go on the stage and starve to stay there! It's because we wantto make pictures--to make pictures of characters in plays for peoplein audiences. It's like being a sculptor or painter; only we paint andmodel with ourselves--and we're different from sculptors and paintersbecause they do their work in quiet studios, while we do ours underthe tension of great crowds watching every stroke we make--and, oh, theexhilaration when they show us we make the right stroke!"

"Bravo!" he said. "Bravo!"

"Isn't it the greatest of all the arts? Isn't it?" she went on with thesame glowing eagerness. "We feed our nerves to it, and our lives to it, and are glad! It makes us different from other people. But what ofthat? Don't we give ourselves? Don't we live and die just to makethese pictures for the world? Oughtn't the world to be thankful for us?Oughtn't it? Oh, it is, Mr. Canby; it is thankful for us; and I, forone, never forget that a Prime Minister of England was proud to warmDavy Garrick's breeches at the grate for him!"

She clapped her hands together in a gesture of such spirit and fire thatCanby could have thrown his hat in the air and cheered, she had liftedhim so clear of his timidity. 

"Bravo!" he cried again. "Bravo!"

At that she blushed. "What a little goose I am!" she cried. "Playing theorator! Mr. Canby, you mustn't mind--"

"I won't!"

"It's because I'm so happy, " she explained--to his way of thinking, divinely. "I'm so happy I just pour out everything. I want to sing everyminute. You see, it seemed such a long while that I was waiting for mychance. Some of us wait forever, Mr. Canby, and I was so afraid minemight never come. If it hadn't come now it might never have come. IfI'd missed this one, I might never have had another. It frightens me tothink of it--and I oughtn't to be thinking of it! I ought to be spendingall my time on my knees thanking God that old Mr. Packer got it into hishead that 'The Little Minister' was a play about the Baptists!"

"I don't see--"

"If he hadn't, " she said, "I wouldn't be here!"

"God bless old Mr. Packer!"

"I hope you mean it, Mr. Canby. " She blushed again, because there wasno possible doubt that he meant it. "It seems a miracle to me that I amhere, and that my chance is here with me, at last. It's twice as gooda chance as it was yesterday, thanks to you. You've given me suchbeautiful new things to do and such beautiful new things to say. HowI'll work at it! After rehearsal this afternoon I'll learn every word ofit in the tunnel before I get to my station in Brooklyn. That's funny, too, isn't it; the first time I've ever been to New York I go and boardover in Brooklyn! But it's a beautiful place to study, and by the timeI get home I'll know the lines and have all the rest of the time for thereal work: trying to make myself into a faraway picture of the adorablegirl you had in your mind when you wrote it. You see--"

She checked herself again. "Oh! Oh!" she said, half-laughing, half-ashamed. "I've never talked so much in my life! You see it seems tome that the whole world has just burst into bloom!"

She radiated a happiness that was almost tangible; it was a glow soreal it seemed to warm and light that dingy old passageway. Certainly itwarmed and lighted the young man who stood there with her. For him, too, the whole world was transfigured, and life just an orchard to walkthrough in perpetual April morning. 

The voice of Packer proclaimed: "Two o'clock, ladies and gentlemen!Rehearsal two o'clock this afternoon!"

The next moment he looked into the passageway. "This afternoon'srehearsal, two o'clock, Miss--ahh--Malone. Oh, Mr. Canby, Mr. Potterwants you to go to lunch with him and Mr. Tinker. He's waiting. Thisway, Mr. Canby. "

"In a moment, " said the young playwright. "Miss Malone, you spoke ofyour going home to work at making yourself into 'the adorable girl'I had in my mind when I wrote your part. It oughtn't"--he faltered, growing red--"it oughtn't to take much--much work!"

And, breathless, he followed the genially waiting Packer. 

X

"Your overcoat, Mr. Potter!" called that faithful servitor as Potterwas going out through the theatre with old Tinker and Canby. "You'veforgotten your overcoat, sir. "

"I don't want it. "

"Yes sir; but it's a little raw to-day. " He leaped down into theorchestra from the high stage, striking his knee upon a chair withviolence, but, pausing not an instant for that, came running up theaisle carrying the overcoat. "You might want it after you get out intothe air, Mr. Potter. I'm sure Mr. Tinker or Mr. Canby won't mind takingcharge of it for you until you feel like putting it on. "

"Lord! Don't make such a fuss, Packer. Put it on me--put it on me!"

He extended his arms behind him, and was enveloped solicitously andreverently in the garment. 

"Confound him!" said Potter good-humouredly, as they came out into thelobby. "It is chilly; he's usually right, the idiot!"

Turning from Broadway, at the corner, they went over to Fifth Avenue, where Potter's unconsciousness of the people who recognized and staredat him was, as usual, one of the finest things he did, either upon thestage or "off. " Superb performance as it was, it went for nothing withStewart Canby, who did not even see it, for he walked entranced, not ina town, but through orchards in bloom. 

If Wanda Malone had remained with him, clear and insistent afteryesterday's impersonal vision of her at rehearsal, what was she now, when every tremulous lilt of the zither-string voice, and every littlegesture of the impulsive hands, and every eager change of the glowingface, were fresh and living, in all their beautiful reality, but amatter of minutes past? He no longer resisted the bewitchment; he wantedall of it. His companions and himself were as trees walking, and whenthey had taken their seats at a table in the men's restaurant of a hotelwhere he had never been, he was not roused from his rapturous apathyeven by the conduct of probably the most remarkable maitre d'hotel inthe world. 

"You don't git 'em!" said this personage briefly, when Potter hadordered chops and "oeufs a la creole" and lettuce salad, from a card. "You got to eat partridge and asparagus tips salad!"

And he went away, leaving the terrible Potter resigned and unrebellious. 

The partridge was undeniable when it came; a stuffed man would haveeaten it. But Talbot Potter and his two guests did little more thannibble it; they neither ate nor talked, and yet they looked anythingbut unhappy. Detached from their surroundings, as they sat overtheir coffee, they might have been taken to be three poetic gentlemenlistening to a serenade. 

After a long and apparently satisfactory silence, Talbot Potter lookedat his watch, but not, as it proved, to see if it was time to return tothe theatre, his ensuing action being to send a messenger to procurea fresh orchid to take the place of the one that had begun to droop alittle from his buttonhold. He attached the new one with an attentivegravity shared by his companions. 

"Good thing, a boutonniere, " he explained. "Lighten it up a little. Rehearsal's dry work, usually. Thinking about it last night. Why notlighten it up a little? Why shouldn't an actor dress as well for acompany of strangers at a reception? Ought to make it as cheerful as wecan. "

"Yes, " said Tinker, nodding. "Something in that. I believe they workbetter. I must say I never saw much better work than those people weredoing this morning. It was a fine rehearsal. "

"It's a fine company, " Potter said warmly. "They're the best people Iever had. They're all good, every one of them, and they're putting theirhearts into this play. It's the kind of work that makes me proud tobe an actor. I am proud to be an actor! Is there anything better?"He touched the young playwright on the arm, a gesture that hintedaffection. "Stewart Canby, " he said, "I want to tell you I think we'regoing to make a big thing out of this play. It's going to be the bestI've ever done. It's going to be beautiful!"

From the doorway into the lobby of the hotel there came a pretty soundof girlish voices whispering and laughing excitedly, and, glancing thatway, the three men beheld a group of peering nymphs who fled, delighted. 

"Ladies stop to rubber at Mr. Potter, " explained the remarkableheadwaiter over the star's shoulder. "Mr. Potter, it's time you gotmarrit, anyhow. You git marrit, you don't git stared at so much!" Hepaused not for a reply, but hastened away to countermand the order ofanother customer. 

"Married, " said Potter musingly. "Well, there is such a thing asremaining a bachelor too long--even for an actor. "

"Widower, either, " assented Mr. Tinker as from a gentle reverie. "Aman's never too old to get married. "

His employer looked at him somewhat disapprovingly, but said nothing;and presently the three rose, without vocal suggestion from any of them, and strolled thoughtfully back to the theatre, pausing a moment by theway, while Tinker bought a white carnation for his buttonhole. There wasa good deal, he remarked absent-mindedly, in what Mr. Potter had saidabout lightening up a rehearsal. 

Probably there never was a more lightened-up rehearsal than thatafternoon's. Potter's amiability continued;--nay, it increased: he wascordial; he was angelic; he was exalted and unprecedented. A strangerwould have thought Packer the person in control; and the actors, losingtheir nervousness, were allowed to display not only their energy buttheir intelligence. The stage became a cheery workshop, where ambitionflourished and kindness was the rule. For thus did the starry happinessthat glowed within the beatific bosom of the little "ingenue" makeArcady around her. 

At four o'clock Talbot Potter stepped to the front of the stage andlifted his hand benevolently. "That will do for to-day, " he said, facingthe company. "Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you. I have never hada better rehearsal, and I think it is only your due to say you havepleased me very much, indeed. I cannot tell you how much. I feelstrongly assured of our success in this play. Again I thank you. Ladies and gentlemen"--he waved his hand in dismissal--"till to-morrowmorning. "

"By Joles!" old Carson Tinker muttered. "I never knew anything like it!"

"Oh--ah--Packer, " called the star, as the actors moved toward the doors. "Packer, ask Miss--Malone to wait a moment. I want--I'd like to go overa little business in the next act before tomorrow. "

"Yes, Mr. Potter?" It was she who answered, turning eagerly to him. 

"In a moment, Miss Malone. " He spoke to the stage-manager in a low tone, and the latter came down into the auditorium, where Canby and Tinker hadremained in their seats. 

"He says for you not to wait, gentlemen. There's nothing more to do thisafternoon, and he may be detained quite a time. "

The violet boutonniere and the white carnation went somewhat reluctantlyup the aisle together, and, after a last glance back at the stage fromthe doorway, found themselves in the colder air of the lobby, a littlewilted. 

Bidding Tinker farewell, on the steps of the theatre, Canby walkedbriskly out to the Park, and there, abating his energy, paced theloneliest paths he could find until long after dark. They were notlonely for him; a radiant presence went with him through the twilight. She was all about him: in the blue brightness of the afterglow, in thehaze of the meadow stretches, and in the elusive woodland scents thatvanished as he caught them;--she was in the rosy vapour wreaths onthe high horizon, in the laughter of children playing somewhere in thedarkness, in the twinkling of the lights that began to show--for nowshe was wherever a lover finds his lady, and that is everywhere. He wentover and over their talk of the morning, rehearsing wonderful things hewould say to her upon the morrow, and taking the liberty of suggestingreplies from her even more wonderful. It was a rhapsody; he was as happyas Tom o'Bedlam. 

By and by, he went to a restaurant in the Park and ordered food tobe brought him. Then, after looking at it with an expression of fixedanimation for half an hour, he paid for it and went home. He let himselfinto the boarding-house quietly, having hazy impressions that he wasnot popular there, also that it might be embarrassing to encounterMiss Cornish in the hall; and, after reconnoitering the stairway, wentcautiously up to his room. 

Three minutes later he came bounding down again, stricken white, andnot caring if he encountered the devil. On his table he had found apackage--the complete manuscript of "Roderick Hanscom" and this scrawl:

Canby, I can't produce your play--everything off. 

Y'rs, Tal't P'r. 

XI

Carson Tinker was in the elevator at the Pantheon, and the operator wasclosing the door thereof, about to ascend, but delayed upon a sound ofrunning footsteps and a call of "Up!" Stewart Canby plunged into thecage; his hat, clutched in his hand, disclosing emphatically that he hadbeen at his hair again. 

"What's he mean?" he demanded fiercely. "What have I done?"

"What's the matter?" inquired the calm Tinker. 

"What's he called it off for?"

"Called what off?"

"The play! My play!"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen him sincerehearsal. His Japanese boy called me on the telephone a little whileago and told me he wanted to see me. "

"He did?" cried the distracted Canby. "The Japanese boy wanted to see--"

"No, " Tinker corrected. "He did. "

"And you haven't heard--"

"Twelfth, " urged the operator, having opened the door. "Twelfth, if youplease, gentlemen. "

"I haven't heard anything to cause excitement, " said Tinker, steppingout. "I haven't heard anything at all. " He pressed the tiny disc besidethe door of Potter's apartment. "What's upset you?"

With a pathetic gesture Canby handed him Potter's note. "What have Idone? What does he think I've done to him?"

Tinker read the note and shook his head. "The Lord knows! You see he'sall moods, and they change--they change any time. He knows his business, but you can't count on him. He's liable to do anything--anything atall. "

"But what reason--"

The Japanese boy, Sato, stood bobbing in the doorway. 

"Mis' Potter kassee, " he said courteously. "Ve'y so'y Mis' Potter kasseenobody. "

"Can't see us?" said Tinker. "Yes, he can. You telephoned me that hewanted to see me, not over a quarter of an hour ago. "

Sato beamed upon him enthusiastically. "Yisso, yisso! See Mis' Tinker, yisso! You come in, Mis' Tinker. Ve'y so'y. Mis' Potter kassee nobody. "

"You mean he'll see Mister Tinker but won't see anybody else?" cried theplaywright. 

"Yisso, " said Sato, delighted. "Ve'y so'y. Mis' Potter kassee nobody. "

"I will see him. I--"

"Wait. It's all right, " Tinker reassured him soothingly. "It's allright, Sato. You go and tell Mr. Potter that I'm here and Mr. Canby camewith me. "

"Yisso. " Sato stood back from the door obediently, and they passed intothe hall. "You sidowm, please. "

"Tell him we're waiting in here, " said Tinker, leading the way into thecream-coloured salon. 

"Yisso. " Sato disappeared. 

The pretty room was exquisitely cheerful, a coal fire burning rosily inthe neat little grate, but for its effect upon Canby it might have beena dentist's anteroom. He was unable to sit, and began to pace up anddown, shampooing himself with both hands. 

"I've racked my brains every step of the way here, " he groaned. "AllI could think of was that possibly I've unconsciously paralleled someother play that I never saw. Maybe someone's told him about a plot likemine. Such things must happen--they do happen, of course--becauseall plots are old. But I can't believe my treatment of it could be solike--"

"I don't think it's that, " said Tinker. "It's never anything youexpect--with him. "

"Well, what else can it be?" the playwright demanded. "I haven't doneanything to offend him. What have I done that he should--"

"You'd better sit down, " the manager advised him. "Going plumb crazynever helped anything yet that I know of. "

"But, good heavens! How can I--"

"Sh!" whispered Tinker. 

A tragic figure made its appearance upon the threshold of the innerdoorway: Potter, his face set with epic woe, gloom burning in his eyeslike the green fire in a tripod at a funeral of state. His plastic hairhung damp and irregular over his white brow--a wreath upon a tombstonein the rain--and his garment, from throat to ankle, was a dressing-gownof dead black, embroidered in purple; soiled, magnificent, awful. Beneath its midnight border were his bare ankles, final testimony to hisdesperate condition, for only in ultimate despair does a suffering manremove his trousers. The feet themselves were distractedly not of thetableau, being immersed in bedroom shoes of gay white fur shaped in aRomeo pattern; but this was the grimmest touch of all--the merry song ofmad Ophelia. 

"Mr. Potter!" the playwright began, "I--"

Potter turned without a word and disappeared into the room whence hecame. 

"Mr. Potter!" Canby started to follow. "Mr. Pot--"

"Sh!" whispered Tinker. 

Potter appeared again upon the threshold In one hand he held a largegoblet; in the other a bottle of Bourbon whiskey, just opened. Withsolemn tread he approached a delicate table, set the goblet upon it, andlifted the bottle high above. 

"I am in no condition to talk to anybody, " he said hoarsely. "I am aboutto take my first drink of spirits in five years. "

And he tilted the bottle. The liquor clucked and guggled, plashed intothe goblet, and splashed upon the table; but when he set the bottle downthe glass was full to its capacious brim, and looked, upon the little"Louis Sixteenth" table, like a sot at the Trianon. Potter stepped backand pointed to it majestically. 

"That, " he said, "is the size of the drink I am about to take!"

"Mr. Potter, " said Canby hotly, "will you tell me what's the matter withmy play? Haven't I made every change you suggested? Haven't--"

Potter tossed his arms above his head and flung himself full length uponthe chaise lounge. 

"STOP it!" he shouted. "I won't be pestered. I won't! Nothing's thematter with your play!"

"Then what--"

Potter swung himself round to a sitting position and hammered with hisopen palm upon his knee for emphasis: "Nothing's the matter with it, Itell you! I simply won't play it!"

"Why not?"

"I simply won't play it! I don't like it!"

The playwright dropped into a chair, open-mouthed. "Will you tell me whyyou ever accepted it?"

"I don't like any play! I hate 'em all! I'm through with 'em all! I'mthrough with the whole business! 'Show-business!' Faugh!"

Old Tinker regarded him thoughtfully, then inquired: "Gone back on it?"

"I tell you I'm going to buy a farm!" He sprang up, went to the manteland struck it a startling blow with his fist, which appeared to calmhim somewhat--for a moment. "I've been thinking of it for a long time. Iought never to have been in this business at all, and I'm going tolive in the country. Oh, I'm in my right mind!" He paused to glareindignantly in response to old Tinker's steady gaze. "Of course youthink 'something's happened' to upset me. Well, nothing has. Nothingof the slightest consequence has occurred since I saw you at rehearsal. Can't a man be allowed to think? I just came home here and got tothinking of the kind of life I lead--and I decided that I'm tired of it. And I'm not going to lead it any longer. That's all. "

"Ah, " said Tinker quietly. "Nerves. "

Talbot Potter appealed to the universe with a passionate gesture. "Nerves!" he cried bitterly. "Yes, that's what they say when an actordares to think. 'Go on! Play your part! Be a marionette forever!' That'swhat you tell us! 'Slave for your living, you sordid little puppet!Squirm and sweat and strut, but don't you ever dare to think!' You tellus that because you know if we ever did stop to think for one instantabout ourselves you wouldn't have any actors! Actors! Faugh! What do weget, I ask you?"

He strode close to Tinker and shook a frantic forefinger within a footof the quiet old fellow's face. 

"What do I get?" he demanded, passionately. "Do you think it meansanything to me that some fat old woman sees me making love to a sawdustactress at a matinee and then goes home and hates her fat old husbandacross the dinner-table?"

He returned to the fireplace, seeming appeased, at leastinfinitesimally, by this thought. "There wouldn't even be that, exceptfor the mystery. It's only because I'm mysterious to them--the way aman always thinks the girl he doesn't know is prettier than the one he'swith. What's that got to do with acting? What is acting, anyhow?" Hisvoice rose passionately again. "I'll tell you one thing it is: It's themost sordid profession in this devilish world!"

He strode to the centre of the room. "It's at the bottom--in the muck!That's where it is. And it ought to be! What am I, out there on thatsilly platform they call a stage? A fool, that's all, making faces, and pretending to be somebody with another name, for two dollars! Amonkey-on-a-stick for the children! Of course the world despises us! Whyshouldn't it? It calls us mummers and mountebanks, and that's what weare! Buffoons! We aren't men and women at all--we're strolling players!We're gypsies! One of us marries a broker's daughter and her relativessay she's married 'a damned actor!' That's what they say--'a damnedactor!' Great heavens, Tinker, can't a man get tired of being called a'damned actor' without your making all this uproar over it--squalling'nerves' in my face till I wish I was dead and done with it!"

He went back to the fireplace again, but omitted another dolorousstroke upon the mantel. "And look at the women in the profession, " hecontinued, as he turned to face his visitors. "My soul! Look at them!Nothing but sawdust--sawdust--sawdust! Do you expect to go on actingwith sawdust? Making sawdust love with sawdust? Sawdust, I tell you!Sawdust--sawdust--saw--"

"Oh, no, " said Tinker easily. "Not all. Not by any means. No. "

"Show me one that isn't sawdust!" the tragedian cried fiercely. "Show mejust one!"

"We-ll, " said Tinker with extraordinary deliberation, "to start nearhome: Wanda Malone. "

Potter burst into terrible laughter. "All sawdust! That's why Idischarged her this afternoon. "

"You what?" Canby shouted incredulously. 

"I dismissed her from my company, " said Potter with a startling changeto icy calmness. "I dismissed her from my company this afternoon. "

Old Tinker leaned forward. "You didn't!"

Potter's iciness increased. "Shall I repeat it? I was obliged to dismissMiss Wanda Malone from my company, this afternoon, after rehearsal. "

"Why?" Canby gasped. 

"Because, " said Potter, with the same calmness, "she has an utterlycommonplace mind. "

Canby rose in agitation, quite unable, for that moment, to speak; butTinker, still leaning forward, gazing intently at the face of theactor, made a low, long-drawn sound of wonder and affirmation, the slowexclamation of a man comprehending what amazes him. "So that's it!"

"Besides being intensely ordinary, " said Potter, with superiority, "Idiscovered that she is deceitful. That had nothing whatever to do withmy decision to leave the stage. " He whirled upon Tinker suddenly, andshouted: "No matter what you think!"

"No, " said Tinker. "No matter. "

Potter laughed. "Talbot Potter leaves the stage because a little'ingenue' understudy tries to break the rules of his company! Likely, isn't it?"

"Looks so, " said old Tinker. 

"Does it?" retorted Potter with rising fury. "Then I'll tell you, sinceyou seem not to know it, that I'm not going to leave the stage! Can't aman give vent to his feelings once in his life without being caughtup and held to it by every old school-teacher that's stumbled into the'show-business' by mistake! We're going right on with this play, I tellyou; we rehearse it to-morrow morning just the same as if this hadn'thappened. Only there will be a new 'ingenue' in Miss Malone's place. People can't break iron rules in my company. Maybe they could inMounet-Sully's, but they can't in mine!"

"What rule did she break?" Canby's voice was unsteady. "What rule?"

"Yes, " Tinker urged. "Tell us what it was. "

"After rehearsal, " the star began with dignity, "I was--I--" He paused. "I was disappointed in her. "

"Ye-es?" drawled Tinker encouragingly. 

Potter sent him a vicious glance, but continued: "I had hopes ofher intelligence--as an actress. She seemed to have, also, a fairlyattractive personality. I felt some little--ah, interest in her, personally. There is something about her that--" Again he paused. "Italked to her--about her part--at length; and finally I--ah--said Ishould be glad to walk home with her, as it was after dark. She said no, she wouldn't let me take so much trouble, because she lived almostat the other end of Brooklyn. It seemed to me that--ah, she is veryyoung--you both probably noticed that--so I said I would--that is, Ioffered to drive her home in a taxicab. She thanked me, but said shecouldn't. She kept saying that she was sorry, but she couldn't. Itseemed very peculiar, and, in fact, I insisted. I asked her if sheobjected to me as an escort, and she said, 'Oh, no!' and got more andmore embarrassed. I wanted to know what was the matter and why shecouldn't seem to like--that is, I talked very kindly to her, very kindlyindeed. Nobody could have been kinder!" He cleared his throat loudlyand firmly, with an angry look at Tinker. "I say nobody could have beenkinder to an obscure member of the company that I was to Miss Malone. But I was decided. That's all. That's all there was to it. I was merelykind. That's all. " He waved his hand as in dismissal of the subject. 

"All?" repeated Canby. "All? You haven't--"

"Oh, yes. " Potter seemed surprised at his own omission. "Oh, yes. Rightin the midst of--of what I was saying--she blurted out that she couldn'tlet me take her home, because 'Lancelot' was waiting for her at a cornerdrug-store. "

"Lancelot!" There was a catch of dismay in Canby's outcry. 

"That's what I said, 'Lancelot'!" cried Potter, more desolately than heintended. "It seems they've been meeting after rehearsal, in their damncorner drug-store. Lancelot!" His voice rose in fury. "If I'd known Ihad a man named Lancelot in my company I'd have discharged him longago! If I'd known it was his name I'd have shot him. 'Lancelot!' Hecame sneaking in there just after she'd blundered it all out to me. Gotuneasy because she didn't come, and came to see what was the matter. Naturally, I discharged them both, on the spot! I've never had a rule ofmy company broken yet--and I never will! He didn't say a word. He didn'tdare. "

"Who?" shouted Canby and old Tinker together. 

"Lancelot!" said Potter savagely. 

"Who?"

"Packer! His first name's Lancelot, the hypocrite! L. Smith Packer!She's Mrs. Packer! They were married two days before rehearsals began. She's Mrs. L. Smith Packer!"

XII

As the sound of the furious voice stopped short, there fell a strickensilence upon these three men. 

Old Carson Tinker's gaze drifted downward from his employer's face. Hesat, then, gazing into the rosy little fire until something upon thelapel of his coat caught his attention--a wilted and disreputablecarnation. He threw it into the fire; and, with a sombre satisfaction, watched it sizzle. This brief pleasure ended, he became expressionlessand relapsed into complete mummification. 

Potter cleared his throat several times, and as many times seemed aboutto speak, and did not; but finally, hearing a murmur from the old mangazing at the fire, he requested to be informed of its nature. 

"What?" Tinker asked, feebly. 

"I said: 'What are you mumbling about?'"

"Nothing. "

"What was it you said?"

"I said it was the bride-look, " said the old man gently. "That's what itwas about her--the bride-look. "

"The bride-look!"

It was a word that went deep into the mourning heart of the playwright. "The bride-look!" That was it: the bride's happiness!

"She had more than that, " said Potter peevishly, but, if the others hadnoticed it his voice shook. "She could act! And I don't know how thedevil to get along without that hypocrite. Just like her to marry thefirst regular man that asked her!"

Then young Stewart Canby had a vision of a room in a boarding-house farover in Brooklyn, and of two poor, brave young people there, and of aloss more actual than his own--a vision of a hard-working, careworn, stalwart Packer trying to comfort a weeping little bride who had losther chance--the one chance--"that might never have come!"

Something leaped into generous life within him. 

"I think I was almost going to ask her to marry me, to-morrow, " he said, turning to Talbot Potter. "But I'm glad Packer's the man. For years he'sbeen a kind of nurse for you, Mr. Potter. And that's what she needs--anurse--because she's a genius, too. And it will all be wasted if shedoesn't get her chance!"

"Are you asking me to take her back?" Potter cried fiercely. "Do youthink I'll break one of my iron--"

"We couldn't all have married her!" said the playwright with a fineinspiration. "But if you take her back we can all see her--every day!"

The actor gazed upon him sternly, but with sensitive lips beginning toquiver. He spoke uncertainly. 

"Well, " he began. "I'm no stubborn Frenchman--"

"Do it!" cried Canby. 

Then Potter's expression changed; he looked queer. 

He clapped his hands loudly;--Sato appeared. 

"Sato, take that stuff out. " He pointed to the untouched whiskey. "Ordersupper at ten o'clock--for five people. Champagne. Orchids. Get me ataxicab in half an hour. "

"Yisso!"

Tinker rose, astounded. "Taxicab? Where you--"

"To Brooklyn!" shouted Potter with shining eyes. "She'll drive with meif I bring them both, I guess, won't she?"

He began to sing:

 "For to-night we'll merry, merry be! For to-night we'll merry, merry be--"

Leaping uproariously upon the aged Tinker, he caught him by the waistand waltzed him round and round the room. 

THE END