[82]CHAPTER IIExceedingthe most exalted expectations, “Peacock” ran two full seasons. It might even have packed houses during the hot spell, save that the star decided to give herself a rest, well-earned, and, of course without her, the theater had to remain dark. At the end of four weeks spent at a fashionable Adirondack hotel where she was fêted like visiting royalty and her gowns created a sensation, she reopened and the continued success of the play warranted Cleeburg’s decision to give it another season on Broadway.During all that time Goring had not a word from her husband. Even of his Denver address she was unaware. But the fact that he did not write failed to disturb her. It was a relief rather. The first few months of his absence she dreaded another plea from him. In case his health had grown no better, or—as was quite possible—had grown worse, further excuses would be difficult. As the weeks rolled into months and the months accumulated into a year and still not a line, the thought of him lapsed into merely perfunctory curiosity. He must be alive or she’d have been informed. Hence, if ever she needed to get in touch with him it would be easy enough to do so through his former paper or his clubs. Thus she blotted even the thought of him from her books.Another season of acclaim on the road and she was back in New York ready for rehearsals. Her new play,[83]made to order for her by a prominent dramatist, was read by him in her apartment the day of her arrival.Cleeburg met her at the Grand Central, full of enthusiasm, chewing the butt of a cigar while his hands outlined the plot as an artist smudges in with charcoal the foundations of his picture.Goring’s manager had started life as a newsboy somewhere east of Broadway and a few of the habits of childhood had become the habits of a lifetime. His manners were not Chesterfieldian. Frequently he forgot to take off his hat when a lady entered the room. His cigar was removed from the right-hand corner of his mouth only to be shifted to the left. But more than one actress out of a job could borrow a hundred or two from him with no surer guarantee than her I.O.U. And those of the chorus whose eyes had not grown hard from seeing too much of the Rialto when lights are brightest, affectionately called him “Papa.”Rudolph Cleeburg or ’Dolph as he was familiarly named—was short and stocky; heavily built, in fact, but with a lightness of foot that enabled him to prance about the stage while directing, and an Oriental imagination that carried him into any rôle he wanted to assume without making him appear ridiculous. One of the ablest directors in the country, in spite of English that sometimes tobogganed, he always took his productions personally in hand once the first rough edges were smoothed down. With Goring, of course, he assumed charge from the beginning. She would have no one else.The manager’s admiration for his star had at the start been of the proverbial cat-and-queen variety. But as[84]their association stretched over the years, it was shorn of the awe in which he had first held her and once he had even reached the point of proposing. It was when she informed him that she and Bob had separated.“Divorce?” he had asked quickly. And with her shake of the head, “Well, if ever you do, there’s little ’Dolph waiting to step into his shoes. Don’t forget that, Jane. It’s straight goods.”The proposal had vastly amused her.They drove up town through the fresh sweetness of a May morning. Cleeburg’s panama dropped to the floor of the car as he excitedly sketched the story in the air, one idea tumbling after the other as fast as words would come. His bald head shone as did his eyes. All his features were prominent—nose, eyes, teeth—but most prominent of all was his smile which seemed to light like an arc his round commonplace face. This he flashed delightedly as Goring listened with a calmness unbroken.“It’s sure fire, Jane! Sure fire! We got a bigger go than ‘Peacock’ and that’s going some.”Jane Goring said little until the apartment was reached. Then she shook hands with the author who was waiting for them, left the two men together while she changed from her traveling clothes, and an hour later glided in cool and revived in a peacock-blue house-gown whose sleeves floated outward like wings. Cleeburg’s watch was in his hand, but he pocketed it without a word as she entered, and settled back in his chair.The author opened his script and began to read. His voice filled the silent room, chorused occasionally by the[85]gay trill of birds from the park across the way or city sounds from the street below.The manager’s smile broadened with satisfaction as he progressed. The cigar moved back and forth, propelled by emotion. But Goring listened without comment, eyes half closed, gazing down at the playwright’s head bowed over his manuscript.Presently a new sound broke upon the stillness. It was from neither bird nor branch, neither the clang of bells nor the rush of traffic. It was light and regular, and it came from within—the steady tapping of a slippered foot. Toward the end of Act II it became noticeable and Cleeburg looked round interrogatively.Tap—tap! Tap—tap! More swift, more impatient,—until the author’s voice proclaimed “Curtain.”Then Jane Goring spoke—and the tapping was explained. “But, my dear Mr. Thorne, you don’t expect me to play the lead inthat?”Cleeburg wheeled about in his chair. “What’s the matter with it?”“Why, there’s nothing for me—not a thing!”“Nothing for you?”“Nothing! Not a single opportunity in those first two acts.”Cleeburg sprang up. His cigar rotaried excitedly. “No opportunities? My God, Jane, what do you want? As the play stands, you’re the whole show!”“As the play stands, you might as well hand it to Harrison Burke”—Burke was her leading man—“and let me retire,” came coolly.The playwright’s eyes began to smoulder. “I don’t get[86]you, Miss Goring. This character has been absolutely built round you.”She turned on him, still cool, still aloof.“Then why is your man allowed to dominate every scene?”“He isn’t,” the author protested. “The sympathy is yours, even when I’ve been compelled to give him the long speeches.”“I don’t see it—not at all. You don’t even give me an opportunity to wear decent clothes.”“That comes in your last act,” Cleeburg burst out.“Well, I don’t want to wait until the last act.”“I can’t very well put a factory girl in satins,” the playwright observed.“Why make her a factory girl?”He threw up his hands and subsided.Cleeburg took to pacing the floor. “Look here, Jane,” he said finally, “let’s get a line on this. You’ve given ’em a fashion plate for three solid years. Show ’em you can do something else. Otherwise they’ll get sick and tired of you. This part’s great—just what you need. You act through the first two acts and in the last you splurge. What more do you want?”“I want it understood that I’m the star of the production!”“Well, it is. Nobody else has a chance. Good Lord, Burke’s speeches are just feeders! You’ve got—everything.”“I don’t see it.”The dramatist, who was sufficiently famous to be[87]independent of stars, rose. “Under the circumstances, there’s no need to read further.”“Hold on! Hold on!” Cleeburg clutched his arm. “Don’t take it like that, old man. Let’s go into the thing and see what can be done to please all parties.”They did go into it for three long hours, at the end of which Jane Goring insisted that she must have luncheon. She was as unruffled as when she had entered—and as firm. Cleeburg was mopping his brow. Through his glasses the playwright’s eyes were blazing. It was then two forty-five. By that hour they had compromised to the extent of cutting some of the hero’s long speeches and giving her a chance to change her costume in the last act.At luncheon Cleeburg consumed little more than whiskey and soda, and wondered why he got no cooler. Likewise he swore at the twittering of the birds and the distant clang of street cars.When Jane Goring had finished the last morsel of her chicken salad and leisurely emptied her cup of Chinese tea, they adjourned once more to the drawing-room and the discussion was resumed.A lantern of golden fire was hanging in the Western sky by the time the play had been revamped to the star’s satisfaction. More than once its author took hat in hand and made for the door. But Cleeburg’s persuasive clutch and the whisper that an additional advance would be paid for his trouble detained him. And finally an agreement was reached.Her objection to the drama as it stood, however,[88]necessitated a postponement of rehearsals and it was late July before the company assembled on the stage of a playhouse just off Broadway. It annoyed Goring to forego her usual few weeks of rest but since she wished to have a New York opening in October, there was nothing else to be done.The day the company was called was dank and humid, a breathless day thick with summer dust, ominous with thunderclouds.At ten Goring emerged from a cold bath, was dressed by her maid’s moist fingers, and at eleven crossed the soggy pavement from her car to the stage entrance. The drive downtown had been stifling. It dizzied her. To enter the dark passageway and look out into the space of auditorium, linen-covered, was a relief.What is there about an empty theater that fascinates? The bare boards of the stage, the heaps of scenery piled against bare brick walls, the bare table and chairs ranged to form a semicircle within which the actors move back and forth, the single electric light, bare of shade, jutting up in the center like a giant eye in the cool darkness—surely there is no illusion about them, no suggestion of the world of make-believe into which they evolve. Yet the very odor of the place redolent of grease-paint—those who love it sniff it as a thoroughbred sniffs tanbark.Manager, actors, author—they are about to conjure from those bare boards all the elements of life. Conflict, laughter, tears, love, hate, happiness—death! Theirs to build, theirs to take the written page and make of it a tingling human thing. Theirs to people empty[89]chairs. Theirs to clothe with flesh and blood a skeleton. A wave of the wand and into emptiness springs a home with soft rugs and rich-colored hangings, deep divans, the ring of voices, the flooding of moonlight or warm glow of the sun. And best of all, out in that empty auditorium when the lights go up will throng a crowd whose hearts will be theirs to thrill, to wring, to charm. Theirs the blessed privilege, the joy of creation. That’s why they love it in spite of the ache of disappointment, the discouragement of failure. That’s why they cling to it.Those assembled on the stage that throttling day of July had risen tired from their beds, dragged wearily in from the street, noticed that the management had electric fans going and laughed at the idea of getting any relief from them. Yet the instant Goring appeared, followed a few minutes later by Cleeburg, a light sprang into their eyes, the spontaneous light of anticipation, and they promptly forgot the weather. The play had been read to them the day before and their parts assigned, so that they were ready to plunge into work.Goring shook hands with her leading man and nodded to the rest, all of whom were known to her—she had practically the same support from year to year—except a slight girl whose face was so thin that her eyes looked abnormally big and hungry. It made their expression almost frightened.The company ran quickly through the first act, parts in hand, while Cleeburg sat under an electric fan and listened. Then, after a few words with the author who was hunched in a seat somewhere in the ghostlike[90]auditorium, he ripped off pongee coat, his collar and necktie, and real work began.Goring did little but read at the first rehearsals. She liked to conserve her energy for the long sessions Cleeburg put her through during the last weeks.When they left the theater at five everybody looked wilted but the star. The hour for lunch had been consumed largely with liquid refreshment and most of them again made for soda fountains.Goring dined with her manager on the Astor Roof. The storm, threatening all day, had not yet broken and a black hood of clouds bore down on the city like the shadow of death. Cleeburg, full of plans, ordered a near-champagne cup and substantial dinner and appeared not to notice the depression above and around them. But Goring it affected unpleasantly. She felt irritable, annoyed by the fact that he could eat a heavy dinner on such a night, prone to find fault with the service, rubbed the wrong way by the strum of the summer orchestra.“Did you notice how much older Burke looks?”“Looks good to me,” Cleeburg lifted a cup of steaming bullion while she played with a jellied one before her.“He’s losing his figure, I think.”“We ain’t any of us chickens, Jane.”She pushed the cup away.“Not that you ain’t a pippin,” he added hastily. “You’ve got the lines—you’ll always have ’em.”“Don’t talk as if I were a hundred.” Her voice was so sharp that it cut.[91]“Good Lord, no! Not one on Broadway to-day can touch you.”She softened a bit. “Who’s the new girl?”“Who?”“The one who plays my sister.”“Oh, that one! Forget her name. Lewis has it.”“Where did you get her?”“She’s been hanging round the office, Lewis says, and couple of weeks ago she held me up on my way out. Poor little thing looked as if she needed a job so I gave her that sister bit. Hair’s something the color of yours—that decided me.”“She has a funny hysterical catch in her voice. Did you notice it?”“Probably she’s hungry. Looks it—poor kid! Must have Lewis slip her an advance on her salary.”With gusto he cut into thefilet mignonand helped himself to some new peas. The sight of the red blood oozing from the meat made Goring feel ill. She turned her attention to thehalibut parisiennethe waiter placed before her. But even the slices of tomato and crisp garnishing of lettuce could not tempt her appetite.“I can’t see why you gave her the part—she’s so homely.”“That needn’t hurt you any.”“But she has a scene with me, even though it is only a bit.”“Maybe when she gets a square meal in her she won’t look so much like a ghost.”He lit a cigar, rolling it between his lips with the joy of an epicure.[92]Goring cooled her hot throat with an ice, frowning at his complacent finality. It increased her own irritation, made her want to grip him by the shoulders and shake him.The girlwashomely. Why did he argue about it?A zigzag of lightning cut through the sky. With a crash it tore open and the deluge descended like the wrath of God sent to cleanse a heathen city. Crash after crash, fire upon fire, barrages of rain hurled against the buildings, shaking their very walls.Goring shivered. In spite of the stewing heat a chill went through her.“Let’s get out of this,” she said.“Better wait till it’s over.”“I want to go home now.”Cleeburg signed the check.Like the lightning his car zigzagged through the storm. Water sprang from the streets against the windshield. The noise about them was deafening. Goring clung to the window strap at her side. For some unknown reason her nerves were keyed to the nth degree. She felt choked, as if shrieking alone would clear her throat. The first day of work and this beastly weather, she told herself, were responsible.Throughout the long night the storm raged. And tossing between soft linen sheets she did not close her eyes.
Exceedingthe most exalted expectations, “Peacock” ran two full seasons. It might even have packed houses during the hot spell, save that the star decided to give herself a rest, well-earned, and, of course without her, the theater had to remain dark. At the end of four weeks spent at a fashionable Adirondack hotel where she was fêted like visiting royalty and her gowns created a sensation, she reopened and the continued success of the play warranted Cleeburg’s decision to give it another season on Broadway.
During all that time Goring had not a word from her husband. Even of his Denver address she was unaware. But the fact that he did not write failed to disturb her. It was a relief rather. The first few months of his absence she dreaded another plea from him. In case his health had grown no better, or—as was quite possible—had grown worse, further excuses would be difficult. As the weeks rolled into months and the months accumulated into a year and still not a line, the thought of him lapsed into merely perfunctory curiosity. He must be alive or she’d have been informed. Hence, if ever she needed to get in touch with him it would be easy enough to do so through his former paper or his clubs. Thus she blotted even the thought of him from her books.
Another season of acclaim on the road and she was back in New York ready for rehearsals. Her new play,[83]made to order for her by a prominent dramatist, was read by him in her apartment the day of her arrival.
Cleeburg met her at the Grand Central, full of enthusiasm, chewing the butt of a cigar while his hands outlined the plot as an artist smudges in with charcoal the foundations of his picture.
Goring’s manager had started life as a newsboy somewhere east of Broadway and a few of the habits of childhood had become the habits of a lifetime. His manners were not Chesterfieldian. Frequently he forgot to take off his hat when a lady entered the room. His cigar was removed from the right-hand corner of his mouth only to be shifted to the left. But more than one actress out of a job could borrow a hundred or two from him with no surer guarantee than her I.O.U. And those of the chorus whose eyes had not grown hard from seeing too much of the Rialto when lights are brightest, affectionately called him “Papa.”
Rudolph Cleeburg or ’Dolph as he was familiarly named—was short and stocky; heavily built, in fact, but with a lightness of foot that enabled him to prance about the stage while directing, and an Oriental imagination that carried him into any rôle he wanted to assume without making him appear ridiculous. One of the ablest directors in the country, in spite of English that sometimes tobogganed, he always took his productions personally in hand once the first rough edges were smoothed down. With Goring, of course, he assumed charge from the beginning. She would have no one else.
The manager’s admiration for his star had at the start been of the proverbial cat-and-queen variety. But as[84]their association stretched over the years, it was shorn of the awe in which he had first held her and once he had even reached the point of proposing. It was when she informed him that she and Bob had separated.
“Divorce?” he had asked quickly. And with her shake of the head, “Well, if ever you do, there’s little ’Dolph waiting to step into his shoes. Don’t forget that, Jane. It’s straight goods.”
The proposal had vastly amused her.
They drove up town through the fresh sweetness of a May morning. Cleeburg’s panama dropped to the floor of the car as he excitedly sketched the story in the air, one idea tumbling after the other as fast as words would come. His bald head shone as did his eyes. All his features were prominent—nose, eyes, teeth—but most prominent of all was his smile which seemed to light like an arc his round commonplace face. This he flashed delightedly as Goring listened with a calmness unbroken.
“It’s sure fire, Jane! Sure fire! We got a bigger go than ‘Peacock’ and that’s going some.”
Jane Goring said little until the apartment was reached. Then she shook hands with the author who was waiting for them, left the two men together while she changed from her traveling clothes, and an hour later glided in cool and revived in a peacock-blue house-gown whose sleeves floated outward like wings. Cleeburg’s watch was in his hand, but he pocketed it without a word as she entered, and settled back in his chair.
The author opened his script and began to read. His voice filled the silent room, chorused occasionally by the[85]gay trill of birds from the park across the way or city sounds from the street below.
The manager’s smile broadened with satisfaction as he progressed. The cigar moved back and forth, propelled by emotion. But Goring listened without comment, eyes half closed, gazing down at the playwright’s head bowed over his manuscript.
Presently a new sound broke upon the stillness. It was from neither bird nor branch, neither the clang of bells nor the rush of traffic. It was light and regular, and it came from within—the steady tapping of a slippered foot. Toward the end of Act II it became noticeable and Cleeburg looked round interrogatively.
Tap—tap! Tap—tap! More swift, more impatient,—until the author’s voice proclaimed “Curtain.”
Then Jane Goring spoke—and the tapping was explained. “But, my dear Mr. Thorne, you don’t expect me to play the lead inthat?”
Cleeburg wheeled about in his chair. “What’s the matter with it?”
“Why, there’s nothing for me—not a thing!”
“Nothing for you?”
“Nothing! Not a single opportunity in those first two acts.”
Cleeburg sprang up. His cigar rotaried excitedly. “No opportunities? My God, Jane, what do you want? As the play stands, you’re the whole show!”
“As the play stands, you might as well hand it to Harrison Burke”—Burke was her leading man—“and let me retire,” came coolly.
The playwright’s eyes began to smoulder. “I don’t get[86]you, Miss Goring. This character has been absolutely built round you.”
She turned on him, still cool, still aloof.
“Then why is your man allowed to dominate every scene?”
“He isn’t,” the author protested. “The sympathy is yours, even when I’ve been compelled to give him the long speeches.”
“I don’t see it—not at all. You don’t even give me an opportunity to wear decent clothes.”
“That comes in your last act,” Cleeburg burst out.
“Well, I don’t want to wait until the last act.”
“I can’t very well put a factory girl in satins,” the playwright observed.
“Why make her a factory girl?”
He threw up his hands and subsided.
Cleeburg took to pacing the floor. “Look here, Jane,” he said finally, “let’s get a line on this. You’ve given ’em a fashion plate for three solid years. Show ’em you can do something else. Otherwise they’ll get sick and tired of you. This part’s great—just what you need. You act through the first two acts and in the last you splurge. What more do you want?”
“I want it understood that I’m the star of the production!”
“Well, it is. Nobody else has a chance. Good Lord, Burke’s speeches are just feeders! You’ve got—everything.”
“I don’t see it.”
The dramatist, who was sufficiently famous to be[87]independent of stars, rose. “Under the circumstances, there’s no need to read further.”
“Hold on! Hold on!” Cleeburg clutched his arm. “Don’t take it like that, old man. Let’s go into the thing and see what can be done to please all parties.”
They did go into it for three long hours, at the end of which Jane Goring insisted that she must have luncheon. She was as unruffled as when she had entered—and as firm. Cleeburg was mopping his brow. Through his glasses the playwright’s eyes were blazing. It was then two forty-five. By that hour they had compromised to the extent of cutting some of the hero’s long speeches and giving her a chance to change her costume in the last act.
At luncheon Cleeburg consumed little more than whiskey and soda, and wondered why he got no cooler. Likewise he swore at the twittering of the birds and the distant clang of street cars.
When Jane Goring had finished the last morsel of her chicken salad and leisurely emptied her cup of Chinese tea, they adjourned once more to the drawing-room and the discussion was resumed.
A lantern of golden fire was hanging in the Western sky by the time the play had been revamped to the star’s satisfaction. More than once its author took hat in hand and made for the door. But Cleeburg’s persuasive clutch and the whisper that an additional advance would be paid for his trouble detained him. And finally an agreement was reached.
Her objection to the drama as it stood, however,[88]necessitated a postponement of rehearsals and it was late July before the company assembled on the stage of a playhouse just off Broadway. It annoyed Goring to forego her usual few weeks of rest but since she wished to have a New York opening in October, there was nothing else to be done.
The day the company was called was dank and humid, a breathless day thick with summer dust, ominous with thunderclouds.
At ten Goring emerged from a cold bath, was dressed by her maid’s moist fingers, and at eleven crossed the soggy pavement from her car to the stage entrance. The drive downtown had been stifling. It dizzied her. To enter the dark passageway and look out into the space of auditorium, linen-covered, was a relief.
What is there about an empty theater that fascinates? The bare boards of the stage, the heaps of scenery piled against bare brick walls, the bare table and chairs ranged to form a semicircle within which the actors move back and forth, the single electric light, bare of shade, jutting up in the center like a giant eye in the cool darkness—surely there is no illusion about them, no suggestion of the world of make-believe into which they evolve. Yet the very odor of the place redolent of grease-paint—those who love it sniff it as a thoroughbred sniffs tanbark.
Manager, actors, author—they are about to conjure from those bare boards all the elements of life. Conflict, laughter, tears, love, hate, happiness—death! Theirs to build, theirs to take the written page and make of it a tingling human thing. Theirs to people empty[89]chairs. Theirs to clothe with flesh and blood a skeleton. A wave of the wand and into emptiness springs a home with soft rugs and rich-colored hangings, deep divans, the ring of voices, the flooding of moonlight or warm glow of the sun. And best of all, out in that empty auditorium when the lights go up will throng a crowd whose hearts will be theirs to thrill, to wring, to charm. Theirs the blessed privilege, the joy of creation. That’s why they love it in spite of the ache of disappointment, the discouragement of failure. That’s why they cling to it.
Those assembled on the stage that throttling day of July had risen tired from their beds, dragged wearily in from the street, noticed that the management had electric fans going and laughed at the idea of getting any relief from them. Yet the instant Goring appeared, followed a few minutes later by Cleeburg, a light sprang into their eyes, the spontaneous light of anticipation, and they promptly forgot the weather. The play had been read to them the day before and their parts assigned, so that they were ready to plunge into work.
Goring shook hands with her leading man and nodded to the rest, all of whom were known to her—she had practically the same support from year to year—except a slight girl whose face was so thin that her eyes looked abnormally big and hungry. It made their expression almost frightened.
The company ran quickly through the first act, parts in hand, while Cleeburg sat under an electric fan and listened. Then, after a few words with the author who was hunched in a seat somewhere in the ghostlike[90]auditorium, he ripped off pongee coat, his collar and necktie, and real work began.
Goring did little but read at the first rehearsals. She liked to conserve her energy for the long sessions Cleeburg put her through during the last weeks.
When they left the theater at five everybody looked wilted but the star. The hour for lunch had been consumed largely with liquid refreshment and most of them again made for soda fountains.
Goring dined with her manager on the Astor Roof. The storm, threatening all day, had not yet broken and a black hood of clouds bore down on the city like the shadow of death. Cleeburg, full of plans, ordered a near-champagne cup and substantial dinner and appeared not to notice the depression above and around them. But Goring it affected unpleasantly. She felt irritable, annoyed by the fact that he could eat a heavy dinner on such a night, prone to find fault with the service, rubbed the wrong way by the strum of the summer orchestra.
“Did you notice how much older Burke looks?”
“Looks good to me,” Cleeburg lifted a cup of steaming bullion while she played with a jellied one before her.
“He’s losing his figure, I think.”
“We ain’t any of us chickens, Jane.”
She pushed the cup away.
“Not that you ain’t a pippin,” he added hastily. “You’ve got the lines—you’ll always have ’em.”
“Don’t talk as if I were a hundred.” Her voice was so sharp that it cut.
[91]“Good Lord, no! Not one on Broadway to-day can touch you.”
She softened a bit. “Who’s the new girl?”
“Who?”
“The one who plays my sister.”
“Oh, that one! Forget her name. Lewis has it.”
“Where did you get her?”
“She’s been hanging round the office, Lewis says, and couple of weeks ago she held me up on my way out. Poor little thing looked as if she needed a job so I gave her that sister bit. Hair’s something the color of yours—that decided me.”
“She has a funny hysterical catch in her voice. Did you notice it?”
“Probably she’s hungry. Looks it—poor kid! Must have Lewis slip her an advance on her salary.”
With gusto he cut into thefilet mignonand helped himself to some new peas. The sight of the red blood oozing from the meat made Goring feel ill. She turned her attention to thehalibut parisiennethe waiter placed before her. But even the slices of tomato and crisp garnishing of lettuce could not tempt her appetite.
“I can’t see why you gave her the part—she’s so homely.”
“That needn’t hurt you any.”
“But she has a scene with me, even though it is only a bit.”
“Maybe when she gets a square meal in her she won’t look so much like a ghost.”
He lit a cigar, rolling it between his lips with the joy of an epicure.
[92]Goring cooled her hot throat with an ice, frowning at his complacent finality. It increased her own irritation, made her want to grip him by the shoulders and shake him.
The girlwashomely. Why did he argue about it?
A zigzag of lightning cut through the sky. With a crash it tore open and the deluge descended like the wrath of God sent to cleanse a heathen city. Crash after crash, fire upon fire, barrages of rain hurled against the buildings, shaking their very walls.
Goring shivered. In spite of the stewing heat a chill went through her.
“Let’s get out of this,” she said.
“Better wait till it’s over.”
“I want to go home now.”
Cleeburg signed the check.
Like the lightning his car zigzagged through the storm. Water sprang from the streets against the windshield. The noise about them was deafening. Goring clung to the window strap at her side. For some unknown reason her nerves were keyed to the nth degree. She felt choked, as if shrieking alone would clear her throat. The first day of work and this beastly weather, she told herself, were responsible.
Throughout the long night the storm raged. And tossing between soft linen sheets she did not close her eyes.
[93]CHAPTER IIITheyopened in Washington the end of August. Cleeburg tried to get Atlantic City but the theater had been booked weeks before his bid for it. Hence, in spite of the star’s popularity, they did not play to capacity. The season in the Capital was at low ebb. Most of the homes were closed and the usual Goring audiences were out of the city. Which after all was an advantage, for the play was still very rough.All things considered, both Goring and her manager were rather pleased than otherwise. The four weeks of rehearsal had been torrid, record-breaking heat rising from the pavements, the city consumed by fever. The effect upon the company had been in ratio thereto. They were limp by the date of opening, unequal to their best in spite of the utmost effort.And Goring’s rôle was difficult. She did not like it as well as “Peacock.” There was more drama, more opportunity for emotional acting, but less for the display of gowns and the bizarre beauty that had made both men and women flock to the other play. However, as Cleeburg had said, she couldn’t afford to stamp herself a one-part actress. And there was no denying the interest of the story.As never before, Cleeburg had put her through her paces. At the theater after the company had dispersed, at her apartment in the evenings, he had gone over her part again and again coaching her scene by scene, speech[94]by speech, until the rest, knowing nothing of those extra sessions, judged her a miracle at quick study.“Unbend, Jane!” he would say, prancing up and down her long drawing-room. “Come off your perch! You love him, Jane! You love him! D’you know what that means? You’d die for him. He ain’t your kind and you’d go through hell to get to him. Ever felt that way? Well, think about it—concentrate on it—and you’ll get it over.”Vaguely, like a curtain lifted on another life, memory drifted before her eyes the vision of an afternoon on the Palisades when a vivid-haired girl clung to a brown-haired boy, whispering over and over that she loved him—didn’t want anything ever in the whole wide world but him.For purposes of the drama she concentrated on it.Quite like the actress she was, she flung herself into the passion of those first months as if she had lived them yesterday. Fortunately for her the Goring of to-day, the actress, was a shell into which emotion could be poured as one pours burning fluid into an empty vessel.Little ’Dolph, with cigar twirling, eyes popping, perspiration dripping from his forehead, and a silk handkerchief tied round his short neck, kept her keyed to the highest pitch—no let-down, no time to think of self or the weather or rest; no time for anything but the part in hand. Though he would not have known whence the quotation sprang, with him “The play’s the thing” was a litany.Critics in the Capital and in Baltimore were almost unanimous in the opinion that it was a vital thing, sure[95]of ultimate success when placed on view for the thumbs-up, thumbs-down decision of that capricious goddess—Broadway.As a rule Goring and her leading man were the only two mentioned in the reviews, but this time almost every member of the company came in for a quota of praise. The old mother, the character man, the juvenile comedian, even the homely little sister with her wide hungry eyes and the queer catch in her voice, each had a word or two.Gloria Cromwell was the girl’s name. It was quite as ornate as she was plain. Goring laughed the first time she heard it.“Sounds as though she found it in a dime novel,” she told Cleeburg. “Why don’t you make her change it?”“Says it’s her own. Anyhow, it don’t matter.”“No—I dare say it doesn’t. She’s entitled to something to make her conspicuous.”Often she noticed the girl at rehearsal sitting in the theater after her bit was done, leaning forward, chin in her cupped hands, mop of reddish hair falling over eyes that devoured every move the star made. Once they met at the stage entrance on their way out.“Why don’t you go home earlier?” Goring asked. “I’m sure Mr. Cleeburg will excuse you when you’re through.”“I’d rather stay,” the girl answered in her peculiar breathless tone. “I can learn so much from you, Miss Goring. Besides,” she paused, hesitated, “I—live in a furnished room. It isn’t much to go home to.”“Have you been in New York long?” Goring put[96]the question as they moved toward the street side by side.“A year and a half—that is, this time. I used to come whenever I could scrape together the fare while I was doing stock in the West. But there never seemed to be an opening for me. Then I decided I’d best just come and wait around or I’d never get a chance. And I waited, all right.”Another pause while the wide wistful eyes filled with the same look of fright they had worn that first day at the theater—only this time it was the fright of memory.“Mr. Cleeburg has been wonderful to me. I’ll never be able to thank him enough.”They had reached the curb. Goring smiled. “I shall tell him that,” she said, and with a nod stepped into her car and drove off.In Washington she noticed that Miss Cromwell was looking better, though the eyes were as hungry as ever and the figure as slight. Undoubtedly Cleeburg was right. What she had needed was a few square meals. Her strength seemed to increase as work increased and in their scene together Goring remarked a give and take that made her own work mount to greater intensity. It was a short scene in which the younger sister who had hovered like a silent brooding shadow in the background pleaded with the older not to break away from her own class, not to try to go into a world she did not understand—and was met by the defiance of one molded to make a place for herself in any world. The scene went so well, in fact, that the author, at Cleeburg’s request, lengthened it. At the end when Goring held out her[97]arms and folded the weeping girl in them, a gratifying sniffle and the flutter of white went through the house. Which is the most either star or manager can ask.The company rehearsed the greater part of the night preceding the New York première, though Goring left the theater early to allow herself plenty of time for rest and the customary massage. She liked to relax thoroughly before the strenuous demands on the nerves which an opening always made. In her sea-blue silk draped bed she would lie for hours while the magic hands of the Swedish woman who attended her each day sent tingling through her veins an injection of new life. And finally a delicious drowsiness would creep over her like a thin veil drawn between her and the turmoil of the outside world. She would find herself presently floating on the waters of Lethe, arms outstretched, a smile upon her lips, a gentle undulation as of waves rising and falling beneath her. Small wonder that when she drifted back to reality some hours later she felt rejuvenated, with a calm and control equal to any emergency.She reached the theater a little after seven. On the way in she met Miss Cromwell. The girl’s eyes were burning. Their hungry look had gone completely and in its place had come a glow like a great light from within.“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed in passing, “I’m so thrilled. I’ve lived and lived for this—New York! And now it’s come! It’s actually come!”Goring nodded, voiced a perfunctory “Good luck,” and wondered in her soul what it would be like to feel once more that closing of the throat, that turmoil of beating heart, that utter abandon of joy in opportunity[98]realized. It thrust her back to the day when she had signed her first contract with Cleeburg. She and Bob had sat facing each other a long space without a word, his two hands gripping hers until they ached. And then—“I’m so glad, little girl—so damn glad!” had come from him huskily.Then his hands had loosed and swept round her and he had held her close and she had cried into the lapel of his blue serge coat, tears of sheer happiness.Cleeburg came to her dressing-room shortly before the rise of the curtain to tell her the house was packed. They were standing three rows deep—he was sure of a knock-out. He brought her a pile of telegrams from members of the profession and friends in the social world. She read them leisurely. It was her first opening on which there was not a long one from her husband. Not that she really missed it, but the lack gave her a curious feeling of wonder as to what had become of him.Her maid gave her hair a final pat and she stepped back to survey. It was an odd Jane Goring who gazed critically out of the mirror. No jangling jade, no spreading tail, no sensuous color of plumage. Just a blue serge dress of last year’s cut, a little shabby, open at the throat. It had been selected by the author, not without some protest from the star. She had wanted at least to go to a good tailor, but he had dragged her into a department store and made her buy one from stock at twenty-nine forty-nine. She had to admit that the effect, while not beautiful, was absolutely in character. Her shoes she had insisted upon getting at a Fifth Avenue boot shop. Feet are more conspicuous on the stage than[99]anywhere else in life and she must be well shod to do herself justice. Her hair, too, was groomed. The Goring coiffurewas abandoned until the last act but the faint wave necessary to it could not have passed unnoticed in the coils clustered about the factory girl’s ears.She went out, followed by her maid, and waited in the wings for her cue. Then came the inevitable tightening of the heart cords, the tense straining of muscles to achieve the best, the twinge of fear, all the tearing thrill of embarkation on a new venture. It lasted only an instant, however, an instant that ended in her entrance, followed by a crashing burst of applause. She bowed again and again, and the sweetness of it flowed like wine in her blood. The play halted, action suspended in mid-air, while the actress took the tribute she had known would greet her.After which the audience settled back to be entertained. From the beginning interest was evident, the heroine’s fight to make her own life apart from the prejudice which is as rampant in the lower as in the upper classes holding them. The struggle of evolution is the most human, most vital problem in the world.All through the first act the conflict endured, the girl’s discontent striking like flint on steel until the final scene when the little sister, matted hair falling over her eyes, dropped on her knees, crying: “All I know is—you’re goin’. You’re leavin’ me! An’ you can’t—you mustn’t! You’re gonna get hurt with them people you don’t know. They’re gonna step on you an’ make fun of you an’ beat you down until you ain’t got no fight left. You don’t belong there—you don’t[100]belong! Stay here with me! I’m your sister, your own blood—an’ I love you, I love you! Nobody couldn’t love you no more’n I do!”Gloria Cromwell’s slight figure shook with the words, her eyes burned into Goring’s. That queer hysterical note lifted her voice into a throb that was heartrending, and as the star drew her close she seemed to crumple like a broken flower.The applause that met the curtain’s descent was interspersed with the same gratifying sniffle they had encountered all along the route. A number of times it swung upward, members of the company taking it according to a schedule posted backstage.CURTAIN—ACT IFirst Curtain. . . . . .Tableau.Second〃Miss Goring and companyThird〃Miss Goring and principalsFourth〃Miss Goring and principalsFifth〃Miss Goring and Mr. BurkeSixth〃Miss GoringThe manner and order of taking the curtains had been carefully rehearsed the night before, but as it rose the fifth time with the star and leading man alone on the stage, an incident unanticipated occurred. Someone in the gallery shouted “Cromwell!” And the applause seemed to swell in answer.Goring at first paid no heed. The curtain fell—rose again and again. The call was repeated insistently. Goring went graciously to the wings and drew the girl onto the stage. She came, trembling so that she could[101]scarcely walk, eyes wide and terrified but shining somehow behind it all. She made an awkward bow, clinging like a child to Goring’s hand.When several curtains had been taken alone and preparations were finally under way for Act II, Jane Goring picked her way past property men and scene shifters toward the dressing-room with a five-pointed star painted on the door—to an actress the gate of heaven. Miss Cromwell was waiting there.“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed, “that was so—so sweet of you!”Jane Goring looked down at her. “I take it you have friends in the gallery?” she said.“No, I have no friends in New York.”Goring continued to gaze down and her look was not altogether pleasant. But the girl did not see it. With an impulsive gesture, half apologetic, half worshipful, she lifted the star’s hand to her lips.“God bless you!” she murmured with that queer catch in her voice.
Theyopened in Washington the end of August. Cleeburg tried to get Atlantic City but the theater had been booked weeks before his bid for it. Hence, in spite of the star’s popularity, they did not play to capacity. The season in the Capital was at low ebb. Most of the homes were closed and the usual Goring audiences were out of the city. Which after all was an advantage, for the play was still very rough.
All things considered, both Goring and her manager were rather pleased than otherwise. The four weeks of rehearsal had been torrid, record-breaking heat rising from the pavements, the city consumed by fever. The effect upon the company had been in ratio thereto. They were limp by the date of opening, unequal to their best in spite of the utmost effort.
And Goring’s rôle was difficult. She did not like it as well as “Peacock.” There was more drama, more opportunity for emotional acting, but less for the display of gowns and the bizarre beauty that had made both men and women flock to the other play. However, as Cleeburg had said, she couldn’t afford to stamp herself a one-part actress. And there was no denying the interest of the story.
As never before, Cleeburg had put her through her paces. At the theater after the company had dispersed, at her apartment in the evenings, he had gone over her part again and again coaching her scene by scene, speech[94]by speech, until the rest, knowing nothing of those extra sessions, judged her a miracle at quick study.
“Unbend, Jane!” he would say, prancing up and down her long drawing-room. “Come off your perch! You love him, Jane! You love him! D’you know what that means? You’d die for him. He ain’t your kind and you’d go through hell to get to him. Ever felt that way? Well, think about it—concentrate on it—and you’ll get it over.”
Vaguely, like a curtain lifted on another life, memory drifted before her eyes the vision of an afternoon on the Palisades when a vivid-haired girl clung to a brown-haired boy, whispering over and over that she loved him—didn’t want anything ever in the whole wide world but him.
For purposes of the drama she concentrated on it.
Quite like the actress she was, she flung herself into the passion of those first months as if she had lived them yesterday. Fortunately for her the Goring of to-day, the actress, was a shell into which emotion could be poured as one pours burning fluid into an empty vessel.
Little ’Dolph, with cigar twirling, eyes popping, perspiration dripping from his forehead, and a silk handkerchief tied round his short neck, kept her keyed to the highest pitch—no let-down, no time to think of self or the weather or rest; no time for anything but the part in hand. Though he would not have known whence the quotation sprang, with him “The play’s the thing” was a litany.
Critics in the Capital and in Baltimore were almost unanimous in the opinion that it was a vital thing, sure[95]of ultimate success when placed on view for the thumbs-up, thumbs-down decision of that capricious goddess—Broadway.
As a rule Goring and her leading man were the only two mentioned in the reviews, but this time almost every member of the company came in for a quota of praise. The old mother, the character man, the juvenile comedian, even the homely little sister with her wide hungry eyes and the queer catch in her voice, each had a word or two.
Gloria Cromwell was the girl’s name. It was quite as ornate as she was plain. Goring laughed the first time she heard it.
“Sounds as though she found it in a dime novel,” she told Cleeburg. “Why don’t you make her change it?”
“Says it’s her own. Anyhow, it don’t matter.”
“No—I dare say it doesn’t. She’s entitled to something to make her conspicuous.”
Often she noticed the girl at rehearsal sitting in the theater after her bit was done, leaning forward, chin in her cupped hands, mop of reddish hair falling over eyes that devoured every move the star made. Once they met at the stage entrance on their way out.
“Why don’t you go home earlier?” Goring asked. “I’m sure Mr. Cleeburg will excuse you when you’re through.”
“I’d rather stay,” the girl answered in her peculiar breathless tone. “I can learn so much from you, Miss Goring. Besides,” she paused, hesitated, “I—live in a furnished room. It isn’t much to go home to.”
“Have you been in New York long?” Goring put[96]the question as they moved toward the street side by side.
“A year and a half—that is, this time. I used to come whenever I could scrape together the fare while I was doing stock in the West. But there never seemed to be an opening for me. Then I decided I’d best just come and wait around or I’d never get a chance. And I waited, all right.”
Another pause while the wide wistful eyes filled with the same look of fright they had worn that first day at the theater—only this time it was the fright of memory.
“Mr. Cleeburg has been wonderful to me. I’ll never be able to thank him enough.”
They had reached the curb. Goring smiled. “I shall tell him that,” she said, and with a nod stepped into her car and drove off.
In Washington she noticed that Miss Cromwell was looking better, though the eyes were as hungry as ever and the figure as slight. Undoubtedly Cleeburg was right. What she had needed was a few square meals. Her strength seemed to increase as work increased and in their scene together Goring remarked a give and take that made her own work mount to greater intensity. It was a short scene in which the younger sister who had hovered like a silent brooding shadow in the background pleaded with the older not to break away from her own class, not to try to go into a world she did not understand—and was met by the defiance of one molded to make a place for herself in any world. The scene went so well, in fact, that the author, at Cleeburg’s request, lengthened it. At the end when Goring held out her[97]arms and folded the weeping girl in them, a gratifying sniffle and the flutter of white went through the house. Which is the most either star or manager can ask.
The company rehearsed the greater part of the night preceding the New York première, though Goring left the theater early to allow herself plenty of time for rest and the customary massage. She liked to relax thoroughly before the strenuous demands on the nerves which an opening always made. In her sea-blue silk draped bed she would lie for hours while the magic hands of the Swedish woman who attended her each day sent tingling through her veins an injection of new life. And finally a delicious drowsiness would creep over her like a thin veil drawn between her and the turmoil of the outside world. She would find herself presently floating on the waters of Lethe, arms outstretched, a smile upon her lips, a gentle undulation as of waves rising and falling beneath her. Small wonder that when she drifted back to reality some hours later she felt rejuvenated, with a calm and control equal to any emergency.
She reached the theater a little after seven. On the way in she met Miss Cromwell. The girl’s eyes were burning. Their hungry look had gone completely and in its place had come a glow like a great light from within.
“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed in passing, “I’m so thrilled. I’ve lived and lived for this—New York! And now it’s come! It’s actually come!”
Goring nodded, voiced a perfunctory “Good luck,” and wondered in her soul what it would be like to feel once more that closing of the throat, that turmoil of beating heart, that utter abandon of joy in opportunity[98]realized. It thrust her back to the day when she had signed her first contract with Cleeburg. She and Bob had sat facing each other a long space without a word, his two hands gripping hers until they ached. And then—
“I’m so glad, little girl—so damn glad!” had come from him huskily.
Then his hands had loosed and swept round her and he had held her close and she had cried into the lapel of his blue serge coat, tears of sheer happiness.
Cleeburg came to her dressing-room shortly before the rise of the curtain to tell her the house was packed. They were standing three rows deep—he was sure of a knock-out. He brought her a pile of telegrams from members of the profession and friends in the social world. She read them leisurely. It was her first opening on which there was not a long one from her husband. Not that she really missed it, but the lack gave her a curious feeling of wonder as to what had become of him.
Her maid gave her hair a final pat and she stepped back to survey. It was an odd Jane Goring who gazed critically out of the mirror. No jangling jade, no spreading tail, no sensuous color of plumage. Just a blue serge dress of last year’s cut, a little shabby, open at the throat. It had been selected by the author, not without some protest from the star. She had wanted at least to go to a good tailor, but he had dragged her into a department store and made her buy one from stock at twenty-nine forty-nine. She had to admit that the effect, while not beautiful, was absolutely in character. Her shoes she had insisted upon getting at a Fifth Avenue boot shop. Feet are more conspicuous on the stage than[99]anywhere else in life and she must be well shod to do herself justice. Her hair, too, was groomed. The Goring coiffurewas abandoned until the last act but the faint wave necessary to it could not have passed unnoticed in the coils clustered about the factory girl’s ears.
She went out, followed by her maid, and waited in the wings for her cue. Then came the inevitable tightening of the heart cords, the tense straining of muscles to achieve the best, the twinge of fear, all the tearing thrill of embarkation on a new venture. It lasted only an instant, however, an instant that ended in her entrance, followed by a crashing burst of applause. She bowed again and again, and the sweetness of it flowed like wine in her blood. The play halted, action suspended in mid-air, while the actress took the tribute she had known would greet her.
After which the audience settled back to be entertained. From the beginning interest was evident, the heroine’s fight to make her own life apart from the prejudice which is as rampant in the lower as in the upper classes holding them. The struggle of evolution is the most human, most vital problem in the world.
All through the first act the conflict endured, the girl’s discontent striking like flint on steel until the final scene when the little sister, matted hair falling over her eyes, dropped on her knees, crying: “All I know is—you’re goin’. You’re leavin’ me! An’ you can’t—you mustn’t! You’re gonna get hurt with them people you don’t know. They’re gonna step on you an’ make fun of you an’ beat you down until you ain’t got no fight left. You don’t belong there—you don’t[100]belong! Stay here with me! I’m your sister, your own blood—an’ I love you, I love you! Nobody couldn’t love you no more’n I do!”
Gloria Cromwell’s slight figure shook with the words, her eyes burned into Goring’s. That queer hysterical note lifted her voice into a throb that was heartrending, and as the star drew her close she seemed to crumple like a broken flower.
The applause that met the curtain’s descent was interspersed with the same gratifying sniffle they had encountered all along the route. A number of times it swung upward, members of the company taking it according to a schedule posted backstage.
CURTAIN—ACT IFirst Curtain. . . . . .Tableau.Second〃Miss Goring and companyThird〃Miss Goring and principalsFourth〃Miss Goring and principalsFifth〃Miss Goring and Mr. BurkeSixth〃Miss Goring
First Curtain. . . . . .
Second〃
Third〃
Fourth〃
Fifth〃
Sixth〃
The manner and order of taking the curtains had been carefully rehearsed the night before, but as it rose the fifth time with the star and leading man alone on the stage, an incident unanticipated occurred. Someone in the gallery shouted “Cromwell!” And the applause seemed to swell in answer.
Goring at first paid no heed. The curtain fell—rose again and again. The call was repeated insistently. Goring went graciously to the wings and drew the girl onto the stage. She came, trembling so that she could[101]scarcely walk, eyes wide and terrified but shining somehow behind it all. She made an awkward bow, clinging like a child to Goring’s hand.
When several curtains had been taken alone and preparations were finally under way for Act II, Jane Goring picked her way past property men and scene shifters toward the dressing-room with a five-pointed star painted on the door—to an actress the gate of heaven. Miss Cromwell was waiting there.
“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed, “that was so—so sweet of you!”
Jane Goring looked down at her. “I take it you have friends in the gallery?” she said.
“No, I have no friends in New York.”
Goring continued to gaze down and her look was not altogether pleasant. But the girl did not see it. With an impulsive gesture, half apologetic, half worshipful, she lifted the star’s hand to her lips.
“God bless you!” she murmured with that queer catch in her voice.
[102]CHAPTER IVAt5.00A. M.’Dolph Cleeburg was seated in the living-room-library den of his apartment completely surrounded by early editions and the butts of cigars. One of the latter circled joyously in his mouth as he and the author read over the various expressions of approval.“Here’s a fellow says Jane’s hair was too Fifth Avenue in the first act. By godfrey, ain’t that just like ’em? Can’t find fault with anything else, so have to pick on her hair.”“I told her to let it go,” the playwright remarked.“Well, that’s Jane. She’s got to look right or she can’t act. And, by gad, I’ve seen lots of Third Avenue girls got up like Fifth. Ain’t any law against it, is there?” He let the sheet rustle to the floor and picked up another. His collar and tie were open, his coat was off, his eyes held a blaze of excitement. A whiskey and soda stood on the tabouret beside him, untouched.“Listen to this, Ted!” He plunged into a eulogy that made his eyes snap and the cigar roll with a velocity impossible to estimate. “By godfrey,” came at the finish, “ain’t one of ’em don’t give some notice to that Cromwell kid”—and went on reading—“‘Managers—keep your eye on Miss Gloria Cromwell.’” Then he gave a long chuckle. “And to think I engaged her because she looked starved!”[103]“She has something that gets you.” The author paused meditatively. “Wonder if it’s her voice?”“Nope,” came crisply from Cleeburg. “It’s her heart. Probably suffered like hell and that’s what puts her over.”In Jane Goring’s boudoir some five hours later, the actress sat propped up, also like an isle in a sea of newspapers. She had read them in the small hours as had her manager. Only differently. One of the society satellites who circle round a popular star even as the moon circles round the earth and just as inconstantly, now silvering her sky, now leaving it black, had at the play’s finish carried her off to a supper party and dance. In the midst of gayeties a flunky had been dispatched for the morning papers and, in a flurry of excitement like the froth of champagne, the notices had been consumed, gushed over, forgotten.Not so by Goring, of course. Alone in the white light of a new day, she reread them slowly, digesting each word. One watching her would have found in her eyes no glow of satisfaction, no thrill that once more she had scored. Rather was there the ghost of a frown on her brow. A frown somewhat difficult to interpret.At eleven Cleeburg had her on the phone. He had been ringing the apartment at regular intervals since eight but her maid had refused to disturb her. His voice ran the gamut of explosive enthusiasm.“Great, Jane, great! We’ve got ’em again! We’ve got ’em! Didn’t I tell you this one had it all over ‘Peacock’?”He wanted to come up and lunch with her but she[104]told him she was tired, would see him later at the theater.The greater part of the day she spent resting, going over her notices and dictating letters to her secretary. Toward five she dressed and sent for her car. It was a crisp, clear blue October day. A run in the park or up Riverside—there were a number of things she had to think about—would fill in time until dinner.A restlessness unusual and unexplained made her pace the floor while she waited. So unusual was it, in fact, that it caused a vague wonder. By all previous portents she should have been exalted, lifted to the zenith of content through the knowledge that the star of her success still sailed high in the heavens. She was not. She felt nervous, distressed, with a weight on her chest that even the buoyant breezes from the river could not dissipate.Rolling up Riverside Drive with the ease of floating in ether, she had the sense of a great hand clutching her. The sensation was the same as that which she had experienced the first day of rehearsal—only intensified. It made breathing difficult, annoyed her to the point of exasperation.She ate no dinner, just swallowed a mouthful of tea and drove downtown. Little ’Dolph came to her dressing-room a few minutes later. He was jubilant. They were sold out weeks ahead. The play had hit the jaded metropolis in the eye—to quote him, with variations. It was good for another three seasons’ run. He rambled on at random, eyes popping, infectious smile lighting his round face like the smile of the sun at high noon. Presently he stopped, shifted his cigar and stared at her.[105]“What’s the matter with you, Jane?”She looked down questioningly.“Ain’t said a word,” he continued. “What’s got you?”“Nothing. I’m tired, I dare say.”“Sure! Morning-after stuff! Don’t let down, though. We don’t want ’em saying second night’s off—the way it always is.”“You don’t have to tell me that.” Indignation was in her voice.“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he apologized quickly. “And, Jane—”“Yes?”“Might let your hair go a bit in that first act—what?”Her eyes were like two rapier thrusts. He made for the door. “They’ll accept my hair just as it is,” was her verdict.Their little chat did not tend to lift in any degree the mood that held her. She gave up trying to shake it off.Fortunately it had no perceptible effect on her work. She was too clever for that. Many years on the stage had trained her to the difficult task of obliterating personal worries the instant the glow of the footlights would have revealed them to public gaze. In fact, she had almost succeeded in stamping them from consciousness when Gloria Cromwell made her entrance. At that moment there came a sudden burst of applause. Miss Cromwell tried to go on with her lines. They could not be heard. It was unprecedented, staggering. A girl, unknown, unheralded, was holding up the play! Of course, action had been suspended an instant when Goring came on, but this,—thiswas unheard of.[106]Faintness seized the star, blinded her,—then fury. She knew now the nature of the weight that had stifled her all day. In a way, she had known it from the beginning. It was this girl! The lengthening of the part on tour, last night’s acclaim, her notices this morning, all had formed a cumulative irritant that now expressed itself in a surge of throttling hatred.She jumped in on the girl’s lines, killing almost every speech. She changed her own so that cues would be missed. No move, no turn that would make the little sister’s performance fall flat was allowed to pass. Even the final speech, ending with the beautiful tableau that last night had brought down the house, was cut short. Like a red tongue of flame her rage swept over its object consuming every opportunity the part gave.Still she did not kill the applause that greeted the curtain.Storming to her dressing-room came Cleeburg.“What’s the matter? You cut the act a minute and a half!”“I was ill,” she told him. And barred the door, stripping off her dress while the maid prepared a dose of aromatics and bathed her head with eau de cologne.Since Gloria Cromwell appeared only in the first act, dying for exigencies of plot off-stage—the remainder of the performance went as usual.But that night, as once before, Goring tossed between sheets of finest linen and did not close her eyes.In the morning she sent for Cleeburg.He came, solicitous for her health, relieved by the fact[107]that her aberration of the night before had not in any way affected the play’s reception.She met him, cool and smiling and looking very beautiful in a purple mandarin suit, the skirt of which was weighted with wicked Chinese embroidery. Her tapering white hands were ringless and low-heeled Chinese slippers made her look less tall. Greeting him, her hand clung to his.She led the way into the drawing-room.“’Dolph,” she began, and for the first time a rather plaintive note crept into her voice. “’Dolph, I’m unhappy.”In the act of lighting the omnipresent cigar, he looked up, astonished. “Why—what’s wrong?”“I’m unhappy—and for a reason you may not quite understand. But you can help make things right. You can make themallright, if you will.”“Sure, Jane, you know me! Anything I can do—”“It has to do with the play.”“Fire ahead!” He resumed the operation of lighting.“’Dolph, that Cromwell girl, I simply can’t work with her.”Again the process of lighting was arrested. “Can’t work with her? Good God!”She went to him, struck a match and, bending over, held it to the weed. He laughed comfortably, settled back—patted her hand.“Sort of took the wind out of my sails, that did. Guess I didn’t get you straight, eh?”She sat down in a chair close to his, her back to the light.[108]“Pleasedoget me right. I’ve nothing against her work, ifyoulike it. It’s her personality that irritates me. There’s something—something snaky about her. She makes me nervous, makes me go off in my lines. You know, I told you in the beginning I didn’t like her.”“You said she was too homely.”“Well, she is.”“Not any more. Why, she’s got a face like—like Fiske. One of those faces you don’t get at first, but with so much behind it that you come to like it better than the kind that’s just easy to look at.”“I’ve never been able to like her, ’Dolph. I’ve tried to because you seemed to, and you know how absolutely I depend on your judgment. But I can’t, that’s all.” She looked away and the suggestion of a sob sounded in the words.Cleeburg’s cigar revolved silently for a few moments, then he leaned forward. “What are we going to do about it?”She turned to him, rested her white tapering hand pleadingly on his arm. “Get rid of her, ’Dolph.”“Get rid of her? Chuck her—just like that?” He snapped his fingers.“You can find some way that won’t hurt her feelings.”“Any way would be treating her rough.”“She’ll have no difficulty getting another engagement.”Cleeburg had been watching her over his cigar, round eyes studying her as they were in the habit of doing at rehearsal. Now he snapped the weed into the other corner of his mouth and smiled benignly. “That’s exactly why I ain’t letting her go.”[109]Jane Goring’s eyes met his with a delicate film of tears veiling them. “Don’t you want to please me?”“I want to please the public,” said Cleeburg curtly, “and they like her. Say—what’s got into you, Jane, anyhow?”“I don’t know! I don’t know!” A few tears, well chosen, rolled over onto her white cheeks. She brushed them away. “I’m just miserable, that’s all. Last night made me so nervous that I gave a perfectly rotten performance. Just playing opposite her gives me goose-flesh. Something about her chokes me and she seems to feel it—to revel in it. She’s a snake, ’Dolph, and I simply can’t stand her.”“Seems to me a pretty nice kid.”The hand resting on his arm traveled its length. “’Dolph,—isn’t it important that I should be happy in my work?”“Sure!”“And ifshemakes me unhappy?”He gave her hand an understanding squeeze and a slow twinkle appeared in his round eyes. “Ah, come on, Jane! Talk straight to yourself! She’s made too big a hit to suit you. That’s what’s eating you.”For an instant Jane Goring said nothing. A hard line tightened her mouth, but quickly she dissipated it, replacing it with a deprecatory smile.“How absurd, ’Dolph!”“’Course it’s absurd. Don’t try to hog it, Jane! Give the kid a chance!” He dropped back, regarding his cigar contemplatively.“But I tell you that’s not the reason. I simply can’t[110]do anything if she’s in the company. She makes me bristle!”“Because she gets a big hand,” he put in. “Because she holds up the show!” He leaned forward once more. “And you honestly think I’d let a find like that get away from me?”Jane Goring got to her feet. She had attempted a new rôle. She had pleaded. Now she would play in character. She would demand.“Either she goes—or I do,” came succinctly.“Nonsense, Jane!” He, too, was on his feet.“I mean it. You can take your choice.”“Why, listen to me, old girl! You’ve got the public in the palm of your hand! You can afford to give the kid a square deal.”“I’ve told you—”Cleeburg’s round eyes narrowed. “What’re you trying to do—bully me?”“No. I want you to be fair.”“I am fair—to all concerned—”“Except to me who should be your first consideration.”“Look here, Jane, you’ve had things pretty much your own way for a good many years. To me there wasn’t anybody—not one of ’em—in your class, either as actress or woman. Darned if I wasn’t even afraid of you! You’ve laid down the law more than once and I let you get away with it. But I can’t let you grab a find out of my hand, just like that!” Again the fingers snapped. “And I won’t!”The peacock’s shriek is the one unbeautiful thing about[111]him. It is blatant, raucous. It is crude as the rasp of iron on stone.Jane Goring’s voice rose belligerently to the housetops. “And I tell you, I won’t have her putting over that sob stuff on me! I won’t have it! I won’t have it!!” Stripped of iridescence, shorn of plumage, she stood facing him, nails grinding into palms, head thrust forward and upward, body rocking with the same fury that had seized her the night before.Cleeburg came to her, his round eyes softened and troubled, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come, come, Jane! Don’t let’s do anything hasty. You and I’ve pulled along pretty comfortably for a long time. This thing is a tempest in a teapot. Let’s both think it over and have a nice calm talk later in the week.”When he had left, she settled down to weigh things and balance accounts.First and foremost, one discomforting thought was uppermost—she was losing her drag with her manager. It had been a revelation, amazing, most difficult to face, most delicate to handle. A few years ago ’Dolph Cleeburg would have been, as he had frankly stated, afraid to cross her. Hers would have been the last word, the decisive one. Such incidents as the cutting of scenes, the dismissing of actors to whom she objected, were occurrences not uncommon. Gloria Cromwell would simply have received her two weeks’ notice accompanied by a pleasing smile from Cleeburg and, since he liked her, a contract and promise to put her in his next production. To-day Jane Goring had met open defiance, backed with[112]a twinge of ridicule even harder to endure. Not subtly but poignantly she felt it. That smile that had lurked in his eye when he called the green-eyed monster by its right name—there was no mistaking it.Just one course remained. Her brain sprang instantly to that—to tighten her hold on him in some other way so that her will would still be the lever directing their business association. At any cost it must be accomplished. Times innumerable he had begged her to procure a divorce from the husband with whom she did not live, and marry him. That answer was the obvious one to her present situation. It gave to Jane Goring the one safe solution.She did not hesitate, did not stop to weigh Bob’s wishes in the matter. Circumstances had pushed her to take the step. Without delay she must act and efficiently. Immediately and as quietly as possible the whole affair must be put through, consummated. It must not be the usual theatrical divorce, with blaring of trumpets and long columns in the newspapers. If it could be managed, she wanted no publicity at all. Just as her present marriage was unknown generally, so would she conduct her second venture.Having arrived at a solution she called up her lawyer, made an appointment and drove downtown.Two hours later she left his office, a shadow across her eyes, her face drawn and a bit haggard. The thing was not so easy as she had anticipated—impossible, in fact, in New York as matters now stood. They had thrashed it out—viewed it from every conceivable angle—to reach a conclusion that placed the final decision[113]entirely in Bob McNaughton’s hands. Unless Goring were willing to leave the state long enough to establish a residence, Bob was the one who must sue. He must be located, which would involve no great difficulty, and then, granted his consent could be gained, it would take the red tape of the law an indefinite time to unwind.What worried her was the fear that Bob might take this occasion to be nasty. The long silence since he had gone West made it difficult to gauge his attitude toward her. More than likely he would refuse and cause her no end of trouble.When she received word from her attorney that, through his former paper, Bob had been located with the Graystone Photoplay Company in Los Angeles, she decided to write instead of trusting to the cold terms of a legal request.Very carefully she worded the letter, making it most friendly but with the impersonal friendliness of those whose lives have never intimately touched. Since she had not heard from him in over two years, she wrote, she was quite sure he had by this time come to regard her as a sort of mythical being. Their separation had become so complete that a request she was about to make would, she knew, be nothing short of welcome to him. She wanted him to have his freedom. Herself—she no longer wanted to feel bound. She would always think of him as the best friend she ever had, but so many years had elapsed since their relationship had been that of husband and wife that it was rather a farce to keep up the pose any longer. She was sure he would agree in this. Knowing the New York laws he must realize that the move[114]would have to come from him. California, she understood, was more lenient, and since he was now a resident, it would be practically easy. She assumed that by this time his health had been entirely restored and wished him every good wish in the world.Before sending off the letter she gave it to her attorney. Stamped with his approval but with no slight misgivings on her part, it was registered and posted; then tossed carelessly into a bag with thousands of others—tear-stained, anxious, pleading, desperate, breathless, threatening, thumb-marked, hopeless—all jumbled as human emotions are jumbled together in this puzzling world. With these it was flung into a mass of other bags similarly laden and started on its way across the country.Meanwhile instead of resuming their discussion, ’Dolph Cleeburg had diplomatically avoided seeing his star. For several days he stayed away from the theater and Goring was forced at every performance to endure the girl’s entrance—the applause that apparently had become a habit.The climax came when one of the Sunday papers featured the young actress’s picture on the same page as the star’s. That was the proverbial straw.Jane Goring scorned any further attempt to bring Cleeburg round to her way of thinking. If he was afraid to see her, was determined to keep Cromwell in the cast—very well, she would read him a lesson. She would prove to him who was the motive power that kept his play going. She would show him in whose hands lay his success or failure. Incidentally she would resort to the very feminine ruse of playing on his sympathy.[115]At seven-thirty Monday evening she sent word to the theater that she was ill and could not appear.As she had anticipated, the stage manager phoned wildly, begging for a word with her. The situation was terrible! Terrible! She must come! They were sold out!Goring smiled. It was just what she had looked for. No understudy for her had been engaged so far. It was a matter with which they never concerned themselves, for no one could have replaced Goring with the public. The theater would have to remain dark—Cleeburg would have his lesson. Madame was very ill, her maid replied, too ill even to answer the telephone. The stage manager urged. He pleaded. In vain! A few minutes later Cleeburg himself was on the wire. Couldn’t she drag herself downtown? She must! To him she spoke, her voice so weak that it could scarcely be heard. She had tried—impossible. Her heart— And then the maid once more took the wire. Cleeburg was frantic. It meant a refund—the loss of thousands. He almost wept into the phone. At the psychological moment the maid told him madame had fainted.Jane Goring slept that night with a smile on her lips.She woke up in the morning to read that at half an hour’s notice Gloria Cromwell had gone on in her place—and hit Broadway straight between the eyes.
At5.00A. M.’Dolph Cleeburg was seated in the living-room-library den of his apartment completely surrounded by early editions and the butts of cigars. One of the latter circled joyously in his mouth as he and the author read over the various expressions of approval.
“Here’s a fellow says Jane’s hair was too Fifth Avenue in the first act. By godfrey, ain’t that just like ’em? Can’t find fault with anything else, so have to pick on her hair.”
“I told her to let it go,” the playwright remarked.
“Well, that’s Jane. She’s got to look right or she can’t act. And, by gad, I’ve seen lots of Third Avenue girls got up like Fifth. Ain’t any law against it, is there?” He let the sheet rustle to the floor and picked up another. His collar and tie were open, his coat was off, his eyes held a blaze of excitement. A whiskey and soda stood on the tabouret beside him, untouched.
“Listen to this, Ted!” He plunged into a eulogy that made his eyes snap and the cigar roll with a velocity impossible to estimate. “By godfrey,” came at the finish, “ain’t one of ’em don’t give some notice to that Cromwell kid”—and went on reading—“‘Managers—keep your eye on Miss Gloria Cromwell.’” Then he gave a long chuckle. “And to think I engaged her because she looked starved!”
[103]“She has something that gets you.” The author paused meditatively. “Wonder if it’s her voice?”
“Nope,” came crisply from Cleeburg. “It’s her heart. Probably suffered like hell and that’s what puts her over.”
In Jane Goring’s boudoir some five hours later, the actress sat propped up, also like an isle in a sea of newspapers. She had read them in the small hours as had her manager. Only differently. One of the society satellites who circle round a popular star even as the moon circles round the earth and just as inconstantly, now silvering her sky, now leaving it black, had at the play’s finish carried her off to a supper party and dance. In the midst of gayeties a flunky had been dispatched for the morning papers and, in a flurry of excitement like the froth of champagne, the notices had been consumed, gushed over, forgotten.
Not so by Goring, of course. Alone in the white light of a new day, she reread them slowly, digesting each word. One watching her would have found in her eyes no glow of satisfaction, no thrill that once more she had scored. Rather was there the ghost of a frown on her brow. A frown somewhat difficult to interpret.
At eleven Cleeburg had her on the phone. He had been ringing the apartment at regular intervals since eight but her maid had refused to disturb her. His voice ran the gamut of explosive enthusiasm.
“Great, Jane, great! We’ve got ’em again! We’ve got ’em! Didn’t I tell you this one had it all over ‘Peacock’?”
He wanted to come up and lunch with her but she[104]told him she was tired, would see him later at the theater.
The greater part of the day she spent resting, going over her notices and dictating letters to her secretary. Toward five she dressed and sent for her car. It was a crisp, clear blue October day. A run in the park or up Riverside—there were a number of things she had to think about—would fill in time until dinner.
A restlessness unusual and unexplained made her pace the floor while she waited. So unusual was it, in fact, that it caused a vague wonder. By all previous portents she should have been exalted, lifted to the zenith of content through the knowledge that the star of her success still sailed high in the heavens. She was not. She felt nervous, distressed, with a weight on her chest that even the buoyant breezes from the river could not dissipate.
Rolling up Riverside Drive with the ease of floating in ether, she had the sense of a great hand clutching her. The sensation was the same as that which she had experienced the first day of rehearsal—only intensified. It made breathing difficult, annoyed her to the point of exasperation.
She ate no dinner, just swallowed a mouthful of tea and drove downtown. Little ’Dolph came to her dressing-room a few minutes later. He was jubilant. They were sold out weeks ahead. The play had hit the jaded metropolis in the eye—to quote him, with variations. It was good for another three seasons’ run. He rambled on at random, eyes popping, infectious smile lighting his round face like the smile of the sun at high noon. Presently he stopped, shifted his cigar and stared at her.
[105]“What’s the matter with you, Jane?”
She looked down questioningly.
“Ain’t said a word,” he continued. “What’s got you?”
“Nothing. I’m tired, I dare say.”
“Sure! Morning-after stuff! Don’t let down, though. We don’t want ’em saying second night’s off—the way it always is.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Indignation was in her voice.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he apologized quickly. “And, Jane—”
“Yes?”
“Might let your hair go a bit in that first act—what?”
Her eyes were like two rapier thrusts. He made for the door. “They’ll accept my hair just as it is,” was her verdict.
Their little chat did not tend to lift in any degree the mood that held her. She gave up trying to shake it off.
Fortunately it had no perceptible effect on her work. She was too clever for that. Many years on the stage had trained her to the difficult task of obliterating personal worries the instant the glow of the footlights would have revealed them to public gaze. In fact, she had almost succeeded in stamping them from consciousness when Gloria Cromwell made her entrance. At that moment there came a sudden burst of applause. Miss Cromwell tried to go on with her lines. They could not be heard. It was unprecedented, staggering. A girl, unknown, unheralded, was holding up the play! Of course, action had been suspended an instant when Goring came on, but this,—thiswas unheard of.
[106]Faintness seized the star, blinded her,—then fury. She knew now the nature of the weight that had stifled her all day. In a way, she had known it from the beginning. It was this girl! The lengthening of the part on tour, last night’s acclaim, her notices this morning, all had formed a cumulative irritant that now expressed itself in a surge of throttling hatred.
She jumped in on the girl’s lines, killing almost every speech. She changed her own so that cues would be missed. No move, no turn that would make the little sister’s performance fall flat was allowed to pass. Even the final speech, ending with the beautiful tableau that last night had brought down the house, was cut short. Like a red tongue of flame her rage swept over its object consuming every opportunity the part gave.
Still she did not kill the applause that greeted the curtain.
Storming to her dressing-room came Cleeburg.
“What’s the matter? You cut the act a minute and a half!”
“I was ill,” she told him. And barred the door, stripping off her dress while the maid prepared a dose of aromatics and bathed her head with eau de cologne.
Since Gloria Cromwell appeared only in the first act, dying for exigencies of plot off-stage—the remainder of the performance went as usual.
But that night, as once before, Goring tossed between sheets of finest linen and did not close her eyes.
In the morning she sent for Cleeburg.
He came, solicitous for her health, relieved by the fact[107]that her aberration of the night before had not in any way affected the play’s reception.
She met him, cool and smiling and looking very beautiful in a purple mandarin suit, the skirt of which was weighted with wicked Chinese embroidery. Her tapering white hands were ringless and low-heeled Chinese slippers made her look less tall. Greeting him, her hand clung to his.
She led the way into the drawing-room.
“’Dolph,” she began, and for the first time a rather plaintive note crept into her voice. “’Dolph, I’m unhappy.”
In the act of lighting the omnipresent cigar, he looked up, astonished. “Why—what’s wrong?”
“I’m unhappy—and for a reason you may not quite understand. But you can help make things right. You can make themallright, if you will.”
“Sure, Jane, you know me! Anything I can do—”
“It has to do with the play.”
“Fire ahead!” He resumed the operation of lighting.
“’Dolph, that Cromwell girl, I simply can’t work with her.”
Again the process of lighting was arrested. “Can’t work with her? Good God!”
She went to him, struck a match and, bending over, held it to the weed. He laughed comfortably, settled back—patted her hand.
“Sort of took the wind out of my sails, that did. Guess I didn’t get you straight, eh?”
She sat down in a chair close to his, her back to the light.
[108]“Pleasedoget me right. I’ve nothing against her work, ifyoulike it. It’s her personality that irritates me. There’s something—something snaky about her. She makes me nervous, makes me go off in my lines. You know, I told you in the beginning I didn’t like her.”
“You said she was too homely.”
“Well, she is.”
“Not any more. Why, she’s got a face like—like Fiske. One of those faces you don’t get at first, but with so much behind it that you come to like it better than the kind that’s just easy to look at.”
“I’ve never been able to like her, ’Dolph. I’ve tried to because you seemed to, and you know how absolutely I depend on your judgment. But I can’t, that’s all.” She looked away and the suggestion of a sob sounded in the words.
Cleeburg’s cigar revolved silently for a few moments, then he leaned forward. “What are we going to do about it?”
She turned to him, rested her white tapering hand pleadingly on his arm. “Get rid of her, ’Dolph.”
“Get rid of her? Chuck her—just like that?” He snapped his fingers.
“You can find some way that won’t hurt her feelings.”
“Any way would be treating her rough.”
“She’ll have no difficulty getting another engagement.”
Cleeburg had been watching her over his cigar, round eyes studying her as they were in the habit of doing at rehearsal. Now he snapped the weed into the other corner of his mouth and smiled benignly. “That’s exactly why I ain’t letting her go.”
[109]Jane Goring’s eyes met his with a delicate film of tears veiling them. “Don’t you want to please me?”
“I want to please the public,” said Cleeburg curtly, “and they like her. Say—what’s got into you, Jane, anyhow?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” A few tears, well chosen, rolled over onto her white cheeks. She brushed them away. “I’m just miserable, that’s all. Last night made me so nervous that I gave a perfectly rotten performance. Just playing opposite her gives me goose-flesh. Something about her chokes me and she seems to feel it—to revel in it. She’s a snake, ’Dolph, and I simply can’t stand her.”
“Seems to me a pretty nice kid.”
The hand resting on his arm traveled its length. “’Dolph,—isn’t it important that I should be happy in my work?”
“Sure!”
“And ifshemakes me unhappy?”
He gave her hand an understanding squeeze and a slow twinkle appeared in his round eyes. “Ah, come on, Jane! Talk straight to yourself! She’s made too big a hit to suit you. That’s what’s eating you.”
For an instant Jane Goring said nothing. A hard line tightened her mouth, but quickly she dissipated it, replacing it with a deprecatory smile.
“How absurd, ’Dolph!”
“’Course it’s absurd. Don’t try to hog it, Jane! Give the kid a chance!” He dropped back, regarding his cigar contemplatively.
“But I tell you that’s not the reason. I simply can’t[110]do anything if she’s in the company. She makes me bristle!”
“Because she gets a big hand,” he put in. “Because she holds up the show!” He leaned forward once more. “And you honestly think I’d let a find like that get away from me?”
Jane Goring got to her feet. She had attempted a new rôle. She had pleaded. Now she would play in character. She would demand.
“Either she goes—or I do,” came succinctly.
“Nonsense, Jane!” He, too, was on his feet.
“I mean it. You can take your choice.”
“Why, listen to me, old girl! You’ve got the public in the palm of your hand! You can afford to give the kid a square deal.”
“I’ve told you—”
Cleeburg’s round eyes narrowed. “What’re you trying to do—bully me?”
“No. I want you to be fair.”
“I am fair—to all concerned—”
“Except to me who should be your first consideration.”
“Look here, Jane, you’ve had things pretty much your own way for a good many years. To me there wasn’t anybody—not one of ’em—in your class, either as actress or woman. Darned if I wasn’t even afraid of you! You’ve laid down the law more than once and I let you get away with it. But I can’t let you grab a find out of my hand, just like that!” Again the fingers snapped. “And I won’t!”
The peacock’s shriek is the one unbeautiful thing about[111]him. It is blatant, raucous. It is crude as the rasp of iron on stone.
Jane Goring’s voice rose belligerently to the housetops. “And I tell you, I won’t have her putting over that sob stuff on me! I won’t have it! I won’t have it!!” Stripped of iridescence, shorn of plumage, she stood facing him, nails grinding into palms, head thrust forward and upward, body rocking with the same fury that had seized her the night before.
Cleeburg came to her, his round eyes softened and troubled, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come, come, Jane! Don’t let’s do anything hasty. You and I’ve pulled along pretty comfortably for a long time. This thing is a tempest in a teapot. Let’s both think it over and have a nice calm talk later in the week.”
When he had left, she settled down to weigh things and balance accounts.
First and foremost, one discomforting thought was uppermost—she was losing her drag with her manager. It had been a revelation, amazing, most difficult to face, most delicate to handle. A few years ago ’Dolph Cleeburg would have been, as he had frankly stated, afraid to cross her. Hers would have been the last word, the decisive one. Such incidents as the cutting of scenes, the dismissing of actors to whom she objected, were occurrences not uncommon. Gloria Cromwell would simply have received her two weeks’ notice accompanied by a pleasing smile from Cleeburg and, since he liked her, a contract and promise to put her in his next production. To-day Jane Goring had met open defiance, backed with[112]a twinge of ridicule even harder to endure. Not subtly but poignantly she felt it. That smile that had lurked in his eye when he called the green-eyed monster by its right name—there was no mistaking it.
Just one course remained. Her brain sprang instantly to that—to tighten her hold on him in some other way so that her will would still be the lever directing their business association. At any cost it must be accomplished. Times innumerable he had begged her to procure a divorce from the husband with whom she did not live, and marry him. That answer was the obvious one to her present situation. It gave to Jane Goring the one safe solution.
She did not hesitate, did not stop to weigh Bob’s wishes in the matter. Circumstances had pushed her to take the step. Without delay she must act and efficiently. Immediately and as quietly as possible the whole affair must be put through, consummated. It must not be the usual theatrical divorce, with blaring of trumpets and long columns in the newspapers. If it could be managed, she wanted no publicity at all. Just as her present marriage was unknown generally, so would she conduct her second venture.
Having arrived at a solution she called up her lawyer, made an appointment and drove downtown.
Two hours later she left his office, a shadow across her eyes, her face drawn and a bit haggard. The thing was not so easy as she had anticipated—impossible, in fact, in New York as matters now stood. They had thrashed it out—viewed it from every conceivable angle—to reach a conclusion that placed the final decision[113]entirely in Bob McNaughton’s hands. Unless Goring were willing to leave the state long enough to establish a residence, Bob was the one who must sue. He must be located, which would involve no great difficulty, and then, granted his consent could be gained, it would take the red tape of the law an indefinite time to unwind.
What worried her was the fear that Bob might take this occasion to be nasty. The long silence since he had gone West made it difficult to gauge his attitude toward her. More than likely he would refuse and cause her no end of trouble.
When she received word from her attorney that, through his former paper, Bob had been located with the Graystone Photoplay Company in Los Angeles, she decided to write instead of trusting to the cold terms of a legal request.
Very carefully she worded the letter, making it most friendly but with the impersonal friendliness of those whose lives have never intimately touched. Since she had not heard from him in over two years, she wrote, she was quite sure he had by this time come to regard her as a sort of mythical being. Their separation had become so complete that a request she was about to make would, she knew, be nothing short of welcome to him. She wanted him to have his freedom. Herself—she no longer wanted to feel bound. She would always think of him as the best friend she ever had, but so many years had elapsed since their relationship had been that of husband and wife that it was rather a farce to keep up the pose any longer. She was sure he would agree in this. Knowing the New York laws he must realize that the move[114]would have to come from him. California, she understood, was more lenient, and since he was now a resident, it would be practically easy. She assumed that by this time his health had been entirely restored and wished him every good wish in the world.
Before sending off the letter she gave it to her attorney. Stamped with his approval but with no slight misgivings on her part, it was registered and posted; then tossed carelessly into a bag with thousands of others—tear-stained, anxious, pleading, desperate, breathless, threatening, thumb-marked, hopeless—all jumbled as human emotions are jumbled together in this puzzling world. With these it was flung into a mass of other bags similarly laden and started on its way across the country.
Meanwhile instead of resuming their discussion, ’Dolph Cleeburg had diplomatically avoided seeing his star. For several days he stayed away from the theater and Goring was forced at every performance to endure the girl’s entrance—the applause that apparently had become a habit.
The climax came when one of the Sunday papers featured the young actress’s picture on the same page as the star’s. That was the proverbial straw.
Jane Goring scorned any further attempt to bring Cleeburg round to her way of thinking. If he was afraid to see her, was determined to keep Cromwell in the cast—very well, she would read him a lesson. She would prove to him who was the motive power that kept his play going. She would show him in whose hands lay his success or failure. Incidentally she would resort to the very feminine ruse of playing on his sympathy.
[115]At seven-thirty Monday evening she sent word to the theater that she was ill and could not appear.
As she had anticipated, the stage manager phoned wildly, begging for a word with her. The situation was terrible! Terrible! She must come! They were sold out!
Goring smiled. It was just what she had looked for. No understudy for her had been engaged so far. It was a matter with which they never concerned themselves, for no one could have replaced Goring with the public. The theater would have to remain dark—Cleeburg would have his lesson. Madame was very ill, her maid replied, too ill even to answer the telephone. The stage manager urged. He pleaded. In vain! A few minutes later Cleeburg himself was on the wire. Couldn’t she drag herself downtown? She must! To him she spoke, her voice so weak that it could scarcely be heard. She had tried—impossible. Her heart— And then the maid once more took the wire. Cleeburg was frantic. It meant a refund—the loss of thousands. He almost wept into the phone. At the psychological moment the maid told him madame had fainted.
Jane Goring slept that night with a smile on her lips.
She woke up in the morning to read that at half an hour’s notice Gloria Cromwell had gone on in her place—and hit Broadway straight between the eyes.