One evening Wynne arrived home and announced that he had left the stage.
“I am going to write a play,” he said, “and I shall want all my time.”
He had not taken into consideration that with the loss of his theatre salary their finances would be seriously crippled. Of late there had been rather more money than usual, and Eve had entertained the hope of engaging a maid to come in and do the rougher work, but with this announcement that happy prospect took immediate wings.
A play would certainly take several weeks to write, and probably months or even years to place. In the meantime there were three or four outstanding sales of stories and articles which would realize a total of thirty or forty pounds.
Yet, although these considerations arose very clearly in Eve’s mind, she only nodded and expressed enthusiasm for the idea.
And so, with a great deal of energy and intention, Wynne attacked the play, and Eve rolled up her sleeves and washed the greasy plates, and blacked the stove and cooked the meals, and did the meagre housekeeping, and many things she liked not, on little more than nothing a week. It was strenuous work, but she carried it out cheerfully and unostentatiously, and contrived to provide enough to keep his mind from being worried with sordid considerations.
Sometimes—not so often as she wished—he read what he had written, and they talked over the human considerations that go to make a play. He himself was most enthusiastic about the work, and to a great extent she shared his belief. There was, however, a certain chilliness in his lines and expressed thoughts, which by the gentlest tact she strove to warm.
It was a delicate enough operation in all conscience, for there is no machinery more difficult to guide than an artist’s mind, and none that demands overhaul more constantly. Hers was the task of tightening the bolts of a moving vehicle—one attended with grave risks to the mechanic. She took her satisfaction after the manner of a mechanic, by noting the smoother running and more even purr of the machine.
As they had determined upon their wedding day, the physical, and even the spiritual, side of their union was in abeyance. Of sweet intimacies and gentle understandings there were none. It was the work first, the work last, and the work which took precedence to all.
For Eve it was a lonely life—a life of unceasing mental and manual exercise. She strove with head and hand that his spirit might talk with posterity.
Sometimes there were knocks, but she took them bravely, looking always to the future to repay.
One morning in the early summer Wynne fretfully threw down his pen.
The whitey-gold sunshine was calling of bluebell woods and cloud shadows racing over the downs.
“I must get out,” he said—“out in the fields somewhere.”
Eve filled her lungs expectantly.
“Let’s go to Richmond,” she said. “Do you remember the first night I came back, and we said we’d go there one day and eat apple turnovers on the way home?”
“Yes, oh yes.”
“It’ud be gorgeous to have some fresh air, and we could make plans and—”
“Yes, but not today. I want to think today—I should be better alone.”
It was foolish to be hurt, and gently she answered:
“I shouldn’t stop you thinking.”
“Some other day, then. This morning I’ll go alone. That last act is bothering me. I shall bring back a fierce hunger for you to appease.”
That was all. He reached for his hat and walked to the door. As he laid his hand on the knob she said:
“Think of me bending over the gas-ring, Wynne.”
He turned and looked queerly at her without replying. The angle of her speech was new and unexpected. Then his cleverness suggested:
“I shall think of you as you’ll look when our honeymoon begins.”
In an instant she was disarmed and had stretched out a friendly hand.
“I wanted to be level with the future for one day,” she said. “Out in the fields we are as rich as we shall ever be.”
He nodded.
“The leaves would be no greener if all fame were ours,” he answered; and added, “but they’d seem greener. Come, if you like.”
“No, I’ll stay.”
She gave his hand a small pressure. He looked down on it as it lay in his palm. There was dirt upon her fingers from the scouring of pots and pans. As he noted this he laughed shortly.
“We must employ a Court manicurist when our Day dawns,” he said. “I could not worship a queen whose hands were soiled. Expect me about six.”
He closed the door behind him.
Who can pretend to fathom the deeps of a woman’s mind. Long after he had gone, Eve stood looking at her hands with solemn, frightened eyes.
The manner of Wynne Rendall’s coming into prominence was fortuitous. It happened a little over two years after his marriage, and, broadly speaking, was engineered by Eve.
As a result of some unexpected sales to American publishers a few extra pounds slipped through the lodging letter-box, and Eve insisted he should spend some of these in joining a club of good standing.
“You’ve been in the dark too long, Wynne. A writer of plays must be known by the people who produce them, by the better actors and critics. They must get used to seeing you before they will believe in you.”
He raised no opposition to the idea. Of late he had felt cabined and confined, and the thought of broader horizons appealed to him.
“Uncle Clem would put you up for the Phœnician, wouldn’t he?”
Wynne shook his head irritably.
“I’m not disposed to ask favours of Uncle Clem,” he replied.
“Why not?”
“It was evident enough he disapproved of my mode of life when last we met. It will be time to ask him to do things for me when he approves. Besides, there’s no need. A cousin of my mother’s is a member—I’ll ask him.”
“Does he approve of your mode of life?”
“Probably not; but, since I have no interest in him one way or the other, it doesn’t matter. The man is rich and a fool.”
“I didn’t know you had a rich cousin.”
“It isn’t a thing to boast about. I rather believe I have a moderately rich father and mother somewhere—still it can’t be helped.”
“Do you know,” said Eve, “you have never mentioned them before.”
“I don’t know what persuaded me to do so at all.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Nothing to tell. They wanted me to accept a sound commercial position—whatever that may mean; in declining to do so I forfeited my birthright, and sacrificed my immortal soul to the flames.”
“Did you run away?”
“I walked away. They were too slow to render running a necessity.”
“I think you are rather callous,” said Eve.
“Surely to God you don’t expect me to take off my hat, like a music-hall serio, when I speak of Home and Mother.”
“No, that would be rather silly—still—”
“One must judge the value of things and persons on two counts—their service and their effect. If their service is negligible, and they produce no effect, it is clearly useless to have any further dealings with them.”
“I don’t like that,” said Eve. “It’s a cold philosophy. You sponge the wine from the cellars and complain when the vats are empty.”
“I don’t complain—I pass on. One must, or die of thirst.”
“It is a false thirst.”
“That doesn’t matter so long as one feels it acutely.”
She generally allowed him the luxury of supplying the phrase to round off an argument. It is a tribute to the gallantry of women that they will allow the vanquished to feel he is the victor, and as true of the best of them as the popular belief to the contrary is false.
Wynne joined the Phœnician, and after a while came to spend much of his time there. It made, he said, a change from the never-ending sameness of their penny-threefarthing home.
It was so long since he had foregathered with fellow-men that at first he spent his club hours in shy silence. He would sit, ostensibly reading a periodical, and actually listening to the conversation of those about him. In so doing he learnt many things in regard to the subjects which men will discuss one with another. The Phœnician was to a great extent a rabble club. The members were composed of professional men—artists, writers, actors, and those curious individuals who form a tail-light to the arts, being bracketed on as a kind of chorus. These latter always appeared to be well provided with money and ill provided with brains. They knew the names of many stage people, and reeled them off one after another as a parrot delivers its limited vocabulary. Seemingly they derived much pleasure from the practice, and their happiest conversational circumstance was to mention some one whose name they had never introduced before.
Wynne made unto himself an enemy of this section of the rabble by a chance remark on an occasion when he happened to be in their midst.
“I suppose,” he said, “you collect names as more intellectual folk collect cigar bands.”
As invariably was the case he was rather pleased with himself for producing this remark. It suggested a line of thought, and shortly afterwards he produced an article entitled “Men and their Talk.” The article, which boasted a lemon wit, appeared in theMonday Review, and offended many people.
“The average man,” he wrote, “has but four topics of conversation which he considers worthy of discussion. 1. His relation to other men’s wives. 2. His prowess at sport. 3. The names of restaurants at which he would have us believe he dines. 4. His capacity for consuming liquor. Of these subjects Nos. 1 and 4 are usually taken in conjunction. Thus, before we are privileged to hear the more intimate passages of his amours, we are obliged to follow the assuaging of his thirst from double cocktail to treble liqueur. A nice balance in self-satisfaction is proved by a man’s pride in what he drinks and how he loves.” Then, in another paragraph: “The average man is not proud of resisting the temptations of the flesh, but is always proud of yielding to them. Whenever men are gathered together you will hear them speak in admiration of what our moral code forbids, but you will not hear them boast of their fidelity. Many a faithful husband lies of infidelity that he may stand even with his fellows.”
Of all the criticisms provoked by this article Wynne was best pleased by one from a brother member, who announced that it was “an infernal breach of confidence.”
The club made serious inroads on Wynne’s finances, for no matter how abstemious a man may be, he cannot rub shoulders with his own kind without a certain amount of wear on his pocket linings. In consequence, Eve was obliged to cut things very fine and forego every atom of personal expenditure.
Possibly because he had had such small dealings with money, Wynne was not a generous giver. In these days he disbursed less toward the household account than ever before, but did not expect less to appear upon the table on this account. Neither did he expect Eve to appear before him in dresses which had lost all pretentions to attractiveness. Sometimes he would remark:
“When on earth are you going to throw away that dreadful old garment?”
The artistic mind is apt to be unreasonable in its demands—a circumstance which Eve was obliged to keep very much before her eyes if she would stay the tear which sought to rise there.
It was some months before the club yielded a practical return.
Wynne was seated in the hollow of a deep leather chair, and he overheard two men talking. One was Max Levis, London’s newest impresario, and the other Leonard Passmore, a producer of some standing, whose methods Wynne disapproved of very heartily.
“You’ve read the play?” queried Levis.
“Yes. I should say it was a certainty.”
“Thought you would—that’s capital! Wanted your opinion before writing to Quiltan.”
Wynne knew Quiltan by reputation. His Oxford verses had caused a stir, and the rare appearances of his articles were hailed enthusiastically by press and public alike. Lane Quiltan besides being gifted, was exceedingly well off—a reason, perhaps, for his small literary output.
Max Levis played with the pages of a manuscript copy of the play.
“Formed any views regarding the production?” he asked.
Mr. Passmore had formed many views, and proceeded to expound them at some length. He held forth for the best part of half an hour, while Wynne, from the screen of his chair, silently scorned every word he uttered.
“God!” he thought, “and these are the men who cater art to the nation!”
Presently the two men rose and walked toward the dining-room, heavy in talk. On the small table beside where they had sat lay the copy of the play. As the swing doors closed behind them Wynne picked it up and started to read.
Messrs. Levis and Passmore stayed long at their meat, and Wynne had read the play from cover to cover before they returned.
It was not often his heart went out to a contemporary’s work, but this was an exception. What he read filled him with delight, envy, and admiration. “Witches”—for so the play was called—possessed the rarest quality. There was wit, imagination, and satire, and it was written with that effortless ease at which all true artists should aim.
As he laid the copy back on the small table Wynne gave vent to an exclamation of indignant resentment, provoked by memories of the proposals Passmore had made in regard to the manner in which he proposed to interpret the work. Here was a thing of real artistic beauty, which was to be subjected to commercial mutilation by a cross-grained fool who had made a reputation by massing crowds in such positions that the centre of the stage was clear for the principals.
His feelings toward Mr. Passmore were not improved when that gentleman and Mr. Levis reoccupied their former chairs, and, warmed by wine, started to discuss their mutual follies.
With silent irritation Wynne rose and left the club. He arrived home about nine o’clock, where he inveighed against managers and producers, and the dunces who dance in high places. In the course of the tirade he explained the cause of his anger.
“There’s a real thing—and it’s good and right, and cram-jam full of exquisite possibilities. Those idiots haven’t begun to understand it—are blind to its beauty—haven’t a notion how good it is. In God’s name, why don’t they let me produce the thing?”
Then Eve had an inspiration which sent Wynne forth into the night, and found him, twenty minutes later, ringing the bell of a house in Clarges Street.
Taking into consideration the clothes he wore, and his general look of dilapidation, his attitude when the door was opened by an important footman was praiseworthy and remarkable.
He simply said “Thank you,” and stepped into the hall. Then he removed his hat and gave it to the man, saying, “Mr. Wynne Rendall.” The bluff resulted in his being ushered into a drawing-room, in which were a number of ladies and gentlemen.
“It is always easy to recognize one’s host in a mixed gathering, provided he does not know you,” commented Wynne, as the door closed, “for he is the person whose face betrays the greatest perplexity. How do you do, Mr. Quiltan?”
Lane Quiltan shook hands doubtfully, but not without interest. Out of politeness he said:
“I seem to know your name.”
“That’s unlikely,” replied Wynne, “for I have been at some pains to keep it in the background. One of these days, however, you will know it very much better.”
“Did you come here to tell me so?”
“Not altogether, although in a sense it is mixed up with my visit. To be frank, I came in the hope of finding you alone. Still, I suppose later on you will be.” He smiled engagingly.
Quiltan scarcely knew whether to be annoyed or amused. In deference to his guests, he chose the latter alternative.
“You seem to be an unconventional man, Mr. Rendall,” he laughed.
“Come, I had not looked for a compliment so soon; but perhaps you use the term correctively?”
“It is just possible, isn’t it?”
“And yet my conduct is nothing like so unconventional as the central character in ‘Witches’ ”—a remark which startled from Lane Quiltan: “What on earth do you know about ‘Witches’?”
Wynne smiled agreeably.
“I have relations of my own.”
“Doubtless, but Iwouldlike an answer to my question.”
He did not get it, for Wynne only repeated the smile, with a shade more satisfaction.
“I fear,” he said, “our conversation is proving very tiresome to your friends. Shall we talk in another room?”
“Extraordinary creature!” gasped a very splendid lady seated at the grand piano.
“It is what every one will be saying shortly,” returned Wynne, and won a laugh for the readiness of his wit.
“I suppose, Lane,” assumed a man who was airing the tails of his dress-coat before the fire—“I suppose we ought to take the hint and depart, but your friend is so devilish amusing I vote in favour of remaining.”
“Sir,” said Wynne, with very great solemnity, “if I vow to be devilish dull, will you in return vote in favour of going?” The laugh came his way again; and he proceeded, “I make the suggestion with the most generous motives, for if you remain with your coat-tails so perilously near the flame we shall be constrained to the inevitable necessity of putting you out.”
A youngish man, who was sitting in a corner, rose and shook the creases from his trousers and glanced at the clock.
“I at least have to go,” he said.
“You needn’t hurry away!”
Wynne touched Quiltan on the arm. “Never stay a pioneer,” he implored. “ ‘For the rest shall follow after by the bones upon the way,’ to quote Kipling.”
Ten minutes after his arrival he had cleared the room completely. The guests departed without apparent resentment: indeed, one lady gave Wynne her card, and said, “You positively must come and be amusing at one of my Thursdays.”
Quiltan was wearing an expression of some annoyance when he returned after bidding farewell to the last of the company.
“It is all very well,” he said; “but what precisely do you want?”
Before answering Wynne took an easy inspection of the man before him.
Lane Quiltan was tall, well built, and very pleasant to look upon. His features were attractive and regular, his voice and expression were compelling of confidence. At a glance Wynne summed him up as a “good fellow, and a good deal more.”
“Well?” said Quiltan.
“Primarily I have succeeded in doing what I wanted, and that was to convince you that I am no ordinary man. Secondly, I want to produce your play, ‘Witches,’ and if you will ask me to sit down for a minute I shall prove beyond argument why I am the only person who can do it justice.”
Lane Quiltan gestured Wynne to a chair, and seated himself.
“Fire away!” he said; “but I am afraid your chances are small. The play is already in the hands of Max Levis.”
“I know.”
“You seem pretty well acquainted with my affairs.”
“On the contrary, I know nothing about them. I knew Levis had the play, because I borrowed his copy without permission while the fellow was feeding.”
“Do you generally do things like that?”
“I have no general practices. I act as the inclination suggests. In this case it is fortunate for both of us that I did.”
“For both of us?”
“Certainly, for Imeanto produce ‘Witches.’ ”
Quiltan laughed.
“At least you are persistent,” he said.
“I am, and you are not. You take things too easily, because you’ve all this”—he made an embracing gesture. “You are too sure, Mr. Quiltan, I know. You write this play and direct it to Max Levis, and then, because fame and money are merely accessories in your life, you take no further interest in the matter.”
“How do you arrive at that conclusion?”
“Simply enough. Why did you send the play to Levis? Do you admire his work so inordinately?”
“I know very little about him.”
“Exactly. Would you hand over a best child to be taught by some one who might be an idiot for all you knew? Two years ago Max Levis was a diamond buyer—what the devil should he know about plays?”
“He engages competent people to produce them.”
“And takes forty per cent. for doing so. Do you consider he is more qualified to engage competent people than you are?”
“I have never thought about it.”
“Then think about it now. Don’t spoil a fine work through artistic slackness and drift.”
“I like your enthusiasm.”
“You’d like my production better. Now, look here, I overheard Levis talking to Leonard Passmore about your play tonight. These are some of Passmore’s ideas. Tell me if you like ’em.”
Word for word he repeated the conversation of a couple of hours before.
“Were those your intentions, Mr. Quiltan?”
“No, not exactly.”
“What were?”
“I’m not a producer.”
“Of course you are not. You’re an author, and an author never knows where the good or bad in his own work lies. Your work is shining good—if the good can be brought out,—and you’d entrust it, without a thought, to a couple of merchants, with no more artistry or selection between ’em than a provincial auctioneer. Let me produce the play, and I’ll give you this—”
There was something dazzling in the sparkle of thoughts Wynne gave voice to as he discussed the possibilities of the play. He seemed to have grasped its living essence, and to have impregnated it with a spirit of higher worth than even the author had believed possible.
“And you could do that?”
“I can always do as I feel.”
Quiltan rose and paced the room excitedly.
“I believe in you,” he said. “I favour this co-operation. But what’d Levis say? He’d stick out for his own man.”
“Good heavens! What do you want with Levis? Back the venture yourself.”
“I—but—”
“God knows you’ve money enough.”
“I know nothing about theatres.”
“I know plenty.”
Quiltan paused and bit his forefinger.
“Take a theatre and do it ourselves?” he queried.
“Why not?”
“By the Lord, why not indeed! It ’ud be tremendous fun.”
“It ’ud be tremendous earnest.”
“Either way, I’m game.”
“Settled, then?”
“Yes, it’s settled.”
Wynne stood himself a cab from Clarges Street at three o’clock in the morning. He looked ten years younger as he burst into the room where Eve was waiting up for him.
“I’ve done it!” he cried. “I’ve done it! I’m on the road upward at last.”
Wynne was extraordinarily full of himself in the days which followed. Day and night he worked with feverish energy on schemes for the play. He went out and came in at all hours. In his excitement he entirely ignored Eve’s presence, except when he appealed to her on some delicate point dealing with the attitude of the women characters. Having secured what he wanted he would wave aside further discussion and plunge afresh into his thought-packed aloneness.
Once he jerked out the information that he was to receive a hundred pounds for the production and ten per cent. profits during the run of the piece.
“I’ve engaged the cast and we shall arrange about the theatre in a day or two. Here, read that speech aloud—I want to hear what it sounds like in a woman’s voice. Yes, that’s it. Thanks! That’s all I want to know. You read it quite right. I believe you could have acted! Is there something to eat ready? I’m going out in ten minutes.”
“It won’t be long.”
“Quick as you can, then.”
As she laid the cloth, Eve ventured to say: “Don’t you think we might have a maid to do the grubby work? It would give me more time to help you.”
He seemed absorbed.
“Yes, all right. Some day. You do everything I want, though.”
“Yes, but—”
“Is that lunch ready?”
Some clothes arrived for him a few days later, and for the first time Eve saw her husband well clad. The build of them gave an added manliness to his slender figure.
The business of taking a theatre being successfully accomplished, Wynne assumed instantly the guise of a commander-in-chief. He spoke with an air of finality on all subjects, and wrapped himself in a kind of remoteness not infrequently to be observed in actor-managers.
Oddly enough, his new importance possessed Eve with a desire to laugh and ruffle his hair. Had he taken himself less seriously she would have done so.
Once she asked if he would not like to give her a part in the play.
“Heavens alive!” he said, “I’m pestered the day long with people who want engagements. Spare me from it at home.”
It was hardly a graceful speech, but it demonstrated his frame of mind with some accuracy. Perhaps he realized the remark was churlish, for he followed it with another:
“Besides, you’ll have plenty to do. We’re going to get out of this. I took a flat this afternoon.”
“Without saying a word to me?”
“I said all that was needed to the agent.”
“Yet you might have mentioned it.”
“I was busy. After all, it only requires one person to take a flat. There, that’s the address. Fix up moving in as soon as you can.”
Eve picked up the slip of paper he had dropped into her lap. Despite her disappointment she felt a thrill of excitement at the news:
“How many rooms are there?”
“Oh, four or five—a bedroom for each of us—I forget the number. Have a look at it in the morning.”
“We shall want carpets and some more furniture.”
“Yes, but that can wait—can’t it?”
Take away the joy of planning from a woman and you rob the safe of half its treasure.
There was no room in Wynne’s mind for further discussion. It was fully occupied with his great advertisement scheme, which, in a few days’ time, would fling his name upon every newspaper and hoarding in the metropolis. He had no intention of allowing his share in the production to lack prominence. The name Wynne Rendall was to take precedence of all other consideration in his campaign.
“The public is to take this play through me,” he announced, “and me they shall have in large doses.”
Eve visited the flat alone, and made what arrangements were needful for moving their few belongings. It was a sunny little flat, and with adequate appointments would have looked very charming. The small amount of furniture they possessed, however, seemed painfully inadequate spread over the various rooms.
On the day of the move she worked like a galley-slave to put the place in agreeable order. She felt somehow that it was a great occasion, and that when Wynne returned from the theatre he would feel likewise. Together, perhaps, they would have a glorious talk about their nearing future, and a little house-warming of two.
But she was disappointed, for Wynne made no comment when he came in.
“My posters are out,” he cried. “Have you seen ’em?”
She shook her head.
“I haven’t had a chance. I’ve been busy here all day getting straight.”
She looked tired and rather grubby—her hair was tumbled, and her hands patched with floor-stain. For some reason her untidiness irritated Wynne. The girls at the theatre were smart and fresh, and their clothes were pleasant to see. A man expects his wife to be always at her best.
“Um!” he remarked. “You look in rather a pickle.” His eyes wandered round the room: “Seems very bare, doesn’t it?”
It seemed bare to her, too, but she would have taken it kindly if he had not said so.
“With some curtains it would be better—and a few more chairs.”
“Yes. Still, it’s the address that matters at the moment. The rest can wait till we see how the play goes. Just now I need all the money I can get for my own pocket. It’s essential. It’s bare and uncomfortable; but I have the club, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“I haven’t a club,” flashed Eve, and repented the words almost before she had spoken them.
Wynne looked at her fixedly.
“Lord!” he exclaimed, “we are not going to start that sort of thing, are we?”
Something in the quality of his voice struck her with startling force. It was so much more a “married” tone than she remembered to have heard before. The petulant child note had disappeared, and with its disappearance the mother note in her own voice wrapped itself up in sudden hardness.
She held his eyes with hers.
“I bargained for a share,” she said. “Am I getting it?”
He wilted, and his head tossed from side to side.
“What is all this about?”
“Am I getting my share?” repeated Eve, more kindly. “You know if I am. Answer ‘Yes,’ if you honestly think so.”
“I’m tired,” he countered.
“Not too tired to say ‘Yes.’ ”
“Oh, very well! If you want furniture and things, buy them. I rather thought you could see deeper than that. Still, if you—”
“Stop! Don’t say any more—please don’t.” She pressed her hand quickly and nervously to her lips; then, with a half-laugh, “Oh, how silly I am; but you frightened me. You—you were laughing, Wynne, when you said that—weren’t you?”
He looked at her perplexed, and saw she was in deadly earnest.
“Oh, yes,” he answered. “I was laughing—’course I was.”
But to tell the truth, Wynne Rendall, Master of Psychology, was sorely out of his depth.
“That’s all right,” said Eve, and crossed to the little fireplace, where she stood awhile thinking. “I’ll fetch your dinner now.”
She laid the cloth and placed the dishes upon it. There was an awkwardness between them as they took their places, and very little disposition to talk. Wynne’s thoughts were mixed with wondering at her attitude and with intentions for the play. Hers were back to the birthday party of nearly three years before. It had been a night so full of promise. Everything had seemed so likely then. Then it had seemed good that the love and sunshine for which her spirit prayed should be rendered on the deferred payment system. Was it possible those goods would be outworn before the debt was discharged? She shivered and looked up under her lids at Wynne. He had changed so much; he seemed bigger—more like a man! The frail boy body and restless spirit were no longer upon the surface. He looked to have more ballast—to stand more firmly as a man among men.
His voice broke in upon her thoughts:
“You’re extraordinarily mine, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she nodded, and after a pause, “are you glad?”
He did not give a direct answer.
“You should know. Look! small wife, this is a between-while with us, and I want you to sympathize with the position. I’m all out to win—and I shall win—but I haven’t won yet. Until I do it isn’t possible for us to stand side by side. There’s barely enough to keep one afloat, and that one must be myself. You admit that, don’t you? I’m meeting all sorts of alleged big-wigs, and I must meet ’em level. As things are it is only just possible to do so. To raise the scale at one side, t’other must be kept down. But it won’t be for long, and afterwards it will be you and I—understand.”
“Of course I do.”
“Keep on helping, then, all you can.”
“Of course I will.”
“That’s all right.”
And so the best of us fulfil our obligations and justify our consciences.
Eve sat by herself in the second row of the stalls. Her eyes were glorious with hope. On her lap lay the program of the piece, with Wynne’s name ringing from the page.
The printing was a stupendous piece of self-sufficiency. She had noted, half-fearful, half-amused, the hum of conversation which had gone round the theatre as the audience noted the persistent large-type booming of a single unknown personality.
“This young man is taking responsibilities upon his shoulders,” observed one newspaper critic to another.
The other smiled sardonically. Already he was tasting in anticipation several phrases he proposed to level against Mr. Wynne Rendall.
“But who is he anyway?” seemed to arise from the general buzz of voices.
From where she sat Eve could see the profile of Lane Quiltan. His box seemed very full—a circumstance which made her glad, for Wynne had refused to offer her a seat there. “He won’t want to be bothered with introductions on a first night; besides, there are lots of people who must be invited. I want you to be in the body of the house and feel the pulse of the audience.”
So it came about she was alone with none to talk with, and none to admire the pretty frock she wore.
It had not occurred to Wynne she would want a dress for his first night—she had not expected that it would; but, nevertheless, she was beautifully clad.
The possession of the evening dress and a wrap marked her first deliberate step toward rebellion. She had ordered it from a first-class West End dress-maker.
“Send the bill to Mr. Wynne Rendall at the Vandyke Theatre,” she had said.
Never before had Eve possessed so sweet a frock, and the touch of it sent a pleasurable thrill through her body. When she had finished dressing, every vestige of the drab, houseworking little figure had been transformed into a simple expression of fragile and delicious womanhood. Very gloriously she had felt this to be so as she stood before the mirror waiting for Wynne to return and take her to the theatre.
But he did not return. A messenger boy came instead, with a scribbled note asking for his “dress things, as I shan’t have time to get back before the play begins.”
Thus Eve was denied even a moment to wish him well, and took her stall unnoticed and alone.
As she looked at Lane Quiltan’s profile she wondered how he felt at being forced to take a second place to Wynne in every point of prominence. For some reason she conceived that he would not be troubled over-much. There was a repose and stability in his looks which suggested a mental balance not easily disturbed by small-weight issues.
At long range she liked and felt the wish to know him better.
“Steadfast, substantial,” she reasoned; “very unlike Wynne. He is hoping for the success of the play, not of himself. He won’t mind sacrificing himself to get it.”
It came to her that both she and Quiltan were contributing their share toward the making of Wynne Rendall, and both she and Quiltan were being left a little behind in the doing of it.
The curtain rose, and half an hour later Eve knew that Wynne had made good all he boasted he would do—and more. The spirit of the play shone through the lines with a truth of definition that was truly remarkable. The values of the human emotions portrayed were perfect. It was an example of the purest artistry and the surest perception. Not an idea was blurred—not an inflection out of place. Through an infinity of natural detail, rendered with mirrored exactitude, ran the soul and intention of the play, like the dominant theme of a great orchestral fugue. Even the veriest tyro in matters dramatic realized that no mere assembly of actors and actresses, however brilliant, could have achieved so faultless an effect without a master hand to guide them. What Wynne had learnt in the Paris ateliers years before he had set upon the stage. The words of the old Maitre had soaked in: “To we artists the human figure exists in masses of light and shade. It is not made up of legs and hands, and breasts, and ears and teeth. No, by the good God, no!” Wynne had remembered, and here was the distillation of the words. Here was his canvas with its faithfulchiaroscuroof life.
But of all the people in the house that night only Eve knew the palette whereon the colours had been mixed. One by one she recognized and silently named them, and sometimes she glowed with pride, for many owed their brilliance and their being to herself.
“Well done, Wynne! Oh, well done!” she breathed, as the curtain fell.
“We are seeing things tonight,” said an important critic as he and a contemporary passed toward the foyer.
Eve rose and followed them, and during the interval she moved from group to group and listened to what the audience had to say.
There was no doubt Wynne Rendall had come into his own, for although every one praised the play it was his name which came first.
“I shall let him off a scathing over the press campaign,” said a representative of one of London’s dailies. “It’s the best production I’ve seen in years.”
Eve noticed and recognized from Wynne’s descriptions, some of the tail-lights to the arts. They were busy adding his name to their lists. They were boasting of alleged friendship with him. One of the more venturesome spoke of him familiarly as “old W. R.”
A man who leaps from obscurity to initials in a single night is getting a move on.
At the final curtain there was an ovation. The author and Wynne responded to “author’s call” together, then, as the applause continued, Wynne came down to the footlights alone. He seemed very collected, and twisted an unlighted cigarette between his forefinger and thumb. For the first time Eve thought he looked young—young and care-free, as though he had stepped into the element he had searched for for so many years. In this new element he moved with an ease and assurance that surprised her. She had thought he would show feverishness or excitement, but there was no trace of either in his bearing.
“Speech! speech!” shouted the gallery.
He looked up at them with a winning smile, and replied, “Of course.” There was a fresh burst of applause and a wave of laughter, and when it died away he began to speak in the manner of a man chatting with friends about a fireside:
“It’s a charming play, isn’t it? Very charming. Tomorrow my learned critics will be saying so. They will say, perhaps, ‘The play’s the thing’; but I trust they won’t forget that the manner of its interpretation is possibly an even greater thing.” He stopped, smiled and said, half under his breath, “Render unto Cæsar—Good-night, everybody.”
Eve waited in the foyer, her cheeks aglow with excitement. Presently she saw Wynne come through an iron door into the press of congratulation. Half the important stage people in London were thronging round him. His composure was remarkable. Under the influence of success he seemed to have grown up and moved as a man among men. A pretty, rather elaborate girl pressed forward to greet him with adulation, and Eve noted how he touched her cheek with a kind of possessive patronage, and turned aside to speak to some one else. The action was very unlike her preconception of his character. Presently he noticed her, and nodded a smile across the crowded room.
“Like it?” his lips framed.
And her eyes flashed back the answer.
Seemingly this satisfied him, for he moved away. A little later on he noticed her again.
“Don’t wait for me,” he said. “I’m sure to be late.”
Eve walked out of the theatre alone.
“Get me a cab,” she said to the commissionaire.
“I’m sorry, madam, but there are very few tonight.”
“That one,” she pointed to a taxi standing by the curb.
“That is being kept for Mr. Rendall, madam.”
“Oh, is it?” said Eve, and walked toward the Tube.
As she turned into Jermyn Street a middle-aged man, walking briskly in the same direction, came level with her. He was in evening dress, and his coat was open to the night air. He wore a soft hat, and a pipe projected from his mouth at a jaunty angle. As he walked he sang to himself as one who is glad.
Eve caught a glimpse of his features, and gave a little exclamation, whereupon the man turned and looked at her.
“Hallo!” he said, “I know you—but—good heavens! I’ve got you. But what in blazes are you doing here by yourself, tonight of all nights?”
“I’m walking home, Uncle Clementine.”
“Then, begad! it’s meself will walk with you. Always talk Irish when I’m excited—at least I believe I do; but what’s it matter? I’m excited enough to talk double Dutch tonight—aren’t you?”
“Rather,” responded Eve, for Uncle Clem awoke an echo of his mood in others.
“I should think you were. Splendid! Top-hole! Lord! Lord! Lord! What a production! Aren’t you proud?”
“Very.”
“He’s away, that young fellar of yours—he’s up and away. Always knew he had the stuff, from the day when I ran off with him in a station fly and talked fairies under the trees. He’s learnt—knew he would, and he has. Oh! he’s learnt well! Wouldn’t mind laying a fiver he’s taken a share of his knowledge from you.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“Not a bit—common sense! Tell you what, though—’tween us two—that speech was a mistake. Cheap and nasty! Drop him a hint, there’s a clever girl, to cut all that stuff right out.”
Eve smiled. “Have you ever tried to drop Wynne hints about things like that?”
“I’ve thrown him a slab of wisdom from time to time. Not that kind, perhaps. But that’s what I say—youtell him. You’ve the opportunity. Ha!” He threw up his head. “That’s one of the good things in life that I’ve missed.”
“What is?”
“To have some one who, in the night, will touch my foot with her littlest toe and breathe over the pillow all the naughty mistakes I’ve made during the day.”
“I see,” said Eve.
Something in her tone discouraged him.
“ ’Course that mayn’t be the way it’s done; I’ve no experience, but I’ve fondly imagined it was so.”
“So have I,” said Eve; “but, like yourself, I have no experience.”
“What d’you say?”
“If I stretched out my littlest toe I should bump it against the partition wall. That would be very sad, wouldn’t it?”
Uncle Clem stopped short.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember our wedding talk?”
“Remember it!”
He began to walk very fast, so fast that she could scarcely keep pace with him. At last he jerked out the question:
“That travesty holds good, then? That’s why, on the night of his success, you’re walking home alone ’stead of feasting at a top-notch restaurant. Good God! And I’ve been shaking hands with myself these four hours past that my gloomy forebodings hadn’t come true—but, damn it! they have.”
“No,” exclaimed Eve, “you mustn’t say that; it isn’t so.”
“But it is.”
“No. The success was to come first. You remember we said so that day.”
“Well, what’s wrong with tonight’s success?—and you’re walking home alone.”
“Yes, tonight he has found himself.”
“And left you behind.”
“I don’t want to say that. I beg you not to say things like that. They hurt so.”
In an instant he was all sympathy.
“Why, my dear, don’t heed me. You understand the boy, and I’m only an onlooker who gets a glimpse here and there. That’s how it seemed to me at a snapshot glance—but I may be wrong. I don’t know what I’m talking about half the time. I love that husband of yours, he has such a splendid pluck.”
“Yes, he’s been so splendid, Uncle Clem—you must believe that. Never for an instant has he spared himself. He’s worked—worked—worked. That’s why he came out so finely tonight.”
“I know. But though a man does not spare himself he must always spare others—that’s the great science of life. Haven’t you worked too?”
“We’ve been partners, as we said we’d be until success was ours. And now he’s made the success, and—”
“Success as an artist, and he’s going to share it as a man?”
“I believe so—oh, I do believe so.”
Uncle Clem walked awhile in silence. When he began to talk it was almost as if he were speaking to himself.
“Queer trusting folk, we mortals,” he said. “And we set ourselves such wonderful tasks. How old Dame Nature must laugh at us and all our philosophies. Fancy two young people locking up the spark of love which had sprung between them, packing it away in a secret safe, and believing it could be brought to life when convenience allowed. How old Dame Nature must laugh! Can’t you imagine her peeping into the safe to see how the spark is getting along?” He turned suddenly upon Eve. “How is it getting along?”
“I keep it locked up here.” She pressed her hand upon her heart.
“Wonderful you!” said Uncle Clem. “God bless your trust. Hullo! This where you live?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come up for awhile?”
“Not tonight.”
“No—no—no. Of course not. He’ll come back with his pockets full of champagne, and his heart come to life. I like you, you know. I think you’re fine. You’re so damn good to look at, too. Ever hear of the purple patch?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Just thinking you’ve the leading light in your eyes that should guide a man there. Good-night.”
“Good-night, Uncle Clem.”
At two o’clock Eve took off her pretty frock, put on her plain cotton nightdress, and went to bed.