VI.One hour later, in the double-bedded chamber at the Majestic, as his wife lay in bed and he was methodically folding up a creased white tie and inspecting his chin in the mirror, he felt that he was touching again, after an immeasurable interval, the rock-bottom of reality. Nellie, even when he could see only her face, and that in a mirror, was the most real phenomenon in his existence, and she possessed the strange faculty of dispelling all unreality, round about her."Well," he said. "How did you get on in the box?""Oh!" she replied, "I got on very well with the Woldo woman. She's one of our sort. But I'm not so set up with your Elsie April.""Dash this collar!"Nellie continued:"And I can tell you another thing. I don't envy Mr. Rollo Wrissel.""What's Wrissel got to do with it?""She means to marry him.""Elsie April means to marry Wrissel?""He was in and out of the box all night. It was as plain as a pikestaff.""What's amiss with my Elsie April?" Edward Henry demanded."She's a thought toopleasantfor my taste," answered Nellie.Astonishing, how pleasantness is regarded with suspicion in the Five Towns, even by women who can at a pinch be angels!VII.Often during the brief night he gazed sleepily at the vague next bed and mused upon the extraordinariness of women's consciences. His wife slept like an innocent. She always did. It was as though she gently expired every evening and returned gloriously to life every morning. The sunshiny hours between three and seven were very long to him, but it was indisputable that he did not hear the clock strike six, which was, at any rate, proof of a little sleep to the good. At five minutes past seven he thought he heard a faint rustling noise in the corridor, and he arose and tiptoed to the door and opened it. Yes, the Majestic had its good qualities! He had ordered that all the London morning daily papers should be laid at his door as early as possible, and there the pile was, somewhat damp, and as fresh as fruit, with a slight odour of ink. He took it in.His heart was beating as he climbed back into bed with it and arranged pillows so that he could sit up, and unfolded the first paper. Nellie had not stirred.Once again he was disappointed in the prominence given by the powerful London press to his London enterprise. In the first newspaper, a very important one, he positively could not find any criticism of the Regent's first night. There was nearly a page of the offensive Isabel Joy, who was now appealing, through the newspapers, to the President of the United States. Isabel had been christened the World-Circler, and the special correspondents of the entire earth were gathered about her carpeted cell. Hope still remained that she would reach London within the hundred days. An unknown adherent of the cause for which she suffered had promised to give ten thousand pounds to that cause if she did so. Furthermore, she was receiving over sixty proposals of marriage a day. And so on and so on! Most of this he gathered in an instant from the headlines alone. Nauseating!Another annoying item in the paper was a column and a half given to the foundation-stone laying of the First New Thought Church, in Dean Street, Soho--about a couple of hundred yards from its original site. He hated the First New Thought Church as one always hates that to which one has done an injury.Then he found what he was searching for: "Regent Theatre. Production of poetical drama at London's latest playhouse." After all, it was well situated in the paper, on quite an important page, and there was over a column of it. But in his nervous excitation his eyes had missed it. His eyes now read it. Over half of it was given to a discussion of the Don Juan legend and the significance of the Byronic character of Haidee--obviously written before the performance. A description of the plot occupied most of the rest, and a reference to the acting ended it. "Miss Rose Euclid in the trying and occasionally beautiful part of Haidee was all that her admirers could have wished" ... "Miss Cunningham distinguished herself by her diction and bearing in the small part of the Messenger." The final words were: "The reception was quite favourable.""Quite favourable," indeed! Edward Henry had a chill. Good heavens, was not the reception ecstatically, madly, foolishly enthusiastic? "Why!" he exclaimed within, "I never saw such a reception!" It was true; but then he had never seen any other first night. He was shocked, as well as chilled. And for this reason: For weeks past all the newspapers, in their dramatic gossip, had contained highly sympathetic references to his enterprise. According to the paragraphs, he was a wondrous man, and the theatre was a wondrous house, the best of all possible theatres, and Carlo Trent was a great writer, and Rose Euclid exactly as marvellous as she had been a quarter of a century before, and the prospects of the intellectual-poetic drama in London so favourable as to amount to a certainty of success.In those columns of dramatic gossip there was no flaw in the theatrical world. In those columns of dramatic gossip no piece ever failed, though sometimes a piece was withdrawn, regretfully and against the wishes of the public, to make room for another piece. In those columns of dramatic gossip theatrical managers, actors, and especially actresses, and even authors, were benefactors of society, and therefore they were treated with the deference, the gentleness, the heartfelt sympathy which benefactors of society merit and ought to receive.The tone of the criticism of the first night was different--it was subtly, not crudely, different. But different it was.The next newspaper said the play was bad and the audience indulgent. It was very severe on Carlo Trent, and very kind to the players, whom it regarded as good men and women in adversity--with particular laudations for Miss Rose Euclid and the Messenger. The next newspaper said the play was a masterpiece, and would be so hailed in any country but England. England, however--! Unfortunately this was a newspaper whose political opinions Edward Henry despised. The next newspaper praised everything and everybody, and called the reception tumultuously enthusiastic. And Edward Henry felt as though somebody, mistaking his face for a slice of toast, had spread butter all over it. Even the paper's parting assurance that the future of the higher drama in London was now safe beyond question did not remove this delusion of butter.The two following newspapers were more sketchy or descriptive, and referred at some length to Edward Henry's own speech, with a kind of sub-hint that Edward Henry had better mind what he was about. Three illustrated papers had photographs of scenes and figures, but nothing important in the matter of criticism. The rest were "neither one thing nor the other," as they say in the Five Towns. On the whole, an inscrutable press, a disconcerting, a startling, an appetite-destroying, but not a hopeless press. The general impression which he gathered from his perusals was that the author was a pretentious dullard, an absolute criminal, a genius; that the actors and actresses were all splendid and worked hard, though conceivably one or two of them had been set impossible tasks--to wit, tasks unsuited to their personalities; that he himself was a Napoleon, a temerarious individual, an incomprehensible fellow; and that the future of the intellectual-poetic drama in London was not a topic of burning actuality.... He remembered sadly the superlative-laden descriptions, in those same newspapers, of the theatre itself, a week or two back, the unique theatre in which the occupant of every seat had a complete and uninterrupted view of the whole of the proscenium opening. Surely that fact alone ought to have ensured proper treatment for him!Then Nellie woke up, and saw the scattered newspapers."Well," she asked; "what do they say?""Oh!" he replied lightly, with a laugh. "Just about what you'd expect. Of course you know what a first-night audience always is. Too generous. And ours was, particularly. Miss April saw to that. She had the Azure Society behind her, and she was determined to help Rose Euclid. However, I should say it was all right--I should say it was quite all right. I told you it was a gamble, you know."When Nellie, dressing, said that she considered she ought to go back home that day, he offered no objection. Indeed he rather wanted her to go. Not that he had a desire to spend the whole of his time at the theatre, unhampered by provincial women in London. On the contrary, he was aware of a most definite desire not to go to the theatre. He lay in bed and watched with careless curiosity the rapid processes of Nellie's toilette. He had his breakfast on the dressing-table (for he was not at Wilkins's, neither at the Grand Babylon). Then he helped her to pack, and finally he accompanied her to Euston, where she kissed him with affectionate common sense and caught the twelve five. He was relieved that nobody from the Five Towns happened to be going down by that train.As he turned away from the moving carriage, the evening papers had just arrived at the bookstalls. He bought the four chief organs--one green, one yellowish, one white, one pink--and scanned them self-consciously on the platform. The white organ had a good heading: "Re-birth of the intellectual drama in London. What a provincial has done. Opinions of the leading men." Two columns altogether! There was, however, little in the two columns. The leading men had practised a sagacious caution. They, like the press as a whole, were obviously waiting to see which way the great elephantine public would jump. When the enormous animal had jumped, they would all exclaim: "What did I tell you?" The other critiques were colourless. At the end of the green critique occurred the following sentence: "It is only fair to state, nevertheless, that the play was favourably received by an apparently enthusiastic audience.""Nevertheless!" ... "Apparently!"Edward Henry turned the page to the theatrical advertisements.[image]Theatrical advertisementUnreal! Fantastic! Was this he, Edward Henry? Could it be still his mother's son?Still--"matinées every Wednesday and Saturday." "EveryWednesday and Saturday." That word implied and necessitated a long run, anyhow a run extending over months. That word comforted him. Though he knew as well as you do that Mr. Marrier had composed the advertisement, and that he himself was paying for it, it comforted him. He was just like a child.VIII."I say, Cunningham's made a hit!" Mr. Marrier almost shouted at him as he entered the managerial room at the Regent."Cunningham? Who's Cunningham?"Then he remembered. She was the girl who played the Messenger. She had only three words to say, and to say them over and over again; and she had made a hit!"Seen the notices?" asked Marrier."Yes. What of them?""Oh! Well!" Marrier drawled. "What would you expect?""That's just whatIsaid!" observed Edward Henry."You did, did you?" Mr. Marrier exclaimed, as if extremely interested by this corroboration of his views.Carlo Trent strolled in; he remarked that he happened to be just passing. But the discussion of the situation was not carried very far.That evening the house was nearly full, except the pit and the gallery, which were nearly empty. Applause was perfunctory."How much?" Edward Henry enquired of the box-office manager when figures were added together."Thirty-one pounds two shillings.""Hem!""Of course," said Mr. Marrier. "In the height of the London season, with so many counter-attractions--! Besides, they've got to get used to the idea of it."Edward Henry did not turn pale. Still, he was aware that it cost him a trifle over sixty pounds "to ring the curtain up" at every performance, and this sum took no account of expenses of production nor of author's fees. The sum would have been higher, but he was calculating as rent of the theatre only the ground-rent plus six per cent. on the total price of the building.What disgusted him was the duplicity of the first-night audience, and he said to himself violently: "I was right all the time, and I knew I was right! Idiots! Chumps! Of course I was right!"On the third night the house held twenty-seven pounds and sixpence."Naturally," said Mr. Marrier. "In this hot weathah--! I never knew such a hot June! It's the open-air places that are doing us in the eye. In fact I heard to-day that the White City is packed. They simply can't bank their money quick enough."It was on that day that Edward Henry paid salaries. It appeared to him that he was providing half London with a livelihood: acting managers, stage managers, assistant ditto, property men, stage hands, electricians, prompters, call boys, box-office staff, general staff, dressers, commissionaires, programme girls, cleaners, actors, actresses, understudies, to say nothing of Rose Euclid at a purely nominal salary of one hundred pounds a week. The tenants of the bars were grumbling, but happily he was getting money from them.The following day was Saturday. It rained--a succession of thunderstorms. The morning and the evening performances produced together sixty-eight pounds."Well," said Mr. Marrier. "In this kind of weathah you can't expect people to come out, can you? Besides, this cursed week-ending habit--"Which conclusions did not materially modify the harsh fact that Edward Henry was losing over thirty pounds a day--or at the rate of over ten thousand pounds a year.He spent Sunday between his hotel and his club, chiefly in reiterating to himself that Monday began a new week and that something would have to occur on Monday.Something did occur.Carlo Trent lounged into the office early. The man was forever being drawn to the theatre as by an invisible but powerful elastic cord. The papers had a worse attack than ever of Isabel Joy, for she had been convicted of transgression in a Chicago court of law, but a tremendous lawyer from St. Louis had loomed over Chicago and, having examined the documents in the case, was hopeful of getting the conviction quashed. He had discovered that in one and the same document "Isabel" had been spelt "Isobel," and, worse, Illinois had been deprived by a careless clerk of one of its "l's." He was sure that by proving these grave irregularities in American justice he could win on appeal.Edward Henry glanced up suddenly from the newspaper. He had been inspired."I say, Trent," he remarked, without any warning or preparation, "you're not looking at all well. I want a change myself. I've a good mind to take you for a sea voyage.""Oh!" grumbled Trent. "I can't afford sea voyages.""Ican!" said Edward Henry. "And I shouldn't dream of letting it cost you a penny. I'm not a philanthropist. But I know as well as anybody that it will pay us theatrical managers to keep you in health.""You're not going to take the play off?" Trent demanded suspiciously."Certainly not!" said Edward Henry."What sort of a sea voyage?""Well--what price the Atlantic? Been to New York? ... Neither have I! Let's go. Just for the trip. It'll do us good.""You don't mean it!" murmured the greatest dramatic poet, who had never voyaged farther than the Isle of Wight. His eyeglass swung to and fro.Edward Henry feigned to resent this remark."Of course I mean it. Do you take me for a blooming gas-bag?" He rose. "Marrier!" Then more loudly: "Marrier!" Mr. Marrier entered. "Do you know anything about the sailings to New York?""Rather!" said Mr. Marrier, beaming. After all he was a most precious aid."We may be able to arrange for a production in New York," said Edward Henry to Carlo, mysteriously.Mr. Marrier gazed at one and then at the other, puzzled.CHAPTER XISABELI.Throughout the voyage of theLithuaniafrom Liverpool to New York, Edward Henry, in common with some two thousand other people on board, had the sensation of being hurried. He who in a cab rides late to an important appointment arrives with muscles fatigued by mentally aiding the horse to move the vehicle along. Thus were Edward Henry's muscles fatigued, and the muscles of many others; but just as much more so as theLithuaniawas bigger than a cab.For theLithuania, having been seriously delayed in Liverpool by men who were most ridiculously striking for the fantastic remuneration of one pound a week, was engaged on the business of making new records. And every passenger was personally determined that she should therein succeed. And, despite very bad June weather toward the end, she did sail past the Battery on a grand Monday morning with a new record to her credit.So far, Edward Henry's plan was not miscarrying. But he had a very great deal to do and very little time in which to do it, and whereas the muscles of the other passengers were relaxed as the ship drew to her berth Edward Henry's muscles were only more tensely tightened. He had expected to see Mr. Seven Sachs on the quay, for in response to his telegram from Queenstown, the illustrious actor-author had sent him an agreeable wireless message in full Atlantic; the which had inspired Edward Henry to obtain news by Marconi both from London and New York, at much expense; from the east he had had daily information of the dwindling receipts at the Regent Theatre, and from the west daily information concerning Isabel Joy. He had not, however, expected Mr. Seven Sachs to walk into theLithuania'smusic-saloon an hour before the ship touched the quay. Nevertheless this was what Mr. Seven Sachs did, by the exercise of those mysterious powers wielded by the influential in democratic communities."And what are you doing here?" Mr. Seven Sachs greeted Edward Henry with geniality.Edward Henry lowered his voice."I'm throwing good money after bad," said he.The friendly grip of Mr. Seven Sach's hand did him good, reassured him, and gave him courage. He was utterly tired of the voyage, and also of the poetical society of Carlo Trent, whose passage had cost him thirty pounds, considerable boredom, and some sick-nursing during the final days and nights. A dramatic poet with an appetite was a full dose for Edward Henry; but a dramatic poet who lay on his back and moaned for naught but soda water and dry land amounted to more than Edward Henry could conveniently swallow.He directed Mr. Sachs's attention to the anguished and debile organism which had once been Carlo Trent, and Mr. Sachs was so sympathetic that Carlo Trent began to adore him, and Edward Henry to be somewhat disturbed in his previous estimate of Mr. Sachs's common sense. But at a favourable moment Mr. Sachs breathed humorously into Edward Henry's ear the question:"What have you broughthimout for?""I've brought him out to lose him."As they pushed through the bustle of the enormous ship, and descended from the dizzy eminence of her boat deck by lifts and ladders down to the level of the windy, sun-steeped rock of New York, Edward Henry said:"Now I want you to understand, Mr. Sachs, that I haven't a minute to spare. I've just looked in for lunch.""Going on to Chicago?""She isn't in Chicago, is she?" demanded Edward Henry, aghast. "I thought she'd reached New York!""Who?""Isabel Joy.""Oh! Isabel's in New York, sure enough. She's right here. They say she'll have to catch theLithuaniaif she's going to get away with it.""Get away with what?""Well--the goods."The precious words reminded Edward Henry of an evening at Wilkins's, and raised his spirits even higher. It was a word he loved."And I've got to catch theLithuania, too!" said he. "But Trent doesn't know! ... And, let me tell you, she's going to do the quickest turn round that any ship ever did. The purser assured me she'll leave at noon to-morrow unless the world comes to an end in the meantime. Now what about a hotel?""You'll stay with me--naturally.""But--" Edward Henry protested."Oh, yes, you will. I shall be delighted.""But I must look after Trent.""He'll stay with me too--naturally. I live at the Stuyvesant Hotel, you know, on Fifth. I've a pretty good private suite there. I shall arrange a little supper for to-night. My automobile is here.""Is it possible that I once saved your life and have forgotten all about it?" Edward Henry exclaimed. "Or do you treat everybody like this?""We like to look after our friends," said Mr. Sachs simply.In the terrific confusion of the quay, where groups of passengers were mounted like watch dogs over hillocks of baggage, Mr. Sachs stood continually between the travellers and the administrative rigours and official incredulity of a proud republic. And in the minimum of time the fine trunk of Edward Henry and the modest packages of the poet were on the roof of Mr. Sachs's vast car, the three men were inside, and the car was leaping, somewhat in the manner of a motor boat at full speed, over the cobbles of a wide, medieval street."Quick!" thought Edward Henry. "I haven't a minute to lose!"His prayer reached the chauffeur. Conversation was difficult; Carlo Trent groaned. Presently they rolled less perilously upon asphalt, though the equipage still lurched. Edward Henry was forever bending his head toward the window aperture in order to glimpse the roofs of the buildings, and never seeing the roofs."Now we're on Fifth," said Mr. Sachs, after a fearful lurch, with pride.Vistas of flags, high cornices, crowded pavements, marble, jewelry behind glass--the whole seen through a roaring phantasmagoria of competing and menacing vehicles!And Edward Henry thought:"This is my sort of place!"The jolting recommenced. Carlo Trent rebounded, limply groaning, between cushions and upholstery. Edward Henry tried to pretend that he was not frightened. Then there was a shock as of the concussion of two equally unyielding natures. A pane of glass in Mr. Seven Sachs's limousine flew to fragments and the car stopped."I expect that's a spring gone!" observed Mr. Sachs with tranquillity. "Will happen, you know, sometimes!"Everybody got out. Mr. Sachs's presumption was correct. One of the back wheels had failed to leap over a hole in Fifth Avenue some eighteen inches deep and two feet long."What is that hole?" asked Edward Henry."Well," said Mr. Sachs. "It's just a hole. We'd better transfer to a taxi." He gave calm orders to his chauffeur.Four empty taxis passed down the sunny magnificence of Fifth Avenue and ignored Mr. Sachs's urgent waving. The fifth stopped. The baggage was strapped and tied to it: which process occupied much time. Edward Henry, fuming against delay, gazed around. A nonchalant policeman on a superb horse occupied the middle of the road. Tram cars passed constantly across the street in front of his caracoling horse, dividing a route for themselves in the wild ocean of traffic as Moses cut into the Red Sea. At intervals a knot of persons, intimidated and yet daring, would essay the voyage from one pavement to the opposite pavement; there was no half-way refuge for these adventurers, as in decrepit London; some apparently arrived; others seemed to disappear forever in the feverish welter of confused motion and were never heard of again. The policeman, easily accommodating himself to the caracolings of his mount, gazed absently at Edward Henry, and Edward Henry gazed first at the policeman, and then at the high decorated grandeur of the buildings, and then at the Assyrian taxi into which Mr. Sachs was now ingeniously inserting Carlo Trent. He thought:"No mistake--this street is alive. But what cemeteries they must have!"He followed Carlo, with minute precautions, into the interior of the taxi. And then came the supremely delicate operation--that of introducing a third person into the same vehicle. It was accomplished; three chins and six knees fraternized in close intimacy; but the door would not shut. Wheezing, snorting, shaking, complaining, the taxi drew slowly away from Mr. Sachs's luxurious automobile and left it forlorn to its chauffeur. Mr. Sachs imperturbably smiled. ("I have two other automobiles," said Mr. Sachs.) In some sixty seconds the taxi stopped in front of the tremendous glass awning of the Stuyvesant. The baggage was unstrapped; the passengers were extracted one by one from the cell, and Edward Henry saw Mr. Sachs give two separate dollar bills to the driver."By Jove!" he murmured."I beg your pardon," said Mr. Sachs politely."Nothing!" said Edward Henry.They walked into the hotel, and passed through a long succession of corridors and vast public rooms surging with well-dressed men and women."What's all this crowd for?" asked Edward Henry."What crowd?" asked Mr. Sachs, surprised.Edward Henry saw that he had blundered."I prefer the upper floors," remarked Mr. Sachs as they were being flung upward in a gilded elevator, and passing rapidly all numbers from 1 to 14.The elevator made an end of Carlo Trent's manhood. He collapsed. Mr. Sachs regarded him, and then said:"I think I'll get an extra room for Mr. Trent. He ought to go to bed."Edward Henry enthusiastically concurred."And stay there!" said Edward Henry.Pale Carlo Trent permitted himself to be put to bed. But, therein, he proved fractious. He was anxious about his linen. Mr. Sachs telephoned from the bedside, and a laundry maid came. He was anxious about his best lounge suit. Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a valet came. Then he wanted a siphon of soda water, and Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a waiter came. Then it was a newspaper he required. Mr. Sachs telephoned and a page came. All these functionaries, together with two reporters, peopled Mr. Trent's bedroom more or less simultaneously. It was Edward Henry's bright notion to add to them a doctor--a doctor whom Mr. Sachs knew, a doctor who would perceive at once that bed was the only proper place for Carlo Trent."Now," said Edward Henry, when he and Mr. Sachs were participating in a private lunch amid the splendours and the grim silent service of the latter's suite at the Stuyvesant, "I have fully grasped the fact that I am in New York. It is one o'clock and after, and as soon as ever this meal is over, I have justgotto find Isabel Joy. You must understand that on this trip New York for me is merely a town where Isabel Joy happens to be.""Well," replied Mr. Sachs. "I reckon I can put you on to that.She's going to be photographed at two o'clock by Rentoul Smiles. I happen to know because Rent's a particular friend of mine.""A photographer, you say?"Mr. Sachs controlled himself. "Do you mean to say you've not heard of Rentoul Smiles? ... Well, he's called 'Man's photographer.' He has never photographed a woman! Won't! At least, wouldn't! But he's going to photograph Isabel! So you may guess that he considers Isabel some woman, eh?""And how will that help me?" inquired Edward Henry."Why! I'll take you up to Rent's," Mr. Sachs comforted him. "It's close by--corner of Thirty-ninth and Fifth.""Tell me," Edward Henry demanded, with immense relief. "She hasn't got herself arrested yet, has she?""No. And she won't.""Why not?""The police have been put wise," said Mr. Sachs."Put wise?""Yes.Put wise!""I see," said Edward Henry.But he did not see. He only half saw."As a matter of fact," said Mr. Sachs, "Isabel can't get away with the goods unless she fixes the police to lock her up for a few hours. And she'll not succeed in that. Her hundred days are up in London next Sunday. So there'll be no time for her to be arrested and bailed out either at Liverpool or Fishguard. And that's her only chance. I've seen Isabel, and if you ask me my opinion she's down and out.""Never mind!" said Edward Henry with glee."I guess what you are after her for," said Mr. Seven Sachs, with an air of deep knowledge."The deuce you do!""Yes, sir! And let me tell you that dozens of 'em have been after her already. But she wouldn't! Nothing would tempt her.""Never mind!" Edward Henry smiled.II.When Edward Henry stood by the side of Mr. Sachs in a doorway half shielded by a portière, and gazed unseen into the great studio of Mr. Rentoul Smiles, he comprehended that he was indeed under powerful protection in New York. At the entrance on Fifth Avenue he and Sachs had passed through a small crowd of assorted men, chiefly young, whom Sachs had greeted in the mass with the smiling words, "Well, boys!" Other men were within. Still another went up with them in the elevator, but no further. They were reporters of the entire world's press, to each of whom Isabel Joy had been specially "assigned." They were waiting; they would wait. Mr. Rentoul Smiles, having been warned by telephone of the visit of his beloved friend Seven Sachs and his English protégé had been received at Smile's outer door by a clerk who knew exactly what to do with them, and did it."Is she here?" Mr. Sachs had murmured."Yep," the clerk had negligently replied.And now Edward Henry beheld the objective of his pilgrimage, her whose personality, portrait, and adventures had been filling the newspapers of two hemispheres for three weeks. She was not realistically like her portraits. She was a little, thin, pale, obviously nervous woman, of any age from thirty-five to fifty, with fair untidy hair, and pale grey-blue eyes that showed the dreamer, the idealist, and the harsh fanatic. She looked as though a moderate breeze would have overthrown her, but she also looked, to the enlightened observer, as though she would recoil before no cruelty and no suffering in pursuit of her vision. The blind dreaming force behind her apparent frailty would strike terror into the heart of any man intelligent enough to understand it. Edward Henry had an inward shudder. "Great Scott!" he reflected. "I shouldn't like to be ill and have Isabel for a nurse!"And his mind at once flew to Nellie, and then to Elsie April. "And so she's going to marry Wrissell!" he reflected, and could scarcely believe it.Then he violently wrenched his mind back to the immediate objective. He wondered why Isabel Joy should wear a bowler hat and mustard-coloured jacket that resembled a sporting man's overcoat; and why these garments suited her. With a whip in her hand she could have sat for a jockey. And yet she was a woman, and very feminine, and probably old enough to be Elsie April's mother! A disconcerting world, he thought.The "man's photographer," as he was described in copper on Fifth Avenue and in gold on his own doors, was a big, loosely-articulated male, who loured over the trifle Isabel like a cloud over a sheep in a great field. Edward Henry could only see his broad bending back as he posed in athletic attitudes behind the camera.Suddenly Rentoul Smiles dashed to a switch, and Isabel's wistful face was transformed into that of a drowned corpse, into a dreadful harmony of greens and purples."Now," said Rentoul Smiles, in a deep voice that was like a rich unguent. "We'll try again. We'll just play around that spot. Look into my eyes. Notatmy eyes, my dear woman,intothem! Just a little more challenge--a little more! That's it. Don't wink, for the land's sake! Now!"He seized a bulb at the end of a tube and slowly squeezed--squeezed it tragically and remorselessly, twisting himself as if suffering in sympathy with the bulb, and then in a wide sweeping gesture he flung the bulb on to the top of the camera, and ejaculated:"Ha!"Edward Henry thought:"I would give ten pounds to see Rentoul Smiles photograph Sir John Pilgrim." But the next instant the forgotten sensation of hurry was upon him once more. Quick, quick, Rentoul Smiles! Edward Henry's scorching desire was to get done and leave New York."Now, Miss Isabel," Mr. Smiles proceeded, exasperatingly deliberate, "d'you know, I feel kind of guilty? I have got a little farm out in Westchester County and I'm making a little English pathway up the garden with a gate at the end. I woke up this morning and began to think about the quaint English form of that gate, and just how I would have it." He raised a finger. "But I ought to have been thinking about you. I ought to have been saying to myself, 'To-day I have to photograph Isabel Joy,' and trying to understand in meditation the secrets of your personality. I'm sorry! Now, don't talk. Keep like that. Move your head round. Go on! Go on! Move it! Don't be afraid. This place belongs to you. It's yours. Whatever you do, we've got people here who'll straighten up after you.... D'you know why I've made money? I've made money so that I can takeyouthis afternoon, and tell a two-hundred-dollar client to go to the deuce. That's why I've made money. Put your back against the chair, like an Englishwoman. That's it. No, don'ttalk, I tell you. Now look joyful, hang it! Look joyful.... No, no! Joy isn't a contortion. It's something right deep down. There, there!"The lubricant voice rolled on while Rentoul Smiles manipulated the camera. He clasped the bulb again, and again threw it dramatically away."I'm through!" he said. "Don't expect anything very grand, Miss Isabel. What I've been trying to do this afternoon is my interpretation of you as I've studied your personality in your speeches. If I believed wholly in your cause, or if I wholly disbelieved in it, my work would not have been good. Any value that it has will be due to the sympathetic impartiality of my spiritual attitude. Although"--he menaced her with the licenced familiarity of a philosopher--"Although, lady, I must say that I felt you were working against me all the time.... This way!"(Edward Henry, recalling the comparative simplicity of the London photographer at Wilkins's, thought: "How profoundly they understand photography in America!")Isabel Joy rose and glanced at the watch in her bracelet; then followed the direction of the male hand, and vanished.Rentoul Smiles turned instantly to the other doorway."How do, Rent?" said Seven Sachs, coming forward."How do, Seven?" Mr. Rentoul Smiles winked."This is my good friend, Alderman Machin, the theatre-manager from London.""Glad to meet you, sir.""She's not gone, has she?" asked Sachs hurriedly."No, my housekeeper wanted to talk to her. Come along."And in the waiting room, full of permanent examples of the results of Mr. Rentoul Smiles's spiritual attitude toward his fellow men, Edward Henry was presented to Isabel Joy. The next instant the two men and the housekeeper had unobtrusively retired, and he was alone with his objective. In truth Seven Sachs was a notable organiser.III.She was sitting down in a cosy-corner, her feet on a footstool, and she seemed a negligible physical quantity as he stood in front of her. This was she who had worsted the entire judicial and police system of Chicago, who spoke pentecostal tongues, who had circled the globe, and held enthralled--so journalists computed--more than a quarter of a million of the inhabitants of Marseilles, Athens, Port Said, Candy, Calcutta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokio, Hawaii, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Chicago, and lastly New York! This was she!"I understand we're going home on the same ship!" he was saying.She looked up at him, almost appealingly."You won't see anything of me, though," she said."Why not?""Tell me," said she, not answering his question. "What do they say of me, really, in England? I don't mean the newspapers. For instance, the Azure Society. Do you know of it?"He nodded."Tell me," she repeated.He related the episode of the telegram at the private first performance of "The Orient Pearl."She burst out, in a torrent of irrelevant protest:"The New York police have not treated me right. It would have cost them nothing to arrest me and let me go. But they wouldn't. Every man in the force--you hear me, every man--has had strict orders to leave me unmolested. It seems they resent my dealings with the police in Chicago, where I brought about the dismissal of four officers, so they say. And so I'm to be boycotted in this manner! Is that argument, Mr. Machin? Tell me. You're a man, but honestly, is it argument? Why, it's just as mean and despicable as brute force.""I agree with you," said Edward Henry softly."Do you really think it will harm the militant cause? Do theyreallythink so? No, it will only harm me. I made a mistake in tactics. I trusted--fool!--to the chivalry of the United States. I might have been arrested in a dozen cities, but I, on purpose, reserved my last two arrests for Chicago and New York, for the sake of the superior advertisement, you see! I never dreamt!--Now it's too late. I am defeated! I shall just arrive in London on the hundredth day. I shall have made speeches at all the meetings. But I shall be short of one arrest. And the ten thousand pounds will be lost to the cause. The militants here--such as they are--are as disgusted as I am. But they scorn me. And are they not right? Are they not right? There should be no quarter for the vanquished.""Miss Joy," said Edward Henry, "I've come over from England specially to see you. I want to make up the loss of that ten thousand pounds as far as I can. I'll explain at once. I'm running a poetical play of the highest merit, called 'The Orient Pearl,' at my new theatre in Piccadilly Circus. If you will undertake a small part in it, a part of three words only, I'll pay you a record salary--sixty-six pounds thirteen and fourpence a word, two hundred pounds a week!"Isabel Joy jumped up."Are you another of them, then?" she muttered. "I did think from the look of you that you would know a gentlewoman when you met one! Did you imagine for the thousandth part of one second that I would stoop--""Stoop!" exclaimed Edward Henry. "My theatre is not a music-hall--""You want to make it into one!" she stopped him."Good-day to you," she said. "I must face those journalists again, I suppose. Well, even they--! I came alone in order to avoid them. But it was hopeless. Besides, is it my duty to avoid them--after all?"It was while passing through the door that she uttered the last words."Where is she?" Seven Sachs enquired, entering."Fled!" said Edward Henry."Everything all right?""Quite!"Mr. Rentoul Smiles came in."Mr. Smiles," said Edward Henry, "did you ever photograph Sir John Pilgrim?""I did, on his last visit to New York. Here you are!"He pointed to his rendering of Sir John."What did you think of him?""A great actor, but a mountebank, sir."During the remainder of the afternoon Edward Henry saw the whole of New York, with bits of the Bronx and Yonkers in the distance, from Seven Sach's second automobile. In his third automobile he went to the theatre and saw Seven Sachs act to a house of over two thousand dollars. And lastly he attended a supper and made a speech. But he insisted upon passing the remainder of the night on theLithuania. In the morning Isabel Joy came aboard early and irrevocably disappeared into her berth. And from that moment Edward Henry spent the whole secret force of his individuality in fervently desiring theLithuaniato start. At two o'clock, two hours late, she did start. Edward Henry's farewells to the admirable and hospitable Mr. Sachs were somewhat absent-minded, for already his heart was in London. But he had sufficient presence of mind to make certain final arrangements."Keep him at least a week," said Edward Henry to Seven Sachs, "and I shall be your debtor for ever and ever."He meant Carlo Trent, still bedridden.As from the receding ship he gazed in abstraction at the gigantic, inconvenient word--common to three languages--which is the first thing seen by the arriving, and the last thing seen by the departing, visitor, he meditated:"The dearness of living in the United States has certainly been exaggerated."For his total expenses, beyond the confines of the quay, amounted to one cent, disbursed to buy an evening paper which had contained a brief interview with himself concerning the future of the intellectual drama in England. He had told the press-man that "The Orient Pearl" would run a hundred nights. Save for putting "The Orient Girl" instead of "The Orient Pearl," and two hundred nights instead of one hundred nights, this interview was tolerably accurate.
VI.
One hour later, in the double-bedded chamber at the Majestic, as his wife lay in bed and he was methodically folding up a creased white tie and inspecting his chin in the mirror, he felt that he was touching again, after an immeasurable interval, the rock-bottom of reality. Nellie, even when he could see only her face, and that in a mirror, was the most real phenomenon in his existence, and she possessed the strange faculty of dispelling all unreality, round about her.
"Well," he said. "How did you get on in the box?"
"Oh!" she replied, "I got on very well with the Woldo woman. She's one of our sort. But I'm not so set up with your Elsie April."
"Dash this collar!"
Nellie continued:
"And I can tell you another thing. I don't envy Mr. Rollo Wrissel."
"What's Wrissel got to do with it?"
"She means to marry him."
"Elsie April means to marry Wrissel?"
"He was in and out of the box all night. It was as plain as a pikestaff."
"What's amiss with my Elsie April?" Edward Henry demanded.
"She's a thought toopleasantfor my taste," answered Nellie.
Astonishing, how pleasantness is regarded with suspicion in the Five Towns, even by women who can at a pinch be angels!
VII.
Often during the brief night he gazed sleepily at the vague next bed and mused upon the extraordinariness of women's consciences. His wife slept like an innocent. She always did. It was as though she gently expired every evening and returned gloriously to life every morning. The sunshiny hours between three and seven were very long to him, but it was indisputable that he did not hear the clock strike six, which was, at any rate, proof of a little sleep to the good. At five minutes past seven he thought he heard a faint rustling noise in the corridor, and he arose and tiptoed to the door and opened it. Yes, the Majestic had its good qualities! He had ordered that all the London morning daily papers should be laid at his door as early as possible, and there the pile was, somewhat damp, and as fresh as fruit, with a slight odour of ink. He took it in.
His heart was beating as he climbed back into bed with it and arranged pillows so that he could sit up, and unfolded the first paper. Nellie had not stirred.
Once again he was disappointed in the prominence given by the powerful London press to his London enterprise. In the first newspaper, a very important one, he positively could not find any criticism of the Regent's first night. There was nearly a page of the offensive Isabel Joy, who was now appealing, through the newspapers, to the President of the United States. Isabel had been christened the World-Circler, and the special correspondents of the entire earth were gathered about her carpeted cell. Hope still remained that she would reach London within the hundred days. An unknown adherent of the cause for which she suffered had promised to give ten thousand pounds to that cause if she did so. Furthermore, she was receiving over sixty proposals of marriage a day. And so on and so on! Most of this he gathered in an instant from the headlines alone. Nauseating!
Another annoying item in the paper was a column and a half given to the foundation-stone laying of the First New Thought Church, in Dean Street, Soho--about a couple of hundred yards from its original site. He hated the First New Thought Church as one always hates that to which one has done an injury.
Then he found what he was searching for: "Regent Theatre. Production of poetical drama at London's latest playhouse." After all, it was well situated in the paper, on quite an important page, and there was over a column of it. But in his nervous excitation his eyes had missed it. His eyes now read it. Over half of it was given to a discussion of the Don Juan legend and the significance of the Byronic character of Haidee--obviously written before the performance. A description of the plot occupied most of the rest, and a reference to the acting ended it. "Miss Rose Euclid in the trying and occasionally beautiful part of Haidee was all that her admirers could have wished" ... "Miss Cunningham distinguished herself by her diction and bearing in the small part of the Messenger." The final words were: "The reception was quite favourable."
"Quite favourable," indeed! Edward Henry had a chill. Good heavens, was not the reception ecstatically, madly, foolishly enthusiastic? "Why!" he exclaimed within, "I never saw such a reception!" It was true; but then he had never seen any other first night. He was shocked, as well as chilled. And for this reason: For weeks past all the newspapers, in their dramatic gossip, had contained highly sympathetic references to his enterprise. According to the paragraphs, he was a wondrous man, and the theatre was a wondrous house, the best of all possible theatres, and Carlo Trent was a great writer, and Rose Euclid exactly as marvellous as she had been a quarter of a century before, and the prospects of the intellectual-poetic drama in London so favourable as to amount to a certainty of success.
In those columns of dramatic gossip there was no flaw in the theatrical world. In those columns of dramatic gossip no piece ever failed, though sometimes a piece was withdrawn, regretfully and against the wishes of the public, to make room for another piece. In those columns of dramatic gossip theatrical managers, actors, and especially actresses, and even authors, were benefactors of society, and therefore they were treated with the deference, the gentleness, the heartfelt sympathy which benefactors of society merit and ought to receive.
The tone of the criticism of the first night was different--it was subtly, not crudely, different. But different it was.
The next newspaper said the play was bad and the audience indulgent. It was very severe on Carlo Trent, and very kind to the players, whom it regarded as good men and women in adversity--with particular laudations for Miss Rose Euclid and the Messenger. The next newspaper said the play was a masterpiece, and would be so hailed in any country but England. England, however--! Unfortunately this was a newspaper whose political opinions Edward Henry despised. The next newspaper praised everything and everybody, and called the reception tumultuously enthusiastic. And Edward Henry felt as though somebody, mistaking his face for a slice of toast, had spread butter all over it. Even the paper's parting assurance that the future of the higher drama in London was now safe beyond question did not remove this delusion of butter.
The two following newspapers were more sketchy or descriptive, and referred at some length to Edward Henry's own speech, with a kind of sub-hint that Edward Henry had better mind what he was about. Three illustrated papers had photographs of scenes and figures, but nothing important in the matter of criticism. The rest were "neither one thing nor the other," as they say in the Five Towns. On the whole, an inscrutable press, a disconcerting, a startling, an appetite-destroying, but not a hopeless press. The general impression which he gathered from his perusals was that the author was a pretentious dullard, an absolute criminal, a genius; that the actors and actresses were all splendid and worked hard, though conceivably one or two of them had been set impossible tasks--to wit, tasks unsuited to their personalities; that he himself was a Napoleon, a temerarious individual, an incomprehensible fellow; and that the future of the intellectual-poetic drama in London was not a topic of burning actuality.... He remembered sadly the superlative-laden descriptions, in those same newspapers, of the theatre itself, a week or two back, the unique theatre in which the occupant of every seat had a complete and uninterrupted view of the whole of the proscenium opening. Surely that fact alone ought to have ensured proper treatment for him!
Then Nellie woke up, and saw the scattered newspapers.
"Well," she asked; "what do they say?"
"Oh!" he replied lightly, with a laugh. "Just about what you'd expect. Of course you know what a first-night audience always is. Too generous. And ours was, particularly. Miss April saw to that. She had the Azure Society behind her, and she was determined to help Rose Euclid. However, I should say it was all right--I should say it was quite all right. I told you it was a gamble, you know."
When Nellie, dressing, said that she considered she ought to go back home that day, he offered no objection. Indeed he rather wanted her to go. Not that he had a desire to spend the whole of his time at the theatre, unhampered by provincial women in London. On the contrary, he was aware of a most definite desire not to go to the theatre. He lay in bed and watched with careless curiosity the rapid processes of Nellie's toilette. He had his breakfast on the dressing-table (for he was not at Wilkins's, neither at the Grand Babylon). Then he helped her to pack, and finally he accompanied her to Euston, where she kissed him with affectionate common sense and caught the twelve five. He was relieved that nobody from the Five Towns happened to be going down by that train.
As he turned away from the moving carriage, the evening papers had just arrived at the bookstalls. He bought the four chief organs--one green, one yellowish, one white, one pink--and scanned them self-consciously on the platform. The white organ had a good heading: "Re-birth of the intellectual drama in London. What a provincial has done. Opinions of the leading men." Two columns altogether! There was, however, little in the two columns. The leading men had practised a sagacious caution. They, like the press as a whole, were obviously waiting to see which way the great elephantine public would jump. When the enormous animal had jumped, they would all exclaim: "What did I tell you?" The other critiques were colourless. At the end of the green critique occurred the following sentence: "It is only fair to state, nevertheless, that the play was favourably received by an apparently enthusiastic audience."
"Nevertheless!" ... "Apparently!"
Edward Henry turned the page to the theatrical advertisements.
[image]Theatrical advertisement
[image]
[image]
Theatrical advertisement
Unreal! Fantastic! Was this he, Edward Henry? Could it be still his mother's son?
Still--"matinées every Wednesday and Saturday." "EveryWednesday and Saturday." That word implied and necessitated a long run, anyhow a run extending over months. That word comforted him. Though he knew as well as you do that Mr. Marrier had composed the advertisement, and that he himself was paying for it, it comforted him. He was just like a child.
VIII.
"I say, Cunningham's made a hit!" Mr. Marrier almost shouted at him as he entered the managerial room at the Regent.
"Cunningham? Who's Cunningham?"
Then he remembered. She was the girl who played the Messenger. She had only three words to say, and to say them over and over again; and she had made a hit!
"Seen the notices?" asked Marrier.
"Yes. What of them?"
"Oh! Well!" Marrier drawled. "What would you expect?"
"That's just whatIsaid!" observed Edward Henry.
"You did, did you?" Mr. Marrier exclaimed, as if extremely interested by this corroboration of his views.
Carlo Trent strolled in; he remarked that he happened to be just passing. But the discussion of the situation was not carried very far.
That evening the house was nearly full, except the pit and the gallery, which were nearly empty. Applause was perfunctory.
"How much?" Edward Henry enquired of the box-office manager when figures were added together.
"Thirty-one pounds two shillings."
"Hem!"
"Of course," said Mr. Marrier. "In the height of the London season, with so many counter-attractions--! Besides, they've got to get used to the idea of it."
Edward Henry did not turn pale. Still, he was aware that it cost him a trifle over sixty pounds "to ring the curtain up" at every performance, and this sum took no account of expenses of production nor of author's fees. The sum would have been higher, but he was calculating as rent of the theatre only the ground-rent plus six per cent. on the total price of the building.
What disgusted him was the duplicity of the first-night audience, and he said to himself violently: "I was right all the time, and I knew I was right! Idiots! Chumps! Of course I was right!"
On the third night the house held twenty-seven pounds and sixpence.
"Naturally," said Mr. Marrier. "In this hot weathah--! I never knew such a hot June! It's the open-air places that are doing us in the eye. In fact I heard to-day that the White City is packed. They simply can't bank their money quick enough."
It was on that day that Edward Henry paid salaries. It appeared to him that he was providing half London with a livelihood: acting managers, stage managers, assistant ditto, property men, stage hands, electricians, prompters, call boys, box-office staff, general staff, dressers, commissionaires, programme girls, cleaners, actors, actresses, understudies, to say nothing of Rose Euclid at a purely nominal salary of one hundred pounds a week. The tenants of the bars were grumbling, but happily he was getting money from them.
The following day was Saturday. It rained--a succession of thunderstorms. The morning and the evening performances produced together sixty-eight pounds.
"Well," said Mr. Marrier. "In this kind of weathah you can't expect people to come out, can you? Besides, this cursed week-ending habit--"
Which conclusions did not materially modify the harsh fact that Edward Henry was losing over thirty pounds a day--or at the rate of over ten thousand pounds a year.
He spent Sunday between his hotel and his club, chiefly in reiterating to himself that Monday began a new week and that something would have to occur on Monday.
Something did occur.
Carlo Trent lounged into the office early. The man was forever being drawn to the theatre as by an invisible but powerful elastic cord. The papers had a worse attack than ever of Isabel Joy, for she had been convicted of transgression in a Chicago court of law, but a tremendous lawyer from St. Louis had loomed over Chicago and, having examined the documents in the case, was hopeful of getting the conviction quashed. He had discovered that in one and the same document "Isabel" had been spelt "Isobel," and, worse, Illinois had been deprived by a careless clerk of one of its "l's." He was sure that by proving these grave irregularities in American justice he could win on appeal.
Edward Henry glanced up suddenly from the newspaper. He had been inspired.
"I say, Trent," he remarked, without any warning or preparation, "you're not looking at all well. I want a change myself. I've a good mind to take you for a sea voyage."
"Oh!" grumbled Trent. "I can't afford sea voyages."
"Ican!" said Edward Henry. "And I shouldn't dream of letting it cost you a penny. I'm not a philanthropist. But I know as well as anybody that it will pay us theatrical managers to keep you in health."
"You're not going to take the play off?" Trent demanded suspiciously.
"Certainly not!" said Edward Henry.
"What sort of a sea voyage?"
"Well--what price the Atlantic? Been to New York? ... Neither have I! Let's go. Just for the trip. It'll do us good."
"You don't mean it!" murmured the greatest dramatic poet, who had never voyaged farther than the Isle of Wight. His eyeglass swung to and fro.
Edward Henry feigned to resent this remark.
"Of course I mean it. Do you take me for a blooming gas-bag?" He rose. "Marrier!" Then more loudly: "Marrier!" Mr. Marrier entered. "Do you know anything about the sailings to New York?"
"Rather!" said Mr. Marrier, beaming. After all he was a most precious aid.
"We may be able to arrange for a production in New York," said Edward Henry to Carlo, mysteriously.
Mr. Marrier gazed at one and then at the other, puzzled.
CHAPTER X
ISABEL
I.
Throughout the voyage of theLithuaniafrom Liverpool to New York, Edward Henry, in common with some two thousand other people on board, had the sensation of being hurried. He who in a cab rides late to an important appointment arrives with muscles fatigued by mentally aiding the horse to move the vehicle along. Thus were Edward Henry's muscles fatigued, and the muscles of many others; but just as much more so as theLithuaniawas bigger than a cab.
For theLithuania, having been seriously delayed in Liverpool by men who were most ridiculously striking for the fantastic remuneration of one pound a week, was engaged on the business of making new records. And every passenger was personally determined that she should therein succeed. And, despite very bad June weather toward the end, she did sail past the Battery on a grand Monday morning with a new record to her credit.
So far, Edward Henry's plan was not miscarrying. But he had a very great deal to do and very little time in which to do it, and whereas the muscles of the other passengers were relaxed as the ship drew to her berth Edward Henry's muscles were only more tensely tightened. He had expected to see Mr. Seven Sachs on the quay, for in response to his telegram from Queenstown, the illustrious actor-author had sent him an agreeable wireless message in full Atlantic; the which had inspired Edward Henry to obtain news by Marconi both from London and New York, at much expense; from the east he had had daily information of the dwindling receipts at the Regent Theatre, and from the west daily information concerning Isabel Joy. He had not, however, expected Mr. Seven Sachs to walk into theLithuania'smusic-saloon an hour before the ship touched the quay. Nevertheless this was what Mr. Seven Sachs did, by the exercise of those mysterious powers wielded by the influential in democratic communities.
"And what are you doing here?" Mr. Seven Sachs greeted Edward Henry with geniality.
Edward Henry lowered his voice.
"I'm throwing good money after bad," said he.
The friendly grip of Mr. Seven Sach's hand did him good, reassured him, and gave him courage. He was utterly tired of the voyage, and also of the poetical society of Carlo Trent, whose passage had cost him thirty pounds, considerable boredom, and some sick-nursing during the final days and nights. A dramatic poet with an appetite was a full dose for Edward Henry; but a dramatic poet who lay on his back and moaned for naught but soda water and dry land amounted to more than Edward Henry could conveniently swallow.
He directed Mr. Sachs's attention to the anguished and debile organism which had once been Carlo Trent, and Mr. Sachs was so sympathetic that Carlo Trent began to adore him, and Edward Henry to be somewhat disturbed in his previous estimate of Mr. Sachs's common sense. But at a favourable moment Mr. Sachs breathed humorously into Edward Henry's ear the question:
"What have you broughthimout for?"
"I've brought him out to lose him."
As they pushed through the bustle of the enormous ship, and descended from the dizzy eminence of her boat deck by lifts and ladders down to the level of the windy, sun-steeped rock of New York, Edward Henry said:
"Now I want you to understand, Mr. Sachs, that I haven't a minute to spare. I've just looked in for lunch."
"Going on to Chicago?"
"She isn't in Chicago, is she?" demanded Edward Henry, aghast. "I thought she'd reached New York!"
"Who?"
"Isabel Joy."
"Oh! Isabel's in New York, sure enough. She's right here. They say she'll have to catch theLithuaniaif she's going to get away with it."
"Get away with what?"
"Well--the goods."
The precious words reminded Edward Henry of an evening at Wilkins's, and raised his spirits even higher. It was a word he loved.
"And I've got to catch theLithuania, too!" said he. "But Trent doesn't know! ... And, let me tell you, she's going to do the quickest turn round that any ship ever did. The purser assured me she'll leave at noon to-morrow unless the world comes to an end in the meantime. Now what about a hotel?"
"You'll stay with me--naturally."
"But--" Edward Henry protested.
"Oh, yes, you will. I shall be delighted."
"But I must look after Trent."
"He'll stay with me too--naturally. I live at the Stuyvesant Hotel, you know, on Fifth. I've a pretty good private suite there. I shall arrange a little supper for to-night. My automobile is here."
"Is it possible that I once saved your life and have forgotten all about it?" Edward Henry exclaimed. "Or do you treat everybody like this?"
"We like to look after our friends," said Mr. Sachs simply.
In the terrific confusion of the quay, where groups of passengers were mounted like watch dogs over hillocks of baggage, Mr. Sachs stood continually between the travellers and the administrative rigours and official incredulity of a proud republic. And in the minimum of time the fine trunk of Edward Henry and the modest packages of the poet were on the roof of Mr. Sachs's vast car, the three men were inside, and the car was leaping, somewhat in the manner of a motor boat at full speed, over the cobbles of a wide, medieval street.
"Quick!" thought Edward Henry. "I haven't a minute to lose!"
His prayer reached the chauffeur. Conversation was difficult; Carlo Trent groaned. Presently they rolled less perilously upon asphalt, though the equipage still lurched. Edward Henry was forever bending his head toward the window aperture in order to glimpse the roofs of the buildings, and never seeing the roofs.
"Now we're on Fifth," said Mr. Sachs, after a fearful lurch, with pride.
Vistas of flags, high cornices, crowded pavements, marble, jewelry behind glass--the whole seen through a roaring phantasmagoria of competing and menacing vehicles!
And Edward Henry thought:
"This is my sort of place!"
The jolting recommenced. Carlo Trent rebounded, limply groaning, between cushions and upholstery. Edward Henry tried to pretend that he was not frightened. Then there was a shock as of the concussion of two equally unyielding natures. A pane of glass in Mr. Seven Sachs's limousine flew to fragments and the car stopped.
"I expect that's a spring gone!" observed Mr. Sachs with tranquillity. "Will happen, you know, sometimes!"
Everybody got out. Mr. Sachs's presumption was correct. One of the back wheels had failed to leap over a hole in Fifth Avenue some eighteen inches deep and two feet long.
"What is that hole?" asked Edward Henry.
"Well," said Mr. Sachs. "It's just a hole. We'd better transfer to a taxi." He gave calm orders to his chauffeur.
Four empty taxis passed down the sunny magnificence of Fifth Avenue and ignored Mr. Sachs's urgent waving. The fifth stopped. The baggage was strapped and tied to it: which process occupied much time. Edward Henry, fuming against delay, gazed around. A nonchalant policeman on a superb horse occupied the middle of the road. Tram cars passed constantly across the street in front of his caracoling horse, dividing a route for themselves in the wild ocean of traffic as Moses cut into the Red Sea. At intervals a knot of persons, intimidated and yet daring, would essay the voyage from one pavement to the opposite pavement; there was no half-way refuge for these adventurers, as in decrepit London; some apparently arrived; others seemed to disappear forever in the feverish welter of confused motion and were never heard of again. The policeman, easily accommodating himself to the caracolings of his mount, gazed absently at Edward Henry, and Edward Henry gazed first at the policeman, and then at the high decorated grandeur of the buildings, and then at the Assyrian taxi into which Mr. Sachs was now ingeniously inserting Carlo Trent. He thought:
"No mistake--this street is alive. But what cemeteries they must have!"
He followed Carlo, with minute precautions, into the interior of the taxi. And then came the supremely delicate operation--that of introducing a third person into the same vehicle. It was accomplished; three chins and six knees fraternized in close intimacy; but the door would not shut. Wheezing, snorting, shaking, complaining, the taxi drew slowly away from Mr. Sachs's luxurious automobile and left it forlorn to its chauffeur. Mr. Sachs imperturbably smiled. ("I have two other automobiles," said Mr. Sachs.) In some sixty seconds the taxi stopped in front of the tremendous glass awning of the Stuyvesant. The baggage was unstrapped; the passengers were extracted one by one from the cell, and Edward Henry saw Mr. Sachs give two separate dollar bills to the driver.
"By Jove!" he murmured.
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Sachs politely.
"Nothing!" said Edward Henry.
They walked into the hotel, and passed through a long succession of corridors and vast public rooms surging with well-dressed men and women.
"What's all this crowd for?" asked Edward Henry.
"What crowd?" asked Mr. Sachs, surprised.
Edward Henry saw that he had blundered.
"I prefer the upper floors," remarked Mr. Sachs as they were being flung upward in a gilded elevator, and passing rapidly all numbers from 1 to 14.
The elevator made an end of Carlo Trent's manhood. He collapsed. Mr. Sachs regarded him, and then said:
"I think I'll get an extra room for Mr. Trent. He ought to go to bed."
Edward Henry enthusiastically concurred.
"And stay there!" said Edward Henry.
Pale Carlo Trent permitted himself to be put to bed. But, therein, he proved fractious. He was anxious about his linen. Mr. Sachs telephoned from the bedside, and a laundry maid came. He was anxious about his best lounge suit. Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a valet came. Then he wanted a siphon of soda water, and Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a waiter came. Then it was a newspaper he required. Mr. Sachs telephoned and a page came. All these functionaries, together with two reporters, peopled Mr. Trent's bedroom more or less simultaneously. It was Edward Henry's bright notion to add to them a doctor--a doctor whom Mr. Sachs knew, a doctor who would perceive at once that bed was the only proper place for Carlo Trent.
"Now," said Edward Henry, when he and Mr. Sachs were participating in a private lunch amid the splendours and the grim silent service of the latter's suite at the Stuyvesant, "I have fully grasped the fact that I am in New York. It is one o'clock and after, and as soon as ever this meal is over, I have justgotto find Isabel Joy. You must understand that on this trip New York for me is merely a town where Isabel Joy happens to be."
"Well," replied Mr. Sachs. "I reckon I can put you on to that.She's going to be photographed at two o'clock by Rentoul Smiles. I happen to know because Rent's a particular friend of mine."
"A photographer, you say?"
Mr. Sachs controlled himself. "Do you mean to say you've not heard of Rentoul Smiles? ... Well, he's called 'Man's photographer.' He has never photographed a woman! Won't! At least, wouldn't! But he's going to photograph Isabel! So you may guess that he considers Isabel some woman, eh?"
"And how will that help me?" inquired Edward Henry.
"Why! I'll take you up to Rent's," Mr. Sachs comforted him. "It's close by--corner of Thirty-ninth and Fifth."
"Tell me," Edward Henry demanded, with immense relief. "She hasn't got herself arrested yet, has she?"
"No. And she won't."
"Why not?"
"The police have been put wise," said Mr. Sachs.
"Put wise?"
"Yes.Put wise!"
"I see," said Edward Henry.
But he did not see. He only half saw.
"As a matter of fact," said Mr. Sachs, "Isabel can't get away with the goods unless she fixes the police to lock her up for a few hours. And she'll not succeed in that. Her hundred days are up in London next Sunday. So there'll be no time for her to be arrested and bailed out either at Liverpool or Fishguard. And that's her only chance. I've seen Isabel, and if you ask me my opinion she's down and out."
"Never mind!" said Edward Henry with glee.
"I guess what you are after her for," said Mr. Seven Sachs, with an air of deep knowledge.
"The deuce you do!"
"Yes, sir! And let me tell you that dozens of 'em have been after her already. But she wouldn't! Nothing would tempt her."
"Never mind!" Edward Henry smiled.
II.
When Edward Henry stood by the side of Mr. Sachs in a doorway half shielded by a portière, and gazed unseen into the great studio of Mr. Rentoul Smiles, he comprehended that he was indeed under powerful protection in New York. At the entrance on Fifth Avenue he and Sachs had passed through a small crowd of assorted men, chiefly young, whom Sachs had greeted in the mass with the smiling words, "Well, boys!" Other men were within. Still another went up with them in the elevator, but no further. They were reporters of the entire world's press, to each of whom Isabel Joy had been specially "assigned." They were waiting; they would wait. Mr. Rentoul Smiles, having been warned by telephone of the visit of his beloved friend Seven Sachs and his English protégé had been received at Smile's outer door by a clerk who knew exactly what to do with them, and did it.
"Is she here?" Mr. Sachs had murmured.
"Yep," the clerk had negligently replied.
And now Edward Henry beheld the objective of his pilgrimage, her whose personality, portrait, and adventures had been filling the newspapers of two hemispheres for three weeks. She was not realistically like her portraits. She was a little, thin, pale, obviously nervous woman, of any age from thirty-five to fifty, with fair untidy hair, and pale grey-blue eyes that showed the dreamer, the idealist, and the harsh fanatic. She looked as though a moderate breeze would have overthrown her, but she also looked, to the enlightened observer, as though she would recoil before no cruelty and no suffering in pursuit of her vision. The blind dreaming force behind her apparent frailty would strike terror into the heart of any man intelligent enough to understand it. Edward Henry had an inward shudder. "Great Scott!" he reflected. "I shouldn't like to be ill and have Isabel for a nurse!"
And his mind at once flew to Nellie, and then to Elsie April. "And so she's going to marry Wrissell!" he reflected, and could scarcely believe it.
Then he violently wrenched his mind back to the immediate objective. He wondered why Isabel Joy should wear a bowler hat and mustard-coloured jacket that resembled a sporting man's overcoat; and why these garments suited her. With a whip in her hand she could have sat for a jockey. And yet she was a woman, and very feminine, and probably old enough to be Elsie April's mother! A disconcerting world, he thought.
The "man's photographer," as he was described in copper on Fifth Avenue and in gold on his own doors, was a big, loosely-articulated male, who loured over the trifle Isabel like a cloud over a sheep in a great field. Edward Henry could only see his broad bending back as he posed in athletic attitudes behind the camera.
Suddenly Rentoul Smiles dashed to a switch, and Isabel's wistful face was transformed into that of a drowned corpse, into a dreadful harmony of greens and purples.
"Now," said Rentoul Smiles, in a deep voice that was like a rich unguent. "We'll try again. We'll just play around that spot. Look into my eyes. Notatmy eyes, my dear woman,intothem! Just a little more challenge--a little more! That's it. Don't wink, for the land's sake! Now!"
He seized a bulb at the end of a tube and slowly squeezed--squeezed it tragically and remorselessly, twisting himself as if suffering in sympathy with the bulb, and then in a wide sweeping gesture he flung the bulb on to the top of the camera, and ejaculated:
"Ha!"
Edward Henry thought:
"I would give ten pounds to see Rentoul Smiles photograph Sir John Pilgrim." But the next instant the forgotten sensation of hurry was upon him once more. Quick, quick, Rentoul Smiles! Edward Henry's scorching desire was to get done and leave New York.
"Now, Miss Isabel," Mr. Smiles proceeded, exasperatingly deliberate, "d'you know, I feel kind of guilty? I have got a little farm out in Westchester County and I'm making a little English pathway up the garden with a gate at the end. I woke up this morning and began to think about the quaint English form of that gate, and just how I would have it." He raised a finger. "But I ought to have been thinking about you. I ought to have been saying to myself, 'To-day I have to photograph Isabel Joy,' and trying to understand in meditation the secrets of your personality. I'm sorry! Now, don't talk. Keep like that. Move your head round. Go on! Go on! Move it! Don't be afraid. This place belongs to you. It's yours. Whatever you do, we've got people here who'll straighten up after you.... D'you know why I've made money? I've made money so that I can takeyouthis afternoon, and tell a two-hundred-dollar client to go to the deuce. That's why I've made money. Put your back against the chair, like an Englishwoman. That's it. No, don'ttalk, I tell you. Now look joyful, hang it! Look joyful.... No, no! Joy isn't a contortion. It's something right deep down. There, there!"
The lubricant voice rolled on while Rentoul Smiles manipulated the camera. He clasped the bulb again, and again threw it dramatically away.
"I'm through!" he said. "Don't expect anything very grand, Miss Isabel. What I've been trying to do this afternoon is my interpretation of you as I've studied your personality in your speeches. If I believed wholly in your cause, or if I wholly disbelieved in it, my work would not have been good. Any value that it has will be due to the sympathetic impartiality of my spiritual attitude. Although"--he menaced her with the licenced familiarity of a philosopher--"Although, lady, I must say that I felt you were working against me all the time.... This way!"
(Edward Henry, recalling the comparative simplicity of the London photographer at Wilkins's, thought: "How profoundly they understand photography in America!")
Isabel Joy rose and glanced at the watch in her bracelet; then followed the direction of the male hand, and vanished.
Rentoul Smiles turned instantly to the other doorway.
"How do, Rent?" said Seven Sachs, coming forward.
"How do, Seven?" Mr. Rentoul Smiles winked.
"This is my good friend, Alderman Machin, the theatre-manager from London."
"Glad to meet you, sir."
"She's not gone, has she?" asked Sachs hurriedly.
"No, my housekeeper wanted to talk to her. Come along."
And in the waiting room, full of permanent examples of the results of Mr. Rentoul Smiles's spiritual attitude toward his fellow men, Edward Henry was presented to Isabel Joy. The next instant the two men and the housekeeper had unobtrusively retired, and he was alone with his objective. In truth Seven Sachs was a notable organiser.
III.
She was sitting down in a cosy-corner, her feet on a footstool, and she seemed a negligible physical quantity as he stood in front of her. This was she who had worsted the entire judicial and police system of Chicago, who spoke pentecostal tongues, who had circled the globe, and held enthralled--so journalists computed--more than a quarter of a million of the inhabitants of Marseilles, Athens, Port Said, Candy, Calcutta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokio, Hawaii, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Chicago, and lastly New York! This was she!
"I understand we're going home on the same ship!" he was saying.
She looked up at him, almost appealingly.
"You won't see anything of me, though," she said.
"Why not?"
"Tell me," said she, not answering his question. "What do they say of me, really, in England? I don't mean the newspapers. For instance, the Azure Society. Do you know of it?"
He nodded.
"Tell me," she repeated.
He related the episode of the telegram at the private first performance of "The Orient Pearl."
She burst out, in a torrent of irrelevant protest:
"The New York police have not treated me right. It would have cost them nothing to arrest me and let me go. But they wouldn't. Every man in the force--you hear me, every man--has had strict orders to leave me unmolested. It seems they resent my dealings with the police in Chicago, where I brought about the dismissal of four officers, so they say. And so I'm to be boycotted in this manner! Is that argument, Mr. Machin? Tell me. You're a man, but honestly, is it argument? Why, it's just as mean and despicable as brute force."
"I agree with you," said Edward Henry softly.
"Do you really think it will harm the militant cause? Do theyreallythink so? No, it will only harm me. I made a mistake in tactics. I trusted--fool!--to the chivalry of the United States. I might have been arrested in a dozen cities, but I, on purpose, reserved my last two arrests for Chicago and New York, for the sake of the superior advertisement, you see! I never dreamt!--Now it's too late. I am defeated! I shall just arrive in London on the hundredth day. I shall have made speeches at all the meetings. But I shall be short of one arrest. And the ten thousand pounds will be lost to the cause. The militants here--such as they are--are as disgusted as I am. But they scorn me. And are they not right? Are they not right? There should be no quarter for the vanquished."
"Miss Joy," said Edward Henry, "I've come over from England specially to see you. I want to make up the loss of that ten thousand pounds as far as I can. I'll explain at once. I'm running a poetical play of the highest merit, called 'The Orient Pearl,' at my new theatre in Piccadilly Circus. If you will undertake a small part in it, a part of three words only, I'll pay you a record salary--sixty-six pounds thirteen and fourpence a word, two hundred pounds a week!"
Isabel Joy jumped up.
"Are you another of them, then?" she muttered. "I did think from the look of you that you would know a gentlewoman when you met one! Did you imagine for the thousandth part of one second that I would stoop--"
"Stoop!" exclaimed Edward Henry. "My theatre is not a music-hall--"
"You want to make it into one!" she stopped him.
"Good-day to you," she said. "I must face those journalists again, I suppose. Well, even they--! I came alone in order to avoid them. But it was hopeless. Besides, is it my duty to avoid them--after all?"
It was while passing through the door that she uttered the last words.
"Where is she?" Seven Sachs enquired, entering.
"Fled!" said Edward Henry.
"Everything all right?"
"Quite!"
Mr. Rentoul Smiles came in.
"Mr. Smiles," said Edward Henry, "did you ever photograph Sir John Pilgrim?"
"I did, on his last visit to New York. Here you are!"
He pointed to his rendering of Sir John.
"What did you think of him?"
"A great actor, but a mountebank, sir."
During the remainder of the afternoon Edward Henry saw the whole of New York, with bits of the Bronx and Yonkers in the distance, from Seven Sach's second automobile. In his third automobile he went to the theatre and saw Seven Sachs act to a house of over two thousand dollars. And lastly he attended a supper and made a speech. But he insisted upon passing the remainder of the night on theLithuania. In the morning Isabel Joy came aboard early and irrevocably disappeared into her berth. And from that moment Edward Henry spent the whole secret force of his individuality in fervently desiring theLithuaniato start. At two o'clock, two hours late, she did start. Edward Henry's farewells to the admirable and hospitable Mr. Sachs were somewhat absent-minded, for already his heart was in London. But he had sufficient presence of mind to make certain final arrangements.
"Keep him at least a week," said Edward Henry to Seven Sachs, "and I shall be your debtor for ever and ever."
He meant Carlo Trent, still bedridden.
As from the receding ship he gazed in abstraction at the gigantic, inconvenient word--common to three languages--which is the first thing seen by the arriving, and the last thing seen by the departing, visitor, he meditated:
"The dearness of living in the United States has certainly been exaggerated."
For his total expenses, beyond the confines of the quay, amounted to one cent, disbursed to buy an evening paper which had contained a brief interview with himself concerning the future of the intellectual drama in England. He had told the press-man that "The Orient Pearl" would run a hundred nights. Save for putting "The Orient Girl" instead of "The Orient Pearl," and two hundred nights instead of one hundred nights, this interview was tolerably accurate.