CHAPTER I

RUDOLPH CLEEBURG Presents GLORIA CROMWELL in “LADY FAIR” A Comedy-Drama by _Bronson Reed_

A car pulled up sharp at the curb and a woman leaned out to read the tall lettering. It loomed startling and white against a black ground. Along a street where theaters crowded each other like chorus girls in a manager’s office, that inky splash with its tracing of white paled to oblivion all the others.

The man beside her watched her eagerly, studied the delicate profile with a kind of hunger. When she turned, his eyes went alight at the smile in hers.

“It’s stunning, ’Dolph. But then you always do things right.”

“Y’mean that? Do I always manage to suit you, kiddo?”

“You know you do.” There was a low, tender note in the voice that would always be wistful. It was an odd voice—one that, breaking with the swift snap of a violin string, brought tears from its audience as one chokes at a broken chord.

“H’m, that’s all I want.” He grinned sheepishly. “No fool like an old fool, eh?”

He stepped out as the chauffeur swung open the door, and reached up to help her. Gloria Cromwell—in private life Mrs. Rudolph Cleeburg—was not tall and her intense slenderness made her look frail, yet standing next to her husband she measured a full inch above him. Any passerby taking in the round face, eyes and figure of the well-known manager, his bald pate and prominent features, would have smiled at the information that he was the most artistic producer in America. But then, no passerby would have noticed the hands, key to character, that tapered so incongruously. Even the man himself failed to take count of them. He knew only that he felt beauty like a tangible thing, that he expressed it through the two mediums he loved—the stage and his wife.

He took her arm and they went down the cool dark alley to the stage door. It was a Sunday in September, hazy and languid, the first shadows of twilight creeping into the arms of night.

In almost every building on the block rehearsals were under way. Behind blank front entrances with high iron gates locked fast, throbbed the pulsing life of the theater. No effort too great, no work too intense, to give to the world its most human tonic, amusement.

The dress rehearsal of “Lady Fair” had been called for 8:00 p. m. They were early, having made good time from their place at Great Neck. Gloria crossed the stage set for Act I while Cleeburg paused to suggest to the electrician some experiments with the lights.

“Try a couple of reds, Bill, in the foots for Act II. And cut out four or five of the ambers on top. They make her look too yellow, sick around the eyes. Get me? Too much shadow. We want to bring out all the flash in her hair. Light her up. It’s her big scene. And here—have a smoke!”

He followed Gloria. She had tossed her hat on a table and stood taking in the new props he had provided while the company made the customary short tour that precedes a New York première.

With the shadows of the unlighted stage about her and the dusky quiet of the empty house stretching at her feet, she seemed to the man who went toward her deplorably young and tender, with a something yearning from her that he had tried to reach and never even been able to define. Not for the first time he asked himself: Was it the almost childish form under the soft summer dress—or the delicate line of her long throat—or the intense red curve of lip—or her pallor topped by the tawny hair whose lights and shades he was so intent on featuring? No, none of these! It was the look of her eyes. Wide and hungry, with fright in their depths, they had arrested him six years before as he hurried through his outer office; arrested him and found her a job. The fright had gone long since. And the hunger which had been nothing more than actual physical hunger. But the look that was so much like the quality of her voice still lurked there, eluding him.

He came up behind her as she stood examining the heavy black velvet drapes with crests of blue, purple and gold embroidered in the corners.

“Like ’em?” he asked once more anxiously.

She veered about. “They must have cost a fortune, ’Dolph. Wouldn’t those blue ones we had on the road have been good enough?”

“Not for you. Only the best for my girl! And look at you against ’em. Those newspaper guys are right—there sure is something about you that’s got the rest of the bunch lashed to the mast!”

“It’s what you’ve made me, ’Dolph.” The words came breathless, with that strange fascinating catch. “You’ve put me over just the way you did the rest. Goring and Wilbur and Chesterton. Without you I’d have been just an actress. Now they call me an artist. And you’ve done that—you’ve done every bit of it.”

With a furtive glance to make sure the electrician was still occupied he went closer, laid an arm across her slim shoulders and gazed eagerly through the shadows into her face.

“Say that again. Of course it ain’t true. They were all piking compared to you. But say it anyhow. It’s music to me—the greatest symphony and greatest opera rolled into one.”

“It is true.”

“Then if I never do anything else for you, that goes on the right side of the ledger—what? Sometimes, little girl, I feel like I was a dog, grabbing you the way I did right after I featured you and you thought you couldn’t turn me down.”

“Nonsense!” She caught his hand and her clasp was so tight it seemed to grip.

“I’m a pretty old piece of scenery and not easy to look at, at that.” He glanced through the drapes at the back drop. It represented a stretch of blue sky pierced with holes through which presently stars would glimmer. “Like that old thing,” he added. “Just a piece of shabby canvas, good enough for background.” And as she started to protest he laughed, a laugh that wasn’t much more than a sound. “Why, even Doug Fairbanks won’t be able to kid himself he’s young when he’s past half a century.”

He turned as several members of the company strolled in and greeted each with a hearty handshake. With a smile for every one and an ear ready to listen, the Cleeburg of to-day had the same enthusiasm as the pudgy newsboy who years before had run fat little legs off to procure for a patron his favorite daily.

“Hello there, glad to see you! Well, they tell me we’ve got a knock-out. Let’s have a look.”

He made for the rear of the house with his stage director who had accompanied the play on tour.

The curtain up, he leaned against the seat in front, a long black cigar jerking from corner to corner of his mouth like a propeller. Not a gesture, not an intonation escaped him. His concentration ignored any world but this. Had the building burned down, that stage before him would still have been the pivotal point of interest.

When Gloria appeared between the black drapes, eyes luminous under the untamed hair, and the thrill of her voice came over the footlights, he sighed and a smile of anticipation spread across his face. It was the look of one whose senses are about to be lulled by rare music.

The play had all the quality of delicately written French drama, its big scene at the end of the second act being calculated to bring even a New York audience straight out of its seat. Gloria and John Brooks were as finely teamed as a pair of high-stepping thoroughbreds. He had been her leading man two seasons. Little ’Dolph, with an eye to the future, had him tied up on a five-year contract.

You would never have taken John Brooks for an actor. There was about his clothes no suggestion of the extreme that Broadway is tempted to affect. They were cut by a conservative tailor and he wore them with the ease of not caring particularly what he had on. Critics called him distinguished. When he walked into a stage drawing-room one knew instinctively that more exclusive drawing-rooms had opened to him. He never talked shop outside and never brought his social activities into the theater. But it was generally known that his friends numbered scientists and men of big business.

On the stage he suggested a clean-cut Britisher, tall and well groomed, easy of manner, clipped of speech, yet with a more intense vitality and that gleam of humor under the straight black brows that is peculiarly, blessedly, of, by, and for America.

The manager sat back, eyes half closed, lapping up the charm of it as a kitten laps cream. When the curtain fell he licked his lips and purred as he turned to the director, Lewis.

“You’re right, Lewy! Never saw a pair to touch ’em. Gad, that give and take, that playing into each other’s hands—nothing like it in this old berg, I tell you!” He sprang up, bounded down the aisle like a rubber ball. “Immense!” he shouted. “That act runs on greased wheels. It’s sure fire! They’ll eat it alive.”

He climbed into a box; with amazing ease jumped on to the stage. Bulky as was his figure, almost pouter pigeon in certain postures, there was nothing funny about Cleeburg in action. It was the fire of his genius, the spark that lighted his homely face with inspiration, that commanded respect. Even with a handkerchief tied round his neck as it always was in hot weather and the open sleeves of his silk shirt flopping like awkward wings, no one thought of smiling. One merely listened.

He gave a few instructions to the property men and slipped back to his wife’s dressing-room, poking his head in at the door.

She was changing to a tea-gown, a lovely shimmery gold thing that brought out the reds in her hair like touches of flame.

“Well, how does it go?” she asked. “Any suggestions?”

“Not half a one. Couldn’t be improved. And John—he was made for you!”

She dropped her eyes to examine a tiny rip in the train.

“Better mend this, Suzanne, before I go on. It might catch on something.”

“Glad we’ve got him sewed up tight. First thing you know, one of the boys’d be offering to star him and then biffo, we’d lose him!”

“He is—wonderful.” She did not raise her eyes as the maid’s needle flashed in and out of the soft fabric, then looked up suddenly. “Lewis thinks we have a big hit.”

“Lewis knows his business. You never had a chance that touched it—comedy and the big heart stuff combined. Try a little more red, honey. You look pale. Tired out, eh?”

“No—just a bit nervous, that’s all.” She turned hastily to the mirror, picked up a rabbit’s foot and dabbed some color across her cheek bones. As she bent forward, her teeth caught her lower lip and held it. And Cleeburg, noting the reflection of her eyes, fancied fright in them. Nerves, of course! Emotional tuning up of the vibrant artist!

He went out front as the curtain rose on the second act. It revealed a boudoir. Not the sort bestowed upon woman by the average scenic decorator with its brilliant splashes of color and general air of a department store exhibit, but a room that suggested four walls enclosing feminine taste.

Steadily Gloria and Brooks mounted to the big moment when the man’s passion, like a torrent crashing through ice, carried the woman with it. They stood facing each other and the voice of John Brooks came quiet, yet with the threat of doom.

“We’ve played the game, you and I,—to the finish. And we’ve lost. No, not lost, because this is the end we wanted. We’ve been a pair of gamblers, banking on defeat, waiting to have the game get us. Now we’re going to lay down our cards, admit we’re beaten, and take what is greater than victory. You know what that is. I don’t have to tell you I love you—”

The woman gave a terrified “No—no!” with arms thrust out to ward off the thing she had desired. The man followed with a quick laugh as he caught them and her to him.

Cleeburg jumped up and speeding down the aisle made a trumpet of his hands.

“Hey, John—play that for all it’s worth. Give it to ’em strong. You fall down a peg or two at the end. Got to keep up the tension. Get me? Don’t be afraid of too much pep. Can’t be done in this town. Let go! Give ’em the love stuff till they faint.”

Again and again he put them through it. Up to the crucial point it went superbly. Then something seemed to snap. It was less in Brooks’ rendering of the speech than the way he caught up Gloria and swept her to him. Instead of an onrush like a force irresistible, his embrace was almost measured. One felt that with very little effort she could have escaped.

Sitting in the front row now, a puzzled seam between his eyes, Cleeburg noted that Gloria, too, appeared to hold off. Gloria, who flung herself into a part as if it were life! What had happened? He shook his head, began to pace the length of the seats.

“You’ll let down the whole act, children. You’ll lose your curtain. Why, they’ve been wanting this to happen from the beginning. If you don’t give it to ’em and give it to ’em big, they’ll can you. Sure thing! Let’s have another go.”

John Brooks’ thin lips came together. There was something tense about the way he went into the scene this time—muscles tight, hands clenched, voice husky. And when finally he swept her into his arms it was as if he would never let her go. Their lips met as the curtain fell. Even in the empty house one could feel the thrill of it.

Cleeburg gave a chortle of relief. Just for a moment he had been afraid they were going to muff it.

But he apologized for his persistence later over a bite of supper.

“It’s the crux, old man. That’s why I kept you at it. You see, the woman is yours by every law of God. Once you know it, you don’t give a damn for the laws of man.”

“I get you.”

“Put over the feeling that it had to be. If you don’t the whole show goes fluey. You and the little girl do such bully team work, we don’t want one hitch to spoil it. Hope I haven’t played you out.”

“Oh, that’s all right.” The other man smoothed his hair with a gesture of both long hands and looked across the table. “Afraid my thick head has tired Gloria, though.”

She was leaning back, limp, face white as the moon that looked in between the pillars of the roof garden.

“Not a bit.” Her lids lifted quickly and Cleeburg was startled at the fever under them. She leaned elbows on the table. “I was as stupid as John. We just couldn’t seem to get it.”

“Well, don’t worry. It’ll go like hot cakes to-morrow night. You won’t worry, kiddo, will you?” He patted her arm anxiously. “I don’t like to see you look like this.”

“Why, there isn’t a thing wrong with me—truly.” She turned to watch the dancers as they swayed past, two moving as one to the lure of darky music. In the center of the flagged floor a fountain sent up showering spray colored emerald, ruby and gold by lights from within. The place was filled with a soft languor. It seemed set very close beneath the Indian Summer sky.

When she turned back she found Brooks gazing at her.

“Come to think of it,” observed Cleeburg, glance traveling from one to the other, “you don’t look any too chipper yourself, old man. Didn’t notice it when you got in this morning but you’re both played out.”

“Gloria had a little smash-up after the performance last night. Been working at top speed. Nothing wrong with me. We’re both tired, that’s all. There wasn’t a breath of air in the train, either.” Brooks lifted his glass of cider and a dry smile played round his lips. “I drink to thee only with mine eyes,” he said to Gloria.

Cleeburg grinned. “Say, why not come out to the house with us now? Give you something stronger. Stop off, shoot a few things into a bag and a night in the country’ll do you good.”

Brooks put down his glass. “Thanks, no. Think I’d better stick to my own bunk.”

“How about next week then? Run you out after the show Saturday night. You can try a couple of holes of golf with Gloria Sunday.”

“Sorry, old man, I’m booked.”

“Well, any time you like. Ain’t a place, ours, where you have to wait for a bid.”

“I know that.”

“What’s the matter with you anyhow? Last summer, you used to run out every few weeks. This year, have to beg you to come!”

“Not a bit of it,” laughed Brooks. “Wait till we get this opening off our chests and you won’t be able to get rid of me.”

“Can’t come it too strong to suit us, eh kiddo?”

Gloria’s eyes had drifted out to the swaying throng once more. “Of course not,” she said quickly, and pushed back her chair. “If you don’t mind, ’Dolph, I believe I am tired.”

Cleeburg noticed as they went down to the car that her step lagged. When they had dropped Brooks at his flat and were speeding up Fifth Avenue, sleepy under the quiet hour when life in New York closes one eye, she turned swiftly. “’Dolph—you remember what you called yourself in the theater to-night—before the others came?”

He thought a moment. Then his face went alight, all but the eyes. “Your old back drop, y’mean?”

She nodded. “Don’t ever do that again—don’t!”

Her vehemence made him shift his position so that he faced her.

“Why, honey—”

The break in her voice had been poignant. Her hand clasping his arm was feverish. He felt the heat of it through his thin coat. Even in the dark he could see her eyes, brilliant, with something of the fright he had read in them earlier in the evening. Only it was intensified.

“Honey, what is it?”

“I want you to know I love you,” she rushed on breathlessly. “It wasn’t just gratitude that made me marry you. I’ll always love you. You’re splendid and fine and generous. They don’t come any better. Never doubt it, ’Dolph! Never—will you?” She shook his arm, repeating the question over and over.

“Why—kiddo—”

“And I have made you happy?” she broke in on his amazement. “I have given you something for all you’ve given me?”

He answered quickly enough then.

“Everything, honey. Why, these past five years’ve been more than most fellows get in a lifetime. I ask myself often what an old tout like me ever did to deserve ’em. In the theater and out—hasn’t been a day that wasn’t heaven. That’s what you’ve given me.”

She sat an instant silent. Then before he could divine her intention she had carried his hand to her lips. But it was not their moisture he noticed as he drew it hastily away and slipped an arm round her.