CHAPTER II

Exceeding the most exalted expectations, “Peacock” ran two full seasons. It might even have packed houses during the hot spell, save that the star decided to give herself a rest, well-earned, and, of course without her, the theater had to remain dark. At the end of four weeks spent at a fashionable Adirondack hotel where she was fêted like visiting royalty and her gowns created a sensation, she reopened and the continued success of the play warranted Cleeburg’s decision to give it another season on Broadway.

During all that time Goring had not a word from her husband. Even of his Denver address she was unaware. But the fact that he did not write failed to disturb her. It was a relief rather. The first few months of his absence she dreaded another plea from him. In case his health had grown no better, or—as was quite possible—had grown worse, further excuses would be difficult. As the weeks rolled into months and the months accumulated into a year and still not a line, the thought of him lapsed into merely perfunctory curiosity. He must be alive or she’d have been informed. Hence, if ever she needed to get in touch with him it would be easy enough to do so through his former paper or his clubs. Thus she blotted even the thought of him from her books.

Another season of acclaim on the road and she was back in New York ready for rehearsals. Her new play, made to order for her by a prominent dramatist, was read by him in her apartment the day of her arrival.

Cleeburg met her at the Grand Central, full of enthusiasm, chewing the butt of a cigar while his hands outlined the plot as an artist smudges in with charcoal the foundations of his picture.

Goring’s manager had started life as a newsboy somewhere east of Broadway and a few of the habits of childhood had become the habits of a lifetime. His manners were not Chesterfieldian. Frequently he forgot to take off his hat when a lady entered the room. His cigar was removed from the right-hand corner of his mouth only to be shifted to the left. But more than one actress out of a job could borrow a hundred or two from him with no surer guarantee than her I.O.U. And those of the chorus whose eyes had not grown hard from seeing too much of the Rialto when lights are brightest, affectionately called him “Papa.”

Rudolph Cleeburg or ’Dolph as he was familiarly named—was short and stocky; heavily built, in fact, but with a lightness of foot that enabled him to prance about the stage while directing, and an Oriental imagination that carried him into any rôle he wanted to assume without making him appear ridiculous. One of the ablest directors in the country, in spite of English that sometimes tobogganed, he always took his productions personally in hand once the first rough edges were smoothed down. With Goring, of course, he assumed charge from the beginning. She would have no one else.

The manager’s admiration for his star had at the start been of the proverbial cat-and-queen variety. But as their association stretched over the years, it was shorn of the awe in which he had first held her and once he had even reached the point of proposing. It was when she informed him that she and Bob had separated.

“Divorce?” he had asked quickly. And with her shake of the head, “Well, if ever you do, there’s little ’Dolph waiting to step into his shoes. Don’t forget that, Jane. It’s straight goods.”

The proposal had vastly amused her.

They drove up town through the fresh sweetness of a May morning. Cleeburg’s panama dropped to the floor of the car as he excitedly sketched the story in the air, one idea tumbling after the other as fast as words would come. His bald head shone as did his eyes. All his features were prominent—nose, eyes, teeth—but most prominent of all was his smile which seemed to light like an arc his round commonplace face. This he flashed delightedly as Goring listened with a calmness unbroken.

“It’s sure fire, Jane! Sure fire! We got a bigger go than ‘Peacock’ and that’s going some.”

Jane Goring said little until the apartment was reached. Then she shook hands with the author who was waiting for them, left the two men together while she changed from her traveling clothes, and an hour later glided in cool and revived in a peacock-blue house-gown whose sleeves floated outward like wings. Cleeburg’s watch was in his hand, but he pocketed it without a word as she entered, and settled back in his chair.

The author opened his script and began to read. His voice filled the silent room, chorused occasionally by the gay trill of birds from the park across the way or city sounds from the street below.

The manager’s smile broadened with satisfaction as he progressed. The cigar moved back and forth, propelled by emotion. But Goring listened without comment, eyes half closed, gazing down at the playwright’s head bowed over his manuscript.

Presently a new sound broke upon the stillness. It was from neither bird nor branch, neither the clang of bells nor the rush of traffic. It was light and regular, and it came from within—the steady tapping of a slippered foot. Toward the end of Act II it became noticeable and Cleeburg looked round interrogatively.

Tap—tap! Tap—tap! More swift, more impatient,—until the author’s voice proclaimed “Curtain.”

Then Jane Goring spoke—and the tapping was explained. “But, my dear Mr. Thorne, you don’t expect me to play the lead in _that_?”

Cleeburg wheeled about in his chair. “What’s the matter with it?”

“Why, there’s nothing for me—not a thing!”

“Nothing for you?”

“Nothing! Not a single opportunity in those first two acts.”

Cleeburg sprang up. His cigar rotaried excitedly. “No opportunities? My God, Jane, what do you want? As the play stands, you’re the whole show!”

“As the play stands, you might as well hand it to Harrison Burke”—Burke was her leading man—“and let me retire,” came coolly.

The playwright’s eyes began to smoulder. “I don’t get you, Miss Goring. This character has been absolutely built round you.”

She turned on him, still cool, still aloof.

“Then why is your man allowed to dominate every scene?”

“He isn’t,” the author protested. “The sympathy is yours, even when I’ve been compelled to give him the long speeches.”

“I don’t see it—not at all. You don’t even give me an opportunity to wear decent clothes.”

“That comes in your last act,” Cleeburg burst out.

“Well, I don’t want to wait until the last act.”

“I can’t very well put a factory girl in satins,” the playwright observed.

“Why make her a factory girl?”

He threw up his hands and subsided.

Cleeburg took to pacing the floor. “Look here, Jane,” he said finally, “let’s get a line on this. You’ve given ’em a fashion plate for three solid years. Show ’em you can do something else. Otherwise they’ll get sick and tired of you. This part’s great—just what you need. You act through the first two acts and in the last you splurge. What more do you want?”

“I want it understood that I’m the star of the production!”

“Well, it is. Nobody else has a chance. Good Lord, Burke’s speeches are just feeders! You’ve got—everything.”

“I don’t see it.”

The dramatist, who was sufficiently famous to be independent of stars, rose. “Under the circumstances, there’s no need to read further.”

“Hold on! Hold on!” Cleeburg clutched his arm. “Don’t take it like that, old man. Let’s go into the thing and see what can be done to please all parties.”

They did go into it for three long hours, at the end of which Jane Goring insisted that she must have luncheon. She was as unruffled as when she had entered—and as firm. Cleeburg was mopping his brow. Through his glasses the playwright’s eyes were blazing. It was then two forty-five. By that hour they had compromised to the extent of cutting some of the hero’s long speeches and giving her a chance to change her costume in the last act.

At luncheon Cleeburg consumed little more than whiskey and soda, and wondered why he got no cooler. Likewise he swore at the twittering of the birds and the distant clang of street cars.

When Jane Goring had finished the last morsel of her chicken salad and leisurely emptied her cup of Chinese tea, they adjourned once more to the drawing-room and the discussion was resumed.

A lantern of golden fire was hanging in the Western sky by the time the play had been revamped to the star’s satisfaction. More than once its author took hat in hand and made for the door. But Cleeburg’s persuasive clutch and the whisper that an additional advance would be paid for his trouble detained him. And finally an agreement was reached.

Her objection to the drama as it stood, however, necessitated a postponement of rehearsals and it was late July before the company assembled on the stage of a playhouse just off Broadway. It annoyed Goring to forego her usual few weeks of rest but since she wished to have a New York opening in October, there was nothing else to be done.

The day the company was called was dank and humid, a breathless day thick with summer dust, ominous with thunderclouds.

At ten Goring emerged from a cold bath, was dressed by her maid’s moist fingers, and at eleven crossed the soggy pavement from her car to the stage entrance. The drive downtown had been stifling. It dizzied her. To enter the dark passageway and look out into the space of auditorium, linen-covered, was a relief.

What is there about an empty theater that fascinates? The bare boards of the stage, the heaps of scenery piled against bare brick walls, the bare table and chairs ranged to form a semicircle within which the actors move back and forth, the single electric light, bare of shade, jutting up in the center like a giant eye in the cool darkness—surely there is no illusion about them, no suggestion of the world of make-believe into which they evolve. Yet the very odor of the place redolent of grease-paint—those who love it sniff it as a thoroughbred sniffs tanbark.

Manager, actors, author—they are about to conjure from those bare boards all the elements of life. Conflict, laughter, tears, love, hate, happiness—death! Theirs to build, theirs to take the written page and make of it a tingling human thing. Theirs to people empty chairs. Theirs to clothe with flesh and blood a skeleton. A wave of the wand and into emptiness springs a home with soft rugs and rich-colored hangings, deep divans, the ring of voices, the flooding of moonlight or warm glow of the sun. And best of all, out in that empty auditorium when the lights go up will throng a crowd whose hearts will be theirs to thrill, to wring, to charm. Theirs the blessed privilege, the joy of creation. That’s why they love it in spite of the ache of disappointment, the discouragement of failure. That’s why they cling to it.

Those assembled on the stage that throttling day of July had risen tired from their beds, dragged wearily in from the street, noticed that the management had electric fans going and laughed at the idea of getting any relief from them. Yet the instant Goring appeared, followed a few minutes later by Cleeburg, a light sprang into their eyes, the spontaneous light of anticipation, and they promptly forgot the weather. The play had been read to them the day before and their parts assigned, so that they were ready to plunge into work.

Goring shook hands with her leading man and nodded to the rest, all of whom were known to her—she had practically the same support from year to year—except a slight girl whose face was so thin that her eyes looked abnormally big and hungry. It made their expression almost frightened.

The company ran quickly through the first act, parts in hand, while Cleeburg sat under an electric fan and listened. Then, after a few words with the author who was hunched in a seat somewhere in the ghostlike auditorium, he ripped off pongee coat, his collar and necktie, and real work began.

Goring did little but read at the first rehearsals. She liked to conserve her energy for the long sessions Cleeburg put her through during the last weeks.

When they left the theater at five everybody looked wilted but the star. The hour for lunch had been consumed largely with liquid refreshment and most of them again made for soda fountains.

Goring dined with her manager on the Astor Roof. The storm, threatening all day, had not yet broken and a black hood of clouds bore down on the city like the shadow of death. Cleeburg, full of plans, ordered a near-champagne cup and substantial dinner and appeared not to notice the depression above and around them. But Goring it affected unpleasantly. She felt irritable, annoyed by the fact that he could eat a heavy dinner on such a night, prone to find fault with the service, rubbed the wrong way by the strum of the summer orchestra.

“Did you notice how much older Burke looks?”

“Looks good to me,” Cleeburg lifted a cup of steaming bullion while she played with a jellied one before her.

“He’s losing his figure, I think.”

“We ain’t any of us chickens, Jane.”

She pushed the cup away.

“Not that you ain’t a pippin,” he added hastily. “You’ve got the lines—you’ll always have ’em.”

“Don’t talk as if I were a hundred.” Her voice was so sharp that it cut.

“Good Lord, no! Not one on Broadway to-day can touch you.”

She softened a bit. “Who’s the new girl?”

“Who?”

“The one who plays my sister.”

“Oh, that one! Forget her name. Lewis has it.”

“Where did you get her?”

“She’s been hanging round the office, Lewis says, and couple of weeks ago she held me up on my way out. Poor little thing looked as if she needed a job so I gave her that sister bit. Hair’s something the color of yours—that decided me.”

“She has a funny hysterical catch in her voice. Did you notice it?”

“Probably she’s hungry. Looks it—poor kid! Must have Lewis slip her an advance on her salary.”

With gusto he cut into the _filet mignon_ and helped himself to some new peas. The sight of the red blood oozing from the meat made Goring feel ill. She turned her attention to the _halibut parisienne_ the waiter placed before her. But even the slices of tomato and crisp garnishing of lettuce could not tempt her appetite.

“I can’t see why you gave her the part—she’s so homely.”

“That needn’t hurt you any.”

“But she has a scene with me, even though it is only a bit.”

“Maybe when she gets a square meal in her she won’t look so much like a ghost.”

He lit a cigar, rolling it between his lips with the joy of an epicure.

Goring cooled her hot throat with an ice, frowning at his complacent finality. It increased her own irritation, made her want to grip him by the shoulders and shake him.

The girl _was_ homely. Why did he argue about it?

A zigzag of lightning cut through the sky. With a crash it tore open and the deluge descended like the wrath of God sent to cleanse a heathen city. Crash after crash, fire upon fire, barrages of rain hurled against the buildings, shaking their very walls.

Goring shivered. In spite of the stewing heat a chill went through her.

“Let’s get out of this,” she said.

“Better wait till it’s over.”

“I want to go home now.”

Cleeburg signed the check.

Like the lightning his car zigzagged through the storm. Water sprang from the streets against the windshield. The noise about them was deafening. Goring clung to the window strap at her side. For some unknown reason her nerves were keyed to the nth degree. She felt choked, as if shrieking alone would clear her throat. The first day of work and this beastly weather, she told herself, were responsible.

Throughout the long night the storm raged. And tossing between soft linen sheets she did not close her eyes.