Part 13

At once the fat boy whom she detested crossed the indefinite line dividing the scene from "off-stage," and leering insolently, spoke the opening line of the play. Seething with indignation, the girl looked up and in cutting accents shot her reply at him. She was pleased to surprise a look of dumb amazement in his eyes. At all events, she had succeeded in letting _him_ know just how she felt toward him! And this success inspired her to further efforts. She rattled through the remainder of the scene with the manner of a youthful termagant.

When she had finished, Wilbrow said nothing beyond: "Again, please."

The demand served only to deepen her resentment, and the second repetition differed not materially from the first.

Ceasing to speak, she flounced away, but Wilbrow's voice brought her back.

"Very good, Miss Thursday," he said mildly--"very good indeed. But why--in the name of Mike!--if you _could_ do it--why wouldn't you until now?"

"Because," Joan stammered--"because--!"

But she didn't dare say what she wished to, and checked her tongue in a fit of sulks more eloquent than any words she could have found.

Wilbrow waited an instant, then laughed quite cheerfully.

"The usual reason, eh? I might have guessed you had a sure-'nough one concealed about you.... That's all for today. Tomorrow morning at nine."

Privately pondering this experience, Joan surprised its secret, and drew from it a conclusion that was to have an important influence upon her professional future: in order to act convincingly, she must herself feel the emotions accredited to her part. As applied to her individual temperament, at that stage of its development, this rule had all the inflexibility of an axiom. Others might--as others do--act in obedience to the admonitions of their intelligence: Joan could at that stage act only according to the promptings of her emotional self.

So she encouraged herself to hate Wilbrow with all her heart, to despise him without ceasing night or day; no charitable thought of the manager was suffered to gain access to her humour at any hour. And so admirably did she succeed in impregnating her mind with virulent dislike of the man, that she afforded him no end of amusement. She made a point of coming to the rehearsals early enough to infuriate herself with contemplation of him in the flesh; and of walking up and down, before and between her scenes, thinking evil of him. The twinkle with which his eyes followed her, in place of their erstwhile calm indifference or resignation, worked only to intensify her rancour. Curiously enough, a clear comprehension of the illogical absurdity of it all made her temper even more bitter.

One day just before the final rehearsals, Wilbrow, meeting her at the stage-door, planted his slender body squarely in her way.

"Good morning!" he said cheerfully, with a semi-malicious smile. "My congratulations, Miss Thursday! You're doing nobly."

"Thanks," Joan said curtly, pausing perforce.

"You ought to be very grateful to me. Are you?"

"No."

"I wonder what you'd do under the direction of a man you happened to like?"

"I don't know." Joan gave him a sullen look. "Will you please let me pass."

"Delighted." He moved aside with mocking courtesy. "I ask only one thing of you: don't fall in love with me before our first night. I haven't got time to sour another sweet young thing's amiable disposition.... Keep on hating me as hard as you like--and we'll make at least a half-portion actress of you yet...."

Toward the end of the second week, Joan began to notice that Rideout was growing less assiduous in attendance. At first inclined to lay this to his satisfaction with the progress--to her the production seemed to be taking on form and colour in a way to wonder at--she later overheard a chance remark of one of her associates, to the effect that Rideout was himself rehearsing with another company.

"Well," someone commented, "if it was my coin back of this show, I'd stick by it if I had to play the office-boy."

"I guess," was the reply, "Rideout ain't got any too much outside what he's sunk in this production. Shouldn't wonder if he needs what he's to get with Minnie Aspen."

"Mebbe. He's a good trouper. What does he drag down, anyway?"

"Four hundred a week."

"Nix with those Lambs' Club figures. I mean regular money."

"Oh, two hundred and fifty, sure."

"Now you've said something...."

During the third week it was announced that "The Jade God" would open in Altoona on the following Monday. And at the same time Joan discovered that she was expected to provide her own costume, a simple affair but unhappily beyond the resources of either her wardrobe or her pocket-book. In despair she took the advice of Mrs. Arnold (the sweet-faced lady of fifty, whom Joan counted her only friend on the company) and approached Rideout's personal representative, Druggett, with a demand for an advance. With considerable reluctance Druggett surrendered fifteen dollars, and promised her as much more on Monday, toward expenses on the road. And again on the advice and introduction of Mrs. Arnold, the girl succeeded in satisfying her needs at an instalment-plan clothing-house: paying eight dollars down on a bill of about forty and agreeing to remit the balance at the rate of four dollars each week.

The final dress-rehearsal was called for Saturday morning. They were to leave New York Sunday night. But on Friday afternoon a sense of uneasiness and uncertainty invaded the temper of the organization. Wilbrow neglected the players to engage in protracted conferences with Matthias, Rideout, Moran, and Druggett, out of earshot, at the back of the auditorium. One or two weather-wise "troupers" hazarded gloomy surmises as to the nature of the "snag": that most favoured involved a "shake-up with the Shuberts" over some change in their route. With a singular unanimity the prophets of disaster either avoided or overlooked the actual cause of the trouble.

At ten o'clock the next morning--a little late--Joan, with her costume in the dilapidated wicker suit-case, hurried into the theatre to find the company scattered about the stage in poses variously suggestive of restless dejection. Neither the star nor the leading woman was present, and there was no scenery in sight, other than that belonging to the production which occupied the same stage nightly. Rideout was nowhere to be seen, but the author, the producer, and Druggett were engaged in earnest but inaudible argument "out front." From their manner Joan inferred that Druggett was advocating some course actively opposed by Wilbrow and passively by Matthias. The group broke up before she found opportunity to question her associates. Druggett, in manifest dudgeon, turned sharply and marched out of the house, while Wilbrow strode purposefully back to the stage by way of the passage behind the boxes, Matthias following with an air of profound disgust and despondency.

From the centre of the stage the producer addressed the little gathering.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he said sharply; and waited until he had all their attention. "There'll be no rehearsal today, and--and unless something quite unexpected happens, we won't open Monday. The truth is, there isn't money enough behind this show to finance it beyond Altoona. Moran can't collect on his scenery, and won't deliver. Mr. Matthias has offered to fix Moran up if we agree to go out, but I can't see it that way. Mr. Rideout's proposition is that we go on the road and run our chances of making expenses--but I don't have to tell you people what a swell show we'd have of breaking even on a tank route at this season of the year--hot weather still with us, and all that. We _might_--but that's about all you can say. And I don't think any of us want to count ties from Altoona....

"Mr. Druggett thinks that Mr. Rideout will be able to make a deal with the Shuberts, but I doubt it. Just now they're all tied up with their own productions and have no time to waste on a gambling risk like this. Of course, if I'm wrong, you'll all be notified. But I wouldn't, if I were you, pass up another engagement on the off-chance of this thing panning out after all.

"I'm sorry about this--we're all sorry, naturally. We all lose. Mr. Matthias here loses as much as any of us--the rights in a valuable property for several months, at the inside. I'm out fifteen hundred dollars I was to get for putting the show on. And Rideout's out the two thousand real coin he's invested in expectation of backing which failed to materialize. Personally I refused to shoulder the responsibility of letting you go out in ignorance of the real state of affairs. That's all."

He hesitated an instant, as if not satisfied that he had dealt fully with the situation, and glanced a little ruefully from face to face of the company. But for the moment none made any comment. And with an uncertain nod to the author, Wilbrow turned and disappeared through the stage-door.

Matthias waited a trifle longer, as though anticipating trouble with the disappointed players; but there was no feeling manifest in their attitude toward him other than sympathy for a fellow-sufferer. And presently he consulted his watch and followed the stage-director.

Those left in the theatre discussed the contretemps in subdued and regretful accents, betraying surprisingly little rancour toward anyone connected with it. Even Rideout escaped with slight censure. He was, in the final analysis, one of them--an incurable optimist who had erred only in banking too heavily on hope and promises.

By twos and threes they gathered up their belongings and straggled off upon their various ways, a sorry, philosophic crew. Within ten minutes their dissociation was final and absolute.

XVII

Late in the evening, Matthias gave it up, and shaking off Rideout (whose only hope had resided in the author's anxiety to save his play) betook himself to an out-of-the-way restaurant to idle with a tasteless meal.

He was at once dog-weary and heart-sick.

The net outcome of some ten hours of runnings to and from, of meetings and schemings, of conferences by telephone and of communications by telegraph with those who had promised financial support to Rideout's project, was an empty assurance, indifferently given by the Shuberts, to the effect that, if nothing happened to make them think otherwise, they might possibly be prepared to consider the advisability of producing "The Jade God" about the first of January.

The truth of the situation was that neither the Shuberts nor any other managerial concern was likely (as Wilbrow put it) "to look cross-eyed at the piece" until they could get full control of it; which would be in some three months, when Rideout's contract to produce would expire by limitation. And since Rideout might be counted upon to hold on to his contract rights till the last minute and leave nothing else undone in the effort to recoup his already substantial losses, it was useless to consider the play as anything but a property of potential value relegated indefinitely to abeyance.

Matthias believed in the play with all his heart. During the last three weeks he had watched it come to life and assume the form he had dreamed for it, coloured with the rich hues of his imagination and quick with the breath of living drama. And because he possessed in some measure that rare faculty of being able to weigh justly the work of his own hand, and had looked upon this and seen that it was good, he had counted on it to win him that recognition which, more than money, his pride craved--partly by way of some compensation for what it had suffered at the hands of Venetia Tankerville.

He was still sore with the hurt of that experience. Privately he doubted whether he would ever wholly recover from it; but the doubt was a very private one, never discovered even to his most sympathetic friends, not even to Helena, whose scorn of her sister-in-law remained immeasurable. Fortunate in having been able to afford those several weeks in the wooded hills of Maine, in their fragrant and passionless silences Matthias had found peace and regained confidence in his old, well-tried, wholesome code of philosophy; which held that though here and there a man ill-used by chance or woman might be found, the world was none the less sound and kind at heart, and good to live in.

For all that, he could not easily endure the thought of Venetia's lowering herself to use him to further her love affair with Marbridge; of Venetia going from his arms and lips to the lips and arms of that insolent animal, Marbridge: the one amused by her successful cunning, the other contemptuous in his conquest. And he often wondered with what justice he judged the woman. It comforted him a little, at times, to believe that she had not acted so cruelly altogether as a free agent, to think her meeting with Marbridge in New York a freak of chance and fate, her elopement an unpremeditated and spontaneous surrender to the indisputable magnetism of the man. Marbridge commanded the reluctant admiration of men who did not like him--who knew him too well to like him. How much more easily, then, might he not have overcome the scruples of a girl untutored in the knowledge of her own heart....

Or had it all been due merely to the fact that John Matthias was not a man to hold the love of women? Such men exist, antipathetic to the Marbridges of the world. Was he of their unhappy order, incapable of inspiring enduring love?

He could review a modest cycle of flirtations with women variously charming and willing to be amused, light-hearted attachments and short-lived, one and all, those that might have proved more lasting broken off without ill-will on either side--though always by the woman. Venetia alone had named Love to him as if it stood to her for something higher and more significant than the diversion of an empty hour--Venetia who was now in Italy, the bride of Marbridge!

And yet, oddly enough, it wasn't his memories of Venetia and his regrets and wounded self-esteem that rendered insipid his belated dinner and made him presently abandon it in favour of the distracting throngs of Broadway. They were thoughts of another woman altogether that urged him forth and homeward--a poignant sympathy for Joan Thursday, the friendless and forlorn, whose high anticipations had with his own that day gone crashing to disaster. He couldn't remember what had made him think of her, but now that he did, it was with disturbing interest.

He found himself suddenly very sorry for the girl--much more sorry for her than for himself. What to him was at worst a staggering reverse, to her must seem calamitous beyond repair.

It wasn't hard to conjure up a picture of the child, pitifully huddled upon her bed, in tears, heart-broken, desolate, perhaps (since he had not been home to pay her) supperless and hungry!

Matthias quickened his stride. His suddenly awakened and deep solicitude tormented him. He had received evidence that Joan's was a nature tempestuous and prone to extremes: he didn't like to contemplate the lengths to which despair might drive her.

Through the texture of this new-found care ran a thread of irritation that it should have proved a care to him. He realized that he must of late have been giving a deal of thought to the girl. Formerly he had been aware of her much as he was of Madame Duprat; such kindness as he had shown her had been no greater than, and of much the same order as, he would have shown a stray puppy. Tonight he found himself unable to contemplate her as other than a vital figure in his life--a creature of fire and blood, of spirit and flesh, at once enigmatic and absolute, owning claims upon his consideration no less actual because passive. He who had pledged his ability and willingness to find her a foothold on the stage, was responsible for her present distress and disappointment. And if his good offices had been sought rather than voluntary, still was he responsible; for she wouldn't have dreamed of seeking them if he hadn't in the first place insisted on putting her under obligation to him. He had in a measure bidden her to look to him; now it was his part to look out for her.

Hardly a pleasant predicament: Matthias resented it bitterly, with impatience conceding the weight of that doctrine which teaches the fatal responsibility of man for his hand's each and every idle turn. He had paused to pity a stray child of the town; and because of that, he now found himself saddled with her welfare. A situation exasperating to a degree! And, he argued, it was merely this subconscious sense of duty which had of late held the girl so prominently in his mind--ever since, in fact, that night when she had broken down and impulsively kissed his hand. Just that one hot-headed, frantic, foolish act had primarily brought home to Matthias his obligations as the object of her unsought, unwelcome gratitude....

He found Joan waiting on the stoop: a silent and vigilant figure, aloof from the other lodgers--a woman and two or three men lounging on the steps. And as these moved aside to give Matthias way, Joan rose and slipped quietly indoors, where in the hall she turned back with a gesture that too clearly betrayed the strain and tensity of her emotions; but, to his gratification, she was dry of eye and outwardly composed.

"You were waiting for me?" he asked; and taking assent for granted rattled on with a show of cheerful contrition: "Sorry I'm late. There were ten dozen stones we had to turn, you know."

Her eyes questioned.

He smiled, apologetic: "No use; Rideout simply can't swing it."

"I've finished type-writing that book," she announced obliquely.

"Have you? That's splendid! Will you bring it to me? And then we can have a little talk."

She nodded--"I'll go fetch it right away"--and scurried hastily up the stairs as he went on to his room.

Leaving the door ajar and lighting his reading-lamp, Matthias closed the shutters at the long windows, adjusting their slats for ventilation. Then for some minutes he was left to himself. Resting against the edge of his work-table, he studied ruefully a cigarette which he was too indifferent or too distracted to continue smoking. Smouldering between his fingers, its slender stalk of pearly vapour ascended with hardly a waver in the still air, to mushroom widely above his head. It held his eyes and his thoughts in dreaming.

He was thinking, simply and unconsciously, of the Joan he had just realized in the half-light of the hallway: a straight, slim creature with eyes like troubled stars, her round little chin held high as if in mute defiance of outrageous circumstance; vividly alive; giving a strange impression, as of some half-wild thing, at once timid and spirited, odd and--beautiful.

To the sound of a light tap on the open door, the girl herself entered, a mute incarnation of that disturbing memory. She put down the manuscript before acknowledging his silent and intent regard. But becoming aware of this, her eyes wavered and fell, then again steadied to his. He was vastly concerned with the surprising length of her dark silken lashes and the delicate shadows on her warm, rich flesh. And he was sensitive to the virginal sweetness and fluent grace of her round and slender body. Vaguely he divined that the calm courage of her bearing was merely a naïve mask for a nature racked by intense feeling....

"That's the last," she said quietly, indicating the manuscript. "I finished up this evening," she added, superfluously yet without any evidence of consciousness.

"Thank you. I'm glad to get it." Ransacking his pockets, Matthias found money, and paid her for the week.

"I suppose that'll be all?" she asked steadily. "I mean, you won't want any more type-writing done for a while?"

"I don't know," he said slowly. "We'll have to ... talk things over. Today has changed everything.... If you don't mind, I'll shut the door: people all the time passing through the hall...."

She shook her head slightly to indicate a mild degree of impatience with his punctiliousness about that blessed door. Unconscious of this, having closed it, he returned to her, frowning a little as he reviewed her circumstances with a mind that seemed suddenly to have lost its customary efficiency of grasp.

He found her eyes and lost them again, glancing aside in inexplicable embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," he said slowly, looking down at the manuscript she had just delivered, and abstractedly disarranging it with thin, long fingers--"awfully sorry about the way things have turned out. I--"

She interrupted him sharply: "O no, you're not!"

He looked up quickly, amazed and disconcerted by the hint of anger in her tone. A little tremor ran through her body and she lifted her chin a trace higher while she met his stare with eyes hot and shining. Red spots like signals blazed in her either cheek.

Confused, he stammered: "I beg your pardon--!"

"I say you're not sorry. You're glad. You're glad, just like anybody else might be. _I_ don't blame you."

She shot these words at him like bullets, with a disturbing display of passionate resentment. He opened his lips to speak, and thinking better of it, or else not thinking at all in his astonishment, gaped witlessly, wholly incapable of conceiving what had got into the girl.

With a flush of scornful satisfaction her eyes remarked these evidences, so easily to be misinterpreted; then quickly she lowered her head and turned away, leaning against the table, her back to the light and face in shadow.

"_I_ don't blame you," she repeated in a sullen murmur.

He demanded blankly: "My dear girl, what _do_ you mean?"

"I mean.... Why, just that you're glad to get rid of me!" she returned, looking away. He noticed the nervous strength with which her hands closed over the edge of the table, the whitening of their small knuckles.... "It's perfectly natural, I guess. I've been a nuisance so long, you've got every right to be tired of having me hang around--"

"But, my dear young woman--!"

She interrupted impatiently: "Oh, don't call me that. It don't mean anything. I guess I know when I'm not wanted. I'll go now and never bother you any more."

Moving a pace or two away, she resumed before Matthias could muster faculties to cope with this emergency:

"All the same, I don't want you to think I don't appreciate how good you've been to me--and patient, and all that. I am grateful--honest'--but I'm not as dumb as you think: I know when I'm in the way, all right!"

"But you entirely misunderstand me--"

"O no, I don't! You've made yourself plain enough, if you didn't think I had sense enough to see. It don't take _brains_ to see through a man who's only trying to be polite and kind--all the time bored--"

"But, Miss Thursday--"

She turned toward the door.

He made a gesture of open exasperation. This was all so unfair! He had only meant to be kind and considerate and--and everything like that! And now she had drawn against him one of those unique and damnable indictments which seem to be peculiarly the product of a certain type of feminine mentality, and against which man is constitutionally incapable of setting up any effective defence, reason and logic alike being arbitrarily ruled out of court by the essential injustice of the charge. She chose to accuse him of having adopted toward her a mental attitude of which he was wholly guiltless; and there was no way by which he might persuade her of his innocence!

And it was so confoundedly clear that she considered herself, temporarily at least, abused and altogether justified of her complaint!

"Please," he begged, "don't go yet. Give _me_ a chance!"

Her hand was on the knob. She hesitated, with an air of expectant and generous concession.