  Of course that was not her name. No one knew just how she had been christened—if at all. To a worshipful public she was known as Jane Goring, which, as names go, answered all purposes and was quite as simple as she was ornate. But “Peacock” was the title of the play in which she had made the season’s hit and a wave of fads in honor of it had typhooned over New York in consequence. There were perfumes with bottles far more valuable than their contents on which strutted the iridescent bird of beauty. There were soaps and powders and sachets sold in green satin boxes similarly decorated and similarly priced. Peacock feather fans swayed at dances and the opera despite the age-old hoodoo. Beaded bags were worked in the popular design. Dressmakers dictated the spreading train. Blues and greens in every conceivably odd shade were introduced as the new color. The peacock coiffure, originated by Goring, was imitated by dowager and dÉbutante, by movie star and chorus queen, by the girl behind the counter even unto the cash girl—hair drawn flat over the top of the head and puffed out stiffly at the ears, the whole being completed by a comb that jutted at right angles. In Goring’s mahogany swirl, framing as it did a face rather broad at the cheek-bones and tapering heart-shaped to the chin, an impertinent nose and sleepy green-gray eyes that lifted at the corners, the effect was startling. But the variegated [68] types it crowned north, south and east of Broadway would scarcely have inspired an artist to his best work. At the moment we make our bow to Jane Goring—for Goring bowed to no one—she was on the top rung of the ladder of success. Her head had reached the clouds and was held accordingly. So that when she looked at you, she always looked down at you. Which made those whom she addressed feel infinitely small even when they were tall, always excepting representatives of the press. They found her always gracious, always smiling with corners of eyes and lips lifted and a look of wonder at their great kindness to her. Each time she received them it was in some new and amazing costume in one of the shades she had made popular, with jangling jade or emeralds in her ears and green lights darting from the comb in her hair. She spoke at length of the arts and collected immense royalties from candy boxes, silk advertisements and cold creams bearing her name and endorsement. Somewhere in the dim and distant past her flaming head and Jap-like eyes had graced the chorus. She had lived in a hall bedroom; had been caught frying chops over an alcohol stove; had been lectured by the landlady; had found the milk frozen to her window sill on winter mornings; had known the exquisite thrill of being raised to a few lines of persiflage with the musical comedy’s comedian. In those days a young newspaper man, Bob McNaughton, had found her out, proclaimed her a genius, and married her—not because of her genius, however, but because he adored her. They had spent their [69] honeymoon one Sunday on the Palisades, and he had kissed her finger tips one by one and told her how he was going to make her. “There’s Jefferson who has our dramatic column—I’ll get him to give you a boost every now and then. He stands in with a bunch of critics. He’ll drop a word about you and they’re bound to take notice. You’ll see, darling, what I’m going to do for you!” And she had put her vivid head on his shoulder and gazed down at the shining river and murmured that she didn’t care whether he did anything for her or not. She loved him—she didn’t want anything in the world but him. The hall bedroom had given place to the third-story back, the frying chops to a French table d’hÔte that boasted a bottle of red ink with a sixty-cent dinner, and Jane Goring was happy in the possession of a broad shoulder to weep on when the latest step came hard or the director asked casually if her legs were made of leather. In the years that followed, the ardent young husband had made good his promises. He had systematically press-agented Goring with a sincerity and enthusiasm born of love. Untiringly he had worked to bring her first to managerial, then to public notice. And his efforts, added to natural talent and a bizarre personality, had hoisted her to the top rung heretofore mentioned. “Peacock” marked the fourth season of her success. But long before that Bob McNaughton had awakened one morning to find gray hairs threading his brown, and [70] himself still a reporter—by no means a star one. He had been so busy making her career that he had forgotten to make his own. It was about this time that his wife left him. Not actually left him, of course, for at that particular moment Goring would not have stooped to anything so disturbing as divorce. Waves of popular favor had begun to roll smoothly up the beach of her ambition. But her temperament demanded a home all her own. So they maintained separate apartments—had done so for several years—his a room and bath in a downtown bachelor hotel, hers a nine room and three-bath duplex in an uptown studio building. In the beginning they had seen each other occasionally. But each time they met, Bob seemed to have grown grayer. Whether this fact was a reminder that her own hair, left to itself, might show the same tendency, or whether it was just the look in his eyes—the same look they had worn that Sunday on the Palisades—seeing him began to tell on her nerves. More and more she denied herself to him until he became more of a stranger in her beautiful rooms than the flock of tame robins who pecked out of her hand at afternoon tea. As a matter of fact, few of Goring’s vast throng of admirers even guessed there was a husband in the offing. Women persistently married her off to her handsome leading man, and more than one young millionaire about town ecstatically visualized her presiding at his dinner table. So far as Jane Goring was concerned, Bob McNaughton [71] belonged to another life. Thus it was rather a shock to come home from the theater one night when “Peacock” was at the height of its run and find her husband waiting for her. It was fully five months since she had seen him; over a year since she had been at home to him after the theater. He was striding up and down her drawing-room, hands thrust deep into his pockets, head bent. But when one considers that her drawing-room consisted of three thrown into one, it was not surprising that at first she was not conscious of another’s presence. She came in, switched on the sidelights, dropped her furs and sank on the davenport, hand hovering toward the table back of her, when from the other end of the room, her name was spoken. She sat up, startled, and saw Bob coming into the range of bluish light from a Chinese temple lamp at the side of the piano. Jane Goring looked her amazement. He drew nearer, stopped abruptly and faced her. “My apologies,” he said with a slight, rather twisted smile, “for calling so late.” She dropped back, the look of amazement still lighting her long sleepy eyes. “You did rather—startle me.” For a moment neither spoke. Then he indicated the other corner of the deep-cushioned couch, “May I sit down?” “Certainly.” It was accompanied by a slight shrug. His hand dove into his vest pocket and brought out a silver cigarette case. He clicked it open, held it out to her. She may or may not have noticed that his movements were tense and jerky, that the case was held not [72] quite steadily. She gave a faint gesture of dissent, reaching once more to the table at her back, and opened a gold lacquer box. “I have a new special brand—imported for me from Egypt.” He took one of his own, pocketing the case, and she waited for some explanation of his visit. “You’re looking well,” he began after a moment without looking at her. “Feeling very fit,” she returned, and waited once more. He did not speak, just sat staring down at his rather tightly clenched hands. She did notice then that he was looking old—years older than when she had last seen him. Bob was forty-two,—to-night he looked fifty. Jane was,—well, not even “Who’s Who” knew exactly how old Jane Goring was—any woman who will tell her right age will tell anything!—but she looked well under thirty. The silence seemed to demand something of her. “And you?” she queried politely. He wheeled round in his corner. “That’s just what I’ve come to see you about,” he brought out. “Matter of fact, I waited until the last minute—didn’t want to bother you with it.” “The last minute?” “Yes. I’m pulling up stakes—beating it for Colorado to-morrow.” At the back of Jane Goring’s brain, though even to herself she did not acknowledge it, flared a sudden flash of relief. Like a jagged streak of lightning across a summer sky it was there—and gone. [73] “Denver.” “With what paper?” “None, for a time. It’s like this.” He paused, seemed to be searching for words, his hands clenched and unclenched nervously. “I’ve been seeing Frothingham, the specialist, you know. Oh, it’s nothing—contraction in the chest now and then and bit of a cough in bad weather. Beastly uncomfortable, though. He tells me if I go now I can get rid of it in six months or so.” Goring gazed at the breadth of shoulder on which her head had snuggled so peacefully in the old days. Not that that phase of it occurred to her just then, but she stared at the big frame and could scarcely credit what he told her. “But how in the world did you get such a thing?” “It got me, my dear,—before I knew it. Fellow living alone’s apt to grow careless. Anyway, there it is, and it’s up to me to light out.” Silence again for a moment, then—“I’m sorry, old boy,” she murmured. “That’s good to know.” He slid nearer to her along the couch. Her face through the pungent smoke from the Egyptian cigarette was an indefinite white blur, vague as a dream, impossible to read. “I was hoping, in a way, that you would be. Makes it easier for me to put up the proposition I have in mind.” “Yes?” she questioned as he paused again. “But first I want to outline something of my plans once I knock this bug on the head.” “Yes?” [74] “Seems to me an excellent idea,” she observed. “Now what I wanted to ask you is this.” He fumbled for his case once more. Against the light from the table lamp, his features formed a sharp tense silhouette. He bent forward, struck a match. It flared upward, emphasized the lines that were almost ridges in his face. Suddenly he turned, and his next words came thick. “Janey, I want you to do this much. Will you—when you close—take a run out to Colorado and spend part of the summer with me?” The tapering white hand that held the cigarette to her lips dropped as if stricken. She straightened and her drowsy green eyes looked down on him from the immense height of the top rung. “My dear boy!” she ejaculated. “Of course,” he put in quickly, “I wouldn’t expect you to stay in Denver. Must be any number of mountain resorts we could go to—I’ll ask Frothingham.” “But, my dear boy, I couldn’t possibly. To begin with, I’m taking ‘Peacock’ on the road early in August, playing Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago—all the big cities. [75] Cleeburg wants to keep me out in it until February when we begin work on a new production. That leaves me only a few weeks’ vacation—” “Spend them with me. Janey—” He leaned over with a swift, impulsive movement, lifted her left hand, the little finger of which was completely covered by a big beetle-green scarab, and kissed the tips one by one. “Janey, there’s just you—no one else! These last years have been hell. I’ve missed you—I’ve wanted you! A few weeks—is that too much to ask?” She drew her hand away—gently enough. But a little shudder of disgust ran down her spine. “But I can’t, don’t you see?” she began conversationally. “Those few weeks I must have to myself. I need the rest.” “Can’t we take it together? Can’t we go up into the mountains—away from the muck of the world—and get to know each other all over again? Remember our honeymoon, dear, the afternoon by the river? What a happy pair of kids we were! Let’s have a taste of that, just a taste again.” A slight flicker of amusement—oh, very slight—raised the corners of her upslanted eyes. “Afraid we’ve passed the honeymoon age, dear boy.” “It’s your love I want, Janey,” came from him desperately. “Just to feel that you’ll come to me for a time when I need you.” She got up, crushed the spark from her cigarette, tossed it with a gesture of distaste into the tray and moved toward the piano. In her trailing green gown with its fanlike train—Goring never wore short skirts—and her [76] dangling scarab earrings, she looked very exotic, very tall and altogether unapproachable. She trailed the length of the room and stopped under the Chinese temple lamp. Its blue light shed an aura about her, giving her skin the moon-glow that Henner’s brush has made immortal. Her husband gazed after her. Mercifully she stopped with her back toward him, and he failed to get the expression that pressed close her lips. His eyes had followed her with dog-like pleading. Without meeting them she knew—felt it. Neither could she escape the urge in his voice. In the old days, that deep tender note had thrilled her, made her yearn for him, given her the assurance that whatever happened, Bob would be there to make things right. To-night it merely annoyed her, rendered her position more difficult. Seeing Bob at all had become trying and the very thought of the thing he now suggested irritated her beyond measure. She had so completely done with him—finished! Taking advantage of this sudden illness was taking advantage of her. With all her being she resented it. She stood for a moment turned from him, fingering the blue and gold tassel that hung from a bit of Chinese embroidery flung across the piano. Finally she turned back, face as void of light or shade as the old idol enshrined in a corner. “Suppose we have a snack of supper and talk things over,” she suggested. He was sitting bent almost double, elbows on knees, head in hands. A wave of contempt for his attitude of dejection swept over her. She was so palpitant with life, [77] vibrating with the thrill—ever new, ever sweet—that the laurel wreath brings. Without waiting for a reply she rang. A tired-eyed maid appeared. Goring gave her directions and when the girl had gone out, proceeded to chat casually about affairs of the theater—a new firm of managers recently bobbed up on the horizon with a new play by a new author; the outlook for next season; the trend toward satirical comedy. Bob sat without moving, knuckles pressing white against his forehead, the veins on his hands standing out like blue welts. Presently he looked up. “I take it you are not coming out to me.” Goring in the depths of a chair some distance from him stirred uneasily. “My dear boy, I’ve told you. It’s not only impractical—it’s impossible.” “Of course! I was an ass to think you might.” “Can’t you see? I’m not my own mistress. I belong to my public. I’ve got to conserve my strength for them—and my work.” “Yes,—I see.” “If I consulted my own desires—but I haven’t the moral right. I must sacrifice what you want—what I want—to what my public expects of me.” He might have reminded her of the years he had given to creating that public for her. He might have dwelt at length on his Machiavellian boosting of a red-haired show girl through the columns of his own paper and gradually with insertions here and there in periodicals of the theater, until managers began to ask who this Jane Goring was. [78] He might have made mention of the evenings he had spent round the Lambs and the Friars adding to his list of acquaintances, as men can only at men’s clubs, those who would eventually be of service to her. He merely smiled with his lips, lighted another cigarette and tried to cover the fact that the flame flickered. “You must understand how I’m placed,” she persisted. “I understand.” His laconic reply, followed by flat silence, instead of alleviating, somehow increased her discomfort. After a moment he spoke. “Ever read ‘Frankenstein,’ Janey?” “No.” “Queer tale of a chap who tried to create a superman.” “Well?” Her brows contracted, puzzled. “Well—his superman rose up and destroyed him.” “I fail to see—” The frown deepened. “Oh, just a flight of fancy. Don’t mind me.” Again his hand struck a flickering match. “Ought you to smoke so much?” she asked, to fill in the gap. “I shouldn’t think it would be good for—for—” “My lungs? Oh, nothing wrong with them—actually. Dare say they’ll pull up O.K. once I pull out of this town. Y’know what Paul Bourget said about New York. Fellow asked him how he liked our climate, and he answered, ‘But my dear man,—you do not have climate. You have samples of weather!’” She laughed and the weight of the air lifted somewhat. The maid brought in a steaming chafing dish, set it on a nest of tables and drew out the smaller two, placing them in front of the couch. [79] “You grow more beautiful every time I see you, Janey. Success is a first rate old alchemist, isn’t it?” She smiled down, her whole face softening. The maid laid an embroidered doily of finest linen on each of the two small tables and brought silver platters of creamed mushrooms with a faint aroma of sherry. From a dusty bottle marked Amontillado she poured into slim-necked glasses the same wine, glistening and amber. When she had finished serving them, she asked tentatively if madame wished her to wait up. Goring wondered why the question brought from Bob a look of curiosity, why he turned and watched her, waiting; why he smiled—with his eyes this time—when she told the girl to go to bed. She moved nearer—the tables were placed side by side—and sipped the sherry. A few moments passed during which she noticed uncomfortably that he had not touched the dainty, tempting dish before him. “You’re not eating?” “Not particularly hungry.” He lifted his glass, twirling it between thumb and forefinger, his gaze never leaving her. “I want to fill my eyes with you, Janey. May be a long time before I see you again.” Her eyes warmed to the tense adulation in his. After all, he did look beastly ill, and the least she could do would be to give him the memory of a little kindness to carry away. “And I want you to know, Bob, that I’ll be thinking of you, hoping and praying that before long you’ll be [80] quite fit again.” She leaned over, touching his hand lightly with hers. Instantly his closed over it—feverishly, as a man clings to hope when his ship of life has been broken into wreckage. “Will you, Janey?” “Of course.” “That will help—some.” He put down the glass and caught her other hand, drawing her nearer. “I’d like to feel there’s still a corner for me. No other fellow taking my place, I mean.” “How absurd! You know I haven’t time even to think of men.” “They have plenty of time to think of you.” Again that quizzical smile. “I’ve got that much over them, haven’t I? You’re my wife.” She smiled back and tried to draw away but he held her with the grip of hot iron. “That’s what I’ve got over them, Janey—all of them. You may belong to your public now but you’ve been mine. We’ve had our youth together, haven’t we?” “Yes.” “We’ve had the best of life together.” “Yes.” “Nobody can take that from me.” He spoke breathlessly. Suddenly his arm went round her, crushed her to him and his lips were against hers. “My love!” he whispered. Jane Goring’s body went rigid. She drew herself erect and the warmth died out of her eyes as swiftly as a flame extinguished. Sharply her slim white hands thrust out [81] in defense. She pulled backward. Their gaze met—locked. In his was hurt question. In hers a flash of fury. He sat staring at her a moment and he did not look up. It was a look direct, straight, boring to the heart of her. And then he got to his feet. “I beg your pardon,” he began. “I—I thought—” He paused, jaws coming together as though clamped. Without another look at her he walked the length of the room. At the door he turned. “Damn me for my humility!” he said. 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, [83] 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 [84] 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 [85] 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 ActII 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 [86] 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 [87] 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, [88] 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 [89] 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 [90] 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. [91] 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. [92] 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. [93] |
| First Curtain...... | Tableau. |
| Second? | Miss Goring and company |
| Third? | Miss Goring and principals |
| Fourth? | Miss Goring and principals |
| Fifth? | Miss Goring and Mr.Burke |
| Sixth? | Miss Goring |
The manner and order of taking the curtains had been carefully rehearsed the night before, but as it rose the fifth time with the star and leading man alone on the stage, an incident unanticipated occurred. Someone in the gallery shouted “Cromwell!” And the applause seemed to swell in answer.
Goring at first paid no heed. The curtain fell—rose again and again. The call was repeated insistently. Goring went graciously to the wings and drew the girl onto the stage. She came, trembling so that she could [101] scarcely walk, eyes wide and terrified but shining somehow behind it all. She made an awkward bow, clinging like a child to Goring’s hand.
When several curtains had been taken alone and preparations were finally under way for ActII, Jane Goring picked her way past property men and scene shifters toward the dressing-room with a five-pointed star painted on the door—to an actress the gate of heaven. Miss Cromwell was waiting there.
“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed, “that was so—so sweet of you!”
Jane Goring looked down at her. “I take it you have friends in the gallery?” she said.
“No, I have no friends in New York.”
Goring continued to gaze down and her look was not altogether pleasant. But the girl did not see it. With an impulsive gesture, half apologetic, half worshipful, she lifted the star’s hand to her lips.
“God bless you!” she murmured with that queer catch in her voice.
[102]
CHAPTER IV
At 5.00A.M. ’Dolph Cleeburg was seated in the living-room-library den of his apartment completely surrounded by early editions and the butts of cigars. One of the latter circled joyously in his mouth as he and the author read over the various expressions of approval.
“Here’s a fellow says Jane’s hair was too Fifth Avenue in the first act. By godfrey, ain’t that just like ’em? Can’t find fault with anything else, so have to pick on her hair.”
“I told her to let it go,” the playwright remarked.
“Well, that’s Jane. She’s got to look right or she can’t act. And, by gad, I’ve seen lots of Third Avenue girls got up like Fifth. Ain’t any law against it, is there?” He let the sheet rustle to the floor and picked up another. His collar and tie were open, his coat was off, his eyes held a blaze of excitement. A whiskey and soda stood on the tabouret beside him, untouched.
“Listen to this, Ted!” He plunged into a eulogy that made his eyes snap and the cigar roll with a velocity impossible to estimate. “By godfrey,” came at the finish, “ain’t one of ’em don’t give some notice to that Cromwell kid”—and went on reading—“‘Managers—keep your eye on Miss Gloria Cromwell.’” Then he gave a long chuckle. “And to think I engaged her because she looked starved!”
[103]
“She has something that gets you.” The author paused meditatively. “Wonder if it’s her voice?”
“Nope,” came crisply from Cleeburg. “It’s her heart. Probably suffered like hell and that’s what puts her over.”
In Jane Goring’s boudoir some five hours later, the actress sat propped up, also like an isle in a sea of newspapers. She had read them in the small hours as had her manager. Only differently. One of the society satellites who circle round a popular star even as the moon circles round the earth and just as inconstantly, now silvering her sky, now leaving it black, had at the play’s finish carried her off to a supper party and dance. In the midst of gayeties a flunky had been dispatched for the morning papers and, in a flurry of excitement like the froth of champagne, the notices had been consumed, gushed over, forgotten.
Not so by Goring, of course. Alone in the white light of a new day, she reread them slowly, digesting each word. One watching her would have found in her eyes no glow of satisfaction, no thrill that once more she had scored. Rather was there the ghost of a frown on her brow. A frown somewhat difficult to interpret.
At eleven Cleeburg had her on the phone. He had been ringing the apartment at regular intervals since eight but her maid had refused to disturb her. His voice ran the gamut of explosive enthusiasm.
“Great, Jane, great! We’ve got ’em again! We’ve got ’em! Didn’t I tell you this one had it all over ‘Peacock’?”
He wanted to come up and lunch with her but she [104] told him she was tired, would see him later at the theater.
The greater part of the day she spent resting, going over her notices and dictating letters to her secretary. Toward five she dressed and sent for her car. It was a crisp, clear blue October day. A run in the park or up Riverside—there were a number of things she had to think about—would fill in time until dinner.
A restlessness unusual and unexplained made her pace the floor while she waited. So unusual was it, in fact, that it caused a vague wonder. By all previous portents she should have been exalted, lifted to the zenith of content through the knowledge that the star of her success still sailed high in the heavens. She was not. She felt nervous, distressed, with a weight on her chest that even the buoyant breezes from the river could not dissipate.
Rolling up Riverside Drive with the ease of floating in ether, she had the sense of a great hand clutching her. The sensation was the same as that which she had experienced the first day of rehearsal—only intensified. It made breathing difficult, annoyed her to the point of exasperation.
She ate no dinner, just swallowed a mouthful of tea and drove downtown. Little ’Dolph came to her dressing-room a few minutes later. He was jubilant. They were sold out weeks ahead. The play had hit the jaded metropolis in the eye—to quote him, with variations. It was good for another three seasons’ run. He rambled on at random, eyes popping, infectious smile lighting his round face like the smile of the sun at high noon. Presently he stopped, shifted his cigar and stared at her.
[105]
“What’s the matter with you, Jane?”
She looked down questioningly.
“Ain’t said a word,” he continued. “What’s got you?”
“Nothing. I’m tired, I dare say.”
“Sure! Morning-after stuff! Don’t let down, though. We don’t want ’em saying second night’s off—the way it always is.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Indignation was in her voice.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he apologized quickly. “And, Jane—”
“Yes?”
“Might let your hair go a bit in that first act—what?”
Her eyes were like two rapier thrusts. He made for the door. “They’ll accept my hair just as it is,” was her verdict.
Their little chat did not tend to lift in any degree the mood that held her. She gave up trying to shake it off.
Fortunately it had no perceptible effect on her work. She was too clever for that. Many years on the stage had trained her to the difficult task of obliterating personal worries the instant the glow of the footlights would have revealed them to public gaze. In fact, she had almost succeeded in stamping them from consciousness when Gloria Cromwell made her entrance. At that moment there came a sudden burst of applause. Miss Cromwell tried to go on with her lines. They could not be heard. It was unprecedented, staggering. A girl, unknown, unheralded, was holding up the play! Of course, action had been suspended an instant when Goring came on, but this,—this was unheard of.
[106]
Faintness seized the star, blinded her,—then fury. She knew now the nature of the weight that had stifled her all day. In a way, she had known it from the beginning. It was this girl! The lengthening of the part on tour, last night’s acclaim, her notices this morning, all had formed a cumulative irritant that now expressed itself in a surge of throttling hatred.
She jumped in on the girl’s lines, killing almost every speech. She changed her own so that cues would be missed. No move, no turn that would make the little sister’s performance fall flat was allowed to pass. Even the final speech, ending with the beautiful tableau that last night had brought down the house, was cut short. Like a red tongue of flame her rage swept over its object consuming every opportunity the part gave.
Still she did not kill the applause that greeted the curtain.
Storming to her dressing-room came Cleeburg.
“What’s the matter? You cut the act a minute and a half!”
“I was ill,” she told him. And barred the door, stripping off her dress while the maid prepared a dose of aromatics and bathed her head with eau de cologne.
Since Gloria Cromwell appeared only in the first act, dying for exigencies of plot off-stage—the remainder of the performance went as usual.
But that night, as once before, Goring tossed between sheets of finest linen and did not close her eyes.
In the morning she sent for Cleeburg.
He came, solicitous for her health, relieved by the fact [107] that her aberration of the night before had not in any way affected the play’s reception.
She met him, cool and smiling and looking very beautiful in a purple mandarin suit, the skirt of which was weighted with wicked Chinese embroidery. Her tapering white hands were ringless and low-heeled Chinese slippers made her look less tall. Greeting him, her hand clung to his.
She led the way into the drawing-room.
“’Dolph,” she began, and for the first time a rather plaintive note crept into her voice. “’Dolph, I’m unhappy.”
In the act of lighting the omnipresent cigar, he looked up, astonished. “Why—what’s wrong?”
“I’m unhappy—and for a reason you may not quite understand. But you can help make things right. You can make them all right, if you will.”
“Sure, Jane, you know me! Anything I can do—”
“It has to do with the play.”
“Fire ahead!” He resumed the operation of lighting.
“’Dolph, that Cromwell girl, I simply can’t work with her.”
Again the process of lighting was arrested. “Can’t work with her? Good God!”
She went to him, struck a match and, bending over, held it to the weed. He laughed comfortably, settled back—patted her hand.
“Sort of took the wind out of my sails, that did. Guess I didn’t get you straight, eh?”
She sat down in a chair close to his, her back to the light.
[108]
“Please do get me right. I’ve nothing against her work, if you like it. It’s her personality that irritates me. There’s something—something snaky about her. She makes me nervous, makes me go off in my lines. You know, I told you in the beginning I didn’t like her.”
“You said she was too homely.”
“Well, she is.”
“Not any more. Why, she’s got a face like—like Fiske. One of those faces you don’t get at first, but with so much behind it that you come to like it better than the kind that’s just easy to look at.”
“I’ve never been able to like her, ’Dolph. I’ve tried to because you seemed to, and you know how absolutely I depend on your judgment. But I can’t, that’s all.” She looked away and the suggestion of a sob sounded in the words.
Cleeburg’s cigar revolved silently for a few moments, then he leaned forward. “What are we going to do about it?”
She turned to him, rested her white tapering hand pleadingly on his arm. “Get rid of her, ’Dolph.”
“Get rid of her? Chuck her—just like that?” He snapped his fingers.
“You can find some way that won’t hurt her feelings.”
“Any way would be treating her rough.”
“She’ll have no difficulty getting another engagement.”
Cleeburg had been watching her over his cigar, round eyes studying her as they were in the habit of doing at rehearsal. Now he snapped the weed into the other corner of his mouth and smiled benignly. “That’s exactly why I ain’t letting her go.”
[109]
Jane Goring’s eyes met his with a delicate film of tears veiling them. “Don’t you want to please me?”
“I want to please the public,” said Cleeburg curtly, “and they like her. Say—what’s got into you, Jane, anyhow?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” A few tears, well chosen, rolled over onto her white cheeks. She brushed them away. “I’m just miserable, that’s all. Last night made me so nervous that I gave a perfectly rotten performance. Just playing opposite her gives me goose-flesh. Something about her chokes me and she seems to feel it—to revel in it. She’s a snake, ’Dolph, and I simply can’t stand her.”
“Seems to me a pretty nice kid.”
The hand resting on his arm traveled its length. “’Dolph,—isn’t it important that I should be happy in my work?”
“Sure!”
“And if she makes me unhappy?”
He gave her hand an understanding squeeze and a slow twinkle appeared in his round eyes. “Ah, come on, Jane! Talk straight to yourself! She’s made too big a hit to suit you. That’s what’s eating you.”
For an instant Jane Goring said nothing. A hard line tightened her mouth, but quickly she dissipated it, replacing it with a deprecatory smile.
“How absurd, ’Dolph!”
“’Course it’s absurd. Don’t try to hog it, Jane! Give the kid a chance!” He dropped back, regarding his cigar contemplatively.
“But I tell you that’s not the reason. I simply can’t [110] do anything if she’s in the company. She makes me bristle!”
“Because she gets a big hand,” he put in. “Because she holds up the show!” He leaned forward once more. “And you honestly think I’d let a find like that get away from me?”
Jane Goring got to her feet. She had attempted a new rÔle. She had pleaded. Now she would play in character. She would demand.
“Either she goes—or I do,” came succinctly.
“Nonsense, Jane!” He, too, was on his feet.
“I mean it. You can take your choice.”
“Why, listen to me, old girl! You’ve got the public in the palm of your hand! You can afford to give the kid a square deal.”
“I’ve told you—”
Cleeburg’s round eyes narrowed. “What’re you trying to do—bully me?”
“No. I want you to be fair.”
“I am fair—to all concerned—”
“Except to me who should be your first consideration.”
“Look here, Jane, you’ve had things pretty much your own way for a good many years. To me there wasn’t anybody—not one of ’em—in your class, either as actress or woman. Darned if I wasn’t even afraid of you! You’ve laid down the law more than once and I let you get away with it. But I can’t let you grab a find out of my hand, just like that!” Again the fingers snapped. “And I won’t!”
The peacock’s shriek is the one unbeautiful thing about [111] him. It is blatant, raucous. It is crude as the rasp of iron on stone.
Jane Goring’s voice rose belligerently to the housetops. “And I tell you, I won’t have her putting over that sob stuff on me! I won’t have it! I won’t have it!!” Stripped of iridescence, shorn of plumage, she stood facing him, nails grinding into palms, head thrust forward and upward, body rocking with the same fury that had seized her the night before.
Cleeburg came to her, his round eyes softened and troubled, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come, come, Jane! Don’t let’s do anything hasty. You and I’ve pulled along pretty comfortably for a long time. This thing is a tempest in a teapot. Let’s both think it over and have a nice calm talk later in the week.”
When he had left, she settled down to weigh things and balance accounts.
First and foremost, one discomforting thought was uppermost—she was losing her drag with her manager. It had been a revelation, amazing, most difficult to face, most delicate to handle. A few years ago ’Dolph Cleeburg would have been, as he had frankly stated, afraid to cross her. Hers would have been the last word, the decisive one. Such incidents as the cutting of scenes, the dismissing of actors to whom she objected, were occurrences not uncommon. Gloria Cromwell would simply have received her two weeks’ notice accompanied by a pleasing smile from Cleeburg and, since he liked her, a contract and promise to put her in his next production. To-day Jane Goring had met open defiance, backed with [112] a twinge of ridicule even harder to endure. Not subtly but poignantly she felt it. That smile that had lurked in his eye when he called the green-eyed monster by its right name—there was no mistaking it.
Just one course remained. Her brain sprang instantly to that—to tighten her hold on him in some other way so that her will would still be the lever directing their business association. At any cost it must be accomplished. Times innumerable he had begged her to procure a divorce from the husband with whom she did not live, and marry him. That answer was the obvious one to her present situation. It gave to Jane Goring the one safe solution.
She did not hesitate, did not stop to weigh Bob’s wishes in the matter. Circumstances had pushed her to take the step. Without delay she must act and efficiently. Immediately and as quietly as possible the whole affair must be put through, consummated. It must not be the usual theatrical divorce, with blaring of trumpets and long columns in the newspapers. If it could be managed, she wanted no publicity at all. Just as her present marriage was unknown generally, so would she conduct her second venture.
Having arrived at a solution she called up her lawyer, made an appointment and drove downtown.
Two hours later she left his office, a shadow across her eyes, her face drawn and a bit haggard. The thing was not so easy as she had anticipated—impossible, in fact, in New York as matters now stood. They had thrashed it out—viewed it from every conceivable angle—to reach a conclusion that placed the final decision [113] entirely in Bob McNaughton’s hands. Unless Goring were willing to leave the state long enough to establish a residence, Bob was the one who must sue. He must be located, which would involve no great difficulty, and then, granted his consent could be gained, it would take the red tape of the law an indefinite time to unwind.
What worried her was the fear that Bob might take this occasion to be nasty. The long silence since he had gone West made it difficult to gauge his attitude toward her. More than likely he would refuse and cause her no end of trouble.
When she received word from her attorney that, through his former paper, Bob had been located with the Graystone Photoplay Company in Los Angeles, she decided to write instead of trusting to the cold terms of a legal request.
Very carefully she worded the letter, making it most friendly but with the impersonal friendliness of those whose lives have never intimately touched. Since she had not heard from him in over two years, she wrote, she was quite sure he had by this time come to regard her as a sort of mythical being. Their separation had become so complete that a request she was about to make would, she knew, be nothing short of welcome to him. She wanted him to have his freedom. Herself—she no longer wanted to feel bound. She would always think of him as the best friend she ever had, but so many years had elapsed since their relationship had been that of husband and wife that it was rather a farce to keep up the pose any longer. She was sure he would agree in this. Knowing the New York laws he must realize that the move [114] would have to come from him. California, she understood, was more lenient, and since he was now a resident, it would be practically easy. She assumed that by this time his health had been entirely restored and wished him every good wish in the world.
Before sending off the letter she gave it to her attorney. Stamped with his approval but with no slight misgivings on her part, it was registered and posted; then tossed carelessly into a bag with thousands of others—tear-stained, anxious, pleading, desperate, breathless, threatening, thumb-marked, hopeless—all jumbled as human emotions are jumbled together in this puzzling world. With these it was flung into a mass of other bags similarly laden and started on its way across the country.
Meanwhile instead of resuming their discussion, ’Dolph Cleeburg had diplomatically avoided seeing his star. For several days he stayed away from the theater and Goring was forced at every performance to endure the girl’s entrance—the applause that apparently had become a habit.
The climax came when one of the Sunday papers featured the young actress’s picture on the same page as the star’s. That was the proverbial straw.
Jane Goring scorned any further attempt to bring Cleeburg round to her way of thinking. If he was afraid to see her, was determined to keep Cromwell in the cast—very well, she would read him a lesson. She would prove to him who was the motive power that kept his play going. She would show him in whose hands lay his success or failure. Incidentally she would resort to the very feminine ruse of playing on his sympathy.
[115]
At seven-thirty Monday evening she sent word to the theater that she was ill and could not appear.
As she had anticipated, the stage manager phoned wildly, begging for a word with her. The situation was terrible! Terrible! She must come! They were sold out!
Goring smiled. It was just what she had looked for. No understudy for her had been engaged so far. It was a matter with which they never concerned themselves, for no one could have replaced Goring with the public. The theater would have to remain dark—Cleeburg would have his lesson. Madame was very ill, her maid replied, too ill even to answer the telephone. The stage manager urged. He pleaded. In vain! A few minutes later Cleeburg himself was on the wire. Couldn’t she drag herself downtown? She must! To him she spoke, her voice so weak that it could scarcely be heard. She had tried—impossible. Her heart— And then the maid once more took the wire. Cleeburg was frantic. It meant a refund—the loss of thousands. He almost wept into the phone. At the psychological moment the maid told him madame had fainted.
Jane Goring slept that night with a smile on her lips.
She woke up in the morning to read that at half an hour’s notice Gloria Cromwell had gone on in her place—and hit Broadway straight between the eyes.
Some months later word came from the West that Bob McNaughton had secured a divorce. There had been no personal reply to her letter. Calmly and quietly he had complied with her request, his lawyer merely notifying hers that Mrs.McNaughton’s wishes would be carried out to the letter. No possible way had she of gauging how he had taken it, no possible manner of knowing how, after all the years, such a request had affected him.
Her relief was like a gale of wind sweeping over the city after a stifling day. For months she had been trembling on the brink of terrifying uncertainty. The day following Gloria Cromwell’s amazing success had found her really ill, so ill that had she remained away from the theater that night there would have been justification. She was stunned, utterly bewildered, sickened to the soul by the trick she told herself Fate had played her.
Over and over she read the papers, as one gazes fascinated over the edge of a dizzying precipice. It was incredible! And worse still, it might easily have been avoided. She might have accepted the girl, made her a protÉgÉe, gracefully posed as having discovered a young genius and pushed her to the fore. She saw all that now. And—further irony—it would probably have redounded to her credit, a neat bit of self-advertisement. As things stood she had made herself a laughing-stock. She could not bear the thought of it.
[117]
On the verge of hysteria, she dragged herself out of bed and dressed for the street. When her maid dared to protest, she turned on the girl ready to strangle her.
Walking rapidly westward she veered north when she reached the Drive. It was a dull day, no clarity of air to fill the lungs, no shimmer of sunlight through the heavy clouds. Skeleton trees reached gaunt arms to the sky. Thick mud covered the ground which a month before had shown green and living. There was no cheer anywhere. Across the river the Palisades rose misty and unreal, as if they had never been more than mirages. Miles she made, on and on, seeking some way to still the terror voice in her breast.
That night she drove down to the theater with a sense of dread. But whatever the flurry of gossip backstage, it ceased with her arrival. Members of the company inquired concerning her health—that was all. While she was dressing a knock came. The maid opened and the Cromwell girl stood in the doorway. She took a rather timid step forward.
“I’m so glad you’re back, Miss Goring.” She spoke with a note of sincerity unmistakable, and in her wide eyes was a look of pleading as of unspoken apology for what she had done. “I just had to come and tell you.”
“Thank you,” Goring replied and for her life could not say more. Her hatred was a living, searing thing.
The coup she had made in absenting herself accomplished its end. Gloria Cromwell was withdrawn from the cast—to be featured by Cleeburg in a new production!
Anxiously Goring waited for some reference to the [118] turn events had taken. None came, not even when the girl left the company. Little ’Dolph seemed to be full of the joy of living these days—cigar more active than ever, smile more genial, himself more generous to the down-and-outers and brimful of plans. In the weeks that followed he never spoke of their misunderstanding. Evidently his admiration had not in any way decreased. She had chosen, she concluded, the psychological moment to gain her freedom.
When news came that it was consummated the weight of uncertainty lifted. She felt buoyant, with a clear course to steer ahead. Not that she was at all eager to marry her manager. But since it was the one sure way to secure her future, it must be gone through.
She will always have reason to remember the bright spring day when she dropped into his office to break the news. For some time he had known Bob was suing.
“Glad to hear it,” he remarked when she told him everything was settled. Then he swung round in his chair and gazed out of the window at a pair of fleecy, fluttering clouds in the very blue heavens.
“Well, I took your advice, Jane,” he added casually.
“What advice?”
“Remember telling me once to make that Cromwell girl change her name? I went ahead and did it.”
“You did?”
“Sure! Changed it for her. She’s Mrs.’Dolph now.” And he grinned happily.
She understood then why he had been grinning in just that way for a number of weeks. Had she not been so absorbed in self, she would have noticed that his smile [119] was gayer—different from any he had ever worn. It made his face quite boyish.
The decline of Goring after that was gradual. As a matter of fact, it could have been dated actually from the night of her non-appearance. Upon the heels of that night followed a change, scarcely noticeable at first, in the sea of eyes and lips and hands to which she looked for signs of approval. Slowly—oh very slowly—there crept into the audience’s response to her a quality mechanical, automatic almost, as if largely force of habit, a quality that presaged the beginning of the end. Whether in herself or the public she could not tell. It was nothing tangible, nothing definite. But something had happened. The fine thread by which an actress chains herself to popular favor had snapped. In vain she told herself it was just nervous imagination. It made her choke with fear.
One thing Jane Goring had failed to take into consideration: Than the highest rung of the ladder there is nothing higher; and unless one dies having reached the top, there must be a descent. Youth pushes its way upward relentlessly, and those who have been must make way for those who will be. A ladder with top rung overcrowded would of necessity break.
Had she possessed the art of Bernhardt or the intellect of Fiske—that magnetic quality of soul that charms with the mellowing years—she could have laughed at time. But her ability consisted chiefly in a technique, the accumulated result of stage tricks that only up to a certain point can present itself as youth.
With an eagerness that approached hysteria she reached [120] out for the adulation that for years she had accepted without question as her due. The thirst for it was the thirst of fever. Even the tame robins she had always regarded as more or less of a joke, she began to seek them as they in the past had sought her. The desire to be seen about pursued by youth; to lunch and tea at fashionable restaurants in their company; to hold the center of the public eye at any cost, became a mania. It was as grim an effort as that of a doomed man to cling to the last moments of life.
And when a year or so later came the inevitable day when Cleeburg said to her—trying to speak gently—
“Come, Jane, let’s talk horse sense. No use your trying to play a chicken! God knows you ain’t one!”—
Jane Goring went home, flung open her bedroom windows letting in an uncompromising flood of sunlight, sat down at her dressing-table and looked herself squarely in the face. The whiteness—smooth, glowing—which had made her skin like gardenia petals in the old days had gone long since. She had grown accustomed to simulating it with modern triumphs of the beauty parlor. But sitting there with God’s spotlight turned full on her, it was not the realization of muscles sagging as if pulled down by the hand of Time that made her shudder. It was not the gooselike shriveling of her throat when she turned her head that made her eyes shut with pain. It was the knowledge of ebbing self-confidence, the face to face admission that her day was done. From now on it would be—“Let’s go to see Jane Goring. She used to be—” or “Don’t let’s go to see Jane Goring. She used to be—”
But always “She used to be—” Always that.
[121]
There was no quibbling, no splitting of hairs. She knew! And with the acknowledgment she rose to her feet, a great overwhelming defiance seizing her. She would not let age get her. She would not go downhill. She would not become a has-been! Rather would she quit the stage now and let them say she had retired in her prime. Money she had—an income larger than she needed. She would cut herself off from the theater entirely; for looking in at the window of a house of cheer whose door is barred—that would be unbearable. She would have to travel, to seek diversion elsewhere. Then suddenly like the lifting of a rosy veil on barren waste, she saw her career a thing of the past and herself wandering down the declining years of life—alone. The desert youth takes no count of—aloneness—stretched bleak and endless, a reach of sand with no oasis to slake the thirst, no shade to cool the soul.
And there swamped her with a sickening sense of need the longing for that bulwark of days gone, the one thing that endures, the one thing that counts not success nor failure, that survives when the ladder itself lies crumbled in ruins. Giving it no conscious name, she knew only that had Bob been there he would have shouldered the burden of this cold hour of facing truth. He would somehow have contrived to make it easier for her to hold her head high and continue to look down, even though that look must be directed toward the sunset.
Bob, whose adoration had helped her always over the difficult places, Bob would to-day and through all the days to come have stood by to help her bridge this most difficult place of all.
[122]
Bob!! Well, why not?
Many hours she paced the floor, brows drawn together, hands clenched as if grappling with a flesh and blood thing.
The peacock’s strut is slow and calculating. He lowers his head only to gaze upon his own reflection in the pool. To shed the trait that has made him world famous is to lay his gorgeous plumage in the dust.
The train steamed into the Santa FÉ Station at Los Angeles. A woman descended, the sort to whom one gives a second glance in spite of tired lines round the eyes and little crinkles at their corners. Gowned in the latest cut of blue serge, with a tan traveling cloak swung across her arm, she cried New York the instant one laid eyes on her.
She put her maid and bags into a cab, and sent them to the Ambassador Hotel. Stepping into another, she told the driver to take her to the Graystone Studio.
It was an afternoon of late June. The languorous breath of California summer had kissed the foliage into mammoth bloom. They drove through lazy, sunny streets, somnolent under warm skies, into that vortex of activity modern commerce has planted in the midst of beauty, the frame of artifice sprung up mushroom-like in the very heart of Nature.
Jane Goring descended at a row of small buildings that barricaded huge ones roofed with glass. She made her way past men and women with faces ghastly white and lips preternaturally red, mounted the steps and asked for Mr.McNaughton. The attendant wanted her name [123] but she insisted upon being announced merely as a friend from the East. She had given Bob no warning of her visit and her eyes followed the man with a look half curious, half eager as he opened a door and disappeared along a corridor lined with offices.
He came back presently and shut the door. Mr.McNaughton had gone home. She asked his address quite as a matter of course—in a way that brooked no refusal, and once more was driven out of bedlam to the quiet of drowsy green streets, past the beautiful Hollywood homes of picture stars who yesterday were unknown.
Toward the sunset she went, melting amethystine into violet night. Shadows stretched across the road, cool and mellow, and a soft sense of fragrant tranquillity.
She lay back, closing her eyes. When she opened them she had turned a corner and was pulling up before the lawn of a rambling Queen Anne cottage set snugly in a mass of shrubbery. She gave a little start, pleasure surmounting surprise. It looked very much as though Bob McNaughton had found time to make his own career.
A gate with a lantern over it opened on a bricked path that led to the house. She paused there and looked in. Under a tree sat a man she scarcely knew. His hair was quite gray—iron gray—but the face under it was full and ruddy, the eyes keen, the mouth relaxed and smiling. The hand that held a newspaper which he no longer read was firm and capable. A hand accustomed to direct, the hand of a man sure of himself! Bob, who was almost fifty, looked less than forty!
As she stood staring at him, the house door opened and a slim figure was silhouetted against the light from [124] within. The figure stepped to the lawn, light shining through masses of soft brown hair like a halo, eyes glowing, red lips parted in eager welcome, and with a cry full of sweetness held out something to Bob McNaughton. He gave a laugh, sprang to his feet, bent down to the eager lips, then caught the something swiftly in his arms—with infinite tenderness hugged it close against his heart. And it gave a gurgle of delight.
Jane Goring turned and went back to the waiting taxi.
