CAN LOVE BE CONTROLLED BY ADVICE?

Madge Elliston lived alone with her mother in a small house on an unpretentious but socially unimpeachable side street, just off one of the main avenues. Their means, as Madge has already intimated, were modest—"modest," as the young lady sprightly put it, "to the point of prudishness." Joseph Elliston, her father, had been a brilliant and promising young professor when her mother married him, with, as people said, a career before him. If by career they meant affluence, they were wholly right in saying it was all before him. But though the two married on his prospects, they could not fairly have been said to have made an unwise venture. Nothing but death had kept Joseph Elliston from becoming a popular and respected teacher, a foremost authority on economics, the author of standard works on that subject, and the possessor of a comfortable income. But he had died when Madge, his only child, was five years old, leaving his small and sorrowing family barely enough to live on.

The straitened circumstances in which the sad event threw Mrs. Elliston and her daughter were somewhat relieved by the generosity of the only sister of the widow, Eliza Scharndorst, herself a widow and the possessor of a large fortune. She was extremely fond of Madge, who always got on beautifully with her "Aunt Tizzy"—an infantile corruption allowed to survive into maturity—having more in common with her, if the truth must be known, than with her mother. She was a festive soul, much given to entertaining, and she was not long in discovering that the assistance of her niece was a distinct asset in making her home attractive to guests. It is not to be wondered at that Madge's occasional services in the way of decorating a dinner table or brightening up an otherwise stodgy reception would redound to her material benefit as well as to her spiritual welfare. Such good things as trips to Bermuda, occasional new frocks and instruction under the best music masters, came her way so frequently that by the time we next meet her, nearly five years after our last sight of her, Madge was a far better dowered young woman, socially speaking, than the penniless orphaned daughter of a college professor could normally hope to be.

For when we next see her Miss Elliston is—and in no mere figurative sense—holding the center of the stage. A real stage in a real theater, under the full blaze of real footlights, and if no real audience sits on the other side of those footlights, it is no great matter, for a very real audience will sit there soon enough. On Friday night, to be exact, and this is Tuesday. To be even more exact, it is the first formal, dress rehearsal of an amateur performance of "The Beggar's Opera" (immortal work!) organized primarily for charitable purposes by a number of prominent citizens, among them Mrs. Rudolph Scharndorst, and secondarily, if we are to give any weight to the opinion of those present at the rehearsal, for the purpose of giving scope to the talents of Mrs. Rudolph Scharndorst's niece.

For Madge is cast for the part of Polly Peachum, heroine of the piece. And if there was originally the slightest doubt as to the wisdom of such an assignment, it has vanished into thin air before now. For Madge is lovely—! It is not merely a matter of voice; there never was any doubt but that she had the best voice available for the part. What the scattered few in the dark auditorium are busy admiring now is the extraordinary charm, grace, actual beauty, even, of the girl performing before them. The more so because it is all so unattended; no one thought that she would give that effect on the stage. Of a type usually described as "attractive," slight and rather short, with hair sandy rather than golden, and a face distinguished only by a nice pair of blue eyes and a particularly ingratiating smile, Madge could not fairly be expected to turn herself into a vision of commanding beauty and charm with the slight external aids of paint and powder and a position behind a row of strong lights.

The only unimpressed and indifferent person in the theater was the coach. That was quite as it should be, of course; coaches must not exhibit bursts of enthusiasm, like common people. Yet it is perhaps worth mentioning that the coach in question made none of his frequent interruptions during the first few moments of Polly's presence on the stage, but sat silently biting his pencil and frowning in the back row of the theater till after she had finished her second song.

"One moment!" he cried, running down the aisle. "I'm going to change that song." He exchanged a few whispered remarks with the leader of the orchestra, who had charge of the musical side of the production. "All right—never mind now—go on with the act ... No, don't cross there, Mrs. Peachum; stay where you are, and Miss Elliston! what are the last words of the second line of that song?"

"'Mothers obey.'"

"All right—let's have 'em. I didn't get them that time. Go on, please."

The act continued, and admiration grew apace. When at length the act reached its close there was a faint but spontaneous outburst of applause from the almost empty theater.

"Well, what do you think of Madge?" asked Mrs. Scharndorst, waylaying the coach on his progress down the aisle.

"Oh, she'll do! There's a lot there to improve, though.—Strike for the second act—drinking scene!" This last uttered in a shout as he rushed on down to the stage. Not very fulsome praise, to be sure, but Mrs. Scharndorst knows her man, and is satisfied. Indeed, she respects him the more for not being fulsome.

So do the other members of the cast and chorus; at least, if they do respect him, it cannot be for the enthusiasm of his approval. His demeanor, as he stands there on a chair in the orchestra pit, shouting directions to his minions, is not indicative of very profound satisfaction with the progress of the rehearsal.

"Thompson! If you're going to use your spot on Polly's entrance, for Heaven's sake keep it on her face and not on her feet! I didn't see a thing but her shoes then ... No, you there, that table way down front—so, and oh, Mrs. Smith! is that Tilman's idea of a costume for an old woman, middle class?... I thought so ... no, I'm afraid not! That train might be quite suitable for a duchess, but it won't do for a robber's wife. You see Miss Banks about it, will you please?... Mr. Barnaby! I want to get you and Miss Elliston to go through the business of that Pretty Polly song once again—you're both as stiff as pokers still.... No, just the motions. No, stand on both feet and keep your chest out while you're singing your part, and when she comes in, 'Fondly, fondly,' you half turn round, so—so that when she falls back on your arm she'll have a chance to show more than her chin to the audience.... No, I think I'll have you wait till the encore before you kiss her—it looks flat if you do it too often, and by the bye, Mr. Barnaby, will you make an appointment with Mrs. Adams for to-morrow to get up a dance for that prison scene—'How happy could I be with either'.... Four o'clock—all right.... What song?"

This last is in answer to an inquiry from Miss Elliston.

"Oh, of course—'Can love be controlled by advice'.... Come down here and we'll talk it over. Careful, step in the middle of that chair and you'll be all right ... there!" And Miss Elliston and the great man sit down companionably in the places belonging respectively to the oboe and the trombone, just as though they had been friends from earliest youth.

If there is one thing we despise, it is transparent roguishness on the part of an author. Let us hasten to admit, then, that the coach is none other than our friend Harry; a Harry not changed a particle, really, from his undergraduate days, though a Harry, to be sure, in whom the passage of five years has effected certain important developments. Such, for instance, as having become able to coach an amateur production of a musical show. These will be described and accounted for, all in good time. The story cannot be everywhere at once.

"About that song ... I know nothing about music, of course, but it struck me to-night that that was rather a good tune—one of the best in the show.... It may have been the singing, of course."

"Not a bit of it—it's a ripping tune!—Let's see what the trombone part for it looks like.... There isn't any—just those little thingumbobs. Oh, the accompaniment is all on the strings, of course; I forgot."

"Well, what I want to get at is, do you think Gay's words are up to it?"

"Nowhere near. I'd much rather sing some of yours, if that's what you're getting at.... They're not quite jeune fille, either; I just discovered that to-day."

"There's a great deal in this show that isn't. We've cut most of it, but there's a good bit left, only no one who hasn't studied the period can spot it.... You needn't tell any one that.—Well, let's see about some words. 'Can love be controlled by advice, will Cupid our mothers obey'—we'll keep that, I think ..."

He produced a scrap of paper from his pocket and scribbled rapidly on it. In a minute or two he had evolved the following stanzas, retaining the first four lines of Gay's original song:

"There!" said he, handing it to the prima donna; "see what you think of that."

"Oh ... much better! There'll be much more fun in singing it."

"It isn't much in the way of poetry," explained Harry, "but it gives a certain dramatic interest to the song, which is the main thing. You can change anything you want in it, of course; I daresay some of those words are quite unsingable on the notes of the song."

"No—I think they'll be all right. Thank you very much; it was hard to make anything out of the other words. Also, I shall be able to tell Mama that you've cut out some of Gay's naughty words and put in some innocent ones of your own instead. She's been just a little worried lately, I think; she seems to have an idea that 'The Beggar's Opera' isn't quite a nice play for a young lady to act in!"

"Well, one can hardly blame her...." This sentence trailed off into inaudibility as Harry turned to give his attention to some one else coming up with a question at the moment. Perhaps Miss Elliston did not even hear the beginning of the sentence; it is easier to believe that she did not, in view of what followed. Certainly every extenuating circumstance is needed, on both sides, to help account for the fact that so trivial conversation as that which just took place should have led directly to unpleasantness and indirectly to consequences of a far-reaching kind. It is easier to comprehend, also, if one remembers that Miss Elliston's thoughts when she was left alone by Harry occupying the position of the trombone, remained on, or at any rate quite near, the point at which the conversation broke off, whereas Harry's had flown far from it. So that when, after an interval of a few minutes, Harry's voice again became articulate to her in the single isolated sentence "given her something to say to her old frump of a mother," addressed to the leader of the orchestra, she at first misconstrued his meaning, interpreting his remark not as he meant it, as referring to her stage mother, Mrs. Peachum, but as referring to quieting the puritanical scruples of her own mother, Mrs. Elliston.

The whole affair hung on an incredibly slender thread of coincidence. If Harry had not unconsciously raised his voice somewhat on that one phrase, if he had not happened to use the word "frump," which might conceivably be twisted into applying to either mother, Miss Elliston would never, even for a moment, have been tempted to attribute the baser meaning to his words. As it was the thought did not remain in her head above five seconds, at the outside; she knew Harry better than to believe seriously that he would say such a thing. But by another unfortunate chance Harry happened to be looking her way during those few seconds, and marked her angry flush and the instantaneous glance of indignation and contempt that she shot toward him. He saw her flush die down and her expression soften again, but the natural quickness that had made him realize her state of mind was not long in giving him an explanation of it.

All might yet have been well had not Harry's sense of humor played him false. As usually happened at these evening rehearsals he escorted Miss Elliston home, her house lying on the way to his. In the course of the walk an unhappy impulse made him refer to the little incident, which had struck him as merely humorous.

"By the way," said he "your sense of filial duty almost led you astray to-night, didn't it?"

"Filial duty?"

"Yes—you thought I was making remarks about your mother to-night when I was talking to Cosgrove about Mrs. Peachum and that song...."

"Oh, that—!" Any one who knew her might have expected Miss Elliston to laugh and continue with something like "Yes, I know; wasn't it ridiculous of me?" since she really knew perfectly well that Harry was talking about Mrs. Peachum. That she did not is due partly to the fatigue incident to rehearsing a leading part in an opera in addition to teaching school from nine till one every day, and partly to the eternally inexplicable depths of the feminine nature. She had been very much ashamed of herself for having even for a moment done that injustice to Harry, and she wished intensely that the affair might be buried in the deepest oblivion. Harry's opening of the subject, consequently, seemed to her tactless and a trifle brutal. She had done penance all the evening for her after all very trifling mistake; why should he insist upon humiliating her this way?... Obviously she was very tired!

"Yes," went on Harry, "don't expect me to believe that you were angry on behalf of Mrs. Peachum!"

"No. I suppose I had a right to be angry on behalf of my own mother, if I wanted to, though."

"But I wasn't talking about your mother—you know that!"

"Oh, weren't you?"

"Well, do you think so?"

"How should I know? I was only eavesdropping, of course, I have no right to think anything about it."

"Madge, don't be silly."

"Well?"

"Do you really, honestly think that I am guilty of having spoken slightingly of your mother? Just answer me that, yes or no."

"As I say, I have no right to any opinion on the subject. I only heard something not intended—"

"Oh, the—" The remainder of this exclamation was fortunately lost in the collar of Harry's greatcoat. "You had better give me back that song—I presume you won't want to sing it now."

"Why not? Art is above all personal feelings." It was mere wilfulness that led her to utter this cynical remark. What she really wanted to say was "Of course I want to sing it, and I know you meant Mrs. Peachum," but somehow the other answer was given before she knew it.

"Madge, you may not know it, but you are positively insulting."

"Oh, Harry—! Who began being insulting? Not that I mind your insulting me...."

"Oh. That's the way it is, is it? I see." They were now standing talking at the foot of Madge's front steps. Harry continued, very quietly: "Now perhaps you'd better give me back that song."

"I don't see the necessity."

"I'll be damned if you shall sing it now!" His voice remained low, but passion sounded in it as unmistakably as if he had shouted. The remark was, in fact, made in an uncontrollable burst of anger, necessitating the severing of all diplomatic relations.

"Just as you like, of course." Madge's tone, cold, expressionless, hopelessly polite, is equivalent to the granting of a demanded passport. "Here it is. Good-night."

"Good-night."

So they parted, in a white heat of anger. But being both fairly sensible people, in the main, beside being the kind of people whose anger however violently it may burn at first, does not last long, they realized before sleep closed their eyes that night that the quarrel would not last over another day.

Morning brought to Harry, at any rate, a complete return of sanity, and before breakfast he sat down and wrote the following note:

Dear Madge:

I send back the song merely as a token of the abjectness of my submission—I don't suppose you will want to sing it now. I can't tell you how sorry I am about my behavior last night; I can only ask you to attribute as much, of it as possible to the fatigue of business and forgive the rest!

Harry.

which he enclosed in an envelope with the words of the song and sent to Madge by a messenger boy.

Madge received it while she was at breakfast. She went out and told the boy to wait for an answer, and went back and finished her breakfast before writing a reply. Her face was noticeably grave as she ate, and it became even graver when at last she sat down at her desk and started to put pen to paper. She wrote three pages of note-paper, read them, and tore them up. She then wrote a page and a half, taking more time over them than over the three. This she also tore up. Then she sat inactive at her desk for several minutes, and at last, seeing that she was due at her school in a few minutes, she took up another sheet of paper and wrote: "All right—my fault entirely. M. E.," and sent it off by the boy.

When Harry saw her at the rehearsal that evening she greeted him exactly as if nothing had happened. She had rather less to say to him than was customary during rehearsals, but Harry was so busy and preoccupied he did not notice that. He did notice that she sang the original words to the disputed song, which, as he told himself, was just what he expected.

For the next two days he was fairly buried in responsibility and detail and hardly conscious of any feeling whatever beyond an intense desire to have the performance over. It was not until this desire was partially fulfilled, the curtain actually risen on the Friday night and the performance well under way, that he was able to sit back and draw a free breath. The moment came when, having seen that all was well behind the scenes, he dropped into the back of the box occupied by Aunt Selina and one or two chosen friends to watch the progress of the play from the front.

Then, for the first time, he was able to look at it more from the point of view of a spectator than that of a creator. Now that his work was completed and must stand or fall on its own merit, he could watch from a wholly detached position. On the whole, he rather enjoyed the sensation. It occurred to him, for instance, as quite a new thought, that the excellent make-up of the stolid Mr. Dawson in the part of Peachum very largely counteracted his vocal "dulness"; and that Mrs. Smith as Mrs. Peachum, in spite of the innumerable sillinesses and bad tricks that had been his despair for weeks, was making an extremely good impression upon the audience.

Then Madge made her entrance, and he saw at a glance, as he had never seen it before, just how good Madge was. She had a certain way of carrying her head, a certain sureness in adjusting her movements to her speech, a certain judgment in projecting her voice that went straight to the spot. Madge was a born actress, that was all there was to it; she ought to have made the stage her profession. He smiled inwardly as he thought how many people would make that remark after this performance. Then his amusement gave place to a sudden and strange resentment against the very idea of Madge's going on the stage; a resentment he made no effort either to understand or account for....

The strings in the orchestra quavered a few languorous notes and Madge started her song "Can love be controlled by advice." Her voice was a singularly sweet one, of no great volume and yet possessed of a certain carrying quality. The excellence of her instruction, combined with her own good taste, had brought it to a state of what, for that voice, might be called perfection. She also had the good sense never to sing anything too big for her. But though her voice might not be suited to Wagner or Strauss it was far better suited to certain simpler things than a larger voice might have been, and the song she was singing now was one of these. Probably no more happy combination could be effected between singer and song than that of Madge and the slow, plaintive, seventeenth-century melody of "Grim king of the ghosts," which Gay had the good sense to incorporate into his masterpiece.

To say that the audience was spellbound by her rendering of the song would be to stretch a point. It sat, for the most part, silently attentive, enjoying it very much and thinking that it would give her a good round of applause and an encore at the end. Harry, standing in the obscurity of the back part of Aunt Selina's box, was of very much the same mind. For about half of the song, that is. For near the end of the first verse he suddenly realized that Madge was singing not Gay's words, but his own.

It was absurd, of course, but at that realization the whole world seemed suddenly to change. The floor beneath his feet became clouds, the theater a corner of paradise, the people in it choirs of marvelous ethereal beings, Mrs. Peachum (alias Smith) a ministrant seraph, Madge's voice the music of the spheres, and Madge herself, from being an unusually nice girl of his acquaintance, became....

What nonsense! he told himself; the idea of getting so worked up at hearing his own words sung on a stage!—You fool, replied another voice within him, you know perfectly well that that's not it at all.—Don't tell me, replied the other Harry, the sensible one; such things don't happen, except in books; they don't happen to real people—ME, for instance.—Why not? obstinately inquired the other; why not you, as well as any one else?—Well, I can't stop to argue about it now, the practical Harry answered; I've got to go out and see that people are ready for their cues.

He went out, and found everything running perfectly smoothly. People were standing waiting for their entrances minutes ahead of time, the electricians were at their posts, the make-up people had finished their work, the scene-shifters and property men had put everything in readiness for setting the next scene; no one even asked him a question. He flitted about for a few moments on imaginary errands, asking various people if all was going well; but the real question that he kept asking himself all the time was Is this IT? Is this IT?

"I don't know!" he said at last, loudly and petulantly, and several people turned to see whom he was reproving now.

When he got back to the box he found Madge still singing the last verse of her song. He wondered how many times she had had to repeat it, and hoped Cosgrove was living up to his agreement not to give more than one encore to each song. In reality this was her first encore; his hectic trip behind the scenes had occupied a much shorter time than he supposed. Madge was making a most exquisite piece of work of her little appeal to maternal sympathy; she was actually taking the second verse sitting down, leaning forward with her arms on a table in an attitude of conversational pleading. He had not told her to do that; it was so hard to make effective that he would not have dared to suggest it. When she reached the line, "If heart ever beat in your breast" she suddenly rose, slightly threw back her arms and head, and sang the words on a wholly new note of restrained passion, beautifully dramatic and suggestive. The house burst into applause, but Harry was seized with a fit of unholy mirth at the irony of the situation—Madge, perfectly indifferent, singing those words, while he, their author, consumed with an all-devouring flame, stood stifling his passion in a dark corner. An insane desire seized him to run out to the middle of the stage and shout at the top of his voice "Have pity on me, for I love!" It would be true then. He supposed, however, that people might think it peculiar.

From then on, as long as Madge held the stage, he stood rooted to the spot, unable to lift his eyes from her. Presently her lover came in, and they started the lovely duet, "Pretty Polly, say." At the end of the encore, according to Harry's instructions, Barnaby leaned over and kissed his Polly on the mouth. A sudden and intense dislike for Mr. Barnaby at that moment overcame Harry....

The act ended; the house went wild again; the curtain flopped up and down with no apparent intention of ever stopping; ushers rushed down the aisles with great beribboned bunches of flowers. This gave Harry an idea; as soon as the second act was safely under way he rushed out to the nearest florist's shop and commandeered all the American Beauty roses in the place, to be delivered to Miss Elliston with his card at the end of the next act.

As he was going out of the shop he stopped to look at some peculiar little pink and white flowers in a vase near the door.

"What are those?" he asked.

"Bleeding hearts," said the florist's clerk. "Just up from Florida; very hard to get at this time of year."

Harry stood still, thinking. If he sent those—would she Know—Of course she would, answered the practical Harry immediately; she would not only Know but would call him a fool for his pains.—Oh, shut up! retorted the other.

"I'll have these then, instead of the roses, please," he said aloud. "All of them, and don't forget the card."

They did not meet till after the performance was over. He caught sight of her making a sort of triumphal progress through the back of the stage, on her way to the dressing rooms, and deliberately placed himself in her path. She was looking rather surprisingly solemn, he noticed. Her face lighted up, however, when she saw him. She smiled, at least.

"Well, what did you think of it?" she asked.

"I think the performance was very creditable," he answered. "To say what I think of you would be compromising."

She laughed and went on without making any reply. He could not see her face, but something gave him the impression that her smile did not last very long after she had turned away from him.

He walked home alone through the crisp March night, breathing deeply and trying to reduce his teeming brain to a state of order and clarity. The walk from the theater home was not sufficient for this; he walked far beyond his house and all the way back again before he could think clearly enough. At last he raised his eyes to the comfortable stars and spoke a few words aloud in a low, calm voice.

"I really think," he said, "that this is IT. I really do think so ... But I must be very careful," he added, to himself; "very careful. I must take no chances—this time. Both on Madge's account and on mine."

"No," he added after a moment; "not on my account. On Madge's."