diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:47:27 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 02:47:27 -0700 |
| commit | 7da49a48de607e9c25d4156667ce3f284f556ee3 (patch) | |
| tree | 0dc61db9dd80826101e3aee0781eb3fef44923fe | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29391-8.txt | 7424 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29391-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 140180 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29391-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 219958 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29391-h/29391-h.htm | 7616 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29391-h/images/frontis.jpg | bin | 0 -> 90031 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29391.txt | 7424 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29391.zip | bin | 0 -> 140111 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
10 files changed, 22480 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29391-8.txt b/29391-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eeaf743 --- /dev/null +++ b/29391-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7424 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Blue-grass and Broadway, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Blue-grass and Broadway + +Author: Maria Thompson Daviess + +Release Date: July 12, 2009 [EBook #29391] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + +Transcriber's note + + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer +errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other +inconsistencies are as in the original. + + + + + BLUE-GRASS + + AND + + BROADWAY + + [Illustration: "We are all going to stand by, little girl"] + + + + + BLUE-GRASS + + AND + + BROADWAY + + BY + + MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS + + Author of "THE MELTING OF MOLLY," "THE GOLDEN BIRD," + "THE TINDER BOX," etc. + + NEW YORK + + THE CENTURY CO. + + 1919 + + + + + Copyright, 1919, by + + THE CENTURY CO. + + Copyright, 1918, by + + INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY (HARPER'S BAZAR) + + _Published, April, 1919_ + + + + + BLUE-GRASS + + AND + + BROADWAY + + + + + BLUE-GRASS + + AND + + BROADWAY + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The need of a large sum of money in a great hurry is the root of many +noble ambitions, in whose branches roost strange companies of birds, +pecking away for dollars that grow--or do not--on bushes. And it was in +such a quest that Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, lit upon +a limb of life beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford of Broadway, New York. Their +joint endeavors made a great adventure. + +"There's nothing to it, Pop; either pony girls will have to grow four +legs to cut new capers, somebody will have to write a play entitled +'When Courtship Was in Flower,' requiring flowered skirts ten yards wide +with a punch in each furbelow, or we go out of the theatrical business," +said Mr. Vandeford, as he shuffled a faint, violet-tinted letter out of +a pile of advertising posters emblazoned with dancing girls and men, +several personal bills, two from a theatrical storage house and one from +an electrical expert, leaned back in his chair, and prepared to open the +violet communication. "We dropped twenty thousand cool on 'Miss Cut-up,' +and those sixteen pairs of legs cost us fifteen hundred a week. We might +be in danger of starving right here on Broadway, if we hadn't picked a +sure-fire hit in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.'" + +"Ain't it the truth," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, as he glanced up from +his typewriter with a twinkle in his big black eyes that were like gems +in a round, very sedate, even sad, Hebrew face. "Bare legs and 'cut-ups' +is already old now, Mr. Vandeford. It is that we must have now a play +with a punch." + +"The law won't let us take anything more off the chorus, so we'll have +to swing back and put a lot on. Costumes that cost a million will be the +next drag, mark me, Pop," Mr. Godfrey Vandeford declaimed with a gloomy +brow, as he still further delayed exploring the violet missive. + +"A hundred thousand it will take for costuming 'The Rosie Posie Girl,'" +agreed Pop dolefully, from above the letter he was slowly pecking out of +the machine. + +"For furnishing chiffon belts, you mean, not costumes, if we go by +Corbett's clothes ideas," growled the pessimistic, prospective producer +of the possible next season's hit in the girl-show line. + +"You have it right," answered Pop, sympathetically. + +"If I hadn't promised to let old Denny in on my Violet Hawtry show for +the fall I'd be tempted to throw back everything, even 'The Rosie Posie +Girl' and go gunning for potatoes or onions up on a Connecticut farm; +but the show bug has bit Denny hard and I'll have to be the one to +shear him and not leave it to any of the others. I'll be more merciful +to his millions; but asking him to put up half of a cool hundred and +fifty thousand is a bit raw. Wish I had a nice little glad play with an +under twenty cast for him to cut his teeth on instead of the 'Rosie +Posie.'" + +"It's six plays on the shelf now for reading," reminded Mr. Meyers, +eagerly, for to him fell the task of weeding all plays sent into the +office of Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer, and his optimistic +soul suffered when he discovered a gem and found himself unable to get +Mr. Vandeford to read so much as the first act unless he caught him in +just such a mood as the one in which he now labored. "Now, I want that +you take just a peep, Mr. Vandeford, at that new Hinkle comedy for which +I have written already five times to delay--" + +"Can't do it now, Pop! Don't you see that I have got to read this purple +letter and that is all the business I can attend to for this morning?" +answered Mr. Vandeford, as he pushed a slim paper cutter along the top +edge of the purple missive. + +"But, Mr. Vandeford, it is that I have--" + +"Express. Sign here!" was the interruption that put an end to Mr. +Meyers's immediate supplication. The parcel that he deposited upon his +chief's desk with forceful meekness was a play manuscript. + +"Great guns, Pops; I'm seeing purple!" exclaimed Mr. Vandeford, as he +let the violet letter fall upon the violet wrappings in which the +express intrusion was incased. "Exact match! This looks like some sort +of a hunch. Open it, Pops, and run through the layout while I tackle the +violet letter and see if anything happens." And with great interest both +grown men plunged into the excitement of the chase of the hunch. + +Mr. Vandeford's letter contained the following, delivered in bold words +and script: + + HIGHCLIFF. + + _My dear Van:_ + + This is to remind you that it is now July fifth, and my contract + sets September twenty-third as the last date for my opening on + Broadway in a new play under your management. "The Rosie Posie + Girl" will be a huge undertaking and worthy of my every effort, but + I do not feel that you are up to producing it properly. I regret + your losses in "Miss Cut-up," but I did my best with a vehicle that + was not worthy of my ability. The success of "Dear Geraldine" was + entirely due to the comedy bits I wrote in to suit myself, and I + had to be costumer and producer and the whole show. In justice to + myself I feel that I ought to pass under the management of a more + forceful person than yourself. And anyway I don't think you would + be able to get a theater to open on Broadway in September. Remember + that over a hundred good shows died on the road waiting to get into + Broadway last winter, and _I_ won't play anywhere else. Now Weiner + wants to buy "The Rosie Posie Girl" from you and open his New + Carnival Theatre with me in it on October first. You must sell it + to him. He will make you a good offer. You can't use it without me, + and I want him to produce it. Please see him immediately. You know + that you owe your reputation as a producer to me, and don't be + selfish. I'll expect you up on the evening train to talk over the + final arrangements. I'll meet you in the runabout and we can go + out to the Beach Inn for dinner. Bring me some brandied marrons, a + large bottle of rose oil and a stick of lip rouge from Celeste's. + + Hurriedly, + + VIOLET. + + July fifth. + + P. S. Of course you are to go on loving me just as usual. I + couldn't do without that. How much money have I in the + Knickerbocker Trust? + +After Godfrey Vandeford had read the last violent purple line on violet, +he dropped the letter on his desk and looked out of his office window +with serious eyes that gazed without seeing, down the long canyon of +Broadway, up and down which rushed traffic composed of green cars shaped +like torpedoes, honking, darting motors, skulking trucks and jostling, +tangled people. Flamboyant signs, waving flags, and gilt-lettered window +panes made a Persian glow in a belt space up from the seething sidewalks +to the sky line, and above it all the roar and din rose to high heaven. +But Godfrey Vandeford was blind to it all and deaf, as he sat and +brooded above the furious landscape. His blue eyes, set deep back under +their black, gray-splashed brows, failed to take in the lurid spectacle, +and his narrow, lean face was flushed under the bronze it had acquired +for keeps from the suns of many climes. His lean, powerful body seemed +fairly crouched in thought. Once he shifted one leg across the other, +and as he settled back in his chair he tossed the violet letter over to +Mr. Meyers without seeming to know that he did so. Then he plunged back +into his absorption without seeing his henchman read rapidly through the +missive, look at him once with a gem-like keenness, and again begin to +read the purple-covered manuscript. + +"And we picked her out of a vaudeville gutter over beyond Weehawken just +five years ago, Pop," Mr. Vandeford finally interrupted the flip of the +manuscript pages to say, with a deep musing in his flexible, sympathetic +voice. + +"You taught her to eat with the knife and the fork," growled Mr. Meyers +from behind his violet barricade as he ripped over another page. +"Mick!" + +"Oh, not as bad as that, Pop," laughed Mr. Vandeford, with a glance of +affection at the young Hebrew delving in the corner for a jewel for him. +"She's just--oh, well, they are all children--and have to be spanked. +She wants to sell me out to Weiner after I've spent five nice, good +years in building her into a little twinkle star, but I don't think it +will be good for her to let her do it. I'll have to use the slipper on +her, I'm afraid. I believe in hunches and I believe I'll just use that +purple manuscript you're chewing to let her set her teeth in. She needs +one good failure to tone her up. What's the name of the effusion in +ribbons?" + +"The Renunciation of Rosalind," murmured Mr. Meyers, as he bent once +more to the pages which he had been reading with eagerness when +interrupted by his chief. + +"We could call it 'The Purple Slipper.' About what will the cast +figure?" + +"Three thousand per week if you use Gerald Height at five hundred as per +contract with him. But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I would say for a play this +is--" + +"That's not much money to waste on a purple hunch. A nice, judicious, +little second-hand staging out of the warehouse and a few weeks' road +try-out for the failure will cost about ten thousand. I'll let Denny +have five thousand worth of fun mussing around with it to cut his eye +teeth, and then we'll clap Violet into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' weeping +with gratitude to have her face saved after being slapped first. Get the +parts out to-morrow and you and Chambers begin to cast it. I'll see +actors here from three to five Friday. I'll open it September tenth. Now +I've got to go and chase those confounded marrons. The last I took were +put up in maraschino and were not welcomed. I'll be in the office--" + +"And about the author, Mr. Vandeford, and the contracts?" questioned Mr. +Meyers, with both dismay and energy in his voice. + +"Oh, I forgot about the author. She won't amount to much. A woman, I +judge, from the ribbons. Offer the usual five, rising to seven and a +half royalties, and explain carefully that you mean five per cent. on +the box office receipts under five thousand, and seven and a half on all +over that. Also go into the moving picture rights and second companies +with your usual honesty, but offer her only a two hundred and fifty +advance to cover a two years' option. She won't know that it ought to be +five hundred for six months, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her. +Besides, it will all be over for her and her play before October." + +"She says in the letter which was pinned to the first page of the play, +that the article about you in the 'Times Magazine' made her know that +you were the one producer to whom she could trust her play," said Mr. +Meyers, reading from a neat little cream-white note in his hand. + +"Sweet child!" murmured Mr. Vandeford, as he took up his hat and stick. +"Don't encourage her in any way in your letter, Pop. We don't want her +rushing to the scene of action when we butcher her child. Pay the two +thousand to Hilliard for the option on 'The Rosie Posie Girl' until +January first, and tell him I am going to produce it in November. 'Phone +me at Highcliff to-morrow if you want me. I'll be clearing the deck for +the--spanking." + +"I wish you good luck," said Mr. Meyers feelingly. + +"What do you judge that play is about from reading the first act, and +what is the author's name? I might have to produce a little concrete +information in the fracas," the eminent producer paused to inquire just +as he was closing the door. + +"It is written by a Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, and it +has in plenty of ruffles and romance that is in a past time of a +Colonial Governor and his wife alone at home with him in Washington." + +"That sounds about right for the weapon of castigation for Violet +Hawtry, _née_ Murphy. I have always believed in hunches, and that +accord in color was meant to mean something. Better send me a copy +special in the morning. If Mr. Farraday calls me before I get him tell +him the Astor at one to-day. What did I say? Marrons, lip stick, and--" + +"Rose oil," prompted Mr. Meyers, with just the trace of a sneer in his +voice. + +"Right O! Rose oil it is. By!" And the door closed on Mr. Vandeford's +graceful figure in its gray London tweeds. + +Thus a great adventure was undertaken in all levity. And with his +chief's complete departure a change came into the mien of Mr. Adolph +Meyers. He told the stenographer in the outer office to engage two girls +to copy a play that afternoon and evening, to keep him from being +interrupted until six, and to muffle the telephone unless in cases of +emergency. Then he seated himself in Mr. Vandeford's deep chair, put his +feet on the desk, lit a fat, black cigar and plunged into "The Purple +Slipper," _née_ "The Renunciation of Rosalind." For two hours he read +with the deepest absorption, only pausing to make an occasional note on +a pad at his elbow. Then after he had laid down the manuscript with its +purple wrappings and ribbons, he sat for a half hour in a trance, out of +which he came to seat himself at the typewriter to indite a portentous +letter, which he put in an envelope, sealed and directed to: + + MISS PATRICIA ADAIR, + + Adairville, Kentucky. + +The contents were: + + _My dear Madam:_ + + I have carefully read your play entitled "The Renunciation of + Rosalind," and have decided to make you the following offer for the + production rights. I will give you two hundred and fifty dollars + for all rights of production, including moving picture rights and + supplementary road companies to extend over a period of two years + from the date of signing the contract, and will agree to pay you in + addition five per cent. of all box receipts up to five thousand per + week and seven and a half on all exceeding that sum. If you agree + to this proposition, I will send you a formal contract covering all + points in legal terms. Please let me know at your earliest + convenience your decision about the matter, as I now intend to + produce it in September with Violet Hawtry in the title rôle. + + Believe me, my dear Madam, + + Very truly, + + GODFREY VANDEFORD. + +The above epistle from a strange outer world found Miss Patricia Adair, +attired in a faded gingham frock, planting snap beans in her ancestral +garden. It was delivered to her by her brother, Mr. Roger Adair, from +the hip pocket of his khaki trousers, upon which were large smudges of +the agricultural profession. His blue gingham shirt was open at the +throat across a strong bronze throat, and his eyes were as blue as his +shirt and laughed out across big brown freckles that matched his +chestnut hair. + +"Here's a letter I brought over from the post-office, Pat, along with a +sack of meal and fifty cents' worth of sugar. Mr. Bates said Miss Elvira +Henderson stopped in and told him to send it to you by the first person +coming your way," he said as he threw the reins of the filly, whose +chestnut coat matched his hair exactly, over the gate post, and +proceeded to take from the pommel of the saddle the two bundles of +groceries mentioned. "Mr. Bates sent you this bunch of tomato plants and +head lettuce to set out along the back border of your rose beds, and +I'll spade it all up for you right now if--" + +"Oh, Roger, listen, listen!" exclaimed Patricia, as she sprang to her +feet from her knees upon which she had rested as she read the letter he +had handed her. "My play, my play, it's sold!" And as she sparkled at +him over the letter of Mr. Adolph Meyers held clasped to her gingham +bosom, wild roses bloomed in her cheeks and tears sparkled in her gray +eyes back of their thick black lashes. + +"What play?" demanded Roger, stolid with astonishment. + +"The one I wrote last month and the month before, when Mr. Covington +said that the mortgage must be paid--or give up Rosemeade. I knew it +would kill Grandfather to move him away from the house he was born in, +and I couldn't think of anything that would get money quick but coal oil +wells and gold mines and plays. It costs money to dig up oil and gold, +but it is easy to write a play." + +"Oh, is it?" Roger questioned, with a twinkle in his eyes above the +freckles. In his arms he still held the meal and the sugar, and his +interest was an inspiration to Patricia to pour out the whole story in a +torrent of tumbling words. + +"You know those love letters I have of our great grandmother's that she +wrote to her husband while he was in Washington consulting the President +about the first constitutional convention, the ones about the Indian +raid and the battle at Shawnee. You remember the day I read them to you +up in the apple tree in the orchard years ago, don't you?" + +"Yes, I remember the day," answered Roger, with another twinkle turned +inward at the memory of his seventeen-year-old scorn of Patricia's +eleven-year-old sentimentality. + +"Well, those letters are the play," announced Patricia triumphantly. "I +read a lot of Shakespeare and other old English dramas I found in +Grandfather's library to see exactly how to make one. It ends when he +comes back expecting to find her killed and she is dancing at a dinner +she has given her lover as a bet that he would come back by that night. +It's wonderful!" As she thus laid bare the skeleton of her play child, +Patricia took from doubting Roger the sack of sugar. + +"Shoo, that's not a play," hooted Roger, with a decided return of his +seventeen-year-old scorn in his thirtieth summer. + +"Read that," answered Patricia with dignity, as she handed him Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford's letter, written and signed by Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"Whew--uh, Pat, two hundred and fifty dollars!" Roger exclaimed, as his +manner dissolved quickly from affectionate derision into respectful awe. + +"Oh, that's just a trifle for a beginning; those royalties may be worth +several hundred thousand. In the 'Times Magazine' article that I read +about Godfrey Vandeford and his plays, it said he had paid the author of +'Dear Geraldine' more than a hundred thousand dollars in royalties. That +is what made me write the play." + +"Say, let me take it sitting down," said Roger as he sank upon the grass +beside a rose bed that had a row of spring onions growing odoriferously +defiant under the very shower of its petals, and laid the sack of +precious meal tenderly across his knees. "Now go on and tell me." + +"You see, Roger, I had to do something to get the money to keep the +house for Grandfather. You know we couldn't get any more mortgage money, +because it had closed up or something, and--" + +"Did Covington tell you he was going to foreclose after I--that is, +right away?" demanded Roger fiercely, with a snap in the blue eyes above +the freckles. + +"No," said Patricia, as she settled herself on the grass beside Roger, +with the valuable sugar balanced tenderly upon her knee. "He told me +that he would let it stand just as it was for three months until October +first, but after that we would have to--to tell--Grandfather and move," +a quiver came into Patricia's soft voice that had in it the patrician, +slurring softness that can only come from the throat of a grand dame +sprung from the race which has dominated blue-grass pastures. "Doctor +Healy says it won't be long but--but now he'll--he'll die in his own +home that Grandmother built where he fought off the Indians. Her play +has saved us." + +"I had fixed it to run until I make my crops," said Roger, with a choke +in his voice that was a rich masculine accompaniment to Patricia's. + +"The play will have been running six weeks by that time, and I can pay +most of it off. A hundred thousand a year is almost ten thousand a month +and--" + +"But all plays don't succeed, Pat, honey, and--" + +"The 'Times Magazine' said that Godfrey Vandeford had never had a +failure, and didn't you read that he wants to star Violet Hawtry in it? +She was 'Dear Geraldine.' How could it fail?" Patricia was positively +haughty toward Roger's timorousness. + +"That's so," admitted Roger, convinced. "And we can easy get by on the +two fifty until October, especially with the garden I am going to raise. +I'm no Godfrey Vandeford, but I'm a first-class producer--of potatoes +and onions and cabbage and turnip greens and corn. In these war times a +potato producer ranks with any old producer." + +"But I won't be able to leave all of the two hundred and fifty to use +this summer. I'll have to take some of it with me." + +"With you where?" demanded Roger. + +"To New York. Do you suppose even Mr. Godfrey Vandeford would undertake +to produce a play without the author there to help him?" Patricia's +scorn of Roger's lack of sound reasoning about theatrical matters was +hurled at him pitilessly. + +"Of course not," admitted Roger hurriedly. "You can take the whole two +hundred and fifty and I'll look after the Major and Jeff." + +"I don't know what I'd do without you, Roger," said Patricia, as she +cuddled her cheek for an instant against his strong, warm shoulder under +the gingham shirt. "I'm afraid of New York. I know you'll take care of +Grandfather; but who'll look after little me--I don't know what I'll do +all by myself. Maybe I won't have to--" + +"Certainly you'll have to go," Roger interrupted with comforting +assurance. "Go to the Young Women's Christian Association, and if +anything happens to you telegraph me and I'll come get you." + +"I hadn't thought of the Y. W. C. A. Of course I'll be all right there. +I'll get Miss Elvira to write a special letter to the secretary about +me," exclaimed Patricia with the joy lights back in the great, gray +eyes. "And it's so cheap there that I can leave a lot of the money at +home. I'll only be gone about six weeks." + +"No, I think you had better take all the two fifty with you," said +Roger. "You know you have to spend money to make money and you mustn't +be short. I'll look after the Major and Jeff. Don't you worry, dear." + +"Will you let me buy you a big silo and a tractor plow when I get all +the money? You are the greatest farmer in the world and you only need a +little machinery to prove it." Again the young playwright rose to her +knees and with letter and sugar in her embrace she entreated to be +allowed to spend the money that was to be hers from "The Renunciation of +Rosalind," which she did not know was being cast in New York as "The +Purple Slipper." + +"Certainly I'll let you help me, Pat. Hasn't what's yours and mine +always been ours since we set our first hen together?" laughed Roger, as +he rose to his feet and dragged Patricia to hers beside him. "Come on +and let's break it to the Major. You may need me to stand by if it hits +him on the bias," and they both laughed with a tinge of uneasiness as +they went down the long walk of the garden which on both sides was +sprouting and leaving and perfuming in a medley of flowers and +vegetables. + +As they walked slowly along Roger cast an eye of great satisfaction over +the long lines of rapidly maturing peas and beans and heavy-leaved +potatoes, and in his mind calculated that a year's food for the small +family at Rosemeade was being produced right at their door under his +skilful hoe which he wielded at off times when he could leave the negro +hands to their work out on Rosemeade, their ancestral five hundred acres +of blue-grass meadows and loamy fields. Roger had for the summer quit +his slowly growing law practice in Adairville, enlisted as a doughty +Captain in the Army of the Furrows and was as proud of his khaki and +gingham uniform with their loam smudges as of his diploma from the +University of Virginia which hung in the wide old hall, the top one in a +succession of five given from father to son of the house of Adair. The +whole county was farming under the direction of Roger, and he had been +obliged often to work Patricia's garden by moonlight. + +"I'm almost afraid to tell Grandfather," Patricia interrupted his food +calculations to say as they came around the corner of the wide-roofed +old brick house with its traceries of vines that massed at the eaves to +give nesting for many doves, and beheld the Major seated in his arm +chair on the porch which was guarded and supported by round, white +pillars around which a rose vine festooned itself. A faded, plaid wool +rug was across the Major's knees in spite of the fact that the evening +was so warm, and about his shoulders was a wide, gray knitted scarf. A +bent, white-haired old negro stood beside him filling his pipe for him +and serving as a target for the words issuing from beneath his waxed +white mustache that gave the impression of crossed white swords. + +"War! What do they know about war, Jeff? We killed our first Yankee +before we were seventeen, and now they fight behind guns located six +miles away by squinting through double-decker opera glasses. War, I say +in these days--" + +"Yes, sir," assented Jeff, in soothing interruption of what he +considered debilitating heat in the Major's words. "We whipped them +Yankees in no time but they jest didn't find it out in time to stop +killing us 'fore it all ended. Now, I'm going to help you to your room +and make you comfortable for I--" + +"I see Patricia and Roger approaching and I'll wait to talk to them for +a few minutes, Jeff," answered the Major with a slight note of entreaty +in his voice. + +"Jess a little while, then, jess a little while," consented the old +black comrade nurse as he shuffled into the house and back to his +kitchen to complete his preparation of the simple evening meal for his +little household. As he crisped his bacon, scrambled his eggs and +browned his muffins he muttered to himself: + +"He's gitting weaker every day--help him Lord, and me to keep care of +him." + +Just as he was turning the fluffy yellow scramble into a hot, old silver +dish he paused and listened to the musketry of the Major's deep voice +which was huge even in weakness, then he shook his head and began to +hustle the food together to be able to use the announcement of the meal +as an interruption to the harmful excitement, whose scattering words he +was at a loss to understand. + +"Impossible! Impossible that my granddaughter should barter and trade in +the theatrical world, a world into which no lady should ever set foot. +No! Do not argue, Patricia! Roger and I understand, and it is not +needful that you should," were the words of the assault and +counter-charge that so puzzled old Jeff over his skillet and baker. + +"I'm not going to act in the play, Grandfather. I wrote it and I'm going +to show them how I want it acted and then come right home," soothed +Patricia, looking to Roger for help and reinforcement. + +"She'll stay at the Young Women's Christian Association, Major, and +she'll be perfectly safe. I am going to write to Dennis Farraday, who +graduated with me at the University, and ask him to look after her if +she needs anything." + +"Ah, that puts another face on the matter," said the Major, with a +degree of mollification coming into his keen, old face and weakly +booming voice. "Of course, the Adairs have always been geniuses of one +kind or another, and it is not surprising that my granddaughter should +have produced a great American Drama. If she has the interest and +protection of a gentleman who is a friend of her brother's, and a safe +retreat in a woman's organization I will have to permit her to +superintend the placing of her great work before an appreciative public. +Of course, she will not be thrown with any of the theatrical world +socially, and in a few weeks she will return to her own home, leaving +that world better for having had a brief glimpse of her. You may go, +Patricia. Jefferson!" Fatigue showed very decidedly in the Major's weak +call to the old negro, who came immediately and rolled his chair away +with an indignant cast of his eyes at the two young people. + +"Wh-eugh, that was a battle, and if I hadn't thought of old Denny to +bring up as a support to the Young Women's Christian Association I think +it would have sure gone the other way." And Roger laughed with the +twinkle above the freckles as he leaned against the rose vine around the +pillar and fanned himself with his hat. + +"_Is_ there any Denny?" questioned Patricia weakly, from the top step +upon which she had sunk when the Major was wheeled away. + +"Certainly, and he's a jolly good fellow," answered Roger. "I had a +letter from him year before last. I'll write him all about everything +and he'll look after you for me. I'd trust Denny to do his best for me +if I hadn't seen him for fifty years. I lived with him our Junior and +Senior years and I know him. But I must go. I have to go back to the +grocery again to get a plow point." + +"Please don't go until after supper," pleaded Patricia. "I want to think +out loud to you. It has just struck me that I will have to have some +clothes. What will I do about it? I can't go to New York in a gingham +dress." + +"In such a crisis as that I think Miss Elvira will be a better target +for your thoughts than I can be. I'll stop and tell her the news and +send her over," teased Roger with his engaging twinkle. + +"I can't think to anybody like I can to you," said Patricia, as she came +and stood beside him. + +"I really have to go, honey child, to see about the ploughing in my +South meadow, but I'll come back to be in the finish of the dimity +confab," answered Roger, as he patted Patricia on the shoulder and went +rapidly away. + +And a dimity confab was a good name for the conference that was held in +the July moonlight on the front porch of Rosemeade for several silvered +hours that night. Miss Elvira Henderson, modiste, who was the guide, +philosopher and friend, in the matter of costuming as well as in all +other matters, of the feminine population of Hillcrest, had hurried down +the street to the Rosemeade gate as soon as she had consumed her +spinster baked apple and toast supper, and on her way had collected +pretty Mamie Lou Whitson and progressive Jenny Kinkaid, who formed a +thrilled chorus to her interested and joyful conversation with +Patricia. + +"The eyes of the world will be on you, Patricia, and nothing short of a +silk tailor suit will be suitable for you to wear to sustain yourself in +such a position," declared Miss Elvira, with a positive degree of +finality in her voice. + +"And you'll have to have at least three evening dresses, Pat, for that +same article about Mr. Godfrey Vandeford said that Broadway only woke up +at night. And you know it said he was the best known man on Broadway. Of +course, he'll take you to lots of Cafes and dances, and midnight frolics +and--and things," bubbled Mamie Lou very unwisely. + +"Patricia is to stay at The Young Women's Christian Association, and I +am sure they will expect her to be in bed before any midnight +foolishness," said Miss Elvira, with a severe glance at the frivolous +Mamie Lou. "I shall, of course, make her an evening dress or two, one +especially to wear when the multitude calls her before the curtain to +express their admiration of and enthusiasm over her play, but I shall +trust Patricia not to let them lead her into any undue frivolity. The +theatres all close at eleven o'clock." + +"The article said that was the time that Broadway woke up, and--" Jenny +began, as she hid behind Mamie Lou as if expecting a volley from Miss +Elvira. But Miss Elvira was too much absorbed to notice her in any way. +Miss Elvira was also in the throes of conceptive genius. + +"The last 'Woman's Review' had a colored plate of a suit that I can see +on you, Patricia," she mused under her breath. "It was queer blue, +with--" + +"In that big trunk of your great grandmother's up in the garret there's +a blue silk that she wore in Washington that is that curious new blue +color, Pat, and a lot more of--" Mamie Lou was saying with great +executive ability when Miss Elvira seized on her idea and made it her +own with the avidity of real genius. + +"We'll make over all of old Madam Adair's dresses for you, Patricia," +she decreed. + +"They've always been kept kind of sacred and--" Patricia began to +remonstrate with uncertainty in her voice. + +"And rightly so--but at the presentation of her play it is proper for +them to emerge," Miss Elvira further decreed. "Get a lamp and let's go +look at them and decide to-night," she further commanded. + +And from the result of that resurrection in the garret of Rosemeade, +Adairville, Kentucky, later Broadway, even Fifth Avenue, New York, got a +decided and unwonted thrill. + +"The clothes are all right, Roger. Miss Elvira is going to make me a lot +out of great-grandmother's clothes she wore in Washington to dance with +Lafayette," Patricia confided to Roger as they stood under the rose vine +in the moonlight at the late hour of ten-thirty that evening after she +had helped him transplant a lot of sturdy tomato vines. + +"Little old New York will sit up and take notice when it sees you in +party dimity, Pat," he said as he smiled down into the eager, gray eyes +that were raised to his, beaming through their long black lashes. + +"Oh, I hope I'll make friends, Roger," Patricia answered the warmth in +his voice as she clung to the warmth and strength of his arm as if in +foreboding. + +"Of course New York will love you, Pat. Hasn't everybody always loved +you?" he asked tenderly as he put his work-worn hand over hers on his +arm. + +"Yes," answered Patricia, with her head suddenly held high. "If anybody +don't like me, I'll make them." + +At about the same hour that this challenge to his world was flung from +the lips of the beautiful and talented Miss Patricia Adair upon the +moonlit and mockingbird trilled air of the Bluegrass State Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford was engaged in about the twenty-fifth round of the spanking of +Miss Violet Hawtry in the State of New York, and he was having a hard +time accomplishing his purpose. + +"It's just like your selfishness to try to put me into a piffling play +by some unknown author with every risk to be run, when Weiner wants to +buy your contract and put me into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' which is a +play by Hilliard that gives me scope for all of my ability. He is +willing to give you a fifth interest in it and that's all you deserve. +I'll show you whether or not you can sacrifice my career, +you ----! ----! ----! you!" And with which tirade the beautiful Violet +stormed up and down the veranda of Highcliff in front of the supine +figure of her manager, which was clad in immaculate white flannel, suede +and linen, with a blue silk scarf knotted at the base of his lean, +bronze throat, which matched the blue of his keen eyes under their +gray-sprinkled brows, as the only bit of color in his irreproachable +costuming. + +"You've read neither play, my dear Violet. You may like 'The Purple +Slipper.' In which case you get the same salary and I get all the +profits instead of the one-fifth our friend Weiner is offering me for +letting you act in my other play," he answered his star's outburst in an +easy, mollifying drawl. + +"Everybody knows that a Hilliard play is a _play_, and I'm not going to +try out a new playwright just to put money in your pockets. Why should +I?" demanded the star virago, in a fury that made her snapping Irish +blue eyes, tall, strapping, curved body, and pale tawny hair combine +into a good semblance of the jungle queen on a prey quest. + +"No reason except your contract entered into in all lawfulness," +answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. "You know what the Courts are, and if +you like I'll meet you there and fight it out instead of by these +sounding sea waves in this delicious moonlight. Come here and kiss me +and do let our lawyers settle it all for us." As he spoke he rose lazily +and attempted to take the taut young cat into a pair of listlessly +desirous arms. + +"Not on your life you big loafer, you, just because you put one over me +when I was a starved stage door drab don't think I am that same kind or +that sort of thing goes with me now." She spit the words at him as she +half yielded to his nonchalant embrace and half repulsed it. + +"Be accurate, Violet, my dear: did I demand your heart until I had +managed you and my own affairs to the point where you could buy +Highcliff or any other trifles you wanted? There are other ladies to +love in the world besides you, aren't there? There are other gentlemen +besides me and you've had five years--and a wide hunting grounds. I've +got you under only one contract--business and not--pleasure." + +"God, I don't know whether I love or hate you most," were the words of +the conciliating purr that he got as she turned to put herself back +under his caressing. + +"Hate, I wager," he laughed softly, as he drew away from her and seated +himself on the railing of the veranda which hung out over the old ocean +so that its hungry waves seemed to be leaping up to engulf him. The gray +peaks and gable of the Hawtry cottage massed themselves back of him and +in the silvering moonlight he looked like a white eagle perched on an +eyrie. + +"Don't make me play that play; give me over to Weiner," the star of many +such an encounter as well of "Dear Geraldine" coaxed, as she followed +him and put bare, white, glistening arms around his neck and attempted +to draw his head down against a bosom that still tossed with the storm +of anger that she had put out of voice and face. "You know how last year +nobody could get a theatre for love or money, and the producers who +owned theatres put on all the plays and coined money. It will be worse +next year. You have no theatre and Weiner has three. He offers to let us +open the New Carnival. It'll be a sure thing; while your play will have +to take its chance for a New York theatre and maybe get none. Please, +Godfrey!" + +"Well, you see I had agreed to let Dennis Farraday in on this play, and +it would sell him out to Weiner too," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he very +gently but determinedly took the white arms from around his neck and +refused the pillow of the storming breast. + +"Dennis Farraday?" Violet asked, and Mr. Vandeford shot a quick glance +of question at her as he felt the tautening of the muscles in the white +arms that he had in his grasp of untangling. "You are not going to trim +him, are you?" + +"No, not if you make a hit in 'The Purple Slipper,' answered Mr. +Vandeford, as he gave her another appraising glance while he lit a +cigarette. + +"Has he read the play?" + +"He's putting his money on Hawtry in a play of Vandeford's selecting and +producing," was the slap administered with the soft drawl. And as he +slapped he watched the reaction. + +"What did you do with that copy of the play that fellow Dolph sent out +this morning?" was what he got with an entire change of purpose in the +beautiful, stormy face that had calmed in an instant. + +"It's in your room on the table by your bed," answered Mr. Vandeford, as +he rose, stretched, yawned and in other ways indicated his desire for +sleep in the primitive manner that a man uses in the bosom of his +family. + +"I'm going to read it if you don't mind," the Violet said with a smile +of pleasure instead of the frown of anger which had so lately rested on +her fair face. Mr. Vandeford laughed inwardly; she was about as +transparent as a very young kitten in its eagerness for a saucer of +cream. + +"Good girl," answered Godfrey, as together they entered the dark house. +Together they climbed the steps, and with a kiss executed by the Violet +he left her to turn into the door of her room while he went on to his +just beyond. + +Out of her sight the lazy, care-free manner left his lithe body, and in +an instant every muscle stiffened to action. The smoulder of anger in +his eyes blazed. He looked at his watch. + +"Thirty-five minutes to catch that eleven-fifteen train to town. Never +again. I'm done!" he murmured and looked about him at his belongings +strewn around his room. "I'll send Dolph out to pack to-morrow. A jump +into tweeds and a sprint down the beach will make it." + +And after vigorously suiting his actions to his words for twenty minutes +he was running swiftly down the beach well ahead of the time of the +eleven-fifteen train. Just as the headlight cast a red ray down the long +track he stepped on the platform and in ten seconds more he was being +whirled away from the moonlight and sands and white arms, having +accomplished his purpose of the spanking, cut forever chains that +galled, and was well content with himself and the world. + +Back at Highcliff the beautiful Violet had been undergoing the rites of +retirement, assisted by her very well-skilled maid, deep in an exciting +dream of conquest. As she let her soft, perfumed, silken garments be +taken from her one at a time until her pearly body was exposed to the +brisk sea air, for which tonic Susette had thrown wide both broad +windows, she was weighing in her shrewd little gutter-gamin mind the +advantages of the road to the right against the turn to the left. The +Hilliard "Rosie Posie Girl" in the fall produced by Weiner with all his +trained staff, command of a big new theatre and three others, and +following road prestige appealed strongly to her cupidity, which had +been well trained in getting dimes from tight pockets in cheap cafes and +ten, twenty and thirty theatres, but she had seen a grouping of Dennis +Farraday's name in the paper a few days ago with the names of some young +New York multimillionaires in a National Commission, and she knew that +he and his "pile" were worthy of the effort of her charms. Also she had +seen big, broad, breezy, gallant Dennis himself at luncheon with Mr. +Vandeford in the Astor not ten days before, and her designs had been +decidedly set in his direction. To her thinking, big, broad, breezy, +gallant men were always easy. As Susette enveloped her rosiness from the +sea air in a soft white cloud of chiffon and embroidery, removed the +rose mules from her feet, helped her in between the fragrant linen +sheets that were as soft as rich silk, threw over her a rose-colored +puff of silk and lace and down, turned on her reading lamp, upon whose +shade wanton fauns and nymphs sported, piled her pillows high and left +her, the scales were about going down on the side in which was placed +"The Purple Slipper," Mr. Dennis Farraday--and Miss Patricia Adair, who +at that time was the unknown quantity which Fate often throws in any +balance. + +With a luxurious sigh and flexing of her long, supple body the Violet +picked up the business-like copy of the Violet manuscript which Mr. +Adolph Meyers had sent her instead of the beribboned, purple +"Renunciation of Rosalind," and began to read the first page when the +telephone beside her bed rang with a soft tinkle. She picked up the +ivory receiver and into it murmured a softly tentative: + +"Yes?" + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, Mr. Farraday! How are you?" + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, this is Violet Hawtry." + + . . . . . . + +"Deliciously well, thank you." + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, he's here, but the gay young thing has gone to bed hours ago." + + . . . . . . + +"Most interesting for me, but I have to submit." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, lovely. Do come. I'll adore having him routed out for you. Of +course we'll go with you. I had forgot that Simone was to dance at the +Beach Inn to-night." + + . . . . . . + +"No indeed, I have not undressed at all. I was going to study a part +to-night." + + . . . . . . + +"I'm sure Godfrey can be dressed in half an hour, and it will take even +your Surreness that time to get here. Take the beach road; it's fine. +Good-by then. In half an hour." + + . . . . . . + +With which ending and beginning the Violet hung up the ivory receiver +and rang for Susette. The summons was answered by Mrs. Aline Hawtry, +_née_ Maggie Murphy the first, an embarrassing but in a manner cherished +relict of the Hawtry past life in Weehawken. + +"Sure, and the little Frinchy is a-bed, Mag! What be ye wanting? The +night is after sneaking out the back door of the morning." Mrs. Hawtry, +once Murphy, was a big bonny edition of the Violet grown into a cabbage +rose and her voice was also of the same rich texture. + +"Rout out Godfrey, Ma, and then stir up Susette with a hot stick. Mr. +Dennis Farraday is coming down to take us over to see Simone dance at +the Beach Inn. I want him to see me instead of Simone. Hurry!" + +"The poor dear boy, after a hard day in the cruel hot city. Alack!" +moaned Mrs. Maggie as she billowed across to Mr. Vandeford's door and +knocked. Then she paused and knocked again. From neither knock did she +receive an answer as the moment was just about the one in which he had +boarded the New York bound train a half mile up the beach down which Mr. +Dennis Farraday was racing. + +When a search of the unresponsive room had convinced the Violet of his +flight, for a moment her eyes were stormy, then her face cleared with a +smile of delight, and as she padded back to her room and the waiting +Susette, to herself she purred: + +"Nobody can beat my luck." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +There is a certain kind of man over whom all other men smile inwardly. +The tone of voice in which they speak of him has an affectionate growl, +which, once heard, cannot be mistaken. Such a man is apt to cherish what +other men call "impossible ideals about women," and it behooves his +masculine friends to watch out for him carefully lest he come a cropper. +Mr. Dennis Farraday was such a man among men, and Mr. Godfrey Vandeford +loved him deeply. They had met when they were both twenty-three, on +board a tramp steamer, bound for adventure in South Africa, and in the +seven years that had elapsed since then they had spent periods of time +together, in various kinds of sports. Killing time on Broadway was about +the only sport that they had not tried together. By very solid banking +and brokering Mr. Vandeford enjoyed and increased for himself and an +aristocratic, Knickerbocker-descended mother a few ancestral millions. +Incidentally, he took care of the sole hundred thousand dollars of which +Mr. Vandeford's high financiering on Broadway had left him possessed. +Mr. Farraday and Mrs. Justus Farraday represented the sole family ties +possessed by Mr. Vandeford, and he considered them both most valuable. +In fact, the maternal regard of Mrs. Justus Farraday was looked upon by +Mr. Vandeford as his chief treasure and sheet-anchor in times of the +high winds of life. + +"What makes you do it, Van?" questioned Mr. Farraday, as he sat with Mr. +Vandeford in the early morning in the latter's rooms after the tumult of +the first night of the unsuccessful "Miss Cut-up." + +"Excitement," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he put his bare heels, +protruding from his Chinese slippers, up on the edge of the mahogany +reading-table in his living-room, and began to pull at a long, +evil-smelling, briar pipe. "Nothing like it." + +"Do you really care for all that noise, those explosions of chorus +girls, sweating stage hands, cursing director and cursing star, paint, +powder, electricity, paper walls and furniture, call-bells and +hand-clapping from boozy critics in front?" + +"I do," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, with a glint in his eyes deep +back in his head. "And so would you if you had bet about twenty thousand +on that combination and could see the people begin to eat it up right +before your eyes as you sat in a box and watched 'em. When you've backed +your own combination of inferno on riot, it gives you a thrill to stand +before the box-office and watch a line of people that stretches to the +next block plunk down dollars that they have earned at their own +particular combinations of life to see the combination you have made of +yours. Why, tears come into my eyes when I see some little, old, +dried-up seamstress pay a dollar to sit in the roost to see Gerald +Height love the powder off of Violet while she is cursing him under her +breath for so doing, and it tickles me under my ribs to see some fat, +jolly, lonely, old party buy a front seat two days hand-running to sit +and watch Mazie Villines dance over her own head and take the child out +to supper afterward in all propriety. It does him good all over after +selling white goods in Squeedunck, Illinois, eleven and three-quarter +months of every year. It's all to the good, Denny, and I wish you could +get the drag of it." + +"Perhaps it would be well if I could," agreed Mr. Farraday, as he rose +and shook his big, lithe body with the agility of a frolicsome puppy who +knows he is going into mischief, and looked cautiously at Godfrey. "Is +backing the life of the Violet sport, too?" he ventured. + +"Best I know. Took nothing and made it into something in five years. If +it bites my hand that's all in the game." + +"Same force could beget and train about eleven small Vandefords into +pretty good American citizens," Mr. Farraday snapped out, and then +backed away. + +"Absinthe cocktails ruin the taste for sweet milk. Don't talk about +things you know nothing about; thank God for that same ignorance," Mr. +Vandeford commanded. "Go to bed and sleep like the cherub you are, while +I expiate here with my pipe." + +From that conversation it was natural to man nature that the demand for +a half-interest in the next Hawtry show would have been made by Mr. +Dennis Farraday of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and acceded to with the +brotherly reservations already related. The eye-teeth of Mr. Dennis +Farraday were very precious to Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and he had the +intention of taking great care that their edges should not be dulled. It +was well that he did not know that the eleven-fifteen train he had taken +in his flight to New York passed the huge, eight-cylinder Surreness of +his beloved Jonathan in its race up the beach for the home of the +Violet. + +Now, when all is said and considered, a large admiration is due and much +should be forgiven Miss Violet Hawtry, who, as half-starved Maggie +Murphy, had darted out of the gutter into the back stage-door at the age +of fifteen, snapped her huge violet eyes with their fringes of black, +trilled a vulgar, Irish street song in accompaniment to sundry +provocative swayings of her lissome, maturing young body, and thus had +made enough impression on her world to hang on by the tips of her +fingers until she dropped into the outstretched arms of Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford, who was prowling around Weehawken and the vicinity for just +such ripe fruit as she when he was casting his first musical girl-show +for the purpose of some violent excitement after a snowed-in winter in +the Klondike. + +He had taken her to an old stage-mother he knew, had her thoroughly +washed, combed, manicured, dressed, schooled, and had given her the +benefit of his respect for five years while she worked up into the star +of "Dear Geraldine" with all the might of the Irish eyes and lissome +figure and cooing, creamy voice. He had then built Highcliff in the +artist's colony of the Beach for the joint domicile of mother and +daughter. However, it is easier to bathe, comb, manicure, and +luxuriously clothe a body than it is to renovate a soul, and within the +Violet Maggie dwelt in all her gutter vigor. It is also safe to say that +perhaps it was no little part of the Maggie that the beautiful and +haughty Violet threw across the footlights to draw to her the primitive +in the hearts of her vast audiences. It was to some extent the wisdom of +Maggie that the Violet was using as she prepared for her first encounter +alone with Mr. Dennis Farraday as he raced down the moonlit beach to +her. + +"Not the violet and jet, Susette, but that white embroidered lisle, and +take time to sew three inches of tulle around the top of the bodice in +front and put folds five inches deep across the back. Let it come just +below the shoulder," she commanded, as she commenced the whirlwind of a +toilette with which, she had assured the hurrying Dennis, she was +already adorned. + +"_Mais_, Mademoiselle--" Susette began. + +"He'd shy at too much omitted clothing when we are alone. I'll have to +introduce him to myself gradually," she answered the protest, laughing +as she tossed her pale, yellow mane high on her head, and dabbed a +little curl against her cheek with the rose oil, and made a skilful use +of the lip-stick brought by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford from the famed +Celeste's. + +"He will behold that Mademoiselle Simone dance with very few garments +_alors_," Susette pouted as she laid in the folds of modest tulle. + +"But he won't be alone in the moonlight with her, that is, if I can help +it," answered the mistress, as she further perfumed and painted the lily +of her beauty. "Don't worry, Susette; I'm going to give monsieur the +time of his life." + +"That is without saying, Mademoiselle," answered Susette, as she slipped +the silky fluff over the Violet's head, and fastened the one or two +hooks that held it in place over the filmy undergarments in which the +Violet stood waiting for its veiling. "_Mon Dieu_, what a beauty it +gives you, and that placing of the tulle is _ravissant_." + +"That is what I meant it to be," laughed the Violet. "There's his car! +Bring me that orchid wrap when I ring for it." And leaving the +admiration of Susette, the Violet hurried down to drink from the cup of +the same vintage she was sure would be offered her by Mr. Dennis +Farraday. It was offered. + +"It's awfully good of you people to help a poor lonely dub to a pleasant +evening," were the words with which the victim greeted the Violet, while +his eyes offered the expected portion of admiration as he beheld her +bathed in the radiance of the moon. + +"Sure the pleasure is ours--or rather mine, poor old Van," she answered, +with not a little trepidation well hidden under her rich voice. + +"Couldn't you wake him up, the old scout? Let me get to him. I have a +way with him I learned in the Nova Scotia woods." Mr. Farraday laughed a +big laugh, which had in it the tang of the breeze in the tops of +pine-trees. But the Violet was ready for him. + +"He's not there for your torture. The poor darling got a telephone +message just twenty minutes ago to come back to New York to-night. I've +just motored him up the beach to catch the eleven-fifteen train. Some +day that tiresome Dolph will follow Van about some play snarl into--into +Paradise." + +"He did that to-night, didn't he?" asked Mr. Farraday, with a merry +laugh as he ruffled his red forelock up off his broad brow, and made +himself look like a huge, tame lion. + +"Away with your blarney, boy!" laughed the Violet, in return, using her +Maggie Murphy form of speech with telling effect, as she often did. "He +left a thousand apologies for you," she added, slipping back into her +veneer of the--for Maggie--upper world. "And you've had your race down +for nothing; poor Simone!" + +"Oh, I say, can't we just go on over to supper at the Beach Inn? The +Clyde Trevors asked me, and we can have supper with them. Wouldn't you +like that? We can tell them about poor Van." He was as eager as a boy in +his friendly efforts to mend what he thought must be a broken evening +for her. + +"I'd love it," answered the Violet, with a flash of her white teeth and +violet eyes at him. + +After a summons Susette appeared with the alluring orchid garment, and a +white film of seed-pearls for her mistress's hair. She assisted the +Violet's discreet Japanese butler to put them into the big car, which +Mr. Farraday was driving himself, and then stood for a minute watching +them hurl themselves away across the white sand. + +"_Quelle vie!_" she muttered to herself as she turned back into the +darkened house. + +The Beach Inn was aglow and atwinkle and in full laugh as they ascended +the steps of the wide veranda hung out over the ocean, where members and +guests were having supper at small tables lit with shaded lamps. Men and +girls, in bathing suits that were lineal descendants of the scant +fig-leaf, were eating and drinking together sparsely because of their +intention of taking a midnight plunge in the breakers under the hot +moon, while other women in radiant evening garb were almost as scantily +attired, though attended by stuffily garbed men. Most of the parties +turned and called a laughing greeting to the Violet, for they were the +men and women of her world disporting themselves away from Broadway, and +Clyde Trevor, who had written the book for "Miss Cut-up," rose and came +over to claim his guests. + +"Lost Van?" he questioned, as he led them to their seats beside Mrs. +Trevor, who had danced fifty thousand dollars out of New York the winter +just ended. His voice held a hint of irony, which the Violet got and Mr. +Dennis Farraday missed. + +"Not quite yet," she said, with a coo at which Trevor smiled, and under +his breath he gave her the word, "Good hunting!" + +"Thanks." + +"Old Van had to hop back to New York on the eleven-fifteen, but we came +on to glad with you anyway," Mr. Farraday was saying to Mrs. Trevor, +with an ingenuous smile. + +"Go to it, baby," commanded Trevor to his wife, as a rich negro melody +began to fling its invitation against the roaring call of the ocean, and +at his word Simone rose from the seat of Mrs. Trevor and slid out into +the cleared space at the head of the steps. + +"Just in time," commented Mr. Farraday under his breath, as he turned +his chair to watch her drop her silk coat, and float out on the waves of +sound just as she would later float on the waves of the ocean after she +had plunged from the steps to lead the midnight bathing in the surf, for +which the management of the inn paid her the sum of two hundred dollars +per plunge. + +All of this gaiety and amusement was just a prelude to the ride home in +the moonlight, which the Violet took with good Dennis Farraday and +during which she discovered that there is such a thing as honor among +men about poaching on other men's preserves, and during which, also, the +fate of Major Adair, Patricia, Roger, and old black Jeff hung in the +balance. + +"Just what are we racing?" she questioned as they flew along the beach +with rubber tires that just skimmed the hard, white sand. + +"A bit fast?" asked Mr. Farraday, with a protective laugh, as he slowed +down the flight. + +"Let's loaf and talk a while," the Violet answered, with a tentative +note of invitation in her voice. + +"I had thought you and Van and I would have a great powwow over the +play this evening, and it's fierce that he had to get back to that +furnace a night like this, but we can limp along on a few ideas without +him, maybe. What do you think of 'The Purple Slipper'?" As he set the +car at an easy pace he turned and looked down at the lovely face so near +his shoulder with a great and extremely boyish enthusiasm, which was +very delightful and very irritating to the Violet. + +"What do you think about it? You tell first," she said with a smile that +answered his enthusiasm adequately and which served to cover with +agility the fact that she had not read the play. + +"Well, at first it seemed a queer kind of vehicle for you, but as I read +on I could see you queening it in all those furbelows of dress as well +as adventure and sentiment. It's a little serious in situation, but it +is full of comedy adventure in line, and I can just see the audience eat +you up in it. I told Van so, and I bought in before I had read more +than half the second act. I don't feel as though I could wait to see you +in that dinner scene while you hold the enemies of your spouse +confounded. I agree with Van that your emotional qualities may exceed +your comedy." + +"Does Van back my emotional acting against my comedy?" the Violet asked, +with barely concealed surprise in her voice. + +"He does. He says that 'The Purple Slipper' is going to be the sensation +of Broadway for the early fall, and I agree with him. Do you feel as +sure of it as he says you are?" + +"Yes," answered the Violet, and by her assent in premeditated ignorance +of the contents of the play manuscript she put the second cross on the +production which made it a double on the fate of Mr. Dennis Farraday as +a theatrical producer. However, that fact may have been balanced by the +fact that it was the third cross on the fate of Miss Patricia Adair. +Crosses on fates in the world of Broadway go in singles, doubles, and +threes, and no man can tell their exact significance. + +"Good!" answered Mr. Dennis Farraday, with another and still broader +smile of gratification and admiration of the Violet as an artist--a +smile which further infuriated, but equally inspired her. "And what a +grand time we'll all have putting it across! I'm going to help Van see +actors for the cast on Friday, and I'm going to sit in on rehearsals +straight through. I'm due a month's vacation, and I'm going to have my +mail from the office relayed back to New York from the yacht off +Nantucket so that bunch of money grubbers can't find me. Think of having +the honor of being co-producer for Violet Hawtry for my first shot!" + +All of which enthusiasm and admiration went like wine to the head of the +Violet, though it left her heart uncomfortably cold; and beautiful, cool +moonlight heats the heart of a fair woman when it is not more than two +feet away from that of a brave and fair man. + +"Sure I'll make it a success for you, man dear!" Maggie Murphy in the +Violet made an attempt to put a glow into the situation, using the +brogue that was like rich cream poured over peaches, as she snuggled her +bare shoulder, from which the orchid wrap had slipped, with a natural +little shiver against good Dennis's wheel arm. + +"You and Van are trumps to take me in for the fun, and I'm no end +grateful to you both," was all she got for her manoeuver. + +"Yes--Van is a dear," she hedged in a matter-of-fact voice. + +"Yes, and I suppose after my co-first night with him the old scout will +stop baiting me about blinking the white lights. I always have been +obliged to beat Van at any game before I could rest in peace." And at +the thought of getting in at his David big Jonathan laughed heartily +just as he began to slow up the car for the turn along the sea-wall that +led under the porch of Highcliff. + +"Have you ever competed with him in the biggest game of all?" the +Violet asked softly, as the car swept into the shadow and stopped by the +broad stone steps. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Farraday, with a countenance so open +and a voice so hearty that the Violet, used to artifice from everybody, +suspected that they could not be real, and this suspicion made her give +up the game for the time being. She laughed with a mocking sweetness as +she sprang out of the car and to the top of the steps before he could +help her. + +"Some day I'll tell you what I mean," she mocked from the dark doorway. +"Good-night!" And while he stood at the bottom step looking up at her, +she vanished into the darkness of the house, leaving him out in the cool +moonlight, a fate very different from what she had been planning for him +for several hours. + +"Just as old Van said, they are nothing but children, and I blame him +about trifling with her more than I thought I did; she's a dear thing +and a little pathetic in her anxiety to make good for him. Scout has +just got to do something about it all. She's a fine and devoted woman. +And beautiful--whee-ugh!" The big thirty-year-old boy ended his +soliloquy with a whistle, which showed that in a measure he had +appreciated the dangers of the last hours. One of the eternal questions +is how can a mere man be so wicked--or so good as he is often discovered +by temptation to be? + +"I'll have to be publicly and finally severed from Van before I annex +him, the boob," was the soliloquy of the Violet as she prepared for her +slumber of beauty. Another question is how thin a veneer of feminine +beauty weathers indefinitely the wash of circumstances. + +Then after that moonlit night in August Fate spun her web, which she +called "The Purple Slipper," rapidly, and for a number of the people +involved life became very hectic. The center of the whirl was Mr. Adolph +Meyers, though he was safely functioning with power behind the throne +occupied by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's nonchalant and elegantly clad +figure. + +"But Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is never before that you have produced a +play without a reading," he remonstrated on the morning of the day set +for the picking of the cast from those probably suitable chosen by +Chambers, the invaluable agent of the great army of those theatrically +employed. "Actors will be here from twelve o'clock even to six. How will +a choice be made?" + +"I'm trusting to your hunch about the purple manuscript falling on the +day of the Violet letter, Pops," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. "Make +out a little memorandum against each name that tells me what to pick. I +like the idea of going it blind that way: it may be lucky. And, Pops, +split that five-thousand-dollar check of Mr. Farraday's in three ways. +Pay Lindenberg two-fifty as his advance on the scenery for 'The Rosie +Posie Girl,' provided he furbishes up something that will do for the +little road sally of Violet's spanking-machine, to be emblazoned as +'The Purple Slipper' on the cheapest black bills ever run off in New +York. Give Hugh Willings a thousand advance for the music of 'The Rosie +Posie Girl,' but make him write as many as six waltz songs even if you +are sure the first is a hit; it is good to make people, specially any +kind of artists, work for the money you pay 'em. The other fifteen +hundred you had better put off by itself as a starter on the Violet's +gowns. She likes to pay an Irish woman with a French name three hundred +dollars for six dollars' worth of chiffon sewed with seventy-five cents' +worth of silk." + +"What is for costumes for the 'Purple Slipper'?" + +"Oh, any old dolling up will do for that. The women can wear what +they've got and the men borrow or rent." With a wave of the cigarette in +his hand, Mr. Vandeford dismissed the scenic effects of the play for +whose début Miss Elvira Henderson was concocting a dream costume to +adorn the author for receiving triumphal plaudits. + +"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is a costume play of a period," the humble +power behind the throne pleaded. + +"Oh, is it? Then rent the nearest layout to its date that Grossmidt has +for all of 'em in a lump, and make him give you a bargain. Tell him they +won't be worn more than two weeks. I guess Violet will be in line by +that time." With which significant order Mr. Godfrey Vandeford turned +from the anxious Mr. Meyers to answer the tinkling telephone at his +elbow. In a second he was speaking to the most eminent stage director on +Broadway. + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, this is Godfrey Vandeford, Bill." + + . . . . . . + +"Yes. Called to know if you would like to stage a little show for me +right away." + + . . . . . . + +"Yes. I'm going to give Hawtry a little canter before 'The Rosie Posie +Girl.' New line for her, and doubtful. Like to take hold for a +pittance?" + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, yes, that three hundred a week for the 'Posie Girl' goes, of +course, but this play is just a Hawtry whim that I have got to let her +get out of her system. One hundred a week is my limit, and you ought to +do it for seventy-five. You can sit in your chair all the time for all I +care." + + . . . . . . + +"Now you get me--a hundred it is. Let her have her head and work off +steam before we start 'The Rosie Posie.' Yes, Willings is doing the +Rosie songs for us. They'll be hot stuff." + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, Corbett's making sketches for 'The Rosie Posie' scenery now. We'll +start 'The Purple Slipper' on Monday. Yes, that's its blooming name. +By!" + + * * * * * + +"Is it William Rooney to stage 'The Purple Slipper'?" asked Mr. Meyers, +with a shrug of his narrow shoulders as he began pecking out on his +machine the notes that were to guide his chief in picking the artists +who were to embody the characters in the play founded on the life +romance of that old grandame Madam Patricia Adair of colonial Kentucky. + +"Why do you reckon Samuel Goldstein likes to build up a reputation for +himself on Broadway by the name of William Rooney, Pops?" inquired Mr. +Vandeford, with the idle curiosity of a free and untroubled mind. + +"It is the prejudice against Hebrews for a reason," answered Mr. Meyers, +with a glint in his gem-like eyes and a wave of color flushing across +his high, scholarly forehead. + +"Well, the top crust of the whole show business is Hebrew, and I should +think the bunch of you would be proud of the fact. I'm even proud that a +man named Adolph Meyers runs this whole company, and me included," said +Mr. Vandeford, without taking the trouble to note the wave of gratified +pride, devotion, and embarrassment that swept over the countenance of +his faithful henchman. "Now I'll get a little booking for your 'Purple +Slipper,' and that is all you need expect me to do, except shoulder all +the loss I haven't shunted on Denny." + +"It is to be a win, not a loss," murmured the loyal Adolph under his +breath, with a glance of affection at the absorbed Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford. + +This vow of Mr. Adolph Meyers shows that it is as dangerous to arouse +the affection and loyalty of one genius as it is to incur the anger of +another. + +The casting of "The Purple Slipper" was a joy to Mr. Dennis Farraday. He +was to pay well for it in the future, but it was conducted in pure glee. +He sat beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford in the latter's long, Persian +carpeted, soft-tinted, and famous-actor-photograph-bedecked, private +office beside that eminent producer, and watched the strong light from +over their shoulders reveal the points of the men and women who came in +to exhibit themselves. From the moment they entered the door, through +the walk or waddle or lope or saunter with which they approached their +fate to the expressions of joy or disappointment which their emotions +showed under Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's grilling, Mr. Farraday was deeply +interested. + +"You know, Bébé, it is not necessary to put on more than a hundred extra +pounds when in training for the heavy mother," he genially admonished a +very large lady of uncertain age--an age artfully covered with rouge, +powder, pencil, and lip-stick--who sank into the chair facing him with a +pathetic remnant of the former lissome grace which had got her as far as +being a dependable leading woman to any star who could go her a few +points better. + +"Well, it's not from living on large salaries from you that I have put +on the pounds, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford!" she answered with a jovial laugh. + +"Still eating half of old Wallace Kent's salary checks?" Mr. Vandeford +demanded. This seemed a lack of delicacy to Mr. Dennis Farraday, who +blushed with a color equal to that which rose in the cheeks of the old +beauty as her eyes snapped and she rose to her feet. + +"As you know, he's feeding a squab chicken at Rector's to get her into +the broiler class. Good-day, sir," and she prepared to sweep out of the +office with all the fire she had used in many a queenly situation. + +"Good old Bébé," Mr. Vandeford said, as he rose and put a restraining +arm around her broad waist. "I was just teasing to see what was +smouldering. How'll seventy-five a week, with costumes of frills and +powdered hair, do you? Thirty sides and the center of the stage four +times." "Sides," meaning single sheets of dialogue, puzzled Mr. +Farraday, but he made a mental note to seek enlightenment. + +"I haven't had a part this winter, Godfrey," she laughed, and sobbed on +Mr. Vandeford's shoulder. "I'm living in a suitcase at Mrs. Pinkham's." + +"Stop and get a twenty-five check from Dolph, and be on the job Monday +at the Barrett Theatre. Now run!" Mr. Vandeford gave Miss Bébé Herne's +two hundred pounds of avoirdupois a gentle shove toward the door, which +hint she took with an alacrity that had in it a great deal of left-over +grace. + +"Supported a lot of big guns for years. Knows her business better than +any actress on Broadway," said Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to his horrified +confrère as the door closed behind the old beauty. "Picked up Wallace +Kent when he was a piffling, faded juvenile, and taught him to be a good +elderly support worth his hundred to any director. He's left her flat +for a pony in the Big Show, old hound!" + +"Pretty raw," observed Mr. Dennis Farraday, with a great deal of emotion +very poorly concealed in his sympathetic voice. + +"Oh, she's had her fling in life! Dopes a bit, but can be depended upon. +Next!" + +This time there entered a husky, young brute of a boy with shoulders +broad enough to run a double-decker plough. His hair was long and +sleeked close to his well-shaped head, but his fine mouth and chin +sagged, and his eyes were bold and sophisticated. In costume he was the +glass and mould of Broadway fashion. + +"Reginald Leigh," he announced himself in a nice voice, and, as he +spoke, took from a case a card and laid it on the edge of Mr. +Vandeford's desk. + +"Experience, Mr. Leigh?" asked Mr. Vandeford, still standing and with +not an atom of encouragement in his whole body from head to toe. + +"College dramatics and last summer in stock at Buffalo. I've worked in +two pictures for the Universal." + +"Heavy juvenile at fifty a week," offered Mr. Vandeford, with an +indifferent glance up from the paper in his hand prepared for his +guidance by the indefatigable Mr. Meyers. The word "handsome" was typed +in the offer from which Mr. Vandeford made to Mr. Leigh. + +"My price is a hundred, Mr. Vandeford," answered Mr. Leigh, very +pleasantly, and he took a grip on his hat and stick that was meant to +convey the idea of immediate departure. + +"Sorry," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a finality that staggered Mr. +Dennis Farraday; for the youngster's looks and charm were so evident +that it pained him to see "The Purple Slipper" lose them. "Costumes +historical, furnished," added Mr. Vandeford, with increased +indifference. + +"Oh, in that case--" murmured the boy, almost, but not quite, unleashing +his eagerness. + +"Just leave your telephone number with Mr. Meyers in the outer office, +please. Good-morning, Mr. Leigh," was the answer his concession got +along with the dismissal in the "good-morning," which was spoken in such +a tone that it was obeyed in short order. + +"That is a find," said Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to the gasping Mr. Dennis +Farraday. "Handsome young chaps who have any kind of manliness are hard +to find these days. Too busy to be actors." + +"Why didn't you engage him?" further gasped his partner in the adventure +of "The Purple Slipper." + +"I'll let him cool his heels, to get some of the know-it out of his +system. Dolph will make him come around and beg in less than twenty-four +hours." + +"See here, Van, these people are artists to whom you are trusting your +money and reputation as a producer, and you treat them like--" + +"The foolish children that they are," interrupted Mr. Vandeford. "Next!" +and he pressed a button under his desk that buzzed for Mr. Meyers's ears +alone. + +The next three applicants were girls, who respectively giggled, +glowered, and simpered. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford chose the two who glowered +and simpered and got rid of the giggler by referring her telephone +number to Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"That second that you sent away was the prettiest of the bunch," +commented Mr. Dennis Farraday, with interest that had survived to that +point with undiminished intensity. + +"Not at home under that little cocked hat. That giggle was the whole bag +of tricks," instructed Mr. Vandeford. "Got any men out there, Pops?" he +asked through the telephone to Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +Immediately there entered a debonair, very handsome, and sleek gentleman +of uncertain age. + +"Hello, Kent, want to support Bébé in a costume play for a hundred a +week?" asked Mr. Vandeford, with not an instant's greeting in answer to +that gentleman's cordial good-morning. + +"In New York or on the road?" questioned Mr. Kent, with an assurance +that he tried to make bold. + +"To the devil if I send you there," was the answer he got straight off +the bat. + +"A hundred with costumes?" + +"With costumes." + +"Done." + +"See Dolph; but not over ten-dollar advance to save your hide." + +"He's giving fifty." + +"To whom?" + +"Bébé." + +"He did that because he knew that you'd get half of what he gave her. +Ten's your limit." + +"All right. Good-morning!" + +"Barrett on Monday morning." + +"All right!" + +With which Mr. Kent rapidly made his exit. + +"Old reprobate! But he does feed the lines to his opposite, and Bébé +happy is worth twice Bébé in a grouch. You see what the whole blamed +thing is like and--" Mr. Vandeford was interrupted by the tinkle of the +telephone at his elbow. + + . . . . . . + +"Godfrey Vandeford speaking." + + . . . . . . + +"When did you get in?" + + . . . . . . + +"Not busy at all." + + . . . . . . + +"The Claridge?" + + . . . . . . + +"Right away." + + . . . . . . + +"Haven't seen or heard from him in two days." + + . . . . . . + +"Right over. By!" + + . . . . . . + +From overhearing, as he was forced to do, this one-sided conversation, +how could Mr. Dennis Farraday imagine that Violet Hawtry had come into +sultry New York seeking him to devour and that his keeper was rushing +away from his presence to his defense? + +"You and Pops engage the rest, Denny. You see the trick now. Nothing +left important but what Dolph puts down on this paper as 'woman support +for character parts with looks.' Try your hand, old man, and if you pick +a flivver there are plenty more to cast in and her out. By!" And before +Mr. Farraday could protest he was left alone in the inquisition-room. +And as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford went down in an elevator on his way to the +Claridge to deliver the next instalment of the spanking of Miss Violet +Hawtry, he passed a live wire going up opposite him and met one walking +down Forty-second Street, neither of which he could be expected to +recognize, as he had never seen either. + +The first of the two dynamos walked into the office of the Vandeford +Producing Company and failed to thrill Mr. Adolph Meyers in the least, a +fact for which he could never afterward account. He motioned her into +the inner office, and left her to her fate and Mr. Dennis Farraday. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Vandeford," she said in a queer, throaty kind of +voice that had in it a "come hither" of unusual quality, which +suggested that in her production a Romney woman might have loved a Greek +dancer well. She stood at ease before the long desk with a grace that +was unmistakably that of complete assurance. + +"I'm not Mr. Vandeford, but his--his partner, Dennis Farraday. Er--er, +won't you be seated?" and with the happy, considerate manner of his that +he had always used to all women, he offered her his own chair and +appropriated the one of authority that Mr. Vandeford always occupied. + +"Thank you," answered the young woman, with an ease equal to his own. +And then they both waited while regarding each other seriously. Finally +the tension relaxed and Dennis Farraday gave a big, jovial laugh while +he made his admission: + +"I don't know a thing about the play business. I'm just sitting in with +Mr. Vandeford for the fun of it." + +"An angel?" asked the girl, with a laugh that somehow accorded with +his. + +"That's it. He's gone out and left me to--to cut my eye teeth." + +"On me?" + +"Looks that way," and again they both laughed. + +"Maybe I can help you," volunteered the girl, after the laugh. "I am +Mildred Lindsey, and Mr. Chambers sent me in to see if I could support +Miss Hawtry." + +"Er--er, what experience?" Mr. Dennis Farraday managed to ask by fishing +into his impressions of the last two hours. + +"Five years in stock on the Pacific coast, two years in towns between, +and two weeks in a flivver here on Broadway early in the spring. Dead +broke, hungry, and about ready to make good for some manager." As the +answer was fired point-blank at him, Mr. Dennis Farraday seemed to see a +fire of psychic hunger blaze as high as that of wolfish, physical agony +in the girl's eyes. + +Mr. Dennis Farraday eagerly searched on the paper of guidance in casting +made out by Mr. Adolph Meyers for the benefit of Mr. Vandeford and +found "woman support," and opposite the item of salary, seventy-five +dollars. He doubled. + +"How would a hundred and fifty a week with costumes do for salary? You +can have a couple of weeks advance right now if you like," he said in an +easy, nonchalant manner as much like that of Mr. Vandeford as he could +muster, for those fires of hunger in the girl's eyes were searching +holes in Mr. Dennis Farraday's pocket. + +"It would save my life--but--but could you tell me a little about the +part? I might not be able to play it." There were both hope and fear in +her compelling voice. + +The question found Mr. Dennis Farraday unprepared by any precedent +established in the two foregoing hours, for between the artists and Mr. +Vandeford there had been alone the matter of salary to be settled and +not one of them had inquired whether they were being engaged to play a +Billy Sunday or an Ethiopian slave. But in another way it found him +better prepared than would have been Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. He had read +the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper" and Mr. Vandeford had not. + +"Well, to my uninitiated way of thinking, the supporting part is about +as good as the leading one," said Mr. Dennis Farraday, and forthwith he +launched out on an eager, enthusiastic resumé of the plot and +atmosphere, even quoting lines of "The Purple Slipper." And as he talked +Mildred Lindsey leaned across the table toward him and fairly drank in +his words. + +"I see--it's wonderful how she keeps his enemies at bay during the first +half of the banquet--while she waits. It's great!" Her enthusiasm +expressed in her wonderful voice urged Mr. Dennis Farraday on and on to +a fuller exposition of the play and its beauties. + +"You see, the sister is really the one to carry the plot. It is on her +that Rosalind leans, and she has to be all there in her quiet way." + +"Yes, I see, and it can be made--" At this juncture the eye of Mr. +Adolph Meyer was inserted to a crack of the door and then removed as he +shook his head in puzzled doubt. He had intended to intrude to the +rescue of his co-employer's inexperience, but he decided that the time +was not ripe by one glance at Mr. Farraday's eager face, surmounted by +its rampant, red leonine locks. + +"I have pity for Mr. Farraday," Mr. Meyers remarked to himself as he +seated himself at his machine, not knowing that in a very few minutes +the second live wire would arrive in the office and this time he would +get a shock himself. + +For a half-hour he wrote on, while the animated voices boomed and purled +and bubbled in the office beyond the crack of the door he had left open +to observe the first lull that might call for relief. Then he got his +shock. + +The office door opened timidly, and somebody entered so quietly that she +stood beside Mr. Adolph Meyers before he had lifted his head. + +It was the author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind," now "The Purple +Slipper," and she looked every inch of it! Miss Elvira, the genius +guided by "The Feminist Review," had done her best with the blue-silk +suit, and Fifth Avenue could have done no better. + +"May I see Mr. Vandeford? I am Miss Patricia Adair," she announced in a +rich and calm Southern voice and manner. + +Mr. Adolph Meyers sprang to his feet with the impact of the shock. + +"Mr. Vandeford is not in the office, Madam, at present," he managed to +gasp. Then he followed her big, gray eyes as they rested on the crack of +the door through which the boom of Mr. Dennis Farraday's voice mingled +with the excited chime of Miss Lindsey's laughter, and noticed as though +for the first time that it had emblazoned upon it in large, gilt +letters, "Mr. Vandeford. Private." + +"It is Mr. Dennis Farraday, the partner of Mr. Vandeford, engaging +actors, Miss, in his absence. Will you walk in?" and in almost the first +panic in which he had ever indulged Mr. Adolph Meyers showed the proud +young author into the sanctum sanctorum from which he had barricaded +many an enraged virago who had threatened his life if he kept her from +an appeal to the manager. + +"It is Miss Adair, the author of your play, Mr. Farraday, would speak +with you," he announced across the long room, bowed in a way he had +never done in his life, and shut the door behind Miss Adair. + +It is interesting to wonder how it would have affected the end of the +whole matter if Patricia Adair had walked in behind the giggler when Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, with all his experience with authors, was seated on +the throne instead of poor inexperienced Dennis Farraday, enjoying "The +Purple Slipper" with his newly engaged, supporting lady. + +"By jove, Miss Adair, it is little bit of all right that you should come +in and catch Miss Lindsey and me chewing joy-rags over our--your play. +Let me introduce Miss Lindsey, who is to support Miss Hawtry in the part +of Harriet." And bonnie Dennis, the angel, beamed with pure joy at the +good time he was having as a producer. At the very sight and sound of +him poor Patricia, who for half an hour had been wandering up and down +Forty-second Street, looking for the tallest building on it, took both +comfort and delight, and her sea-gray eyes with stars in their depths +returned the beam of his eyes. + +"It's so wonderful that you like my play and are going to produce +it--and you to act in it, Miss Lindsey," she said as she seated herself +in the chair Mr. Farraday had drawn up for her. She looked at them both +with respectful awe in her eyes and in her cheeks a flush of color that +came and went as she spoke, in a way that at first puzzled Miss Lindsey +as to its brand and then in turn awed her as she decided it was the real +thing. The blue-silk triumph of Miss Elvira and "The Review" also +puzzled her for a moment, but she put it down to some little Fifth +Avenue shop that only débutantes and authors of plays could afford, and +took it in with delight at its exquisite detail. + +"I think it is a dandy play, as Mr. Farraday has been telling it to me. +Crooks and--and cut-ups are about done for," said Miss Lindsey. She gave +a quick glance at Mr. Farraday, to see if he resented the allusion to +Mr. Vandeford's recent failure. + +"Right-o!" agreed Mr. Farraday, with a sympathetic smile at her +allusion, which passed over the head of the lady from Adairville, +Kentucky. + +Then ensued more than a half-hour of the most enthusiastic discussion of +plays in general, and Miss Adair's in particular. Both Mr. Dennis +Farraday and Miss Mildred Lindsey were impressed with the fact that the +author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind" had learned her business from +the most erudite sources, and they talked Shakespeare and Fielding +until they at last wound themselves up into a complete pause. + +Miss Adair broke the strain. + +"I'm awfully hungry, and I don't know where to go to get something to +eat," she said, with exactly the same tone of confidence she had used in +asking old Jeff for a cold muffin in between the meals of her eighth +summer. + +"By Jove, we are all hungry! You girls come with me," exclaimed Mr. +Dennis Farraday, as he jumped to his feet and looked around for his hat. + +"Thank you, but I think I had better go home to--to see about--" Miss +Lindsey was faltering with the embarrassment of those who are both proud +and hungry, when food is offered them socially. + +"Nonsense! You are coming over to the Claridge with Miss Adair and me +for a bite. Then you can come back by here and see Dolph.--Dolph, make +out a check for Miss Lindsey's advance. Shall we say one or two hundred, +Miss Lindsey?" Dennis Farraday was in his element when doing the breezy +protective to two girls at once. + +"One hundred, please," answered Miss Lindsey, with color mounting to her +cheeks that underpainted that already there. She smiled with amusement +at the surprise that manifested itself for an instant on the round face +of Mr. Meyers that an actress should not "grab" all offered her and then +plead for more. "But I really do feel that I had better not--go to +luncheon, for I am--" + +"Please do! I'd rather you would," the eminent author urged, and she +clung to the show girl in a way that showed Dennis Farraday, accustomed +to the women of her world, that vague proprieties were hovering beside +the gates that were opening for Patricia from her old world into her +new. + +"You'll have to come, Miss Lindsey, to celebrate, or we shall think you +are not all for the play," Mr. Farraday said with a finality in his +voice that settled the matter. + +And the three of them scudded along a few blocks of the sun-steamed +streets into the coolness of the Claridge, also into the heart of a +situation that had been seething for an hour between Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford and Miss Violet Hawtry. + +"How wonderful of you, Van dear, to find me such a play at the eleventh +and three-quarters hour!" had been the volley that Violet had fired at +him. + +"Glad you like it," he had parried, feeling sure that she was jockeying +with him for position for the clinch. + +"Dennis Farraday told me that you were backing my emotional handling +even more than my comedy scenes. Could you for once be playing square +with me and really looking forward to my development in getting +this--this rather remarkable kind of a play for me?" + +"I've done my best for you for five years, Violet," he quietly answered +the insult, as he looked across the empty white tables that stretched +away from Violet's favorite and reserved seat in the black and gold +dining-room. + +"'Miss Cut-up,' for instance?" + +"There were several ways to put that play across. You had your way in +every particular. Mine might have succeeded," was his calm answer. + +"The really amusing thing about you is that you don't at all know how +little brains you have," was the polite broadside delivered him as +Violet began to sip the clear coffee from her cup. + +"Same to you," was the reply she received. Godfrey spoke in a +good-natured tone of voice. "Now, what did you come to town to talk +about--'The Purple Slipper'?" + +"Why did you leave Highcliff like a thief in the night?" + +"Did you read the deeds Dolph gave you when he went up to pack my +personal effects?" + +"Yes, thanks! I suppose you consider Highcliff the price of your +freedom?" + +"And cheap at that." + +"Then why not turn me over to Weiner?" Violet asked in a dangerous tone +of voice that made Mr. Vandeford glance around with apprehension to see +who would witness the explosion if it occurred. + +"I tried to buy Denny off yesterday, but you fastened 'The Purple +Slipper' firmly in his head, maybe his heart, the other evening, and it +would be like taking candy from a child. Maybe you can--can influence +him to let go--if I give you the chance." There was something coolly +insulting in his voice that told Violet he had surmised her intentions +and the failure of her assault on his big Jonathan. + +"Your usual impertinence! I'll get him yet, just to spite you. I'll go +in and play that 'Purple Slipper' to win, and--" + +"Again Miss Adair breaks in on enthusiasm for her play." Dennis +Farraday's big voice boomed right at the elbows of the embattled pair. +"Look who's here, Van!" + +Mr. Godfrey Vandeford looked up quickly, and as quickly rose to his +feet. And with one glance into slate-gray eyes behind long black +lashes--eyes filled with awed, worshipful gratitude to him--his heart +rose in his breast and all but flitted out upon his sleeve. + +"Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford, the producer of your play," good Dennis +flourished. "And Miss Violet Hawtry! In fact, the whole happy family!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Now, by all rules of the game, it was the prerogative of Miss Violet +Hawtry to take charge of a situation in which the star of a play meets +the author; but she missed her cue, and the gutter instinct within her +sat dumb and dumfounded before the lady from Adairville. + +"I'm charmed to meet you, Miss Hawtry," Miss Adair assured her, with a +glance of such admiration and friendliness that even Violet's +narrow-gage soul expanded into a variety of graciousness all its own, +and she smiled back into the eyes of the young author with a radiance +that had the semblance of warmth. + +"And this is Miss Lindsey, whom we have chosen to support you in our +play, Miss Hawtry," Mr. Dennis Farraday continued, with a glance of +respectful awe at the Hawtry, which matched that given her by the +author a second before and obtained for Miss Lindsey a cordial enough +recognition of the introduction only slightly to frappé her instead of +freezing her entirely. "We are all hungry," he added after the change of +civilities. + +"You are all having luncheon with me," Mr. Vandeford found his voice to +say. Ignoring Violet's glance of indignation at this skilful avoidance +of a climax of her scene with him, he had three extra covers laid at the +corner table devoted to the services of Miss Hawtry. + +"I warned you that we were hungry, Van," said Mr. Farraday, as he began +to search through the menu for an article of diet safe to pour in +quantities into a girl who had long been empty. "How'd rare steak and +fresh mushrooms do?" he asked, and he looked away from what he was sure +would be in the eyes of Miss Lindsey, and which was there. + +"Wonderful!" she murmured. + +"Right-o, for you and Miss Lindsey, but what about nightingales' tongues +for my author?" laughed Mr. Vandeford, with an interested note in his +rich voice, which caused Miss Hawtry to look at him sharply and Miss +Adair to repeat the blush to such a degree that Miss Hawtry, as Miss +Lindsey before her, was forced to admit that it was native and not +imported. The flush did not pass unnoticed by Mr. Vandeford, as he +laughed again with a question as to her nourishing. + +"I want something that I don't know what the name means," calmly +returned Miss Adair, with delighted excitement at the thought of +adventuring into a land of strange food. "I know steak and ham and eggs +and chicken and turkey." + +"Will you trust me?" asked Mr. Vandeford. There was an eagerness in his +voice and smile that again made the Violet glance at him and then at Mr. +Dennis Farraday. The latter was beaming with mirth at the dilemma of +feeding the young author who was so frankly scattering her hay-seeds on +the metropolitan atmosphere. At that instant Miss Hawtry made a +momentous decision. + +"Trust Mr. Vandeford and you can't go wrong," she advised with peaches +and cream in her voice, and for some unknown reason Mr. Vandeford would +have been glad to twist the creamy throat from which issued the creamy +voice. Instead, he turned, calmly summoned the head waiter, and went +into a conference with him in a few very discreet words, which the rest +could not hear, though there was no sign of any intention of keeping the +consultation from them. + +"I think it will be wonderful not to know until I taste it and maybe not +then!" exclaimed the author, with another of her sea-gray, long-lashed +glances of worshiping admiration at Mr. Vandeford, the eminent Broadway +producer who was putting a great star into her play based on the +adventures of an ancestress. + +Of course the situation was dangerous to both Mr. Vandeford and his +author, but who was to blame? + +And the jolly, impromptu luncheon-party was not the kind of episode that +could soon be forgotten by any of the guests. The unknown food for the +author was served by the head waiter himself, and he refused to answer +questions as to its origin or component parts, even when urged by Mr. +Dennis Farraday. The expression on Miss Lindsey's face after her +encounter with the steak and mushrooms, served with an exalted baked +potato, was one of decided relaxation. The look of affection in her eyes +as she glanced at the author who had dragged her into this food +situation rivaled the suddenly rooted admiration which beamed in the +eyes of Mr. Dennis Farraday and which put Miss Hawtry alertly on watch, +so much so that Mr. Godfrey Vandeford was privileged to lean back in his +chair behind a mist of cigarette-smoke and let his eyes gleam where they +listed. + +"Now tell us just how you happened to think of all the wonderful things +in your play, Miss Adair, specially that dinner situation," Mr. Dennis +Farraday urged. He was lighting Miss Hawtry's cigarette, to the intense, +though concealed, interest and astonishment of Miss Adair of Adairville, +Kentucky. He thus asked sincerely and interestedly the usual question +that the unsophisticated fires at an author at the first opportunity and +which the author, no matter how sophisticated, really enjoys answering. + +And thereupon followed the story of the old letters in the trunk, with +the mortgage only so lightly and proudly alluded to that the hearts of +the listeners were decidedly touched, told by the author with the +delighted enthusiasm that their sympathy warranted. + +"And so you see, since it couldn't be oil-wells or gold mines it had to +be the play," she ended, quoting herself in her conversation with the +faithful Roger, who was at that moment following his plow with his mind +on the straight furrows and his heart in New York. + +"You are a precious darling, and your play _must_ succeed!" said Miss +Lindsey impulsively at the end of the recital, and then she quickly +glanced at Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to see if he resented her taking this +affectionate liberty with his distinguished author. She found that +eminent producer not at home to her glance; he was lost in contemplation +of tears that hung on the long black lashes that veiled Miss Adair's +gray eyes and a little quiver that manifested itself on her red lips. +Then she shook off the tears by lifting those long lashes so that she +could look straight into his eyes with a smile of absolute confidence in +his intention and ability to remove from her life forever all of her +distress, which was alone poverty in the concrete, by being the +successful producer of her wonderful play. Men of Godfrey Vandeford's +type admit many strange fires and their votaries into the outer temple +of their hearts, but they keep the inner shrine tightly surrounded by +asbestos curtains. However, there is always one, and one only, closely +guarded entrance through which the ultimate woman must slip in an +unguarded moment. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford would never have thought of +being on any particular guard against the author of a play in purple +ribbons entitled "The Renunciation of Rosalind," but he knew almost +instantly that something dire had happened to him as he sat and writhed +at the thought of his plans for the extinction of that piece of dramatic +art, which he had not even read. The whole sophisticated world has +decided that there is no such thing as love at first sight, except the +biological scientists and they know and can prove that such a thing does +exist and that it is a worker of wonders. And dire pain is one of its +reactions. + +But all agony comes to an end and so did Mr. Vandeford's. Miss Hawtry, +who had been so busy in her own mind with her own schemes that she had +no time to listen to Miss Adair's, picked up her gloves from beside her +final coffee-cup, and pulled the fine-meshed veil down over her +beautiful, though slightly snubbed, nose as a signal for a separation of +the group of feasters. + +"May I motor you to your hotel, Miss Adair?" she asked very sweetly. Of +course Patricia did not know that she had got in her invitation at the +first signal of the feasters' disintegration, which she herself had +given, for the purpose of forestalling a similar invitation from Mr. +Farraday, whose Surreness she knew must be moored somewhere near. "Where +are you stopping?" she asked with very little interest, and received an +answer that almost upset her equanimity. + +"I'm staying at the Young Women's Christian Association," calmly +announced the author of "The Purple Slipper," with no sense of +embarrassment in either voice or manner. "Thank you for offering to take +me there, but Mr. Farraday is going to take Miss Lindsey and me to buy a +hat at a place which Miss Lindsey knows of. She is going to buy one, +too, now that she is going to play in our play." + +"The Y. W. C. A.! Great guns!" muttered Mr. Vandeford under his breath, +while the Violet leaned back in her chair and fanned herself. + +Then very suddenly Mr. Vandeford sat up and looked at Miss Mildred +Lindsey keenly for half a second. + +"We'll have to go back to the office to get that check for Miss Lindsey +before we go hat-hunting," announced good Dennis, with a calmness that +made Mr. Vandeford suspect that he had met the fact of the eminent +author's abiding-place before and had got used to it. "You and Miss +Hawtry going over to the office, Van, or will you come with us, if she +has other folderols to follow in a different direction?" + +"I am to see Adelaide about my costumes for 'The Purple Slipper' at +two-twenty, so must forego the pleasure of--of hat-hunting this +afternoon," Violet murmured faintly. "But I know Mr. Vandeford will +adore going with you." Miss Hawtry felt that safety lay in numbers, and +she preferred to leave the unsophistication of Miss Adair with both Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford and Mr. Dennis Farraday than with either of them +alone. + +"I wish I could get out after the hat, but you people must remember that +I am putting on 'The Purple Slipper,' and I have to be about Miss +Adair's business while old Denny buzzes about hat roses, free and equal +with her," answered Mr. Vandeford. His envy, apparent in his voice, of +the care-free state of Mr. Farraday was very real, though none of the +others could guess its meaning. "I'll see all of you later. By!" and +with a sign to the head waiter, which tied tight Mr. Farraday's +purse-strings, Mr. Vandeford left them while the going was good. So +determined was his exit that Miss Hawtry could not keep him back for the +finish of the fight. + +And Mr. Vandeford was in a mortal hurry. He had much to do and undo. He +arrived at his office, three squares away, slightly out of breath. + +"Did you see her, Pops?" he demanded of Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"I did, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and here is a carbon of the letter I sent +her, not with any encouragement to come to New York at all," and in +self-defense he handed out to Mr. Vandeford a copy of the letter Roger +had delivered to Patricia among her roses and young onions and +string-beans. + +"Take it away," commanded Mr. Vandeford, seating himself at his desk and +wildly shunting papers and letters about. + +"Mr. Vandeford, sir, I am sorry for that young lady and I ask you to +have a heart," Mr. Meyers ventured to say to his chief with a boldness +which he himself could not understand, but with which Mr. Vandeford was +strangely patient. He ended with, "It will be a nobleness for you to not +produce a cold show for her, but pay a small damage sum for such a +beautiful lady and call it all off." + +"My God, Pops, I'd give half the 'Rosie Posie' to be able to do it! But +Denny and Violet and that girl they engaged for support have already +filled her full of success dope about the play, and if I call it off +arbitrarily, where shall I stand with her?" Ignorance of the +completeness of his own capitulation to the faith and tears in the +sea-gray eyes, and the genuine, grown-on-the-spot blush from Adairville, +Kentucky, showed in the consternation with which he asked the question +of his henchman. + +"'Stand with her'!" repeated Mr. Meyers, with a consternation that +matched his chief's, but was of different origin. "You had no such fear +when you called off from rehearsals in the second week the comedy of Mr. +Hinkle, and a fourth of the damages paid to him will to her be--" + +"Get to work under your hat, Pops, get to work! The 'Purple Slipper' has +got to go on Broadway and go big. I followed that purple hunch for pure +cussedness against Violet, and now watch it lead me by the nose. You +get Gerald Height on the wire as soon as you can, while I talk to +Rooney." + +"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is not a Hawtry play, and--" + +"Get busy, get busy, Pops! Put a copy of that manuscript on my desk +where I can lay hands on it the minute I get a chance. Get everything +going for a week later than I first called the show and--" + + * * * * * + +"Here we are!" exclaimed Mr. Dennis Farraday, as he burst into the outer +office, ushering as a wedge before him Miss Patricia Adair and Miss +Mildred Lindsey. "Got that hat-check, Pops? Money, I mean, for Miss +Lindsey, not a pasteboard for your own lid from some hotel." + +For a minute Mr. Vandeford lost himself in the depths of the worshiping, +gray eyes that seemed to have been lifted to his for all eternity in +that terrible faith and gratitude. Then he went into action as captain +of the ship which was to come into the port of Adairville, Kentucky, +with all sails set, loaded or bearing his dead body. + +"You and Miss Adair extract money from Pops with a can-opener while I +discuss a few details with Miss Lindsey, in the office," he commanded +coolly, ushered Miss Lindsey into the sanctum and softly closed the +door. + +"Mr. Vandeford," Miss Lindsey began rapidly, "I knew it wasn't fair to +make any definite arrangements with Mr. Farraday, and of course I will +take whatever salary you--" + +"Where do you live, Miss Lindsey?" Mr. Vandeford interrupted to ask with +a totally unwarranted interest on the part of a manager in the affairs +of an actor he has engaged. Miss Lindsey, for the second time that day, +underpainted her own cheeks and laughed as she answered: + +"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me, but I also live at the +Y. W. C. A., though I give Mrs. Parkham's as my address for letters and +telephone calls. It's cheap and--and I have done dining-room work there +for a month, waiting--waiting for--for a part in a play." + +"Great guns, how that hunch works!" exclaimed the well-known producer, +as he sank into his chair from positive weakness. "You take in this +situation, don't you?" he demanded with a quick recovery. + +"I think I do," answered Miss Lindsey. Then she lifted her big black +eyes, in which shone the psychic hunger, though that of the body had +been appeased. "I've got to make good, Mr. Vandeford, and I'll do +anything you want me to. I've got every right--to live at the Y. W. C. +A., and a right to hand food to--to that child in there. You can trust +me." + +"I believe I can," Mr. Vandeford answered, after looking at her keenly +for a few seconds with the glance with which he had picked his winners +or failures in the human comedy for many experienced years. "Stop your +dining-room work at the nunnery and see that she has a good time, just +you and she together. I'll send you matinée tickets to shows I want her +to see, and Mr. Farraday and I'll look after the other amusement. I want +her to meet only the people I introduce her to, and the Y. W. C. A. is +the best place to live in New York--for her. Understand?" + +"Yes." + +"Find out how much money she has." + +"I know now; she told me. She's got a ticket home, good until October +first, and a hundred dollars to last until--until the royalties come in +from the play. Those royalties have got to come in, too, or her +grandfather--" Miss Lindsey's voice was positively belligerent as she +began to put the situation up to Mr. Vandeford, whose heart, as that of +a theatrical manager, she felt, must be hard by tradition. + +"Yes, I know all about that. You get what money you want from Mr. Meyers +out there, and fool her about what things cost as much as you can--until +the royalties come in. Let me know when things don't run smoothly for +the two of you. Of course, this is worth money to you and--" + +"I don't want money for--for--looking after her." + +"How much did Mr. Farraday offer you for your part?" + +"He doubled it when he saw that I was--was hungry, but I know a hundred +and twenty-five is right and that's all I expect." + +"The one-fifty stands. If all goes well I'll see you get your chance on +Broadway this winter. We understand each other now; don't we?" + +"Yes." + +"Then get the hat quest going. I'm busy." + +"Five dollars is her outside limit." + +"Can't you juggle?" + +"I'll try, but she's--well, you know what a girl like that is." + +"Go to it!" With which command Mr. Vandeford led the way into the outer +office. A brief aside put the situation he had just adjusted into the +willing ear of his co-producer, who beamed with satisfaction at the +idea of the joint nesting of these first two theatrical experiences he +had captured at the outset of his quest for adventure in the white +lights. He immediately began counting Miss Lindsey's advance into her +hand, thus giving Mr. Vandeford a word alone with his eminent author, +beside Mr. Adolph Meyers's big window. + +"Miss Lindsey tells me that she also lives at the Y. W. C. A.," he said +with a curious paternal glow in his solar plexus that he had never +experienced before. + +"Oh, I'm so glad! I know that is foolish of me, but I am a little +frightened. I don't know anybody in New York except you and her +and--I've never been in a big city before, and only in Louisville a few +times with my aunt. I'll enjoy it if she will take me places and bring +me back and forth to rehearsals," and the gray eyes beamed with relief +and anticipation of being led forth from the Y. W. C. A. into the gay +world by a competent guide. "Can we go to some of the _thè dansants_ in +the afternoon, and maybe to the Metropolitan and the Aquarium?" + +"Yes, all those places and more," assented Mr. Vandeford, with a +suppressed smile at the diversity of amusements his charge had planned +in her sallies from the Y. W. C. A. "You see, it is both the duty and +the pleasure of a producer of a play to see that his author has a good +time while in the city." It was a surprise to Mr. Vandeford to find +himself thus stating the case inversely. + +"Oh, but I mean to work hard to help with 'The Purple Slipper,' so I'll +be too tired to bother you much to take me places. And I know how hard +you work, so don't have me on your mind, will you, please, sir?" The +lifted curl of the black lashes and the reverential note in the soft, +slurring, Blue-grass voice almost upset the staid deference with which +Mr. Vandeford was conversing with the author of his new Hawtry play. + +"Oh, play producing isn't so hard on the producer and the author, so +we'll have lots of time to frolic," he hastened to assure her, though an +uneasy little pang shot into his heart as he thought of just what befell +the average author at the rehearsals of his or her play, and he took an +additional vow of protection. "Shall I come to take you to dinner and to +a show to-night?" + +"Oh, I'd love it," she answered, and again the color came up under the +gray eyes. "It would be wonderful to have you show me Broadway the first +time. I could never forget that." + +Then a thought delivered a blow that laid the producer of "The Purple +Slipper" low. The afternoon was half gone, and there were dozens of +wires that he must manipulate since he had had a change of--heart, +concerning "The Purple Slipper," and dinner-time and evening were the +only hours that some of the most important could be found. + +"Oh, but I can't ask you to do that," he exclaimed, and for almost the +first time since the day of his graduation he felt color rise up under +his own tanned cheeks. "I have to see the stage director and a lot more +people about some things connected with your play. Still, I can't bear +to have anybody else get that first night on Broadway away from me. I +think it is due me." Being herself entirely sincere, Patricia recognized +the utter sincerity of the distress in the voice of her producer where +any other woman would have been doubtful of the ready excuse coming +immediately after the invitation. + +"Then I'll just go to bed early and rest up from the trip, so that I can +go with you whenever you get the time to take me. You are working for us +both about the play, and if you had rather I waited for you, that is +only fair," Miss Adair hastened to assure him with a sincerity equal to +his own. + +"You are one good sport," was the reply that he made her straight from +the shoulder, for the thought of a perfectly beautiful girl going to bed +in the Y. W. C. A. and covering up her head and ears from the bright +lights of her first night in old Manhattan just to give a strange and +reverenced man the pleasure of introducing her to the old city made a +profound impression upon him. "To-morrow night we'll wake up things on +Broadway. I'll telephone you in the morning to let you know how the play +is going and to see if there is anything I can do for you. Now you must +all go and let me get busy." + +"Yes, this is just about the hour that hats begin to bite well," +assented Mr. Farraday, as he removed the girls down to his car with no +thought or question as to whether his services would be needed in the +enterprise in which he had embarked with Mr. Vandeford. + +"Now for it, Pops!" said Mr. Vandeford as the door closed behind his +co-workers in the production of "The Purple Slipper," whose work at that +moment was to play at a distance from his labor. "I'm going to read that +play, and nothing short of something that will injure its prospects if +neglected by me must disturb me. When I'm done I'll make plans with you. +It will take me several hours, and you stand by every second of the +time. Get me?" + +"Yes, Mr. Vandeford, sir," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, and he shut his +door into the outer office just as Mr. Vandeford closed his own with a +bang. + +Then for three hours or more, while the sun sank behind the Palisades +and the white lights flashed up from Broadway beneath his window like +bits of futile challenges to the dying light of day, Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford went through the supreme agony of a long life on Broadway, and +was paid in full for every double-cross he had administered to a +confrère. He read "The Purple Slipper" and groaned aloud from page to +page. He began its perusal sitting erect in his chair, and he ended it +hunched over its pages spread on his desk with his head in his hands, +his fingers desperately clutching his shock of gray-sprinkled hair. Then +in a complete collapse he flung himself back in his chair, elevated his +feet to the edge of the desk, and began literally to devour the smoke of +a small black cigar. For half an hour he sat motionless, as was his +habit when fighting all preliminary battles, and his eyes seemed to be +seeing the big old monster city open its thousand gleaming eyes and +change its roar of the day to an incessant purr of a night-stalking +beast, but in reality he was seeing and hearing a month into the future, +and the spectacle thus pre-visioned was the first night of "The Purple +Slipper" on Broadway. Then very suddenly he came back into his conscious +self and went into action. He rang the buzzer for Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"Pops, get Grant Howard on the wire and ask him to come around here as +quick as he can make it. If he talks straight wait an hour for him, if +he's thick-tongued go after him yourself. Get him! Now put me on the +wire with Rooney if you can find him, and make appointments with +Lindenberg for scenery at eleven in the morning. Ask Corbett to send an +artist to talk costumes for a period play at eleven-thirty, and have +Gerald Height here at twelve sharp. Don't forget to engage that +good-looking youngster--Leigh, I think is the name--even if you have to +give him a hundred advance. That's all for the present. Get Rooney for +me." Mr. Vandeford turned to his desk and began making rapid notes on a +pad with a huge, black, press pencil. For five minutes he spread his +thoughts upon the paper in great smudges; then his telephone rang, and +he took up the receiver: + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, this is Mr. Vandeford speaking. Hello, Billy!" + + . . . . . . + +"That new Hawtry play is beginning to promise something. I'm delaying it +a week, and I want you to come into it with your sleeves rolled up. We +may make a sure-fire hit of it." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, no, I'll keep right on getting 'The Rosie Posie Girl' in shape, and +shunt Hawtry into it as soon as she cinches the public in this play--or +fails." + + . . . . . . + +"That was just what I was going to hand you--you get four hundred a week +for this show, but you'll have to go in and earn it. It's a departure, +and you may not like it. You'll have to hammer it a lot, but I'm not +signing a single 'Rosie Posie' contract until I see this in shape." + + . . . . . . + +"I mean it. A stage manager has to take my stuff all hot even if he +thinks some of it is cold. Get me?" + + . . . . . . + +"That's good. I'll give you the completed manuscript Saturday so you can +pound and set it for Monday next." + + . . . . . . + +"That's good. By!" + +With which short, but sure, wire-pulling Mr. Vandeford opened his +campaign to double-cross his own original plans. He had hardly stopped +fixing Mr. William Rooney when Pops looked in upon him and announced Mr. +Grant Howard, the eminent playwright. + +"Hello, Grant," was Mr. Vandeford's short and unenthusiastic greeting to +the small, black-haired person with weak, pink-rimmed, blue eyes, who +sauntered into the sanctum and dropped sadly into a chair with his back +to the light. A cigarette hung from the left corner of his upper lip, +and his hands trembled. "Been hitting 'em up?" + +"Yes," answered the playwright, laconically. + +"Broke?" + +"Pretty bad." + +"Want to doctor a play for Hawtry for me by Friday next for a thousand +dollars cash?" + +"Cash now?" + +"Cash Friday." + +"Would have to lock myself up in my apartment to do it; but Mazie's been +crying for gold-uns for a week." + +"Send Mazie to me, and I'll fix that, and hand you the thousand on +Friday. Here, take this manuscript over in my other office and be ready +to talk it over with me by ten o'clock. I'll see Mazie in the meantime." +Mr. Vandeford placed the precious "Purple Slipper" in the hands of a man +who at that very moment had two successful plays running on Broadway, +his interest in both of which he had sold out for a mess of pottage to +be consumed in the company of Miss Mazie Villines of the "Big Show." + +"Dolph had better order me up a little cold wine to start on," said Mr. +Howard, as he rose languidly to incarcerate himself at the bidding of +Mr. Vandeford. The same scene had been enacted between the two bright +lights of American drama several times before with very good results. +Mr. Howard's brain was of that peculiar caliber which does not originate +an idea, but which inserts a solid bone construction as well as keen +little sparklets into the fabric of another's labor, and makes the whole +translucent where before it may have been opaque. On Broadway he was +called a play doctor, and Mr. Vandeford was not the first manager who +had shut him up with quarts of refreshment to tinker on the play of many +a literary, dramatic, bright light. + +"Dolph will give you scotch and soda to your limit, no further," +answered Mr. Vandeford, without graciousness. "I'll be here waiting for +your talk-over at ten-thirty o'clock." + +"All right. Have Mazie come for me after her show?" + +"Yes." + +With which the eminent playwright betook himself to a small private +office which opened into the lair of Mr. Adolph Meyers. After he had +entered that retreat Mr. Meyers softly rose from his typing machine and +as softly locked him in. Then he proceeded to hunt for Miss Mazie +Villines until he got her into conversational connection with Mr. +Vandeford. They conversed in these words with great cordiality: + + . . . . . . + +"Want to earn a nice little two hundred for keeping Grant Howard working +at doctoring a play by next Friday for me?" + + . . . . . . + +"I'm giving him a thousand if it's delivered Friday." + + . . . . . . + +"Two hundred to you." + + . . . . . . + +"Not three!" + + . . . . . . + +"There's Claire Furniss. Grant had her at supper last night at Rector's. +She's a beauty, you know." + + . . . . . . + +"Two fifty." + + . . . . . . + +"Goes!" + + . . . . . . + +"Good! Come get him here at my office at eleven-fifteen. Get a taxi by +the hour at your stage-door--on me--and come by for him." + +. . . . . . + +"Good girl! By!" + + * * * * * + +"What a life!" Mr. Vandeford muttered to himself, then rang his buzzer +for Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"Pops, it's eight o'clock. Go get us a couple of slabs of pie at the +automat, and then I'll go over to see Breit at the booking office." + +"Yes, sir, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. Meyers acquiesced, and departed in search +of provender for the lion and himself. Left to himself, Mr. Vandeford +fell into another trance, from which he was dragged by another tinkle of +his telephone. + +"There'll be a wireless to my grave," he muttered as he took down the +receiver and snapped into it: + +"This is Mr. Vandeford talking." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, Miss Adair. Anything the matter?" + + . . . . . . + +"Speak a little closer into the phone. Miss Hawtry has asked you to +supper to-night? Mr. Farraday? And myself?" + + . . . . . . + +"Did she say I was to come for you?" + + . . . . . . + +"Do you know, I feel like a brute, but I'm going to tell you to go to +bed as per promise. I've got two big guns from Broadway putting licks on +the production of 'The Purple Slipper' until the small hours to-night, +right here in the office. I'll tell Miss Hawtry about it, and you +can--go to bed." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, yes, she'll understand. It's her play too, you see." + + . . . . . . + +"No, you can't help me to-night, thank you just the same. How's Miss +Lindsey? Would you like me to send my car to take you girls for a little +spin in the park to cool off before you go to bed?" + + . . . . . . + +"Her hair's wet? And so is yours? I didn't know it was raining." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, a mutual shampoo? Bless you both!" + + . . . . . . + +"No, you don't interrupt me when you call me. You are to call me any +time you are willing to do it, if it is every five minutes." + + . . . . . . + +"No, I mean it." + + . . . . . . + +"Very well then--good-night and good dreams." + + . . . . . . + +"Can you beat it?" Mr. Vandeford smiled to himself as he hung up the +receiver. "Those two peachy girls washing each other's hair in the Y. W. +C. A., within ten blocks of the 'Follies' is to laugh--or cry. Good +little Lindsey! I wager she could have got 'em both forty-seven-eleven +dates." Then a thought delivered a blow just above his belt in the +region of his heart. "So it's Violet's game to use her as a decoy-duck +for Denny?" he questioned himself, then gave his own answer in a soft +voice under his breath. "Damn her!" + +Furthermore he did not communicate with Miss Hawtry to give her Miss +Adair's answer to her invitation. He answered it in person, but only +after much had happened in the three hours intervening. + +The hours from eight to nearly ten Mr. Vandeford spent in slowly +munching the refreshment retrieved from the automat by Mr. Adolph Meyers +and thinking out loud to that dignitary who took down his thoughts on +paper in cabalistic signs of shorthand. They were all notes of what +could and must be done in the next few days in the fight for the good +fate of "The Purple Slipper." + +"I want to see that fellow Reid about that new lighting he provided for +the new Sauls show in May. I liked it in some ways and--" Mr. Vandeford +was saying when a banging on the door of the private office in which was +incarcerated the eminent playwright interrupted him. + +"Did you give him the right amount of booze, Pops?" Mr. Vandeford asked. + +"Entirely right," answered Mr. Meyers, with his pencil still poised over +his pad. The knocking continued. + +"See what he wants, Pops, and give him a little more if you have to," +decided Mr. Vandeford, as he lit a new cigar and turned to the whirlpool +of his desk while he waited for Mr. Meyers's return. + +"Say, do you expect me to cast a Sunday School charade into a play in +six days, Vandeford?" was the storm of words hurled at him as the +released and infuriated doctor of plays hurled himself and his sheaf of +manuscript into the door ahead of Mr. Meyers. + +"Is that what you think of it?" calmly questioned Mr. Vandeford, as he +swung around in his chair. "Sit down and tell me what you intend to do +for it." + +"I'm going to rewrite the whole blamed mess for fifteen hundred dollars, +that's what I'm going to do," announced Mr. Howard with both +belligerence and excitement in his voice and in the flash of his sick +little eyes. + +"Is it as good--or as bad--as all that--money?" questioned Mr. +Vandeford. "You'll have to show me," he added calmly, though in the +vitals of his heart he was relieved that Howard still spoke of "The +Purple Slipper" as a carcass on which to operate. + +"It's got a perfectly ripping, basic, sex-comedy idea that climaxes the +third act; the rest is piffle." + +"I thought some of the character drawing, and one or two of the +sentimental bits were--actable," Mr. Vandeford ventured, determined to +save as much of the hair and hide of Miss Adair's child as possible, +enough at least to help her to recognize and claim it later. + +"Oh, we can leave enough bits to anchor the author's name, if that is +what you mean," the playwright admitted impatiently. "How about fifteen +hundred? I won't do it for less." + +"Goes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest ease with which he had +ever dispensed five hundred dollars in all his life. "Now shoot me your +layout of the whole thing before Mazie gets here to take you and lock +you up." + +"I'm going to take that dinner scene where the wife holds her husband's +enemies and her lover at bay to see if he gets back home on a +sporting-chance bet with lover, and write Hawtry both back and front of +it; write her in as the virago she is and give her a chance to act +herself for once." + +"Good idea," admitted Mr. Vandeford. "But you'll have a hard time +writing a gutter girl into a grand dame, won't you?" + +"Women are all alike, and the worst viragos are the grand dames. It +takes a gutter girl to play one let loose, as they do only on rare +occasions. I've got 'em in my own family. That's the reason I'm a black +sheep turned out. Got a sister that's worse than me, only respectable +and fashionable. See?" + +"Yes, I see," again admitted Mr. Vandeford. "You'll keep all the +atmosphere and minor stabs in, you say?" + +"Sure. They are pretty good staggers, some of the minor stuff. Lots of +it is good talk--only wandering. That woman may write something some day +if she breaks loose and goes to the devil for a while." + +"She won't," said Mr. Vandeford, positively. + +"Never can tell," answered Mr. Howard, with indifference. "What did +Mazie say?" + +"She's due here for you now," answered Mr. Vandeford, looking at his +watch. + +"Great girl, Mazie. Cooks me dandy rice and runny eggs, and sits on the +neck of every bottle in New York while I dig. Couldn't do without her. +Say, tell her you are just giving me five hundred, will you?" + +"She knows it's a thousand," answered Mr. Vandeford, truthfully. "But +I'll keep the extra five hundred you are extracting dark for you." + +"That's good, and I'll tell her that I haven't got any--" + +"Tell her that you haven't got any money, as usual," were the words +which Mr. Howard's fair lion-tamer used to finish his sentence of appeal +to Mr. Vandeford for his co-operation in fraud. She had entered past Mr. +Meyers with his full approval, for he felt a great relief at the sight +of her and her guardianship. + +"How's Mazie?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he rose and, with all the +ceremony he would have used for a grand duchess--or Miss Patricia +Adair--offered a chair to the pert little person with her funny, +good-humored, rather pretty face and her very smart clothes. + +"Kicking along, Mr. Vandeford, thank you," was the answer. "Gee, but I +did kick the limit to-night, that's sure. I put some shady shines over +what Grant wrote into a let-down in my part for me last night in great +shape. They et it up, darling." Her naughty face beamed on Howard. +"Hawtry was in a box, left. Had a gink in soup to fish with her that +looked like real money. Have you rented her out?" + +"You folks get along and stop that taxi meter you've got running on me," +Mr. Vandeford said, answering the sally with a laugh; but it surprised +him that there was a cold space in his vitals at the insult that the +little trollop handed him with such comradery, guiltless of any +knowledge that it was an insult. + +"What was that about touching pitch?" he asked himself as he walked +rapidly up four blocks to the theater where Mazie had told him he would +find the Violet with her prey. He was just in time to meet them in the +lobby. Denny was in the gorgeousness of his "soup to fish," Mazie's and +her world's term for evening attire, and the Violet in every way matched +his good looks. + +"Why, where is Mademoiselle Innocence?" asked Hawtry, with a little +frown, as she perceived that Mr. Vandeford was alone and not in regalia. + +"Asleep at the Y. W. C. A.," he answered shortly. + +"Sure?" asked the Violet, with a little laugh for which he could have +killed her. + +"Why, she promised Miss Hawtry to go to supper with us and see a +midnight show," Mr. Farraday exclaimed, and there was disappointment in +his voice as he looked at Mr. Vandeford. + +"I couldn't get away from the office until just this minute, and I +didn't think I could get away this soon. Miss Adair sent her apologies +to you both, and I came over to bring them." + +"Evidently we are not to be trusted with the author, Mr. Farraday," +laughed Violet, with what good Dennis took as good nature and what Mr. +Vandeford knew to be rage. + +"Well, bless the child and her beauty sleep, but don't let that kill our +evening joy. Come along, Van, and we'll go some place sufficiently +disreputable to admit a crumpled person like yourself if you wash your +hands. We can have a good powwow over the play. I want to know what you +have been doing while I was off the job chasing a hat for the author." +And the big, stupid Jonathan linked his arm in that of his anxious and +hovering David and drew him along towards the Surrenese, which stood +across the street, at the same time guiding the steps of the Violet's +satin slippers in that direction. + +While the three walked across the narrow street Mr. Vandeford made some +rapid calculations and a decision in his mind. He saw plainly that he +could not undertake to guard Mr. Dennis Farraday from the Violet and at +the same time fend Miss Patricia Adair from her wiles. He'd have to +choose between them, and in the twinkling of an eye he chose Patricia. +It is said that there is a love between men "that passes the love of +women," but nobody has ever witnessed it. + +"You people go on to your show--I'm all in," he capitulated as they +stood beside Mr. Farraday's car; and the heart of the Violet rejoiced +within her. + +"I'm sure Miss Adair is getting caught up on sleep so she can go with +you to-morrow night. She's a perfect dear, and we'll put her play +across," Hawtry cooed to him in her rich voice, and he knew that she +felt she had struck his price and bought him off. + +"If Denny falls for her he'll fall far; but I can't help it. A girl's a +girl, specially from the country," Mr. Vandeford said to himself, as he +stood and watched them drive away into the white-lighted cañon of +Broadway. Then he went home and to bed. + +A man may put out his night light, stretch himself between his sheets +with the perfection of fatigue and still not sleep. There are various +combinations of reasons that prevent his slumber. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford +was still awake when Mr. Dennis Farraday let himself into his apartment +with a key that had been presented to him five years before when Mr. +Vandeford had installed his Lares and Penates in the tall building on +Seventy-third Street, some of these Lares and Penates being Mr. +Farraday's extra linen and clothes. + +"That you, Denny?" Mr. Vandeford asked as he switched on his light and +took a hurried glance at a clock on his mantel which registered the hour +of 2 A. M. + +"Yes," answered Mr. Farraday, as he came to the door of Mr. Vandeford's +sleeping apartment. "A thought suddenly struck me, and I stopped in to +explode it at you and sleep here." + +"Fire away!" + +"My mater is coming to town the first of the week to have her glasses +changed, and I'm going to telephone out to her to-morrow and ask her to +write Miss Adair to have dinner with us informally at the town house +while she is here. You know mater's mother was from old Kentucky, and +she'll adore the child. Think that's good thinking?" + +"Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a glow under his ribs about which +he said nothing. Men are vastly inarticulate, but they have various +means of communication, and Mr. Vandeford now felt that in his care of +his author Mr. Dennis Farraday would understand. + +"You know I am on new ground, old chap, but--but how about asking Miss +Lindsey, too?" Mr. Farraday questioned, with great diffidence. + +"Fine!" agreed Mr. Vandeford, with accelerated glow under his ribs that +Miss Lindsey had been proposed when Miss Hawtry might have been invited. +"Get to bed, can't you, you Indian, you? Night!" + +"Good-night!" answered Mr. Farraday, as he departed to his own room. + +And still Mr. Vandeford did not sleep. + +Flat upon his back he lay and faced, analyzed, and card-indexed his +situation and himself. + +"Five years of myself given to that gutter girl and I never even cared; +let her annex me for purposes of parade and publicity, and thought it +funny sport. Wasted? Something to be deducted for pleasure in artistic +success of "Dear Geraldine," but what will it cost me if I have to stand +by and see her make old Denny hate himself as I do myself, or worse? +She'll not stop short with him, and how do I know what he'll do? The +money don't matter, but the--cleanliness does. If I go in to save him, +she gave me notice to-night that she would go for that gray-eyed girl. +What can she do to her? First, kill her play, no matter what I do to +build up a success for the kiddie to cancel that mortgage. Second: do +something, say something that will kill that look in those gray eyes +when they lift to me. Never! Take Denny, Violet, and the Lord help him; +I can't. You've bought me. Washing her hair in the Y. W. C. A.! God +bless that institution and--" + +At last Mr. Godfrey Vandeford slept. + +After his ten o'clock awakening Mr. Vandeford displayed a marked +eccentricity in his demeanor. That morning was unlike any morning he had +ever experienced, and his conduct surprised himself. A daybreak shower +had fallen on the hot and baked city, and it was as fresh as a suburb. +Arrayed in the coolest of white silk, linen, and suede, Mr. Vandeford +had his chauffeur drive him not to the whirling office but to the most +sophisticated Fifth Avenue florist, where he purchased the most +unsophisticated bunch of flowers at the highest price to be obtained in +New York. + +"The Young Women's Christian Association," he commanded the obsequious +young Valentine who drove the big Chambers. Mr. Vandeford was never +sufficiently unoccupied of mind to pilot a car in and out of New York +traffic. For half a second the young Frenchman hesitated. + +"I don't know where it is--Find out," commanded Mr. Vandeford, and again +he had the foreign experience of feeling the blood burn the under side +of the tan on his cheeks. + +Valentine consulted the tall man in uniform at the door of the flower +shop, and this menial consulted some one within, who must have consulted +a directory, judging from the time it took to obtain the correct +address. With his eyes straight in front of him, as a chauffeur's eyes +should always be, he then drove rapidly down the avenue. + +And on that beautiful morning Mr. Vandeford's luck was with him. +Valentine whirled expertly up to the curb in front of the large, +hospitable building which had emblazoned over its door the impressive Y. +W. C. A. letters, letters that send a beacon all over the known world as +they did to Mr. Vandeford in little and unimportant New York. Mr. +Vandeford got out of the car with hurried grace in his long limbs and, +with actual trepidation, went in through the door, into a world he had +never even thought of before. He had entered many an African lion jungle +with less fear. He glanced with awe at the natty young woman in white +linen who presided at the desk, and wanted intensely to put his flowers +behind him and back out of the door rather than approach and ask for the +lady to whom he wished to donate them. In fact, he might have +accomplished such a retreat if again luck had not come his way. + +"Oh, Mr. Vandeford, how glad I am that you got here before we went out +to the museum," exclaimed a fluty, slurring young voice just behind him, +and he found that the gray eyes with the black lashes were just as +unusual as he had decided they could not possibly be in the interval +that had elapsed since he had looked into them. "Oh, how lovely!" + +The last exclamation was made over the edge of the bouquet, which he had +tendered Miss Adair as silently as a school-boy hands out his first +bunch of buttercups to the lady for whom he has picked them. + +"Did you come for me to go to help work on the play?" was the energetic +question that brought him out of his trance. + +"No, not right now," he answered haltingly, and when he realized how +many times he would have to put her off with words to that same effect, +his trance became a panic. + +"When are you going to need me?" Miss Adair asked him with a direct and +business-like look right to his eyes. "I am ready for work now." + +"Now what'll I do?" he demanded of himself. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +"I thought of a lot of new things for my characters to say, while I was +coming up from Kentucky on the train, and I want to put them in." Miss +Adair further tortured Vandeford. + +"This morning I am going to talk to the electrician and the costumer and +the scene painter." Mr. Vandeford answered by telling her the truth, +because, with her very beautiful and candid eyes beaming into his, +showing both interest and consideration, he had not the power to make up +any kind of lie to put her off the trail of "The Purple Slipper." + +"I am so glad that I got up early and am ready to go with you! I can +tell them about what my great-grandmother really wore when it all +happened, and it will be such a help to them!" Miss Adair exclaimed +with great business acumen shining in her eyes. Mr. Vandeford gave up +the fight, piloted her into his car, and gave the command, "Office!" to +the very decorous, but very much interested Valentine. + +As they were skimming back up the avenue and about to turn into +Forty-second Street, an inspiration came to Mr. Vandeford. + +"Didn't you keep some of those costumes of the period of the play hid +away in an old brass-nailed leather trunk in your garret?" he asked Miss +Adair, with desperate eagerness shining in his eyes. + +"Yes," Miss Adair answered readily. Then she hesitated, and the genuine +blush rivaled the one in the northeast corner of the bouquet at the +waist of the very chic, blue-silk suit. "That is, I did have some--" + +"Have they been destroyed?" questioned Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest +anxiety. + +"No, not exactly," answered Miss Adair, with a distressed tremor at the +corner of her curved mouth that rivaled a rose of a deeper hue in the +southwest corner of the bouquet. + +"I see," answered Mr. Vandeford, with great relief. "You are not just +sure where they are. That's great! You can have a talk with Mr. Corbett, +who is to design the costumes, and then hop right back home in a day or +two, as soon as you are rested and we've had a little bat on Broadway, +and find them for him to use in his designs. The management will pay all +the expenses and you can--can--" + +Mr. Vandeford cast around in his mind for some other business in +connection with "The Purple Slipper" that would keep the author thereof +busy and contented in Adairville, Kentucky, out of the clutches of +Violet and out of the way of his stage director until it all was running +smoothly. + +"How about your getting a lot of photographs of the house in which it +all happened?" he went on. Vaguely he felt photography must be a slow +process in Adairville, Kentucky. + +Also, in his heart he was forced to acknowledge that his inspiration for +getting the author out of the way of her own play while it was being +murdered was not entirely original. Tradition had told him, whether +truly or not, that at a certain crucial moment in the butchering and +rehearsal of "The Great Divide" the poet-author, Moody, had been sent +West to hunt a genuine war costume for a great Indian war-chief, his +favorite written character, and on his return with the trophy had found +the Indian cut entirely and forever from the play. + +"Those dresses would be the greatest help you could give us now," he +urged with an inward chuckle at the thought of the trick on the great +poet, which froze in his heart as he observed two tears balanced on the +black lashes of the lovely sea-gray eyes lowered away from his. + +"What's the matter?" he gasped, in desperate fear that the Moody Indian +story had penetrated to the wilds of Adairville, Kentucky. "You'd only +be gone a few days, and everything could wait until you came back. I +wouldn't turn a wheel without you, and--" he committed himself deeper +and deeper at every step. + +"I've had the dresses all made over, and this is one. I've hurt my play +just because I wanted to look pretty in New York! I'm humiliated with +myself. As if anybody cared how I look; and the play--" The soft little +slurs stopped and the beautiful old-blue-silk-clad shoulder trembled +slightly against his shoulder as a little ghost of a sob came to the +surface and was suppressed while the home-made color faded from beneath +two tears that fell from the black lashes. + +"Oh, please forgive me, child! It doesn't matter at all, and--" + +"You oughtn't to forgive me," the voice trembled on. "Miss Hawtry would +have been wonderful in that dinner dress my grandmother wore, and +I--I've had two made out of it! I can give them to her and tell her how +to put them together again with--" + +"You'll do nothing of the kind!" fairly snapped Mr. Vandeford. Then he +broke the record in his own thinking processes and decided for the +second time to tell the whole truth to this country girl with her +mixture of hay-seeds and patrician airs. He directed Valentine to +Central Park and made a clean breast of it. It is a pleasure to record +that at the Moody Indian story Patricia laughed until two other tears +ran down her cheeks, but this time they did not wring Mr. Vandeford's +heart, for they coursed over the accustomed roses and were a great +pleasure to him. + +"I'll go home if you want me to," the talented author of "The Purple +Slipper" offered, with a small snap in her eyes, mingled with the +accustomed veneration of Mr. Vandeford, her producer. "I don't want to +be in anybody's way. I thought I had to come and spend all my money. I +want to see the Metropolitan and the Aquarium and Brooklyn Bridge and +Trinity Church, ... and ... a Midnight Frolic, because Mamie Lou +Whitson, at home, is expecting me to go to one even if Miss Elvira said +I ought not to. Can I see just one Frolic before I go home?" + +"If you go home now the whole 'Purple Slipper' will go into cold storage +until you come back," Mr. Vandeford growled at her, and the effort it +took not to hold on to her with bodily fingers was a great strain. "I +told you the usual situation because I felt that you were clever enough +to make the best of it and help the play a lot. No author ever has seen +a play produced as he wrote it, and he has to stand seeing everybody +take a whack at it, from the producer to the man who takes the tickets +at the front door. I've got a good playwright shut up until Friday +rewriting 'The Purple Slipper'; then I'm going to work at it myself and +let Miss Hawtry write in all the things she wants to say, and cut out +all the things she doesn't. After that, I'm going to turn it over to +Bill Rooney, who was born in a barrel down on the wharf and educated in +the gutter, but who is the best and highest-priced stage director in New +York. He'll do innumerable things to it while he's 'setting it,' as he +calls getting it ready for rehearsals. All the actors and actresses will +be allowed at times to butcher and scalp their parts and everybody will +stab. And if you are a plucky girl you'll sit still and see it done. +There will come lots of times that everything you suggest, even very +timidly, will be thrust down your throat; but if they are vital they +will get under the hide of Bill and opening night you'll see that your +pluck has put a lot into the whole thing and that the mutilated and +dressed-up play is still your child. Will you trust me and sit in with +me and help me make 'The Purple Slipper' go?" + +"I do! I will!" answered Miss Adair, with her head in the air and the +Adairville roses flaunting themselves in her face. And as she spoke she +offered him her slim, long-fingered, white little hand that his +completely engulfed as, answering a signal, Valentine turned the car +back toward Forty-second Street. "If I've got to have thorns stuck in me +and then cut out I'm mighty glad you'll be there." + +"Yes, I'll be there," he answered her softly, as he released her hand at +least two seconds sooner than he was really obliged to, though he +himself could not have said why he did it. He felt like a grown person +who frightens a child with a bear tale to make it cuddle to his own +strength in the firelight. + +Then followed a day in the offices of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical +Producer, which, up to that time, could not have been duplicated on +Broadway and perhaps never will be, though the results may have the +effect of--but that was all in the future of the theatrical business at +that time. + +"Mr. Meyers," said Mr. Vandeford, as he ushered the author of "The +Purple Slipper" into the outer offices, where he found Pops soothing and +controlling about seven enraged experts in different lines of dramatic +production, "Miss Adair will have the small office from now on to work +in when she is not in consultation with me. Please take her in and see +that she is made at home while I run through my mail. Yes, Mr. Corbett, +I will be ready for you in a few minutes. Sorry to detain you, all of +you," with which apology to the body of assembled experts Mr. Vandeford +bowed, went into his sanctum, and firmly closed the door, just as Mr. +Adolph Meyers bowed the author into her sanctum and as firmly closed her +door. Mr. Gerald Height, who had been sitting looking indifferently out +of Mr. Meyers' window, looked after the disappearing author as if a +perfumed breeze had suddenly blown across his brow, and whistled softly. + +"Say, Pops, who, by thunder is--," he was questioning Mr. Meyers with +extreme interest, when Mr. Vandeford's buzzer sounded and Mr. Meyers was +forced to answer it before he could attend to Mr. Height's question. + +Mr. Meyers found Mr. Vandeford pale, but determined. + +"Pops," he said, and Mr. Meyers could have sworn that the voice of his +beloved chief trembled, "I'm in the devil of a fix, and you have got to +throw me a line to pull out; in fact, you'll have to cast in a drag-net +if you want to land me." + +"If it was a submarine I would make a rescue of you, Mr. Vandeford, +sir," the faithful henchman assured the panic-stricken producer. + +"She's worse than any submarine ever floated, and I'm rammed--in a +corner, Pops. To make a story that is going to be long in acting, short +in telling, I've had to put Miss Adair on to what is usually handed out +to the authors of plays, and then to stop her wails, offered to let her +sit in and watch her play baby hacked up. Her office-hours here and at +rehearsals will be from ten mornings to midnight, and what are you going +to do about it?" Mr. Vandeford questioned Mr. Meyers with a kind of +forlorn hope in his eyes, for Mr. Meyers had often seen him through the +crooks of his trade. + +"I advise to make it straight to her, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and she will +come out all right or otherwise go home. That young lady has the look of +a horse on which I won seven hundred at the last Gravesend. Besides, we +have not time for play-acting about that 'Purple Slipper.' It is a cold +bird and we must be in a hurry about putting pep into it for a success." + +"Right-o, Pops! I'll ask her in here, and when I buzz send in Corbett. +The poor kiddie!" With which lamentation over the fate he was about to +mete out to Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford dismissed Mr. Meyers and opened +the door which led from his sanctum into that which had been so recently +assigned to the author of "The Purple Slipper." + +That eminent playwright was discovered in the height of fascination, +looking down upon the uproar of Broadway. + +"I saw a taxicab run over a man and not kill him," she exclaimed with +both horror and joy. "I started to call you, but it was all over in a +second." + +"That's all right. I've seen that hundreds of times, even when they were +killed." He reassured her about neglecting to share the excitement with +him. "Are you ready to take up the matter of costumes with Corbett?" + +"Shall I have to tell him--about my making over--" + +"No; just listen to me handle him, and I'll tell you when to break in. +I'll give you a lead. Please come into my office." And with coolness of +manner, but trepidation of heart, he led her into his office and seated +her in a chair beside his at the far side of the desk,--the very chair +in which had sat Mr. Dennis Farraday on the day previous, when he had +received his initiation into the world of theatricals. Then he buzzed +his signal to Mr. Meyers. + +Immediately Mr. Corbett entered. + +"Morning, Corbett.--Miss Adair, the author of the play I want to talk +to you about.--Want to take on a costume play of early Kentucky?" Mr. +Vandeford made no pause in which to allow Mr. Corbett to acknowledge his +introduction to the author, and Mr. Corbett seemed to bear no resentment +for the omission. His astonishment at meeting an author when the +costuming of a play was being discussed was profound. + +"What date?" he inquired, looking carefully away from Miss Adair. + +"What date, Miss Adair?" asked Mr. Vandeford in exactly the same crisp +tone in which he was conducting the negotiations with Mr. Corbett. + +"1806, I think. It was just before they began to wear--" Miss Adair was +beginning to say with a delighted smile that entirely failed to make an +impression on Mr. Corbett. + +"Good date for costuming," the artist interrupted the author to say, +with the easy assurance of a person fully informed. "Styles were +distinctive. I dressed 'Lovers' Ends' for E. and K. in 1789, and the +costumes kept the piffling play alive for two months. How many dolls and +how many boots?" + +"How many men and how many ladies in the play, Miss Adair?" Mr. +Vandeford questioned her with delight at getting a question to fling to +her and also translating for her Mr. Corbett's query. + +"Twenty in all," answered Miss Adair. "There are eleven ladies with +the--" + +"Split even," Mr. Corbett took the words out of her mouth. "Want sole +leather or tissue paper, Mr. Vandeford?" Miss Adair caught by psychic +sympathy the fact that he was asking if the play was to be costumed as +one intended to survive. Consequently her very soul hung on the answer +Mr. Vandeford must make to Mr. Corbett's question. + +"To play about thirty, I should say," answered Mr. Vandeford after a two +minutes' calculating. + +"Only a month?" gasped Miss Adair, then colored home-made pink in the +height of embarrassment. + +"Weeks." Mr. Vandeford answered her gasp without looking at her, but +taking the vow gallantly, considering that he felt Mazie Villines to be +his sole dependence for a winning manuscript version of "The Purple +Slipper." + +During this question and answer Mr. Corbett was also calculating. + +"About seven thousand if Adelaide makes the Hawtry layout," he finally +announced. + +"Five hundred advance for the sketches, and a week's option," Mr. +Vandeford offered calmly. + +"A thousand advance for models of costumes made up," answered Mr. +Corbett, just as calmly and firmly. "Have to hunt in museum for +materials to go by. Takes experts on fabrics." + +"I can give you pieces of silk and things that are cut from the costumes +of that period." Miss Adair had learned, and she cut her remark into +the conference with precision and decision. + +"Genuine?" questioned Mr. Corbett. + +"Worn by the characters about whom the play is written." + +"Then seven hundred and fifty for made-up models, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. +Corbett offered. + +"The pieces will be large enough to make the models," Miss Adair said +with a curt firmness that was a combination of that used by both Mr. +Vandeford and Mr. Corbett and which both startled and delighted the +former. + +"Six hundred for models, Corbett," he said with finality and with an +inward chuckle. + +"Six-fifty, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. Corbett answered with equal finality, +and for the first time he stole a glance at the author. + +"Goes! When?" + +"Two weeks?" + +"Goes! Good-morning, Mr. Corbett!" + +Mr. Corbett's exit was immediate. + +"I'm glad Miss Elvira made me put all the pieces of my dresses in my +trunk to patch with in case I tore anything. They saved us four hundred +dollars, didn't they?" Miss Adair said to Mr. Vandeford with gratified +business acumen shining in the sea-gray eyes. "I wasn't much in the way, +was I?" + +"You were a great help, and that was the first time I ever succeeded in +jewing Corbett," answered Mr. Vandeford with satisfactory enthusiasm. +Something of relief over the guarding of his author showed in his voice, +which second note, however, he sounded too soon as the next ten minutes +proved to him. "Now we'll discuss the sets for the production with +Lindenberg and then it'll be time for luncheon, and we'll go--" + +"Mr. Vandeford, sir, Mr. Height would like to be in next," Mr. Meyers +interrupted his chief, just a second too soon, or rather just in time, +for if Mr. Vandeford had settled Miss Adair's luncheon plans in that +second the fate of "The Purple Slipper" might have been different. + +"Show him in, Pops, and have the rest come back at two-thirty," Mr. +Vandeford commanded. + +Mr. Gerald Height entered. + +For five successive seasons on Broadway, with brief dazzling flights +into the provincial towns of Chicago, Boston, Washington, and +Philadelphia, Mr. Gerald Height had been the reigning beauty, and he +well deserved it. He was both slender and broad, with the grace of a +faun in young manhood, and with the deviltry of a satyr of more advanced +age in his yellow-green eyes, which tilted under high black brows that +were arched penciled bows across his forehead. His lips were full and +red, but chiseled like a youth's on a Greek frieze and they were mobile +and tender and hard by turns. His red-gold hair clung to his head in +burnished waves, and this head was set upon his broad, strong shoulders +as a flower is set on its parent plant, and his smile was a conquering +triumph. He poured it all over Miss Adair as Mr. Vandeford introduced +them, and took the chair opposite the producer and the author, with the +light from the window fully revealing all of his charms. + +"New Hawtry play on, Height, by Miss Adair." Mr. Vandeford began the +conversation with his usual directness, and somehow his voice was +crisper than usual, for he seemed to get a shock from the radiance of +the stage beauty before him that pushed him, with his white-tinged black +hair, well forward into middle age. + +"Dolph was telling me, and I ran through a synopsis he had on the +machine. Powder and furbelows!" As he spoke Mr. Height smiled at Miss +Adair with appreciation of herself and got in return a smile of the same +degree of appreciation of himself, both smiles not at all lost on the +psychologically aging Mr. Vandeford. + +"That clause in your contract that lets you out of all costume plays is +perfectly good, you know," Mr. Vandeford heard himself saying when he +had intended to bluster that same clause aside if the favorite had tried +to stand on it, because he well knew that to see Gerald Height in silk +stockings and lace ruffles a quarter of a million women might be counted +upon to pay two dollars per capita and so assure at least a fifteen per +cent. certainty to the box-office receipts of "The Purple Slipper," +whose fate had mysteriously come in the last few hours to mean so much +to him. "Mr. Meyers has a youngster that we can whip into lead, I think. +Now thank me for letting you out, and run along." + +"Oh," ejaculated Miss Patricia Adair, and the little exclamation of +dismay hit both men at once and made them both sit up straight in their +chairs. Also they both looked for a long minute at Miss Adair, and both +were aware of the other's scrutiny. Mr. Height broke the tension. + +"I might see how buckskins and powdered wig would go," he said, with a +tentative glance across the table, which began with Mr. Vandeford and +ended with Miss Adair. + +"I think you would be perfectly beautiful, and I hope--" Miss Adair +paused, and Mr. Height was as competent as either Miss Hawtry or Miss +Lindsey had been to judge of the home-made color under the gray eyes. +Also he was as much, perhaps more, affected by it, though in the +presence of Mr. Vandeford he was wise enough to dissemble his delight. + +"Want me to try, Mr. Vandeford?" he questioned with greater deference +than he had ever shown a mere manager in the last five years of his +triumphant career. + +"Of course, it would be a fifteen-per cent. drag if you are willing," +answered Mr. Vandeford with managerial delight and manly rage. + +"Can I have until to-morrow to decide?" asked Mr. Height. "You see, I +haven't read the play or heard the layout," he added to the author of +"The Purple Slipper," with deference in his rich voice that had thrilled +its millions. + +"Could you make it this afternoon if Mr. Meyers goes into it with you? +My other man has a big picture offered him at a good figure," Mr. +Vandeford answered, with both fear and joy at the prospect of pressing +the star into retreat. + +"Dolph has told me all he knows about it, which is nothing. He hasn't +taken out any parts and seems to have lost the manuscript forever. I +hope you kept a copy, Miss Adair." And again the two young things smiled +at each other to Mr. Vandeford's devastation. + +"Why couldn't I tell Mr. Height about the play while you see the +electrician and the other people, Mr. Vandeford?" Miss Adair questioned, +her candid gray eyes shining with such a sincere desire to be useful in +the crisis that Mr. Vandeford could not suspect her of any adventurous +motive. "We could go over in--into my office and you can call me any +minute if you need me." + +"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Height. "Then I could let you know right away if +I thought I could do the part justice, Mr. Vandeford." + +"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, as he motioned them into the inner +office, which had been conferred upon the author of "The Purple +Slipper," and rang his buzzer for Mr. Meyers. + +"Find Mr. Farraday and ask him to come around here immediately if he is +anywhere near, or to come at four if he can't get here in ten minutes," +he commanded. "Heard from Mazie?" + +"Mr. Howard is in a good working soak, is her report, Mr. Vandeford, +sir, and I have the wire that Mr. Farraday is on his way here," was the +double answer Mr. Meyers returned to Mr. Vandeford. + +"Good! Give me my letters to sign," Mr. Vandeford answered. + +Mr. Meyers brought in a sheaf of letters, and Mr. Vandeford was in the +act of setting pen to paper when the door of the inner office opened +after a gentle knock and Miss Adair entered, followed by Mr. Height. + +Mr. Vandeford looked up quickly and found Miss Adair close beside his +chair, looking down upon him with her beautiful reverence and confidence +in him entirely unimpaired. + +"Mr. Height wants me to go and have luncheon with him and tell him about +the play. He's hungry, and so am I. Can you spare me if I'm working +while I'm eating? May I go?" + +Mr. Vandeford rose to his feet quickly, and a great Broadway star was in +closer danger of descending head-first from a six-story window upon that +thoroughfare than he ever knew. Then "The Purple Slipper" rose and +demanded its chance of success with Gerald Height as "drag" and the +tragedy was averted. + +"Run along, children, and don't spill your milk on your bibs," he +answered them, with a dissembling smile that would have done credit to +Mr. Height himself when upon the boards with Miss Hawtry. They departed +in great spirits, and Mr. Vandeford noticed that Mr. Height had not +been at all concerned as to how his manager's inner man would be served. + +Thereupon Mr. Vandeford propped his feet upon the desk, got out one of +the most evil of the cigars he kept in a drawer of his desk for just +such crises, and went into communion with himself for ten minutes. Upon +that communion broke Mr. Dennis Farraday, who got the full force of it. + +"I came to pick up you and Miss Adair to go out in the park to luncheon. +It's cooler there. Where is she?" were the words with which Mr. +Vandeford's partner in the production of "The Purple Slipper" greeted +him. + +"She has gone out to luncheon with a damned tango lizard," was the +disturbed and disturbing answer his courtesy received. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Farraday, bristling. + +"She met Gerald Height a half-hour ago, here in this office, and then +went out to luncheon with him," was Mr. Vandeford's answer to Mr. +Farraday's bristling. + +"Without consulting you?" + +"No! I consented all right enough." + +"Why didn't you tell her if you didn't want her to go with him?" + +"See here, Denny, I want to ask you if anything in my past life makes +you think that I am a proper old hen to have a downy little chicken +thrust right under my wing for safe keeping, whether I hatched her or +not?" Mr. Vandeford demanded, and his rage was so perfectly impersonal +and perplexed that Mr. Farraday sat down to go into the matter to his +rescue. + +"What do you mean, Van?" he asked in a calm voice and manner that were +most grateful to Mr. Vandeford. + +"Just this: Here's a girl come up here, from a place where a girl is +guarded like a pearl of great price, into the muck and excitement of the +getting together of a Broadway production in which she is directly +interested. I don't know what to do. If I spend my time hovering over +her, her show will go cold and break her. She's poor. I told her as much +of what she is in for as I dared and still she wants to stay and see it +all through, demands to stay and be let in for the whole thing. What'll +we do?" + +"Suppose she'd go with me up to visit the mater and be motored down to +participate in--in expurgated moments?" asked Mr. Farraday, as he +ruffled his hair into a huge plume on the top of his head. + +"She would not. She's got a taste of it and she'll thirst for more. And, +for all that unsophistication, she is a clever kid. She'll get Height +into a costume play before luncheon is over and that'll go a long way to +cinch a hit for 'The Purple Slipper.' He's made a fad of not playing +costume, and all the women in New York will flock to see him in velvet +and lace. She bargained that fish Corbett out of four hundred dollars in +the preliminary costume deal, and if anybody has to send her home it +will have to be you. I can't do it." + +"Well, just gently warn her about Height and things of that kind, can't +you?" + +"I cannot! Would you tell a woman who is walking a tight rope that the +ground sixty feet below her is covered with broken champagne bottles?" + +"Then she's got to go home," decided Mr. Dennis Farraday, positively. + +"How'll you make her?" + +"You've got to do it. She's got awe of you planted six feet deep in her +soul. Anybody could see that. You've got to send her." + +"Can't be done," growled Mr. Vandeford in desperation. "Wish I were +married to six respectable women and then I could make 'em all chaperon +her in turns, while I feed her fool play to the public." + +"You'd only have to strike out the syllable 'un' before 'married' by a +little trip to the City Hall to have one mighty fine wife," Mr. Farraday +said with a straight look into Mr. Vandeford's eyes, which was so deeply +affectionate that it gave him the privilege of opening the door to any +holy of holies. + +"Violet and I are all off, Denny, and it ought never to have been on," +was the straight-out answer he got to his venture, an answer that Miss +Hawtry would have felt smoothed greatly the path of her present +adventures in life. + +"Poor girl! I knew she was hurt somehow, but I thought--forgive me, old +man." With a tenderness in his voice that both alarmed and puzzled Mr. +Vandeford his big Jonathan closed the subject and snapped a lock on it. +"Come over to the Astor with me for a cold bite." + +"Goes!" + +The cool, green-leafed Orangery at the Hotel Astor is the oasis in the +desert days of rehearsal for all early fall plays, and beside its +tinkling fountain and under its tinkling music can be found at luncheon +all of the theatrical profession who are not around the corners at the +equally cool, white-tiled Childs restaurants. Beside and around the +green wicker tables careers of managers, artists, actors, playwrights, +electricians, and scenic artists are made and unmade in the twinkling of +some bright or heavy-lidded eye. Each and every feaster watches each and +every other feaster with the quick, wary eye of a jungle being consuming +its food before it is snatched from him or her; and gossip reigns over +all. + +"Gee, look at the swell dame Gerald Height has got cornered over there!" +exclaimed Mazie Villines, as she looked up from a frappéd melon, which a +"heavy" moving picture man was "buying" for her consumption. "The way +them society queens do fall fer him!" + +"Put your blinkers on, Mazie, put 'em on, and don't take a shy at Height +over my knife and fork! Let him eat what he pays for and me the same," +growled the huge man. "I let you put up that drunk Howard for a week, +and that's rope enough." + +"I'd like to feed him the green in his 'runny' eggs; it makes me sick to +open for him," was the adored Mazie's way of speaking of her eminent +playwright. + +"Well, get his wad first," was the heavy's advice. + +Just at this moment Mazie had the delight of seeing Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford enter with his "soup and fish" friend Mr. Dennis Farraday. As +they both had to pass directly by the table at which sat Miss Adair and +Mr. Height, of course they both paused for greetings, which included the +introduction of Mr. Height to Mr. Farraday. + +"I could hardly eat in this beautiful cool place when I thought that +maybe you would work on in the hot office with nothing with ice packed +around it for your luncheon," said Miss Adair, as she raised her eyes to +Mr. Vandeford's with the adoration still intact after at least +three-quarters of an hour assault upon it by Mr. Gerald Height's +disturbing personality. "I wanted to go back for you, but Mr. Height +said that Mr. Meyers fed you cold pie when you were busy, and that you +roared dreadfully if anybody interrupted you when you were eating it!" + +"He does," Mr. Farraday interjected, smiling down at her in a way that +it was unwise to do in the Orangery at noon; and it lighted a fuse he +little suspected. Miss Violet Hawtry caught the smile in mid-air and +then promptly turned her back and became all charming attention to the +gentleman with whom she was having luncheon, who was no other than the +celebrated Weiner, who had built three theatres in two years and was +building more. He was of the bull-necked type of Hebrew and not of the +sensitive, exquisite type of the sons of the House of David to which +belong the E. & K.'s, and the S. & S., as well as the great B. D. + +"When will the new theatre be completed, Mr. Weiner?" Miss Hawtry asked, +as she turned over an iced shrimp and tore at a lettuce leaf with her +fork. + +"October first," answered Mr. Weiner, past a mouthful of Russian +herring. + +"What will the opening show be?" asked Miss Hawtry, with indifference, +though there was a glint under her thick lashes lowered over her +snapping Irish eyes. + +"'The Rosie Posie Girl,'" answered Weiner, and he swallowed his herring +and gave her a shrewd glance at the same time. + +"Vandeford will never sell it to you," Miss Hawtry announced calmly, as +she ate the shrimp and the torn lettuce leaf. + +"Maybe!" answered Weiner with equal calmness. "What are his plans for +his new show that he is tearing up Forty-second Street about?" + +"Road from September fifteenth until New York October first." + +"What theater in New York?" + +"I don't know." As she made this answer Miss Hawtry looked up and caught +a snap in Weiner's small black eyes, perched on each side of the hump of +his red nose. + +"Has the show got goods?" he asked. + +"I'm going to put some into it," answered Miss Hawtry calmly. + +"Why?" + +"I like Mr. Dennis Farraday, who's Vandeford's angel. I don't want to +see Van take the money out of his pocket and get away with it." Miss +Hawtry was dealing in half-truths to a lie expert. + +"Hooked Farraday yet?" + +"Not quite." + +"No use bargaining with a woman when she's fishing for a man, but if he +slips the hook come to me and I'll show you a new bait. When do you +open?" + +"Twenty-third of September, at Atlantic City." + +"I'll be there." + +"I hope you will, and--" but the rest of Miss Hawtry's remark was cut +off by Mr. Dennis Farraday's genial greeting, backed by Mr. Vandeford's +more restrained pleasure at happening upon her and her co-plotter, to +whom she introduced Mr. Farraday. + +The exchange of amenities was as brief as it was cordial, but as Mr. +David Vandeford and Mr. Jonathan Farraday passed on to a table which +the discreet head waiter had reserved in case of the unexpected and +tardy arrival of just such personages as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and his +friend, Mr. Farraday, Miss Hawtry had answered a low-voiced question +from Mr. Farraday with a sadly tender smile and the words: + +"At eight?" + +"The Claridge got me a box for the Big Show and a table at the Grove +Garden for to-night, Van," remarked Mr. Farraday, as he unfolded his +napkin. "It is the coolest place in town, and we might as well let the +kid get just one good peep before she goes back into the shell ... if +she goes. I'll take Miss Hawtry on and leave the box number for you and +Miss Adair." + +"Right-o," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a growl. For the life of him he +could not understand just why Mr. Gerald Height should have the +privilege of feeding his author alone, while he seemed to be always +forced to enjoy her company in the presence of others. He looked across +the room, met the gray eyes laughing at him over a glass that was +plainly iced tea, and was forced to exchange smiles with his downy +little chicken, who was delightedly peeping out of her shell. + +"I think Mr. Vandeford is the most wonderful man I ever met," confided +Miss Adair to Mr. Height, with no suspicion of the incitation such a +remark would be to the ardor of the beloved of many women. + +"He's a great producer; had three big hits hand-running and fell down on +'Miss Cut-up' because he wouldn't stand up to Hawtry, and let her cop +the whole show," answered Mr. Height with great generosity, for in +reality Mr. Height had the very poor opinion of Mr. Vandeford that it is +the custom of all actors to hold in regard to their respective managers. +However, he was sugar-coating the pill he was determined to administer +to Miss Adair without delay. "He ought to marry Hawtry and get a bit in +her mouth and the spurs on." + +"Is--is he in love with Miss Hawtry?" asked the author of "The Purple +Slipper" with great interest, and the home-made color rose several +degrees, that were not warranted by the calm gossip of the situation. + +"That's the noise he makes, but who can tell?" answered Mr. Height, +reveling in the Adairville roses and no more aware of their origin than +was their owner. "He meets bills, but nobody gets in behind his +window-boxes." And Mr. Height raised his glass of Tom Collins, perfectly +contented with the thought that he had enlightened Miss Adair about the +private life of Mr. Vandeford. As a matter of fact he had failed utterly +to do so, as she had not understood a word of his Broadway patois. +"There's the great B. D. and beloved son-in-law," and Mr. Height nodded +and smiled at a white-haired man and his companion who were seating +themselves at the table next to them. + +"B. D.?" questioned Miss Adair. + +"Benjamin David," answered Mr. Height. "He and his son-in-law are +putting on a great new show. Offered me a lead and--but I think I'll +stick by 'The Purple Slipper.'" His eyes were so ardent as slightly to +disturb Miss Adair and very greatly disturb Mr. Vandeford, who caught +the warmth across several tables, and ground his teeth. + +However, Miss Patricia Adair was fully capable of handling such a +situation, for ardor is ardor, whether encountered on Broadway in New +York or Adairville in Kentucky, and Miss Adair had met it many +times--and parried it. + +"I've really got to leave this perfectly lovely place and hurry down to +the Y. W. C. A., to get some costume samples for Mr. Corbett," she said +calmly, as she began to draw on her gloves and pull down the veil that +reefed in the narrow brim of the jaunty hat Miss Lindsey and she had by +a great stroke of luck discovered on a side street the day before. + +"Y. W. C. A.?" questioned Mr. Height, in stupefaction. + +"Everybody looks that way when I say it!" laughed Miss Adair, with a +dimple flaunting above the left corner of her mouth. "Will you take me +there or put me on something or in something that will let me off very +near?" + +"I'll take you," answered Mr. Height tenderly and heroically, as he held +the blue-silk coat for her to slip into. + +As the two of them stood together the great Dean of American Producers +looked upon them with interest, and rose and offered his hand to Mr. +Height. + +"Well, how about it?" he asked, with a smile under his beetling white +brows. + +"Mr. David, please meet Miss Adair, the author of Mr. Vandeford's new +Hawtry play," Mr. Height said by way of beginning an answer to the +question put to him. "At last I'm going into wig and ruffles; the play +is of colonial Kentucky." + +"I am delighted to meet you, Miss Adair," said the Broadway Maximus, +"and you are fortunate to have Mr. Height for your play. I covet him, +but I'll wait until next time." + +"Oh, thank you for not taking him away!" said Miss Adair, with a +displaying of the roses which the great B. D. noted with pleasure. "Will +you come and see our play and tell us what you think about it?" Miss +Adair made her request, which was against the traditions of conventions +on Broadway, with the unabashed air with which she had invited the +reigning Governor of Kentucky to have dinner with her and Major Adair at +the state fair the year before. + +"Ask Mr. Vandeford to invite me to a dress rehearsal," answered the +great one, and Gerald Height beamed with pride, while Miss Adair +displayed only gratitude and delight as they took their departure. + +In their exit they passed Mr. Vandeford's table and stopped to speak to +him and Mr. Farraday. + +"That's Benjamin David Mr. Height introduced to me, and he's coming to +help us at the dress rehearsals of 'The Purple Slipper.' It's +wonderful!" Miss Adair exclaimed, as Mr. Vandeford rose and stood +beside her. "Mr. Height is going down to the Y. W. C. A. with me, and +we'll be right back to the office with those pieces of silk for the +costumes. Mr. David wants him for lead, but he's going to be in 'The +Purple Slipper' and go to Mr. David next. Isn't that fine?" and without +waiting for an answer to her question the busy playwright departed on +important business connected with the costuming of her play. + +"Somehow, Van, I don't see why we should worry," Mr. Farraday said, as +he looked at the retreating figures of the pair whose beauty was +attracting no little attention in the feasting Orangery. "She's getting +along all right, eh?" + +"Remember you've been in the business about forty-eight hours, Denny, +and never forget that every knife here is sheathed in a smile and +everybody carries a rubber stamp with double X on it," answered Mr. +Vandeford, with gloom, as he pushed back his coffee-cup. "She's tasted +blood now and that ends it. She's with us, and the Lord help her! I +can't!" + +"Well, come on and let's get to the office," answered Mr. Farraday, with +a cheerful lack of sympathy with his friend's anxiety for the talented +budding playwright. + +"Everything all O. K., Mazie?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he passed the +table where the Miss Villines and the heavy movie man were finishing +their bottles of cold beer. + +"Soused and scribbling," answered Mazie, cheerfully. + +"Remember, Friday." + +"Remember your check-book." + +"Goes!" + +Shortly after Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday reached the office of Mr. +Vandeford, Miss Adair, accompanied by Mr. Height, appeared with a neat +little parcel in their possession. Also Miss Adair had another, very +conventional, corsage bouquet in the place of the one Mr. Vandeford had +given her in the morning and which at luncheon had begun to look the +worse for wear. + +"Now what shall I do?" she asked Mr. Vandeford, with great energy. + +"Go right down and get in my car and go back to the Y. W. C. A., to take +a long nap. I'll call for you for that Broadway eye-opener at eight +o'clock to-night, so get 'em well rested," he answered, and he smiled +when he noted that the expression in her eyes that he had begun to look +for with desperate eagerness still held. Mr. Meyers had engaged Mr. +Height with a contract, and Mr. Farraday had been an interested +spectator to the tussle. Producer and author were alone. + +"Mr. Height asked me to go to see Maude Adams, but I told him I couldn't +go anywhere at night until you could take me," said Miss Adair with +sparks of joy in the sea-gray eyes. "I'm so glad it is to-night." + +"Did you really tell Height that?" demanded Mr. Vandeford, with youth +swelling through his arteries. + +"Yes." + +"Go, child, go and get a nap," Mr. Vandeford laughed, as he opened the +door for her and started out to descend and deliver her into the keeping +of faithful Valentine. + +"I'll put her into the car, Van," offered Mr. Farraday. "They need you +here in this fight." + +And again his author was snatched out of Mr. Vandeford's clutches. + +Several hours later a very interesting scene was enacted in two tiny +adjoining rooms under the roof of the Y. W. C. A., with Miss Adair and +Miss Lindsey as the principals. + +"If you take away all that net there won't be any waist left to the +dress. Don't!" pleaded Miss Adair, as Miss Lindsey stood over her with +determined scissors. + +"I'm making it absolutely perfect, and you can't tell by looking down on +it. You'll have to trust me," answered Miss Lindsey, with pins in her +mouth, as she snipped away a funny little tucker of common new net with +which Miss Elvira Henderson of Adairville, Kentucky, had for the sake +of her spinster convictions ruined a triumph she had accomplished +directly out of "Feminine Fashions" and the ancestral trunk. + +"Will it be--be modest?" demanded Miss Adair. + +"A lot more modest than having that ugly mosquito netting telling +everybody that you are not willing to have them see your marvelous neck +and arms except through its meshes. Nobody will think you know you've +got 'em, if you show them like everybody else; but they'll think you +think you are a peep-show if you cover them half up." And as she spoke +Miss Lindsey gave another daring rip and snip. Her philosophy struck +home. + +"That's every word true," agreed Miss Adair, with relief. "I'll just +forget about my skin there, as I do about that on my face and hands and +nobody will notice me at all." + +"That's it. Skin is no treat to New York, and nobody will look at you +twice." Miss Lindsey had a struggle to keep her voice and manner +unconcerned enough, as she surveyed her finished product and saw that +from under her hands would go forth a sensation. In the old ivory satin +with its woven rosebuds and cream rose-point, above which rose pearly +shoulders and a neck bearing a small, proud head, with close waves of +heavy black hair, Miss Adair was like a dainty, luscious, tropical fruit +that is more beautiful than its own flower. "How an old maid in a +country town made that dress I don't see!" Miss Lindsey added +reflectively. + +"It was you, who unmade it," answered Miss Adair with gratitude. "I wish +you were going, too," she added as she nestled to the taller girl for a +perfumed second. + +"I'm going to luncheon with you and Mr. Farraday to-morrow," answered +Miss Lindsey, with a pleased laugh at Miss Adair's sudden clinging that +indicated her sincerity in not wishing to leave her alone. + +"Oh, lovely! And Mr. Height will be with us too, for I promised to have +luncheon with him again," she exclaimed, as Miss Lindsey began to insert +her into an evening wrap made of a priceless old Paisley shawl which +"Fashions" had also tempted Miss Elvira to desecrate with her scissors. + +"Gerald Height?" asked Miss Lindsey, and her eyes first snapped and then +smouldered. "Where did he get in on--where did you meet him? Does Mr. +Vandeford know about it and--" + +"I met him in Mr. Vandeford's office. He's in 'The Purple Slipper,' and +I went to luncheon with him to-day. I meant to tell you about it, and +meeting Mr. David, but Mr. Vandeford told me to get a nap and I thought +I--" + +Here the speaking-trumpet in the hall informed Miss Lindsey that Mr. +Vandeford was waiting for Miss Adair below, and she had to let her +treasure depart from her. + +"I wonder just how straight Godfrey Vandeford is," she mused, as she +picked up the discarded tucker of coarse netting. "The poor kid! I wish +she was at home hidden behind Miss Elvira's skirts. Hawtry and a girl +like that! Damn men!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +It may be that in the long life of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford he had passed a +more perturbed evening than that on which he led his protégé, the author +of "The Purple Slipper," to her début under the white lights of +Broadway, but he could not recall the occasion. His grilling had begun +while he waited for his charge to descend in the lobby of the Y. W. C. +A. and it ended-- + +"We are delighted to have Miss Adair stay with us while her play is +being rehearsed," a very pleasant young woman, with a trim figure, kind +and wise eyes, and gray-sprinkled hair, remarked to him after she had +whistled the fact of his arrival above. "When such men as you, Mr. +Vandeford, begin to put on clean historical plays, many of our anxieties +will be over. I look on each musical show that appears on Broadway as a +personal enemy." + +"I am glad indeed, Madam, that we are going to claim you as a friend of +'The Purple Slipper,'" Mr. Vandeford answered, with his most pleasant +smile. Somehow the sight and sound of that executive young woman in +charge of his young author gave him a calmness that he needed, and his +confidence shone in his face. + +"We are deeply interested in Miss Adair, for we have had influential +letters sent us about her, and of course we are looking forward with +eagerness to seeing her play. She is such a dear child!" + +The influential letters and the increased warmth in the young woman's +tone in speaking about his author drew Mr. Vandeford still nearer to +her, both in body and in spirit. He leaned slightly against the desk and +smiled again. + +"May I send you seats for some night the first week of 'The Purple +Slipper'?" he asked, with the greatest deference. And it must be +recorded that in making the offer Mr. Vandeford was not bidding for the +distinction conferred on him in the next few seconds. + +"That will be delightful," exclaimed the young woman. "And, Mr. +Vandeford, here is a latch-key to the front door, to use to-night if you +and Miss Adair are a little later than midnight in coming home. Remember +to give it to her after you have put her inside the door and tell her to +hang it on the rack opposite the number of her room. There she comes +now!" + +Mr. Vandeford accepted the latch-key of the Y. W. C. A. with awe and +looked at it as he would have looked at a decoration handed him by the +Metropolitan governors. Then he glanced up and beheld Miss Adair +displaying herself to his new-found friend. + +"You are very pretty, my dear," she was saying with an affectionate +smile. "Just let me put a pin here in this fold of lace," and expertly +she reefed up the last fold of rose-point that Miss Lindsey had snipped +down in a hurried finish of her remodeling. Strange to say Mr. +Vandeford felt still more further drawn to his young Christian +Association friend. + +"Now run along, both of you, and have a pleasant evening," she said to +them as she turned to answer the telephone. + +"That girl is an extremely delightful person," Mr. Vandeford remarked, +while he and Valentine were tucking Miss Adair under the linen robe in +the car. + +"I'm so glad you are getting used to the Y. W. C. A.," Miss Adair +answered, giving him a delighted smile as he seated himself beside her +while Valentine started the car up the avenue. "Mr. Height said it was +like being forced to go to church in a strange town and getting into +somebody's cozy corner by mistake." + +"I wish I were married to that girl, to-night," Mr. Vandeford exclaimed +out of the sudden rush of anxiety that had overtaken him by this +fledgling author's mention of his leading man. + +"Then who would be taking me out, out on Broadway?" asked Miss Adair +with a little laugh that had a more distinctly friendly note in it than +it had before held for him. + +"Both of us," replied Mr. Vandeford, with an answering laugh that +sounded much too young in his own ears. "You'll need two." + +"Am I going to have as many dreadful things happen to me to-night as I +was going to have when I met Mr. Corbett and Mr. Benjamin David and Mr. +Height and the other theatrical people? Am I being warned again?" Mr. +Vandeford accepted the teasing and laughed at himself. + +"My wings are up. Go out and scratch for yourself." + +"Not very far, though," Miss Adair answered. Mr. Vandeford was not sure +that she moved a fraction of an inch nearer to him, but he hoped so. "I +feel just the same about you as I do about Roger and I like to be going +with you--into--into danger." + +"Who's Roger?" questioned Mr. Vandeford. + +"He's my brother, who treats me as you do. It's fun for a woman to be +frightened dreadfully when she is with a man she likes." Again there was +that uncertainty as to whether Miss Adair fluttered a fraction of an +inch in his direction, and for the life of him Mr. Vandeford could not +say whence had flown all the many ways he would have commanded +ordinarily for the finding out if such were the case. + +"A frightened woman is often rather--rather deadly to a man," he +answered before he could stop himself. The habit of speaking out +directly to Miss Adair was growing on him, he perceived, and it alarmed +him. + +"Into what danger are you taking me now?" asked Miss Adair with a fluty, +merry laugh. + +"We are going with Mr. Farraday and Miss Hawtry to see the Big Show and +to the Grove Garden on the roof afterward for supper. Just a slow, usual +sort of an evening, but Denny thought it would be fun for you to see +the Big Show and the Big Feed and the Big Dance by way of initiation," +Mr. Vandeford answered, with an entire lack of enthusiasm. + +"I wanted to see what you wanted me to see this first night," Miss Adair +said with the affectionate frankness of six years going on seven. "What +would that be?" + +"We'll see it to-morrow night," Mr. Vandeford answered her, and this +time the tenderness in his voice surprised him and he considered it +entirely unjustifiable. + +"Mr. Height was going to take me to see Maude Adams, but I know he'll +put it off again when I tell him that you want me to--" + +"No, don't! Let Height get Maude Adams out of his system, for Heaven's +sake," snapped Mr. Vandeford, this time in unjustifiable temper. + +"Why, what is--" Miss Adair was asking of Mr. Vandeford in positive +alarm when Valentine stopped before the blazing doorway of the Big Show. +A functionary seven feet tall opened the door of the car and all but +literally extracted them by force, for he was anxious to repeat the +operation on the occupants of the car chugging behind them. + +Now, there are many, many fair women born within the state lines of Old +Kentucky who live calm and peaceful lives and die and are buried with no +greater contrast of experience than comes from birth and death, love and +hate, riches and poverty, and they never know the difference; but +occasionally one bursts out of her bonds and flames her beauty over +strange worlds, in foreign embassies, in the courts of St. James or +Petrograd, or in an opera or theater box in New York. When this eruption +occurs many sparks fly. And many sparks from bright eyes were showered +on the author of "The Purple Slipper," who sat calmly unaware in the +left stage-box of the Big Show that August night beside the notorious +Hawtry, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and Mr. Dennis Farraday. And of the +sparks no one was more conscious than both Miss Hawtry and Mr. +Vandeford, while big Dennis was in a blissfully ignorant state of mind +like to that of Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Though he +had been for about forty-eight hours a producer on the rear side of the +footlights, Mr. Farraday still had the attitude of mind possessed by one +of an audience, and he watched the stage rather than the "front." He +thus failed to get the impression created by his guest from Kentucky, +and blissfully left Mr. Vandeford to deal with her sensations derived +from the show. Mr. Vandeford had his hands full. + +To Miss Adair the Big Show was a series of mental and moral and artistic +explosions. She sat with delight through the Japanese acrobats and Swiss +quartette of yodelers, and she welcomed pretty, pert little Mazie +Villines with enthusiasm that gradually faded into horror as that artist +flaunted more and more lingerie and "dished the dirt" which the +inebriate playwright, at that moment engaged in "putting pep" into Miss +Adair's own beloved "Purple Slipper," _née_ "The Renunciation of +Rosalind," had supplied. The "dirt" was received by the audience at +large with a hilarious joy that entirely justified the managers of the +Big Show for keeping Mazie busy "dishing." + +However, all things come to an end, and with a last provocative, +revealing kick Mazie was allowed to depart and give way to a pair of +young dancers who promised to display wares more wholesome. + +Without knowing why he did it, Mr. Vandeford leaned forward so that his +left ear was within reach of the whisper of Miss Adair's lips as she +turned her head and tilted it like a droopy flower toward his. + +"I've only seen Sarah Bernhardt and John Drew and Maude Adams and +Mansfield and Joe Jefferson and Arliss and the Coburns, up in +Louisville," she faltered with her eyes questioning his and wide open +with horror. + +"These next ones aren't so bad, and we'll go before any more come on +that--that you won't like," he whispered in return. He had glanced +through the program and seen that the climax would be an exhibition of +jungle courtship by one of America's most notorious women and her +partner, done to extreme negroid melody. + +"Thank you," she murmured as she turned to watch the willowy youth and +maid go through some very beautiful movements of the dance that was +entirely unobjectionable. In two minutes she had turned her face, +beaming with pleasure, so that Mr. Vandeford could see that all was well +with her; and ten minutes later she giggled out loud at the repartee of +two black-faced artists. + +During the respite that his knowledge of the numbers on the program gave +him, Mr. Vandeford did more of his peculiar brand of thinking, and +reached a diplomatic conclusion. By the intermission, which came just +before the jungle "big number" to give late comers time to gather in for +their salacious feast, he was ready to act. + +"Miss Adair and I are going to get a breath of air," he announced. + +"But the big number is next, and she might miss it," objected Miss +Hawtry, with solicitude for Miss Adair's pleasure. Mr. Vandeford had +thought past just that objection delivered by Miss Hawtry, and he knew +that in no way must he seem to be shielding the author of "The Purple +Slipper" from the salaciousness that gave Miss Hawtry great joy. If he +went too far in any act of comparative analysis he would bring danger +upon "The Purple Slipper," with whose fate Miss Adair's was one. + +"We'll be back in plenty of time," he lied. + +"Be sure!" Miss Hawtry commanded, and then turned to devote herself to +Mr. Farraday, who was laying himself out to salve what he thought must +be her pain at the loss of his beloved friend. The Violet had soon +caught his attitude toward her, and was encouraging his chivalry in +every way possible by the most pensive of poses as the generous +deserted. Such a situation is all to a woman's advantage if she knows +how to work it, and Miss Hawtry possessed that knowledge. + +"Van ought to have a medical degree for operating young girls' eyes +open, and making them see rose-colored for a while," she said with a +good-humored smile and a soft little sigh, as she raised her Irish eyes +in all their softness to Mr. Farraday's. + +To this insinuation, founded on an implied lie as far as the Hawtry was +concerned, Mr. Farraday made no reply, but turned to greet with fitting +applause the great dancer, on whose account one of the American artistic +bright lights had been extinguished forever, and in ten seconds was +inwardly thanking Vandeford for extracting Miss Adair before she had +felt the blighting smirch of the big number. While Mr. Farraday watched +the exhibition before him, Mr. Vandeford was amusing the child of their +joint solicitude by letting her look at the white lights. While waiting +at the curb before the Big Show for the large dignitary in uniform to +summon Valentine, he had directed that worthy to have a message sent in +to Miss Hawtry that they would join her at supper. Then upon the arrival +of his car, he had carefully inserted Miss Adair before he had said to +the puzzled Valentine: + +"Drive slowly down around the circle and down Broadway, so that you can +come back just while the theater crowd is on." + +Some instinct had led Mr. Vandeford to choose exactly the panacea to +soothe Miss Adair's shock--the lights of Broadway. + +"It's like fairy-land," she gasped, as they rolled down past +Forty-seventh Street. "Oh, look at the kitten chasing the spool, all in +electric lights!" + +"Wait a minute, and I'll show you an eagle flop his wings," promised Mr. +Vandeford, and he was surprised that he seemed for the first time to +feel the actual glory of the electric signs on his great Broadway, which +is as much of an all-American institution as the shipyards in Brooklyn. + +"All the world is on fire, and everybody is going to it," Miss Adair +exclaimed, as Valentine made his return just as the theaters were +pouring their crowds out into the seething maelstrom of the great +scintillating cañon. She watched as the big car stood motionless before +a stream of humanity that poured across its front wheels and then +bounded forward as blue-coated arms stemmed the tide on the edges of +both sidewalks for a few brief minutes in which they were allowed to +progress to a street beyond, where they were again halted, wedged in +with other impatient, purring cars. + +In a limousine next her Miss Adair saw a boy in a top hat, with white +gloves upon his hands, smother in an eager and unabashed embrace a +white-shouldered girl, whose arms went around his neck regardless of +"mother" assiduously looking the other way. In a car on the other side a +richly garbed gentleman dozed upon his cushions in triumphant inebriety. +Also, while she and Vandeford waited, she saw a guardian spinster shoo +a bevy of school-girls across in front of the cars, and turn in the +middle of the street to reprove a college boy for a laughing word tossed +to the combined bevy, while the blue arms on both sidewalks waved her +into haste so that they might unleash their restrained monster motors. +Everywhere protective men had women's arms fastened within their own and +were shoving through the throng, while other men and women jostled along +by themselves, or in companies of twos and threes, with laughing good +nature. Fakirs were crying many wares, and in and out squirmed newsboys +calling war extras in words that seemed to imply that New York was being +shelled from the sea, but did not make that exact statement. + +"It's all the world, and I'm a part of it," Miss Adair again said, and +Mr. Vandeford was again surprised at himself that he was not surprised +to find tears glinting in the sea-gray eyes raised to his. + +"_This_ is the Big Show," he said with a little answering thrill in his +own voice, as the enormity of the scene he had witnessed night after +night broke on him for the first time. + +"They all live here and sleep here and eat here and work here +and--and--love here," she said softly, and smiled, for again the +limousine with the embracing lovers had paused by the side of +Valentine's car, and the embrace still held. + +"No, the sleepers and eaters and workers of New York were in bed long +ago. Everybody you see here in this push has his or her vital wires +connected up at Squeedunck, Illinois, or Zanesville, Indiana or--" + +"Or in Adairville, Kentucky," Miss Adair added with a laugh. + +"No, you belong--anywhere. Creative people ought to have no--no home +wires," Mr. Vandeford answered, and there was a queer sadness in his +voice that he did not himself understand. "People with messages must +have masses to hand them to. That's why you came, and, I suppose, must +stay." + +"Yes," answered Miss Adair, "I want to stay--if you'll let me." + +"I can't do otherwise," Mr. Vandeford answered her. Then he turned and +looked her full in her serious eyes. "But if you stay you will have to +accept broad standards, or suffer." + +"That Mazie woman?" + +"Maybe worse." + +She sat silent until, a few moments later, Valentine drew up again at +the curb before the Big Show, which had been out long enough to disperse +most of its crowd, and was now receiving supper guests for the Garden +Grove above. + +"I'm going to stay--with you--and 'The Purple Slipper,'" she announced, +as he reached into the car for her and swung her to the pavement. + +"Goes!" he answered, with mingled emotions, which he could not have +analyzed. + +Miss Adair was as good as her word. She accepted the reveling crowd of +the garden, looked upon the abandon of drinking women and men, with +only a slightly hunted expression in her eyes, and with her slim white +hands applauded Simone when that artist made most audacious slings of +her supple body in its scant clothing. She beamed upon the dancer when, +as Mrs. Trevor, she came, at Mr. Farraday's invitation, to have a glass +of champagne with them, and she quailed only once, when a band of +extremely young girls, clothed in filmy garments, took tiny +search-lights and went merrily hunting among the tables of laughing men +and women after the lights had been put out for the sport. Her horror at +observing Mr. Vandeford, who sat between her and the narrow aisle take +various moneys from his pocket to defend himself from successive +hunters, made her pale, and the moment the lights were flashed on again +she rose to go. + +"Wonder what they'll do next," muttered Mr. Farraday, as he helped her +into her wrap. Mr. Vandeford was not looking at his author or speaking. +Once when he had put his hand in his pocket to get out a coin for one +of the teasing girls with her search-light he had felt the Y. W. C. A. +latch-key there, and it had short-circuited him entirely. + +"I know you are tired. It takes some time to get the New York pace, but +you'll strike it. I think I'll stay to see the next Folly with Mr. +Farraday," he heard the Violet saying to Miss Adair, and still +short-circuited, he went with his calm young author down to the car. The +hour was one-thirty, and a moon had climbed the heights of the Broadway +cañon. Valentine, with some sort of psychic direction, went across +Central Park and down wide, clean, silent, and dimly lighted Fifth +Avenue. Both Mr. Vandeford and Miss Adair were silent, and he was not +aware that she was crying until just before they turned into her side +street. + +"They were so young, those girls, and they--they didn't want to--to do +that," she said with little catches in her beautiful, slurring, +Blue-grass voice. + +"Maybe they didn't; but they wouldn't go back now, not one," he answered +her. + +She was silenced, and stood quiet beside him as he opened the door of +the big, gloomy, protective building, with the key the woman of another +world than his had intrusted to him. + +"I know," she said at last, as she held out her hand to him. And because +it trembled ever so slightly and was cold, he put his warm lips to it +for a second before he handed her into a great international safety. He +remembered the key, but he didn't give it to her. Somehow he wanted it +himself. He liked the feel of it in his pocket. + +"Wish I had Denny locked up in the Christian association!" he growled to +himself as Valentine whirled him home. + +Just at that exact moment Mr. Dennis Farraday sat in Miss Violet +Hawtry's Louis Quinze parlor at the Claridge, engaged in tenderly and +awkwardly patting that star's sobbing white shoulder, as she lay on +just such a couch as Manon Lescaut probably had had for just such +scenes. + +"I don't blame him at all," sobbed Miss Hawtry, provocatively, with the +art of long practice both on the stage and off. "My kind always loses to +hers when the time comes." + +"Don't!" pleaded Mr. Farraday. It was all he could or was willing to +plead at that moment. + +"But I want to make good in this play for him and her--and you--before I +go out of his life forever. I want to repay him with--with both money +and happiness. He made me an artist." With these words Miss Hawtry made +an acknowledgment of the truth that she herself really believed to be +untrue, because she saw that to praise Mr. Vandeford was the best way to +blind Mr. Farraday while she approached him in that blindness. She knew +that his loyalty to his David would be a barrier unless she used it as a +ladder. + +"My God! How--how great women are!" was the immediate and hoped-for +response she drew from the big Jonathan. + +"My art must fill my life now. Only there will be--friendship. You make +me see that by the comfort of your kindness." Miss Hawtry laid her +flushed cheek in the hollow of good Dennis's big warm hand. The moment +was tense, but Hawtry had timed her line a little too far ahead, and it +failed to get across. The prey was as embarrassed as a girl and, with +another brotherly pat, arose to go. + +"You'll always let me do anything I can, won't you?" he asked as he +looked down upon her for a second, then took a considerate departure. + +"Boob!" muttered Hawtry to herself, as she rose and rang for Susette. + +There are in this little old world many men like Dennis Farraday; only +none of its inhabitants admit their existence. + +After the evening of the introduction of its author to Broadway, things +spun fast and furiously in the business of producing "The Purple +Slipper," and during the whirlwind of the day Miss Adair sat either in +her own private office or in the chair beside Mr. Vandeford, and reveled +in the excitement, and in the evenings did other revelings. She had her +evening with Mr. Height under the spell of Barrie and Maude Adams, and +Mr. Vandeford swore under his breath when she reported to him that they +had gone to the concert on the roof of the Waldorf for an hour, and had +got back to her abiding-place in time not to need the latch-key, which +still reposed in his pocket. He knew Gerald Height, and he was puzzled +and alarmed at this wary approach. + +Mrs. Farraday came to town, and the dinner-party in her staid, old +Washington Square home, with himself and Miss Lindsey and Miss Adair as +guests, was like a day's vacation for Mr. Vandeford. Also, he got a +complete off-guard picture of Miss Adair as he would see her in +Adairville, Kentucky, for she and the beautiful and stately Mrs. +Farraday spoke the same language and had the same forms. + +"My dear child, you positively must come up to Westchester for this +week-end! Matilda Van Tyne is going to come for the first blooming of +the rhododendrons in the West Marsh, and I feel sure that she must have +known your mother in some of her visits to Lexington. She must see you +and hear all about the play. Now, Dennis, make all the arrangements." +Mrs. Farraday gave her commands as a queen is accustomed to deliver +them. + +"May I go?" Miss Adair asked of Mr. Vandeford, her shining gray eyes +raised to his with deference and confidence as usual. + +"You may," answered Mr. Vandeford, aware that Mrs. Farraday's keen eyes +of the world were fixed upon him in a speculative way. "The rehearsals +will begin at eleven on Monday, and you can be back in plenty of time." + +"And, Miss Lindsey, will you come, too, with Miss Adair?" Mrs. Farraday +surprised both her son and Mr. Vandeford by asking the young Westerner +with the greatest graciousness. It was evident that the young leading +lady had put herself across with the grand dame, and both Mr. Vandeford +and Mr. Farraday rejoiced. + +"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Farraday, but I have made a professional engagement +for Saturday evening. I am going to do a monologue stunt to fill in at +the Colonial," Miss Lindsey answered, with pleasure at the invitation +shining in her dark eyes. + +"Then Dennis can drive down on Sunday and bring you back in time for tea +and to see the sunset on the rhododendrons." Mrs. Farraday further +surprised her son and Mr. Vandeford by giving this command the +imperiousness with which she was accustomed to issue her +much-sought-after invitations. + +"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Farraday, with the same sort of eager kindness +shining in his eyes as Miss Lindsey had met when he had asked her if +beefsteak and mushrooms would be the thing for her starvation. The +memory of that day made Miss Lindsey's eyes dim as she accepted the +invitation, though she had had hope of a last minute chance to do a +little Sunday "stunt" for Keith somewhere in subway New York. And Miss +Lindsey needed the money, for a hundred dollars doesn't go far in New +York even when carried in the pocket of a gown donned in the Y. W. C. +A.; but she needed the rhododendrons and the tea more than she needed +the material things that the extra fifty picked up at Keith's would have +purchased. + +"Thank you, Mrs. Farraday, it would be--be 'great' to come that way," +Miss Lindsey answered. Both Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday, as well as +Miss Adair, were struck with the sudden beauty that illumined Miss +Lindsey's dark face as she smiled and quoted Mr. Farraday in her +acceptance of his mother's invitation. + +"Is or is not little Lindsey a beauty, Denny?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as +they drove up-town in the Surreness after depositing the girls at their +nunnery. + +"I was just wondering," answered Mr. Farraday. "I'm mighty glad she made +such a hit with the mater." + +"And I'm mighty glad I'm going to lose the author of 'The Purple +Slipper' into the wilds of Westchester and the rhododendrons, while I +extract her play from Howard and slash it myself and help Rooney to +mutilate it further," said Mr. Vandeford. + +"Of course you are going to the mater's with Miss Lindsey and me for +tea, per usual?" asked Mr. Farraday. + +"Can't do it. Got to work on 'The Purple Slipper' while you people +frolic. Good-night!" With which refusal and taunt Mr. Vandeford left Mr. +Farraday at the door of his apartment-house. + +Mr. Farraday looked at his watch as he started away from the curb, found +the hour to be eleven o'clock, wabbled the machine first to the right +and then to the left, and finally turned down-town, in which direction +the Claridge reared its twelve stories of masonry at the corner of +Forty-fourth and Sixth. + +At about that minute these were the remarks exchanged through the open +door that connected two little cell-like rooms at the Y. W. C. A.: + +"Aren't you going to bed right away? I'm so sleepy that I'm brushing my +face instead of my hair," Miss Adair called to Miss Lindsey. A desperate +and continual desire for sleep is the pest that haunts the rural visitor +to New York and Miss Adair's young health was easily its prey. She did +not readily learn to run on nerves. + +"You go to bed; but I've got to let the hem of my tailored linen down +two inches, so it will brush against those rhododendrons as a lady's +should, and sew up the opening in the neck of my chiffon blouse an inch +and a half, so I won't spill any of Mrs. Farraday's tea down it. +Good-night!" It goes to say that when Greek meets Vandal or the East +meets the West, dents occur. + +And, as Mrs. Farraday had commanded, the rhododendron party at West +Marsh came to pass, to the vast enjoyment of all present, though Mr. +Vandeford's absence was a deprivation to the entire company. And that +night their friendly hearts would have ached if they had been able to +get a vision of his strenuosity. Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer, +was in full action, and chips from "The Purple Slipper" were flying in +all directions. + +In his bedroom in the Seventy-third Street apartment, Mr. Vandeford was +stripped for the fray--to his silk pajamas--and he lay stretched upon +his fumed-oak bed, with both reading-lights turned on full blaze. In his +hands was the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper," which Mazie Villines +had literally torn from under the hands of Grant Howard to deliver to +Mr. Vandeford on Saturday afternoon, just a day later than the time set +for its deliverance. + +"My check and Grant's down, or no play," she had said upon entering Mr. +Vandeford's apartment at about the setting of the Saturday sun. "He's +off for a two week's d.t., and I gotter take care of him. Twelve-fifty +is the way to write it." + +"Six hundred, and not a cent more without Grant's signature," answered +Mr. Vandeford. Mr. Adolph Meyers, who was listening to the conversation +from the hall from which he had ushered Miss Villines into Mr. +Vandeford's library, set a spring-lock on the entrance door of the +apartment, and entered the library unobtrusively. + +"Twelve-fifty, you old dollar-skinner!" averred the vaudeville star, +with a nasty little laugh. + +"Don't try to pull off a hold-up, Mazie. It won't work. It's Grant's +money," said Mr. Vandeford, with an icy calmness in his voice. And as +she spoke he looked at Mr. Adolph Meyers, who answered the look with +perfect comprehension. + +"Then you'll get the manuscript when hell freezes over or your wad +loosens," she again laughed, and this time turned toward the door with +the square manila portfolio under her arm. + +An interested spectator could not have said afterward just how it did +happen that in half a second the manila portfolio was in the hands of +Mr. Adolph Meyers, who also bore upon his left cheek a long and +profusely bleeding scratch. + +"Here's your check, child, and keep a good grip on Grant, so he can't +get started toward East River as he did last time," Mr. Vandeford said +as he handed an already prepared check to the enraged girl. She was dumb +for a second, no longer. + +"I was going to leave it for five hundred, you old white-skinned bluffer +with your goose-grease, strong arm," she finally blurted out, and in a +twinkling of her bright eyes her good-nature had returned. "Say, that is +some play now, and I wish you'd let me play a dance girl at that +dinner-party. I'd do it refined." There was a queer little appeal in the +mobile young face. "I'd like to doll up like a lady." + +"I'll think that over, Mazie," answered Mr. Vandeford. "A song and dance +from you might go all right." + +"Gimme a call, will you? I'll be on the job with my guzzler for a week +now. I got to get him past, for he's some meal-ticket when times is +dull." As Mazie disposed of the check in her stocking, a degree of +affectionate anxiety for the condition of Mr. Grant Howard showed in her +face for the fraction of a second, then disappeared as she looked at Mr. +Adolph Meyers. + +"Come on and get my wad from where I've put it, if you dare, Dolph," she +challenged, then laughed, as the imperturbable Mr. Meyers both ignored +and showed her to the door with all courtesy. + +And as he lay on his bed reading over the Howard manuscript of "The +Purple Slipper," which had just returned to him after a twenty-four hour +overhauling and annotation for action by Mr. William Rooney, the stage +director with the top price, Mr. Vandeford said to Mr. Adolph Meyers, +who sat at a table beside the bed, taking down and inserting notes into +the manuscript as they sprang from Mr. Vandeford's brain, almost before +they got past his lips: + +"No wonder Mazie could see herself in this show, Pops! Grant has pepped +it up almost to her standard. Whee-ugh!" With this whistle Mr. Vandeford +turned page twenty of the first act and handed it over to Mr. Meyers, +who began to devour it with eyes that took in almost the whole page at a +glance. + +"It is a snap-shot of Miss Hawtry he has made, Mr. Vandeford, sir. Mr. +Howard has never done better." + +"Yes, that's what he intended to do, but I'm going to clean it out a +bit. Run an insert of the scene on page five to seven and a half out of +Miss Adair's manuscript. It is just as good and a little--little +more--say, Pops, cut out seven lines on page fourteen from the second +down, and take this from me instead." Mr. Vandeford closed his eyes and +dictated a bit of dialogue between two of the minor characters of "The +Purple Slipper," which cleared up a point Mr. Howard and Mr. Rooney and +the original author had all left at loose ends. As he dictated, Mr. +Meyers wrote on the blank page opposite the lines, and made some +cabalistic signs for insertion. + +Slowly they progressed through the first act, Mr. Vandeford reading from +two manuscripts and reconciling Mr. Howard's shaky, pen annotations, Mr. +Rooney's blue-pencil, action directions, and Miss Adair's original +wanderings from the point with many brilliant returns in quaint +dialogue. + +"That child has got more brains and uses them less than would seem +possible," growled Mr. Vandeford, as he with a few deft lines near the +close of the second act got the heroine off the stage and out of an +impossible situation in which Miss Adair had involved her. + +"It is that her characters talk with interest, but act in awkwardness, +Mr. Vandeford, sir. Another good play can be written by Miss Adair," +Mr. Meyers said as he put in two lines and a cross star sign. + +"God forbid!" ejaculated Mr. Vandeford, in all sincerity. "Here, Pops, +get this first act down to those girls waiting in the office. Did you +get two for all night, so one could get out the parts? You know Rooney +will expect a reading to-morrow before he begins rehearsals." + +"It is three girls now waiting at the office for the night, and a +messenger in your hall, Mr. Vandeford, sir," answered Mr. Meyers as he +gathered up his annotated pages, put them into a new manila portfolio, +and rose to take them to the A. D. T. boy asleep on the floor in the +hall. + +"We haven't rushed in a manuscript like this since 'Dear Geraldine,' +have we, Pops?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he picked up the second act. +"It's just nine o'clock, and those girls ought to get through by three +A. M. Don't let Steinberg charge up twelve hours on you." + +"It will be at eight that they are still working, Mr. Vandeford, sir, +and night type-writing means much money," Mr. Meyers answered, as he +departed with his package. + +"At that we'd better get busy to feed it to 'em," Mr. Vandeford said, as +he picked up and began to dig into the pages. + +For the three hours ensuing he and his henchman worked with never a +hitch in their growls and scratches and muttered exchanges. Then, as +they came close to the climax of the last act, Mr. Vandeford sat up from +his pillows, which were heated almost beyond endurance with his night +lights and his tousled head, and gave forth a roar. + +"I'll be hanged if I'll let that scene between Rosalind and her lover go +with that filthy twist that Howard has given it! The words are almost +the original, but what will Hawtry make of what he's put into it?" + +"It will be the worst she makes," answered Mr. Meyers. "But it is for +pep very good, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and can be tried out." + +"That's right, Pops. I wonder if I am a Broadway producer or--or the +czar of a young ladies' seminary," Mr. Vandeford growled as he lay down, +and again went to work. + +"It is that Miss Adair will not understand it until Miss Hawtry is at +work, and before that all may be dead," Mr. Meyers consoled, as he, too, +fell upon "The Purple Slipper." + +At two-thirty the now soggy A. D. T. received the last manila envelope +to deliver to the busy girls down in Mr. Vandeford's office, and that +distinguished producer was stretched out on his bed in cool darkness +while Mr. Meyers was in a subway nodding his way up to his humble room +on One Hundred and Sixteenth Street. + +"If I live through seeing her past the reading of the blamed thing +to-morrow, I'll be stronger than I think I am," Mr. Vandeford murmured +as he felt the calmness of sleep fall upon him. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Rehearsals for "The Purple Slipper" had been called positively for +September first, and the response became unanimous at about fifteen +minutes to eleven at the Barrett Theater on West Forty-sixth Street; +that is, it was unanimous except for the presence of the author and the +angel--Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday--and Miss Violet Hawtry, the star, +who never came to first readings until the whole cast was assembled and +could be impressed with the fact that she came and went as she listed. + +"Ladies and gentlemen, I take it that you all know one another--and Mr. +William Rooney," said Mr. Vandeford, as he took a seat at the left of a +table placed in the center of the stage just beyond the footlights. Mr. +Rooney marched to a place beside him, and rapped with a large black +pencil for attention from the groups into which the dozen members of the +cast had fallen after mutual introductions and greetings. + +"Everybody grab a seat that is good enough to glue to for five hours +while Fido here gives out your parts," commanded Mr. Rooney, without in +any way acknowledging Mr. Vandeford's introduction to the company. Mr. +Rooney's voice was low and rich, and had the precision and decision of a +machine-gun in its utterances. With hurried obedience the entire company +looked about the stage for seats. + +Miss Bébé Herne, though having fifty pounds the advantage of any of the +others in avoirdupois, was the first seated. She merely dropped down +upon a stout pine bench, the front of which was stuccoed to represent +antique marble, and peremptorily motioned Mr. Wallace Kent to that +portion of the seat left after she had wedged herself as far to one side +as possible. Mr. Kent obeyed immediately, though he had just placed a +rickety, stuffed chair beside the gold one occupied by Miss Blanche +Grayson, the glowerer. Miss Lindsey sat on the end of an overturned box +hedge before a drop curtain of a twilight night, and Mr. Reginald Leigh +sat in a wicker chair under a brilliant canvas flowering shrub of no +known variety. The rest of the company were soon seated and receiving +the small, blue-backed, manuscript books from the pale young man whom +Mr. Rooney always addressed as Fido. + +"Everybody here but Miss Hawtry," said Mr. Rooney, and he glared at Mr. +Vandeford as though that gentleman must be concealing the star in the +pocket of his gray, silk-crash coat. + +"And Miss Hawtry is here also," came in a very beautifully modulated +voice from left stage, as the tardy star came down center, and stood +directly in front of the table at which sat the producer and his +stage-manager. Mr. Vandeford rose immediately and said good-morning; Mr. +Rooney kept his seat and looked Miss Hawtry through and through with a +cold reproof. + +"Five minutes late," he said with an edge in the words that cut. + +"I really beg your pardon, and it shall not happen--" the star was +beginning to say in an apologetic tone, which bent under the cold edge +of the assault, as Mr. Vandeford had hoped it would, when Mr. Rooney cut +it off with a curt command to pale Fido. + +"Give out the Hawtry part." + +Miss Hawtry accepted the little blue booklet handed her by Fido, and +also Mr. Vandeford's chair, placed carefully in the center of the stage +for her. The first brush between Mr. Rooney and Miss Hawtry had been +pulled off and he had won, much to Mr. Vandeford's delight. For "Miss +Cut-up" he had had to hire, pay for, and fire, three successive +stage-managers, and she had managed all three. Mr. Rooney's boast was +that no star had ever managed him and that he had successfully staged +every play he had undertaken; hence a spectacular salary. Also he felt +that his reputation was at stake in the Hawtry duel, and he was +determined to back his own method. + +"Scene first, act first; Betty Carrington is discovered on stage. Go to +it, Betty!" he commanded as Fido took a seat at the end of the table, +opened a copy of the first act, and sat ready for annotations. + +"How beautiful the morning is and--" the glowering Miss Blanche Grayson +was beginning to read from her cerulean booklet, when an interruption +occurred. + +Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday entered from the stage door. + +Mr. Vandeford looked at Mr. Rooney, and muttered under his breath: +"Angel and author, Bill. Easy!" + +"Shoot," answered Mr. Rooney, in a mild undertone, though he glared at +the company as though in a cold rage. + +"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Miss Adair, the author of +our play. You have all of you met Mr. Farraday. Mr. Rooney, our +stage-director, Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday." Mr. Vandeford made the +introductions as rapidly as possible and in a voice of such coolness +that Miss Adair looked at him in astonishment and then at the assembled +company with great timidity. With special trepidation did she regard Mr. +Rooney, who had bobbed his scrubby, black-mopped head at her with no +expression at all in his little black eyes, while he refused to see Mr. +Farraday's offered hand. + +"Have seats in the left stage-box," he directed them in the same tone of +voice with which he had quelled Miss Hawtry. "Now, get going there, +Betty Carrington, and open again." + +Mr. Vandeford led Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday out into the wings in a +roundabout path to the left stage-box, and paused with them out of sight +of Mr. Rooney. Then the humanity came back into his face and voice as he +spoke to his friends in an undertone. + +"Rooney is the genius among stage-directors, but he's the original and +genuine Tartar. How are you both?" As he asked the question he held out +a hand to each of them, and his smile held the cordiality to which they +were both accustomed. + +"We had a blow-out on Riverside Drive, and that's what makes us late. +Now I've got to take the car around to the garage," Mr. Farraday +apologized, as he rumpled his leonine mane, fanned himself with his hat, +and departed. + +Miss Adair fairly clung to the hand of friendship offered her, with +relief that it had not been withdrawn forever, as she had feared from +the coolness of Mr. Vandeford's greeting before the assembled company of +"The Purple Slipper." + +"I'm afraid," she murmured with both alarm and amusement sparkling in +her gray eyes, in which Mr. Vandeford found himself searching for a +certain expression with the eagerness with which he always looked for it +after even a brief separation from his author. It was there and +undimmed. "Let's go sit down where he told us to," Miss Adair +whispered. + +"Good girl!" laughed Mr. Vandeford as he led the way to the left +stage-box to which Mr. Rooney had summarily banished the author and the +angel. He seated Miss Adair at the front edge of the box and took the +chair close at her left. She was thus bulwarked and buttressed for any +assault that might be hurled her way. It came in a very few minutes. + +Miss Bébé Herne and Miss Mildred Lindsey were in the midst of reading an +animated dialogue on page five by the time Miss Adair's attention was +firmly riveted on the stage and the reading in progress. Fortunately the +little scene was of her own writing. Mr. Vandeford had put it back into +the play instead of the paraphrase Mr. Howard had made of it, and he was +surprised to find how deeply grateful he was to himself for having given +her this bit as he watched the home-made color rise under the gray eyes +as the author sat and heard her written words come to life in a little +bit of really sparkling character comedy, which both Miss Lindsey and +experienced Bébé were acting as well as reading in such a way as to +bring out all the charm of the lines. The happiness of both author and +producer lasted about two minutes, then it was broken into by Mr. +William Rooney with a crash. + +"Nuff, there, nuff!" he commanded, in the midst of a quaint epigram, +which Bébé was delivering with unction. "Audiences don't want to hear +smart babble after their seats are all down. They want to see the star +and get going. Cut in Miss Hawtry at the second set-to of Harriet and +aunt. Take it this way: 'And my dear Rosalind has said, Harriet--' Enter +Rosalind with the line you have there." + +"Yes, it's time for me to get on and--" Miss Hawtry was agreeing +complacently, when she was quickly snapped off in her remark. + +"Line, Miss Hawtry, not gab," Mr. Rooney commanded. + +Instantly Miss Hawtry was reading from her lines and faithful Fido was +making annotations upon his manuscript with strokes that spelled +finality to the stricken author, who raised her protesting eyes to the +producer of her play. + +"Steady now," Mr. Vandeford whispered. "This is the first reading, and +he's setting. We can't side-track him now. Later you can--" but the +author's attention was caught by the dialogue between Miss +Hawtry and Bébé, which was the first full dose of the Howard +fifteen-hundred-dollar, inebriate, but very brilliant and Hawtry-like, +"pep." + +"Oh, I didn't write that at all!" she whispered, as she fairly shrank +against Mr. Vandeford's strength of mind, if not against the strength of +his arm that he had laid across the back of her chair. + +"Just sit still and listen to-day as though it were somebody else's +play, and we will talk it over afterward. You know I--I warned you," he +whispered with soothing tenderness, his lips almost against her ear in +the dusk of the box. + +"I promised, and I will," she answered him, and he was at a loss to +know if she really did flutter to him a fraction of an inch as he had +suspected her of doing in his car on the night of her début on Broadway. +The charm of Kentucky girls is composed of many illusions and realities, +which they themselves hardly understand, and use by hereditary instinct. + +And with her proud head poised in all stateliness, Miss Patricia Adair +sat for five solid hours and heard "The Purple Slipper," _née_ "The +Renunciation of Rosalind," read from first to last page by the people +who were to present it to the public; and Mr. Vandeford found his heart +bleeding for the thrusts into hers. Not a protest did she make, but the +roses faded and the gray eyes sank far back behind their black defending +lashes, and they were glittering with suppressed tears as the wearied +company rose to its feet after the last line. + +"Here to-morrow at eleven sharp," were Mr. Rooney's words of dismissal +as he and Fido followed the company in their hurried exit toward the +stage-door, with not so much as a glance at the box in which sat the +stricken author. + +And there alone, off the dismal and dismantled stage in the cool dusk of +the box, producer and author faced each other and the situation. + +"If my grandfather were not--not--dying, I'd take it right home and burn +it all up!" were the first words the author of "The Purple Slipper" gave +utterance to, after the last echo of the last footstep had died off the +stage. + +"You couldn't, you've sold it to--to me," Mr. Vandeford answered with a +coolness in his voice that restored her mental balance, as he had +intended it should. "Now answer me truly; is it or is it not a good +play?" + +"It's not my play; it's horrid and vulgar!" the author stormed, with +lightning burning up the tears in her gray eyes. + +"That whole situation is exactly as you wrote it, and about a third of +the lines are yours, or will be yours by the time it is at the first +night, if you play the game. I have not decided whether I think it is a +good play or not. If I think it isn't, you may have it and burn it up. I +don't know what Rooney thinks yet. If he doesn't want to go on, I +won't." Mr. Vandeford had known the women of many climes, and he found +himself using that experience on Miss Adair with great skill, though it +hurt him to do so. + +"Part of it I don't even understand," Miss Adair continued to storm, and +Mr. Vandeford was about to discover that either a Blue-grass woman or +horse, with the bit in their respective mouths, is mighty apt to go a +pace before curbed. "What was that scene in the last act just before the +dinner-party? She read so fast and he had his back to me, so I suppose +that is the reason I didn't get it." Miss Adair was alluding to the +scene whose vulgarity Mr. Vandeford had wished to sacrifice, but which +Mr. Meyers had pleaded for on account of its extra dash of "pep" exactly +suited to the Hawtry style. + +"You won't be able to judge the Hawtry scenes at all until the opening +night," Mr. Vandeford answered, positively quaking in his boots for fear +that Miss Adair would force him to an elucidation of the scene, which +was mostly of the cleverest innuendo. "She is a miserable study, and she +and Height rehearse the big scenes alone. She just walks through with +the company. Truly, you can hardly judge anything of what a play will be +from just a reading or from any rehearsal. Please trust me and help me +as you promised you would." + +"But the play isn't mine, at all! My play is--is killed--and dead, and +murdered." Miss Adair persisted, still writhing from the butchery. + +"It is your play; but granting that it isn't, at all, think what it will +mean to all of us if this--this nobody's play succeeds. Think what it +will mean to the actors in the company. Miss Lindsey was hungry when she +got her first advance on your play, and Bébé Herne hasn't had a part +that suited her so well in years. If it goes she ought to have enough +to make her easy; and she is getting old now--" + +"If you'll say and tell everybody that the play isn't mine, of course +I'll help you, and--" Miss Adair agreed, with the tears dried by the +anger and a degree of sanity returning at Mr. Vandeford's skilful appeal +to her generosity, which he made when he saw that his attempt to bluff +her about calling off the play had failed. Mr. William Rooney came into +the box. His hat was tilted on the back of his head and in the corner of +his mouth was a large cigar, which he was chewing and not smoking. He +seated himself without invitation and spoke with his usual abruptness: + +"That play is a hummer, Vandeford, if I can just make the dolts put it +across. It is a genuine Hawtry vehicle, but in a new vein. It's a +corking situation and yet rings true. Did any old dame really have the +spunk to put that dinner-party across on both lover and husband that +you've got in your play, miss?" As Mr. Rooney asked the question of +Miss Adair, it was the first time that he had seemed aware of the +existence of the author of "The Purple Slipper." + +"It's not my play, Mr. Rooney," Miss Adair said haughtily to the +thick-skinned genius. "That--that situation is--was--is true, however." + +"Then it's your play all right!" declared Mr. Rooney. "The situation is +all there is to any play. The staging is the rest. Anybody can put in +good lines. Any simp can doll up the actors in costumes, and one actor +can put the ideas across pretty near as good as any other, if he's +directed all right; but when it's done, the play is the man's or woman's +who made the first layout of the idea--and what the stage-manager does +to it. Author and stage manager, I say. The rest is easy." + +"That's what I've been telling Miss Adair," Mr. Vandeford eagerly +assented. + +"And authors ought to go off and die until the first night, too," Mr. +Rooney continued to say. "When I staged 'Only Annie' for E. and K., I +told that author if he came on my stage any more at rehearsals I would +biff him one in the nutt, and I meant it, too. His thinks and mine ran +into each other so bad that I was near crazed." + +"But an author writes a play and he or she knows--" Miss Adair was +beginning to say to Mr. Rooney with kind patience, when he interrupted +her as he rose to take his departure. + +"The author oughter write all he knows and let it go at that," he said +as he spat on the carpet of the box with no sign of compunction. "The +stage-manager can do the rest." And with no form of leave-taking he +departed. + +"And the American drama has to be filtered through that sort of--of +illiteracy?" Miss Adair turned and demanded of Mr. Vandeford. + +"The American drama is often written by people who have been too closely +associated with books on a library shelf, so that it needs to be +filtered through a little gross humanity to get across to--humanity in +the gross, which pays to see it. If a scholar writes and produces a play +scholars go to see it all right, but all the scholars in America only +fill one theater twice, and then what is to become of scholar and wife +and children, as well as producer, manager, and theater-owner?" Mr. +Vandeford spoke slowly, choosing his words. + +"Aren't any of the stage-managers educated gentlemen?" demanded Miss +Adair, with an interest that was fast becoming impersonal, for she had +the wit to see that in some ways Mr. Vandeford's summary of the +situation between author and stage-manager was sound. + +"Yes, a few, but not the most successful ones," answered Mr. Vandeford. +"I tell you truly that a stage-manager has to be a genius to succeed. He +must be a man with a vision and sheer brutality enough to put the vision +that he gets from his conception of the play he is producing into +twenty other mentalities and make them present the play as a harmonious +whole to an audience. He cannot be a respecter of persons while he is +pounding, and he must not be interfered with or his vision is obscured +and the play loses. Do you see what I mean?" + +"Then an author ought to produce his own plays," Miss Adair decided very +promptly. + +"Yes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a whimsical smile down into the +eager, pale, intensely creative face raised to his. "When an author is +born who will study years until he is an expert electrician, other years +in great studios until he can paint scenery that is a work of art, delve +into old books until he knows costuming of thousands of periods in +hundreds of lands and how to sketch it, then gives himself to the +studying of stagecraft and the writing of half a hundred plays until he +writes one that is really great; after which, if he has the strength and +the nerves to produce that play, we will all go to see the great human +drama. That is, if he has had time to live with and in the hearts of +people so as to supply that gross sympathy with the masses who buy +tickets which Rooney got while climbing out of the gutter. God grant he +comes some day to America--but you are not he!" + +"No, I'm not," admitted Miss Adair, with her eyes smiling back into his +whimsically, "but what you say makes me see that the--the +producer--_you_ are the whole thing. You get it all--me and Mr. Rooney +and Miss Hawtry together and pound us into--into a play. I make that +acknowledgment." + +"If you ask the stage-manager he will say that the success of a play is +his; the costumer will claim that success; the star knows it is his or +hers, and the lead is sure that it is due to the support; the author +surely has some claim to draw the huge royalties, and the location of +his theater makes the theater-owner know that any play in that theater +will go. Yes, the producer will always claim the whole show if it all +goes well. If it fails the show then belongs entirely to the producer, +who picked it in its manuscript stage, and he is no good as a producer. +If he fails a few times hand-running, to the scrap heap with him!" + +"But you've never failed," Miss Adair exclaimed, with a dart of fear in +her eyes. + +"My last show, 'Miss Cut-up,' was a flivver all right, though we just +saved our faces. But I've got a show now that will put me in electric +light for two years hand-running and--" Mr. Vandeford was in a panic as +he realized that he was going so far in that curious thinking out loud +to Miss Adair that he had been about to launch forth on "The Rosie Posie +Girl" to her. It would have been like telling a friend the plans of his +own funeral with enthusiasm, as it would be obvious to her that Hawtry +would have to fail in and drop "The Purple Slipper" before becoming the +triumphant "Rosie Posie Girl." + +"I'm willing to--to let them cut my play all up if--if it will really +run two years and make your reputation more brilliant than it is," Miss +Adair said, interrupting his pause of consternation at his near +betrayal of his plans. She spoke with the worshipful uplift of her gray +eyes to his that had betrayed him in the first place to such a confusion +of schemes. "If it added anything to it, I would even be willing to let +you put the Adair name to the vulgar thing they read here to-day, but it +wouldn't help it anywhere except in Louisville and Cincinnati and +Nashville and Atlanta and New Orleans and Richmond. People don't know us +in New York, and any name will do here; so mine won't--won't have to be +disgraced." + +"Please don't say that!" pleaded Mr. Vandeford with consternation in his +soul as he thought of the development of the Howard "pep" Hawtry would +make as the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper" progressed. "It is the +same thing with Miss Hawtry as it is with Mr. Rooney; she has a--a kind +of gutter drag that gets across to the multitude, and of course your +play had to be--be fitted to her. Hawtry, to be Hawtry, has to do and +say things that you couldn't write at all, that you couldn't very well +understand; but they'll get the crowd going and coming. Please give me +your promise again to sit tight and see it through--or go home and leave +it all to me." Mr. Vandeford was surprised to feel how hard his heart +beat, and he was afraid that it sounded like the echo of an anvil chorus +in the big empty theater. + +"I never have to give promises a second time, and this is the last time +I am ever going to cry out," Miss Adair answered him, with a lift to her +proud little head. "I am going to stay right here and help if I can, and +learn. But I won't in any way distress or--or trouble you. Please don't +get me on your mind!" + +"I won't get you on my mind," Mr. Vandeford answered out loud--"because +I've got you in my heart, poor kiddie," he continued to himself, in a +kind of desperation. + +Mr. Dennis Farraday burst in upon the dusk of the theater and the +tragedy of the situation. He was vastly excited and he waved a letter +in his hand. + +"Oh, you Patricia Adair, why didn't you tell me that you are old Roger +Adair's sister?" he demanded. + +"Why, what do you mean about Roger? Do you know--" + +"Do I know him? Just listen to this, will you, and here I've _not_ been +handing you around on a silver salver for two weeks!" He then read the +following letter aloud to Miss Adair and Mr. Vandeford: + + Adairville, Kentucky. + + DEAR DENNY: + + Well, here I am! I'm the Captain of my county in the Army of the + Furrows, and hope to turn in many thousand pounds of food stuffs + for you people in New York to live on. In the meantime Miss + Patricia Adair, my sister, is going to New York to see to the + putting on of a play she has written for one Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. + She is the greatest girl ever, and you stay right on the job seeing + that things go right for her while I plant these potatoes to keep + you from starving. She will be at the Y. W. C. A. and will sleep + and eat safe enough, but you look out for her and don't let her get + homesick. If she needs me, of course I will come, but she's a + plucky child and you are the best ever, so I'll go on ploughing + with a free mind. Let me know how it all goes. What sort of a chap + is that Vandeford? + + Yours as always and forever, + ROGER. + +"Can you beat it?" demanded good Dennis, with a blaze of friendship in +his eyes as he regarded Miss Patricia Adair. "It was forwarded from my +old office number to my new, to Westchester to Nantucket, back to my +office, and finally arrived this morning. I've just sent Roger a +thousand-word telegram, and I hope he never knows that I was off the job +ten days. Give that child here to me, Van, and go get a report on your +character for me before you look at her again. Roger Adair is the best +friend I've got on earth, next to you, and you'd better watch your +step." + +"I like his steps," Miss Adair said, and again Mr. Vandeford felt +uncertain as to that curious little flutter that was like a nestling of +which he felt he was never to be certain and which Mr. Farraday did not +seem to observe at all. + +"Didn't you know that Roger was turning you over to me, young lady? Why +have you side-stepped me?" Mr. Farraday demanded of the young author, in +a voice of great severity. + +"I thought that Roger was going to write to a Mr. Denny about me; and I +didn't write to him that Mr. Denny hadn't come to take care of me +because--because I was afraid he'd leave his work and come up to look +after me himself. I didn't remember the Farraday part of your name at +all. Roger always said 'Denny.'" + +"Well, I suppose I'll have to accept that excuse, as it sounds fairly +reasonable; but I'd like to know, Van, why you have been keeping my +child here in this musty old theater until past luncheon time when she +must be both tired and hungry. Come out to Claremont to luncheon, both +of you, this minute," Mr. Farraday both questioned and commanded, with +pure delight in his voice and manner. "I'll go run the car around to the +door, so you won't have to walk in the sun." And he departed as quickly +as he had come. + +That night Mr. Vandeford lay stretched on his bed in a dark coolness, +with his hands clasped over his eyes, when Mr. Farraday came in with his +latch-key at twelve-thirty. + +"Denny?" he asked from the darkness as Mr. Farraday was tiptoeing past +his open door, through which the southern sea-breeze was pouring, "'What +sort of chap _is_ that Vandeford?'" + +"The telegram I sent read, 'the best ever.'" + +"Are you competent to judge me?" + +"I am." + +"Good-night!" + +For an hour before this masculine version of a scene a feminine real +thing was being conducted in the two little dotted-muslin-curtained +cells at the Y. W. C. A. Miss Adair was telling Miss Lindsey "all about +it," and sparks and tears both were in the atmosphere. The explosion was +brought on by Miss Lindsey remarking to Miss Adair: + +"You know, honey lady, that play of yours is simply ripping, but it is +not at all like--like what I thought it would be from hearing you and +Mr. Farraday tell it." + +"It's not my play at all; it's Mr. Vandeford's. He got somebody to fit +it to Miss Hawtry," replied Miss Adair, calmly, as she began to brush +her dark, sleek mane. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Miss Lindsey, in astonishment. + +"He just took the dinner situation in my play and got a man to make a +new one out of it that is--is vulgar enough to appeal to the New York +theater-goers. He let everybody put in anything they wanted to, instead +of what I wrote. He left in a little of mine to compliment me. It's all +right, because nobody would have gone to see my play if anybody goes to +see--see his." Miss Adair went on calmly with the fifty-third stroke on +her raven tresses, but her eyes were beginning to blaze. + +"Mr. Vandeford's a complete fool," was on the tip of Miss Lindsey's +tongue, but she remembered her main chance, which was the favor of Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, and said instead: "I wish you would let me see a copy +of the play as you wrote it. Have you one?" + +"I have, in my trunk, and I'll read it to you," answered Miss Adair, and +in defensive pride she produced a copy of "The Purple Slipper," which +bore the unexpurgated title of "The Renunciation of Rosalind," and +proceeded to read it to Miss Lindsey, with both fire and tragedy in her +voice. + +The operation occupied the two hours before midnight, and Miss Lindsey +lay prostrate when it was finished. + +"Now, what do you think?" demanded Miss Adair. + +"I wish I could have had the making of it over, and for myself instead +of Hawtry. That's no play as it stands, but there is a dandy one to be +worked up from it that you--you--that would be like you," was the reply +that Miss Lindsey gave as she looked out into distance, with glowing +eyes. + +"Do you think that--that horrid play will be a success?" asked Miss +Adair, with her voice sparkling. + +"I do," answered Miss Lindsey. "And it is curious that with all its +changes it is still--still yours. There is a lot more of your stuff left +than you realize, and the turns that--that Mr. Vandeford's playwright +has given it are very clever. Lots of times he's just paraphrased your +lines into Hawtryites. It will be interesting to see how much of you is +left when we all come out of the wash for the first night." + +"I wish I were dead and buried!" she was surprised to hear Miss Adair +confess, and there then ensued a downpour, which the hardier Western +girl weathered for very love of the young Southern tempest in her arms. + +"I suppose I ought to go home, out of the way, but I'm going to stay +and--and learn--and write another one all by myself," she finally +sobbed, with returning courage, thus comforting herself with the resolve +which every playwright who ever built a play has used to keep from going +entirely mad during the rehearsals of his first play. + +"Just try to live until the New York opening, and then see how you feel. +That is the way actors do to keep going during the awful grilling of the +rehearsals and the road try-out," advised Miss Lindsey, with great +soothing. + +"I will," promised Miss Adair, and turned her face on her pillow, to +sleep, while Miss Lindsey took herself and her jar of cold-cream into +her own cell. + +"I wish I had a chance at that play! What'll she do when she sees Hawtry +and Height really in action in some of those scenes?" she murmured into +her own pillow. + +The next morning Miss Adair rose, donned a most lovely home-spun linen +gown, which was of an old ivory hue and which had been spun upon the +looms of her great-great-great grandmother by that lady's slaves, +crowned this toilet with the floppy hat covered with crushed roses she +and Miss Lindsey and Mr. Farraday had purchased, and reported herself +about an hour late at the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper," whose +authorship she had repudiated. She seated herself in the dusk of the +left stage-box and bared her breast for blows. They came fast and +furious, but other breasts and heads beside her own suffered. Mr. +William Rooney was in full action. The entire company was on the stage +in the midst of the last ensemble bit in the first act, all talking and +acting with blue booklets of lines in their hands. + +"Here you, Mr. Kent," roared Mr. Rooney as he rose from behind his +table, at one side of which sat faithful Fido annotating his copy of the +manuscript, "make up to that old lady like she was the last ham +sandwich extinct and you knew you were going to be fed on alfalfa the +rest of your life. Get her going, man, get her going! She's an old fool, +and you know it, but you've got to have her plantation and slaves. You +can keep a chorus-girl car in the garage if you just get her well +fooled. Fool along, fool along!" + +"'I will write the message to your son, Madam Carrington, and dispatch +it forthwith by one of my own black boys. Is my hand not ever ready for +your service and my wit--and also my heart?'" declaimed Mr. Kent with +satisfactory fervor, as he kissed Miss Herne's fat white hand. + +"Now blob, Miss Herne, blob!" directed Mr. Rooney, coming entirely from +behind the table. "You are the fool of this show and don't let anybody +get that away from you." + +"'I pray a blessing on your excellent friendship, Judge Cheneworth, and +I will rest me content in--'" Miss Herne answered in a most excellent +imitation of the helplessness of an old grand dame. + +"Break in there, Miss Lindsey, break in!" raved Mr. Rooney. "'Content +in' is your cue. Grab it. Remember you are just the sister and only in +the play to swell the list of actors on the program, so grab and keep +a-grabbing if you want a place on the salary list. Now, everybody on at +Miss Lindsey's lines and break up this drivel between the old birds." + +"'Mother, Rosalind bids me say to you that--'" + +"Crowd on everybody, crowd on, and keep things going! It will be nine +o'clock by now, and we'll have to begin to feed the audience the hugging +by a quarter to ten or they will go out and look elsewhere.--Say, Mr. +Leigh, are your feet mates? You don't handle 'em even." + +Miss Adair rose and stole from the box to the stage-door, and looked up +and down the street to see if Mr. Vandeford was approaching. She felt +that she could not stand more alone. He was nowhere in sight, and she +decided to walk around the block and see if the sun at ninety degrees +would warm her chill. After this journey she returned to her post and +found the box still empty. Mr. Vandeford had not arrived nor had Mr. +Farraday, but she seated herself resolutely. She was just in time to +witness a pitched battle between Miss Hawtry and Mr. Rooney. + +"If you are determined to walk through the scenes, Miss Hawtry, do it +awake and not asleep!" stormed Mr. Rooney. + +"Very well," answered Miss Hawtry, but Miss Adair's heart warmed to her +as she noted the contemptuousness in her manner directed toward her +stage-manager. + +"Now see here, Height, you know that you want to get away with this +woman before her husband gets back. You can't do it with kid gloves on. +Spit on your hands, man, and grab her by the hair. You say: 'Rosalind, a +strong man's love is a weapon which a woman can easily turn against +herself with deadly outcome,' like you were begging her to go with you +over to Ligget's for an ice-cream soda with crushed strawberries. Say it +this way." And as she sat astounded Miss Adair heard a line that she had +written in a sympathetic fervor of imagination and which was perhaps her +favorite in the whole play, uttered by Mr. William Rooney with the most +exquisite and manly feeling, while his homely, vulgar face and body were +transformed into the same exquisiteness. A breathless happiness +descended upon her, and she waited in it to hear the beautiful Mr. +Gerald Height give utterance to it with the same art. Miss Hawtry +brought her to earth. + +"Mr. Rooney," she said with an utter lack of appreciation or +comprehension of the bit of high art that had flashed upon her, "it is +in my contract with Mr. Vandeford that I rehearse my scenes alone with +my support until the dress rehearsal." + +"Yes, I might have judged that from 'Miss Cut-up,'" Mr. Rooney answered +her with a blow straight from his shoulder. "Give little sister her +cue, Height, and let her run on to rescue you. God knows you need it!" + +"Mr. Rooney, I'll have you understand--" Miss Hawtry came to the center +to continue her tirade, when Mr. Rooney struck the decisive blow. + +"Everybody on and begin the scene over!" he commanded right past the +enraged star. "Take it up, Kent, with Miss Herne at 'I will write the +message to your son,' and get her going, get her going!" + +At this forceful command the machinery of "The Purple Slipper" was set +in motion, and swept Miss Hawtry off center and into her place for the +time being. + +And despite herself Miss Adair was fascinated in watching the machine +grind away, with now and then a spark from Mr. Rooney that took fire in +the very core of her heart or brain or solar plexus--wherever "The +Renunciation of Rosalind" had been conceived. Miss Adair did not know +what it was that thus affected her, but she had got hold of her end of +the psychic cord along which the author feeds the hostile stage-manager +in such a manner that on the first night of a successful play they can +say to each other with clasped hands and wet eyes, "Well done!" + +And while Miss Adair sat under the spell of Mr. Rooney, Mr. Vandeford +sat in his big chair in his office and fought a battle for "The Purple +Slipper" that resulted in a draw that filled him with anxiety. + +"I can find only one open booking in New York for October first, Mr. +Vandeford, sir," Mr. Meyers was saying, with trouble settled in a cloud +upon his broad brow. "I have it fairly good for the road for 'The Purple +Slipper' until October first, and then it is a jump to Toronto or +Minneapolis, which is into the grave." + +"I suppose that one opening on Broadway is Weiner's New Carnival +Theater," Mr. Vandeford asked as though the question were useless. + +"You have it right," answered Mr. Meyers. "Still, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it +is always failures that leave Broadway openings into which road shows +can jump." + +"Until last year, yes, Pops, but now New York is so full of people with +munition and war-contract money in their pockets that any show, no +matter how rotten, that gets in a Broadway theater plays to capacity and +stays. They'd go to 'The Old District Skule' because the doors were open +and there is no other place to go. What are we going to do?" + +"I advise that you see Mr. Breit and trust to some very big failure to +give you a place. It is that he will always give you a preference," +answered Mr. Meyers with little hope, but determination. + +"Yes, Breit will let me in if there is a squeezing chance, but Breit +doesn't own a theater, nor do I, or you, Pops; and I don't blame the +fellows who do own them for filling them with their own cheap companies +and plays so as to get their buckets under the whole golden stream. Why +give money away to any independent producer?" + +"Mr. Breit said that he had news that Mr. Weiner would open that New +Carnival with a Hilliard show, name not given," Mr. Meyers added to the +information already prepared for Mr. Vandeford. + +"I'll see goose-grease frying out of him in Inferno before he gets it," +said Mr. Vandeford, coolly. "I know that is his game, but I'll put +across this 'Purple Slipper' with Hawtry and keep my 'Rosie Posie Girl' +until I get good and ready to let her play it. Then I'll produce it to +the tune of a half-million dollars and not Mr. Weiner. I've never been +squeezed, and I'm not going to have this rotten game beat me. I'll go +over and see Breit and he'll jockey me a corner on Broadway, somehow. +Back at three." And Mr. Vandeford walked out of his office as coolly as +though not sizzling inwardly with anxiety. + +"I've got you next on the booking of about four-fifths of the theaters +on Broadway, Van," said Mr. Breit, the booking king, as he and Mr. +Vandeford smoked leisurely cigars in his big, cool office. "You should +worry! E. and K. and S. and Z. are bound to pick some flivvers and in +you go. Loaf on the road and lose money like a little man." + +"My contract expires with Hawtry if I don't present her on Broadway by +September fifteenth." + +"That _is_ a bit of a pickle! But she won't have any show to jump into, +and she'll compromise with you; won't she?" + +"She'll have to," Mr. Vandeford declared. "Coming down to Atlantic City +to see 'The Purple Slipper' open two weeks from Monday, September +twenty-third?" + +"I'll be there. Rooney says it is a go; says little genius amateur wrote +it and Grant Howard 'pepped' it. That right?" + +"Yes. By!" + +An hour later, in the coolness and seclusion of the grill room of The +Monks, Mr. Vandeford was imparting his predicament to his partner in +the venture and adventures of "The Purple Slipper." + +"And you are worrying about whether Miss Hawtry will stay by us for the +few weeks we'll have to loaf on the road or even close while waiting for +the New York opening?" questioned Mr. Farraday. "Say, aren't you a bit +unjust in your judgment of her, Van?" + +"I know the whole tribe of actors, and you don't, Denny," answered Mr. +Vandeford, over a tall glass of iced tea he was drinking; he didn't know +exactly why, but the habit had grown on him lately. + +"Then why not try to put her under contract for those few indefinite +weeks?" suggested Mr. Farraday, over his cup of hot coffee. + +"You talk as though we were dealing with sane people," answered Mr. +Vandeford. "She's got us and she'll keep us guessing up to the last +minute, and then put some kind of screws on. I have got to figure out +the likely ones, to see what I can do to jam them." + +"Well, anyway, ask her. I think she'll stand by us. I know she will," +said Mr. Farraday, with both faith and conviction in his voice. "You do +her an injustice, I say!" + +"I'm not going to make her any request or offer, Denny. I can't," said +Mr. Vandeford, as he looked at the ice floating in his glass of tea. + +"Of course," assented Mr. Farraday, with pained sympathy in his big +voice. "Would you like me to sound her out?" + +"It's half your show; go ahead. She probably knows the situation and has +made her plans for the squeeze or double-cross, but you might try her +out," consented Mr. Vandeford, with a shrewd glance at Mr. Farraday. +"But I wish you wouldn't, Denny," he added, with a sudden glow of +affection in his eyes. Then he was restrained from further remonstrance +with Mr. Farraday by the thought of the author of "The Purple Slipper" +and her plucky sticking by the play through the thick and thin of her +disapproval of it. Again he offered up his big Jonathan as a sacrifice +in hopes of improving the prospects of "The Purple Slipper." + +Mr. Farraday took Miss Hawtry into his confidence about the predicament +of finding a New York theater for his play, "The Purple Slipper," that +very evening, out on the veranda of the Beach Inn, where he had motored +her by request for dinner after her fatiguing rehearsals, which she had +made still more fatiguing for Mr. William Rooney. + +"And Van sent you to ask me if I was going to stick by?" she asked, with +an effective quaver in her voice. + +"He felt that we had no right to--to tie you up for indefinite weeks," +said Mr. Farraday, constructing and temporizing at the same time. + +"Did you think as little of me as he did?" + +"No, by George, I knew you'd stick by us, and I said so!" Mr. Farraday +exploded with genuine emotion. + +"Thank you. You know me after these few weeks better than he does after +all these years of--" And the Violet bent her head on Mr. Farraday's +nearest arm and began to weep softly. They were in a secluded corner of +the veranda of the Inn, and the Violet raged at herself for having +closed the complete seclusion of Highcliff for herself and her purposes +by renting it to the Trevors when she had gone to town to the rehearsals +of "The Purple Slipper." + +And as good Dennis Farraday had no valid reason, either within or +without the law for not doing so, he put consoling and comforting arms +about her, and exposed his wide, silk-garbed shoulder to the rain of her +tears, which were not really raining. In his big heart there was the +same comforting for this conspirator as there would have been for Mr. +Vandeford's lawful widow, and he administered it with the same +affectionate respect that he would have used to the relict. + +"You're a dear, wonderful little woman!" he was saying, when the voice +of the Clyde Trevors was heard calling to them from around the veranda, +and an oath rose in the Violet with such force that she almost allowed +it to explode. Still she felt sure of her ultimate results. + +"You can count on me to stand by you and the play forever," she +promised, and the hurried pressure of their lips in the soft, dark, +sea-perfumed air was biologically inevitable. + +Mr. Godfrey Vandeford had woven a tangled web when he had let fall the +purple letter on the purple manuscript and gone out recklessly to follow +the hunch their juxtaposition implied. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The first two weeks of September spent in torrid New York were a strange +period of time to have projected itself into the calm life of Miss +Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Suddenly she found herself a cog +screwed tight into a rapid-fire piece of machinery that was running at +top speed night and day, by name, "The Purple Slipper." + +For long hours she sat in the coolness of that stage-box and held her +breath while she threw her whole self into the building of the play, +which so fascinatingly was and was not hers. And through all those +hours, close at her side, between her and the big dim theater, sat Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, with his arm across the back of her chair and his +eager face close to hers and tilted at the same angle. Her slightest +murmur or his lowest whisper caught and was answered, and they almost +seemed to be breathing one breath, so absorbed were they in the destiny +of their mutual adventure. Like all women of her kind, Patricia Adair +had known men only through a cloud, which sex traditions had firmly held +between her and them, and Godfrey Vandeford was the first man she had +encountered since she had slipped outside of its deadening density into +a world where men and women endeavored together first, and left their +sentinel undertakings to a fitting secondary time and place. In all +sincerity she accepted him as a co-worker and was as happy working with +him as it was possible for a woman to be. She specially liked being +beside him in the office, and watched him settle the details of the +running the big machine smoothly, from the hiring of the property-man to +the firing of three successive stage-carpenters. + +"Real eats, Mr. Vandeford?" the former had inquired one morning. + +"Brown-bread turkey, nice and tasty, good crackers, but soda-pop and so +forth for booze. Remember, they've got to face it, we hope, many weeks; +don't turn their stomachs so they'll all gag." + +"I see, sir, I see. I fed 'Maple Leaves' for two years, and they all et +every night and gimme a purse when it closed to go to London." + +"Goes!" + +"Brown-bread turkey sounds nice. I'm hungry," said Miss Adair, as the +good-providing property-man departed. + +"Pop is going to bring us a piece of pie and a bottle of milk from the +automat," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he began putting busy stabs with +the press pencil on a pile of papers. "I ought to send him to get Denny +to motor you for a real feed in the cool somewhere, but I want you +here." With perfect unconcern, he went on checking the list the +property-man had left him. He had ceased trying to decide the meaning of +the flutter which he was not sure Miss Adair really gave when she was +pleased. He was too busy to think about anything but the rush and roar +of the machinery of "The Purple Slipper," so he just kept Miss Adair so +near him for all the waking hours of the day that he could have no +occasion to have his thoughts distracted by worrying over just what +might be befalling her. Day after day he extracted her from the Y. W. C. +A. at ten o'clock A. M., fed her and Miss Lindsey coffee and rolls and +berries just any place that they happened to see (often he even ate with +the two girls in the big empty cafeteria at the institution), lunched +with her in the same haphazard fashion, sought a cool and quiet spot to +give her dinner, and a ride on a country road, turned her into the big +safety at about eleven o'clock, and went to bed to sleep the sleep of +the interestedly absorbed. + +The few evenings that Miss Adair spent with Mr. Gerald Height Mr. +Vandeford did not find repose so early or with such ease. Also, his +awakening on those mornings after was not so joyous, and he arrived at +the Y. W. C. A. fifteen and twenty minutes too early upon each occasion. + +However, his time was well spent in chatting with the brisk young +secretary, and his anxiety was entirely relieved each time by finding +the look intact in the gray eyes raised to his in eager greeting after +the prolonged absence of fourteen hours, when the usual separation was +about ten. + +"We went out to a place called the Beach Inn last night, and whom do you +suppose we saw there?" she demanded on one of the mornings after, over +her bowl of halved peaches. + +"Mr. and Mrs. Devil?" he asked, with a sparkle breaking through the +frown with which he had instantly greeted her mention of that gay beach +resort. + +"No; Miss Hawtry and Mr. Farraday. She wasn't nice to us at all, but Mr. +Height says she always treats him badly when they are rehearsing +together. I think Mr. Height is perfectly wonderful to her on the +stage. He's so gentle and kind; but then he's that in real life, isn't +he?" + +"Is he?" growled Mr. Vandeford over his corn-flakes. + +"Yes, and he's so just and fine in the way he speaks about everybody. He +told me how poor Miss Hawtry used to be and how you pushed her along +until she could buy that lovely house we passed, in which the Trevors +are staying while she is in town. It is hard on you, too, not to be out +there boarding with them and her instead of in this heat." + +"Did Height say that I--I boarded--out there?" demanded Mr. Vandeford, +pushing his coffee-cup away from him with a sudden snap. + +"Yes, he said you stayed out there in the summer always, and--" + +"We're late," interrupted Mr. Vandeford, snapping his watch with the +same temper he had used on his coffee-cup. "Bring that saucer of peaches +along and eat it in the car." + +"I'll take an orange instead," assented Miss Adair, as with all +good-nature and in all naturalness she deserted the last half of the +rosy peach, took an orange from the bowl before her and stood up to go +out to the car, which Valentine had parked in the shadow of the building +opposite. + +"You kid, you!" scoffed Mr. Vandeford, with an ache in his heart, but +thanksgiving for that same youthful unsophistication. "Height or +somebody will get it all across to her, and then what'll I do?" he +growled to himself as he followed her into the car. + +"And I saw that Mazie--Mazie woman there, too, with a terrible-looking +man that has written ever so many plays that are successful." Mr. +Vandeford was devoutly thankful that Mr. Grant Howard's name had not +stuck in the consciousness of the author of "The Purple Slipper." "I--I +was introduced to them too--because you know you said that I must--must +accept broad standards, and I did--last night." Miss Adair looked away, +but Mr. Vandeford could see that her little ears, set close against her +small head, with their tips covered by a smooth band of hair, grew rosy. + +"What?" he gasped, uncertain as to what she meant. + +"Talked to that--that playwright and--and drank some champagne. I like +cider better, but Mr. Height ordered it, and I thought--" + +Here the car stopped, and Valentine was at the door. Valentine never +failed to be at the door instantly when Miss Adair was in Mr. +Vandeford's car, because his French soul rejoiced within him for thus +serving a grand dame. + +"Rooney is on the last lap of the last act, and then he'll begin to +polish the whole for dress rehearsals," Mr. Vandeford said as he held +the curtains of their box aside for her to enter. + +"And Mr. Height told me, too, that the Trevors had--" + +"Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, becoming the stern producer, because he +felt that he could stand no more of Mr. Height at the Beach Inn, though +he began to listen intently to that same gentleman and Bébé Herne in the +beginning of the great scene of the now authorless play. The anxieties +passed from him, and in a moment he was in harness again with his author +and running in perfect unison. + +"Cut it off, Height, cut it off!" commanded Mr. Rooney, and he ran his +hands into his shock of black hair, which stood up all over his head +like a black, sooty mop. "That scene needs something. It isn't big and +simple enough. What did she say to him in your first layout, miss?" he +demanded of Miss Adair, for the first time acknowledging to the company +the presence of the author of their play at the rehearsals. "Can you +remember?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Adair, with the home-made color blazing in her +cheeks and fires in her gray eyes as she rose in the box, and gave the +six lines as she had written them. Her lovely, slurring, Blue-grass +voice made the whole company smile with pleasure. + +"That's it! That's it! That's real people jawing and not a lot of smarty +guff. Put that in, Fido, and write it in, Miss Herne," commanded Mr. +Rooney, without any form of thanks to the accommodating and forgiving +author. + +And truth to say the author of "The Purple Slipper" did not notice his +omission. She was in such joy at having something of the "big scene" +express what she had intended that she was clasping one of Mr. +Vandeford's hands in both hers and holding on tight to keep from +shedding tears of joy. + +"What did I tell you?" he asked, taking the two nervously clutched +little hands into his warm, strong ones, unseen in the shadow of the +box. "You keep getting things across to Bill by letting him ask you for +what he wants. See?" + +"Yes, and I'm always glad when I do as you tell me," she whispered, with +her lips almost against his ear as they both turned back to the stage +and watched their machine begin to run on greased wheels. Mr. Vandeford +thought of the Beach Inn, Mazie, the bottle of champagne, and Mr. Gerald +Height, and groaned inwardly. + +The last week of the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper" was a hectic +rush, the like of which Miss Adair had never imagined. She had gone out +again for the week-end to Mrs. Farraday's, up in Westchester, and this +time Mr. Vandeford drove out on Sunday for tea and crape myrtle with Mr. +Dennis Farraday, and, he was surprised to note again, Miss Mildred +Lindsey. The day passed like an oasis in the midst of a desert storm, +and Mr. Vandeford had the pleasure of making all arrangements for Mrs. +Farraday, Mr. and Mrs. Van Tyne, and several other old Manhattaners, who +had fallen under the spell of the young Kentuckian who had in an off +moment perpetrated "The Purple Slipper," to go to Atlantic City the +following week to be upon the spot for the opening of the play. Suites +in the great new hotel were engaged by long-distance telephone, +time-tables discussed, and trains settled upon by the time tea was over +and the golden sun had let the twilight purple the rosy plumes of the +huge myrtle hedges. In the dusk Valentine brought Mr. Vandeford's car +from the garage and Mrs. Farraday's chauffeur drove out Mr. Dennis +Farraday's beloved Surreness. Miss Lindsey said her farewell, and it +again surprised Mr. Vandeford to see the gracious kiss Mrs. Farraday put +upon the dusky red of the beautiful Western girl's cheek, while good +Dennis stood smilingly by in the friendliest delight. Then a wistful +sigh from the talented young author by his side claimed his instant +attention. + +"What is it?" he asked, with no attempt to control the tenderness in his +voice, though the dusk hid that in his eyes. + +"I want to go back to town with you," she answered him, with a little +catch in her voice. "I feel so far away from you and--and IT, up here." + +"You shall," he answered, and turned toward Mrs. Farraday, who was +coming across the grass towards them with a huge sheaf of myrtles for +his car flower-baskets in her arms. "I wonder if you'll let me take my +author back to town in a hurry to-night, Mater Farraday," he pleaded, +with the affectionate smile in both his voice and eyes that he had +learned to use in coaxing her since the days ten years ago when she had +begun to mother him along with big Dennis. "I--I sorter--sorter need +her." + +Mrs. Farraday looked at them both with a keenness under the affection in +her glance, and then laughed merrily. + +"Yes, go with him, Patricia," she commanded. "I have lived through the +week before the presentation of five plays for Van, and I think that it +is only just that you should share that ordeal with me. He's impossible, +and demands--everything. I gave him a perfectly new and wonderful hat +that cost a hundred and ten dollars for the second scene of 'Dear +Geraldine' right off my head at the dress rehearsal, and 'Miss Cut-up' +did her dances on one of my most choice Chinese rugs. Now he's taking +you from me. But go!" + +"Here's your wrap, still in the car, so hop in," commanded Mr. Vandeford +hurriedly, as though he feared that Mrs. Farraday would withdraw her +sympathetic permission. "Good-night, and thank you!" + +"Good-night, you two--two dear children," returned Mrs. Farraday, as she +saw them off, after tenderly embracing Miss Adair and making plans for +their future meeting. "How _lovely_ it would be!" she murmured to +herself, with a lack of definition, as she went back to the stately +house behind the tree, where windows were beginning to glow. + +For a long time the producer and his author were silent. + +"I hate it--and I love it," Miss Adair finally said, with her soft, +slurring voice lowered almost to a whisper as Valentine sped them along +the country road perfumed and dusky with the early night, though a +silvery radiance proclaimed a chaperoning moon as imminent. + +"That is the proper way for an author to feel about a play one week +before the opening," Mr. Vandeford assured her, with a laugh keyed to +match her declaration. "It shows an entire sympathy with the poor +producer." + +"Suppose, just suppose, that the producer had been anybody but you and I +had had to stand all--" Words failed Miss Adair in imaging her plight as +author to another producer than Mr. Vandeford. + +"Any other producer might have done better than I have done for you," +Mr. Vandeford answered her, with a sadness in his voice that he himself +had never heard before. And as he spoke he resolved to tell her the +whole Hawtry situation, which was haunting him day and night; to begin +with the purple, letter-manuscript hunch, which he had lightly taken up +to spank Miss Hawtry for trying to double-cross him with Weiner about +"The Rosie Posie Girl," and end up with the hopeless state of his +feelings about herself. Miss Adair herself stemmed the confession which +might have altered the fate of that good machine "The Purple Slipper." + +"You've made the whole horrible experience worth while to me, and I'm +going to be a great playwright yet, just to make you--you proud of me," +she assured his sadness in the purple dusk, and this time Mr. Vandeford +was so sure of the flutter that he reached out his hand and captured a +part of it, a white, slim little hand that nestled into his as though it +were not in any way aware of doing so. "I'm going to dinner with Miss +Herne to-morrow night, so Mr. Kent can show me what is the matter with +part of his costume for the third act, and then I'm going to coax Mr. +Corbett to fix it over for him," she continued, speaking of the business +of learning to be the great playwright she had promised him to become. + +"Er--er, did you say dinner with Bébé and--and Kent?" Mr. Vandeford +stammered as a desperate opening for letting his author know just what +she was doing in visiting that establishment without-the-law. + +"Yes, I know about them; Mildred told me, but I told her that I was +going to accept the 'broad standard' that prevailed in my profession. I +like both of those people a lot. What business is it of mine if they +don't want to get married?" Miss Adair's voice was coolly unconcerned +and professional. + +"Help!" ejaculated Mr. Vandeford, holding the slim little hand as if +drowning. And indeed he did have a sinking sensation, which, strange to +say, was relieved by a quick mental vision of the capable young woman at +the desk of the great international safety. + +"And I know about Mr. Height's three divorces, and I think he is to be +pitied instead of criticized for being so unfortunate and lonely. +Mildred says she doesn't believe he is as lonely as he tells me he is, +but I know he is. I asked Miss Herne to ask him to dinner, too, and she +did," Miss Adair continued, thus making little stabs into Mr. +Vandeford's vitals. + +And right there Mr. Vandeford paid the entire penalty for all his tilts +against organized morality by feeling unworthy to take a beautiful, +fragrant, adoring, confiding girl in his arms and telling her all he had +learned of the tragic results of such tilts. His predicament was tragic, +though unique. If he summed up these others, he sized up himself to her, +and by what judgment he taught her to judge them she would judge him +when the time came. If he taught her to turn from Kent or Height she +would turn from him, when she knew him entirely, as she surely would +soon. And, forsooth, how would he prove to her that he was a better man +than the copper-headed tango lizard, Height, though he knew himself to +be? And who was this girl, anyway, to come out of a little back-woods +town where the standards of life were so narrow that all who could lived +out of them in degrading secrecy, and make him feel himself unworthy +when he had lived openly in a way about which his own conscience had not +troubled him? Why did he hesitate to tell her about his affair with the +Violet and his anxiety about her contract, and why should his face burn +at the thought of telling her how he had coolly let his best friend in +for the prospect of an affair with the star for the purpose of +protecting her and her play? And why should the sex and business +standards of his world be entirely different from those of hers or any +other world! On the other hand why shouldn't they all double-cross and +prey on and defame and applaud each other to their heart's content? Why +should they care if they were judged by--? At this part Mr. Vandeford's +bitter reflections were suddenly invaded by a perceptible collapse of +Miss Adair's soft and proud young body against his, and a round, warm +cheek fell against his silk-clad sleeve, as he perceived that his +eminent author had plunged suddenly into the depths of healthy and +innocent slumber, while he had been moralizing about her and the rest +of the universe. He slipped his arm about her with cautious tenderness +and made her comfortable, while he muttered to himself: + +"She's a white flame and, God willing, I'm going to keep her that!" + +During the next week the "white flame" burned high and bright while the +author of "The Purple Slipper" threw herself into her place in the +grinding of the machine that was to turn out a perfected play on the +following Tuesday night at Atlantic City. Everywhere Mr. Rooney was +tightening bolts and polishing surfaces until they glistened while he +snapped and tried out all bands. + +Miss Lindsey was pale and quiet, but she acted her part to Mr. Rooney's +entire satisfaction, though he never said so. Mr. Leigh's feet were +still a target, and the glowering girl, Miss Grayson, was always +tearful, but constantly improving. When the company was not being ground +and polished, Mr. Corbett's tailors and dressmakers were fitting +costumes, and the property man was checking over and over each demand of +each and every person, from the fresh rose Mr. Kent was to give to Dame +Carrington to the mud that was to be splashed every day upon Mr. Gerald +Height's riding-boots for his last and triumphant entry. Miss Adair had +lost all sense of the play as a whole and only thought of it as +distracting and distracted bits. She had, of course, never witnessed the +scenes between Miss Hawtry and Mr. Height, as they were still rehearsed +in private and would be until the night of the dress rehearsal on Monday +at Atlantic City. This was well. + +But one thing she kept with her through the whole strain; the sense of +being one with Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and that one working for pure joy. + +As for Mr. Vandeford, his eyes sank back under his brows, and Mr. Adolph +Meyers was with him far into every night. + +"How does the booking stand now, Pops?" Mr. Vandeford demanded on the +Thursday night before the opening Tuesday. + +"Atlantic City next week, Wilmington and New Haven the next if need be, +and--it is to Syracuse or Toronto we must jump, Mr. Vandeford, sir," +answered Mr. Meyers, with beads of perspiration on his high brow. + +"Violet will never make that jump, Pops. Her contract closes the day we +open in Atlantic City, and there we'll close, too, if we haven't New +York right in sight. What'll we do?" + +"It is many a show closed before it opened," Mr. Meyers said, with a +wary look at Mr. Vandeford. + +"This show is going to open and never close--until it's had a thorough +Broadway try-out, Pops," said Mr. Vandeford, quietly. "Anything from Mr. +Breit?" + +"Nothing to hope for a Broadway opening before November first." + +"I'll pass the question up Friday, and then see what I'll do," Mr. +Vandeford said slowly as if turning his back for the moment to +something that stared him in the face. + +All Friday morning he worked with "The Purple Slipper" machine with a +bitter defiance in his eyes that made Miss Adair keep close to his side, +though she didn't understand her reason for doing so. + +"Is anything the matter?" she questioned, with her gray eyes stricken +with alarm. The fear for her play in those gray eyes sent Mr. Vandeford +into desperate measures. He asked Miss Hawtry to go to luncheon with +him, and she graciously accepted. + +"Where do we get in on Broadway after Atlantic City, Van?" she asked as +soon as she was served with her iced melon. + +"We get in all right," he parried, putting his spoon into his +cantaloupe. + +"That's fine. I don't mind that Atlantic City week, but I'm glad I'm +past ever doing the road again except to the Coast. They'll eat up 'The +Rosie Posie Girl' in Chicago and San Francisco." Miss Hawtry was +deliberately declaring her intentions to Mr. Vandeford without saying a +word about them. + +"I'm going to take 'The Purple Slipper' over to London before I take it +West." Mr. Vandeford answered her declaration with another not put in +words, but so well did he know the workings of her shrewd, small mind +that he saw that the game was up unless he did what he must do. During +the rest of their luncheon they talked about the Trevors. + +Straight from the Astor Mr. Vandeford walked into the office of Mr. +Weiner. + +"Weiner," he asked, without any sort of preamble, "will you give a +month's try-out of my play, 'The Purple Slipper,' in your New Carnival +Theater from October first to November first, with a proper guarantee, +and then an option on an unlimited run there if it makes good, for a +half-interest in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' _without_ Hawtry?" Mr. Vandeford +knew that he was offering Mr. Weiner a good thing, for the rights of +"The Rosie Posie Girl" had been hotly contested by all the big +theatrical managers on Broadway the winter before, and Mr. Vandeford had +got them from Hilliard because of his success with "Dear Geraldine" by +the same author. They had all coveted it because it was one of those +combinations about the success of which there could be no doubt. In +offering Weiner a half-interest Mr. Vandeford was aware that he was +offering him at least a hundred thousand dollars, but Mr. Vandeford's +hunch about the purple on purple was beginning to cost him dear, though +at least a hundred thousand dollars did not seem too much to pay to keep +the agony of failure out of a pair of sea-gray eyes that had trusted him +the first time they had looked into his. + +"With Hawtry it goes; without Hawtry, no, Mr. Vandeford," was the prompt +answer. + +"With Hawtry six months from now?" questioned Mr. Vandeford. + +"It is that I have a weak heart, Mr. Vandeford, and I do not trade in +futures," answered Mr. Weiner, with a spark in his black eyes. + +"You know my fix, Weiner; now what will you take for the New Carnival +October first for my Hawtry show?" + +"I will trade that entire 'Rosie Posie Girl' manuscript, with all rights +for that New Carnival Theater on October first, with option for the +entire season, Mr. Vandeford," said Mr. Weiner, rolling his big cigar +from one side of his mouth to the other. + +"Without Hawtry?" + +"I have a new Hawtry right now--in pickle," Mr. Weiner answered. + +"Will the New Carnival certainly be finished October first?" + +"Yes, to a certainty of a large guarantee." + +"How long will you give me to answer?" asked Mr. Vandeford. + +"I have made an appointment with S. & K. to talk that New Carnival +Theater for a show at five o'clock to-day, Mr. Vandeford. I will call it +six o'clock for you," answered Weiner, as he turned the screw with all +show of consideration for his fellow producer. + +"I'll be back at four-forty-five," Mr. Vandeford answered him, and with +no further good-by took his departure. + +Arriving at his office, Mr. Vandeford directed Mr. Meyers that he was to +have half an hour entirely undisturbed, entered his own office, and +after a second's pause went into the little office that had been +assigned to Miss Adair, the author, and sat down in the chair she very +seldom occupied, but which was hers by tenancy. On the desk were a pair +of silk gloves she had left there the day before, and in a blue vase +were several roses in a good state of preservation, which he recognized +as having come from a bunch Miss Adair had been wearing after having had +luncheon with Mr. Gerald Height on Monday. These objects disturbed Mr. +Vandeford vaguely. He put them out of his mind roughly and went into +conference with himself sternly. Literally he was weighing the +question. + +On one side of the balance he laid "The Rosie Posie Girl," which, with +Hawtry, was sure to run on Broadway for at least two seasons and make +for him a fortune that was indefinitely large and sure. Beside this, its +production would insure him a position among the country's really great +producers. The show was big enough in conception to admit of a +spectacularly artistic treatment, which he had intended to give it so +that it would place musical comedy on a plane upon which it had never +stood before. He knew himself well enough to know that a real triumph of +that kind once accomplished, he would want to turn to other fields of +endeavor, and he could see his greater self standing patiently waiting +for his lesser to be liberated by the process of climbing out of the +very top of the theatrical profession. + +Sternly he turned from himself to the filling of the other pan of the +scales in which he was weighing the question. He looked for something to +put in to over-balance the certainty of "The Rosie Posie Girl," and +found nothing but a vast uncertainty with many potentialities. "The +Purple Slipper" was a play of no known classification, and with Hawtry +in it was still less fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring. And there +was added the uncertainty of that week from the twenty-third to the +first during which he had no legal hold on the fair Violet. He felt +reasonably sure that the announcement that "The Purple Slipper" would +open the big new Weiner theater, with all the clash of publicity which +he could give to it, would hold her steady on her job, but as he laid it +down on the scales, it had to be classed as an uncertainty. The fifteen +per cent. seat sales based on Mr. Gerald Height's appearance in silk +tights, velvet, and lace was about the only positive he had to lay in +the scales, and that, of course, failed to tip them to any degree. For +about fifteen minutes he sat perfectly rigid. Then he gently laid on the +uncertain side of the scales the positive and concrete faith in a pair +of sea-gray eyes, jeweled with tears, and watched "The Rosie Posie +Girl" rise high as "The Purple Slipper" sank down heavily. + +After this he took a rose from the green vase, stuck it in his +buttonhole, and went forth--into his own office. He there rang his +buzzer for Mr. Meyers, and seated himself with the air of a man who has +had a burden lifted off his shoulders rather than with the air of one +about to give away half a million dollars. + +"Pops, 'The Rosie Posie Girl' is sold, lock, stock, and barrel, to +Weiner for a month's try-out of 'The Purple Slipper' at the New Carnival +Theater, good guarantee for that month, and an option on a run to the +limit for eight-thousand-a-week houses. Get Lusky over the 'phone, and +you and he have the contracts drawn as tight as wax by four-thirty." + +"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I must have a say that--" + +"No, Pops, don't say anything." + +"With a pardon it is that I think that Miss Adair is a very fine lady, +and so also 'The Purple Slipper.'" With this incoherent pronouncement +of sympathy and encouragement, though devastated at the loss of "The +Rosie Posie Girl," upon which he had already spent many creative days, +Mr. Meyers departed into the outer office. + +For a long minute Mr. Vandeford glared at the unoffending rose in his +buttonhole, then smiled, ran his hands through his hair, turned to the +telephone, and plunged into the last lap of the race of "The Purple +Slipper." Until four o'clock he was closeted with the most brilliant +theatrical publicity man in New York City; then he took his contracts +and went over to Weiner's office and sacrificed "The Rosie Posie Girl" +to-- + +An hour later he had told his partner, Mr. Dennis Farraday, all about +it, and showed him the deeds of execution. + +"You ought not to have done it, Van. It was too big a price to pay," Mr. +Farraday declared, with his mane rumpled on high. + +"No," answered Mr. Vandeford, in happy calmness. "'The Purple Slipper' +will pay it all out--one way or another." + +"It must," declared Mr. Farraday, with helpless energy. "What can I do?" + +"Oh, be the usual ray of sunshine around the place and--and keep the +Violet happy and busy until we land on Broadway." Mr. Vandeford said +this with a coldness in tone and voice that he had to force hard. His +attitude was that he had had to sacrifice himself so why not sacrifice +Mr. Farraday also? And he hated himself for that attitude. + +"I understand, and you can count on me," answered Mr. Farraday, with +such an innocently happy face that Mr. Vandeford groaned inwardly at the +fact that he did not understand, and would surely be made to soon if his +calculations on the intentions of Miss Hawtry were correct. + +"I've arranged for a chair-car to take the whole company down to +Atlantic City Sunday morning, so the whole bunch can have a plunge and a +good rest-up before the Monday dress rehearsal." Mr. Farraday produced +that piece of business with great pride. + +"Good!" was all the commendation that he got, and he betook himself off +for other good-natured efforts on the affairs of "The Purple Slipper." + +Though at times Mr. Godfrey Vandeford approached the heroic in action, +he was very human in reflexes and, having paid a price for the happiness +of Miss Patricia Adair, he proceeded to partake of as much of that +happiness as he could get hold of. He captured the author of "The Purple +Slipper" after the rehearsals on Friday, which were the last before the +dress rehearsal in Atlantic City on Monday night, because the cast of a +play are, after all, so many human beings, who have to be given at least +a day for such animal functions as packing trunks, closing apartments, +dodging creditors, and severing home ties, and he carried her off to the +country with the intention of having her all to himself for dinner at a +little inn up Westchester way. After they had started in that direction +and were flying behind Valentine along sun-gilded country lanes, he +changed his mind, changed the road slightly, and had them landed under +the wing of Mrs. Farraday for dinner. He did this with direct intention. +He judged himself, and decided that it would be safest to announce to +Miss Adair that her play was to have the honor of opening the great New +Carnival Theatre on Broadway somewhere within two hundred yards of Mrs. +Farraday. This program he carried out with efficient directness and then +found a strange lacking in himself. + +"Oh, how wonderful you are!" was Miss Adair's exclamation when he had +imparted his news just as a young moon was silvering the poplar under +which they sat on an old stone bench at the bottom of the sunken garden. +"Everybody has said that you couldn't do it, but I didn't worry at all +like the rest of them. I knew that you could." + +"How did you know that I could do it?" he asked, and he rejoiced with +pride that his author did not yet know of either the existence or his +sacrifice of "The Rosie Posie Girl." + +"Why, I don't know--I knew just because I--I--" For the first time Mr. +Vandeford was absolutely certain of the flutter towards him, and at the +same time felt certain that he was the first man who ever had been +certain of it; and just as his breast and arms were hollowing themselves +to nest it he--denied it and himself. He didn't want it at a purchase +price, and he took Miss Adair home and locked her in the Y. W. C. A. +before midnight. + +The journey down to Atlantic City on Sunday morning was accomplished +with much joy and hilarity. The entire cast of "The Purple Slipper" +acted like boys and girls let out of school, and mischievous children at +that. Miss Adair enjoyed it all immensely, and at times she very timidly +joined in the fun, which was centering itself upon putting Mr. Leigh of +the uncertain feet, and Miss Grayson, the glowerer, into white ribbon +bonds, which bonds were supplied from a large box of bonbons, the +identity of the donor of which she refused to reveal, though Mr. Kent +declared he had brought her to the station in a gold limousine with +diamond wheels, and bore the name of Billy Astorbilt. + +Only Miss Hawtry held aloof, as she and her maid and various pieces of +ultra luggage occupied the four seats at the end of the car. The seat +next her was kept vacant, and at various times during the several hours' +run Mr. Vandeford, Mr. Height, and Miss Adair occupied it with +respectful tribute, but most of the time Mr. Farraday sat considerately +beside her, and smiled upon the fun. Mr. William Rooney and Fido rode in +the day-coach and worked the entire way on duplicate prompt copies. + +Also Mr. Rooney and Fido were absent that evening from the dinner-party +given by Mr. Farraday in the great new hotel to the entire cast of "The +Purple Slipper"--in honor of Miss Hawtry. They were working with the +stage-carpenter, the property-man, and the electrician until a late +hour, when they met the members of the dinner-party in pairs in +wheel-chairs being trundled along the board-walk for sea air before +retiring. + +"Hope the angel gave the bunch enough drink to keep 'em asleep until +two-thirty to-morrow," Mr. Rooney remarked to Fido as he spat out into +the Atlantic Ocean. "I'm going to put the gaff to 'em to-morrow night, +and I want to start with 'em unstrung and string 'em to suit myself. +That little author is some girl, but I wonder why Vandeford wanted to +shunt that white devil onto a nice boob like Farraday, and him his +friend, too," he further remarked as he watched the star and the angel +being trundled by in one of the big wicker perambulators that infest the +board walk. + +In the other direction were being trundled the author and the producer +of "The Purple Slipper," and at that moment they were in the mood of +fellow-workmen at the machine of "The Purple Slipper." + +"Rooney sent me word that the lighting is doubtful. This rotten little +theater is hard to count on for any kind of unusual lighting, and we +must have that diffusion for the dinner scene so as to make the candle +effect seem real," Mr. Vandeford was saying with great animation to Miss +Adair and with a total lack of sentiment under the same young moon that +had baffled him Friday night out in Westchester. + +"The whole thing seems a confused jumble to me," admitted Miss Adair. "I +feel as if I couldn't wait until to-morrow night to really see the play +with the costumes and scenery and love scenes and all in the right +place. And yet I'm so tired I feel as if I could sleep a week." + +"I'll shake you if you go dead on me here as you did the other night in +the car," threatened Mr. Vandeford, with a laugh, but he adjusted his +shoulder back of hers as if he considered the danger entirely real. + +"I'll certainly do it if you don't take me back where I belong, wherever +it is," threatened Miss Adair. "I hope Mildred isn't as--as tired as I +am and--and can help me. I'll go to bed with my clothes on if she +doesn't," Miss Adair gasped between yawns, and fluttered to Mr. +Vandeford with a frank intention of gaining support. + +"Back to the hotel, boy, and go a good pace. Double tip," commanded Mr. +Vandeford to their propelling Italian youth, with an alarm which puzzled +him as much as it would have puzzled many of his friends, while he +accorded his exhausted author the amount of support needed for the +occasion--and no more. + +And as Mr. Rooney had hoped, the entire cast of "The Purple Slipper" +slept into the afternoon of the dress-rehearsal day in the complete +collapse which the sea air induced, and they were in a good condition +for restringing. In fact, some of them began that process for themselves +by an afternoon plunge in the ocean. + +One of those plunges had an after-effect on the fate of "The Purple +Slipper" further than keying up Mr. Gerald Height for his dress +rehearsals. When he discovered, while detaining Miss Adair for a chat +after his late luncheon, that the author had never beheld the sea before +in all her inland existence, and had never been in it, he insisted on +procuring a bathing-suit and initiating her into that sport. She +assented to the proposition with the greatest eagerness, and in less +than half an hour she had trusted herself to the arms of Mr. Gerald +Height and the Atlantic Ocean. They were both rough in their handling, +and finally she came to resent the boldness of the former as much as she +enjoyed that of the latter. With crimson in her cheeks and lightning in +her eyes, she first attempted to drown them both, then waded to shore, +sat down on the sand, and said things to Mr. Gerald Height, which had +the magic effect of making him unburden himself and his lizard-like +career to her in its entirety. + +"You see, I didn't know what a girl who--who wrote your play was like +exactly, and because I couldn't find out I have kept on trying. +Now--now, by George, I know," he said, with a boyishness coming into his +murky eyes. "Say, you know my mother was a Kentucky girl, and I guess +that is one reason I have stuck by this fool--this 'Purple Slipper.' +That and wanting to chase you down." + +"Well, now that you've 'chased me down' and found that I'm not--not +there, you'll stay by me and 'The Purple Slipper,' won't you?" Miss +Adair asked, and then like two merry children they both laughed at her +jumble. + +"I will," answered Mr. Height, with the queer attachment in his heart +that a man feels for a perfectly good woman who is jolly and friendly +with him after she has allowed him to tell her just how wicked he is or +thinks he is. "I thought the whole thing was a flivver, but when +Vandeford got the opening of the New Carnival for it, I sat up and took +notice. Just you watch the stuff between Hawtry and me put a line a mile +long from the box office." + +"I'm wild to see you and Miss Hawtry in your scenes, and we must go to +dress for early dinner. The rehearsals are called for six-thirty. Thank +you for--for being my friend." As she rose from the sand Miss Adair held +out her hand to Mr. Height, with the friendliness and confidence in her +eyes that had smoothed over other rough, though not so rough, places of +the same character in her young life. + +"That's some kid and there are lots like her. I've got to halt sooner or +later," Mr. Height muttered to himself as he dressed for his early +dinner. "I'm going to put this fool play across for her, too." There are +a few women who distill loyalty out of declined passion; but not many. +They make their mark on their generation. + +The dress rehearsals of a play are varied in finish and intensity, but +the variety which Mr. William Rooney conducted was of the most +brilliant, and he expected them to go as well as the opening night. He +made small allowance for the strangeness of lights, scenery, and +costuming, and that allowance was only for time, not in smoothness. As +he willed, his cast generally performed. The cast of "The Purple +Slipper" was of experienced actors, and he felt certain that they would +meet his expectations. At six-thirty o'clock he seated himself in the +middle seat of the sixth row center, looked around to see that the +electrician and the costumer were at hand to catch any criticism he +wished to make, and in a crisp hard voice that exploded like a cannon he +called up the curtain. + +The author was at her post in the left stage box, and bulwarked and +buttressed by the producer as usual, while Mr. Dennis Farraday, the +angel, sat alone in the box opposite, with a delighted smile on his +broad face. + +The curtain went up, and "The Purple Slipper" glided on the stage with +never a creak or a careen. The lights scintillated and glared on the +wonderful costumes and scenery, and the sparkling dialogue began to +unwind itself into the startling plot. For the first ten minutes the +author glowed with such joyous excitement that the producer felt the +actual radiations; then little by little he felt her begin to cool, and +a chill ran up and down his own spine as Hawtry and Height held the +stage alone in the first dash of Howard-"pepped" dalliance near the last +of the first act. He held his breath, frozen within him, until the +curtain went down, and then he refused to turn to the author at his +side. He was in a panic and undecided what to do until Mr. Rooney +relieved him of the need of action. + +"Mr. Vandeford," he commanded from the middle of the theater, "get New +York on the wire and have Lindenberg start a good scenery man out on the +early morning train. That back-drop must have a toning wash: it jumps +out at the costumes. Lindenberg is in his office until seven to get a +message from you. It's ten to now. You gotter jump." + +Without a look at Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford "jumped," and thus she was +left alone to watch the second act grind along to its climax, with +Hawtry acting the high-bred virago with an extremity of brilliant +sensuality, with Mr. Height supporting her in broad lines that could be +well-read between. Once the author looked at Mr. Dennis Farraday in the +box opposite, and then looked away from his blazing enjoyment of the +startling climax, which the lovers acted in such beauty of body, and +such beauty of execution that, without knowing why, she was thrilled +from her head to her feet. + +"Broad standards," she whispered to encourage herself, as her eyes shone +and her cheeks glowed as she lowered her head and re-read the proof of +the program to be used on Tuesday night, which Mr. Vandeford had given +her and upon which she observed the name Patricia Adair in type only +slightly smaller than that of Violet Hawtry. In a few minutes the +curtain was again called up; Mr. Vandeford was still absent, and again +her attention was riveted to the stage. + +Almost the entire first half of the last act was hers, and the tension +in her glowing young body had relaxed and she gave Mr. Vandeford a +semblance of a smile as he seated himself beside her just before Hawtry +came on the scene to lay with Height the foundation of the great dinner +scene. This hurdle was held firmly in front of the young author. + +Miss Hawtry entered in a blaze of eighteenth century glory, only with +her authentic costume cunningly contrived to reveal more of her +wonderful white body than any woman of that period would have done, and +beautiful in his velvet and ruffles, Gerald Height followed her to +thereupon enact a scene which was a slow and marvellous distilling of +the very wine of emotion intended to go through human blood like a +stinging poison. It had reached its climax, and even the emptiness of +the theater was breathless when, like a whip, Mr. Rooney's cold voice +brought Miss Hawtry out of Mr. Height's arms. + +"Cut it, cut it!" he commanded. "You couldn't get that across even on +Broadway. The censor will close the show. Play it fifty per cent. and +then all the subway will quit you." + +"I'll play it as I choose, you black monkey, you, with your Irish name." +Maggie Murphy sprang out from the body of the beautiful Hawtry to answer +back gutter with gutter. + +"Wait a minute, Miss Hawtry." Mr. Vandeford rose in his box from beside +the author of the violent scene that was becoming a basis of a scene of +violence. "Rooney, it can be played with--" + +"You sit down and help your bread-and-butter baby hide her face for +writing such rot instead of trying to tell me how to act." Maggie was +now commanding the Violet, and she was wild with nervous rage. "She's +welcome to you; five years of your living off me and my work is enough, +and I don't intend to--" + +"Back to your lines on which Miss Hawtry enters, Miss Lindsey," +commanded Mr. Rooney, in his machine-gun manner. "Get ready for your +cue, Height." + +Completely ignoring Miss Hawtry, who was standing down center, Mildred +Lindsey calmly entered and began the beautiful little bit of persiflage +with Miss Herne, who had gone on before her with an agility unlike her +usual slow gait. There was nothing for Miss Hawtry to do but retire to +the wings, which she did, and with the nervous bomb exploded, she +continued the rehearsals to a finish with the greatest brilliancy, +playing the interrupted scene at fifty per cent. of its fire, as +directed by Mr. Rooney. + +But the author of "The Purple Slipper" was not there to see the ending +in calm after the storm, for she had fled at the Violet's attack upon +Mr. Vandeford, and while he stood his ground to see the matter settled +in the face of the insult, she had vanished. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +At twelve-thirty Mr. Rooney was still in the theater with his +property-man and his electrician, but just before one he left through +the stage-door. + +"All over, old man, you can put out your lights, lock up, and beat it," +he said to the old gentleman who had sat year after year and kept the +gates of his Inferno. + +"Star still in her dressing-room, gent with her," the old keeper +answered, as he leered at Mr. Rooney, and accepted the big black cigar +offered him. + +"Big, red-headed chap with the show?" Mr. Rooney questioned carelessly. + +"Same," admitted the old keeper. + +"Cuss her," Mr. Rooney remarked, without either special interest or +malice, and took his leisurely way to his hotel. + +The star dressing-room at the little Atlantic City theater, in which +half the plays produced on Broadway first try out their charm, is larger +than the dressing-rooms in most of the modern theaters, and dainty +Susette always made any dressing-room which happened to serve Miss +Hawtry look more like a boudoir than seemed possible, by taking thought +to have silky rose curtains to adjust over costume-racks and windows, +with covers to match to be slipped over the couple of rough chairs +usually supplied dressing-rooms. A fillet covering large enough for any +dressing-table, the silver and ivory of the make-up outfit, and lights +shaded with the fillet over rose were about all the equipment that the +French girl carried in the top of one of Miss Hawtry's costume trunks, +but she managed an effect with them that many a Fifth Avenue decorator +might envy. Following instructions, she had put all in exquisite order +and left the theater before Miss Hawtry was off the stage. The Violet +had been obliged to send her summons to Mr. Dennis Farraday by the old +door-keeper; hence his knowledge of her manoeuvers. + +Miss Hawtry was still encased in the magnificence of the costume for the +final scene of "The Purple Slipper," and in the rose light of the little +dressing-room she glowed like a fire-hearted opal as Mr. Dennis Farraday +entered with the great hesitation of a first appearance in a stage +dressing-room. His face was pale and serious. Miss Hawtry had seen that +her Maggie Murphy insult to Mr. Vandeford had apparently cut more deeply +into the big Jonathan than into Mr. Vandeford himself, and she had +realized that she must set her scene well and act quickly and with +daring if she accomplished her purposes. + +"Forgive me--and comfort me. I have hurt myself more than I have hurt +him," she cried out as she turned to him and expelled two sparkling +tears from her great blue eyes, and held out bare, white, glorious arms +to him, with the sob of a repentant child caught in her throat. + +Now, Mr. Dennis Farraday, great gentleman and the son of a line of +gentlemen, was in the same state that many another good man and true +would be in after witnessing "The Purple Slipper" as played by Miss +Hawtry in her compelling animality, and his angry eyes suddenly blazed +with another light than anger, as with a hard breath he admitted the +big, beautiful, treacherous cat into his arms and allowed her bare arms +to coil around his neck and her body to cling to his. + +"How could you--how can you?" he asked, and the question on his lips +made them cold, and kept them from hers--long enough. + +Mr. Vandeford stood in the dressing-room door without so much as rapping +for permission to enter, and his face was dead white while his eyes +blazed in a great terror. He seemed not to notice the purport of the +scene he had interrupted, but his voice cut into the situation like cold +steel. + +"Denny, we can't find Miss Adair anywhere, and here's a note she left +Miss Lindsey. What do you make of it?" He handed Mr. Farraday a sheet of +hotel note-paper, which he took with a trembling hand while Miss Hawtry +shrank back against her lace-covered dressing-table and gathered her +forces to annihilate Mr. Vandeford. This was the note, which Mr. +Farraday read with one glance, but failed to read to Miss Hawtry, +because its few lines struck all consciousness of her existence entirely +from his mind. + + _Dear Mildred_: + + Dishonor has never smirched the name of Adair until I put it on + that theater program. I have branded the annals of my family, and I + never want to look into a human face again. Good-by. You've been + good to me. + + PATRICIA. + +"My God! What do you suppose she means?" Mr. Farraday gasped, as he +looked in abject terror at Mr. Vandeford, who returned his glance in +kind. + +"And I promised Roger to take care of her," Mr. Farraday gasped, and +without so much as a glance at Miss Hawtry, both men departed with all +the rapidity possible. There must be some reason that all bonds +without-the-law are so brittle, and those of friendship and honor and +love so strong within the code. + +Miss Hawtry did some rapid thinking, as unaided, she slipped from the +costume of the star of "The Purple Slipper" into her normal raiment and +character. Then she called a wheel-chair and had herself trundled to the +hotel. While she was propelled, many other wheels were turning and +turning fast. + +"What does Miss Lindsey think is the matter, and where she is?" Mr. +Farraday questioned Mr. Vandeford as they strode along together down the +board-walk towards the hotel. + +"She says it's that rotten scene between Hawtry and Height that's killed +her, and she is right. I felt her die right there by my side," Mr. +Vandeford answered. + +"You two don't think she would really put an end to--to herself about a +play, do you?" demanded Mr. Farraday, and he fairly staggered as he +asked the question. Then not waiting for an answer, he began to run +toward the entrance of the hotel half a block ahead. Just as he was +turning into the doors with Mr. Vandeford closely following, an Italian +wheel-chair boy darted out of the dusk of his stand, and plucked the +latter by the sleeve; then together they went racing back the way Mr. +Vandeford had come. + +Half way down the long arbor, dusky under its vines, Mr. Farraday met +Miss Lindsey, and in the subdued light they paused and looked into each +other's faces; then entirely to the surprise of them both, they went +into each other's arms and clung together like two frightened children. +Miss Lindsey was smothering sobs which made her tender breast storm +against Mr. Farraday's, in whose own a heart was racing with terror. + +"I don't blame her; it was loathsome, and it was about her own +grandmother," Miss Lindsey managed to say in a fierce, beautiful voice. + +"You don't think, do you, that--" Mr. Farraday was gasping as he held +Miss Lindsey still tighter against the racing heart, which was beginning +to slow down and pound against hers with a slightly different speed. +However, the terror in his voice made Miss Lindsey press him to her with +sustaining closeness. + +"She's Southern and different, and I don't know what to think," she was +saying, and in the absorption of their terror they failed to notice that +Miss Hawtry passed them not six feet away in her wicker chair. + +And while they clung to each other and enjoyed their fright and anxiety +together, Miss Hawtry went into the telephone-booth and got a +long-distance connection with Mr. Weiner in New York in an incredibly +short time. Their conversation was almost as incredibly short in view of +its portentousness, but while it lasted, Mr. Gerald Height and Mr. +William Rooney had been added to the group of anxiety under the arbor, +and they were all in close conclave, though not in embrace, when Miss +Hawtry returned to them, walking with cool determination in every step. + +"Mr. Farraday," Miss Hawtry said, with a serenity in her rich voice and +manner, "I will have to tell you as Mr. Vandeford's partner in 'The +Purple Slipper' that I am entirely dissatisfied with the way the play +proves up at dress rehearsal and refuse to open in it. As I am under no +contract to him since Saturday night, I am motoring back to New York +to-night to begin rehearsals to-morrow in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' for Mr. +Weiner. Good-night!" With a stately curtsy to the assembled principals +of "The Purple Slipper," very dramatic in execution, the Violet bowed +herself away from them forever. Ten minutes after she was on her way +back to Manhattan in a big touring-car provided by the hotel management +per a telephone order from Mr. Weiner of New York. + +"And Van sold 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' for her opening on Broadway in the +New Carnival Theater with 'The Purple Slipper,'" Mr. Farraday gasped as +he sat down suddenly on one of the benches in the dim little arbor. + +"Lord, what a lose, both shows and maybe--maybe Miss Adair, too," Mr. +Gerald Height exclaimed, and there were both sympathy and anxiety in his +voice. + +"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Rooney, as he rolled his fat cigar from the +left of his mouth to the right and spat into the vines. "I've made a +pretty good play out of 'The Purple Slipper.' It will go all right +without her. Actors aren't so much. It's the situation and the +stage-managing." + +"That's what you think," jeered Mr. Gerald Height, gloomily. "I always +had a hunch that I would never play wig and ruffles." + +"Can that hunch," commanded Mr. Rooney. "I'm going to put Miss Lindsey +in the part and play it refined for a winner. Been understudying Miss +Hawtry, haven't you, Miss Lindsey?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Lindsey, and a sudden radiance shone from her dark, +intellectual face that lit up the whole arbor and lighted a flame in the +creative hearts of both Mr. Gerald Height and Mr. William Rooney. And +what it lighted in the hearts of both of those gentlemen was nothing to +the blaze it fanned in the heart of Mr. Dennis Farraday, where it had +been smouldering along from a spark touched off the day of the beefsteak +and mushrooms. "If you'll help me play it as I have seen it all along, +Mr. Rooney, I can go on to-morrow night." + +"Good," agreed Mr. Rooney. "I'll shove Miss Grayson up into your part, +and cut out hers until we get a girl. We'll get the little author busy +right now, blotting out the Hawtry smell and putting you in, as I say, +refined and--" + +"Oh, but where _is_ she?" moaned Mr. Farraday, coming back to his agony +of uneasiness, which had been drugged by hearing and seeing "The Purple +Slipper" and Mr. Vandeford's fortunes rescued and reconstructed right +before his ears and eyes. + +"There ain't but two places for a refined lady to run in Atlantic +City,--the railroad station and the ocean,--and I bet Mr. Vandeford is +lugging her from the railroad station right now," Mr. Rooney said with +easy conviction. "Course she'd dodge back to the Christian ladies home +the first mud-puddle she stepped into, but we'll set her on her feet and +rub the splashes off her white stockings and--" + +Mr. Rooney was interrupted in his kindly flow of reassurance by the +appearance of a wheel-chair propelled by the shrewd Italian youth, who +had that evening made his individual fortune, in which sat Mr. Vandeford +and the author of "The Purple Slipper." Without command, he stopped +beside the group of friends, and Mr. Vandeford alighted, but Miss Adair +shrank back into the shadow of the perambulator. + +"Oh, darling, listen," cried Miss Lindsey, as she reached into that +retreat and drew Miss Adair into her arms. "Miss Hawtry has thrown up +the part and gone back to New York, and I am going to act it for you +just as you and I have talked about it all this time. Mr. Rooney is +going to help us, and we--we are going to make good for you--and Mr. +Vandeford--to-morrow night. We are!" + +"Just watch us, Miss Adair. I'll do my best, and I'll--I'll be like we +talked the other day," Mr. Height said as he came to the other side of +the wicker retreat of the hunted author. Something in his voice made Mr. +Dennis Farraday put his arm around the lizard's shoulders, a thing he +would not have thought of doing a week ago. + +"We are all going to stand by, little girl, and it'll be some play that +we produce at the New Carnival October first," Mr. Farraday put in by +way of his contribution to the wounded young author. + +However, it was the crack of Mr. Rooney's whip that brought her to her +feet again. + +"Miss Adair, you and Lindsey come back with me to the theater now," he +commanded the shrinking and tragic author. "Somebody get Fido and tell +him to wake up everybody and have 'em all at the theater to rehearse in +a hour; that'll be three o'clock. Mr. Vandeford, you'd better get in a +press story over long distance before Hawtry beats you to it. You may +catch a morning paper or two. Now, everybody get out and work like fun +and we'll show Broadway a sure-fire hit October first." + +"Can you do it, Bill?" Mr. Vandeford asked in a quiet voice. It was the +first time he had spoken since he had coolly and silently picked Miss +Adair up off a bench in the little railroad station and put her into the +sympathetic young Dago's one-man-power conveyance. + +"I can take ten yards of calico, a pot of red wagon paint, and a pretty +gal and make a show to fill any theater on Broadway for six months--if +I'm let alone," answered Mr. Rooney, with the assurance that moves +mountains. "That Lindsey is one good actor with common horse-sense, and +the little author filly has Blue-grass speed. Watch us!" + +"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, and steel sparks struck out in his keen +eyes as he turned and went rapidly to one of the long-distance telephone +booths with which all Atlantic City keeps up its intimate relations with +New York. It was also astonishing how quickly he got his connection with +a great New York morning paper and was put on the desk wire of one of +the junior editors, who was a good friend in need. + + . . . . . . + +"Hello, Curt. Godfrey Vandeford speaking." + + . . . . . . + +"With my show in Atlantic City. Can you get a note across in the morning +issue?" + + . . . . . . + +"Good! Spread it that Hawtry is put out of 'The Purple Slipper' cast to +give place to a new Pacific Coast star, Mildred Lindsey. Hawtry handed +it to Denny and me rotten, but put that under pretty deep, with Lindsey +blazed in top lines. I'll have my publicity man send you a special +Lindsey Sunday story. Hot stuff." + + . . . . . . + +"Thanks, old man! By!" + + * * * * * + +Another fifteen minutes was spent in long distance communication with +Mr. Meyers, and it was ten minutes after three o'clock in the morning +when Mr. Vandeford slipped into his chair beside his author in the +little Atlantic City Theater, which Mr. Rooney had induced the old night +watchman door-keeper to open up at the hour when all teeming Atlantic +City is in the depths of repose. Mr. Rooney had with him the entire cast +of "The Purple Slipper," to whom he had just finished explaining the +cause of their extraction from their well-earned repose. + +"Most of the Sister Harriet scenes are with me," Miss Bébé Herne was +saying, with efficient energy fairly radiating from her big body, +clothed in a decorous tailor skirt, but with a boudoir jacket serving +for blouse. Also two kid curlers showed at the nape of her neck. "I can +feed Miss Grayson into Miss Lindsey's part enough to get by +to-morrow--to-night I mean. And Wallace can do the same when he's on +with her. That ugly white cat Hawtry to double on Godfrey Vandeford +after he pulled her out of Weehawken!" + +"Get on, get on, everybody, and use your brains until they lather," +commanded Mr. Rooney as he took his stand beside the left stage box. +"Now, Miss, you gimme lines out of your head or your first draft when I +call for 'em, and I'll take 'em or leave 'em as suits me. Then you +smooth the ones I hand you into good talk, and we'll have a show here +by sun-up that you'll be proud to invite your Christian lady friends to +attend. And we'll keep all the 'pep' too, Vandeford, that you paid +Howard to write into it, only we'll take the Hawtry dirt out of it. On, +Betty Carrington, and the curtain's up." + +Then from three o'clock in the morning until almost noon the machinery +of "The Purple Slipper" was overhauled and adjusted to the new cog. Mr. +Rooney lashed and rubbed and polished and oiled with never a let-up on +anybody, and beside him sat the author, with her head up and the bit in +her mouth. For every line that rang untrue in the reconstruction she had +a true one or she took a crude bit from Mr. Rooney and polished it into +place. Fido sat crouched in a front seat and transcribed every word into +his prompt copy so as to be a veritable first aid. + +And Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, experienced show man that he was, felt as if +he was witnessing a miracle as he beheld Miss Adair's original "Purple +Slipper," with its haphazard amateur charm, again put forth bud and +bloom on the branches of Grant Howard's tight-knit, well-constructed, +and well-rounded drama. The highly-colored flowers of Hawtry personality +Mr. Rooney pruned away and constructed others for Lindsey, and Miss +Adair lent them color and perfume in passing them to the new star, who +was working steadily, slowly, surely, and with great power. + +"Don't tell him that his eyes 'burn into yours until your soul is +seared.' That's old. We got to get a kind of smile here where Hawtry +looked like she was going to do the ham sandwich act to Height and his +silk tights." Mr. Rooney stopped the abhorred scene, being acted along +about six o'clock in the morning, to demand that it be played in the +proper key, up to which he had succeeded in wringing lines from Miss +Adair for the first act and most of the second. "What do hearts do to +each other that's hot and decent and funny all at once?" Mr. Rooney +fired this biological question to the author of "The Purple Slipper," +and looked at her with a demand for an immediate answer in his little, +black, driving eyes. + +"She can say 'There's chaff in my heart; guard the fire in yours,'" Miss +Adair supplied offhand. + +"That hands it to him, and a good double meaning, too," Mr. Rooney +approved. "Go ahead, Height, but don't get this lady mixed with the +other kind. Remember, she lives at the ladies Christian home." The laugh +that greeted this sally was an uproar that added to the dash and quick +fire of the big scene, which Miss Adair and Mr. Rooney had so quickly +expurgated and reconstructed between them. + +At seven o'clock the play had been entirely run through, and Fido had +the result in his prompt copy and was beginning to rapidly write it into +their lines for each of the cast. + +"One half hour to get breakfast and Miss Herne's back hair down," Mr. +Rooney said, with the callousness of a slave-driver. "Then if you run +through again fairly well we'll be done by noon, and everybody can hit +the hay for six hours." + +Mr. Vandeford watched his author's proud little head droop on the box +rail in front of her, and with his face very white he motioned Mr. +Farraday to come to her. After his degrading the night before at the +hands of Miss Hawtry, he felt that he would be unable to endure the pain +of the repulsion he felt sure he would find in her eyes if she ever +looked at him again. + +But his summons of Mr. Farraday failed in peremptoriness, for that big, +bonny gentleman nodded to him, then stood in the wing to catch Miss +Lindsey in his arms and bear her away to immediate nourishment. In the +excitement of the last few hours a domesticity had grown up between Mr. +Farraday and Miss Lindsey that it would have taken months to build in a +world less hectic than that in which they were then living. + +Their courtship had been brief, and consisted in one question, asked by +Mr. Farraday while Miss Lindsey stood in the wings waiting for a +moderated, impassioned cue from Mr. Height, and answered by her as she +responded to him and the call of her stage lover at the same moment. + +"When will you marry me?" + +"When 'The Purple Slipper' goes on Broadway." + +In the circumstances it was natural that Mr. Dennis Farraday should take +Miss Lindsey for a reminiscent beefsteak and mushrooms during the only +free half hour she would have for either him or food in the ensuing day, +and to fail to heed Mr. Vandeford's summon. + +Thus deserted, Mr. Vandeford was about to steal forth and appeal to some +member of the cast of "The Purple Slipper" to come to his rescue in +providing refreshment to restore the author during the precious half +hour respite when "the chaff in his heart" caught fire and began to burn +away forever. Miss Adair raised her eyes to his, with the faith still +in their wounded depths, and smiled a wan little smile. + +"Please get me a glass of milk with an egg in it, and some of that +brown-bread turkey," she demanded. "I'm dead, but I'll come alive again +if I go to sleep a minute. Shake me when you get back with it, but get +something for yourself while you are gone." + +"The kiddie, the precious, spunky kiddie," Mr. Vandeford said in his +heart over and over as he and the young Italian rushed to the hotel and +back with a waiter and a tray of the desired refreshment, to which had +been added an iced melon and a couple of bedewed roses. + +The shaking had to be literally administered while young Dago Italiana +held the tray, and then had to be repeated several times by Mr. +Vandeford, as he almost as literally fed his exhausted author, up until +the very minute in which Mr. Rooney rang up the curtain and again called +her into action. + +Five hours was more than enough for the smooth running of the three-hour +"Purple Slipper" show, and at eleven o'clock Mr. Rooney dismissed his +jaded cast with this strict command delivered in his rich, deep voice, +which held a note of genuine solemnity. + +"All of you go to sleep every minute between now and night, and then +come back here and make good--for all of us." + +With the assistance of young Dago Italiana, Mr. Vandeford delivered Miss +Adair to a hotel maid, who accepted five dollars from him as a fee for +putting her to bed, and then he plunged into still greater +strenuosities. + +He sat for three hours with his skilled young publicity man and +advance-agent, and laid out a discreet, dignified, but very interesting, +publicity campaign for the new star of "The Purple Slipper." Due +importance was to be given in all the notices that "The Purple Slipper" +was to open the New Carnival Theater and in his heart the young +advertiser put away the intention of making the fact that Mr. Vandeford +had sold Hawtry and "The Rosie Posie Girl" for "The Purple Slipper," his +most brilliant reserve story to set all of Broadway, at least, agog for +the opening of the expensive new play. + +"It puts 'The Purple Slipper' at the big end of the horn, and it's not +your fault that there is only the little end of the horn left for 'The +Rosie Posie Girl' for the time being," he explained to Mr. Vandeford. +"You see, it is a kind of double-cross that acts both ways. If it goes, +people will think it was worth your paying a big price for, and if it +fails, they'll think the 'Rosie Posie Girl' couldn't have been much if +you traded a chance on such a poor show for it." + +"Goes!" said Mr. Vandeford, but he was aware that the smart manoeuver, +which would once have delighted his soul, made him intensely weary. + +In fact, so fatigued did he feel when he left this young press schemer, +that he dropped into his bed for an hour, and had a masseur come and +pound him into condition to go to the train with good Dennis Farraday to +meet Mrs. Farraday, Mrs. and Mr. and Miss Van Tyne, who arrived at five +o'clock from big Manhattan. Mr. Farraday had had a like operation +performed upon himself, and was in such a radiant condition that Mr. +Vandeford felt badly eclipsed beside him. + +"What does it all mean about Miss Hawtry and Miss Lindsey and the show, +Van?" Mrs. Farraday questioned, with greater anxiety in her face than +she had had at any other opening night of her favorite's successful +shows. "Are we going to have a terrible time?" + +"I'm going to put you in a wheel-chair and let Denny take you up to the +north end of the board-walk and tell you all about it while I locate and +make comfortable the rest of the folks," Mr. Vandeford answered with a +deep relief at her presence in his eyes. + +"Where are my girls?" she questioned. + +"Both dead--asleep," he answered, as if deeply happy to be able to say +it of his star and his author. + +His statement was only partly true, for while Miss Adair slept the sleep +of the emotionally unanxious, Mildred Lindsey sat crouched by her +window, with her eyes looking far out over the Atlantic Ocean, waiting +for the result of Mr. Dennis Farraday's talk with his mother at the +north end of the board-walk. + +There are occasionally mothers who bear sons who can tell them all about +things, and Mrs. Farraday really enjoyed the whole story that big, +bonnie Dennis poured out to her at the sunset hour by the brink of old +ocean, Dago Italiana squatting on his heels out of hearing and basking +in inactivity, from the moment of the beefsteak episode in his and Miss +Lindsey's acquaintance up to the moment in which Miss Hawtry had +established herself in his arms on the occasion of his début in a stage +dressing-room. And even at that stage of the narration she rather +astonished Mr. Farraday, who was shamefaced enough at the telling, by +saying with soft pity in her motherly voice: + +"The poor woman. Of course she couldn't help loving you, and now she's +lost both Van and you. Now go on and tell me about Mildred." + +"She--she's the best ever," was Mr. Farraday's explicit and enlightening +answer. + +"Of course she is. I saw that the time you brought her to dinner with +me, and also that you were in love with her. She's really a rather +wonderful girl, and--and--Dennis, I'll tell you something that I never +expected to tell you--I've always wanted to be an actress. I simply +adore that Lindsey girl, and I know she'll make a great actress. Why on +earth should she want to marry you?" Which goes to show that +aristocratic Mrs. Farraday was not the ordinary mother. + +"Let's go ask her," roared big Dennis, as he embraced her in a way that +made the sympathetic and now wealthy young Dago Italiana flash his white +teeth in joy. + +And nobody can say how much the fate of "The Purple Slipper" was +affected by the fact that Rosalind went upon the stage for her first +appearance as a star, straight from the tender arms of stately, +white-haired Mrs. Farraday. + +The opening night of "The Purple Slipper," by Patricia Adair, produced +by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and staged by Mr. William Rooney, was a +triumph undisputed and acknowledged by a brilliant cosmopolitan audience +such as Atlantic City furnishes any play presented to it before +September the twenty-fifth, for up until that week on the board-walk of +that resort East meets West and the South joins them. The eminent author +sat in the left stage box with Mrs. Justus Farraday of New York and Mr. +and Mrs. Derick Van Tyne, and at her side was a chair into which at +times dropped Mr. Dennis Farraday, but which had been reserved for the +producer. Things had gone brilliantly from the start, from the moment +the curtain went up with polished, interesting Miss Herne manoeuvering +the frightened and substituted Betty Carrington through the opening +dialogue. A veritable gasp of joy had greeted the beautiful Mr. Gerald +Height as he entered in his colonial wig, ruffles, and velvet, and his +big eyes under their bowed brows sought out the author and smiled at her +with a genuine pledge of loyalty which no lizard could ever have given +forth as he glided richly into his archaic banter with Miss Herne. + +"He'll get 'em going, get 'em going the whole dame bunch from Harlem to +the Battery," muttered Mr. Rooney to Fido, who stood in the wings, with +his eyes glued to the much annotated prompt copy. "Now watch out for +Lindsey; she's doing forty sides of new stuff in twenty hours. Me for +the stock company to train 'em young. Let her rip, Rosalind!" And with a +nod Mr. Rooney sent his "bet" out upon the stage to make the audience +forget that they had paid their money to see Violet Hawtry and make them +glad to have paid it to see her. + +As Mildred Lindsey stepped out on the stage in all the glory of an +almost unbelievable beauty, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, who sat with his +shoulder back of that of the author of his play, seemed to behold a +vision with his trained theatrical foresight. This slender, powerful +young woman, with the rose dusk of the prairie sun on her cheeks, the +depths of the great cañons in her dark eyes, and the breadth of the far +horizons across her broad brow seemed to him to typify the rise of order +in her profession, over which so long had ruled chaos. And as her rich +voice led the intrigued audience from one brilliant scene to another, in +which she reincarnated before their eyes a very flower of the old +Southern chivalry with dash, finish, and lucidity, he felt as if he had +done his best and now had a right to be allowed to depart in peace from +the world of tinsel and illusion. As Lindsey and Height held the +audience spell-bound while the tempted wife dueled with her might +against the tender and desperate lover, placing, with a combined art +that was as great as any he had ever witnessed, the "big scene" of "The +Purple Slipper" among the "big scenes" of the modern stage instead of in +the class of lascivious masterpieces where the night before Hawtry had +laid it, Mr. Vandeford looked down into the gray eyes of the girl who +had had it all in her blood for generations, and who had so brilliantly +given it birth, and felt a prophecy rise within him that soon the +American drama would begin to draw on the wealth of tradition which had +been piling up in a vast storage for it, and that when it did, +dramatists and actors, men and women, would rise to interpret it to a +wondering world. + +"Is it really mine?" she asked him, in proud surprise and wonder. + +"Yes, it's yours--filtered through Howard and Rooney and all the rest, +but--it--is--you," he answered. "You lost it a dozen times, but--his +own comes back to a man or a woman." + +His eyes blazed so that the long lashes lowered over the stars in hers, +and she saw the curtain fall on the last scene in a mist of tears. The +onrush of applause that raised the curtain half a dozen times was +confused in her by the pounding of Mr. Vandeford's heart back of her +shoulder and the echo in her own. + +"Fifty weeks and then some, Van," she heard the young press-agent +declare, in business-like congratulation. + +"Sure-fire hit," Mr. Rooney pronounced, as he spat on the stage floor +behind the curtain. "Rehearsals at ten to-morrow to tighten up, Fido. Me +for the hay." Miss Adair had gone back of the footlights to cast her +gratitude into his arms, and he had failed to notice her appearance in +any way at all, but had spat and gone on his autocratic way. Perhaps in +the New World of the Theater, stage-managers may be able to afford to be +human, perhaps not. + +Mr. Vandeford's supper-party to the cast of "The Purple Slipper" and the +friends from New York who had come down to see its try-out, lasted until +two o'clock in the morning, but when it was over neither the moon, which +was as full that night as Mr. Kent had become by coffee and cigars, nor +Dago Italiana had retired, and both stayed on their jobs out at the +south end of the board walk, where boards melt off into sand and ocean +and sky. + +Mr. Godfrey Vandeford had got about two thirds of the way along the +painful stretch of autobiography, with which he was inflicting agony on +himself by recounting to Miss Adair, when she raised her gray eyes to +his with the faith and reverence still at their average level, even +slightly higher, and stopped his punishment. + +"I understand exactly why people like you and Miss Hawtry don't marry +each other," she astonished him by saying in all calmness. "Mr. Height +explained it all to me the other day. Actors and actresses have +peculiar temperaments that fly together when they ought not to, and fly +apart when they ought to stay together. I know just how that is because +I feel--" + +"Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, as he laid his hands on the shoulders +of his author, who was standing close to him, with the moonlight full on +her clear-cut, high-bred face, and he gave her a savage shake. "The +whole crazy bunch will have to have law and order shot into 'em or the +theatrical profession will follow horse-racing to the devil. If they +don't give up unfaith and the double-cross Broadway will open some night +and swallow them all. And here you come out of a real world and say to +me--" + +"What did you think I was going to say?" demanded Miss Adair, pressing +so close to him that it was impossible for him to administer another +shake. + +"I don't know and I don't want to hear it. I'm afraid to have you say +anything to me." + +"It was this: I was going to ask you what I would have done if you had +been married to Miss Hawtry when I got to you and we had begun to +produce our play together. It's different when men and women work +together! Standards have to be broader. How do I know that I would have +run away to--" + +"Don't, don't!" pleaded Mr. Vandeford as she crept still nearer to him +and forcibly tried to open his arms for herself. "I'm punished. I've +taught you myself! When I leave you how'll I ever know if I'm going to +find you there when I come back?" + +"Well, how'd you expect to find me--me--there if you don't take me +there?" Miss Adair pleaded as she tugged at his folded arms, with such +energy that her polished thumb-nail slightly marked his iron wrists. + +"I'm not worthy, child, I'm not worthy," Mr. Vandeford answered with +grim words, and his arms still taut against his breast. + +"You have to judge yourself with the same--same 'broad standards' I +judge you by, like you told me to use. Please open your arms!" + +"I take those broad standards away from you." + +"Jesus Christ gave them to me, only I didn't understand in Adairville." + +"God, I wish you had never left Adairville." + +"I know what there is for us to do." + +"What?" + +"I'll go back and marry you by Adairville narrow standards for better +and for worse, and then we'll have to keep 'em for ourselves when we +come back, because we did it knowing what we know, but let other people +be broad wherever they are without judging them. I'm going to drop +asleep right here on the sand if you don't open your arms." + +"Oh, good Lord, what did You make women out of?" Mr. Vandeford said in +all reverence and bewilderment, as he took the "white flame" to his +breast and drew it past her lips until it burned away all the chaff in +his soul and established itself upon its altar. + +After Mr. Vandeford had again delivered his author to the hopeful maid, +waiting up for another greenback, he met Mr. Rooney at the desk of the +hotel still on his way to "the hay." + +"Closed up with Weiner to begin rehearsing 'The Rosie Posie Girl' on +Tuesday, after we open 'The Purple Slipper' in the New Carnival. Said +Hawtry wouldn't sign up until I had signed too. She's got a hunch for +me. If you fail, their show goes in in your place; if you win, Weiner +shunts John Drew or Arliss out to one of his other theaters on the road, +and puts in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.' Good business, eh?" And Mr. Rooney +rolled his cigar from east to west and questioned Mr. Vandeford, with a +new fire for a new undertaking beginning to burn in his little black +eyes. + +"Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with all cordiality, and not even +thinking of his lost thousands. "It will go big, Rooney, and I'll be +glad--none gladder." + +"Sure," answered Mr. Rooney. "It's all in the business. Everybody on +Broadway is out to stab everybody else--but mostly it's paper daggers if +you take it right." + +"A tissue-paper world sewed together with tinsel thread," Mr. Vandeford +murmured, as he fell asleep with his cheek pillowed on the wrist that +Miss Adair had marked in the struggle for her own. + +A week from that night "The Purple Slipper" had its first night on +Broadway, and opened the New Carnival Theater in a blaze of glory, +publicity, and electric lights. The talented young press-agent had done +his work well, and the audience assembled was the most brilliant +possible, made up of the usual blasé critics, eager theatrical people +who were not on the boards themselves, and interested and distinguished +men and women from many outer worlds. In the box facing the one occupied +by Mrs. Justus Farraday, in a blaze of both the Farraday and Justus +jewels and prestige, and the beautiful young author of the play, with +her son Mr. Dennis Farraday, and the producer, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, +sat Miss Violet Hawtry with Mr. Weiner, the owner of the beautiful new +theater which was opening its doors for the first time on Broadway. When +the curtain fell upon the new Lindsey star after its eighth elevation, +the Violet rushed behind the scenes and took that astonished young woman +in her arms, with the real tears of emotion, with which one genuine +artist greets another, in her great blue eyes. + +"You were wonderful, my dear, perfectly wonderful," she exclaimed. "You +see, Van, I never could have done it like that. Good luck to both of +you, and the little author--oh, there you are, my dear! All of you shake +hands with Mr. Weiner. He's so pleased that he is speechless, but he's +going to give you a big banquet on your fiftieth performance. He's +promised me." + +Which demonstration was perfectly in keeping with Miss Hawtry and +Maggie Murphy's character, and emanated from that quality within her +that a month later put "The Rosie Posie Girl" up as high and as +brilliant in electric lights as "The Purple Slipper," and kept it there +an entire year. Which goes to prove that the "tissue paper world" is yet +of heroic fibre. + +When Mr. Vandeford went to insert his author into the international +safety that evening at about the hour of midnight, he saw that his +friend the secretary was shooing a chattering party of Christian ladies, +who, as his guests, had sat in a group, fifth row center, in the New +Carnival Theater that evening, off up-stairs. With his talisman key, +which had never left his pocket since it had been presented to him, in +his hand, he paused to speak in a friendly shadow to his successful and +now truly eminent playwright. + +"You'll have to go South Thursday, and I'll follow Sunday to get that +little marriage business over in Adairville before we leave for the +Klondike. My commission has arrived from Washington, and the Secretary +of the Navy wants quick reports of the copper before the big freeze. Do +you suppose I can keep you warm in Eskimo furs and--and my heart?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Adair, with the flutter which Mr. Vandeford now +answered, without any conscious volition. "There ought to be a great +play out of the Klondike. Jack London could have done it, but--but--" +the faithful gray eyes were raised to his with the flame in their +depths. + +With a groan, but an answering flame, Mr. Vandeford replied: + +"It's a fatal drag--. Yes. Some day we'll come back and try to put +across another one!" + + + THE END + + * * * * * + + +Transcriber's note + + +The following changes have been made to the text: + +Page 12: "marischino" changed to "maraschino". + +Page 14: "plenty ruffles" changed to "plenty of ruffles". + +Page 14: "nee" changed to "née". + +Page 29: "heatrical" changed to "theatrical". + +Page 37: "mocking bird" changed to "mockingbird". + +Page 40: "Highcliffe" changed to "Highcliff". + +Page 42: "Vanderford" changed to "Vandeford". + +Page 57: "Madamoiselle" changed to "Mademoiselle". + +Page 58: "Madamoiselle" changed to "Mademoiselle". + +Page 61: "atinkle" changed to "atwinkle". + +Page 67: "Highcliffe" changed to "Highcliff". + +Page 90: "coemployer's" changed to "co-employer's". + +Page 114: "Fou get Gerald" changed to "You get Gerald". + +Pages 118-119: "ear of his coproducer" changed to "ear of his +co-producer". + +Page 125: "Lindenberger" changed to "Lindenberg". + +Page 145: "I'd going to" changed to "I'm going to". + +Page 193: "She's geting along" changed to "She's getting along". + +Page 220: "the he Christian" changed to "the Christian". + +Page 236: "touseled" changed to "tousled" + +Page 237: "manila envelop" changed to "manila envelope". + +Page 245: "Vanderford" changed to "Vandeford". + +Page 307: "tryout" changed to "try-out". + +Page 373: "Esquimo" changed to "Eskimo". + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Blue-grass and Broadway, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY *** + +***** This file should be named 29391-8.txt or 29391-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/3/9/29391/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/29391-8.zip b/29391-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1eb88e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/29391-8.zip diff --git a/29391-h.zip b/29391-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8067fb --- /dev/null +++ b/29391-h.zip diff --git a/29391-h/29391-h.htm b/29391-h/29391-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df601ea --- /dev/null +++ b/29391-h/29391-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7616 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blue-grass and Broadway, by Maria Thompson Daviess. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +.fm2 {font-size: 125%; + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; +} + +.fm3 {font-size: 100%; + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; +} + +.fm4 {font-size: 90%; + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.author {text-align: right; margin-right: 20%;} +.author2 {text-align: right; margin-right: 38%;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + +.transnote { background-color: #ADD8E6; color: inherit; margin: 2em 10% 1em 10%; font-size: 80%; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;} +.transnote p { text-align: left;} +a.correction {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted red; color: inherit; background-color: inherit;} +a.correction:hover {text-decoration: none;} + + + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Blue-grass and Broadway, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Blue-grass and Broadway + +Author: Maria Thompson Daviess + +Release Date: July 12, 2009 [EBook #29391] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="transnote"> + +<h3>Transcriber's note</h3> +<p> A Table of Contents has been created for this version.</p> +<p>Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without notice. +Printer +errors have been changed, and they are indicated with +a <a class="correction" title="like this" href="#tnotes">mouse-hover</a> +and listed at the +<a href="#tnotes">end of this book</a>. All other +inconsistencies are as in the original.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p class="fm3"> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 382px;"> +<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="382" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"We are all going to stand by, little girl"</span> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>BLUE-GRASS<br /> + +AND<br /> + +BROADWAY</h1> + +<p class="fm4">BY</p> + +<p class="fm2">MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS<br /></p> + +<p class="fm4">Author of <span class="smcap">"The Melting of Molly," "The Golden Bird," "The Tinder Box,"</span> +etc.</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="fm2">NEW YORK<br /> +THE CENTURY CO.<br /> +1919<br /></p> + + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="fm4"> +Copyright, 1919, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Century Co</span>.<br /> +<br /> +Copyright, 1918, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">International Magazine Company (Harper's Bazar)</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Published, April, 1919</i><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>The need of a large sum of money in a great hurry is the root of many +noble ambitions, in whose branches roost strange companies of birds, +pecking away for dollars that grow—or do not—on bushes. And it was in +such a quest that Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, lit upon +a limb of life beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford of Broadway, New York. Their +joint endeavors made a great adventure.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to it, Pop; either pony girls will have to grow four +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>legs to cut new capers, somebody will have to write a play entitled +'When Courtship Was in Flower,' requiring flowered skirts ten yards wide +with a punch in each furbelow, or we go out of the theatrical business," +said Mr. Vandeford, as he shuffled a faint, violet-tinted letter out of +a pile of advertising posters emblazoned with dancing girls and men, +several personal bills, two from a theatrical storage house and one from +an electrical expert, leaned back in his chair, and prepared to open the +violet communication. "We dropped twenty thousand cool on 'Miss Cut-up,' +and those sixteen pairs of legs cost us fifteen hundred a week. We might +be in danger of starving right here on Broadway, if we hadn't picked a +sure-fire hit in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.'"</p> + +<p>"Ain't it the truth," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, as he glanced up from +his typewriter with a twinkle in his big black eyes that were like gems +in a round, very sedate, even sad, Hebrew face. "Bare legs and 'cut-ups' +is already old now, Mr. Vandeford. It is that we must have now a play +with a punch."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The law won't let us take anything more off the chorus, so we'll have +to swing back and put a lot on. Costumes that cost a million will be the +next drag, mark me, Pop," Mr. Godfrey Vandeford declaimed with a gloomy +brow, as he still further delayed exploring the violet missive.</p> + +<p>"A hundred thousand it will take for costuming 'The Rosie Posie Girl,'" +agreed Pop dolefully, from above the letter he was slowly pecking out of +the machine.</p> + +<p>"For furnishing chiffon belts, you mean, not costumes, if we go by +Corbett's clothes ideas," growled the pessimistic, prospective producer +of the possible next season's hit in the girl-show line.</p> + +<p>"You have it right," answered Pop, sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"If I hadn't promised to let old Denny in on my Violet Hawtry show for +the fall I'd be tempted to throw back everything, even 'The Rosie Posie +Girl' and go gunning for potatoes or onions up on a Connecticut farm; +but the show bug has bit Denny hard and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> I'll have to be the one to +shear him and not leave it to any of the others. I'll be more merciful +to his millions; but asking him to put up half of a cool hundred and +fifty thousand is a bit raw. Wish I had a nice little glad play with an +under twenty cast for him to cut his teeth on instead of the 'Rosie +Posie.'"</p> + +<p>"It's six plays on the shelf now for reading," reminded Mr. Meyers, +eagerly, for to him fell the task of weeding all plays sent into the +office of Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer, and his optimistic +soul suffered when he discovered a gem and found himself unable to get +Mr. Vandeford to read so much as the first act unless he caught him in +just such a mood as the one in which he now labored. "Now, I want that +you take just a peep, Mr. Vandeford, at that new Hinkle comedy for which +I have written already five times to delay—"</p> + +<p>"Can't do it now, Pop! Don't you see that I have got to read this purple +letter and that is all the business I can attend to for this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> morning?" +answered Mr. Vandeford, as he pushed a slim paper cutter along the top +edge of the purple missive.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Vandeford, it is that I have—"</p> + +<p>"Express. Sign here!" was the interruption that put an end to Mr. +Meyers's immediate supplication. The parcel that he deposited upon his +chief's desk with forceful meekness was a play manuscript.</p> + +<p>"Great guns, Pops; I'm seeing purple!" exclaimed Mr. Vandeford, as he +let the violet letter fall upon the violet wrappings in which the +express intrusion was incased. "Exact match! This looks like some sort +of a hunch. Open it, Pops, and run through the layout while I tackle the +violet letter and see if anything happens." And with great interest both +grown men plunged into the excitement of the chase of the hunch.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford's letter contained the following, delivered in bold words +and script:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Highcliff</span>.</p> + +<p><i>My dear Van:</i></p> + + +<p>This is to remind you that it is now July<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> fifth, and my contract +sets September twenty-third as the last date for my opening on +Broadway in a new play under your management. "The Rosie Posie +Girl" will be a huge undertaking and worthy of my every effort, but +I do not feel that you are up to producing it properly. I regret +your losses in "Miss Cut-up," but I did my best with a vehicle that +was not worthy of my ability. The success of "Dear Geraldine" was +entirely due to the comedy bits I wrote in to suit myself, and I +had to be costumer and producer and the whole show. In justice to +myself I feel that I ought to pass under the management of a more +forceful person than yourself. And anyway I don't think you would +be able to get a theater to open on Broadway in September. Remember +that over a hundred good shows died on the road waiting to get into +Broadway last winter, and <i>I</i> won't play anywhere else. Now Weiner +wants to buy "The Rosie Posie Girl" from you and open his New +Carnival Theatre with me in it on October first. You must sell it +to him. He will make you a good offer. You can't use it without me, +and I want him to produce it. Please see him immediately. You know +that you owe your reputation as a producer to me, and don't be +selfish. I'll expect you up on the evening train to talk over the +final<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> arrangements. I'll meet you in the runabout and we can go +out to the Beach Inn for dinner. Bring me some brandied marrons, a +large bottle of rose oil and a stick of lip rouge from Celeste's.</p> + +<p class="author">Hurriedly,<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Violet.</span> +</p> + +<p>July fifth.<br /></p> + +<p>P. S. Of course you are to go on loving me just as usual. I +couldn't do without that. How much money have I in the +Knickerbocker Trust?</p></div> + +<p>After Godfrey Vandeford had read the last violent purple line on violet, +he dropped the letter on his desk and looked out of his office window +with serious eyes that gazed without seeing, down the long canyon of +Broadway, up and down which rushed traffic composed of green cars shaped +like torpedoes, honking, darting motors, skulking trucks and jostling, +tangled people. Flamboyant signs, waving flags, and gilt-lettered window +panes made a Persian glow in a belt space up from the seething sidewalks +to the sky line, and above it all the roar and din rose to high heaven. +But Godfrey Vandeford was blind to it all and deaf, as he sat and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +brooded above the furious landscape. His blue eyes, set deep back under +their black, gray-splashed brows, failed to take in the lurid spectacle, +and his narrow, lean face was flushed under the bronze it had acquired +for keeps from the suns of many climes. His lean, powerful body seemed +fairly crouched in thought. Once he shifted one leg across the other, +and as he settled back in his chair he tossed the violet letter over to +Mr. Meyers without seeming to know that he did so. Then he plunged back +into his absorption without seeing his henchman read rapidly through the +missive, look at him once with a gem-like keenness, and again begin to +read the purple-covered manuscript.</p> + +<p>"And we picked her out of a vaudeville gutter over beyond Weehawken just +five years ago, Pop," Mr. Vandeford finally interrupted the flip of the +manuscript pages to say, with a deep musing in his flexible, sympathetic +voice.</p> + +<p>"You taught her to eat with the knife and the fork," growled Mr. Meyers +from behind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> his violet barricade as he ripped over another page. +"Mick!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not as bad as that, Pop," laughed Mr. Vandeford, with a glance of +affection at the young Hebrew delving in the corner for a jewel for him. +"She's just—oh, well, they are all children—and have to be spanked. +She wants to sell me out to Weiner after I've spent five nice, good +years in building her into a little twinkle star, but I don't think it +will be good for her to let her do it. I'll have to use the slipper on +her, I'm afraid. I believe in hunches and I believe I'll just use that +purple manuscript you're chewing to let her set her teeth in. She needs +one good failure to tone her up. What's the name of the effusion in +ribbons?"</p> + +<p>"The Renunciation of Rosalind," murmured Mr. Meyers, as he bent once +more to the pages which he had been reading with eagerness when +interrupted by his chief.</p> + +<p>"We could call it 'The Purple Slipper.' About what will the cast +figure?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Three thousand per week if you use Gerald Height at five hundred as per +contract with him. But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I would say for a play this +is—"</p> + +<p>"That's not much money to waste on a purple hunch. A nice, judicious, +little second-hand staging out of the warehouse and a few weeks' road +try-out for the failure will cost about ten thousand. I'll let Denny +have five thousand worth of fun mussing around with it to cut his eye +teeth, and then we'll clap Violet into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' weeping +with gratitude to have her face saved after being slapped first. Get the +parts out to-morrow and you and Chambers begin to cast it. I'll see +actors here from three to five Friday. I'll open it September tenth. Now +I've got to go and chase those confounded marrons. The last I took were +put up in +<a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn1" title="changed from 'marischino'">maraschino</a> +and were not welcomed. I'll be in the office—"</p> + +<p>"And about the author, Mr. Vandeford, and the contracts?" questioned Mr. +Meyers, with both dismay and energy in his voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I forgot about the author. She won't amount to much. A woman, I +judge, from the ribbons. Offer the usual five, rising to seven and a +half royalties, and explain carefully that you mean five per cent. on +the box office receipts under five thousand, and seven and a half on all +over that. Also go into the moving picture rights and second companies +with your usual honesty, but offer her only a two hundred and fifty +advance to cover a two years' option. She won't know that it ought to be +five hundred for six months, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her. +Besides, it will all be over for her and her play before October."</p> + +<p>"She says in the letter which was pinned to the first page of the play, +that the article about you in the 'Times Magazine' made her know that +you were the one producer to whom she could trust her play," said Mr. +Meyers, reading from a neat little cream-white note in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Sweet child!" murmured Mr. Vandeford, as he took up his hat and stick. +"Don't en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>courage her in any way in your letter, Pop. We don't want her +rushing to the scene of action when we butcher her child. Pay the two +thousand to Hilliard for the option on 'The Rosie Posie Girl' until +January first, and tell him I am going to produce it in November. 'Phone +me at Highcliff to-morrow if you want me. I'll be clearing the deck for +the—spanking."</p> + +<p>"I wish you good luck," said Mr. Meyers feelingly.</p> + +<p>"What do you judge that play is about from reading the first act, and +what is the author's name? I might have to produce a little concrete +information in the fracas," the eminent producer paused to inquire just +as he was closing the door.</p> + +<p>"It is written by a Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, and it +has in plenty +<a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn2" title="changed from 'ruffles'">of ruffles</a> +and romance that is in a past time of a +Colonial Governor and his wife alone at home with him in Washington."</p> + +<p>"That sounds about right for the weapon of castigation for Violet +Hawtry, +<a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn3" title="changed from 'nee'"><i>née</i></a> +Mur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>phy. I have always believed in hunches, and that +accord in color was meant to mean something. Better send me a copy +special in the morning. If Mr. Farraday calls me before I get him tell +him the Astor at one to-day. What did I say? Marrons, lip stick, and—"</p> + +<p>"Rose oil," prompted Mr. Meyers, with just the trace of a sneer in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"Right O! Rose oil it is. By!" And the door closed on Mr. Vandeford's +graceful figure in its gray London tweeds.</p> + +<p>Thus a great adventure was undertaken in all levity. And with his +chief's complete departure a change came into the mien of Mr. Adolph +Meyers. He told the stenographer in the outer office to engage two girls +to copy a play that afternoon and evening, to keep him from being +interrupted until six, and to muffle the telephone unless in cases of +emergency. Then he seated himself in Mr. Vandeford's deep chair, put his +feet on the desk, lit a fat, black cigar and plunged into "The Purple +Slipper," <i>née</i> "The Renunciation of Rosalind." For two hours he read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +with the deepest absorption, only pausing to make an occasional note on +a pad at his elbow. Then after he had laid down the manuscript with its +purple wrappings and ribbons, he sat for a half hour in a trance, out of +which he came to seat himself at the typewriter to indite a portentous +letter, which he put in an envelope, sealed and directed to:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Miss Patricia Adair</span>,<br /> +Adairville, Kentucky.</p></div> + +<p>The contents were:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>My dear Madam:</i></p> + +<p>I have carefully read your play entitled "The Renunciation of +Rosalind," and have decided to make you the following offer for the +production rights. I will give you two hundred and fifty dollars +for all rights of production, including moving picture rights and +supplementary road companies to extend over a period of two years +from the date of signing the contract, and will agree to pay you in +addition five per cent. of all box receipts up to five thousand per +week and seven and a half on all exceeding that sum. If you agree +to this proposition, I will send you a formal contract covering all +points in legal terms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> Please let me know at your earliest +convenience your decision about the matter, as I now intend to +produce it in September with Violet Hawtry in the title rôle.</p> + +<p> +Believe me, my dear Madam,<br /> +<br /></p> + +<p class="author2">Very truly,<br /></p> +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Godfrey Vandeford</span>.<br /></p> +</div> + +<p>The above epistle from a strange outer world found Miss Patricia Adair, +attired in a faded gingham frock, planting snap beans in her ancestral +garden. It was delivered to her by her brother, Mr. Roger Adair, from +the hip pocket of his khaki trousers, upon which were large smudges of +the agricultural profession. His blue gingham shirt was open at the +throat across a strong bronze throat, and his eyes were as blue as his +shirt and laughed out across big brown freckles that matched his +chestnut hair.</p> + +<p>"Here's a letter I brought over from the post-office, Pat, along with a +sack of meal and fifty cents' worth of sugar. Mr. Bates said Miss Elvira +Henderson stopped in and told him to send it to you by the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> person +coming your way," he said as he threw the reins of the filly, whose +chestnut coat matched his hair exactly, over the gate post, and +proceeded to take from the pommel of the saddle the two bundles of +groceries mentioned. "Mr. Bates sent you this bunch of tomato plants and +head lettuce to set out along the back border of your rose beds, and +I'll spade it all up for you right now if—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Roger, listen, listen!" exclaimed Patricia, as she sprang to her +feet from her knees upon which she had rested as she read the letter he +had handed her. "My play, my play, it's sold!" And as she sparkled at +him over the letter of Mr. Adolph Meyers held clasped to her gingham +bosom, wild roses bloomed in her cheeks and tears sparkled in her gray +eyes back of their thick black lashes.</p> + +<p>"What play?" demanded Roger, stolid with astonishment.</p> + +<p>"The one I wrote last month and the month before, when Mr. Covington +said that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> the mortgage must be paid—or give up Rosemeade. I knew it +would kill Grandfather to move him away from the house he was born in, +and I couldn't think of anything that would get money quick but coal oil +wells and gold mines and plays. It costs money to dig up oil and gold, +but it is easy to write a play."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it?" Roger questioned, with a twinkle in his eyes above the +freckles. In his arms he still held the meal and the sugar, and his +interest was an inspiration to Patricia to pour out the whole story in a +torrent of tumbling words.</p> + +<p>"You know those love letters I have of our great grandmother's that she +wrote to her husband while he was in Washington consulting the President +about the first constitutional convention, the ones about the Indian +raid and the battle at Shawnee. You remember the day I read them to you +up in the apple tree in the orchard years ago, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember the day," answered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> Roger, with another twinkle turned +inward at the memory of his seventeen-year-old scorn of Patricia's +eleven-year-old sentimentality.</p> + +<p>"Well, those letters are the play," announced Patricia triumphantly. "I +read a lot of Shakespeare and other old English dramas I found in +Grandfather's library to see exactly how to make one. It ends when he +comes back expecting to find her killed and she is dancing at a dinner +she has given her lover as a bet that he would come back by that night. +It's wonderful!" As she thus laid bare the skeleton of her play child, +Patricia took from doubting Roger the sack of sugar.</p> + +<p>"Shoo, that's not a play," hooted Roger, with a decided return of his +seventeen-year-old scorn in his thirtieth summer.</p> + +<p>"Read that," answered Patricia with dignity, as she handed him Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford's letter, written and signed by Mr. Adolph Meyers.</p> + +<p>"Whew—uh, Pat, two hundred and fifty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> dollars!" Roger exclaimed, as his +manner dissolved quickly from affectionate derision into respectful awe.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's just a trifle for a beginning; those royalties may be worth +several hundred thousand. In the 'Times Magazine' article that I read +about Godfrey Vandeford and his plays, it said he had paid the author of +'Dear Geraldine' more than a hundred thousand dollars in royalties. That +is what made me write the play."</p> + +<p>"Say, let me take it sitting down," said Roger as he sank upon the grass +beside a rose bed that had a row of spring onions growing odoriferously +defiant under the very shower of its petals, and laid the sack of +precious meal tenderly across his knees. "Now go on and tell me."</p> + +<p>"You see, Roger, I had to do something to get the money to keep the +house for Grandfather. You know we couldn't get any more mortgage money, +because it had closed up or something, and—"</p> + +<p>"Did Covington tell you he was going to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> foreclose after I—that is, +right away?" demanded Roger fiercely, with a snap in the blue eyes above +the freckles.</p> + +<p>"No," said Patricia, as she settled herself on the grass beside Roger, +with the valuable sugar balanced tenderly upon her knee. "He told me +that he would let it stand just as it was for three months until October +first, but after that we would have to—to tell—Grandfather and move," +a quiver came into Patricia's soft voice that had in it the patrician, +slurring softness that can only come from the throat of a grand dame +sprung from the race which has dominated blue-grass pastures. "Doctor +Healy says it won't be long but—but now he'll—he'll die in his own +home that Grandmother built where he fought off the Indians. Her play +has saved us."</p> + +<p>"I had fixed it to run until I make my crops," said Roger, with a choke +in his voice that was a rich masculine accompaniment to Patricia's.</p> + +<p>"The play will have been running six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> weeks by that time, and I can pay +most of it off. A hundred thousand a year is almost ten thousand a month +and—"</p> + +<p>"But all plays don't succeed, Pat, honey, and—"</p> + +<p>"The 'Times Magazine' said that Godfrey Vandeford had never had a +failure, and didn't you read that he wants to star Violet Hawtry in it? +She was 'Dear Geraldine.' How could it fail?" Patricia was positively +haughty toward Roger's timorousness.</p> + +<p>"That's so," admitted Roger, convinced. "And we can easy get by on the +two fifty until October, especially with the garden I am going to raise. +I'm no Godfrey Vandeford, but I'm a first-class producer—of potatoes +and onions and cabbage and turnip greens and corn. In these war times a +potato producer ranks with any old producer."</p> + +<p>"But I won't be able to leave all of the two hundred and fifty to use +this summer. I'll have to take some of it with me."</p> + +<p>"With you where?" demanded Roger.</p> + +<p>"To New York. Do you suppose even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> Mr. Godfrey Vandeford would undertake +to produce a play without the author there to help him?" Patricia's +scorn of Roger's lack of sound reasoning about theatrical matters was +hurled at him pitilessly.</p> + +<p>"Of course not," admitted Roger hurriedly. "You can take the whole two +hundred and fifty and I'll look after the Major and Jeff."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I'd do without you, Roger," said Patricia, as she +cuddled her cheek for an instant against his strong, warm shoulder under +the gingham shirt. "I'm afraid of New York. I know you'll take care of +Grandfather; but who'll look after little me—I don't know what I'll do +all by myself. Maybe I won't have to—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly you'll have to go," Roger interrupted with comforting +assurance. "Go to the Young Women's Christian Association, and if +anything happens to you telegraph me and I'll come get you."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't thought of the Y. W. C. A. Of course I'll be all right there. +I'll get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> Miss Elvira to write a special letter to the secretary about +me," exclaimed Patricia with the joy lights back in the great, gray +eyes. "And it's so cheap there that I can leave a lot of the money at +home. I'll only be gone about six weeks."</p> + +<p>"No, I think you had better take all the two fifty with you," said +Roger. "You know you have to spend money to make money and you mustn't +be short. I'll look after the Major and Jeff. Don't you worry, dear."</p> + +<p>"Will you let me buy you a big silo and a tractor plow when I get all +the money? You are the greatest farmer in the world and you only need a +little machinery to prove it." Again the young playwright rose to her +knees and with letter and sugar in her embrace she entreated to be +allowed to spend the money that was to be hers from "The Renunciation of +Rosalind," which she did not know was being cast in New York as "The +Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"Certainly I'll let you help me, Pat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> Hasn't what's yours and mine +always been ours since we set our first hen together?" laughed Roger, as +he rose to his feet and dragged Patricia to hers beside him. "Come on +and let's break it to the Major. You may need me to stand by if it hits +him on the bias," and they both laughed with a tinge of uneasiness as +they went down the long walk of the garden which on both sides was +sprouting and leaving and perfuming in a medley of flowers and +vegetables.</p> + +<p>As they walked slowly along Roger cast an eye of great satisfaction over +the long lines of rapidly maturing peas and beans and heavy-leaved +potatoes, and in his mind calculated that a year's food for the small +family at Rosemeade was being produced right at their door under his +skilful hoe which he wielded at off times when he could leave the negro +hands to their work out on Rosemeade, their ancestral five hundred acres +of blue-grass meadows and loamy fields. Roger had for the summer quit +his slowly growing law practice in Adairville, enlisted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> as a doughty +Captain in the Army of the Furrows and was as proud of his khaki and +gingham uniform with their loam smudges as of his diploma from the +University of Virginia which hung in the wide old hall, the top one in a +succession of five given from father to son of the house of Adair. The +whole county was farming under the direction of Roger, and he had been +obliged often to work Patricia's garden by moonlight.</p> + +<p>"I'm almost afraid to tell Grandfather," Patricia interrupted his food +calculations to say as they came around the corner of the wide-roofed +old brick house with its traceries of vines that massed at the eaves to +give nesting for many doves, and beheld the Major seated in his arm +chair on the porch which was guarded and supported by round, white +pillars around which a rose vine festooned itself. A faded, plaid wool +rug was across the Major's knees in spite of the fact that the evening +was so warm, and about his shoulders was a wide, gray knitted scarf. A +bent, white-haired old negro stood beside him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> filling his pipe for him +and serving as a target for the words issuing from beneath his waxed +white mustache that gave the impression of crossed white swords.</p> + +<p>"War! What do they know about war, Jeff? We killed our first Yankee +before we were seventeen, and now they fight behind guns located six +miles away by squinting through double-decker opera glasses. War, I say +in these days—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," assented Jeff, in soothing interruption of what he +considered debilitating heat in the Major's words. "We whipped them +Yankees in no time but they jest didn't find it out in time to stop +killing us 'fore it all ended. Now, I'm going to help you to your room +and make you comfortable for I—"</p> + +<p>"I see Patricia and Roger approaching and I'll wait to talk to them for +a few minutes, Jeff," answered the Major with a slight note of entreaty +in his voice.</p> + +<p>"Jess a little while, then, jess a little while," consented the old +black comrade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> nurse as he shuffled into the house and back to his +kitchen to complete his preparation of the simple evening meal for his +little household. As he crisped his bacon, scrambled his eggs and +browned his muffins he muttered to himself:</p> + +<p>"He's gitting weaker every day—help him Lord, and me to keep care of +him."</p> + +<p>Just as he was turning the fluffy yellow scramble into a hot, old silver +dish he paused and listened to the musketry of the Major's deep voice +which was huge even in weakness, then he shook his head and began to +hustle the food together to be able to use the announcement of the meal +as an interruption to the harmful excitement, whose scattering words he +was at a loss to understand.</p> + +<p>"Impossible! Impossible that my granddaughter should barter and trade in +the +<a name="corr4" id="corr4"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn4" title="changed from 'heatrical'">theatrical</a> +world, a world into which no lady should ever set foot. +No! Do not argue, Patricia! Roger and I understand, and it is not +needful that you should," were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> the words of the assault and +counter-charge that so puzzled old Jeff over his skillet and baker.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to act in the play, Grandfather. I wrote it and I'm going +to show them how I want it acted and then come right home," soothed +Patricia, looking to Roger for help and reinforcement.</p> + +<p>"She'll stay at the Young Women's Christian Association, Major, and +she'll be perfectly safe. I am going to write to Dennis Farraday, who +graduated with me at the University, and ask him to look after her if +she needs anything."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that puts another face on the matter," said the Major, with a +degree of mollification coming into his keen, old face and weakly +booming voice. "Of course, the Adairs have always been geniuses of one +kind or another, and it is not surprising that my granddaughter should +have produced a great American Drama. If she has the interest and +protection of a gentleman who is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> a friend of her brother's, and a safe +retreat in a woman's organization I will have to permit her to +superintend the placing of her great work before an appreciative public. +Of course, she will not be thrown with any of the theatrical world +socially, and in a few weeks she will return to her own home, leaving +that world better for having had a brief glimpse of her. You may go, +Patricia. Jefferson!" Fatigue showed very decidedly in the Major's weak +call to the old negro, who came immediately and rolled his chair away +with an indignant cast of his eyes at the two young people.</p> + +<p>"Wh-eugh, that was a battle, and if I hadn't thought of old Denny to +bring up as a support to the Young Women's Christian Association I think +it would have sure gone the other way." And Roger laughed with the +twinkle above the freckles as he leaned against the rose vine around the +pillar and fanned himself with his hat.</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> there any Denny?" questioned Pa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>tricia weakly, from the top step +upon which she had sunk when the Major was wheeled away.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, and he's a jolly good fellow," answered Roger. "I had a +letter from him year before last. I'll write him all about everything +and he'll look after you for me. I'd trust Denny to do his best for me +if I hadn't seen him for fifty years. I lived with him our Junior and +Senior years and I know him. But I must go. I have to go back to the +grocery again to get a plow point."</p> + +<p>"Please don't go until after supper," pleaded Patricia. "I want to think +out loud to you. It has just struck me that I will have to have some +clothes. What will I do about it? I can't go to New York in a gingham +dress."</p> + +<p>"In such a crisis as that I think Miss Elvira will be a better target +for your thoughts than I can be. I'll stop and tell her the news and +send her over," teased Roger with his engaging twinkle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can't think to anybody like I can to you," said Patricia, as she came +and stood beside him.</p> + +<p>"I really have to go, honey child, to see about the ploughing in my +South meadow, but I'll come back to be in the finish of the dimity +confab," answered Roger, as he patted Patricia on the shoulder and went +rapidly away.</p> + +<p>And a dimity confab was a good name for the conference that was held in +the July moonlight on the front porch of Rosemeade for several silvered +hours that night. Miss Elvira Henderson, modiste, who was the guide, +philosopher and friend, in the matter of costuming as well as in all +other matters, of the feminine population of Hillcrest, had hurried down +the street to the Rosemeade gate as soon as she had consumed her +spinster baked apple and toast supper, and on her way had collected +pretty Mamie Lou Whitson and progressive Jenny Kinkaid, who formed a +thrilled chorus to her interested and joyful conversation with +Patricia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The eyes of the world will be on you, Patricia, and nothing short of a +silk tailor suit will be suitable for you to wear to sustain yourself in +such a position," declared Miss Elvira, with a positive degree of +finality in her voice.</p> + +<p>"And you'll have to have at least three evening dresses, Pat, for that +same article about Mr. Godfrey Vandeford said that Broadway only woke up +at night. And you know it said he was the best known man on Broadway. Of +course, he'll take you to lots of Cafes and dances, and midnight frolics +and—and things," bubbled Mamie Lou very unwisely.</p> + +<p>"Patricia is to stay at The Young Women's Christian Association, and I +am sure they will expect her to be in bed before any midnight +foolishness," said Miss Elvira, with a severe glance at the frivolous +Mamie Lou. "I shall, of course, make her an evening dress or two, one +especially to wear when the multitude calls her before the curtain to +express their admiration of and en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>thusiasm over her play, but I shall +trust Patricia not to let them lead her into any undue frivolity. The +theatres all close at eleven o'clock."</p> + +<p>"The article said that was the time that Broadway woke up, and—" Jenny +began, as she hid behind Mamie Lou as if expecting a volley from Miss +Elvira. But Miss Elvira was too much absorbed to notice her in any way. +Miss Elvira was also in the throes of conceptive genius.</p> + +<p>"The last 'Woman's Review' had a colored plate of a suit that I can see +on you, Patricia," she mused under her breath. "It was queer blue, +with—"</p> + +<p>"In that big trunk of your great grandmother's up in the garret there's +a blue silk that she wore in Washington that is that curious new blue +color, Pat, and a lot more of—" Mamie Lou was saying with great +executive ability when Miss Elvira seized on her idea and made it her +own with the avidity of real genius.</p> + +<p>"We'll make over all of old Madam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> Adair's dresses for you, Patricia," +she decreed.</p> + +<p>"They've always been kept kind of sacred and—" Patricia began to +remonstrate with uncertainty in her voice.</p> + +<p>"And rightly so—but at the presentation of her play it is proper for +them to emerge," Miss Elvira further decreed. "Get a lamp and let's go +look at them and decide to-night," she further commanded.</p> + +<p>And from the result of that resurrection in the garret of Rosemeade, +Adairville, Kentucky, later Broadway, even Fifth Avenue, New York, got a +decided and unwonted thrill.</p> + +<p>"The clothes are all right, Roger. Miss Elvira is going to make me a lot +out of great-grandmother's clothes she wore in Washington to dance with +Lafayette," Patricia confided to Roger as they stood under the rose vine +in the moonlight at the late hour of ten-thirty that evening after she +had helped him transplant a lot of sturdy tomato vines.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Little old New York will sit up and take notice when it sees you in +party dimity, Pat," he said as he smiled down into the eager, gray eyes +that were raised to his, beaming through their long black lashes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hope I'll make friends, Roger," Patricia answered the warmth in +his voice as she clung to the warmth and strength of his arm as if in +foreboding.</p> + +<p>"Of course New York will love you, Pat. Hasn't everybody always loved +you?" he asked tenderly as he put his work-worn hand over hers on his +arm.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Patricia, with her head suddenly held high. "If anybody +don't like me, I'll make them."</p> + +<p>At about the same hour that this challenge to his world was flung from +the lips of the beautiful and talented Miss Patricia Adair upon the +moonlit and +<a name="corr5" id="corr5"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn5" title="changed from 'mocking bird'">mockingbird</a> +trilled air of the Bluegrass State Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford was engaged in about the twenty-fifth round of the spanking of +Miss Violet Hawtry in the State of New York,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> and he was having a hard +time accomplishing his purpose.</p> + +<p>"It's just like your selfishness to try to put me into a piffling play +by some unknown author with every risk to be run, when Weiner wants to +buy your contract and put me into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' which is a +play by Hilliard that gives me scope for all of my ability. He is +willing to give you a fifth interest in it and that's all you deserve. +I'll show you whether or not you can sacrifice my career, +you ——! ——! ——! you!" And with which tirade the beautiful Violet +stormed up and down the veranda of Highcliff in front of the supine +figure of her manager, which was clad in immaculate white flannel, suede +and linen, with a blue silk scarf knotted at the base of his lean, +bronze throat, which matched the blue of his keen eyes under their +gray-sprinkled brows, as the only bit of color in his irreproachable +costuming.</p> + +<p>"You've read neither play, my dear Violet. You may like 'The Purple +Slipper.' In which case you get the same salary and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> get all the +profits instead of the one-fifth our friend Weiner is offering me for +letting you act in my other play," he answered his star's outburst in an +easy, mollifying drawl.</p> + +<p>"Everybody knows that a Hilliard play is a <i>play</i>, and I'm not going to +try out a new playwright just to put money in your pockets. Why should +I?" demanded the star virago, in a fury that made her snapping Irish +blue eyes, tall, strapping, curved body, and pale tawny hair combine +into a good semblance of the jungle queen on a prey quest.</p> + +<p>"No reason except your contract entered into in all lawfulness," +answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. "You know what the Courts are, and if +you like I'll meet you there and fight it out instead of by these +sounding sea waves in this delicious moonlight. Come here and kiss me +and do let our lawyers settle it all for us." As he spoke he rose lazily +and attempted to take the taut young cat into a pair of listlessly +desirous arms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not on your life you big loafer, you, just because you put one over me +when I was a starved stage door drab don't think I am that same kind or +that sort of thing goes with me now." She spit the words at him as she +half yielded to his nonchalant embrace and half repulsed it.</p> + +<p>"Be accurate, Violet, my dear: did I demand your heart until I had +managed you and my own affairs to the point where you could buy +<a name="corr6" id="corr6"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn6" title="changed from 'Highcliffe'">Highcliff</a> +or any other trifles you wanted? There are other ladies to +love in the world besides you, aren't there? There are other gentlemen +besides me and you've had five years—and a wide hunting grounds. I've +got you under only one contract—business and not—pleasure."</p> + +<p>"God, I don't know whether I love or hate you most," were the words of +the conciliating purr that he got as she turned to put herself back +under his caressing.</p> + +<p>"Hate, I wager," he laughed softly, as he drew away from her and seated +himself on the railing of the veranda which hung out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> over the old ocean +so that its hungry waves seemed to be leaping up to engulf him. The gray +peaks and gable of the Hawtry cottage massed themselves back of him and +in the silvering moonlight he looked like a white eagle perched on an +eyrie.</p> + +<p>"Don't make me play that play; give me over to Weiner," the star of many +such an encounter as well of "Dear Geraldine" coaxed, as she followed +him and put bare, white, glistening arms around his neck and attempted +to draw his head down against a bosom that still tossed with the storm +of anger that she had put out of voice and face. "You know how last year +nobody could get a theatre for love or money, and the producers who +owned theatres put on all the plays and coined money. It will be worse +next year. You have no theatre and Weiner has three. He offers to let us +open the New Carnival. It'll be a sure thing; while your play will have +to take its chance for a New York theatre and maybe get none. Please, +Godfrey!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, you see I had agreed to let Dennis Farraday in on this play, and +it would sell him out to Weiner too," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he very +gently but determinedly took the white arms from around his neck and +refused the pillow of the storming breast.</p> + +<p>"Dennis Farraday?" Violet asked, and Mr. Vandeford shot a quick glance +of question at her as he felt the tautening of the muscles in the white +arms that he had in his grasp of untangling. "You are not going to trim +him, are you?"</p> + +<p>"No, not if you make a hit in 'The Purple Slipper,' answered Mr. +<a name="corr7" id="corr7"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn7" title="changed from 'Vanderford'">Vandeford</a>, +as he gave her another appraising glance while he lit a +cigarette.</p> + +<p>"Has he read the play?"</p> + +<p>"He's putting his money on Hawtry in a play of Vandeford's selecting and +producing," was the slap administered with the soft drawl. And as he +slapped he watched the reaction.</p> + +<p>"What did you do with that copy of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> play that fellow Dolph sent out +this morning?" was what he got with an entire change of purpose in the +beautiful, stormy face that had calmed in an instant.</p> + +<p>"It's in your room on the table by your bed," answered Mr. Vandeford, as +he rose, stretched, yawned and in other ways indicated his desire for +sleep in the primitive manner that a man uses in the bosom of his +family.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to read it if you don't mind," the Violet said with a smile +of pleasure instead of the frown of anger which had so lately rested on +her fair face. Mr. Vandeford laughed inwardly; she was about as +transparent as a very young kitten in its eagerness for a saucer of +cream.</p> + +<p>"Good girl," answered Godfrey, as together they entered the dark house. +Together they climbed the steps, and with a kiss executed by the Violet +he left her to turn into the door of her room while he went on to his +just beyond.</p> + +<p>Out of her sight the lazy, care-free man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>ner left his lithe body, and in +an instant every muscle stiffened to action. The smoulder of anger in +his eyes blazed. He looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>"Thirty-five minutes to catch that eleven-fifteen train to town. Never +again. I'm done!" he murmured and looked about him at his belongings +strewn around his room. "I'll send Dolph out to pack to-morrow. A jump +into tweeds and a sprint down the beach will make it."</p> + +<p>And after vigorously suiting his actions to his words for twenty minutes +he was running swiftly down the beach well ahead of the time of the +eleven-fifteen train. Just as the headlight cast a red ray down the long +track he stepped on the platform and in ten seconds more he was being +whirled away from the moonlight and sands and white arms, having +accomplished his purpose of the spanking, cut forever chains that +galled, and was well content with himself and the world.</p> + +<p>Back at Highcliff the beautiful Violet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> had been undergoing the rites of +retirement, assisted by her very well-skilled maid, deep in an exciting +dream of conquest. As she let her soft, perfumed, silken garments be +taken from her one at a time until her pearly body was exposed to the +brisk sea air, for which tonic Susette had thrown wide both broad +windows, she was weighing in her shrewd little gutter-gamin mind the +advantages of the road to the right against the turn to the left. The +Hilliard "Rosie Posie Girl" in the fall produced by Weiner with all his +trained staff, command of a big new theatre and three others, and +following road prestige appealed strongly to her cupidity, which had +been well trained in getting dimes from tight pockets in cheap cafes and +ten, twenty and thirty theatres, but she had seen a grouping of Dennis +Farraday's name in the paper a few days ago with the names of some young +New York multimillionaires in a National Commission, and she knew that +he and his "pile" were worthy of the effort of her charms. Also she had +seen big, broad,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> breezy, gallant Dennis himself at luncheon with Mr. +Vandeford in the Astor not ten days before, and her designs had been +decidedly set in his direction. To her thinking, big, broad, breezy, +gallant men were always easy. As Susette enveloped her rosiness from the +sea air in a soft white cloud of chiffon and embroidery, removed the +rose mules from her feet, helped her in between the fragrant linen +sheets that were as soft as rich silk, threw over her a rose-colored +puff of silk and lace and down, turned on her reading lamp, upon whose +shade wanton fauns and nymphs sported, piled her pillows high and left +her, the scales were about going down on the side in which was placed +"The Purple Slipper," Mr. Dennis Farraday—and Miss Patricia Adair, who +at that time was the unknown quantity which Fate often throws in any +balance.</p> + +<p>With a luxurious sigh and flexing of her long, supple body the Violet +picked up the business-like copy of the Violet manuscript which Mr. +Adolph Meyers had sent her in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>stead of the beribboned, purple +"Renunciation of Rosalind," and began to read the first page when the +telephone beside her bed rang with a soft tinkle. She picked up the +ivory receiver and into it murmured a softly tentative:</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Farraday! How are you?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is Violet Hawtry."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Deliciously well, thank you."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's here, but the gay young thing has gone to bed hours ago."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Most interesting for me, but I have to submit."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Oh, lovely. Do come. I'll adore having him routed out for you. Of +course we'll go with you. I had forgot that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> Simone was to dance at the +Beach Inn to-night."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"No indeed, I have not undressed at all. I was going to study a part +to-night."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"I'm sure Godfrey can be dressed in half an hour, and it will take even +your Surreness that time to get here. Take the beach road; it's fine. +Good-by then. In half an hour."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>With which ending and beginning the Violet hung up the ivory receiver +and rang for Susette. The summons was answered by Mrs. Aline Hawtry, +<i>née</i> Maggie Murphy the first, an embarrassing but in a manner cherished +relict of the Hawtry past life in Weehawken.</p> + +<p>"Sure, and the little Frinchy is a-bed, Mag! What be ye wanting? The +night is after sneaking out the back door of the morning." Mrs. Hawtry, +once Murphy, was a big bonny edition of the Violet grown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> into a cabbage +rose and her voice was also of the same rich texture.</p> + +<p>"Rout out Godfrey, Ma, and then stir up Susette with a hot stick. Mr. +Dennis Farraday is coming down to take us over to see Simone dance at +the Beach Inn. I want him to see me instead of Simone. Hurry!"</p> + +<p>"The poor dear boy, after a hard day in the cruel hot city. Alack!" +moaned Mrs. Maggie as she billowed across to Mr. Vandeford's door and +knocked. Then she paused and knocked again. From neither knock did she +receive an answer as the moment was just about the one in which he had +boarded the New York bound train a half mile up the beach down which Mr. +Dennis Farraday was racing.</p> + +<p>When a search of the unresponsive room had convinced the Violet of his +flight, for a moment her eyes were stormy, then her face cleared with a +smile of delight, and as she padded back to her room and the waiting +Susette, to herself she purred:</p> + +<p>"Nobody can beat my luck."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>There is a certain kind of man over whom all other men smile inwardly. +The tone of voice in which they speak of him has an affectionate growl, +which, once heard, cannot be mistaken. Such a man is apt to cherish what +other men call "impossible ideals about women," and it behooves his +masculine friends to watch out for him carefully lest he come a cropper. +Mr. Dennis Farraday was such a man among men, and Mr. Godfrey Vandeford +loved him deeply. They had met when they were both twenty-three, on +board a tramp steamer, bound for adventure in South Africa, and in the +seven years that had elapsed since then they had spent periods of time +together, in various kinds of sports. Killing time on Broadway was about +the only sport that they had not tried together. By very solid banking +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> brokering Mr. Vandeford enjoyed and increased for himself and an +aristocratic, Knickerbocker-descended mother a few ancestral millions. +Incidentally, he took care of the sole hundred thousand dollars of which +Mr. Vandeford's high financiering on Broadway had left him possessed. +Mr. Farraday and Mrs. Justus Farraday represented the sole family ties +possessed by Mr. Vandeford, and he considered them both most valuable. +In fact, the maternal regard of Mrs. Justus Farraday was looked upon by +Mr. Vandeford as his chief treasure and sheet-anchor in times of the +high winds of life.</p> + +<p>"What makes you do it, Van?" questioned Mr. Farraday, as he sat with Mr. +Vandeford in the early morning in the latter's rooms after the tumult of +the first night of the unsuccessful "Miss Cut-up."</p> + +<p>"Excitement," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he put his bare heels, +protruding from his Chinese slippers, up on the edge of the mahogany +reading-table in his living-room, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> began to pull at a long, +evil-smelling, briar pipe. "Nothing like it."</p> + +<p>"Do you really care for all that noise, those explosions of chorus +girls, sweating stage hands, cursing director and cursing star, paint, +powder, electricity, paper walls and furniture, call-bells and +hand-clapping from boozy critics in front?"</p> + +<p>"I do," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, with a glint in his eyes deep +back in his head. "And so would you if you had bet about twenty thousand +on that combination and could see the people begin to eat it up right +before your eyes as you sat in a box and watched 'em. When you've backed +your own combination of inferno on riot, it gives you a thrill to stand +before the box-office and watch a line of people that stretches to the +next block plunk down dollars that they have earned at their own +particular combinations of life to see the combination you have made of +yours. Why, tears come into my eyes when I see some little, old, +dried-up seamstress pay a dollar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> to sit in the roost to see Gerald +Height love the powder off of Violet while she is cursing him under her +breath for so doing, and it tickles me under my ribs to see some fat, +jolly, lonely, old party buy a front seat two days hand-running to sit +and watch Mazie Villines dance over her own head and take the child out +to supper afterward in all propriety. It does him good all over after +selling white goods in Squeedunck, Illinois, eleven and three-quarter +months of every year. It's all to the good, Denny, and I wish you could +get the drag of it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it would be well if I could," agreed Mr. Farraday, as he rose +and shook his big, lithe body with the agility of a frolicsome puppy who +knows he is going into mischief, and looked cautiously at Godfrey. "Is +backing the life of the Violet sport, too?" he ventured.</p> + +<p>"Best I know. Took nothing and made it into something in five years. If +it bites my hand that's all in the game."</p> + +<p>"Same force could beget and train about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> eleven small Vandefords into +pretty good American citizens," Mr. Farraday snapped out, and then +backed away.</p> + +<p>"Absinthe cocktails ruin the taste for sweet milk. Don't talk about +things you know nothing about; thank God for that same ignorance," Mr. +Vandeford commanded. "Go to bed and sleep like the cherub you are, while +I expiate here with my pipe."</p> + +<p>From that conversation it was natural to man nature that the demand for +a half-interest in the next Hawtry show would have been made by Mr. +Dennis Farraday of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and acceded to with the +brotherly reservations already related. The eye-teeth of Mr. Dennis +Farraday were very precious to Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and he had the +intention of taking great care that their edges should not be dulled. It +was well that he did not know that the eleven-fifteen train he had taken +in his flight to New York passed the huge, eight-cylinder Surreness of +his beloved Jonathan in its race<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> up the beach for the home of the +Violet.</p> + +<p>Now, when all is said and considered, a large admiration is due and much +should be forgiven Miss Violet Hawtry, who, as half-starved Maggie +Murphy, had darted out of the gutter into the back stage-door at the age +of fifteen, snapped her huge violet eyes with their fringes of black, +trilled a vulgar, Irish street song in accompaniment to sundry +provocative swayings of her lissome, maturing young body, and thus had +made enough impression on her world to hang on by the tips of her +fingers until she dropped into the outstretched arms of Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford, who was prowling around Weehawken and the vicinity for just +such ripe fruit as she when he was casting his first musical girl-show +for the purpose of some violent excitement after a snowed-in winter in +the Klondike.</p> + +<p>He had taken her to an old stage-mother he knew, had her thoroughly +washed, combed, manicured, dressed, schooled, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> had given her the +benefit of his respect for five years while she worked up into the star +of "Dear Geraldine" with all the might of the Irish eyes and lissome +figure and cooing, creamy voice. He had then built Highcliff in the +artist's colony of the Beach for the joint domicile of mother and +daughter. However, it is easier to bathe, comb, manicure, and +luxuriously clothe a body than it is to renovate a soul, and within the +Violet Maggie dwelt in all her gutter vigor. It is also safe to say that +perhaps it was no little part of the Maggie that the beautiful and +haughty Violet threw across the footlights to draw to her the primitive +in the hearts of her vast audiences. It was to some extent the wisdom of +Maggie that the Violet was using as she prepared for her first encounter +alone with Mr. Dennis Farraday as he raced down the moonlit beach to +her.</p> + +<p>"Not the violet and jet, Susette, but that white embroidered lisle, and +take time to sew three inches of tulle around the top of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> bodice in +front and put folds five inches deep across the back. Let it come just +below the shoulder," she commanded, as she commenced the whirlwind of a +toilette with which, she had assured the hurrying Dennis, she was +already adorned.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais</i>, +Mademoiselle—" Susette began.</p> + +<p>"He'd shy at too much omitted clothing when we are alone. I'll have to +introduce him to myself gradually," she answered the protest, laughing +as she tossed her pale, yellow mane high on her head, and dabbed a +little curl against her cheek with the rose oil, and made a skilful use +of the lip-stick brought by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford from the famed +Celeste's.</p> + +<p>"He will behold that +<a name="corr8" id="corr8"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn8" title="changed from 'Madamoiselle'">Mademoiselle</a> +Simone dance with very few garments +<i>alors</i>," Susette pouted as she laid in the folds of modest tulle.</p> + +<p>"But he won't be alone in the moonlight with her, that is, if I can help +it," answered the mistress, as she further perfumed and painted the lily +of her beauty. "Don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> worry, Susette; I'm going to give monsieur the +time of his life."</p> + +<p>"That is without saying, +<a name="corr9" id="corr9"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn9" title="changed from 'Madamoiselle'">Mademoiselle</a>," +answered Susette, as she slipped +the silky fluff over the Violet's head, and fastened the one or two +hooks that held it in place over the filmy undergarments in which the +Violet stood waiting for its veiling. "<i>Mon Dieu</i>, what a beauty it +gives you, and that placing of the tulle is <i>ravissant</i>."</p> + +<p>"That is what I meant it to be," laughed the Violet. "There's his car! +Bring me that orchid wrap when I ring for it." And leaving the +admiration of Susette, the Violet hurried down to drink from the cup of +the same vintage she was sure would be offered her by Mr. Dennis +Farraday. It was offered.</p> + +<p>"It's awfully good of you people to help a poor lonely dub to a pleasant +evening," were the words with which the victim greeted the Violet, while +his eyes offered the expected portion of admiration as he beheld her +bathed in the radiance of the moon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure the pleasure is ours—or rather mine, poor old Van," she answered, +with not a little trepidation well hidden under her rich voice.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you wake him up, the old scout? Let me get to him. I have a +way with him I learned in the Nova Scotia woods." Mr. Farraday laughed a +big laugh, which had in it the tang of the breeze in the tops of +pine-trees. But the Violet was ready for him.</p> + +<p>"He's not there for your torture. The poor darling got a telephone +message just twenty minutes ago to come back to New York to-night. I've +just motored him up the beach to catch the eleven-fifteen train. Some +day that tiresome Dolph will follow Van about some play snarl into—into +Paradise."</p> + +<p>"He did that to-night, didn't he?" asked Mr. Farraday, with a merry +laugh as he ruffled his red forelock up off his broad brow, and made +himself look like a huge, tame lion.</p> + +<p>"Away with your blarney, boy!" laughed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> the Violet, in return, using her +Maggie Murphy form of speech with telling effect, as she often did. "He +left a thousand apologies for you," she added, slipping back into her +veneer of the—for Maggie—upper world. "And you've had your race down +for nothing; poor Simone!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I say, can't we just go on over to supper at the Beach Inn? The +Clyde Trevors asked me, and we can have supper with them. Wouldn't you +like that? We can tell them about poor Van." He was as eager as a boy in +his friendly efforts to mend what he thought must be a broken evening +for her.</p> + +<p>"I'd love it," answered the Violet, with a flash of her white teeth and +violet eyes at him.</p> + +<p>After a summons Susette appeared with the alluring orchid garment, and a +white film of seed-pearls for her mistress's hair. She assisted the +Violet's discreet Japanese butler to put them into the big car, which +Mr. Farraday was driving himself, and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> stood for a minute watching +them hurl themselves away across the white sand.</p> + +<p>"<i>Quelle vie!</i>" she muttered to herself as she turned back into the +darkened house.</p> + +<p>The Beach Inn was aglow and +<a name="corr10" id="corr10"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn10" title="changed from 'atinkle'">atwinkle</a> +and in full laugh as they ascended +the steps of the wide veranda hung out over the ocean, where members and +guests were having supper at small tables lit with shaded lamps. Men and +girls, in bathing suits that were lineal descendants of the scant +fig-leaf, were eating and drinking together sparsely because of their +intention of taking a midnight plunge in the breakers under the hot +moon, while other women in radiant evening garb were almost as scantily +attired, though attended by stuffily garbed men. Most of the parties +turned and called a laughing greeting to the Violet, for they were the +men and women of her world disporting themselves away from Broadway, and +Clyde Trevor, who had written the book for "Miss Cut-up," rose and came +over to claim his guests.</p> + +<p>"Lost Van?" he questioned, as he led them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> to their seats beside Mrs. +Trevor, who had danced fifty thousand dollars out of New York the winter +just ended. His voice held a hint of irony, which the Violet got and Mr. +Dennis Farraday missed.</p> + +<p>"Not quite yet," she said, with a coo at which Trevor smiled, and under +his breath he gave her the word, "Good hunting!"</p> + +<p>"Thanks."</p> + +<p>"Old Van had to hop back to New York on the eleven-fifteen, but we came +on to glad with you anyway," Mr. Farraday was saying to Mrs. Trevor, +with an ingenuous smile.</p> + +<p>"Go to it, baby," commanded Trevor to his wife, as a rich negro melody +began to fling its invitation against the roaring call of the ocean, and +at his word Simone rose from the seat of Mrs. Trevor and slid out into +the cleared space at the head of the steps.</p> + +<p>"Just in time," commented Mr. Farraday under his breath, as he turned +his chair to watch her drop her silk coat, and float out on the waves of +sound just as she would later<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> float on the waves of the ocean after she +had plunged from the steps to lead the midnight bathing in the surf, for +which the management of the inn paid her the sum of two hundred dollars +per plunge.</p> + +<p>All of this gaiety and amusement was just a prelude to the ride home in +the moonlight, which the Violet took with good Dennis Farraday and +during which she discovered that there is such a thing as honor among +men about poaching on other men's preserves, and during which, also, the +fate of Major Adair, Patricia, Roger, and old black Jeff hung in the +balance.</p> + +<p>"Just what are we racing?" she questioned as they flew along the beach +with rubber tires that just skimmed the hard, white sand.</p> + +<p>"A bit fast?" asked Mr. Farraday, with a protective laugh, as he slowed +down the flight.</p> + +<p>"Let's loaf and talk a while," the Violet answered, with a tentative +note of invitation in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I had thought you and Van and I would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> have a great powwow over the +play this evening, and it's fierce that he had to get back to that +furnace a night like this, but we can limp along on a few ideas without +him, maybe. What do you think of 'The Purple Slipper'?" As he set the +car at an easy pace he turned and looked down at the lovely face so near +his shoulder with a great and extremely boyish enthusiasm, which was +very delightful and very irritating to the Violet.</p> + +<p>"What do you think about it? You tell first," she said with a smile that +answered his enthusiasm adequately and which served to cover with +agility the fact that she had not read the play.</p> + +<p>"Well, at first it seemed a queer kind of vehicle for you, but as I read +on I could see you queening it in all those furbelows of dress as well +as adventure and sentiment. It's a little serious in situation, but it +is full of comedy adventure in line, and I can just see the audience eat +you up in it. I told Van so, and I bought in before I had read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> more +than half the second act. I don't feel as though I could wait to see you +in that dinner scene while you hold the enemies of your spouse +confounded. I agree with Van that your emotional qualities may exceed +your comedy."</p> + +<p>"Does Van back my emotional acting against my comedy?" the Violet asked, +with barely concealed surprise in her voice.</p> + +<p>"He does. He says that 'The Purple Slipper' is going to be the sensation +of Broadway for the early fall, and I agree with him. Do you feel as +sure of it as he says you are?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the Violet, and by her assent in premeditated ignorance +of the contents of the play manuscript she put the second cross on the +production which made it a double on the fate of Mr. Dennis Farraday as +a theatrical producer. However, that fact may have been balanced by the +fact that it was the third cross on the fate of Miss Patricia Adair. +Crosses on fates in the world of Broadway go in singles, dou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>bles, and +threes, and no man can tell their exact significance.</p> + +<p>"Good!" answered Mr. Dennis Farraday, with another and still broader +smile of gratification and admiration of the Violet as an artist—a +smile which further infuriated, but equally inspired her. "And what a +grand time we'll all have putting it across! I'm going to help Van see +actors for the cast on Friday, and I'm going to sit in on rehearsals +straight through. I'm due a month's vacation, and I'm going to have my +mail from the office relayed back to New York from the yacht off +Nantucket so that bunch of money grubbers can't find me. Think of having +the honor of being co-producer for Violet Hawtry for my first shot!"</p> + +<p>All of which enthusiasm and admiration went like wine to the head of the +Violet, though it left her heart uncomfortably cold; and beautiful, cool +moonlight heats the heart of a fair woman when it is not more than two +feet away from that of a brave and fair man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure I'll make it a success for you, man dear!" Maggie Murphy in the +Violet made an attempt to put a glow into the situation, using the +brogue that was like rich cream poured over peaches, as she snuggled her +bare shoulder, from which the orchid wrap had slipped, with a natural +little shiver against good Dennis's wheel arm.</p> + +<p>"You and Van are trumps to take me in for the fun, and I'm no end +grateful to you both," was all she got for her manœuver.</p> + +<p>"Yes—Van is a dear," she hedged in a matter-of-fact voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I suppose after my co-first night with him the old scout will +stop baiting me about blinking the white lights. I always have been +obliged to beat Van at any game before I could rest in peace." And at +the thought of getting in at his David big Jonathan laughed heartily +just as he began to slow up the car for the turn along the sea-wall that +led under the porch of +<a name="corr11" id="corr11"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn11" title="changed from 'Highcliffe'">Highcliff</a>.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever competed with him in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> biggest game of all?" the +Violet asked softly, as the car swept into the shadow and stopped by the +broad stone steps.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Farraday, with a countenance so open +and a voice so hearty that the Violet, used to artifice from everybody, +suspected that they could not be real, and this suspicion made her give +up the game for the time being. She laughed with a mocking sweetness as +she sprang out of the car and to the top of the steps before he could +help her.</p> + +<p>"Some day I'll tell you what I mean," she mocked from the dark doorway. +"Good-night!" And while he stood at the bottom step looking up at her, +she vanished into the darkness of the house, leaving him out in the cool +moonlight, a fate very different from what she had been planning for him +for several hours.</p> + +<p>"Just as old Van said, they are nothing but children, and I blame him +about trifling with her more than I thought I did; she's a dear thing +and a little pathetic in her anxiety<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> to make good for him. Scout has +just got to do something about it all. She's a fine and devoted woman. +And beautiful—whee-ugh!" The big thirty-year-old boy ended his +soliloquy with a whistle, which showed that in a measure he had +appreciated the dangers of the last hours. One of the eternal questions +is how can a mere man be so wicked—or so good as he is often discovered +by temptation to be?</p> + +<p>"I'll have to be publicly and finally severed from Van before I annex +him, the boob," was the soliloquy of the Violet as she prepared for her +slumber of beauty. Another question is how thin a veneer of feminine +beauty weathers indefinitely the wash of circumstances.</p> + +<p>Then after that moonlit night in August Fate spun her web, which she +called "The Purple Slipper," rapidly, and for a number of the people +involved life became very hectic. The center of the whirl was Mr. Adolph +Meyers, though he was safely functioning with power behind the throne +occu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>pied by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's nonchalant and elegantly clad +figure.</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is never before that you have produced a +play without a reading," he remonstrated on the morning of the day set +for the picking of the cast from those probably suitable chosen by +Chambers, the invaluable agent of the great army of those theatrically +employed. "Actors will be here from twelve o'clock even to six. How will +a choice be made?"</p> + +<p>"I'm trusting to your hunch about the purple manuscript falling on the +day of the Violet letter, Pops," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. "Make +out a little memorandum against each name that tells me what to pick. I +like the idea of going it blind that way: it may be lucky. And, Pops, +split that five-thousand-dollar check of Mr. Farraday's in three ways. +Pay Lindenberg two-fifty as his advance on the scenery for 'The Rosie +Posie Girl,' provided he furbishes up something that will do for the +little road sally of Violet's spanking-machine, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> be emblazoned as +'The Purple Slipper' on the cheapest black bills ever run off in New +York. Give Hugh Willings a thousand advance for the music of 'The Rosie +Posie Girl,' but make him write as many as six waltz songs even if you +are sure the first is a hit; it is good to make people, specially any +kind of artists, work for the money you pay 'em. The other fifteen +hundred you had better put off by itself as a starter on the Violet's +gowns. She likes to pay an Irish woman with a French name three hundred +dollars for six dollars' worth of chiffon sewed with seventy-five cents' +worth of silk."</p> + +<p>"What is for costumes for the 'Purple Slipper'?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, any old dolling up will do for that. The women can wear what +they've got and the men borrow or rent." With a wave of the cigarette in +his hand, Mr. Vandeford dismissed the scenic effects of the play for +whose début Miss Elvira Henderson was concocting a dream costume to +adorn the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> author for receiving triumphal plaudits.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is a costume play of a period," the humble +power behind the throne pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it? Then rent the nearest layout to its date that Grossmidt has +for all of 'em in a lump, and make him give you a bargain. Tell him they +won't be worn more than two weeks. I guess Violet will be in line by +that time." With which significant order Mr. Godfrey Vandeford turned +from the anxious Mr. Meyers to answer the tinkling telephone at his +elbow. In a second he was speaking to the most eminent stage director on +Broadway.</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is Godfrey Vandeford, Bill."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Yes. Called to know if you would like to stage a little show for me +right away."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm going to give Hawtry a little canter before 'The Rosie Posie +Girl.' New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> line for her, and doubtful. Like to take hold for a +pittance?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, that three hundred a week for the 'Posie Girl' goes, of +course, but this play is just a Hawtry whim that I have got to let her +get out of her system. One hundred a week is my limit, and you ought to +do it for seventy-five. You can sit in your chair all the time for all I +care."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Now you get me—a hundred it is. Let her have her head and work off +steam before we start 'The Rosie Posie.' Yes, Willings is doing the +Rosie songs for us. They'll be hot stuff."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Yes, Corbett's making sketches for 'The Rosie Posie' scenery now. We'll +start 'The Purple Slipper' on Monday. Yes, that's its blooming name. +By!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Is it William Rooney to stage 'The Purple Slipper'?" asked Mr. Meyers, +with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> shrug of his narrow shoulders as he began pecking out on his +machine the notes that were to guide his chief in picking the artists +who were to embody the characters in the play founded on the life +romance of that old grandame Madam Patricia Adair of colonial Kentucky.</p> + +<p>"Why do you reckon Samuel Goldstein likes to build up a reputation for +himself on Broadway by the name of William Rooney, Pops?" inquired Mr. +Vandeford, with the idle curiosity of a free and untroubled mind.</p> + +<p>"It is the prejudice against Hebrews for a reason," answered Mr. Meyers, +with a glint in his gem-like eyes and a wave of color flushing across +his high, scholarly forehead.</p> + +<p>"Well, the top crust of the whole show business is Hebrew, and I should +think the bunch of you would be proud of the fact. I'm even proud that a +man named Adolph Meyers runs this whole company, and me included," said +Mr. Vandeford, without taking the trouble to note the wave of gratified +pride, devotion, and embarrassment that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> swept over the countenance of +his faithful henchman. "Now I'll get a little booking for your 'Purple +Slipper,' and that is all you need expect me to do, except shoulder all +the loss I haven't shunted on Denny."</p> + +<p>"It is to be a win, not a loss," murmured the loyal Adolph under his +breath, with a glance of affection at the absorbed Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford.</p> + +<p>This vow of Mr. Adolph Meyers shows that it is as dangerous to arouse +the affection and loyalty of one genius as it is to incur the anger of +another.</p> + +<p>The casting of "The Purple Slipper" was a joy to Mr. Dennis Farraday. He +was to pay well for it in the future, but it was conducted in pure glee. +He sat beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford in the latter's long, Persian +carpeted, soft-tinted, and famous-actor-photograph-bedecked, private +office beside that eminent producer, and watched the strong light from +over their shoulders reveal the points of the men and women who came in +to exhibit themselves. From the moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> they entered the door, through +the walk or waddle or lope or saunter with which they approached their +fate to the expressions of joy or disappointment which their emotions +showed under Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's grilling, Mr. Farraday was deeply +interested.</p> + +<p>"You know, Bébé, it is not necessary to put on more than a hundred extra +pounds when in training for the heavy mother," he genially admonished a +very large lady of uncertain age—an age artfully covered with rouge, +powder, pencil, and lip-stick—who sank into the chair facing him with a +pathetic remnant of the former lissome grace which had got her as far as +being a dependable leading woman to any star who could go her a few +points better.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's not from living on large salaries from you that I have put +on the pounds, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford!" she answered with a jovial laugh.</p> + +<p>"Still eating half of old Wallace Kent's salary checks?" Mr. Vandeford +demanded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> This seemed a lack of delicacy to Mr. Dennis Farraday, who +blushed with a color equal to that which rose in the cheeks of the old +beauty as her eyes snapped and she rose to her feet.</p> + +<p>"As you know, he's feeding a squab chicken at Rector's to get her into +the broiler class. Good-day, sir," and she prepared to sweep out of the +office with all the fire she had used in many a queenly situation.</p> + +<p>"Good old Bébé," Mr. Vandeford said, as he rose and put a restraining +arm around her broad waist. "I was just teasing to see what was +smouldering. How'll seventy-five a week, with costumes of frills and +powdered hair, do you? Thirty sides and the center of the stage four +times." "Sides," meaning single sheets of dialogue, puzzled Mr. +Farraday, but he made a mental note to seek enlightenment.</p> + +<p>"I haven't had a part this winter, Godfrey," she laughed, and sobbed on +Mr. Vandeford's shoulder. "I'm living in a suitcase at Mrs. Pinkham's."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Stop and get a twenty-five check from Dolph, and be on the job Monday +at the Barrett Theatre. Now run!" Mr. Vandeford gave Miss Bébé Herne's +two hundred pounds of avoirdupois a gentle shove toward the door, which +hint she took with an alacrity that had in it a great deal of left-over +grace.</p> + +<p>"Supported a lot of big guns for years. Knows her business better than +any actress on Broadway," said Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to his horrified +confrère as the door closed behind the old beauty. "Picked up Wallace +Kent when he was a piffling, faded juvenile, and taught him to be a good +elderly support worth his hundred to any director. He's left her flat +for a pony in the Big Show, old hound!"</p> + +<p>"Pretty raw," observed Mr. Dennis Farraday, with a great deal of emotion +very poorly concealed in his sympathetic voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's had her fling in life! Dopes a bit, but can be depended upon. +Next!"</p> + +<p>This time there entered a husky, young brute of a boy with shoulders +broad enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> to run a double-decker plough. His hair was long and +sleeked close to his well-shaped head, but his fine mouth and chin +sagged, and his eyes were bold and sophisticated. In costume he was the +glass and mould of Broadway fashion.</p> + +<p>"Reginald Leigh," he announced himself in a nice voice, and, as he +spoke, took from a case a card and laid it on the edge of Mr. +Vandeford's desk.</p> + +<p>"Experience, Mr. Leigh?" asked Mr. Vandeford, still standing and with +not an atom of encouragement in his whole body from head to toe.</p> + +<p>"College dramatics and last summer in stock at Buffalo. I've worked in +two pictures for the Universal."</p> + +<p>"Heavy juvenile at fifty a week," offered Mr. Vandeford, with an +indifferent glance up from the paper in his hand prepared for his +guidance by the indefatigable Mr. Meyers. The word "handsome" was typed +in the offer from which Mr. Vandeford made to Mr. Leigh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My price is a hundred, Mr. Vandeford," answered Mr. Leigh, very +pleasantly, and he took a grip on his hat and stick that was meant to +convey the idea of immediate departure.</p> + +<p>"Sorry," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a finality that staggered Mr. +Dennis Farraday; for the youngster's looks and charm were so evident +that it pained him to see "The Purple Slipper" lose them. "Costumes +historical, furnished," added Mr. Vandeford, with increased +indifference.</p> + +<p>"Oh, in that case—" murmured the boy, almost, but not quite, unleashing +his eagerness.</p> + +<p>"Just leave your telephone number with Mr. Meyers in the outer office, +please. Good-morning, Mr. Leigh," was the answer his concession got +along with the dismissal in the "good-morning," which was spoken in such +a tone that it was obeyed in short order.</p> + +<p>"That is a find," said Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to the gasping Mr. Dennis +Farraday.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> "Handsome young chaps who have any kind of manliness are hard +to find these days. Too busy to be actors."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you engage him?" further gasped his partner in the adventure +of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"I'll let him cool his heels, to get some of the know-it out of his +system. Dolph will make him come around and beg in less than twenty-four +hours."</p> + +<p>"See here, Van, these people are artists to whom you are trusting your +money and reputation as a producer, and you treat them like—"</p> + +<p>"The foolish children that they are," interrupted Mr. Vandeford. "Next!" +and he pressed a button under his desk that buzzed for Mr. Meyers's ears +alone.</p> + +<p>The next three applicants were girls, who respectively giggled, +glowered, and simpered. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford chose the two who glowered +and simpered and got rid of the giggler by referring her telephone +number to Mr. Adolph Meyers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That second that you sent away was the prettiest of the bunch," +commented Mr. Dennis Farraday, with interest that had survived to that +point with undiminished intensity.</p> + +<p>"Not at home under that little cocked hat. That giggle was the whole bag +of tricks," instructed Mr. Vandeford. "Got any men out there, Pops?" he +asked through the telephone to Mr. Adolph Meyers.</p> + +<p>Immediately there entered a debonair, very handsome, and sleek gentleman +of uncertain age.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Kent, want to support Bébé in a costume play for a hundred a +week?" asked Mr. Vandeford, with not an instant's greeting in answer to +that gentleman's cordial good-morning.</p> + +<p>"In New York or on the road?" questioned Mr. Kent, with an assurance +that he tried to make bold.</p> + +<p>"To the devil if I send you there," was the answer he got straight off +the bat.</p> + +<p>"A hundred with costumes?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"With costumes."</p> + +<p>"Done."</p> + +<p>"See Dolph; but not over ten-dollar advance to save your hide."</p> + +<p>"He's giving fifty."</p> + +<p>"To whom?"</p> + +<p>"Bébé."</p> + +<p>"He did that because he knew that you'd get half of what he gave her. +Ten's your limit."</p> + +<p>"All right. Good-morning!"</p> + +<p>"Barrett on Monday morning."</p> + +<p>"All right!"</p> + +<p>With which Mr. Kent rapidly made his exit.</p> + +<p>"Old reprobate! But he does feed the lines to his opposite, and Bébé +happy is worth twice Bébé in a grouch. You see what the whole blamed +thing is like and—" Mr. Vandeford was interrupted by the tinkle of the +telephone at his elbow.</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Godfrey Vandeford speaking."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a> +</span>. . . . . .<br /></p> + +<p>"When did you get in?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Not busy at all."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"The Claridge?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Right away."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Haven't seen or heard from him in two days."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Right over. By!"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>From overhearing, as he was forced to do, this one-sided conversation, +how could Mr. Dennis Farraday imagine that Violet Hawtry had come into +sultry New York seeking him to devour and that his keeper was rushing +away from his presence to his defense?</p> + +<p>"You and Pops engage the rest, Denny. You see the trick now. Nothing +left im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>portant but what Dolph puts down on this paper as 'woman support +for character parts with looks.' Try your hand, old man, and if you pick +a flivver there are plenty more to cast in and her out. By!" And before +Mr. Farraday could protest he was left alone in the inquisition-room. +And as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford went down in an elevator on his way to the +Claridge to deliver the next instalment of the spanking of Miss Violet +Hawtry, he passed a live wire going up opposite him and met one walking +down Forty-second Street, neither of which he could be expected to +recognize, as he had never seen either.</p> + +<p>The first of the two dynamos walked into the office of the Vandeford +Producing Company and failed to thrill Mr. Adolph Meyers in the least, a +fact for which he could never afterward account. He motioned her into +the inner office, and left her to her fate and Mr. Dennis Farraday.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Vandeford," she said in a queer, throaty kind of +voice that had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> in it a "come hither" of unusual quality, which +suggested that in her production a Romney woman might have loved a Greek +dancer well. She stood at ease before the long desk with a grace that +was unmistakably that of complete assurance.</p> + +<p>"I'm not Mr. Vandeford, but his—his partner, Dennis Farraday. Er—er, +won't you be seated?" and with the happy, considerate manner of his that +he had always used to all women, he offered her his own chair and +appropriated the one of authority that Mr. Vandeford always occupied.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," answered the young woman, with an ease equal to his own. +And then they both waited while regarding each other seriously. Finally +the tension relaxed and Dennis Farraday gave a big, jovial laugh while +he made his admission:</p> + +<p>"I don't know a thing about the play business. I'm just sitting in with +Mr. Vandeford for the fun of it."</p> + +<p>"An angel?" asked the girl, with a laugh that somehow accorded with +his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's it. He's gone out and left me to—to cut my eye teeth."</p> + +<p>"On me?"</p> + +<p>"Looks that way," and again they both laughed.</p> + +<p>"Maybe I can help you," volunteered the girl, after the laugh. "I am +Mildred Lindsey, and Mr. Chambers sent me in to see if I could support +Miss Hawtry."</p> + +<p>"Er—er, what experience?" Mr. Dennis Farraday managed to ask by fishing +into his impressions of the last two hours.</p> + +<p>"Five years in stock on the Pacific coast, two years in towns between, +and two weeks in a flivver here on Broadway early in the spring. Dead +broke, hungry, and about ready to make good for some manager." As the +answer was fired point-blank at him, Mr. Dennis Farraday seemed to see a +fire of psychic hunger blaze as high as that of wolfish, physical agony +in the girl's eyes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dennis Farraday eagerly searched on the paper of guidance in casting +made out by Mr. Adolph Meyers for the benefit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> Mr. Vandeford and +found "woman support," and opposite the item of salary, seventy-five +dollars. He doubled.</p> + +<p>"How would a hundred and fifty a week with costumes do for salary? You +can have a couple of weeks advance right now if you like," he said in an +easy, nonchalant manner as much like that of Mr. Vandeford as he could +muster, for those fires of hunger in the girl's eyes were searching +holes in Mr. Dennis Farraday's pocket.</p> + +<p>"It would save my life—but—but could you tell me a little about the +part? I might not be able to play it." There were both hope and fear in +her compelling voice.</p> + +<p>The question found Mr. Dennis Farraday unprepared by any precedent +established in the two foregoing hours, for between the artists and Mr. +Vandeford there had been alone the matter of salary to be settled and +not one of them had inquired whether they were being engaged to play a +Billy Sunday or an Ethiopian slave. But in another way it found him +better prepared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> than would have been Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. He had read +the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper" and Mr. Vandeford had not.</p> + +<p>"Well, to my uninitiated way of thinking, the supporting part is about +as good as the leading one," said Mr. Dennis Farraday, and forthwith he +launched out on an eager, enthusiastic resumé of the plot and +atmosphere, even quoting lines of "The Purple Slipper." And as he talked +Mildred Lindsey leaned across the table toward him and fairly drank in +his words.</p> + +<p>"I see—it's wonderful how she keeps his enemies at bay during the first +half of the banquet—while she waits. It's great!" Her enthusiasm +expressed in her wonderful voice urged Mr. Dennis Farraday on and on to +a fuller exposition of the play and its beauties.</p> + +<p>"You see, the sister is really the one to carry the plot. It is on her +that Rosalind leans, and she has to be all there in her quiet way."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, I see, and it can be made—" At this juncture the eye of Mr. +Adolph Meyer was inserted to a crack of the door and then removed as he +shook his head in puzzled doubt. He had intended to intrude to the +rescue of his +<a name="corr12" id="corr12"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn12" title="changed from coemployer's">co-employer's</a> +inexperience, but he decided that the time +was not ripe by one glance at Mr. Farraday's eager face, surmounted by +its rampant, red leonine locks.</p> + +<p>"I have pity for Mr. Farraday," Mr. Meyers remarked to himself as he +seated himself at his machine, not knowing that in a very few minutes +the second live wire would arrive in the office and this time he would +get a shock himself.</p> + +<p>For a half-hour he wrote on, while the animated voices boomed and purled +and bubbled in the office beyond the crack of the door he had left open +to observe the first lull that might call for relief. Then he got his +shock.</p> + +<p>The office door opened timidly, and somebody entered so quietly that she +stood beside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> Mr. Adolph Meyers before he had lifted his head.</p> + +<p>It was the author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind," now "The Purple +Slipper," and she looked every inch of it! Miss Elvira, the genius +guided by "The Feminist Review," had done her best with the blue-silk +suit, and Fifth Avenue could have done no better.</p> + +<p>"May I see Mr. Vandeford? I am Miss Patricia Adair," she announced in a +rich and calm Southern voice and manner.</p> + +<p>Mr. Adolph Meyers sprang to his feet with the impact of the shock.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Vandeford is not in the office, Madam, at present," he managed to +gasp. Then he followed her big, gray eyes as they rested on the crack of +the door through which the boom of Mr. Dennis Farraday's voice mingled +with the excited chime of Miss Lindsey's laughter, and noticed as though +for the first time that it had emblazoned upon it in large, gilt +letters, "Mr. Vandeford. Private."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is Mr. Dennis Farraday, the partner of Mr. Vandeford, engaging +actors, Miss, in his absence. Will you walk in?" and in almost the first +panic in which he had ever indulged Mr. Adolph Meyers showed the proud +young author into the sanctum sanctorum from which he had barricaded +many an enraged virago who had threatened his life if he kept her from +an appeal to the manager.</p> + +<p>"It is Miss Adair, the author of your play, Mr. Farraday, would speak +with you," he announced across the long room, bowed in a way he had +never done in his life, and shut the door behind Miss Adair.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to wonder how it would have affected the end of the +whole matter if Patricia Adair had walked in behind the giggler when Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, with all his experience with authors, was seated on +the throne instead of poor inexperienced Dennis Farraday, enjoying "The +Purple Slipper" with his newly engaged, supporting lady.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> + +<p>"By jove, Miss Adair, it is little bit of all right that you should come +in and catch Miss Lindsey and me chewing joy-rags over our—your play. +Let me introduce Miss Lindsey, who is to support Miss Hawtry in the part +of Harriet." And bonnie Dennis, the angel, beamed with pure joy at the +good time he was having as a producer. At the very sight and sound of +him poor Patricia, who for half an hour had been wandering up and down +Forty-second Street, looking for the tallest building on it, took both +comfort and delight, and her sea-gray eyes with stars in their depths +returned the beam of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's so wonderful that you like my play and are going to produce +it—and you to act in it, Miss Lindsey," she said as she seated herself +in the chair Mr. Farraday had drawn up for her. She looked at them both +with respectful awe in her eyes and in her cheeks a flush of color that +came and went as she spoke, in a way that at first puzzled Miss Lindsey +as to its brand and then in turn awed her as she decided it was the real +thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> The blue-silk triumph of Miss Elvira and "The Review" also +puzzled her for a moment, but she put it down to some little Fifth +Avenue shop that only débutantes and authors of plays could afford, and +took it in with delight at its exquisite detail.</p> + +<p>"I think it is a dandy play, as Mr. Farraday has been telling it to me. +Crooks and—and cut-ups are about done for," said Miss Lindsey. She gave +a quick glance at Mr. Farraday, to see if he resented the allusion to +Mr. Vandeford's recent failure.</p> + +<p>"Right-o!" agreed Mr. Farraday, with a sympathetic smile at her +allusion, which passed over the head of the lady from Adairville, +Kentucky.</p> + +<p>Then ensued more than a half-hour of the most enthusiastic discussion of +plays in general, and Miss Adair's in particular. Both Mr. Dennis +Farraday and Miss Mildred Lindsey were impressed with the fact that the +author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind" had learned her business from +the most erudite sources, and they talked Shakespeare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> and Fielding +until they at last wound themselves up into a complete pause.</p> + +<p>Miss Adair broke the strain.</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully hungry, and I don't know where to go to get something to +eat," she said, with exactly the same tone of confidence she had used in +asking old Jeff for a cold muffin in between the meals of her eighth +summer.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, we are all hungry! You girls come with me," exclaimed Mr. +Dennis Farraday, as he jumped to his feet and looked around for his hat.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, but I think I had better go home to—to see about—" Miss +Lindsey was faltering with the embarrassment of those who are both proud +and hungry, when food is offered them socially.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! You are coming over to the Claridge with Miss Adair and me +for a bite. Then you can come back by here and see Dolph.—Dolph, make +out a check for Miss Lindsey's advance. Shall we say one or two hundred, +Miss Lindsey?" Dennis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> Farraday was in his element when doing the breezy +protective to two girls at once.</p> + +<p>"One hundred, please," answered Miss Lindsey, with color mounting to her +cheeks that underpainted that already there. She smiled with amusement +at the surprise that manifested itself for an instant on the round face +of Mr. Meyers that an actress should not "grab" all offered her and then +plead for more. "But I really do feel that I had better not—go to +luncheon, for I am—"</p> + +<p>"Please do! I'd rather you would," the eminent author urged, and she +clung to the show girl in a way that showed Dennis Farraday, accustomed +to the women of her world, that vague proprieties were hovering beside +the gates that were opening for Patricia from her old world into her +new.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to come, Miss Lindsey, to celebrate, or we shall think you +are not all for the play," Mr. Farraday said with a finality in his +voice that settled the matter.</p> + +<p>And the three of them scudded along a few blocks of the sun-steamed +streets into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> the coolness of the Claridge, also into the heart of a +situation that had been seething for an hour between Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford and Miss Violet Hawtry.</p> + +<p>"How wonderful of you, Van dear, to find me such a play at the eleventh +and three-quarters hour!" had been the volley that Violet had fired at +him.</p> + +<p>"Glad you like it," he had parried, feeling sure that she was jockeying +with him for position for the clinch.</p> + +<p>"Dennis Farraday told me that you were backing my emotional handling +even more than my comedy scenes. Could you for once be playing square +with me and really looking forward to my development in getting +this—this rather remarkable kind of a play for me?"</p> + +<p>"I've done my best for you for five years, Violet," he quietly answered +the insult, as he looked across the empty white tables that stretched +away from Violet's favorite and reserved seat in the black and gold +dining-room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Miss Cut-up,' for instance?"</p> + +<p>"There were several ways to put that play across. You had your way in +every particular. Mine might have succeeded," was his calm answer.</p> + +<p>"The really amusing thing about you is that you don't at all know how +little brains you have," was the polite broadside delivered him as +Violet began to sip the clear coffee from her cup.</p> + +<p>"Same to you," was the reply she received. Godfrey spoke in a +good-natured tone of voice. "Now, what did you come to town to talk +about—'The Purple Slipper'?"</p> + +<p>"Why did you leave Highcliff like a thief in the night?"</p> + +<p>"Did you read the deeds Dolph gave you when he went up to pack my +personal effects?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, thanks! I suppose you consider Highcliff the price of your +freedom?"</p> + +<p>"And cheap at that."</p> + +<p>"Then why not turn me over to Weiner?" Violet asked in a dangerous tone +of voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> that made Mr. Vandeford glance around with apprehension to see +who would witness the explosion if it occurred.</p> + +<p>"I tried to buy Denny off yesterday, but you fastened 'The Purple +Slipper' firmly in his head, maybe his heart, the other evening, and it +would be like taking candy from a child. Maybe you can—can influence +him to let go—if I give you the chance." There was something coolly +insulting in his voice that told Violet he had surmised her intentions +and the failure of her assault on his big Jonathan.</p> + +<p>"Your usual impertinence! I'll get him yet, just to spite you. I'll go +in and play that 'Purple Slipper' to win, and—"</p> + +<p>"Again Miss Adair breaks in on enthusiasm for her play." Dennis +Farraday's big voice boomed right at the elbows of the embattled pair. +"Look who's here, Van!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Godfrey Vandeford looked up quickly, and as quickly rose to his +feet. And with one glance into slate-gray eyes behind long black +lashes—eyes filled with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> awed, worshipful gratitude to him—his heart +rose in his breast and all but flitted out upon his sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford, the producer of your play," good Dennis +flourished. "And Miss Violet Hawtry! In fact, the whole happy family!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>Now, by all rules of the game, it was the prerogative of Miss Violet +Hawtry to take charge of a situation in which the star of a play meets +the author; but she missed her cue, and the gutter instinct within her +sat dumb and dumfounded before the lady from Adairville.</p> + +<p>"I'm charmed to meet you, Miss Hawtry," Miss Adair assured her, with a +glance of such admiration and friendliness that even Violet's +narrow-gage soul expanded into a variety of graciousness all its own, +and she smiled back into the eyes of the young author with a radiance +that had the semblance of warmth.</p> + +<p>"And this is Miss Lindsey, whom we have chosen to support you in our +play, Miss Hawtry," Mr. Dennis Farraday continued, with a glance of +respectful awe at the Haw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>try, which matched that given her by the +author a second before and obtained for Miss Lindsey a cordial enough +recognition of the introduction only slightly to frappé her instead of +freezing her entirely. "We are all hungry," he added after the change of +civilities.</p> + +<p>"You are all having luncheon with me," Mr. Vandeford found his voice to +say. Ignoring Violet's glance of indignation at this skilful avoidance +of a climax of her scene with him, he had three extra covers laid at the +corner table devoted to the services of Miss Hawtry.</p> + +<p>"I warned you that we were hungry, Van," said Mr. Farraday, as he began +to search through the menu for an article of diet safe to pour in +quantities into a girl who had long been empty. "How'd rare steak and +fresh mushrooms do?" he asked, and he looked away from what he was sure +would be in the eyes of Miss Lindsey, and which was there.</p> + +<p>"Wonderful!" she murmured.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Right-o, for you and Miss Lindsey, but what about nightingales' tongues +for my author?" laughed Mr. Vandeford, with an interested note in his +rich voice, which caused Miss Hawtry to look at him sharply and Miss +Adair to repeat the blush to such a degree that Miss Hawtry, as Miss +Lindsey before her, was forced to admit that it was native and not +imported. The flush did not pass unnoticed by Mr. Vandeford, as he +laughed again with a question as to her nourishing.</p> + +<p>"I want something that I don't know what the name means," calmly +returned Miss Adair, with delighted excitement at the thought of +adventuring into a land of strange food. "I know steak and ham and eggs +and chicken and turkey."</p> + +<p>"Will you trust me?" asked Mr. Vandeford. There was an eagerness in his +voice and smile that again made the Violet glance at him and then at Mr. +Dennis Farraday. The latter was beaming with mirth at the dilemma of +feeding the young author who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> was so frankly scattering her hay-seeds on +the metropolitan atmosphere. At that instant Miss Hawtry made a +momentous decision.</p> + +<p>"Trust Mr. Vandeford and you can't go wrong," she advised with peaches +and cream in her voice, and for some unknown reason Mr. Vandeford would +have been glad to twist the creamy throat from which issued the creamy +voice. Instead, he turned, calmly summoned the head waiter, and went +into a conference with him in a few very discreet words, which the rest +could not hear, though there was no sign of any intention of keeping the +consultation from them.</p> + +<p>"I think it will be wonderful not to know until I taste it and maybe not +then!" exclaimed the author, with another of her sea-gray, long-lashed +glances of worshiping admiration at Mr. Vandeford, the eminent Broadway +producer who was putting a great star into her play based on the +adventures of an ancestress.</p> + +<p>Of course the situation was dangerous to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> both Mr. Vandeford and his +author, but who was to blame?</p> + +<p>And the jolly, impromptu luncheon-party was not the kind of episode that +could soon be forgotten by any of the guests. The unknown food for the +author was served by the head waiter himself, and he refused to answer +questions as to its origin or component parts, even when urged by Mr. +Dennis Farraday. The expression on Miss Lindsey's face after her +encounter with the steak and mushrooms, served with an exalted baked +potato, was one of decided relaxation. The look of affection in her eyes +as she glanced at the author who had dragged her into this food +situation rivaled the suddenly rooted admiration which beamed in the +eyes of Mr. Dennis Farraday and which put Miss Hawtry alertly on watch, +so much so that Mr. Godfrey Vandeford was privileged to lean back in his +chair behind a mist of cigarette-smoke and let his eyes gleam where they +listed.</p> + +<p>"Now tell us just how you happened to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> think of all the wonderful things +in your play, Miss Adair, specially that dinner situation," Mr. Dennis +Farraday urged. He was lighting Miss Hawtry's cigarette, to the intense, +though concealed, interest and astonishment of Miss Adair of Adairville, +Kentucky. He thus asked sincerely and interestedly the usual question +that the unsophisticated fires at an author at the first opportunity and +which the author, no matter how sophisticated, really enjoys answering.</p> + +<p>And thereupon followed the story of the old letters in the trunk, with +the mortgage only so lightly and proudly alluded to that the hearts of +the listeners were decidedly touched, told by the author with the +delighted enthusiasm that their sympathy warranted.</p> + +<p>"And so you see, since it couldn't be oil-wells or gold mines it had to +be the play," she ended, quoting herself in her conversation with the +faithful Roger, who was at that moment following his plow with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> mind +on the straight furrows and his heart in New York.</p> + +<p>"You are a precious darling, and your play <i>must</i> succeed!" said Miss +Lindsey impulsively at the end of the recital, and then she quickly +glanced at Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to see if he resented her taking this +affectionate liberty with his distinguished author. She found that +eminent producer not at home to her glance; he was lost in contemplation +of tears that hung on the long black lashes that veiled Miss Adair's +gray eyes and a little quiver that manifested itself on her red lips. +Then she shook off the tears by lifting those long lashes so that she +could look straight into his eyes with a smile of absolute confidence in +his intention and ability to remove from her life forever all of her +distress, which was alone poverty in the concrete, by being the +successful producer of her wonderful play. Men of Godfrey Vandeford's +type admit many strange fires and their votaries into the outer temple +of their hearts, but they keep the inner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> shrine tightly surrounded by +asbestos curtains. However, there is always one, and one only, closely +guarded entrance through which the ultimate woman must slip in an +unguarded moment. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford would never have thought of +being on any particular guard against the author of a play in purple +ribbons entitled "The Renunciation of Rosalind," but he knew almost +instantly that something dire had happened to him as he sat and writhed +at the thought of his plans for the extinction of that piece of dramatic +art, which he had not even read. The whole sophisticated world has +decided that there is no such thing as love at first sight, except the +biological scientists and they know and can prove that such a thing does +exist and that it is a worker of wonders. And dire pain is one of its +reactions.</p> + +<p>But all agony comes to an end and so did Mr. Vandeford's. Miss Hawtry, +who had been so busy in her own mind with her own schemes that she had +no time to listen to Miss Adair's, picked up her gloves from be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>side her +final coffee-cup, and pulled the fine-meshed veil down over her +beautiful, though slightly snubbed, nose as a signal for a separation of +the group of feasters.</p> + +<p>"May I motor you to your hotel, Miss Adair?" she asked very sweetly. Of +course Patricia did not know that she had got in her invitation at the +first signal of the feasters' disintegration, which she herself had +given, for the purpose of forestalling a similar invitation from Mr. +Farraday, whose Surreness she knew must be moored somewhere near. "Where +are you stopping?" she asked with very little interest, and received an +answer that almost upset her equanimity.</p> + +<p>"I'm staying at the Young Women's Christian Association," calmly +announced the author of "The Purple Slipper," with no sense of +embarrassment in either voice or manner. "Thank you for offering to take +me there, but Mr. Farraday is going to take Miss Lindsey and me to buy a +hat at a place which Miss Lindsey knows of. She is going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> to buy one, +too, now that she is going to play in our play."</p> + +<p>"The Y. W. C. A.! Great guns!" muttered Mr. Vandeford under his breath, +while the Violet leaned back in her chair and fanned herself.</p> + +<p>Then very suddenly Mr. Vandeford sat up and looked at Miss Mildred +Lindsey keenly for half a second.</p> + +<p>"We'll have to go back to the office to get that check for Miss Lindsey +before we go hat-hunting," announced good Dennis, with a calmness that +made Mr. Vandeford suspect that he had met the fact of the eminent +author's abiding-place before and had got used to it. "You and Miss +Hawtry going over to the office, Van, or will you come with us, if she +has other folderols to follow in a different direction?"</p> + +<p>"I am to see Adelaide about my costumes for 'The Purple Slipper' at +two-twenty, so must forego the pleasure of—of hat-hunting this +afternoon," Violet murmured faintly. "But I know Mr. Vandeford will +adore go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>ing with you." Miss Hawtry felt that safety lay in numbers, and +she preferred to leave the unsophistication of Miss Adair with both Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford and Mr. Dennis Farraday than with either of them +alone.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could get out after the hat, but you people must remember that +I am putting on 'The Purple Slipper,' and I have to be about Miss +Adair's business while old Denny buzzes about hat roses, free and equal +with her," answered Mr. Vandeford. His envy, apparent in his voice, of +the care-free state of Mr. Farraday was very real, though none of the +others could guess its meaning. "I'll see all of you later. By!" and +with a sign to the head waiter, which tied tight Mr. Farraday's +purse-strings, Mr. Vandeford left them while the going was good. So +determined was his exit that Miss Hawtry could not keep him back for the +finish of the fight.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Vandeford was in a mortal hurry. He had much to do and undo. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +arrived at his office, three squares away, slightly out of breath.</p> + +<p>"Did you see her, Pops?" he demanded of Mr. Adolph Meyers.</p> + +<p>"I did, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and here is a carbon of the letter I sent +her, not with any encouragement to come to New York at all," and in +self-defense he handed out to Mr. Vandeford a copy of the letter Roger +had delivered to Patricia among her roses and young onions and +string-beans.</p> + +<p>"Take it away," commanded Mr. Vandeford, seating himself at his desk and +wildly shunting papers and letters about.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Vandeford, sir, I am sorry for that young lady and I ask you to +have a heart," Mr. Meyers ventured to say to his chief with a boldness +which he himself could not understand, but with which Mr. Vandeford was +strangely patient. He ended with, "It will be a nobleness for you to not +produce a cold show for her, but pay a small damage sum for such a +beautiful lady and call it all off."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My God, Pops, I'd give half the 'Rosie Posie' to be able to do it! But +Denny and Violet and that girl they engaged for support have already +filled her full of success dope about the play, and if I call it off +arbitrarily, where shall I stand with her?" Ignorance of the +completeness of his own capitulation to the faith and tears in the +sea-gray eyes, and the genuine, grown-on-the-spot blush from Adairville, +Kentucky, showed in the consternation with which he asked the question +of his henchman.</p> + +<p>"'Stand with her'!" repeated Mr. Meyers, with a consternation that +matched his chief's, but was of different origin. "You had no such fear +when you called off from rehearsals in the second week the comedy of Mr. +Hinkle, and a fourth of the damages paid to him will to her be—"</p> + +<p>"Get to work under your hat, Pops, get to work! The 'Purple Slipper' has +got to go on Broadway and go big. I followed that purple hunch for pure +cussedness against Violet, and now watch it lead me by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> the nose. +<a name="corr13" id="corr13"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn13" title="changed from 'Fou'">You</a> +get Gerald Height on the wire as soon as you can, while I talk to +Rooney."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is not a Hawtry play, and—"</p> + +<p>"Get busy, get busy, Pops! Put a copy of that manuscript on my desk +where I can lay hands on it the minute I get a chance. Get everything +going for a week later than I first called the show and—"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Here we are!" exclaimed Mr. Dennis Farraday, as he burst into the outer +office, ushering as a wedge before him Miss Patricia Adair and Miss +Mildred Lindsey. "Got that hat-check, Pops? Money, I mean, for Miss +Lindsey, not a pasteboard for your own lid from some hotel."</p> + +<p>For a minute Mr. Vandeford lost himself in the depths of the worshiping, +gray eyes that seemed to have been lifted to his for all eternity in +that terrible faith and gratitude. Then he went into action as captain +of the ship which was to come into the port of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> Adairville, Kentucky, +with all sails set, loaded or bearing his dead body.</p> + +<p>"You and Miss Adair extract money from Pops with a can-opener while I +discuss a few details with Miss Lindsey, in the office," he commanded +coolly, ushered Miss Lindsey into the sanctum and softly closed the +door.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Vandeford," Miss Lindsey began rapidly, "I knew it wasn't fair to +make any definite arrangements with Mr. Farraday, and of course I will +take whatever salary you—"</p> + +<p>"Where do you live, Miss Lindsey?" Mr. Vandeford interrupted to ask with +a totally unwarranted interest on the part of a manager in the affairs +of an actor he has engaged. Miss Lindsey, for the second time that day, +underpainted her own cheeks and laughed as she answered:</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me, but I also live at the +Y. W. C. A., though I give Mrs. Parkham's as my address for letters and +telephone calls. It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> cheap and—and I have done dining-room work there +for a month, waiting—waiting for—for a part in a play."</p> + +<p>"Great guns, how that hunch works!" exclaimed the well-known producer, +as he sank into his chair from positive weakness. "You take in this +situation, don't you?" he demanded with a quick recovery.</p> + +<p>"I think I do," answered Miss Lindsey. Then she lifted her big black +eyes, in which shone the psychic hunger, though that of the body had +been appeased. "I've got to make good, Mr. Vandeford, and I'll do +anything you want me to. I've got every right—to live at the Y. W. C. +A., and a right to hand food to—to that child in there. You can trust +me."</p> + +<p>"I believe I can," Mr. Vandeford answered, after looking at her keenly +for a few seconds with the glance with which he had picked his winners +or failures in the human comedy for many experienced years. "Stop your +dining-room work at the nunnery and see that she has a good time, just +you and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> she together. I'll send you matinée tickets to shows I want her +to see, and Mr. Farraday and I'll look after the other amusement. I want +her to meet only the people I introduce her to, and the Y. W. C. A. is +the best place to live in New York—for her. Understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Find out how much money she has."</p> + +<p>"I know now; she told me. She's got a ticket home, good until October +first, and a hundred dollars to last until—until the royalties come in +from the play. Those royalties have got to come in, too, or her +grandfather—" Miss Lindsey's voice was positively belligerent as she +began to put the situation up to Mr. Vandeford, whose heart, as that of +a theatrical manager, she felt, must be hard by tradition.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know all about that. You get what money you want from Mr. Meyers +out there, and fool her about what things cost as much as you can—until +the royalties come in. Let me know when things don't run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> smoothly for +the two of you. Of course, this is worth money to you and—"</p> + +<p>"I don't want money for—for—looking after her."</p> + +<p>"How much did Mr. Farraday offer you for your part?"</p> + +<p>"He doubled it when he saw that I was—was hungry, but I know a hundred +and twenty-five is right and that's all I expect."</p> + +<p>"The one-fifty stands. If all goes well I'll see you get your chance on +Broadway this winter. We understand each other now; don't we?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then get the hat quest going. I'm busy."</p> + +<p>"Five dollars is her outside limit."</p> + +<p>"Can't you juggle?"</p> + +<p>"I'll try, but she's—well, you know what a girl like that is."</p> + +<p>"Go to it!" With which command Mr. Vandeford led the way into the outer +office. A brief aside put the situation he had just adjusted into the +willing ear of his +<a name="corr14" id="corr14"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn14" title="changed from 'coproducer'">co-producer</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>, who beamed with satisfaction at the +idea of the joint nesting of these first two theatrical experiences he +had captured at the outset of his quest for adventure in the white +lights. He immediately began counting Miss Lindsey's advance into her +hand, thus giving Mr. Vandeford a word alone with his eminent author, +beside Mr. Adolph Meyers's big window.</p> + +<p>"Miss Lindsey tells me that she also lives at the Y. W. C. A.," he said +with a curious paternal glow in his solar plexus that he had never +experienced before.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad! I know that is foolish of me, but I am a little +frightened. I don't know anybody in New York except you and her +and—I've never been in a big city before, and only in Louisville a few +times with my aunt. I'll enjoy it if she will take me places and bring +me back and forth to rehearsals," and the gray eyes beamed with relief +and anticipation of being led forth from the Y. W. C. A. into the gay +world by a competent guide. "Can we go to some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> of the <i>thè dansants</i> in +the afternoon, and maybe to the Metropolitan and the Aquarium?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, all those places and more," assented Mr. Vandeford, with a +suppressed smile at the diversity of amusements his charge had planned +in her sallies from the Y. W. C. A. "You see, it is both the duty and +the pleasure of a producer of a play to see that his author has a good +time while in the city." It was a surprise to Mr. Vandeford to find +himself thus stating the case inversely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I mean to work hard to help with 'The Purple Slipper,' so I'll +be too tired to bother you much to take me places. And I know how hard +you work, so don't have me on your mind, will you, please, sir?" The +lifted curl of the black lashes and the reverential note in the soft, +slurring, Blue-grass voice almost upset the staid deference with which +Mr. Vandeford was conversing with the author of his new Hawtry play.</p> + +<p>"Oh, play producing isn't so hard on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> producer and the author, so +we'll have lots of time to frolic," he hastened to assure her, though an +uneasy little pang shot into his heart as he thought of just what befell +the average author at the rehearsals of his or her play, and he took an +additional vow of protection. "Shall I come to take you to dinner and to +a show to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'd love it," she answered, and again the color came up under the +gray eyes. "It would be wonderful to have you show me Broadway the first +time. I could never forget that."</p> + +<p>Then a thought delivered a blow that laid the producer of "The Purple +Slipper" low. The afternoon was half gone, and there were dozens of +wires that he must manipulate since he had had a change of—heart, +concerning "The Purple Slipper," and dinner-time and evening were the +only hours that some of the most important could be found.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I can't ask you to do that," he exclaimed, and for almost the +first time since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> the day of his graduation he felt color rise up under +his own tanned cheeks. "I have to see the stage director and a lot more +people about some things connected with your play. Still, I can't bear +to have anybody else get that first night on Broadway away from me. I +think it is due me." Being herself entirely sincere, Patricia recognized +the utter sincerity of the distress in the voice of her producer where +any other woman would have been doubtful of the ready excuse coming +immediately after the invitation.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll just go to bed early and rest up from the trip, so that I can +go with you whenever you get the time to take me. You are working for us +both about the play, and if you had rather I waited for you, that is +only fair," Miss Adair hastened to assure him with a sincerity equal to +his own.</p> + +<p>"You are one good sport," was the reply that he made her straight from +the shoulder, for the thought of a perfectly beautiful girl going to bed +in the Y. W. C. A. and cover<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>ing up her head and ears from the bright +lights of her first night in old Manhattan just to give a strange and +reverenced man the pleasure of introducing her to the old city made a +profound impression upon him. "To-morrow night we'll wake up things on +Broadway. I'll telephone you in the morning to let you know how the play +is going and to see if there is anything I can do for you. Now you must +all go and let me get busy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is just about the hour that hats begin to bite well," +assented Mr. Farraday, as he removed the girls down to his car with no +thought or question as to whether his services would be needed in the +enterprise in which he had embarked with Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"Now for it, Pops!" said Mr. Vandeford as the door closed behind his +co-workers in the production of "The Purple Slipper," whose work at that +moment was to play at a distance from his labor. "I'm going to read that +play, and nothing short of some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>thing that will injure its prospects if +neglected by me must disturb me. When I'm done I'll make plans with you. +It will take me several hours, and you stand by every second of the +time. Get me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Vandeford, sir," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, and he shut his +door into the outer office just as Mr. Vandeford closed his own with a +bang.</p> + +<p>Then for three hours or more, while the sun sank behind the Palisades +and the white lights flashed up from Broadway beneath his window like +bits of futile challenges to the dying light of day, Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford went through the supreme agony of a long life on Broadway, and +was paid in full for every double-cross he had administered to a +confrère. He read "The Purple Slipper" and groaned aloud from page to +page. He began its perusal sitting erect in his chair, and he ended it +hunched over its pages spread on his desk with his head in his hands, +his fingers desperately clutching his shock of gray-sprinkled hair. Then +in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> complete collapse he flung himself back in his chair, elevated his +feet to the edge of the desk, and began literally to devour the smoke of +a small black cigar. For half an hour he sat motionless, as was his +habit when fighting all preliminary battles, and his eyes seemed to be +seeing the big old monster city open its thousand gleaming eyes and +change its roar of the day to an incessant purr of a night-stalking +beast, but in reality he was seeing and hearing a month into the future, +and the spectacle thus pre-visioned was the first night of "The Purple +Slipper" on Broadway. Then very suddenly he came back into his conscious +self and went into action. He rang the buzzer for Mr. Adolph Meyers.</p> + +<p>"Pops, get Grant Howard on the wire and ask him to come around here as +quick as he can make it. If he talks straight wait an hour for him, if +he's thick-tongued go after him yourself. Get him! Now put me on the +wire with Rooney if you can find him, and make appointments with +<a name="corr15" id="corr15"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn15" title="changed from 'Lindenberger'">Lindenberg</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +for scenery at eleven in the morning. Ask Corbett to send an +artist to talk costumes for a period play at eleven-thirty, and have +Gerald Height here at twelve sharp. Don't forget to engage that +good-looking youngster—Leigh, I think is the name—even if you have to +give him a hundred advance. That's all for the present. Get Rooney for +me." Mr. Vandeford turned to his desk and began making rapid notes on a +pad with a huge, black, press pencil. For five minutes he spread his +thoughts upon the paper in great smudges; then his telephone rang, and +he took up the receiver:</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is Mr. Vandeford speaking. Hello, Billy!"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"That new Hawtry play is beginning to promise something. I'm delaying it +a week, and I want you to come into it with your sleeves rolled up. We +may make a sure-fire hit of it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>. . . . . .<br /></p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I'll keep right on getting 'The Rosie Posie Girl' in shape, and +shunt Hawtry into it as soon as she cinches the public in this play—or +fails."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"That was just what I was going to hand you—you get four hundred a week +for this show, but you'll have to go in and earn it. It's a departure, +and you may not like it. You'll have to hammer it a lot, but I'm not +signing a single 'Rosie Posie' contract until I see this in shape."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"I mean it. A stage manager has to take my stuff all hot even if he +thinks some of it is cold. Get me?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"That's good. I'll give you the completed manuscript Saturday so you can +pound and set it for Monday next."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"That's good. By!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> + +<p>With which short, but sure, wire-pulling Mr. Vandeford opened his +campaign to double-cross his own original plans. He had hardly stopped +fixing Mr. William Rooney when Pops looked in upon him and announced Mr. +Grant Howard, the eminent playwright.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Grant," was Mr. Vandeford's short and unenthusiastic greeting to +the small, black-haired person with weak, pink-rimmed, blue eyes, who +sauntered into the sanctum and dropped sadly into a chair with his back +to the light. A cigarette hung from the left corner of his upper lip, +and his hands trembled. "Been hitting 'em up?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered the playwright, laconically.</p> + +<p>"Broke?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty bad."</p> + +<p>"Want to doctor a play for Hawtry for me by Friday next for a thousand +dollars cash?"</p> + +<p>"Cash now?"</p> + +<p>"Cash Friday."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Would have to lock myself up in my apartment to do it; but Mazie's been +crying for gold-uns for a week."</p> + +<p>"Send Mazie to me, and I'll fix that, and hand you the thousand on +Friday. Here, take this manuscript over in my other office and be ready +to talk it over with me by ten o'clock. I'll see Mazie in the meantime." +Mr. Vandeford placed the precious "Purple Slipper" in the hands of a man +who at that very moment had two successful plays running on Broadway, +his interest in both of which he had sold out for a mess of pottage to +be consumed in the company of Miss Mazie Villines of the "Big Show."</p> + +<p>"Dolph had better order me up a little cold wine to start on," said Mr. +Howard, as he rose languidly to incarcerate himself at the bidding of +Mr. Vandeford. The same scene had been enacted between the two bright +lights of American drama several times before with very good results. +Mr. Howard's brain was of that peculiar caliber which does not originate +an idea, but which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> inserts a solid bone construction as well as keen +little sparklets into the fabric of another's labor, and makes the whole +translucent where before it may have been opaque. On Broadway he was +called a play doctor, and Mr. Vandeford was not the first manager who +had shut him up with quarts of refreshment to tinker on the play of many +a literary, dramatic, bright light.</p> + +<p>"Dolph will give you scotch and soda to your limit, no further," +answered Mr. Vandeford, without graciousness. "I'll be here waiting for +your talk-over at ten-thirty o'clock."</p> + +<p>"All right. Have Mazie come for me after her show?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>With which the eminent playwright betook himself to a small private +office which opened into the lair of Mr. Adolph Meyers. After he had +entered that retreat Mr. Meyers softly rose from his typing machine and +as softly locked him in. Then he proceeded to hunt for Miss Mazie +Villines until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> he got her into conversational connection with Mr. +Vandeford. They conversed in these words with great cordiality:</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Want to earn a nice little two hundred for keeping Grant Howard working +at doctoring a play by next Friday for me?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"I'm giving him a thousand if it's delivered Friday."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Two hundred to you."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Not three!"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"There's Claire Furniss. Grant had her at supper last night at Rector's. +She's a beauty, you know."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Two fifty."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Goes!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>. . . . . .<br /></p> + +<p>"Good! Come get him here at my office at eleven-fifteen. Get a taxi by +the hour at your stage-door—on me—and come by for him."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Good girl! By!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"What a life!" Mr. Vandeford muttered to himself, then rang his buzzer +for Mr. Adolph Meyers.</p> + +<p>"Pops, it's eight o'clock. Go get us a couple of slabs of pie at the +automat, and then I'll go over to see Breit at the booking office."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. Meyers acquiesced, and departed in search +of provender for the lion and himself. Left to himself, Mr. Vandeford +fell into another trance, from which he was dragged by another tinkle of +his telephone.</p> + +<p>"There'll be a wireless to my grave," he muttered as he took down the +receiver and snapped into it:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> + +<p>"This is Mr. Vandeford talking."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Adair. Anything the matter?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Speak a little closer into the phone. Miss Hawtry has asked you to +supper to-night? Mr. Farraday? And myself?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Did she say I was to come for you?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I feel like a brute, but I'm going to tell you to go to +bed as per promise. I've got two big guns from Broadway putting licks on +the production of 'The Purple Slipper' until the small hours to-night, +right here in the office. I'll tell Miss Hawtry about it, and you +can—go to bed."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she'll understand. It's her play too, you see."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>. . . . . .<br /></p> + +<p>"No, you can't help me to-night, thank you just the same. How's Miss +Lindsey? Would you like me to send my car to take you girls for a little +spin in the park to cool off before you go to bed?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Her hair's wet? And so is yours? I didn't know it was raining."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Oh, a mutual shampoo? Bless you both!"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"No, you don't interrupt me when you call me. You are to call me any +time you are willing to do it, if it is every five minutes."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"No, I mean it."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Very well then—good-night and good dreams."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>. . . . . .<br /></p> + +<p>"Can you beat it?" Mr. Vandeford smiled to himself as he hung up the +receiver. "Those two peachy girls washing each other's hair in the Y. W. +C. A., within ten blocks of the 'Follies' is to laugh—or cry. Good +little Lindsey! I wager she could have got 'em both forty-seven-eleven +dates." Then a thought delivered a blow just above his belt in the +region of his heart. "So it's Violet's game to use her as a decoy-duck +for Denny?" he questioned himself, then gave his own answer in a soft +voice under his breath. "Damn her!"</p> + +<p>Furthermore he did not communicate with Miss Hawtry to give her Miss +Adair's answer to her invitation. He answered it in person, but only +after much had happened in the three hours intervening.</p> + +<p>The hours from eight to nearly ten Mr. Vandeford spent in slowly +munching the refreshment retrieved from the automat by Mr. Adolph Meyers +and thinking out loud to that dignitary who took down his thoughts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> on +paper in cabalistic signs of shorthand. They were all notes of what +could and must be done in the next few days in the fight for the good +fate of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"I want to see that fellow Reid about that new lighting he provided for +the new Sauls show in May. I liked it in some ways and—" Mr. Vandeford +was saying when a banging on the door of the private office in which was +incarcerated the eminent playwright interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Did you give him the right amount of booze, Pops?" Mr. Vandeford asked.</p> + +<p>"Entirely right," answered Mr. Meyers, with his pencil still poised over +his pad. The knocking continued.</p> + +<p>"See what he wants, Pops, and give him a little more if you have to," +decided Mr. Vandeford, as he lit a new cigar and turned to the whirlpool +of his desk while he waited for Mr. Meyers's return.</p> + +<p>"Say, do you expect me to cast a Sunday School charade into a play in +six days, Vandeford?" was the storm of words hurled at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> him as the +released and infuriated doctor of plays hurled himself and his sheaf of +manuscript into the door ahead of Mr. Meyers.</p> + +<p>"Is that what you think of it?" calmly questioned Mr. Vandeford, as he +swung around in his chair. "Sit down and tell me what you intend to do +for it."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to rewrite the whole blamed mess for fifteen hundred dollars, +that's what I'm going to do," announced Mr. Howard with both +belligerence and excitement in his voice and in the flash of his sick +little eyes.</p> + +<p>"Is it as good—or as bad—as all that—money?" questioned Mr. +Vandeford. "You'll have to show me," he added calmly, though in the +vitals of his heart he was relieved that Howard still spoke of "The +Purple Slipper" as a carcass on which to operate.</p> + +<p>"It's got a perfectly ripping, basic, sex-comedy idea that climaxes the +third act; the rest is piffle."</p> + +<p>"I thought some of the character drawing, and one or two of the +sentimental bits were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>—actable," Mr. Vandeford ventured, determined to +save as much of the hair and hide of Miss Adair's child as possible, +enough at least to help her to recognize and claim it later.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we can leave enough bits to anchor the author's name, if that is +what you mean," the playwright admitted impatiently. "How about fifteen +hundred? I won't do it for less."</p> + +<p>"Goes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest ease with which he had +ever dispensed five hundred dollars in all his life. "Now shoot me your +layout of the whole thing before Mazie gets here to take you and lock +you up."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take that dinner scene where the wife holds her husband's +enemies and her lover at bay to see if he gets back home on a +sporting-chance bet with lover, and write Hawtry both back and front of +it; write her in as the virago she is and give her a chance to act +herself for once."</p> + +<p>"Good idea," admitted Mr. Vandeford.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> "But you'll have a hard time +writing a gutter girl into a grand dame, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Women are all alike, and the worst viragos are the grand dames. It +takes a gutter girl to play one let loose, as they do only on rare +occasions. I've got 'em in my own family. That's the reason I'm a black +sheep turned out. Got a sister that's worse than me, only respectable +and fashionable. See?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I see," again admitted Mr. Vandeford. "You'll keep all the +atmosphere and minor stabs in, you say?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. They are pretty good staggers, some of the minor stuff. Lots of +it is good talk—only wandering. That woman may write something some day +if she breaks loose and goes to the devil for a while."</p> + +<p>"She won't," said Mr. Vandeford, positively.</p> + +<p>"Never can tell," answered Mr. Howard, with indifference. "What did +Mazie say?"</p> + +<p>"She's due here for you now," answered Mr. Vandeford, looking at his +watch.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Great girl, Mazie. Cooks me dandy rice and runny eggs, and sits on the +neck of every bottle in New York while I dig. Couldn't do without her. +Say, tell her you are just giving me five hundred, will you?"</p> + +<p>"She knows it's a thousand," answered Mr. Vandeford, truthfully. "But +I'll keep the extra five hundred you are extracting dark for you."</p> + +<p>"That's good, and I'll tell her that I haven't got any—"</p> + +<p>"Tell her that you haven't got any money, as usual," were the words +which Mr. Howard's fair lion-tamer used to finish his sentence of appeal +to Mr. Vandeford for his co-operation in fraud. She had entered past Mr. +Meyers with his full approval, for he felt a great relief at the sight +of her and her guardianship.</p> + +<p>"How's Mazie?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he rose and, with all the +ceremony he would have used for a grand duchess—or Miss Patricia +Adair—offered a chair to the pert little person with her funny, +good-hu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>mored, rather pretty face and her very smart clothes.</p> + +<p>"Kicking along, Mr. Vandeford, thank you," was the answer. "Gee, but I +did kick the limit to-night, that's sure. I put some shady shines over +what Grant wrote into a let-down in my part for me last night in great +shape. They et it up, darling." Her naughty face beamed on Howard. +"Hawtry was in a box, left. Had a gink in soup to fish with her that +looked like real money. Have you rented her out?"</p> + +<p>"You folks get along and stop that taxi meter you've got running on me," +Mr. Vandeford said, answering the sally with a laugh; but it surprised +him that there was a cold space in his vitals at the insult that the +little trollop handed him with such comradery, guiltless of any +knowledge that it was an insult.</p> + +<p>"What was that about touching pitch?" he asked himself as he walked +rapidly up four blocks to the theater where Mazie had told him he would +find the Violet with her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> prey. He was just in time to meet them in the +lobby. Denny was in the gorgeousness of his "soup to fish," Mazie's and +her world's term for evening attire, and the Violet in every way matched +his good looks.</p> + +<p>"Why, where is Mademoiselle Innocence?" asked Hawtry, with a little +frown, as she perceived that Mr. Vandeford was alone and not in regalia.</p> + +<p>"Asleep at the Y. W. C. A.," he answered shortly.</p> + +<p>"Sure?" asked the Violet, with a little laugh for which he could have +killed her.</p> + +<p>"Why, she promised Miss Hawtry to go to supper with us and see a +midnight show," Mr. Farraday exclaimed, and there was disappointment in +his voice as he looked at Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't get away from the office until just this minute, and I +didn't think I could get away this soon. Miss Adair sent her apologies +to you both, and I came over to bring them."</p> + +<p>"Evidently we are not to be trusted with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> the author, Mr. Farraday," +laughed Violet, with what good Dennis took as good nature and what Mr. +Vandeford knew to be rage.</p> + +<p>"Well, bless the child and her beauty sleep, but don't let that kill our +evening joy. Come along, Van, and we'll go some place sufficiently +disreputable to admit a crumpled person like yourself if you wash your +hands. We can have a good powwow over the play. I want to know what you +have been doing while I was off the job chasing a hat for the author." +And the big, stupid Jonathan linked his arm in that of his anxious and +hovering David and drew him along towards the Surrenese, which stood +across the street, at the same time guiding the steps of the Violet's +satin slippers in that direction.</p> + +<p>While the three walked across the narrow street Mr. Vandeford made some +rapid calculations and a decision in his mind. He saw plainly that he +could not undertake to guard Mr. Dennis Farraday from the Violet and at +the same time fend Miss Patricia Adair from her wiles. He'd have to +choose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> between them, and in the twinkling of an eye he chose Patricia. +It is said that there is a love between men "that passes the love of +women," but nobody has ever witnessed it.</p> + +<p>"You people go on to your show—I'm all in," he capitulated as they +stood beside Mr. Farraday's car; and the heart of the Violet rejoiced +within her.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure Miss Adair is getting caught up on sleep so she can go with +you to-morrow night. She's a perfect dear, and we'll put her play +across," Hawtry cooed to him in her rich voice, and he knew that she +felt she had struck his price and bought him off.</p> + +<p>"If Denny falls for her he'll fall far; but I can't help it. A girl's a +girl, specially from the country," Mr. Vandeford said to himself, as he +stood and watched them drive away into the white-lighted cañon of +Broadway. Then he went home and to bed.</p> + +<p>A man may put out his night light, stretch himself between his sheets +with the perfection of fatigue and still not sleep. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> are various +combinations of reasons that prevent his slumber. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford +was still awake when Mr. Dennis Farraday let himself into his apartment +with a key that had been presented to him five years before when Mr. +Vandeford had installed his Lares and Penates in the tall building on +Seventy-third Street, some of these Lares and Penates being Mr. +Farraday's extra linen and clothes.</p> + +<p>"That you, Denny?" Mr. Vandeford asked as he switched on his light and +took a hurried glance at a clock on his mantel which registered the hour +of 2 <span class="smcap">a. m.</span></p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mr. Farraday, as he came to the door of Mr. Vandeford's +sleeping apartment. "A thought suddenly struck me, and I stopped in to +explode it at you and sleep here."</p> + +<p>"Fire away!"</p> + +<p>"My mater is coming to town the first of the week to have her glasses +changed, and +<a name="corr16" id="corr16"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn16" title="changed from I'd">I'm</a> +going to telephone out to her to-morrow and ask her to +write Miss Adair to have din<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>ner with us informally at the town house +while she is here. You know mater's mother was from old Kentucky, and +she'll adore the child. Think that's good thinking?"</p> + +<p>"Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a glow under his ribs about which +he said nothing. Men are vastly inarticulate, but they have various +means of communication, and Mr. Vandeford now felt that in his care of +his author Mr. Dennis Farraday would understand.</p> + +<p>"You know I am on new ground, old chap, but—but how about asking Miss +Lindsey, too?" Mr. Farraday questioned, with great diffidence.</p> + +<p>"Fine!" agreed Mr. Vandeford, with accelerated glow under his ribs that +Miss Lindsey had been proposed when Miss Hawtry might have been invited. +"Get to bed, can't you, you Indian, you? Night!"</p> + +<p>"Good-night!" answered Mr. Farraday, as he departed to his own room.</p> + +<p>And still Mr. Vandeford did not sleep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> + +<p>Flat upon his back he lay and faced, analyzed, and card-indexed his +situation and himself.</p> + +<p>"Five years of myself given to that gutter girl and I never even cared; +let her annex me for purposes of parade and publicity, and thought it +funny sport. Wasted? Something to be deducted for pleasure in artistic +success of "Dear Geraldine," but what will it cost me if I have to stand +by and see her make old Denny hate himself as I do myself, or worse? +She'll not stop short with him, and how do I know what he'll do? The +money don't matter, but the—cleanliness does. If I go in to save him, +she gave me notice to-night that she would go for that gray-eyed girl. +What can she do to her? First, kill her play, no matter what I do to +build up a success for the kiddie to cancel that mortgage. Second: do +something, say something that will kill that look in those gray eyes +when they lift to me. Never! Take Denny, Violet, and the Lord help him; +I can't. You've bought me. Washing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> her hair in the Y. W. C. A.! God +bless that institution and—"</p> + +<p>At last Mr. Godfrey Vandeford slept.</p> + +<p>After his ten o'clock awakening Mr. Vandeford displayed a marked +eccentricity in his demeanor. That morning was unlike any morning he had +ever experienced, and his conduct surprised himself. A daybreak shower +had fallen on the hot and baked city, and it was as fresh as a suburb. +Arrayed in the coolest of white silk, linen, and suede, Mr. Vandeford +had his chauffeur drive him not to the whirling office but to the most +sophisticated Fifth Avenue florist, where he purchased the most +unsophisticated bunch of flowers at the highest price to be obtained in +New York.</p> + +<p>"The Young Women's Christian Association," he commanded the obsequious +young Valentine who drove the big Chambers. Mr. Vandeford was never +sufficiently unoccupied of mind to pilot a car in and out of New York +traffic. For half a second the young Frenchman hesitated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know where it is—Find out," commanded Mr. Vandeford, and again +he had the foreign experience of feeling the blood burn the under side +of the tan on his cheeks.</p> + +<p>Valentine consulted the tall man in uniform at the door of the flower +shop, and this menial consulted some one within, who must have consulted +a directory, judging from the time it took to obtain the correct +address. With his eyes straight in front of him, as a chauffeur's eyes +should always be, he then drove rapidly down the avenue.</p> + +<p>And on that beautiful morning Mr. Vandeford's luck was with him. +Valentine whirled expertly up to the curb in front of the large, +hospitable building which had emblazoned over its door the impressive Y. +W. C. A. letters, letters that send a beacon all over the known world as +they did to Mr. Vandeford in little and unimportant New York. Mr. +Vandeford got out of the car with hurried grace in his long limbs and, +with actual trepidation, went in through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> door, into a world he had +never even thought of before. He had entered many an African lion jungle +with less fear. He glanced with awe at the natty young woman in white +linen who presided at the desk, and wanted intensely to put his flowers +behind him and back out of the door rather than approach and ask for the +lady to whom he wished to donate them. In fact, he might have +accomplished such a retreat if again luck had not come his way.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Vandeford, how glad I am that you got here before we went out +to the museum," exclaimed a fluty, slurring young voice just behind him, +and he found that the gray eyes with the black lashes were just as +unusual as he had decided they could not possibly be in the interval +that had elapsed since he had looked into them. "Oh, how lovely!"</p> + +<p>The last exclamation was made over the edge of the bouquet, which he had +tendered Miss Adair as silently as a school-boy hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> out his first +bunch of buttercups to the lady for whom he has picked them.</p> + +<p>"Did you come for me to go to help work on the play?" was the energetic +question that brought him out of his trance.</p> + +<p>"No, not right now," he answered haltingly, and when he realized how +many times he would have to put her off with words to that same effect, +his trance became a panic.</p> + +<p>"When are you going to need me?" Miss Adair asked him with a direct and +business-like look right to his eyes. "I am ready for work now."</p> + +<p>"Now what'll I do?" he demanded of himself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>"I thought of a lot of new things for my characters to say, while I was +coming up from Kentucky on the train, and I want to put them in." Miss +Adair further tortured Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"This morning I am going to talk to the electrician and the costumer and +the scene painter." Mr. Vandeford answered by telling her the truth, +because, with her very beautiful and candid eyes beaming into his, +showing both interest and consideration, he had not the power to make up +any kind of lie to put her off the trail of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"I am so glad that I got up early and am ready to go with you! I can +tell them about what my great-grandmother really wore when it all +happened, and it will be such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> help to them!" Miss Adair exclaimed +with great business acumen shining in her eyes. Mr. Vandeford gave up +the fight, piloted her into his car, and gave the command, "Office!" to +the very decorous, but very much interested Valentine.</p> + +<p>As they were skimming back up the avenue and about to turn into +Forty-second Street, an inspiration came to Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you keep some of those costumes of the period of the play hid +away in an old brass-nailed leather trunk in your garret?" he asked Miss +Adair, with desperate eagerness shining in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Miss Adair answered readily. Then she hesitated, and the genuine +blush rivaled the one in the northeast corner of the bouquet at the +waist of the very chic, blue-silk suit. "That is, I did have some—"</p> + +<p>"Have they been destroyed?" questioned Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest +anxiety.</p> + +<p>"No, not exactly," answered Miss Adair, with a distressed tremor at the +corner of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> curved mouth that rivaled a rose of a deeper hue in the +southwest corner of the bouquet.</p> + +<p>"I see," answered Mr. Vandeford, with great relief. "You are not just +sure where they are. That's great! You can have a talk with Mr. Corbett, +who is to design the costumes, and then hop right back home in a day or +two, as soon as you are rested and we've had a little bat on Broadway, +and find them for him to use in his designs. The management will pay all +the expenses and you can—can—"</p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford cast around in his mind for some other business in +connection with "The Purple Slipper" that would keep the author thereof +busy and contented in Adairville, Kentucky, out of the clutches of +Violet and out of the way of his stage director until it all was running +smoothly.</p> + +<p>"How about your getting a lot of photographs of the house in which it +all happened?" he went on. Vaguely he felt photography must be a slow +process in Adairville, Kentucky.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> + +<p>Also, in his heart he was forced to acknowledge that his inspiration for +getting the author out of the way of her own play while it was being +murdered was not entirely original. Tradition had told him, whether +truly or not, that at a certain crucial moment in the butchering and +rehearsal of "The Great Divide" the poet-author, Moody, had been sent +West to hunt a genuine war costume for a great Indian war-chief, his +favorite written character, and on his return with the trophy had found +the Indian cut entirely and forever from the play.</p> + +<p>"Those dresses would be the greatest help you could give us now," he +urged with an inward chuckle at the thought of the trick on the great +poet, which froze in his heart as he observed two tears balanced on the +black lashes of the lovely sea-gray eyes lowered away from his.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" he gasped, in desperate fear that the Moody Indian +story had penetrated to the wilds of Adairville, Ken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>tucky. "You'd only +be gone a few days, and everything could wait until you came back. I +wouldn't turn a wheel without you, and—" he committed himself deeper +and deeper at every step.</p> + +<p>"I've had the dresses all made over, and this is one. I've hurt my play +just because I wanted to look pretty in New York! I'm humiliated with +myself. As if anybody cared how I look; and the play—" The soft little +slurs stopped and the beautiful old-blue-silk-clad shoulder trembled +slightly against his shoulder as a little ghost of a sob came to the +surface and was suppressed while the home-made color faded from beneath +two tears that fell from the black lashes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please forgive me, child! It doesn't matter at all, and—"</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to forgive me," the voice trembled on. "Miss Hawtry would +have been wonderful in that dinner dress my grandmother wore, and +I—I've had two made out of it! I can give them to her and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> tell her how +to put them together again with—"</p> + +<p>"You'll do nothing of the kind!" fairly snapped Mr. Vandeford. Then he +broke the record in his own thinking processes and decided for the +second time to tell the whole truth to this country girl with her +mixture of hay-seeds and patrician airs. He directed Valentine to +Central Park and made a clean breast of it. It is a pleasure to record +that at the Moody Indian story Patricia laughed until two other tears +ran down her cheeks, but this time they did not wring Mr. Vandeford's +heart, for they coursed over the accustomed roses and were a great +pleasure to him.</p> + +<p>"I'll go home if you want me to," the talented author of "The Purple +Slipper" offered, with a small snap in her eyes, mingled with the +accustomed veneration of Mr. Vandeford, her producer. "I don't want to +be in anybody's way. I thought I had to come and spend all my money. I +want to see the Metropolitan and the Aquarium and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> Brooklyn Bridge and +Trinity Church, ... and ... a Midnight Frolic, because Mamie Lou +Whitson, at home, is expecting me to go to one even if Miss Elvira said +I ought not to. Can I see just one Frolic before I go home?"</p> + +<p>"If you go home now the whole 'Purple Slipper' will go into cold storage +until you come back," Mr. Vandeford growled at her, and the effort it +took not to hold on to her with bodily fingers was a great strain. "I +told you the usual situation because I felt that you were clever enough +to make the best of it and help the play a lot. No author ever has seen +a play produced as he wrote it, and he has to stand seeing everybody +take a whack at it, from the producer to the man who takes the tickets +at the front door. I've got a good playwright shut up until Friday +rewriting 'The Purple Slipper'; then I'm going to work at it myself and +let Miss Hawtry write in all the things she wants to say, and cut out +all the things she doesn't. After that, I'm going to turn it over to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +Bill Rooney, who was born in a barrel down on the wharf and educated in +the gutter, but who is the best and highest-priced stage director in New +York. He'll do innumerable things to it while he's 'setting it,' as he +calls getting it ready for rehearsals. All the actors and actresses will +be allowed at times to butcher and scalp their parts and everybody will +stab. And if you are a plucky girl you'll sit still and see it done. +There will come lots of times that everything you suggest, even very +timidly, will be thrust down your throat; but if they are vital they +will get under the hide of Bill and opening night you'll see that your +pluck has put a lot into the whole thing and that the mutilated and +dressed-up play is still your child. Will you trust me and sit in with +me and help me make 'The Purple Slipper' go?"</p> + +<p>"I do! I will!" answered Miss Adair, with her head in the air and the +Adairville roses flaunting themselves in her face. And as she spoke she +offered him her slim, long-fingered, white little hand that his +com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>pletely engulfed as, answering a signal, Valentine turned the car +back toward Forty-second Street. "If I've got to have thorns stuck in me +and then cut out I'm mighty glad you'll be there."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll be there," he answered her softly, as he released her hand at +least two seconds sooner than he was really obliged to, though he +himself could not have said why he did it. He felt like a grown person +who frightens a child with a bear tale to make it cuddle to his own +strength in the firelight.</p> + +<p>Then followed a day in the offices of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical +Producer, which, up to that time, could not have been duplicated on +Broadway and perhaps never will be, though the results may have the +effect of—but that was all in the future of the theatrical business at +that time.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Meyers," said Mr. Vandeford, as he ushered the author of "The +Purple Slipper" into the outer offices, where he found Pops soothing and +controlling about seven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> enraged experts in different lines of dramatic +production, "Miss Adair will have the small office from now on to work +in when she is not in consultation with me. Please take her in and see +that she is made at home while I run through my mail. Yes, Mr. Corbett, +I will be ready for you in a few minutes. Sorry to detain you, all of +you," with which apology to the body of assembled experts Mr. Vandeford +bowed, went into his sanctum, and firmly closed the door, just as Mr. +Adolph Meyers bowed the author into her sanctum and as firmly closed her +door. Mr. Gerald Height, who had been sitting looking indifferently out +of Mr. Meyers' window, looked after the disappearing author as if a +perfumed breeze had suddenly blown across his brow, and whistled softly.</p> + +<p>"Say, Pops, who, by thunder is—," he was questioning Mr. Meyers with +extreme interest, when Mr. Vandeford's buzzer sounded and Mr. Meyers was +forced to answer it before he could attend to Mr. Height's question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Meyers found Mr. Vandeford pale, but determined.</p> + +<p>"Pops," he said, and Mr. Meyers could have sworn that the voice of his +beloved chief trembled, "I'm in the devil of a fix, and you have got to +throw me a line to pull out; in fact, you'll have to cast in a drag-net +if you want to land me."</p> + +<p>"If it was a submarine I would make a rescue of you, Mr. Vandeford, +sir," the faithful henchman assured the panic-stricken producer.</p> + +<p>"She's worse than any submarine ever floated, and I'm rammed—in a +corner, Pops. To make a story that is going to be long in acting, short +in telling, I've had to put Miss Adair on to what is usually handed out +to the authors of plays, and then to stop her wails, offered to let her +sit in and watch her play baby hacked up. Her office-hours here and at +rehearsals will be from ten mornings to midnight, and what are you going +to do about it?" Mr. Vandeford questioned Mr. Meyers with a kind of +for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>lorn hope in his eyes, for Mr. Meyers had often seen him through the +crooks of his trade.</p> + +<p>"I advise to make it straight to her, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and she will +come out all right or otherwise go home. That young lady has the look of +a horse on which I won seven hundred at the last Gravesend. Besides, we +have not time for play-acting about that 'Purple Slipper.' It is a cold +bird and we must be in a hurry about putting pep into it for a success."</p> + +<p>"Right-o, Pops! I'll ask her in here, and when I buzz send in Corbett. +The poor kiddie!" With which lamentation over the fate he was about to +mete out to Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford dismissed Mr. Meyers and opened +the door which led from his sanctum into that which had been so recently +assigned to the author of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>That eminent playwright was discovered in the height of fascination, +looking down upon the uproar of Broadway.</p> + +<p>"I saw a taxicab run over a man and not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> kill him," she exclaimed with +both horror and joy. "I started to call you, but it was all over in a +second."</p> + +<p>"That's all right. I've seen that hundreds of times, even when they were +killed." He reassured her about neglecting to share the excitement with +him. "Are you ready to take up the matter of costumes with Corbett?"</p> + +<p>"Shall I have to tell him—about my making over—"</p> + +<p>"No; just listen to me handle him, and I'll tell you when to break in. +I'll give you a lead. Please come into my office." And with coolness of +manner, but trepidation of heart, he led her into his office and seated +her in a chair beside his at the far side of the desk,—the very chair +in which had sat Mr. Dennis Farraday on the day previous, when he had +received his initiation into the world of theatricals. Then he buzzed +his signal to Mr. Meyers.</p> + +<p>Immediately Mr. Corbett entered.</p> + +<p>"Morning, Corbett.—Miss Adair, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> author of the play I want to talk +to you about.—Want to take on a costume play of early Kentucky?" Mr. +Vandeford made no pause in which to allow Mr. Corbett to acknowledge his +introduction to the author, and Mr. Corbett seemed to bear no resentment +for the omission. His astonishment at meeting an author when the +costuming of a play was being discussed was profound.</p> + +<p>"What date?" he inquired, looking carefully away from Miss Adair.</p> + +<p>"What date, Miss Adair?" asked Mr. Vandeford in exactly the same crisp +tone in which he was conducting the negotiations with Mr. Corbett.</p> + +<p>"1806, I think. It was just before they began to wear—" Miss Adair was +beginning to say with a delighted smile that entirely failed to make an +impression on Mr. Corbett.</p> + +<p>"Good date for costuming," the artist interrupted the author to say, +with the easy assurance of a person fully informed. "Styles were +distinctive. I dressed 'Lov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>ers' Ends' for E. and K. in 1789, and the +costumes kept the piffling play alive for two months. How many dolls and +how many boots?"</p> + +<p>"How many men and how many ladies in the play, Miss Adair?" Mr. +Vandeford questioned her with delight at getting a question to fling to +her and also translating for her Mr. Corbett's query.</p> + +<p>"Twenty in all," answered Miss Adair. "There are eleven ladies with +the—"</p> + +<p>"Split even," Mr. Corbett took the words out of her mouth. "Want sole +leather or tissue paper, Mr. Vandeford?" Miss Adair caught by psychic +sympathy the fact that he was asking if the play was to be costumed as +one intended to survive. Consequently her very soul hung on the answer +Mr. Vandeford must make to Mr. Corbett's question.</p> + +<p>"To play about thirty, I should say," answered Mr. Vandeford after a two +minutes' calculating.</p> + +<p>"Only a month?" gasped Miss Adair, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> colored home-made pink in the +height of embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"Weeks." Mr. Vandeford answered her gasp without looking at her, but +taking the vow gallantly, considering that he felt Mazie Villines to be +his sole dependence for a winning manuscript version of "The Purple +Slipper."</p> + +<p>During this question and answer Mr. Corbett was also calculating.</p> + +<p>"About seven thousand if Adelaide makes the Hawtry layout," he finally +announced.</p> + +<p>"Five hundred advance for the sketches, and a week's option," Mr. +Vandeford offered calmly.</p> + +<p>"A thousand advance for models of costumes made up," answered Mr. +Corbett, just as calmly and firmly. "Have to hunt in museum for +materials to go by. Takes experts on fabrics."</p> + +<p>"I can give you pieces of silk and things that are cut from the costumes +of that period." Miss Adair had learned, and she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> cut her remark into +the conference with precision and decision.</p> + +<p>"Genuine?" questioned Mr. Corbett.</p> + +<p>"Worn by the characters about whom the play is written."</p> + +<p>"Then seven hundred and fifty for made-up models, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. +Corbett offered.</p> + +<p>"The pieces will be large enough to make the models," Miss Adair said +with a curt firmness that was a combination of that used by both Mr. +Vandeford and Mr. Corbett and which both startled and delighted the +former.</p> + +<p>"Six hundred for models, Corbett," he said with finality and with an +inward chuckle.</p> + +<p>"Six-fifty, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. Corbett answered with equal finality, +and for the first time he stole a glance at the author.</p> + +<p>"Goes! When?"</p> + +<p>"Two weeks?"</p> + +<p>"Goes! Good-morning, Mr. Corbett!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Corbett's exit was immediate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm glad Miss Elvira made me put all the pieces of my dresses in my +trunk to patch with in case I tore anything. They saved us four hundred +dollars, didn't they?" Miss Adair said to Mr. Vandeford with gratified +business acumen shining in the sea-gray eyes. "I wasn't much in the way, +was I?"</p> + +<p>"You were a great help, and that was the first time I ever succeeded in +jewing Corbett," answered Mr. Vandeford with satisfactory enthusiasm. +Something of relief over the guarding of his author showed in his voice, +which second note, however, he sounded too soon as the next ten minutes +proved to him. "Now we'll discuss the sets for the production with +Lindenberg and then it'll be time for luncheon, and we'll go—"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Vandeford, sir, Mr. Height would like to be in next," Mr. Meyers +interrupted his chief, just a second too soon, or rather just in time, +for if Mr. Vandeford had settled Miss Adair's luncheon plans in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> +second the fate of "The Purple Slipper" might have been different.</p> + +<p>"Show him in, Pops, and have the rest come back at two-thirty," Mr. +Vandeford commanded.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gerald Height entered.</p> + +<p>For five successive seasons on Broadway, with brief dazzling flights +into the provincial towns of Chicago, Boston, Washington, and +Philadelphia, Mr. Gerald Height had been the reigning beauty, and he +well deserved it. He was both slender and broad, with the grace of a +faun in young manhood, and with the deviltry of a satyr of more advanced +age in his yellow-green eyes, which tilted under high black brows that +were arched penciled bows across his forehead. His lips were full and +red, but chiseled like a youth's on a Greek frieze and they were mobile +and tender and hard by turns. His red-gold hair clung to his head in +burnished waves, and this head was set upon his broad, strong shoulders +as a flower is set on its parent plant, and his smile was a conquering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +triumph. He poured it all over Miss Adair as Mr. Vandeford introduced +them, and took the chair opposite the producer and the author, with the +light from the window fully revealing all of his charms.</p> + +<p>"New Hawtry play on, Height, by Miss Adair." Mr. Vandeford began the +conversation with his usual directness, and somehow his voice was +crisper than usual, for he seemed to get a shock from the radiance of +the stage beauty before him that pushed him, with his white-tinged black +hair, well forward into middle age.</p> + +<p>"Dolph was telling me, and I ran through a synopsis he had on the +machine. Powder and furbelows!" As he spoke Mr. Height smiled at Miss +Adair with appreciation of herself and got in return a smile of the same +degree of appreciation of himself, both smiles not at all lost on the +psychologically aging Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"That clause in your contract that lets you out of all costume plays is +perfectly good, you know," Mr. Vandeford heard him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>self saying when he +had intended to bluster that same clause aside if the favorite had tried +to stand on it, because he well knew that to see Gerald Height in silk +stockings and lace ruffles a quarter of a million women might be counted +upon to pay two dollars per capita and so assure at least a fifteen per +cent. certainty to the box-office receipts of "The Purple Slipper," +whose fate had mysteriously come in the last few hours to mean so much +to him. "Mr. Meyers has a youngster that we can whip into lead, I think. +Now thank me for letting you out, and run along."</p> + +<p>"Oh," ejaculated Miss Patricia Adair, and the little exclamation of +dismay hit both men at once and made them both sit up straight in their +chairs. Also they both looked for a long minute at Miss Adair, and both +were aware of the other's scrutiny. Mr. Height broke the tension.</p> + +<p>"I might see how buckskins and powdered wig would go," he said, with a +tentative glance across the table, which began with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> Mr. Vandeford and +ended with Miss Adair.</p> + +<p>"I think you would be perfectly beautiful, and I hope—" Miss Adair +paused, and Mr. Height was as competent as either Miss Hawtry or Miss +Lindsey had been to judge of the home-made color under the gray eyes. +Also he was as much, perhaps more, affected by it, though in the +presence of Mr. Vandeford he was wise enough to dissemble his delight.</p> + +<p>"Want me to try, Mr. Vandeford?" he questioned with greater deference +than he had ever shown a mere manager in the last five years of his +triumphant career.</p> + +<p>"Of course, it would be a fifteen-per cent. drag if you are willing," +answered Mr. Vandeford with managerial delight and manly rage.</p> + +<p>"Can I have until to-morrow to decide?" asked Mr. Height. "You see, I +haven't read the play or heard the layout," he added to the author of +"The Purple Slipper," with deference in his rich voice that had thrilled +its millions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Could you make it this afternoon if Mr. Meyers goes into it with you? +My other man has a big picture offered him at a good figure," Mr. +Vandeford answered, with both fear and joy at the prospect of pressing +the star into retreat.</p> + +<p>"Dolph has told me all he knows about it, which is nothing. He hasn't +taken out any parts and seems to have lost the manuscript forever. I +hope you kept a copy, Miss Adair." And again the two young things smiled +at each other to Mr. Vandeford's devastation.</p> + +<p>"Why couldn't I tell Mr. Height about the play while you see the +electrician and the other people, Mr. Vandeford?" Miss Adair questioned, +her candid gray eyes shining with such a sincere desire to be useful in +the crisis that Mr. Vandeford could not suspect her of any adventurous +motive. "We could go over in—into my office and you can call me any +minute if you need me."</p> + +<p>"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Height. "Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> I could let you know right away if +I thought I could do the part justice, Mr. Vandeford."</p> + +<p>"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, as he motioned them into the inner +office, which had been conferred upon the author of "The Purple +Slipper," and rang his buzzer for Mr. Meyers.</p> + +<p>"Find Mr. Farraday and ask him to come around here immediately if he is +anywhere near, or to come at four if he can't get here in ten minutes," +he commanded. "Heard from Mazie?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Howard is in a good working soak, is her report, Mr. Vandeford, +sir, and I have the wire that Mr. Farraday is on his way here," was the +double answer Mr. Meyers returned to Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"Good! Give me my letters to sign," Mr. Vandeford answered.</p> + +<p>Mr. Meyers brought in a sheaf of letters, and Mr. Vandeford was in the +act of setting pen to paper when the door of the inner office opened +after a gentle knock and Miss Adair entered, followed by Mr. Height.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford looked up quickly and found Miss Adair close beside his +chair, looking down upon him with her beautiful reverence and confidence +in him entirely unimpaired.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Height wants me to go and have luncheon with him and tell him about +the play. He's hungry, and so am I. Can you spare me if I'm working +while I'm eating? May I go?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford rose to his feet quickly, and a great Broadway star was in +closer danger of descending head-first from a six-story window upon that +thoroughfare than he ever knew. Then "The Purple Slipper" rose and +demanded its chance of success with Gerald Height as "drag" and the +tragedy was averted.</p> + +<p>"Run along, children, and don't spill your milk on your bibs," he +answered them, with a dissembling smile that would have done credit to +Mr. Height himself when upon the boards with Miss Hawtry. They departed +in great spirits, and Mr. Vandeford noticed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> that Mr. Height had not +been at all concerned as to how his manager's inner man would be served.</p> + +<p>Thereupon Mr. Vandeford propped his feet upon the desk, got out one of +the most evil of the cigars he kept in a drawer of his desk for just +such crises, and went into communion with himself for ten minutes. Upon +that communion broke Mr. Dennis Farraday, who got the full force of it.</p> + +<p>"I came to pick up you and Miss Adair to go out in the park to luncheon. +It's cooler there. Where is she?" were the words with which Mr. +Vandeford's partner in the production of "The Purple Slipper" greeted +him.</p> + +<p>"She has gone out to luncheon with a damned tango lizard," was the +disturbed and disturbing answer his courtesy received.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Farraday, bristling.</p> + +<p>"She met Gerald Height a half-hour ago, here in this office, and then +went out to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> luncheon with him," was Mr. Vandeford's answer to Mr. +Farraday's bristling.</p> + +<p>"Without consulting you?"</p> + +<p>"No! I consented all right enough."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell her if you didn't want her to go with him?"</p> + +<p>"See here, Denny, I want to ask you if anything in my past life makes +you think that I am a proper old hen to have a downy little chicken +thrust right under my wing for safe keeping, whether I hatched her or +not?" Mr. Vandeford demanded, and his rage was so perfectly impersonal +and perplexed that Mr. Farraday sat down to go into the matter to his +rescue.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Van?" he asked in a calm voice and manner that were +most grateful to Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"Just this: Here's a girl come up here, from a place where a girl is +guarded like a pearl of great price, into the muck and excitement of the +getting together of a Broadway production in which she is directly +interested. I don't know what to do. If I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> spend my time hovering over +her, her show will go cold and break her. She's poor. I told her as much +of what she is in for as I dared and still she wants to stay and see it +all through, demands to stay and be let in for the whole thing. What'll +we do?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose she'd go with me up to visit the mater and be motored down to +participate in—in expurgated moments?" asked Mr. Farraday, as he +ruffled his hair into a huge plume on the top of his head.</p> + +<p>"She would not. She's got a taste of it and she'll thirst for more. And, +for all that unsophistication, she is a clever kid. She'll get Height +into a costume play before luncheon is over and that'll go a long way to +cinch a hit for 'The Purple Slipper.' He's made a fad of not playing +costume, and all the women in New York will flock to see him in velvet +and lace. She bargained that fish Corbett out of four hundred dollars in +the preliminary costume deal, and if anybody has to send her home it +will have to be you. I can't do it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, just gently warn her about Height and things of that kind, can't +you?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot! Would you tell a woman who is walking a tight rope that the +ground sixty feet below her is covered with broken champagne bottles?"</p> + +<p>"Then she's got to go home," decided Mr. Dennis Farraday, positively.</p> + +<p>"How'll you make her?"</p> + +<p>"You've got to do it. She's got awe of you planted six feet deep in her +soul. Anybody could see that. You've got to send her."</p> + +<p>"Can't be done," growled Mr. Vandeford in desperation. "Wish I were +married to six respectable women and then I could make 'em all chaperon +her in turns, while I feed her fool play to the public."</p> + +<p>"You'd only have to strike out the syllable 'un' before 'married' by a +little trip to the City Hall to have one mighty fine wife," Mr. Farraday +said with a straight look into Mr. Vandeford's eyes, which was so deeply +affectionate that it gave him the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> privilege of opening the door to any +holy of holies.</p> + +<p>"Violet and I are all off, Denny, and it ought never to have been on," +was the straight-out answer he got to his venture, an answer that Miss +Hawtry would have felt smoothed greatly the path of her present +adventures in life.</p> + +<p>"Poor girl! I knew she was hurt somehow, but I thought—forgive me, old +man." With a tenderness in his voice that both alarmed and puzzled Mr. +Vandeford his big Jonathan closed the subject and snapped a lock on it. +"Come over to the Astor with me for a cold bite."</p> + +<p>"Goes!"</p> + +<p>The cool, green-leafed Orangery at the Hotel Astor is the oasis in the +desert days of rehearsal for all early fall plays, and beside its +tinkling fountain and under its tinkling music can be found at luncheon +all of the theatrical profession who are not around the corners at the +equally cool, white-tiled Childs restaurants. Beside and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> around the +green wicker tables careers of managers, artists, actors, playwrights, +electricians, and scenic artists are made and unmade in the twinkling of +some bright or heavy-lidded eye. Each and every feaster watches each and +every other feaster with the quick, wary eye of a jungle being consuming +its food before it is snatched from him or her; and gossip reigns over +all.</p> + +<p>"Gee, look at the swell dame Gerald Height has got cornered over there!" +exclaimed Mazie Villines, as she looked up from a frappéd melon, which a +"heavy" moving picture man was "buying" for her consumption. "The way +them society queens do fall fer him!"</p> + +<p>"Put your blinkers on, Mazie, put 'em on, and don't take a shy at Height +over my knife and fork! Let him eat what he pays for and me the same," +growled the huge man. "I let you put up that drunk Howard for a week, +and that's rope enough."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to feed him the green in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> 'runny' eggs; it makes me sick to +open for him," was the adored Mazie's way of speaking of her eminent +playwright.</p> + +<p>"Well, get his wad first," was the heavy's advice.</p> + +<p>Just at this moment Mazie had the delight of seeing Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford enter with his "soup and fish" friend Mr. Dennis Farraday. As +they both had to pass directly by the table at which sat Miss Adair and +Mr. Height, of course they both paused for greetings, which included the +introduction of Mr. Height to Mr. Farraday.</p> + +<p>"I could hardly eat in this beautiful cool place when I thought that +maybe you would work on in the hot office with nothing with ice packed +around it for your luncheon," said Miss Adair, as she raised her eyes to +Mr. Vandeford's with the adoration still intact after at least +three-quarters of an hour assault upon it by Mr. Gerald Height's +disturbing personality. "I wanted to go back for you, but Mr. Height +said that Mr. Meyers fed you cold pie when you were busy, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> that you +roared dreadfully if anybody interrupted you when you were eating it!"</p> + +<p>"He does," Mr. Farraday interjected, smiling down at her in a way that +it was unwise to do in the Orangery at noon; and it lighted a fuse he +little suspected. Miss Violet Hawtry caught the smile in mid-air and +then promptly turned her back and became all charming attention to the +gentleman with whom she was having luncheon, who was no other than the +celebrated Weiner, who had built three theatres in two years and was +building more. He was of the bull-necked type of Hebrew and not of the +sensitive, exquisite type of the sons of the House of David to which +belong the E. & K.'s, and the S. & S., as well as the great B. D.</p> + +<p>"When will the new theatre be completed, Mr. Weiner?" Miss Hawtry asked, +as she turned over an iced shrimp and tore at a lettuce leaf with her +fork.</p> + +<p>"October first," answered Mr. Weiner, past a mouthful of Russian +herring.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What will the opening show be?" asked Miss Hawtry, with indifference, +though there was a glint under her thick lashes lowered over her +snapping Irish eyes.</p> + +<p>"'The Rosie Posie Girl,'" answered Weiner, and he swallowed his herring +and gave her a shrewd glance at the same time.</p> + +<p>"Vandeford will never sell it to you," Miss Hawtry announced calmly, as +she ate the shrimp and the torn lettuce leaf.</p> + +<p>"Maybe!" answered Weiner with equal calmness. "What are his plans for +his new show that he is tearing up Forty-second Street about?"</p> + +<p>"Road from September fifteenth until New York October first."</p> + +<p>"What theater in New York?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." As she made this answer Miss Hawtry looked up and caught +a snap in Weiner's small black eyes, perched on each side of the hump of +his red nose.</p> + +<p>"Has the show got goods?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to put some into it," answered Miss Hawtry calmly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I like Mr. Dennis Farraday, who's Vandeford's angel. I don't want to +see Van take the money out of his pocket and get away with it." Miss +Hawtry was dealing in half-truths to a lie expert.</p> + +<p>"Hooked Farraday yet?"</p> + +<p>"Not quite."</p> + +<p>"No use bargaining with a woman when she's fishing for a man, but if he +slips the hook come to me and I'll show you a new bait. When do you +open?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-third of September, at Atlantic City."</p> + +<p>"I'll be there."</p> + +<p>"I hope you will, and—" but the rest of Miss Hawtry's remark was cut +off by Mr. Dennis Farraday's genial greeting, backed by Mr. Vandeford's +more restrained pleasure at happening upon her and her co-plotter, to +whom she introduced Mr. Farraday.</p> + +<p>The exchange of amenities was as brief as it was cordial, but as Mr. +David Vandeford and Mr. Jonathan Farraday passed on to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> table which +the discreet head waiter had reserved in case of the unexpected and +tardy arrival of just such personages as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and his +friend, Mr. Farraday, Miss Hawtry had answered a low-voiced question +from Mr. Farraday with a sadly tender smile and the words:</p> + +<p>"At eight?"</p> + +<p>"The Claridge got me a box for the Big Show and a table at the Grove +Garden for to-night, Van," remarked Mr. Farraday, as he unfolded his +napkin. "It is the coolest place in town, and we might as well let the +kid get just one good peep before she goes back into the shell ... if +she goes. I'll take Miss Hawtry on and leave the box number for you and +Miss Adair."</p> + +<p>"Right-o," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a growl. For the life of him he +could not understand just why Mr. Gerald Height should have the +privilege of feeding his author alone, while he seemed to be always +forced to enjoy her company in the presence of others. He looked across +the room, met<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> the gray eyes laughing at him over a glass that was +plainly iced tea, and was forced to exchange smiles with his downy +little chicken, who was delightedly peeping out of her shell.</p> + +<p>"I think Mr. Vandeford is the most wonderful man I ever met," confided +Miss Adair to Mr. Height, with no suspicion of the incitation such a +remark would be to the ardor of the beloved of many women.</p> + +<p>"He's a great producer; had three big hits hand-running and fell down on +'Miss Cut-up' because he wouldn't stand up to Hawtry, and let her cop +the whole show," answered Mr. Height with great generosity, for in +reality Mr. Height had the very poor opinion of Mr. Vandeford that it is +the custom of all actors to hold in regard to their respective managers. +However, he was sugar-coating the pill he was determined to administer +to Miss Adair without delay. "He ought to marry Hawtry and get a bit in +her mouth and the spurs on."</p> + +<p>"Is—is he in love with Miss Hawtry?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> asked the author of "The Purple +Slipper" with great interest, and the home-made color rose several +degrees, that were not warranted by the calm gossip of the situation.</p> + +<p>"That's the noise he makes, but who can tell?" answered Mr. Height, +reveling in the Adairville roses and no more aware of their origin than +was their owner. "He meets bills, but nobody gets in behind his +window-boxes." And Mr. Height raised his glass of Tom Collins, perfectly +contented with the thought that he had enlightened Miss Adair about the +private life of Mr. Vandeford. As a matter of fact he had failed utterly +to do so, as she had not understood a word of his Broadway patois. +"There's the great B. D. and beloved son-in-law," and Mr. Height nodded +and smiled at a white-haired man and his companion who were seating +themselves at the table next to them.</p> + +<p>"B. D.?" questioned Miss Adair.</p> + +<p>"Benjamin David," answered Mr. Height. "He and his son-in-law are +putting on a great new show. Offered me a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> lead and—but I think I'll +stick by 'The Purple Slipper.'" His eyes were so ardent as slightly to +disturb Miss Adair and very greatly disturb Mr. Vandeford, who caught +the warmth across several tables, and ground his teeth.</p> + +<p>However, Miss Patricia Adair was fully capable of handling such a +situation, for ardor is ardor, whether encountered on Broadway in New +York or Adairville in Kentucky, and Miss Adair had met it many +times—and parried it.</p> + +<p>"I've really got to leave this perfectly lovely place and hurry down to +the Y. W. C. A., to get some costume samples for Mr. Corbett," she said +calmly, as she began to draw on her gloves and pull down the veil that +reefed in the narrow brim of the jaunty hat Miss Lindsey and she had by +a great stroke of luck discovered on a side street the day before.</p> + +<p>"Y. W. C. A.?" questioned Mr. Height, in stupefaction.</p> + +<p>"Everybody looks that way when I say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> it!" laughed Miss Adair, with a +dimple flaunting above the left corner of her mouth. "Will you take me +there or put me on something or in something that will let me off very +near?"</p> + +<p>"I'll take you," answered Mr. Height tenderly and heroically, as he held +the blue-silk coat for her to slip into.</p> + +<p>As the two of them stood together the great Dean of American Producers +looked upon them with interest, and rose and offered his hand to Mr. +Height.</p> + +<p>"Well, how about it?" he asked, with a smile under his beetling white +brows.</p> + +<p>"Mr. David, please meet Miss Adair, the author of Mr. Vandeford's new +Hawtry play," Mr. Height said by way of beginning an answer to the +question put to him. "At last I'm going into wig and ruffles; the play +is of colonial Kentucky."</p> + +<p>"I am delighted to meet you, Miss Adair," said the Broadway Maximus, +"and you are fortunate to have Mr. Height for your play. I covet him, +but I'll wait until next time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you for not taking him away!" said Miss Adair, with a +displaying of the roses which the great B. D. noted with pleasure. "Will +you come and see our play and tell us what you think about it?" Miss +Adair made her request, which was against the traditions of conventions +on Broadway, with the unabashed air with which she had invited the +reigning Governor of Kentucky to have dinner with her and Major Adair at +the state fair the year before.</p> + +<p>"Ask Mr. Vandeford to invite me to a dress rehearsal," answered the +great one, and Gerald Height beamed with pride, while Miss Adair +displayed only gratitude and delight as they took their departure.</p> + +<p>In their exit they passed Mr. Vandeford's table and stopped to speak to +him and Mr. Farraday.</p> + +<p>"That's Benjamin David Mr. Height introduced to me, and he's coming to +help us at the dress rehearsals of 'The Purple Slipper.' It's +wonderful!" Miss Adair ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>claimed, as Mr. Vandeford rose and stood +beside her. "Mr. Height is going down to the Y. W. C. A. with me, and +we'll be right back to the office with those pieces of silk for the +costumes. Mr. David wants him for lead, but he's going to be in 'The +Purple Slipper' and go to Mr. David next. Isn't that fine?" and without +waiting for an answer to her question the busy playwright departed on +important business connected with the costuming of her play.</p> + +<p>"Somehow, Van, I don't see why we should worry," Mr. Farraday said, as +he looked at the retreating figures of the pair whose beauty was +attracting no little attention in the feasting Orangery. "She's +<a name="corr17" id="corr17"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn17" title="changed from 'geting'">getting</a> +along all right, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Remember you've been in the business about forty-eight hours, Denny, +and never forget that every knife here is sheathed in a smile and +everybody carries a rubber stamp with double X on it," answered Mr. +Vandeford, with gloom, as he pushed back his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> coffee-cup. "She's tasted +blood now and that ends it. She's with us, and the Lord help her! I +can't!"</p> + +<p>"Well, come on and let's get to the office," answered Mr. Farraday, with +a cheerful lack of sympathy with his friend's anxiety for the talented +budding playwright.</p> + +<p>"Everything all O. K., Mazie?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he passed the +table where the Miss Villines and the heavy movie man were finishing +their bottles of cold beer.</p> + +<p>"Soused and scribbling," answered Mazie, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"Remember, Friday."</p> + +<p>"Remember your check-book."</p> + +<p>"Goes!"</p> + +<p>Shortly after Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday reached the office of Mr. +Vandeford, Miss Adair, accompanied by Mr. Height, appeared with a neat +little parcel in their possession. Also Miss Adair had another, very +conventional, corsage bouquet in the place of the one Mr. Vandeford had +given her in the morning and which at lunch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>eon had begun to look the +worse for wear.</p> + +<p>"Now what shall I do?" she asked Mr. Vandeford, with great energy.</p> + +<p>"Go right down and get in my car and go back to the Y. W. C. A., to take +a long nap. I'll call for you for that Broadway eye-opener at eight +o'clock to-night, so get 'em well rested," he answered, and he smiled +when he noted that the expression in her eyes that he had begun to look +for with desperate eagerness still held. Mr. Meyers had engaged Mr. +Height with a contract, and Mr. Farraday had been an interested +spectator to the tussle. Producer and author were alone.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Height asked me to go to see Maude Adams, but I told him I couldn't +go anywhere at night until you could take me," said Miss Adair with +sparks of joy in the sea-gray eyes. "I'm so glad it is to-night."</p> + +<p>"Did you really tell Height that?" demanded Mr. Vandeford, with youth +swelling through his arteries.</p> + +<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Go, child, go and get a nap," Mr. Vandeford laughed, as he opened the +door for her and started out to descend and deliver her into the keeping +of faithful Valentine.</p> + +<p>"I'll put her into the car, Van," offered Mr. Farraday. "They need you +here in this fight."</p> + +<p>And again his author was snatched out of Mr. Vandeford's clutches.</p> + +<p>Several hours later a very interesting scene was enacted in two tiny +adjoining rooms under the roof of the Y. W. C. A., with Miss Adair and +Miss Lindsey as the principals.</p> + +<p>"If you take away all that net there won't be any waist left to the +dress. Don't!" pleaded Miss Adair, as Miss Lindsey stood over her with +determined scissors.</p> + +<p>"I'm making it absolutely perfect, and you can't tell by looking down on +it. You'll have to trust me," answered Miss Lindsey, with pins in her +mouth, as she snipped away a funny little tucker of common new net with +which Miss Elvira Henderson of Adair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>ville, Kentucky, had for the sake +of her spinster convictions ruined a triumph she had accomplished +directly out of "Feminine Fashions" and the ancestral trunk.</p> + +<p>"Will it be—be modest?" demanded Miss Adair.</p> + +<p>"A lot more modest than having that ugly mosquito netting telling +everybody that you are not willing to have them see your marvelous neck +and arms except through its meshes. Nobody will think you know you've +got 'em, if you show them like everybody else; but they'll think you +think you are a peep-show if you cover them half up." And as she spoke +Miss Lindsey gave another daring rip and snip. Her philosophy struck +home.</p> + +<p>"That's every word true," agreed Miss Adair, with relief. "I'll just +forget about my skin there, as I do about that on my face and hands and +nobody will notice me at all."</p> + +<p>"That's it. Skin is no treat to New York, and nobody will look at you +twice." Miss Lindsey had a struggle to keep her voice and manner +unconcerned enough, as she sur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>veyed her finished product and saw that +from under her hands would go forth a sensation. In the old ivory satin +with its woven rosebuds and cream rose-point, above which rose pearly +shoulders and a neck bearing a small, proud head, with close waves of +heavy black hair, Miss Adair was like a dainty, luscious, tropical fruit +that is more beautiful than its own flower. "How an old maid in a +country town made that dress I don't see!" Miss Lindsey added +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"It was you, who unmade it," answered Miss Adair with gratitude. "I wish +you were going, too," she added as she nestled to the taller girl for a +perfumed second.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to luncheon with you and Mr. Farraday to-morrow," answered +Miss Lindsey, with a pleased laugh at Miss Adair's sudden clinging that +indicated her sincerity in not wishing to leave her alone.</p> + +<p>"Oh, lovely! And Mr. Height will be with us too, for I promised to have +luncheon with him again," she exclaimed, as Miss Lindsey began to insert +her into an evening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> wrap made of a priceless old Paisley shawl which +"Fashions" had also tempted Miss Elvira to desecrate with her scissors.</p> + +<p>"Gerald Height?" asked Miss Lindsey, and her eyes first snapped and then +smouldered. "Where did he get in on—where did you meet him? Does Mr. +Vandeford know about it and—"</p> + +<p>"I met him in Mr. Vandeford's office. He's in 'The Purple Slipper,' and +I went to luncheon with him to-day. I meant to tell you about it, and +meeting Mr. David, but Mr. Vandeford told me to get a nap and I thought +I—"</p> + +<p>Here the speaking-trumpet in the hall informed Miss Lindsey that Mr. +Vandeford was waiting for Miss Adair below, and she had to let her +treasure depart from her.</p> + +<p>"I wonder just how straight Godfrey Vandeford is," she mused, as she +picked up the discarded tucker of coarse netting. "The poor kid! I wish +she was at home hidden behind Miss Elvira's skirts. Hawtry and a girl +like that! Damn men!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>It may be that in the long life of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford he had passed a +more perturbed evening than that on which he led his protégé, the author +of "The Purple Slipper," to her début under the white lights of +Broadway, but he could not recall the occasion. His grilling had begun +while he waited for his charge to descend in the lobby of the Y. W. C. +A. and it ended—</p> + +<p>"We are delighted to have Miss Adair stay with us while her play is +being rehearsed," a very pleasant young woman, with a trim figure, kind +and wise eyes, and gray-sprinkled hair, remarked to him after she had +whistled the fact of his arrival above. "When such men as you, Mr. +Vandeford, begin to put on clean historical plays, many of our anxieties +will be over. I look on each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> musical show that appears on Broadway as a +personal enemy."</p> + +<p>"I am glad indeed, Madam, that we are going to claim you as a friend of +'The Purple Slipper,'" Mr. Vandeford answered, with his most pleasant +smile. Somehow the sight and sound of that executive young woman in +charge of his young author gave him a calmness that he needed, and his +confidence shone in his face.</p> + +<p>"We are deeply interested in Miss Adair, for we have had influential +letters sent us about her, and of course we are looking forward with +eagerness to seeing her play. She is such a dear child!"</p> + +<p>The influential letters and the increased warmth in the young woman's +tone in speaking about his author drew Mr. Vandeford still nearer to +her, both in body and in spirit. He leaned slightly against the desk and +smiled again.</p> + +<p>"May I send you seats for some night the first week of 'The Purple +Slipper'?" he asked, with the greatest deference. And it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> must be +recorded that in making the offer Mr. Vandeford was not bidding for the +distinction conferred on him in the next few seconds.</p> + +<p>"That will be delightful," exclaimed the young woman. "And, Mr. +Vandeford, here is a latch-key to the front door, to use to-night if you +and Miss Adair are a little later than midnight in coming home. Remember +to give it to her after you have put her inside the door and tell her to +hang it on the rack opposite the number of her room. There she comes +now!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford accepted the latch-key of the Y. W. C. A. with awe and +looked at it as he would have looked at a decoration handed him by the +Metropolitan governors. Then he glanced up and beheld Miss Adair +displaying herself to his new-found friend.</p> + +<p>"You are very pretty, my dear," she was saying with an affectionate +smile. "Just let me put a pin here in this fold of lace," and expertly +she reefed up the last fold of rose-point that Miss Lindsey had snipped +down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> in a hurried finish of her remodeling. Strange to say Mr. +Vandeford felt still more further drawn to his young Christian +Association friend.</p> + +<p>"Now run along, both of you, and have a pleasant evening," she said to +them as she turned to answer the telephone.</p> + +<p>"That girl is an extremely delightful person," Mr. Vandeford remarked, +while he and Valentine were tucking Miss Adair under the linen robe in +the car.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad you are getting used to the Y. W. C. A.," Miss Adair +answered, giving him a delighted smile as he seated himself beside her +while Valentine started the car up the avenue. "Mr. Height said it was +like being forced to go to church in a strange town and getting into +somebody's cozy corner by mistake."</p> + +<p>"I wish I were married to that girl, to-night," Mr. Vandeford exclaimed +out of the sudden rush of anxiety that had overtaken him by this +fledgling author's mention of his leading man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then who would be taking me out, out on Broadway?" asked Miss Adair +with a little laugh that had a more distinctly friendly note in it than +it had before held for him.</p> + +<p>"Both of us," replied Mr. Vandeford, with an answering laugh that +sounded much too young in his own ears. "You'll need two."</p> + +<p>"Am I going to have as many dreadful things happen to me to-night as I +was going to have when I met Mr. Corbett and Mr. Benjamin David and Mr. +Height and the other theatrical people? Am I being warned again?" Mr. +Vandeford accepted the teasing and laughed at himself.</p> + +<p>"My wings are up. Go out and scratch for yourself."</p> + +<p>"Not very far, though," Miss Adair answered. Mr. Vandeford was not sure +that she moved a fraction of an inch nearer to him, but he hoped so. "I +feel just the same about you as I do about Roger and I like to be going +with you—into—into danger."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who's Roger?" questioned Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"He's my brother, who treats me as you do. It's fun for a woman to be +frightened dreadfully when she is with a man she likes." Again there was +that uncertainty as to whether Miss Adair fluttered a fraction of an +inch in his direction, and for the life of him Mr. Vandeford could not +say whence had flown all the many ways he would have commanded +ordinarily for the finding out if such were the case.</p> + +<p>"A frightened woman is often rather—rather deadly to a man," he +answered before he could stop himself. The habit of speaking out +directly to Miss Adair was growing on him, he perceived, and it alarmed +him.</p> + +<p>"Into what danger are you taking me now?" asked Miss Adair with a fluty, +merry laugh.</p> + +<p>"We are going with Mr. Farraday and Miss Hawtry to see the Big Show and +to the Grove Garden on the roof afterward for supper. Just a slow, usual +sort of an eve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>ning, but Denny thought it would be fun for you to see +the Big Show and the Big Feed and the Big Dance by way of initiation," +Mr. Vandeford answered, with an entire lack of enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see what you wanted me to see this first night," Miss Adair +said with the affectionate frankness of six years going on seven. "What +would that be?"</p> + +<p>"We'll see it to-morrow night," Mr. Vandeford answered her, and this +time the tenderness in his voice surprised him and he considered it +entirely unjustifiable.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Height was going to take me to see Maude Adams, but I know he'll +put it off again when I tell him that you want me to—"</p> + +<p>"No, don't! Let Height get Maude Adams out of his system, for Heaven's +sake," snapped Mr. Vandeford, this time in unjustifiable temper.</p> + +<p>"Why, what is—" Miss Adair was asking of Mr. Vandeford in positive +alarm when Valentine stopped before the blazing doorway of the Big Show. +A functionary seven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> feet tall opened the door of the car and all but +literally extracted them by force, for he was anxious to repeat the +operation on the occupants of the car chugging behind them.</p> + +<p>Now, there are many, many fair women born within the state lines of Old +Kentucky who live calm and peaceful lives and die and are buried with no +greater contrast of experience than comes from birth and death, love and +hate, riches and poverty, and they never know the difference; but +occasionally one bursts out of her bonds and flames her beauty over +strange worlds, in foreign embassies, in the courts of St. James or +Petrograd, or in an opera or theater box in New York. When this eruption +occurs many sparks fly. And many sparks from bright eyes were showered +on the author of "The Purple Slipper," who sat calmly unaware in the +left stage-box of the Big Show that August night beside the notorious +Hawtry, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and Mr. Dennis Farraday. And of the +sparks no one was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> more conscious than both Miss Hawtry and Mr. +Vandeford, while big Dennis was in a blissfully ignorant state of mind +like to that of Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Though he +had been for about forty-eight hours a producer on the rear side of the +footlights, Mr. Farraday still had the attitude of mind possessed by one +of an audience, and he watched the stage rather than the "front." He +thus failed to get the impression created by his guest from Kentucky, +and blissfully left Mr. Vandeford to deal with her sensations derived +from the show. Mr. Vandeford had his hands full.</p> + +<p>To Miss Adair the Big Show was a series of mental and moral and artistic +explosions. She sat with delight through the Japanese acrobats and Swiss +quartette of yodelers, and she welcomed pretty, pert little Mazie +Villines with enthusiasm that gradually faded into horror as that artist +flaunted more and more lingerie and "dished the dirt" which the +inebriate playwright, at that moment engaged in "putting pep" into Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +Adair's own beloved "Purple Slipper," <i>née</i> "The Renunciation of +Rosalind," had supplied. The "dirt" was received by the audience at +large with a hilarious joy that entirely justified the managers of the +Big Show for keeping Mazie busy "dishing."</p> + +<p>However, all things come to an end, and with a last provocative, +revealing kick Mazie was allowed to depart and give way to a pair of +young dancers who promised to display wares more wholesome.</p> + +<p>Without knowing why he did it, Mr. Vandeford leaned forward so that his +left ear was within reach of the whisper of Miss Adair's lips as she +turned her head and tilted it like a droopy flower toward his.</p> + +<p>"I've only seen Sarah Bernhardt and John Drew and Maude Adams and +Mansfield and Joe Jefferson and Arliss and the Coburns, up in +Louisville," she faltered with her eyes questioning his and wide open +with horror.</p> + +<p>"These next ones aren't so bad, and we'll go before any more come on +that—that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> won't like," he whispered in return. He had glanced +through the program and seen that the climax would be an exhibition of +jungle courtship by one of America's most notorious women and her +partner, done to extreme negroid melody.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she murmured as she turned to watch the willowy youth and +maid go through some very beautiful movements of the dance that was +entirely unobjectionable. In two minutes she had turned her face, +beaming with pleasure, so that Mr. Vandeford could see that all was well +with her; and ten minutes later she giggled out loud at the repartee of +two black-faced artists.</p> + +<p>During the respite that his knowledge of the numbers on the program gave +him, Mr. Vandeford did more of his peculiar brand of thinking, and +reached a diplomatic conclusion. By the intermission, which came just +before the jungle "big number" to give late comers time to gather in for +their salacious feast, he was ready to act.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Miss Adair and I are going to get a breath of air," he announced.</p> + +<p>"But the big number is next, and she might miss it," objected Miss +Hawtry, with solicitude for Miss Adair's pleasure. Mr. Vandeford had +thought past just that objection delivered by Miss Hawtry, and he knew +that in no way must he seem to be shielding the author of "The Purple +Slipper" from the salaciousness that gave Miss Hawtry great joy. If he +went too far in any act of comparative analysis he would bring danger +upon "The Purple Slipper," with whose fate Miss Adair's was one.</p> + +<p>"We'll be back in plenty of time," he lied.</p> + +<p>"Be sure!" Miss Hawtry commanded, and then turned to devote herself to +Mr. Farraday, who was laying himself out to salve what he thought must +be her pain at the loss of his beloved friend. The Violet had soon +caught his attitude toward her, and was encouraging his chivalry in +every way possible by the most pensive of poses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> as the generous +deserted. Such a situation is all to a woman's advantage if she knows +how to work it, and Miss Hawtry possessed that knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Van ought to have a medical degree for operating young girls' eyes +open, and making them see rose-colored for a while," she said with a +good-humored smile and a soft little sigh, as she raised her Irish eyes +in all their softness to Mr. Farraday's.</p> + +<p>To this insinuation, founded on an implied lie as far as the Hawtry was +concerned, Mr. Farraday made no reply, but turned to greet with fitting +applause the great dancer, on whose account one of the American artistic +bright lights had been extinguished forever, and in ten seconds was +inwardly thanking Vandeford for extracting Miss Adair before she had +felt the blighting smirch of the big number. While Mr. Farraday watched +the exhibition before him, Mr. Vandeford was amusing the child of their +joint solicitude by letting her look at the white lights. While waiting +at the curb<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> before the Big Show for the large dignitary in uniform to +summon Valentine, he had directed that worthy to have a message sent in +to Miss Hawtry that they would join her at supper. Then upon the arrival +of his car, he had carefully inserted Miss Adair before he had said to +the puzzled Valentine:</p> + +<p>"Drive slowly down around the circle and down Broadway, so that you can +come back just while the theater crowd is on."</p> + +<p>Some instinct had led Mr. Vandeford to choose exactly the panacea to +soothe Miss Adair's shock—the lights of Broadway.</p> + +<p>"It's like fairy-land," she gasped, as they rolled down past +Forty-seventh Street. "Oh, look at the kitten chasing the spool, all in +electric lights!"</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, and I'll show you an eagle flop his wings," promised Mr. +Vandeford, and he was surprised that he seemed for the first time to +feel the actual glory of the electric signs on his great Broadway, which +is as much of an all-American institution as the shipyards in Brooklyn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All the world is on fire, and everybody is going to it," Miss Adair +exclaimed, as Valentine made his return just as the theaters were +pouring their crowds out into the seething maelstrom of the great +scintillating cañon. She watched as the big car stood motionless before +a stream of humanity that poured across its front wheels and then +bounded forward as blue-coated arms stemmed the tide on the edges of +both sidewalks for a few brief minutes in which they were allowed to +progress to a street beyond, where they were again halted, wedged in +with other impatient, purring cars.</p> + +<p>In a limousine next her Miss Adair saw a boy in a top hat, with white +gloves upon his hands, smother in an eager and unabashed embrace a +white-shouldered girl, whose arms went around his neck regardless of +"mother" assiduously looking the other way. In a car on the other side a +richly garbed gentleman dozed upon his cushions in triumphant inebriety. +Also, while she and Vandeford waited, she saw a guardian spinster shoo +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> bevy of school-girls across in front of the cars, and turn in the +middle of the street to reprove a college boy for a laughing word tossed +to the combined bevy, while the blue arms on both sidewalks waved her +into haste so that they might unleash their restrained monster motors. +Everywhere protective men had women's arms fastened within their own and +were shoving through the throng, while other men and women jostled along +by themselves, or in companies of twos and threes, with laughing good +nature. Fakirs were crying many wares, and in and out squirmed newsboys +calling war extras in words that seemed to imply that New York was being +shelled from the sea, but did not make that exact statement.</p> + +<p>"It's all the world, and I'm a part of it," Miss Adair again said, and +Mr. Vandeford was again surprised at himself that he was not surprised +to find tears glinting in the sea-gray eyes raised to his.</p> + +<p>"<i>This</i> is the Big Show," he said with a little answering thrill in his +own voice, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> the enormity of the scene he had witnessed night after +night broke on him for the first time.</p> + +<p>"They all live here and sleep here and eat here and work here +and—and—love here," she said softly, and smiled, for again the +limousine with the embracing lovers had paused by the side of +Valentine's car, and the embrace still held.</p> + +<p>"No, the sleepers and eaters and workers of New York were in bed long +ago. Everybody you see here in this push has his or her vital wires +connected up at Squeedunck, Illinois, or Zanesville, Indiana or—"</p> + +<p>"Or in Adairville, Kentucky," Miss Adair added with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"No, you belong—anywhere. Creative people ought to have no—no home +wires," Mr. Vandeford answered, and there was a queer sadness in his +voice that he did not himself understand. "People with messages must +have masses to hand them to. That's why you came, and, I suppose, must +stay."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Miss Adair, "I want to stay—if you'll let me."</p> + +<p>"I can't do otherwise," Mr. Vandeford answered her. Then he turned and +looked her full in her serious eyes. "But if you stay you will have to +accept broad standards, or suffer."</p> + +<p>"That Mazie woman?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe worse."</p> + +<p>She sat silent until, a few moments later, Valentine drew up again at +the curb before the Big Show, which had been out long enough to disperse +most of its crowd, and was now receiving supper guests for the Garden +Grove above.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to stay—with you—and 'The Purple Slipper,'" she announced, +as he reached into the car for her and swung her to the pavement.</p> + +<p>"Goes!" he answered, with mingled emotions, which he could not have +analyzed.</p> + +<p>Miss Adair was as good as her word. She accepted the reveling crowd of +the garden,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> looked upon the abandon of drinking women and men, with +only a slightly hunted expression in her eyes, and with her slim white +hands applauded Simone when that artist made most audacious slings of +her supple body in its scant clothing. She beamed upon the dancer when, +as Mrs. Trevor, she came, at Mr. Farraday's invitation, to have a glass +of champagne with them, and she quailed only once, when a band of +extremely young girls, clothed in filmy garments, took tiny +search-lights and went merrily hunting among the tables of laughing men +and women after the lights had been put out for the sport. Her horror at +observing Mr. Vandeford, who sat between her and the narrow aisle take +various moneys from his pocket to defend himself from successive +hunters, made her pale, and the moment the lights were flashed on again +she rose to go.</p> + +<p>"Wonder what they'll do next," muttered Mr. Farraday, as he helped her +into her wrap. Mr. Vandeford was not looking at his author or speaking. +Once when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> had put his hand in his pocket to get out a coin for one +of the teasing girls with her search-light he had felt the Y. W. C. A. +latch-key there, and it had short-circuited him entirely.</p> + +<p>"I know you are tired. It takes some time to get the New York pace, but +you'll strike it. I think I'll stay to see the next Folly with Mr. +Farraday," he heard the Violet saying to Miss Adair, and still +short-circuited, he went with his calm young author down to the car. The +hour was one-thirty, and a moon had climbed the heights of the Broadway +cañon. Valentine, with some sort of psychic direction, went across +Central Park and down wide, clean, silent, and dimly lighted Fifth +Avenue. Both Mr. Vandeford and Miss Adair were silent, and he was not +aware that she was crying until just before they turned into her side +street.</p> + +<p>"They were so young, those girls, and they—they didn't want to—to do +that," she said with little catches in her beautiful, slurring, +Blue-grass voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Maybe they didn't; but they wouldn't go back now, not one," he answered +her.</p> + +<p>She was silenced, and stood quiet beside him as he opened the door of +the big, gloomy, protective building, with the key the woman of another +world than his had intrusted to him.</p> + +<p>"I know," she said at last, as she held out her hand to him. And because +it trembled ever so slightly and was cold, he put his warm lips to it +for a second before he handed her into a great international safety. He +remembered the key, but he didn't give it to her. Somehow he wanted it +himself. He liked the feel of it in his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Wish I had Denny locked up in +<a name="corr18" id="corr18"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn18" title="changed from 'the he'">the</a> +Christian association!" he growled to +himself as Valentine whirled him home.</p> + +<p>Just at that exact moment Mr. Dennis Farraday sat in Miss Violet +Hawtry's Louis Quinze parlor at the Claridge, engaged in tenderly and +awkwardly patting that star's sobbing white shoulder, as she lay on +just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> such a couch as Manon Lescaut probably had had for just such +scenes.</p> + +<p>"I don't blame him at all," sobbed Miss Hawtry, provocatively, with the +art of long practice both on the stage and off. "My kind always loses to +hers when the time comes."</p> + +<p>"Don't!" pleaded Mr. Farraday. It was all he could or was willing to +plead at that moment.</p> + +<p>"But I want to make good in this play for him and her—and you—before I +go out of his life forever. I want to repay him with—with both money +and happiness. He made me an artist." With these words Miss Hawtry made +an acknowledgment of the truth that she herself really believed to be +untrue, because she saw that to praise Mr. Vandeford was the best way to +blind Mr. Farraday while she approached him in that blindness. She knew +that his loyalty to his David would be a barrier unless she used it as a +ladder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My God! How—how great women are!" was the immediate and hoped-for +response she drew from the big Jonathan.</p> + +<p>"My art must fill my life now. Only there will be—friendship. You make +me see that by the comfort of your kindness." Miss Hawtry laid her +flushed cheek in the hollow of good Dennis's big warm hand. The moment +was tense, but Hawtry had timed her line a little too far ahead, and it +failed to get across. The prey was as embarrassed as a girl and, with +another brotherly pat, arose to go.</p> + +<p>"You'll always let me do anything I can, won't you?" he asked as he +looked down upon her for a second, then took a considerate departure.</p> + +<p>"Boob!" muttered Hawtry to herself, as she rose and rang for Susette.</p> + +<p>There are in this little old world many men like Dennis Farraday; only +none of its inhabitants admit their existence.</p> + +<p>After the evening of the introduction of its author to Broadway, things +spun fast and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> furiously in the business of producing "The Purple +Slipper," and during the whirlwind of the day Miss Adair sat either in +her own private office or in the chair beside Mr. Vandeford, and reveled +in the excitement, and in the evenings did other revelings. She had her +evening with Mr. Height under the spell of Barrie and Maude Adams, and +Mr. Vandeford swore under his breath when she reported to him that they +had gone to the concert on the roof of the Waldorf for an hour, and had +got back to her abiding-place in time not to need the latch-key, which +still reposed in his pocket. He knew Gerald Height, and he was puzzled +and alarmed at this wary approach.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farraday came to town, and the dinner-party in her staid, old +Washington Square home, with himself and Miss Lindsey and Miss Adair as +guests, was like a day's vacation for Mr. Vandeford. Also, he got a +complete off-guard picture of Miss Adair as he would see her in +Adairville, Kentucky, for she and the beautiful and stately Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> +Farraday spoke the same language and had the same forms.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, you positively must come up to Westchester for this +week-end! Matilda Van Tyne is going to come for the first blooming of +the rhododendrons in the West Marsh, and I feel sure that she must have +known your mother in some of her visits to Lexington. She must see you +and hear all about the play. Now, Dennis, make all the arrangements." +Mrs. Farraday gave her commands as a queen is accustomed to deliver +them.</p> + +<p>"May I go?" Miss Adair asked of Mr. Vandeford, her shining gray eyes +raised to his with deference and confidence as usual.</p> + +<p>"You may," answered Mr. Vandeford, aware that Mrs. Farraday's keen eyes +of the world were fixed upon him in a speculative way. "The rehearsals +will begin at eleven on Monday, and you can be back in plenty of time."</p> + +<p>"And, Miss Lindsey, will you come, too, with Miss Adair?" Mrs. Farraday +sur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>prised both her son and Mr. Vandeford by asking the young Westerner +with the greatest graciousness. It was evident that the young leading +lady had put herself across with the grand dame, and both Mr. Vandeford +and Mr. Farraday rejoiced.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Farraday, but I have made a professional engagement +for Saturday evening. I am going to do a monologue stunt to fill in at +the Colonial," Miss Lindsey answered, with pleasure at the invitation +shining in her dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then Dennis can drive down on Sunday and bring you back in time for tea +and to see the sunset on the rhododendrons." Mrs. Farraday further +surprised her son and Mr. Vandeford by giving this command the +imperiousness with which she was accustomed to issue her +much-sought-after invitations.</p> + +<p>"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Farraday, with the same sort of eager kindness +shining in his eyes as Miss Lindsey had met when he had asked her if +beefsteak and mushrooms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> would be the thing for her starvation. The +memory of that day made Miss Lindsey's eyes dim as she accepted the +invitation, though she had had hope of a last minute chance to do a +little Sunday "stunt" for Keith somewhere in subway New York. And Miss +Lindsey needed the money, for a hundred dollars doesn't go far in New +York even when carried in the pocket of a gown donned in the Y. W. C. +A.; but she needed the rhododendrons and the tea more than she needed +the material things that the extra fifty picked up at Keith's would have +purchased.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mrs. Farraday, it would be—be 'great' to come that way," +Miss Lindsey answered. Both Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday, as well as +Miss Adair, were struck with the sudden beauty that illumined Miss +Lindsey's dark face as she smiled and quoted Mr. Farraday in her +acceptance of his mother's invitation.</p> + +<p>"Is or is not little Lindsey a beauty, Denny?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as +they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> drove up-town in the Surreness after depositing the girls at their +nunnery.</p> + +<p>"I was just wondering," answered Mr. Farraday. "I'm mighty glad she made +such a hit with the mater."</p> + +<p>"And I'm mighty glad I'm going to lose the author of 'The Purple +Slipper' into the wilds of Westchester and the rhododendrons, while I +extract her play from Howard and slash it myself and help Rooney to +mutilate it further," said Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"Of course you are going to the mater's with Miss Lindsey and me for +tea, per usual?" asked Mr. Farraday.</p> + +<p>"Can't do it. Got to work on 'The Purple Slipper' while you people +frolic. Good-night!" With which refusal and taunt Mr. Vandeford left Mr. +Farraday at the door of his apartment-house.</p> + +<p>Mr. Farraday looked at his watch as he started away from the curb, found +the hour to be eleven o'clock, wabbled the machine first to the right +and then to the left, and finally turned down-town, in which direc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>tion +the Claridge reared its twelve stories of masonry at the corner of +Forty-fourth and Sixth.</p> + +<p>At about that minute these were the remarks exchanged through the open +door that connected two little cell-like rooms at the Y. W. C. A.:</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to bed right away? I'm so sleepy that I'm brushing my +face instead of my hair," Miss Adair called to Miss Lindsey. A desperate +and continual desire for sleep is the pest that haunts the rural visitor +to New York and Miss Adair's young health was easily its prey. She did +not readily learn to run on nerves.</p> + +<p>"You go to bed; but I've got to let the hem of my tailored linen down +two inches, so it will brush against those rhododendrons as a lady's +should, and sew up the opening in the neck of my chiffon blouse an inch +and a half, so I won't spill any of Mrs. Farraday's tea down it. +Good-night!" It goes to say that when Greek meets Vandal or the East +meets the West, dents occur.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> + +<p>And, as Mrs. Farraday had commanded, the rhododendron party at West +Marsh came to pass, to the vast enjoyment of all present, though Mr. +Vandeford's absence was a deprivation to the entire company. And that +night their friendly hearts would have ached if they had been able to +get a vision of his strenuosity. Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer, +was in full action, and chips from "The Purple Slipper" were flying in +all directions.</p> + +<p>In his bedroom in the Seventy-third Street apartment, Mr. Vandeford was +stripped for the fray—to his silk pajamas—and he lay stretched upon +his fumed-oak bed, with both reading-lights turned on full blaze. In his +hands was the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper," which Mazie Villines +had literally torn from under the hands of Grant Howard to deliver to +Mr. Vandeford on Saturday afternoon, just a day later than the time set +for its deliverance.</p> + +<p>"My check and Grant's down, or no play," she had said upon entering Mr. +Van<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>deford's apartment at about the setting of the Saturday sun. "He's +off for a two week's d.t., and I gotter take care of him. Twelve-fifty +is the way to write it."</p> + +<p>"Six hundred, and not a cent more without Grant's signature," answered +Mr. Vandeford. Mr. Adolph Meyers, who was listening to the conversation +from the hall from which he had ushered Miss Villines into Mr. +Vandeford's library, set a spring-lock on the entrance door of the +apartment, and entered the library unobtrusively.</p> + +<p>"Twelve-fifty, you old dollar-skinner!" averred the vaudeville star, +with a nasty little laugh.</p> + +<p>"Don't try to pull off a hold-up, Mazie. It won't work. It's Grant's +money," said Mr. Vandeford, with an icy calmness in his voice. And as +she spoke he looked at Mr. Adolph Meyers, who answered the look with +perfect comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll get the manuscript when hell freezes over or your wad +loosens," she again laughed, and this time turned toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> the door with +the square manila portfolio under her arm.</p> + +<p>An interested spectator could not have said afterward just how it did +happen that in half a second the manila portfolio was in the hands of +Mr. Adolph Meyers, who also bore upon his left cheek a long and +profusely bleeding scratch.</p> + +<p>"Here's your check, child, and keep a good grip on Grant, so he can't +get started toward East River as he did last time," Mr. Vandeford said +as he handed an already prepared check to the enraged girl. She was dumb +for a second, no longer.</p> + +<p>"I was going to leave it for five hundred, you old white-skinned bluffer +with your goose-grease, strong arm," she finally blurted out, and in a +twinkling of her bright eyes her good-nature had returned. "Say, that is +some play now, and I wish you'd let me play a dance girl at that +dinner-party. I'd do it refined." There was a queer little appeal in the +mobile young face. "I'd like to doll up like a lady."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll think that over, Mazie," answered Mr. Vandeford. "A song and dance +from you might go all right."</p> + +<p>"Gimme a call, will you? I'll be on the job with my guzzler for a week +now. I got to get him past, for he's some meal-ticket when times is +dull." As Mazie disposed of the check in her stocking, a degree of +affectionate anxiety for the condition of Mr. Grant Howard showed in her +face for the fraction of a second, then disappeared as she looked at Mr. +Adolph Meyers.</p> + +<p>"Come on and get my wad from where I've put it, if you dare, Dolph," she +challenged, then laughed, as the imperturbable Mr. Meyers both ignored +and showed her to the door with all courtesy.</p> + +<p>And as he lay on his bed reading over the Howard manuscript of "The +Purple Slipper," which had just returned to him after a twenty-four hour +overhauling and annotation for action by Mr. William Rooney, the stage +director with the top price, Mr. Vandeford said to Mr. Adolph Meyers, +who sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> at a table beside the bed, taking down and inserting notes into +the manuscript as they sprang from Mr. Vandeford's brain, almost before +they got past his lips:</p> + +<p>"No wonder Mazie could see herself in this show, Pops! Grant has pepped +it up almost to her standard. Whee-ugh!" With this whistle Mr. Vandeford +turned page twenty of the first act and handed it over to Mr. Meyers, +who began to devour it with eyes that took in almost the whole page at a +glance.</p> + +<p>"It is a snap-shot of Miss Hawtry he has made, Mr. Vandeford, sir. Mr. +Howard has never done better."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's what he intended to do, but I'm going to clean it out a +bit. Run an insert of the scene on page five to seven and a half out of +Miss Adair's manuscript. It is just as good and a little—little +more—say, Pops, cut out seven lines on page fourteen from the second +down, and take this from me instead." Mr. Vandeford closed his eyes and +dictated a bit of dialogue be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>tween two of the minor characters of "The +Purple Slipper," which cleared up a point Mr. Howard and Mr. Rooney and +the original author had all left at loose ends. As he dictated, Mr. +Meyers wrote on the blank page opposite the lines, and made some +cabalistic signs for insertion.</p> + +<p>Slowly they progressed through the first act, Mr. Vandeford reading from +two manuscripts and reconciling Mr. Howard's shaky, pen annotations, Mr. +Rooney's blue-pencil, action directions, and Miss Adair's original +wanderings from the point with many brilliant returns in quaint +dialogue.</p> + +<p>"That child has got more brains and uses them less than would seem +possible," growled Mr. Vandeford, as he with a few deft lines near the +close of the second act got the heroine off the stage and out of an +impossible situation in which Miss Adair had involved her.</p> + +<p>"It is that her characters talk with interest, but act in awkwardness, +Mr. Vandeford, sir. Another good play can be written<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> by Miss Adair," +Mr. Meyers said as he put in two lines and a cross star sign.</p> + +<p>"God forbid!" ejaculated Mr. Vandeford, in all sincerity. "Here, Pops, +get this first act down to those girls waiting in the office. Did you +get two for all night, so one could get out the parts? You know Rooney +will expect a reading to-morrow before he begins rehearsals."</p> + +<p>"It is three girls now waiting at the office for the night, and a +messenger in your hall, Mr. Vandeford, sir," answered Mr. Meyers as he +gathered up his annotated pages, put them into a new manila portfolio, +and rose to take them to the A. D. T. boy asleep on the floor in the +hall.</p> + +<p>"We haven't rushed in a manuscript like this since 'Dear Geraldine,' +have we, Pops?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he picked up the second act. +"It's just nine o'clock, and those girls ought to get through by three +<span class="smcap">a. m.</span> Don't let Steinberg charge up twelve hours on you."</p> + +<p>"It will be at eight that they are still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> working, Mr. Vandeford, sir, +and night type-writing means much money," Mr. Meyers answered, as he +departed with his package.</p> + +<p>"At that we'd better get busy to feed it to 'em," Mr. Vandeford said, as +he picked up and began to dig into the pages.</p> + +<p>For the three hours ensuing he and his henchman worked with never a +hitch in their growls and scratches and muttered exchanges. Then, as +they came close to the climax of the last act, Mr. Vandeford sat up from +his pillows, which were heated almost beyond endurance with his night +lights and his +<a name="corr19" id="corr19"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn19" title="changed from 'touseled'">tousled</a> +head, and gave forth a roar.</p> + +<p>"I'll be hanged if I'll let that scene between Rosalind and her lover go +with that filthy twist that Howard has given it! The words are almost +the original, but what will Hawtry make of what he's put into it?"</p> + +<p>"It will be the worst she makes," answered Mr. Meyers. "But it is for +pep very good, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and can be tried out."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's right, Pops. I wonder if I am a Broadway producer or—or the +czar of a young ladies' seminary," Mr. Vandeford growled as he lay down, +and again went to work.</p> + +<p>"It is that Miss Adair will not understand it until Miss Hawtry is at +work, and before that all may be dead," Mr. Meyers consoled, as he, too, +fell upon "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>At two-thirty the now soggy A. D. T. received the last manila +<a name="corr20" id="corr20"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn20" title="changed from 'envelop'">envelope</a> +to deliver to the busy girls down in Mr. Vandeford's office, and that +distinguished producer was stretched out on his bed in cool darkness +while Mr. Meyers was in a subway nodding his way up to his humble room +on One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.</p> + +<p>"If I live through seeing her past the reading of the blamed thing +to-morrow, I'll be stronger than I think I am," Mr. Vandeford murmured +as he felt the calmness of sleep fall upon him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>Rehearsals for "The Purple Slipper" had been called positively for +September first, and the response became unanimous at about fifteen +minutes to eleven at the Barrett Theater on West Forty-sixth Street; +that is, it was unanimous except for the presence of the author and the +angel—Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday—and Miss Violet Hawtry, the star, +who never came to first readings until the whole cast was assembled and +could be impressed with the fact that she came and went as she listed.</p> + +<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, I take it that you all know one another—and Mr. +William Rooney," said Mr. Vandeford, as he took a seat at the left of a +table placed in the center of the stage just beyond the footlights. Mr. +Rooney marched to a place beside him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> and rapped with a large black +pencil for attention from the groups into which the dozen members of the +cast had fallen after mutual introductions and greetings.</p> + +<p>"Everybody grab a seat that is good enough to glue to for five hours +while Fido here gives out your parts," commanded Mr. Rooney, without in +any way acknowledging Mr. Vandeford's introduction to the company. Mr. +Rooney's voice was low and rich, and had the precision and decision of a +machine-gun in its utterances. With hurried obedience the entire company +looked about the stage for seats.</p> + +<p>Miss Bébé Herne, though having fifty pounds the advantage of any of the +others in avoirdupois, was the first seated. She merely dropped down +upon a stout pine bench, the front of which was stuccoed to represent +antique marble, and peremptorily motioned Mr. Wallace Kent to that +portion of the seat left after she had wedged herself as far to one side +as possible. Mr. Kent obeyed immediately, though he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> just placed a +rickety, stuffed chair beside the gold one occupied by Miss Blanche +Grayson, the glowerer. Miss Lindsey sat on the end of an overturned box +hedge before a drop curtain of a twilight night, and Mr. Reginald Leigh +sat in a wicker chair under a brilliant canvas flowering shrub of no +known variety. The rest of the company were soon seated and receiving +the small, blue-backed, manuscript books from the pale young man whom +Mr. Rooney always addressed as Fido.</p> + +<p>"Everybody here but Miss Hawtry," said Mr. Rooney, and he glared at Mr. +Vandeford as though that gentleman must be concealing the star in the +pocket of his gray, silk-crash coat.</p> + +<p>"And Miss Hawtry is here also," came in a very beautifully modulated +voice from left stage, as the tardy star came down center, and stood +directly in front of the table at which sat the producer and his +stage-manager. Mr. Vandeford rose immediately and said good-morning; Mr. +Rooney kept his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> seat and looked Miss Hawtry through and through with a +cold reproof.</p> + +<p>"Five minutes late," he said with an edge in the words that cut.</p> + +<p>"I really beg your pardon, and it shall not happen—" the star was +beginning to say in an apologetic tone, which bent under the cold edge +of the assault, as Mr. Vandeford had hoped it would, when Mr. Rooney cut +it off with a curt command to pale Fido.</p> + +<p>"Give out the Hawtry part."</p> + +<p>Miss Hawtry accepted the little blue booklet handed her by Fido, and +also Mr. Vandeford's chair, placed carefully in the center of the stage +for her. The first brush between Mr. Rooney and Miss Hawtry had been +pulled off and he had won, much to Mr. Vandeford's delight. For "Miss +Cut-up" he had had to hire, pay for, and fire, three successive +stage-managers, and she had managed all three. Mr. Rooney's boast was +that no star had ever managed him and that he had successfully staged +every play he had undertaken; hence a spec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>tacular salary. Also he felt +that his reputation was at stake in the Hawtry duel, and he was +determined to back his own method.</p> + +<p>"Scene first, act first; Betty Carrington is discovered on stage. Go to +it, Betty!" he commanded as Fido took a seat at the end of the table, +opened a copy of the first act, and sat ready for annotations.</p> + +<p>"How beautiful the morning is and—" the glowering Miss Blanche Grayson +was beginning to read from her cerulean booklet, when an interruption +occurred.</p> + +<p>Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday entered from the stage door.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford looked at Mr. Rooney, and muttered under his breath: +"Angel and author, Bill. Easy!"</p> + +<p>"Shoot," answered Mr. Rooney, in a mild undertone, though he glared at +the company as though in a cold rage.</p> + +<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Miss Adair, the author of +our play. You have all of you met Mr. Farraday. Mr. Rooney, our +stage-director, Miss Adair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> and Mr. Farraday." Mr. Vandeford made the +introductions as rapidly as possible and in a voice of such coolness +that Miss Adair looked at him in astonishment and then at the assembled +company with great timidity. With special trepidation did she regard Mr. +Rooney, who had bobbed his scrubby, black-mopped head at her with no +expression at all in his little black eyes, while he refused to see Mr. +Farraday's offered hand.</p> + +<p>"Have seats in the left stage-box," he directed them in the same tone of +voice with which he had quelled Miss Hawtry. "Now, get going there, +Betty Carrington, and open again."</p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford led Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday out into the wings in a +roundabout path to the left stage-box, and paused with them out of sight +of Mr. Rooney. Then the humanity came back into his face and voice as he +spoke to his friends in an undertone.</p> + +<p>"Rooney is the genius among stage-directors, but he's the original and +genuine Tartar. How are you both?" As he asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> the question he held out +a hand to each of them, and his smile held the cordiality to which they +were both accustomed.</p> + +<p>"We had a blow-out on Riverside Drive, and that's what makes us late. +Now I've got to take the car around to the garage," Mr. Farraday +apologized, as he rumpled his leonine mane, fanned himself with his hat, +and departed.</p> + +<p>Miss Adair fairly clung to the hand of friendship offered her, with +relief that it had not been withdrawn forever, as she had feared from +the coolness of Mr. Vandeford's greeting before the assembled company of +"The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," she murmured with both alarm and amusement sparkling in +her gray eyes, in which Mr. Vandeford found himself searching for a +certain expression with the eagerness with which he always looked for it +after even a brief separation from his author. It was there and +undimmed. "Let's go sit down where he told us to," Miss Adair +whispered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good girl!" laughed Mr. Vandeford as he led the way to the left +stage-box to which Mr. Rooney had summarily banished the author and the +angel. He seated Miss Adair at the front edge of the box and took the +chair close at her left. She was thus bulwarked and buttressed for any +assault that might be hurled her way. It came in a very few minutes.</p> + +<p>Miss Bébé Herne and Miss Mildred Lindsey were in the midst of reading an +animated dialogue on page five by the time Miss Adair's attention was +firmly riveted on the stage and the reading in progress. Fortunately the +little scene was of her own writing. Mr. +<a name="corr21" id="corr21"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn21" title="changed from 'Vanderford'">Vandeford</a> +had put it back into +the play instead of the paraphrase Mr. Howard had made of it, and he was +surprised to find how deeply grateful he was to himself for having given +her this bit as he watched the home-made color rise under the gray eyes +as the author sat and heard her written words come to life in a little +bit of really sparkling character comedy, which both Miss Lindsey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> and +experienced Bébé were acting as well as reading in such a way as to +bring out all the charm of the lines. The happiness of both author and +producer lasted about two minutes, then it was broken into by Mr. +William Rooney with a crash.</p> + +<p>"Nuff, there, nuff!" he commanded, in the midst of a quaint epigram, +which Bébé was delivering with unction. "Audiences don't want to hear +smart babble after their seats are all down. They want to see the star +and get going. Cut in Miss Hawtry at the second set-to of Harriet and +aunt. Take it this way: 'And my dear Rosalind has said, Harriet—' Enter +Rosalind with the line you have there."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's time for me to get on and—" Miss Hawtry was agreeing +complacently, when she was quickly snapped off in her remark.</p> + +<p>"Line, Miss Hawtry, not gab," Mr. Rooney commanded.</p> + +<p>Instantly Miss Hawtry was reading from her lines and faithful Fido was +making anno<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>tations upon his manuscript with strokes that spelled +finality to the stricken author, who raised her protesting eyes to the +producer of her play.</p> + +<p>"Steady now," Mr. Vandeford whispered. "This is the first reading, and +he's setting. We can't side-track him now. Later you can—" but the +author's attention was caught by the dialogue between Miss +Hawtry and Bébé, which was the first full dose of the Howard +fifteen-hundred-dollar, inebriate, but very brilliant and Hawtry-like, +"pep."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I didn't write that at all!" she whispered, as she fairly shrank +against Mr. Vandeford's strength of mind, if not against the strength of +his arm that he had laid across the back of her chair.</p> + +<p>"Just sit still and listen to-day as though it were somebody else's +play, and we will talk it over afterward. You know I—I warned you," he +whispered with soothing tenderness, his lips almost against her ear in +the dusk of the box.</p> + +<p>"I promised, and I will," she answered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> him, and he was at a loss to +know if she really did flutter to him a fraction of an inch as he had +suspected her of doing in his car on the night of her début on Broadway. +The charm of Kentucky girls is composed of many illusions and realities, +which they themselves hardly understand, and use by hereditary instinct.</p> + +<p>And with her proud head poised in all stateliness, Miss Patricia Adair +sat for five solid hours and heard "The Purple Slipper," <i>née</i> "The +Renunciation of Rosalind," read from first to last page by the people +who were to present it to the public; and Mr. Vandeford found his heart +bleeding for the thrusts into hers. Not a protest did she make, but the +roses faded and the gray eyes sank far back behind their black defending +lashes, and they were glittering with suppressed tears as the wearied +company rose to its feet after the last line.</p> + +<p>"Here to-morrow at eleven sharp," were Mr. Rooney's words of dismissal +as he and Fido followed the company in their hurried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> exit toward the +stage-door, with not so much as a glance at the box in which sat the +stricken author.</p> + +<p>And there alone, off the dismal and dismantled stage in the cool dusk of +the box, producer and author faced each other and the situation.</p> + +<p>"If my grandfather were not—not—dying, I'd take it right home and burn +it all up!" were the first words the author of "The Purple Slipper" gave +utterance to, after the last echo of the last footstep had died off the +stage.</p> + +<p>"You couldn't, you've sold it to—to me," Mr. Vandeford answered with a +coolness in his voice that restored her mental balance, as he had +intended it should. "Now answer me truly; is it or is it not a good +play?"</p> + +<p>"It's not my play; it's horrid and vulgar!" the author stormed, with +lightning burning up the tears in her gray eyes.</p> + +<p>"That whole situation is exactly as you wrote it, and about a third of +the lines are yours, or will be yours by the time it is at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> the first +night, if you play the game. I have not decided whether I think it is a +good play or not. If I think it isn't, you may have it and burn it up. I +don't know what Rooney thinks yet. If he doesn't want to go on, I +won't." Mr. Vandeford had known the women of many climes, and he found +himself using that experience on Miss Adair with great skill, though it +hurt him to do so.</p> + +<p>"Part of it I don't even understand," Miss Adair continued to storm, and +Mr. Vandeford was about to discover that either a Blue-grass woman or +horse, with the bit in their respective mouths, is mighty apt to go a +pace before curbed. "What was that scene in the last act just before the +dinner-party? She read so fast and he had his back to me, so I suppose +that is the reason I didn't get it." Miss Adair was alluding to the +scene whose vulgarity Mr. Vandeford had wished to sacrifice, but which +Mr. Meyers had pleaded for on account of its extra dash of "pep" exactly +suited to the Hawtry style.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You won't be able to judge the Hawtry scenes at all until the opening +night," Mr. Vandeford answered, positively quaking in his boots for fear +that Miss Adair would force him to an elucidation of the scene, which +was mostly of the cleverest innuendo. "She is a miserable study, and she +and Height rehearse the big scenes alone. She just walks through with +the company. Truly, you can hardly judge anything of what a play will be +from just a reading or from any rehearsal. Please trust me and help me +as you promised you would."</p> + +<p>"But the play isn't mine, at all! My play is—is killed—and dead, and +murdered." Miss Adair persisted, still writhing from the butchery.</p> + +<p>"It is your play; but granting that it isn't, at all, think what it will +mean to all of us if this—this nobody's play succeeds. Think what it +will mean to the actors in the company. Miss Lindsey was hungry when she +got her first advance on your play, and Bébé Herne hasn't had a part +that suited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> her so well in years. If it goes she ought to have enough +to make her easy; and she is getting old now—"</p> + +<p>"If you'll say and tell everybody that the play isn't mine, of course +I'll help you, and—" Miss Adair agreed, with the tears dried by the +anger and a degree of sanity returning at Mr. Vandeford's skilful appeal +to her generosity, which he made when he saw that his attempt to bluff +her about calling off the play had failed. Mr. William Rooney came into +the box. His hat was tilted on the back of his head and in the corner of +his mouth was a large cigar, which he was chewing and not smoking. He +seated himself without invitation and spoke with his usual abruptness:</p> + +<p>"That play is a hummer, Vandeford, if I can just make the dolts put it +across. It is a genuine Hawtry vehicle, but in a new vein. It's a +corking situation and yet rings true. Did any old dame really have the +spunk to put that dinner-party across on both lover and husband that +you've got in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> your play, miss?" As Mr. Rooney asked the question of +Miss Adair, it was the first time that he had seemed aware of the +existence of the author of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"It's not my play, Mr. Rooney," Miss Adair said haughtily to the +thick-skinned genius. "That—that situation is—was—is true, however."</p> + +<p>"Then it's your play all right!" declared Mr. Rooney. "The situation is +all there is to any play. The staging is the rest. Anybody can put in +good lines. Any simp can doll up the actors in costumes, and one actor +can put the ideas across pretty near as good as any other, if he's +directed all right; but when it's done, the play is the man's or woman's +who made the first layout of the idea—and what the stage-manager does +to it. Author and stage manager, I say. The rest is easy."</p> + +<p>"That's what I've been telling Miss Adair," Mr. Vandeford eagerly +assented.</p> + +<p>"And authors ought to go off and die until the first night, too," Mr. +Rooney con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>tinued to say. "When I staged 'Only Annie' for E. and K., I +told that author if he came on my stage any more at rehearsals I would +biff him one in the nutt, and I meant it, too. His thinks and mine ran +into each other so bad that I was near crazed."</p> + +<p>"But an author writes a play and he or she knows—" Miss Adair was +beginning to say to Mr. Rooney with kind patience, when he interrupted +her as he rose to take his departure.</p> + +<p>"The author oughter write all he knows and let it go at that," he said +as he spat on the carpet of the box with no sign of compunction. "The +stage-manager can do the rest." And with no form of leave-taking he +departed.</p> + +<p>"And the American drama has to be filtered through that sort of—of +illiteracy?" Miss Adair turned and demanded of Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"The American drama is often written by people who have been too closely +associated with books on a library shelf, so that it needs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> to be +filtered through a little gross humanity to get across to—humanity in +the gross, which pays to see it. If a scholar writes and produces a play +scholars go to see it all right, but all the scholars in America only +fill one theater twice, and then what is to become of scholar and wife +and children, as well as producer, manager, and theater-owner?" Mr. +Vandeford spoke slowly, choosing his words.</p> + +<p>"Aren't any of the stage-managers educated gentlemen?" demanded Miss +Adair, with an interest that was fast becoming impersonal, for she had +the wit to see that in some ways Mr. Vandeford's summary of the +situation between author and stage-manager was sound.</p> + +<p>"Yes, a few, but not the most successful ones," answered Mr. Vandeford. +"I tell you truly that a stage-manager has to be a genius to succeed. He +must be a man with a vision and sheer brutality enough to put the vision +that he gets from his conception of the play he is producing into +twenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> other mentalities and make them present the play as a harmonious +whole to an audience. He cannot be a respecter of persons while he is +pounding, and he must not be interfered with or his vision is obscured +and the play loses. Do you see what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Then an author ought to produce his own plays," Miss Adair decided very +promptly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a whimsical smile down into the +eager, pale, intensely creative face raised to his. "When an author is +born who will study years until he is an expert electrician, other years +in great studios until he can paint scenery that is a work of art, delve +into old books until he knows costuming of thousands of periods in +hundreds of lands and how to sketch it, then gives himself to the +studying of stagecraft and the writing of half a hundred plays until he +writes one that is really great; after which, if he has the strength and +the nerves to produce that play, we will all go to see the great human +drama. That is, if he has had time to live with and in the hearts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> +people so as to supply that gross sympathy with the masses who buy +tickets which Rooney got while climbing out of the gutter. God grant he +comes some day to America—but you are not he!"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not," admitted Miss Adair, with her eyes smiling back into his +whimsically, "but what you say makes me see that the—the +producer—<i>you</i> are the whole thing. You get it all—me and Mr. Rooney +and Miss Hawtry together and pound us into—into a play. I make that +acknowledgment."</p> + +<p>"If you ask the stage-manager he will say that the success of a play is +his; the costumer will claim that success; the star knows it is his or +hers, and the lead is sure that it is due to the support; the author +surely has some claim to draw the huge royalties, and the location of +his theater makes the theater-owner know that any play in that theater +will go. Yes, the producer will always claim the whole show if it all +goes well. If it fails the show then belongs entirely to the producer, +who picked it in its manuscript<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> stage, and he is no good as a producer. +If he fails a few times hand-running, to the scrap heap with him!"</p> + +<p>"But you've never failed," Miss Adair exclaimed, with a dart of fear in +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"My last show, 'Miss Cut-up,' was a flivver all right, though we just +saved our faces. But I've got a show now that will put me in electric +light for two years hand-running and—" Mr. Vandeford was in a panic as +he realized that he was going so far in that curious thinking out loud +to Miss Adair that he had been about to launch forth on "The Rosie Posie +Girl" to her. It would have been like telling a friend the plans of his +own funeral with enthusiasm, as it would be obvious to her that Hawtry +would have to fail in and drop "The Purple Slipper" before becoming the +triumphant "Rosie Posie Girl."</p> + +<p>"I'm willing to—to let them cut my play all up if—if it will really +run two years and make your reputation more brilliant than it is," Miss +Adair said, interrupting his pause<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> of consternation at his near +betrayal of his plans. She spoke with the worshipful uplift of her gray +eyes to his that had betrayed him in the first place to such a confusion +of schemes. "If it added anything to it, I would even be willing to let +you put the Adair name to the vulgar thing they read here to-day, but it +wouldn't help it anywhere except in Louisville and Cincinnati and +Nashville and Atlanta and New Orleans and Richmond. People don't know us +in New York, and any name will do here; so mine won't—won't have to be +disgraced."</p> + +<p>"Please don't say that!" pleaded Mr. Vandeford with consternation in his +soul as he thought of the development of the Howard "pep" Hawtry would +make as the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper" progressed. "It is the +same thing with Miss Hawtry as it is with Mr. Rooney; she has a—a kind +of gutter drag that gets across to the multitude, and of course your +play had to be—be fitted to her. Hawtry, to be Hawtry, has to do and +say things that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> couldn't write at all, that you couldn't very well +understand; but they'll get the crowd going and coming. Please give me +your promise again to sit tight and see it through—or go home and leave +it all to me." Mr. Vandeford was surprised to feel how hard his heart +beat, and he was afraid that it sounded like the echo of an anvil chorus +in the big empty theater.</p> + +<p>"I never have to give promises a second time, and this is the last time +I am ever going to cry out," Miss Adair answered him, with a lift to her +proud little head. "I am going to stay right here and help if I can, and +learn. But I won't in any way distress or—or trouble you. Please don't +get me on your mind!"</p> + +<p>"I won't get you on my mind," Mr. Vandeford answered out loud—"because +I've got you in my heart, poor kiddie," he continued to himself, in a +kind of desperation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dennis Farraday burst in upon the dusk of the theater and the +tragedy of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> situation. He was vastly excited and he waved a letter +in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you Patricia Adair, why didn't you tell me that you are old Roger +Adair's sister?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you mean about Roger? Do you know—"</p> + +<p>"Do I know him? Just listen to this, will you, and here I've <i>not</i> been +handing you around on a silver salver for two weeks!" He then read the +following letter aloud to Miss Adair and Mr. Vandeford:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="author">Adairville, Kentucky.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Denny</span>:</p> + +<p>Well, here I am! I'm the Captain of my county in the Army of the +Furrows, and hope to turn in many thousand pounds of food stuffs +for you people in New York to live on. In the meantime Miss +Patricia Adair, my sister, is going to New York to see to the +putting on of a play she has written for one Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. +She is the greatest girl ever, and you stay right on the job seeing +that things go right for her while I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> plant these potatoes to keep +you from starving. She will be at the Y. W. C. A. and will sleep +and eat safe enough, but you look out for her and don't let her get +homesick. If she needs me, of course I will come, but she's a +plucky child and you are the best ever, so I'll go on ploughing +with a free mind. Let me know how it all goes. What sort of a chap +is that Vandeford?</p> + +<p class="author"> +Yours as always and forever,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Roger</span>.<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>"Can you beat it?" demanded good Dennis, with a blaze of friendship in +his eyes as he regarded Miss Patricia Adair. "It was forwarded from my +old office number to my new, to Westchester to Nantucket, back to my +office, and finally arrived this morning. I've just sent Roger a +thousand-word telegram, and I hope he never knows that I was off the job +ten days. Give that child here to me, Van, and go get a report on your +character for me before you look at her again. Roger Adair is the best +friend I've got on earth, next to you, and you'd better watch your +step."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I like his steps," Miss Adair said, and again Mr. Vandeford felt +uncertain as to that curious little flutter that was like a nestling of +which he felt he was never to be certain and which Mr. Farraday did not +seem to observe at all.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you know that Roger was turning you over to me, young lady? Why +have you side-stepped me?" Mr. Farraday demanded of the young author, in +a voice of great severity.</p> + +<p>"I thought that Roger was going to write to a Mr. Denny about me; and I +didn't write to him that Mr. Denny hadn't come to take care of me +because—because I was afraid he'd leave his work and come up to look +after me himself. I didn't remember the Farraday part of your name at +all. Roger always said 'Denny.'"</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose I'll have to accept that excuse, as it sounds fairly +reasonable; but I'd like to know, Van, why you have been keeping my +child here in this musty old theater until past luncheon time when she +must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> be both tired and hungry. Come out to Claremont to luncheon, both +of you, this minute," Mr. Farraday both questioned and commanded, with +pure delight in his voice and manner. "I'll go run the car around to the +door, so you won't have to walk in the sun." And he departed as quickly +as he had come.</p> + +<p>That night Mr. Vandeford lay stretched on his bed in a dark coolness, +with his hands clasped over his eyes, when Mr. Farraday came in with his +latch-key at twelve-thirty.</p> + +<p>"Denny?" he asked from the darkness as Mr. Farraday was tiptoeing past +his open door, through which the southern sea-breeze was pouring, "'What +sort of chap <i>is</i> that Vandeford?'"</p> + +<p>"The telegram I sent read, 'the best ever.'"</p> + +<p>"Are you competent to judge me?"</p> + +<p>"I am."</p> + +<p>"Good-night!"</p> + +<p>For an hour before this masculine version of a scene a feminine real +thing was being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> conducted in the two little dotted-muslin-curtained +cells at the Y. W. C. A. Miss Adair was telling Miss Lindsey "all about +it," and sparks and tears both were in the atmosphere. The explosion was +brought on by Miss Lindsey remarking to Miss Adair:</p> + +<p>"You know, honey lady, that play of yours is simply ripping, but it is +not at all like—like what I thought it would be from hearing you and +Mr. Farraday tell it."</p> + +<p>"It's not my play at all; it's Mr. Vandeford's. He got somebody to fit +it to Miss Hawtry," replied Miss Adair, calmly, as she began to brush +her dark, sleek mane.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" demanded Miss Lindsey, in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"He just took the dinner situation in my play and got a man to make a +new one out of it that is—is vulgar enough to appeal to the New York +theater-goers. He let everybody put in anything they wanted to, instead +of what I wrote. He left in a little of mine to compliment me. It's all +right,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> because nobody would have gone to see my play if anybody goes to +see—see his." Miss Adair went on calmly with the fifty-third stroke on +her raven tresses, but her eyes were beginning to blaze.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Vandeford's a complete fool," was on the tip of Miss Lindsey's +tongue, but she remembered her main chance, which was the favor of Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, and said instead: "I wish you would let me see a copy +of the play as you wrote it. Have you one?"</p> + +<p>"I have, in my trunk, and I'll read it to you," answered Miss Adair, and +in defensive pride she produced a copy of "The Purple Slipper," which +bore the unexpurgated title of "The Renunciation of Rosalind," and +proceeded to read it to Miss Lindsey, with both fire and tragedy in her +voice.</p> + +<p>The operation occupied the two hours before midnight, and Miss Lindsey +lay prostrate when it was finished.</p> + +<p>"Now, what do you think?" demanded Miss Adair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wish I could have had the making of it over, and for myself instead +of Hawtry. That's no play as it stands, but there is a dandy one to be +worked up from it that you—you—that would be like you," was the reply +that Miss Lindsey gave as she looked out into distance, with glowing +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do you think that—that horrid play will be a success?" asked Miss +Adair, with her voice sparkling.</p> + +<p>"I do," answered Miss Lindsey. "And it is curious that with all its +changes it is still—still yours. There is a lot more of your stuff left +than you realize, and the turns that—that Mr. Vandeford's playwright +has given it are very clever. Lots of times he's just paraphrased your +lines into Hawtryites. It will be interesting to see how much of you is +left when we all come out of the wash for the first night."</p> + +<p>"I wish I were dead and buried!" she was surprised to hear Miss Adair +confess, and there then ensued a downpour, which the hardier Western +girl weathered for very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> love of the young Southern tempest in her arms.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I ought to go home, out of the way, but I'm going to stay +and—and learn—and write another one all by myself," she finally +sobbed, with returning courage, thus comforting herself with the resolve +which every playwright who ever built a play has used to keep from going +entirely mad during the rehearsals of his first play.</p> + +<p>"Just try to live until the New York opening, and then see how you feel. +That is the way actors do to keep going during the awful grilling of the +rehearsals and the road try-out," advised Miss Lindsey, with great +soothing.</p> + +<p>"I will," promised Miss Adair, and turned her face on her pillow, to +sleep, while Miss Lindsey took herself and her jar of cold-cream into +her own cell.</p> + +<p>"I wish I had a chance at that play! What'll she do when she sees Hawtry +and Height really in action in some of those scenes?" she murmured into +her own pillow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> + +<p>The next morning Miss Adair rose, donned a most lovely home-spun linen +gown, which was of an old ivory hue and which had been spun upon the +looms of her great-great-great grandmother by that lady's slaves, +crowned this toilet with the floppy hat covered with crushed roses she +and Miss Lindsey and Mr. Farraday had purchased, and reported herself +about an hour late at the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper," whose +authorship she had repudiated. She seated herself in the dusk of the +left stage-box and bared her breast for blows. They came fast and +furious, but other breasts and heads beside her own suffered. Mr. +William Rooney was in full action. The entire company was on the stage +in the midst of the last ensemble bit in the first act, all talking and +acting with blue booklets of lines in their hands.</p> + +<p>"Here you, Mr. Kent," roared Mr. Rooney as he rose from behind his +table, at one side of which sat faithful Fido annotating his copy of the +manuscript, "make up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> to that old lady like she was the last ham +sandwich extinct and you knew you were going to be fed on alfalfa the +rest of your life. Get her going, man, get her going! She's an old fool, +and you know it, but you've got to have her plantation and slaves. You +can keep a chorus-girl car in the garage if you just get her well +fooled. Fool along, fool along!"</p> + +<p>"'I will write the message to your son, Madam Carrington, and dispatch +it forthwith by one of my own black boys. Is my hand not ever ready for +your service and my wit—and also my heart?'" declaimed Mr. Kent with +satisfactory fervor, as he kissed Miss Herne's fat white hand.</p> + +<p>"Now blob, Miss Herne, blob!" directed Mr. Rooney, coming entirely from +behind the table. "You are the fool of this show and don't let anybody +get that away from you."</p> + +<p>"'I pray a blessing on your excellent friendship, Judge Cheneworth, and +I will rest me content in—'" Miss Herne an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>swered in a most excellent +imitation of the helplessness of an old grand dame.</p> + +<p>"Break in there, Miss Lindsey, break in!" raved Mr. Rooney. "'Content +in' is your cue. Grab it. Remember you are just the sister and only in +the play to swell the list of actors on the program, so grab and keep +a-grabbing if you want a place on the salary list. Now, everybody on at +Miss Lindsey's lines and break up this drivel between the old birds."</p> + +<p>"'Mother, Rosalind bids me say to you that—'"</p> + +<p>"Crowd on everybody, crowd on, and keep things going! It will be nine +o'clock by now, and we'll have to begin to feed the audience the hugging +by a quarter to ten or they will go out and look elsewhere.—Say, Mr. +Leigh, are your feet mates? You don't handle 'em even."</p> + +<p>Miss Adair rose and stole from the box to the stage-door, and looked up +and down the street to see if Mr. Vandeford was approaching. She felt +that she could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> stand more alone. He was nowhere in sight, and she +decided to walk around the block and see if the sun at ninety degrees +would warm her chill. After this journey she returned to her post and +found the box still empty. Mr. Vandeford had not arrived nor had Mr. +Farraday, but she seated herself resolutely. She was just in time to +witness a pitched battle between Miss Hawtry and Mr. Rooney.</p> + +<p>"If you are determined to walk through the scenes, Miss Hawtry, do it +awake and not asleep!" stormed Mr. Rooney.</p> + +<p>"Very well," answered Miss Hawtry, but Miss Adair's heart warmed to her +as she noted the contemptuousness in her manner directed toward her +stage-manager.</p> + +<p>"Now see here, Height, you know that you want to get away with this +woman before her husband gets back. You can't do it with kid gloves on. +Spit on your hands, man, and grab her by the hair. You say: 'Rosalind, a +strong man's love is a weapon which a woman can easily turn against +her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>self with deadly outcome,' like you were begging her to go with you +over to Ligget's for an ice-cream soda with crushed strawberries. Say it +this way." And as she sat astounded Miss Adair heard a line that she had +written in a sympathetic fervor of imagination and which was perhaps her +favorite in the whole play, uttered by Mr. William Rooney with the most +exquisite and manly feeling, while his homely, vulgar face and body were +transformed into the same exquisiteness. A breathless happiness +descended upon her, and she waited in it to hear the beautiful Mr. +Gerald Height give utterance to it with the same art. Miss Hawtry +brought her to earth.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rooney," she said with an utter lack of appreciation or +comprehension of the bit of high art that had flashed upon her, "it is +in my contract with Mr. Vandeford that I rehearse my scenes alone with +my support until the dress rehearsal."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I might have judged that from 'Miss Cut-up,'" Mr. Rooney answered +her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> with a blow straight from his shoulder. "Give little sister her +cue, Height, and let her run on to rescue you. God knows you need it!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rooney, I'll have you understand—" Miss Hawtry came to the center +to continue her tirade, when Mr. Rooney struck the decisive blow.</p> + +<p>"Everybody on and begin the scene over!" he commanded right past the +enraged star. "Take it up, Kent, with Miss Herne at 'I will write the +message to your son,' and get her going, get her going!"</p> + +<p>At this forceful command the machinery of "The Purple Slipper" was set +in motion, and swept Miss Hawtry off center and into her place for the +time being.</p> + +<p>And despite herself Miss Adair was fascinated in watching the machine +grind away, with now and then a spark from Mr. Rooney that took fire in +the very core of her heart or brain or solar plexus—wherever "The +Renunciation of Rosalind" had been conceived. Miss Adair did not know +what it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> was that thus affected her, but she had got hold of her end of +the psychic cord along which the author feeds the hostile stage-manager +in such a manner that on the first night of a successful play they can +say to each other with clasped hands and wet eyes, "Well done!"</p> + +<p>And while Miss Adair sat under the spell of Mr. Rooney, Mr. Vandeford +sat in his big chair in his office and fought a battle for "The Purple +Slipper" that resulted in a draw that filled him with anxiety.</p> + +<p>"I can find only one open booking in New York for October first, Mr. +Vandeford, sir," Mr. Meyers was saying, with trouble settled in a cloud +upon his broad brow. "I have it fairly good for the road for 'The Purple +Slipper' until October first, and then it is a jump to Toronto or +Minneapolis, which is into the grave."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that one opening on Broadway is Weiner's New Carnival +Theater," Mr. Vandeford asked as though the question were useless.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You have it right," answered Mr. Meyers. "Still, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it +is always failures that leave Broadway openings into which road shows +can jump."</p> + +<p>"Until last year, yes, Pops, but now New York is so full of people with +munition and war-contract money in their pockets that any show, no +matter how rotten, that gets in a Broadway theater plays to capacity and +stays. They'd go to 'The Old District Skule' because the doors were open +and there is no other place to go. What are we going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I advise that you see Mr. Breit and trust to some very big failure to +give you a place. It is that he will always give you a preference," +answered Mr. Meyers with little hope, but determination.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Breit will let me in if there is a squeezing chance, but Breit +doesn't own a theater, nor do I, or you, Pops; and I don't blame the +fellows who do own them for filling them with their own cheap companies +and plays so as to get their buckets under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> the whole golden stream. Why +give money away to any independent producer?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Breit said that he had news that Mr. Weiner would open that New +Carnival with a Hilliard show, name not given," Mr. Meyers added to the +information already prepared for Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"I'll see goose-grease frying out of him in Inferno before he gets it," +said Mr. Vandeford, coolly. "I know that is his game, but I'll put +across this 'Purple Slipper' with Hawtry and keep my 'Rosie Posie Girl' +until I get good and ready to let her play it. Then I'll produce it to +the tune of a half-million dollars and not Mr. Weiner. I've never been +squeezed, and I'm not going to have this rotten game beat me. I'll go +over and see Breit and he'll jockey me a corner on Broadway, somehow. +Back at three." And Mr. Vandeford walked out of his office as coolly as +though not sizzling inwardly with anxiety.</p> + +<p>"I've got you next on the booking of about four-fifths of the theaters +on Broad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>way, Van," said Mr. Breit, the booking king, as he and Mr. +Vandeford smoked leisurely cigars in his big, cool office. "You should +worry! E. and K. and S. and Z. are bound to pick some flivvers and in +you go. Loaf on the road and lose money like a little man."</p> + +<p>"My contract expires with Hawtry if I don't present her on Broadway by +September fifteenth."</p> + +<p>"That <i>is</i> a bit of a pickle! But she won't have any show to jump into, +and she'll compromise with you; won't she?"</p> + +<p>"She'll have to," Mr. Vandeford declared. "Coming down to Atlantic City +to see 'The Purple Slipper' open two weeks from Monday, September +twenty-third?"</p> + +<p>"I'll be there. Rooney says it is a go; says little genius amateur wrote +it and Grant Howard 'pepped' it. That right?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. By!"</p> + +<p>An hour later, in the coolness and seclusion of the grill room of The +Monks, Mr. Vandeford was imparting his predicament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> to his partner in +the venture and adventures of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"And you are worrying about whether Miss Hawtry will stay by us for the +few weeks we'll have to loaf on the road or even close while waiting for +the New York opening?" questioned Mr. Farraday. "Say, aren't you a bit +unjust in your judgment of her, Van?"</p> + +<p>"I know the whole tribe of actors, and you don't, Denny," answered Mr. +Vandeford, over a tall glass of iced tea he was drinking; he didn't know +exactly why, but the habit had grown on him lately.</p> + +<p>"Then why not try to put her under contract for those few indefinite +weeks?" suggested Mr. Farraday, over his cup of hot coffee.</p> + +<p>"You talk as though we were dealing with sane people," answered Mr. +Vandeford. "She's got us and she'll keep us guessing up to the last +minute, and then put some kind of screws on. I have got to figure out +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> likely ones, to see what I can do to jam them."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, ask her. I think she'll stand by us. I know she will," +said Mr. Farraday, with both faith and conviction in his voice. "You do +her an injustice, I say!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to make her any request or offer, Denny. I can't," said +Mr. Vandeford, as he looked at the ice floating in his glass of tea.</p> + +<p>"Of course," assented Mr. Farraday, with pained sympathy in his big +voice. "Would you like me to sound her out?"</p> + +<p>"It's half your show; go ahead. She probably knows the situation and has +made her plans for the squeeze or double-cross, but you might try her +out," consented Mr. Vandeford, with a shrewd glance at Mr. Farraday. +"But I wish you wouldn't, Denny," he added, with a sudden glow of +affection in his eyes. Then he was restrained from further remonstrance +with Mr. Farraday by the thought of the author of "The Purple Slipper" +and her plucky sticking by the play<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> through the thick and thin of her +disapproval of it. Again he offered up his big Jonathan as a sacrifice +in hopes of improving the prospects of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>Mr. Farraday took Miss Hawtry into his confidence about the predicament +of finding a New York theater for his play, "The Purple Slipper," that +very evening, out on the veranda of the Beach Inn, where he had motored +her by request for dinner after her fatiguing rehearsals, which she had +made still more fatiguing for Mr. William Rooney.</p> + +<p>"And Van sent you to ask me if I was going to stick by?" she asked, with +an effective quaver in her voice.</p> + +<p>"He felt that we had no right to—to tie you up for indefinite weeks," +said Mr. Farraday, constructing and temporizing at the same time.</p> + +<p>"Did you think as little of me as he did?"</p> + +<p>"No, by George, I knew you'd stick by us, and I said so!" Mr. Farraday +exploded with genuine emotion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Thank you. You know me after these few weeks better than he does after +all these years of—" And the Violet bent her head on Mr. Farraday's +nearest arm and began to weep softly. They were in a secluded corner of +the veranda of the Inn, and the Violet raged at herself for having +closed the complete seclusion of Highcliff for herself and her purposes +by renting it to the Trevors when she had gone to town to the rehearsals +of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>And as good Dennis Farraday had no valid reason, either within or +without the law for not doing so, he put consoling and comforting arms +about her, and exposed his wide, silk-garbed shoulder to the rain of her +tears, which were not really raining. In his big heart there was the +same comforting for this conspirator as there would have been for Mr. +Vandeford's lawful widow, and he administered it with the same +affectionate respect that he would have used to the relict.</p> + +<p>"You're a dear, wonderful little woman!" he was saying, when the voice +of the Clyde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> Trevors was heard calling to them from around the veranda, +and an oath rose in the Violet with such force that she almost allowed +it to explode. Still she felt sure of her ultimate results.</p> + +<p>"You can count on me to stand by you and the play forever," she +promised, and the hurried pressure of their lips in the soft, dark, +sea-perfumed air was biologically inevitable.</p> + +<p>Mr. Godfrey Vandeford had woven a tangled web when he had let fall the +purple letter on the purple manuscript and gone out recklessly to follow +the hunch their juxtaposition implied.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>The first two weeks of September spent in torrid New York were a strange +period of time to have projected itself into the calm life of Miss +Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Suddenly she found herself a cog +screwed tight into a rapid-fire piece of machinery that was running at +top speed night and day, by name, "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>For long hours she sat in the coolness of that stage-box and held her +breath while she threw her whole self into the building of the play, +which so fascinatingly was and was not hers. And through all those +hours, close at her side, between her and the big dim theater, sat Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, with his arm across the back of her chair and his +eager face close to hers and tilted at the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> angle. Her slightest +murmur or his lowest whisper caught and was answered, and they almost +seemed to be breathing one breath, so absorbed were they in the destiny +of their mutual adventure. Like all women of her kind, Patricia Adair +had known men only through a cloud, which sex traditions had firmly held +between her and them, and Godfrey Vandeford was the first man she had +encountered since she had slipped outside of its deadening density into +a world where men and women endeavored together first, and left their +sentinel undertakings to a fitting secondary time and place. In all +sincerity she accepted him as a co-worker and was as happy working with +him as it was possible for a woman to be. She specially liked being +beside him in the office, and watched him settle the details of the +running the big machine smoothly, from the hiring of the property-man to +the firing of three successive stage-carpenters.</p> + +<p>"Real eats, Mr. Vandeford?" the former had inquired one morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Brown-bread turkey, nice and tasty, good crackers, but soda-pop and so +forth for booze. Remember, they've got to face it, we hope, many weeks; +don't turn their stomachs so they'll all gag."</p> + +<p>"I see, sir, I see. I fed 'Maple Leaves' for two years, and they all et +every night and gimme a purse when it closed to go to London."</p> + +<p>"Goes!"</p> + +<p>"Brown-bread turkey sounds nice. I'm hungry," said Miss Adair, as the +good-providing property-man departed.</p> + +<p>"Pop is going to bring us a piece of pie and a bottle of milk from the +automat," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he began putting busy stabs with +the press pencil on a pile of papers. "I ought to send him to get Denny +to motor you for a real feed in the cool somewhere, but I want you +here." With perfect unconcern, he went on checking the list the +property-man had left him. He had ceased trying to decide the meaning of +the flutter which he was not sure Miss Adair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> really gave when she was +pleased. He was too busy to think about anything but the rush and roar +of the machinery of "The Purple Slipper," so he just kept Miss Adair so +near him for all the waking hours of the day that he could have no +occasion to have his thoughts distracted by worrying over just what +might be befalling her. Day after day he extracted her from the Y. W. C. +A. at ten o'clock <span class="smcap">a. m.</span>, fed her and Miss Lindsey coffee and rolls and +berries just any place that they happened to see (often he even ate with +the two girls in the big empty cafeteria at the institution), lunched +with her in the same haphazard fashion, sought a cool and quiet spot to +give her dinner, and a ride on a country road, turned her into the big +safety at about eleven o'clock, and went to bed to sleep the sleep of +the interestedly absorbed.</p> + +<p>The few evenings that Miss Adair spent with Mr. Gerald Height Mr. +Vandeford did not find repose so early or with such ease. Also, his +awakening on those mornings after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> was not so joyous, and he arrived at +the Y. W. C. A. fifteen and twenty minutes too early upon each occasion.</p> + +<p>However, his time was well spent in chatting with the brisk young +secretary, and his anxiety was entirely relieved each time by finding +the look intact in the gray eyes raised to his in eager greeting after +the prolonged absence of fourteen hours, when the usual separation was +about ten.</p> + +<p>"We went out to a place called the Beach Inn last night, and whom do you +suppose we saw there?" she demanded on one of the mornings after, over +her bowl of halved peaches.</p> + +<p>"Mr. and Mrs. Devil?" he asked, with a sparkle breaking through the +frown with which he had instantly greeted her mention of that gay beach +resort.</p> + +<p>"No; Miss Hawtry and Mr. Farraday. She wasn't nice to us at all, but Mr. +Height says she always treats him badly when they are rehearsing +together. I think Mr. Height is perfectly wonderful to her on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> +stage. He's so gentle and kind; but then he's that in real life, isn't +he?"</p> + +<p>"Is he?" growled Mr. Vandeford over his corn-flakes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he's so just and fine in the way he speaks about everybody. He +told me how poor Miss Hawtry used to be and how you pushed her along +until she could buy that lovely house we passed, in which the Trevors +are staying while she is in town. It is hard on you, too, not to be out +there boarding with them and her instead of in this heat."</p> + +<p>"Did Height say that I—I boarded—out there?" demanded Mr. Vandeford, +pushing his coffee-cup away from him with a sudden snap.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he said you stayed out there in the summer always, and—"</p> + +<p>"We're late," interrupted Mr. Vandeford, snapping his watch with the +same temper he had used on his coffee-cup. "Bring that saucer of peaches +along and eat it in the car."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll take an orange instead," assented Miss Adair, as with all +good-nature and in all naturalness she deserted the last half of the +rosy peach, took an orange from the bowl before her and stood up to go +out to the car, which Valentine had parked in the shadow of the building +opposite.</p> + +<p>"You kid, you!" scoffed Mr. Vandeford, with an ache in his heart, but +thanksgiving for that same youthful unsophistication. "Height or +somebody will get it all across to her, and then what'll I do?" he +growled to himself as he followed her into the car.</p> + +<p>"And I saw that Mazie—Mazie woman there, too, with a terrible-looking +man that has written ever so many plays that are successful." Mr. +Vandeford was devoutly thankful that Mr. Grant Howard's name had not +stuck in the consciousness of the author of "The Purple Slipper." "I—I +was introduced to them too—because you know you said that I must—must +accept broad standards, and I did—last night." Miss Adair looked away, +but Mr. Vande<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>ford could see that her little ears, set close against her +small head, with their tips covered by a smooth band of hair, grew rosy.</p> + +<p>"What?" he gasped, uncertain as to what she meant.</p> + +<p>"Talked to that—that playwright and—and drank some champagne. I like +cider better, but Mr. Height ordered it, and I thought—"</p> + +<p>Here the car stopped, and Valentine was at the door. Valentine never +failed to be at the door instantly when Miss Adair was in Mr. +Vandeford's car, because his French soul rejoiced within him for thus +serving a grand dame.</p> + +<p>"Rooney is on the last lap of the last act, and then he'll begin to +polish the whole for dress rehearsals," Mr. Vandeford said as he held +the curtains of their box aside for her to enter.</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Height told me, too, that the Trevors had—"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, becoming the stern producer, because he +felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> that he could stand no more of Mr. Height at the Beach Inn, though +he began to listen intently to that same gentleman and Bébé Herne in the +beginning of the great scene of the now authorless play. The anxieties +passed from him, and in a moment he was in harness again with his author +and running in perfect unison.</p> + +<p>"Cut it off, Height, cut it off!" commanded Mr. Rooney, and he ran his +hands into his shock of black hair, which stood up all over his head +like a black, sooty mop. "That scene needs something. It isn't big and +simple enough. What did she say to him in your first layout, miss?" he +demanded of Miss Adair, for the first time acknowledging to the company +the presence of the author of their play at the rehearsals. "Can you +remember?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Miss Adair, with the home-made color blazing in her +cheeks and fires in her gray eyes as she rose in the box, and gave the +six lines as she had written them. Her lovely, slurring, Blue-grass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> +voice made the whole company smile with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"That's it! That's it! That's real people jawing and not a lot of smarty +guff. Put that in, Fido, and write it in, Miss Herne," commanded Mr. +Rooney, without any form of thanks to the accommodating and forgiving +author.</p> + +<p>And truth to say the author of "The Purple Slipper" did not notice his +omission. She was in such joy at having something of the "big scene" +express what she had intended that she was clasping one of Mr. +Vandeford's hands in both hers and holding on tight to keep from +shedding tears of joy.</p> + +<p>"What did I tell you?" he asked, taking the two nervously clutched +little hands into his warm, strong ones, unseen in the shadow of the +box. "You keep getting things across to Bill by letting him ask you for +what he wants. See?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I'm always glad when I do as you tell me," she whispered, with +her lips almost against his ear as they both turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> back to the stage +and watched their machine begin to run on greased wheels. Mr. Vandeford +thought of the Beach Inn, Mazie, the bottle of champagne, and Mr. Gerald +Height, and groaned inwardly.</p> + +<p>The last week of the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper" was a hectic +rush, the like of which Miss Adair had never imagined. She had gone out +again for the week-end to Mrs. Farraday's, up in Westchester, and this +time Mr. Vandeford drove out on Sunday for tea and crape myrtle with Mr. +Dennis Farraday, and, he was surprised to note again, Miss Mildred +Lindsey. The day passed like an oasis in the midst of a desert storm, +and Mr. Vandeford had the pleasure of making all arrangements for Mrs. +Farraday, Mr. and Mrs. Van Tyne, and several other old Manhattaners, who +had fallen under the spell of the young Kentuckian who had in an off +moment perpetrated "The Purple Slipper," to go to Atlantic City the +following week to be upon the spot for the opening of the play. Suites +in the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> new hotel were engaged by long-distance telephone, +time-tables discussed, and trains settled upon by the time tea was over +and the golden sun had let the twilight purple the rosy plumes of the +huge myrtle hedges. In the dusk Valentine brought Mr. Vandeford's car +from the garage and Mrs. Farraday's chauffeur drove out Mr. Dennis +Farraday's beloved Surreness. Miss Lindsey said her farewell, and it +again surprised Mr. Vandeford to see the gracious kiss Mrs. Farraday put +upon the dusky red of the beautiful Western girl's cheek, while good +Dennis stood smilingly by in the friendliest delight. Then a wistful +sigh from the talented young author by his side claimed his instant +attention.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked, with no attempt to control the tenderness in his +voice, though the dusk hid that in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I want to go back to town with you," she answered him, with a little +catch in her voice. "I feel so far away from you and—and IT, up here."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You shall," he answered, and turned toward Mrs. Farraday, who was +coming across the grass towards them with a huge sheaf of myrtles for +his car flower-baskets in her arms. "I wonder if you'll let me take my +author back to town in a hurry to-night, Mater Farraday," he pleaded, +with the affectionate smile in both his voice and eyes that he had +learned to use in coaxing her since the days ten years ago when she had +begun to mother him along with big Dennis. "I—I sorter—sorter need +her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farraday looked at them both with a keenness under the affection in +her glance, and then laughed merrily.</p> + +<p>"Yes, go with him, Patricia," she commanded. "I have lived through the +week before the presentation of five plays for Van, and I think that it +is only just that you should share that ordeal with me. He's impossible, +and demands—everything. I gave him a perfectly new and wonderful hat +that cost a hundred and ten dollars for the second scene of 'Dear +Geraldine' right off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> my head at the dress rehearsal, and 'Miss Cut-up' +did her dances on one of my most choice Chinese rugs. Now he's taking +you from me. But go!"</p> + +<p>"Here's your wrap, still in the car, so hop in," commanded Mr. Vandeford +hurriedly, as though he feared that Mrs. Farraday would withdraw her +sympathetic permission. "Good-night, and thank you!"</p> + +<p>"Good-night, you two—two dear children," returned Mrs. Farraday, as she +saw them off, after tenderly embracing Miss Adair and making plans for +their future meeting. "How <i>lovely</i> it would be!" she murmured to +herself, with a lack of definition, as she went back to the stately +house behind the tree, where windows were beginning to glow.</p> + +<p>For a long time the producer and his author were silent.</p> + +<p>"I hate it—and I love it," Miss Adair finally said, with her soft, +slurring voice lowered almost to a whisper as Valentine sped them along +the country road perfumed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> dusky with the early night, though a +silvery radiance proclaimed a chaperoning moon as imminent.</p> + +<p>"That is the proper way for an author to feel about a play one week +before the opening," Mr. Vandeford assured her, with a laugh keyed to +match her declaration. "It shows an entire sympathy with the poor +producer."</p> + +<p>"Suppose, just suppose, that the producer had been anybody but you and I +had had to stand all—" Words failed Miss Adair in imaging her plight as +author to another producer than Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"Any other producer might have done better than I have done for you," +Mr. Vandeford answered her, with a sadness in his voice that he himself +had never heard before. And as he spoke he resolved to tell her the +whole Hawtry situation, which was haunting him day and night; to begin +with the purple, letter-manuscript hunch, which he had lightly taken up +to spank Miss Hawtry for trying to double-cross him with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> Weiner about +"The Rosie Posie Girl," and end up with the hopeless state of his +feelings about herself. Miss Adair herself stemmed the confession which +might have altered the fate of that good machine "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"You've made the whole horrible experience worth while to me, and I'm +going to be a great playwright yet, just to make you—you proud of me," +she assured his sadness in the purple dusk, and this time Mr. Vandeford +was so sure of the flutter that he reached out his hand and captured a +part of it, a white, slim little hand that nestled into his as though it +were not in any way aware of doing so. "I'm going to dinner with Miss +Herne to-morrow night, so Mr. Kent can show me what is the matter with +part of his costume for the third act, and then I'm going to coax Mr. +Corbett to fix it over for him," she continued, speaking of the business +of learning to be the great playwright she had promised him to become.</p> + +<p>"Er—er, did you say dinner with Bébé<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> and—and Kent?" Mr. Vandeford +stammered as a desperate opening for letting his author know just what +she was doing in visiting that establishment without-the-law.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know about them; Mildred told me, but I told her that I was +going to accept the 'broad standard' that prevailed in my profession. I +like both of those people a lot. What business is it of mine if they +don't want to get married?" Miss Adair's voice was coolly unconcerned +and professional.</p> + +<p>"Help!" ejaculated Mr. Vandeford, holding the slim little hand as if +drowning. And indeed he did have a sinking sensation, which, strange to +say, was relieved by a quick mental vision of the capable young woman at +the desk of the great international safety.</p> + +<p>"And I know about Mr. Height's three divorces, and I think he is to be +pitied instead of criticized for being so unfortunate and lonely. +Mildred says she doesn't believe he is as lonely as he tells me he is, +but I know he is. I asked Miss Herne to ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> him to dinner, too, and she +did," Miss Adair continued, thus making little stabs into Mr. +Vandeford's vitals.</p> + +<p>And right there Mr. Vandeford paid the entire penalty for all his tilts +against organized morality by feeling unworthy to take a beautiful, +fragrant, adoring, confiding girl in his arms and telling her all he had +learned of the tragic results of such tilts. His predicament was tragic, +though unique. If he summed up these others, he sized up himself to her, +and by what judgment he taught her to judge them she would judge him +when the time came. If he taught her to turn from Kent or Height she +would turn from him, when she knew him entirely, as she surely would +soon. And, forsooth, how would he prove to her that he was a better man +than the copper-headed tango lizard, Height, though he knew himself to +be? And who was this girl, anyway, to come out of a little back-woods +town where the standards of life were so narrow that all who could lived +out of them in degrading secrecy, and make him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> feel himself unworthy +when he had lived openly in a way about which his own conscience had not +troubled him? Why did he hesitate to tell her about his affair with the +Violet and his anxiety about her contract, and why should his face burn +at the thought of telling her how he had coolly let his best friend in +for the prospect of an affair with the star for the purpose of +protecting her and her play? And why should the sex and business +standards of his world be entirely different from those of hers or any +other world! On the other hand why shouldn't they all double-cross and +prey on and defame and applaud each other to their heart's content? Why +should they care if they were judged by—? At this part Mr. Vandeford's +bitter reflections were suddenly invaded by a perceptible collapse of +Miss Adair's soft and proud young body against his, and a round, warm +cheek fell against his silk-clad sleeve, as he perceived that his +eminent author had plunged suddenly into the depths of healthy and +innocent slumber,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> while he had been moralizing about her and the rest +of the universe. He slipped his arm about her with cautious tenderness +and made her comfortable, while he muttered to himself:</p> + +<p>"She's a white flame and, God willing, I'm going to keep her that!"</p> + +<p>During the next week the "white flame" burned high and bright while the +author of "The Purple Slipper" threw herself into her place in the +grinding of the machine that was to turn out a perfected play on the +following Tuesday night at Atlantic City. Everywhere Mr. Rooney was +tightening bolts and polishing surfaces until they glistened while he +snapped and tried out all bands.</p> + +<p>Miss Lindsey was pale and quiet, but she acted her part to Mr. Rooney's +entire satisfaction, though he never said so. Mr. Leigh's feet were +still a target, and the glowering girl, Miss Grayson, was always +tearful, but constantly improving. When the company was not being ground +and polished,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> Mr. Corbett's tailors and dressmakers were fitting +costumes, and the property man was checking over and over each demand of +each and every person, from the fresh rose Mr. Kent was to give to Dame +Carrington to the mud that was to be splashed every day upon Mr. Gerald +Height's riding-boots for his last and triumphant entry. Miss Adair had +lost all sense of the play as a whole and only thought of it as +distracting and distracted bits. She had, of course, never witnessed the +scenes between Miss Hawtry and Mr. Height, as they were still rehearsed +in private and would be until the night of the dress rehearsal on Monday +at Atlantic City. This was well.</p> + +<p>But one thing she kept with her through the whole strain; the sense of +being one with Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and that one working for pure joy.</p> + +<p>As for Mr. Vandeford, his eyes sank back under his brows, and Mr. Adolph +Meyers was with him far into every night.</p> + +<p>"How does the booking stand now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> Pops?" Mr. Vandeford demanded on the +Thursday night before the opening Tuesday.</p> + +<p>"Atlantic City next week, Wilmington and New Haven the next if need be, +and—it is to Syracuse or Toronto we must jump, Mr. Vandeford, sir," +answered Mr. Meyers, with beads of perspiration on his high brow.</p> + +<p>"Violet will never make that jump, Pops. Her contract closes the day we +open in Atlantic City, and there we'll close, too, if we haven't New +York right in sight. What'll we do?"</p> + +<p>"It is many a show closed before it opened," Mr. Meyers said, with a +wary look at Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"This show is going to open and never close—until it's had a thorough +Broadway try-out, Pops," said Mr. Vandeford, quietly. "Anything from Mr. +Breit?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing to hope for a Broadway opening before November first."</p> + +<p>"I'll pass the question up Friday, and then see what I'll do," Mr. +Vandeford said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> slowly as if turning his back for the moment to +something that stared him in the face.</p> + +<p>All Friday morning he worked with "The Purple Slipper" machine with a +bitter defiance in his eyes that made Miss Adair keep close to his side, +though she didn't understand her reason for doing so.</p> + +<p>"Is anything the matter?" she questioned, with her gray eyes stricken +with alarm. The fear for her play in those gray eyes sent Mr. Vandeford +into desperate measures. He asked Miss Hawtry to go to luncheon with +him, and she graciously accepted.</p> + +<p>"Where do we get in on Broadway after Atlantic City, Van?" she asked as +soon as she was served with her iced melon.</p> + +<p>"We get in all right," he parried, putting his spoon into his +cantaloupe.</p> + +<p>"That's fine. I don't mind that Atlantic City week, but I'm glad I'm +past ever doing the road again except to the Coast. They'll eat up 'The +Rosie Posie Girl' in Chicago and San Francisco." Miss Hawtry was +deliberately declaring her intentions to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> Mr. Vandeford without saying a +word about them.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take 'The Purple Slipper' over to London before I take it +West." Mr. Vandeford answered her declaration with another not put in +words, but so well did he know the workings of her shrewd, small mind +that he saw that the game was up unless he did what he must do. During +the rest of their luncheon they talked about the Trevors.</p> + +<p>Straight from the Astor Mr. Vandeford walked into the office of Mr. +Weiner.</p> + +<p>"Weiner," he asked, without any sort of preamble, "will you give a +month's +<a name="corr22" id="corr22"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn22" title="changed from 'tryout'">try-out</a> +of my play, 'The Purple Slipper,' in your New Carnival +Theater from October first to November first, with a proper guarantee, +and then an option on an unlimited run there if it makes good, for a +half-interest in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' <i>without</i> Hawtry?" Mr. Vandeford +knew that he was offering Mr. Weiner a good thing, for the rights of +"The Rosie Posie Girl" had been hotly contested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> by all the big +theatrical managers on Broadway the winter before, and Mr. Vandeford had +got them from Hilliard because of his success with "Dear Geraldine" by +the same author. They had all coveted it because it was one of those +combinations about the success of which there could be no doubt. In +offering Weiner a half-interest Mr. Vandeford was aware that he was +offering him at least a hundred thousand dollars, but Mr. Vandeford's +hunch about the purple on purple was beginning to cost him dear, though +at least a hundred thousand dollars did not seem too much to pay to keep +the agony of failure out of a pair of sea-gray eyes that had trusted him +the first time they had looked into his.</p> + +<p>"With Hawtry it goes; without Hawtry, no, Mr. Vandeford," was the prompt +answer.</p> + +<p>"With Hawtry six months from now?" questioned Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"It is that I have a weak heart, Mr. Vandeford, and I do not trade in +futures," an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>swered Mr. Weiner, with a spark in his black eyes.</p> + +<p>"You know my fix, Weiner; now what will you take for the New Carnival +October first for my Hawtry show?"</p> + +<p>"I will trade that entire 'Rosie Posie Girl' manuscript, with all rights +for that New Carnival Theater on October first, with option for the +entire season, Mr. Vandeford," said Mr. Weiner, rolling his big cigar +from one side of his mouth to the other.</p> + +<p>"Without Hawtry?"</p> + +<p>"I have a new Hawtry right now—in pickle," Mr. Weiner answered.</p> + +<p>"Will the New Carnival certainly be finished October first?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, to a certainty of a large guarantee."</p> + +<p>"How long will you give me to answer?" asked Mr. Vandeford.</p> + +<p>"I have made an appointment with S. & K. to talk that New Carnival +Theater for a show at five o'clock to-day, Mr. Vandeford. I will call it +six o'clock for you," answered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> Weiner, as he turned the screw with all +show of consideration for his fellow producer.</p> + +<p>"I'll be back at four-forty-five," Mr. Vandeford answered him, and with +no further good-by took his departure.</p> + +<p>Arriving at his office, Mr. Vandeford directed Mr. Meyers that he was to +have half an hour entirely undisturbed, entered his own office, and +after a second's pause went into the little office that had been +assigned to Miss Adair, the author, and sat down in the chair she very +seldom occupied, but which was hers by tenancy. On the desk were a pair +of silk gloves she had left there the day before, and in a blue vase +were several roses in a good state of preservation, which he recognized +as having come from a bunch Miss Adair had been wearing after having had +luncheon with Mr. Gerald Height on Monday. These objects disturbed Mr. +Vandeford vaguely. He put them out of his mind roughly and went into +conference with himself sternly. Literally he was weighing the +question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p> + +<p>On one side of the balance he laid "The Rosie Posie Girl," which, with +Hawtry, was sure to run on Broadway for at least two seasons and make +for him a fortune that was indefinitely large and sure. Beside this, its +production would insure him a position among the country's really great +producers. The show was big enough in conception to admit of a +spectacularly artistic treatment, which he had intended to give it so +that it would place musical comedy on a plane upon which it had never +stood before. He knew himself well enough to know that a real triumph of +that kind once accomplished, he would want to turn to other fields of +endeavor, and he could see his greater self standing patiently waiting +for his lesser to be liberated by the process of climbing out of the +very top of the theatrical profession.</p> + +<p>Sternly he turned from himself to the filling of the other pan of the +scales in which he was weighing the question. He looked for something to +put in to over-balance the certainty of "The Rosie Posie Girl," and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> +found nothing but a vast uncertainty with many potentialities. "The +Purple Slipper" was a play of no known classification, and with Hawtry +in it was still less fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring. And there +was added the uncertainty of that week from the twenty-third to the +first during which he had no legal hold on the fair Violet. He felt +reasonably sure that the announcement that "The Purple Slipper" would +open the big new Weiner theater, with all the clash of publicity which +he could give to it, would hold her steady on her job, but as he laid it +down on the scales, it had to be classed as an uncertainty. The fifteen +per cent. seat sales based on Mr. Gerald Height's appearance in silk +tights, velvet, and lace was about the only positive he had to lay in +the scales, and that, of course, failed to tip them to any degree. For +about fifteen minutes he sat perfectly rigid. Then he gently laid on the +uncertain side of the scales the positive and concrete faith in a pair +of sea-gray eyes, jeweled with tears, and watched "The Rosie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> Posie +Girl" rise high as "The Purple Slipper" sank down heavily.</p> + +<p>After this he took a rose from the green vase, stuck it in his +buttonhole, and went forth—into his own office. He there rang his +buzzer for Mr. Meyers, and seated himself with the air of a man who has +had a burden lifted off his shoulders rather than with the air of one +about to give away half a million dollars.</p> + +<p>"Pops, 'The Rosie Posie Girl' is sold, lock, stock, and barrel, to +Weiner for a month's try-out of 'The Purple Slipper' at the New Carnival +Theater, good guarantee for that month, and an option on a run to the +limit for eight-thousand-a-week houses. Get Lusky over the 'phone, and +you and he have the contracts drawn as tight as wax by four-thirty."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I must have a say that—"</p> + +<p>"No, Pops, don't say anything."</p> + +<p>"With a pardon it is that I think that Miss Adair is a very fine lady, +and so also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> 'The Purple Slipper.'" With this incoherent pronouncement +of sympathy and encouragement, though devastated at the loss of "The +Rosie Posie Girl," upon which he had already spent many creative days, +Mr. Meyers departed into the outer office.</p> + +<p>For a long minute Mr. Vandeford glared at the unoffending rose in his +buttonhole, then smiled, ran his hands through his hair, turned to the +telephone, and plunged into the last lap of the race of "The Purple +Slipper." Until four o'clock he was closeted with the most brilliant +theatrical publicity man in New York City; then he took his contracts +and went over to Weiner's office and sacrificed "The Rosie Posie Girl" +to—</p> + +<p>An hour later he had told his partner, Mr. Dennis Farraday, all about +it, and showed him the deeds of execution.</p> + +<p>"You ought not to have done it, Van. It was too big a price to pay," Mr. +Farraday declared, with his mane rumpled on high.</p> + +<p>"No," answered Mr. Vandeford, in happy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> calmness. "'The Purple Slipper' +will pay it all out—one way or another."</p> + +<p>"It must," declared Mr. Farraday, with helpless energy. "What can I do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, be the usual ray of sunshine around the place and—and keep the +Violet happy and busy until we land on Broadway." Mr. Vandeford said +this with a coldness in tone and voice that he had to force hard. His +attitude was that he had had to sacrifice himself so why not sacrifice +Mr. Farraday also? And he hated himself for that attitude.</p> + +<p>"I understand, and you can count on me," answered Mr. Farraday, with +such an innocently happy face that Mr. Vandeford groaned inwardly at the +fact that he did not understand, and would surely be made to soon if his +calculations on the intentions of Miss Hawtry were correct.</p> + +<p>"I've arranged for a chair-car to take the whole company down to +Atlantic City Sunday morning, so the whole bunch can have a plunge and a +good rest-up before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> Monday dress rehearsal." Mr. Farraday produced +that piece of business with great pride.</p> + +<p>"Good!" was all the commendation that he got, and he betook himself off +for other good-natured efforts on the affairs of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>Though at times Mr. Godfrey Vandeford approached the heroic in action, +he was very human in reflexes and, having paid a price for the happiness +of Miss Patricia Adair, he proceeded to partake of as much of that +happiness as he could get hold of. He captured the author of "The Purple +Slipper" after the rehearsals on Friday, which were the last before the +dress rehearsal in Atlantic City on Monday night, because the cast of a +play are, after all, so many human beings, who have to be given at least +a day for such animal functions as packing trunks, closing apartments, +dodging creditors, and severing home ties, and he carried her off to the +country with the intention of having her all to himself for dinner at a +little inn up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> Westchester way. After they had started in that direction +and were flying behind Valentine along sun-gilded country lanes, he +changed his mind, changed the road slightly, and had them landed under +the wing of Mrs. Farraday for dinner. He did this with direct intention. +He judged himself, and decided that it would be safest to announce to +Miss Adair that her play was to have the honor of opening the great New +Carnival Theatre on Broadway somewhere within two hundred yards of Mrs. +Farraday. This program he carried out with efficient directness and then +found a strange lacking in himself.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how wonderful you are!" was Miss Adair's exclamation when he had +imparted his news just as a young moon was silvering the poplar under +which they sat on an old stone bench at the bottom of the sunken garden. +"Everybody has said that you couldn't do it, but I didn't worry at all +like the rest of them. I knew that you could."</p> + +<p>"How did you know that I could do it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> he asked, and he rejoiced with +pride that his author did not yet know of either the existence or his +sacrifice of "The Rosie Posie Girl."</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't know—I knew just because I—I—" For the first time Mr. +Vandeford was absolutely certain of the flutter towards him, and at the +same time felt certain that he was the first man who ever had been +certain of it; and just as his breast and arms were hollowing themselves +to nest it he—denied it and himself. He didn't want it at a purchase +price, and he took Miss Adair home and locked her in the Y. W. C. A. +before midnight.</p> + +<p>The journey down to Atlantic City on Sunday morning was accomplished +with much joy and hilarity. The entire cast of "The Purple Slipper" +acted like boys and girls let out of school, and mischievous children at +that. Miss Adair enjoyed it all immensely, and at times she very timidly +joined in the fun, which was centering itself upon putting Mr. Leigh of +the uncertain feet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> and Miss Grayson, the glowerer, into white ribbon +bonds, which bonds were supplied from a large box of bonbons, the +identity of the donor of which she refused to reveal, though Mr. Kent +declared he had brought her to the station in a gold limousine with +diamond wheels, and bore the name of Billy Astorbilt.</p> + +<p>Only Miss Hawtry held aloof, as she and her maid and various pieces of +ultra luggage occupied the four seats at the end of the car. The seat +next her was kept vacant, and at various times during the several hours' +run Mr. Vandeford, Mr. Height, and Miss Adair occupied it with +respectful tribute, but most of the time Mr. Farraday sat considerately +beside her, and smiled upon the fun. Mr. William Rooney and Fido rode in +the day-coach and worked the entire way on duplicate prompt copies.</p> + +<p>Also Mr. Rooney and Fido were absent that evening from the dinner-party +given by Mr. Farraday in the great new hotel to the entire cast of "The +Purple Slipper"—in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> honor of Miss Hawtry. They were working with the +stage-carpenter, the property-man, and the electrician until a late +hour, when they met the members of the dinner-party in pairs in +wheel-chairs being trundled along the board-walk for sea air before +retiring.</p> + +<p>"Hope the angel gave the bunch enough drink to keep 'em asleep until +two-thirty to-morrow," Mr. Rooney remarked to Fido as he spat out into +the Atlantic Ocean. "I'm going to put the gaff to 'em to-morrow night, +and I want to start with 'em unstrung and string 'em to suit myself. +That little author is some girl, but I wonder why Vandeford wanted to +shunt that white devil onto a nice boob like Farraday, and him his +friend, too," he further remarked as he watched the star and the angel +being trundled by in one of the big wicker perambulators that infest the +board walk.</p> + +<p>In the other direction were being trundled the author and the producer +of "The Purple Slipper," and at that moment they were in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> the mood of +fellow-workmen at the machine of "The Purple Slipper."</p> + +<p>"Rooney sent me word that the lighting is doubtful. This rotten little +theater is hard to count on for any kind of unusual lighting, and we +must have that diffusion for the dinner scene so as to make the candle +effect seem real," Mr. Vandeford was saying with great animation to Miss +Adair and with a total lack of sentiment under the same young moon that +had baffled him Friday night out in Westchester.</p> + +<p>"The whole thing seems a confused jumble to me," admitted Miss Adair. "I +feel as if I couldn't wait until to-morrow night to really see the play +with the costumes and scenery and love scenes and all in the right +place. And yet I'm so tired I feel as if I could sleep a week."</p> + +<p>"I'll shake you if you go dead on me here as you did the other night in +the car," threatened Mr. Vandeford, with a laugh, but he adjusted his +shoulder back of hers as if he considered the danger entirely real.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll certainly do it if you don't take me back where I belong, wherever +it is," threatened Miss Adair. "I hope Mildred isn't as—as tired as I +am and—and can help me. I'll go to bed with my clothes on if she +doesn't," Miss Adair gasped between yawns, and fluttered to Mr. +Vandeford with a frank intention of gaining support.</p> + +<p>"Back to the hotel, boy, and go a good pace. Double tip," commanded Mr. +Vandeford to their propelling Italian youth, with an alarm which puzzled +him as much as it would have puzzled many of his friends, while he +accorded his exhausted author the amount of support needed for the +occasion—and no more.</p> + +<p>And as Mr. Rooney had hoped, the entire cast of "The Purple Slipper" +slept into the afternoon of the dress-rehearsal day in the complete +collapse which the sea air induced, and they were in a good condition +for restringing. In fact, some of them began that process for themselves +by an afternoon plunge in the ocean.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span></p> + +<p>One of those plunges had an after-effect on the fate of "The Purple +Slipper" further than keying up Mr. Gerald Height for his dress +rehearsals. When he discovered, while detaining Miss Adair for a chat +after his late luncheon, that the author had never beheld the sea before +in all her inland existence, and had never been in it, he insisted on +procuring a bathing-suit and initiating her into that sport. She +assented to the proposition with the greatest eagerness, and in less +than half an hour she had trusted herself to the arms of Mr. Gerald +Height and the Atlantic Ocean. They were both rough in their handling, +and finally she came to resent the boldness of the former as much as she +enjoyed that of the latter. With crimson in her cheeks and lightning in +her eyes, she first attempted to drown them both, then waded to shore, +sat down on the sand, and said things to Mr. Gerald Height, which had +the magic effect of making him unburden himself and his lizard-like +career to her in its entirety.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You see, I didn't know what a girl who—who wrote your play was like +exactly, and because I couldn't find out I have kept on trying. +Now—now, by George, I know," he said, with a boyishness coming into his +murky eyes. "Say, you know my mother was a Kentucky girl, and I guess +that is one reason I have stuck by this fool—this 'Purple Slipper.' +That and wanting to chase you down."</p> + +<p>"Well, now that you've 'chased me down' and found that I'm not—not +there, you'll stay by me and 'The Purple Slipper,' won't you?" Miss +Adair asked, and then like two merry children they both laughed at her +jumble.</p> + +<p>"I will," answered Mr. Height, with the queer attachment in his heart +that a man feels for a perfectly good woman who is jolly and friendly +with him after she has allowed him to tell her just how wicked he is or +thinks he is. "I thought the whole thing was a flivver, but when +Vandeford got the opening of the New Carnival for it, I sat up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> and took +notice. Just you watch the stuff between Hawtry and me put a line a mile +long from the box office."</p> + +<p>"I'm wild to see you and Miss Hawtry in your scenes, and we must go to +dress for early dinner. The rehearsals are called for six-thirty. Thank +you for—for being my friend." As she rose from the sand Miss Adair held +out her hand to Mr. Height, with the friendliness and confidence in her +eyes that had smoothed over other rough, though not so rough, places of +the same character in her young life.</p> + +<p>"That's some kid and there are lots like her. I've got to halt sooner or +later," Mr. Height muttered to himself as he dressed for his early +dinner. "I'm going to put this fool play across for her, too." There are +a few women who distill loyalty out of declined passion; but not many. +They make their mark on their generation.</p> + +<p>The dress rehearsals of a play are varied in finish and intensity, but +the variety which Mr. William Rooney conducted was of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> most +brilliant, and he expected them to go as well as the opening night. He +made small allowance for the strangeness of lights, scenery, and +costuming, and that allowance was only for time, not in smoothness. As +he willed, his cast generally performed. The cast of "The Purple +Slipper" was of experienced actors, and he felt certain that they would +meet his expectations. At six-thirty o'clock he seated himself in the +middle seat of the sixth row center, looked around to see that the +electrician and the costumer were at hand to catch any criticism he +wished to make, and in a crisp hard voice that exploded like a cannon he +called up the curtain.</p> + +<p>The author was at her post in the left stage box, and bulwarked and +buttressed by the producer as usual, while Mr. Dennis Farraday, the +angel, sat alone in the box opposite, with a delighted smile on his +broad face.</p> + +<p>The curtain went up, and "The Purple Slipper" glided on the stage with +never a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> creak or a careen. The lights scintillated and glared on the +wonderful costumes and scenery, and the sparkling dialogue began to +unwind itself into the startling plot. For the first ten minutes the +author glowed with such joyous excitement that the producer felt the +actual radiations; then little by little he felt her begin to cool, and +a chill ran up and down his own spine as Hawtry and Height held the +stage alone in the first dash of Howard-"pepped" dalliance near the last +of the first act. He held his breath, frozen within him, until the +curtain went down, and then he refused to turn to the author at his +side. He was in a panic and undecided what to do until Mr. Rooney +relieved him of the need of action.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Vandeford," he commanded from the middle of the theater, "get New +York on the wire and have Lindenberg start a good scenery man out on the +early morning train. That back-drop must have a toning wash: it jumps +out at the costumes. Lindenberg is in his office until seven to get a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> +message from you. It's ten to now. You gotter jump."</p> + +<p>Without a look at Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford "jumped," and thus she was +left alone to watch the second act grind along to its climax, with +Hawtry acting the high-bred virago with an extremity of brilliant +sensuality, with Mr. Height supporting her in broad lines that could be +well-read between. Once the author looked at Mr. Dennis Farraday in the +box opposite, and then looked away from his blazing enjoyment of the +startling climax, which the lovers acted in such beauty of body, and +such beauty of execution that, without knowing why, she was thrilled +from her head to her feet.</p> + +<p>"Broad standards," she whispered to encourage herself, as her eyes shone +and her cheeks glowed as she lowered her head and re-read the proof of +the program to be used on Tuesday night, which Mr. Vandeford had given +her and upon which she observed the name Patricia Adair in type only +slightly smaller than that of Violet Hawtry. In a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> few minutes the +curtain was again called up; Mr. Vandeford was still absent, and again +her attention was riveted to the stage.</p> + +<p>Almost the entire first half of the last act was hers, and the tension +in her glowing young body had relaxed and she gave Mr. Vandeford a +semblance of a smile as he seated himself beside her just before Hawtry +came on the scene to lay with Height the foundation of the great dinner +scene. This hurdle was held firmly in front of the young author.</p> + +<p>Miss Hawtry entered in a blaze of eighteenth century glory, only with +her authentic costume cunningly contrived to reveal more of her +wonderful white body than any woman of that period would have done, and +beautiful in his velvet and ruffles, Gerald Height followed her to +thereupon enact a scene which was a slow and marvellous distilling of +the very wine of emotion intended to go through human blood like a +stinging poison. It had reached its climax, and even the emptiness of +the theater was breathless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> when, like a whip, Mr. Rooney's cold voice +brought Miss Hawtry out of Mr. Height's arms.</p> + +<p>"Cut it, cut it!" he commanded. "You couldn't get that across even on +Broadway. The censor will close the show. Play it fifty per cent. and +then all the subway will quit you."</p> + +<p>"I'll play it as I choose, you black monkey, you, with your Irish name." +Maggie Murphy sprang out from the body of the beautiful Hawtry to answer +back gutter with gutter.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, Miss Hawtry." Mr. Vandeford rose in his box from beside +the author of the violent scene that was becoming a basis of a scene of +violence. "Rooney, it can be played with—"</p> + +<p>"You sit down and help your bread-and-butter baby hide her face for +writing such rot instead of trying to tell me how to act." Maggie was +now commanding the Violet, and she was wild with nervous rage. "She's +welcome to you; five years of your living<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> off me and my work is enough, +and I don't intend to—"</p> + +<p>"Back to your lines on which Miss Hawtry enters, Miss Lindsey," +commanded Mr. Rooney, in his machine-gun manner. "Get ready for your +cue, Height."</p> + +<p>Completely ignoring Miss Hawtry, who was standing down center, Mildred +Lindsey calmly entered and began the beautiful little bit of persiflage +with Miss Herne, who had gone on before her with an agility unlike her +usual slow gait. There was nothing for Miss Hawtry to do but retire to +the wings, which she did, and with the nervous bomb exploded, she +continued the rehearsals to a finish with the greatest brilliancy, +playing the interrupted scene at fifty per cent. of its fire, as +directed by Mr. Rooney.</p> + +<p>But the author of "The Purple Slipper" was not there to see the ending +in calm after the storm, for she had fled at the Violet's attack upon +Mr. Vandeford, and while he stood his ground to see the matter settled +in the face of the insult, she had vanished.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>At twelve-thirty Mr. Rooney was still in the theater with his +property-man and his electrician, but just before one he left through +the stage-door.</p> + +<p>"All over, old man, you can put out your lights, lock up, and beat it," +he said to the old gentleman who had sat year after year and kept the +gates of his Inferno.</p> + +<p>"Star still in her dressing-room, gent with her," the old keeper +answered, as he leered at Mr. Rooney, and accepted the big black cigar +offered him.</p> + +<p>"Big, red-headed chap with the show?" Mr. Rooney questioned carelessly.</p> + +<p>"Same," admitted the old keeper.</p> + +<p>"Cuss her," Mr. Rooney remarked, without either special interest or +malice, and took his leisurely way to his hotel.</p> + +<p>The star dressing-room at the little Atlan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>tic City theater, in which +half the plays produced on Broadway first try out their charm, is larger +than the dressing-rooms in most of the modern theaters, and dainty +Susette always made any dressing-room which happened to serve Miss +Hawtry look more like a boudoir than seemed possible, by taking thought +to have silky rose curtains to adjust over costume-racks and windows, +with covers to match to be slipped over the couple of rough chairs +usually supplied dressing-rooms. A fillet covering large enough for any +dressing-table, the silver and ivory of the make-up outfit, and lights +shaded with the fillet over rose were about all the equipment that the +French girl carried in the top of one of Miss Hawtry's costume trunks, +but she managed an effect with them that many a Fifth Avenue decorator +might envy. Following instructions, she had put all in exquisite order +and left the theater before Miss Hawtry was off the stage. The Violet +had been obliged to send her summons to Mr. Dennis Farraday by the old +door-keeper;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> hence his knowledge of her manœuvers.</p> + +<p>Miss Hawtry was still encased in the magnificence of the costume for the +final scene of "The Purple Slipper," and in the rose light of the little +dressing-room she glowed like a fire-hearted opal as Mr. Dennis Farraday +entered with the great hesitation of a first appearance in a stage +dressing-room. His face was pale and serious. Miss Hawtry had seen that +her Maggie Murphy insult to Mr. Vandeford had apparently cut more deeply +into the big Jonathan than into Mr. Vandeford himself, and she had +realized that she must set her scene well and act quickly and with +daring if she accomplished her purposes.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me—and comfort me. I have hurt myself more than I have hurt +him," she cried out as she turned to him and expelled two sparkling +tears from her great blue eyes, and held out bare, white, glorious arms +to him, with the sob of a repentant child caught in her throat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, Mr. Dennis Farraday, great gentleman and the son of a line of +gentlemen, was in the same state that many another good man and true +would be in after witnessing "The Purple Slipper" as played by Miss +Hawtry in her compelling animality, and his angry eyes suddenly blazed +with another light than anger, as with a hard breath he admitted the +big, beautiful, treacherous cat into his arms and allowed her bare arms +to coil around his neck and her body to cling to his.</p> + +<p>"How could you—how can you?" he asked, and the question on his lips +made them cold, and kept them from hers—long enough.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford stood in the dressing-room door without so much as rapping +for permission to enter, and his face was dead white while his eyes +blazed in a great terror. He seemed not to notice the purport of the +scene he had interrupted, but his voice cut into the situation like cold +steel.</p> + +<p>"Denny, we can't find Miss Adair any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>where, and here's a note she left +Miss Lindsey. What do you make of it?" He handed Mr. Farraday a sheet of +hotel note-paper, which he took with a trembling hand while Miss Hawtry +shrank back against her lace-covered dressing-table and gathered her +forces to annihilate Mr. Vandeford. This was the note, which Mr. +Farraday read with one glance, but failed to read to Miss Hawtry, +because its few lines struck all consciousness of her existence entirely +from his mind.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Dear Mildred</i>:</p> + +<p>Dishonor has never smirched the name of Adair until I put it on +that theater program. I have branded the annals of my family, and I +never want to look into a human face again. Good-by. You've been +good to me.</p> + +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Patricia.</span><br /> +</p></div> + + +<p>"My God! What do you suppose she means?" Mr. Farraday gasped, as he +looked in abject terror at Mr. Vandeford, who returned his glance in +kind.</p> + +<p>"And I promised Roger to take care of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> her," Mr. Farraday gasped, and +without so much as a glance at Miss Hawtry, both men departed with all +the rapidity possible. There must be some reason that all bonds +without-the-law are so brittle, and those of friendship and honor and +love so strong within the code.</p> + +<p>Miss Hawtry did some rapid thinking, as unaided, she slipped from the +costume of the star of "The Purple Slipper" into her normal raiment and +character. Then she called a wheel-chair and had herself trundled to the +hotel. While she was propelled, many other wheels were turning and +turning fast.</p> + +<p>"What does Miss Lindsey think is the matter, and where she is?" Mr. +Farraday questioned Mr. Vandeford as they strode along together down the +board-walk towards the hotel.</p> + +<p>"She says it's that rotten scene between Hawtry and Height that's killed +her, and she is right. I felt her die right there by my side," Mr. +Vandeford answered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You two don't think she would really put an end to—to herself about a +play, do you?" demanded Mr. Farraday, and he fairly staggered as he +asked the question. Then not waiting for an answer, he began to run +toward the entrance of the hotel half a block ahead. Just as he was +turning into the doors with Mr. Vandeford closely following, an Italian +wheel-chair boy darted out of the dusk of his stand, and plucked the +latter by the sleeve; then together they went racing back the way Mr. +Vandeford had come.</p> + +<p>Half way down the long arbor, dusky under its vines, Mr. Farraday met +Miss Lindsey, and in the subdued light they paused and looked into each +other's faces; then entirely to the surprise of them both, they went +into each other's arms and clung together like two frightened children. +Miss Lindsey was smothering sobs which made her tender breast storm +against Mr. Farraday's, in whose own a heart was racing with terror.</p> + +<p>"I don't blame her; it was loathsome, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> it was about her own +grandmother," Miss Lindsey managed to say in a fierce, beautiful voice.</p> + +<p>"You don't think, do you, that—" Mr. Farraday was gasping as he held +Miss Lindsey still tighter against the racing heart, which was beginning +to slow down and pound against hers with a slightly different speed. +However, the terror in his voice made Miss Lindsey press him to her with +sustaining closeness.</p> + +<p>"She's Southern and different, and I don't know what to think," she was +saying, and in the absorption of their terror they failed to notice that +Miss Hawtry passed them not six feet away in her wicker chair.</p> + +<p>And while they clung to each other and enjoyed their fright and anxiety +together, Miss Hawtry went into the telephone-booth and got a +long-distance connection with Mr. Weiner in New York in an incredibly +short time. Their conversation was almost as incredibly short in view of +its portentousness, but while it lasted, Mr. Gerald Height and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> Mr. +William Rooney had been added to the group of anxiety under the arbor, +and they were all in close conclave, though not in embrace, when Miss +Hawtry returned to them, walking with cool determination in every step.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Farraday," Miss Hawtry said, with a serenity in her rich voice and +manner, "I will have to tell you as Mr. Vandeford's partner in 'The +Purple Slipper' that I am entirely dissatisfied with the way the play +proves up at dress rehearsal and refuse to open in it. As I am under no +contract to him since Saturday night, I am motoring back to New York +to-night to begin rehearsals to-morrow in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' for Mr. +Weiner. Good-night!" With a stately curtsy to the assembled principals +of "The Purple Slipper," very dramatic in execution, the Violet bowed +herself away from them forever. Ten minutes after she was on her way +back to Manhattan in a big touring-car provided by the hotel management +per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> a telephone order from Mr. Weiner of New York.</p> + +<p>"And Van sold 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' for her opening on Broadway in the +New Carnival Theater with 'The Purple Slipper,'" Mr. Farraday gasped as +he sat down suddenly on one of the benches in the dim little arbor.</p> + +<p>"Lord, what a lose, both shows and maybe—maybe Miss Adair, too," Mr. +Gerald Height exclaimed, and there were both sympathy and anxiety in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Rooney, as he rolled his fat cigar from the +left of his mouth to the right and spat into the vines. "I've made a +pretty good play out of 'The Purple Slipper.' It will go all right +without her. Actors aren't so much. It's the situation and the +stage-managing."</p> + +<p>"That's what you think," jeered Mr. Gerald Height, gloomily. "I always +had a hunch that I would never play wig and ruffles."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Can that hunch," commanded Mr. Rooney. "I'm going to put Miss Lindsey +in the part and play it refined for a winner. Been understudying Miss +Hawtry, haven't you, Miss Lindsey?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Miss Lindsey, and a sudden radiance shone from her dark, +intellectual face that lit up the whole arbor and lighted a flame in the +creative hearts of both Mr. Gerald Height and Mr. William Rooney. And +what it lighted in the hearts of both of those gentlemen was nothing to +the blaze it fanned in the heart of Mr. Dennis Farraday, where it had +been smouldering along from a spark touched off the day of the beefsteak +and mushrooms. "If you'll help me play it as I have seen it all along, +Mr. Rooney, I can go on to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>"Good," agreed Mr. Rooney. "I'll shove Miss Grayson up into your part, +and cut out hers until we get a girl. We'll get the little author busy +right now, blotting out the Hawtry smell and putting you in, as I say, +refined and—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, but where <i>is</i> she?" moaned Mr. Farraday, coming back to his agony +of uneasiness, which had been drugged by hearing and seeing "The Purple +Slipper" and Mr. Vandeford's fortunes rescued and reconstructed right +before his ears and eyes.</p> + +<p>"There ain't but two places for a refined lady to run in Atlantic +City,—the railroad station and the ocean,—and I bet Mr. Vandeford is +lugging her from the railroad station right now," Mr. Rooney said with +easy conviction. "Course she'd dodge back to the Christian ladies home +the first mud-puddle she stepped into, but we'll set her on her feet and +rub the splashes off her white stockings and—"</p> + +<p>Mr. Rooney was interrupted in his kindly flow of reassurance by the +appearance of a wheel-chair propelled by the shrewd Italian youth, who +had that evening made his individual fortune, in which sat Mr. Vandeford +and the author of "The Purple Slipper." Without command, he stopped +beside the group of friends, and Mr. Vandeford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> alighted, but Miss Adair +shrank back into the shadow of the perambulator.</p> + +<p>"Oh, darling, listen," cried Miss Lindsey, as she reached into that +retreat and drew Miss Adair into her arms. "Miss Hawtry has thrown up +the part and gone back to New York, and I am going to act it for you +just as you and I have talked about it all this time. Mr. Rooney is +going to help us, and we—we are going to make good for you—and Mr. +Vandeford—to-morrow night. We are!"</p> + +<p>"Just watch us, Miss Adair. I'll do my best, and I'll—I'll be like we +talked the other day," Mr. Height said as he came to the other side of +the wicker retreat of the hunted author. Something in his voice made Mr. +Dennis Farraday put his arm around the lizard's shoulders, a thing he +would not have thought of doing a week ago.</p> + +<p>"We are all going to stand by, little girl, and it'll be some play that +we produce at the New Carnival October first," Mr. Far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>raday put in by +way of his contribution to the wounded young author.</p> + +<p>However, it was the crack of Mr. Rooney's whip that brought her to her +feet again.</p> + +<p>"Miss Adair, you and Lindsey come back with me to the theater now," he +commanded the shrinking and tragic author. "Somebody get Fido and tell +him to wake up everybody and have 'em all at the theater to rehearse in +a hour; that'll be three o'clock. Mr. Vandeford, you'd better get in a +press story over long distance before Hawtry beats you to it. You may +catch a morning paper or two. Now, everybody get out and work like fun +and we'll show Broadway a sure-fire hit October first."</p> + +<p>"Can you do it, Bill?" Mr. Vandeford asked in a quiet voice. It was the +first time he had spoken since he had coolly and silently picked Miss +Adair up off a bench in the little railroad station and put her into the +sympathetic young Dago's one-man-power conveyance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I can take ten yards of calico, a pot of red wagon paint, and a pretty +gal and make a show to fill any theater on Broadway for six months—if +I'm let alone," answered Mr. Rooney, with the assurance that moves +mountains. "That Lindsey is one good actor with common horse-sense, and +the little author filly has Blue-grass speed. Watch us!"</p> + +<p>"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, and steel sparks struck out in his keen +eyes as he turned and went rapidly to one of the long-distance telephone +booths with which all Atlantic City keeps up its intimate relations with +New York. It was also astonishing how quickly he got his connection with +a great New York morning paper and was put on the desk wire of one of +the junior editors, who was a good friend in need.</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Hello, Curt. Godfrey Vandeford speaking."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>. . . . . .<br /></p> + +<p>"With my show in Atlantic City. Can you get a note across in the morning +issue?"</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Good! Spread it that Hawtry is put out of 'The Purple Slipper' cast to +give place to a new Pacific Coast star, Mildred Lindsey. Hawtry handed +it to Denny and me rotten, but put that under pretty deep, with Lindsey +blazed in top lines. I'll have my publicity man send you a special +Lindsey Sunday story. Hot stuff."</p> + +<p>. . . . . .</p> + +<p>"Thanks, old man! By!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Another fifteen minutes was spent in long distance communication with +Mr. Meyers, and it was ten minutes after three o'clock in the morning +when Mr. Vandeford slipped into his chair beside his author in the +little Atlantic City Theater, which Mr. Rooney had induced the old night +watchman door-keeper to open up at the hour when all teeming Atlantic +City is in the depths of repose. Mr. Rooney had with him the entire cast +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> "The Purple Slipper," to whom he had just finished explaining the +cause of their extraction from their well-earned repose.</p> + +<p>"Most of the Sister Harriet scenes are with me," Miss Bébé Herne was +saying, with efficient energy fairly radiating from her big body, +clothed in a decorous tailor skirt, but with a boudoir jacket serving +for blouse. Also two kid curlers showed at the nape of her neck. "I can +feed Miss Grayson into Miss Lindsey's part enough to get by +to-morrow—to-night I mean. And Wallace can do the same when he's on +with her. That ugly white cat Hawtry to double on Godfrey Vandeford +after he pulled her out of Weehawken!"</p> + +<p>"Get on, get on, everybody, and use your brains until they lather," +commanded Mr. Rooney as he took his stand beside the left stage box. +"Now, Miss, you gimme lines out of your head or your first draft when I +call for 'em, and I'll take 'em or leave 'em as suits me. Then you +smooth the ones I hand you into good talk, and we'll have a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> show here +by sun-up that you'll be proud to invite your Christian lady friends to +attend. And we'll keep all the 'pep' too, Vandeford, that you paid +Howard to write into it, only we'll take the Hawtry dirt out of it. On, +Betty Carrington, and the curtain's up."</p> + +<p>Then from three o'clock in the morning until almost noon the machinery +of "The Purple Slipper" was overhauled and adjusted to the new cog. Mr. +Rooney lashed and rubbed and polished and oiled with never a let-up on +anybody, and beside him sat the author, with her head up and the bit in +her mouth. For every line that rang untrue in the reconstruction she had +a true one or she took a crude bit from Mr. Rooney and polished it into +place. Fido sat crouched in a front seat and transcribed every word into +his prompt copy so as to be a veritable first aid.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, experienced show man that he was, felt as if +he was witnessing a miracle as he beheld Miss Adair's original "Purple +Slipper," with its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> haphazard amateur charm, again put forth bud and +bloom on the branches of Grant Howard's tight-knit, well-constructed, +and well-rounded drama. The highly-colored flowers of Hawtry personality +Mr. Rooney pruned away and constructed others for Lindsey, and Miss +Adair lent them color and perfume in passing them to the new star, who +was working steadily, slowly, surely, and with great power.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell him that his eyes 'burn into yours until your soul is +seared.' That's old. We got to get a kind of smile here where Hawtry +looked like she was going to do the ham sandwich act to Height and his +silk tights." Mr. Rooney stopped the abhorred scene, being acted along +about six o'clock in the morning, to demand that it be played in the +proper key, up to which he had succeeded in wringing lines from Miss +Adair for the first act and most of the second. "What do hearts do to +each other that's hot and decent and funny all at once?" Mr. Rooney +fired this biological<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> question to the author of "The Purple Slipper," +and looked at her with a demand for an immediate answer in his little, +black, driving eyes.</p> + +<p>"She can say 'There's chaff in my heart; guard the fire in yours,'" Miss +Adair supplied offhand.</p> + +<p>"That hands it to him, and a good double meaning, too," Mr. Rooney +approved. "Go ahead, Height, but don't get this lady mixed with the +other kind. Remember, she lives at the ladies Christian home." The laugh +that greeted this sally was an uproar that added to the dash and quick +fire of the big scene, which Miss Adair and Mr. Rooney had so quickly +expurgated and reconstructed between them.</p> + +<p>At seven o'clock the play had been entirely run through, and Fido had +the result in his prompt copy and was beginning to rapidly write it into +their lines for each of the cast.</p> + +<p>"One half hour to get breakfast and Miss Herne's back hair down," Mr. +Rooney said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> with the callousness of a slave-driver. "Then if you run +through again fairly well we'll be done by noon, and everybody can hit +the hay for six hours."</p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford watched his author's proud little head droop on the box +rail in front of her, and with his face very white he motioned Mr. +Farraday to come to her. After his degrading the night before at the +hands of Miss Hawtry, he felt that he would be unable to endure the pain +of the repulsion he felt sure he would find in her eyes if she ever +looked at him again.</p> + +<p>But his summons of Mr. Farraday failed in peremptoriness, for that big, +bonny gentleman nodded to him, then stood in the wing to catch Miss +Lindsey in his arms and bear her away to immediate nourishment. In the +excitement of the last few hours a domesticity had grown up between Mr. +Farraday and Miss Lindsey that it would have taken months to build in a +world less hectic than that in which they were then living.</p> + +<p>Their courtship had been brief, and cons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>isted in one question, asked by +Mr. Farraday while Miss Lindsey stood in the wings waiting for a +moderated, impassioned cue from Mr. Height, and answered by her as she +responded to him and the call of her stage lover at the same moment.</p> + +<p>"When will you marry me?"</p> + +<p>"When 'The Purple Slipper' goes on Broadway."</p> + +<p>In the circumstances it was natural that Mr. Dennis Farraday should take +Miss Lindsey for a reminiscent beefsteak and mushrooms during the only +free half hour she would have for either him or food in the ensuing day, +and to fail to heed Mr. Vandeford's summon.</p> + +<p>Thus deserted, Mr. Vandeford was about to steal forth and appeal to some +member of the cast of "The Purple Slipper" to come to his rescue in +providing refreshment to restore the author during the precious half +hour respite when "the chaff in his heart" caught fire and began to burn +away forever. Miss Adair raised her eyes to his, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> faith still +in their wounded depths, and smiled a wan little smile.</p> + +<p>"Please get me a glass of milk with an egg in it, and some of that +brown-bread turkey," she demanded. "I'm dead, but I'll come alive again +if I go to sleep a minute. Shake me when you get back with it, but get +something for yourself while you are gone."</p> + +<p>"The kiddie, the precious, spunky kiddie," Mr. Vandeford said in his +heart over and over as he and the young Italian rushed to the hotel and +back with a waiter and a tray of the desired refreshment, to which had +been added an iced melon and a couple of bedewed roses.</p> + +<p>The shaking had to be literally administered while young Dago Italiana +held the tray, and then had to be repeated several times by Mr. +Vandeford, as he almost as literally fed his exhausted author, up until +the very minute in which Mr. Rooney rang up the curtain and again called +her into action.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span></p> + +<p>Five hours was more than enough for the smooth running of the three-hour +"Purple Slipper" show, and at eleven o'clock Mr. Rooney dismissed his +jaded cast with this strict command delivered in his rich, deep voice, +which held a note of genuine solemnity.</p> + +<p>"All of you go to sleep every minute between now and night, and then +come back here and make good—for all of us."</p> + +<p>With the assistance of young Dago Italiana, Mr. Vandeford delivered Miss +Adair to a hotel maid, who accepted five dollars from him as a fee for +putting her to bed, and then he plunged into still greater +strenuosities.</p> + +<p>He sat for three hours with his skilled young publicity man and +advance-agent, and laid out a discreet, dignified, but very interesting, +publicity campaign for the new star of "The Purple Slipper." Due +importance was to be given in all the notices that "The Purple Slipper" +was to open the New Carnival Theater and in his heart the young +advertiser put away the intention of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> making the fact that Mr. Vandeford +had sold Hawtry and "The Rosie Posie Girl" for "The Purple Slipper," his +most brilliant reserve story to set all of Broadway, at least, agog for +the opening of the expensive new play.</p> + +<p>"It puts 'The Purple Slipper' at the big end of the horn, and it's not +your fault that there is only the little end of the horn left for 'The +Rosie Posie Girl' for the time being," he explained to Mr. Vandeford. +"You see, it is a kind of double-cross that acts both ways. If it goes, +people will think it was worth your paying a big price for, and if it +fails, they'll think the 'Rosie Posie Girl' couldn't have been much if +you traded a chance on such a poor show for it."</p> + +<p>"Goes!" said Mr. Vandeford, but he was aware that the smart manœuver, +which would once have delighted his soul, made him intensely weary.</p> + +<p>In fact, so fatigued did he feel when he left this young press schemer, +that he dropped into his bed for an hour, and had a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> masseur come and +pound him into condition to go to the train with good Dennis Farraday to +meet Mrs. Farraday, Mrs. and Mr. and Miss Van Tyne, who arrived at five +o'clock from big Manhattan. Mr. Farraday had had a like operation +performed upon himself, and was in such a radiant condition that Mr. +Vandeford felt badly eclipsed beside him.</p> + +<p>"What does it all mean about Miss Hawtry and Miss Lindsey and the show, +Van?" Mrs. Farraday questioned, with greater anxiety in her face than +she had had at any other opening night of her favorite's successful +shows. "Are we going to have a terrible time?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to put you in a wheel-chair and let Denny take you up to the +north end of the board-walk and tell you all about it while I locate and +make comfortable the rest of the folks," Mr. Vandeford answered with a +deep relief at her presence in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Where are my girls?" she questioned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Both dead—asleep," he answered, as if deeply happy to be able to say +it of his star and his author.</p> + +<p>His statement was only partly true, for while Miss Adair slept the sleep +of the emotionally unanxious, Mildred Lindsey sat crouched by her +window, with her eyes looking far out over the Atlantic Ocean, waiting +for the result of Mr. Dennis Farraday's talk with his mother at the +north end of the board-walk.</p> + +<p>There are occasionally mothers who bear sons who can tell them all about +things, and Mrs. Farraday really enjoyed the whole story that big, +bonnie Dennis poured out to her at the sunset hour by the brink of old +ocean, Dago Italiana squatting on his heels out of hearing and basking +in inactivity, from the moment of the beefsteak episode in his and Miss +Lindsey's acquaintance up to the moment in which Miss Hawtry had +established herself in his arms on the occasion of his début in a stage +dressing-room. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> even at that stage of the narration she rather +astonished Mr. Farraday, who was shamefaced enough at the telling, by +saying with soft pity in her motherly voice:</p> + +<p>"The poor woman. Of course she couldn't help loving you, and now she's +lost both Van and you. Now go on and tell me about Mildred."</p> + +<p>"She—she's the best ever," was Mr. Farraday's explicit and enlightening +answer.</p> + +<p>"Of course she is. I saw that the time you brought her to dinner with +me, and also that you were in love with her. She's really a rather +wonderful girl, and—and—Dennis, I'll tell you something that I never +expected to tell you—I've always wanted to be an actress. I simply +adore that Lindsey girl, and I know she'll make a great actress. Why on +earth should she want to marry you?" Which goes to show that +aristocratic Mrs. Farraday was not the ordinary mother.</p> + +<p>"Let's go ask her," roared big Dennis,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> as he embraced her in a way that +made the sympathetic and now wealthy young Dago Italiana flash his white +teeth in joy.</p> + +<p>And nobody can say how much the fate of "The Purple Slipper" was +affected by the fact that Rosalind went upon the stage for her first +appearance as a star, straight from the tender arms of stately, +white-haired Mrs. Farraday.</p> + +<p>The opening night of "The Purple Slipper," by Patricia Adair, produced +by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and staged by Mr. William Rooney, was a +triumph undisputed and acknowledged by a brilliant cosmopolitan audience +such as Atlantic City furnishes any play presented to it before +September the twenty-fifth, for up until that week on the board-walk of +that resort East meets West and the South joins them. The eminent author +sat in the left stage box with Mrs. Justus Farraday of New York and Mr. +and Mrs. Derick Van Tyne, and at her side was a chair into which at +times dropped Mr. Dennis Farraday, but which had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> reserved for the +producer. Things had gone brilliantly from the start, from the moment +the curtain went up with polished, interesting Miss Herne manœuvering +the frightened and substituted Betty Carrington through the opening +dialogue. A veritable gasp of joy had greeted the beautiful Mr. Gerald +Height as he entered in his colonial wig, ruffles, and velvet, and his +big eyes under their bowed brows sought out the author and smiled at her +with a genuine pledge of loyalty which no lizard could ever have given +forth as he glided richly into his archaic banter with Miss Herne.</p> + +<p>"He'll get 'em going, get 'em going the whole dame bunch from Harlem to +the Battery," muttered Mr. Rooney to Fido, who stood in the wings, with +his eyes glued to the much annotated prompt copy. "Now watch out for +Lindsey; she's doing forty sides of new stuff in twenty hours. Me for +the stock company to train 'em young. Let her rip, Rosalind!" And with a +nod Mr. Rooney sent his "bet" out upon the stage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> to make the audience +forget that they had paid their money to see Violet Hawtry and make them +glad to have paid it to see her.</p> + +<p>As Mildred Lindsey stepped out on the stage in all the glory of an +almost unbelievable beauty, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, who sat with his +shoulder back of that of the author of his play, seemed to behold a +vision with his trained theatrical foresight. This slender, powerful +young woman, with the rose dusk of the prairie sun on her cheeks, the +depths of the great cañons in her dark eyes, and the breadth of the far +horizons across her broad brow seemed to him to typify the rise of order +in her profession, over which so long had ruled chaos. And as her rich +voice led the intrigued audience from one brilliant scene to another, in +which she reincarnated before their eyes a very flower of the old +Southern chivalry with dash, finish, and lucidity, he felt as if he had +done his best and now had a right to be allowed to depart in peace from +the world of tinsel and illusion. As Lindsey and Height held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> the +audience spell-bound while the tempted wife dueled with her might +against the tender and desperate lover, placing, with a combined art +that was as great as any he had ever witnessed, the "big scene" of "The +Purple Slipper" among the "big scenes" of the modern stage instead of in +the class of lascivious masterpieces where the night before Hawtry had +laid it, Mr. Vandeford looked down into the gray eyes of the girl who +had had it all in her blood for generations, and who had so brilliantly +given it birth, and felt a prophecy rise within him that soon the +American drama would begin to draw on the wealth of tradition which had +been piling up in a vast storage for it, and that when it did, +dramatists and actors, men and women, would rise to interpret it to a +wondering world.</p> + +<p>"Is it really mine?" she asked him, in proud surprise and wonder.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's yours—filtered through Howard and Rooney and all the rest, +but—it—is—you," he answered. "You lost it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> a dozen times, but—his +own comes back to a man or a woman."</p> + +<p>His eyes blazed so that the long lashes lowered over the stars in hers, +and she saw the curtain fall on the last scene in a mist of tears. The +onrush of applause that raised the curtain half a dozen times was +confused in her by the pounding of Mr. Vandeford's heart back of her +shoulder and the echo in her own.</p> + +<p>"Fifty weeks and then some, Van," she heard the young press-agent +declare, in business-like congratulation.</p> + +<p>"Sure-fire hit," Mr. Rooney pronounced, as he spat on the stage floor +behind the curtain. "Rehearsals at ten to-morrow to tighten up, Fido. Me +for the hay." Miss Adair had gone back of the footlights to cast her +gratitude into his arms, and he had failed to notice her appearance in +any way at all, but had spat and gone on his autocratic way. Perhaps in +the New World of the Theater, stage-managers may be able to afford to be +human, perhaps not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Vandeford's supper-party to the cast of "The Purple Slipper" and the +friends from New York who had come down to see its try-out, lasted until +two o'clock in the morning, but when it was over neither the moon, which +was as full that night as Mr. Kent had become by coffee and cigars, nor +Dago Italiana had retired, and both stayed on their jobs out at the +south end of the board walk, where boards melt off into sand and ocean +and sky.</p> + +<p>Mr. Godfrey Vandeford had got about two thirds of the way along the +painful stretch of autobiography, with which he was inflicting agony on +himself by recounting to Miss Adair, when she raised her gray eyes to +his with the faith and reverence still at their average level, even +slightly higher, and stopped his punishment.</p> + +<p>"I understand exactly why people like you and Miss Hawtry don't marry +each other," she astonished him by saying in all calmness. "Mr. Height +explained it all to me the other day. Actors and actresses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> have +peculiar temperaments that fly together when they ought not to, and fly +apart when they ought to stay together. I know just how that is because +I feel—"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, as he laid his hands on the shoulders +of his author, who was standing close to him, with the moonlight full on +her clear-cut, high-bred face, and he gave her a savage shake. "The +whole crazy bunch will have to have law and order shot into 'em or the +theatrical profession will follow horse-racing to the devil. If they +don't give up unfaith and the double-cross Broadway will open some night +and swallow them all. And here you come out of a real world and say to +me—"</p> + +<p>"What did you think I was going to say?" demanded Miss Adair, pressing +so close to him that it was impossible for him to administer another +shake.</p> + +<p>"I don't know and I don't want to hear it. I'm afraid to have you say +anything to me."</p> + +<p>"It was this: I was going to ask you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> what I would have done if you had +been married to Miss Hawtry when I got to you and we had begun to +produce our play together. It's different when men and women work +together! Standards have to be broader. How do I know that I would have +run away to—"</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't!" pleaded Mr. Vandeford as she crept still nearer to him +and forcibly tried to open his arms for herself. "I'm punished. I've +taught you myself! When I leave you how'll I ever know if I'm going to +find you there when I come back?"</p> + +<p>"Well, how'd you expect to find me—me—there if you don't take me +there?" Miss Adair pleaded as she tugged at his folded arms, with such +energy that her polished thumb-nail slightly marked his iron wrists.</p> + +<p>"I'm not worthy, child, I'm not worthy," Mr. Vandeford answered with +grim words, and his arms still taut against his breast.</p> + +<p>"You have to judge yourself with the same—same 'broad standards' I +judge you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> by, like you told me to use. Please open your arms!"</p> + +<p>"I take those broad standards away from you."</p> + +<p>"Jesus Christ gave them to me, only I didn't understand in Adairville."</p> + +<p>"God, I wish you had never left Adairville."</p> + +<p>"I know what there is for us to do."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"I'll go back and marry you by Adairville narrow standards for better +and for worse, and then we'll have to keep 'em for ourselves when we +come back, because we did it knowing what we know, but let other people +be broad wherever they are without judging them. I'm going to drop +asleep right here on the sand if you don't open your arms."</p> + +<p>"Oh, good Lord, what did You make women out of?" Mr. Vandeford said in +all reverence and bewilderment, as he took the "white flame" to his +breast and drew it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> past her lips until it burned away all the chaff in +his soul and established itself upon its altar.</p> + +<p>After Mr. Vandeford had again delivered his author to the hopeful maid, +waiting up for another greenback, he met Mr. Rooney at the desk of the +hotel still on his way to "the hay."</p> + +<p>"Closed up with Weiner to begin rehearsing 'The Rosie Posie Girl' on +Tuesday, after we open 'The Purple Slipper' in the New Carnival. Said +Hawtry wouldn't sign up until I had signed too. She's got a hunch for +me. If you fail, their show goes in in your place; if you win, Weiner +shunts John Drew or Arliss out to one of his other theaters on the road, +and puts in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.' Good business, eh?" And Mr. Rooney +rolled his cigar from east to west and questioned Mr. Vandeford, with a +new fire for a new undertaking beginning to burn in his little black +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> cordiality, and not even +thinking of his lost thousands. "It will go big, Rooney, and I'll be +glad—none gladder."</p> + +<p>"Sure," answered Mr. Rooney. "It's all in the business. Everybody on +Broadway is out to stab everybody else—but mostly it's paper daggers if +you take it right."</p> + +<p>"A tissue-paper world sewed together with tinsel thread," Mr. Vandeford +murmured, as he fell asleep with his cheek pillowed on the wrist that +Miss Adair had marked in the struggle for her own.</p> + +<p>A week from that night "The Purple Slipper" had its first night on +Broadway, and opened the New Carnival Theater in a blaze of glory, +publicity, and electric lights. The talented young press-agent had done +his work well, and the audience assembled was the most brilliant +possible, made up of the usual blasé critics, eager theatrical people +who were not on the boards themselves, and interested and distinguished +men and women from many outer worlds. In the box facing the one occupied +by Mrs. Justus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> Farraday, in a blaze of both the Farraday and Justus +jewels and prestige, and the beautiful young author of the play, with +her son Mr. Dennis Farraday, and the producer, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, +sat Miss Violet Hawtry with Mr. Weiner, the owner of the beautiful new +theater which was opening its doors for the first time on Broadway. When +the curtain fell upon the new Lindsey star after its eighth elevation, +the Violet rushed behind the scenes and took that astonished young woman +in her arms, with the real tears of emotion, with which one genuine +artist greets another, in her great blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"You were wonderful, my dear, perfectly wonderful," she exclaimed. "You +see, Van, I never could have done it like that. Good luck to both of +you, and the little author—oh, there you are, my dear! All of you shake +hands with Mr. Weiner. He's so pleased that he is speechless, but he's +going to give you a big banquet on your fiftieth performance. He's +promised me."</p> + +<p>Which demonstration was perfectly in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> keeping with Miss Hawtry and +Maggie Murphy's character, and emanated from that quality within her +that a month later put "The Rosie Posie Girl" up as high and as +brilliant in electric lights as "The Purple Slipper," and kept it there +an entire year. Which goes to prove that the "tissue paper world" is yet +of heroic fibre.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Vandeford went to insert his author into the international +safety that evening at about the hour of midnight, he saw that his +friend the secretary was shooing a chattering party of Christian ladies, +who, as his guests, had sat in a group, fifth row center, in the New +Carnival Theater that evening, off up-stairs. With his talisman key, +which had never left his pocket since it had been presented to him, in +his hand, he paused to speak in a friendly shadow to his successful and +now truly eminent playwright.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to go South Thursday, and I'll follow Sunday to get that +little marriage business over in Adairville before we leave for the +Klondike. My commission<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> has arrived from Washington, and the Secretary +of the Navy wants quick reports of the copper before the big freeze. Do +you suppose I can keep you warm in +<a name="corr23" id="corr23"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn23" title="changed from 'Esquimo'">Eskimo</a> +furs and—and my heart?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Miss Adair, with the flutter which Mr. Vandeford now +answered, without any conscious volition. "There ought to be a great +play out of the Klondike. Jack London could have done it, but—but—" +the faithful gray eyes were raised to his with the flame in their +depths.</p> + +<p>With a groan, but an answering flame, Mr. Vandeford replied:</p> + +<p>"It's a fatal drag—. Yes. Some day we'll come back and try to put +across another one!"</p> + + +<p class="center">THE END</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="transnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's note<a name="tnotes" id="tnotes"></a></h3> + +<p> +The following changes have been made to the text:</p> + +<p>Page 12: "marischino" changed to +"<a name="cn1" id="cn1"></a><a href="#corr1">maraschino</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 14: "plenty ruffles" changed to "plenty +<a name="cn2" id="cn2"></a><a href="#corr2">of ruffles</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 14: "nee" changed to +"<a name="cn3" id="cn3"></a><a href="#corr3">née</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 29: "heatrical" changed to +"<a name="cn4" id="cn4"></a><a href="#corr4">theatrical</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 37: "mocking bird" changed to +"<a name="cn5" id="cn5"></a><a href="#corr5">mockingbird</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 40: "Highcliffe" changed to +"<a name="cn6" id="cn6"></a><a href="#corr6">Highcliff</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 42: "Vanderford" changed to +"<a name="cn7" id="cn7"></a><a href="#corr7">Vandeford</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 57: "Madamoiselle" changed to +"<a name="cn8" id="cn8"></a><a href="#corr8">Mademoiselle</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 58: "Madamoiselle" changed to +"<a name="cn9" id="cn9"></a><a href="#corr9">Mademoiselle</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 61: "atinkle" changed to +"<a name="cn10" id="cn10"></a><a href="#corr10">atwinkle</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 67: "Highcliffe" changed to +"<a name="cn11" id="cn11"></a><a href="#corr11">Highcliff</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 90: "coemployer's" changed to +"<a name="cn12" id="cn12"></a><a href="#corr12">co-employer's"</a>.</p> + +<p>Page 114: "Fou get Gerald" changed to +"<a name="cn13" id="cn13"></a><a href="#corr13">You get Gerald</a>".</p> + +<p>Pages 118-119: "ear of his coproducer" changed to "ear of his +<a name="cn14" id="cn14"></a><a href="#corr14">co-producer</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 125: "Lindenberger" changed to +"<a name="cn15" id="cn15"></a><a href="#corr15">Lindenberg</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 145: "I'd going to" changed to +"<a name="cn16" id="cn16"></a><a href="#corr16">I'm</a> going to".</p> + +<p>Page 193: "She's geting along" changed to "She's +<a name="cn17" id="cn17"></a><a href="#corr17">getting</a> along".</p> + +<p>Page 220: "the he Christian" changed to +"<a name="cn18" id="cn18"></a><a href="#corr18">the Christian</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 236: "touseled" changed to +"<a name="cn19" id="cn19"></a><a href="#corr19">tousled</a>"</p> + +<p>Page 237: "manila envelop" changed to "manila +<a name="cn20" id="cn20"></a><a href="#corr20">envelope</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 245: "Vanderford" changed to +"<a name="cn21" id="cn21"></a><a href="#corr21">Vandeford</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 307: "tryout" changed to +"<a name="cn22" id="cn22"></a><a href="#corr22">try-out</a>".</p> + +<p>Page 373: "Esquimo" changed to +"<a name="cn23" id="cn23"></a><a href="#corr23">Eskimo</a>".</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Blue-grass and Broadway, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY *** + +***** This file should be named 29391-h.htm or 29391-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/3/9/29391/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/29391-h/images/frontis.jpg b/29391-h/images/frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a680b26 --- /dev/null +++ b/29391-h/images/frontis.jpg diff --git a/29391.txt b/29391.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a29eea --- /dev/null +++ b/29391.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7424 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Blue-grass and Broadway, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Blue-grass and Broadway + +Author: Maria Thompson Daviess + +Release Date: July 12, 2009 [EBook #29391] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + +Transcriber's note + + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer +errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other +inconsistencies are as in the original. + + + + + BLUE-GRASS + + AND + + BROADWAY + + [Illustration: "We are all going to stand by, little girl"] + + + + + BLUE-GRASS + + AND + + BROADWAY + + BY + + MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS + + Author of "THE MELTING OF MOLLY," "THE GOLDEN BIRD," + "THE TINDER BOX," etc. + + NEW YORK + + THE CENTURY CO. + + 1919 + + + + + Copyright, 1919, by + + THE CENTURY CO. + + Copyright, 1918, by + + INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY (HARPER'S BAZAR) + + _Published, April, 1919_ + + + + + BLUE-GRASS + + AND + + BROADWAY + + + + + BLUE-GRASS + + AND + + BROADWAY + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The need of a large sum of money in a great hurry is the root of many +noble ambitions, in whose branches roost strange companies of birds, +pecking away for dollars that grow--or do not--on bushes. And it was in +such a quest that Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, lit upon +a limb of life beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford of Broadway, New York. Their +joint endeavors made a great adventure. + +"There's nothing to it, Pop; either pony girls will have to grow four +legs to cut new capers, somebody will have to write a play entitled +'When Courtship Was in Flower,' requiring flowered skirts ten yards wide +with a punch in each furbelow, or we go out of the theatrical business," +said Mr. Vandeford, as he shuffled a faint, violet-tinted letter out of +a pile of advertising posters emblazoned with dancing girls and men, +several personal bills, two from a theatrical storage house and one from +an electrical expert, leaned back in his chair, and prepared to open the +violet communication. "We dropped twenty thousand cool on 'Miss Cut-up,' +and those sixteen pairs of legs cost us fifteen hundred a week. We might +be in danger of starving right here on Broadway, if we hadn't picked a +sure-fire hit in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.'" + +"Ain't it the truth," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, as he glanced up from +his typewriter with a twinkle in his big black eyes that were like gems +in a round, very sedate, even sad, Hebrew face. "Bare legs and 'cut-ups' +is already old now, Mr. Vandeford. It is that we must have now a play +with a punch." + +"The law won't let us take anything more off the chorus, so we'll have +to swing back and put a lot on. Costumes that cost a million will be the +next drag, mark me, Pop," Mr. Godfrey Vandeford declaimed with a gloomy +brow, as he still further delayed exploring the violet missive. + +"A hundred thousand it will take for costuming 'The Rosie Posie Girl,'" +agreed Pop dolefully, from above the letter he was slowly pecking out of +the machine. + +"For furnishing chiffon belts, you mean, not costumes, if we go by +Corbett's clothes ideas," growled the pessimistic, prospective producer +of the possible next season's hit in the girl-show line. + +"You have it right," answered Pop, sympathetically. + +"If I hadn't promised to let old Denny in on my Violet Hawtry show for +the fall I'd be tempted to throw back everything, even 'The Rosie Posie +Girl' and go gunning for potatoes or onions up on a Connecticut farm; +but the show bug has bit Denny hard and I'll have to be the one to +shear him and not leave it to any of the others. I'll be more merciful +to his millions; but asking him to put up half of a cool hundred and +fifty thousand is a bit raw. Wish I had a nice little glad play with an +under twenty cast for him to cut his teeth on instead of the 'Rosie +Posie.'" + +"It's six plays on the shelf now for reading," reminded Mr. Meyers, +eagerly, for to him fell the task of weeding all plays sent into the +office of Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer, and his optimistic +soul suffered when he discovered a gem and found himself unable to get +Mr. Vandeford to read so much as the first act unless he caught him in +just such a mood as the one in which he now labored. "Now, I want that +you take just a peep, Mr. Vandeford, at that new Hinkle comedy for which +I have written already five times to delay--" + +"Can't do it now, Pop! Don't you see that I have got to read this purple +letter and that is all the business I can attend to for this morning?" +answered Mr. Vandeford, as he pushed a slim paper cutter along the top +edge of the purple missive. + +"But, Mr. Vandeford, it is that I have--" + +"Express. Sign here!" was the interruption that put an end to Mr. +Meyers's immediate supplication. The parcel that he deposited upon his +chief's desk with forceful meekness was a play manuscript. + +"Great guns, Pops; I'm seeing purple!" exclaimed Mr. Vandeford, as he +let the violet letter fall upon the violet wrappings in which the +express intrusion was incased. "Exact match! This looks like some sort +of a hunch. Open it, Pops, and run through the layout while I tackle the +violet letter and see if anything happens." And with great interest both +grown men plunged into the excitement of the chase of the hunch. + +Mr. Vandeford's letter contained the following, delivered in bold words +and script: + + HIGHCLIFF. + + _My dear Van:_ + + This is to remind you that it is now July fifth, and my contract + sets September twenty-third as the last date for my opening on + Broadway in a new play under your management. "The Rosie Posie + Girl" will be a huge undertaking and worthy of my every effort, but + I do not feel that you are up to producing it properly. I regret + your losses in "Miss Cut-up," but I did my best with a vehicle that + was not worthy of my ability. The success of "Dear Geraldine" was + entirely due to the comedy bits I wrote in to suit myself, and I + had to be costumer and producer and the whole show. In justice to + myself I feel that I ought to pass under the management of a more + forceful person than yourself. And anyway I don't think you would + be able to get a theater to open on Broadway in September. Remember + that over a hundred good shows died on the road waiting to get into + Broadway last winter, and _I_ won't play anywhere else. Now Weiner + wants to buy "The Rosie Posie Girl" from you and open his New + Carnival Theatre with me in it on October first. You must sell it + to him. He will make you a good offer. You can't use it without me, + and I want him to produce it. Please see him immediately. You know + that you owe your reputation as a producer to me, and don't be + selfish. I'll expect you up on the evening train to talk over the + final arrangements. I'll meet you in the runabout and we can go + out to the Beach Inn for dinner. Bring me some brandied marrons, a + large bottle of rose oil and a stick of lip rouge from Celeste's. + + Hurriedly, + + VIOLET. + + July fifth. + + P. S. Of course you are to go on loving me just as usual. I + couldn't do without that. How much money have I in the + Knickerbocker Trust? + +After Godfrey Vandeford had read the last violent purple line on violet, +he dropped the letter on his desk and looked out of his office window +with serious eyes that gazed without seeing, down the long canyon of +Broadway, up and down which rushed traffic composed of green cars shaped +like torpedoes, honking, darting motors, skulking trucks and jostling, +tangled people. Flamboyant signs, waving flags, and gilt-lettered window +panes made a Persian glow in a belt space up from the seething sidewalks +to the sky line, and above it all the roar and din rose to high heaven. +But Godfrey Vandeford was blind to it all and deaf, as he sat and +brooded above the furious landscape. His blue eyes, set deep back under +their black, gray-splashed brows, failed to take in the lurid spectacle, +and his narrow, lean face was flushed under the bronze it had acquired +for keeps from the suns of many climes. His lean, powerful body seemed +fairly crouched in thought. Once he shifted one leg across the other, +and as he settled back in his chair he tossed the violet letter over to +Mr. Meyers without seeming to know that he did so. Then he plunged back +into his absorption without seeing his henchman read rapidly through the +missive, look at him once with a gem-like keenness, and again begin to +read the purple-covered manuscript. + +"And we picked her out of a vaudeville gutter over beyond Weehawken just +five years ago, Pop," Mr. Vandeford finally interrupted the flip of the +manuscript pages to say, with a deep musing in his flexible, sympathetic +voice. + +"You taught her to eat with the knife and the fork," growled Mr. Meyers +from behind his violet barricade as he ripped over another page. +"Mick!" + +"Oh, not as bad as that, Pop," laughed Mr. Vandeford, with a glance of +affection at the young Hebrew delving in the corner for a jewel for him. +"She's just--oh, well, they are all children--and have to be spanked. +She wants to sell me out to Weiner after I've spent five nice, good +years in building her into a little twinkle star, but I don't think it +will be good for her to let her do it. I'll have to use the slipper on +her, I'm afraid. I believe in hunches and I believe I'll just use that +purple manuscript you're chewing to let her set her teeth in. She needs +one good failure to tone her up. What's the name of the effusion in +ribbons?" + +"The Renunciation of Rosalind," murmured Mr. Meyers, as he bent once +more to the pages which he had been reading with eagerness when +interrupted by his chief. + +"We could call it 'The Purple Slipper.' About what will the cast +figure?" + +"Three thousand per week if you use Gerald Height at five hundred as per +contract with him. But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I would say for a play this +is--" + +"That's not much money to waste on a purple hunch. A nice, judicious, +little second-hand staging out of the warehouse and a few weeks' road +try-out for the failure will cost about ten thousand. I'll let Denny +have five thousand worth of fun mussing around with it to cut his eye +teeth, and then we'll clap Violet into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' weeping +with gratitude to have her face saved after being slapped first. Get the +parts out to-morrow and you and Chambers begin to cast it. I'll see +actors here from three to five Friday. I'll open it September tenth. Now +I've got to go and chase those confounded marrons. The last I took were +put up in maraschino and were not welcomed. I'll be in the office--" + +"And about the author, Mr. Vandeford, and the contracts?" questioned Mr. +Meyers, with both dismay and energy in his voice. + +"Oh, I forgot about the author. She won't amount to much. A woman, I +judge, from the ribbons. Offer the usual five, rising to seven and a +half royalties, and explain carefully that you mean five per cent. on +the box office receipts under five thousand, and seven and a half on all +over that. Also go into the moving picture rights and second companies +with your usual honesty, but offer her only a two hundred and fifty +advance to cover a two years' option. She won't know that it ought to be +five hundred for six months, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her. +Besides, it will all be over for her and her play before October." + +"She says in the letter which was pinned to the first page of the play, +that the article about you in the 'Times Magazine' made her know that +you were the one producer to whom she could trust her play," said Mr. +Meyers, reading from a neat little cream-white note in his hand. + +"Sweet child!" murmured Mr. Vandeford, as he took up his hat and stick. +"Don't encourage her in any way in your letter, Pop. We don't want her +rushing to the scene of action when we butcher her child. Pay the two +thousand to Hilliard for the option on 'The Rosie Posie Girl' until +January first, and tell him I am going to produce it in November. 'Phone +me at Highcliff to-morrow if you want me. I'll be clearing the deck for +the--spanking." + +"I wish you good luck," said Mr. Meyers feelingly. + +"What do you judge that play is about from reading the first act, and +what is the author's name? I might have to produce a little concrete +information in the fracas," the eminent producer paused to inquire just +as he was closing the door. + +"It is written by a Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, and it +has in plenty of ruffles and romance that is in a past time of a +Colonial Governor and his wife alone at home with him in Washington." + +"That sounds about right for the weapon of castigation for Violet +Hawtry, _nee_ Murphy. I have always believed in hunches, and that +accord in color was meant to mean something. Better send me a copy +special in the morning. If Mr. Farraday calls me before I get him tell +him the Astor at one to-day. What did I say? Marrons, lip stick, and--" + +"Rose oil," prompted Mr. Meyers, with just the trace of a sneer in his +voice. + +"Right O! Rose oil it is. By!" And the door closed on Mr. Vandeford's +graceful figure in its gray London tweeds. + +Thus a great adventure was undertaken in all levity. And with his +chief's complete departure a change came into the mien of Mr. Adolph +Meyers. He told the stenographer in the outer office to engage two girls +to copy a play that afternoon and evening, to keep him from being +interrupted until six, and to muffle the telephone unless in cases of +emergency. Then he seated himself in Mr. Vandeford's deep chair, put his +feet on the desk, lit a fat, black cigar and plunged into "The Purple +Slipper," _nee_ "The Renunciation of Rosalind." For two hours he read +with the deepest absorption, only pausing to make an occasional note on +a pad at his elbow. Then after he had laid down the manuscript with its +purple wrappings and ribbons, he sat for a half hour in a trance, out of +which he came to seat himself at the typewriter to indite a portentous +letter, which he put in an envelope, sealed and directed to: + + MISS PATRICIA ADAIR, + + Adairville, Kentucky. + +The contents were: + + _My dear Madam:_ + + I have carefully read your play entitled "The Renunciation of + Rosalind," and have decided to make you the following offer for the + production rights. I will give you two hundred and fifty dollars + for all rights of production, including moving picture rights and + supplementary road companies to extend over a period of two years + from the date of signing the contract, and will agree to pay you in + addition five per cent. of all box receipts up to five thousand per + week and seven and a half on all exceeding that sum. If you agree + to this proposition, I will send you a formal contract covering all + points in legal terms. Please let me know at your earliest + convenience your decision about the matter, as I now intend to + produce it in September with Violet Hawtry in the title role. + + Believe me, my dear Madam, + + Very truly, + + GODFREY VANDEFORD. + +The above epistle from a strange outer world found Miss Patricia Adair, +attired in a faded gingham frock, planting snap beans in her ancestral +garden. It was delivered to her by her brother, Mr. Roger Adair, from +the hip pocket of his khaki trousers, upon which were large smudges of +the agricultural profession. His blue gingham shirt was open at the +throat across a strong bronze throat, and his eyes were as blue as his +shirt and laughed out across big brown freckles that matched his +chestnut hair. + +"Here's a letter I brought over from the post-office, Pat, along with a +sack of meal and fifty cents' worth of sugar. Mr. Bates said Miss Elvira +Henderson stopped in and told him to send it to you by the first person +coming your way," he said as he threw the reins of the filly, whose +chestnut coat matched his hair exactly, over the gate post, and +proceeded to take from the pommel of the saddle the two bundles of +groceries mentioned. "Mr. Bates sent you this bunch of tomato plants and +head lettuce to set out along the back border of your rose beds, and +I'll spade it all up for you right now if--" + +"Oh, Roger, listen, listen!" exclaimed Patricia, as she sprang to her +feet from her knees upon which she had rested as she read the letter he +had handed her. "My play, my play, it's sold!" And as she sparkled at +him over the letter of Mr. Adolph Meyers held clasped to her gingham +bosom, wild roses bloomed in her cheeks and tears sparkled in her gray +eyes back of their thick black lashes. + +"What play?" demanded Roger, stolid with astonishment. + +"The one I wrote last month and the month before, when Mr. Covington +said that the mortgage must be paid--or give up Rosemeade. I knew it +would kill Grandfather to move him away from the house he was born in, +and I couldn't think of anything that would get money quick but coal oil +wells and gold mines and plays. It costs money to dig up oil and gold, +but it is easy to write a play." + +"Oh, is it?" Roger questioned, with a twinkle in his eyes above the +freckles. In his arms he still held the meal and the sugar, and his +interest was an inspiration to Patricia to pour out the whole story in a +torrent of tumbling words. + +"You know those love letters I have of our great grandmother's that she +wrote to her husband while he was in Washington consulting the President +about the first constitutional convention, the ones about the Indian +raid and the battle at Shawnee. You remember the day I read them to you +up in the apple tree in the orchard years ago, don't you?" + +"Yes, I remember the day," answered Roger, with another twinkle turned +inward at the memory of his seventeen-year-old scorn of Patricia's +eleven-year-old sentimentality. + +"Well, those letters are the play," announced Patricia triumphantly. "I +read a lot of Shakespeare and other old English dramas I found in +Grandfather's library to see exactly how to make one. It ends when he +comes back expecting to find her killed and she is dancing at a dinner +she has given her lover as a bet that he would come back by that night. +It's wonderful!" As she thus laid bare the skeleton of her play child, +Patricia took from doubting Roger the sack of sugar. + +"Shoo, that's not a play," hooted Roger, with a decided return of his +seventeen-year-old scorn in his thirtieth summer. + +"Read that," answered Patricia with dignity, as she handed him Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford's letter, written and signed by Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"Whew--uh, Pat, two hundred and fifty dollars!" Roger exclaimed, as his +manner dissolved quickly from affectionate derision into respectful awe. + +"Oh, that's just a trifle for a beginning; those royalties may be worth +several hundred thousand. In the 'Times Magazine' article that I read +about Godfrey Vandeford and his plays, it said he had paid the author of +'Dear Geraldine' more than a hundred thousand dollars in royalties. That +is what made me write the play." + +"Say, let me take it sitting down," said Roger as he sank upon the grass +beside a rose bed that had a row of spring onions growing odoriferously +defiant under the very shower of its petals, and laid the sack of +precious meal tenderly across his knees. "Now go on and tell me." + +"You see, Roger, I had to do something to get the money to keep the +house for Grandfather. You know we couldn't get any more mortgage money, +because it had closed up or something, and--" + +"Did Covington tell you he was going to foreclose after I--that is, +right away?" demanded Roger fiercely, with a snap in the blue eyes above +the freckles. + +"No," said Patricia, as she settled herself on the grass beside Roger, +with the valuable sugar balanced tenderly upon her knee. "He told me +that he would let it stand just as it was for three months until October +first, but after that we would have to--to tell--Grandfather and move," +a quiver came into Patricia's soft voice that had in it the patrician, +slurring softness that can only come from the throat of a grand dame +sprung from the race which has dominated blue-grass pastures. "Doctor +Healy says it won't be long but--but now he'll--he'll die in his own +home that Grandmother built where he fought off the Indians. Her play +has saved us." + +"I had fixed it to run until I make my crops," said Roger, with a choke +in his voice that was a rich masculine accompaniment to Patricia's. + +"The play will have been running six weeks by that time, and I can pay +most of it off. A hundred thousand a year is almost ten thousand a month +and--" + +"But all plays don't succeed, Pat, honey, and--" + +"The 'Times Magazine' said that Godfrey Vandeford had never had a +failure, and didn't you read that he wants to star Violet Hawtry in it? +She was 'Dear Geraldine.' How could it fail?" Patricia was positively +haughty toward Roger's timorousness. + +"That's so," admitted Roger, convinced. "And we can easy get by on the +two fifty until October, especially with the garden I am going to raise. +I'm no Godfrey Vandeford, but I'm a first-class producer--of potatoes +and onions and cabbage and turnip greens and corn. In these war times a +potato producer ranks with any old producer." + +"But I won't be able to leave all of the two hundred and fifty to use +this summer. I'll have to take some of it with me." + +"With you where?" demanded Roger. + +"To New York. Do you suppose even Mr. Godfrey Vandeford would undertake +to produce a play without the author there to help him?" Patricia's +scorn of Roger's lack of sound reasoning about theatrical matters was +hurled at him pitilessly. + +"Of course not," admitted Roger hurriedly. "You can take the whole two +hundred and fifty and I'll look after the Major and Jeff." + +"I don't know what I'd do without you, Roger," said Patricia, as she +cuddled her cheek for an instant against his strong, warm shoulder under +the gingham shirt. "I'm afraid of New York. I know you'll take care of +Grandfather; but who'll look after little me--I don't know what I'll do +all by myself. Maybe I won't have to--" + +"Certainly you'll have to go," Roger interrupted with comforting +assurance. "Go to the Young Women's Christian Association, and if +anything happens to you telegraph me and I'll come get you." + +"I hadn't thought of the Y. W. C. A. Of course I'll be all right there. +I'll get Miss Elvira to write a special letter to the secretary about +me," exclaimed Patricia with the joy lights back in the great, gray +eyes. "And it's so cheap there that I can leave a lot of the money at +home. I'll only be gone about six weeks." + +"No, I think you had better take all the two fifty with you," said +Roger. "You know you have to spend money to make money and you mustn't +be short. I'll look after the Major and Jeff. Don't you worry, dear." + +"Will you let me buy you a big silo and a tractor plow when I get all +the money? You are the greatest farmer in the world and you only need a +little machinery to prove it." Again the young playwright rose to her +knees and with letter and sugar in her embrace she entreated to be +allowed to spend the money that was to be hers from "The Renunciation of +Rosalind," which she did not know was being cast in New York as "The +Purple Slipper." + +"Certainly I'll let you help me, Pat. Hasn't what's yours and mine +always been ours since we set our first hen together?" laughed Roger, as +he rose to his feet and dragged Patricia to hers beside him. "Come on +and let's break it to the Major. You may need me to stand by if it hits +him on the bias," and they both laughed with a tinge of uneasiness as +they went down the long walk of the garden which on both sides was +sprouting and leaving and perfuming in a medley of flowers and +vegetables. + +As they walked slowly along Roger cast an eye of great satisfaction over +the long lines of rapidly maturing peas and beans and heavy-leaved +potatoes, and in his mind calculated that a year's food for the small +family at Rosemeade was being produced right at their door under his +skilful hoe which he wielded at off times when he could leave the negro +hands to their work out on Rosemeade, their ancestral five hundred acres +of blue-grass meadows and loamy fields. Roger had for the summer quit +his slowly growing law practice in Adairville, enlisted as a doughty +Captain in the Army of the Furrows and was as proud of his khaki and +gingham uniform with their loam smudges as of his diploma from the +University of Virginia which hung in the wide old hall, the top one in a +succession of five given from father to son of the house of Adair. The +whole county was farming under the direction of Roger, and he had been +obliged often to work Patricia's garden by moonlight. + +"I'm almost afraid to tell Grandfather," Patricia interrupted his food +calculations to say as they came around the corner of the wide-roofed +old brick house with its traceries of vines that massed at the eaves to +give nesting for many doves, and beheld the Major seated in his arm +chair on the porch which was guarded and supported by round, white +pillars around which a rose vine festooned itself. A faded, plaid wool +rug was across the Major's knees in spite of the fact that the evening +was so warm, and about his shoulders was a wide, gray knitted scarf. A +bent, white-haired old negro stood beside him filling his pipe for him +and serving as a target for the words issuing from beneath his waxed +white mustache that gave the impression of crossed white swords. + +"War! What do they know about war, Jeff? We killed our first Yankee +before we were seventeen, and now they fight behind guns located six +miles away by squinting through double-decker opera glasses. War, I say +in these days--" + +"Yes, sir," assented Jeff, in soothing interruption of what he +considered debilitating heat in the Major's words. "We whipped them +Yankees in no time but they jest didn't find it out in time to stop +killing us 'fore it all ended. Now, I'm going to help you to your room +and make you comfortable for I--" + +"I see Patricia and Roger approaching and I'll wait to talk to them for +a few minutes, Jeff," answered the Major with a slight note of entreaty +in his voice. + +"Jess a little while, then, jess a little while," consented the old +black comrade nurse as he shuffled into the house and back to his +kitchen to complete his preparation of the simple evening meal for his +little household. As he crisped his bacon, scrambled his eggs and +browned his muffins he muttered to himself: + +"He's gitting weaker every day--help him Lord, and me to keep care of +him." + +Just as he was turning the fluffy yellow scramble into a hot, old silver +dish he paused and listened to the musketry of the Major's deep voice +which was huge even in weakness, then he shook his head and began to +hustle the food together to be able to use the announcement of the meal +as an interruption to the harmful excitement, whose scattering words he +was at a loss to understand. + +"Impossible! Impossible that my granddaughter should barter and trade in +the theatrical world, a world into which no lady should ever set foot. +No! Do not argue, Patricia! Roger and I understand, and it is not +needful that you should," were the words of the assault and +counter-charge that so puzzled old Jeff over his skillet and baker. + +"I'm not going to act in the play, Grandfather. I wrote it and I'm going +to show them how I want it acted and then come right home," soothed +Patricia, looking to Roger for help and reinforcement. + +"She'll stay at the Young Women's Christian Association, Major, and +she'll be perfectly safe. I am going to write to Dennis Farraday, who +graduated with me at the University, and ask him to look after her if +she needs anything." + +"Ah, that puts another face on the matter," said the Major, with a +degree of mollification coming into his keen, old face and weakly +booming voice. "Of course, the Adairs have always been geniuses of one +kind or another, and it is not surprising that my granddaughter should +have produced a great American Drama. If she has the interest and +protection of a gentleman who is a friend of her brother's, and a safe +retreat in a woman's organization I will have to permit her to +superintend the placing of her great work before an appreciative public. +Of course, she will not be thrown with any of the theatrical world +socially, and in a few weeks she will return to her own home, leaving +that world better for having had a brief glimpse of her. You may go, +Patricia. Jefferson!" Fatigue showed very decidedly in the Major's weak +call to the old negro, who came immediately and rolled his chair away +with an indignant cast of his eyes at the two young people. + +"Wh-eugh, that was a battle, and if I hadn't thought of old Denny to +bring up as a support to the Young Women's Christian Association I think +it would have sure gone the other way." And Roger laughed with the +twinkle above the freckles as he leaned against the rose vine around the +pillar and fanned himself with his hat. + +"_Is_ there any Denny?" questioned Patricia weakly, from the top step +upon which she had sunk when the Major was wheeled away. + +"Certainly, and he's a jolly good fellow," answered Roger. "I had a +letter from him year before last. I'll write him all about everything +and he'll look after you for me. I'd trust Denny to do his best for me +if I hadn't seen him for fifty years. I lived with him our Junior and +Senior years and I know him. But I must go. I have to go back to the +grocery again to get a plow point." + +"Please don't go until after supper," pleaded Patricia. "I want to think +out loud to you. It has just struck me that I will have to have some +clothes. What will I do about it? I can't go to New York in a gingham +dress." + +"In such a crisis as that I think Miss Elvira will be a better target +for your thoughts than I can be. I'll stop and tell her the news and +send her over," teased Roger with his engaging twinkle. + +"I can't think to anybody like I can to you," said Patricia, as she came +and stood beside him. + +"I really have to go, honey child, to see about the ploughing in my +South meadow, but I'll come back to be in the finish of the dimity +confab," answered Roger, as he patted Patricia on the shoulder and went +rapidly away. + +And a dimity confab was a good name for the conference that was held in +the July moonlight on the front porch of Rosemeade for several silvered +hours that night. Miss Elvira Henderson, modiste, who was the guide, +philosopher and friend, in the matter of costuming as well as in all +other matters, of the feminine population of Hillcrest, had hurried down +the street to the Rosemeade gate as soon as she had consumed her +spinster baked apple and toast supper, and on her way had collected +pretty Mamie Lou Whitson and progressive Jenny Kinkaid, who formed a +thrilled chorus to her interested and joyful conversation with +Patricia. + +"The eyes of the world will be on you, Patricia, and nothing short of a +silk tailor suit will be suitable for you to wear to sustain yourself in +such a position," declared Miss Elvira, with a positive degree of +finality in her voice. + +"And you'll have to have at least three evening dresses, Pat, for that +same article about Mr. Godfrey Vandeford said that Broadway only woke up +at night. And you know it said he was the best known man on Broadway. Of +course, he'll take you to lots of Cafes and dances, and midnight frolics +and--and things," bubbled Mamie Lou very unwisely. + +"Patricia is to stay at The Young Women's Christian Association, and I +am sure they will expect her to be in bed before any midnight +foolishness," said Miss Elvira, with a severe glance at the frivolous +Mamie Lou. "I shall, of course, make her an evening dress or two, one +especially to wear when the multitude calls her before the curtain to +express their admiration of and enthusiasm over her play, but I shall +trust Patricia not to let them lead her into any undue frivolity. The +theatres all close at eleven o'clock." + +"The article said that was the time that Broadway woke up, and--" Jenny +began, as she hid behind Mamie Lou as if expecting a volley from Miss +Elvira. But Miss Elvira was too much absorbed to notice her in any way. +Miss Elvira was also in the throes of conceptive genius. + +"The last 'Woman's Review' had a colored plate of a suit that I can see +on you, Patricia," she mused under her breath. "It was queer blue, +with--" + +"In that big trunk of your great grandmother's up in the garret there's +a blue silk that she wore in Washington that is that curious new blue +color, Pat, and a lot more of--" Mamie Lou was saying with great +executive ability when Miss Elvira seized on her idea and made it her +own with the avidity of real genius. + +"We'll make over all of old Madam Adair's dresses for you, Patricia," +she decreed. + +"They've always been kept kind of sacred and--" Patricia began to +remonstrate with uncertainty in her voice. + +"And rightly so--but at the presentation of her play it is proper for +them to emerge," Miss Elvira further decreed. "Get a lamp and let's go +look at them and decide to-night," she further commanded. + +And from the result of that resurrection in the garret of Rosemeade, +Adairville, Kentucky, later Broadway, even Fifth Avenue, New York, got a +decided and unwonted thrill. + +"The clothes are all right, Roger. Miss Elvira is going to make me a lot +out of great-grandmother's clothes she wore in Washington to dance with +Lafayette," Patricia confided to Roger as they stood under the rose vine +in the moonlight at the late hour of ten-thirty that evening after she +had helped him transplant a lot of sturdy tomato vines. + +"Little old New York will sit up and take notice when it sees you in +party dimity, Pat," he said as he smiled down into the eager, gray eyes +that were raised to his, beaming through their long black lashes. + +"Oh, I hope I'll make friends, Roger," Patricia answered the warmth in +his voice as she clung to the warmth and strength of his arm as if in +foreboding. + +"Of course New York will love you, Pat. Hasn't everybody always loved +you?" he asked tenderly as he put his work-worn hand over hers on his +arm. + +"Yes," answered Patricia, with her head suddenly held high. "If anybody +don't like me, I'll make them." + +At about the same hour that this challenge to his world was flung from +the lips of the beautiful and talented Miss Patricia Adair upon the +moonlit and mockingbird trilled air of the Bluegrass State Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford was engaged in about the twenty-fifth round of the spanking of +Miss Violet Hawtry in the State of New York, and he was having a hard +time accomplishing his purpose. + +"It's just like your selfishness to try to put me into a piffling play +by some unknown author with every risk to be run, when Weiner wants to +buy your contract and put me into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' which is a +play by Hilliard that gives me scope for all of my ability. He is +willing to give you a fifth interest in it and that's all you deserve. +I'll show you whether or not you can sacrifice my career, +you ----! ----! ----! you!" And with which tirade the beautiful Violet +stormed up and down the veranda of Highcliff in front of the supine +figure of her manager, which was clad in immaculate white flannel, suede +and linen, with a blue silk scarf knotted at the base of his lean, +bronze throat, which matched the blue of his keen eyes under their +gray-sprinkled brows, as the only bit of color in his irreproachable +costuming. + +"You've read neither play, my dear Violet. You may like 'The Purple +Slipper.' In which case you get the same salary and I get all the +profits instead of the one-fifth our friend Weiner is offering me for +letting you act in my other play," he answered his star's outburst in an +easy, mollifying drawl. + +"Everybody knows that a Hilliard play is a _play_, and I'm not going to +try out a new playwright just to put money in your pockets. Why should +I?" demanded the star virago, in a fury that made her snapping Irish +blue eyes, tall, strapping, curved body, and pale tawny hair combine +into a good semblance of the jungle queen on a prey quest. + +"No reason except your contract entered into in all lawfulness," +answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. "You know what the Courts are, and if +you like I'll meet you there and fight it out instead of by these +sounding sea waves in this delicious moonlight. Come here and kiss me +and do let our lawyers settle it all for us." As he spoke he rose lazily +and attempted to take the taut young cat into a pair of listlessly +desirous arms. + +"Not on your life you big loafer, you, just because you put one over me +when I was a starved stage door drab don't think I am that same kind or +that sort of thing goes with me now." She spit the words at him as she +half yielded to his nonchalant embrace and half repulsed it. + +"Be accurate, Violet, my dear: did I demand your heart until I had +managed you and my own affairs to the point where you could buy +Highcliff or any other trifles you wanted? There are other ladies to +love in the world besides you, aren't there? There are other gentlemen +besides me and you've had five years--and a wide hunting grounds. I've +got you under only one contract--business and not--pleasure." + +"God, I don't know whether I love or hate you most," were the words of +the conciliating purr that he got as she turned to put herself back +under his caressing. + +"Hate, I wager," he laughed softly, as he drew away from her and seated +himself on the railing of the veranda which hung out over the old ocean +so that its hungry waves seemed to be leaping up to engulf him. The gray +peaks and gable of the Hawtry cottage massed themselves back of him and +in the silvering moonlight he looked like a white eagle perched on an +eyrie. + +"Don't make me play that play; give me over to Weiner," the star of many +such an encounter as well of "Dear Geraldine" coaxed, as she followed +him and put bare, white, glistening arms around his neck and attempted +to draw his head down against a bosom that still tossed with the storm +of anger that she had put out of voice and face. "You know how last year +nobody could get a theatre for love or money, and the producers who +owned theatres put on all the plays and coined money. It will be worse +next year. You have no theatre and Weiner has three. He offers to let us +open the New Carnival. It'll be a sure thing; while your play will have +to take its chance for a New York theatre and maybe get none. Please, +Godfrey!" + +"Well, you see I had agreed to let Dennis Farraday in on this play, and +it would sell him out to Weiner too," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he very +gently but determinedly took the white arms from around his neck and +refused the pillow of the storming breast. + +"Dennis Farraday?" Violet asked, and Mr. Vandeford shot a quick glance +of question at her as he felt the tautening of the muscles in the white +arms that he had in his grasp of untangling. "You are not going to trim +him, are you?" + +"No, not if you make a hit in 'The Purple Slipper,' answered Mr. +Vandeford, as he gave her another appraising glance while he lit a +cigarette. + +"Has he read the play?" + +"He's putting his money on Hawtry in a play of Vandeford's selecting and +producing," was the slap administered with the soft drawl. And as he +slapped he watched the reaction. + +"What did you do with that copy of the play that fellow Dolph sent out +this morning?" was what he got with an entire change of purpose in the +beautiful, stormy face that had calmed in an instant. + +"It's in your room on the table by your bed," answered Mr. Vandeford, as +he rose, stretched, yawned and in other ways indicated his desire for +sleep in the primitive manner that a man uses in the bosom of his +family. + +"I'm going to read it if you don't mind," the Violet said with a smile +of pleasure instead of the frown of anger which had so lately rested on +her fair face. Mr. Vandeford laughed inwardly; she was about as +transparent as a very young kitten in its eagerness for a saucer of +cream. + +"Good girl," answered Godfrey, as together they entered the dark house. +Together they climbed the steps, and with a kiss executed by the Violet +he left her to turn into the door of her room while he went on to his +just beyond. + +Out of her sight the lazy, care-free manner left his lithe body, and in +an instant every muscle stiffened to action. The smoulder of anger in +his eyes blazed. He looked at his watch. + +"Thirty-five minutes to catch that eleven-fifteen train to town. Never +again. I'm done!" he murmured and looked about him at his belongings +strewn around his room. "I'll send Dolph out to pack to-morrow. A jump +into tweeds and a sprint down the beach will make it." + +And after vigorously suiting his actions to his words for twenty minutes +he was running swiftly down the beach well ahead of the time of the +eleven-fifteen train. Just as the headlight cast a red ray down the long +track he stepped on the platform and in ten seconds more he was being +whirled away from the moonlight and sands and white arms, having +accomplished his purpose of the spanking, cut forever chains that +galled, and was well content with himself and the world. + +Back at Highcliff the beautiful Violet had been undergoing the rites of +retirement, assisted by her very well-skilled maid, deep in an exciting +dream of conquest. As she let her soft, perfumed, silken garments be +taken from her one at a time until her pearly body was exposed to the +brisk sea air, for which tonic Susette had thrown wide both broad +windows, she was weighing in her shrewd little gutter-gamin mind the +advantages of the road to the right against the turn to the left. The +Hilliard "Rosie Posie Girl" in the fall produced by Weiner with all his +trained staff, command of a big new theatre and three others, and +following road prestige appealed strongly to her cupidity, which had +been well trained in getting dimes from tight pockets in cheap cafes and +ten, twenty and thirty theatres, but she had seen a grouping of Dennis +Farraday's name in the paper a few days ago with the names of some young +New York multimillionaires in a National Commission, and she knew that +he and his "pile" were worthy of the effort of her charms. Also she had +seen big, broad, breezy, gallant Dennis himself at luncheon with Mr. +Vandeford in the Astor not ten days before, and her designs had been +decidedly set in his direction. To her thinking, big, broad, breezy, +gallant men were always easy. As Susette enveloped her rosiness from the +sea air in a soft white cloud of chiffon and embroidery, removed the +rose mules from her feet, helped her in between the fragrant linen +sheets that were as soft as rich silk, threw over her a rose-colored +puff of silk and lace and down, turned on her reading lamp, upon whose +shade wanton fauns and nymphs sported, piled her pillows high and left +her, the scales were about going down on the side in which was placed +"The Purple Slipper," Mr. Dennis Farraday--and Miss Patricia Adair, who +at that time was the unknown quantity which Fate often throws in any +balance. + +With a luxurious sigh and flexing of her long, supple body the Violet +picked up the business-like copy of the Violet manuscript which Mr. +Adolph Meyers had sent her instead of the beribboned, purple +"Renunciation of Rosalind," and began to read the first page when the +telephone beside her bed rang with a soft tinkle. She picked up the +ivory receiver and into it murmured a softly tentative: + +"Yes?" + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, Mr. Farraday! How are you?" + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, this is Violet Hawtry." + + . . . . . . + +"Deliciously well, thank you." + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, he's here, but the gay young thing has gone to bed hours ago." + + . . . . . . + +"Most interesting for me, but I have to submit." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, lovely. Do come. I'll adore having him routed out for you. Of +course we'll go with you. I had forgot that Simone was to dance at the +Beach Inn to-night." + + . . . . . . + +"No indeed, I have not undressed at all. I was going to study a part +to-night." + + . . . . . . + +"I'm sure Godfrey can be dressed in half an hour, and it will take even +your Surreness that time to get here. Take the beach road; it's fine. +Good-by then. In half an hour." + + . . . . . . + +With which ending and beginning the Violet hung up the ivory receiver +and rang for Susette. The summons was answered by Mrs. Aline Hawtry, +_nee_ Maggie Murphy the first, an embarrassing but in a manner cherished +relict of the Hawtry past life in Weehawken. + +"Sure, and the little Frinchy is a-bed, Mag! What be ye wanting? The +night is after sneaking out the back door of the morning." Mrs. Hawtry, +once Murphy, was a big bonny edition of the Violet grown into a cabbage +rose and her voice was also of the same rich texture. + +"Rout out Godfrey, Ma, and then stir up Susette with a hot stick. Mr. +Dennis Farraday is coming down to take us over to see Simone dance at +the Beach Inn. I want him to see me instead of Simone. Hurry!" + +"The poor dear boy, after a hard day in the cruel hot city. Alack!" +moaned Mrs. Maggie as she billowed across to Mr. Vandeford's door and +knocked. Then she paused and knocked again. From neither knock did she +receive an answer as the moment was just about the one in which he had +boarded the New York bound train a half mile up the beach down which Mr. +Dennis Farraday was racing. + +When a search of the unresponsive room had convinced the Violet of his +flight, for a moment her eyes were stormy, then her face cleared with a +smile of delight, and as she padded back to her room and the waiting +Susette, to herself she purred: + +"Nobody can beat my luck." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +There is a certain kind of man over whom all other men smile inwardly. +The tone of voice in which they speak of him has an affectionate growl, +which, once heard, cannot be mistaken. Such a man is apt to cherish what +other men call "impossible ideals about women," and it behooves his +masculine friends to watch out for him carefully lest he come a cropper. +Mr. Dennis Farraday was such a man among men, and Mr. Godfrey Vandeford +loved him deeply. They had met when they were both twenty-three, on +board a tramp steamer, bound for adventure in South Africa, and in the +seven years that had elapsed since then they had spent periods of time +together, in various kinds of sports. Killing time on Broadway was about +the only sport that they had not tried together. By very solid banking +and brokering Mr. Vandeford enjoyed and increased for himself and an +aristocratic, Knickerbocker-descended mother a few ancestral millions. +Incidentally, he took care of the sole hundred thousand dollars of which +Mr. Vandeford's high financiering on Broadway had left him possessed. +Mr. Farraday and Mrs. Justus Farraday represented the sole family ties +possessed by Mr. Vandeford, and he considered them both most valuable. +In fact, the maternal regard of Mrs. Justus Farraday was looked upon by +Mr. Vandeford as his chief treasure and sheet-anchor in times of the +high winds of life. + +"What makes you do it, Van?" questioned Mr. Farraday, as he sat with Mr. +Vandeford in the early morning in the latter's rooms after the tumult of +the first night of the unsuccessful "Miss Cut-up." + +"Excitement," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he put his bare heels, +protruding from his Chinese slippers, up on the edge of the mahogany +reading-table in his living-room, and began to pull at a long, +evil-smelling, briar pipe. "Nothing like it." + +"Do you really care for all that noise, those explosions of chorus +girls, sweating stage hands, cursing director and cursing star, paint, +powder, electricity, paper walls and furniture, call-bells and +hand-clapping from boozy critics in front?" + +"I do," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, with a glint in his eyes deep +back in his head. "And so would you if you had bet about twenty thousand +on that combination and could see the people begin to eat it up right +before your eyes as you sat in a box and watched 'em. When you've backed +your own combination of inferno on riot, it gives you a thrill to stand +before the box-office and watch a line of people that stretches to the +next block plunk down dollars that they have earned at their own +particular combinations of life to see the combination you have made of +yours. Why, tears come into my eyes when I see some little, old, +dried-up seamstress pay a dollar to sit in the roost to see Gerald +Height love the powder off of Violet while she is cursing him under her +breath for so doing, and it tickles me under my ribs to see some fat, +jolly, lonely, old party buy a front seat two days hand-running to sit +and watch Mazie Villines dance over her own head and take the child out +to supper afterward in all propriety. It does him good all over after +selling white goods in Squeedunck, Illinois, eleven and three-quarter +months of every year. It's all to the good, Denny, and I wish you could +get the drag of it." + +"Perhaps it would be well if I could," agreed Mr. Farraday, as he rose +and shook his big, lithe body with the agility of a frolicsome puppy who +knows he is going into mischief, and looked cautiously at Godfrey. "Is +backing the life of the Violet sport, too?" he ventured. + +"Best I know. Took nothing and made it into something in five years. If +it bites my hand that's all in the game." + +"Same force could beget and train about eleven small Vandefords into +pretty good American citizens," Mr. Farraday snapped out, and then +backed away. + +"Absinthe cocktails ruin the taste for sweet milk. Don't talk about +things you know nothing about; thank God for that same ignorance," Mr. +Vandeford commanded. "Go to bed and sleep like the cherub you are, while +I expiate here with my pipe." + +From that conversation it was natural to man nature that the demand for +a half-interest in the next Hawtry show would have been made by Mr. +Dennis Farraday of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and acceded to with the +brotherly reservations already related. The eye-teeth of Mr. Dennis +Farraday were very precious to Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and he had the +intention of taking great care that their edges should not be dulled. It +was well that he did not know that the eleven-fifteen train he had taken +in his flight to New York passed the huge, eight-cylinder Surreness of +his beloved Jonathan in its race up the beach for the home of the +Violet. + +Now, when all is said and considered, a large admiration is due and much +should be forgiven Miss Violet Hawtry, who, as half-starved Maggie +Murphy, had darted out of the gutter into the back stage-door at the age +of fifteen, snapped her huge violet eyes with their fringes of black, +trilled a vulgar, Irish street song in accompaniment to sundry +provocative swayings of her lissome, maturing young body, and thus had +made enough impression on her world to hang on by the tips of her +fingers until she dropped into the outstretched arms of Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford, who was prowling around Weehawken and the vicinity for just +such ripe fruit as she when he was casting his first musical girl-show +for the purpose of some violent excitement after a snowed-in winter in +the Klondike. + +He had taken her to an old stage-mother he knew, had her thoroughly +washed, combed, manicured, dressed, schooled, and had given her the +benefit of his respect for five years while she worked up into the star +of "Dear Geraldine" with all the might of the Irish eyes and lissome +figure and cooing, creamy voice. He had then built Highcliff in the +artist's colony of the Beach for the joint domicile of mother and +daughter. However, it is easier to bathe, comb, manicure, and +luxuriously clothe a body than it is to renovate a soul, and within the +Violet Maggie dwelt in all her gutter vigor. It is also safe to say that +perhaps it was no little part of the Maggie that the beautiful and +haughty Violet threw across the footlights to draw to her the primitive +in the hearts of her vast audiences. It was to some extent the wisdom of +Maggie that the Violet was using as she prepared for her first encounter +alone with Mr. Dennis Farraday as he raced down the moonlit beach to +her. + +"Not the violet and jet, Susette, but that white embroidered lisle, and +take time to sew three inches of tulle around the top of the bodice in +front and put folds five inches deep across the back. Let it come just +below the shoulder," she commanded, as she commenced the whirlwind of a +toilette with which, she had assured the hurrying Dennis, she was +already adorned. + +"_Mais_, Mademoiselle--" Susette began. + +"He'd shy at too much omitted clothing when we are alone. I'll have to +introduce him to myself gradually," she answered the protest, laughing +as she tossed her pale, yellow mane high on her head, and dabbed a +little curl against her cheek with the rose oil, and made a skilful use +of the lip-stick brought by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford from the famed +Celeste's. + +"He will behold that Mademoiselle Simone dance with very few garments +_alors_," Susette pouted as she laid in the folds of modest tulle. + +"But he won't be alone in the moonlight with her, that is, if I can help +it," answered the mistress, as she further perfumed and painted the lily +of her beauty. "Don't worry, Susette; I'm going to give monsieur the +time of his life." + +"That is without saying, Mademoiselle," answered Susette, as she slipped +the silky fluff over the Violet's head, and fastened the one or two +hooks that held it in place over the filmy undergarments in which the +Violet stood waiting for its veiling. "_Mon Dieu_, what a beauty it +gives you, and that placing of the tulle is _ravissant_." + +"That is what I meant it to be," laughed the Violet. "There's his car! +Bring me that orchid wrap when I ring for it." And leaving the +admiration of Susette, the Violet hurried down to drink from the cup of +the same vintage she was sure would be offered her by Mr. Dennis +Farraday. It was offered. + +"It's awfully good of you people to help a poor lonely dub to a pleasant +evening," were the words with which the victim greeted the Violet, while +his eyes offered the expected portion of admiration as he beheld her +bathed in the radiance of the moon. + +"Sure the pleasure is ours--or rather mine, poor old Van," she answered, +with not a little trepidation well hidden under her rich voice. + +"Couldn't you wake him up, the old scout? Let me get to him. I have a +way with him I learned in the Nova Scotia woods." Mr. Farraday laughed a +big laugh, which had in it the tang of the breeze in the tops of +pine-trees. But the Violet was ready for him. + +"He's not there for your torture. The poor darling got a telephone +message just twenty minutes ago to come back to New York to-night. I've +just motored him up the beach to catch the eleven-fifteen train. Some +day that tiresome Dolph will follow Van about some play snarl into--into +Paradise." + +"He did that to-night, didn't he?" asked Mr. Farraday, with a merry +laugh as he ruffled his red forelock up off his broad brow, and made +himself look like a huge, tame lion. + +"Away with your blarney, boy!" laughed the Violet, in return, using her +Maggie Murphy form of speech with telling effect, as she often did. "He +left a thousand apologies for you," she added, slipping back into her +veneer of the--for Maggie--upper world. "And you've had your race down +for nothing; poor Simone!" + +"Oh, I say, can't we just go on over to supper at the Beach Inn? The +Clyde Trevors asked me, and we can have supper with them. Wouldn't you +like that? We can tell them about poor Van." He was as eager as a boy in +his friendly efforts to mend what he thought must be a broken evening +for her. + +"I'd love it," answered the Violet, with a flash of her white teeth and +violet eyes at him. + +After a summons Susette appeared with the alluring orchid garment, and a +white film of seed-pearls for her mistress's hair. She assisted the +Violet's discreet Japanese butler to put them into the big car, which +Mr. Farraday was driving himself, and then stood for a minute watching +them hurl themselves away across the white sand. + +"_Quelle vie!_" she muttered to herself as she turned back into the +darkened house. + +The Beach Inn was aglow and atwinkle and in full laugh as they ascended +the steps of the wide veranda hung out over the ocean, where members and +guests were having supper at small tables lit with shaded lamps. Men and +girls, in bathing suits that were lineal descendants of the scant +fig-leaf, were eating and drinking together sparsely because of their +intention of taking a midnight plunge in the breakers under the hot +moon, while other women in radiant evening garb were almost as scantily +attired, though attended by stuffily garbed men. Most of the parties +turned and called a laughing greeting to the Violet, for they were the +men and women of her world disporting themselves away from Broadway, and +Clyde Trevor, who had written the book for "Miss Cut-up," rose and came +over to claim his guests. + +"Lost Van?" he questioned, as he led them to their seats beside Mrs. +Trevor, who had danced fifty thousand dollars out of New York the winter +just ended. His voice held a hint of irony, which the Violet got and Mr. +Dennis Farraday missed. + +"Not quite yet," she said, with a coo at which Trevor smiled, and under +his breath he gave her the word, "Good hunting!" + +"Thanks." + +"Old Van had to hop back to New York on the eleven-fifteen, but we came +on to glad with you anyway," Mr. Farraday was saying to Mrs. Trevor, +with an ingenuous smile. + +"Go to it, baby," commanded Trevor to his wife, as a rich negro melody +began to fling its invitation against the roaring call of the ocean, and +at his word Simone rose from the seat of Mrs. Trevor and slid out into +the cleared space at the head of the steps. + +"Just in time," commented Mr. Farraday under his breath, as he turned +his chair to watch her drop her silk coat, and float out on the waves of +sound just as she would later float on the waves of the ocean after she +had plunged from the steps to lead the midnight bathing in the surf, for +which the management of the inn paid her the sum of two hundred dollars +per plunge. + +All of this gaiety and amusement was just a prelude to the ride home in +the moonlight, which the Violet took with good Dennis Farraday and +during which she discovered that there is such a thing as honor among +men about poaching on other men's preserves, and during which, also, the +fate of Major Adair, Patricia, Roger, and old black Jeff hung in the +balance. + +"Just what are we racing?" she questioned as they flew along the beach +with rubber tires that just skimmed the hard, white sand. + +"A bit fast?" asked Mr. Farraday, with a protective laugh, as he slowed +down the flight. + +"Let's loaf and talk a while," the Violet answered, with a tentative +note of invitation in her voice. + +"I had thought you and Van and I would have a great powwow over the +play this evening, and it's fierce that he had to get back to that +furnace a night like this, but we can limp along on a few ideas without +him, maybe. What do you think of 'The Purple Slipper'?" As he set the +car at an easy pace he turned and looked down at the lovely face so near +his shoulder with a great and extremely boyish enthusiasm, which was +very delightful and very irritating to the Violet. + +"What do you think about it? You tell first," she said with a smile that +answered his enthusiasm adequately and which served to cover with +agility the fact that she had not read the play. + +"Well, at first it seemed a queer kind of vehicle for you, but as I read +on I could see you queening it in all those furbelows of dress as well +as adventure and sentiment. It's a little serious in situation, but it +is full of comedy adventure in line, and I can just see the audience eat +you up in it. I told Van so, and I bought in before I had read more +than half the second act. I don't feel as though I could wait to see you +in that dinner scene while you hold the enemies of your spouse +confounded. I agree with Van that your emotional qualities may exceed +your comedy." + +"Does Van back my emotional acting against my comedy?" the Violet asked, +with barely concealed surprise in her voice. + +"He does. He says that 'The Purple Slipper' is going to be the sensation +of Broadway for the early fall, and I agree with him. Do you feel as +sure of it as he says you are?" + +"Yes," answered the Violet, and by her assent in premeditated ignorance +of the contents of the play manuscript she put the second cross on the +production which made it a double on the fate of Mr. Dennis Farraday as +a theatrical producer. However, that fact may have been balanced by the +fact that it was the third cross on the fate of Miss Patricia Adair. +Crosses on fates in the world of Broadway go in singles, doubles, and +threes, and no man can tell their exact significance. + +"Good!" answered Mr. Dennis Farraday, with another and still broader +smile of gratification and admiration of the Violet as an artist--a +smile which further infuriated, but equally inspired her. "And what a +grand time we'll all have putting it across! I'm going to help Van see +actors for the cast on Friday, and I'm going to sit in on rehearsals +straight through. I'm due a month's vacation, and I'm going to have my +mail from the office relayed back to New York from the yacht off +Nantucket so that bunch of money grubbers can't find me. Think of having +the honor of being co-producer for Violet Hawtry for my first shot!" + +All of which enthusiasm and admiration went like wine to the head of the +Violet, though it left her heart uncomfortably cold; and beautiful, cool +moonlight heats the heart of a fair woman when it is not more than two +feet away from that of a brave and fair man. + +"Sure I'll make it a success for you, man dear!" Maggie Murphy in the +Violet made an attempt to put a glow into the situation, using the +brogue that was like rich cream poured over peaches, as she snuggled her +bare shoulder, from which the orchid wrap had slipped, with a natural +little shiver against good Dennis's wheel arm. + +"You and Van are trumps to take me in for the fun, and I'm no end +grateful to you both," was all she got for her manoeuver. + +"Yes--Van is a dear," she hedged in a matter-of-fact voice. + +"Yes, and I suppose after my co-first night with him the old scout will +stop baiting me about blinking the white lights. I always have been +obliged to beat Van at any game before I could rest in peace." And at +the thought of getting in at his David big Jonathan laughed heartily +just as he began to slow up the car for the turn along the sea-wall that +led under the porch of Highcliff. + +"Have you ever competed with him in the biggest game of all?" the +Violet asked softly, as the car swept into the shadow and stopped by the +broad stone steps. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Farraday, with a countenance so open +and a voice so hearty that the Violet, used to artifice from everybody, +suspected that they could not be real, and this suspicion made her give +up the game for the time being. She laughed with a mocking sweetness as +she sprang out of the car and to the top of the steps before he could +help her. + +"Some day I'll tell you what I mean," she mocked from the dark doorway. +"Good-night!" And while he stood at the bottom step looking up at her, +she vanished into the darkness of the house, leaving him out in the cool +moonlight, a fate very different from what she had been planning for him +for several hours. + +"Just as old Van said, they are nothing but children, and I blame him +about trifling with her more than I thought I did; she's a dear thing +and a little pathetic in her anxiety to make good for him. Scout has +just got to do something about it all. She's a fine and devoted woman. +And beautiful--whee-ugh!" The big thirty-year-old boy ended his +soliloquy with a whistle, which showed that in a measure he had +appreciated the dangers of the last hours. One of the eternal questions +is how can a mere man be so wicked--or so good as he is often discovered +by temptation to be? + +"I'll have to be publicly and finally severed from Van before I annex +him, the boob," was the soliloquy of the Violet as she prepared for her +slumber of beauty. Another question is how thin a veneer of feminine +beauty weathers indefinitely the wash of circumstances. + +Then after that moonlit night in August Fate spun her web, which she +called "The Purple Slipper," rapidly, and for a number of the people +involved life became very hectic. The center of the whirl was Mr. Adolph +Meyers, though he was safely functioning with power behind the throne +occupied by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's nonchalant and elegantly clad +figure. + +"But Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is never before that you have produced a +play without a reading," he remonstrated on the morning of the day set +for the picking of the cast from those probably suitable chosen by +Chambers, the invaluable agent of the great army of those theatrically +employed. "Actors will be here from twelve o'clock even to six. How will +a choice be made?" + +"I'm trusting to your hunch about the purple manuscript falling on the +day of the Violet letter, Pops," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. "Make +out a little memorandum against each name that tells me what to pick. I +like the idea of going it blind that way: it may be lucky. And, Pops, +split that five-thousand-dollar check of Mr. Farraday's in three ways. +Pay Lindenberg two-fifty as his advance on the scenery for 'The Rosie +Posie Girl,' provided he furbishes up something that will do for the +little road sally of Violet's spanking-machine, to be emblazoned as +'The Purple Slipper' on the cheapest black bills ever run off in New +York. Give Hugh Willings a thousand advance for the music of 'The Rosie +Posie Girl,' but make him write as many as six waltz songs even if you +are sure the first is a hit; it is good to make people, specially any +kind of artists, work for the money you pay 'em. The other fifteen +hundred you had better put off by itself as a starter on the Violet's +gowns. She likes to pay an Irish woman with a French name three hundred +dollars for six dollars' worth of chiffon sewed with seventy-five cents' +worth of silk." + +"What is for costumes for the 'Purple Slipper'?" + +"Oh, any old dolling up will do for that. The women can wear what +they've got and the men borrow or rent." With a wave of the cigarette in +his hand, Mr. Vandeford dismissed the scenic effects of the play for +whose debut Miss Elvira Henderson was concocting a dream costume to +adorn the author for receiving triumphal plaudits. + +"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is a costume play of a period," the humble +power behind the throne pleaded. + +"Oh, is it? Then rent the nearest layout to its date that Grossmidt has +for all of 'em in a lump, and make him give you a bargain. Tell him they +won't be worn more than two weeks. I guess Violet will be in line by +that time." With which significant order Mr. Godfrey Vandeford turned +from the anxious Mr. Meyers to answer the tinkling telephone at his +elbow. In a second he was speaking to the most eminent stage director on +Broadway. + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, this is Godfrey Vandeford, Bill." + + . . . . . . + +"Yes. Called to know if you would like to stage a little show for me +right away." + + . . . . . . + +"Yes. I'm going to give Hawtry a little canter before 'The Rosie Posie +Girl.' New line for her, and doubtful. Like to take hold for a +pittance?" + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, yes, that three hundred a week for the 'Posie Girl' goes, of +course, but this play is just a Hawtry whim that I have got to let her +get out of her system. One hundred a week is my limit, and you ought to +do it for seventy-five. You can sit in your chair all the time for all I +care." + + . . . . . . + +"Now you get me--a hundred it is. Let her have her head and work off +steam before we start 'The Rosie Posie.' Yes, Willings is doing the +Rosie songs for us. They'll be hot stuff." + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, Corbett's making sketches for 'The Rosie Posie' scenery now. We'll +start 'The Purple Slipper' on Monday. Yes, that's its blooming name. +By!" + + * * * * * + +"Is it William Rooney to stage 'The Purple Slipper'?" asked Mr. Meyers, +with a shrug of his narrow shoulders as he began pecking out on his +machine the notes that were to guide his chief in picking the artists +who were to embody the characters in the play founded on the life +romance of that old grandame Madam Patricia Adair of colonial Kentucky. + +"Why do you reckon Samuel Goldstein likes to build up a reputation for +himself on Broadway by the name of William Rooney, Pops?" inquired Mr. +Vandeford, with the idle curiosity of a free and untroubled mind. + +"It is the prejudice against Hebrews for a reason," answered Mr. Meyers, +with a glint in his gem-like eyes and a wave of color flushing across +his high, scholarly forehead. + +"Well, the top crust of the whole show business is Hebrew, and I should +think the bunch of you would be proud of the fact. I'm even proud that a +man named Adolph Meyers runs this whole company, and me included," said +Mr. Vandeford, without taking the trouble to note the wave of gratified +pride, devotion, and embarrassment that swept over the countenance of +his faithful henchman. "Now I'll get a little booking for your 'Purple +Slipper,' and that is all you need expect me to do, except shoulder all +the loss I haven't shunted on Denny." + +"It is to be a win, not a loss," murmured the loyal Adolph under his +breath, with a glance of affection at the absorbed Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford. + +This vow of Mr. Adolph Meyers shows that it is as dangerous to arouse +the affection and loyalty of one genius as it is to incur the anger of +another. + +The casting of "The Purple Slipper" was a joy to Mr. Dennis Farraday. He +was to pay well for it in the future, but it was conducted in pure glee. +He sat beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford in the latter's long, Persian +carpeted, soft-tinted, and famous-actor-photograph-bedecked, private +office beside that eminent producer, and watched the strong light from +over their shoulders reveal the points of the men and women who came in +to exhibit themselves. From the moment they entered the door, through +the walk or waddle or lope or saunter with which they approached their +fate to the expressions of joy or disappointment which their emotions +showed under Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's grilling, Mr. Farraday was deeply +interested. + +"You know, Bebe, it is not necessary to put on more than a hundred extra +pounds when in training for the heavy mother," he genially admonished a +very large lady of uncertain age--an age artfully covered with rouge, +powder, pencil, and lip-stick--who sank into the chair facing him with a +pathetic remnant of the former lissome grace which had got her as far as +being a dependable leading woman to any star who could go her a few +points better. + +"Well, it's not from living on large salaries from you that I have put +on the pounds, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford!" she answered with a jovial laugh. + +"Still eating half of old Wallace Kent's salary checks?" Mr. Vandeford +demanded. This seemed a lack of delicacy to Mr. Dennis Farraday, who +blushed with a color equal to that which rose in the cheeks of the old +beauty as her eyes snapped and she rose to her feet. + +"As you know, he's feeding a squab chicken at Rector's to get her into +the broiler class. Good-day, sir," and she prepared to sweep out of the +office with all the fire she had used in many a queenly situation. + +"Good old Bebe," Mr. Vandeford said, as he rose and put a restraining +arm around her broad waist. "I was just teasing to see what was +smouldering. How'll seventy-five a week, with costumes of frills and +powdered hair, do you? Thirty sides and the center of the stage four +times." "Sides," meaning single sheets of dialogue, puzzled Mr. +Farraday, but he made a mental note to seek enlightenment. + +"I haven't had a part this winter, Godfrey," she laughed, and sobbed on +Mr. Vandeford's shoulder. "I'm living in a suitcase at Mrs. Pinkham's." + +"Stop and get a twenty-five check from Dolph, and be on the job Monday +at the Barrett Theatre. Now run!" Mr. Vandeford gave Miss Bebe Herne's +two hundred pounds of avoirdupois a gentle shove toward the door, which +hint she took with an alacrity that had in it a great deal of left-over +grace. + +"Supported a lot of big guns for years. Knows her business better than +any actress on Broadway," said Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to his horrified +confrere as the door closed behind the old beauty. "Picked up Wallace +Kent when he was a piffling, faded juvenile, and taught him to be a good +elderly support worth his hundred to any director. He's left her flat +for a pony in the Big Show, old hound!" + +"Pretty raw," observed Mr. Dennis Farraday, with a great deal of emotion +very poorly concealed in his sympathetic voice. + +"Oh, she's had her fling in life! Dopes a bit, but can be depended upon. +Next!" + +This time there entered a husky, young brute of a boy with shoulders +broad enough to run a double-decker plough. His hair was long and +sleeked close to his well-shaped head, but his fine mouth and chin +sagged, and his eyes were bold and sophisticated. In costume he was the +glass and mould of Broadway fashion. + +"Reginald Leigh," he announced himself in a nice voice, and, as he +spoke, took from a case a card and laid it on the edge of Mr. +Vandeford's desk. + +"Experience, Mr. Leigh?" asked Mr. Vandeford, still standing and with +not an atom of encouragement in his whole body from head to toe. + +"College dramatics and last summer in stock at Buffalo. I've worked in +two pictures for the Universal." + +"Heavy juvenile at fifty a week," offered Mr. Vandeford, with an +indifferent glance up from the paper in his hand prepared for his +guidance by the indefatigable Mr. Meyers. The word "handsome" was typed +in the offer from which Mr. Vandeford made to Mr. Leigh. + +"My price is a hundred, Mr. Vandeford," answered Mr. Leigh, very +pleasantly, and he took a grip on his hat and stick that was meant to +convey the idea of immediate departure. + +"Sorry," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a finality that staggered Mr. +Dennis Farraday; for the youngster's looks and charm were so evident +that it pained him to see "The Purple Slipper" lose them. "Costumes +historical, furnished," added Mr. Vandeford, with increased +indifference. + +"Oh, in that case--" murmured the boy, almost, but not quite, unleashing +his eagerness. + +"Just leave your telephone number with Mr. Meyers in the outer office, +please. Good-morning, Mr. Leigh," was the answer his concession got +along with the dismissal in the "good-morning," which was spoken in such +a tone that it was obeyed in short order. + +"That is a find," said Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to the gasping Mr. Dennis +Farraday. "Handsome young chaps who have any kind of manliness are hard +to find these days. Too busy to be actors." + +"Why didn't you engage him?" further gasped his partner in the adventure +of "The Purple Slipper." + +"I'll let him cool his heels, to get some of the know-it out of his +system. Dolph will make him come around and beg in less than twenty-four +hours." + +"See here, Van, these people are artists to whom you are trusting your +money and reputation as a producer, and you treat them like--" + +"The foolish children that they are," interrupted Mr. Vandeford. "Next!" +and he pressed a button under his desk that buzzed for Mr. Meyers's ears +alone. + +The next three applicants were girls, who respectively giggled, +glowered, and simpered. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford chose the two who glowered +and simpered and got rid of the giggler by referring her telephone +number to Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"That second that you sent away was the prettiest of the bunch," +commented Mr. Dennis Farraday, with interest that had survived to that +point with undiminished intensity. + +"Not at home under that little cocked hat. That giggle was the whole bag +of tricks," instructed Mr. Vandeford. "Got any men out there, Pops?" he +asked through the telephone to Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +Immediately there entered a debonair, very handsome, and sleek gentleman +of uncertain age. + +"Hello, Kent, want to support Bebe in a costume play for a hundred a +week?" asked Mr. Vandeford, with not an instant's greeting in answer to +that gentleman's cordial good-morning. + +"In New York or on the road?" questioned Mr. Kent, with an assurance +that he tried to make bold. + +"To the devil if I send you there," was the answer he got straight off +the bat. + +"A hundred with costumes?" + +"With costumes." + +"Done." + +"See Dolph; but not over ten-dollar advance to save your hide." + +"He's giving fifty." + +"To whom?" + +"Bebe." + +"He did that because he knew that you'd get half of what he gave her. +Ten's your limit." + +"All right. Good-morning!" + +"Barrett on Monday morning." + +"All right!" + +With which Mr. Kent rapidly made his exit. + +"Old reprobate! But he does feed the lines to his opposite, and Bebe +happy is worth twice Bebe in a grouch. You see what the whole blamed +thing is like and--" Mr. Vandeford was interrupted by the tinkle of the +telephone at his elbow. + + . . . . . . + +"Godfrey Vandeford speaking." + + . . . . . . + +"When did you get in?" + + . . . . . . + +"Not busy at all." + + . . . . . . + +"The Claridge?" + + . . . . . . + +"Right away." + + . . . . . . + +"Haven't seen or heard from him in two days." + + . . . . . . + +"Right over. By!" + + . . . . . . + +From overhearing, as he was forced to do, this one-sided conversation, +how could Mr. Dennis Farraday imagine that Violet Hawtry had come into +sultry New York seeking him to devour and that his keeper was rushing +away from his presence to his defense? + +"You and Pops engage the rest, Denny. You see the trick now. Nothing +left important but what Dolph puts down on this paper as 'woman support +for character parts with looks.' Try your hand, old man, and if you pick +a flivver there are plenty more to cast in and her out. By!" And before +Mr. Farraday could protest he was left alone in the inquisition-room. +And as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford went down in an elevator on his way to the +Claridge to deliver the next instalment of the spanking of Miss Violet +Hawtry, he passed a live wire going up opposite him and met one walking +down Forty-second Street, neither of which he could be expected to +recognize, as he had never seen either. + +The first of the two dynamos walked into the office of the Vandeford +Producing Company and failed to thrill Mr. Adolph Meyers in the least, a +fact for which he could never afterward account. He motioned her into +the inner office, and left her to her fate and Mr. Dennis Farraday. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Vandeford," she said in a queer, throaty kind of +voice that had in it a "come hither" of unusual quality, which +suggested that in her production a Romney woman might have loved a Greek +dancer well. She stood at ease before the long desk with a grace that +was unmistakably that of complete assurance. + +"I'm not Mr. Vandeford, but his--his partner, Dennis Farraday. Er--er, +won't you be seated?" and with the happy, considerate manner of his that +he had always used to all women, he offered her his own chair and +appropriated the one of authority that Mr. Vandeford always occupied. + +"Thank you," answered the young woman, with an ease equal to his own. +And then they both waited while regarding each other seriously. Finally +the tension relaxed and Dennis Farraday gave a big, jovial laugh while +he made his admission: + +"I don't know a thing about the play business. I'm just sitting in with +Mr. Vandeford for the fun of it." + +"An angel?" asked the girl, with a laugh that somehow accorded with +his. + +"That's it. He's gone out and left me to--to cut my eye teeth." + +"On me?" + +"Looks that way," and again they both laughed. + +"Maybe I can help you," volunteered the girl, after the laugh. "I am +Mildred Lindsey, and Mr. Chambers sent me in to see if I could support +Miss Hawtry." + +"Er--er, what experience?" Mr. Dennis Farraday managed to ask by fishing +into his impressions of the last two hours. + +"Five years in stock on the Pacific coast, two years in towns between, +and two weeks in a flivver here on Broadway early in the spring. Dead +broke, hungry, and about ready to make good for some manager." As the +answer was fired point-blank at him, Mr. Dennis Farraday seemed to see a +fire of psychic hunger blaze as high as that of wolfish, physical agony +in the girl's eyes. + +Mr. Dennis Farraday eagerly searched on the paper of guidance in casting +made out by Mr. Adolph Meyers for the benefit of Mr. Vandeford and +found "woman support," and opposite the item of salary, seventy-five +dollars. He doubled. + +"How would a hundred and fifty a week with costumes do for salary? You +can have a couple of weeks advance right now if you like," he said in an +easy, nonchalant manner as much like that of Mr. Vandeford as he could +muster, for those fires of hunger in the girl's eyes were searching +holes in Mr. Dennis Farraday's pocket. + +"It would save my life--but--but could you tell me a little about the +part? I might not be able to play it." There were both hope and fear in +her compelling voice. + +The question found Mr. Dennis Farraday unprepared by any precedent +established in the two foregoing hours, for between the artists and Mr. +Vandeford there had been alone the matter of salary to be settled and +not one of them had inquired whether they were being engaged to play a +Billy Sunday or an Ethiopian slave. But in another way it found him +better prepared than would have been Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. He had read +the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper" and Mr. Vandeford had not. + +"Well, to my uninitiated way of thinking, the supporting part is about +as good as the leading one," said Mr. Dennis Farraday, and forthwith he +launched out on an eager, enthusiastic resume of the plot and +atmosphere, even quoting lines of "The Purple Slipper." And as he talked +Mildred Lindsey leaned across the table toward him and fairly drank in +his words. + +"I see--it's wonderful how she keeps his enemies at bay during the first +half of the banquet--while she waits. It's great!" Her enthusiasm +expressed in her wonderful voice urged Mr. Dennis Farraday on and on to +a fuller exposition of the play and its beauties. + +"You see, the sister is really the one to carry the plot. It is on her +that Rosalind leans, and she has to be all there in her quiet way." + +"Yes, I see, and it can be made--" At this juncture the eye of Mr. +Adolph Meyer was inserted to a crack of the door and then removed as he +shook his head in puzzled doubt. He had intended to intrude to the +rescue of his co-employer's inexperience, but he decided that the time +was not ripe by one glance at Mr. Farraday's eager face, surmounted by +its rampant, red leonine locks. + +"I have pity for Mr. Farraday," Mr. Meyers remarked to himself as he +seated himself at his machine, not knowing that in a very few minutes +the second live wire would arrive in the office and this time he would +get a shock himself. + +For a half-hour he wrote on, while the animated voices boomed and purled +and bubbled in the office beyond the crack of the door he had left open +to observe the first lull that might call for relief. Then he got his +shock. + +The office door opened timidly, and somebody entered so quietly that she +stood beside Mr. Adolph Meyers before he had lifted his head. + +It was the author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind," now "The Purple +Slipper," and she looked every inch of it! Miss Elvira, the genius +guided by "The Feminist Review," had done her best with the blue-silk +suit, and Fifth Avenue could have done no better. + +"May I see Mr. Vandeford? I am Miss Patricia Adair," she announced in a +rich and calm Southern voice and manner. + +Mr. Adolph Meyers sprang to his feet with the impact of the shock. + +"Mr. Vandeford is not in the office, Madam, at present," he managed to +gasp. Then he followed her big, gray eyes as they rested on the crack of +the door through which the boom of Mr. Dennis Farraday's voice mingled +with the excited chime of Miss Lindsey's laughter, and noticed as though +for the first time that it had emblazoned upon it in large, gilt +letters, "Mr. Vandeford. Private." + +"It is Mr. Dennis Farraday, the partner of Mr. Vandeford, engaging +actors, Miss, in his absence. Will you walk in?" and in almost the first +panic in which he had ever indulged Mr. Adolph Meyers showed the proud +young author into the sanctum sanctorum from which he had barricaded +many an enraged virago who had threatened his life if he kept her from +an appeal to the manager. + +"It is Miss Adair, the author of your play, Mr. Farraday, would speak +with you," he announced across the long room, bowed in a way he had +never done in his life, and shut the door behind Miss Adair. + +It is interesting to wonder how it would have affected the end of the +whole matter if Patricia Adair had walked in behind the giggler when Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, with all his experience with authors, was seated on +the throne instead of poor inexperienced Dennis Farraday, enjoying "The +Purple Slipper" with his newly engaged, supporting lady. + +"By jove, Miss Adair, it is little bit of all right that you should come +in and catch Miss Lindsey and me chewing joy-rags over our--your play. +Let me introduce Miss Lindsey, who is to support Miss Hawtry in the part +of Harriet." And bonnie Dennis, the angel, beamed with pure joy at the +good time he was having as a producer. At the very sight and sound of +him poor Patricia, who for half an hour had been wandering up and down +Forty-second Street, looking for the tallest building on it, took both +comfort and delight, and her sea-gray eyes with stars in their depths +returned the beam of his eyes. + +"It's so wonderful that you like my play and are going to produce +it--and you to act in it, Miss Lindsey," she said as she seated herself +in the chair Mr. Farraday had drawn up for her. She looked at them both +with respectful awe in her eyes and in her cheeks a flush of color that +came and went as she spoke, in a way that at first puzzled Miss Lindsey +as to its brand and then in turn awed her as she decided it was the real +thing. The blue-silk triumph of Miss Elvira and "The Review" also +puzzled her for a moment, but she put it down to some little Fifth +Avenue shop that only debutantes and authors of plays could afford, and +took it in with delight at its exquisite detail. + +"I think it is a dandy play, as Mr. Farraday has been telling it to me. +Crooks and--and cut-ups are about done for," said Miss Lindsey. She gave +a quick glance at Mr. Farraday, to see if he resented the allusion to +Mr. Vandeford's recent failure. + +"Right-o!" agreed Mr. Farraday, with a sympathetic smile at her +allusion, which passed over the head of the lady from Adairville, +Kentucky. + +Then ensued more than a half-hour of the most enthusiastic discussion of +plays in general, and Miss Adair's in particular. Both Mr. Dennis +Farraday and Miss Mildred Lindsey were impressed with the fact that the +author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind" had learned her business from +the most erudite sources, and they talked Shakespeare and Fielding +until they at last wound themselves up into a complete pause. + +Miss Adair broke the strain. + +"I'm awfully hungry, and I don't know where to go to get something to +eat," she said, with exactly the same tone of confidence she had used in +asking old Jeff for a cold muffin in between the meals of her eighth +summer. + +"By Jove, we are all hungry! You girls come with me," exclaimed Mr. +Dennis Farraday, as he jumped to his feet and looked around for his hat. + +"Thank you, but I think I had better go home to--to see about--" Miss +Lindsey was faltering with the embarrassment of those who are both proud +and hungry, when food is offered them socially. + +"Nonsense! You are coming over to the Claridge with Miss Adair and me +for a bite. Then you can come back by here and see Dolph.--Dolph, make +out a check for Miss Lindsey's advance. Shall we say one or two hundred, +Miss Lindsey?" Dennis Farraday was in his element when doing the breezy +protective to two girls at once. + +"One hundred, please," answered Miss Lindsey, with color mounting to her +cheeks that underpainted that already there. She smiled with amusement +at the surprise that manifested itself for an instant on the round face +of Mr. Meyers that an actress should not "grab" all offered her and then +plead for more. "But I really do feel that I had better not--go to +luncheon, for I am--" + +"Please do! I'd rather you would," the eminent author urged, and she +clung to the show girl in a way that showed Dennis Farraday, accustomed +to the women of her world, that vague proprieties were hovering beside +the gates that were opening for Patricia from her old world into her +new. + +"You'll have to come, Miss Lindsey, to celebrate, or we shall think you +are not all for the play," Mr. Farraday said with a finality in his +voice that settled the matter. + +And the three of them scudded along a few blocks of the sun-steamed +streets into the coolness of the Claridge, also into the heart of a +situation that had been seething for an hour between Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford and Miss Violet Hawtry. + +"How wonderful of you, Van dear, to find me such a play at the eleventh +and three-quarters hour!" had been the volley that Violet had fired at +him. + +"Glad you like it," he had parried, feeling sure that she was jockeying +with him for position for the clinch. + +"Dennis Farraday told me that you were backing my emotional handling +even more than my comedy scenes. Could you for once be playing square +with me and really looking forward to my development in getting +this--this rather remarkable kind of a play for me?" + +"I've done my best for you for five years, Violet," he quietly answered +the insult, as he looked across the empty white tables that stretched +away from Violet's favorite and reserved seat in the black and gold +dining-room. + +"'Miss Cut-up,' for instance?" + +"There were several ways to put that play across. You had your way in +every particular. Mine might have succeeded," was his calm answer. + +"The really amusing thing about you is that you don't at all know how +little brains you have," was the polite broadside delivered him as +Violet began to sip the clear coffee from her cup. + +"Same to you," was the reply she received. Godfrey spoke in a +good-natured tone of voice. "Now, what did you come to town to talk +about--'The Purple Slipper'?" + +"Why did you leave Highcliff like a thief in the night?" + +"Did you read the deeds Dolph gave you when he went up to pack my +personal effects?" + +"Yes, thanks! I suppose you consider Highcliff the price of your +freedom?" + +"And cheap at that." + +"Then why not turn me over to Weiner?" Violet asked in a dangerous tone +of voice that made Mr. Vandeford glance around with apprehension to see +who would witness the explosion if it occurred. + +"I tried to buy Denny off yesterday, but you fastened 'The Purple +Slipper' firmly in his head, maybe his heart, the other evening, and it +would be like taking candy from a child. Maybe you can--can influence +him to let go--if I give you the chance." There was something coolly +insulting in his voice that told Violet he had surmised her intentions +and the failure of her assault on his big Jonathan. + +"Your usual impertinence! I'll get him yet, just to spite you. I'll go +in and play that 'Purple Slipper' to win, and--" + +"Again Miss Adair breaks in on enthusiasm for her play." Dennis +Farraday's big voice boomed right at the elbows of the embattled pair. +"Look who's here, Van!" + +Mr. Godfrey Vandeford looked up quickly, and as quickly rose to his +feet. And with one glance into slate-gray eyes behind long black +lashes--eyes filled with awed, worshipful gratitude to him--his heart +rose in his breast and all but flitted out upon his sleeve. + +"Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford, the producer of your play," good Dennis +flourished. "And Miss Violet Hawtry! In fact, the whole happy family!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Now, by all rules of the game, it was the prerogative of Miss Violet +Hawtry to take charge of a situation in which the star of a play meets +the author; but she missed her cue, and the gutter instinct within her +sat dumb and dumfounded before the lady from Adairville. + +"I'm charmed to meet you, Miss Hawtry," Miss Adair assured her, with a +glance of such admiration and friendliness that even Violet's +narrow-gage soul expanded into a variety of graciousness all its own, +and she smiled back into the eyes of the young author with a radiance +that had the semblance of warmth. + +"And this is Miss Lindsey, whom we have chosen to support you in our +play, Miss Hawtry," Mr. Dennis Farraday continued, with a glance of +respectful awe at the Hawtry, which matched that given her by the +author a second before and obtained for Miss Lindsey a cordial enough +recognition of the introduction only slightly to frappe her instead of +freezing her entirely. "We are all hungry," he added after the change of +civilities. + +"You are all having luncheon with me," Mr. Vandeford found his voice to +say. Ignoring Violet's glance of indignation at this skilful avoidance +of a climax of her scene with him, he had three extra covers laid at the +corner table devoted to the services of Miss Hawtry. + +"I warned you that we were hungry, Van," said Mr. Farraday, as he began +to search through the menu for an article of diet safe to pour in +quantities into a girl who had long been empty. "How'd rare steak and +fresh mushrooms do?" he asked, and he looked away from what he was sure +would be in the eyes of Miss Lindsey, and which was there. + +"Wonderful!" she murmured. + +"Right-o, for you and Miss Lindsey, but what about nightingales' tongues +for my author?" laughed Mr. Vandeford, with an interested note in his +rich voice, which caused Miss Hawtry to look at him sharply and Miss +Adair to repeat the blush to such a degree that Miss Hawtry, as Miss +Lindsey before her, was forced to admit that it was native and not +imported. The flush did not pass unnoticed by Mr. Vandeford, as he +laughed again with a question as to her nourishing. + +"I want something that I don't know what the name means," calmly +returned Miss Adair, with delighted excitement at the thought of +adventuring into a land of strange food. "I know steak and ham and eggs +and chicken and turkey." + +"Will you trust me?" asked Mr. Vandeford. There was an eagerness in his +voice and smile that again made the Violet glance at him and then at Mr. +Dennis Farraday. The latter was beaming with mirth at the dilemma of +feeding the young author who was so frankly scattering her hay-seeds on +the metropolitan atmosphere. At that instant Miss Hawtry made a +momentous decision. + +"Trust Mr. Vandeford and you can't go wrong," she advised with peaches +and cream in her voice, and for some unknown reason Mr. Vandeford would +have been glad to twist the creamy throat from which issued the creamy +voice. Instead, he turned, calmly summoned the head waiter, and went +into a conference with him in a few very discreet words, which the rest +could not hear, though there was no sign of any intention of keeping the +consultation from them. + +"I think it will be wonderful not to know until I taste it and maybe not +then!" exclaimed the author, with another of her sea-gray, long-lashed +glances of worshiping admiration at Mr. Vandeford, the eminent Broadway +producer who was putting a great star into her play based on the +adventures of an ancestress. + +Of course the situation was dangerous to both Mr. Vandeford and his +author, but who was to blame? + +And the jolly, impromptu luncheon-party was not the kind of episode that +could soon be forgotten by any of the guests. The unknown food for the +author was served by the head waiter himself, and he refused to answer +questions as to its origin or component parts, even when urged by Mr. +Dennis Farraday. The expression on Miss Lindsey's face after her +encounter with the steak and mushrooms, served with an exalted baked +potato, was one of decided relaxation. The look of affection in her eyes +as she glanced at the author who had dragged her into this food +situation rivaled the suddenly rooted admiration which beamed in the +eyes of Mr. Dennis Farraday and which put Miss Hawtry alertly on watch, +so much so that Mr. Godfrey Vandeford was privileged to lean back in his +chair behind a mist of cigarette-smoke and let his eyes gleam where they +listed. + +"Now tell us just how you happened to think of all the wonderful things +in your play, Miss Adair, specially that dinner situation," Mr. Dennis +Farraday urged. He was lighting Miss Hawtry's cigarette, to the intense, +though concealed, interest and astonishment of Miss Adair of Adairville, +Kentucky. He thus asked sincerely and interestedly the usual question +that the unsophisticated fires at an author at the first opportunity and +which the author, no matter how sophisticated, really enjoys answering. + +And thereupon followed the story of the old letters in the trunk, with +the mortgage only so lightly and proudly alluded to that the hearts of +the listeners were decidedly touched, told by the author with the +delighted enthusiasm that their sympathy warranted. + +"And so you see, since it couldn't be oil-wells or gold mines it had to +be the play," she ended, quoting herself in her conversation with the +faithful Roger, who was at that moment following his plow with his mind +on the straight furrows and his heart in New York. + +"You are a precious darling, and your play _must_ succeed!" said Miss +Lindsey impulsively at the end of the recital, and then she quickly +glanced at Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to see if he resented her taking this +affectionate liberty with his distinguished author. She found that +eminent producer not at home to her glance; he was lost in contemplation +of tears that hung on the long black lashes that veiled Miss Adair's +gray eyes and a little quiver that manifested itself on her red lips. +Then she shook off the tears by lifting those long lashes so that she +could look straight into his eyes with a smile of absolute confidence in +his intention and ability to remove from her life forever all of her +distress, which was alone poverty in the concrete, by being the +successful producer of her wonderful play. Men of Godfrey Vandeford's +type admit many strange fires and their votaries into the outer temple +of their hearts, but they keep the inner shrine tightly surrounded by +asbestos curtains. However, there is always one, and one only, closely +guarded entrance through which the ultimate woman must slip in an +unguarded moment. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford would never have thought of +being on any particular guard against the author of a play in purple +ribbons entitled "The Renunciation of Rosalind," but he knew almost +instantly that something dire had happened to him as he sat and writhed +at the thought of his plans for the extinction of that piece of dramatic +art, which he had not even read. The whole sophisticated world has +decided that there is no such thing as love at first sight, except the +biological scientists and they know and can prove that such a thing does +exist and that it is a worker of wonders. And dire pain is one of its +reactions. + +But all agony comes to an end and so did Mr. Vandeford's. Miss Hawtry, +who had been so busy in her own mind with her own schemes that she had +no time to listen to Miss Adair's, picked up her gloves from beside her +final coffee-cup, and pulled the fine-meshed veil down over her +beautiful, though slightly snubbed, nose as a signal for a separation of +the group of feasters. + +"May I motor you to your hotel, Miss Adair?" she asked very sweetly. Of +course Patricia did not know that she had got in her invitation at the +first signal of the feasters' disintegration, which she herself had +given, for the purpose of forestalling a similar invitation from Mr. +Farraday, whose Surreness she knew must be moored somewhere near. "Where +are you stopping?" she asked with very little interest, and received an +answer that almost upset her equanimity. + +"I'm staying at the Young Women's Christian Association," calmly +announced the author of "The Purple Slipper," with no sense of +embarrassment in either voice or manner. "Thank you for offering to take +me there, but Mr. Farraday is going to take Miss Lindsey and me to buy a +hat at a place which Miss Lindsey knows of. She is going to buy one, +too, now that she is going to play in our play." + +"The Y. W. C. A.! Great guns!" muttered Mr. Vandeford under his breath, +while the Violet leaned back in her chair and fanned herself. + +Then very suddenly Mr. Vandeford sat up and looked at Miss Mildred +Lindsey keenly for half a second. + +"We'll have to go back to the office to get that check for Miss Lindsey +before we go hat-hunting," announced good Dennis, with a calmness that +made Mr. Vandeford suspect that he had met the fact of the eminent +author's abiding-place before and had got used to it. "You and Miss +Hawtry going over to the office, Van, or will you come with us, if she +has other folderols to follow in a different direction?" + +"I am to see Adelaide about my costumes for 'The Purple Slipper' at +two-twenty, so must forego the pleasure of--of hat-hunting this +afternoon," Violet murmured faintly. "But I know Mr. Vandeford will +adore going with you." Miss Hawtry felt that safety lay in numbers, and +she preferred to leave the unsophistication of Miss Adair with both Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford and Mr. Dennis Farraday than with either of them +alone. + +"I wish I could get out after the hat, but you people must remember that +I am putting on 'The Purple Slipper,' and I have to be about Miss +Adair's business while old Denny buzzes about hat roses, free and equal +with her," answered Mr. Vandeford. His envy, apparent in his voice, of +the care-free state of Mr. Farraday was very real, though none of the +others could guess its meaning. "I'll see all of you later. By!" and +with a sign to the head waiter, which tied tight Mr. Farraday's +purse-strings, Mr. Vandeford left them while the going was good. So +determined was his exit that Miss Hawtry could not keep him back for the +finish of the fight. + +And Mr. Vandeford was in a mortal hurry. He had much to do and undo. He +arrived at his office, three squares away, slightly out of breath. + +"Did you see her, Pops?" he demanded of Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"I did, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and here is a carbon of the letter I sent +her, not with any encouragement to come to New York at all," and in +self-defense he handed out to Mr. Vandeford a copy of the letter Roger +had delivered to Patricia among her roses and young onions and +string-beans. + +"Take it away," commanded Mr. Vandeford, seating himself at his desk and +wildly shunting papers and letters about. + +"Mr. Vandeford, sir, I am sorry for that young lady and I ask you to +have a heart," Mr. Meyers ventured to say to his chief with a boldness +which he himself could not understand, but with which Mr. Vandeford was +strangely patient. He ended with, "It will be a nobleness for you to not +produce a cold show for her, but pay a small damage sum for such a +beautiful lady and call it all off." + +"My God, Pops, I'd give half the 'Rosie Posie' to be able to do it! But +Denny and Violet and that girl they engaged for support have already +filled her full of success dope about the play, and if I call it off +arbitrarily, where shall I stand with her?" Ignorance of the +completeness of his own capitulation to the faith and tears in the +sea-gray eyes, and the genuine, grown-on-the-spot blush from Adairville, +Kentucky, showed in the consternation with which he asked the question +of his henchman. + +"'Stand with her'!" repeated Mr. Meyers, with a consternation that +matched his chief's, but was of different origin. "You had no such fear +when you called off from rehearsals in the second week the comedy of Mr. +Hinkle, and a fourth of the damages paid to him will to her be--" + +"Get to work under your hat, Pops, get to work! The 'Purple Slipper' has +got to go on Broadway and go big. I followed that purple hunch for pure +cussedness against Violet, and now watch it lead me by the nose. You +get Gerald Height on the wire as soon as you can, while I talk to +Rooney." + +"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is not a Hawtry play, and--" + +"Get busy, get busy, Pops! Put a copy of that manuscript on my desk +where I can lay hands on it the minute I get a chance. Get everything +going for a week later than I first called the show and--" + + * * * * * + +"Here we are!" exclaimed Mr. Dennis Farraday, as he burst into the outer +office, ushering as a wedge before him Miss Patricia Adair and Miss +Mildred Lindsey. "Got that hat-check, Pops? Money, I mean, for Miss +Lindsey, not a pasteboard for your own lid from some hotel." + +For a minute Mr. Vandeford lost himself in the depths of the worshiping, +gray eyes that seemed to have been lifted to his for all eternity in +that terrible faith and gratitude. Then he went into action as captain +of the ship which was to come into the port of Adairville, Kentucky, +with all sails set, loaded or bearing his dead body. + +"You and Miss Adair extract money from Pops with a can-opener while I +discuss a few details with Miss Lindsey, in the office," he commanded +coolly, ushered Miss Lindsey into the sanctum and softly closed the +door. + +"Mr. Vandeford," Miss Lindsey began rapidly, "I knew it wasn't fair to +make any definite arrangements with Mr. Farraday, and of course I will +take whatever salary you--" + +"Where do you live, Miss Lindsey?" Mr. Vandeford interrupted to ask with +a totally unwarranted interest on the part of a manager in the affairs +of an actor he has engaged. Miss Lindsey, for the second time that day, +underpainted her own cheeks and laughed as she answered: + +"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me, but I also live at the +Y. W. C. A., though I give Mrs. Parkham's as my address for letters and +telephone calls. It's cheap and--and I have done dining-room work there +for a month, waiting--waiting for--for a part in a play." + +"Great guns, how that hunch works!" exclaimed the well-known producer, +as he sank into his chair from positive weakness. "You take in this +situation, don't you?" he demanded with a quick recovery. + +"I think I do," answered Miss Lindsey. Then she lifted her big black +eyes, in which shone the psychic hunger, though that of the body had +been appeased. "I've got to make good, Mr. Vandeford, and I'll do +anything you want me to. I've got every right--to live at the Y. W. C. +A., and a right to hand food to--to that child in there. You can trust +me." + +"I believe I can," Mr. Vandeford answered, after looking at her keenly +for a few seconds with the glance with which he had picked his winners +or failures in the human comedy for many experienced years. "Stop your +dining-room work at the nunnery and see that she has a good time, just +you and she together. I'll send you matinee tickets to shows I want her +to see, and Mr. Farraday and I'll look after the other amusement. I want +her to meet only the people I introduce her to, and the Y. W. C. A. is +the best place to live in New York--for her. Understand?" + +"Yes." + +"Find out how much money she has." + +"I know now; she told me. She's got a ticket home, good until October +first, and a hundred dollars to last until--until the royalties come in +from the play. Those royalties have got to come in, too, or her +grandfather--" Miss Lindsey's voice was positively belligerent as she +began to put the situation up to Mr. Vandeford, whose heart, as that of +a theatrical manager, she felt, must be hard by tradition. + +"Yes, I know all about that. You get what money you want from Mr. Meyers +out there, and fool her about what things cost as much as you can--until +the royalties come in. Let me know when things don't run smoothly for +the two of you. Of course, this is worth money to you and--" + +"I don't want money for--for--looking after her." + +"How much did Mr. Farraday offer you for your part?" + +"He doubled it when he saw that I was--was hungry, but I know a hundred +and twenty-five is right and that's all I expect." + +"The one-fifty stands. If all goes well I'll see you get your chance on +Broadway this winter. We understand each other now; don't we?" + +"Yes." + +"Then get the hat quest going. I'm busy." + +"Five dollars is her outside limit." + +"Can't you juggle?" + +"I'll try, but she's--well, you know what a girl like that is." + +"Go to it!" With which command Mr. Vandeford led the way into the outer +office. A brief aside put the situation he had just adjusted into the +willing ear of his co-producer, who beamed with satisfaction at the +idea of the joint nesting of these first two theatrical experiences he +had captured at the outset of his quest for adventure in the white +lights. He immediately began counting Miss Lindsey's advance into her +hand, thus giving Mr. Vandeford a word alone with his eminent author, +beside Mr. Adolph Meyers's big window. + +"Miss Lindsey tells me that she also lives at the Y. W. C. A.," he said +with a curious paternal glow in his solar plexus that he had never +experienced before. + +"Oh, I'm so glad! I know that is foolish of me, but I am a little +frightened. I don't know anybody in New York except you and her +and--I've never been in a big city before, and only in Louisville a few +times with my aunt. I'll enjoy it if she will take me places and bring +me back and forth to rehearsals," and the gray eyes beamed with relief +and anticipation of being led forth from the Y. W. C. A. into the gay +world by a competent guide. "Can we go to some of the _the dansants_ in +the afternoon, and maybe to the Metropolitan and the Aquarium?" + +"Yes, all those places and more," assented Mr. Vandeford, with a +suppressed smile at the diversity of amusements his charge had planned +in her sallies from the Y. W. C. A. "You see, it is both the duty and +the pleasure of a producer of a play to see that his author has a good +time while in the city." It was a surprise to Mr. Vandeford to find +himself thus stating the case inversely. + +"Oh, but I mean to work hard to help with 'The Purple Slipper,' so I'll +be too tired to bother you much to take me places. And I know how hard +you work, so don't have me on your mind, will you, please, sir?" The +lifted curl of the black lashes and the reverential note in the soft, +slurring, Blue-grass voice almost upset the staid deference with which +Mr. Vandeford was conversing with the author of his new Hawtry play. + +"Oh, play producing isn't so hard on the producer and the author, so +we'll have lots of time to frolic," he hastened to assure her, though an +uneasy little pang shot into his heart as he thought of just what befell +the average author at the rehearsals of his or her play, and he took an +additional vow of protection. "Shall I come to take you to dinner and to +a show to-night?" + +"Oh, I'd love it," she answered, and again the color came up under the +gray eyes. "It would be wonderful to have you show me Broadway the first +time. I could never forget that." + +Then a thought delivered a blow that laid the producer of "The Purple +Slipper" low. The afternoon was half gone, and there were dozens of +wires that he must manipulate since he had had a change of--heart, +concerning "The Purple Slipper," and dinner-time and evening were the +only hours that some of the most important could be found. + +"Oh, but I can't ask you to do that," he exclaimed, and for almost the +first time since the day of his graduation he felt color rise up under +his own tanned cheeks. "I have to see the stage director and a lot more +people about some things connected with your play. Still, I can't bear +to have anybody else get that first night on Broadway away from me. I +think it is due me." Being herself entirely sincere, Patricia recognized +the utter sincerity of the distress in the voice of her producer where +any other woman would have been doubtful of the ready excuse coming +immediately after the invitation. + +"Then I'll just go to bed early and rest up from the trip, so that I can +go with you whenever you get the time to take me. You are working for us +both about the play, and if you had rather I waited for you, that is +only fair," Miss Adair hastened to assure him with a sincerity equal to +his own. + +"You are one good sport," was the reply that he made her straight from +the shoulder, for the thought of a perfectly beautiful girl going to bed +in the Y. W. C. A. and covering up her head and ears from the bright +lights of her first night in old Manhattan just to give a strange and +reverenced man the pleasure of introducing her to the old city made a +profound impression upon him. "To-morrow night we'll wake up things on +Broadway. I'll telephone you in the morning to let you know how the play +is going and to see if there is anything I can do for you. Now you must +all go and let me get busy." + +"Yes, this is just about the hour that hats begin to bite well," +assented Mr. Farraday, as he removed the girls down to his car with no +thought or question as to whether his services would be needed in the +enterprise in which he had embarked with Mr. Vandeford. + +"Now for it, Pops!" said Mr. Vandeford as the door closed behind his +co-workers in the production of "The Purple Slipper," whose work at that +moment was to play at a distance from his labor. "I'm going to read that +play, and nothing short of something that will injure its prospects if +neglected by me must disturb me. When I'm done I'll make plans with you. +It will take me several hours, and you stand by every second of the +time. Get me?" + +"Yes, Mr. Vandeford, sir," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, and he shut his +door into the outer office just as Mr. Vandeford closed his own with a +bang. + +Then for three hours or more, while the sun sank behind the Palisades +and the white lights flashed up from Broadway beneath his window like +bits of futile challenges to the dying light of day, Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford went through the supreme agony of a long life on Broadway, and +was paid in full for every double-cross he had administered to a +confrere. He read "The Purple Slipper" and groaned aloud from page to +page. He began its perusal sitting erect in his chair, and he ended it +hunched over its pages spread on his desk with his head in his hands, +his fingers desperately clutching his shock of gray-sprinkled hair. Then +in a complete collapse he flung himself back in his chair, elevated his +feet to the edge of the desk, and began literally to devour the smoke of +a small black cigar. For half an hour he sat motionless, as was his +habit when fighting all preliminary battles, and his eyes seemed to be +seeing the big old monster city open its thousand gleaming eyes and +change its roar of the day to an incessant purr of a night-stalking +beast, but in reality he was seeing and hearing a month into the future, +and the spectacle thus pre-visioned was the first night of "The Purple +Slipper" on Broadway. Then very suddenly he came back into his conscious +self and went into action. He rang the buzzer for Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"Pops, get Grant Howard on the wire and ask him to come around here as +quick as he can make it. If he talks straight wait an hour for him, if +he's thick-tongued go after him yourself. Get him! Now put me on the +wire with Rooney if you can find him, and make appointments with +Lindenberg for scenery at eleven in the morning. Ask Corbett to send an +artist to talk costumes for a period play at eleven-thirty, and have +Gerald Height here at twelve sharp. Don't forget to engage that +good-looking youngster--Leigh, I think is the name--even if you have to +give him a hundred advance. That's all for the present. Get Rooney for +me." Mr. Vandeford turned to his desk and began making rapid notes on a +pad with a huge, black, press pencil. For five minutes he spread his +thoughts upon the paper in great smudges; then his telephone rang, and +he took up the receiver: + + . . . . . . + +"Yes, this is Mr. Vandeford speaking. Hello, Billy!" + + . . . . . . + +"That new Hawtry play is beginning to promise something. I'm delaying it +a week, and I want you to come into it with your sleeves rolled up. We +may make a sure-fire hit of it." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, no, I'll keep right on getting 'The Rosie Posie Girl' in shape, and +shunt Hawtry into it as soon as she cinches the public in this play--or +fails." + + . . . . . . + +"That was just what I was going to hand you--you get four hundred a week +for this show, but you'll have to go in and earn it. It's a departure, +and you may not like it. You'll have to hammer it a lot, but I'm not +signing a single 'Rosie Posie' contract until I see this in shape." + + . . . . . . + +"I mean it. A stage manager has to take my stuff all hot even if he +thinks some of it is cold. Get me?" + + . . . . . . + +"That's good. I'll give you the completed manuscript Saturday so you can +pound and set it for Monday next." + + . . . . . . + +"That's good. By!" + +With which short, but sure, wire-pulling Mr. Vandeford opened his +campaign to double-cross his own original plans. He had hardly stopped +fixing Mr. William Rooney when Pops looked in upon him and announced Mr. +Grant Howard, the eminent playwright. + +"Hello, Grant," was Mr. Vandeford's short and unenthusiastic greeting to +the small, black-haired person with weak, pink-rimmed, blue eyes, who +sauntered into the sanctum and dropped sadly into a chair with his back +to the light. A cigarette hung from the left corner of his upper lip, +and his hands trembled. "Been hitting 'em up?" + +"Yes," answered the playwright, laconically. + +"Broke?" + +"Pretty bad." + +"Want to doctor a play for Hawtry for me by Friday next for a thousand +dollars cash?" + +"Cash now?" + +"Cash Friday." + +"Would have to lock myself up in my apartment to do it; but Mazie's been +crying for gold-uns for a week." + +"Send Mazie to me, and I'll fix that, and hand you the thousand on +Friday. Here, take this manuscript over in my other office and be ready +to talk it over with me by ten o'clock. I'll see Mazie in the meantime." +Mr. Vandeford placed the precious "Purple Slipper" in the hands of a man +who at that very moment had two successful plays running on Broadway, +his interest in both of which he had sold out for a mess of pottage to +be consumed in the company of Miss Mazie Villines of the "Big Show." + +"Dolph had better order me up a little cold wine to start on," said Mr. +Howard, as he rose languidly to incarcerate himself at the bidding of +Mr. Vandeford. The same scene had been enacted between the two bright +lights of American drama several times before with very good results. +Mr. Howard's brain was of that peculiar caliber which does not originate +an idea, but which inserts a solid bone construction as well as keen +little sparklets into the fabric of another's labor, and makes the whole +translucent where before it may have been opaque. On Broadway he was +called a play doctor, and Mr. Vandeford was not the first manager who +had shut him up with quarts of refreshment to tinker on the play of many +a literary, dramatic, bright light. + +"Dolph will give you scotch and soda to your limit, no further," +answered Mr. Vandeford, without graciousness. "I'll be here waiting for +your talk-over at ten-thirty o'clock." + +"All right. Have Mazie come for me after her show?" + +"Yes." + +With which the eminent playwright betook himself to a small private +office which opened into the lair of Mr. Adolph Meyers. After he had +entered that retreat Mr. Meyers softly rose from his typing machine and +as softly locked him in. Then he proceeded to hunt for Miss Mazie +Villines until he got her into conversational connection with Mr. +Vandeford. They conversed in these words with great cordiality: + + . . . . . . + +"Want to earn a nice little two hundred for keeping Grant Howard working +at doctoring a play by next Friday for me?" + + . . . . . . + +"I'm giving him a thousand if it's delivered Friday." + + . . . . . . + +"Two hundred to you." + + . . . . . . + +"Not three!" + + . . . . . . + +"There's Claire Furniss. Grant had her at supper last night at Rector's. +She's a beauty, you know." + + . . . . . . + +"Two fifty." + + . . . . . . + +"Goes!" + + . . . . . . + +"Good! Come get him here at my office at eleven-fifteen. Get a taxi by +the hour at your stage-door--on me--and come by for him." + +. . . . . . + +"Good girl! By!" + + * * * * * + +"What a life!" Mr. Vandeford muttered to himself, then rang his buzzer +for Mr. Adolph Meyers. + +"Pops, it's eight o'clock. Go get us a couple of slabs of pie at the +automat, and then I'll go over to see Breit at the booking office." + +"Yes, sir, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. Meyers acquiesced, and departed in search +of provender for the lion and himself. Left to himself, Mr. Vandeford +fell into another trance, from which he was dragged by another tinkle of +his telephone. + +"There'll be a wireless to my grave," he muttered as he took down the +receiver and snapped into it: + +"This is Mr. Vandeford talking." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, Miss Adair. Anything the matter?" + + . . . . . . + +"Speak a little closer into the phone. Miss Hawtry has asked you to +supper to-night? Mr. Farraday? And myself?" + + . . . . . . + +"Did she say I was to come for you?" + + . . . . . . + +"Do you know, I feel like a brute, but I'm going to tell you to go to +bed as per promise. I've got two big guns from Broadway putting licks on +the production of 'The Purple Slipper' until the small hours to-night, +right here in the office. I'll tell Miss Hawtry about it, and you +can--go to bed." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, yes, she'll understand. It's her play too, you see." + + . . . . . . + +"No, you can't help me to-night, thank you just the same. How's Miss +Lindsey? Would you like me to send my car to take you girls for a little +spin in the park to cool off before you go to bed?" + + . . . . . . + +"Her hair's wet? And so is yours? I didn't know it was raining." + + . . . . . . + +"Oh, a mutual shampoo? Bless you both!" + + . . . . . . + +"No, you don't interrupt me when you call me. You are to call me any +time you are willing to do it, if it is every five minutes." + + . . . . . . + +"No, I mean it." + + . . . . . . + +"Very well then--good-night and good dreams." + + . . . . . . + +"Can you beat it?" Mr. Vandeford smiled to himself as he hung up the +receiver. "Those two peachy girls washing each other's hair in the Y. W. +C. A., within ten blocks of the 'Follies' is to laugh--or cry. Good +little Lindsey! I wager she could have got 'em both forty-seven-eleven +dates." Then a thought delivered a blow just above his belt in the +region of his heart. "So it's Violet's game to use her as a decoy-duck +for Denny?" he questioned himself, then gave his own answer in a soft +voice under his breath. "Damn her!" + +Furthermore he did not communicate with Miss Hawtry to give her Miss +Adair's answer to her invitation. He answered it in person, but only +after much had happened in the three hours intervening. + +The hours from eight to nearly ten Mr. Vandeford spent in slowly +munching the refreshment retrieved from the automat by Mr. Adolph Meyers +and thinking out loud to that dignitary who took down his thoughts on +paper in cabalistic signs of shorthand. They were all notes of what +could and must be done in the next few days in the fight for the good +fate of "The Purple Slipper." + +"I want to see that fellow Reid about that new lighting he provided for +the new Sauls show in May. I liked it in some ways and--" Mr. Vandeford +was saying when a banging on the door of the private office in which was +incarcerated the eminent playwright interrupted him. + +"Did you give him the right amount of booze, Pops?" Mr. Vandeford asked. + +"Entirely right," answered Mr. Meyers, with his pencil still poised over +his pad. The knocking continued. + +"See what he wants, Pops, and give him a little more if you have to," +decided Mr. Vandeford, as he lit a new cigar and turned to the whirlpool +of his desk while he waited for Mr. Meyers's return. + +"Say, do you expect me to cast a Sunday School charade into a play in +six days, Vandeford?" was the storm of words hurled at him as the +released and infuriated doctor of plays hurled himself and his sheaf of +manuscript into the door ahead of Mr. Meyers. + +"Is that what you think of it?" calmly questioned Mr. Vandeford, as he +swung around in his chair. "Sit down and tell me what you intend to do +for it." + +"I'm going to rewrite the whole blamed mess for fifteen hundred dollars, +that's what I'm going to do," announced Mr. Howard with both +belligerence and excitement in his voice and in the flash of his sick +little eyes. + +"Is it as good--or as bad--as all that--money?" questioned Mr. +Vandeford. "You'll have to show me," he added calmly, though in the +vitals of his heart he was relieved that Howard still spoke of "The +Purple Slipper" as a carcass on which to operate. + +"It's got a perfectly ripping, basic, sex-comedy idea that climaxes the +third act; the rest is piffle." + +"I thought some of the character drawing, and one or two of the +sentimental bits were--actable," Mr. Vandeford ventured, determined to +save as much of the hair and hide of Miss Adair's child as possible, +enough at least to help her to recognize and claim it later. + +"Oh, we can leave enough bits to anchor the author's name, if that is +what you mean," the playwright admitted impatiently. "How about fifteen +hundred? I won't do it for less." + +"Goes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest ease with which he had +ever dispensed five hundred dollars in all his life. "Now shoot me your +layout of the whole thing before Mazie gets here to take you and lock +you up." + +"I'm going to take that dinner scene where the wife holds her husband's +enemies and her lover at bay to see if he gets back home on a +sporting-chance bet with lover, and write Hawtry both back and front of +it; write her in as the virago she is and give her a chance to act +herself for once." + +"Good idea," admitted Mr. Vandeford. "But you'll have a hard time +writing a gutter girl into a grand dame, won't you?" + +"Women are all alike, and the worst viragos are the grand dames. It +takes a gutter girl to play one let loose, as they do only on rare +occasions. I've got 'em in my own family. That's the reason I'm a black +sheep turned out. Got a sister that's worse than me, only respectable +and fashionable. See?" + +"Yes, I see," again admitted Mr. Vandeford. "You'll keep all the +atmosphere and minor stabs in, you say?" + +"Sure. They are pretty good staggers, some of the minor stuff. Lots of +it is good talk--only wandering. That woman may write something some day +if she breaks loose and goes to the devil for a while." + +"She won't," said Mr. Vandeford, positively. + +"Never can tell," answered Mr. Howard, with indifference. "What did +Mazie say?" + +"She's due here for you now," answered Mr. Vandeford, looking at his +watch. + +"Great girl, Mazie. Cooks me dandy rice and runny eggs, and sits on the +neck of every bottle in New York while I dig. Couldn't do without her. +Say, tell her you are just giving me five hundred, will you?" + +"She knows it's a thousand," answered Mr. Vandeford, truthfully. "But +I'll keep the extra five hundred you are extracting dark for you." + +"That's good, and I'll tell her that I haven't got any--" + +"Tell her that you haven't got any money, as usual," were the words +which Mr. Howard's fair lion-tamer used to finish his sentence of appeal +to Mr. Vandeford for his co-operation in fraud. She had entered past Mr. +Meyers with his full approval, for he felt a great relief at the sight +of her and her guardianship. + +"How's Mazie?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he rose and, with all the +ceremony he would have used for a grand duchess--or Miss Patricia +Adair--offered a chair to the pert little person with her funny, +good-humored, rather pretty face and her very smart clothes. + +"Kicking along, Mr. Vandeford, thank you," was the answer. "Gee, but I +did kick the limit to-night, that's sure. I put some shady shines over +what Grant wrote into a let-down in my part for me last night in great +shape. They et it up, darling." Her naughty face beamed on Howard. +"Hawtry was in a box, left. Had a gink in soup to fish with her that +looked like real money. Have you rented her out?" + +"You folks get along and stop that taxi meter you've got running on me," +Mr. Vandeford said, answering the sally with a laugh; but it surprised +him that there was a cold space in his vitals at the insult that the +little trollop handed him with such comradery, guiltless of any +knowledge that it was an insult. + +"What was that about touching pitch?" he asked himself as he walked +rapidly up four blocks to the theater where Mazie had told him he would +find the Violet with her prey. He was just in time to meet them in the +lobby. Denny was in the gorgeousness of his "soup to fish," Mazie's and +her world's term for evening attire, and the Violet in every way matched +his good looks. + +"Why, where is Mademoiselle Innocence?" asked Hawtry, with a little +frown, as she perceived that Mr. Vandeford was alone and not in regalia. + +"Asleep at the Y. W. C. A.," he answered shortly. + +"Sure?" asked the Violet, with a little laugh for which he could have +killed her. + +"Why, she promised Miss Hawtry to go to supper with us and see a +midnight show," Mr. Farraday exclaimed, and there was disappointment in +his voice as he looked at Mr. Vandeford. + +"I couldn't get away from the office until just this minute, and I +didn't think I could get away this soon. Miss Adair sent her apologies +to you both, and I came over to bring them." + +"Evidently we are not to be trusted with the author, Mr. Farraday," +laughed Violet, with what good Dennis took as good nature and what Mr. +Vandeford knew to be rage. + +"Well, bless the child and her beauty sleep, but don't let that kill our +evening joy. Come along, Van, and we'll go some place sufficiently +disreputable to admit a crumpled person like yourself if you wash your +hands. We can have a good powwow over the play. I want to know what you +have been doing while I was off the job chasing a hat for the author." +And the big, stupid Jonathan linked his arm in that of his anxious and +hovering David and drew him along towards the Surrenese, which stood +across the street, at the same time guiding the steps of the Violet's +satin slippers in that direction. + +While the three walked across the narrow street Mr. Vandeford made some +rapid calculations and a decision in his mind. He saw plainly that he +could not undertake to guard Mr. Dennis Farraday from the Violet and at +the same time fend Miss Patricia Adair from her wiles. He'd have to +choose between them, and in the twinkling of an eye he chose Patricia. +It is said that there is a love between men "that passes the love of +women," but nobody has ever witnessed it. + +"You people go on to your show--I'm all in," he capitulated as they +stood beside Mr. Farraday's car; and the heart of the Violet rejoiced +within her. + +"I'm sure Miss Adair is getting caught up on sleep so she can go with +you to-morrow night. She's a perfect dear, and we'll put her play +across," Hawtry cooed to him in her rich voice, and he knew that she +felt she had struck his price and bought him off. + +"If Denny falls for her he'll fall far; but I can't help it. A girl's a +girl, specially from the country," Mr. Vandeford said to himself, as he +stood and watched them drive away into the white-lighted canon of +Broadway. Then he went home and to bed. + +A man may put out his night light, stretch himself between his sheets +with the perfection of fatigue and still not sleep. There are various +combinations of reasons that prevent his slumber. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford +was still awake when Mr. Dennis Farraday let himself into his apartment +with a key that had been presented to him five years before when Mr. +Vandeford had installed his Lares and Penates in the tall building on +Seventy-third Street, some of these Lares and Penates being Mr. +Farraday's extra linen and clothes. + +"That you, Denny?" Mr. Vandeford asked as he switched on his light and +took a hurried glance at a clock on his mantel which registered the hour +of 2 A. M. + +"Yes," answered Mr. Farraday, as he came to the door of Mr. Vandeford's +sleeping apartment. "A thought suddenly struck me, and I stopped in to +explode it at you and sleep here." + +"Fire away!" + +"My mater is coming to town the first of the week to have her glasses +changed, and I'm going to telephone out to her to-morrow and ask her to +write Miss Adair to have dinner with us informally at the town house +while she is here. You know mater's mother was from old Kentucky, and +she'll adore the child. Think that's good thinking?" + +"Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a glow under his ribs about which +he said nothing. Men are vastly inarticulate, but they have various +means of communication, and Mr. Vandeford now felt that in his care of +his author Mr. Dennis Farraday would understand. + +"You know I am on new ground, old chap, but--but how about asking Miss +Lindsey, too?" Mr. Farraday questioned, with great diffidence. + +"Fine!" agreed Mr. Vandeford, with accelerated glow under his ribs that +Miss Lindsey had been proposed when Miss Hawtry might have been invited. +"Get to bed, can't you, you Indian, you? Night!" + +"Good-night!" answered Mr. Farraday, as he departed to his own room. + +And still Mr. Vandeford did not sleep. + +Flat upon his back he lay and faced, analyzed, and card-indexed his +situation and himself. + +"Five years of myself given to that gutter girl and I never even cared; +let her annex me for purposes of parade and publicity, and thought it +funny sport. Wasted? Something to be deducted for pleasure in artistic +success of "Dear Geraldine," but what will it cost me if I have to stand +by and see her make old Denny hate himself as I do myself, or worse? +She'll not stop short with him, and how do I know what he'll do? The +money don't matter, but the--cleanliness does. If I go in to save him, +she gave me notice to-night that she would go for that gray-eyed girl. +What can she do to her? First, kill her play, no matter what I do to +build up a success for the kiddie to cancel that mortgage. Second: do +something, say something that will kill that look in those gray eyes +when they lift to me. Never! Take Denny, Violet, and the Lord help him; +I can't. You've bought me. Washing her hair in the Y. W. C. A.! God +bless that institution and--" + +At last Mr. Godfrey Vandeford slept. + +After his ten o'clock awakening Mr. Vandeford displayed a marked +eccentricity in his demeanor. That morning was unlike any morning he had +ever experienced, and his conduct surprised himself. A daybreak shower +had fallen on the hot and baked city, and it was as fresh as a suburb. +Arrayed in the coolest of white silk, linen, and suede, Mr. Vandeford +had his chauffeur drive him not to the whirling office but to the most +sophisticated Fifth Avenue florist, where he purchased the most +unsophisticated bunch of flowers at the highest price to be obtained in +New York. + +"The Young Women's Christian Association," he commanded the obsequious +young Valentine who drove the big Chambers. Mr. Vandeford was never +sufficiently unoccupied of mind to pilot a car in and out of New York +traffic. For half a second the young Frenchman hesitated. + +"I don't know where it is--Find out," commanded Mr. Vandeford, and again +he had the foreign experience of feeling the blood burn the under side +of the tan on his cheeks. + +Valentine consulted the tall man in uniform at the door of the flower +shop, and this menial consulted some one within, who must have consulted +a directory, judging from the time it took to obtain the correct +address. With his eyes straight in front of him, as a chauffeur's eyes +should always be, he then drove rapidly down the avenue. + +And on that beautiful morning Mr. Vandeford's luck was with him. +Valentine whirled expertly up to the curb in front of the large, +hospitable building which had emblazoned over its door the impressive Y. +W. C. A. letters, letters that send a beacon all over the known world as +they did to Mr. Vandeford in little and unimportant New York. Mr. +Vandeford got out of the car with hurried grace in his long limbs and, +with actual trepidation, went in through the door, into a world he had +never even thought of before. He had entered many an African lion jungle +with less fear. He glanced with awe at the natty young woman in white +linen who presided at the desk, and wanted intensely to put his flowers +behind him and back out of the door rather than approach and ask for the +lady to whom he wished to donate them. In fact, he might have +accomplished such a retreat if again luck had not come his way. + +"Oh, Mr. Vandeford, how glad I am that you got here before we went out +to the museum," exclaimed a fluty, slurring young voice just behind him, +and he found that the gray eyes with the black lashes were just as +unusual as he had decided they could not possibly be in the interval +that had elapsed since he had looked into them. "Oh, how lovely!" + +The last exclamation was made over the edge of the bouquet, which he had +tendered Miss Adair as silently as a school-boy hands out his first +bunch of buttercups to the lady for whom he has picked them. + +"Did you come for me to go to help work on the play?" was the energetic +question that brought him out of his trance. + +"No, not right now," he answered haltingly, and when he realized how +many times he would have to put her off with words to that same effect, +his trance became a panic. + +"When are you going to need me?" Miss Adair asked him with a direct and +business-like look right to his eyes. "I am ready for work now." + +"Now what'll I do?" he demanded of himself. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +"I thought of a lot of new things for my characters to say, while I was +coming up from Kentucky on the train, and I want to put them in." Miss +Adair further tortured Vandeford. + +"This morning I am going to talk to the electrician and the costumer and +the scene painter." Mr. Vandeford answered by telling her the truth, +because, with her very beautiful and candid eyes beaming into his, +showing both interest and consideration, he had not the power to make up +any kind of lie to put her off the trail of "The Purple Slipper." + +"I am so glad that I got up early and am ready to go with you! I can +tell them about what my great-grandmother really wore when it all +happened, and it will be such a help to them!" Miss Adair exclaimed +with great business acumen shining in her eyes. Mr. Vandeford gave up +the fight, piloted her into his car, and gave the command, "Office!" to +the very decorous, but very much interested Valentine. + +As they were skimming back up the avenue and about to turn into +Forty-second Street, an inspiration came to Mr. Vandeford. + +"Didn't you keep some of those costumes of the period of the play hid +away in an old brass-nailed leather trunk in your garret?" he asked Miss +Adair, with desperate eagerness shining in his eyes. + +"Yes," Miss Adair answered readily. Then she hesitated, and the genuine +blush rivaled the one in the northeast corner of the bouquet at the +waist of the very chic, blue-silk suit. "That is, I did have some--" + +"Have they been destroyed?" questioned Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest +anxiety. + +"No, not exactly," answered Miss Adair, with a distressed tremor at the +corner of her curved mouth that rivaled a rose of a deeper hue in the +southwest corner of the bouquet. + +"I see," answered Mr. Vandeford, with great relief. "You are not just +sure where they are. That's great! You can have a talk with Mr. Corbett, +who is to design the costumes, and then hop right back home in a day or +two, as soon as you are rested and we've had a little bat on Broadway, +and find them for him to use in his designs. The management will pay all +the expenses and you can--can--" + +Mr. Vandeford cast around in his mind for some other business in +connection with "The Purple Slipper" that would keep the author thereof +busy and contented in Adairville, Kentucky, out of the clutches of +Violet and out of the way of his stage director until it all was running +smoothly. + +"How about your getting a lot of photographs of the house in which it +all happened?" he went on. Vaguely he felt photography must be a slow +process in Adairville, Kentucky. + +Also, in his heart he was forced to acknowledge that his inspiration for +getting the author out of the way of her own play while it was being +murdered was not entirely original. Tradition had told him, whether +truly or not, that at a certain crucial moment in the butchering and +rehearsal of "The Great Divide" the poet-author, Moody, had been sent +West to hunt a genuine war costume for a great Indian war-chief, his +favorite written character, and on his return with the trophy had found +the Indian cut entirely and forever from the play. + +"Those dresses would be the greatest help you could give us now," he +urged with an inward chuckle at the thought of the trick on the great +poet, which froze in his heart as he observed two tears balanced on the +black lashes of the lovely sea-gray eyes lowered away from his. + +"What's the matter?" he gasped, in desperate fear that the Moody Indian +story had penetrated to the wilds of Adairville, Kentucky. "You'd only +be gone a few days, and everything could wait until you came back. I +wouldn't turn a wheel without you, and--" he committed himself deeper +and deeper at every step. + +"I've had the dresses all made over, and this is one. I've hurt my play +just because I wanted to look pretty in New York! I'm humiliated with +myself. As if anybody cared how I look; and the play--" The soft little +slurs stopped and the beautiful old-blue-silk-clad shoulder trembled +slightly against his shoulder as a little ghost of a sob came to the +surface and was suppressed while the home-made color faded from beneath +two tears that fell from the black lashes. + +"Oh, please forgive me, child! It doesn't matter at all, and--" + +"You oughtn't to forgive me," the voice trembled on. "Miss Hawtry would +have been wonderful in that dinner dress my grandmother wore, and +I--I've had two made out of it! I can give them to her and tell her how +to put them together again with--" + +"You'll do nothing of the kind!" fairly snapped Mr. Vandeford. Then he +broke the record in his own thinking processes and decided for the +second time to tell the whole truth to this country girl with her +mixture of hay-seeds and patrician airs. He directed Valentine to +Central Park and made a clean breast of it. It is a pleasure to record +that at the Moody Indian story Patricia laughed until two other tears +ran down her cheeks, but this time they did not wring Mr. Vandeford's +heart, for they coursed over the accustomed roses and were a great +pleasure to him. + +"I'll go home if you want me to," the talented author of "The Purple +Slipper" offered, with a small snap in her eyes, mingled with the +accustomed veneration of Mr. Vandeford, her producer. "I don't want to +be in anybody's way. I thought I had to come and spend all my money. I +want to see the Metropolitan and the Aquarium and Brooklyn Bridge and +Trinity Church, ... and ... a Midnight Frolic, because Mamie Lou +Whitson, at home, is expecting me to go to one even if Miss Elvira said +I ought not to. Can I see just one Frolic before I go home?" + +"If you go home now the whole 'Purple Slipper' will go into cold storage +until you come back," Mr. Vandeford growled at her, and the effort it +took not to hold on to her with bodily fingers was a great strain. "I +told you the usual situation because I felt that you were clever enough +to make the best of it and help the play a lot. No author ever has seen +a play produced as he wrote it, and he has to stand seeing everybody +take a whack at it, from the producer to the man who takes the tickets +at the front door. I've got a good playwright shut up until Friday +rewriting 'The Purple Slipper'; then I'm going to work at it myself and +let Miss Hawtry write in all the things she wants to say, and cut out +all the things she doesn't. After that, I'm going to turn it over to +Bill Rooney, who was born in a barrel down on the wharf and educated in +the gutter, but who is the best and highest-priced stage director in New +York. He'll do innumerable things to it while he's 'setting it,' as he +calls getting it ready for rehearsals. All the actors and actresses will +be allowed at times to butcher and scalp their parts and everybody will +stab. And if you are a plucky girl you'll sit still and see it done. +There will come lots of times that everything you suggest, even very +timidly, will be thrust down your throat; but if they are vital they +will get under the hide of Bill and opening night you'll see that your +pluck has put a lot into the whole thing and that the mutilated and +dressed-up play is still your child. Will you trust me and sit in with +me and help me make 'The Purple Slipper' go?" + +"I do! I will!" answered Miss Adair, with her head in the air and the +Adairville roses flaunting themselves in her face. And as she spoke she +offered him her slim, long-fingered, white little hand that his +completely engulfed as, answering a signal, Valentine turned the car +back toward Forty-second Street. "If I've got to have thorns stuck in me +and then cut out I'm mighty glad you'll be there." + +"Yes, I'll be there," he answered her softly, as he released her hand at +least two seconds sooner than he was really obliged to, though he +himself could not have said why he did it. He felt like a grown person +who frightens a child with a bear tale to make it cuddle to his own +strength in the firelight. + +Then followed a day in the offices of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical +Producer, which, up to that time, could not have been duplicated on +Broadway and perhaps never will be, though the results may have the +effect of--but that was all in the future of the theatrical business at +that time. + +"Mr. Meyers," said Mr. Vandeford, as he ushered the author of "The +Purple Slipper" into the outer offices, where he found Pops soothing and +controlling about seven enraged experts in different lines of dramatic +production, "Miss Adair will have the small office from now on to work +in when she is not in consultation with me. Please take her in and see +that she is made at home while I run through my mail. Yes, Mr. Corbett, +I will be ready for you in a few minutes. Sorry to detain you, all of +you," with which apology to the body of assembled experts Mr. Vandeford +bowed, went into his sanctum, and firmly closed the door, just as Mr. +Adolph Meyers bowed the author into her sanctum and as firmly closed her +door. Mr. Gerald Height, who had been sitting looking indifferently out +of Mr. Meyers' window, looked after the disappearing author as if a +perfumed breeze had suddenly blown across his brow, and whistled softly. + +"Say, Pops, who, by thunder is--," he was questioning Mr. Meyers with +extreme interest, when Mr. Vandeford's buzzer sounded and Mr. Meyers was +forced to answer it before he could attend to Mr. Height's question. + +Mr. Meyers found Mr. Vandeford pale, but determined. + +"Pops," he said, and Mr. Meyers could have sworn that the voice of his +beloved chief trembled, "I'm in the devil of a fix, and you have got to +throw me a line to pull out; in fact, you'll have to cast in a drag-net +if you want to land me." + +"If it was a submarine I would make a rescue of you, Mr. Vandeford, +sir," the faithful henchman assured the panic-stricken producer. + +"She's worse than any submarine ever floated, and I'm rammed--in a +corner, Pops. To make a story that is going to be long in acting, short +in telling, I've had to put Miss Adair on to what is usually handed out +to the authors of plays, and then to stop her wails, offered to let her +sit in and watch her play baby hacked up. Her office-hours here and at +rehearsals will be from ten mornings to midnight, and what are you going +to do about it?" Mr. Vandeford questioned Mr. Meyers with a kind of +forlorn hope in his eyes, for Mr. Meyers had often seen him through the +crooks of his trade. + +"I advise to make it straight to her, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and she will +come out all right or otherwise go home. That young lady has the look of +a horse on which I won seven hundred at the last Gravesend. Besides, we +have not time for play-acting about that 'Purple Slipper.' It is a cold +bird and we must be in a hurry about putting pep into it for a success." + +"Right-o, Pops! I'll ask her in here, and when I buzz send in Corbett. +The poor kiddie!" With which lamentation over the fate he was about to +mete out to Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford dismissed Mr. Meyers and opened +the door which led from his sanctum into that which had been so recently +assigned to the author of "The Purple Slipper." + +That eminent playwright was discovered in the height of fascination, +looking down upon the uproar of Broadway. + +"I saw a taxicab run over a man and not kill him," she exclaimed with +both horror and joy. "I started to call you, but it was all over in a +second." + +"That's all right. I've seen that hundreds of times, even when they were +killed." He reassured her about neglecting to share the excitement with +him. "Are you ready to take up the matter of costumes with Corbett?" + +"Shall I have to tell him--about my making over--" + +"No; just listen to me handle him, and I'll tell you when to break in. +I'll give you a lead. Please come into my office." And with coolness of +manner, but trepidation of heart, he led her into his office and seated +her in a chair beside his at the far side of the desk,--the very chair +in which had sat Mr. Dennis Farraday on the day previous, when he had +received his initiation into the world of theatricals. Then he buzzed +his signal to Mr. Meyers. + +Immediately Mr. Corbett entered. + +"Morning, Corbett.--Miss Adair, the author of the play I want to talk +to you about.--Want to take on a costume play of early Kentucky?" Mr. +Vandeford made no pause in which to allow Mr. Corbett to acknowledge his +introduction to the author, and Mr. Corbett seemed to bear no resentment +for the omission. His astonishment at meeting an author when the +costuming of a play was being discussed was profound. + +"What date?" he inquired, looking carefully away from Miss Adair. + +"What date, Miss Adair?" asked Mr. Vandeford in exactly the same crisp +tone in which he was conducting the negotiations with Mr. Corbett. + +"1806, I think. It was just before they began to wear--" Miss Adair was +beginning to say with a delighted smile that entirely failed to make an +impression on Mr. Corbett. + +"Good date for costuming," the artist interrupted the author to say, +with the easy assurance of a person fully informed. "Styles were +distinctive. I dressed 'Lovers' Ends' for E. and K. in 1789, and the +costumes kept the piffling play alive for two months. How many dolls and +how many boots?" + +"How many men and how many ladies in the play, Miss Adair?" Mr. +Vandeford questioned her with delight at getting a question to fling to +her and also translating for her Mr. Corbett's query. + +"Twenty in all," answered Miss Adair. "There are eleven ladies with +the--" + +"Split even," Mr. Corbett took the words out of her mouth. "Want sole +leather or tissue paper, Mr. Vandeford?" Miss Adair caught by psychic +sympathy the fact that he was asking if the play was to be costumed as +one intended to survive. Consequently her very soul hung on the answer +Mr. Vandeford must make to Mr. Corbett's question. + +"To play about thirty, I should say," answered Mr. Vandeford after a two +minutes' calculating. + +"Only a month?" gasped Miss Adair, then colored home-made pink in the +height of embarrassment. + +"Weeks." Mr. Vandeford answered her gasp without looking at her, but +taking the vow gallantly, considering that he felt Mazie Villines to be +his sole dependence for a winning manuscript version of "The Purple +Slipper." + +During this question and answer Mr. Corbett was also calculating. + +"About seven thousand if Adelaide makes the Hawtry layout," he finally +announced. + +"Five hundred advance for the sketches, and a week's option," Mr. +Vandeford offered calmly. + +"A thousand advance for models of costumes made up," answered Mr. +Corbett, just as calmly and firmly. "Have to hunt in museum for +materials to go by. Takes experts on fabrics." + +"I can give you pieces of silk and things that are cut from the costumes +of that period." Miss Adair had learned, and she cut her remark into +the conference with precision and decision. + +"Genuine?" questioned Mr. Corbett. + +"Worn by the characters about whom the play is written." + +"Then seven hundred and fifty for made-up models, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. +Corbett offered. + +"The pieces will be large enough to make the models," Miss Adair said +with a curt firmness that was a combination of that used by both Mr. +Vandeford and Mr. Corbett and which both startled and delighted the +former. + +"Six hundred for models, Corbett," he said with finality and with an +inward chuckle. + +"Six-fifty, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. Corbett answered with equal finality, +and for the first time he stole a glance at the author. + +"Goes! When?" + +"Two weeks?" + +"Goes! Good-morning, Mr. Corbett!" + +Mr. Corbett's exit was immediate. + +"I'm glad Miss Elvira made me put all the pieces of my dresses in my +trunk to patch with in case I tore anything. They saved us four hundred +dollars, didn't they?" Miss Adair said to Mr. Vandeford with gratified +business acumen shining in the sea-gray eyes. "I wasn't much in the way, +was I?" + +"You were a great help, and that was the first time I ever succeeded in +jewing Corbett," answered Mr. Vandeford with satisfactory enthusiasm. +Something of relief over the guarding of his author showed in his voice, +which second note, however, he sounded too soon as the next ten minutes +proved to him. "Now we'll discuss the sets for the production with +Lindenberg and then it'll be time for luncheon, and we'll go--" + +"Mr. Vandeford, sir, Mr. Height would like to be in next," Mr. Meyers +interrupted his chief, just a second too soon, or rather just in time, +for if Mr. Vandeford had settled Miss Adair's luncheon plans in that +second the fate of "The Purple Slipper" might have been different. + +"Show him in, Pops, and have the rest come back at two-thirty," Mr. +Vandeford commanded. + +Mr. Gerald Height entered. + +For five successive seasons on Broadway, with brief dazzling flights +into the provincial towns of Chicago, Boston, Washington, and +Philadelphia, Mr. Gerald Height had been the reigning beauty, and he +well deserved it. He was both slender and broad, with the grace of a +faun in young manhood, and with the deviltry of a satyr of more advanced +age in his yellow-green eyes, which tilted under high black brows that +were arched penciled bows across his forehead. His lips were full and +red, but chiseled like a youth's on a Greek frieze and they were mobile +and tender and hard by turns. His red-gold hair clung to his head in +burnished waves, and this head was set upon his broad, strong shoulders +as a flower is set on its parent plant, and his smile was a conquering +triumph. He poured it all over Miss Adair as Mr. Vandeford introduced +them, and took the chair opposite the producer and the author, with the +light from the window fully revealing all of his charms. + +"New Hawtry play on, Height, by Miss Adair." Mr. Vandeford began the +conversation with his usual directness, and somehow his voice was +crisper than usual, for he seemed to get a shock from the radiance of +the stage beauty before him that pushed him, with his white-tinged black +hair, well forward into middle age. + +"Dolph was telling me, and I ran through a synopsis he had on the +machine. Powder and furbelows!" As he spoke Mr. Height smiled at Miss +Adair with appreciation of herself and got in return a smile of the same +degree of appreciation of himself, both smiles not at all lost on the +psychologically aging Mr. Vandeford. + +"That clause in your contract that lets you out of all costume plays is +perfectly good, you know," Mr. Vandeford heard himself saying when he +had intended to bluster that same clause aside if the favorite had tried +to stand on it, because he well knew that to see Gerald Height in silk +stockings and lace ruffles a quarter of a million women might be counted +upon to pay two dollars per capita and so assure at least a fifteen per +cent. certainty to the box-office receipts of "The Purple Slipper," +whose fate had mysteriously come in the last few hours to mean so much +to him. "Mr. Meyers has a youngster that we can whip into lead, I think. +Now thank me for letting you out, and run along." + +"Oh," ejaculated Miss Patricia Adair, and the little exclamation of +dismay hit both men at once and made them both sit up straight in their +chairs. Also they both looked for a long minute at Miss Adair, and both +were aware of the other's scrutiny. Mr. Height broke the tension. + +"I might see how buckskins and powdered wig would go," he said, with a +tentative glance across the table, which began with Mr. Vandeford and +ended with Miss Adair. + +"I think you would be perfectly beautiful, and I hope--" Miss Adair +paused, and Mr. Height was as competent as either Miss Hawtry or Miss +Lindsey had been to judge of the home-made color under the gray eyes. +Also he was as much, perhaps more, affected by it, though in the +presence of Mr. Vandeford he was wise enough to dissemble his delight. + +"Want me to try, Mr. Vandeford?" he questioned with greater deference +than he had ever shown a mere manager in the last five years of his +triumphant career. + +"Of course, it would be a fifteen-per cent. drag if you are willing," +answered Mr. Vandeford with managerial delight and manly rage. + +"Can I have until to-morrow to decide?" asked Mr. Height. "You see, I +haven't read the play or heard the layout," he added to the author of +"The Purple Slipper," with deference in his rich voice that had thrilled +its millions. + +"Could you make it this afternoon if Mr. Meyers goes into it with you? +My other man has a big picture offered him at a good figure," Mr. +Vandeford answered, with both fear and joy at the prospect of pressing +the star into retreat. + +"Dolph has told me all he knows about it, which is nothing. He hasn't +taken out any parts and seems to have lost the manuscript forever. I +hope you kept a copy, Miss Adair." And again the two young things smiled +at each other to Mr. Vandeford's devastation. + +"Why couldn't I tell Mr. Height about the play while you see the +electrician and the other people, Mr. Vandeford?" Miss Adair questioned, +her candid gray eyes shining with such a sincere desire to be useful in +the crisis that Mr. Vandeford could not suspect her of any adventurous +motive. "We could go over in--into my office and you can call me any +minute if you need me." + +"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Height. "Then I could let you know right away if +I thought I could do the part justice, Mr. Vandeford." + +"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, as he motioned them into the inner +office, which had been conferred upon the author of "The Purple +Slipper," and rang his buzzer for Mr. Meyers. + +"Find Mr. Farraday and ask him to come around here immediately if he is +anywhere near, or to come at four if he can't get here in ten minutes," +he commanded. "Heard from Mazie?" + +"Mr. Howard is in a good working soak, is her report, Mr. Vandeford, +sir, and I have the wire that Mr. Farraday is on his way here," was the +double answer Mr. Meyers returned to Mr. Vandeford. + +"Good! Give me my letters to sign," Mr. Vandeford answered. + +Mr. Meyers brought in a sheaf of letters, and Mr. Vandeford was in the +act of setting pen to paper when the door of the inner office opened +after a gentle knock and Miss Adair entered, followed by Mr. Height. + +Mr. Vandeford looked up quickly and found Miss Adair close beside his +chair, looking down upon him with her beautiful reverence and confidence +in him entirely unimpaired. + +"Mr. Height wants me to go and have luncheon with him and tell him about +the play. He's hungry, and so am I. Can you spare me if I'm working +while I'm eating? May I go?" + +Mr. Vandeford rose to his feet quickly, and a great Broadway star was in +closer danger of descending head-first from a six-story window upon that +thoroughfare than he ever knew. Then "The Purple Slipper" rose and +demanded its chance of success with Gerald Height as "drag" and the +tragedy was averted. + +"Run along, children, and don't spill your milk on your bibs," he +answered them, with a dissembling smile that would have done credit to +Mr. Height himself when upon the boards with Miss Hawtry. They departed +in great spirits, and Mr. Vandeford noticed that Mr. Height had not +been at all concerned as to how his manager's inner man would be served. + +Thereupon Mr. Vandeford propped his feet upon the desk, got out one of +the most evil of the cigars he kept in a drawer of his desk for just +such crises, and went into communion with himself for ten minutes. Upon +that communion broke Mr. Dennis Farraday, who got the full force of it. + +"I came to pick up you and Miss Adair to go out in the park to luncheon. +It's cooler there. Where is she?" were the words with which Mr. +Vandeford's partner in the production of "The Purple Slipper" greeted +him. + +"She has gone out to luncheon with a damned tango lizard," was the +disturbed and disturbing answer his courtesy received. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Farraday, bristling. + +"She met Gerald Height a half-hour ago, here in this office, and then +went out to luncheon with him," was Mr. Vandeford's answer to Mr. +Farraday's bristling. + +"Without consulting you?" + +"No! I consented all right enough." + +"Why didn't you tell her if you didn't want her to go with him?" + +"See here, Denny, I want to ask you if anything in my past life makes +you think that I am a proper old hen to have a downy little chicken +thrust right under my wing for safe keeping, whether I hatched her or +not?" Mr. Vandeford demanded, and his rage was so perfectly impersonal +and perplexed that Mr. Farraday sat down to go into the matter to his +rescue. + +"What do you mean, Van?" he asked in a calm voice and manner that were +most grateful to Mr. Vandeford. + +"Just this: Here's a girl come up here, from a place where a girl is +guarded like a pearl of great price, into the muck and excitement of the +getting together of a Broadway production in which she is directly +interested. I don't know what to do. If I spend my time hovering over +her, her show will go cold and break her. She's poor. I told her as much +of what she is in for as I dared and still she wants to stay and see it +all through, demands to stay and be let in for the whole thing. What'll +we do?" + +"Suppose she'd go with me up to visit the mater and be motored down to +participate in--in expurgated moments?" asked Mr. Farraday, as he +ruffled his hair into a huge plume on the top of his head. + +"She would not. She's got a taste of it and she'll thirst for more. And, +for all that unsophistication, she is a clever kid. She'll get Height +into a costume play before luncheon is over and that'll go a long way to +cinch a hit for 'The Purple Slipper.' He's made a fad of not playing +costume, and all the women in New York will flock to see him in velvet +and lace. She bargained that fish Corbett out of four hundred dollars in +the preliminary costume deal, and if anybody has to send her home it +will have to be you. I can't do it." + +"Well, just gently warn her about Height and things of that kind, can't +you?" + +"I cannot! Would you tell a woman who is walking a tight rope that the +ground sixty feet below her is covered with broken champagne bottles?" + +"Then she's got to go home," decided Mr. Dennis Farraday, positively. + +"How'll you make her?" + +"You've got to do it. She's got awe of you planted six feet deep in her +soul. Anybody could see that. You've got to send her." + +"Can't be done," growled Mr. Vandeford in desperation. "Wish I were +married to six respectable women and then I could make 'em all chaperon +her in turns, while I feed her fool play to the public." + +"You'd only have to strike out the syllable 'un' before 'married' by a +little trip to the City Hall to have one mighty fine wife," Mr. Farraday +said with a straight look into Mr. Vandeford's eyes, which was so deeply +affectionate that it gave him the privilege of opening the door to any +holy of holies. + +"Violet and I are all off, Denny, and it ought never to have been on," +was the straight-out answer he got to his venture, an answer that Miss +Hawtry would have felt smoothed greatly the path of her present +adventures in life. + +"Poor girl! I knew she was hurt somehow, but I thought--forgive me, old +man." With a tenderness in his voice that both alarmed and puzzled Mr. +Vandeford his big Jonathan closed the subject and snapped a lock on it. +"Come over to the Astor with me for a cold bite." + +"Goes!" + +The cool, green-leafed Orangery at the Hotel Astor is the oasis in the +desert days of rehearsal for all early fall plays, and beside its +tinkling fountain and under its tinkling music can be found at luncheon +all of the theatrical profession who are not around the corners at the +equally cool, white-tiled Childs restaurants. Beside and around the +green wicker tables careers of managers, artists, actors, playwrights, +electricians, and scenic artists are made and unmade in the twinkling of +some bright or heavy-lidded eye. Each and every feaster watches each and +every other feaster with the quick, wary eye of a jungle being consuming +its food before it is snatched from him or her; and gossip reigns over +all. + +"Gee, look at the swell dame Gerald Height has got cornered over there!" +exclaimed Mazie Villines, as she looked up from a frapped melon, which a +"heavy" moving picture man was "buying" for her consumption. "The way +them society queens do fall fer him!" + +"Put your blinkers on, Mazie, put 'em on, and don't take a shy at Height +over my knife and fork! Let him eat what he pays for and me the same," +growled the huge man. "I let you put up that drunk Howard for a week, +and that's rope enough." + +"I'd like to feed him the green in his 'runny' eggs; it makes me sick to +open for him," was the adored Mazie's way of speaking of her eminent +playwright. + +"Well, get his wad first," was the heavy's advice. + +Just at this moment Mazie had the delight of seeing Mr. Godfrey +Vandeford enter with his "soup and fish" friend Mr. Dennis Farraday. As +they both had to pass directly by the table at which sat Miss Adair and +Mr. Height, of course they both paused for greetings, which included the +introduction of Mr. Height to Mr. Farraday. + +"I could hardly eat in this beautiful cool place when I thought that +maybe you would work on in the hot office with nothing with ice packed +around it for your luncheon," said Miss Adair, as she raised her eyes to +Mr. Vandeford's with the adoration still intact after at least +three-quarters of an hour assault upon it by Mr. Gerald Height's +disturbing personality. "I wanted to go back for you, but Mr. Height +said that Mr. Meyers fed you cold pie when you were busy, and that you +roared dreadfully if anybody interrupted you when you were eating it!" + +"He does," Mr. Farraday interjected, smiling down at her in a way that +it was unwise to do in the Orangery at noon; and it lighted a fuse he +little suspected. Miss Violet Hawtry caught the smile in mid-air and +then promptly turned her back and became all charming attention to the +gentleman with whom she was having luncheon, who was no other than the +celebrated Weiner, who had built three theatres in two years and was +building more. He was of the bull-necked type of Hebrew and not of the +sensitive, exquisite type of the sons of the House of David to which +belong the E. & K.'s, and the S. & S., as well as the great B. D. + +"When will the new theatre be completed, Mr. Weiner?" Miss Hawtry asked, +as she turned over an iced shrimp and tore at a lettuce leaf with her +fork. + +"October first," answered Mr. Weiner, past a mouthful of Russian +herring. + +"What will the opening show be?" asked Miss Hawtry, with indifference, +though there was a glint under her thick lashes lowered over her +snapping Irish eyes. + +"'The Rosie Posie Girl,'" answered Weiner, and he swallowed his herring +and gave her a shrewd glance at the same time. + +"Vandeford will never sell it to you," Miss Hawtry announced calmly, as +she ate the shrimp and the torn lettuce leaf. + +"Maybe!" answered Weiner with equal calmness. "What are his plans for +his new show that he is tearing up Forty-second Street about?" + +"Road from September fifteenth until New York October first." + +"What theater in New York?" + +"I don't know." As she made this answer Miss Hawtry looked up and caught +a snap in Weiner's small black eyes, perched on each side of the hump of +his red nose. + +"Has the show got goods?" he asked. + +"I'm going to put some into it," answered Miss Hawtry calmly. + +"Why?" + +"I like Mr. Dennis Farraday, who's Vandeford's angel. I don't want to +see Van take the money out of his pocket and get away with it." Miss +Hawtry was dealing in half-truths to a lie expert. + +"Hooked Farraday yet?" + +"Not quite." + +"No use bargaining with a woman when she's fishing for a man, but if he +slips the hook come to me and I'll show you a new bait. When do you +open?" + +"Twenty-third of September, at Atlantic City." + +"I'll be there." + +"I hope you will, and--" but the rest of Miss Hawtry's remark was cut +off by Mr. Dennis Farraday's genial greeting, backed by Mr. Vandeford's +more restrained pleasure at happening upon her and her co-plotter, to +whom she introduced Mr. Farraday. + +The exchange of amenities was as brief as it was cordial, but as Mr. +David Vandeford and Mr. Jonathan Farraday passed on to a table which +the discreet head waiter had reserved in case of the unexpected and +tardy arrival of just such personages as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and his +friend, Mr. Farraday, Miss Hawtry had answered a low-voiced question +from Mr. Farraday with a sadly tender smile and the words: + +"At eight?" + +"The Claridge got me a box for the Big Show and a table at the Grove +Garden for to-night, Van," remarked Mr. Farraday, as he unfolded his +napkin. "It is the coolest place in town, and we might as well let the +kid get just one good peep before she goes back into the shell ... if +she goes. I'll take Miss Hawtry on and leave the box number for you and +Miss Adair." + +"Right-o," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a growl. For the life of him he +could not understand just why Mr. Gerald Height should have the +privilege of feeding his author alone, while he seemed to be always +forced to enjoy her company in the presence of others. He looked across +the room, met the gray eyes laughing at him over a glass that was +plainly iced tea, and was forced to exchange smiles with his downy +little chicken, who was delightedly peeping out of her shell. + +"I think Mr. Vandeford is the most wonderful man I ever met," confided +Miss Adair to Mr. Height, with no suspicion of the incitation such a +remark would be to the ardor of the beloved of many women. + +"He's a great producer; had three big hits hand-running and fell down on +'Miss Cut-up' because he wouldn't stand up to Hawtry, and let her cop +the whole show," answered Mr. Height with great generosity, for in +reality Mr. Height had the very poor opinion of Mr. Vandeford that it is +the custom of all actors to hold in regard to their respective managers. +However, he was sugar-coating the pill he was determined to administer +to Miss Adair without delay. "He ought to marry Hawtry and get a bit in +her mouth and the spurs on." + +"Is--is he in love with Miss Hawtry?" asked the author of "The Purple +Slipper" with great interest, and the home-made color rose several +degrees, that were not warranted by the calm gossip of the situation. + +"That's the noise he makes, but who can tell?" answered Mr. Height, +reveling in the Adairville roses and no more aware of their origin than +was their owner. "He meets bills, but nobody gets in behind his +window-boxes." And Mr. Height raised his glass of Tom Collins, perfectly +contented with the thought that he had enlightened Miss Adair about the +private life of Mr. Vandeford. As a matter of fact he had failed utterly +to do so, as she had not understood a word of his Broadway patois. +"There's the great B. D. and beloved son-in-law," and Mr. Height nodded +and smiled at a white-haired man and his companion who were seating +themselves at the table next to them. + +"B. D.?" questioned Miss Adair. + +"Benjamin David," answered Mr. Height. "He and his son-in-law are +putting on a great new show. Offered me a lead and--but I think I'll +stick by 'The Purple Slipper.'" His eyes were so ardent as slightly to +disturb Miss Adair and very greatly disturb Mr. Vandeford, who caught +the warmth across several tables, and ground his teeth. + +However, Miss Patricia Adair was fully capable of handling such a +situation, for ardor is ardor, whether encountered on Broadway in New +York or Adairville in Kentucky, and Miss Adair had met it many +times--and parried it. + +"I've really got to leave this perfectly lovely place and hurry down to +the Y. W. C. A., to get some costume samples for Mr. Corbett," she said +calmly, as she began to draw on her gloves and pull down the veil that +reefed in the narrow brim of the jaunty hat Miss Lindsey and she had by +a great stroke of luck discovered on a side street the day before. + +"Y. W. C. A.?" questioned Mr. Height, in stupefaction. + +"Everybody looks that way when I say it!" laughed Miss Adair, with a +dimple flaunting above the left corner of her mouth. "Will you take me +there or put me on something or in something that will let me off very +near?" + +"I'll take you," answered Mr. Height tenderly and heroically, as he held +the blue-silk coat for her to slip into. + +As the two of them stood together the great Dean of American Producers +looked upon them with interest, and rose and offered his hand to Mr. +Height. + +"Well, how about it?" he asked, with a smile under his beetling white +brows. + +"Mr. David, please meet Miss Adair, the author of Mr. Vandeford's new +Hawtry play," Mr. Height said by way of beginning an answer to the +question put to him. "At last I'm going into wig and ruffles; the play +is of colonial Kentucky." + +"I am delighted to meet you, Miss Adair," said the Broadway Maximus, +"and you are fortunate to have Mr. Height for your play. I covet him, +but I'll wait until next time." + +"Oh, thank you for not taking him away!" said Miss Adair, with a +displaying of the roses which the great B. D. noted with pleasure. "Will +you come and see our play and tell us what you think about it?" Miss +Adair made her request, which was against the traditions of conventions +on Broadway, with the unabashed air with which she had invited the +reigning Governor of Kentucky to have dinner with her and Major Adair at +the state fair the year before. + +"Ask Mr. Vandeford to invite me to a dress rehearsal," answered the +great one, and Gerald Height beamed with pride, while Miss Adair +displayed only gratitude and delight as they took their departure. + +In their exit they passed Mr. Vandeford's table and stopped to speak to +him and Mr. Farraday. + +"That's Benjamin David Mr. Height introduced to me, and he's coming to +help us at the dress rehearsals of 'The Purple Slipper.' It's +wonderful!" Miss Adair exclaimed, as Mr. Vandeford rose and stood +beside her. "Mr. Height is going down to the Y. W. C. A. with me, and +we'll be right back to the office with those pieces of silk for the +costumes. Mr. David wants him for lead, but he's going to be in 'The +Purple Slipper' and go to Mr. David next. Isn't that fine?" and without +waiting for an answer to her question the busy playwright departed on +important business connected with the costuming of her play. + +"Somehow, Van, I don't see why we should worry," Mr. Farraday said, as +he looked at the retreating figures of the pair whose beauty was +attracting no little attention in the feasting Orangery. "She's getting +along all right, eh?" + +"Remember you've been in the business about forty-eight hours, Denny, +and never forget that every knife here is sheathed in a smile and +everybody carries a rubber stamp with double X on it," answered Mr. +Vandeford, with gloom, as he pushed back his coffee-cup. "She's tasted +blood now and that ends it. She's with us, and the Lord help her! I +can't!" + +"Well, come on and let's get to the office," answered Mr. Farraday, with +a cheerful lack of sympathy with his friend's anxiety for the talented +budding playwright. + +"Everything all O. K., Mazie?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he passed the +table where the Miss Villines and the heavy movie man were finishing +their bottles of cold beer. + +"Soused and scribbling," answered Mazie, cheerfully. + +"Remember, Friday." + +"Remember your check-book." + +"Goes!" + +Shortly after Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday reached the office of Mr. +Vandeford, Miss Adair, accompanied by Mr. Height, appeared with a neat +little parcel in their possession. Also Miss Adair had another, very +conventional, corsage bouquet in the place of the one Mr. Vandeford had +given her in the morning and which at luncheon had begun to look the +worse for wear. + +"Now what shall I do?" she asked Mr. Vandeford, with great energy. + +"Go right down and get in my car and go back to the Y. W. C. A., to take +a long nap. I'll call for you for that Broadway eye-opener at eight +o'clock to-night, so get 'em well rested," he answered, and he smiled +when he noted that the expression in her eyes that he had begun to look +for with desperate eagerness still held. Mr. Meyers had engaged Mr. +Height with a contract, and Mr. Farraday had been an interested +spectator to the tussle. Producer and author were alone. + +"Mr. Height asked me to go to see Maude Adams, but I told him I couldn't +go anywhere at night until you could take me," said Miss Adair with +sparks of joy in the sea-gray eyes. "I'm so glad it is to-night." + +"Did you really tell Height that?" demanded Mr. Vandeford, with youth +swelling through his arteries. + +"Yes." + +"Go, child, go and get a nap," Mr. Vandeford laughed, as he opened the +door for her and started out to descend and deliver her into the keeping +of faithful Valentine. + +"I'll put her into the car, Van," offered Mr. Farraday. "They need you +here in this fight." + +And again his author was snatched out of Mr. Vandeford's clutches. + +Several hours later a very interesting scene was enacted in two tiny +adjoining rooms under the roof of the Y. W. C. A., with Miss Adair and +Miss Lindsey as the principals. + +"If you take away all that net there won't be any waist left to the +dress. Don't!" pleaded Miss Adair, as Miss Lindsey stood over her with +determined scissors. + +"I'm making it absolutely perfect, and you can't tell by looking down on +it. You'll have to trust me," answered Miss Lindsey, with pins in her +mouth, as she snipped away a funny little tucker of common new net with +which Miss Elvira Henderson of Adairville, Kentucky, had for the sake +of her spinster convictions ruined a triumph she had accomplished +directly out of "Feminine Fashions" and the ancestral trunk. + +"Will it be--be modest?" demanded Miss Adair. + +"A lot more modest than having that ugly mosquito netting telling +everybody that you are not willing to have them see your marvelous neck +and arms except through its meshes. Nobody will think you know you've +got 'em, if you show them like everybody else; but they'll think you +think you are a peep-show if you cover them half up." And as she spoke +Miss Lindsey gave another daring rip and snip. Her philosophy struck +home. + +"That's every word true," agreed Miss Adair, with relief. "I'll just +forget about my skin there, as I do about that on my face and hands and +nobody will notice me at all." + +"That's it. Skin is no treat to New York, and nobody will look at you +twice." Miss Lindsey had a struggle to keep her voice and manner +unconcerned enough, as she surveyed her finished product and saw that +from under her hands would go forth a sensation. In the old ivory satin +with its woven rosebuds and cream rose-point, above which rose pearly +shoulders and a neck bearing a small, proud head, with close waves of +heavy black hair, Miss Adair was like a dainty, luscious, tropical fruit +that is more beautiful than its own flower. "How an old maid in a +country town made that dress I don't see!" Miss Lindsey added +reflectively. + +"It was you, who unmade it," answered Miss Adair with gratitude. "I wish +you were going, too," she added as she nestled to the taller girl for a +perfumed second. + +"I'm going to luncheon with you and Mr. Farraday to-morrow," answered +Miss Lindsey, with a pleased laugh at Miss Adair's sudden clinging that +indicated her sincerity in not wishing to leave her alone. + +"Oh, lovely! And Mr. Height will be with us too, for I promised to have +luncheon with him again," she exclaimed, as Miss Lindsey began to insert +her into an evening wrap made of a priceless old Paisley shawl which +"Fashions" had also tempted Miss Elvira to desecrate with her scissors. + +"Gerald Height?" asked Miss Lindsey, and her eyes first snapped and then +smouldered. "Where did he get in on--where did you meet him? Does Mr. +Vandeford know about it and--" + +"I met him in Mr. Vandeford's office. He's in 'The Purple Slipper,' and +I went to luncheon with him to-day. I meant to tell you about it, and +meeting Mr. David, but Mr. Vandeford told me to get a nap and I thought +I--" + +Here the speaking-trumpet in the hall informed Miss Lindsey that Mr. +Vandeford was waiting for Miss Adair below, and she had to let her +treasure depart from her. + +"I wonder just how straight Godfrey Vandeford is," she mused, as she +picked up the discarded tucker of coarse netting. "The poor kid! I wish +she was at home hidden behind Miss Elvira's skirts. Hawtry and a girl +like that! Damn men!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +It may be that in the long life of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford he had passed a +more perturbed evening than that on which he led his protege, the author +of "The Purple Slipper," to her debut under the white lights of +Broadway, but he could not recall the occasion. His grilling had begun +while he waited for his charge to descend in the lobby of the Y. W. C. +A. and it ended-- + +"We are delighted to have Miss Adair stay with us while her play is +being rehearsed," a very pleasant young woman, with a trim figure, kind +and wise eyes, and gray-sprinkled hair, remarked to him after she had +whistled the fact of his arrival above. "When such men as you, Mr. +Vandeford, begin to put on clean historical plays, many of our anxieties +will be over. I look on each musical show that appears on Broadway as a +personal enemy." + +"I am glad indeed, Madam, that we are going to claim you as a friend of +'The Purple Slipper,'" Mr. Vandeford answered, with his most pleasant +smile. Somehow the sight and sound of that executive young woman in +charge of his young author gave him a calmness that he needed, and his +confidence shone in his face. + +"We are deeply interested in Miss Adair, for we have had influential +letters sent us about her, and of course we are looking forward with +eagerness to seeing her play. She is such a dear child!" + +The influential letters and the increased warmth in the young woman's +tone in speaking about his author drew Mr. Vandeford still nearer to +her, both in body and in spirit. He leaned slightly against the desk and +smiled again. + +"May I send you seats for some night the first week of 'The Purple +Slipper'?" he asked, with the greatest deference. And it must be +recorded that in making the offer Mr. Vandeford was not bidding for the +distinction conferred on him in the next few seconds. + +"That will be delightful," exclaimed the young woman. "And, Mr. +Vandeford, here is a latch-key to the front door, to use to-night if you +and Miss Adair are a little later than midnight in coming home. Remember +to give it to her after you have put her inside the door and tell her to +hang it on the rack opposite the number of her room. There she comes +now!" + +Mr. Vandeford accepted the latch-key of the Y. W. C. A. with awe and +looked at it as he would have looked at a decoration handed him by the +Metropolitan governors. Then he glanced up and beheld Miss Adair +displaying herself to his new-found friend. + +"You are very pretty, my dear," she was saying with an affectionate +smile. "Just let me put a pin here in this fold of lace," and expertly +she reefed up the last fold of rose-point that Miss Lindsey had snipped +down in a hurried finish of her remodeling. Strange to say Mr. +Vandeford felt still more further drawn to his young Christian +Association friend. + +"Now run along, both of you, and have a pleasant evening," she said to +them as she turned to answer the telephone. + +"That girl is an extremely delightful person," Mr. Vandeford remarked, +while he and Valentine were tucking Miss Adair under the linen robe in +the car. + +"I'm so glad you are getting used to the Y. W. C. A.," Miss Adair +answered, giving him a delighted smile as he seated himself beside her +while Valentine started the car up the avenue. "Mr. Height said it was +like being forced to go to church in a strange town and getting into +somebody's cozy corner by mistake." + +"I wish I were married to that girl, to-night," Mr. Vandeford exclaimed +out of the sudden rush of anxiety that had overtaken him by this +fledgling author's mention of his leading man. + +"Then who would be taking me out, out on Broadway?" asked Miss Adair +with a little laugh that had a more distinctly friendly note in it than +it had before held for him. + +"Both of us," replied Mr. Vandeford, with an answering laugh that +sounded much too young in his own ears. "You'll need two." + +"Am I going to have as many dreadful things happen to me to-night as I +was going to have when I met Mr. Corbett and Mr. Benjamin David and Mr. +Height and the other theatrical people? Am I being warned again?" Mr. +Vandeford accepted the teasing and laughed at himself. + +"My wings are up. Go out and scratch for yourself." + +"Not very far, though," Miss Adair answered. Mr. Vandeford was not sure +that she moved a fraction of an inch nearer to him, but he hoped so. "I +feel just the same about you as I do about Roger and I like to be going +with you--into--into danger." + +"Who's Roger?" questioned Mr. Vandeford. + +"He's my brother, who treats me as you do. It's fun for a woman to be +frightened dreadfully when she is with a man she likes." Again there was +that uncertainty as to whether Miss Adair fluttered a fraction of an +inch in his direction, and for the life of him Mr. Vandeford could not +say whence had flown all the many ways he would have commanded +ordinarily for the finding out if such were the case. + +"A frightened woman is often rather--rather deadly to a man," he +answered before he could stop himself. The habit of speaking out +directly to Miss Adair was growing on him, he perceived, and it alarmed +him. + +"Into what danger are you taking me now?" asked Miss Adair with a fluty, +merry laugh. + +"We are going with Mr. Farraday and Miss Hawtry to see the Big Show and +to the Grove Garden on the roof afterward for supper. Just a slow, usual +sort of an evening, but Denny thought it would be fun for you to see +the Big Show and the Big Feed and the Big Dance by way of initiation," +Mr. Vandeford answered, with an entire lack of enthusiasm. + +"I wanted to see what you wanted me to see this first night," Miss Adair +said with the affectionate frankness of six years going on seven. "What +would that be?" + +"We'll see it to-morrow night," Mr. Vandeford answered her, and this +time the tenderness in his voice surprised him and he considered it +entirely unjustifiable. + +"Mr. Height was going to take me to see Maude Adams, but I know he'll +put it off again when I tell him that you want me to--" + +"No, don't! Let Height get Maude Adams out of his system, for Heaven's +sake," snapped Mr. Vandeford, this time in unjustifiable temper. + +"Why, what is--" Miss Adair was asking of Mr. Vandeford in positive +alarm when Valentine stopped before the blazing doorway of the Big Show. +A functionary seven feet tall opened the door of the car and all but +literally extracted them by force, for he was anxious to repeat the +operation on the occupants of the car chugging behind them. + +Now, there are many, many fair women born within the state lines of Old +Kentucky who live calm and peaceful lives and die and are buried with no +greater contrast of experience than comes from birth and death, love and +hate, riches and poverty, and they never know the difference; but +occasionally one bursts out of her bonds and flames her beauty over +strange worlds, in foreign embassies, in the courts of St. James or +Petrograd, or in an opera or theater box in New York. When this eruption +occurs many sparks fly. And many sparks from bright eyes were showered +on the author of "The Purple Slipper," who sat calmly unaware in the +left stage-box of the Big Show that August night beside the notorious +Hawtry, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and Mr. Dennis Farraday. And of the +sparks no one was more conscious than both Miss Hawtry and Mr. +Vandeford, while big Dennis was in a blissfully ignorant state of mind +like to that of Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Though he +had been for about forty-eight hours a producer on the rear side of the +footlights, Mr. Farraday still had the attitude of mind possessed by one +of an audience, and he watched the stage rather than the "front." He +thus failed to get the impression created by his guest from Kentucky, +and blissfully left Mr. Vandeford to deal with her sensations derived +from the show. Mr. Vandeford had his hands full. + +To Miss Adair the Big Show was a series of mental and moral and artistic +explosions. She sat with delight through the Japanese acrobats and Swiss +quartette of yodelers, and she welcomed pretty, pert little Mazie +Villines with enthusiasm that gradually faded into horror as that artist +flaunted more and more lingerie and "dished the dirt" which the +inebriate playwright, at that moment engaged in "putting pep" into Miss +Adair's own beloved "Purple Slipper," _nee_ "The Renunciation of +Rosalind," had supplied. The "dirt" was received by the audience at +large with a hilarious joy that entirely justified the managers of the +Big Show for keeping Mazie busy "dishing." + +However, all things come to an end, and with a last provocative, +revealing kick Mazie was allowed to depart and give way to a pair of +young dancers who promised to display wares more wholesome. + +Without knowing why he did it, Mr. Vandeford leaned forward so that his +left ear was within reach of the whisper of Miss Adair's lips as she +turned her head and tilted it like a droopy flower toward his. + +"I've only seen Sarah Bernhardt and John Drew and Maude Adams and +Mansfield and Joe Jefferson and Arliss and the Coburns, up in +Louisville," she faltered with her eyes questioning his and wide open +with horror. + +"These next ones aren't so bad, and we'll go before any more come on +that--that you won't like," he whispered in return. He had glanced +through the program and seen that the climax would be an exhibition of +jungle courtship by one of America's most notorious women and her +partner, done to extreme negroid melody. + +"Thank you," she murmured as she turned to watch the willowy youth and +maid go through some very beautiful movements of the dance that was +entirely unobjectionable. In two minutes she had turned her face, +beaming with pleasure, so that Mr. Vandeford could see that all was well +with her; and ten minutes later she giggled out loud at the repartee of +two black-faced artists. + +During the respite that his knowledge of the numbers on the program gave +him, Mr. Vandeford did more of his peculiar brand of thinking, and +reached a diplomatic conclusion. By the intermission, which came just +before the jungle "big number" to give late comers time to gather in for +their salacious feast, he was ready to act. + +"Miss Adair and I are going to get a breath of air," he announced. + +"But the big number is next, and she might miss it," objected Miss +Hawtry, with solicitude for Miss Adair's pleasure. Mr. Vandeford had +thought past just that objection delivered by Miss Hawtry, and he knew +that in no way must he seem to be shielding the author of "The Purple +Slipper" from the salaciousness that gave Miss Hawtry great joy. If he +went too far in any act of comparative analysis he would bring danger +upon "The Purple Slipper," with whose fate Miss Adair's was one. + +"We'll be back in plenty of time," he lied. + +"Be sure!" Miss Hawtry commanded, and then turned to devote herself to +Mr. Farraday, who was laying himself out to salve what he thought must +be her pain at the loss of his beloved friend. The Violet had soon +caught his attitude toward her, and was encouraging his chivalry in +every way possible by the most pensive of poses as the generous +deserted. Such a situation is all to a woman's advantage if she knows +how to work it, and Miss Hawtry possessed that knowledge. + +"Van ought to have a medical degree for operating young girls' eyes +open, and making them see rose-colored for a while," she said with a +good-humored smile and a soft little sigh, as she raised her Irish eyes +in all their softness to Mr. Farraday's. + +To this insinuation, founded on an implied lie as far as the Hawtry was +concerned, Mr. Farraday made no reply, but turned to greet with fitting +applause the great dancer, on whose account one of the American artistic +bright lights had been extinguished forever, and in ten seconds was +inwardly thanking Vandeford for extracting Miss Adair before she had +felt the blighting smirch of the big number. While Mr. Farraday watched +the exhibition before him, Mr. Vandeford was amusing the child of their +joint solicitude by letting her look at the white lights. While waiting +at the curb before the Big Show for the large dignitary in uniform to +summon Valentine, he had directed that worthy to have a message sent in +to Miss Hawtry that they would join her at supper. Then upon the arrival +of his car, he had carefully inserted Miss Adair before he had said to +the puzzled Valentine: + +"Drive slowly down around the circle and down Broadway, so that you can +come back just while the theater crowd is on." + +Some instinct had led Mr. Vandeford to choose exactly the panacea to +soothe Miss Adair's shock--the lights of Broadway. + +"It's like fairy-land," she gasped, as they rolled down past +Forty-seventh Street. "Oh, look at the kitten chasing the spool, all in +electric lights!" + +"Wait a minute, and I'll show you an eagle flop his wings," promised Mr. +Vandeford, and he was surprised that he seemed for the first time to +feel the actual glory of the electric signs on his great Broadway, which +is as much of an all-American institution as the shipyards in Brooklyn. + +"All the world is on fire, and everybody is going to it," Miss Adair +exclaimed, as Valentine made his return just as the theaters were +pouring their crowds out into the seething maelstrom of the great +scintillating canon. She watched as the big car stood motionless before +a stream of humanity that poured across its front wheels and then +bounded forward as blue-coated arms stemmed the tide on the edges of +both sidewalks for a few brief minutes in which they were allowed to +progress to a street beyond, where they were again halted, wedged in +with other impatient, purring cars. + +In a limousine next her Miss Adair saw a boy in a top hat, with white +gloves upon his hands, smother in an eager and unabashed embrace a +white-shouldered girl, whose arms went around his neck regardless of +"mother" assiduously looking the other way. In a car on the other side a +richly garbed gentleman dozed upon his cushions in triumphant inebriety. +Also, while she and Vandeford waited, she saw a guardian spinster shoo +a bevy of school-girls across in front of the cars, and turn in the +middle of the street to reprove a college boy for a laughing word tossed +to the combined bevy, while the blue arms on both sidewalks waved her +into haste so that they might unleash their restrained monster motors. +Everywhere protective men had women's arms fastened within their own and +were shoving through the throng, while other men and women jostled along +by themselves, or in companies of twos and threes, with laughing good +nature. Fakirs were crying many wares, and in and out squirmed newsboys +calling war extras in words that seemed to imply that New York was being +shelled from the sea, but did not make that exact statement. + +"It's all the world, and I'm a part of it," Miss Adair again said, and +Mr. Vandeford was again surprised at himself that he was not surprised +to find tears glinting in the sea-gray eyes raised to his. + +"_This_ is the Big Show," he said with a little answering thrill in his +own voice, as the enormity of the scene he had witnessed night after +night broke on him for the first time. + +"They all live here and sleep here and eat here and work here +and--and--love here," she said softly, and smiled, for again the +limousine with the embracing lovers had paused by the side of +Valentine's car, and the embrace still held. + +"No, the sleepers and eaters and workers of New York were in bed long +ago. Everybody you see here in this push has his or her vital wires +connected up at Squeedunck, Illinois, or Zanesville, Indiana or--" + +"Or in Adairville, Kentucky," Miss Adair added with a laugh. + +"No, you belong--anywhere. Creative people ought to have no--no home +wires," Mr. Vandeford answered, and there was a queer sadness in his +voice that he did not himself understand. "People with messages must +have masses to hand them to. That's why you came, and, I suppose, must +stay." + +"Yes," answered Miss Adair, "I want to stay--if you'll let me." + +"I can't do otherwise," Mr. Vandeford answered her. Then he turned and +looked her full in her serious eyes. "But if you stay you will have to +accept broad standards, or suffer." + +"That Mazie woman?" + +"Maybe worse." + +She sat silent until, a few moments later, Valentine drew up again at +the curb before the Big Show, which had been out long enough to disperse +most of its crowd, and was now receiving supper guests for the Garden +Grove above. + +"I'm going to stay--with you--and 'The Purple Slipper,'" she announced, +as he reached into the car for her and swung her to the pavement. + +"Goes!" he answered, with mingled emotions, which he could not have +analyzed. + +Miss Adair was as good as her word. She accepted the reveling crowd of +the garden, looked upon the abandon of drinking women and men, with +only a slightly hunted expression in her eyes, and with her slim white +hands applauded Simone when that artist made most audacious slings of +her supple body in its scant clothing. She beamed upon the dancer when, +as Mrs. Trevor, she came, at Mr. Farraday's invitation, to have a glass +of champagne with them, and she quailed only once, when a band of +extremely young girls, clothed in filmy garments, took tiny +search-lights and went merrily hunting among the tables of laughing men +and women after the lights had been put out for the sport. Her horror at +observing Mr. Vandeford, who sat between her and the narrow aisle take +various moneys from his pocket to defend himself from successive +hunters, made her pale, and the moment the lights were flashed on again +she rose to go. + +"Wonder what they'll do next," muttered Mr. Farraday, as he helped her +into her wrap. Mr. Vandeford was not looking at his author or speaking. +Once when he had put his hand in his pocket to get out a coin for one +of the teasing girls with her search-light he had felt the Y. W. C. A. +latch-key there, and it had short-circuited him entirely. + +"I know you are tired. It takes some time to get the New York pace, but +you'll strike it. I think I'll stay to see the next Folly with Mr. +Farraday," he heard the Violet saying to Miss Adair, and still +short-circuited, he went with his calm young author down to the car. The +hour was one-thirty, and a moon had climbed the heights of the Broadway +canon. Valentine, with some sort of psychic direction, went across +Central Park and down wide, clean, silent, and dimly lighted Fifth +Avenue. Both Mr. Vandeford and Miss Adair were silent, and he was not +aware that she was crying until just before they turned into her side +street. + +"They were so young, those girls, and they--they didn't want to--to do +that," she said with little catches in her beautiful, slurring, +Blue-grass voice. + +"Maybe they didn't; but they wouldn't go back now, not one," he answered +her. + +She was silenced, and stood quiet beside him as he opened the door of +the big, gloomy, protective building, with the key the woman of another +world than his had intrusted to him. + +"I know," she said at last, as she held out her hand to him. And because +it trembled ever so slightly and was cold, he put his warm lips to it +for a second before he handed her into a great international safety. He +remembered the key, but he didn't give it to her. Somehow he wanted it +himself. He liked the feel of it in his pocket. + +"Wish I had Denny locked up in the Christian association!" he growled to +himself as Valentine whirled him home. + +Just at that exact moment Mr. Dennis Farraday sat in Miss Violet +Hawtry's Louis Quinze parlor at the Claridge, engaged in tenderly and +awkwardly patting that star's sobbing white shoulder, as she lay on +just such a couch as Manon Lescaut probably had had for just such +scenes. + +"I don't blame him at all," sobbed Miss Hawtry, provocatively, with the +art of long practice both on the stage and off. "My kind always loses to +hers when the time comes." + +"Don't!" pleaded Mr. Farraday. It was all he could or was willing to +plead at that moment. + +"But I want to make good in this play for him and her--and you--before I +go out of his life forever. I want to repay him with--with both money +and happiness. He made me an artist." With these words Miss Hawtry made +an acknowledgment of the truth that she herself really believed to be +untrue, because she saw that to praise Mr. Vandeford was the best way to +blind Mr. Farraday while she approached him in that blindness. She knew +that his loyalty to his David would be a barrier unless she used it as a +ladder. + +"My God! How--how great women are!" was the immediate and hoped-for +response she drew from the big Jonathan. + +"My art must fill my life now. Only there will be--friendship. You make +me see that by the comfort of your kindness." Miss Hawtry laid her +flushed cheek in the hollow of good Dennis's big warm hand. The moment +was tense, but Hawtry had timed her line a little too far ahead, and it +failed to get across. The prey was as embarrassed as a girl and, with +another brotherly pat, arose to go. + +"You'll always let me do anything I can, won't you?" he asked as he +looked down upon her for a second, then took a considerate departure. + +"Boob!" muttered Hawtry to herself, as she rose and rang for Susette. + +There are in this little old world many men like Dennis Farraday; only +none of its inhabitants admit their existence. + +After the evening of the introduction of its author to Broadway, things +spun fast and furiously in the business of producing "The Purple +Slipper," and during the whirlwind of the day Miss Adair sat either in +her own private office or in the chair beside Mr. Vandeford, and reveled +in the excitement, and in the evenings did other revelings. She had her +evening with Mr. Height under the spell of Barrie and Maude Adams, and +Mr. Vandeford swore under his breath when she reported to him that they +had gone to the concert on the roof of the Waldorf for an hour, and had +got back to her abiding-place in time not to need the latch-key, which +still reposed in his pocket. He knew Gerald Height, and he was puzzled +and alarmed at this wary approach. + +Mrs. Farraday came to town, and the dinner-party in her staid, old +Washington Square home, with himself and Miss Lindsey and Miss Adair as +guests, was like a day's vacation for Mr. Vandeford. Also, he got a +complete off-guard picture of Miss Adair as he would see her in +Adairville, Kentucky, for she and the beautiful and stately Mrs. +Farraday spoke the same language and had the same forms. + +"My dear child, you positively must come up to Westchester for this +week-end! Matilda Van Tyne is going to come for the first blooming of +the rhododendrons in the West Marsh, and I feel sure that she must have +known your mother in some of her visits to Lexington. She must see you +and hear all about the play. Now, Dennis, make all the arrangements." +Mrs. Farraday gave her commands as a queen is accustomed to deliver +them. + +"May I go?" Miss Adair asked of Mr. Vandeford, her shining gray eyes +raised to his with deference and confidence as usual. + +"You may," answered Mr. Vandeford, aware that Mrs. Farraday's keen eyes +of the world were fixed upon him in a speculative way. "The rehearsals +will begin at eleven on Monday, and you can be back in plenty of time." + +"And, Miss Lindsey, will you come, too, with Miss Adair?" Mrs. Farraday +surprised both her son and Mr. Vandeford by asking the young Westerner +with the greatest graciousness. It was evident that the young leading +lady had put herself across with the grand dame, and both Mr. Vandeford +and Mr. Farraday rejoiced. + +"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Farraday, but I have made a professional engagement +for Saturday evening. I am going to do a monologue stunt to fill in at +the Colonial," Miss Lindsey answered, with pleasure at the invitation +shining in her dark eyes. + +"Then Dennis can drive down on Sunday and bring you back in time for tea +and to see the sunset on the rhododendrons." Mrs. Farraday further +surprised her son and Mr. Vandeford by giving this command the +imperiousness with which she was accustomed to issue her +much-sought-after invitations. + +"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Farraday, with the same sort of eager kindness +shining in his eyes as Miss Lindsey had met when he had asked her if +beefsteak and mushrooms would be the thing for her starvation. The +memory of that day made Miss Lindsey's eyes dim as she accepted the +invitation, though she had had hope of a last minute chance to do a +little Sunday "stunt" for Keith somewhere in subway New York. And Miss +Lindsey needed the money, for a hundred dollars doesn't go far in New +York even when carried in the pocket of a gown donned in the Y. W. C. +A.; but she needed the rhododendrons and the tea more than she needed +the material things that the extra fifty picked up at Keith's would have +purchased. + +"Thank you, Mrs. Farraday, it would be--be 'great' to come that way," +Miss Lindsey answered. Both Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday, as well as +Miss Adair, were struck with the sudden beauty that illumined Miss +Lindsey's dark face as she smiled and quoted Mr. Farraday in her +acceptance of his mother's invitation. + +"Is or is not little Lindsey a beauty, Denny?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as +they drove up-town in the Surreness after depositing the girls at their +nunnery. + +"I was just wondering," answered Mr. Farraday. "I'm mighty glad she made +such a hit with the mater." + +"And I'm mighty glad I'm going to lose the author of 'The Purple +Slipper' into the wilds of Westchester and the rhododendrons, while I +extract her play from Howard and slash it myself and help Rooney to +mutilate it further," said Mr. Vandeford. + +"Of course you are going to the mater's with Miss Lindsey and me for +tea, per usual?" asked Mr. Farraday. + +"Can't do it. Got to work on 'The Purple Slipper' while you people +frolic. Good-night!" With which refusal and taunt Mr. Vandeford left Mr. +Farraday at the door of his apartment-house. + +Mr. Farraday looked at his watch as he started away from the curb, found +the hour to be eleven o'clock, wabbled the machine first to the right +and then to the left, and finally turned down-town, in which direction +the Claridge reared its twelve stories of masonry at the corner of +Forty-fourth and Sixth. + +At about that minute these were the remarks exchanged through the open +door that connected two little cell-like rooms at the Y. W. C. A.: + +"Aren't you going to bed right away? I'm so sleepy that I'm brushing my +face instead of my hair," Miss Adair called to Miss Lindsey. A desperate +and continual desire for sleep is the pest that haunts the rural visitor +to New York and Miss Adair's young health was easily its prey. She did +not readily learn to run on nerves. + +"You go to bed; but I've got to let the hem of my tailored linen down +two inches, so it will brush against those rhododendrons as a lady's +should, and sew up the opening in the neck of my chiffon blouse an inch +and a half, so I won't spill any of Mrs. Farraday's tea down it. +Good-night!" It goes to say that when Greek meets Vandal or the East +meets the West, dents occur. + +And, as Mrs. Farraday had commanded, the rhododendron party at West +Marsh came to pass, to the vast enjoyment of all present, though Mr. +Vandeford's absence was a deprivation to the entire company. And that +night their friendly hearts would have ached if they had been able to +get a vision of his strenuosity. Godfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer, +was in full action, and chips from "The Purple Slipper" were flying in +all directions. + +In his bedroom in the Seventy-third Street apartment, Mr. Vandeford was +stripped for the fray--to his silk pajamas--and he lay stretched upon +his fumed-oak bed, with both reading-lights turned on full blaze. In his +hands was the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper," which Mazie Villines +had literally torn from under the hands of Grant Howard to deliver to +Mr. Vandeford on Saturday afternoon, just a day later than the time set +for its deliverance. + +"My check and Grant's down, or no play," she had said upon entering Mr. +Vandeford's apartment at about the setting of the Saturday sun. "He's +off for a two week's d.t., and I gotter take care of him. Twelve-fifty +is the way to write it." + +"Six hundred, and not a cent more without Grant's signature," answered +Mr. Vandeford. Mr. Adolph Meyers, who was listening to the conversation +from the hall from which he had ushered Miss Villines into Mr. +Vandeford's library, set a spring-lock on the entrance door of the +apartment, and entered the library unobtrusively. + +"Twelve-fifty, you old dollar-skinner!" averred the vaudeville star, +with a nasty little laugh. + +"Don't try to pull off a hold-up, Mazie. It won't work. It's Grant's +money," said Mr. Vandeford, with an icy calmness in his voice. And as +she spoke he looked at Mr. Adolph Meyers, who answered the look with +perfect comprehension. + +"Then you'll get the manuscript when hell freezes over or your wad +loosens," she again laughed, and this time turned toward the door with +the square manila portfolio under her arm. + +An interested spectator could not have said afterward just how it did +happen that in half a second the manila portfolio was in the hands of +Mr. Adolph Meyers, who also bore upon his left cheek a long and +profusely bleeding scratch. + +"Here's your check, child, and keep a good grip on Grant, so he can't +get started toward East River as he did last time," Mr. Vandeford said +as he handed an already prepared check to the enraged girl. She was dumb +for a second, no longer. + +"I was going to leave it for five hundred, you old white-skinned bluffer +with your goose-grease, strong arm," she finally blurted out, and in a +twinkling of her bright eyes her good-nature had returned. "Say, that is +some play now, and I wish you'd let me play a dance girl at that +dinner-party. I'd do it refined." There was a queer little appeal in the +mobile young face. "I'd like to doll up like a lady." + +"I'll think that over, Mazie," answered Mr. Vandeford. "A song and dance +from you might go all right." + +"Gimme a call, will you? I'll be on the job with my guzzler for a week +now. I got to get him past, for he's some meal-ticket when times is +dull." As Mazie disposed of the check in her stocking, a degree of +affectionate anxiety for the condition of Mr. Grant Howard showed in her +face for the fraction of a second, then disappeared as she looked at Mr. +Adolph Meyers. + +"Come on and get my wad from where I've put it, if you dare, Dolph," she +challenged, then laughed, as the imperturbable Mr. Meyers both ignored +and showed her to the door with all courtesy. + +And as he lay on his bed reading over the Howard manuscript of "The +Purple Slipper," which had just returned to him after a twenty-four hour +overhauling and annotation for action by Mr. William Rooney, the stage +director with the top price, Mr. Vandeford said to Mr. Adolph Meyers, +who sat at a table beside the bed, taking down and inserting notes into +the manuscript as they sprang from Mr. Vandeford's brain, almost before +they got past his lips: + +"No wonder Mazie could see herself in this show, Pops! Grant has pepped +it up almost to her standard. Whee-ugh!" With this whistle Mr. Vandeford +turned page twenty of the first act and handed it over to Mr. Meyers, +who began to devour it with eyes that took in almost the whole page at a +glance. + +"It is a snap-shot of Miss Hawtry he has made, Mr. Vandeford, sir. Mr. +Howard has never done better." + +"Yes, that's what he intended to do, but I'm going to clean it out a +bit. Run an insert of the scene on page five to seven and a half out of +Miss Adair's manuscript. It is just as good and a little--little +more--say, Pops, cut out seven lines on page fourteen from the second +down, and take this from me instead." Mr. Vandeford closed his eyes and +dictated a bit of dialogue between two of the minor characters of "The +Purple Slipper," which cleared up a point Mr. Howard and Mr. Rooney and +the original author had all left at loose ends. As he dictated, Mr. +Meyers wrote on the blank page opposite the lines, and made some +cabalistic signs for insertion. + +Slowly they progressed through the first act, Mr. Vandeford reading from +two manuscripts and reconciling Mr. Howard's shaky, pen annotations, Mr. +Rooney's blue-pencil, action directions, and Miss Adair's original +wanderings from the point with many brilliant returns in quaint +dialogue. + +"That child has got more brains and uses them less than would seem +possible," growled Mr. Vandeford, as he with a few deft lines near the +close of the second act got the heroine off the stage and out of an +impossible situation in which Miss Adair had involved her. + +"It is that her characters talk with interest, but act in awkwardness, +Mr. Vandeford, sir. Another good play can be written by Miss Adair," +Mr. Meyers said as he put in two lines and a cross star sign. + +"God forbid!" ejaculated Mr. Vandeford, in all sincerity. "Here, Pops, +get this first act down to those girls waiting in the office. Did you +get two for all night, so one could get out the parts? You know Rooney +will expect a reading to-morrow before he begins rehearsals." + +"It is three girls now waiting at the office for the night, and a +messenger in your hall, Mr. Vandeford, sir," answered Mr. Meyers as he +gathered up his annotated pages, put them into a new manila portfolio, +and rose to take them to the A. D. T. boy asleep on the floor in the +hall. + +"We haven't rushed in a manuscript like this since 'Dear Geraldine,' +have we, Pops?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he picked up the second act. +"It's just nine o'clock, and those girls ought to get through by three +A. M. Don't let Steinberg charge up twelve hours on you." + +"It will be at eight that they are still working, Mr. Vandeford, sir, +and night type-writing means much money," Mr. Meyers answered, as he +departed with his package. + +"At that we'd better get busy to feed it to 'em," Mr. Vandeford said, as +he picked up and began to dig into the pages. + +For the three hours ensuing he and his henchman worked with never a +hitch in their growls and scratches and muttered exchanges. Then, as +they came close to the climax of the last act, Mr. Vandeford sat up from +his pillows, which were heated almost beyond endurance with his night +lights and his tousled head, and gave forth a roar. + +"I'll be hanged if I'll let that scene between Rosalind and her lover go +with that filthy twist that Howard has given it! The words are almost +the original, but what will Hawtry make of what he's put into it?" + +"It will be the worst she makes," answered Mr. Meyers. "But it is for +pep very good, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and can be tried out." + +"That's right, Pops. I wonder if I am a Broadway producer or--or the +czar of a young ladies' seminary," Mr. Vandeford growled as he lay down, +and again went to work. + +"It is that Miss Adair will not understand it until Miss Hawtry is at +work, and before that all may be dead," Mr. Meyers consoled, as he, too, +fell upon "The Purple Slipper." + +At two-thirty the now soggy A. D. T. received the last manila envelope +to deliver to the busy girls down in Mr. Vandeford's office, and that +distinguished producer was stretched out on his bed in cool darkness +while Mr. Meyers was in a subway nodding his way up to his humble room +on One Hundred and Sixteenth Street. + +"If I live through seeing her past the reading of the blamed thing +to-morrow, I'll be stronger than I think I am," Mr. Vandeford murmured +as he felt the calmness of sleep fall upon him. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Rehearsals for "The Purple Slipper" had been called positively for +September first, and the response became unanimous at about fifteen +minutes to eleven at the Barrett Theater on West Forty-sixth Street; +that is, it was unanimous except for the presence of the author and the +angel--Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday--and Miss Violet Hawtry, the star, +who never came to first readings until the whole cast was assembled and +could be impressed with the fact that she came and went as she listed. + +"Ladies and gentlemen, I take it that you all know one another--and Mr. +William Rooney," said Mr. Vandeford, as he took a seat at the left of a +table placed in the center of the stage just beyond the footlights. Mr. +Rooney marched to a place beside him, and rapped with a large black +pencil for attention from the groups into which the dozen members of the +cast had fallen after mutual introductions and greetings. + +"Everybody grab a seat that is good enough to glue to for five hours +while Fido here gives out your parts," commanded Mr. Rooney, without in +any way acknowledging Mr. Vandeford's introduction to the company. Mr. +Rooney's voice was low and rich, and had the precision and decision of a +machine-gun in its utterances. With hurried obedience the entire company +looked about the stage for seats. + +Miss Bebe Herne, though having fifty pounds the advantage of any of the +others in avoirdupois, was the first seated. She merely dropped down +upon a stout pine bench, the front of which was stuccoed to represent +antique marble, and peremptorily motioned Mr. Wallace Kent to that +portion of the seat left after she had wedged herself as far to one side +as possible. Mr. Kent obeyed immediately, though he had just placed a +rickety, stuffed chair beside the gold one occupied by Miss Blanche +Grayson, the glowerer. Miss Lindsey sat on the end of an overturned box +hedge before a drop curtain of a twilight night, and Mr. Reginald Leigh +sat in a wicker chair under a brilliant canvas flowering shrub of no +known variety. The rest of the company were soon seated and receiving +the small, blue-backed, manuscript books from the pale young man whom +Mr. Rooney always addressed as Fido. + +"Everybody here but Miss Hawtry," said Mr. Rooney, and he glared at Mr. +Vandeford as though that gentleman must be concealing the star in the +pocket of his gray, silk-crash coat. + +"And Miss Hawtry is here also," came in a very beautifully modulated +voice from left stage, as the tardy star came down center, and stood +directly in front of the table at which sat the producer and his +stage-manager. Mr. Vandeford rose immediately and said good-morning; Mr. +Rooney kept his seat and looked Miss Hawtry through and through with a +cold reproof. + +"Five minutes late," he said with an edge in the words that cut. + +"I really beg your pardon, and it shall not happen--" the star was +beginning to say in an apologetic tone, which bent under the cold edge +of the assault, as Mr. Vandeford had hoped it would, when Mr. Rooney cut +it off with a curt command to pale Fido. + +"Give out the Hawtry part." + +Miss Hawtry accepted the little blue booklet handed her by Fido, and +also Mr. Vandeford's chair, placed carefully in the center of the stage +for her. The first brush between Mr. Rooney and Miss Hawtry had been +pulled off and he had won, much to Mr. Vandeford's delight. For "Miss +Cut-up" he had had to hire, pay for, and fire, three successive +stage-managers, and she had managed all three. Mr. Rooney's boast was +that no star had ever managed him and that he had successfully staged +every play he had undertaken; hence a spectacular salary. Also he felt +that his reputation was at stake in the Hawtry duel, and he was +determined to back his own method. + +"Scene first, act first; Betty Carrington is discovered on stage. Go to +it, Betty!" he commanded as Fido took a seat at the end of the table, +opened a copy of the first act, and sat ready for annotations. + +"How beautiful the morning is and--" the glowering Miss Blanche Grayson +was beginning to read from her cerulean booklet, when an interruption +occurred. + +Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday entered from the stage door. + +Mr. Vandeford looked at Mr. Rooney, and muttered under his breath: +"Angel and author, Bill. Easy!" + +"Shoot," answered Mr. Rooney, in a mild undertone, though he glared at +the company as though in a cold rage. + +"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Miss Adair, the author of +our play. You have all of you met Mr. Farraday. Mr. Rooney, our +stage-director, Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday." Mr. Vandeford made the +introductions as rapidly as possible and in a voice of such coolness +that Miss Adair looked at him in astonishment and then at the assembled +company with great timidity. With special trepidation did she regard Mr. +Rooney, who had bobbed his scrubby, black-mopped head at her with no +expression at all in his little black eyes, while he refused to see Mr. +Farraday's offered hand. + +"Have seats in the left stage-box," he directed them in the same tone of +voice with which he had quelled Miss Hawtry. "Now, get going there, +Betty Carrington, and open again." + +Mr. Vandeford led Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday out into the wings in a +roundabout path to the left stage-box, and paused with them out of sight +of Mr. Rooney. Then the humanity came back into his face and voice as he +spoke to his friends in an undertone. + +"Rooney is the genius among stage-directors, but he's the original and +genuine Tartar. How are you both?" As he asked the question he held out +a hand to each of them, and his smile held the cordiality to which they +were both accustomed. + +"We had a blow-out on Riverside Drive, and that's what makes us late. +Now I've got to take the car around to the garage," Mr. Farraday +apologized, as he rumpled his leonine mane, fanned himself with his hat, +and departed. + +Miss Adair fairly clung to the hand of friendship offered her, with +relief that it had not been withdrawn forever, as she had feared from +the coolness of Mr. Vandeford's greeting before the assembled company of +"The Purple Slipper." + +"I'm afraid," she murmured with both alarm and amusement sparkling in +her gray eyes, in which Mr. Vandeford found himself searching for a +certain expression with the eagerness with which he always looked for it +after even a brief separation from his author. It was there and +undimmed. "Let's go sit down where he told us to," Miss Adair +whispered. + +"Good girl!" laughed Mr. Vandeford as he led the way to the left +stage-box to which Mr. Rooney had summarily banished the author and the +angel. He seated Miss Adair at the front edge of the box and took the +chair close at her left. She was thus bulwarked and buttressed for any +assault that might be hurled her way. It came in a very few minutes. + +Miss Bebe Herne and Miss Mildred Lindsey were in the midst of reading an +animated dialogue on page five by the time Miss Adair's attention was +firmly riveted on the stage and the reading in progress. Fortunately the +little scene was of her own writing. Mr. Vandeford had put it back into +the play instead of the paraphrase Mr. Howard had made of it, and he was +surprised to find how deeply grateful he was to himself for having given +her this bit as he watched the home-made color rise under the gray eyes +as the author sat and heard her written words come to life in a little +bit of really sparkling character comedy, which both Miss Lindsey and +experienced Bebe were acting as well as reading in such a way as to +bring out all the charm of the lines. The happiness of both author and +producer lasted about two minutes, then it was broken into by Mr. +William Rooney with a crash. + +"Nuff, there, nuff!" he commanded, in the midst of a quaint epigram, +which Bebe was delivering with unction. "Audiences don't want to hear +smart babble after their seats are all down. They want to see the star +and get going. Cut in Miss Hawtry at the second set-to of Harriet and +aunt. Take it this way: 'And my dear Rosalind has said, Harriet--' Enter +Rosalind with the line you have there." + +"Yes, it's time for me to get on and--" Miss Hawtry was agreeing +complacently, when she was quickly snapped off in her remark. + +"Line, Miss Hawtry, not gab," Mr. Rooney commanded. + +Instantly Miss Hawtry was reading from her lines and faithful Fido was +making annotations upon his manuscript with strokes that spelled +finality to the stricken author, who raised her protesting eyes to the +producer of her play. + +"Steady now," Mr. Vandeford whispered. "This is the first reading, and +he's setting. We can't side-track him now. Later you can--" but the +author's attention was caught by the dialogue between Miss +Hawtry and Bebe, which was the first full dose of the Howard +fifteen-hundred-dollar, inebriate, but very brilliant and Hawtry-like, +"pep." + +"Oh, I didn't write that at all!" she whispered, as she fairly shrank +against Mr. Vandeford's strength of mind, if not against the strength of +his arm that he had laid across the back of her chair. + +"Just sit still and listen to-day as though it were somebody else's +play, and we will talk it over afterward. You know I--I warned you," he +whispered with soothing tenderness, his lips almost against her ear in +the dusk of the box. + +"I promised, and I will," she answered him, and he was at a loss to +know if she really did flutter to him a fraction of an inch as he had +suspected her of doing in his car on the night of her debut on Broadway. +The charm of Kentucky girls is composed of many illusions and realities, +which they themselves hardly understand, and use by hereditary instinct. + +And with her proud head poised in all stateliness, Miss Patricia Adair +sat for five solid hours and heard "The Purple Slipper," _nee_ "The +Renunciation of Rosalind," read from first to last page by the people +who were to present it to the public; and Mr. Vandeford found his heart +bleeding for the thrusts into hers. Not a protest did she make, but the +roses faded and the gray eyes sank far back behind their black defending +lashes, and they were glittering with suppressed tears as the wearied +company rose to its feet after the last line. + +"Here to-morrow at eleven sharp," were Mr. Rooney's words of dismissal +as he and Fido followed the company in their hurried exit toward the +stage-door, with not so much as a glance at the box in which sat the +stricken author. + +And there alone, off the dismal and dismantled stage in the cool dusk of +the box, producer and author faced each other and the situation. + +"If my grandfather were not--not--dying, I'd take it right home and burn +it all up!" were the first words the author of "The Purple Slipper" gave +utterance to, after the last echo of the last footstep had died off the +stage. + +"You couldn't, you've sold it to--to me," Mr. Vandeford answered with a +coolness in his voice that restored her mental balance, as he had +intended it should. "Now answer me truly; is it or is it not a good +play?" + +"It's not my play; it's horrid and vulgar!" the author stormed, with +lightning burning up the tears in her gray eyes. + +"That whole situation is exactly as you wrote it, and about a third of +the lines are yours, or will be yours by the time it is at the first +night, if you play the game. I have not decided whether I think it is a +good play or not. If I think it isn't, you may have it and burn it up. I +don't know what Rooney thinks yet. If he doesn't want to go on, I +won't." Mr. Vandeford had known the women of many climes, and he found +himself using that experience on Miss Adair with great skill, though it +hurt him to do so. + +"Part of it I don't even understand," Miss Adair continued to storm, and +Mr. Vandeford was about to discover that either a Blue-grass woman or +horse, with the bit in their respective mouths, is mighty apt to go a +pace before curbed. "What was that scene in the last act just before the +dinner-party? She read so fast and he had his back to me, so I suppose +that is the reason I didn't get it." Miss Adair was alluding to the +scene whose vulgarity Mr. Vandeford had wished to sacrifice, but which +Mr. Meyers had pleaded for on account of its extra dash of "pep" exactly +suited to the Hawtry style. + +"You won't be able to judge the Hawtry scenes at all until the opening +night," Mr. Vandeford answered, positively quaking in his boots for fear +that Miss Adair would force him to an elucidation of the scene, which +was mostly of the cleverest innuendo. "She is a miserable study, and she +and Height rehearse the big scenes alone. She just walks through with +the company. Truly, you can hardly judge anything of what a play will be +from just a reading or from any rehearsal. Please trust me and help me +as you promised you would." + +"But the play isn't mine, at all! My play is--is killed--and dead, and +murdered." Miss Adair persisted, still writhing from the butchery. + +"It is your play; but granting that it isn't, at all, think what it will +mean to all of us if this--this nobody's play succeeds. Think what it +will mean to the actors in the company. Miss Lindsey was hungry when she +got her first advance on your play, and Bebe Herne hasn't had a part +that suited her so well in years. If it goes she ought to have enough +to make her easy; and she is getting old now--" + +"If you'll say and tell everybody that the play isn't mine, of course +I'll help you, and--" Miss Adair agreed, with the tears dried by the +anger and a degree of sanity returning at Mr. Vandeford's skilful appeal +to her generosity, which he made when he saw that his attempt to bluff +her about calling off the play had failed. Mr. William Rooney came into +the box. His hat was tilted on the back of his head and in the corner of +his mouth was a large cigar, which he was chewing and not smoking. He +seated himself without invitation and spoke with his usual abruptness: + +"That play is a hummer, Vandeford, if I can just make the dolts put it +across. It is a genuine Hawtry vehicle, but in a new vein. It's a +corking situation and yet rings true. Did any old dame really have the +spunk to put that dinner-party across on both lover and husband that +you've got in your play, miss?" As Mr. Rooney asked the question of +Miss Adair, it was the first time that he had seemed aware of the +existence of the author of "The Purple Slipper." + +"It's not my play, Mr. Rooney," Miss Adair said haughtily to the +thick-skinned genius. "That--that situation is--was--is true, however." + +"Then it's your play all right!" declared Mr. Rooney. "The situation is +all there is to any play. The staging is the rest. Anybody can put in +good lines. Any simp can doll up the actors in costumes, and one actor +can put the ideas across pretty near as good as any other, if he's +directed all right; but when it's done, the play is the man's or woman's +who made the first layout of the idea--and what the stage-manager does +to it. Author and stage manager, I say. The rest is easy." + +"That's what I've been telling Miss Adair," Mr. Vandeford eagerly +assented. + +"And authors ought to go off and die until the first night, too," Mr. +Rooney continued to say. "When I staged 'Only Annie' for E. and K., I +told that author if he came on my stage any more at rehearsals I would +biff him one in the nutt, and I meant it, too. His thinks and mine ran +into each other so bad that I was near crazed." + +"But an author writes a play and he or she knows--" Miss Adair was +beginning to say to Mr. Rooney with kind patience, when he interrupted +her as he rose to take his departure. + +"The author oughter write all he knows and let it go at that," he said +as he spat on the carpet of the box with no sign of compunction. "The +stage-manager can do the rest." And with no form of leave-taking he +departed. + +"And the American drama has to be filtered through that sort of--of +illiteracy?" Miss Adair turned and demanded of Mr. Vandeford. + +"The American drama is often written by people who have been too closely +associated with books on a library shelf, so that it needs to be +filtered through a little gross humanity to get across to--humanity in +the gross, which pays to see it. If a scholar writes and produces a play +scholars go to see it all right, but all the scholars in America only +fill one theater twice, and then what is to become of scholar and wife +and children, as well as producer, manager, and theater-owner?" Mr. +Vandeford spoke slowly, choosing his words. + +"Aren't any of the stage-managers educated gentlemen?" demanded Miss +Adair, with an interest that was fast becoming impersonal, for she had +the wit to see that in some ways Mr. Vandeford's summary of the +situation between author and stage-manager was sound. + +"Yes, a few, but not the most successful ones," answered Mr. Vandeford. +"I tell you truly that a stage-manager has to be a genius to succeed. He +must be a man with a vision and sheer brutality enough to put the vision +that he gets from his conception of the play he is producing into +twenty other mentalities and make them present the play as a harmonious +whole to an audience. He cannot be a respecter of persons while he is +pounding, and he must not be interfered with or his vision is obscured +and the play loses. Do you see what I mean?" + +"Then an author ought to produce his own plays," Miss Adair decided very +promptly. + +"Yes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a whimsical smile down into the +eager, pale, intensely creative face raised to his. "When an author is +born who will study years until he is an expert electrician, other years +in great studios until he can paint scenery that is a work of art, delve +into old books until he knows costuming of thousands of periods in +hundreds of lands and how to sketch it, then gives himself to the +studying of stagecraft and the writing of half a hundred plays until he +writes one that is really great; after which, if he has the strength and +the nerves to produce that play, we will all go to see the great human +drama. That is, if he has had time to live with and in the hearts of +people so as to supply that gross sympathy with the masses who buy +tickets which Rooney got while climbing out of the gutter. God grant he +comes some day to America--but you are not he!" + +"No, I'm not," admitted Miss Adair, with her eyes smiling back into his +whimsically, "but what you say makes me see that the--the +producer--_you_ are the whole thing. You get it all--me and Mr. Rooney +and Miss Hawtry together and pound us into--into a play. I make that +acknowledgment." + +"If you ask the stage-manager he will say that the success of a play is +his; the costumer will claim that success; the star knows it is his or +hers, and the lead is sure that it is due to the support; the author +surely has some claim to draw the huge royalties, and the location of +his theater makes the theater-owner know that any play in that theater +will go. Yes, the producer will always claim the whole show if it all +goes well. If it fails the show then belongs entirely to the producer, +who picked it in its manuscript stage, and he is no good as a producer. +If he fails a few times hand-running, to the scrap heap with him!" + +"But you've never failed," Miss Adair exclaimed, with a dart of fear in +her eyes. + +"My last show, 'Miss Cut-up,' was a flivver all right, though we just +saved our faces. But I've got a show now that will put me in electric +light for two years hand-running and--" Mr. Vandeford was in a panic as +he realized that he was going so far in that curious thinking out loud +to Miss Adair that he had been about to launch forth on "The Rosie Posie +Girl" to her. It would have been like telling a friend the plans of his +own funeral with enthusiasm, as it would be obvious to her that Hawtry +would have to fail in and drop "The Purple Slipper" before becoming the +triumphant "Rosie Posie Girl." + +"I'm willing to--to let them cut my play all up if--if it will really +run two years and make your reputation more brilliant than it is," Miss +Adair said, interrupting his pause of consternation at his near +betrayal of his plans. She spoke with the worshipful uplift of her gray +eyes to his that had betrayed him in the first place to such a confusion +of schemes. "If it added anything to it, I would even be willing to let +you put the Adair name to the vulgar thing they read here to-day, but it +wouldn't help it anywhere except in Louisville and Cincinnati and +Nashville and Atlanta and New Orleans and Richmond. People don't know us +in New York, and any name will do here; so mine won't--won't have to be +disgraced." + +"Please don't say that!" pleaded Mr. Vandeford with consternation in his +soul as he thought of the development of the Howard "pep" Hawtry would +make as the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper" progressed. "It is the +same thing with Miss Hawtry as it is with Mr. Rooney; she has a--a kind +of gutter drag that gets across to the multitude, and of course your +play had to be--be fitted to her. Hawtry, to be Hawtry, has to do and +say things that you couldn't write at all, that you couldn't very well +understand; but they'll get the crowd going and coming. Please give me +your promise again to sit tight and see it through--or go home and leave +it all to me." Mr. Vandeford was surprised to feel how hard his heart +beat, and he was afraid that it sounded like the echo of an anvil chorus +in the big empty theater. + +"I never have to give promises a second time, and this is the last time +I am ever going to cry out," Miss Adair answered him, with a lift to her +proud little head. "I am going to stay right here and help if I can, and +learn. But I won't in any way distress or--or trouble you. Please don't +get me on your mind!" + +"I won't get you on my mind," Mr. Vandeford answered out loud--"because +I've got you in my heart, poor kiddie," he continued to himself, in a +kind of desperation. + +Mr. Dennis Farraday burst in upon the dusk of the theater and the +tragedy of the situation. He was vastly excited and he waved a letter +in his hand. + +"Oh, you Patricia Adair, why didn't you tell me that you are old Roger +Adair's sister?" he demanded. + +"Why, what do you mean about Roger? Do you know--" + +"Do I know him? Just listen to this, will you, and here I've _not_ been +handing you around on a silver salver for two weeks!" He then read the +following letter aloud to Miss Adair and Mr. Vandeford: + + Adairville, Kentucky. + + DEAR DENNY: + + Well, here I am! I'm the Captain of my county in the Army of the + Furrows, and hope to turn in many thousand pounds of food stuffs + for you people in New York to live on. In the meantime Miss + Patricia Adair, my sister, is going to New York to see to the + putting on of a play she has written for one Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. + She is the greatest girl ever, and you stay right on the job seeing + that things go right for her while I plant these potatoes to keep + you from starving. She will be at the Y. W. C. A. and will sleep + and eat safe enough, but you look out for her and don't let her get + homesick. If she needs me, of course I will come, but she's a + plucky child and you are the best ever, so I'll go on ploughing + with a free mind. Let me know how it all goes. What sort of a chap + is that Vandeford? + + Yours as always and forever, + ROGER. + +"Can you beat it?" demanded good Dennis, with a blaze of friendship in +his eyes as he regarded Miss Patricia Adair. "It was forwarded from my +old office number to my new, to Westchester to Nantucket, back to my +office, and finally arrived this morning. I've just sent Roger a +thousand-word telegram, and I hope he never knows that I was off the job +ten days. Give that child here to me, Van, and go get a report on your +character for me before you look at her again. Roger Adair is the best +friend I've got on earth, next to you, and you'd better watch your +step." + +"I like his steps," Miss Adair said, and again Mr. Vandeford felt +uncertain as to that curious little flutter that was like a nestling of +which he felt he was never to be certain and which Mr. Farraday did not +seem to observe at all. + +"Didn't you know that Roger was turning you over to me, young lady? Why +have you side-stepped me?" Mr. Farraday demanded of the young author, in +a voice of great severity. + +"I thought that Roger was going to write to a Mr. Denny about me; and I +didn't write to him that Mr. Denny hadn't come to take care of me +because--because I was afraid he'd leave his work and come up to look +after me himself. I didn't remember the Farraday part of your name at +all. Roger always said 'Denny.'" + +"Well, I suppose I'll have to accept that excuse, as it sounds fairly +reasonable; but I'd like to know, Van, why you have been keeping my +child here in this musty old theater until past luncheon time when she +must be both tired and hungry. Come out to Claremont to luncheon, both +of you, this minute," Mr. Farraday both questioned and commanded, with +pure delight in his voice and manner. "I'll go run the car around to the +door, so you won't have to walk in the sun." And he departed as quickly +as he had come. + +That night Mr. Vandeford lay stretched on his bed in a dark coolness, +with his hands clasped over his eyes, when Mr. Farraday came in with his +latch-key at twelve-thirty. + +"Denny?" he asked from the darkness as Mr. Farraday was tiptoeing past +his open door, through which the southern sea-breeze was pouring, "'What +sort of chap _is_ that Vandeford?'" + +"The telegram I sent read, 'the best ever.'" + +"Are you competent to judge me?" + +"I am." + +"Good-night!" + +For an hour before this masculine version of a scene a feminine real +thing was being conducted in the two little dotted-muslin-curtained +cells at the Y. W. C. A. Miss Adair was telling Miss Lindsey "all about +it," and sparks and tears both were in the atmosphere. The explosion was +brought on by Miss Lindsey remarking to Miss Adair: + +"You know, honey lady, that play of yours is simply ripping, but it is +not at all like--like what I thought it would be from hearing you and +Mr. Farraday tell it." + +"It's not my play at all; it's Mr. Vandeford's. He got somebody to fit +it to Miss Hawtry," replied Miss Adair, calmly, as she began to brush +her dark, sleek mane. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Miss Lindsey, in astonishment. + +"He just took the dinner situation in my play and got a man to make a +new one out of it that is--is vulgar enough to appeal to the New York +theater-goers. He let everybody put in anything they wanted to, instead +of what I wrote. He left in a little of mine to compliment me. It's all +right, because nobody would have gone to see my play if anybody goes to +see--see his." Miss Adair went on calmly with the fifty-third stroke on +her raven tresses, but her eyes were beginning to blaze. + +"Mr. Vandeford's a complete fool," was on the tip of Miss Lindsey's +tongue, but she remembered her main chance, which was the favor of Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, and said instead: "I wish you would let me see a copy +of the play as you wrote it. Have you one?" + +"I have, in my trunk, and I'll read it to you," answered Miss Adair, and +in defensive pride she produced a copy of "The Purple Slipper," which +bore the unexpurgated title of "The Renunciation of Rosalind," and +proceeded to read it to Miss Lindsey, with both fire and tragedy in her +voice. + +The operation occupied the two hours before midnight, and Miss Lindsey +lay prostrate when it was finished. + +"Now, what do you think?" demanded Miss Adair. + +"I wish I could have had the making of it over, and for myself instead +of Hawtry. That's no play as it stands, but there is a dandy one to be +worked up from it that you--you--that would be like you," was the reply +that Miss Lindsey gave as she looked out into distance, with glowing +eyes. + +"Do you think that--that horrid play will be a success?" asked Miss +Adair, with her voice sparkling. + +"I do," answered Miss Lindsey. "And it is curious that with all its +changes it is still--still yours. There is a lot more of your stuff left +than you realize, and the turns that--that Mr. Vandeford's playwright +has given it are very clever. Lots of times he's just paraphrased your +lines into Hawtryites. It will be interesting to see how much of you is +left when we all come out of the wash for the first night." + +"I wish I were dead and buried!" she was surprised to hear Miss Adair +confess, and there then ensued a downpour, which the hardier Western +girl weathered for very love of the young Southern tempest in her arms. + +"I suppose I ought to go home, out of the way, but I'm going to stay +and--and learn--and write another one all by myself," she finally +sobbed, with returning courage, thus comforting herself with the resolve +which every playwright who ever built a play has used to keep from going +entirely mad during the rehearsals of his first play. + +"Just try to live until the New York opening, and then see how you feel. +That is the way actors do to keep going during the awful grilling of the +rehearsals and the road try-out," advised Miss Lindsey, with great +soothing. + +"I will," promised Miss Adair, and turned her face on her pillow, to +sleep, while Miss Lindsey took herself and her jar of cold-cream into +her own cell. + +"I wish I had a chance at that play! What'll she do when she sees Hawtry +and Height really in action in some of those scenes?" she murmured into +her own pillow. + +The next morning Miss Adair rose, donned a most lovely home-spun linen +gown, which was of an old ivory hue and which had been spun upon the +looms of her great-great-great grandmother by that lady's slaves, +crowned this toilet with the floppy hat covered with crushed roses she +and Miss Lindsey and Mr. Farraday had purchased, and reported herself +about an hour late at the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper," whose +authorship she had repudiated. She seated herself in the dusk of the +left stage-box and bared her breast for blows. They came fast and +furious, but other breasts and heads beside her own suffered. Mr. +William Rooney was in full action. The entire company was on the stage +in the midst of the last ensemble bit in the first act, all talking and +acting with blue booklets of lines in their hands. + +"Here you, Mr. Kent," roared Mr. Rooney as he rose from behind his +table, at one side of which sat faithful Fido annotating his copy of the +manuscript, "make up to that old lady like she was the last ham +sandwich extinct and you knew you were going to be fed on alfalfa the +rest of your life. Get her going, man, get her going! She's an old fool, +and you know it, but you've got to have her plantation and slaves. You +can keep a chorus-girl car in the garage if you just get her well +fooled. Fool along, fool along!" + +"'I will write the message to your son, Madam Carrington, and dispatch +it forthwith by one of my own black boys. Is my hand not ever ready for +your service and my wit--and also my heart?'" declaimed Mr. Kent with +satisfactory fervor, as he kissed Miss Herne's fat white hand. + +"Now blob, Miss Herne, blob!" directed Mr. Rooney, coming entirely from +behind the table. "You are the fool of this show and don't let anybody +get that away from you." + +"'I pray a blessing on your excellent friendship, Judge Cheneworth, and +I will rest me content in--'" Miss Herne answered in a most excellent +imitation of the helplessness of an old grand dame. + +"Break in there, Miss Lindsey, break in!" raved Mr. Rooney. "'Content +in' is your cue. Grab it. Remember you are just the sister and only in +the play to swell the list of actors on the program, so grab and keep +a-grabbing if you want a place on the salary list. Now, everybody on at +Miss Lindsey's lines and break up this drivel between the old birds." + +"'Mother, Rosalind bids me say to you that--'" + +"Crowd on everybody, crowd on, and keep things going! It will be nine +o'clock by now, and we'll have to begin to feed the audience the hugging +by a quarter to ten or they will go out and look elsewhere.--Say, Mr. +Leigh, are your feet mates? You don't handle 'em even." + +Miss Adair rose and stole from the box to the stage-door, and looked up +and down the street to see if Mr. Vandeford was approaching. She felt +that she could not stand more alone. He was nowhere in sight, and she +decided to walk around the block and see if the sun at ninety degrees +would warm her chill. After this journey she returned to her post and +found the box still empty. Mr. Vandeford had not arrived nor had Mr. +Farraday, but she seated herself resolutely. She was just in time to +witness a pitched battle between Miss Hawtry and Mr. Rooney. + +"If you are determined to walk through the scenes, Miss Hawtry, do it +awake and not asleep!" stormed Mr. Rooney. + +"Very well," answered Miss Hawtry, but Miss Adair's heart warmed to her +as she noted the contemptuousness in her manner directed toward her +stage-manager. + +"Now see here, Height, you know that you want to get away with this +woman before her husband gets back. You can't do it with kid gloves on. +Spit on your hands, man, and grab her by the hair. You say: 'Rosalind, a +strong man's love is a weapon which a woman can easily turn against +herself with deadly outcome,' like you were begging her to go with you +over to Ligget's for an ice-cream soda with crushed strawberries. Say it +this way." And as she sat astounded Miss Adair heard a line that she had +written in a sympathetic fervor of imagination and which was perhaps her +favorite in the whole play, uttered by Mr. William Rooney with the most +exquisite and manly feeling, while his homely, vulgar face and body were +transformed into the same exquisiteness. A breathless happiness +descended upon her, and she waited in it to hear the beautiful Mr. +Gerald Height give utterance to it with the same art. Miss Hawtry +brought her to earth. + +"Mr. Rooney," she said with an utter lack of appreciation or +comprehension of the bit of high art that had flashed upon her, "it is +in my contract with Mr. Vandeford that I rehearse my scenes alone with +my support until the dress rehearsal." + +"Yes, I might have judged that from 'Miss Cut-up,'" Mr. Rooney answered +her with a blow straight from his shoulder. "Give little sister her +cue, Height, and let her run on to rescue you. God knows you need it!" + +"Mr. Rooney, I'll have you understand--" Miss Hawtry came to the center +to continue her tirade, when Mr. Rooney struck the decisive blow. + +"Everybody on and begin the scene over!" he commanded right past the +enraged star. "Take it up, Kent, with Miss Herne at 'I will write the +message to your son,' and get her going, get her going!" + +At this forceful command the machinery of "The Purple Slipper" was set +in motion, and swept Miss Hawtry off center and into her place for the +time being. + +And despite herself Miss Adair was fascinated in watching the machine +grind away, with now and then a spark from Mr. Rooney that took fire in +the very core of her heart or brain or solar plexus--wherever "The +Renunciation of Rosalind" had been conceived. Miss Adair did not know +what it was that thus affected her, but she had got hold of her end of +the psychic cord along which the author feeds the hostile stage-manager +in such a manner that on the first night of a successful play they can +say to each other with clasped hands and wet eyes, "Well done!" + +And while Miss Adair sat under the spell of Mr. Rooney, Mr. Vandeford +sat in his big chair in his office and fought a battle for "The Purple +Slipper" that resulted in a draw that filled him with anxiety. + +"I can find only one open booking in New York for October first, Mr. +Vandeford, sir," Mr. Meyers was saying, with trouble settled in a cloud +upon his broad brow. "I have it fairly good for the road for 'The Purple +Slipper' until October first, and then it is a jump to Toronto or +Minneapolis, which is into the grave." + +"I suppose that one opening on Broadway is Weiner's New Carnival +Theater," Mr. Vandeford asked as though the question were useless. + +"You have it right," answered Mr. Meyers. "Still, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it +is always failures that leave Broadway openings into which road shows +can jump." + +"Until last year, yes, Pops, but now New York is so full of people with +munition and war-contract money in their pockets that any show, no +matter how rotten, that gets in a Broadway theater plays to capacity and +stays. They'd go to 'The Old District Skule' because the doors were open +and there is no other place to go. What are we going to do?" + +"I advise that you see Mr. Breit and trust to some very big failure to +give you a place. It is that he will always give you a preference," +answered Mr. Meyers with little hope, but determination. + +"Yes, Breit will let me in if there is a squeezing chance, but Breit +doesn't own a theater, nor do I, or you, Pops; and I don't blame the +fellows who do own them for filling them with their own cheap companies +and plays so as to get their buckets under the whole golden stream. Why +give money away to any independent producer?" + +"Mr. Breit said that he had news that Mr. Weiner would open that New +Carnival with a Hilliard show, name not given," Mr. Meyers added to the +information already prepared for Mr. Vandeford. + +"I'll see goose-grease frying out of him in Inferno before he gets it," +said Mr. Vandeford, coolly. "I know that is his game, but I'll put +across this 'Purple Slipper' with Hawtry and keep my 'Rosie Posie Girl' +until I get good and ready to let her play it. Then I'll produce it to +the tune of a half-million dollars and not Mr. Weiner. I've never been +squeezed, and I'm not going to have this rotten game beat me. I'll go +over and see Breit and he'll jockey me a corner on Broadway, somehow. +Back at three." And Mr. Vandeford walked out of his office as coolly as +though not sizzling inwardly with anxiety. + +"I've got you next on the booking of about four-fifths of the theaters +on Broadway, Van," said Mr. Breit, the booking king, as he and Mr. +Vandeford smoked leisurely cigars in his big, cool office. "You should +worry! E. and K. and S. and Z. are bound to pick some flivvers and in +you go. Loaf on the road and lose money like a little man." + +"My contract expires with Hawtry if I don't present her on Broadway by +September fifteenth." + +"That _is_ a bit of a pickle! But she won't have any show to jump into, +and she'll compromise with you; won't she?" + +"She'll have to," Mr. Vandeford declared. "Coming down to Atlantic City +to see 'The Purple Slipper' open two weeks from Monday, September +twenty-third?" + +"I'll be there. Rooney says it is a go; says little genius amateur wrote +it and Grant Howard 'pepped' it. That right?" + +"Yes. By!" + +An hour later, in the coolness and seclusion of the grill room of The +Monks, Mr. Vandeford was imparting his predicament to his partner in +the venture and adventures of "The Purple Slipper." + +"And you are worrying about whether Miss Hawtry will stay by us for the +few weeks we'll have to loaf on the road or even close while waiting for +the New York opening?" questioned Mr. Farraday. "Say, aren't you a bit +unjust in your judgment of her, Van?" + +"I know the whole tribe of actors, and you don't, Denny," answered Mr. +Vandeford, over a tall glass of iced tea he was drinking; he didn't know +exactly why, but the habit had grown on him lately. + +"Then why not try to put her under contract for those few indefinite +weeks?" suggested Mr. Farraday, over his cup of hot coffee. + +"You talk as though we were dealing with sane people," answered Mr. +Vandeford. "She's got us and she'll keep us guessing up to the last +minute, and then put some kind of screws on. I have got to figure out +the likely ones, to see what I can do to jam them." + +"Well, anyway, ask her. I think she'll stand by us. I know she will," +said Mr. Farraday, with both faith and conviction in his voice. "You do +her an injustice, I say!" + +"I'm not going to make her any request or offer, Denny. I can't," said +Mr. Vandeford, as he looked at the ice floating in his glass of tea. + +"Of course," assented Mr. Farraday, with pained sympathy in his big +voice. "Would you like me to sound her out?" + +"It's half your show; go ahead. She probably knows the situation and has +made her plans for the squeeze or double-cross, but you might try her +out," consented Mr. Vandeford, with a shrewd glance at Mr. Farraday. +"But I wish you wouldn't, Denny," he added, with a sudden glow of +affection in his eyes. Then he was restrained from further remonstrance +with Mr. Farraday by the thought of the author of "The Purple Slipper" +and her plucky sticking by the play through the thick and thin of her +disapproval of it. Again he offered up his big Jonathan as a sacrifice +in hopes of improving the prospects of "The Purple Slipper." + +Mr. Farraday took Miss Hawtry into his confidence about the predicament +of finding a New York theater for his play, "The Purple Slipper," that +very evening, out on the veranda of the Beach Inn, where he had motored +her by request for dinner after her fatiguing rehearsals, which she had +made still more fatiguing for Mr. William Rooney. + +"And Van sent you to ask me if I was going to stick by?" she asked, with +an effective quaver in her voice. + +"He felt that we had no right to--to tie you up for indefinite weeks," +said Mr. Farraday, constructing and temporizing at the same time. + +"Did you think as little of me as he did?" + +"No, by George, I knew you'd stick by us, and I said so!" Mr. Farraday +exploded with genuine emotion. + +"Thank you. You know me after these few weeks better than he does after +all these years of--" And the Violet bent her head on Mr. Farraday's +nearest arm and began to weep softly. They were in a secluded corner of +the veranda of the Inn, and the Violet raged at herself for having +closed the complete seclusion of Highcliff for herself and her purposes +by renting it to the Trevors when she had gone to town to the rehearsals +of "The Purple Slipper." + +And as good Dennis Farraday had no valid reason, either within or +without the law for not doing so, he put consoling and comforting arms +about her, and exposed his wide, silk-garbed shoulder to the rain of her +tears, which were not really raining. In his big heart there was the +same comforting for this conspirator as there would have been for Mr. +Vandeford's lawful widow, and he administered it with the same +affectionate respect that he would have used to the relict. + +"You're a dear, wonderful little woman!" he was saying, when the voice +of the Clyde Trevors was heard calling to them from around the veranda, +and an oath rose in the Violet with such force that she almost allowed +it to explode. Still she felt sure of her ultimate results. + +"You can count on me to stand by you and the play forever," she +promised, and the hurried pressure of their lips in the soft, dark, +sea-perfumed air was biologically inevitable. + +Mr. Godfrey Vandeford had woven a tangled web when he had let fall the +purple letter on the purple manuscript and gone out recklessly to follow +the hunch their juxtaposition implied. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The first two weeks of September spent in torrid New York were a strange +period of time to have projected itself into the calm life of Miss +Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Suddenly she found herself a cog +screwed tight into a rapid-fire piece of machinery that was running at +top speed night and day, by name, "The Purple Slipper." + +For long hours she sat in the coolness of that stage-box and held her +breath while she threw her whole self into the building of the play, +which so fascinatingly was and was not hers. And through all those +hours, close at her side, between her and the big dim theater, sat Mr. +Godfrey Vandeford, with his arm across the back of her chair and his +eager face close to hers and tilted at the same angle. Her slightest +murmur or his lowest whisper caught and was answered, and they almost +seemed to be breathing one breath, so absorbed were they in the destiny +of their mutual adventure. Like all women of her kind, Patricia Adair +had known men only through a cloud, which sex traditions had firmly held +between her and them, and Godfrey Vandeford was the first man she had +encountered since she had slipped outside of its deadening density into +a world where men and women endeavored together first, and left their +sentinel undertakings to a fitting secondary time and place. In all +sincerity she accepted him as a co-worker and was as happy working with +him as it was possible for a woman to be. She specially liked being +beside him in the office, and watched him settle the details of the +running the big machine smoothly, from the hiring of the property-man to +the firing of three successive stage-carpenters. + +"Real eats, Mr. Vandeford?" the former had inquired one morning. + +"Brown-bread turkey, nice and tasty, good crackers, but soda-pop and so +forth for booze. Remember, they've got to face it, we hope, many weeks; +don't turn their stomachs so they'll all gag." + +"I see, sir, I see. I fed 'Maple Leaves' for two years, and they all et +every night and gimme a purse when it closed to go to London." + +"Goes!" + +"Brown-bread turkey sounds nice. I'm hungry," said Miss Adair, as the +good-providing property-man departed. + +"Pop is going to bring us a piece of pie and a bottle of milk from the +automat," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he began putting busy stabs with +the press pencil on a pile of papers. "I ought to send him to get Denny +to motor you for a real feed in the cool somewhere, but I want you +here." With perfect unconcern, he went on checking the list the +property-man had left him. He had ceased trying to decide the meaning of +the flutter which he was not sure Miss Adair really gave when she was +pleased. He was too busy to think about anything but the rush and roar +of the machinery of "The Purple Slipper," so he just kept Miss Adair so +near him for all the waking hours of the day that he could have no +occasion to have his thoughts distracted by worrying over just what +might be befalling her. Day after day he extracted her from the Y. W. C. +A. at ten o'clock A. M., fed her and Miss Lindsey coffee and rolls and +berries just any place that they happened to see (often he even ate with +the two girls in the big empty cafeteria at the institution), lunched +with her in the same haphazard fashion, sought a cool and quiet spot to +give her dinner, and a ride on a country road, turned her into the big +safety at about eleven o'clock, and went to bed to sleep the sleep of +the interestedly absorbed. + +The few evenings that Miss Adair spent with Mr. Gerald Height Mr. +Vandeford did not find repose so early or with such ease. Also, his +awakening on those mornings after was not so joyous, and he arrived at +the Y. W. C. A. fifteen and twenty minutes too early upon each occasion. + +However, his time was well spent in chatting with the brisk young +secretary, and his anxiety was entirely relieved each time by finding +the look intact in the gray eyes raised to his in eager greeting after +the prolonged absence of fourteen hours, when the usual separation was +about ten. + +"We went out to a place called the Beach Inn last night, and whom do you +suppose we saw there?" she demanded on one of the mornings after, over +her bowl of halved peaches. + +"Mr. and Mrs. Devil?" he asked, with a sparkle breaking through the +frown with which he had instantly greeted her mention of that gay beach +resort. + +"No; Miss Hawtry and Mr. Farraday. She wasn't nice to us at all, but Mr. +Height says she always treats him badly when they are rehearsing +together. I think Mr. Height is perfectly wonderful to her on the +stage. He's so gentle and kind; but then he's that in real life, isn't +he?" + +"Is he?" growled Mr. Vandeford over his corn-flakes. + +"Yes, and he's so just and fine in the way he speaks about everybody. He +told me how poor Miss Hawtry used to be and how you pushed her along +until she could buy that lovely house we passed, in which the Trevors +are staying while she is in town. It is hard on you, too, not to be out +there boarding with them and her instead of in this heat." + +"Did Height say that I--I boarded--out there?" demanded Mr. Vandeford, +pushing his coffee-cup away from him with a sudden snap. + +"Yes, he said you stayed out there in the summer always, and--" + +"We're late," interrupted Mr. Vandeford, snapping his watch with the +same temper he had used on his coffee-cup. "Bring that saucer of peaches +along and eat it in the car." + +"I'll take an orange instead," assented Miss Adair, as with all +good-nature and in all naturalness she deserted the last half of the +rosy peach, took an orange from the bowl before her and stood up to go +out to the car, which Valentine had parked in the shadow of the building +opposite. + +"You kid, you!" scoffed Mr. Vandeford, with an ache in his heart, but +thanksgiving for that same youthful unsophistication. "Height or +somebody will get it all across to her, and then what'll I do?" he +growled to himself as he followed her into the car. + +"And I saw that Mazie--Mazie woman there, too, with a terrible-looking +man that has written ever so many plays that are successful." Mr. +Vandeford was devoutly thankful that Mr. Grant Howard's name had not +stuck in the consciousness of the author of "The Purple Slipper." "I--I +was introduced to them too--because you know you said that I must--must +accept broad standards, and I did--last night." Miss Adair looked away, +but Mr. Vandeford could see that her little ears, set close against her +small head, with their tips covered by a smooth band of hair, grew rosy. + +"What?" he gasped, uncertain as to what she meant. + +"Talked to that--that playwright and--and drank some champagne. I like +cider better, but Mr. Height ordered it, and I thought--" + +Here the car stopped, and Valentine was at the door. Valentine never +failed to be at the door instantly when Miss Adair was in Mr. +Vandeford's car, because his French soul rejoiced within him for thus +serving a grand dame. + +"Rooney is on the last lap of the last act, and then he'll begin to +polish the whole for dress rehearsals," Mr. Vandeford said as he held +the curtains of their box aside for her to enter. + +"And Mr. Height told me, too, that the Trevors had--" + +"Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, becoming the stern producer, because he +felt that he could stand no more of Mr. Height at the Beach Inn, though +he began to listen intently to that same gentleman and Bebe Herne in the +beginning of the great scene of the now authorless play. The anxieties +passed from him, and in a moment he was in harness again with his author +and running in perfect unison. + +"Cut it off, Height, cut it off!" commanded Mr. Rooney, and he ran his +hands into his shock of black hair, which stood up all over his head +like a black, sooty mop. "That scene needs something. It isn't big and +simple enough. What did she say to him in your first layout, miss?" he +demanded of Miss Adair, for the first time acknowledging to the company +the presence of the author of their play at the rehearsals. "Can you +remember?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Adair, with the home-made color blazing in her +cheeks and fires in her gray eyes as she rose in the box, and gave the +six lines as she had written them. Her lovely, slurring, Blue-grass +voice made the whole company smile with pleasure. + +"That's it! That's it! That's real people jawing and not a lot of smarty +guff. Put that in, Fido, and write it in, Miss Herne," commanded Mr. +Rooney, without any form of thanks to the accommodating and forgiving +author. + +And truth to say the author of "The Purple Slipper" did not notice his +omission. She was in such joy at having something of the "big scene" +express what she had intended that she was clasping one of Mr. +Vandeford's hands in both hers and holding on tight to keep from +shedding tears of joy. + +"What did I tell you?" he asked, taking the two nervously clutched +little hands into his warm, strong ones, unseen in the shadow of the +box. "You keep getting things across to Bill by letting him ask you for +what he wants. See?" + +"Yes, and I'm always glad when I do as you tell me," she whispered, with +her lips almost against his ear as they both turned back to the stage +and watched their machine begin to run on greased wheels. Mr. Vandeford +thought of the Beach Inn, Mazie, the bottle of champagne, and Mr. Gerald +Height, and groaned inwardly. + +The last week of the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper" was a hectic +rush, the like of which Miss Adair had never imagined. She had gone out +again for the week-end to Mrs. Farraday's, up in Westchester, and this +time Mr. Vandeford drove out on Sunday for tea and crape myrtle with Mr. +Dennis Farraday, and, he was surprised to note again, Miss Mildred +Lindsey. The day passed like an oasis in the midst of a desert storm, +and Mr. Vandeford had the pleasure of making all arrangements for Mrs. +Farraday, Mr. and Mrs. Van Tyne, and several other old Manhattaners, who +had fallen under the spell of the young Kentuckian who had in an off +moment perpetrated "The Purple Slipper," to go to Atlantic City the +following week to be upon the spot for the opening of the play. Suites +in the great new hotel were engaged by long-distance telephone, +time-tables discussed, and trains settled upon by the time tea was over +and the golden sun had let the twilight purple the rosy plumes of the +huge myrtle hedges. In the dusk Valentine brought Mr. Vandeford's car +from the garage and Mrs. Farraday's chauffeur drove out Mr. Dennis +Farraday's beloved Surreness. Miss Lindsey said her farewell, and it +again surprised Mr. Vandeford to see the gracious kiss Mrs. Farraday put +upon the dusky red of the beautiful Western girl's cheek, while good +Dennis stood smilingly by in the friendliest delight. Then a wistful +sigh from the talented young author by his side claimed his instant +attention. + +"What is it?" he asked, with no attempt to control the tenderness in his +voice, though the dusk hid that in his eyes. + +"I want to go back to town with you," she answered him, with a little +catch in her voice. "I feel so far away from you and--and IT, up here." + +"You shall," he answered, and turned toward Mrs. Farraday, who was +coming across the grass towards them with a huge sheaf of myrtles for +his car flower-baskets in her arms. "I wonder if you'll let me take my +author back to town in a hurry to-night, Mater Farraday," he pleaded, +with the affectionate smile in both his voice and eyes that he had +learned to use in coaxing her since the days ten years ago when she had +begun to mother him along with big Dennis. "I--I sorter--sorter need +her." + +Mrs. Farraday looked at them both with a keenness under the affection in +her glance, and then laughed merrily. + +"Yes, go with him, Patricia," she commanded. "I have lived through the +week before the presentation of five plays for Van, and I think that it +is only just that you should share that ordeal with me. He's impossible, +and demands--everything. I gave him a perfectly new and wonderful hat +that cost a hundred and ten dollars for the second scene of 'Dear +Geraldine' right off my head at the dress rehearsal, and 'Miss Cut-up' +did her dances on one of my most choice Chinese rugs. Now he's taking +you from me. But go!" + +"Here's your wrap, still in the car, so hop in," commanded Mr. Vandeford +hurriedly, as though he feared that Mrs. Farraday would withdraw her +sympathetic permission. "Good-night, and thank you!" + +"Good-night, you two--two dear children," returned Mrs. Farraday, as she +saw them off, after tenderly embracing Miss Adair and making plans for +their future meeting. "How _lovely_ it would be!" she murmured to +herself, with a lack of definition, as she went back to the stately +house behind the tree, where windows were beginning to glow. + +For a long time the producer and his author were silent. + +"I hate it--and I love it," Miss Adair finally said, with her soft, +slurring voice lowered almost to a whisper as Valentine sped them along +the country road perfumed and dusky with the early night, though a +silvery radiance proclaimed a chaperoning moon as imminent. + +"That is the proper way for an author to feel about a play one week +before the opening," Mr. Vandeford assured her, with a laugh keyed to +match her declaration. "It shows an entire sympathy with the poor +producer." + +"Suppose, just suppose, that the producer had been anybody but you and I +had had to stand all--" Words failed Miss Adair in imaging her plight as +author to another producer than Mr. Vandeford. + +"Any other producer might have done better than I have done for you," +Mr. Vandeford answered her, with a sadness in his voice that he himself +had never heard before. And as he spoke he resolved to tell her the +whole Hawtry situation, which was haunting him day and night; to begin +with the purple, letter-manuscript hunch, which he had lightly taken up +to spank Miss Hawtry for trying to double-cross him with Weiner about +"The Rosie Posie Girl," and end up with the hopeless state of his +feelings about herself. Miss Adair herself stemmed the confession which +might have altered the fate of that good machine "The Purple Slipper." + +"You've made the whole horrible experience worth while to me, and I'm +going to be a great playwright yet, just to make you--you proud of me," +she assured his sadness in the purple dusk, and this time Mr. Vandeford +was so sure of the flutter that he reached out his hand and captured a +part of it, a white, slim little hand that nestled into his as though it +were not in any way aware of doing so. "I'm going to dinner with Miss +Herne to-morrow night, so Mr. Kent can show me what is the matter with +part of his costume for the third act, and then I'm going to coax Mr. +Corbett to fix it over for him," she continued, speaking of the business +of learning to be the great playwright she had promised him to become. + +"Er--er, did you say dinner with Bebe and--and Kent?" Mr. Vandeford +stammered as a desperate opening for letting his author know just what +she was doing in visiting that establishment without-the-law. + +"Yes, I know about them; Mildred told me, but I told her that I was +going to accept the 'broad standard' that prevailed in my profession. I +like both of those people a lot. What business is it of mine if they +don't want to get married?" Miss Adair's voice was coolly unconcerned +and professional. + +"Help!" ejaculated Mr. Vandeford, holding the slim little hand as if +drowning. And indeed he did have a sinking sensation, which, strange to +say, was relieved by a quick mental vision of the capable young woman at +the desk of the great international safety. + +"And I know about Mr. Height's three divorces, and I think he is to be +pitied instead of criticized for being so unfortunate and lonely. +Mildred says she doesn't believe he is as lonely as he tells me he is, +but I know he is. I asked Miss Herne to ask him to dinner, too, and she +did," Miss Adair continued, thus making little stabs into Mr. +Vandeford's vitals. + +And right there Mr. Vandeford paid the entire penalty for all his tilts +against organized morality by feeling unworthy to take a beautiful, +fragrant, adoring, confiding girl in his arms and telling her all he had +learned of the tragic results of such tilts. His predicament was tragic, +though unique. If he summed up these others, he sized up himself to her, +and by what judgment he taught her to judge them she would judge him +when the time came. If he taught her to turn from Kent or Height she +would turn from him, when she knew him entirely, as she surely would +soon. And, forsooth, how would he prove to her that he was a better man +than the copper-headed tango lizard, Height, though he knew himself to +be? And who was this girl, anyway, to come out of a little back-woods +town where the standards of life were so narrow that all who could lived +out of them in degrading secrecy, and make him feel himself unworthy +when he had lived openly in a way about which his own conscience had not +troubled him? Why did he hesitate to tell her about his affair with the +Violet and his anxiety about her contract, and why should his face burn +at the thought of telling her how he had coolly let his best friend in +for the prospect of an affair with the star for the purpose of +protecting her and her play? And why should the sex and business +standards of his world be entirely different from those of hers or any +other world! On the other hand why shouldn't they all double-cross and +prey on and defame and applaud each other to their heart's content? Why +should they care if they were judged by--? At this part Mr. Vandeford's +bitter reflections were suddenly invaded by a perceptible collapse of +Miss Adair's soft and proud young body against his, and a round, warm +cheek fell against his silk-clad sleeve, as he perceived that his +eminent author had plunged suddenly into the depths of healthy and +innocent slumber, while he had been moralizing about her and the rest +of the universe. He slipped his arm about her with cautious tenderness +and made her comfortable, while he muttered to himself: + +"She's a white flame and, God willing, I'm going to keep her that!" + +During the next week the "white flame" burned high and bright while the +author of "The Purple Slipper" threw herself into her place in the +grinding of the machine that was to turn out a perfected play on the +following Tuesday night at Atlantic City. Everywhere Mr. Rooney was +tightening bolts and polishing surfaces until they glistened while he +snapped and tried out all bands. + +Miss Lindsey was pale and quiet, but she acted her part to Mr. Rooney's +entire satisfaction, though he never said so. Mr. Leigh's feet were +still a target, and the glowering girl, Miss Grayson, was always +tearful, but constantly improving. When the company was not being ground +and polished, Mr. Corbett's tailors and dressmakers were fitting +costumes, and the property man was checking over and over each demand of +each and every person, from the fresh rose Mr. Kent was to give to Dame +Carrington to the mud that was to be splashed every day upon Mr. Gerald +Height's riding-boots for his last and triumphant entry. Miss Adair had +lost all sense of the play as a whole and only thought of it as +distracting and distracted bits. She had, of course, never witnessed the +scenes between Miss Hawtry and Mr. Height, as they were still rehearsed +in private and would be until the night of the dress rehearsal on Monday +at Atlantic City. This was well. + +But one thing she kept with her through the whole strain; the sense of +being one with Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and that one working for pure joy. + +As for Mr. Vandeford, his eyes sank back under his brows, and Mr. Adolph +Meyers was with him far into every night. + +"How does the booking stand now, Pops?" Mr. Vandeford demanded on the +Thursday night before the opening Tuesday. + +"Atlantic City next week, Wilmington and New Haven the next if need be, +and--it is to Syracuse or Toronto we must jump, Mr. Vandeford, sir," +answered Mr. Meyers, with beads of perspiration on his high brow. + +"Violet will never make that jump, Pops. Her contract closes the day we +open in Atlantic City, and there we'll close, too, if we haven't New +York right in sight. What'll we do?" + +"It is many a show closed before it opened," Mr. Meyers said, with a +wary look at Mr. Vandeford. + +"This show is going to open and never close--until it's had a thorough +Broadway try-out, Pops," said Mr. Vandeford, quietly. "Anything from Mr. +Breit?" + +"Nothing to hope for a Broadway opening before November first." + +"I'll pass the question up Friday, and then see what I'll do," Mr. +Vandeford said slowly as if turning his back for the moment to +something that stared him in the face. + +All Friday morning he worked with "The Purple Slipper" machine with a +bitter defiance in his eyes that made Miss Adair keep close to his side, +though she didn't understand her reason for doing so. + +"Is anything the matter?" she questioned, with her gray eyes stricken +with alarm. The fear for her play in those gray eyes sent Mr. Vandeford +into desperate measures. He asked Miss Hawtry to go to luncheon with +him, and she graciously accepted. + +"Where do we get in on Broadway after Atlantic City, Van?" she asked as +soon as she was served with her iced melon. + +"We get in all right," he parried, putting his spoon into his +cantaloupe. + +"That's fine. I don't mind that Atlantic City week, but I'm glad I'm +past ever doing the road again except to the Coast. They'll eat up 'The +Rosie Posie Girl' in Chicago and San Francisco." Miss Hawtry was +deliberately declaring her intentions to Mr. Vandeford without saying a +word about them. + +"I'm going to take 'The Purple Slipper' over to London before I take it +West." Mr. Vandeford answered her declaration with another not put in +words, but so well did he know the workings of her shrewd, small mind +that he saw that the game was up unless he did what he must do. During +the rest of their luncheon they talked about the Trevors. + +Straight from the Astor Mr. Vandeford walked into the office of Mr. +Weiner. + +"Weiner," he asked, without any sort of preamble, "will you give a +month's try-out of my play, 'The Purple Slipper,' in your New Carnival +Theater from October first to November first, with a proper guarantee, +and then an option on an unlimited run there if it makes good, for a +half-interest in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' _without_ Hawtry?" Mr. Vandeford +knew that he was offering Mr. Weiner a good thing, for the rights of +"The Rosie Posie Girl" had been hotly contested by all the big +theatrical managers on Broadway the winter before, and Mr. Vandeford had +got them from Hilliard because of his success with "Dear Geraldine" by +the same author. They had all coveted it because it was one of those +combinations about the success of which there could be no doubt. In +offering Weiner a half-interest Mr. Vandeford was aware that he was +offering him at least a hundred thousand dollars, but Mr. Vandeford's +hunch about the purple on purple was beginning to cost him dear, though +at least a hundred thousand dollars did not seem too much to pay to keep +the agony of failure out of a pair of sea-gray eyes that had trusted him +the first time they had looked into his. + +"With Hawtry it goes; without Hawtry, no, Mr. Vandeford," was the prompt +answer. + +"With Hawtry six months from now?" questioned Mr. Vandeford. + +"It is that I have a weak heart, Mr. Vandeford, and I do not trade in +futures," answered Mr. Weiner, with a spark in his black eyes. + +"You know my fix, Weiner; now what will you take for the New Carnival +October first for my Hawtry show?" + +"I will trade that entire 'Rosie Posie Girl' manuscript, with all rights +for that New Carnival Theater on October first, with option for the +entire season, Mr. Vandeford," said Mr. Weiner, rolling his big cigar +from one side of his mouth to the other. + +"Without Hawtry?" + +"I have a new Hawtry right now--in pickle," Mr. Weiner answered. + +"Will the New Carnival certainly be finished October first?" + +"Yes, to a certainty of a large guarantee." + +"How long will you give me to answer?" asked Mr. Vandeford. + +"I have made an appointment with S. & K. to talk that New Carnival +Theater for a show at five o'clock to-day, Mr. Vandeford. I will call it +six o'clock for you," answered Weiner, as he turned the screw with all +show of consideration for his fellow producer. + +"I'll be back at four-forty-five," Mr. Vandeford answered him, and with +no further good-by took his departure. + +Arriving at his office, Mr. Vandeford directed Mr. Meyers that he was to +have half an hour entirely undisturbed, entered his own office, and +after a second's pause went into the little office that had been +assigned to Miss Adair, the author, and sat down in the chair she very +seldom occupied, but which was hers by tenancy. On the desk were a pair +of silk gloves she had left there the day before, and in a blue vase +were several roses in a good state of preservation, which he recognized +as having come from a bunch Miss Adair had been wearing after having had +luncheon with Mr. Gerald Height on Monday. These objects disturbed Mr. +Vandeford vaguely. He put them out of his mind roughly and went into +conference with himself sternly. Literally he was weighing the +question. + +On one side of the balance he laid "The Rosie Posie Girl," which, with +Hawtry, was sure to run on Broadway for at least two seasons and make +for him a fortune that was indefinitely large and sure. Beside this, its +production would insure him a position among the country's really great +producers. The show was big enough in conception to admit of a +spectacularly artistic treatment, which he had intended to give it so +that it would place musical comedy on a plane upon which it had never +stood before. He knew himself well enough to know that a real triumph of +that kind once accomplished, he would want to turn to other fields of +endeavor, and he could see his greater self standing patiently waiting +for his lesser to be liberated by the process of climbing out of the +very top of the theatrical profession. + +Sternly he turned from himself to the filling of the other pan of the +scales in which he was weighing the question. He looked for something to +put in to over-balance the certainty of "The Rosie Posie Girl," and +found nothing but a vast uncertainty with many potentialities. "The +Purple Slipper" was a play of no known classification, and with Hawtry +in it was still less fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring. And there +was added the uncertainty of that week from the twenty-third to the +first during which he had no legal hold on the fair Violet. He felt +reasonably sure that the announcement that "The Purple Slipper" would +open the big new Weiner theater, with all the clash of publicity which +he could give to it, would hold her steady on her job, but as he laid it +down on the scales, it had to be classed as an uncertainty. The fifteen +per cent. seat sales based on Mr. Gerald Height's appearance in silk +tights, velvet, and lace was about the only positive he had to lay in +the scales, and that, of course, failed to tip them to any degree. For +about fifteen minutes he sat perfectly rigid. Then he gently laid on the +uncertain side of the scales the positive and concrete faith in a pair +of sea-gray eyes, jeweled with tears, and watched "The Rosie Posie +Girl" rise high as "The Purple Slipper" sank down heavily. + +After this he took a rose from the green vase, stuck it in his +buttonhole, and went forth--into his own office. He there rang his +buzzer for Mr. Meyers, and seated himself with the air of a man who has +had a burden lifted off his shoulders rather than with the air of one +about to give away half a million dollars. + +"Pops, 'The Rosie Posie Girl' is sold, lock, stock, and barrel, to +Weiner for a month's try-out of 'The Purple Slipper' at the New Carnival +Theater, good guarantee for that month, and an option on a run to the +limit for eight-thousand-a-week houses. Get Lusky over the 'phone, and +you and he have the contracts drawn as tight as wax by four-thirty." + +"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I must have a say that--" + +"No, Pops, don't say anything." + +"With a pardon it is that I think that Miss Adair is a very fine lady, +and so also 'The Purple Slipper.'" With this incoherent pronouncement +of sympathy and encouragement, though devastated at the loss of "The +Rosie Posie Girl," upon which he had already spent many creative days, +Mr. Meyers departed into the outer office. + +For a long minute Mr. Vandeford glared at the unoffending rose in his +buttonhole, then smiled, ran his hands through his hair, turned to the +telephone, and plunged into the last lap of the race of "The Purple +Slipper." Until four o'clock he was closeted with the most brilliant +theatrical publicity man in New York City; then he took his contracts +and went over to Weiner's office and sacrificed "The Rosie Posie Girl" +to-- + +An hour later he had told his partner, Mr. Dennis Farraday, all about +it, and showed him the deeds of execution. + +"You ought not to have done it, Van. It was too big a price to pay," Mr. +Farraday declared, with his mane rumpled on high. + +"No," answered Mr. Vandeford, in happy calmness. "'The Purple Slipper' +will pay it all out--one way or another." + +"It must," declared Mr. Farraday, with helpless energy. "What can I do?" + +"Oh, be the usual ray of sunshine around the place and--and keep the +Violet happy and busy until we land on Broadway." Mr. Vandeford said +this with a coldness in tone and voice that he had to force hard. His +attitude was that he had had to sacrifice himself so why not sacrifice +Mr. Farraday also? And he hated himself for that attitude. + +"I understand, and you can count on me," answered Mr. Farraday, with +such an innocently happy face that Mr. Vandeford groaned inwardly at the +fact that he did not understand, and would surely be made to soon if his +calculations on the intentions of Miss Hawtry were correct. + +"I've arranged for a chair-car to take the whole company down to +Atlantic City Sunday morning, so the whole bunch can have a plunge and a +good rest-up before the Monday dress rehearsal." Mr. Farraday produced +that piece of business with great pride. + +"Good!" was all the commendation that he got, and he betook himself off +for other good-natured efforts on the affairs of "The Purple Slipper." + +Though at times Mr. Godfrey Vandeford approached the heroic in action, +he was very human in reflexes and, having paid a price for the happiness +of Miss Patricia Adair, he proceeded to partake of as much of that +happiness as he could get hold of. He captured the author of "The Purple +Slipper" after the rehearsals on Friday, which were the last before the +dress rehearsal in Atlantic City on Monday night, because the cast of a +play are, after all, so many human beings, who have to be given at least +a day for such animal functions as packing trunks, closing apartments, +dodging creditors, and severing home ties, and he carried her off to the +country with the intention of having her all to himself for dinner at a +little inn up Westchester way. After they had started in that direction +and were flying behind Valentine along sun-gilded country lanes, he +changed his mind, changed the road slightly, and had them landed under +the wing of Mrs. Farraday for dinner. He did this with direct intention. +He judged himself, and decided that it would be safest to announce to +Miss Adair that her play was to have the honor of opening the great New +Carnival Theatre on Broadway somewhere within two hundred yards of Mrs. +Farraday. This program he carried out with efficient directness and then +found a strange lacking in himself. + +"Oh, how wonderful you are!" was Miss Adair's exclamation when he had +imparted his news just as a young moon was silvering the poplar under +which they sat on an old stone bench at the bottom of the sunken garden. +"Everybody has said that you couldn't do it, but I didn't worry at all +like the rest of them. I knew that you could." + +"How did you know that I could do it?" he asked, and he rejoiced with +pride that his author did not yet know of either the existence or his +sacrifice of "The Rosie Posie Girl." + +"Why, I don't know--I knew just because I--I--" For the first time Mr. +Vandeford was absolutely certain of the flutter towards him, and at the +same time felt certain that he was the first man who ever had been +certain of it; and just as his breast and arms were hollowing themselves +to nest it he--denied it and himself. He didn't want it at a purchase +price, and he took Miss Adair home and locked her in the Y. W. C. A. +before midnight. + +The journey down to Atlantic City on Sunday morning was accomplished +with much joy and hilarity. The entire cast of "The Purple Slipper" +acted like boys and girls let out of school, and mischievous children at +that. Miss Adair enjoyed it all immensely, and at times she very timidly +joined in the fun, which was centering itself upon putting Mr. Leigh of +the uncertain feet, and Miss Grayson, the glowerer, into white ribbon +bonds, which bonds were supplied from a large box of bonbons, the +identity of the donor of which she refused to reveal, though Mr. Kent +declared he had brought her to the station in a gold limousine with +diamond wheels, and bore the name of Billy Astorbilt. + +Only Miss Hawtry held aloof, as she and her maid and various pieces of +ultra luggage occupied the four seats at the end of the car. The seat +next her was kept vacant, and at various times during the several hours' +run Mr. Vandeford, Mr. Height, and Miss Adair occupied it with +respectful tribute, but most of the time Mr. Farraday sat considerately +beside her, and smiled upon the fun. Mr. William Rooney and Fido rode in +the day-coach and worked the entire way on duplicate prompt copies. + +Also Mr. Rooney and Fido were absent that evening from the dinner-party +given by Mr. Farraday in the great new hotel to the entire cast of "The +Purple Slipper"--in honor of Miss Hawtry. They were working with the +stage-carpenter, the property-man, and the electrician until a late +hour, when they met the members of the dinner-party in pairs in +wheel-chairs being trundled along the board-walk for sea air before +retiring. + +"Hope the angel gave the bunch enough drink to keep 'em asleep until +two-thirty to-morrow," Mr. Rooney remarked to Fido as he spat out into +the Atlantic Ocean. "I'm going to put the gaff to 'em to-morrow night, +and I want to start with 'em unstrung and string 'em to suit myself. +That little author is some girl, but I wonder why Vandeford wanted to +shunt that white devil onto a nice boob like Farraday, and him his +friend, too," he further remarked as he watched the star and the angel +being trundled by in one of the big wicker perambulators that infest the +board walk. + +In the other direction were being trundled the author and the producer +of "The Purple Slipper," and at that moment they were in the mood of +fellow-workmen at the machine of "The Purple Slipper." + +"Rooney sent me word that the lighting is doubtful. This rotten little +theater is hard to count on for any kind of unusual lighting, and we +must have that diffusion for the dinner scene so as to make the candle +effect seem real," Mr. Vandeford was saying with great animation to Miss +Adair and with a total lack of sentiment under the same young moon that +had baffled him Friday night out in Westchester. + +"The whole thing seems a confused jumble to me," admitted Miss Adair. "I +feel as if I couldn't wait until to-morrow night to really see the play +with the costumes and scenery and love scenes and all in the right +place. And yet I'm so tired I feel as if I could sleep a week." + +"I'll shake you if you go dead on me here as you did the other night in +the car," threatened Mr. Vandeford, with a laugh, but he adjusted his +shoulder back of hers as if he considered the danger entirely real. + +"I'll certainly do it if you don't take me back where I belong, wherever +it is," threatened Miss Adair. "I hope Mildred isn't as--as tired as I +am and--and can help me. I'll go to bed with my clothes on if she +doesn't," Miss Adair gasped between yawns, and fluttered to Mr. +Vandeford with a frank intention of gaining support. + +"Back to the hotel, boy, and go a good pace. Double tip," commanded Mr. +Vandeford to their propelling Italian youth, with an alarm which puzzled +him as much as it would have puzzled many of his friends, while he +accorded his exhausted author the amount of support needed for the +occasion--and no more. + +And as Mr. Rooney had hoped, the entire cast of "The Purple Slipper" +slept into the afternoon of the dress-rehearsal day in the complete +collapse which the sea air induced, and they were in a good condition +for restringing. In fact, some of them began that process for themselves +by an afternoon plunge in the ocean. + +One of those plunges had an after-effect on the fate of "The Purple +Slipper" further than keying up Mr. Gerald Height for his dress +rehearsals. When he discovered, while detaining Miss Adair for a chat +after his late luncheon, that the author had never beheld the sea before +in all her inland existence, and had never been in it, he insisted on +procuring a bathing-suit and initiating her into that sport. She +assented to the proposition with the greatest eagerness, and in less +than half an hour she had trusted herself to the arms of Mr. Gerald +Height and the Atlantic Ocean. They were both rough in their handling, +and finally she came to resent the boldness of the former as much as she +enjoyed that of the latter. With crimson in her cheeks and lightning in +her eyes, she first attempted to drown them both, then waded to shore, +sat down on the sand, and said things to Mr. Gerald Height, which had +the magic effect of making him unburden himself and his lizard-like +career to her in its entirety. + +"You see, I didn't know what a girl who--who wrote your play was like +exactly, and because I couldn't find out I have kept on trying. +Now--now, by George, I know," he said, with a boyishness coming into his +murky eyes. "Say, you know my mother was a Kentucky girl, and I guess +that is one reason I have stuck by this fool--this 'Purple Slipper.' +That and wanting to chase you down." + +"Well, now that you've 'chased me down' and found that I'm not--not +there, you'll stay by me and 'The Purple Slipper,' won't you?" Miss +Adair asked, and then like two merry children they both laughed at her +jumble. + +"I will," answered Mr. Height, with the queer attachment in his heart +that a man feels for a perfectly good woman who is jolly and friendly +with him after she has allowed him to tell her just how wicked he is or +thinks he is. "I thought the whole thing was a flivver, but when +Vandeford got the opening of the New Carnival for it, I sat up and took +notice. Just you watch the stuff between Hawtry and me put a line a mile +long from the box office." + +"I'm wild to see you and Miss Hawtry in your scenes, and we must go to +dress for early dinner. The rehearsals are called for six-thirty. Thank +you for--for being my friend." As she rose from the sand Miss Adair held +out her hand to Mr. Height, with the friendliness and confidence in her +eyes that had smoothed over other rough, though not so rough, places of +the same character in her young life. + +"That's some kid and there are lots like her. I've got to halt sooner or +later," Mr. Height muttered to himself as he dressed for his early +dinner. "I'm going to put this fool play across for her, too." There are +a few women who distill loyalty out of declined passion; but not many. +They make their mark on their generation. + +The dress rehearsals of a play are varied in finish and intensity, but +the variety which Mr. William Rooney conducted was of the most +brilliant, and he expected them to go as well as the opening night. He +made small allowance for the strangeness of lights, scenery, and +costuming, and that allowance was only for time, not in smoothness. As +he willed, his cast generally performed. The cast of "The Purple +Slipper" was of experienced actors, and he felt certain that they would +meet his expectations. At six-thirty o'clock he seated himself in the +middle seat of the sixth row center, looked around to see that the +electrician and the costumer were at hand to catch any criticism he +wished to make, and in a crisp hard voice that exploded like a cannon he +called up the curtain. + +The author was at her post in the left stage box, and bulwarked and +buttressed by the producer as usual, while Mr. Dennis Farraday, the +angel, sat alone in the box opposite, with a delighted smile on his +broad face. + +The curtain went up, and "The Purple Slipper" glided on the stage with +never a creak or a careen. The lights scintillated and glared on the +wonderful costumes and scenery, and the sparkling dialogue began to +unwind itself into the startling plot. For the first ten minutes the +author glowed with such joyous excitement that the producer felt the +actual radiations; then little by little he felt her begin to cool, and +a chill ran up and down his own spine as Hawtry and Height held the +stage alone in the first dash of Howard-"pepped" dalliance near the last +of the first act. He held his breath, frozen within him, until the +curtain went down, and then he refused to turn to the author at his +side. He was in a panic and undecided what to do until Mr. Rooney +relieved him of the need of action. + +"Mr. Vandeford," he commanded from the middle of the theater, "get New +York on the wire and have Lindenberg start a good scenery man out on the +early morning train. That back-drop must have a toning wash: it jumps +out at the costumes. Lindenberg is in his office until seven to get a +message from you. It's ten to now. You gotter jump." + +Without a look at Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford "jumped," and thus she was +left alone to watch the second act grind along to its climax, with +Hawtry acting the high-bred virago with an extremity of brilliant +sensuality, with Mr. Height supporting her in broad lines that could be +well-read between. Once the author looked at Mr. Dennis Farraday in the +box opposite, and then looked away from his blazing enjoyment of the +startling climax, which the lovers acted in such beauty of body, and +such beauty of execution that, without knowing why, she was thrilled +from her head to her feet. + +"Broad standards," she whispered to encourage herself, as her eyes shone +and her cheeks glowed as she lowered her head and re-read the proof of +the program to be used on Tuesday night, which Mr. Vandeford had given +her and upon which she observed the name Patricia Adair in type only +slightly smaller than that of Violet Hawtry. In a few minutes the +curtain was again called up; Mr. Vandeford was still absent, and again +her attention was riveted to the stage. + +Almost the entire first half of the last act was hers, and the tension +in her glowing young body had relaxed and she gave Mr. Vandeford a +semblance of a smile as he seated himself beside her just before Hawtry +came on the scene to lay with Height the foundation of the great dinner +scene. This hurdle was held firmly in front of the young author. + +Miss Hawtry entered in a blaze of eighteenth century glory, only with +her authentic costume cunningly contrived to reveal more of her +wonderful white body than any woman of that period would have done, and +beautiful in his velvet and ruffles, Gerald Height followed her to +thereupon enact a scene which was a slow and marvellous distilling of +the very wine of emotion intended to go through human blood like a +stinging poison. It had reached its climax, and even the emptiness of +the theater was breathless when, like a whip, Mr. Rooney's cold voice +brought Miss Hawtry out of Mr. Height's arms. + +"Cut it, cut it!" he commanded. "You couldn't get that across even on +Broadway. The censor will close the show. Play it fifty per cent. and +then all the subway will quit you." + +"I'll play it as I choose, you black monkey, you, with your Irish name." +Maggie Murphy sprang out from the body of the beautiful Hawtry to answer +back gutter with gutter. + +"Wait a minute, Miss Hawtry." Mr. Vandeford rose in his box from beside +the author of the violent scene that was becoming a basis of a scene of +violence. "Rooney, it can be played with--" + +"You sit down and help your bread-and-butter baby hide her face for +writing such rot instead of trying to tell me how to act." Maggie was +now commanding the Violet, and she was wild with nervous rage. "She's +welcome to you; five years of your living off me and my work is enough, +and I don't intend to--" + +"Back to your lines on which Miss Hawtry enters, Miss Lindsey," +commanded Mr. Rooney, in his machine-gun manner. "Get ready for your +cue, Height." + +Completely ignoring Miss Hawtry, who was standing down center, Mildred +Lindsey calmly entered and began the beautiful little bit of persiflage +with Miss Herne, who had gone on before her with an agility unlike her +usual slow gait. There was nothing for Miss Hawtry to do but retire to +the wings, which she did, and with the nervous bomb exploded, she +continued the rehearsals to a finish with the greatest brilliancy, +playing the interrupted scene at fifty per cent. of its fire, as +directed by Mr. Rooney. + +But the author of "The Purple Slipper" was not there to see the ending +in calm after the storm, for she had fled at the Violet's attack upon +Mr. Vandeford, and while he stood his ground to see the matter settled +in the face of the insult, she had vanished. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +At twelve-thirty Mr. Rooney was still in the theater with his +property-man and his electrician, but just before one he left through +the stage-door. + +"All over, old man, you can put out your lights, lock up, and beat it," +he said to the old gentleman who had sat year after year and kept the +gates of his Inferno. + +"Star still in her dressing-room, gent with her," the old keeper +answered, as he leered at Mr. Rooney, and accepted the big black cigar +offered him. + +"Big, red-headed chap with the show?" Mr. Rooney questioned carelessly. + +"Same," admitted the old keeper. + +"Cuss her," Mr. Rooney remarked, without either special interest or +malice, and took his leisurely way to his hotel. + +The star dressing-room at the little Atlantic City theater, in which +half the plays produced on Broadway first try out their charm, is larger +than the dressing-rooms in most of the modern theaters, and dainty +Susette always made any dressing-room which happened to serve Miss +Hawtry look more like a boudoir than seemed possible, by taking thought +to have silky rose curtains to adjust over costume-racks and windows, +with covers to match to be slipped over the couple of rough chairs +usually supplied dressing-rooms. A fillet covering large enough for any +dressing-table, the silver and ivory of the make-up outfit, and lights +shaded with the fillet over rose were about all the equipment that the +French girl carried in the top of one of Miss Hawtry's costume trunks, +but she managed an effect with them that many a Fifth Avenue decorator +might envy. Following instructions, she had put all in exquisite order +and left the theater before Miss Hawtry was off the stage. The Violet +had been obliged to send her summons to Mr. Dennis Farraday by the old +door-keeper; hence his knowledge of her manoeuvers. + +Miss Hawtry was still encased in the magnificence of the costume for the +final scene of "The Purple Slipper," and in the rose light of the little +dressing-room she glowed like a fire-hearted opal as Mr. Dennis Farraday +entered with the great hesitation of a first appearance in a stage +dressing-room. His face was pale and serious. Miss Hawtry had seen that +her Maggie Murphy insult to Mr. Vandeford had apparently cut more deeply +into the big Jonathan than into Mr. Vandeford himself, and she had +realized that she must set her scene well and act quickly and with +daring if she accomplished her purposes. + +"Forgive me--and comfort me. I have hurt myself more than I have hurt +him," she cried out as she turned to him and expelled two sparkling +tears from her great blue eyes, and held out bare, white, glorious arms +to him, with the sob of a repentant child caught in her throat. + +Now, Mr. Dennis Farraday, great gentleman and the son of a line of +gentlemen, was in the same state that many another good man and true +would be in after witnessing "The Purple Slipper" as played by Miss +Hawtry in her compelling animality, and his angry eyes suddenly blazed +with another light than anger, as with a hard breath he admitted the +big, beautiful, treacherous cat into his arms and allowed her bare arms +to coil around his neck and her body to cling to his. + +"How could you--how can you?" he asked, and the question on his lips +made them cold, and kept them from hers--long enough. + +Mr. Vandeford stood in the dressing-room door without so much as rapping +for permission to enter, and his face was dead white while his eyes +blazed in a great terror. He seemed not to notice the purport of the +scene he had interrupted, but his voice cut into the situation like cold +steel. + +"Denny, we can't find Miss Adair anywhere, and here's a note she left +Miss Lindsey. What do you make of it?" He handed Mr. Farraday a sheet of +hotel note-paper, which he took with a trembling hand while Miss Hawtry +shrank back against her lace-covered dressing-table and gathered her +forces to annihilate Mr. Vandeford. This was the note, which Mr. +Farraday read with one glance, but failed to read to Miss Hawtry, +because its few lines struck all consciousness of her existence entirely +from his mind. + + _Dear Mildred_: + + Dishonor has never smirched the name of Adair until I put it on + that theater program. I have branded the annals of my family, and I + never want to look into a human face again. Good-by. You've been + good to me. + + PATRICIA. + +"My God! What do you suppose she means?" Mr. Farraday gasped, as he +looked in abject terror at Mr. Vandeford, who returned his glance in +kind. + +"And I promised Roger to take care of her," Mr. Farraday gasped, and +without so much as a glance at Miss Hawtry, both men departed with all +the rapidity possible. There must be some reason that all bonds +without-the-law are so brittle, and those of friendship and honor and +love so strong within the code. + +Miss Hawtry did some rapid thinking, as unaided, she slipped from the +costume of the star of "The Purple Slipper" into her normal raiment and +character. Then she called a wheel-chair and had herself trundled to the +hotel. While she was propelled, many other wheels were turning and +turning fast. + +"What does Miss Lindsey think is the matter, and where she is?" Mr. +Farraday questioned Mr. Vandeford as they strode along together down the +board-walk towards the hotel. + +"She says it's that rotten scene between Hawtry and Height that's killed +her, and she is right. I felt her die right there by my side," Mr. +Vandeford answered. + +"You two don't think she would really put an end to--to herself about a +play, do you?" demanded Mr. Farraday, and he fairly staggered as he +asked the question. Then not waiting for an answer, he began to run +toward the entrance of the hotel half a block ahead. Just as he was +turning into the doors with Mr. Vandeford closely following, an Italian +wheel-chair boy darted out of the dusk of his stand, and plucked the +latter by the sleeve; then together they went racing back the way Mr. +Vandeford had come. + +Half way down the long arbor, dusky under its vines, Mr. Farraday met +Miss Lindsey, and in the subdued light they paused and looked into each +other's faces; then entirely to the surprise of them both, they went +into each other's arms and clung together like two frightened children. +Miss Lindsey was smothering sobs which made her tender breast storm +against Mr. Farraday's, in whose own a heart was racing with terror. + +"I don't blame her; it was loathsome, and it was about her own +grandmother," Miss Lindsey managed to say in a fierce, beautiful voice. + +"You don't think, do you, that--" Mr. Farraday was gasping as he held +Miss Lindsey still tighter against the racing heart, which was beginning +to slow down and pound against hers with a slightly different speed. +However, the terror in his voice made Miss Lindsey press him to her with +sustaining closeness. + +"She's Southern and different, and I don't know what to think," she was +saying, and in the absorption of their terror they failed to notice that +Miss Hawtry passed them not six feet away in her wicker chair. + +And while they clung to each other and enjoyed their fright and anxiety +together, Miss Hawtry went into the telephone-booth and got a +long-distance connection with Mr. Weiner in New York in an incredibly +short time. Their conversation was almost as incredibly short in view of +its portentousness, but while it lasted, Mr. Gerald Height and Mr. +William Rooney had been added to the group of anxiety under the arbor, +and they were all in close conclave, though not in embrace, when Miss +Hawtry returned to them, walking with cool determination in every step. + +"Mr. Farraday," Miss Hawtry said, with a serenity in her rich voice and +manner, "I will have to tell you as Mr. Vandeford's partner in 'The +Purple Slipper' that I am entirely dissatisfied with the way the play +proves up at dress rehearsal and refuse to open in it. As I am under no +contract to him since Saturday night, I am motoring back to New York +to-night to begin rehearsals to-morrow in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' for Mr. +Weiner. Good-night!" With a stately curtsy to the assembled principals +of "The Purple Slipper," very dramatic in execution, the Violet bowed +herself away from them forever. Ten minutes after she was on her way +back to Manhattan in a big touring-car provided by the hotel management +per a telephone order from Mr. Weiner of New York. + +"And Van sold 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' for her opening on Broadway in the +New Carnival Theater with 'The Purple Slipper,'" Mr. Farraday gasped as +he sat down suddenly on one of the benches in the dim little arbor. + +"Lord, what a lose, both shows and maybe--maybe Miss Adair, too," Mr. +Gerald Height exclaimed, and there were both sympathy and anxiety in his +voice. + +"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Rooney, as he rolled his fat cigar from the +left of his mouth to the right and spat into the vines. "I've made a +pretty good play out of 'The Purple Slipper.' It will go all right +without her. Actors aren't so much. It's the situation and the +stage-managing." + +"That's what you think," jeered Mr. Gerald Height, gloomily. "I always +had a hunch that I would never play wig and ruffles." + +"Can that hunch," commanded Mr. Rooney. "I'm going to put Miss Lindsey +in the part and play it refined for a winner. Been understudying Miss +Hawtry, haven't you, Miss Lindsey?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Lindsey, and a sudden radiance shone from her dark, +intellectual face that lit up the whole arbor and lighted a flame in the +creative hearts of both Mr. Gerald Height and Mr. William Rooney. And +what it lighted in the hearts of both of those gentlemen was nothing to +the blaze it fanned in the heart of Mr. Dennis Farraday, where it had +been smouldering along from a spark touched off the day of the beefsteak +and mushrooms. "If you'll help me play it as I have seen it all along, +Mr. Rooney, I can go on to-morrow night." + +"Good," agreed Mr. Rooney. "I'll shove Miss Grayson up into your part, +and cut out hers until we get a girl. We'll get the little author busy +right now, blotting out the Hawtry smell and putting you in, as I say, +refined and--" + +"Oh, but where _is_ she?" moaned Mr. Farraday, coming back to his agony +of uneasiness, which had been drugged by hearing and seeing "The Purple +Slipper" and Mr. Vandeford's fortunes rescued and reconstructed right +before his ears and eyes. + +"There ain't but two places for a refined lady to run in Atlantic +City,--the railroad station and the ocean,--and I bet Mr. Vandeford is +lugging her from the railroad station right now," Mr. Rooney said with +easy conviction. "Course she'd dodge back to the Christian ladies home +the first mud-puddle she stepped into, but we'll set her on her feet and +rub the splashes off her white stockings and--" + +Mr. Rooney was interrupted in his kindly flow of reassurance by the +appearance of a wheel-chair propelled by the shrewd Italian youth, who +had that evening made his individual fortune, in which sat Mr. Vandeford +and the author of "The Purple Slipper." Without command, he stopped +beside the group of friends, and Mr. Vandeford alighted, but Miss Adair +shrank back into the shadow of the perambulator. + +"Oh, darling, listen," cried Miss Lindsey, as she reached into that +retreat and drew Miss Adair into her arms. "Miss Hawtry has thrown up +the part and gone back to New York, and I am going to act it for you +just as you and I have talked about it all this time. Mr. Rooney is +going to help us, and we--we are going to make good for you--and Mr. +Vandeford--to-morrow night. We are!" + +"Just watch us, Miss Adair. I'll do my best, and I'll--I'll be like we +talked the other day," Mr. Height said as he came to the other side of +the wicker retreat of the hunted author. Something in his voice made Mr. +Dennis Farraday put his arm around the lizard's shoulders, a thing he +would not have thought of doing a week ago. + +"We are all going to stand by, little girl, and it'll be some play that +we produce at the New Carnival October first," Mr. Farraday put in by +way of his contribution to the wounded young author. + +However, it was the crack of Mr. Rooney's whip that brought her to her +feet again. + +"Miss Adair, you and Lindsey come back with me to the theater now," he +commanded the shrinking and tragic author. "Somebody get Fido and tell +him to wake up everybody and have 'em all at the theater to rehearse in +a hour; that'll be three o'clock. Mr. Vandeford, you'd better get in a +press story over long distance before Hawtry beats you to it. You may +catch a morning paper or two. Now, everybody get out and work like fun +and we'll show Broadway a sure-fire hit October first." + +"Can you do it, Bill?" Mr. Vandeford asked in a quiet voice. It was the +first time he had spoken since he had coolly and silently picked Miss +Adair up off a bench in the little railroad station and put her into the +sympathetic young Dago's one-man-power conveyance. + +"I can take ten yards of calico, a pot of red wagon paint, and a pretty +gal and make a show to fill any theater on Broadway for six months--if +I'm let alone," answered Mr. Rooney, with the assurance that moves +mountains. "That Lindsey is one good actor with common horse-sense, and +the little author filly has Blue-grass speed. Watch us!" + +"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, and steel sparks struck out in his keen +eyes as he turned and went rapidly to one of the long-distance telephone +booths with which all Atlantic City keeps up its intimate relations with +New York. It was also astonishing how quickly he got his connection with +a great New York morning paper and was put on the desk wire of one of +the junior editors, who was a good friend in need. + + . . . . . . + +"Hello, Curt. Godfrey Vandeford speaking." + + . . . . . . + +"With my show in Atlantic City. Can you get a note across in the morning +issue?" + + . . . . . . + +"Good! Spread it that Hawtry is put out of 'The Purple Slipper' cast to +give place to a new Pacific Coast star, Mildred Lindsey. Hawtry handed +it to Denny and me rotten, but put that under pretty deep, with Lindsey +blazed in top lines. I'll have my publicity man send you a special +Lindsey Sunday story. Hot stuff." + + . . . . . . + +"Thanks, old man! By!" + + * * * * * + +Another fifteen minutes was spent in long distance communication with +Mr. Meyers, and it was ten minutes after three o'clock in the morning +when Mr. Vandeford slipped into his chair beside his author in the +little Atlantic City Theater, which Mr. Rooney had induced the old night +watchman door-keeper to open up at the hour when all teeming Atlantic +City is in the depths of repose. Mr. Rooney had with him the entire cast +of "The Purple Slipper," to whom he had just finished explaining the +cause of their extraction from their well-earned repose. + +"Most of the Sister Harriet scenes are with me," Miss Bebe Herne was +saying, with efficient energy fairly radiating from her big body, +clothed in a decorous tailor skirt, but with a boudoir jacket serving +for blouse. Also two kid curlers showed at the nape of her neck. "I can +feed Miss Grayson into Miss Lindsey's part enough to get by +to-morrow--to-night I mean. And Wallace can do the same when he's on +with her. That ugly white cat Hawtry to double on Godfrey Vandeford +after he pulled her out of Weehawken!" + +"Get on, get on, everybody, and use your brains until they lather," +commanded Mr. Rooney as he took his stand beside the left stage box. +"Now, Miss, you gimme lines out of your head or your first draft when I +call for 'em, and I'll take 'em or leave 'em as suits me. Then you +smooth the ones I hand you into good talk, and we'll have a show here +by sun-up that you'll be proud to invite your Christian lady friends to +attend. And we'll keep all the 'pep' too, Vandeford, that you paid +Howard to write into it, only we'll take the Hawtry dirt out of it. On, +Betty Carrington, and the curtain's up." + +Then from three o'clock in the morning until almost noon the machinery +of "The Purple Slipper" was overhauled and adjusted to the new cog. Mr. +Rooney lashed and rubbed and polished and oiled with never a let-up on +anybody, and beside him sat the author, with her head up and the bit in +her mouth. For every line that rang untrue in the reconstruction she had +a true one or she took a crude bit from Mr. Rooney and polished it into +place. Fido sat crouched in a front seat and transcribed every word into +his prompt copy so as to be a veritable first aid. + +And Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, experienced show man that he was, felt as if +he was witnessing a miracle as he beheld Miss Adair's original "Purple +Slipper," with its haphazard amateur charm, again put forth bud and +bloom on the branches of Grant Howard's tight-knit, well-constructed, +and well-rounded drama. The highly-colored flowers of Hawtry personality +Mr. Rooney pruned away and constructed others for Lindsey, and Miss +Adair lent them color and perfume in passing them to the new star, who +was working steadily, slowly, surely, and with great power. + +"Don't tell him that his eyes 'burn into yours until your soul is +seared.' That's old. We got to get a kind of smile here where Hawtry +looked like she was going to do the ham sandwich act to Height and his +silk tights." Mr. Rooney stopped the abhorred scene, being acted along +about six o'clock in the morning, to demand that it be played in the +proper key, up to which he had succeeded in wringing lines from Miss +Adair for the first act and most of the second. "What do hearts do to +each other that's hot and decent and funny all at once?" Mr. Rooney +fired this biological question to the author of "The Purple Slipper," +and looked at her with a demand for an immediate answer in his little, +black, driving eyes. + +"She can say 'There's chaff in my heart; guard the fire in yours,'" Miss +Adair supplied offhand. + +"That hands it to him, and a good double meaning, too," Mr. Rooney +approved. "Go ahead, Height, but don't get this lady mixed with the +other kind. Remember, she lives at the ladies Christian home." The laugh +that greeted this sally was an uproar that added to the dash and quick +fire of the big scene, which Miss Adair and Mr. Rooney had so quickly +expurgated and reconstructed between them. + +At seven o'clock the play had been entirely run through, and Fido had +the result in his prompt copy and was beginning to rapidly write it into +their lines for each of the cast. + +"One half hour to get breakfast and Miss Herne's back hair down," Mr. +Rooney said, with the callousness of a slave-driver. "Then if you run +through again fairly well we'll be done by noon, and everybody can hit +the hay for six hours." + +Mr. Vandeford watched his author's proud little head droop on the box +rail in front of her, and with his face very white he motioned Mr. +Farraday to come to her. After his degrading the night before at the +hands of Miss Hawtry, he felt that he would be unable to endure the pain +of the repulsion he felt sure he would find in her eyes if she ever +looked at him again. + +But his summons of Mr. Farraday failed in peremptoriness, for that big, +bonny gentleman nodded to him, then stood in the wing to catch Miss +Lindsey in his arms and bear her away to immediate nourishment. In the +excitement of the last few hours a domesticity had grown up between Mr. +Farraday and Miss Lindsey that it would have taken months to build in a +world less hectic than that in which they were then living. + +Their courtship had been brief, and consisted in one question, asked by +Mr. Farraday while Miss Lindsey stood in the wings waiting for a +moderated, impassioned cue from Mr. Height, and answered by her as she +responded to him and the call of her stage lover at the same moment. + +"When will you marry me?" + +"When 'The Purple Slipper' goes on Broadway." + +In the circumstances it was natural that Mr. Dennis Farraday should take +Miss Lindsey for a reminiscent beefsteak and mushrooms during the only +free half hour she would have for either him or food in the ensuing day, +and to fail to heed Mr. Vandeford's summon. + +Thus deserted, Mr. Vandeford was about to steal forth and appeal to some +member of the cast of "The Purple Slipper" to come to his rescue in +providing refreshment to restore the author during the precious half +hour respite when "the chaff in his heart" caught fire and began to burn +away forever. Miss Adair raised her eyes to his, with the faith still +in their wounded depths, and smiled a wan little smile. + +"Please get me a glass of milk with an egg in it, and some of that +brown-bread turkey," she demanded. "I'm dead, but I'll come alive again +if I go to sleep a minute. Shake me when you get back with it, but get +something for yourself while you are gone." + +"The kiddie, the precious, spunky kiddie," Mr. Vandeford said in his +heart over and over as he and the young Italian rushed to the hotel and +back with a waiter and a tray of the desired refreshment, to which had +been added an iced melon and a couple of bedewed roses. + +The shaking had to be literally administered while young Dago Italiana +held the tray, and then had to be repeated several times by Mr. +Vandeford, as he almost as literally fed his exhausted author, up until +the very minute in which Mr. Rooney rang up the curtain and again called +her into action. + +Five hours was more than enough for the smooth running of the three-hour +"Purple Slipper" show, and at eleven o'clock Mr. Rooney dismissed his +jaded cast with this strict command delivered in his rich, deep voice, +which held a note of genuine solemnity. + +"All of you go to sleep every minute between now and night, and then +come back here and make good--for all of us." + +With the assistance of young Dago Italiana, Mr. Vandeford delivered Miss +Adair to a hotel maid, who accepted five dollars from him as a fee for +putting her to bed, and then he plunged into still greater +strenuosities. + +He sat for three hours with his skilled young publicity man and +advance-agent, and laid out a discreet, dignified, but very interesting, +publicity campaign for the new star of "The Purple Slipper." Due +importance was to be given in all the notices that "The Purple Slipper" +was to open the New Carnival Theater and in his heart the young +advertiser put away the intention of making the fact that Mr. Vandeford +had sold Hawtry and "The Rosie Posie Girl" for "The Purple Slipper," his +most brilliant reserve story to set all of Broadway, at least, agog for +the opening of the expensive new play. + +"It puts 'The Purple Slipper' at the big end of the horn, and it's not +your fault that there is only the little end of the horn left for 'The +Rosie Posie Girl' for the time being," he explained to Mr. Vandeford. +"You see, it is a kind of double-cross that acts both ways. If it goes, +people will think it was worth your paying a big price for, and if it +fails, they'll think the 'Rosie Posie Girl' couldn't have been much if +you traded a chance on such a poor show for it." + +"Goes!" said Mr. Vandeford, but he was aware that the smart manoeuver, +which would once have delighted his soul, made him intensely weary. + +In fact, so fatigued did he feel when he left this young press schemer, +that he dropped into his bed for an hour, and had a masseur come and +pound him into condition to go to the train with good Dennis Farraday to +meet Mrs. Farraday, Mrs. and Mr. and Miss Van Tyne, who arrived at five +o'clock from big Manhattan. Mr. Farraday had had a like operation +performed upon himself, and was in such a radiant condition that Mr. +Vandeford felt badly eclipsed beside him. + +"What does it all mean about Miss Hawtry and Miss Lindsey and the show, +Van?" Mrs. Farraday questioned, with greater anxiety in her face than +she had had at any other opening night of her favorite's successful +shows. "Are we going to have a terrible time?" + +"I'm going to put you in a wheel-chair and let Denny take you up to the +north end of the board-walk and tell you all about it while I locate and +make comfortable the rest of the folks," Mr. Vandeford answered with a +deep relief at her presence in his eyes. + +"Where are my girls?" she questioned. + +"Both dead--asleep," he answered, as if deeply happy to be able to say +it of his star and his author. + +His statement was only partly true, for while Miss Adair slept the sleep +of the emotionally unanxious, Mildred Lindsey sat crouched by her +window, with her eyes looking far out over the Atlantic Ocean, waiting +for the result of Mr. Dennis Farraday's talk with his mother at the +north end of the board-walk. + +There are occasionally mothers who bear sons who can tell them all about +things, and Mrs. Farraday really enjoyed the whole story that big, +bonnie Dennis poured out to her at the sunset hour by the brink of old +ocean, Dago Italiana squatting on his heels out of hearing and basking +in inactivity, from the moment of the beefsteak episode in his and Miss +Lindsey's acquaintance up to the moment in which Miss Hawtry had +established herself in his arms on the occasion of his debut in a stage +dressing-room. And even at that stage of the narration she rather +astonished Mr. Farraday, who was shamefaced enough at the telling, by +saying with soft pity in her motherly voice: + +"The poor woman. Of course she couldn't help loving you, and now she's +lost both Van and you. Now go on and tell me about Mildred." + +"She--she's the best ever," was Mr. Farraday's explicit and enlightening +answer. + +"Of course she is. I saw that the time you brought her to dinner with +me, and also that you were in love with her. She's really a rather +wonderful girl, and--and--Dennis, I'll tell you something that I never +expected to tell you--I've always wanted to be an actress. I simply +adore that Lindsey girl, and I know she'll make a great actress. Why on +earth should she want to marry you?" Which goes to show that +aristocratic Mrs. Farraday was not the ordinary mother. + +"Let's go ask her," roared big Dennis, as he embraced her in a way that +made the sympathetic and now wealthy young Dago Italiana flash his white +teeth in joy. + +And nobody can say how much the fate of "The Purple Slipper" was +affected by the fact that Rosalind went upon the stage for her first +appearance as a star, straight from the tender arms of stately, +white-haired Mrs. Farraday. + +The opening night of "The Purple Slipper," by Patricia Adair, produced +by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and staged by Mr. William Rooney, was a +triumph undisputed and acknowledged by a brilliant cosmopolitan audience +such as Atlantic City furnishes any play presented to it before +September the twenty-fifth, for up until that week on the board-walk of +that resort East meets West and the South joins them. The eminent author +sat in the left stage box with Mrs. Justus Farraday of New York and Mr. +and Mrs. Derick Van Tyne, and at her side was a chair into which at +times dropped Mr. Dennis Farraday, but which had been reserved for the +producer. Things had gone brilliantly from the start, from the moment +the curtain went up with polished, interesting Miss Herne manoeuvering +the frightened and substituted Betty Carrington through the opening +dialogue. A veritable gasp of joy had greeted the beautiful Mr. Gerald +Height as he entered in his colonial wig, ruffles, and velvet, and his +big eyes under their bowed brows sought out the author and smiled at her +with a genuine pledge of loyalty which no lizard could ever have given +forth as he glided richly into his archaic banter with Miss Herne. + +"He'll get 'em going, get 'em going the whole dame bunch from Harlem to +the Battery," muttered Mr. Rooney to Fido, who stood in the wings, with +his eyes glued to the much annotated prompt copy. "Now watch out for +Lindsey; she's doing forty sides of new stuff in twenty hours. Me for +the stock company to train 'em young. Let her rip, Rosalind!" And with a +nod Mr. Rooney sent his "bet" out upon the stage to make the audience +forget that they had paid their money to see Violet Hawtry and make them +glad to have paid it to see her. + +As Mildred Lindsey stepped out on the stage in all the glory of an +almost unbelievable beauty, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, who sat with his +shoulder back of that of the author of his play, seemed to behold a +vision with his trained theatrical foresight. This slender, powerful +young woman, with the rose dusk of the prairie sun on her cheeks, the +depths of the great canons in her dark eyes, and the breadth of the far +horizons across her broad brow seemed to him to typify the rise of order +in her profession, over which so long had ruled chaos. And as her rich +voice led the intrigued audience from one brilliant scene to another, in +which she reincarnated before their eyes a very flower of the old +Southern chivalry with dash, finish, and lucidity, he felt as if he had +done his best and now had a right to be allowed to depart in peace from +the world of tinsel and illusion. As Lindsey and Height held the +audience spell-bound while the tempted wife dueled with her might +against the tender and desperate lover, placing, with a combined art +that was as great as any he had ever witnessed, the "big scene" of "The +Purple Slipper" among the "big scenes" of the modern stage instead of in +the class of lascivious masterpieces where the night before Hawtry had +laid it, Mr. Vandeford looked down into the gray eyes of the girl who +had had it all in her blood for generations, and who had so brilliantly +given it birth, and felt a prophecy rise within him that soon the +American drama would begin to draw on the wealth of tradition which had +been piling up in a vast storage for it, and that when it did, +dramatists and actors, men and women, would rise to interpret it to a +wondering world. + +"Is it really mine?" she asked him, in proud surprise and wonder. + +"Yes, it's yours--filtered through Howard and Rooney and all the rest, +but--it--is--you," he answered. "You lost it a dozen times, but--his +own comes back to a man or a woman." + +His eyes blazed so that the long lashes lowered over the stars in hers, +and she saw the curtain fall on the last scene in a mist of tears. The +onrush of applause that raised the curtain half a dozen times was +confused in her by the pounding of Mr. Vandeford's heart back of her +shoulder and the echo in her own. + +"Fifty weeks and then some, Van," she heard the young press-agent +declare, in business-like congratulation. + +"Sure-fire hit," Mr. Rooney pronounced, as he spat on the stage floor +behind the curtain. "Rehearsals at ten to-morrow to tighten up, Fido. Me +for the hay." Miss Adair had gone back of the footlights to cast her +gratitude into his arms, and he had failed to notice her appearance in +any way at all, but had spat and gone on his autocratic way. Perhaps in +the New World of the Theater, stage-managers may be able to afford to be +human, perhaps not. + +Mr. Vandeford's supper-party to the cast of "The Purple Slipper" and the +friends from New York who had come down to see its try-out, lasted until +two o'clock in the morning, but when it was over neither the moon, which +was as full that night as Mr. Kent had become by coffee and cigars, nor +Dago Italiana had retired, and both stayed on their jobs out at the +south end of the board walk, where boards melt off into sand and ocean +and sky. + +Mr. Godfrey Vandeford had got about two thirds of the way along the +painful stretch of autobiography, with which he was inflicting agony on +himself by recounting to Miss Adair, when she raised her gray eyes to +his with the faith and reverence still at their average level, even +slightly higher, and stopped his punishment. + +"I understand exactly why people like you and Miss Hawtry don't marry +each other," she astonished him by saying in all calmness. "Mr. Height +explained it all to me the other day. Actors and actresses have +peculiar temperaments that fly together when they ought not to, and fly +apart when they ought to stay together. I know just how that is because +I feel--" + +"Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, as he laid his hands on the shoulders +of his author, who was standing close to him, with the moonlight full on +her clear-cut, high-bred face, and he gave her a savage shake. "The +whole crazy bunch will have to have law and order shot into 'em or the +theatrical profession will follow horse-racing to the devil. If they +don't give up unfaith and the double-cross Broadway will open some night +and swallow them all. And here you come out of a real world and say to +me--" + +"What did you think I was going to say?" demanded Miss Adair, pressing +so close to him that it was impossible for him to administer another +shake. + +"I don't know and I don't want to hear it. I'm afraid to have you say +anything to me." + +"It was this: I was going to ask you what I would have done if you had +been married to Miss Hawtry when I got to you and we had begun to +produce our play together. It's different when men and women work +together! Standards have to be broader. How do I know that I would have +run away to--" + +"Don't, don't!" pleaded Mr. Vandeford as she crept still nearer to him +and forcibly tried to open his arms for herself. "I'm punished. I've +taught you myself! When I leave you how'll I ever know if I'm going to +find you there when I come back?" + +"Well, how'd you expect to find me--me--there if you don't take me +there?" Miss Adair pleaded as she tugged at his folded arms, with such +energy that her polished thumb-nail slightly marked his iron wrists. + +"I'm not worthy, child, I'm not worthy," Mr. Vandeford answered with +grim words, and his arms still taut against his breast. + +"You have to judge yourself with the same--same 'broad standards' I +judge you by, like you told me to use. Please open your arms!" + +"I take those broad standards away from you." + +"Jesus Christ gave them to me, only I didn't understand in Adairville." + +"God, I wish you had never left Adairville." + +"I know what there is for us to do." + +"What?" + +"I'll go back and marry you by Adairville narrow standards for better +and for worse, and then we'll have to keep 'em for ourselves when we +come back, because we did it knowing what we know, but let other people +be broad wherever they are without judging them. I'm going to drop +asleep right here on the sand if you don't open your arms." + +"Oh, good Lord, what did You make women out of?" Mr. Vandeford said in +all reverence and bewilderment, as he took the "white flame" to his +breast and drew it past her lips until it burned away all the chaff in +his soul and established itself upon its altar. + +After Mr. Vandeford had again delivered his author to the hopeful maid, +waiting up for another greenback, he met Mr. Rooney at the desk of the +hotel still on his way to "the hay." + +"Closed up with Weiner to begin rehearsing 'The Rosie Posie Girl' on +Tuesday, after we open 'The Purple Slipper' in the New Carnival. Said +Hawtry wouldn't sign up until I had signed too. She's got a hunch for +me. If you fail, their show goes in in your place; if you win, Weiner +shunts John Drew or Arliss out to one of his other theaters on the road, +and puts in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.' Good business, eh?" And Mr. Rooney +rolled his cigar from east to west and questioned Mr. Vandeford, with a +new fire for a new undertaking beginning to burn in his little black +eyes. + +"Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with all cordiality, and not even +thinking of his lost thousands. "It will go big, Rooney, and I'll be +glad--none gladder." + +"Sure," answered Mr. Rooney. "It's all in the business. Everybody on +Broadway is out to stab everybody else--but mostly it's paper daggers if +you take it right." + +"A tissue-paper world sewed together with tinsel thread," Mr. Vandeford +murmured, as he fell asleep with his cheek pillowed on the wrist that +Miss Adair had marked in the struggle for her own. + +A week from that night "The Purple Slipper" had its first night on +Broadway, and opened the New Carnival Theater in a blaze of glory, +publicity, and electric lights. The talented young press-agent had done +his work well, and the audience assembled was the most brilliant +possible, made up of the usual blase critics, eager theatrical people +who were not on the boards themselves, and interested and distinguished +men and women from many outer worlds. In the box facing the one occupied +by Mrs. Justus Farraday, in a blaze of both the Farraday and Justus +jewels and prestige, and the beautiful young author of the play, with +her son Mr. Dennis Farraday, and the producer, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, +sat Miss Violet Hawtry with Mr. Weiner, the owner of the beautiful new +theater which was opening its doors for the first time on Broadway. When +the curtain fell upon the new Lindsey star after its eighth elevation, +the Violet rushed behind the scenes and took that astonished young woman +in her arms, with the real tears of emotion, with which one genuine +artist greets another, in her great blue eyes. + +"You were wonderful, my dear, perfectly wonderful," she exclaimed. "You +see, Van, I never could have done it like that. Good luck to both of +you, and the little author--oh, there you are, my dear! All of you shake +hands with Mr. Weiner. He's so pleased that he is speechless, but he's +going to give you a big banquet on your fiftieth performance. He's +promised me." + +Which demonstration was perfectly in keeping with Miss Hawtry and +Maggie Murphy's character, and emanated from that quality within her +that a month later put "The Rosie Posie Girl" up as high and as +brilliant in electric lights as "The Purple Slipper," and kept it there +an entire year. Which goes to prove that the "tissue paper world" is yet +of heroic fibre. + +When Mr. Vandeford went to insert his author into the international +safety that evening at about the hour of midnight, he saw that his +friend the secretary was shooing a chattering party of Christian ladies, +who, as his guests, had sat in a group, fifth row center, in the New +Carnival Theater that evening, off up-stairs. With his talisman key, +which had never left his pocket since it had been presented to him, in +his hand, he paused to speak in a friendly shadow to his successful and +now truly eminent playwright. + +"You'll have to go South Thursday, and I'll follow Sunday to get that +little marriage business over in Adairville before we leave for the +Klondike. My commission has arrived from Washington, and the Secretary +of the Navy wants quick reports of the copper before the big freeze. Do +you suppose I can keep you warm in Eskimo furs and--and my heart?" + +"Yes," answered Miss Adair, with the flutter which Mr. Vandeford now +answered, without any conscious volition. "There ought to be a great +play out of the Klondike. Jack London could have done it, but--but--" +the faithful gray eyes were raised to his with the flame in their +depths. + +With a groan, but an answering flame, Mr. Vandeford replied: + +"It's a fatal drag--. Yes. Some day we'll come back and try to put +across another one!" + + + THE END + + * * * * * + + +Transcriber's note + + +The following changes have been made to the text: + +Page 12: "marischino" changed to "maraschino". + +Page 14: "plenty ruffles" changed to "plenty of ruffles". + +Page 14: "nee" changed to "nee". + +Page 29: "heatrical" changed to "theatrical". + +Page 37: "mocking bird" changed to "mockingbird". + +Page 40: "Highcliffe" changed to "Highcliff". + +Page 42: "Vanderford" changed to "Vandeford". + +Page 57: "Madamoiselle" changed to "Mademoiselle". + +Page 58: "Madamoiselle" changed to "Mademoiselle". + +Page 61: "atinkle" changed to "atwinkle". + +Page 67: "Highcliffe" changed to "Highcliff". + +Page 90: "coemployer's" changed to "co-employer's". + +Page 114: "Fou get Gerald" changed to "You get Gerald". + +Pages 118-119: "ear of his coproducer" changed to "ear of his +co-producer". + +Page 125: "Lindenberger" changed to "Lindenberg". + +Page 145: "I'd going to" changed to "I'm going to". + +Page 193: "She's geting along" changed to "She's getting along". + +Page 220: "the he Christian" changed to "the Christian". + +Page 236: "touseled" changed to "tousled" + +Page 237: "manila envelop" changed to "manila envelope". + +Page 245: "Vanderford" changed to "Vandeford". + +Page 307: "tryout" changed to "try-out". + +Page 373: "Esquimo" changed to "Eskimo". + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Blue-grass and Broadway, by Maria Thompson Daviess + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-GRASS AND BROADWAY *** + +***** This file should be named 29391.txt or 29391.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/3/9/29391/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/29391.zip b/29391.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e2420d --- /dev/null +++ b/29391.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96f1afe --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #29391 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29391) |
