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diff --git a/old/60885-0.txt b/old/60885-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0fdbdb3..0000000 --- a/old/60885-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7470 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fair Rewards, by Thomas Beer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: The Fair Rewards - -Author: Thomas Beer - -Release Date: December 9, 2019 [EBook #60885] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAIR REWARDS *** - - - - -Produced by David E. Brown and The Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - THE FAIR - REWARDS - - - - -_NEW BORZOI NOVELS_ - -_SPRING, 1922_ - - - WANDERERS - _Knut Hamsun_ - - MEN OF AFFAIRS - _Roland Pertwee_ - - THE FAIR REWARDS - _Thomas Beer_ - - I WALKED IN ARDEN - _Jack Crawford_ - - GUEST THE ONE-EYED - _Gunnar Gunnarsson_ - - THE GARDEN PARTY - _Katherine Mansfield_ - - THE LONGEST JOURNEY - _E. M. Forster_ - - THE SOUL OF A CHILD - _Edwin Björkman_ - - CYTHEREA - _Joseph Hergesheimer_ - - EXPLORERS OF THE DAWN - _Mazo de la Roche_ - - THE WHITE KAMI - _Edward Alden Jewell_ - - - - - THE - FAIR REWARDS - - THOMAS BEER - - “_Tell arts they have no soundness - But vary by esteeming - Tell schools they want profoundness - And stand too much on seeming_”-- - - RALEGH - - _“Eh, sirs,” says Koshchei, “I contemplate the spectacle - with appropriate emotions.”_ - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - ALFRED·A·KNOPF - 1922 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY - ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. - - _Published, February, 1922_ - - - _Set up and electrotyped by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N.Y._ - _Paper furnished by S. D. Warren & Co., Boston, Mass._ - _Printed and bound by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass._ - - - MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - To - - M. A. A. B. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER - - I MANUFACTURE OF A PERSONAGE, 9 - - II HE PROGRESSES, 23 - - III FULL BLOOM, 47 - - IV PENALTIES, 78 - - V MARGOT, 104 - - VI GURDY, 135 - - VII “TODGERS INTRUDES,” 170 - - VIII COSMO RAND, 192 - - IX BUBBLE, 214 - - X THE IDOLATER, 250 - - XI THE WALLING, 272 - - - - -I - -Manufacture of a Personage - - -John Carlson began the rehearsals of “Nicoline” in early August of -1895. For a week he tried to correct the hot labours of the whole, -large company. He was nervous about this production. His digestion -interfered. His temper grew explosive. The leading woman was alarmed -for her gentility. The leading man disliked his part of a cheap rake. -Carlson abandoned the minor folk to his stage manager, Rothenstein, -and nursed these two clumsy celebrities toward a certain ease. But his -stomach suffered. He attended the opening night of “The Prisoner of -Zenda” at the Lyceum, fainted during the second act and was revived -with brandy in Mr. Frohman’s office. The brandy gave him fever; he -spent the six days remaining before “Nicoline” opened, in his bed. Yet -on a warm Monday night he dressed his gaunt body gorgeously, shaved -his yellow face, thrust an orchid into his coat and dined at Martin’s -with young Mr. Fitch who had adapted “Nicoline” from the French. -Carlson swore in Swedish when agony seized his stomach. Mr. Fitch, -sipping white Burgundy, observed that it must be pleasant to swear -incomprehensibly. - -“Sure,” said Carlson, shivering, “but what was you sayin’?” - -“You’ll feel better by midnight,” Mr. Fitch murmured, “You’ve worried -too much. This’ll be a hit. It’s been a hit in London and Paris. The -critics”--the adapter smiled--“won’t dare say anything worse than that -it’s immoral. And Cora Boyle will make them laugh in the third act, so -that’ll be safe.” - -“Boyle? Who’s she? That black headed gal that plays the street walker, -y’mean? She’s no good. Had her last winter in Mountain Dew. Common as -dirt and no more sense than a turnip.” - -Mr. Fitch answered in his affable whisper, “Of course she’s common as -dirt. That’s why I asked you to get her. Why waste time training some -one to be common when the town’s full of them?” - -“But that ain’t actin’, Clyde!” - -“It’s quite as good. And,” Mr. Fitch declared, “she’s what the women -like.” - -“You always talk as if women made a show pay!” - -“That happens to be just what they do, Mr. Carlson. That’s why Richard -the Third doesn’t make as much money as Camille or East Lynne. Women -come to a play to see other women wear clothes they wouldn’t be seen -in and do things they wouldn’t dream of doing. Please try to eat -something.” - -“You’re all wrong,” Carlson said, chewing a pepsin tablet. - -Mr. Fitch shrugged, arranged his moustaches and mentioned a dozen -actresses whose success was built on the art of enchanting their own -sex. Carlson had a respect for this playwright’s opinion and while -the two early acts of “Nicoline” played he saw from his box that -Cora Boyle’s swagger carried some message to the female part of the -audience. For her, women laughed loudly. They merely sniffled over the -well bred woes of the heroine. The heroine’s antics were insupportable. -The second curtain fell and Carlson descended to the dressing room of -this unsatisfactory gentlewoman, gave a rasping lecture that scared her -maid away. He had to help hook her gown and yelled over the powder of -her advertised shoulders, “If you want that sassy Boyle gal to be the -hit of the show, go on! You act like you’d lost your last cent on the -races and had sand in your shoes. Now, you!” A feeling of heated blades -in his stomach stopped the speech. He heard the stage manager knock on -the dressing room door. The actress moved weeping past his anguish. -He leaned on the table and saw his sweating face in the tilted mirror. -The thin, remote music of the orchestra began behind the curtain. This -third act was set in the rowdy café of a small French city. If it went -well, the play was safe, would last out the winter, make him richer. He -should go up to his box and show himself unperturbed to rival managers -civilly tranquil in their free seats. But he leaned, looking at his -wet, bald head with a sick weariness. What was the use of this trade? -He wore down his years trying to teach silly women and sillier men to -act. He got nothing from living but stomach trouble and money. The -money would go to his sister in Stockholm when he died. He had never -liked his sister, hadn’t seen her in thirty years. He pitied himself so -extremely that tears wriggled down the spread of seams in his yellow -face. Life was an iniquity contrived for his torture. Carlson deeply -enjoyed his woe for five minutes. Then Mr. Fitch came in to urge that -Cora Boyle be corrected before her present entrance. - -“What’s the good, Clyde? She ain’t any sense. She’s a actress, ain’t -she?” - -“She’ll spoil the act if she carries on too much,” said Mr. Fitch and -at once Carlson thrilled with an automatic anxiety; the act mustn’t -be spoiled. He hurried up the iron stairs to the platform, wiping -his face. Cora Boyle was standing ten feet back from the canvas arch -that was, for the audience, the street door of the Café Printemps. She -patted the vast sleeves of her gaudy frock and whispered to a fellow in -blue clothes. Carlson had to pull her from these occupations and gave -his orders in a hiss. - -“Don’t you laugh too loud when Miss Leslie’s tellin’ about her mother -or talk as loud as you’ve been doin’, neither. This ain’t a camp -meetin’, hear?” - -The black haired girl grinned at him, nodding. She spat out a fold of -chewing gum and patted her pink sleeves again. She said, “All right, -boss, but, say, don’t the folks like me, though?” - -Fitch chuckled behind the manager. Carlson wouldn’t be bested by an -impudent hussy who was paid thirty-five dollars a week and didn’t -earn it. He stared at Cora Boyle, biting his lips and hunting words -wherewith to blast her. She let him stare unchecked. A false diamond on -its thin chain glittered and slid when she breathed into the cleft of -her breasts. She was excellently made and highly perfumed. Her black -eyes caught a vague point of red from the rim of a jaunty hat that -slanted its flowers on the mass of her hair. She had rouged her chin to -offset a wide mouth. Carlson jeered, “Better get somebody to show you -a good makeup, sister, and quit talkin’ through your nose. You sound -like you’re out of New Jersey!” - -Cora Boyle giggled. She glanced at the fellow in blue and said, “I was -boardin’ at Fayettesville, New Jersey, all summer. Wasn’t I, Mark?” - -The fellow bobbed his head, shuffling his feet. His feet were bare and -by that sign Carlson knew him for the supposed peasant lad who would -bring the heroine news of her dear mother’s death at the end of the -act. Cora Boyle gave this unimportant creature a long, amorous look, -then told Carlson, “I was boardin’ with Mark’s folks. He--” - -“Your cue,” said Mr. Fitch and the girl, with a splendid swagger, -marched into the lit scene beyond this nervous shadow. Her finery -shimmered and directly the women outside the hedge of footlights -laughed. The audience tittered at her first line and Mr. Fitch, a hand -on his moustache, smiled at Carlson. - -“She’s got a voice like a saw,” Carlson snapped and walked down the -steps. At the bottom a roar halted him. The audience laughed in a -steady bawl. He grunted but the noise came in repeating volleys every -time the girl’s shrill speech rose grinding and these bursts had an -effect of surging water wonderful to hear, soothing his conceit. But as -he listened a spasm took his stomach. Fitch helped him to a cab and -the cab delivered Carlson trembling to his valet in 18th Street. - -The attack lasted all night and did not wane until twilight of next -day when Carlson could drink some drugged milk and roll a cigarette. -He bade his valet bring up the morning papers and was not surprised -when Fitch preceded the man into the room, walking silently on his trim -feet, a flower in his blue coat and his white hands full of scribbled -foolscap. - -“I’ve been writing two scenes in the library,” he said, in his usual, -even whisper, “and I’d like to read them, if you feel well enough.” - -“Two scenes?” - -“One’s for the first act and one’s for the last. I’d like a full -rehearsal in the morning, too.” - -Carlson lifted himself and slapped the counterpane. He cried, “Now, -Clyde, listen here! That Boyle gal’s got enough. I expect she hit but -she’s a sassy little hen. I’m not goin’ to spoil her with--” - -“Nom de dieu,” said the playwright, “I didn’t say anything about the -Boyle girl. No. These scenes are for young Walling. He can come on with -some flowers for Nicoline in the first act and say something. Then he -can bring the dogs in at the last, instead of the maid. We might dress -him as a gamekeeper in the last act. Green coat, corduroy breeches--” - -Carlson screamed, “Cord’roy pants? Who the hell you talkin’ about? -Walling? Who’s Walling?” - -Mr. Fitch lit a cigar and selected a paper from the bundle the valet -held. He bent himself over the back of a cherry velvet chair which -turned his suit vile purple in the dusk and began to read genially.... -“‘Into the sordid and sensuous atmosphere of this third act there -came a second of relief when the messenger brought Nicoline news of -her mother’s death. We too rarely see such acting as Mr. Walling’s -performance of this petty part. His embarrassed, sympathetic stare at -Nicoline, his boyish, unaffected speech--’” The playwright laughed and -took another paper, “That’s William Winter. Here’s this idiot. ‘This -little episode exactly proves the soundness of Carlson’s method in -rehearsing a company. I am told that Mark Walling, the young actor who -plays the rôle, has been drilled by Mr. Carlson as carefully as though -he were a principal’--I told him that,” Mr. Fitch explained, changing -papers. “‘One of the best performances in the long list of forty was -that of Mark Walling as’--” - -Carlson lay back dizzy on his pillows and snarled, “What’s it all -about, for hell’s sake? This feller comes on and gives the gal the -letter and says the funeral’ll be next day. Well?” - -“Well,” said his ally, “I’d just put you in your cab. I was out in -front, standing. This boy came on. They were still laughing at Cora -Boyle. The minute Walling spoke, every one shut up. He gave his line -about the funeral and some women commenced snivelling. Wiped his nose -on his sleeve. Some more women cried. I thought they’d applaud for a -minute. He’s in all the papers. Nice voice. It’s his looks mostly.” - -“Never noticed him. Where did we get him?” - -Mr. Fitch blew some smoke toward the red velvet curtains and chuckled. -“We didn’t get him. He belongs to Cora Boyle. She brought him to -Rothenstein at the first rehearsal and asked for a part for him. She -kidnapped him down in Jersey.” - -“She--what?” - -“Kidnapped him.” The playwright assumed a high drawl and recited, -“Cora, she was boardin’ with Mark’s folks down to Fayettesville. Mark, -he used to speak pieces after supper. Cora, she thought he spoke real -nice--So she kidnapped him. She mesmerized him--like Trilby--and -brought him along. She’s got him cooped up at her boarding house. She’s -married him. He says he thinks acting’s awful easy”--Mr. Fitch again -drawled, “cause all you gotta do is walk out, an’ speak your piece. -He’s got a brother name of Joe and his mamma she’s dead and sister -Sadie she’s married to Eddie something or other. I heard his whole -family tree. I went to see him this morning. Some one else is likely to -grab him, you know? He told me his sad story in a pair of blue drawers -and one sock. He’s scared to death of Cora Boyle.” - -“But--can he act?” - -The playwright shook his head. “No. He hasn’t any brains. Are you well -enough to get dressed?” - -At half past ten an usher came into the box office where Carlson was -sitting and summoned the manager to the rear of the house. Fitch stood -at the throat of an aisle, his pallor made orange by the glow from the -stage on which Cora Boyle was chaffing the sinful heroine. Amusement -sped up this lustrous, stirring slope of heads. It was the year of -Violette Amère among perfumes and the scent rolled back to Carlson with -the laughter of these ninnies who took Cora Boyle for a good comedian. -Carlson chafed, but when the lad in blue walked into the light of the -untinted globes, this laughter flickered down. Fitch whispered, “Hear?” -and promptly the boy spoke in a husky, middling voice that somehow -reached Carlson clearly. Close by a woman gurgled, “Sweet!” and Carlson -felt the warm attention of the crowd, half understood it as the few -lines drawled on. The boy stood square on his brown, painted feet. His -flat face was comely. He had dull red, curling hair. As he tramped out -there was a faint and scattered rumour like the birth of applause, cut -by the heroine’s shriek. - -“You see?” Fitch smiled. - -Carlson said, “I ain’t a fool. Tell Rothenstein to call a rehearsal for -ten in the mornin’, will you.” He then went briskly to hunt down this -asset. It took some minutes to locate the dressing room Mark Walling -shared with five other small parts. He found Mark peeled to faded, -azure cotton underclothes and talking happily to a tall, fair rustic -who slouched on the wall beside the sink where Mark scrubbed paint from -his feet with a sponge. Their drawls mixed and shut from them the noise -of Carlson’s step, so the manager regarded his prize stealthily. Mark -was a long lad, limber and burly, harmlessly good looking. His nose was -short. His insteps and arms were thick with muscle. He smiled up at his -rural friend who said, “But it ain’t a long trip, Bud. So I’ll get your -papa to come up nex’ week.” - -Mark shifted the sponge to his other hand and sighed. The sound touched -Carlson who hated actors not old enough to court him cleverly. But this -was a homesick peasant. He listened to Mark’s answer of, “Wish you -would, Eddie. I ain’t sure papa likes my bein’ here. Even if I do--” - -The rustic saw Carlson and mumbled. Mark Walling hopped about on one -foot and gave a solemn, frightened gulp. Carlson nodded, inquiring, -“That your brother, sonny?” - -“No, sir. Joe’s home. This is Eddie Bernamer. Well, he’s my -brother-in-law. He’s married with Sadie.” - -Eddie Bernamer gave out attenuated sounds, accepting the introduction. -The manager asked lightly, “How many sisters have you, son?” - -“Just Sadie. She’s out lookin’ at the play.” - -“And you’ve married Cora Boyle?” - -“Well,” said Mark, “that’s so.” - -He seemed rather puzzled by the fact, suspended the sponge and said to -Eddie Bernamer, “She ain’t but two years older’n me, Eddie.” - -“I guess Mr. Carlson wants to talk to you, Bud,” his relative muttered, -“So I’ll go on back and see some more.” - -“But you’ll come round an’ wait after the show?” Mark wailed. - -“We’ll have to catch the cars, Bud. Well, goo’ bye.” - -Mark stood clutching the sponge and sighed a monstrous, woeful -exhalation after Eddie Bernamer. His grey eyes filled. He was -hideously homesick, certain that Fayettesville was a better place than -this cellar that stunk of sweated cloth and greasy paint. And Cora -hadn’t been strikingly pleased by the news of him in this morning’s -papers. She was odd. He wiped his nose on a wrist and looked hopelessly -at Carlson. - -“Rather be back on the farm, wouldn’t you?” the gaunt man asked. - -Mark sat down on the floor and thought. His thoughts went slowly across -the track of six weeks. He plodded. For all its demerits this red and -gold theatre was thrilling. People were jolly, kind enough. The lewd -stagehands had let him help set a scene tonight. The man who handled -the lights had shown him how they were turned on and off to make stormy -waverings. Cora was exciting. Winter at home was plagued by Aunt Edith -who came out from Trenton to spend the cold months at the farm and who -lectured Mark’s father on Methodism. And here was this easy, good job. -If he worked hard it might be that Mr. Carlson--who wasn’t now the -screaming beast of rehearsals--would let him run the lights instead of -acting. Mark said, “Well, no. Just as soon stay here, I guess.” - -“How old are you, sonny?” - -“Goin’ on seventeen, sir.” - -“I’ll give you forty a week to stay here,” said Carlson, “Fitch tells -me you think acting’s pretty easy.” - -“I don’t see any trick to acting,” Mark mused, absorbing the offer -of forty dollars a week, “There ain’t nothin’ to it but speakin’ out -loud.... Yes, I’d like to stay here.” He wanted to show himself useful -and got up, pointing to the bulbs clustered on the ceiling in a bed of -tin, “I should think you’d ought to save money if you had them down -here by the lookin’ glasses instead of this gas, y’see? The fellers -don’t get any good of the electric light while they’re puttin’ paint -on, and--” - -“Rehearsal at ten in the morning,” said Carlson, “Good-night.” - -Marked gaped at the black and empty door. Then his homesickness swelled -up and he sighed, squeezing the sponge. His body trembled drearily. He -lowered his head as does a lonesome calf turned into strange pastures. - - - - -II - -He Progresses - - -“Nicoline” lasted until April, 1896. Mark played the country boy in -“Mr. Bell” all the next season and, duly coached by Sarah Cowell -LeMoyne, figured as the young duke in “The Princess of Croy” when -Carlson imported that disaster in the autumn of 1897. Its failure -afflicted Mark less than his private griefs. He played for four months -in Carlson’s Boston stock company. This was penible. He had never been -so far from his adored family. True, freed of Cora, he could send -ten or twenty dollars a week to his father but he missed Sundays in -Fayettesville and the Boston wind gave him chilblains. The friendly -women of the Stock Company found him shy and here began the legend of -Mark’s misogyny. He read novels and tramped about Boston, surveyed the -theatrical setting of Louisburg Square and sidelong admired the ladies -walking rigidly in sober hats on Commonwealth Avenue. Such persons, -he mused, would never fling hot curling irons in a husband’s face and -it wasn’t possible to imagine them smoking cigarettes in bed. But he -hated Boston and the war was welcome as it honourably pulled him back -to a New Jersey Infantry regiment. - -In June, 1898, he sat on a palmetto trunk in the filthy camp of Tampa -watching Eddie Bernamer pitch a ball to Joe Walling. Mark had every -satisfaction in the sight and liked his piebald uniform much more -than any costume hitherto. The camp pleased him as a problem. There -would be plays made on the war, of course, and it wouldn’t be easy to -mount them. These bright trees and the muddle of railroad ties could -be effected but the theatre lacked lights to send down this parching -glitter on black mud and strolling men. He sighed for realism. He had -spent hours in Davidge’s workshop while the grass of “The Princess -of Croy” was being made. It hadn’t the right sheen. The sunset had -turned it blue and the sunset was all wrong even though the critics -had praised it. Mark swung his gaiters and pondered irreproducible -nature. But it would be nice to counterfeit all this--the glister of -remote tin roofing, the harsh palms, the listless soldiery. The police -would object to exactness of course. Brother Joe was pitching the ball -with great flexures of his bronze, naked chest. Eddie Bernamer swore -astoundingly when he ripped his undershirt. One couldn’t be so honest -on the stage or echo the sharp, unreal note of mail call sounding. -Mark ran off to see if the wayward postal service had brought him a -letter. There was a roll of newspapers addressed to his brother-in-law -and Bernamer, a bad reader, turned them over to Mark and Joe. It was -Joe who found the pencilled paragraph Mark rather expected. He slapped -Mark’s back and grunted, “Well, so there y’are, Bud.” - -Mark read, “The suit for divorce begun by Mark Walling, the well -known young actor against his wife, Cora Boyle Walling, was concluded -yesterday. Neither party to the action was present in court. Miss Boyle -is touring the West with the Jarvis Hope Stock Company. Jarvis Hope is -named as co-respondent in the case. The action was not defended. Mr. -Walling is now with the --th N.J. Infantry. The divorced couple were -married in August, 1895. They have no children.” - -“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said Eddie Bernamer, “and don’t you let -the next woman looks at you haul you off to a preacher, neither.” - -Mark felt dubious. There had never been a divorce in the family. He -said, “I guess if we’d had a baby, she wouldn’t of--Dunno.... It’s kind -of too bad.” - -His relatives denied it. They had never liked Cora Boyle. She wasn’t -a lady and her clothes had shocked Sadie’s conservative mind. They -pointed out that a stable and meritorious woman wouldn’t have seduced -Mark before marriage. They were glad to see the boy free and were -puzzled by his mournfulness. He agreed with their judgments. But his -eyes moistened for all their affectionate pawing. He muttered, “She was -awful good lookin’,” and sat moody while they indicated advantages. -He could save his pay, now, and wear respectable, black neckties, as -a Walling should. He wouldn’t be bullied or have hot curling irons -flung in his face. He could come home on the Saturday midnight train -and stay until Monday afternoon. And Joe reasonably assured him that -women were plentiful. But Mark mourned, in his tangled fashion, the -collapse of beauty. Cora, he choked, didn’t match her outside. She was -ruthless, disturbing. She cared nothing for Mark’s pet plan of an ideal -lighting system for theatres. She had spilled coffee on his smudged, -laborious chart of a stage to be made in hinged parts. She called his -sacred family a parcel of mossbacks and left the flat when Sadie and -Bernamer brought their baby to town for a day. Still, Mark was mournful -and often missed her for several years. He shuddered from marriage as a -game more complicated than golf. - -He was playing golf in May, 1902, with Ian Gail when the English -playwright checked his grammar. Mark flushed. The Englishman fooled -with a putter for a second, considering this colour. He said, “I say, -old son, d’you mind my giving you some advice?” - -“Go ahead.” - -“Carlson’s closing the play next week, he tells me. What will you do -with yourself, all summer?” - -“Go home.” - -“Where’s that and what’s it like?” - -Mark sat down on the green and chattered of the farm, and his family -with particular mention of his nephew George Dewey Bernamer (born May -15, 1898) who called himself Gurdy. About Joe Walling’s baby daughter -Mark wasn’t as yet enthusiastic. He talked with broad lapses into New -Jersey singsong. His grey eyes dilated. He babbled like an upset pail. -The lean Englishman didn’t seem bored. Other people--Mrs. LeMoyne, old -Mrs. Gilbert--had scolded Mark about these explosions. Gail let him -talk for twenty minutes of warm noon and then said, “Quite right, old -son. Stick to your people.... You’re a sentimental ass, of course. I -dare say that’s why you can put up with dinner at Carlson’s in that -seething mass of red plush.” - -“But I like Mr. Carlson. Been mighty good--” - -“Of course he’s good to you. And it was good of you to make him mount -my last act so decently.... For some reason or other you’ve an eye -for decoration. That’s by the way.--Now, I’ve a female cousin in -Winchester, a Mrs. Ilden. She writes bad novels that no one reads and -her husband’s in the Navy. I’m going to write her about you. You run -across after the play stops. She’ll put you up for a month and you’ll -pay her--I suggest a hundred pounds.” - -“Pay her for what?” - -“Her conversation, my boy. She’s quite clever and fearfully learned. -Shaw likes her. She’s an anarchist and a determinist and all that and -much older than you. She makes a business of tutoring youngsters who -need--doing over a bit. You seem to have been reared on Henty and -Shakespeare. Even Carlson says you need pruning. There’s no use being -antediluvian even if you are a rising young leading man.... God, how I -hate the breed! I shouldn’t waste these words on you if you didn’t show -vagrom gleams of common sense now and then. So I most seriously beg of -you to go and let Olive--Mrs. Ilden, tutor you for a fortnight.” - -Mark was always docile before authority. He asked, “What’ll she do to -me?” - -“She can tell you anything you want to know and explain Winchester. The -history of Winchester is the history of England,” Gail said, “and, of -course, that’s the history of the world.” - -Thus, in early June, Mark was driven through Winchester and landed at -the door of a brick house painted plum colour. A grey wall continued -on either side of the ruddy front and nameless vines waved on the -coping. Mark’s head ached from a supper at Romano’s the night previous -but he admired the house and the obvious romance of the curving lane -stippled with sunshine in plaques of honey. He rang the bell, gave a -fat parlour-maid his card and waited for Mrs. Ilden in stolid terror. -The hall had white panels of an approved stage pattern and was dotted -with photographs. Mark was looking at the face of a bearded man whose -eyebrows had a diabolic slant when Olive Ilden came in from her garden. - -She came in a bad temper, deserting the discussion of Chamberlain’s -Imperial policy about her tea table. She was prepared for a repetition -of her last paying pupil, the one son of a Rand millionaire, a cub who -wore five rubies on one hand and who talked racing at four meals a day. -Mark unsettled her by his wooden stare and the black decency of his -dress. His clothes were English. He was always tanned. The scar of Cora -Boyle’s curling irons lay in a thread along his left jaw. Olive revised -a theory that Americans were short and looked up at him. - -“I’ve some friends at tea,” she said, “Of course, I don’t wish to -impose tea on a Yankee.” - -“I think I’d like some,” Mark said miserably and followed her trailing, -white skirts down an endless garden. He thought her gown distinctly bad -and sloppy. She must be older than she looked or she wouldn’t be so -careless. The girdle was crooked and the gauze across her shoulders was -too tight. But it was a fine body, tall and proportionate. Her hair was -a lustreless black. Meanwhile he had to think about this scene of an -English garden. It phrased itself simply. Wall, rear. Tower of church, -right background. Two small children playing with a kitten. Tea-table. -Three ladies. Young man in tweeds. One clergyman.--It was like the -garden set for the “Princess of Croy.” Mark braced himself, bowed and -murmured in the manner of Mrs. LeMoyne, leaned on one of the limes in -the manner of Herbert Kelcey, and drank his tea in the manner of Mr. -Drew. The minor canon gave him a cigarette and Mark said, “Thanks so -much.” The youth in tweeds asserted that it was beastly hot for June -and Mark admitted, “Rather.” He stood sombre against the lime and the -group was chilled by his chill. Two of the ladies fancied him a poet by -the red curling of his hair. The guests withdrew. Olive Ilden fiddled -with a teaspoon and frowned. - -“I rather expected you on Tuesday.” - -“Had to stay in London. Mr. Carlson wanted me to look at a couple of -plays he’s thinkin’ of bringing over.” - -“Really, I don’t see why you Yankees always import our nonsense. One -hears of the Pinero rubbish playing for thousands of nights in the -States. Why?” - -“The women like it,” he wildly said, quoting Carlson. “Are those your -kids?” - -“Mine and my husband’s,” Olive laughed and called Joan and Robert -Ilden from their game with the kitten. Mark played with them in all -content for half an hour, didn’t glance at Olive, and told her blond -children about his best nephew, Gurdy Bernamer. The bored infants -broke his watch chain and their puzzled mother took Mark to walk. She -led him down through the college and wondered why he paused to stare -at the cathedral walls where the sunshine was pallid on the weathered -stone.--He was thinking that bulbs tinted straw colour might get this -glow against properly painted canvas.--His eyes opened and his drowsy -gaze pleased the woman. She said, “Do you like it? The cathedral?” - -“The tower’s too small,” he said. - -“Clever of you. Yes, architects think so. Glad you noticed.” - -“Anybody could see that. Is that the Bishop?” he asked, seeing black -gaiters in motion on a lawn. - -“A mere dean. And the birds are rooks. All the best cathedrals have -rooks about. Shall we go in?” - -“I’d just as soon,” he nodded, regretting that the queer shade of the -elms wasn’t possible on a backdrop. - -The interior charmed him. He forgot his headache. His thoughts hopped. -Church scenes never went well. No way to capture this slow echo for the -stage. The upper brightness made him raise his eyes. This range of high -windows where the lights melted together was called a “clerestory.” -The mingled glory almost frightened him. He saw a white butterfly that -jigged and wheeled, irreverent, solitary on the far shadows of the -vault. Mark smiled. Small Gurdy Bernamer named butterflies “bruffles” -and was probably chasing one, now, across the hot perfume of the -Fayettesville garden. The fancy made him homesick. He blinked. The -woman watching him saw crystal wetness point his lashes and hastily -stated, “This is William de Wykeham’s tomb.” - -Mark examined the painted tomb, wished he could sketch the canopy and -the pygmy monks who pray at the Bishop’s feet. Gurdy Bernamer would -like the monks and would break them. He rubbed his nose and chuckled. - -“I suppose,” Olive said, “that all this seems rather silly to you. -You’re a practical people.” - -“It’s good lookin’. I don’t see how a good lookin’ thing can be silly, -exactly. I was thinkin’ my kid nephew’d like those monks to play with. -But he’d bust them.--Isn’t King William Rufus buried here?” - -“You’ve been reading a guide book!” - -“Oh, no. That’s in history. They lugged him here on a wagon or -something and buried him. Where’s he plant--buried?” - -Mark wished that the dark lady would stop frowning as she steered him -to the glum, polished tomb in the choir. He must be offensive to her. -She said, “This is supposed to be the tomb. They’re not sure,” and Mark -stared at the raised slab of ugly stone with awe. The organ began to -growl softly in a transept. It was solemn to stand, reflecting on the -Red King while the organ moaned a marching air. William Rufus had been -dead so long. History was amazing.... When he had a theatre of his own -Mark meant to open it with Richard III or with Henry V. Carlson told -him that no one would ever play Richard III again as Booth had gone -too high in the part. But the Walling Theatre would be opened with a -romantic play full of radiant clothes and scenes that would match the -playhouse itself. The Walling would have a ceiling of dull blue and -boxes curtained in silk, black as a woman’s hair. The lamps should -wane in the new manner when the acts began and there would be mirrors -rimmed in faint silver to gleam in far nooks of the balcony--something -to shimmer in corners and shadows of his dream.... Mark stared down the -nave and built his theatre against the grey age of this place until -Olive sat in a heap of muslin on the tomb of William Rufus. - -“One doesn’t have to bother about such an indifferent king. There are -some more in those tins--I mean caskets--on top of the choir screen. -Edmund and so on.” - -“More kings? But won’t a--a sacristan or something come an’ chase you -off of here?” - -“What do you know about sacristans?” - -“Cathedrals always have sacristans in books.” - -“I dare say you read quantities of bad novels,” she observed. - -“Well, I like Monsieur Beaucaire and Kim better’n anything I’ve -read lately,” said her bewildering pupil, “Say, who was Pico della -Mirandola?” - -“I don’t think I can talk about the Renascence in Winchester choir,” -Olive choked and took him away. - -Save for the studied clarity of voice he showed no theatrical traits. -He resented the sign of The Plume of Feathers beside the West Gate -because “it spoiled the wall.” He asked if the Butter Cross was a well -and bought several postcards at a shop where the squared panes arrested -him. Olive made conjectures. She was twenty-six. She had known actors -in some bulk. This wasn’t an actor, observably. She guided him back -toward the college and through a swarm of lads in flannels. At these -Mark looked and sighed. - -“Why that sob?” - -“Dunno. I s’pose because kids are havin’ such an awful good time and -don’t know it. I mean--they’ll get married and all that.” - -“Are you married?” - -Mark said cheerfully, “Divorced.” - -“Tell me about it.” - -“D--don’t think I’d better, Mrs. Ilden.” - -“Is that American?” - -“Is--is what?” - -“That delicate respect for my sensibilities.” - -“Don’t know what you mean exactly. I had to divorce Cor--my wife and -I’d rather not talk about it.” - -Olive felt alarmed. She said, “I’m supposed to tutor you in art and -ethics and I’m merely trying to get your point of view, you know? Don’t -look so shocked.” - -“I don’t see what my gettin’ divorced has to do with art and ethics.... -Oh, was this man Leighton a better painter’n Whistler?” - -His questions ranged from the salary of canons to professional cricket. -He wore a small and single pearl in his shirt at dinner, sat eating -chastely and stared at Olive between the candles that made his grey -eyes black in the brown of his face. The parlour-maid brought him the -silver bowl of chutney three unnecessary times. He timidly corrected -Olive’s views on farm labour in the United States with, “I’m afraid -you’re wrong. I was brought up on a farm.” - -“Really? I was wondering.” - -“Fayettesville. It’s up in the woods behind Trenton. Say, what’s the -Primrose League?” - -For a week Olive tried to outline this mentality. He plunged from -subject to subject. Economics wearied him. “What’s it matter what kind -of a gover’ment you have so long as folks get enough to eat and the -kids ain’t--don’t have to work?” Religion, he said, was all poppycock. -His “papa” admired Robert Ingersoll and “What’s it matter whether folks -have souls or not?” - -“You’re a materialist,” she laughed. - -“Well, what of it?” - -“I’m trying to find out what your ethical standards are. Why don’t you -cheat at poker?” - -“Because it ain’t fair. It’s like stealin’ a man’s wife.” - -“Some one stole your wife, didn’t he?” - -Mark finally chuckled. “You’d hardly call it stealing. She just walked -off when she knew I’d--heard about it.” - -He blushed, hoping he hadn’t transgressed and hurriedly asked whether -Bernard Shaw was really a vegetarian. He had no opinion of Shaw’s -plays but thought “The Devil’s Disciple” a better play than “Magda.” -“The Sunken Bell” was “pretty near up to Shakespeare.” He was -worried because “Treasure Island” couldn’t be dramatized and recited -“Thanatopsis” to the horror of Olive’s children. Olive interrupted the -recital. - -“That’ll be quite enough, thanks! Wherever did you pick up that -sentimental rot?” - -“Just what is bein’ sentimental?” Mark demanded. - -“Writing such stuff and liking it when it’s written! I suspect you of -Tennyson.” - -“Never read any. Tried to. Couldn’t, except that Ulysses thing. Let’s -go take a walk.” - -“Too warm, thanks,” said Olive, wanting to see whether this would hold -him in his basket chair under the limes. - -“I’ll be back about tea time,” Mark promised, paused on his way up the -garden to kiss Bobby Ilden’s fair head as the little boy reminded him -of Gurdy Bernamer and vanished whistling “The Banks of the Wabash.” - -“All his clothes are black,” said young Joan Ilden, “but I was helping -Edith dust in his room this morning and he has the nicest blue pyjamas.” - -“Do go pull Bobby out of the raspberries,” Olive said and fell into a -sulk which she didn’t define. She lounged in her chair watching the -light play on the straight bole of a tree behind the emptied place -where Mark had been sitting.... Rage succeeded the sulk. This was a -stupid augmentation of her income. Olive disapproved landholding but -it would be easier every way when Ilden’s uncle died and he came into -the Suffolk property. Then she would be able to live in London instead -of flitting there for a breath of diversion. She hoped Mark would go -to London soon.... He had the mind of a badly schooled stock-broker! -Olive lifted her portfolio from the table and penciled a note to her -husband. “I do wish you could slaughter your dear uncle, Jack. Ian -Gail has sent me a silly Yankee to educate. I hope I have no insular -prejudice against the harmless, necessary Colonial but this cad--” Then -she thought. “What am I saying here? I don’t mean it. I’m lying,” and -tore up the paper. - -Mark went swimming in the Itchen and did not come home until seven. -He dressed in six minutes and found Olive clad in black lace by the -drawing room mantel of white stone. He said, “Say, I ran into a flock -of sheep an’ an old feller with a crook. Do they still do that?” - -“Do?” - -“Crooks. And he had on a blue--what d’you call it?--smock?” - -Olive laughed and lifted her arms behind her head. - -“Did you think some one was staging a pastoral for your benefit? But -you didn’t come home to tea and there were some quite amusing people -here. I kept them as long as I could.” - -“Too bad,” said Mark, “I’m sorry.” - -“You shouldn’t lie so. You’re not at all sorry. You’re bored when -people come and you have to play the British gentleman. And there are -so many other things better worth doing.” - -“That’s in Shaw,” Mark guessed, “Clyde Fitch was talkin’ about it. But -what’s wrong with actin’ like a gentleman?” - -“What’s the use? Your manners are quite all right. If you’d talk to -people and collect ideas.... It’s so much more important to straighten -out your ideas than to stand and hold a teacup properly. A butler can -do that. I could train a navvy to do that. And--” - -“That’s an awful good looking dress,” he broke in, “Nicest you’ve had -on since I’ve been here.” - -Olive let an arm trail on the mantel where the stone cooled it. “I’m -talking about your intellect and you talk about my frock.” - -“I know something about dresses and I don’t know a thing about -intellect. You ought to wear dark things because you’ve got such a nice -sk--complexion.” - -“I don’t bother about clothes except when Jack’s at home and I want to -keep his attention.... You were in Cuba, you said? Did you kill any -one?” - -“Don’t know. Tried to. Why?” - -“I was wondering whether you’d mind killing an old duffer in Suffolk. -He keeps my husband out of twelve hundred a year and a decentish house. -Would you mind?” - -Mark saw this was meant as a joke and laughed, studying her arm which -gleamed white on the white stone. - -“My husband’s uncle. He’s easily eighty and he’s very Tory.” - -“Haven’t got any uncles. Got an aunt that’s pretty awful. She’s a -Methodist.” - -He wouldn’t look at her. He still stared at the arm sprawled on the -mantel and smiled like a child. Olive wanted to hurt him suddenly, to -rouse him. The glowing stare was too childish. She drawled, “I went -into your bedroom to see that they’d swept it decently. Are those the -family portraits on the desk? Who’s the fat girl with the baby?” - -“Sadie. My sister. She’s puttin’ on weight. Papa keeps two hired -girls now and she don’t have to cook. The yellow-headed fellow’s her -husband--Eddie Bernamer. Awful fine man.” - -He beamed at Olive now, doting on Eddie Bernamer’s perfections. Olive -tried, “And the lad with the very huge pearl in his scarf is your -brother? And they all live on your father’s farm? And you go down there -and bore yourself to death over weekends?” - -“Don’t bore myself at all. I get all the New York I want weekdays. Fine -to get out and ride a horse round. Nice house. We built a wing on when -Joe got married last year.” - -The parlour-maid announced dinner. Mark gave Olive his arm and wanted -to stroke her arm white across the black of his sleeve. He talked of -his family through the meal and after it, leaning on the piano while -Olive played. He tortured her with anecdotes of his and Joe’s infancy -and with the deeds of Gurdy Bernamer. He sighed, reporting that Sadie’s -oldest girl had died. - -“You mean you’re wearing mourning for a six year old child!” - -“Of course,” said Mark. - -“And then you ask me what a sentimentalist is!” Olive struck a discord -into the Good Friday Spell and sneered, “I dare say you think life’s so -full of unpleasantness that it shouldn’t be brought into the theatre!” - -“No. I don’t think that, exactly. But I don’t think there’s any -sense in doin’ a play where you can’t--can’t--well, make it good -lookin’. These plays where there’s nothin’ but a perfec’ly ordinary -family havin’ a fight and all that--A show ought to be something -more.--You get the music in an opera. Carmen’d be a fine hunk of bosh -if you didn’t have the music and the Spanish clothes. Just a dirty -yarn!... There’d ought to be somethin’ good lookin’ in a play.... -Nobody believes a play but girls out of High School.... If you can’t -have poetry like Shakespeare you ought to have something--something -pretty--I don’t mean pretty--I mean--” Olive stopped the music. Mark -descended rapidly and went on, “I don’t care about these two cent -comedies, either.” - -“You don’t like comedy?” - -“Not much. Truth is, I don’t catch a joke easy. I’ve tried readin’ -Molière but it sounds pretty dry to me. Haven’t tried--Aristophanes?--I -guess that’s deeper’n I could swim--” - -“Rot! You mustn’t let yourself--what is it?--be blinded by the glory of -great names. Any one who can see the point in Patience can understand -Aristophanes.... But you haven’t much humour. But you’ve played in -comedy?” - -“Some. I’d just as soon.” - -Olive began “Anitra’s Dance” knowing that he liked melodrama and -watched his eyes brighten, dilating. She said amiably, “A fine -comedian’s the greatest boon in the world. Women especially. Is it true -that women who’re good in comedy are usually rather serious off the -stage?” - -“Can’t say--Well, my wife was pretty damn serious!” - -His huge sigh made Olive laugh. She asked, “You’ve no children?” - -“No. Guess that was the trouble.--Play that Peer Gynt Mornin’ thing.” - -“I’ve played enough,” said Olive. “You say Mr. Carlson sent you over to -look at some plays for him? He must trust your judgment.” - -Mark answered happily, “Sure. He says that if I take to a play so’ll -every one else. He says I’ve got lots of judgment about plays.” - -Olive shut the piano and rose. Her face wrinkled off into laughter. She -said, “You dear thing! I dare say he’s quite right about that. Good -night.” - -She strolled out of the drawing room and Mark could see her passing up -the long stairs. She moved splendidly against the white panels. One -wrist caressed the rail. The black gown dragged gently up the rosy -treads. She vanished slowly into the dark and Mark said, “Golly,” as he -went to get his hat. He wandered over to the bar of the Black Swan and -drank cold ale while he meditated. - -He mustn’t fall in love. Eddie Bernamer and Joe disapproved of -affairs with married women. They were right, of course. And nothing -must interfere with his tutelage. And Ilden was at sea. But this was -vexatious! He wished she did not stroll so lazily up stairs, across -gardens. He wished that her hair wasn’t black.--He found himself -blushing at breakfast when she came in with a yellow garden hat on the -black of her hair. Now that he’d begun to think of it she looked rather -like Cora Boyle. - -He thought of Cora Boyle again in the garden after luncheon. The -children had left a green rubber ball on the turf. Mark rolled it about -with one sole and watched Olive trim a patch of dull blue flowers. His -place and the ball underfoot recalled something cloudy. He worked to -evolve a real memory and laughed. Olive quickly glanced up. - -“You keep asking about my wife. She was boardin’ with us at the farm. -First time she ever spoke to me I was kicking a ball around, in the -garden. This way. I was barefoot. Cora said, ‘Ain’t you too old to go -barefooted?’ I forget what I said.” - -“But with the ball that day you played no more?” - -“That sounds like a piece of a play,” said Mark. - -“It’s from a comedy,” Olive snapped, “Do get your hat and take a walk. -I’ll be busy for an hour. Look at the Deanery garden. The Dean’s gone -to Scotland.” - -“Got to write a letter first. Boat from Liverpool tomorrow.” - -He mailed a letter to Joe’s wife, born Margaret Healy, tramped down to -the Close and examined the Dean’s garden. It would make a neat setting, -the mass of the Cathedral to the left, the foliate house to the right. -A maid in black and white passed over the grass and reminded him of -Joe’s wife again by a certain dragging gait. He went into the cathedral -and studied the Wykeham tomb from all angles. Some tourists hummed in -the nave; a guide in a frock coat ambled after them descanting thinly -of dead kings. Mark fell into a genial peace, leaned on a column, -smiling at the far roof. The feet of the tourists made a small melody -among the tombs and this seemed to increase. He heard a rapid breath -and saw Olive with his coat over her arm. She panted, “I’ve packed your -things. They’re in the cab. At the gates. Hurry. You’ve hardly time to -get to the station. Do hurry! I’ll telegraph to Liverpool and ask them -to hold a cabin--stateroom--whatever they call them.--Oh, do hurry!” - -“What’s happened?” - -“Oh, this!--I didn’t look at the cover--thought it was from Jack--” - -Mark snatched the telegram and read, “Joe and Margaret killed wreck -Trenton come if--” then rolled the paper into his palm. Olive saw his -eyes swell and gasped, “Who’s Margaret?” - -“Joe’s wife. Where’s cab?” - -“At the gates. Run.” - -He dashed into the sun beyond the open doors then the red hair gleamed -as he came wheeling back to gulp, “Send you a check from--” - -Olive spread her hands out crying, “No! I shan’t take it!” and saw -him rush off again. The cab made no noise that she could hear. She -shivered as if a warming fire died suddenly in winter and left her -cold. Presently she struck a palm on the stone beside her and said, -“Sentimentalist! Sentimentalist!” while she wept. She made use of Mark, -though, in her next novel, The Barbarian, which began her success. Mark -was rather flattered by the picture and glad that he hadn’t insulted -this clever, wise woman by making love to her. He thought of Olive as -exalted from the ranks of passionate, clutching females and often wrote -long, artless letters to her. - - - - -III - -Full Bloom - - -The family council prudently allowed Mark to adopt his brother’s -orphan, Margaret. He sometimes borrowed Gurdy Bernamer to keep the dark -child company in his New York flat. By 1905 the borrowing settled into -a habit. Gurdy provided activity for a French nurse and then for an -English governess despatched by Olive Ilden. He was a silent, restless -creature. He disliked motorcars for his own unrevealed reason that -they resembled the hearses of his uncle’s funeral. He had a prejudice -against small Margaret because she looked like her dead mother, an -objectionable person smelling of orange water, and because Mark made -a fuss over the child. He learned to read newspapers, copying Mark’s -breakfast occupation, and in September, 1907, noted that Carlson and -Walling would tonight inaugurate their partnership by the presentation -of “Red Winter” at their new 45th Street Theatre. “Inaugurate” charmed -Gurdy. It conveyed an image of Mark and the bony Mr. Carlson doing -something with a monstrous auger. Mark had for ever stopped acting in -May, would henceforth “manage.” Curiosity pulled Gurdy from the window -seat of his playroom in Mark’s new house on 55th Street. He waited for -a moment when the governess, Miss Converse, was scolding young Margaret -and wouldn’t see him slide down the hall stairs. He scuttled west, -then south and navigated Broadway until he reached the mad corner of -45th Street where a gentleman took him by the collar of his blouse and -halted him. - -“Where are you going?” - -Gurdy recognized a quiet character who came to luncheons now and then. -He said, “H’lo, Mr. Frohman,” dutifully and looked about for the -theatre. The stooping man detained him gravely. - -“I thought you weren’t old enough for shows.” - -“I’m looking for Mark.” - -Mr. Frohman chuckled, leaning on a stick. He said, “He’s in his office.” - -“Where’s that?” - -Gurdy stared past the pointing stick and saw a cream face of columns -and windows. He saw the stone above a ring of heads. People were gaping -at his calm acquaintance as if this plump, tired man was a kicking -horse. He remembered civility and asked, “How’s your rheumatism?” - -“Better,” said Mr. Frohman and limped away. - -Gurdy pushed scornfully through the gapers and trotted into the white -vestibule of the theatre where men were arranging flowers--horseshoes -of orchids, ugly and damp, roses in all tints, lumps of unknown bloom -on standards wrapped in silver foil. A redhaired, hatless youth listed -the cards dangling from these treasures and told Gurdy to go to hell -when Gurdy asked for his uncle but another man nodded to stairs of -yellow, slick marble. On the landing Gurdy found a door stencilled -in gold, “Carlson & Walling.” The door opened into a room hung with -photographs where Gurdy saw Mark sitting on a table, surrounded by men. -Mr. Carlson, already sheathed in winter furs, bullied a carpenter who -corrected the lower shelf of a bookcase. Gurdy stood wondering at the -furious shades of neckties and the grey hard hats which Miss Converse -thought vulgar. - -“My God,” said Carlson, “Mark, look at that comin’ in!” - -Mark groaned. He had a compact with Mrs. Bernamer that the borrowed boy -shouldn’t enter a theatre until he was twelve. He was tall enough for -twelve but he was only nine. He stayed in the doorway, studying the red -walls of the room, his white socks far apart and his hands thrust into -the pockets of his short, loose breeches. The callers stared at the -tough legs brown from summer on the farm. The boy’s one patent beauty, -his soft, pale hair, was hidden by his English sailor cap and his white -blouse was spotted with ink stains. But the men grinned and chuckled, -admiringly. Gurdy made no sound when Carlson set him on the top of the -bookcase but gazed contemptuously at the crowding men and let himself -be petted. - -“When d’you inaugurate, Mark?” - -“Eight fifteen, when you’ll be in bed, sonny.” - -Gurdy drawled, “I don’t get to bed till quarter of nine and you ought -to know that by this time.” He frowned, partly closing his dark blue -eyes, as the men laughed. “What are all those flowers for?” - -A man in a corner lifted his white face from a book and whispered, -“Those are gifts the Greeks brought.” This caused stillness, then -unpleasing chuckles. Gurdy climbed down from the bookcase and went -to talk to Mr. Fitch. They talked of French lessons and the vagaries -of governesses. The other callers complimented Mark on the boy’s -good looks. The flattery was soothing after the strain of the last -rehearsal. Mark knew it for flattery. Gurdy’s face was too long, -his sober mouth too wide and his jaw prematurely square. But the -compliments were the due of a successful actor turned manager. He sat -for a little watching Mr. Fitch lazily chat with the boy as though he -were a grown man. On the playwright’s warning he had lately published -a careful interview announcing Gurdy and Margot as adopted children -and his relationship to them. But people still probably reported Gurdy -an illegitimate son and Margot his daughter by Cora Boyle. Mark sighed -and took Gurdy down through the flowers to see the cream and gold play -house where men were squirting perfume from syringes along the red -aisles, killing the smell of paint. He let Gurdy have a syringe and -went into the vestibule. The redhaired clerk listing the gifts of other -managers handed him the card wet from its journey in a ball of pink -roses. - -“Mrs. Cosmo Rand.... Who the devil’s Mrs. Cosmo Rand, Billy?” - -The clerk scratched his ear and grinned. “You’d ought to know, sir.” - -“But I don’t. Cosmo Rand? Heard of him. Loeffler’s got him in -something. Who’s she?” - -“Miss Cora Boyle,” said the clerk and strolled off to insult a -messenger bringing in more flowers. - -Mark had a curious, disheartening shock. He didn’t bow to Cora Boyle -on the street. What right had she to send him flowers? It must be a -passing rudeness. She might remember that he disliked pink roses. Mark -rested on the ledge of the box office, brooding. But she might mean to -be pleasant. Her manager, Loeffler, was on bad terms with Carlson. -This might be a dictated, indirect peace offering. Mark patted the -florid carved stone of the ledge and thought. Cora’s new play wasn’t -a success. The reviews had been tart. She might be tired of Loeffler. -Mark was perplexed but the hunt for motives always wearied him. A -scarlet petticoat went by outside the vestibule and led off his mind. -He bade his treasurer telephone for the motor and stood joking with the -man through the box office window until a flat stop in the noise behind -him made Mark turn his head. The florists and clerks were motionless, -regarding the street. A coupé had stopped. A footman was helping a -woman and a tumult of varied flowers to the sidewalk. She came toward -the doors gallantly, her face quite hidden in the enormous bouquet but -the treasurer said, “By gee, I’d know her in hell, by her walk,” and -chuckled. She tripped on the sill and screamed gaily to Mark, “Au s’ -cours!” - -Mark jumped to catch the sheaf of yellow roses. Miss Held waved her -grey gloves wide and dipped her chin. “Je t’ apporte une gerbe vu que -t’es toujours bon enfant, Marc Antoine! And ’ow does Beatriz get along -to teach you French?” - -“Pretty fair. Haven’t had much time lately. Thought you’d taken your -show on the road, Anna?” - -“Nex’ week.” Up the staircase some one began to whistle “La Petite -Tonkinoise.” The little woman vibrated inside the grey case of her lacy -gown and pursed her lips. “Oh, but I am sick of that tune! Make him -stop.” The whistler heard and ceased. Miss Held swayed to and fro among -the flowers, noting cards. She adopted a huge orchid for her waist and -smiled down at it. A dozen grins woke in the collecting crowd. Mark -was aware of upholsterers oozing from the theatre. Miss Held hummed -from gift to gift, murmuring names--“Le Moyne.... ton institutrice.... -Ce bon vieux David.... Nice lilies.” She moved in a succession of -swift steps that seemed balanced leaps. One of the florist’s girls -sighed a positive sob of envy. The curving body and the embellished -eyes kept the crowd still. The soft gloves drooped on the hard lustre -of the stirring arms. Mark wondered at her cool, sardonic mastery of -attention. She was bored, unwell and her frock was nothing new. She was -Anna Held and the people were edging in from the sidewalk to look at -her. - -“Like to see the house, Anna?” - -“Oh, no. I very well know what that would be. All red, and gold fishes -on the ceiling, eh? No. I must go away.” She strolled off toward her -carriage, chattering sudden French which Mark did not understand. He -heard an immense discussion surge up in the vestibule as he shut the -coupé door, walked through it into the theatre where two upholsterers -were quarrelling over the age of the paragon and where Mark bumped -against a man in brown who seemed to inspect the gold dolphins of the -vault. - -“Clumsy,” said the man, briskly. - -“Didn’t see you, sir.” - -“I meant the decoration.” The man flicked a hand at the ceiling and -the red boxes, “Like Augustin Daly’s first house but much worse. -We should have passed that. Gilt. It’s the scortum ante mortum in -architecture.” He jammed a cigarette between the straight lips of his -flushed face and went on in a rattle of dry syllables. “Some one should -write a monograph on gold paint and the theatrical temperament. Plush -and passion. Stigmata.... Sous un balcon doré.... Can you give me a -match?... Where’s Carlson’s office?” He bustled out of the foyer. - -Mark wearily tore Cora Boyle’s card in his tanned fingers and nodded. -The stranger was right. This new theatre was stale. The gold sparkled -stupidly. The shades of velvet were afflicting. But Carlson liked it. -Mark sighed and thought, rather sadly, that his patron’s whole concept -of the trade was vulgar and outworn like this gaudy expense. Red -velvet, heavy gold, bright lamps--the trappings of his apprenticeship. -Old actors told Mark that this was a variant of the first Daly theatre. -The stranger was right, then. Mark wondered and went upstairs to the -office but the flushed man was gone. - -“That feller Huneker was in tryin’ to get me to hire some orchestra -leader,” Carlson said. - -“But I thought Huneker was a young man,” Mark answered. - -Mr. Fitch whispered from his corner, “He hasn’t any particular age. -What was that riot downstairs, Mark?” - -“Anna Held dropped in and left some flowers. She ain’t lookin’ well.” - -The playwright closed his magazine and lifted himself from the chair, -assuming his strange furry hat. “We have just so much vitality. She’s -losing hers. But if she died tomorrow it would make almost as much -noise as killing a president. And that’s quite right. Presidents never -make any one feel sinful. Good night.” - -Carlson asked, “You’re comin’ tonight, Clyde.” - -“Not feeling right, thanks.” - -Mark followed the bent back down the stairs. Fitch was stopped by a -lounger at the doors, loaned the old fellow ten dollars and passed, -unobtrusive, along Forty Fifth Street. He went shadowlike in his vivid -dress. Liking the man, Mark frowned. The exhausted courtesy, the slow -voice always left him puzzled; it was as though the playwright’s -prosperity kept within it a dead core of something pained, as if the -ghost of an old hunger somehow lived on under the coloured superfluity. - -Mark’s motor arrived outside. He went to whistle Gurdy up from an -investigation of the orchestra pit. All the bulbs burned about the -house. For a second Mark liked the place then the gilt and the mulberry -hangings bothered him. He chased Gurdy up an aisle to the vestibule. -The treasurer slipped from the box office to say, “Young Rand just -called up. I said you wasn’t here.” - -“Who?” - -“Cora Boyle’s new husband. That English kid.” - -Mark shrugged and shoved Gurdy into the dull blue limousine at the -curb. The motor took him away from the theatre and away from several -beckoning hands on the sidewalk. His shift to managership had changed -the fashion of salutes. People now beckoned him with a posture of -confidential affection and earnestness. They had friends to recommend, -deep suggestions. Carlson had warned him, “Mind, you’re a kid with a -pocketful of candy, now. You’ve stopped bein’ just one of the gang. -Better ride in cabs if you want to get anyplace.” Well, the motor, with -its adorable slippery blue crust, kept people at a distance. Mark -wound an arm about Gurdy and pulled himself into a corner of the seat. -The car was hampered by a dilatory van that lurched ahead of its hood. -The chauffeur cursed in Canadian French and a messenger boy on the -van’s tail cursed back, joyously foul, emptily shooting accusations of -all sins in a sweet, sexless howl that pierced the glass about Mark and -made him grin, absently amused. - -“He’s mad,” said Gurdy, dispassionately. - -“No. He’s just talking, son.” - -“Huh,” Gurdy grunted, trying to match the words with ordinary -conversation. This messenger boy was plainly an accomplished fellow. -The van rolled off over Broadway in a shock of light and dust. Gurdy -saw “Red Winter” on a poster and asked, “Is this Red Winter a good -play, Mark?” - -“Pretty fair, honey.” - -“Well, can I come to it?” - -“No.” - -“Why?” - -“Too dirty,” Mark said, then, “All about killin’ folks, son.” - -Gurdy argued, “Well, Lohengrin’s all about killing people and Miss -Converse took me to that and it was in Dutch.” - -“German, sonny.” - -“I like French better’n German,” Gurdy yawned, waving a leg in the air -and went on, “I think Broadway’s ugly.” - -“You’re right,” said Mark, enchanted by such taste. - -Yet Carlson really liked to stroll on Broadway and Cora Boyle had -often led Mark for dusty hours through this complexity of hesitant, -garrulous people, along these sidewalks where there was nothing to be -seen. He rubbed his jaw and thought of Paris, viewed last summer, of -the long, swooping street at Winchester gilt in an afterglow. Oh, after -dark Broadway was tolerable! Then the revolving people were shapes of -no consequence and, with a little mist, these lights were aqueous, -flotillas of shimmering points on a hovering, uncertain vastness. Now, -the roadway was a dappled smear of bodies wheeled and bodies shod. The -sidewalks writhed, unseemly. But Cora Boyle liked it. The pretty, black -haired dancer just then lodged at Mark’s cost had rooms overlooking the -new width above Forty Second Street. And she liked that.... And she -liked the scenery of “Red Winter.” Poor stuff, he thought. He cursed -scene painters. Charles Frohman had heard of a fellow who’d studied -the art in Berlin and made astonishing sets. He must telephone Frohman -and get the man’s name. He was tired. “Red Winter” had tired him. -The leading woman had a way of saying “California” through her nose -that had vexed him all week. A poor play. His head was full of jagged -swift ideas, of memories; Eddie Bernamer milking a young cow against -a sulphur wall and laughing when Mark tried to sketch him on the fly -leaf of an algebra; Cora Boyle swaggering into Rector’s in a blue -dress; Clyde Fitch telling little Margaret that her name was Margot; -Stanford White shouting with laughter because Mark softened the ch of -“architecture.” Why hadn’t they given White a billion dollars and let -him build the whole city into charms of tranquil, columnar symmetry?... -Gurdy knew that his uncle was oppressed. When Mark thought hard he -stroked the scar on his jaw. Gurdy wanted to talk, now, and tossed a -leg over Mark’s black, rocky knee. - -“What’re you thinkin’ about, Mark?” - -“Just bosh. What’s Margot been doing all day?” - -“Havin’ a bellyache.” - -That terrified Mark. He sweated suddenly and called through the tube -bidding the driver hurry. Spinal meningitis, he read, began with -nausea. But when he ran into the panelled library of his house Margot -was playing with her largest doll and the angular governess assured -him, in simple French, that a pill had set things right. Margot lifted -her black eyes and said, rubbing her stomach, “I was ill, papa,” in -her leisurely way. - -“Ate breakfast too fast,” Gurdy said, in grim displeasure, watching -Mark double his lean height and begin to cuddle Margot. - -Margot stared at her cousin with an aggrieved, brief pout and then -wound herself into Mark’s lap. The large doll was named Aunt Sadie for -Mrs. Bernamer. Margot said, “Miss Converse fixed Aunt Sadie’s drawers, -papa,” and her brown face rippled as she displayed three stitches. Then -she righted the doll and gazed at Mark devotedly, solemnly, preening -her starched skirt of pink linen. Pink went with her black hair and -her tawny skin. Mark touched a roaming mesh of her hair and her face -rippled once more. Her skin had this amber haze like the water of a -pool in the pine forest behind the farm. In that pool he had bathed -with her father through endless afternoons, idling on until other -boys lagged off and the shadows were ink on the crumbled ocher clay -of the margin where pink boneset grew. And now Joe was dead and his -blackhaired wife was dead ... an unskilled cook before marriage, half -Irish, half Italian, a good, sleepy woman who ate with her knife and -wore a chaplet blessed for her Roman mother by some Pope. Margot would -never know them. He kissed her hair. She was this warm bubble enclosed -in his arms. - -“Love me any, sister?” - -“’Course,” said Margot. - -Gurdy snorted and stalked away. Mark talked to the stiff governess and -patted Margot. Miss Converse sewed and chatted about Conrad’s novels, -then getting fashionable. She assented, “Very interesting. Romantic, of -course. I dare say the colour attracts you.” - -“Of course,” said Mark, “and what if they are romantic?” - -She had some vague objection. If she bored him, Mark was still grateful -that she hadn’t tried to marry him. She was necessary to the training -of the children but her buff, bulky face wasn’t alluring and her gowns -hurt him by a prevalence of mole embroidery and rumpled lace. She was a -gentlewoman, wonderfully learned and obliging about his pet airs on the -piano. Mark talked and wished that he could escape, like Gurdy who went -to practice handsprings in the white hall and slid downstairs at the -note of the doorbell. - -Gurdy slid along the handrail of black wood so admired by callers and -jumped for the dining room which had doors of glass coated in blue -silk. These doors opened into the drawing room which Gurdy despised -for its furniture all black and silver and its hangings of cloudy -tapestry, impossibly noiseless when one bounced balls against them. -Yet people called it a lovely room. And now, peering through a rift -of the blue silk Gurdy saw the butler turn a visitor into this space -and the visitor looked about with brown eyes, seeming to admire. Gurdy -speculated and decided that the slight man was an actor come to talk to -Mark about a part. His hair curled, his overcoat clung to his middle -neatly, his white gaiters were unspotted, his pale moustache didn’t -overhang his little mouth. He was visibly an actor. Gurdy had examined -many through this spyhole. And like many the fellow went to glance at a -circular mirror above the cabinet with tiny doors which Miss Converse -called “Siennese.” As Mark’s feet descended, the man straightened -himself and began a smile. Gurdy listened to the jar of his high voice -against Mark’s fuller drawl. - -“Mr. Rand?” - -“Yes. Don’t think we’ve ever met. Daresay you know who I am and all -that?” - -“Yes,” said Mark. - -Gurdy noted the long pause. He held that actors were a talkative lot. -Mr. Rand worked with his moustache an indefinite time before he spoke -again. - -“My wife sent me along--I’m a sort of ambassador, you know?... Matter -of business, entirely.” - -Mark said, “I see,” wondering how old the man was. The moustache had an -appearance of soft youth. He smiled, wanting Cora’s third husband to be -at ease, and nodded to a chair. - -“Oh, thanks no. Mrs. Rand wants to know if you’d mind meeting her. At -her hotel, for instance?” - -“I don’t mind at all,” Mark lied, “Glad to. Any time.” - -“Then she may let you know? Thanks ever so. Good luck to your play -tonight,” said the young man and walked out gracefully. - -Gurdy came through the glass doors and asked, “Who’s he?” Mark lifted -the pliant, hard body in the air. He fancied that Gurdy must feel -something odd, here. - -“How old would you say he was, darling?” - -“Dunno. Who’s Mrs. Rand?” - -“An actress.” - -“Put me down,” said Gurdy, “My pants are comin’ off.” - -Mark breathed comfortably, helped the boy on his knee tighten the white -trousers and passed into dotage. Eddie Bernamer and Joe Walling had -begotten these bodies. The fact mattered nothing. Mark was a father. -He had possession. When things went wrong he could come home to gloat -over Margot and Gurdy. He promised, “I shan’t be busy now for a week. -We’ll ride in the Park and feed the squirrels, sonny.” - -“All right. Say, Mark, you’re all thin.--There’s the doorbell, -again.--Oh, say, a lady telephoned s’noon. Her name was Miss Monroe and -she wanted you to call her up.” - -“I like her nerve!” - -Gurdy jumped at this loud snort of his uncle. - -“Who’s she?” - -“She’s an actress,” Mark stammered, hoping the boy wouldn’t go on, and -Carlson came in, his yellow face splotched as though he’d been walking -fast. - -“That Rand squirt been here?” he yelled at Mark. - -“Yes. Why?” - -“I passed him. What’s he want?” - -“Me to meet her.” - -“You goin’ to?” - -“Guess I better, Mr. Carlson.” - -Carlson jabbed Gurdy’s stomach with his cane and panted, “I can tell -you what she wants and don’t you listen to it, neither. She’s had a -fight with Billy Loeffler. He won’t put this whelp she married in her -comp’ny. I bet she quits Loeffler. Her show’s no good, anyhow. Well, I -won’t take her on. She’s a second rater. She’s an onion. I won’t have -her for nothin’. Don’t you get sentymental about Cora Boyle any more, -son!” - -“You needn’t worry,” said Mark, patting Gurdy’s ear. - -Gurdy sat up and inquired, “Is that the Cora Boyle grandpapa says was -a loose footed heifer?” So Carlson broke into screaming mirth. Mark -flushed and mumbled, sent the boy away and scowled respectfully at his -partner. Sometimes Carlson’s crude amusement stung him. - -“For God’s sake don’t talk of her in front of the kids, sir!” - -“All right, son. Goin’ to let Gurdy come to the show tonight?” - -“Not much!” - -The old man lounged into a chair and jeered at his fosterling. Mark’s -horror diverted him. He yapped, “Still think it’s a dirty show, do you?” - -“Yes.... Oh, dunno! If there was anything to the slop but that second -act, I wouldn’t care. Nothing but Sappho over again. Old as the hills.” - -“What’s new in the show business, son?” - -“The Merry Widow is,” Mark laughed, “and you wouldn’t buy it. Savage -is bringing it in week after next. They were playing the music at -Rector’s last night.--Look here, the set for the last act’s all wrong, -still. Those green curtains--” - -“You and your sets! God,” said Carlson, “you’d ought to’ve been a scene -painter!” - -“I wish I could be, for about one week!” Mark let a grievance loose, -slapping his leg. “These people make me sick! You tell them you want -something new and they trot out some sketch of a room that every one’s -seen for twenty years. They never think of--” - -“You ain’t ever satisfied! You act like scenery made a show--” - -Mark sighed, “Well, we’re not giving the public its moneysworth with -this piece. The scenery’s--mediocre.--Come up and see Margot.” - -The old man poked Margot’s doll with a shaking thumb and called her -Maggie to see her scowl, like Mark. The little girl’s solemn vanity -delighted him. He was also delighted by Gurdy who became an embodied -sneer when Mark fondled Margot. The boy watched Mark kiss this female -nuisance then walked haughtily out of the library and set to work -banging the piano in the upper playroom. - -“All you need’s a wife and a mother-in-law and you’d have a happy -home,” Carlson said when Mark let him out of the front door. - -“Think I haven’t?” - -“I suppose you have. Ain’t any truth in this that you’re goin’ to marry -that Monroe gal?” - -“No. I gave her a ring, last week. I suppose she’s been airing it.” - -“Sure.--You big calf,” the old man said with gloom, “you always act -so kind of surprised when one of ’em brags of you. You ain’t but -twenty-nine and you’re a fine lookin’ jackass. Of course, she’ll show -off her solytaire! A gal’s as vain as a man, any day. One of ’em’ll -get you married, yet.--Yell at that cab, son. My legs are mighty -tired.--See you at eight sharp. Now, mind, I won’t have nothin’ to say -to Cora Boyle.” - -Mark waited until the opening night of “The Merry Widow” for more news -of Cora Boyle. She deserted her manager, Loeffler, while “Red Winter” -was in the first week of its run at the 45th Street Theatre. Mark -saw her lunching in the Knickerbocker grill with her young husband -and a critic who always touted her as the successor of Ada Rehan. A -busybody assured Mark that Cosmo Rand was twenty. Cora was thirty -one. All three of her husbands, then, were younger. The oddity of -theatrical marriage still alarmed Mark. In Fayettesville it was a fixed -convention that girls should be younger than their husbands. But she -was luscious to see at the “Merry Widow” opening. Mark thought how well -she looked, hung above the crowd in the green lined box. She found -novel fashions of massing her hair. That night it rose in a black -peak sustained by silver combs. She kept a yellow cloak slung across -one bare shoulder concealing her gown. Against the gentle green of -her background appeared three men. Rand wore a single eye-glass that -sparkled dully when the outer lights were low. Through the music and -the applause Mark was conscious of the box and of Cora’s red feathered -fan. Her second husband, a thin Jewish comedian, went up to shake hands -in an entr’acte. Women behind Mark giggled wildly. He wandered into -the bronze lobby where men were already whistling the slow melody of -“Velia.” He was chaffed by an Irish actor manager born in Chicago whose -accent was a triumph of maintained vowels. - -“An’ why don’t you go shake hands with Cora, bhoy?” - -“Shut up, Terry. Come have a drink?” - -He steered his friend to a new bar. The Irishman was rather drunk but -vastly genial. He maundered, “A fool Cora was to let go of you, bhoy. -They’re tellin’ me you’ve made money in the stockmarket, too.” - -“A little,” Mark admitted. - -“I’ve had no luck that way. Well, a fool Cora was.--And how’s it feel -bein’ a manager, lad?” - -“Fine.” - -The Irishman looked at Mark sidelong over his glass, then up at the -gold stars of the ceiling. - -“Ho!--Yes, it’s a fine feelin’.--Well, wait until you’ve put on a -couple of frosts, bhoy! And have to go hat in your hand huntin’ a -backer. You lend money, easy.--You’ll see all the barflies that’ve had -their ten and their twenty off you time and again--You’ll see ’em run -when they see you comin’. Well, here tonight and hell tomorrow.--So -Cora’s quit Billy Loeffler, has she? The dhear man! May his children -all be acrobats! ’Twas Gus Daly taught the scut every trick he knows. -The Napoleon of Broadway! I mind Loeffler runnin’ err’nds for Daly in -eighty five.--Well, you wanted to be a manager and here you are and -here’s luck.--It’s a fine game--the finest there is--and, mind you, -I’ve been a practicin’ bhurglar and a plumber. Drink up.” - -They drank and returned to the green theatre, resonant with the prelude -of the next act. Mark was struggling in the half lit thresh of men -strolling toward their seats when Cosmo Rand halted him. - -“You’d not mind coming to supper in our rooms at the Knickbocker?” - -Mark accepted. The scene of the Maxim revel was lost to him while he -wondered what Cora wanted. He wouldn’t engage her. Carlson’s prejudice -was probably valid. The old man swore that she was worthless outside -light comedy. Yet she had good notices in all her parts. She was -famous for clothes. She signed recommendations for silks and unguents. -She had made a dressmaker popular among actresses. She had played in a -failure in London whence came legends of a passionate Duke. The Duke’s -passion might be invented, like other legends. He mused. The flowing -waltz music made him melancholy. What sort of woman was Cora, nowadays? -Every one changed. He, himself, had changed. He was getting callous to -ready amities, explosions of mean jealousy. He knew nothing of Cora, -really. She might be a different person, better tempered, less frank. -Women were incomprehensible, anyhow. He would never understand them, -doubted that anyone did and sighed. He walked to Cora’s hotel with a -feeling of great dignity. She had mauled him badly, abused him, lied to -him and now she was seeking peace. Then, rising in the lift, he knew -that this dignity had a hollow heart; he was afraid of Cora Boyle. - -“This is awfully good of you,” she said, shaking hands. Then she -rested one arm on the shelf filled with flowers and smiled slowly, -theatrically, kicking her rosy train into the right swath about her -feet. Mark felt the display as a boast of her body. She resumed, -“There’s really no sense in our looking at each other over a fence, is -there?” - -His face, seen in a mirror among the flowers, cheered Mark to a grin. -He looked impassive and bland. He drawled, “No sense at all,” and -stepped back. But she confused him. He had to speak. He said, “That’s a -stunning frock.” - -“You always did notice clothes, didn’t you? Cosmo, do give Mr. Walling -a drink.” - -Her voice had rounded and came crisply with an English hint. But it was -not music. It jangled badly against Rand’s level, “What’ll you have, -sir?” from the table where there were bottles and plates of sandwiches. -Mark considered this boy as they talked of “The Merry Widow.” He saw -man’s beauty inexpertly enough. Young Rand was handsome in the fragile, -groomed manner of an English illustration. His chin was pointed. His -eyes seemed brown. His curls lay in even bands. He had neither length -nor strength. But he talked sensibly, rather shrewdly. - -“There’ll be a deal of money lost bringing over Viennese pieces, of -course. This thing’s one in a thousand. Quite charming.” - -Mark asked, “You’ve not been over here long?” - -“I?” Rand laughed, “Lord, yes. I’m a Canadian. Born in Iowa, as a -matter of fact. I’ve been a good deal in England, of course.--Oh, I was -at your new piece the other night. Red Winter, I mean. How very nicely -you’ve mounted it. I really felt beastly cold in that second act. The -snow’s so good.” - -Mark bowed, selecting a sandwich. The critics had praised the snow -scene. Rand might truly admire it. If the snow hadn’t satisfied Mark it -had pleased every one else. He lost himself in thoughts of snow. Cora -trailed her rose gown to the table and poured water into a glass of -pale wine. A broad bracelet on her wrist clicked against the glass. She -said, “You and Carlson own all the rights to Red Winter, don’t you?” - -“Yes.” - -“Are you going to send it to London?” - -He laughed and put down his glass. “London? What for? It’d last just -about one week!” - -Cora smiled over a shoulder, retiring to the shelf of flowers. - -“It would do better than that, Mark. I’ve played in London.” - -“I’ve never played there but I’ve been there enough to know better. -California Gold Rush! They don’t know there was such a thing!” - -“Oh, I say,” said Rand. - -Cora sipped some watered wine. The light shot through the glass and -made a pear of glow on her throat. She was motionless, drinking. She -became a shape set separate from the world in a momentary gleam. He -knew that she was acting. Then she said sharply, “I’ll buy the English -rights if you and Carlson’ll make me a decent figure.” - -“Oh, look here! You’d lose. I was talking to Ian Gail about it, last -night. It wouldn’t make a cent in England. They wouldn’t know what it’s -all about. And--it’s such a rotten play! There’s nothing in it!” - -She asked, looking at him, “Can I have it?” and her flat voice took -fire in the question, achieved music. She must want the poor play -badly. Rand’s pink nails were lined along his moustache, hiding its -silk. The room fell silent. - -“Oh, sure,” Mark said, “You can have it, Cora. I’ll see Mr. Carlson in -the morning.... But damned if I can make out what there is in the play.” - -“It’s not the sort of thing you like, I know. But I’m sick of comedy -and that’s all I’m ever offered, here. And I’m sick of New York. Well, -make me an offer of the English rights--Only--I’m no bank, Mark.” She -swaggered to the piano and tamely played a few bars of the Merry Widow -waltz. She hadn’t Olive Ilden’s grace, so seated, and the rose gown -seemed sallow against the black of the piano. She had finished her -scene. Mark saw the familiar stir of her throat as she hid a yawn. He -promised to hurry the business of the English rights to the melodrama -and took his leave. - -What had he feared? He tried to think, in the corridor. Recapture, -perhaps, by this woman who wasn’t, after all, half as wicked as others. -Her new elegance hadn’t moved him. The stage did refine people! Cora -had the full air of celebrity. She was now controlled, vainer. She -might still be a shrew. He saddened, ringing for the lift, and thought -of Cosmo Rand’s future if “Red Winter” failed in London. The elevator -deposited a page with a silver bucket and this went clinking to Cora’s -door. Rand and she would drink champagne. Mark sank pondering to the -lounge and stopped to buy a cigar, there. It was almost one o’clock. -Many of the lights had been turned out. The threaded marble lost sheen -in the smoky gloom. Parties ebbed from the supper room and a wedge -of dressed men waved to Mark. A candy merchant in the lead bawled -to him and Mark went to be introduced to an English actress on the -millionaire’s arm. She swayed, gracious and tipsy, involved in a cloak -of jet velvet, her voice murmurous as brushed harp strings emerging -from the pallor of her face above the browning gardenias on the cloak. -She asked, “Like this wrap? Makes me feel like a very big black -cigar--I should have a very broad red and gold band.” The men pressed -about her fame sniggered, respecting this lovely myth. She was assigned -in legend to the desire of princes. The candy merchant grinned, -cuddling her hand on his waistcoat. She tapped the brass edge of the -turning door with a gardenia stem and smiled at Mark’s silk hat, then -at the millionaire. “Am I talking too loud, cherished one?” - -“Shout your head off,” the candy merchant said, “It’s a free country.” - -“Oh, only the bond are free,” she proclaimed. She told Mark, “Bond -Street’s getting frightfully shabby. Max Beerbohm says--I do look -rather like a very big black cigar, don’t I?--Do stop pulling my arm, -you dear, fat thing!” - -“The car’s here, honey.” - -“How dear of the car! We’re going to sup somewhere, aren’t we? Oh, no, -to bed.--Like a very big, black cigar--” - -She was drawn through the brazen doors away from Mark. The men pushed -after her avidly. She went tottering to the great motor, was engulfed. -Mark blinked in the waning smell of gardenias, waited for the motor to -be gone and walked into the street. He saw rain falling. There was no -taxicab in sight along the street. From the west an orange palpitation -flooded this darker way. Steam from a clamorous drill blew north about -the white tower of the Times building. Wet cabs jerked north and south -along the gleam of rails. The higher lights were gone. The rain dropped -from an upper purple and rapped the crown of his hat as Mark strolled -to the corner. Some one began to talk to him before he reached -Broadway. Mark glanced at this beggar carelessly and paused to dig in a -pocket for change. The shivering voice continued. - -“... ain’t like I’d come bothering you before. I ain’t that kind. But -you’ve got comp’nies on the road and honest, Walling, I’m as good as -ever I was. You’ve mebbe heard that I’m taking dope. Not so. Some -of that bunch at Bill Loeffler’s office have been puttin’ that out. -Honest--” - -Three white capped young sailors blundered past, all laughing, and -jarred the shadowy body away from Mark. The man came shuffling back and -clung to Mark’s sleeve, his face lavender in the rainy light above a -shapeless overcoat. He whispered on, “Honest, some of the things that -bunch at Loeffler’s place say about you and Carlson! But I ain’t takin’ -nothing, Walling. Had a run of bad luck. I’m on the rocks. But you’ve -seen me run a show. You know I can handle a comp’ny--” - -“The light’s so bad,” said Mark, “and your collar--I’m not just sure -who--” - -The man gave a whimpering laugh. “Oh, I thought you was actin’ kind -of chilly to an old pal. I’m Jim Rothenstein. You know? I was stage -manager for Carlson back when you was playin’ the kid in Nicoline. You -know. I gave you your job. Cora Boyle she brought you in to me and -asked if there wasn’t a little part--Honest, I ain’t takin’ dope. That -bunch--” - -Mark gulped, “Of course you’re not.” Some harsh drug escaped from the -man’s rags. This was nightmare. Mark found a bill and held it out, -backing from the shadow. “Come round to my office some day and I’ll see -what--” - -A hansom rolled to the curb and the driver raised his whip. Mark ran to -shelter, crying his address. The grey horse moved toward Broadway. Mark -shoved up the trap and shouted to the driver, “No! Go up Fifth Avenue!” - - - - -IV - -Penalties - - -Cora Boyle played “Red Winter” in London for two years. She began her -run in May of 1908 with a popular English male star as her hero. He -presently retired from the company and Cosmo Rand replaced him. Olive -Ilden wrote an opinion to Mark from her new house in Chelsea: “It -seems to me that your one time wife is a competent second rate actress. -She--or someone near her--must have intelligence. She has perfectly -applied our musical comedy manner to melodrama. She is languid and -rude to the audience and is enormously, successful, naturally. Ambrose -Russell is painting her. If you knew London you would understand that -to have Ambrose Russell paint one implies entire success. He alternates -Gaiety girls and Duchesses and has acquired a trick of wonderful -vulgarity. I met Miss Boyle at his studio on Sunday. We talked about -you and she rather gushed. Her infantile husband stood by and said -Rawther at intervals like an automatic figure on a clock. A pretty -thing.... Of course I prefer London to Winchester. Ecclesiastical -society is only amusing in Trollope. My husband got our house from a -retired Admiral and it has a garden. I have fallen in love with him--my -husband, not the Admiral. He has written a book of Naval tales on the -sly and to my horror they are quite good. Having scorned him as a mere -gentleman all these years it upsets me to have to consider him as an -artist. I hear from Ian Gail that your plays all make quantities of -money because they are utter rubbish in lovely settings and that your -house is an upholsterer’s paradise. Very bad for the children who are -probably spoiled beyond hope or help.” - -Mark wrote four pages of denial and received: “Nonsense! Of course -you do not have courtesans to lunch but leading ladies come and swoon -on your drawing room floor and the children are pointed out in your -Central Park as Mark Walling’s brats. Your parasites fawn on them. -Their world is made up of expensive motors, sweets and an adoring idiot -as God. The little boy reads theatrical reviews over his porridge and -the little girl probably does not know that she is a mammal and liable -to death, spanking or lessons. They live in a treacle well.... Your one -time wife has taken a house near me and her pictures, eating breakfast -in bed with a Pom on the pillow, adorn the Sketch. I danced with her -husband last night.” - -Cora Boyle’s photographs in the London Weeklies made old Carlson sneer. -He lounged in Mark’s library and derided: “A fine figger and a pair -of black eyes. Actress? Sure. She makes pictures of herself. And what -the hell else do folks want, huh? Just that. They want pictures. You -say they want fine scenery and new ideas about lights and all? Bosh, -son! They want to see a good lookin’ gal in good clothes--and not much -clothes--with all the lights in the house jammed on her. Act? Make ’em -cry a little and they think it’s actin’. Margot’ll be the boss actress -of the United States when she’s twenty--Come here, Maggie, and tell me -how old you are.” - -“Seven and a half,” said Margot, “and I don’t want to be an actress.” - -“Huh. Why not?” - -“Aunt Sadie says actresses aren’t nice,” Margot informed him. - -Carlson wrinkled his yellow face and chuckled out, “Ask Mark what he -thinks of ’em, sister.” - -She turned her eyes up to Mark gravely and smiled. She was unlike her -father, most like her mother. Mark bent and lifted her in the air, -kissed her bare knees and put her hair aside from the little ears, -faintly red, delightfully chilled for his mouth from a walk in the -Park. She said, on his shoulder, “Oo, that’s a new stickpin, papa!” - -“Diamonds get ’em all,” Carlson nodded. - -“It’s a sapphire,” said Mark. - -“Nice,” Margot approved and Mark felt glorified. Children were -certainly a relief after the arid nonchalance of women who took money, -jewels or good rôles and asked for more donations over the house -telephone. Margot played with the sapphire square a moment and then -scrambled down from Mark’s shoulder to his knee where she sat admiring -him while he wrote checks. He smiled at her now and then, let her blot -signatures and kissed her hands when she did so. - -“You’d spoil a trick elephant,” Carlson muttered, “Ain’t Gurdy old -enough to go to school?” - -“He started in at Doctor Cary’s last week. They’ve got him learning -Latin and French, right off.” - -“What’s Doctor Cary’s?” - -“It’s a school in Sixtieth Street.” - -“Hump,” said Carlson, “Private School? Well, you’re right. Public -schools teach hogwash. They got to. They teach hogs. But why didn’t you -send him to one these schools out of town while you were at it? Get him -out of New York.” - -“My G--glory,” Mark cried, “He’s only nine!” - -Margot corrected, “Ten, papa. He was ten in May.” Then she told -Carlson, “Papa’d just die if Gurdy went away to school. He told Miss -Converse.” She slid from his knee and curtsied to Carlson with, “I must -take my French lesson, now. So, good afternoon.” She was gone out of -the room before Mark could kiss her again. She was always within reach -of kisses and her warmth, curled on his lap was something consolatory -when he did send Gurdy away to Saint Andrew’s School in September 1910. -Villay, his broker, and his lawyer advised the step. Olive Ilden wrote -to him: “I am glad you have done the right thing. God knows I am no -cryer up of the Public School System. But a Public School (I forget -what you call private kennels for rich cubs in the States) is the only -thing for the boy, in your situation. Ian Gail tells me that Gurdy -is rather clever. I can imagine nothing worse than to be the son by -adoption of a theatrical manager and a day scholar at a small New York -school. But I know how miserable you are. Every one has sentimental -accretions. I dislike seeing old women run down by motors, myself. No, -I know how badly you feel, just now. But these be the fair rewards of -them that love, you know? My own son is, of course, as the archangels. -I hear through his Housemaster at Harrow that he smokes cigarettes and -bets on all the races.” - -Mark tried to take Gurdy’s absence with a fine philosophy. His broker -and his lawyer assured him that Saint Andrew’s was the best school in -the country. But the red, Georgian buildings spread on the New England -meadow and the impersonal stateliness of the lean Headmaster seemed a -cold nest for Gurdy. He missed the boy with a dry and aching pain that -wasn’t curable by work on five new plays, Margot’s plump warmth on -his knee or contrived, brief intoxication. All his usual enchantments -failed. He wore out the phonograph plates of the Danse Macabre and -the Peer Gynt “Sunrise.” He worried wretchedly and the disasters of -October and November hardly balanced his interior trouble. Two, the -more expensive two of the five Carlson and Walling productions failed. -Carlson cheerfully indicated the shrinkage of applicants for jobs, -hopeful playwrights and performers in the office above the 45th Street -Theatre. Mark regretted twenty thousand dollars spent for shares in the -Terriss Pictograph Company. Yet young Terriss was a keen fellow and -Carlson thought something might come of motion pictures after a while. -His friends sighed about Mark that the “show business was a gamble” and -on visits to the farm Mark tried to be gay. A Military Academy had been -built in Fayettesville on a stony field owned by Eddie Bernamer, the -only heritage from Bernamer’s Norwegian father. Gurdy’s brothers were -transferred to this polished school and Mark was soothed, in thinking -that he’d made his own people grandees. He wished that he could ape the -composure of the Bernamers and said so on a visit near Christmas time. - -“But, great Cæsar,” Bernamer blinked, kicking balled snow from a -boot-heel, “this Saint Andrew’s is a good school ain’t it, even if it -is up by Boston? The buildin’s are fire proof, ain’t they? Gurdy can’t -git out at night and raise Ned? Then what’s got into you?” - -“Oh, but--my God, Eddie!... I miss him.” - -“You’re a fool,” said his brother-in-law, staring at Mark, “You’re -doin’ the right thing by the boy. You always do the right thing--like -you done it by us. Sadie and me’ve got seven kids and I love ’em -all.... They got to grow up. Stop bein’ a fool.... You don’t look well. -Thin’s a rail. Business bad?” - -“We lost about forty-five thousand in two months.” - -“That countin’ in the thousand you gave Sadie for her birthday?” - -“No--Lord, no!” - -Bernamer looked about the increased, wide farm and the tin roofed -garage where Mark’s blue motor stood pompous beside the cheap family -machine. He drawled, “Well, you’ve sunk about twenty-five thousand -right here, bud. You let up on us. Save your money and set up that -theatre of your own you want so. And I’m makin’ some money on the side.” - -“How?” - -The farmer grinned. - -“That no good Healy boy--Margot’s mamma’s cousin, come soft soapin’ -round for a loan last summer. He and another feller have a kind of -music hall place in Trenton. A couple of girls that sing and one of -those movin’ picsher machines. They wanted five hundred to put in more -chairs. I fixed it I’d get a tenth the profit and they’ve been sendin’ -me twenty-five and thirty dollars a week ever since--and prob’ly -cheatin’ the eye teeth out of me. Dunno what folks go to the place -for--but they do.” - -“Funny,” said Mark. - -A bugle blew in the grey bulk of the Military Academy. Boys came -threading out across the flat snow between ice girt tree trunks. A -triple rank formed below the quivering height of the flagpole where -the wind afflicted the banner. The minute shimmer of brass on the blue -uniforms thrilled Mark. The flag rippled down in folds of a momentary -beauty. He sighed and turned back to the pink papered living room where -Gurdy’s small, fat legged sisters were clotted around Margot’s rosy -velvet on a leather lounge. Old Walling smoked a sickening cheroot -and smiled at all this prettiness. Margot’s black hair was curled -expansively by the damp air. She sat regally, telling her country -cousins of Mastin’s shop where Mark bought her clothes. She kissed -every one good-bye when Mark’s driver steered the car to the door and -told Eddie Bernamer how well his furred moleskin jacket suited him. In -the limousine she stretched her bright pumps on the footwarmer beside -Mark’s feet and said, “Oh, you’ve some colour, now, papa!” - -“Have I? Cold air. D’you know you say na-ow and ca-ow, daughter, just -like you lived on the farm the year ’round?” - -Margot gave her queer, chiming chuckle which was like muffled Chinese -bells. “Do I?” - -“Pure New Jersey, honey. I used to. Mrs. Le Moyne used to guy me about -it when I was a kid.” - -“Miss Converse says ‘guy’ is slang,” Margot murmured. - -“So it is, sister. We ought to go to England some summer pretty soon -and let Miss Converse visit her folks.” - -“I’d love to.... I’ve never been abroad,” she said, gravely stating it -as though Mark mightn’t know, “And every one goes abroad, don’t they?” - -“And what would you do abroad?” - -She considered one pump and fretted the silver buckle with the other -heel. “I’d see people, papa.” - -“What people, sis?” - -“Oh,” she said, “every one!” - -It set him thinking that she lived pent in his house with her stiff, -alien governess. She was infinitely safe, so, but she might be bored; -he recalled hot and stagnant evenings on the farm when his mind had -floated free of the porch steps and his father’s drawl into a paradise -of black haired nymphs and illustrious warriors dressed from the -engravings of the Centennial Shakespeare. Perhaps she should go to -school? He consulted the governess, was surprised by her agreement, -began to ask questions about schools for small girls. - -“Miss Thorne’s,” said his broker, Villay, “She’ll really be taught -something there.... Miss Thorne was my wife’s governess. I’ll see if I -can manage....” - -“Manage what?” - -The broker clicked his cigarette case open, shut it and laughed, “You -know what I mean, Walling.” - -“No, I don’t.” - -“It was one thing getting Gurdy into Saint Andrew’s. The Headmaster’s a -broad minded man.... My dear boy, you’re Walling--Walling, of Carlson -and Walling and you used to be a matinée idol.... I don’t like hurting -your feelings.” - -“You mean you’ll have to go down on your knees to this Miss Thorne to -get her to take Margot?” - -The broker said, “Not exactly down on my knees, Walling. I’ll have -it managed. The school’s a corporation and my wife owns some stock.” -Mark groaned and was driven uptown thinking sourly of New York. Things -like this made Socialists, he fancied, and looked with sympathy at an -orator on a box in Union Square. But Gurdy was arriving by the five -o’clock train at the Grand Central Station and the lush swirl of the -crowd on Fifth Avenue cured Mark’s spleen. Snow fluttered in planes -of brief opal from the depth of assorted cornices above the exciting -lights. A scarlet car crossed his at Thirty Fourth Street and bore -a rigid, revealed woman in emerald velvet, like a figure of pride -in a luminous shell. Her machine moved with his up the slope. Mark -examined her happily. She chewed gum with the least movement of her -white and vermilion cheeks. He despised her and felt strong against -the pyramidal society in which Walling, of Carlson and Walling, was -disdained. A cocktail in the Manhattan bar helped. The yellow place -was full of undergraduates bustling away from Harvard and Yale. The -consciousness of dull trim boots and the black, perpetual decency of -his dress raised Mark high out of this herd. At least he knew better -than to smoke cigarettes with gold tips and the oblique, racy colours -of neckties had no meaning for him beyond gaudiness. He strolled to -the clapboards and icy labyrinthine bewilderment of the station, found -the right gate and beheld uncountable ladies gathered together with -children in leather gaiters, chauffeurs at attention smoking furtively. -Here, he knew, was good breeding collected to take charge of its sons. -The cocktail struggled for a moment with cold air. Mark retired to the -rough wooden wall and watched this crowd. The mingling voices never -reached plangency. The small girls and boys stirred like low flowers in -a field of dark, human stalks. Colours, this winter, were sombre. The -women walked with restraint, with tiny gestures that revealed nothing, -with smiles to each other that meant nothing. He had a feeling of -deft performance and a young fellow at the wall beside Mark chuckled, -lighting a cigarette. - -“A lot of rich dames waitin’ for their kids from some goddam school up -in Boston, see?” - -Mark nodded. The young fellow gave the grouped women another stare and -crossed the tight knees of his sailor’s breeches. The nostrils of his -shapely, short nose shook a trifle. He tilted his flat cap further -over an ear and winked comradely at Mark, “Wonder who the kids’ fathers -are, huh? A lot of rich dames....” He spat and added, “Well, you can’t -blame ’em so much. Their husban’s are all keepin’ these chorus girls. -But it’s too much money, that’s what. If they’d got to work some and -cook an’ all they wouldn’t have time for this society stuff. It’s too -much money. If they’d got to cook their meals they wouldn’t have time -for carryin’ on with all these artists an’ actors an’ things--” He -broke off to snap at a girl who came hurrying from a telephone booth, -“Say, what in hell? Makin’ another date?” - -“Honest, I was just phonin’ mamma,” the girl said. - -“You took a time!--Phonin’ her what?” He scowled, dominating the girl, -“Huh?” - -The girl argued, “I’d got to tell her sump’n, ain’t I, Jimmy? I told -her I was goin’ to a show with a gerl fren’--” - -“Some friend,” said the sailor, laughed at himself and tramped off with -his girl under an arm. The girl’s cheap suit of beryl cloth shook out a -scent of cinnamon. Mark sighed; she was young and pretty and shouldn’t -lie to her mother about men. But perhaps her mother was bad tempered, -illiberal. Perhaps the flat was crowded with a preposterous family and -exuded this slim thing often, hoping a fragment of pleasure. A man -couldn’t be critical. Mark went to meet Gurdy and immediately forgot -all discomforts in seeing that the boy had grown an inch, that the -lashes about his dark blue eyes were blackening, in hearing him admit -that he was glad to be at home again. - -Gurdy’s schoolmates had sisters at Miss Thorne’s, it seemed, and Mark -waited, fretting, through the Christmas holidays until his broker wrote -that Miss Thorne would be pleased to have Margot as a pupil. Miss -Converse, the governess, asked Mark bluntly how he had managed this -matter. - -“You Americans are extraordinary,” she said, “You’re so--so essentially -undemocratic. It’s shocking. But we must get Margot some decent frocks -directly.” - -The bill for Margot’s massed Christmas clothes lay on his desk. Mark -started, protesting, “But--” - -“I’ve been meaning to talk of this for some time,” said the governess. - -“Her clothes?” - -“Her clothes.--My people were quite rich, you know, and I had things -from Paris but really--O, really, Mr. Walling, you mustn’t let her have -every pretty frock she sees! I must say you’ve more taste than most -women--quite remarkable. But what will there be left for the child when -she comes out?” - -He wanted to answer that no frock devised of man could make Miss -Converse other than a bulky, angular female but gave his meek consent -to authority. He resented the dull serges and linens of Margot’s -school dress and Sunday became precious because he saw her in all -glory, flounced in rose and sapphire. She was a miracle; she deserved -brilliancies of toned silk to set off the pale brown of her skin, the -crisp thickness of her hair. But in June on the _Cedric_ he heard one -woman say to another, “Positively indecent. Like a doll,” when he -walked the decks with Margot and the other woman’s, “But she’s quite -lovely,” didn’t assuage that tart summary of Margot’s costume. An -elderly actress told him, “My dear boy, you mustn’t overdo the child’s -clothes,” and a fat lady from Detroit came gurgling to ask where he -bought things for Margot. He knew this creature to be the wife of a -motor king and looked down at her thoughtfully. - -“I suppose you have daughters, yourself?” - -“Yes, three. All of them married. But they still come to me for -advice.--Mastin’s? I thought so. Thank you so much.” - -He watched her purple linen frock ruck up in lumps as her fat knees -bent over the brass sill of a door and pitied her daughters. He was -playing poker in the smoke room when Gurdy slid into the couch beside -him and sat silently observing the game. The boy was lately thirteen -and gaunt. His silence coated an emotion that Mark felt, disturbing -as the chill of an audience on an opening night. Gurdy was angry. The -milky skin below his lips twitched and wrinkled. The luncheon bugle -blew. The game stopped and, when the other players rose, Mark could -turn to him. “Was that fat woman in tortoise shell glasses talkin’ to -you?” The boy demanded. - -“Yes.” - -“Well, it was a bet. I was reading in the parlour place. It was a bet. -One of the women bet you got Margot’s things in New York and the rest -of ’em said Paris. And that fat hog--” Gurdy’s voice broke--“said she -didn’t mind slumming. So she went off and talked to you. They all -s-said that Margot looked like a poster.” - -This was horrible. Mark saw some likeness between Margot’s pink -splendour and the new posters clever people made for him. He must be -wrong. He uncertainly fingered the pile of poker chips and asked Gurdy, -“D’you think sister’s--too dressed up?” - -Gurdy loosed a sob that slapped Mark’s face with its misery and dashed -his hand into the piled chips. He said, “D-don’t give a dam’ what they -say about her. I hate hearin’ them talk about you that way!” - -Mark waited until the nervous sobs slacked. Then he asked, “Do they -ever talk about me at your school, sonny?” - -“No. Oh, one of the masters asked me why you didn’t put on some play. -Is there a play called the Cherry Orchard?” - -“Russian. It wouldn’t run a week.” Mark piled up the chips and said, “I -may be all wrong--Anyhow, don’t you bother, son ... God bless you.” - -Olive Ilden gave him her view while Margot and Gurdy explored the -garden that opened from her Chelsea drawing room. She sat painting her -lips with a perfumed stick of deep red and mimicked his drawl, “No, -her things ar-r-ren’t too bright, old man. She isn’t too much dressed -up. It’s merely that this thin faced time of ours isn’t dressed up to -her. She’s Della Robbia and we’re--Whistler. It’s burgherdom. Prudence. -It’s the nineteenth century. It’s the tupenny ha’penny belief that -dullness is respectable. Hasn’t she some Italian blood? Now Joan--my -wretched daughter--simply revels in dowdiness. She’s only happy in a -jersey or Girl Guides rubbish. She’s at Cheltenham, mixing with the -British flapper. When she’s at home she drives me into painting my face -and putting dyed attire on my head. If I had to live with Margot I -shouldn’t wear anything gayer than taupe.” - -He stared out at Margot whose pink frock revolved above her gleaming -silver buckles on the crushed shell of the walk. Olive saw his face -light, attaining for the second a holy glow. It was a window in the -wall of dark night. He looked and doted. The woman wondered at him. He -had all the breathless beauty of a child facing its dearest toy. His -grey eyes dilated. In her own eyes she felt the dry threat of tears and -said, “Old man, I’m sorry for you.” - -“Why?” - -“Because you’re such a dear and because you’re a pariah. I don’t -know that all this garden party petting is good for our player folk -but--over in your wilderness--no one seems to investigate the stage -except professors and the police. It must be sickening.... What’ll -become of Margot when she’s grown up?” - -It had begun to worry him on the _Cedric_. He loosely thought that her -friends from Miss Thorne’s school would be kind to her. Wouldn’t they? -He said, “She’s only ten, Olive,” and sat brooding. It wasn’t fair. -Smart society, the decorous women of small gestures, hadn’t any use -for him. He looked at Olive who wrote letters to him and called him -old man. She wrote books. She knew all the world. She had been to the -king’s court and laughed about it. He went to shelter in her strange -kindness and sighed, “It isn’t fair. She ought to have--she ought to go -anywhere she wants to.” - -“She probably will if there’s anything in eyelashes,” said Olive, “and -Gurdy will go anywhere he wants to, by the shape of his jaw. I’ve been -dissecting American society with horrific interest. It seems to have -reached a lower level than British! You haven’t even an intelligent -Bohemia.” - -“There ain’t many literary people,” Mark reflected, “and they mostly -seem to live in Philadelphia and Indiana, anyhow. Or over here. What’s -a man to do? I can’t--” - -“You can’t do anything. Whistle the children in. There’s a one man -show. Stage settings. Italian. I haven’t seen them and you should.” She -threw the stick of paint away and set about cheering him. She liked -him, muddled in his trade, labouring after beauty, unaware of his own -odd sweetness. She gave up the last weeks of the season, guiding him -about London, watching him glow when Margot wanted a scarf of orange -silk in Liberty’s, when Gurdy demonstrated his Latin, not badly, before -a tomb in Saint Paul’s. Margot was the obvious idol, something to be -petted and dressed. But the child had a rich attraction of her own, -graces of placid curves, a quiet loveliness that missed stupidity. - -“You don’t like Margot,” Olive told Gurdy in a waste of the British -Museum. - -The boy lied, “Of course I do,” in his cracked voice but Olive took -that as the product of good schooling, like his easy performance of -airs on the piano. He was jealous of Margot and showed it so often that -the woman wondered why Mark didn’t see. But this wasn’t the usual boy. - -“You let him read anything he likes,” she scolded Mark. - -“Sure. Where’s the harm? I haven’t got the Contes Drolatiques at the -house or any of those things. Aunt Edith used to make me read the Book -of Kings when I was a kid. Oh, Gurd knows that babies don’t come by -express,” said Mark, “He’s lived in the country, too much.” - -“I thought the American peasantry entirely compounded of the Puritan -virtues, old man.” - -“You missed your guess, then. You read a lot of American novels, Olive. -Some day or other some writer’s goin’ to come along and write up an -American country town like it is. The police will probably suppress -the book.... My father and Gurdy’s mamma are sort of scared because -I’ve got the kid at a rich school. You mustn’t believe all the stuff -you see in the American magazines and papers about the wicked rich, -Olive. I’ve met some of the rich roués at suppers and so on. Put any -of ’em alongside some of the hired men and clerks and things that were -in my regiment in Cuba--or alongside Tommy Grover that’s blacksmith -at Fayettesville and they’d look like Sunday School teachers. I sort -of wish the poor folks in the United States’d leave off yawping about -the wicked rich and look after their own backyards a while! No, I -don’t take any stock in this country virtue thing. The only girl in -Fayettesville that ever run off with a wicked drummer had morals -that’d scare a chorus girl stiff. Who’s the fellow that hangs ’round -the stage door of a musical show? Nine times out of ten he’s a kid -from the country that’s won twenty dollars at poker. Who’s the fellow -that--well--seduces the poor working girl? Once in a hundred it’s a -rich whelp in a dinner jacket. Rest of the time it’s the boy in the -next flat. When I was acting and used to get mash notes from fool -women, were they from women on Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue? Not much! -Stenographers and ladies in Harlem that had husbands travelling a good -deal. You believe in talking about these kind of things out loud and I -expect you’re right.” - -“Gurdy’s not handsome,” said Olive, “but he’s attractive--charming -eyes--and women are going to like him a goodish bit, bye and bye. And -man is fire. What moral precepts are you going to--” - -“Just what my father told me. I’m going to tell him that he mustn’t -make love to a married woman and that he mustn’t fool after an innocent -girl unless he means matrimony--but God knows it’s getting pretty hard -to tell what an innocent girl is, these days! Nine tenths of ’em dress -like cocottes.” - -“Old man, where did you pick up that very decent French accent?” Olive -saw his blush slide fleetly from his collar to the red hair and added, -“I hope it was honestly come by. You’re a good deal of a Puritan for a -sensualist.” - -“Oh ... I am a sensualist, I guess. But, I ain’t a hog.” - -Olive said, “No, that’s quite true, my son. There’s nothing porcine -about you. My brother has a house this season and he’s giving a dance -tonight. There might be some pretty frocks.” - -“Didn’t know you had a brother!” - -“Sir Gerald Shelmardine of Shelmardine Cross, Hampshire. He’s rather -dreary. Will you come?” - -She took him to several evening parties and his wooden coldness -before a crowd was enchanting. It occurred to her that individuals -wearied the man. He eyed pretty women, striking gowns, studied the -decoration of ball-rooms. He confessed, “I’ll never see any of them -again and shouldn’t remember them if I did. My memory for people’s no -good--unless they’re interestin’ to look at. My god, look at that girl -in purple. Her dressmaker ought to be hung! Skirt’s crooked all across -the front.” He gave the girl in purple his rare frown then asked, -“Well, where’s some place in France, on the seashore, where I can take -the kids until August?” - -She recommended Royan and had from him a letter describing Margot’s -success among the ladies of a quiet hotel. His letters of 1912 and 1913 -were full of Margot. Snapshots of the child dropped often from the -thick blue envelopes. When he sent his thin book, “Modern Scenery” in -the autumn of 1913 it was dedicated, “To my Daughter.” The bald prose -was correct, the photographs and plates were well selected. Mark wrote: -“Gurdy went over it with a fine tooth comb to see if the grammar was -O. K. Mr. Carlson is not well and we have four plays to bring in by -December. Spoke at a lunch of a ladies’ dramatic society yesterday. -Forgot where I was and said Hell in the middle of it. They did not -mind. Things seem to be changing a lot. I am pretty worried about one -of our plays.” - -Olive saw in the New York _Herald_ some discussion of this play and a -furious reference to it on the editorial page, signed by a clergyman. -This was at Christmas time when she was entertaining her tiresome -brother at Ilden’s house in Suffolk. She folded the newspaper away, -meaning to explore the business. She forgot the accident in the hurry -of her attempt to reach a Scotch country house where her daughter Joan -died of pneumonia on New Year’s Day. The shock sent Olive into grey -seclusion. Her husband was on the China station with his cruiser. -She suddenly found herself worrying over the health of her son, then -in the Fifth Form at Harrow, so took a cottage in Harrow village and -there reflected on the nastiness of death while she wrote her next -novel. The cottage was singularly dismal and the daughters of the next -dwelling were pretty girls of thirteen and fourteen, with fair hair. -“Sentimental analogy is the bane of life,” she wrote to her husband, -“I went to town yesterday for some gloves and saw the posters of -Peter Pan on a hoarding in Baker Street. Joan liked it so. So I went -to the theatre and squandered five sovereigns in stalls and gave the -tickets to these wretched girls who would infinitely prefer a cinema, -naturally. However I managed to laugh on Saturday. The news had just -reached Mark Walling by way of Ian Gail who is in the States trying to -sell his worst and newest play. Mark cabled me a hundred words quite -incoherent and mostly inappropriate.” - -Three days later Olive came in from a walk and Mark opened the door of -the stupid cottage. When she drew her hands away from his stooped face -they were hot and wet. - -“But, my dear boy,” she said, presently, “what blessing brought you -over? In the middle of your season, too.” - -“I’m in trouble. See anything in the papers about the Mayor stoppin’ -a play we put on?--I don’t blame the Mayor, for a minute. Mr. Carlson -wanted it.... Well, it was stopped and some of the newspapers took it -up. And then Mr. Carlson had a sort of stroke. His mind’s all right -but his legs are paralyzed. Won’t ever walk again.” His voice drummed -suddenly as if it might break into a sob. He passed his fingers over -the red hair and went on, “I’ve got him up at my house.” - -“Of course,” said Olive. - -“Sure. The doctors say he’ll last four or five years, maybe.--Say -you’ve always said we’re a nation of prudes. Look at this,” and he -dragged from a black pocket a note on formal paper. Olive read: “The -Thorne School, Madison Avenue and Sixty Sixth Street. December 28th, -1913. My dear Mr. Walling, Will you be so good as to call upon me when -it is possible in order to discuss Margaret’s future attendance. It -seems kindest to warn you that several parents have suggested that--” - -“What is this nonsense?” Olive asked, “What’s the child been doing?” - -“Doing? Nothin’! It’s this damned play!” - -“You mean that there were women who seriously asked this Miss Thorne -to have Margot withdrawn because you’d produced a risqué farce? But -that’s--” - -His wrath reached a piteous climax in, “Oh, damn women, anyhow!... Well -I took her out. My broker could have fixed the thing up. What’s the -use? Well, I brought her over with me. She’s at the Ritz. What’s the -best girls’ school in England?” - -Olive said, “Oh, I’ll take her,” saw him smile and began to weep. - - - - -V - -Margot - - -Gurdy Bernamer kept his twentieth birthday in a trench. The next week -his regiment was withdrawn from the line to a dull village where Gurdy -was taking a warm bath in a zinc tub behind the Mairie when a German -aeroplane crossed above and lifted his attention from a Red Cross -copy of “The Brook Kerith” which he read while he soaked. He dropped -the dialectics of George Moore and watched, then saw the whitewashed -wall of the yard bend in slowly, its cracks blackening. He spent a -month in hospital getting the best of the wandering, deep wound that -began at his right hip and ended in his armpit. He wrote to Mark, “I -kept trying to remember a quotation from Twain’s Tramp Abroad. ‘Not -by war’s shock or war’s shaft. Shot with a rock on a raft.’ They dug -a piece of zinc out of me. I feel fairly well. Mrs. Tilford Arbuthnot -has the Y. M. C. A. cafeteria in Bordeaux. Her brother was with me at -Saint Andrew’s. She brings me novels and things. I think she has a -secret passion for you. She says you were a great actor. My nurse also -thinks you were. Her name is Zippah Coe and she looks it. She says the -immorality of French women is too awful for words. She is coming to -take my temperature.” The temperature displeased the nurse and Gurdy -passed into a daze. The wet hemlocks beyond the window sometimes turned -cerise, inexcusably. Pneumonia succeeded his influenza. - -Through all this lapse he meditated and drew toward a belief that -life was a series of meaningless illusions, many painful. He expanded -“All the world’s a stage.” Suicide wasn’t universal as some of the -players acquired a thrilling interest in their parts, rose to be -directors--Wilsons, Northcliffes, Millerands. It was satisfactory to -know this at twenty. His education was complete in its departments -passional, athletic and philosophical. Saint Andrew’s school. Two and a -half years of Yale in smart company. The miscellany of his regiment. He -must certainly begin maturity as a critic. He lay composing an essay on -the illusory value of passion in a loop of paradoxes which vanished as -his pulse improved. Then he was conscious that a surgeon took interest -in him. Orderlies came from the hospital adjutant inquiring. Gurdy sat -up, read the papers and accepted five thousand francs in mauve and blue -bills from a bank agent. It seemed that Mark had run him to earth by -cabling. Soon he was uniformed again and given orders that assigned him -to duty in a Paris military bureau. There Gurdy found Mark’s broker, -decorated as a Major. - -“Of course, I got you up here,” said Major Villay. “Why not?” - -“But--” With recovery Gurdy had shed some sense of illusions. He stood -thinking of his regiment rather sourly, rather sadly. - -The broker-major grunted, “Rot, Gurdy. You’re all Mark’s got--Son, and -all that. Dare say Margot’ll marry some Englishman. Anyhow, it’s all -over. Bulgaria’s on the skids. Mark thinks too much of you.” - -Gurdy was subtly pleased. He stood thinking of Mark fondly, with -annotations in contempt. Mark was nothing but a big blunderer among -the arts, a man who couldn’t see the strength of Russian drama or -disillusioned comedy, who didn’t admire Granville Barker’s plays. But -if Margot stayed in England Gurdy could steer his uncle toward proper -productions. Mark meant well, very well. He had done some fine things, -had a feeling for vesture, anyhow. - -“I see the Celebrities people have bought the Terriss Pictograph,” said -Major Villay, “Exchange of stock. Funny. Mark hates the movies so and -he makes twenty thousand a year out of them. And the movie people gave -him fifteen thousand for that rotten Gail play. Here, take this stuff -and translate it. I can probably get you a pass over to London if you -want to see Margot.” - -Gurdy didn’t want to see her. His last view of Margot had been in the -stress of her removal from Miss Thorne’s school. Mark had gone five -times to England on visits of a month, reported her beautiful, witty, -petted by Mrs. Ilden, by Mrs. Ilden’s friends. But he wrote her a -note dutifully and got an answer in three lines. “Glad you are out of -the silly mess. Try to run over. Frightfully rushed catching a train -for Devon. More later.” He was not offended. He thought that Margot -disliked him as he disliked her. He threw the note into the waste -basket and went on translating French political comments into English. - -The Armistice broke on the third week of this employment. The bureau -became a negation of labour. Gurdy roamed contentedly about the -feverish, foolish city with various friends--young officers, sergeant -majors on agreeable posts. He was tall, still pallid from sunless -convalescence. His uniform happened to fit a long, loosely moving body -and he liked dancing. He equably observed male diversion with his -dark blue eyes and was often diverted. This might be the collapse -of known society, the beginning of a hygienic and hardworked future. -This churning of illusions might bring something fresh. Men might -turn to new programs of stupidity, exhausting the old. He danced and -was courted. He wrote to Mark, choosing words: “There will be plays -about this, I suppose. I do not think any one will believe it fifty -years from now. It is an upheaval of cheap pleasure. I keep thinking -how Carlson calls people hogs.” He hesitated, continued: “I do not -know that there is an excuse for all of it. Some of the Americans -make bigger hogs of themselves than is necessary.” Then he destroyed -the letter. After all, Mark was your typical patriot. He took America -seriously, the American soldier seriously, the American Red Cross had -profited by his sentiment. There was no point in hurting Mark. Gurdy -wrote a gay tale of driving through Paris in a vegetable cart with a -drunken Australian colonel and went to dine at Luca’s. - -From Luca’s his party retired to the Opera Comique, stopped to drink -champagne in the bar and stayed there until it wasn’t worth while to -hear the last act. “And,” said a youth from San Francisco, “we can go -to Ariana Joyce’s. She’s giving a party.” - -“But she’s dead,” Gurdy objected. - -“Damn healthy corpse! Come ahead and see if she’s dead!” - -They floated in a taxicab along Paris. The machine slipped from the -lavender rush of some broad street up a slope and Gurdy stumbled into a -brilliance of laughing people where his guide pushed him toward a green -dais and hissed, “She won’t know you from Adam. Tell her you’re from -Chicago.” - -Her rounded beauty had come to death under much fat. She lolled in -a red chair waving a peacock fan. Gurdy’s friend kissed the arm she -thrust out and told her, “You look awfully well, Miss Joyce.” - -The dancer nodded, beaming down at her painted feet in their sandals -of blue leather. Through her nose she said, “Feelin’ fine,” then in -throaty refinement, “Do get Choute Aurec to dance. She’s so difficult -now she’s had a success. So very difficult--Rodin used to say--” Her -empty and tired stare centred on Gurdy. With a vague dignity she asked, -“Do I know you?” - -“Corporal Bernamer’s from Chicago,” the guide said. - -Miss Joyce planted a thumb under her chin and drawled, “De mon pays!” -then her eyes rolled away. She reached for a silver cup on a table and -forgot her guests. Looking back, Gurdy saw her famous head thrown back -and, for a moment, comely as she drank. - -“Bakst,” said his friend, jerking a hand about to show the walls of -grey paint where strange beasts cavorted among spiked trees, above the -mixed and coloured motion of the crowd. An American was playing ragtime -at the gold piano, in a clot of women. Choute Aurec was teaching a -British aviator some new dance. Beyond, a mass of women and officers -surrounded a lean shape on a divan. They gazed, gaped, craned at the -young man. His decorations twinkled in the glow. His blue chest stirred -when he spoke and his teeth flashed. Gurdy’s companion murmured, “They -say he’s got ten times more sense than most prize-fighters.... I think -that thin man’s Bernstein--the one with a dinner jacket. You get drinks -in the next room. Oh, there’s Alixe!” - -He ran off. Gurdy slid through the mingling harlots and warriors -into the next, cooler room, fringed with men drinking champagne. An -American colonel glared at him over a glass, shifted the glare back to -a handsome ensign who had penned a blond girl in a corner. Gurdy found -a tray covered with sandwiches and ate one, pondering. He wondered -whether the ensign would go on trying to kiss the girl if he knew -that she had been, last month, on trial for the technical murder of -an octogenarian general. Well, morals were illusory, too. Some one -slapped his shoulder. He saw Ian Gail. The playwright was dressed as a -British captain. “Intelligence,” he said, “I’m too old and adipose for -anything else. And we shouldn’t be here, should we? A poisonous place.” - -“Funny mixture.” - -“Pride,” said Gail, “The poor woman can’t stand being neglected so she -gives these atrocious parties. But it’s nice running into you, old -son. I’d a letter from Mark yesterday. He told me you were here and I -was coming to look you up tomorrow in any case. I’m just from London. -Olive Ilden and Margot are hoping you’ll get leave to come over for -Christmas. Can’t you?” - -“I don’t quite see how I can, sir.” - -“But do try. I think you’d cheer Olive up. Margot’s a jolly little -thing but frightfully busy celebrating the peace. How decent of Mark -to let her stay with Olive! I fancied he’d take her back to the States -directly the war began.” - -“Submarines,” Gurdy said, “But why does Mrs. Ilden need cheering up, -sir? She used to be an awfully cheerful sort of person.” - -“Oh,” said Gail, “her boy--Bobby.” - -“I hadn’t heard he--” - -“Fell a year ago. Do try to run over.... How pretty Margot is!” - -Gurdy ate another sandwich, correcting champagne. There would be long -illusions after this war. Grudges, idealized memories of trivial folk. -But he was sorry for Olive Ilden. He said, “I’ll try to get over. -I’ll--” - -Choute Aurec ran through the doorway, yelped, “Ariane va danser, -messieurs, dames!” and darted out again. - -“What did that incontinent little brute say?” Gail asked. - -“I think Miss Joyce is going to dance,” said Gurdy. - -“It’s disgusting,” the Englishman snorted, “Some cad always flatters -her into dancing and the poor woman falls on her face. Don’t go.” - -The doorway filled with watchers. Women giggled. Some one played -slowly the first bars of the Volga Barge song. There was an applausive -murmur--then a thud. “She’s fallen,” said Gail and suddenly Gurdy -remembered that this was an American, that he had seen her dance to the -jammed ecstasy of the Metropolitan. The women in the doorway squealed -their amusement. The crowd parted and he saw the green gauze wrapping -her limp body as two Frenchmen carried her back to her throne. The -crowd applauded, now. - -“Swine,” said Gail. - -Gurdy summoned up his philosophy and shrugged. The young prize-fighter -came through the press and snapped to a civilian, “Je me sauve, -Etienne!” - -“Mais--” - -“C’est nauséabonde! Elle était artiste, vois tu? Allons; je file!” - -“The boy’s right,” said the playwright, “Sickening. Come along.” They -passed through the beginning of a dance in the great chamber and down -the stairs into an alley where motors were lined. In a taxicab Gail -concluded, “End of an artist.” - -Gurdy thought this sententious but a queer oppression filled him. It -was hideous that any one should finish as a butt with a prize-fighter -for apologist. Of course, life was nothing but a meaningless spectacle. -Money, something to drink, a dancing floor drew this crowd together. -The fat dancer was rather funny, if one looked it all over. Mark could -contrive the whole effect on a stage if he wanted. - -“Mark writes that he’s almost decided to build his theatre in West -Forty Seventh.” - -“I wish he’d hurry,” said Gurdy, “He’s been planning the Walling -for years. Funny. He told Mr. Frohman all about it just before the -_Lusitania_.” - -“Poor Frohman,” the Englishman murmured, “Awfully decent to me.” - -There should be a certain decency, a cool restraint in life, the -philosopher mused. He thought of this next morning when Choute Aurec -telephoned hopefully for a loan of a thousand francs. By noon he had -discovered that he was flatly homesick for Mark and thought of Margot -in London as the nearest familiar creature. The bureau permitted his -departure. He crossed a still Channel and made his way to London -in the company of an earnest Red Cross girl from Omaha who wanted -Fontainebleau turned into a reform school for rescued Parisian street -walkers. She had a General for uncle and Gurdy feared that she would be -able to forward her plan to the French government. - -“D’you really feel that we’ve any business telling the French what to -do with their own homes?” - -“But Fontainebleau could be made into a real home, Corpril!” - -“So could Mount Vernon.” - -“It’s too small. Fontainebleau’s so huge. All those rooms.” - -“You don’t think that it’s any use just letting it stay beautiful?” - -“But it isn’t really beautiful,” the young woman retorted, “It’s so -much of it Renaissance, you know?” - -He was still hating this vacuity when the taxicab left him at Mrs. -Ilden’s house in Chelsea. The butler told him that “Lady Ilden” was not -at home and guided him through grey halls to a bedroom. Gurdy washed, -tried to recall Ilden’s rank in the British navy and the name of -Olive’s last novel. He strolled downstairs and met Margot in the lower -hall without knowing it. He saw a slim person in stark yellow reading -a letter and was startled when the girl said, “Good God, they didn’t -tell me you’d got here! Come and help me stick this holly about in the -library.” - -She thrust a bowl filled with small sprays of holly into his hands and -frowned between the wings of her black, bobbed hair. He remembered her -plump. She was slender. She still wore glittering pumps with silver -buckles. When she chuckled it was in the former chime. She exclaimed, -“Of course! Uncle Eddie was born in Norway, wasn’t he?” - -“I think dad was born in the steerage, coming over,” Gurdy said. - -“You’re not at all American, anyhow,” she announced, “and that’s a -relief. I’m quite mad about Scandinavians. Only sensible people in -Europe. Come along. There’s a rehearsal in half a minute and--” - -“Rehearsal?” - -“Charity show. Barge along. This way.” - -He grinned and followed her into the long library where she tossed bits -of holly to and fro on the shelves. She said, “Cosmo Rand’s rehearsing -us. Better not tell that to dad. He mightn’t like it.” - -“Who’s Cosmo?” - -“Cora Boyle’s husband. They’re playing here. Don’t get shocked about -it.” - -“Don’t see anything to get shocked about. So Cora Boyle’s over here -again? What’s she playing?” - -“A silly melodrama. She’s at the Diana. Saw her the other night. She’s -getting fat. Ought to be a law against fat women wearing old rose.” - -“You’ve lost some weight,” Gurdy said. - -“Work, old thing, work! Sewing shirts for snipers. Dancing with -convalescents.--It’s beastly you’ve got so tall. I hate looking up at -men.” - -Gurdy laughed down at her and asked, “When did Mrs. Ilden get to be -Lady Ilden?” - -“Jutland. It’s just the Bath, not a baronetcy. Olive’s at church.” - -“I thought she was agnostic?” - -Margot said gently, “It takes them that way, rather often. She’s been -to church a goodish bit ever since Bobby--” - -“Oh, yes. Young Ilden was killed.--What sort of person was he?” - -“One of the silent, strong Empire builders--but nice about it.... -Olive’s aged, rather.” She planted the last holly spray on the lap -of a gilt Buddha then smiled at Gurdy across a yellow shoulder, “I’d -forgotten how blue your eyes are. Almost violet. Goes with your hair. -Very effective.... Your chin’s still too big.... Oh, a letter from Dad -this morning. He was thinking of running over. But Carlson’s worse.... -D’you know, it’d be a noble deed to poison Carlson. There he is stuck -in the house. Why don’t useless people like that dry up and blow away?” - -“I don’t think he’s useless,” Gurdy argued, “He makes Mark put on a -comedy now and then. He swears better than any one I know. And you -ought to be grateful to him. If Mark hadn’t had him for company you’d -probably have been hauled home long ago.” - -Margot opened a Russian, lead box on a table and lit a cigarette. She -said, “Don’t think so. Dad’s never made the slightest sign of hauling -me home. Especially after Mr. Frohman.... Ugh! I almost had nervous -prostration, when I heard Dad had sailed after the _Lusitania_!” Her -lids fell and shook the astonishing lashes against the pale brown of -her cheeks. Then she chuckled, “The joke is, I’d as soon have gone -home long ago. I’m mad about Olive, of course. And I’ve had all sorts -of a good time. But I’d rather be home.... How’s your mother?” He -was answering when the butler barked names from the doorway. Margot -whispered, “Run. The rehearsal. Go hide in the drawing room. These are -all bores.” - -He passed out through a group of men and girls, encountered a Colonel -of the British General Staff in the hall and was cordially halted. He -stood discussing military shoes with this dignitary as Olive Ilden let -herself into the hall. Gurdy recalled her slim and tall. Now that he -looked down, she seemed stout, no longer handsome but the deep voice -remained charming as it rose from her black veils. She led him off into -the drawing room and said, at once, “Margot’s pretty, isn’t she?” - -“Yes. Mark’s been raving about her but I thought--” - -“You thought he was idealizing, after his customary manner? He sent me -a picture of you, so I’m not surprised. Don’t sit in that chair. It’s -for pygmies.... I want to talk about Margot and it’s likely we won’t -have another chance. You two don’t write each other letters. Had you -heard from Mark that she wants to play?” - -“Play?” - -“Be an actress. I thought I’d better warn you,” Olive laughed, “I -don’t know when it started. I know Mark wouldn’t like it. Otherwise -the child’s the delight of my life.” She sank into a couch and asked, -“Now, what are these diplomatic idiots doing in Paris? I don’t like the -look of things.” - -“Arranging for another war.” - -“I do hope they’ll arrange it for twenty years from date. I’ll be past -sixty then and I won’t care. I’ll be able to sit and grin at the women -who’re going through what--Only, of course, I shouldn’t grin. I’m a -true blue Briton of the old breed when it comes to an emotion. I simply -can’t enjoy an emotion when it’s my emotion.... Had you ever thought -that that’s why bad plays and cinema rubbish are so popular? It’s the -unreality of the passions.... I dare say that’s why I’ve just been to -church.... Perhaps that’s why Margot wants to go on the stage. She’s -never had an emotion worth shedding a tear for. Well, how’s Mark?” - -“Putting on three plays after Christmas and thinks they’re all winners.” - -She drew her hands over her eyes and murmured, “Mark’s extraordinary. -Endless enthusiasm. Like a kiddy with a box of water colours. I suppose -it’s belief. He really believes in his job.... I once thought he -needed education.... If he’d been educated, he couldn’t have believed -so hard.... There has to be something childish to get along in the -theatre.... If he were worldly wise he’d have known half these plays -were rubbish and the rest not very good.... But I’m not sure what a -good play is, Gurdy. Tell me. You’re young, so you should know.” - -He flushed, then laughed and asked what play Margot and her friends -rehearsed. The loud, spaced voices came across the hall. He felt an -unruly curiosity stir. - -“It’s a one act thing of Ronny Dufford’s--Colonel the Honourable Ronald -Dufford. Quite a pal of Margot’s. That was he talking to you in the -hall just now--the Brass Hat. What are you laughing at?” - -“Wondering what would happen to an American General Staff man if -he wrote plays.... Dufford? Mark put a thing of his on in nineteen -sixteen. It failed.” - -“His things are rather thin. He’s been nice to Margot, though. He took -her about when I was in mourning--He’s a good sort. Forty eight or -so. I dare say he lectured Margot on the greatness of Empire and the -sacredness of the House of Lords. It didn’t hurt her. She hears enough -about the sacredness of the plain people, in the studios.” - -“I thought you were an anti-imperialist and an anarchist?” - -The tired woman laughed, “So I am.... It was tremendous fun being all -the right things when I was young and anarchists were rather few. I -expect you’re a cubist and a communist and agnostic and don’t believe -in marriage. So many of them don’t. Then they get married to prove the -soundness of their theory and get hurt; then they’re annoyed because -they’re hurt and get interested in being married. Most amusing to -watch.... The world’s got past me and I’m frightened by it.--We had -such a good time railing at the Victorians and repression. And now all -the clever young things tell their emotions to cab drivers and invent -emotions if they haven’t any.--All the gestures have changed and I -feel--You look rather like Mark. You know he was stopping at Winchester -when he heard Margot’s father’d been killed. I tried to shock him. -He.... Oh, do go and watch them rehearse, Gurdy!... I’ve just come from -church.... The music’s made me silly. I don’t know what I’m saying....” -The artifice smashed into a sob. Gurdy swung and hurried across the -hall. Certainly, the woman’s illusion of pain was notably real. - -He sat smoking on a window seat of the library and tried to follow -the rehearsal at the other end of the wide room. The men and girls -strode about talking loudly. A slender man in grey broke the chatter -from time to time and gave directions in a level, pleasing voice. This -must be Cosmo Rand, the husband of Cora Boyle. Gurdy looked at him -with interested scorn but the amateurs took his orders in docile peace -and only Margot answered him from a deep green chair, “Rot, Cossy! I’m -supposed to be lost in thought, aren’t I? Then I shan’t look interested -when Stella giggles. Go on, Stella.” - -Gurdy became intent on her posture in the dark chair. She was smoking -and her hair appeared through the vapour like solid, carved substance. -She seemed fixed, a black and yellow figure on the green. A vaporous -halo rose in the lamplight above her head. He stirred when she spoke -again, shifting, and a silver buckle sent a spark of light flitting -across the rug. He remembered that she had Italian blood from her -grandmother. She looked Italian. Mark was right. She was beautiful in -no common fashion. The other girls vibrating against the shelves were -mere bodies, gurgling voices.--The butler stole down the room and spoke -to Cosmo Rand who, in turn, spoke aloud. - -“I say, Margot, Cora’s brought the motor around. Might I have her in? -Chilly and she’s been feeling rather seedy.” - -A tall woman in black velvet entered as if this were a stage and -reposed herself in a chair. Gurdy had never seen Cora Boyle perform. -She was familiar from pictures when she drew up a veil across an -obvious beauty of profile and wide eyes. Presently she commenced a -cigarette and the motion of lighting it was admirably effected. An -expanding, heavy scent of maltreated tobacco welled from the burning -roll between her fingers. The line of her brows was prolonged downward -with paint. The whole mask was tinted to a false and gleaming pallor. -Grey furs were arranged about the robustness of her upper body. She was -older than Mark, Gurdy’s father said. She must be passing forty. She -should be weary of tight slippers. A glance stopped Gurdy’s meditation. -He looked away at Margot’s effortless stroll along the imagined -footlights. Cora Boyle spoke to him in a flat and pinched whisper. - -“Isn’t your name Bernamer?” He bowed. She came to sit with him on the -window seat and dusted ash from her cigarette into the Chinese bowl. -Her eyes explored his face with a civil amusement. “You look awfully -like your father. You startled me. Let me see.... You and Miss Walling -live with Mark, don’t you? Sweet, isn’t she? And how is Mark? I’ve -played over here so long that I’ve rawther lost touch. Mr. Carlson’s -still alive?” - -“Oh, yes. He’s bedridden, you know? Lives with Mark.” - -She inhaled smoke, nodding. - -“That’s so characteristic of Mark, isn’t it? But of course, Carlson was -kind to him. The dear old man’s bark was much worse than his bite. Good -heavens how frightened I was of him! I see that Mark acted in a couple -of Red Cross shows? I expect that all his old matinée girls turned out -and cried for joy.... But I do think that Mark was something more than -a flapper’s dream of heaven. Still, he must like management better. -He never thought more of acting than that it was a job, did he?” She -sighed, “One has to think more of it than that to get on.” - -Gurdy wished that this woman didn’t embarrass him, resenting her -perfumed cigarette and the real, frail loveliness of her hands. The -embarrassment ended. Rand told the amateurs that they weren’t half bad -and departed with his wife, a trim, boyish figure behind her velvet -bulk. Colonel Dufford implored the grouped players to learn their -lines. Margot was much kissed by the other girls, dismissed them and -came in a sort of dance step to ask Gurdy what he thought of her acting. - -“Couldn’t hear you. I had to talk to Miss Boyle. Ugly voice she has. -Are people really crazy about her here?” - -Margot frowned and pursed her lips, tapping a cigarette on a nail. -“Oh, she has a following. They don’t dither about her as they do over -Elsie whatsername and some of the other Americans. Dull, isn’t she?” - -“Very. She made a point of talking about Mark.--Lady Ilden’s all broken -up, isn’t she?” - -“She’s too repressed,” Margot explained. “Tried not to show it when -Bobby fell and so she’s been showing it ever since. And Sir John’s been -at sea constantly and that’s a strain. He’s in Paris, now.--You don’t -show your feelings at all, do you? I was watching you talk to the Boyle -and you beamed very nicely. And you must have been bored. One of those -rather sticky women. Come and play pool. There’s an American table.” - -He played pool and stolidly listened to her ripple of comments. She -had a natural disrespect for the American army that flashed up. “The -men did all they could, I dare say, but, my God, Gurdy, what thugs the -officers were! Some of them turned up at a garden party where the King -dropped in and he went to speak to one. The thing was cleaning its -nails in a corner and it shook hands with its pocket knife in the other -hand. I fainted and Ronny Dufford lugged me home in a taxi. I say, do -let me have St. Ledger Grant do a pastel of you. Dad would love it and -St. Ledger needs ten pounds as badly as any one in Cheyne Walk.” - -“Who’s Sillijer?” - -“Artist. Poor bloke who got patriotic and lost a leg in the Dardanelles -mess. Serve him right and so on but he’s ghastly poor.” - -“You a pacifist?” - -“Rather!” - -“That’s why you like the Scandinavians? Because they stayed out?” - -“Right. I forgive you though because you’re young and simple and your -legs are rather jolly in those things.” She twisted her head to stare -at his leggings and the black hair rose, settled back into its carved -composure below the strong, shaded lamp. The clear red of her lips -parted as she laughed, “Not a blush? Made the world safe for democracy -and aren’t proud of it? How did your friends get through? That rather -sweet lad who used to come to lunch when you were at school? Lacy--?” - -“Lacy Martin. Lost a leg.” - -She frowned. “Doesn’t matter so much for a chap like that with billions -but--the artists. I must have St. Ledger do you. We’ll go there -tomorrow. I had Cosmo--Rand have himself done.” - -Gurdy made a shot and said, “Rand’s a much prettier subject than I’d -be.” - -“Don’t get coy, my lad! You’re rather imposing and you know it.--Like -to meet Gilbert Chesterton? You used to read his junk. I can have you -taken there. Never met him, myself.” - -“No thanks.--What’s that bell?” - -“Dress for dinner. You can’t. I must.--I say, you’re altogether -different from what I thought you’d be.” - -“What did you think?” - -“I couldn’t possibly tell you but I’m damned glad you’re not. The -butler can make cocktails. Dad taught him in nineteen seventeen.” - -The butler brought him an evil mixture. Gurdy emptied it into the -fireplace and leaned on the pool table wondering what Margot had -expected. It didn’t matter, of course. Yet she might recall him as a -sixteen year old schoolboy much absorbed in polevaults and stiff with -conceit for some acquirements in English letters. How people changed -and how foolish it was to be surprised at change! Sophomoric. Mark -really knew a pretty woman when he saw one. A man of genuine taste -outside the selection of plays.--She must know London expertly. She -must have a sense of spectacle. She must meet all conditions with this -liberal, successful woman as a guide. If she wanted a pastel made for -Mark she should have it. Gurdy dusted chalk from his leggings, evenly -taped about the long strength of his calves, strolled into the drawing -room and played the languid movement of the Faun’s Afternoon. Illusory -or not there was always beauty in the blended exterior of things. A -man should turn from the inner crassness to soothe himself with the -fair investiture, with the drift of delicate motions that went in -colour and music.--Olive thought him like Mark as she came in. She was -worried because Gail had written of meeting the boy on Montmartre. - -“You’ve been enjoying Paris?” - -“More or less. It’s a holy show, just now. I don’t suppose the -barkeepers--and other parasites--will ever have such a chance again.” - -“I hope you’ve not been in too much mischief. Ian Gail wrote me that he -met you in some horrid hole or other.” - -“A party at Ariana Joyce’s. I wasn’t doing any more harm there than the -rest of the Allied armies. But it was pretty odious.” The memory jarred -into the present satisfaction. He halted his long fingers on the keys -and Margot came rustling in, her gown of sheer black muslin painted -with yellow flowers and gold combs in her hair. - -“Were you playing L’Après Midi?--And he’s only twenty, Olive! Most -Americans don’t rise to respectable music until they’ve lost all their -money and have to come and live over here. Any nails in your shoes, -Gurdy? We’re going to a dance.” - -“Where?” asked Olive. - -“Something for war widows at Mrs. Rossiter-Rossiter-Rossiter’s--that -fat woman from Victoria. I promised some one or other I’d come. We’ll -go in time for supper.” - -The charity dance seemed less fevered than dances in Paris. There were -ranks of matrons about the walls of a dull, long room. At midnight -Margot rescued him from a girl who was using him as an introduction to -American economics and found a single table in the supper hall. Here -the batter of ill played ragtime was endurable and the supping folk -entertained him. - -“The country’s so ghastly with houses shut and no servants that most -people have stuck to town,” Margot said, refusing wine. “Lot of -eminences here. Who’re you looking at?” - -“The dark girl in pink. She’s familiar.” - -“She should be. She has a press agent in New York. Lady Selene Tucker. -She’s going to marry that man who looks like a Lewis Baumer picture in -Punch as soon as every one’s in town again and she can get Westminster -Abbey and he can get his mother shipped to New Zealand, or somewhere. -His mother will drink too much and then tell lies about Queen Victoria. -She’s rather quaint. She sues for libel every time any one writes a -novel with a dissolute peeress in it. Frightfully self-conscious. Don’t -people who insist on telling you how depraved they are make you rather -ill? They always seem to think they’ve made such a good job of it. And -I could think of much worse things to do.--How nice your hair is! Like -Uncle Eddie’s.” - -“Thanks. Who’s the skinny woman with the pearls?” - -Margot put aside the palm branch that shadowed her chin and frowned. -“It looks like my namesake, Mrs. Asquith, from this angle.--No, it’s -Lady Flint. Oh, look at the big brute in mauve. Lovely, isn’t she?” - -He looked at the shapely, fair woman without interest. The round of -Margot’s forearm took his eyes back. - -“Lovely? Why?” - -“So glad you don’t think so. One gets so sick of hearing women gurgled -about as wonders. I think it was Salisbury who said she was the most -beautiful woman alive. And she goes right on, you know? Once you get -fixed here as frightfully beautiful or witty you can die of old age -before they stop saying so. Such a fraud! It’s just what dad says about -all the managers and stars in New York being myths. All those legends -about his being a woman hater and--who’s the man who’s supposed to -never hire a chorus girl until he’s seen her au naturel? Such piffle!” - -“But they like being myths,” Gurdy laughed. - -“Oh, every one does, of course. Some one started a yarn about me--don’t -tell dad this--that I was the daughter of some frightfully rich -American banker and that my mother was a Spanish dancer. Olive was wild -with rage. But it was rather fun.--I say, I’m sick of this, Gurdy. Do -make dad order me home.” She lit a cigarette, let her lashes drop and -ignored a man who bowed, passing. Gurdy thought this was Cosmo Rand -and said so. Margot shrugged. “He rehearses us every day. Decent sort. -People like him.--But do make dad have me come home.” - -Gurdy pondered. Mark now knew a few gentlewomen, the wives of authors -and critics. He had mannerly friends outside the theatre, had drilled -smart war theatricals. The girl could move beyond this wedge of -certainty wherever she chose. But Gurdy said, “You might not like New -York.” - -“But I want to see it! It’s hardly pleasant seeing dad about once every -year for two weeks or so. I happen to love him. You mean I shan’t be -recognized as a human being by the fat ladies in the Social Register? -That’ll hardly break my heart, you know? The world is so full of a -number--Is that God save the--” - -The supping people rose in a vast puff of smoke from abandoned -cigarettes. Officers stiffened. The outer orchestra jangled the old -tune badly. The sleek gowns showed a ripple of bending knees. The -prince went nodding down the room toward an inner door with a tiny -clink of bright spurs as his staff followed him. - -“They say he’s going to the States. I should like to be there to see -the women make fools of themselves. And Grandfather’ll be so furious -because every one’ll talk about a damned Britisher.--Finish your -coffee. I want to dance again.” - -She danced with a smooth, lazy rhythm and Gurdy felt a brusque jealousy -of all the men who danced with her, after him. He was angry because -he so soon liked her, against reason. It was folly to let himself -be netted by a girl who showed no signs of courting him. He watched -her spin, her black skirt spreading, with Cosmo Rand. The man danced -gracefully, without swagger. He might be amusing, like many actors. -Gurdy pulled his philosophy together and talked about Mark’s plan of -the Walling Theatre while they drove home. - -“Dad’s wanted a shop of his own so long,” she sighed, “And it’ll be -quite charming. He does understand colours! Wish he wouldn’t wear black -all the time.... I always feel fearfully moral at two in the morning. -I’m going to lecture you.” - -“What about?” - -“You’re so damned chilly. You always were, of course. Don’t you like -anything?” - -They came to the Ilden house before he could answer and Margot didn’t -repeat the question all the week he stayed in London. They were -seldom alone. Lady Ilden seemed to want the girl near her. There -were incessant callers. Men plainly flocked after the dark girl. Her -frankness added something to the wearisome chaff of teatime and theatre -parties, to the dazing slang of the young officers. Gurdy speculated -from corners, edged in at random dances. But his blood had caught a -fresh pulsation. He felt a trail of mockery in the artifice of Lady -Ilden’s talk as if the tired woman observed him falling into love and -found it humorous. She said once, “I was afraid you’d grown up too -fast. And you’ve not,” but he let the chance of an argument slide by -his preoccupation with the visible flutter of Margot’s hands pinning a -tear in her yellow frock. His resistance weakened although he hunted -repugnances, tried to shiver when the girl swore. - -“Profanity’s a sign of poor imagination,” he told her. - -“The hell you say,” said Margot. “Haven’t turned out on the heavy -side, have you, Gurdy? I bar serious souls. War shaken you to the -foundations? Cheeryo! You’ll get over it.” And she walked upstairs -singing, - - “There ayn’t a goin’ to be no wa-ah, - Now we’ve got a king like good King Hedward, - There ayn’t a goin’ to be no wa-ah. - ’E ’ates that sort of fing, - Muvvers, don’t worry, - Now we’ve got a king like Hedward, - Peace wiv ’onor is ’is motter, - So, God sive the king!” - - - - -VI - -Gurdy - - -In mid March the lease of the ground in West 47th Street was brought to -Mark’s office. He signed it and gave the attorney his check. A wrecking -company was busy with the destruction of the cheap hotel that stood -where the Walling Theatre would stand complete in November. The notary -and witnesses withdrew. Mark sat drumming his fingers on his desk, -trying to rejoice. Irritations worked in him; Carlson would be the only -audience of his joy; the ground was bought with money made too largely -in moving pictures. He was so close upon the fact grown from his dream -that it frightened him. The Walling was real, at last. He should bubble -with pleasure and couldn’t. He sighed and strolled over to West 45th -Street where he watched the final act of “Redemption” for the sake of -the dive scene, got his usual happy shudder from this massed, intricate -shadow and the faces suddenly projected into the vicious light. He must -have such scenes at the Walling. He must find somewhere a play made of -scenes, many and diverse, changing from splendour to dark vaults. Why, -this was the secret of the abominable movies! They jerked an audience -out of one tedious place into a dozen. He walked toward Fifth Avenue, -thinking, roused because the streets seemed more speckled with olive -cloth. Some transport had disgorged soldiers freshly into the city -tired of gaping at them. Mark enjoyed their tan in the crowded pace of -Fifth Avenue where women showed powder as moist paste on their cheeks -in a warmth like that of May. A motion picture star detained him at -a crossing and haughtily leaned from her red, low car demanding the -rights of a play for her company. Mark couldn’t follow the permutations -of these women. She had been a chorus girl one met at suppers. Now she -was superb in her vulgar furs with a handsome young Jew beside her and -a wolfish dog chained on the flying seat. Mark got himself away and -came home to the panelled library where Carlson was stretched under -three quilts on his wheeled chair gossiping with an old comedian about -the merits of Ada Rehan. Soon the elderly caller left. Mark took his -chair by Carlson and wondered what he would do if his patron died -before Gurdy got back. Carlson couldn’t last much longer, the doctors -said, but his mind was active. He yapped, “I’ve got a hunch, sonny.” - -“Go on.” - -“You’re goin’ to see Gurdy pretty dam’ quick. I had a nap before -Ferguson came in. Dreamed about the kid.” - -“He’d have cabled if he’d sailed,” Mark said, “No, he’s still stuck -in the mud at Saint Nazaire. By God, it’s enough to make a man vomit, -reading about those damned embarkation camps! And he ain’t an officer. -They say the enlisted men don’t even get enough to eat!” He suddenly -fumed. - -“Well, don’t cry about it, you big calf,” said Carlson, “Honest to -God, I never saw a feller that can cry like you do! You cried like a -hose-pipe when the kid got shot--and from all I hear it wasn’t nothin’ -but a scratch on his belly. And I used to spend hours trying to teach -you to shed one tear when you was actin’! You was the punkest matiny -idol ever drew breath of life!” - -Mark chuckled, “I suppose I was,” then a hand slid down over his -shoulder and an olive cuff followed it. Mark’s heart jumped. He dropped -his head back against Gurdy’s side and began to weep idiotically as he -had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t. Old Carlson surveyed the end of -the trick delightedly. He privately cursed Gurdy for standing still and -pale when it was clearly the right thing to make a fuss. The cub was -too cool. - -“Son, son,” said Mark. - -Gurdy hoped that the man would not repeat that illogical word in his -husky, drumming voice. The repetition brought the illusion of joy too -close. He chewed his lip and wriggled, gave in and stooped over Mark. -He got out, “Here, I’ve not had any lunch, Mark,” and that turned Mark -into mad action, sent him racing downstairs to find the butler. - -“Why the hell didn’t you kiss him?” Carlson snarled. - -“I’m twenty--” - -“You’re a hog,” the old man meditated. His eyes twinkled. He sneered, -“Well, wipe your eyes. Here’s a handkerchief if you ain’t got one.” -He relished the boy’s blush, watched him blink and went on, “Now, -don’t tell Mark about all the women you ruined, neither. He prob’ly -thinks you been a saint. And don’t go spillin’ any of this talk about -goin’ to work on your own like some of these whelps do. Mark’s got a -three thousand dollar car comin’ for you and he’s goin’ to pay you -a hundred a week to set in the office and look wise. And don’t tell -him you didn’t win the war, too. He knows you did. Christ, it was bad -enough when I’d got to listen to how Margot was runnin’ the Red Cross -in London! After you went off I come pretty near callin’ up the express -company and havin’ myself shipped to Stockholm! The big calf! Chewin’ -the paint off the walls every time he heard there’d been fightin’! -Sentymental lunatic! Your papa and mamma’ve got three times more sense -about you. Get out of here. I got to make up sleep.” He shut his eyes. -Two tears ran and were lost in the sharp wrinkles of his face. Gurdy -gulped and walked downstairs, abashed by the sheer weight of idolatry. - -Mark was twisting the cork out of a champagne bottle in the dining -room. At once he said, “They’ll have some eggs up right away, sonny.” - -“My God but you’re thin, Mark!” - -“No exercise. Haven’t had time to play golf. Now, we’d better get the -car and run down to Fayettes--” - -“I talked to mother from Camp Merritt. Be in Camp Dix tomorrow. I’ll -see them there. They can motor over. Only twelve miles. Heard from -Margot lately?” - -His uncle beamed saying, “Says she wants to come home, son. I’ve got to -talk to you about that. What d’you think?” - -Gurdy said quickly, “Let her come, Mark. The fact is, I think she’s -bored. You haven’t seen her since last year? She’s got a gang of men -trailing after her and she isn’t a flirt. Chelsea’s full of bright -young painters and things. They all come and camp on the doormat. -Lady Ilden’s a sort of fairy godmother, of course.” He lapsed into a -sudden state of mind about Margot, fondling his glass of champagne. -Untrimmed discourse on women had amused his first days in the army. -But the week’s return in the jammed transport had sickened him with -the stuffy talk of prospective and retrospective desire. It had been -musky, stifling. He wondered how women, if they guessed, would value -that broad commentary. And how men lied about women! The precisian was -annoyed to a snort and Mark filled his glass again, smiling. - -Of course, having seen her, the boy wanted Margot home. Mark said, “She -wrote me you’d turned out better looking than she thought. Knew she’d -think so. And Olive was pleased to death with you, of course. How’s -your side feel?--My God, what are those fools doing to the eggs!” - -He rushed into the pantry. Rank pleasure swelled in Gurdy. There was no -use doing anything with the incurable, proud man who drove him back to -Camp Merritt at dusk with two bottles of champagne hidden in his motor -coat, invited confessions and beamed constantly. - -“Only don’t act like you’d ever kissed a woman in front of your mother, -son. Country folks. Shock her to death. You any taller? I’ll call up -Sanford about some clothes for you. Good night, sonny. You go straight -to the farm when you’re discharged. I’ll be down Sunday.” - -An illusion of happiness beset Gurdy. He stood in the green street of -the half empty camp staring after the motor, the wine bottles wrapped -in paper under his arm. It was astonishing how foolish Mark was, to -be sure. But wine or emotion warmed the chill air about Gurdy like -the pour of a hot shower. If Mark wanted to be an ass over him, it -couldn’t be helped. He kept thinking of his foolish worshipper in the -transfer to the sandy discomfort of Camp Dix. There the Bernamers -appeared in a large motor with grandfather Walling furred and mittened -in the back seat. The illusion of happiness deepened into a sensuous -bath, although his mother had contracted more fat and his sisters were -too brawny for real charm. Gurdy struggled for righteous detachment -while his brothers candidly goggled their admiration and his father -examined the purple scar that passed dramatically up Gurdy’s milky -skin. He found himself blinking and got drunk on the second bottle of -champagne when his family left. But it seemed wiser to surrender to the -flood of affectionate nonsense for a time. It was even convenient that -Mark should send a tailor down to Fayettesville with clothes rapidly -confected. On Sunday Mark arrived with a small car lettered G.B. in -blue on its panel. - -“Just the blue Gurdy’s eyes are,” Mrs. Bernamer drawled. - -Gurdy understood that maternal feeling was a rather shocking symbol -on the charts of analysts and that Mark probably doted on him for -some trivial resemblance unconsciously held and engrossed. But it was -pleasant, being a symbol. He drove Mark down into Trenton and talked of -Margot while they drank bad American Benedictine in a seedy hotel. - -“I don’t know whether she’s very clever or simply sensible,” he said, -achieving detachment by way of Benedictine. “Anyhow, most cleverness -is just common sense--perception.” His eyes darkened. Mark thought in -lush comfort that Gurdy would marry the girl. Gurdy had friends among -the right sort of people. Poor Carlson would die pretty soon. Gurdy and -Margot would live at the house, which were best adorned freshly. The -Benedictine gave out. They drove into the twisted lanes behind Trenton -and Gurdy talked levelly of France. “Damned humiliating to get laid -out by a hunk of zinc off a bathtub. Margot joshed me about it.... -Paris was perfectly astonishing! American privates giving parties for -British admirals and stealing their women.--I ran into a Y. M. C. A. -girl who wanted to have Fontainebleau made into a reform school. Margot -says she found one that wanted to have George turn Windsor Castle into -a hospital for the A. E. F.... You mustn’t mind Margot swearing. All -the flappers seem to.--Oh, I met Cora Boyle.” - -“How’s she looking?” - -“Handsome.” Gurdy thought for a second and then inquired. “What did -you--” - -Mark comprehended the stop. He said, “She was the first woman ever took -any notice of me.--Why, I suppose she was a kind of ideal. I mean, I -liked that kind of looks. Lord knows what she married me for. Wonder, -is that Rand kid still married to her? Is? I guess she’s settled down -in London for keeps. Well, I want you to look at the plans of the -Walling, son. They’ve made me a model. Tell me if you see anything -wrong.” - -He simmered with joy when Gurdy approved the whole plan except the -shape of the boxes. The boy ran back and forth between Fayettesville -and the city in his car, asked seemly young men to dine in Fifty Fifth -Street, read plays and wandered with Mark to costumers. People stared -at him in the restaurants where Mark took him to lunch. His tranquil -height and his ease drew glances. His intolerant comments on the motley -of opening nights made Mark choke. Sometimes, though, Mark found the -boy’s eyes turned on him with surprise. - -“You seem to hang out in Greenwich village a lot, Mark.” - -“I kind of like it. Don’t understand some of the talk. The show -business is changing, sonny. It’s changed a lot since nineteen -fourteen. If you’d told me five years back that a piece like Redemption -could have a run I’d have laughed my head off. Or that you could mount -a play like Jones has fixed up this thing at the Plymouth--all low -lights and--what d’you call it?--impressionist scenery.... The game’s -changed.--Oh, the big money makers’ll always be hogwash, Gurdy! Don’t -bet any other way. I ain’t such a fool as to think that Heaven’s opened -because you can put on a piece with a sad ending and some--well, -philosophy to it and have it make a little cash. No such luck. Only -it’s got so now that when some big, fat wench in a lot of duds starts -throwin’ his pearls back at the man that’s keepin’ her in the third -act--why, there’s a lot of folks out front that say, Oh, hell, and go -home. Of course, there’s a lot more that think it’s slick.--Lord, I’d -like to put on ‘Measure for Measure’ when we open the Walling!--You -could make that look like something.--I’ve got to find something _good_ -to open with. This kid Steve O’Mara’s sending me up a play about a thug -that gets wrecked down in Cuba and steals a plantation. Ten scenes -to it, he says. One of ’em’s a lot of niggers havin’ a Voodoo party. -Sounds fine. I picked _him_ up down in Greenwich village.” - -“I should think all those half married ladies and near anarchists would -shock you to death.” - -“Bosh, brother. I don’t like ’em enough to get shocked at ’em. What’s -there to get shocked at? They think so and so and I think the other -way. If you took to preaching dynamite I’d be pretty worried--like I -would if your mamma bobbed her hair and ran off with a tenor. I’m not -an old maid just because I’m in the show business.” He lit a cigarette -and added. “Fifty per cent of theatrical managers are old maids.” - -“Just what do you mean?” - -“Why, they are. This way. They get used to a run of plots and they -can’t see outside that. For instance, here’s a dramatist--forgotten his -name--was trying to sell a piece last year. I couldn’t use it but I -thought it was pretty good so I sent him over to Loeffler with a note. -Next day, Loeffler called me up and said I ought to be hung for the -sake of public morals. This play knocked round the offices and every -one thought it was awful. Why? The hero’s a chauffeur that’s tired of -working, so he marries a rich old woman. It’s something that happens -every other day in the papers. There ain’t a week that some fifty year -old actress doesn’t marry a kid step dancer but they all carried on as -if this fellow’d written a play where every one came on the stage stark -naked and danced the hoochy coochee. It wasn’t a nice idea but where’s -it worse than nine tenths these bedroom things or as bad?” - -“Why wouldn’t you use it, Mark?” - -“Oh, hell, there wasn’t but one scene and that was an interior!” - -Gurdy asked, “Mark, wouldn’t you like it if the playwrights would go -back to the Elizabethan idea--I mean thirty or forty scenes to a play?” - -“Certainly,” said Mark, “and those bucks were right.” He sat for a -little silent, scrawling his desk blotter with a pencil, then shyly -laughed, “Supposing some one made a play out of my married life? What -you’d call the important episodes happened all over God’s earth. Cora -got me on a farm in Fayettesville, N. J., married in Hoboken. Started -quarreling in Martin’s café. Caught her kissing a fellow at Longbranch. -Never saw him before or since. Owned up she’d lived with three or four -men in our flat--twentieth Street, New York. Big scene. God, how sick -that made me! I was at tea at Mrs. LeMoyne’s when Frank Worthing got me -off in a corner and told me about her and Jarvis Hope. I was sittin’ -in the bath tub when she chucked her curling irons at me and said she -was through. That’s the way things go. Shakespeare was right. Crazy? -No.--Come in.” His secretary brought Mark a thick manuscript lettered -“Captain Salvador: Stephen O’Mara.” and withdrew. Mark went on, “But my -married life wouldn’t make much of a show--green kid from the country -and a--a Cora Boyle. Pretty ordinary.” He reflected, “But I don’t -know. It’s always going to be pretty tragic for a kid to find out he’s -married a girl thinkin’ she was pure--as pure as folks are, anyhow--and -finds she hadn’t been. Wasn’t her fault, of course. Started acting when -she was fourteen. Awful jolt, though. She lied about it, too. She was -the damnedest liar! I hate liars. Well run along and play squash or -something, sonny. I want to see what O’Mara’s handed me.” - -He bought the rights to “Captain Salvador” two hours later. Gurdy was -willing to rejoice with him after he read the Cuban tragedy. Carlson -yapped, “The women’ll hate it, Mark. Where’s your clothes?” - -“Bosh,” said Mark, “there weren’t any women’s clothes in Ervine’s ‘John -Ferguson’ and the women ate it alive!” - -“But that fellow Ervine’s an Englishman, you big calf! You ain’t going -to open the Walling with a sad piece by an American where there ain’t -any duds for the women to gawp at! You’re off your head. Ain’t I told -you a million times that the New York woman won’t swallow a home grown -show that’s tragic unless it’s all dressed up? Stop him, Gurdy!” - -“It’s a damned good play, sir,” said Gurdy. - -He thought it high fortune that Mark should find anything so adroit -and moving for the Walling’s first play. Some of the critics believed -in O’Mara’s talent. Several artists in scenery were asked to submit -designs. The pressmen began a scattering campaign of notes on O’Mara -and hints about the play. A procession of comely young women declined -the best female part as “unsympathetic.” - -“That means no clothes to it,” Carlson sniffed. - -“But they’re fools,” Gurdy insisted, “It’s a good acting part.” - -“My God,” the old man screamed, “don’t you know that no woman wants -a part where she can’t show her shape off and wear pearls! And these -hens that got looks don’t have to act any more. They go to California -and get in the movies. You talk like actresses were human beings! Women -don’t act unless they ain’t good lookin’ or’ve got brains. You’ll have -to go a long ways if you want a good lookin’ wench for that part. God, -you keep talkin’ like actin’ was some kind of an art! It ain’t. It’s a -game for grown up kids that they get paid for. An actor that’s got any -brains never gets to be more’n some one smart in comedy. A tragedian’s -nothin’ but a hunk of mush inside his head. Catch a girl that’ll act -tragical when she can sit on a sofa in a Paris gown and have some -goop make eyes at her!--And Mark’ll have a fine time at rehearsals -makin’ any leadin’ man wear a stubble beard and eat with his knife, -like in this play. Art!” and the old man fell asleep snorting. Yet his -bedroom behind the panelled library was dotted with photographs of dead -actors and actresses. Sometimes his dry voice trailed into a sort of -tenderness when he spoke of James Lewis or Augustin Daly. - -“Softhearted as an egg,” said Mark, hesitated and resumed, “He’s got -fifty thousand apiece for you and Margot in his will, sonny. Rest of it -goes to his sister’s children in Sweden.--What’s this you were saying -about running out to Chicago?” - -“I’d rather like to. Lacy Martin--remember him? I roomed with him -freshman year at college--Lacy lost his leg in France. He’s rather -blue. His mother wrote me that she’d like me to come out. I thought I -would.” - -“Well.--I thought I’d surprise you with it. Got a cable from Olive -Ilden Thursday. Margot sailed Friday. Ought to land day after -tomorrow.” He saw the orange level of Gurdy’s cocktail flicker. Then -the boy set it down and brooded. Mark made his face stolid to watch -this. The butler served fish and retired without noise to his pantry. -The tapestry of Chinese flowers behind Gurdy’s chair stirred in the -May wind. The boy was immobile, fair and trim in his chair. He seemed -strangely handsome--a long, easy lounging gentleman who hated sharp -emotions. - -“Really think I’d better go out to Lake Forest, Mark. I more or less -promised I would. I shan’t be gone more than a--couple of weeks.” - -Triumph dragged a chuckle from Mark. He covered it with, “Oh, sure! -If Lacy’s got the blues, run ahead out and cheer him up.” The boy was -in full flight from love, of course, and didn’t want to admit it. -Mark doted on him, drawled, “Got all the money you’ll need?” and was -pleased by Gurdy’s confession that he needed a good deal. He gave -the boy errands about Chicago to aid the retreat. “There’s a girl -named Marryatt playing at the La Salle. Some of them think she’s got -distinction. And poke around and see if you can rake up a scenery man. -Take the directions for Captain Salvador along. If you find any one -that ain’t just copying Bobby Jones or Gordon Craig make him send me -sketches. And there’s this poet on a newspaper--he’s named something -like Sandwich--no, Sanbridge. See if he’s got a play up his sleeve. -O’Mara was talking about him.” - -He saw Gurdy off for Chicago, the next noon, then set about making -lists of successive luncheons for Margot. This return must be an -ample revenge for her waygoing. She wasn’t, now, the small girl whose -presence in Miss Thorne’s school had frightened matrons. She was some -one protected by his celebrity and trained by Olive Ilden. He must -contrive her content until she married Gurdy. She was democratic--Olive -had seen to that. Mark had watched her chaff a knot of convalescent -soldiers in Hyde Park. She wouldn’t care that one of his best friends -had risen toward management from the rank of a burlesque dancer, that -another had been an undertaker in Ohio. She wouldn’t mind things like -that. He marshalled the cleverest of the critics and the young women -who dealt in publicity. Gurdy would bring proper men to call, when he -came back from his flight. The expanse of her future opened like an -unfurling robe of exquisite colours. She strolled in Mark’s mind most -visibly. He hummed, inspecting his house. - -“Yes,” Carlson sneered, “she’s been footloose amongst a pack of dukes -and things and you think she’s going to like bein’ mixed up with a lot -of--” - -“She won’t mind,” said Mark. - -She seemed to mind nothing. She landed on the twentieth of that cool -May, kissed Mark on the nose and told him she had three cases of -champagne in the hold. The customs inspectors were dazzled stumbling -among her trunks. A file of other voyagers came to shake hands. A great -hostess kissed the girl, smiled at Mark and said gently that she hoped -Mr. Walling would bring Margot to luncheon next fall. - -“She’s quite nice,” Margot assured him in the motor, “She probably kept -your photograph with a bunch of violets in a jar in front of it when -you were a matinée--Oh, how you hate that word! How nice your nose is! -Where on earth’s Gurdy?--Lake Forest? Oh, that’s where all the Chicago -pig kings live, isn’t it? They have chateaux and moats and exclude--But -it’s rather rotten he isn’t here. I’ve a couple of awful French novels -for him. He speaks such rather remarkable French. I can’t make the -right J sounds. He’s such a stately animal. I was awfully frightened of -him in London. Such a ghastly crossing!” - -“Why, honey?” - -She stared at him with wide black eyes and said more slowly, “How -nicely you say things like that.--You’re really awfully glad I’m back, -aren’t you?” - -Mark choked, “Here’s Times Square.” - -She shrugged and leaned back on the blue cushions. “Horrible! But the -theatre district in London’s worse, really. The Walling’ll be on a side -street, won’t it? I’d loathe seeing Walling in electric bulbs along -here. Be rather as though you were running about naked. Did I write you -about Ronny Dufford’s new play? Been a most tremendous success. You -should bring it over. That’s the Astor, isn’t it? What colour’s the -Walling to be inside? Blue? Rather dark blue? And swear to me that you -won’t have Russian decorations!” - -“I swear, daughter.” - -“You old saint,” said Margot, “and you’re still the best looking man in -the known world!” - -Her lips had a curious, untinted brilliance as though the blood might -burst from them. Dizzy Mark told himself that she wasn’t the most -beautiful of women. Her brown face was like his face and her father’s -face, too flat. Her hands weren’t small, either, but she wore no rings. -Her gown was dark and her tam o’shanter of black velvet was inseparable -from her hair in the mist of his eyes. Silver buckles swayed and -twinkled when her gleaming feet moved about his house and she smiled in -a veil of cigarette smoke. - -“You’ve simply natural good taste, dad. Born, not made. Don’t think I’m -keen on that Venice glass in the dining room. Too heavy. Where does -Gurdy sleep?--I snore, you know?” - -“I don’t believe it. He sleeps on the top floor where the old playroom -was.” - -She threw her head back to laugh and said, “Where he used to make such -sickening noises on the piano when he thought you were petting me too -much? He’s a dear. It wouldn’t be eugenics for me to marry him, would -it?” - -“See that, Mark?” Carlson squealed, “She ain’t been ten minutes in the -country and she’s huntin’ a husband? That’s gratitude!” - -“Oh, you,” said Margot, spinning on a heel, “If you were ninety seven -years younger I’d marry you myself.” - -She teased the old man relentlessly. She teased Mark before his guests -at the first luncheon. Her variations appalled the man. She seemed -to know all the printable gossip of New York. She spoke to older -women with a charming patience, played absurd English songs to amuse -Mark’s pet critic and got the smallest of the managers in a loud good -temper by agreeing with his debatable views on stage lighting. Most -of these, his friends, had forgotten that she was Mark’s niece. Their -compliments were made as on a daughter. He felt the swift spread of a -ripple; editors of fashion monthlies telephoned to ask for photographs; -the chief of a Sunday supplement wanted her views on the American Red -Cross; a portrait painter came calling. - -“Silly ass,” said Margot, “I met him in Devonshire. I hate being -painted. You’ve never had a portrait done? Dreary. One has to sit and -smirk.” She went fluttering a yellow frock up the library to find an -ash tray, came back smoking a cigarette, neared Mark’s chair then -veered off to pat Carlson’s jaw. - -“You used to set like a kitchen stove in one spot for an hour at a -time,” Carlson said, “Now you’re all over the place.” - -“One has to move about in England to keep warm. Dad, I wrote Ronny -Dufford to send you a copy of his play. Ronny’s land poor, you know? -It’s made mountains of money but I don’t think he’s half out of debt, -yet. Such a nice idiot. He liked Gurdy such a lot. What the deuce an’ -all is Gurdy doing in Chicago? Bargin’ about with the pigstickers?” - -She shed her mixture of slangs when his broker’s wife came to luncheon. -Mark didn’t think it affected that she mainly talked of titled folk -to the smart, reticent woman. Mrs. Villay invited her to Southampton -before leaving. Margot shook her hair free of two silver combs and -shrugged as the front door shut. “I suspect her of being a ferocious -snob. Sweet enough, though. Fancy she doesn’t read anything but Benson -and the late Mrs. Ward.--Oh, no, Mrs. Ward isn’t late, is she? Simply -lamented.” - -Mark laughed, “Let’s go talk to Mr. Carlson.” - -“You always call him Mister. Just why, darling?” - -“Well, he’s forty years older than me, sister. And he made me. He--” - -“Tosh! You made yourself! Let’s walk over and see how the Walling’s -getting on.” - -He wallowed in this warm enchantment for ten days. Margot dismissed -herself to Fayettesville on the first breath of heat. He went down to -see her established in the gaping adoration of the family. He thought -it hard on the Bernamer girls. He had hinted boarding school for these -virgins but the Bernamers, trained by moving pictures, were wary. Yet -Margot was clearly born to captivate women. He wrote to Gurdy at Lake -Forest: “It was nice to see her tone herself down for your grandfather -and your mother. I told her she had better not smoke except with your -dad in the cowbarn. You kept telling me I must not be shocked. What is -there to get shocked at? Young girls are not as prissy as they were -when I was a pup.--Hell of a row coming on with the actors. We are -trying to keep things quiet but it looks like a strike. But some of the -men still think an actor is a cross between a mule and a hog. Letter -from Olive Ilden says she is going to Japan pretty soon and will come -this way. I see in the London news that Cora Boyle has signed up with -the Celebrities and is coming over to be filmed as Camille or The Queen -of Sheba. You are wrong about ‘Heartbreak House.’ It is a conversation, -not a play. I wish Shaw would do something like Cæsar and Cleopatra -again. They start work on the sets for Captain Salvador next week at -the studio. Shall have two sets made for the Voodoo scene and try both -on the road before we open the Walling.” - -Gurdy reflected that it was time to come home. Then he put it off. -Lake Forest was pleasant. He was fond of his host. It was prudent to -test the pull of this feeling for Margot. The thing augmented now that -he couldn’t talk of her. A strict detachment from passion was silly, -after all. But he was annoyed with himself as the passage of any tall -and blackhaired woman across a lawn would interrupt the motion of his -blood. He set his brain tasks, meditated the girl at Fayettesville, -hoped that she wouldn’t singe the acute American skin of his young -brothers by comments on the national arms. His sisters had probably -made their own experiments with cigarettes. They were sensible lasses, -anyhow, if given to endless gush about moving pictures. His young -host’s sisters, amiable, blond girls were much the same thing, rarified -by trips to Europe, suave frocks and some weak topics in the cerebral -change. They held Dunsany a fascinating dramatist and thought there was -something to be said for communism. Chicago puzzled him with its summer -negligence and the candour of its wealth, with the air of stressed -vice in the Loop restaurants and the sudden change from metropolis -to a country town within the city limits. It seemed absurd that the -listless, polished wife of a hundred million dollars should return from -Long Island to give a dance in honor of a travelling English poet held -lowly in Chelsea, described by Olive Ilden as a derivative angleworm. -At this dance he heard of Margot from an unknown woman with whom he -waltzed. - -“I saw you in London, last winter.” - -“I was there. Funny I don’t remember--” - -“You were in uniform with Margot Walling and Lady Ilden. At a play. -Margot was wearing one of her yellow frocks. I was the other side of -the gangway. I wondered about you, rather. Margot always snubs me. I’m -a countess of sorts and it always interests me when Americans snub -me.--Let’s get something to drink. I don’t dance well and you must be -in torments--What’s your name?” - -She was a lank, tired creature in a rowdy gown sewn with false pearls -that hissed theatrically as she slumped into a chair on the lit -terrace. - -“Cousin, eh?--Well, Margot amuses me. She’s the genuine aristocrat, -you know? Take what you want and to hell with the rest. Pity so few -Americans catch the idea. Imagine any continental woman coming a -thousand miles to give a dance for a cheapjack penny poet like this -sweep. Afraid he won’t mention her in his travel book, I dare say. -Run and get me a drink. Something mild.” A youth at the buffet told -him this was the Countess of Flint. She sipped wine cup, refused a -cigarette and asked, “Where did you go to school? Saint Andrew’s? My -brothers did Groton. Beautiful training wasted on the desert air. -That’s the trouble with the American game. Did you ever think how much -good it would have done the beastly country to have had about four -generations of a hard and fast aristocracy--plenty of money, no morals, -quantities of manner? It’s simply a waste of time and money to train -lads and then turn them loose in a herd of rich women all afraid of -their dressmakers. What a zero the average American woman is!” - -“Hush,” he said, “That’s treason! You’ll be shot at sunrise!” - -“Unsalted porridge. Utter vacuum. Not a vacuum either because she’s a -bully, usually. And a prude.--Is Margot going to marry Ronny Dufford?” - -Gurdy jumped, inescapably startled. He said, “Colonel Dufford? The -General Staff man who writes plays? I’m sure I don’t know.” - -“It wouldn’t be a bad thing. Ronny’s all right--the gentleman Bohemian -touch and I dare say she has money.” The lank woman coughed, went on, -“She’ll take on an Englishman in any case, though.” - -“She’s in New York.” - -“Oh, she’ll get fed with that directly and trot home.” The woman -locked her gaunt arms behind her careless hair and yawned at the -amber moon above the clipped pines. “New York’s frightful! Stuffed -middle westerners squatting in hotels trying to look smart. Place is -absolutely run by women. Getting more respectable every time I go -through. Haven’t had any patience with New York since the Stanford -White murder. Imagine all the bloods running to cover and swearing -they’d never even met White because he’d been shot in a mess about a -woman! Imagine it! I always bought Harding Davis’s books after that -because he had the sand to get up and say he liked White, in print. -But that’s Egyptian history.” She began to cough fearfully. The pearls -clattered on her gown. - -“You’ve taken cold.” - -“No. Cigarettes. Are you married?” - -“Good lord, no. Only been twenty-one a couple of weeks.” - -“How odd that must be! Twenty-one a couple of weeks ago. And you went -to France and got shot. Singular child!” - -“Why singular?” - -“Oh, I’ve been amusing myself at Saranac--at a house party, with a -social register and an army list. A war where eighty per cent. of the -educated men--I mean the smart universities--the bloods under thirty -all went and hid themselves. It’s not pretty.” - -“Aren’t you exag--” - -“Not in the least. I had fifty American officers convalescing at my -husband’s place in Kent and half of them were freight clerks from Iowa. -What can you expect when the American woman brings her son up to be -a coward and his father makes him a thief? And naturally the women -despise the men. Who on earth wants an American husband?” - -“They seem to find wives, somehow.” - -She coughed, rising, “Oh, travel’s expensive.” Then she gestured to -the orange oblongs of the ballroom windows. “D’you think any one of -those women would hesitate a minute between being the next lady of the -White House or the mistress of the Prince of Wales? Of course not! Give -Margot my love. Good-bye. Too chilly out here.” She rattled away. - -Gurdy dropped into the chair and stared after her. He should tabulate -this woman at once with her romantic illusions of aristocracy and -patriotism. Margot supervened and seemed to move across the moony -stones of the terrace. He thought frantically of Colonel Dufford. He -thought solidly of marriage for ten minutes. Beyond doubt he was in -love with Margot. He stirred in the chair, repeating maxims. Passion -wasn’t durable. He might tire of her. He argued against emotion and -blinked at the gold lamps on the bastard French face of this house. He -was too young to select sensibly, didn’t want to be sensible, suddenly. -His pulse rose. He marvelled at love. In the morning he announced his -present departure. At noon he had a special delivery letter from his -youngest brother, Edward Bernamer, Junior, a placid boy of thirteen -interested in stamp collecting. The scrawl was the worse for that -complacency. - -“Dear Gurd, For the love of Mike come on home and help take care of -Margot E. Walling. She has got mamma and the girls all up in the air. -Grandfather is getting ready to shoot her. I heard him talking to dad -about writing Uncle Mark to take her away. I sort of like her. Eggs and -Jim think she is hell.” - -Gurdy came whirling east to New York and found Mark at the 45th Street -Theatre, humming over the model for a scene of “Captain Salvador.” -But plainly Mark knew nothing of any fissure in the sacred group at -Fayettesville. He was busy rehearsing a comedy, had been to the farm -only once. In any event Mark mustn’t be hurt. Gurdy took breath and -delicately put forth, “I want you to do something damned extravagant, -Mark.” - -“Easy, sonny. Just got the estimate for the mirrors at the Walling. Not -more than ten thousand, please!” - -“Not as bad as that. Get a cottage on Long Island for July and August. -The farm’s all right for Margot for a while. But grandfather goes to -bed at nine. The kids play rags on the phonograph all afternoon. It -gets tiresome after a while. I--” - -“Oh, son,” said Mark, “I’m not so thickheaded I can’t see that -sister’ll get bored down there.” He beamed, thinking Gurdy superb in -grey tweeds, his white skin overlayed with pale tan. “No, I expect -I’d get bored with the cows and chickens if I was there enough.--And -we ought to have some kind of a country place of our own.--There’s -some friend of Arthur Hopkins has a place on Long Island he wants to -let.--Olive Ilden’ll be here in July and we ought to have a cottage -somewhere. I don’t think your dad and Olive’d have much to talk over.” -Mark grinned. Gurdy laughed, curling on a corner of the desk, approving -the man’s common shrewdness. Mark patted his palms together. “Look, -you pike on down to the farm. Margot’s got your car there. You fetch -her up in the morning and you two go look at this cottage. I’ll ’phone -Hopkins and find where it is. Oh, here’s this piece Margot’s friend -Dufford’s sent over. I hear it’s doing a fair business in London but -nothing to brag of. Read it and see what you think. Get going, son. You -can catch the three o’clock for Trenton.” - -Gurdy strove with this fragility in neat prose all the way to Trenton. -It had to do with a climber domiciled by mistake in the house of -a stodgy young Earl. It was wordy and tedious. The name, “Todgers -Intrudes,” made him grunt. He laughed occasionally at the tinkling -echoes of Wilde and Maugham. It might be passable in London where -the lethal jokes on “Dora” and “Brass Hats” would be understood. He -diligently tried to be just to Colonel Dufford’s art which served -to keep his pulse down and his mind remote from the approaching -discomfort. Margot wasn’t perfect. She had upset the family. It was -best to get her quickly away from Fayettesville. He hired a battered -car at Trenton. The Fayettesville Military Academy was closing for the -summer, by all signs. Lads bustled toward the station towing parents -and gaudy sisters in the beginning of sunset. He overtook his three -brothers idling home toward the farm and gave them a lift. No one spoke -of Margot directly. Edward, his correspondent, smiled sideways at -Gurdy and drawled, “Must have been having a damn good time in Chicago, -Gurd,” but nothing else was said. The car panted into the stone walled -dooryard. His grandfather waved a linen clad arm at Gurdy from the -padded chair on the veranda. His sisters accepted the usual candy and -hid a motion picture magazine from him, giggling. Mrs. Bernamer was at -a funeral in Trenton. Gurdy found Bernamer in the dairy yard studying a -calf. It was always easy to be frank with the saturnine, long farmer. -His father didn’t suffer from illusions. They sat on the frame of the -water tower and lit cigarettes, before speech. - -“How’s Margot been behaving, dad?” - -“You sweet on her, son?” - -“I like her. How’s she been acting?” - -Bernamer pulled his belt tight and lifted his hard face toward the -sky. Gurdy felt the mute courtesy of his pause. The man had a natural -scorn of tumult. He lived silently and, perhaps, thought much. He said, -“This is just as much Mark’s place as it is ours. He’s the best feller -livin’. We all know that. And she’s Joe’s daughter.” Something boiled -up in his blue eyes. He cried, “What in hell! You’re as good as she -is, ain’t you? You can come home and act like we wasn’t mud underfoot! -Who the hell’s she?” His wrath slid into laughter. He pulled his belt -tighter and winked at Gurdy. “It’s kind of funny hearin’ her cuss, -though.” - -“She over does that, a little. Just what’s the trouble, dad?” - -“I can’t tell you, son. She’s sand in the cream. It ain’t her smokin’. -I miss my guess if the girls ain’t tried that.--She kind of puts me -in mind of that Boyle wench Mark married. She’s got the old man all -worried. Your mamma’s scared to death of her. So’s the girls.--She -ain’t so damned polite it hurts her any.... Say, I wouldn’t hurt Mark’s -feelings for the world--And I notice she don’t carry on so high and -mighty when Mark’s here, neither.--Ain’t there some place else she -could go?” - -Gurdy had a second of futile rage that divided itself between Margot -and his family. This wasn’t within remedy. She had absorbed the -attitudes, the impatience of worlds exterior to the flat peace of the -farm. He grinned at his father. - -“Yes. I’m going to take her off. Mark’s got more sense than you think, -dad.” - -“Sure. Mark’s got plenty of sense when he ain’t dead cracked over a -thing. Don’t tell him I’ve been squalling. Mebbe that Englishwoman -spoiled her, lettin’ her gallivant too much. Mebbe it’s her father -comin’ out in her. Between us, Joe was tougher’n most boys. You’ll -likely find her down in the orchard smokin’ her head off. It’s all kind -of funny ... and then it ain’t.” - -She wasn’t smoking. She sat with a novel spread on her yellow lap and -the bole of an apple tree behind her head. There was a shattered plate -of ruddy glow about her. The pose had the prettiness of a drowsy child. -She was, her lover thought, a bragging child, lonesome for cleverness, -annoyed by stolidity. In the vast green of the orchard she seemed -small. He whistled. She rose, her hair for a moment floating, then -laughed and threw the book away. - -“Thank God, that’s you! I thought it was one of--O, any one!” - -There was a shrill, unknown jerk in her voice. She came running and -took his arm. - -“Tell me something about civilization--quick! You don’t want to talk -about the fil-lums do you? Or whether Jane Rupp’s going to marry that -Coe feller or--” - -“Bored?” - -“Oh--to death! How do you stand it? How do you stand it?... I knew -they’d be common but I didn’t think they’d be such bloody--” - -“Look out,” said Gurdy. - -But the girl’s red lips had retracted. She was shivering. She had lost -her charm of posture. She cried, “Oh, yes! They’re our people and all -the rest of that tosh! I’m not a hypocrite. It’s a stable! A stable!” -Her breath choked her. She gasped, “Get me out of here! I’m used to -what you call real people!” - -She loosed his sleeve and patted her hair. But some inner spring shook -her. Scarlet streaks appeared in her face. She babbled, “He must be -mad! Of course he’s sentimental about them--about the place--the old -place--It’s the way he is about Carlson! My God, why should he think I -can stand it!” - -Something hummed in Gurdy’s head. His hands heated. He stood -shuffling a foot in the grass and looked from her at the green -intricate branches. He must keep cool. He whispered, “Can’t you find -anything--well, funny in it?” - -“It’s all funny rather the way an old dress is!--Why should he think I -could stay here? Three weeks! Of course, he hasn’t any breed--” - -“Shut up,” said Gurdy, “That’ll be all! We were born here. Mark took us -and had us dressed and looked after--trained. I’m not going to laugh -at them. I can’t.--I’ll be damned if I’ll hear you laugh at Mark. Yes, -he’s sentimental! If he wasn’t, d’you think he’d have bothered about -taking care of you--of us? The family’s sacred to him. He loves them. -He’s that kind.--Stop laughing!” - -He hated her. There was no beauty left. Her face had shrivelled in this -fire. She was swiftly and horribly like an angry trull. She said, -“Sentimentalist! You’re a damned milk and sugar sentimentalist like--” - -“Ah,” said Gurdy, “that’s out of some book!... All right. Mark’s going -to take a place on Long Island. We’ll go up in the morning.” - -He tramped off. The orchard became a whirl of green flame that seared -then left him cold. He was tired. His body felt like stone, heavy and -dead. The illusion of desire was gone out of Gurdy. - - - - -VII - -Todgers Intrudes - - -Olive Ilden was detained and surrendered her mid July sailing. Her -brother died. This did not grieve her; they had been on strained terms. -But she was unwilling to offend his daughters. Offence had grown -hateful with years. The personal matter flung to and fro among critics -wearied her. It wasn’t amusing to hear that an elderly novelist was “a -doddering relic of the Victorian era.” She envisaged the man’s pain. -Thus, she bore the formalities of her brother’s passing and so missed -three liners. About her, London recaptured something of its tireless -motion. She wished for Margot and the youth Margot had kept parading -through the quiet house. She hoped that the girl’s frankness never -shocked Mark and puzzled again over the rise of that frankness. In -her first two English years the child had been sedate, almost solemn, -reading a great deal and talking primly. Then her conversation had -risen to a rattle. It must be rattling mightily in New York which -Olive still fancied a place of cheerful freedom. Letters recorded -the change from Fayettesville to a cottage on the Long Island shore: -“Cottage was frightful but dad behaved quite as if he was mounting a -play in a hurry. We drove from shop to shop and all the stuff came -roaring along in motor trucks. I went to Southampton and camped with -a rather nice woman, Mrs. Corliss Stannard, who picked me up coming -across. It was dull as Westminster Abbey as every one kept cursing -the Prohibition amendment. But dad had the cottage--(fourteen rooms -and four baths)--all decorated by the time I got back. Some decentish -friends of Gurdy live near here. The men are all Goths and the women -are fearfully stiff but a broker proposed last night at a dance and I -felt rather silly, as he has just been divorced two days and I hardly -knew his name. But dad has bought an option to ‘Todgers Intrudes.’” -Then, “Dad very busy in town. The actors are threatening a strike. -Gurdy pretends that he does not like ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ For a man who -did a smart school and who knows his way about Gurdy is rather heavy. -Rather decent lunch today. Dad brought down one of the other managers -who talks through his nose and is a duck. He taught me how to do a -soft shoe step.” And later, “Dad very émotionné about a tragedy he is -putting on in the autumn. It is rather thrilling. He means to open The -Walling with it. Gurdy does not fancy ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ He thinks -himself a Bolshevik or something and I dare say the county family -business in it annoys him.” - -Immediately after this, while the letter was fresh in mind Olive met -Ronald Dufford on Regent Street. He took her congratulations on the -American sale of his play with a dubious air, swung his stick and said, -“Thanks. Fancy Margot made her guv’nor take it on. Between ourselves it -hasn’t more than just paid. You’re going to the States, aren’t you?” - -“Next week. Yes, I think Margot had her father buy the play, Ronny. -It’s my sad duty to warn him that it hasn’t been what the Yankees call -a three bagger--whatever that means.” - -The playwright grinned amiably, saying, “Rather wish you would. My -things haven’t done well in the States. I’m not so keen on being known -as a blight, out there. Walling’s paid me two hundred pounds, no less, -for American rights. Charitable lad he must be!--I say, I hear that -Cossy Rand’s gone over to play for him.” - -“Who’s Cossy Rand?” - -“Cora Boyle’s little husband. Nice thing. You’ve met him? He rehearsed -us for that thing of mine at Christmas. A thin beggar with--” - -“Of course. I’ve even danced with him but he passed out of the other -eye.” - -“But isn’t it rather odd for Walling to take on his ex-wife’s -present husband? Bit unusual? You’ve always told me that Walling’s a -conservative sort.” - -“Why shouldn’t Walling take him on, Ronny? The man’s rather good, isn’t -he?” - -“Fairish. Frightfully stiff. He played the Earl in ‘Todgers’ while Ealy -was fluing.--What I meant was that it seems odd Walling should cable -him to come over. But I’ll be awfully bucked if old ‘Todgers’ gets -along in the States. ’Tisn’t Shaw, you know?” - -Olive was lightly vexed with Margot. The girl was irresponsible when -she wanted something for a friend. But the trait was commendable; Olive -still ranked personal loyalty higher than most static virtues. But -“Todgers Intrudes” was a dreary business. She spoke of it to Mark when -he met her at the New York pier. The idolator chuckled. - -“The actors have struck. I hope Margot’ll forget about the thing before -the strike’s over. She likes Dufford? Well, that’s all the excuse she -needed. She isn’t--” - -“Are you letting her stamp on your face, old man?” - -“It don’t hurt. She don’t weigh a heap. She says Dufford’s poor.” - -His eyes were dancing. He wore a yellow flower in his coat and patted -Olive’s arm as he steered her to the lustrous blue car. “We’ll go up to -my house for lunch. Mr. Carlson’s crazy to see you. Mustn’t mind if he -curses at you. We’ll go on down to the shore after lunch. Where’s Sir -John, m’lady?” - -“Malta. Shall I see Gurdy? The nicest child!” - -“Ain’t he? I’ve got him reading plays.” Mark soared into eulogies, came -down to state, “This is Broadway,” as the car plunged over the tracks -between two drays. - -“If that’s Broadway,” Olive considered, “I quite understand why -half of New York lives in Paris. I do want to see Fifth Avenue. The -sky-scrapers disappointed me but Arnold Bennett says Fifth Avenue’s -really dynamic.” A moment after when the car faced the greasy slope of -asphalt she said, “Bennett’s mad.” - -Mark sighed, “It’s an ugly town. But this street’s nice at sunset, -in winter. It turns a kind of purple.... It was bully when the women -wore violets. They don’t wear real flowers any more.--You used to -smell violets everywhere. Violets and furs and cigar smoke. I used to -like it.” His eyes sparkled on the revocation. He smiled at the foul -asphalt and the drooping flags of shops where the windows gave out a -torturing gleam. - -“You great boy,” said Olive. - -“Boy? Be forty-one the second of November.--Oh, awful sorry about your -brother, Olive.” - -“I’m not. Gerald was null and void. I never even discovered where he -found the energy to marry and beget daughters. Margot’s lived more at -the age of eighteen than Gerald had at fifty. I don’t suppose that you -can understand how I can slang my own family.” - -“Oh, sure. Because my folks are all nice it don’t follow I think every -one ought to be crazy about theirs. Did he have a son?” - -“No. The land goes to our cousin--Shelmardine of Potterhanworth--that -idiot his wife pushed into Peerage. She was one of the managing -Colthursts. Loathsome woman. Her son’s a V.C. though.--Oh, this -improves!” The car passed Forty Fifth Street. Olive gazed ahead, -cheered by the statelier tone of the white avenue. Mark wondered how -a woman who had lost both children could yet smile at the dignity of -Saint Patrick’s and again at the homesick bewilderment of her maid -getting down before his house. - -Old Carlson bobbed his head to this lady, abandoning his ancient fancy -that she had been Mark’s mistress. He studied her grey hair and the -worn, sharp line of her face. Then he cackled that she was to blame -for turning Margot into a “sassy turnip.” - -“My dealings with turnips have always been conducted through a cook. -Has she been shocking you?” - -“Ma’am,” said Carlson, “You can’t shock me. I was in the show business -from eighteen sixty-nine to nineteen fourteen. I lugged a spear in the -‘Black Crook’ and I was a gladyator when the Police arrested McCullough -for playin’ Spartacus in his bare legs. No, Margot can’t shock me any -more’n a kitten.” He rolled a cigarette shakily, spilling tobacco on -his cerise quilt. Olive held a match for him. He coughed, “But you’d -ought of seen her ballyrag Mark into buyin’ this English piece--What -the hell do you call it, Mark?” - -“Todgers Intrudes.” - -“That’s a name for you! Gurdy don’t like it. I say it’s hogwash. -Maggie, she set on a table smokin’ her cheroot and just made the big -calf buy it.... She did, Mark. So don’t stand there lookin’ like -Charlie Thorne in ‘Camille’!” - -Mark was stirring with laughter at the old man’s venom. He said, “I -told Olive Margot made me buy it.” - -“Oh,” Olive said, “if you let Margot run your affairs you’ll have -strange creatures from darkest Chelsea mounting all your plays and -flappers who’ve acted twice in a charity show playing Monna Vanna. She -made my poor husband buy a cubist portrait of Winston Churchill some -pal of hers painted. When he found it was meant to be Churchill he took -to his bed.” - -“Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Williams,” said the butler against Mark’s swift, “Ask -’em to go to the drawing room. ’Xcuse me, Olive. Got to go talk strike -a minute.” - -She looked about the sinless library with its severe panels and blue -rug then at Mark’s patron--an exhumed Pharaoh, his yellow hawk face and -bloodless hands motionless, the cigarette smoking in a corner of his -mouth. He had just the pathos of oncoming death. He squeaked, “Mark’s -busy as a pup with fleas. Actors strikin’! The lazy hounds! It’s enough -to make Gus Daly turn in his grave!” - -“You’ve no sympathy with them?” - -“Not a speck! The show business is war and war’s hell. Here’s this -Boyle onion Mark was married to, Bill Loeffler sends for her to come -back from England and get a thousand a week to play in a French piece. -Pays her passage. Then what? Minute she sets foot on land she grabs a -movie contract and pikes off to California. She’s a hot baby, she is! -Actors!” - -“I hear that Mark’s engaged her husband.” - -“That slimjim sissy from Ioway? Not much!” - -“Is Rand an American?” - -“He-ell, yes! He’s old Quincy Rand’s Son that used to run the Opera -House in Des Moines. He run off with a stock comp’ny that played -Montreal and got to talkin’ English. I told Margot that and she was mad -enough to bust.--Say, you British are cracked, lettin’ a pack of actors -loose in your houses like they was human--” He fell asleep. The nurse -came to take the cigarette from his lips. Olive strolled off to examine -the shelves packed tightly with books. Here was the medley of Mark’s -brain--volumes of Whyte Melville mingled with unknown American novels, -folios on decoration, collected prints from the European galleries. A -copy of “Capital” surprised her but she found Gurdy’s signature dated, -“Yale College, November, 1916,” on the first page. Gurdy came up the -white stairway and saw the black gown with relief. Lady Ilden could be -a buffer between Margot and himself. There would be less need of visits -to the seashore house. He led the Englishwoman into the broad hall. - -“Something odd has just happened, Gurdy.” - -“Mr. Carlson swear at you?” - -“Before, not at. But he tells me that Mark did not send for Cosmo Rand -to act in something over here whereas Ronny Dufford most distinctly -told me that Mark did. It interested me because Mark’s so coy about his -old wife and it seemed queer that he’d cable for her husband.” - -“I expect Rand’s lying a little, for advertisement. No, Mark didn’t -send for him. He never engages people to come from England. Has Rand -come over? According to Margot he’s such an idol in London that it’d -take an act of Parliament to get him away. Miss Boyle’s here. We saw -her at lunch in the Algonquin and she patronized Mark for a minute. -Didn’t Rand play some part in this ‘Todgers Intrudes’ piffle in London?” - -“Which reminds me,” said Olive, “Margot made Mark take that? Is she -making him cover her with emeralds and give masked balls?” - -Gurdy said honestly, “No, not at all. We’ve had some house -parties--some friends of mine and some of the reviewers and so on. She -seems to be amusing herself.” - -“And she hasn’t shocked Mark?” - -“Why should she?” Gurdy laughed, leaning on the white handrail, “she -doesn’t do any of the things he dislikes seeing women do. She doesn’t -drink anything, for instance, and she doesn’t paint. When did she go in -for pacifism--not that I’ve any objection to it.” - -“That was a way of helping me out when my boy fell, I think. She raged -about the war as a sort of outlet for me. Really, she enjoyed the -war tremendously. As most girls did. Is she still raving about the -slaughter of the artist?” - -“The slaughter of actors. Some Englishman--an actor--said that too many -actors slacked and she lit on him. He mentioned half a dozen--can’t -remember them.--You told me in London that she wanted to act?” - -“Yes. Has she been teasing Mark--” - -“No. But I think she could.” - -“My dear boy, I’ve seen her in amateur things twice and she was -appalling! Vivacity isn’t ability. Of course she has a full equipment -in the way of looks.--You mustn’t get dazzled over Margot, Gurdy.” His -face was blank. Olive chanced a probe. “I forbid you to fall in love -with her, either. You’re cousins and it’s not healthy.” - -“I’m not thinking of it,” said Gurdy, red, and so convinced Olive that -he was deep in love. But the dying blush left him grave. He stood -listening to the slow drawl of Mark’s voice below them and wondering -what tone would overtake its husky music if Margot should turn on the -worshipper, screaming and hateful. He wondered at himself, too. His -passion had blown out. It had no ash, no regret. He was free of anger, -even, and he had done the girl mental justice. He didn’t want her back. - - -“You look rather done up, old man.” - -“War nerves. We’ve all got them. And I’m reading plays and some of them -make me howl. Such awful junk! ‘Don’t, don’t look at me like that. I’m -a good woman, and you have taken from me the only thing I had to love -in the whole world.’ That sort of stuff. And the plays for reform are -as bad as the ones against it. I don’t know why people always lose -their sense of humour when they start talking economics!” - -“Old man, when you’ve lived to be forty you’ll find out that only one -person in a thousand can resist a sentimentalism on their side of the -question. And it’s almost always a sentimentalist who writes plays on -economics. But you do look seedy. Are you coming to the country with us -after luncheon?” - -“No.” - -But he drove with Mark and Olive to the half finished front of The -Walling in West 47th Street. Mark pointed out the design of Doric -columns and bare tablets. Olive guessed at a simple richness and stared -after Mark when he walked through groups of hot, noisy workmen into -the shadow of his own creation. His black height disappeared among the -girders and the dust of lime. - -“Did it all himself,” said Gurdy. “The architects just followed what -he wanted done.--You called him a kid with a box of paints. You should -see him fuss over a stage setting!--D’you know--my father’s an awfully -observant man. He was talking about Mark the other day. Dad says that -when Mark was a kid he used to draw all the time. And they’ve got some -pictures he drew in old school books and things. They’re not bad. Dad -says that before Mark married Cora Boyle and came to New York they all -thought he was going to turn out an artist.” - -“Is it true that his whole success is because he decorates plays so -well?” - -“No. The truth is, he’s an awfully good business man. And I’ve seen -enough of the theatre to see that some of the managers and producers -aren’t any good at business. They mess about and talk and--He’s coming -back.” - -She saw Gurdy’s eyes centre on Mark with a queer, tense look. The boy -stood on the filthy pavement studying the theatre as the car drove east. - -“Crazy about the place,” said Mark, brushing his sleeve, “I do think -people will like it, Olive. Won’t be so dark that they can’t read a -program or so light the women’ll have to wear extra paint.--My God, I’m -glad Margot don’t daub herself up! Well, she don’t have to. And I’m -glad she don’t want to act.” - -“Why?” Olive asked, “You were an actor. You live entirely surrounded -by actors. It’s an ancient and honourable calling--much more so than -the law or the army.” - -Mark rubbed his short nose and grinned. - -“I’m just prejudiced. I suppose it’s because I used to hear how -tough actresses were when I was a kid. And because Cora Boyle made a -doormat of me. Ain’t it true we never get over the way we’re brought -up?--That’s what Gurdy calls a platitude, I guess.” - -“Gurdy’s horridly mature for twenty-one, Mark.” - -“Thunder,” said Mark, “He was always grown up and he’s knocked around a -lot for his age. Enough to make anybody mature!--And he’s in love with -sister up to his neck. You should have seen him take a runnin’ jump and -start for Chicago the minute he heard she was landing! Simply hopped -the next train and flew! Stayed out there a month, pretty nearly. -Brings his friends down over Sundays and then sits and watches them -wobble round Margot like a cat watching a fat mouse. Love’s awful hard -on these dignified kids, Olive.” - -“You want them married?” she murmured. - -“Of course.--I know I’m silly about the kids but I don’t see where -Margot’ll get any one much better. Don’t start lecturin’ me and say -that there’s ten million eight hundred thousand and twenty-two better -boys loose around than Gurdy. You’d be talking at a stone wall. Waste -of breath. And he’s sensible about her too. A kid in love ordinarily -wouldn’t argue about anything the way he did about this play of Colonel -Duffords. They had a regular cat fight and Gurdy’s right. It’s a pretty -poor show.--This is the East river.” - -The car moved diligently through the heat. Olive thought that Gurdy -had belied his outer calm by his flight to Chicago. But it was hard to -think of anything save the thick air. Mark’s tanned face was damp and -he fanned Olive steadily. They swung past a procession of vans where -the drivers lolled in torn undershirts. The rancorous sun on the houses -of unfamiliar shingle dizzied her. She saw strange trees in the country -as the suburbs thinned and the blistered paint of billboards showed -strange wares for sale. - -“Movie plant over there,” said Mark, “Like to be movied for one of -the current event weeklies? Lady Olive Ilden, the celebrated British -authoress?” - -“Horrors! Drinking tea with a Pom in my lap. Never!--Good heavens, -Mark, is it like this summer after summer? Why don’t people simply go -naked?” - -“Margot does her best. If her grandmother Walling could see her -bathsuit she’d rise from the tomb.” - -“How long has your mother been dead, old man?” - -“Since I was eight--no, nine.” - -“Do you look like her?” - -“No. Joe--Margot’s dad--looked something like her. His hair was nearly -black and he had brown eyes. She was nice. Used to take her hair down -and let me play with it. Black.” He smiled, did not speak for minutes -and then talked of Gurdy again, “He’s mighty nice to his father and -mother. Eddie and Sadie are scared he’ll marry an actress on account -of his bein’ in my office. Gurdy was teasin’ them last week--They -came up to do some shopping. Said he’d got hold of a yellow headed -stomach dancer. Called her some crazy French name.--My lord, haven’t -things changed on the stage since we were kids! I remember when Ruth -Saint Denis was doing her Hindoo dances first and people were kind of -shocked. I dropped in one afternoon and the place was packed full of -women. Heard this drawly kind of voice behind me and looked round. It -was Mark Twain and Mr. Howells. Ruth did a dance without much on and -the women all gabbled like fury. But they all applauded a lot. Mr. -Howells was sort of bored. He said, ‘What are they making that fuss -for, Sam?’ ‘Oh,’ old Clemens said, ‘they’re hoping the next dance’ll be -dirtier so they can feel like Christians.’ My God, he was a wonder to -look at!--Ever think how much good looks do help a man along?” - -“I can’t think unless you fan me, Mark. My brain’s boiling. How many -more miles to a bath?” - -“Twenty.” - -“I’ve always been fond of you,” said Olive, “but I never realized what -a brave man you were! You _work_ in this furnace? Fan me!” - -The cottage stood on a slope of presentable lawn that ended in a pebbly -shore. The motor rushed through a fir plantation, reached the Georgian -portico and Olive gladly smelled salt wind rising from the water fading -in sunset. - -“There she is,” said Mark and whistled to a shape, black and tan -against the sound, poised at the lip of a whitewashed pier. Margot -came running and some men in bathsuits stared, deserted. The girl -raced in a shimmer that reddened her legs to copper. Olive wondered if -anything so alive, so gay existed elsewhere on this barbarous shore -crushed by summer. Mark saw them happy, wiped his silly eyes and went -down to chat in guarded grammar with the three young men from across -the shallow bay. Inevitable that youngsters should come swimming and -these were likeable fellows. Gurdy vouched for them. They slid soon -like piebald seals into the water and swam off in a flurry of spray and -bronze arms. Delicate wakes of fine bubbling spread on the surface. -The wet heads grew small in this wide space of beryl. Again he watched -irreproducible beauty.... It was right that the best makers of scenes -wouldn’t paint the sea on back-drops. Let the people fancy it there -below the vacancy of some open window. He must have the Cuban seas -suggested thus in ‘Captain Salvador.’ He wished that Margot didn’t -dislike the tragedy. Perhaps its stiff denial of lasting love afflicted -her. It afflicted Mark. And yet the poet was right. The passion in the -play would be a fleet, hot thing, engrossing for a week, a month and -then stale for ever. Lust went so. He nodded and picked up Margot’s -black and yellow bath wrap, a foolish, lovely cape in which she looked -like an Arab. Then she called to him and he walked back to where she -sat on the tiled steps reading a letter. - -“Olive brought me a note from Doris Arbuthnot. Lives in Devonshire. -She’s a dear ... rather like aunt Sadie but not quite so hefty. All the -Wacks have come home from France, now, and they won’t work. They sit -about and talk to the heroes about France. Doris owns gobs of land and -she’s having a poky time.--What are you laughing at?” - -“Your hair, sister.” - -She passed her hands over the sponge of black down and shrugged, -“Sorry I had it bobbed. All the typists do, over here. Olive’s -frightfully done up. Gone to bathe.” - -“Glad to have her, ain’t you?” - -“Ra--ther!--Oh, Cosmo Rand called up.” - -“What the--deuce did he want?” - -“Ronny Dufford gave him a heap of notes about ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ -I told him he’d best leave them at your office.--Shall you start -rehearsing ‘Todgers’ as soon as the strike’s over?” - -She sneezed, the efflorescence of her hair flapping. Mark tossed the -wrap about her, kissed her ear and sat down on the steps. He said, -“Don’t know, daughter. Fact is, this piece of Dufford’s hasn’t played -to big business in London. I’ve got a report on it. Gurdy don’t think--” - -“Oh, Gurdy! He simply can’t like a play unless it’s about the long -suffering proletariat or Russia!--Why didn’t he come down?” - -“Got a party with some men.” - -“And I wanted the brute to show me putting tomorrow! D’you put well? Of -course you do!--Oh, I know ‘Todgers’ isn’t a new Man and Superman, of -course. But it’s witty and it isn’t commonplace--don’t laugh.” - -Mark marshalled words, lighting a cigarette. “Honey, that’s just the -trouble with the thing. It is commonplace. It’s all about nothing. -And it’s too blamed English. You and Gurd seem to think it’s the -bounden duty of every one to know all the latest English slang off -Piccadilly--or wherever they make slang up. It ain’t so. We’ll have -to have some of this piece translated as it is. Suppose you were a -stenographer going to the play? You wouldn’t have been abroad. You -wouldn’t know an Earl beats a Baron. You wouldn’t know that Chelsea’s -a big sister to Greenwich village and the slang’d bore you to death. -There’s that three speech joke about Gippies and Chokers in the second -act. I expect that raised a laugh in London. How many folks in the -house here would know it meant cigarettes? I didn’t till you told me. -Now in London with Ealy playing the Earl--he did, didn’t he?--Well, -with a smart man like that to play the Earl, the thing might go pretty -well. If I had some one like that--” - -Margot yawned, “Why not try Cosmo Rand? He played the Earl in London -while Ealy was having the flu and had very good notices. He was awfully -good in the scene where he rows with his wife. The poor devil’s had a -good deal of practice, they say. Cora Boyle leads him a dog’s life. -Ronny Dufford tells me that she’s horribly jealous. Mr. Rand’s had a -success on his own, you know? He’s not her leading man any more.--She -doesn’t like his getting ahead of her.--Now what are you laughing at?” - -“The leopard don’t change her spots,” said Mark. - -“Poor dad!” - -“Oh, well,” he said in a luxury of amusement, “She wasn’t raised right. -Her folks were circus people. I guess you couldn’t imagine how tough -the old style circus people were if you worked all night at it. This -Rand’s a nice fellow, is he?” - -“Very pleasant. He rehearsed a lot of us in a show and we were all -rather rotten and he was very patient.--I do wish Gurdy had come -down!--We shan’t have four for bridge. Might have Olive’s maid play. -She’s dreadfully grand, you know? She’s the Presidentess of the Chelsea -Lady Helpers Association. Used to be in the scullery at Windsor and -Queen Alexandra spoke to her once. I’m rather afraid of her.” - -“Is there any one you are afraid of, sister?” - -She rose, the yellow and black gown moulding in, and gave her muffled, -slow chuckle, patting the step with a sole. “Don’t know. Gurdy, when -he’s grouchy. I must go dress.--Oh, I had whitewine cup made for -dinner. That’s what you like when it’s hot, isn’t it? Do put on a white -suit for dinner, dad. Makes your hair so red. God be with you till we -meet again.” - -She wandered over the white and red tiles of the portico, leaving a -trail of damp, iridescent prints in the last glitter of the sun. She -hummed some air he did not know and this hung in his ear like the -pulse of a muted violin when she herself was gone. The man sat dreaming -until the night about him was dull blue and the wind died. He sat in -warm felicity, guarding the silent house until the rose spark of the -light across the bay began to turn and a silver, mighty star flared -high on the darker blue of heaven. - - - - -VIII - -Cosmo Rand - - -On Saturday Gurdy brought down three young men who hadn’t met Margot. -He busily noted the chemistry of passion as two of his friends became -maniacal by Sunday morning. Against the worn composure of Lady Ilden, -the girl had the value of a gem on dim velvet. The third young man -wanted to talk Irish politics to the Englishwoman who evaded him and -retired to write a letter in her bedroom above the lawn. - -She wrote to her husband at Malta: “I had always thought that Margot’s -success in London was due to her exotic quality. But she seems quite as -successful on her native heath. This leads me to the general platitude -that boys are the same the world over. I am a success here, too. Many -callers, mostly female, in huge motor cars. The American woman seems -to consider frocks a substitute for manners and conversation. Mark is -anxious that Margot should marry Gurdy Bernamer and Gurdy is plainly -willing. It would be suitable enough. The boy has smart friends and -will inherit £10,000 from old Mr. Carlson. Margot can float herself -in local society no doubt. She is now playing tennis with two young -brokers and a 22 year old journalist whose father owns half of some -State. I have mailed you a strange work, ‘Jurgen’ by some unheard of -person. Do not let any of the more moral midshipmen read it.” She -stopped, seeing Gurdy saunter across the lawn toward the beach and -pursued him to where he curled on the sand. “You frighten me,” she -said, taking her eyes from the scar that showed its upper reach above -his bathshirt, “you lie about two thirds naked in this sun and then -tell me it’s a cool day.--But I want to be documented in American -fiction. I’ve read five novels since Wednesday. It seems to be -established that all your millionaires are conscious villains and all -your poor are martyrs except a select group known as gangsters. That’s -thrilling when the reviewers so loudly insist that your authors flatter -the rich.” - -“Some of them do,” Gurdy said, lifting his legs in the hot air. - -In a bathsuit he lost his civilized seeming, was heroic, sprawled on -the sand. Olive told him: “You’re one of those victims of modernity, -old son. You belong to thirteen forty. Green tights and a dark tunic -trimmed with white fur. Legs are legs, aren’t they?” - -“Heredity’s funny,” he said, “I look exactly like my father.” - -“Margot’s Uncle Eddie? She talks of him a good deal and of your mother. -I was rather afraid her metropolitan airs and graces would shock your -people but she seems to have had a jolly time down there--New Jersey’s -down from here, isn’t it? She enjoyed herself.--Metropolitan airs and -graces!--That’s a quotation from something. Sounds like the _Manchester -Guardian_.--Should I like your people?” - -“You might. Grandfather’s an atheist. Dad’s a good deal of a cynic. -They’re awfully nice small town people. My sisters all wish they were -movie stars and my kid brothers think that a fighting marine is the -greatest work of God.” - -“And Margot says they all think you’re the last and best incarnation of -Siegfried. I should like to see them.” - -Gurdy shuddered. Grandfather Walling and Mrs. Bernamer held Lady -Ilden responsible for the ruin of Margot as a relative. He imagined -her artifice and her ease faced by the horrified family--a group of -frightened colts stumbling off from a strange farmhand. He poured -sand over his arm and lied, “You’d scare them. Mark’s always talked -about you as though you were the Encyclopædia Brittanica on two legs. -You might be interested, though.--I say, Mark’s decided that he will -produce ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ Thinks he’ll have Cosmo Rand play the Earl. -Can Rand really act?” - -“Oh,--well enough for that sort of tosh. He’s handsome and he has a -pleasant voice. But it’s rather silly of Mark to force such a poor play -on the public because Margot wants Ronny Dufford out of debt. But he’s -so intoxicated with Margot just now that he’d do murders for her. Why -didn’t he come down for the week-end?” - -Gurdy got up and yawned, “Oh, his treasurer’s wife ran off with a -man last Wednesday--while he was down here. He’s trying to patch it -up.--You know, he isn’t at all cynical, Lady Ilden. He’s very easily -upset by things like that.” - -“I suppose he likes his treasurer? Then why shouldn’t he be upset? The -treasurer can’t be enjoying the affair.--I wonder if you appreciate -Mark’s noble strain, Gurdy? I think I must send you a copy of the -letter he wrote me after he’d packed you off to school. I showed it -to my husband who has all the susceptibility of the Nelson monument -and he almost shed tears. It took something more than mere snobbery -or a desire for your future gratitude to make Mark send you away. -It horribly hurt him. If paternal affection’s a disease the man’s a -walking hospital!--There’s the luncheon bell.” - -Gurdy ran into the water and furiously swam. Unless Lady Ilden was -making amiable phrases Margot had lied to her about the family at -Fayettesville. It was natural that she should tell Mark how she’d -enjoyed the farm. That was prudent kindness, no worse than his own -gratitudes when Mark gave him sapphire scarf-pins and fresh silver -cigarette cases that he didn’t need or want. But Margot shouldn’t -lie to Lady Ilden. Gurdy avoided the next week-end and went to -Fayettesville where his family worried because Mark was losing money -through the actors’ strike. - -“And he’ll need all he can lay hands on with Margot to look after,” -said Mrs. Bernamer, rocking her weight in a chair on the veranda, “It -ain’t sensible for him to--to bow down and worship that child like he -does. Oh, she’s pretty enough!” - -“Get out,” Bernamer commented, “He’d be foolish about her if she’d got -to wear spectacles and was bowlegged. Gimme a cigarette, Gurd. How -near’s the Walling finished?” - -“Two thirds, Dad.--Grandfather, you’ll have to come up and sit in a box -the opening night.” - -The beautiful old man blinked and drawled, “I wouldn’t go up to N’York -to see Daniel Bandmann play ‘Hamlet’--if he was alive. How’s old Mr. -Carlson get on?” - -Gurdy often found the contrast between his grandfather and Carlson -diverting. The dying manager, a cynic, wanted Heaven in all the -decorations of the Apocalypse. The old peasant lazily insisted that -death would end him. He got some hidden pleasure from the thought of -utter passage. Gurdy found this content stupendous. The farmer had -never been two hundred miles from his dull acreage and yet was ready -to be done with his known universe while Carlson wanted eternity. He -cackled when the striking actors made peace and ordered wreaths sent to -the more stubborn managers. His bitter tongue rattled. - -“Why don’t more writers write for the theatre, Gurdy? Ever been in -Billy Loeffler’s office? Five thousand bootlickers and hussies squatted -all over the place. I sent that fellow Moody that wrote the ‘Great -Divide’ to see Loeffler. Had to set in the office with a bunch of song -carpenters from tin pan alley and a couple of tarts while Loeffler was -prob’ly talkin’ to some old souse he’d knew in Salt Lake City. And then -Loeffler looks at the play and asks is there a soobrette part in it -for some tomtit his brother was keepin’! A writer’s got a thin skin, -ain’t he? Here Mark gets mad because this writer Mencken says managers -are a bunch of hogs. Well, ain’t they? Four or five ain’t. Sure, -they’re hogs. Human beings. Hogs. Same as the rest of mankind. Good -thing Christ died to save us.” He contemplated redemption through the -cigarette smoke. His Irish nurse crossed herself in a corner. Carlson -went on, “Say, that feller Russell Mark’s got drillin’ that English -comedy is all right. Was in to see me, yesterday. Good head. Knows his -job. Says this Rand pinhead is raisin’ Cain at rehearsals. Better drop -in there and see what goes on. Mark’s so busy with that Cuban play he -ain’t got time.” - -Rehearsals of “Todgers Intrudes” went on at a small theatre below -Forty Second Street. Gurdy drifted into the warm place and watched the -director, Russell, working. On the bare stage five people progressed -from point to point of the tepid comedy. Russell, a stooped, bald man -of thirty-five, sat near the orchestra pit. Gurdy had watched the -rehearsal ten minutes before Russell spoke. “Don’t cross, there, Miss -Marryatt. Stand still.” Then, “still, please, Mr. Rand.” On the stage -Cosmo Rand gave the director a stare, shrugged and strolled toward -the cockney comedian, the intrusive Todgers of the plot. Russell said -nothing until a long speech finished, then, “You’re all rushing about -like cooties. Go back to Miss Marryatt’s entrance and take all your -lines just as you stand after she’s sat down. Dora isn’t pronounced -Durrer, Mr. Hughes.” Gurdy was thinking of the long patience needed in -this trade when Russell spoke sharply, “Mr. Rand, will you please stand -still!” - -“My God,” said Rand, “must I keep telling you that I played this part -in--” - -“Will you be so good as to stand still?” - -Rand continued his lines. Gurdy walked down and slipped into a chair -beside the director, aware that the players stiffened as soon as they -saw Mark’s nephew. The handsome Miss Marryatt began to act. Cosmo Rand -sent out his speeches with a pleasant briskness. Russell murmured, -“Glad you happened in, Bernamer. This was getting beyond me. School -children,” and the act ended. - -“Three o’clock, please,” said the director. The small company trickled -out of the theatre. Russell lit his pipe and stretched, grinning. -“Rand’s very capable and a nice fellow enough but he’s difficult. Fine -looking, isn’t he? Come to lunch with me.” - -It was startling to be taken into an engineer’s club for the meal. -Russell explained, “I was an engineer. It’s not so different from -stage directing. You sometimes get very much the same material. I’ve -often wanted some dynamite or a pickax at rehearsals. Nice that you -floated in just now. I’ve a curiosity about this piece. Does Mr. -Walling see money in it? I don’t.” - -“He thinks it may go,” said Gurdy. - -“It won’t. It’s sewed up in a crape. If you had a young John Drew and a -couple of raving beauties playing it might run six weeks. And Dufford -hasn’t any standing among the cerebrals. We might try to brighten the -thing with some references to the Nourritures Terrestres or Freud. It’s -a moron. Prenatal influence. Mr. Walling tells me we’re to open in -Washington, too. My jinx! I went down there to offer up my life for the -country and got stuck in the Q.M.C. supervising crates of tomatoes. Did -you ever argue with a wholesale grocer about crates? It’s worse than -staging a revue.” - -“That’s a dreadful thing to say!” - -Russell broke a roll in his pointed fingers and shook his head. “No.... -The revue’s a very high form of comedy when it’s handled right. It gets -clean away with common sense, for one thing. And it hasn’t a plot. -I hate plots unless they’re good plots. That’s why this miserable -‘Todgers’ thing affects me so badly. I hoped Mr. Walling would let me -help him with ‘Captain Salvador.’ But it’s his baby.” - -“Is Rand giving you as much trouble as that every day?” - -“Trouble? My dear man, you’ve never rehearsed a woman star who had -ideas about her art! Rand’s merely rather annoying, not troublesome. -He’s got no brains so his idea is to imitate the man who played the -part in London. And he’s never learned how to show all his looks, -either. But very few Americans know how.” - -Gurdy liked the director and spent several afternoons at the -rehearsals. Cosmo Rand fretted him. The slight man was obdurate. He -raced about the stage until Russell checked him. His legs, sheathed -always in grey tweed, seemed fluid. The leading woman had an attack of -tonsilitis and halted proceedings. It was during this lapse that Gurdy -encountered Cosmo Rand in a hotel lounge and nodded. The actor stopped -him, deferentially, “I say, I’m afraid poor Russell’s sick to death of -me. I’m giving him a bit of trouble.” Gurdy found no answer. The actor -fooled with his grey hat, rubbed his vivid nails on a cuff, corrected -his moustache and said, “The fact is--I do most sincerely think that -Russell’s wrong to drop all the English stage directions. Couldn’t -you--suggest that Mr. Walling drop in to watch sometime when Miss -Marryatt’s better and we’re rehearsing again?” - -His soft, round bronze eyes were anxious. He spoke timidly, the rosy -fingernails in a row on his lower lip. He was something frail and -graceful, a figure from a journal of fashions. Gurdy wondered whether -Cora Boyle ever assaulted her poor mate and smiled. - -“Mr. Walling has a good deal of confidence in Russell’s judgment, Mr. -Rand. But I’ll speak to him if you like.” - -“I’d be most awf’ly grateful if you would, Mr. Bernamer. The play’s -such a jolly thing and one would like to see it do well. Ronny -Dufford’s rather a dear friend and--so very broke, you know?” - -The rosy, trim creature seemed truly worried. Meeting Russell at the -45th Street office the next day, Gurdy told him that Rand’s heart was -breaking. The director grimaced, patting his bald forehead. - -“The little tyke’s worrying for fear he won’t get good notices. And if -this rubbish should fluke into a success he’ll be made into a star. -Have you ever observed the passion of the American public for second -rate acting? Especially if it happens to have a slight foreign accent? -Modjeska, Bandmann, Nazimova?--Well, Miss Marryatt’s all right again. -We’ll rehearse some more tomorrow. Come and look on.” - -Mark had gone to Fayettesville for a few days. Gurdy attended the -morning rehearsal of “Todgers Intrudes.” Cosmo Rand trotted about the -stage determinedly and Russell turned on Gurdy with a groan of, “This -is beyond me. I’m getting ready to do murder. He’s throwing the whole -thing out of key. I shall have to get your uncle to squash him.” - -“I’m beginning to see why Mr. Carlson loathes actors so,” Gurdy -whispered. - -“Oh, Holy Moses,” the director mourned, “look at him!--Slower, please, -Mr. Rand!--It’ll be awkward if I get Mr. Walling to squash him, -Bernamer. You never can tell how these walking egoisms will break -out. He may run about town saying that Mr. Walling’s oppressing him -cruelly.--My God, he’ll be crawling up the scene in a minute!” - -On the stage, Rand had excited himself to a circular movement about a -large divan in the centre. He had somehow the look of a single racer -coming home ahead of the other runners. The men and women standing -still suggested a sparse audience for this athletic feat. It was -ludicrous. Worse, Mark would never scold Cora Boyle’s husband. Gurdy -took a resolve. Margot had made Mark waste time with this silly play. -She had proposed Rand for the part. She should help. He hurried to the -station and reached the cottage in mid afternoon. A warm October wind -made the fir trees whistle. He found Margot in a silk sweater of dull -rose putting a tennis ball about the dry lawn. She smiled, tilting the -golfstick across a shoulder, and swayed her slim body back to look up -at Gurdy. - -“Dad just telephoned from the farm, old son. Wanted to know if you were -here. It was something about ‘Captain Salvador’.” - -“Oh, yes. I was hunting a tom tom for the Voodoo scene. He doesn’t like -the one they’re using. Doesn’t thud loudly enough.--Can I talk to you -about ‘Todgers Intrudes’ without having a fight?” - -“Of course you can.” - -“All right. It’s going very badly. Mr. Russell, the director, has a -free for all row with Mr. Rand every day. Rand acts like the last of a -ballet. He’s putting everything back. He’s out of the picture all the -time. Word of honour, Margot, the play hasn’t nine lives. It’s thin. -It’ll take a lot of work to make it go. Russell’s one of the best -directors going and he knows what he’s doing. Rand simply runs all over -the stage like that clown at the Hippodrome.” - -“That’s rather the way it was played in London. Of course, that’s no -excuse. Have dad scold Rand.” - -“Be pretty awkward for Mark--scolding Cora Boyle’s husband.” - -Margot said, “What utter tosh!” - -“No, it’s not. Mark’s old fashioned--sensitive about things like that. -And Rand might take it as spite. Cora Boyle’s back from California, -Russell tells me. She’s a fearful liar. If she hears that Mark jumped -on her husband she’ll tell all her friends that Mark’s simply a swine. -You don’t know how gossip travels and gets--distorted. Once last May -Mark said that he didn’t like a gown that some woman was wearing in -a play we’d been to the night before. He said that at lunch in the -Claridge. Next day the woman’s husband came into the office and wanted -to thrash Mark. By the time the story got to him it had swelled up like -a balloon. This fellow had got it that Mark said his wife looked like a -streetwalker and acted like one.--It’s all very awkward. Couldn’t you--” - -“Oh, look here! Because I suggested Cossy Rand for the Earl I’m not -going to drynurse him!--I think you’re frightfully hypersensitive about -his being married to Cora Boyle. They’re hardly ever together. It’s -taking a theatrical menage as seriously as--” - -“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Gurdy broke in, watching the red streaks mount -her face, “I’m sorry! Let’s drop it. You know Rand. I thought you -might write him a line and tell him to calm down. That was all. Mark’s -working himself sick over ‘Captain Salvador’ and that’s an important -production. Every one’s interested in it. Some of the critics have -read it and think it’s the best American play in years. After all, you -got Mark into this ‘Todgers’ thing. He’s doing it to please you. He’ll -worry if he has to--” - -Margot laughed, whipped the ball away neatly with one foot and tossed -her hair back. She said, “I’ll write Rand, of course. Of course I don’t -want ‘Todgers’ to get a black eye. I’ll send him a note and tell him to -carry on. Perhaps he’s rather opinionated. Where’s he stopping?” - -“The Knickerbocker.” - -She yawned, “I’ll write him, then. Staying for dinner?” She turned and -roamed off in her swaying fashion. Directly, a motor swung about the -house. One of the neighbours had come to take the girl driving. She -waved to Gurdy and disappeared. He resented the waving of the brown -hand. It was impossible not to resent her kind mentions of his mother -and sisters before Lady Ilden and Mark. - -He resented, too, the airy changes from tart rage to suavity. Their -talks became a tedious, uncertain duet with one performer unwilling. -Gurdy strolled into the cottage and Olive Ilden looked up from a novel. - -“What have you been quarrelling with Margot about?” she asked. - -“Not quarrelling.” - -“Nonsense. I could see you through the doors. You were quarrelling and -she began it. Tell me.” - -She closed the book and regarded him, not smiling, from her wicker -chair. There was an odd alarm in her eyes under which hollows showed. -The negligent trail of her black gown was dusted with cigarette ash. -Gurdy stared, upset. - -“We weren’t quarrelling. Cosmo Rand’s making an ass of himself at the -rehearsals. She rather planted him on Mark. Mark’s so sensitive about -Cora Boyle that Russell--the man who’s rehearsing ‘Todgers’--and I -don’t want to worry Mark with the mess. I wanted Margot to write Rand -a note and tell him to buck up. He’s holding the rehearsals back. Here -it’s almost the first of November. Mark’s got a theatre in Washington -for a couple of weeks from now and the play isn’t half ready.” - -Olive tapped a cigarette holder on the walnut, Dutch table and looked -at the floor. Then she raised her eyes and smiled, spoke without -artifice. - -“I shan’t let her write to Rand, Gurdy. She’s too much interested in -him. I don’t like it. She cabled him to come over here as soon as she’d -bullied Mark into buying the rights to ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ The little -idiot thinks him a great actor. I’m sure I don’t know why. I don’t at -all like this. I only found it out yesterday. Mark wouldn’t like it. -The man’s married and if he happens to tell people Margot sent for -him--I quite understand theatrical gossip, Gurdy. Mark’s a great person -and it would make quite a story. And of course there are rats who don’t -like Mark.” - -“How did you find this out, Lady--” - -“In the silliest way. I was talking about Ronny Dufford and Margot -began to argue that this wretched play is really good. She rather lost -her temper. She told me you’d tried to persuade Mark not to produce -the thing to spite her. I--” Olive laughed unhappily, “I hadn’t the -faintest idea that you’d quarrelled. You’re rather too cool, old man. -I’ve been teasing you all this time fancying that you were wildly in -love with the child and it seems that you’re at odds.--Oh, It’s all -utter nonsense, of course! But I don’t like it. It’s a pose. She rather -prides herself on being unconventional. And the silliest part of it is -that she feels she’s done Mark a favour.” - -“She’s probably cost him about fifteen thousand dollars,” said Gurdy. - -This was antique, this tale of a handsome, dapper actor and a girl gone -moonstruck over his pink face. Gurdy grunted, “We can’t tell Mark this. -He’d be upset. It’s idiotic.” - -Olive laughed, “Oh, you mustn’t get excited over it, Gurdy. The play -will fail and she’ll drop Rand. It’s a gesture, you see? The clever -girl doing the unconventional thing.” She became comfortable, then -artificial. “You mustn’t take Margot at her own valuation, dear. She’s -the moment--the melodramatic moment. What’s that American slang? She’s -no--no ball of fire! She admires people easily and drops them easily. -She’s eighteen. She was quite lost in adoration of the Countess of -Flint two years ago and then the poor woman did something the child -didn’t like--wore the wrong frock, probably--and that was all over. -The poor lady died in Colorado yesterday.--That means consumption, -doesn’t it? I read the notice to Margot at breakfast and she said, -‘Really.’ Rand flattered her about her acting, I fancy, and she thinks -he’s remarkable in return for the compliment. Every normal female -gets mushy--I’m quite Americanized--over an actor at eighteen. When -I was eighteen I wrote a five act tragedy and sent it to--Merciful -Heaven--I’ve forgotten who he was! Beerbohm Tree, probably. But I -must congratulate you on your attitude. You had a frightful row at -Fayettesville. She said, herself, that she was to blame. She hurt you. -And you’ve not shown it in the least.” - -“It didn’t amount to much.--But, Mark wouldn’t like this business. And -of course some people don’t like him. They’d be ready to talk if they -thought she was flirting with--” - -“But she isn’t! If she was I’d drag her off to Japan with me. She’s -hardly spoken to the man except at those rehearsals last winter. It’ll -die a swift death when the play fails, old man. We’ve no use for -failures at eighteen.” - -Olive laughed, repeated the prophecy in a dozen turning phrases and -drove with Gurdy to the station after dinner. But she was oppressed. -She could imagine Mark’s bewilderment clearly. He found Rand a somewhat -comic person, a frail young poser towed after the robust beauty of -his wife, perhaps bullied. The car brought Olive back to the white -portico of the cottage and she found Margot distracting a middle aged -sugar broker. It was time for bed when the addled man’s car puffed -away. Margot yawned and mounted the brown stairs in a flutter of -marigold skirts. The living-room fell still. Olive settled at a table -and commenced a letter to Ilden. “I shall not start for Japan for -some time. Margot is behaving rather queerly. Having fancied that I -could follow the eccentric curves of her mind I am much annoyed to -find that I can not. This cottage will be closed next week. Heaven -knows what will become of the furniture unless Mark should use it in -a play. I have a curiosity to see the opening of his new theatre. He -is working frantically over the play for its opening. Gurdy Bernamer -tells me that a New York first night is like nothing else on earth for -bounderishness. He says that awful and obscene creatures come creeping -from nowhere and flap about in free seats and that all the cinema -queens appear covered with rubies. It--” - -The telephone on the table clicked but did not ring. Olive glared at -the instrument. She abominated the telephone since it had brought -her news of her son’s death. She finished her letter and climbed the -stairs, aching for bed after a nervous day. Then she heard Margot -talking behind the closed door of her room. The girl hadn’t a maid. -Olive’s own maid was visible in her chamber at the end of the corridor. -Olive passed on. She came back on impulse and heard “All right, -Cossy. Carry on. ’By--ee.” Then the small clatter of Margot’s bedside -telephone set on the glass of a table. Olive opened the door and saw -the girl subsiding into the mass of her pillows. - -“I’ve just blown Cosmo Rand up properly, Olive.” - -“I wondered why you were talking.” - -Margot yawned, “Gurdy asked me to write him. I’d rather talk. His dear -wife’s back from California and his voice sounded as though they’d been -throwing supper dishes at each other. He didn’t seem pleased.” - -“My dear, I don’t see why Mr. Rand should be pleased to be lectured on -his art over the telephone at midnight!” - -“It’s rather cheeky, isn’t it? But Gurdy made such a point of it. And -all I could say was that he mustn’t be too difficult at rehearsals. -But that’s all I could have said in a note. It seems to me that it’s -distinctly dad’s business. But Gurdy’s such an everlasting old woman -about dad! And I am rather responsible for bringing ‘Todgers’ over. -Dare say I ought to help out, if I can.” - -Olive slung a dart carelessly, asking, “What’s Rand’s real name, dear?” - -“Rand.” - -“I meant the Cosmo. That’s not an American name at all.” - -“Don’t know, I’m sure. I don’t like it, anyhow. But it might be his -own. He’s from some town in Iowa and they name children fearful things -like Eliander and Jerusha, out there.” She chuckled, slipping a tawny -shoulder in and out of her robe. Her face rippled, “I really think -Cosmo’s a rather ghastly name. Sounds like a patent soup. Wonder why -they named dad Mark? Gurdy’s real name’s George.” She yawned, “I -suppose all actors get rather opinionated.” - -“As they’re mostly rank egotists,” said Olive and closed the door. - -Perplexity remained in her strongly wrestling with the desire for -sleep. She lay composing a letter to Cosmo Rand--“As your position -toward Mr. Walling is delicate and you are under obligations to Miss -Walling may I suggest that you maintain a purely formal relation -toward--” It wouldn’t do. Words to a shadow. She knew nothing of the -man. He was a graceful figure at parties in London, considerably -hunted by smart women for Sunday night dinners before the war. If the -comedy failed and Mark dismissed him Rand might make an ill-tempered -use of such a letter. Olive shrugged off the idea lay wondering why a -pleasant voice and a head of curly hair seen across footlights should -convince Margot that here was a great actor. It was disappointing. -Olive had thought Margot steeled against crazes. The girl had a general -appreciation of the arts as seen about London. Olive faintly sighed. -But the pleasing man might embody some fancy or other, fulfil some -buried wish. We go groping and stumbling among fancies, the woman -thought, and see nothing very clearly. She consoled herself with the -platitude and went to sleep. - - - - -IX - -Bubble - - -“Todgers Intrudes” now went smoothly. Mark came to one of the last -rehearsals, approved Russell’s method but, as they walked up Broadway, -told Gurdy that this was a “lousy” play. All plays were just then -nonsense beside “Captain Salvador.” Mark’s absorption seemed to -exclude even Margot of whom the idolator once gently complained. The -dark goddess had returned to town, been a week at the Fifty Fifth -Street house and was sitting with Olive at the rear of the 45th Street -Theatre. Her voice reached Mark clearly where he stood assembling the -picture for a scene, a leg swung over the rail of the orchestra pit. - -“She don’t seem so much interested in ‘Salvador,’ Gurd. Why’s that?” - -“Rather heavy for her, perhaps.” - -Mark rubbed his nose and accepted wisdom. A girl of eighteen mightn’t -care for this tale of shipwrecked ruffians, frantic negroes, moonlit -death. And what innocent girl of eighteen could know or believe that -men got tired of women? Gurdy understood and was helpful, had found -a wailing negro song for the shipboard scene of the first act. Mark -beamed at Gurdy, then turned to the stage and patiently corrected -the six negro actors timid among the white folk of the big company, -pathetic in sapphire and sage green suits. - -“You boys in a circle ’round the table, left. Keep looking at Mr. -Leslie.” - -He picked spots for the grouping. His brown fingers pointed. He named -attitudes, dropping his lids as he built the picture with glances at -the water colour sketch in his hand. An intricate chatter began on the -stage. Gurdy slipped up the aisle and joined Olive under the balcony. - -“How careful he is,” she whispered, “like a ballet master.” - -Gurdy nodded, “No one’ll move without being told to. The whole thing’s -planned. He’s going to run the lights himself in Boston, next Monday.” - -“You’ll go up there with him? He looks dreadfully thin.” His black -height made a centre against the footlights. His mastery of this -human paint was impressive, admirable. He visibly laboured, silent, -listening. She asked, “Would he work as hard over an ordinary, -commercial play?” - -“No. Oh, he’d work hard but not as hard as this.” - -Margot glanced across Olive, then at her watch. She said, “Let’s clear -out, Olive. Teatime.” - -“I’d much rather stay here. Fascinating.” - -“But you told Mrs. Marlett Smith you’d come.” - -Olive sighed and gathered her furs. It was important that Margot should -go to this tea at the Marlett Smith house. Mrs. Marlett Smith was a -liberal, amusing woman who had met Mark by way of some playwright and -had called on Olive at the seaside cottage. They left the theatre and -Gurdy came to open the door of the blue car. To him Margot suddenly -spoke, “How will dad open this silly thing in Boston, Monday night and -get to Washington by Tuesday night to open ‘Todgers’?” - -“We’ll be there,” he said and closed the door. - -Olive looked back at his colourless dress, his shapely head and -vanishing grave face with a frank wistfulness. “I don’t see why you -should make such a point of annoying Gurdy. And why call this play -silly when it’s so plainly good?... I’ve carefully refrained from -asking you why you quarrelled with Gurdy. He behaves charmingly to you -and keeps the peace.” - -“Paying him back for being nasty about ‘Todgers Intrudes.’” - -“But he’s not been nasty. He’s very sensibly given his opinion that -it’s feeble. As it is.--The man’s taking us down Broadway. Loathsome -sewer!” - -The motor slowly passed toward Forty Second Street and across that -jam. Olive saw lean and stolid Englishmen stalking in the harsh, dusty -November wind that blew women along in the whirling similitude of -rotted flowers. Margot got notice, here. There was a jerk of male heads -from the curb. Empty faces turned to the girl’s brilliance in rose -cloth. A tanned sailor flapped his white cap. Yet in the Marlett Smith -library on Park Avenue Margot was prettily discreet for half an hour -below Chinese panels, among gayer frocks where she lost colour, merged -in a fluctuation of dress. On the way home her restraint snapped into a -“Damn!” - -“Very stiff,” said Olive, “One reads about the American informality. -Tea at Sandringham is giddy beside this. But Mrs. Marlett Smith’s -clever. Who were those twins in black velvet who so violently kissed -you?” - -“The Vaneens. Ambrosine and Gretchen. Knew them at school. They come -out in December.--But what maddens me is this everlasting jabber -about France! Some of those girls know Gurdy. Their brothers were at -Saint Andrew’s with him. He seems to have made himself frightfully -conspicuous about Paris.--No, I’m bored with Gurdy. If dad tries to -make me marry him I’ll take poison and die to slow music. Such tosh! He -made a gesture of enlisting--” - -“You’re being silly,” Olive said, coldly hurt, “and I’m sick of the -word, gesture. Pray, was the gesture of third rate artists and actors -who wouldn’t leave their work anything madly glorious? I can understand -a man conscious of great talent preferring to stick to his last. And I -can understand a complete refusal to mix in the--abominable business. -But I’ve no patience with dreary little wasters who shouted for blood -and then took acetanilid to cheat the doctors. As for Gurdy’s military -career he’s very quiet about it. I dislike this venom against Gurdy.” - -Margot chuckled, “Perhaps I’m jealous,” and got down before the house. -She opened the door with her latchkey and they entered a flow of minor -music from the drawing room. Gurdy was playing. Mark leaned on the -curve of the piano and his brown hands were deeply reflected in the -black pool of its top. - -“Listen to this, Olive. Nigger song Gurdy raked up for ‘Captain -Salvador.’ Sing it, sonny. Don’t run off, Margot. Listen.” He caught -the girl to him, held her cheek against his chin. A scent of mild -sandal and cigarettes ebbed from the black hair into his nostrils. He -was tired after the tense rehearsal and chilled from half an hour in -the cold of the Walling. This moving warmth and scent was luxury. Mark -shut his eyes. Gurdy chanted in plausible barytone. - - “Life is like a mountain railway, - From the cradle to the grave. - Keep yoh hand upon the throttle - An’ yoh eyes--upon--the--rail....” - -It would sound splendidly in the dim forecastle of the first scene. It -would float and die under the blue vault of the Walling. He had just -seen the lights turned on a recession of faint silver rims in the dull -cloud of that ceiling. He was still drugged by the sight. His theatre -was like a desirable body promised to his arms. Gurdy played again the -slow air in curious variations, flutters of notes. Mark opened his eyes -to watch the slide of the long fingers on the keys. Olive was smiling. - -“Delightful. Very moral, too. Sound advice. How well you play, Gurdy!” - -“Always did,” said Mark, “He could play like a streak when he was ten. -Come along up and have a fight with Mr. Carlson, daughter.” - -Olive let Margot’s voice melt into the old man’s cackle above. Gurdy -said, “We went to the Walling after rehearsal, Lady Ilden. Honestly, -it’s a corker. The ceiling’s nearly finished. Theatres don’t last, -worse luck. But there’s nothing like it in the city. Mark’s worked like -a pup over it.--How was your tea?” - -“Very decent. Varieties of women, there. Almost no men. A débutante -told me she admired Walt Whitman more than most English poets and was -rather positive that he was English. I can’t understand the American -tabu on Whitman.” - -“Immoral.” - -“But--good heavens!--I fascinated two elderly girls by telling them -I knew Swinburne. Swinburne was lewd. Poor Whitman was merely rather -frank.” - -“But Algie was a foreigner,” Gurdy laughed, “so it was all right. -Margot have a good time?” - -Olive asked, “What were you and Margot rowing about in the library last -night? I could hear her voice getting acid.” - -Gurdy commenced a waltz and said, “We weren’t rowing. Mark asked me -whether Cosmo Rand was in the British army. He wasn’t and I said so. -She seemed to think I was sniffing at Rand and blew me up a little. -That was all. We made peace. I rather like Rand, you know, now that -he’s stopped making an ass of himself at rehearsals. Russell and I had -lunch with him today. He talks well. He knows a lot about painting, -for instance. These actors who’ve been all over the landscape and -don’t think they’re better than Richard Mansfield--pretty interesting. -There’s not much to Rand but he isn’t a--a walking egotism.” - -Olive laughed, “Come back to Margot. She’s pointedly offensive to you -and rather assertive about it. I hope you’ll go on being patient and -try to remember how young she is. You’re very mature for twenty-one. -You never bray. I brayed very wildly at Margot’s age. I horribly recall -telling Henry Arthur Jones how to improve his plays and one of my -saddest memories is of telling a nice Monsieur Thibault what a poor -novel Thaïs was. He quite agreed with me. I didn’t know he was Anatole -France until he left the room. I’ve all the patience going with youth. -You’re almost too mature.” - -“Don’t know about being mature,” said Gurdy, “I’m not, probably. But -every other book you read is all about youth--golden youth--youth -always finds a way--ferment. Get pretty tired of it. Makes me want to -be forty-nine. And some of the poets make me sick. Hammering their -chests and saying, Yow! I’m young!... Not their fault. I’m not proud of -being six foot one. Runs in the family.” - -“That’s a very cool bit of conversation, old man. You’ve taken me away -from Margot twice, very tactfully, so I’ll drop it. Play some Debussy. -His music reminds me of a very handsome man with too much scent on his -coat. Can’t approve of it. Rather like it.” - -He evaded discussions of Margot until Sunday night when he went with -Mark to Boston for the opening of “Captain Salvador” there. On Monday -night he sat, a spy, in the middle of the large audience. A critic -had come from New York to see this play before it should reach the -metropolitan shoals. Gurdy saw the slender, sharp face intent. The ten -scenes of the Cuban romance passed without a hitch before the placid -Bostonians. Mark was directing the lights that raised peaks of gloom -on the walls, sent shimmerings along the moonlit beach where the hero -squatted in a purple shadow. About him Gurdy heard appropriate murmurs. -A fat woman whimpered her objection to the half naked celebrants of -the Voodoo scene. An old man complained that this was unlike life. Two -smart matrons chatted happily about a Harvard cabal against some friend -while “Captain Salvador” effected his wooing. A thin boy in spectacles -wailed an argument that true art wasn’t possible in a capitalistic -nation. A girl giggled every time the sailors of the story swore and -almost whinnied when the word, “strumpet” rattled over the lights. But -this herd redeemed itself in heavy applause. The thin boy wailed a -blanket assent to the merits of the plot and the setting, “After all, -Walling’s Irish and he studied under Reinhardt in Berlin. The Kelts -have some feeling for values.” Still the fat woman thought, loudly, -that the play didn’t prove anything and Gurdy decided that one of his -future satires must be named, The Kingdom of Swine. He found Mark in -high delight behind the scenes, snapping directions to his manager, -his leading man and the electrician in the New Jersey singsong. “Have -the tomtom some louder for the Voodoo, Ike. Bill, you send all the -notices special delivery to the Willard in Washington. Mr. O’Mara’s in -Hayti if the _Transcript_ wants an interview. Beach scene blue enough, -Gurdy? All right, Ed, I told you it was. Now, Leslie, take your fall -at the end quieter, a little. You’re all right, the rest of it. Come -along, Gurdy. Taxi’s waiting.” In the taxi, he cried, “Damn this lousy -‘Todgers’ thing, son! I want to stay here. People liked it, huh?” - -“They did.--Oh, you’re Irish and you learned all your business from -Reinhardt.” - -“Sure! Blame, it on Europe!--My God, didn’t the tomtom business go like -a breeze?--Oh, this ‘Todgers’ thing’ll be too bad. Tell you, I’ll play -it in Washington and Philadelphia. Baltimore, if it don’t just roll on -its belly and die. Sorry if Margot gets sore.--She and Olive went to -Washington s’afternoon, didn’t they, huh?--Was the ship scene light -enough, sonny?” - -He sat in their stateroom on the train, his eyes still black with -excitement and drank watered brandy. He dreamed of “Captain Salvador’s” -first night at the Walling and tremors of applause mounting to the blue -vault of that perfected ceiling. He was so tired that he struggled, -undressing. - -“Mark, you’re thin as a bean! Nothing but some muscles and skin.” - -Mark flexed his arms, beamed up at the tall boy’s anxiety and rolled -into his berth. The mussed red hair disappeared under a pillow. Gurdy -smoked and stared humbly.... This was surely half of an artist, -laborious, patient, contriving beauty. The man had this strange -perception of the lovely thing. He should do better and better. If his -trade was that of the booth, the sale of charming sensualities, he -raised it by his passion. He begot fondness. He created. Gurdy tucked -the blankets over the blue silk pyjamas and planned a long talk on the -purpose of the theatre for the morning, then wondered what that purpose -was and put the lecture off. They fled all morning down the land and -came to Washington in time for late lunch with Russell at the Shoreham -where Mark halted to look at a pretty, dark woman in the suave, grey -lounge smelling of flowers, fell behind Gurdy and Russell, found -himself suddenly lifting his hat to Cora Boyle. She wore a cloak banded -with black fur and a gold hat too young for her paint. Mark smiled, -rather sorry for the blown coarseness of her chin, asked how she liked -California and heard her flat voice crackle. - -“A nightmare! All these girls who were absolutely no one last week in -ten thousand dollar cars! No, I’m glad they brought me east. I’m taking -three days off to see Cosmo start this. Tells me it plays here the rest -of the week, then Philadelphia.--When are you bringing it into New -York?” - -He shifted a little and said, “Can’t say, Cora. Hard to get a house in -New York, right now. This thing I’ve got at the Forty Fifth Street is -doin’ big business. Todgers’ll be on the road two weeks, anyhow, before -I decide what’ll become of it--” - -“What are you opening the Walling with?” - -“‘Captain Salvador.’ Opened in Boston last night. Best play I’ve ever -touched! Say, remind me to send you seats when it opens the Walling.” - -“That’s dear of you.--But couldn’t you get one of the small houses -for Cosmo? The Princess or the Punch and Judy? Intimate comedy. Cosmo -really does better in a small house. And--” she smiled--“you could take -a bigger one after a month or so.” - -He had an awed second of wonder. She’d been almost thirty years on the -stage and she thought “Todgers Intrudes” a good play! He began to say, -“But, do you think this will--” Then two men charged up to shake hands -with the actress. Mark scuttled down the stairs toward the grill. If -she was quarrelling with Rand her manner didn’t show it. “Cosmo really -does better in a small house.” He joined Russell and Gurdy at their -table, puzzled and said, “Say, if she’s fighting with Rand it’s funny -she’d come down to see him open this flapdoodle.” - -“Habit,” Russell shrugged, “They’ve been married twelve years. But are -they fighting? I had breakfast with them this morning and she almost -crucified herself because his tea wasn’t right.” - -Mark wondered why Margot thought that Rand and the woman quarrelled. -But he shed the wonder. He liked Washington especially as the pale city -showed itself now in a vapour where the abiding leaves seemed glazed in -their red and yellow along the streets. Olive knew people here. There -was a tea with a British attaché. Margot’s rose cloth suit gleamed -about the dancing floor of the restaurant. Gurdy had friends who were -produced, fell subject to Margot and came between the acts that night -to lean over the girl’s chair in the box of the big theatre. “Todgers -Intrudes” went its placid course. Rand gave, Mark fancied, an excellent -imitation of an English conservative. The packed house laughed at the -right points. Margot’s face rippled so eagerly that Mark wanted to kiss -it and covertly held her hand below the rail. Why, this was the pretty, -gentle sort of nonsense eighteen years would relish! A pity it had no -staying wit. A pity this fragile, polished man she so admired wasn’t a -real comedian. Mark looked at Gurdy’s stolid boredom and the fine chest -hidden by the dinner jacket beyond Olive’s bare shoulders. It might be -as well to let Gurdy tell Margot the play wouldn’t do for New York. -Mark shrank from that. Gurdy could put the thing much better in his -cool, bred fashion.--Here and there men were leaving the theatre with -an air of final retirement. In the opposite box there was a waving of -feathers. How well Cora Boyle could use a fan!--A youngster with curly -orange hair slipped into his box as the second curtain fell. Gurdy -introduced young Theodore Jannan to Olive and Margot, then to Mark. Mr. -Jannan had come over from Philadelphia to do something in Washington. -This play--the Jannan heir bit off a “rotten”--was advertised as coming -to Philadelphia next week. - -“Opens there Monday,” said Mark. - -“My mother’s giving a baby dance for my sister. Couldn’t you bring Miss -Walling, Gurdy? Monday night.” - -How smoothly Margot said she’d like to come to a dance at Mrs. Apsley -Jannan’s house in Philadelphia! The nonsense of social position! An -illusion. A little training, a little charm, good clothes.--A Healy, -one of Margot’s cousins, had risen to be a foreman in one of the Jannan -steel mills.--Gurdy had played football with this pleasant lad at Saint -Andrew’s school. Who on earth would ever know or care that Margot and -Gurdy were born on a farm? The last curtain fell. Margot wanted to -dance. Russell came to join the party. They went to a restaurant and -found a table at the edge of the oval floor. Margot’s yellow frock -was swept off into the florid seething on Gurdy’s arm. Russell poured -brandy neatly into the coffee pot and shrugged to Mark. - -“Bad sign. Fifteen or twenty men left in the second act. We’ll -have a vile time in Philadelphia, Lady Ilden. It’s a queer town on -plays.--There come the Rands.” - -A headwaiter lifted a “Reserved” sign from a table across the floor. -Cora Boyle and her husband appeared in the light threaded by cigarette -smoke. The actress draped a green and black skirt carelessly, refused -to dance with a British officer in a trim pantomime, bowed slowly -to Mark who was taken with fright. She’d want to talk about this -drivelling play and before her slight, quiet husband. He slipped a bill -under the edge of Russell’s plate. - -“Bring Olive back to the hotel will you Russell? I’m all in. ’Night, -Olive.” - -His retreat through the smoky tables was comic. Russell fingered his -chin. Olive ended by laughing, “He’s ridiculously timid about her.” - -The director patted his bald forehead and drank some coffee. He said, -“It happens that he’s got some reason. Miss Boyle’s bad tempered and an -inveterate liar. She’s fond of her husband and she seems to think this -comedy will have a New York run. Mr. Walling means to let it die on the -road, naturally. She won’t like that. She’ll talk. Her voice will be -loud all up and down Broadway.” - -“But--surely he’s callous to that sort of thing?” - -“Do you see anything callous about him? I don’t.” The director nodded -to the floating of Margot’s skirt. “This is the first time I’ve ever -directed a play put on to please a débutante, Lady Ilden.--No, Mr. -Walling seems mighty sensitive to gossip.--And Cora Boyle’s in a strong -position. She’s a woman--obviously--and she can make a good yarn. -Spite, and so on. She’s quite capable of giving out interviews on the -subject. She can’t hurt Mr. Walling but she might cause any quantity -of gossip,--which he couldn’t very well answer. She can play the woman -wronged, you see?” - -“What a nation of woman worshippers you are!” - -“Were,” said Russell, “We’re getting over it.” - -“I don’t see any signs of it.” - -Russell said, “You can’t send two million men into countries where -women--well, admit that they’re human, not goddesses, anyhow, without -getting a reaction. My wife’s a lawyer. She helped a young fellow--an -ex-soldier--out of some trouble the other day and he told her she was -almost as nice as a foreigner--Ten years ago if Cora Boyle had wanted -to have a fight with Mr. Walling she could have taken the line that he -was jealous of Rand and she’d have found newspapers that would print -front page columns about it. She’d get about two paragraphs now.--But -she probably has better sense. Beastly handsome, isn’t she?” - -“Very--brutta bestia bella. Gurdy tells me she’s paid a thousand -dollars a day to play Camille for the cinema. Why?” - -“Oh ... she’s the kind of thing a lot of respectable middle aged women -adore, I think.--Look at them.” - -There were many women in the rim of tables. They stared at the flaring -green and black gown, at the exhibited bawdry of gold wrought calves, -at the feathers of the waving, profuse fan. There was an attitude of -furtive adventure in the turn of heads. They stared, disapproved, -perhaps envied. - -“‘Some men in this, some that, their pleasure take, but every woman is -at heart a rake,’” Olive quoted. - -The director laughed, “You’re right.--And I often think that the movie -queens take the place of an aristocracy in this country. Something -very fast and bold for the women to stare at. Now Rand, there, is the -ideal aristocrat--in appearance, anyhow, don’t you think? And nobody’s -looking at him. I wonder if Miss Walling would dance with me?” - -He relieved Gurdy close to the Rand table. When the boy joined Olive -she asked, “Mr. Russell isn’t a typical stage director, is he?... I -thought not. One of the new school in your theatre? A well educated -man?... Rather entertaining.” - -“He writes a little. Been an engineer. Stage directors are weird. One -of them used to be an Egyptologist.--I say, help me keep Mark here the -rest of the week, will you? He’s dead tired. Did he run when he saw -Cora Boyle coming?” - -“Yes. He seems positively afraid of her!” - -Gurdy said, “He is afraid of her. Great Scott, he was only sixteen when -he married her and dad says he was--pretty blooming innocent. Mark’s -all full of moral conventions, Lady Ilden. Ever noticed that?” - -“When you were in pinafores, my child! I always thought he’d shed some -of his Puritan fancies. He doesn’t.” - -“Grandfather’s awfully strict, even if he is an atheist. And mother -... isn’t what you’d call reckless. They brought him up. And he still -thinks their ... well, moral standards are just about right.--I’m the -same way. Got it pounded into me at school that bad grammar and loud -clothes were immoral. Don’t suppose I’ll get over that.--Mark says he’s -never flirted with a married woman in his life.” - -Olive yawned, “I don’t suppose that he has, consciously. Oh, to be -sure, I can understand why Mark would think of Miss Boyle as the -Scarlet Woman. The Puritan upbringing.--We never quite get over early -influences, Gurdy. I always find myself bristling a bit over dropped -H’s even when a famous novelist does the dropping.--Mark prophesies bad -reviews for the play, in the morning. Do leave word to have the papers -sent up to me. I’m so sleepy I shall forget about it.--Thank heaven, -Margot’s stopped dancing.” - -In their double bedroom at the New Willard Margot talked jauntily of -“Todgers Intrudes,” until Olive fell asleep wondering why the girl -should interpret amiable laughter as the shout of success. In the -morning two newspapers arrived with breakfast. The critics praised -the acting and both sniffed at the play. Olive read the columns over -her tea. Both critics dealt kindly with Rand. One thought his manner -resembled that of Cyril Maude, the other said that he imitated George -Arliss. Margot came trailing a green robe from the bathtub and stood -pressed against the brass bedfoot reading the comments. The sun -redoubled on her silver girdle and the numerous polychrome tassels of -the foolish, charming drapery inside which her body stirred before -she cried, “How American! Thin! It’s no thinner than that rot dad has -running at the Forty Fifth Street!” - -“My darling Margot, that’s thin American comedy. It’s something -national, comprehensible. As for ‘Todgers,’ why--why should you expect -a pack of American war office clerks and provincials to care whether -a Baron precedes an Earl or no? I can’t help being surprised that -so many of them seemed to know what it was all about! The play is -thin--horribly thin. I’m sure it did well at home on account of Maurice -Ealy’s following. The critics say rather nice things about Rand, all -things considered.... Well, were you impressed with him last night? Do -you still think he’s a fine actor?” - -Margot tilted her face toward the ceiling and the sun made a visard -across her narrowed eyes. She twisted the silver girdle between her -hands and stood silent. Olive felt the final barrier between creatures, -suddenly and keenly. She had lived in intimacy with the girl for five -years. Here was a strange mind revolving under the black, carven hair -and the mask of sun. - -“No, I didn’t think him very good, last night. Nervous.--And perhaps -the play did seem rather thin.... But it’ll do better in New York. More -civilized people, there.” - -Olive lifted her breakfast tray to the bedside table and thought. Then -her patience snapped, before the girl’s sunny and motionless certitude. -She said, “New York! Do you think Mark will risk bringing this poor -ghost of a thing to New York? Hardly! He told me last night it will be -played in Philadelphia and Baltimore, then he’ll discard it.--You’re -silly, dearest! The play’s wretched and Rand’s no better than a hundred -other young leading men I’ve seen. He appeals to you for some reason or -other. He seems very, very feeble to me. He has no virility, no--” - -The silver girdle broke between the tawny hands. Margot’s face rippled. -She said loudly, “This is all Gurdy! He doesn’t like the play! He’s -made dad dislike it. He--” - -Olive cut in, “I shan’t listen to that! That’s mere ill temper and -untrue. The play is a waste of Mark’s time and of his money.--Between -your very exaggerated loyalty to Ronny Dufford and your liking for -this doll of an actor you’ve probably cost Mark three or four thousand -pounds. He produced this play entirely to please you. Don’t tease him -any farther. Don’t try to make him bring this nonsense to New York. -You’ve a dreadful power over Mark. Don’t trade on it! You’re behaving -like a spoiled child. You disappoint me!” - -The black eyes widened. Margot pushed herself back from the bed with -both hands, staring. She said, “I--I dare say.... Sorry.” - -“You should be!... He’s done everything he can to keep you amused. He -isn’t a millionaire. You’ve been treated like a mistress of extravagant -tastes, not like a daughter! There is such a thing as gratitude. He’s -humoured you in regard to this silly play and in regard to Rand. Gurdy -and Mr. Russell tell me that Cora Boyle can make herself a disgusting -nuisance now that the play’s a failure. You’ve pushed Mark into this -very bad bargain. Don’t make it worse by whimpering, now, and don’t--” - -“Oh, please!” - -“Then please bite on the bullet and let’s hear no more of this. When -Mark tells you he’ll drop the play, don’t tease him.” - -Margot said, “Poor Ronny Dufford! I thought--” - -“I’m sorry Ronny’s broke. It’s the destiny of younger sons whose -fathers had a taste for baccarat. I shall start for Japan as soon as -I’ve seen the Walling opened. I shan’t go in a very easy frame of mind -if I feel that you’ve constituted yourself a charitable committee of -one with Mark as treasurer.” - -Olive laughed. Margot said, “Yes, m’lady,” and made a curtsey, then -fluttered off to telephone for breakfast, began to chuckle and the -delicate chime of that mirth was soothing, after the rasp of Olive’s -tirade. The girl seemed unresentful. Olive had never so seriously -scolded her. Now she thought that she should talk to Mark about -his folly. This idolatry was delightful to watch but unhealthy, a -temptation to Margot. The girl had other pets in London. There was -an amateur actress constantly wobbling on the edge of professional -engagements. Two or three of the young painters experimented in stage -setting. She deliberated and listed these artists to Mark while they -were driving about the broad city in a hired victoria. - -“All nice children and hopeless dabblers, old man. Beware of them or -you’ll have the house filled with immigrants. Rand’s a giant beside any -of them.” - -“The little man ain’t so bad. Guess I’ll put him in as leading man for -a woman in a Scotch play I’m going to work on after Christmas. That’ll -shut Cora Boyle up. He’ll do, all right. I’ll offer him the part when I -tell him ‘Todgers’ goes to Cain’s.” - -“To--where?” - -“It’s a warehouse in New York where dead plays go--the scenery, -I mean.” Mark pointed to a full wreath of steam floating above -the Pan American building, “Watch it go. No wind. Ought to last a -minute.--Busted,” he sighed, as the lovely cream melted. “But I ain’t -sorry this happened, Olive. Teach her she don’t know so much about the -show business. ‘Todgers’ll’ make a little money here because the town’s -packed full. But I’m afraid Philadelphia’ll be its Waterloo. Well, -the Boston _Transcript_ had three columns on ‘Captain Salvador.’ It’s -in the biggest theatre in Boston and they had standing room only last -night. Gurdy got a wire from a kid he knows in Harvard that a couple of -professors came out of the woods and told their classes to go see the -thing.” - -His talk came turning back to “Captain Salvador” for the rest of the -week. He was bodily listless after the strain of the Boston production. -Gurdy forced him to play golf and tramp the spread city when Olive and -Margot were at teas in the British colony. Russell often walked and -every night dined with them, examining Margot with his sharp hazel eyes -so that Gurdy fancied the man exhaling her essence with his cigarette -smoke. He sat with Gurdy on Monday afternoon in the smoking car on the -road to Philadelphia and observed, “Miss Walling’s very much interested -in ‘Todgers.’ How will she take the blow when it fails, here? It’ll be -a flat failure, tonight, Gurdy. See if it isn’t.” - -“Margot and I are going to a dance. We shan’t see it flop.” - -“It’ll flop very flat and hard. I’m a Philadelphian. You should warn -Miss Walling.” - -Mark startled Gurdy by warning Margot during tea in the small suite of -the Philadelphia hotel while she stood at the tin voiced piano rattling -tunes with one hand. Mark said nervously, “Now, sister, if ‘Todgers’ -is a fluke here--why, I can’t waste time and cash fooling with it any -longer.” He coughed and finished, “I’ll send your friend Dufford a -check and--amen.” - -“You’re an old duck,” said Margot, “and I’ll be good. Shan’t ever try -to choose another play for you--never, never, never.” She tinkled the -negro song from “Captain Salvador” tapping one foot so that the silver -buckle sparkled. “Wish I could sing.... Life is like a--what’s good old -life like, Gurdy?” - -“Like a mountain railway.” - -“That a simile or a metaphor?--I say, I must get scrubbed. Six o’clock.” - -She passed Gurdy, leaving the room. He saw her teeth white against the -red translucency of her lower lip and carmine streaks rising in her -face, but her door shut slowly. - -“Took it like a Trojan,” Mark proudly said, “Guess the Washington -papers opened her eyes some. Well, let’s go see if Russell’s -downstairs, Gurd. He’s got a room on this floor. Gad, Olive, I wish we -were goin’ to a dance tonight instead of this--junk.” - -“Margot should wear something very smart for this dance, shouldn’t -she?” Olive asked. “The Jannans are the mighty of earth, aren’t they?” - -“Old family. Steel mills,” Gurdy explained. - -“I’ve met some of them in Scotland. Wasn’t there a Miss Jannan who -did something extraordinary? I remember a row in the New York papers. -Didn’t she--” - -Mark laughed, “Ran off with a married man. They’ve got a couple of -kids, too.” - -“Doesn’t that domestic touch redeem the performance, Mark?” - -Mark chuckled and drawled, “Now, here! You make out you’re a wild eyed -radical and so on. Suppose some girl that ought to know better came and -lived next you in Chelsea with a married man. Ask her to dinner?” - -“I cheerfully would if I thought her worth knowing, gentle Puritan! -If I thought she was simply a sloppy, uncontrolled sentimentalist I -should no more bother myself than I would to meet a society preacher or -some hero of the Russian ballet who’s paid a hundred guineas a night -to exhibit his abdominal surface in the name of art.... Six o’clock. I -should tub, myself. I’ve several cinders on my spine. Run along, both -of you.” - -Mark said on the way to the elevators, “Olive’s a wonder, ain’t she, -bud? Don’t know why but she always puts me in mind of your dad. Calm -and cool.--Oh, say, tomorrow’s your mamma’s birthday!” - -“It is. And I’m going up to the farm, after lunch. ‘Todgers Intrudes’ -has got me--” - -“Shut up,” said Mark, seeing Cosmo Rand ringing the button for the -elevator. He beamed at the actor and asked in the car, “Mrs. Rand went -back to New York?” - -“Yes. Just been talking to her by ’phone. They started the film of -‘Camille’ today. Very trying, she said. They’ve some promoted cowboy -playing Armand.--I say, I’ve some quite decent gin in my flask. We -might have a cocktail.” - -Gurdy thought how clever the man was to wear grey, increasing his -height and embellishing his rosy skin. He understood dress expertly. At -the Jannan dance, toward midnight, a girl told him that she’d just come -from a “simply idiotic play” but praised Rand’s appearance. “Englishmen -do turn themselves out so well.” - -The dance was supported by sparkling Moselle and Gurdy didn’t have -to perform with Margot. She found friends. He was summoned to be -introduced to a young Mrs. Calder who at once invited him to dine -the next evening. Gurdy excused himself on the score of his mother’s -birthday. As they drove away from the emptying house Margot explained, -“Peggy Calder’s nice. She was in the Red Cross in London. You’re really -going up to the farm?” - -“Certainly.” - -She said nothing, restless in her dark cloak for a time then chattered -about the Jannan grandeur. She enjoyed spectacles. The great suburban -house and the green ballroom pleased her. “But you people drink too -much, you know? Mrs. Jannan’s a second wife, isn’t she? Rather pretty. -Heavens, what a long way back to the hotel!” - -“You’re tired.” - -“Frightfully. And blue.... Can’t you make dad try ‘Todgers’ in New -York, Gurdy?” Directly and with a sharp motion she added, “No. That’s -utterly silly. I’ve no business asking it.... But I do feel--And yet I -don’t know the New York taste--You really think it wouldn’t do?” - -“I really don’t, Margot. And you can’t get a theatre for love, blood or -money. They’re even trying to buy theatres to bring plays into. Mark -would have to run the play on the road for weeks--months, perhaps, -before he could get a theatre.” - -She dropped the matter, spoke of the dance again and at the hotel -hurried up the corridor to her rooms. Mark sat up as Gurdy slid into -the other bed of his chamber and passed a hand across his throat, “Oh, -son, what an evening! ‘Todgers’ to the boneyard! Crape on the door!” - -“Fizzled? People were knocking it at the Jannan’s.” - -“Awful! Every one coughed. I will say Rand worked hard. No, it’s dead. -I’ll let it run tomorrow night and then close it.--Stick with me -tomorrow. I’ll have to break the bad news to Rand.” - -He broke the news to Rand just as Gurdy was leaving to take the train -for Trenton, after lunch. The actor strolled up to them beside the -door, a grey furred coat over his arm and his bronze eyes patently -anxious. - -“Going away, Bernamer?” - -“The country.” - -“Decent day for it.... I say, Walling, they weren’t nice to us in the -papers.” - -Gurdy saw Mark begin to act. The voice deepened to its kindest drawl. -Mark said, “Just called up the theatre. Only sold two hundred seats for -tonight and its almost three, now. That’s too bad.” - -Rand passed the polished nails along the soft moustache. The sun of the -door sent true gold into his hair. He murmured, “Shocking bad, eh? We -play Baltimore, next week, don’t we?” - -“No,” said Mark, easily, “It’s too thin. I’ll close it tonight.--Now, -I’m putting on a piece called the ‘Last Warrior.’ English. Start -rehearsals after Christmas. Good part for you in that. Marion Hart’s -the lead. Know her? Nice to play with and a damned good play.” - -“Oh--thanks awfully.--Yes, I know Miss Hart.--Thanks very much, sir.... -You shan’t risk bringing ‘Todgers’ to New York?” - -“No. I’m sorry. You’ve worked mighty hard and I like your work. You’ll -be a lot better off in this other play.... ‘Todgers’ is too thin, Rand. -Might have done five or six years back.” - -The actor nodded. “Dare say you’re right, sir. Bit of a bubble, really. -And awfully good of you to want me for this other thing. Be delighted -to try.... Yes, this was rather bubblish:--Anyhow, this lets me out of -Baltimore. I do hate that town. Well, thanks ever so. Better luck next -time, let’s hope.” - -He walked off, grey into the duller grey of the columned lounge. Mark -nodded after him. “Took it damned well, Gurdy. He’ll be all right in -this other show and Cora can’t say I haven’t been decent to him. Well, -hustle along. Got that whiskey for your dad? Give ’em my love.--Look at -that pink car, for lordsake! Vulgarity on four wheels, huh?--So long, -sonny.” - -Gurdy was glad that Rand hadn’t whined. This was a feeble, tame fellow -without much attraction beyond his handsome face. Perhaps it was for -this mannerly tameness that Margot liked him. Perhaps that fable of -women liking the masterly male was faulty. Margot liked to domineer. -She had bullied Rand a trifle at the rehearsal in London. Perhaps -Cora Boyle liked the tame little creature for some such reason. Gurdy -dismissed him and the theatre. There was vexing sadness in the -collapse of even so poor a play. Russell and the actors had worked. -It came to nothing. Bubble! Expensive, futile, unheroic evanescence. -Margot’s fault. He mustn’t let Mark do such a thing again. The girl -must confine her restless self to dances and clothes. She had looked -very well at the Jannan party. She had smartness, instant magnetism. -She was still asleep and would dine with her acquaintance, Mrs. Calder, -tonight. Gurdy yawned as Trenton foully spouted its industry toward -the sky. Bernamer was waiting with the car at the station, gave him a -crushing hug and told him that he looked like hell. - -“Danced all night.” - -“I see you did in the _Ledger_. Among those present at the Apsley -Jannan’s party. Your mamma’s all upset about it. Saw a movie of -a millionaire party with naked hussies ridin’ ostriches in the -conserv’tory. She thinks Margot’s led you astray. How’s this ‘Tod’ play -done?” - -“It’s all done, dad. Closes tonight.” - -Bernamer sent the car through Trenton and cursed Margot astoundingly. -“Ten or twelve thousand dollars! The little skunk! Cure Mark of -listening to her. Say, he still wanting you to marry her, bud?” - -“Afraid he is, dad.” - -“Sure. Next best he could do to marryin’ her himself. Funny boy. Likes -her ’cause she’s pretty. Black hair.--This English woman’s blackheaded, -ain’t she?... Well, you sic’ some feller onto Margot and get her off -Mark’s hands. If you fell in love with her again, your mamma’d puff up -and bust.” - -“Again?” - -Bernamer gave him a blue stare and winked, wrinkling his nose. His -weathered face creased into a snort. “Sure, you were losin’ sleep over -her ’fore she got back from England.” - -“Not now, daddy.” Gurdy wondered about the absolute death of his -passion. His father, who so seldom saw him, knew it was done. Mark saw -him daily, talked to him of Margot urgently and saw nothing. - -“Well,” said Bernamer, “Mark’s awful fond of you. And you ain’t bad, -reelly. Don’t you get married until you catch one you can stand for -steady diet. Oh, your mamma’s gone on a vegetable diet and lost four -pounds in two weeks. Ed’s got a boil on his neck--bad, too, poor pup. -Jim done an algebra problem right yesterday and made a touchdown -Saturday. He’s got his head swelled a mile.” - -The man’s tolerant dealing with his family impressed Gurdy. Here was a -controlled and level affection, not Mark’s worship. It was a healthier -thing. He watched his father’s amiable scorn while Mrs. Bernamer and -the whole household fussed variously over young Edward’s inflamed -neck after supper. The boil was central in the talk of the red living -room. Grandfather Walling tried to think of some ancient remedy and -fell asleep pondering. The two bigger lads hovered and chuckled over -the eruption. The sisters neglected some swains who came calling. Mrs. -Bernamer sat mending the grey breeches of the military uniform Edward -wasn’t wearing. The boil maintained itself over gossip of the village, -the Military Academy and female questions about the Jannan dance. At -ten Bernamer said, “Go to bed, all of you. Got to talk business to -Gurdy.” The family kissed Gurdy and departed. Grandfather Walling’s -snore roamed tenderly down into the stillness. Bernamer got out the -chessboard and uncorked a bottle of vicious pear cider. They smoked and -played the endless game. At twelve the telephone bell shore off his -father’s sentences. Gurdy clapped a palm on the jangling at his elbow -and picked up the instrument. Olive Ilden spoke in her most artificial, -clearest voice. - -“We’re in New York, dear. The doctor telephoned about eight and we came -up directly. I think you’d best come, Gurdy.” - -“Mr. Carlson?” - -“Yes. He’ll be gone in a few hours. Mark’s so distressed and--the old -man asked for you.” - -Bernamer said, “No train until three thirty, son.” - -“I’ll get there as fast, as I can,” Gurdy told her, “Margot there?” - -“No. She’d gone to dine with her friend--Mrs. Calder--and Mark didn’t -want her here. I’ll tell Mark you’re coming, then. Good-bye.” - -Gurdy rang off. His father nodded, “Mark’ll miss the old feller. Been -mighty good to him. Funny old man. Always liked him. Poor Mark! Well, -you say this Englishwoman’s sensible. That’s some help.” - -Gurdy was glad of Olive’s sanity, wished that the thought of this death -didn’t make his heart thump for a little. His father would drive him -into Trenton at two. They played chess again. Bernamer made sandwiches -of beef and thick bread. The red walls clouded with cigarette smoke. It -was two when the bell again rang. - -“Dead, prob’ly,” said Bernamer. - -The operator asked for Gurdy. There was a shrill wrangling of women -behind which a man spoke loudly and savagely. His impatience cracked -through the buzzing. It wasn’t Mark when the man spoke clearly at last. - - -“This is Russell, Gurdy. Can you hear? You must come here at once.” - -“To Philadelphia? What’s happened? Mr. Carlson’s dying and--” - -“I know. And I can’t bother Walling. You must come here as fast as you -can. Can you speak German?... I’ll try to talk French; then.” - -After a moment Gurdy said, “All right. I’ll come as fast as I can. Get -hold of the hotel manager. Money--” - -“The detective’s got a check. That’s all right. Hurry up, though.” - -Gurdy found himself standing and dropped the telephone. It brushed the -chessmen in a clattering volley to the floor. His father’s blue eyes -bit through the smoke. - -“When’s a train to Philadelphia, dad?” - -“That damn fool girl gone and got herself into--” - -“This actor!... Of course she has! Of course! Oh, hell! In her room! -When’s there a train to Philadelphia?” - - - - -X - -The Idolater - - -Olive left the telephone table and strolled across the bright library -to the fire. The sussuration of dragged silk behind her moving gown -gave her a queer discomfort; there had been no time to change in the -rush; it seemed improper to attend a death-bed in evening dress. And -she was intrusive, here, and helpless. Mark’s pain was calm. He would -suffer later, at the end of these hours or minutes. The bored, plump -doctor came into the library, closed the door and lit a cigarette, -joining Olive at the warm hearth. - -“He was asking for Miss Walling, just now.” - -“Ah? She’s in Philadelphia. She was dining with some friends at the -Ritz, there, so we left her.” - -The doctor said, “Very sensible,” and blew a smoke ring. Under its -dissolution his eyes admired Olive’s shoulders then, the pastel of -Gurdy in a black frame on the mantel. - -“Tell me,” Olive asked, “how--how far is he conscious?” - -“It would be interesting to know. In these collapses we’re not -sure. His conscious mind probably asserts itself, now and then. The -unconscious--I really can’t say. Still, before you and Mr. Walling -came he spoke in Swedish several times. And that’s the unconscious. He -forgot his Swedish years ago. Been in this country ever since eighteen -sixty-eight. But he spoke Swedish quite correctly and very fast. I’m a -Swede. It surprised me.” - -“Indeed,” said Olive and shivered before his science, cool, weary, not -much interested. - -The doctor looked at his watch, murmured, “Twelve thirty,” and tossed -his cigarette in the fire. He observed, “But the old gentleman’s in -no pain. The reversion’s very interesting. He was talking to some -one about Augustin Daly. Very interesting.” The clipped, brisk voice -denied the least interest. The doctor went from the library as Olive -heard wheels halt outside. This couldn’t be Gurdy. She looked through a -window and recognized her maid paying a taxicab driver. The black and -yellow taxicab trembled behind a car entirely black and windowless; the -undertaker awaited Carlson’s body. Olive drew the curtains across the -glass, shook herself and went down to speak with her maid. - -“Margot hadn’t come back from her dinner when you came away, Lane?” - -“No, m’lady. Such a noosance getting the luggage to the station, down -there.... Might I have some tea in your pantry, Mr. Collins?” the woman -asked Mark’s butler as Olive turned away. These two would sit in the -butler’s pantry drinking tea and discussing deaths. Olive went up the -soft stairs and into Carlson’s bedroom behind the library. She entered -an immutable group. The two nurses sat in a corner. The doctor examined -one of the framed, old photographs that pallidly gleamed on the walls -made brown by the lowered light. Mark stood with his hands clutching -the white bedfoot. His black seemed to rise supernatural from the -floor. He was taller, thinner. He glared at the stretched length of his -patron. To Olive the dying man appeared more like an exhumed Pharaoh -than ever. The yellow head was unchanged. She had a dizzy, picturesque -fancy that his eyes might open, that he might speak in some unknown, -sonorous dialect of the Nile. As she dropped a hand beside Mark’s -fingers on the rail the old man spoke without breath in a sound of torn -fabric yet with an airy, human amusement. “All right, Mister Caz’nove. -Don’t git flustered. I’ll tell Miss Morris.” - -Mark writhed. The plastron of his shirt crackled. He gripped Olive’s -arm and drew her from the room. In the hall he panted, “Augustin -Daly’s prompter--a Frenchman--I guess he meant Clara Morris.” But in -the cooler hall, away from the insufferable bed, he was ashamed. This -was bad behaviour, unmanly, ridiculous. He smiled timidly at Olive who -suddenly put her hands on his face and kissed him. - -“I talked to Gurdy. He’ll be here as soon as he can, dear.” - -“Thanks. Got to go back.” Mark sighed, “You go to bed, though.” - -“No.” - -Mark didn’t want her to go to bed. He smiled and went back to his -watch. Odious time passed. The smell of cigarettes crept from the -walls and the furniture. Carlson had smoked many thousands here. One -of the nurses clicked a string of beads. The tiny cross was silver and -lustrous as it swung. The beads seemed amethyst. What good did the -woman think she was doing? But she had liked Carlson. She was praying -for his soul and Carlson thought he had a soul. Let her pray. The -amethyst flicker soothed Mark, took his eyes from the bed. The voice -surprised him with his name. - -“Mark.” - -“Yessir.” - -“It’s a poor house. Rain....” - -Mark’s throat was full of dry fire. He gripped the rail, waiting. But -the voice did not come again. After four the doctor nodded. One nurse -yawned. The Irishwoman fell gently on her knees under the large, signed -photograph of Ada Rehan in the frilled, insolent dress of Lady Teazle. -Olive led Mark quickly from the room into the library. He pressed his -hands on his eyes. He wouldn’t cry over this. Carlson had too often -called him a crybaby, a big calf. - -“Dear Mark.” - -“Oh ... can’t be helped.--God, I did want him to see the Walling! Won’t -be any funeral. Body goes straight to Sweden.... He’s left Gurdy and -Margot some money.... Awful kindhearted.... Lot of old down and out -actors’d come here. Gave ’em money. Awful kind to me.... No reason.” -His husky speech made a chant for his old friend. Olive’s eyes filled. -He was childish in his woe, charming. She wished that he’d weep so she -could fondle the red hair on her shoulder. This would hurt his pleasure -in the new theatre and the splendid play. The butler came in after the -heavy, descending motion of men on the stairs was over and the dull -wheels had rolled off from the curb. He brought a small, gold capped -bottle and two glasses on his tray. - -“Doctor Lundquist said to bring this up, sir.” - -The champagne whispered delicately in the glasses and washed down the -muffling, dry taste from Mark’s tongue. He smiled at Olive and said, -“Dunno what I’d have done without you bein’ here.” What a brave woman! -Her daughter had died swiftly of pneumonia before Olive could reach -her. Her son had been blown to pieces. - -“I’m glad Gurdy didn’t get here,” she said, “He’s seen quite enough of -death and he was fond of Mr. Carlson.” - -“Of course. Fonder than Margot was. Bein’ a man, though, he never -showed it so much.” - -Olive hoped that Margot would never tell him how she disliked the old -man’s coarseness, his manifold derisions. She said, “But go to bed, -Mark. You really should. These things strain one.” - -“Awful. They packed me off to Aunt Edith’s when mamma died. First time -I ever saw any one I liked.... Frohman was drowned. Clyde Fitch died in -France. Good night, Olive.” - -He wished she would kiss him again and watched her pass up to her -rooms. Then he went to bed, without thinking, and slept. He slept -soundly and woke slowly into warm, luxurious sun that mottled the blue -quilt. He said, “Hello, brother,” to Gurdy who leaned on the dresser -between the windows, solemn and grieved in a dark suit, his pale hair -ruffled and gay with light. Gurdy must be cheered up. “Well, you -missed it. He didn’t have a pain. When did you get here?” - -“A while ago. I--dad’s here.” - -“Eddie? Well, that’s good of him.” - -Bernamer came about the bed and dropped a hand on Mark’s chest. He said -nothing, but grinned and sat down. His seemly clothes and cropped head -made him amazingly like Gurdy. Mark beamed at both of them. “Had your -breakfast?” - -“Hell, yes,” said Bernamer, “Had two. Got some coffee in Philadelphia -and then Lady Ilden made us eat somethin’ when we got here.” - -Mark swung out of bed and ordered Gurdy, “Tell ’em to bring me up some -coffee in the library, sonny. Oh, Margot ain’t got here?” - -“Yes, she’s here,” said Gurdy and quickly left the room. - -The sun filled his showerbath. Mark cheered further, babbled to his -brother-in-law while he shaved and wondered what Bernamer had talked -about to Olive at breakfast. - -“Oh, we just talked,” said the farmer, curtly, “Nice kind of woman.” - -He leaned in the door of the bathroom and rolled a cigarette in his -big, shapely hands. Now that he had five hired men his hands were -softer and not so thick. A fine, quiet man, full of sense. - -“Awful good of you to come up, Eddie. I ain’t makin’ a fool of myself. -The old man was eighty. It’s a wonder he lasted as long.” - -“Better get some coffee in you, bud. You look run down.” - -“Been workin’ like a horse, Eddie.” - -Mark knotted his tie, took Bernamer’s arm and hugged it a little, -walking into the library. Olive dropped a newspaper and told him he -looked “gorgeous” in a weary voice, then poured coffee into his cup on -the low stand by a large chair close to the fire. She was smoking. The -vapour didn’t hide yellowish hollows about her eyes. - -“No, I didn’t sleep well, old man. Rather fagged.” - -“We waked you up pretty early,” said Bernamer, “Sit down, bud, and -drink your coffee.” - -Mark lounged in the deep chair. Bernamer asked Olive if she had liked -Washington but stood patting Mark’s shoulder and rather troubled the -drinking of coffee. Gurdy came down the blue rug with some mail. - -“Look and see if there’s anything important, sonny. Probably ain’t.... -Hello, sister!” - -Margot roamed down the library in a black dress. But she paused yards -from his stretched hand and frowned incomprehensibly. Gurdy turned at -the desk with a letter against his grey coat. Margot said, “I suppose -Gurdy’s told you.” - -Gurdy thrust his jaw up toward the ceiling. Olive rose with a flat, -rasping “Margot” and Bernamer hissed, his fingers tight on Mark’s -shoulder. Mark set down his coffee cup and looked at them all. - -“Oh, no one’s said anything?” Margot put a knee on a small chair and -stroked the velvet back. “Well, we’d better get it over. I was turned -out of the hotel in Philadelphia last--” - -“Shut up,” said Bernamer, “Shut your mouth!” - -She went on, staring at Mark, “I’m going to marry him as soon as he -can get a divorce, dad.... No use trying to lie about it. I belong to -Cosmo and--and that’s all.” She passed a hand over her mouth. Then her -bright slippers twinkled as she walked out of the room. Mark blinked -after her. Something had happened. He looked up at Bernamer whose face -was rocky, meaningless. Gurdy ran to Mark and spoke in gasps, beating a -fist on his hip. - -“Russell called me at the farm about two--Dad went down with me.--We -talked to the manager--We bribed him.--Russell gave the hotel detective -a check for a thousand dollars--” - -“I guess they’ll keep their mouths shut,” said Bernamer, “Told -’em they’d each get another check in six months if we didn’t hear -nothin’.--Now it ain’t so bad, bud. Margot says this feller can get a -divorce from Cora Boyle--He was gone and we didn’t see him. It might be -worse.” - -“Stop hittin’ your leg, Gurd. You’ll hurt yourself,” said Mark. - -He rose and began to walk up and down the tiles of the hearth. One of -his hands patted the front of his coat. His face was empty. He seemed -wonderfully thin. Olive watched him in terror of a cry. Gurdy and his -father drew off against the shelves of still books. Bernamer commenced -rolling a cigarette. After a while Mark said, “It’s the way I was -brought up, Olive.” - -“Oh, Mark, try to--to see her point of view. She loved him. She sees -something we don’t--It’s--” - -“Sure. That’s so.--Oh, you’re right.” - -He walked on, aware of them watching, helpless. Things passed and -turned in his head. He was being silly, old-fashioned. Ought to collect -himself. Ought to do something for Gurdy who wouldn’t have her, now. -Get the boy something to do. Get his mind off it. “Call the office, -sonny. Tell them to close ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ Give the company two -weeks’ pay. Have Hamlin write checks--Didn’t try to thrash this Rand, -did you?” - -“We didn’t see him. He’d gone.” - -“That’s good. Call the office.” - -The boy went to the telephone, far off on its desk and began to talk -evenly. Mark stumbled over to Bernamer and mumbled, “Keep him busy. -Awful jolt for him, Eddie. Takes it fine.” - -“He ain’t in love with her, bud.” - -“Yes, he is.” - -“Set down, bud. Better drink--” - -“No.--Ain’t been any saint, myself. Girls are different.--Maybe he’s a -nice fellow.--Took it nice about the play being closed.--I’m all right, -Olive. Sort of a shock.” - -He walked on. Then he was too tired to walk and Bernamer made him sit -in the chair by the hearth. He stared at the blue rug and it seemed -to clear his head. He became immobile, watching a white thread. The -world centred on this wriggle of white on the blue down. He lapsed into -dullness, knowing that Gurdy stood close to him. He should think of -things to say, consolations. The boy must be in tortures. He was dull, -empty. - -Bernamer beckoned Olive. They went out of the library and the farmer -shut the door without jarring the silver handle. Olive found herself -dizzy. She said, “You have something to--” - -“Let’s get downstairs where I can smoke. You’re sick. This is as bad on -you--” - -He helped her downstairs into the drawing room and was gone, came back -with water in which she tasted brandy. The big man lit his cigarette -and spoke in a drawl like Mark’s but heavier. - -“I don’t understand this business. The little fool says she’s been in -love with this feller a long time--a couple of years. He ain’t made -love to her ’til last night. Well?” - -“I don’t understand it any more than do you. I’m--horrified. I knew she -admired his acting. He’s handsome. Very handsome.” - -The man nodded and his blue eyes were gentle on her. He drawled, “Why -the hell didn’t he stay and face the music? The manager told him to get -out. Mr. Russell says he just packed up and left.--I can’t make this -out. Margot had Mr. Russell waked up because she hadn’t any money to -come home with.” - -“I must talk to her.... Why did we leave her there?” - -“You thought she’d got sense enough to know better. It ain’t your -fault. I got to go home because I don’t want the family to know about -this. But there’s something damn funny in it.--Will you please get it -out of Mark’s head that Gurdy’s in love with that girl? Make him feel -better.” - -“I’ll do all I can.” - -He said in scorn, “She ain’t worth fussin’ with,” and held the door -open. Olive shivered, passing the library where there was no sound. -She climbed to Margot’s room and found the girl sitting on the edge of -the sunny bed, still, smiling. - -“You must be very tired, darling.” - -The red lips a little parted. Margot said, “Oh ... no,” in a soft -whisper. The faint noise died in the sun like the passage of a moth. -Olive stood fixed before the sleek tranquillity of the black hair -and the contented face. The restless stirring was gone. She smiled -in beautiful contentment. The gold cord which was the girdle of this -velvet gown hung brilliant and rich about the straight body. The sunny -room made a shell of colour for the figure. The hair had a dazzling -margin against the windows. She was untroubled, happy. - -Olive dragged at her own girdle, biting her lips. She asked, “Where is -Mr. Rand, dear?” - -“He was coming to New York today,” Margot said in the same voice. -She lifted an end of the trailing gold, then let it fall. She seemed -asleep, lost in a visible dream. But she roused and spoke, “He’s loved -me ever so long, Olive. I didn’t know....” and was still again. Olive -choked before this happiness, turned and went down the stairs. There -was no use in artifice, reasoning. Mark must accept what was done. -His good sense would come back, the shock would ease into regret. His -convention was outraged, of course. It was dreadful to see him in -pain. Olive thrust back her own pain, a vast and weary disappointment. -This wasn’t the man for the girl. This was senseless. She entered the -library and Mark raised his face from the long stare at the floor, -dreading Margot. - -“Oh,” he said, “it ain’t your fault, Olive. Don’t cry.--I’m bein’ a -fool.” - -He rose and walked again, began a circular tramp about the room. He -passed through a whispering tunnel, completely black. He was marching -in the dark and knew that Olive and Gurdy watched him, that Bernamer -came into the room with his hat in a hand. Yet he walked in blackness. -He would go mad of this! She had lied to him. She had thrown herself -to a married man. Well, girls did that. Things were changing. People -did queer things. He was jealous for Gurdy, that was the trouble. He -had wanted her married to Gurdy. She had said such good things of -Gurdy.--All this time she’d been lying. She was in love with this pink, -married actor.--The talk would roll among the restaurants, in the -offices. People would laugh. Awful names! All the other noises would -slacken and fail in this whispering. They would sneer when the Walling -opened.--She couldn’t care anything for him or she wouldn’t have lied. -Gurdy didn’t lie. Mark tore himself out of the black whispering and -went to take Gurdy’s sleeve. - -“Don’t you mind, sonny. She--she’d ought to have told you she liked -this--” - -“Oh, Mark, I don’t care about her.” - -“All right to say that--but don’t you mind.” - -Bernamer came across the room and took Mark in his arms. He said, “Now, -bud, don’t upset yourself. I got to go home. The fam’ly don’t know -nothin’. I shan’t say a word.--What you do is this. Get hold of Cora -Boyle and give her money to let this feller divorce her, see? That’ll -save talk and trouble.” - -“That’s right, Eddie. Yes, good idea.” - -Bernamer hugged him and left the room. Mark’s head cleared. There was -no black tunnel. Eddie was right. He must make the best of this. It -could be hushed up. Women like Cora needed money for clothes. He nodded -to Gurdy, “You’ll never be any smarter than your dad, son. Ain’t he a -nice fellow, Olive?” - -“Of course, dear.” - -“And I’m bein’ a fool. I know it. Only there’s lots of men that feel -like I do about these kind of things.--One o’clock.--You and Gurdy have -some lunch.” - -Olive said, “Mark, would you like to talk to her?” - -He cried, “No!--I--might say something. You folks go have lunch.” They -went away and at once he wanted them back, walked the floor with -his hands clenched. He was afraid that Margot might come in, now. He -dreaded seeing her. He wished her out of the house and away. The wish -bit him. He had been fooled. He had to love her, help her. Couldn’t she -go away? To the farm, where no one knew and--But they might find out. -They would shrink from her as bad. They weren’t knowing and tolerant -like Bernamer. He mustn’t stop loving her or let her see that he was -hurt. Nothing eased him. The afternoon lagged along. Gurdy played the -piano downstairs. Gurdy and Olive drifted in, out, consoling him. It -was sunset. A van full of boxes went slowly past the house and the -shadows on the pine were amethyst. Some friend of Gurdy’s came calling -in a yellow, low car that turned ochre as the light failed. Its lamps -made ovals on the street as it drove away.--He mustn’t let this sour -the boy.--In the darker room the whispering began again. It might be -the blood in his ears. Gurdy brought him up dinner and white wine. -Olive came afterwards and tried to make him eat, lit all the soft -lamps. He drank some wine and smoked a cigarette. - -“Gurdy takes it well, doesn’t he?” - -“Perhaps he didn’t care as much as you think, Mark.” - -Mark laughed, “Awful cool outside. No, he’s bein’ brave to--cheer me -up. And I feel better, honest.... My God, Olive, if that woman wants to -make a scandal!” - -“Don’t think of it, Mark.” - -He was tired of thinking. He said, “I’ll try not to,” and smiled at -Gurdy coming in. But he now thought of Cora Boyle.--Perhaps she liked -Rand, wouldn’t give him up. He examined the rosy face, the trim grey -suits. Yellow haired. Perhaps these dark women liked yellow haired men -best. He was afraid of Cora. She could lie to her friends and make -things worse. He stared at a lamp a long time and his mind fell dull -again. - -“Mark, it’s after ten. Go to bed,” said Olive, “Please, old man.” - -“You folks go.--Not sleepy.” - -They left him. He was lonely. He sat by the hearth and lit a cigarette. -Above him there was a slow noise of Gurdy strolling about, getting -undressed. The ripple of little sounds kept Mark company, then deserted -him. Mark shuddered in the peace of the lit room. Something worse would -happen. What? He must save Gurdy more pain. The boy was too young for -this. Mark’s throat ached suddenly and he began to weep, spent in his -chair. The lamps of the room swelled like luminous pearls melting and -through the mist came Gurdy in white pyjamas that flapped. - -“Oh, for God’s sake, Mark! Bed!” - -“I’m scared,” said Mark, gulping, “Gurd, I’m scared of Cora. Suppose -she likes him? Suppose she won’t let go of him? She’s bad tempered, -sonny. You don’t know her.--It’s the talk--the talk. People ain’t as -broad minded as you and Olive think. The women, especially.--And she’s -a young girl.... It ain’t like she was one of these women that’ve been -divorced three or four times.... If Cora makes a fuss--” - -Gurdy pulled him up out of the chair and gently shook him. “You must -come to bed.” - -“All right.--Making a fool of myself.... Only, you’re in love with her. -It’s hard on you.” - -“I’m not in love with her, Mark!” - -Mark thought this a splendid sort of lie but he shivered. “Somethin’ -else might happen. I feel.... Come and get me in bed, son.” - -He became limply ashamed of himself. Gurdy helped him to strip and he -found the boy buttoning his jacket for him as he sat on the edge of -his bed. He watched the long, wiry fingers at work on the buttons and -the holes of the blue silk. The cold linen of the pillow caressed his -neck. He smiled, wanting Gurdy to stay there until he fell asleep. The -doorbell rang with a steady and ripping insistence. - -“Damn,” said Gurdy and went into the hall where the cold air mounting -from the opened door chilled his bare feet. The butler ascended like a -shadow on the white wainscot. - -“A Mr. Fuller, sir.” - -“He can’t see Mr. Walling. He’s asleep.” - -“He says he must see Mr. Walling, Mr. Gurdy.” The butler held out -his salver. Gurdy read the card, Henry Fuller. Fuller and Marcovicz, -Attorneys at Law. Under the engraving was pencilled, “For Miss Boyle.” - -Gurdy walked down the stairs into the drawing room. A burly man in a -furred coat was standing by the Siennese cabinet running a thumb over -the smooth panel of its little door. The light made his grey hair -glisten slickly. He turned a broad, pleasing face on Gurdy and nodded. - -“Sorry to get ’round here so late at night. Pretty important I should -see Mr. Walling right away.” - -“That’s absolutely impossible. He’s ill and in bed. I’m--” - -“Oh ... you’re his nephew, ain’t you? Mister--Bernamer?” - -“Yes.” - -The man nodded and undid his coat. He wore a dinner jacket with a -fluted shirt. Gay stones were blue in the soft pleats of the bosom. -He stated, “I’m from Miss Boyle--legal representative. You tell Mr. -Walling that Miss Boyle’s willing to not bring an action against Miss -Walling--Understand what I mean?” - -“Yes.” - -The lawyer continued his air of genial discretion, getting a paper -from some pocket. “Miss Boyle’s willing to overlook this business in -Philadelphia and not sue her husban’ or Miss Walling provided that -this play’s brought into New York by New Year’s Day and Mr. Rand is -featured--name in electric lights and so on. Soon as the play’s opened -in New York she’ll live with her husban’ again. Condonation, see? And--” - -“Blackmail,” said Gurdy. - -The genial man went on, “I’ve got a memorandum, here. All Mr. Walling’s -got to do is sign it. I’ll read it. N’York City, November eighteenth, -nineteen hundred nineteen. My dear Miss Boyle, In pursuance of our -agreement I promise you that ‘Todgers Intrudes’ will be presented in -New York City before January first, nineteen twenty and that Mr. Rand -will be featured in the usual manner. Yours very truly.--All he has to -do is to put his name to that and there you are.” - -Gurdy hated this fellow. He rubbed a foot on the carpet and sighed, -then asked, “What’s the good of this? It’s a bad play. It’ll fail. Why -does Miss Boyle want this?” - -“Don’t ask me. Yes, I hear it’s a bum show. I guess she wants her -husban’ featured. I don’t know.” - -“If Mark--if Mr. Walling won’t sign this?” - -“Then Miss Boyle’ll bring her action in the morning. There’s no -defence, either, Mr. Bernamer. Miss Boyle’s got a written statement -from Mr. Rand and testimony from his valet.” - -Gurdy was sick, now. An unconquerable tremor made the muscles of his -back rigid. It was a trap. Margot was caught in a trap. He said, -“Blackmail.” - -“No. Miss Boyle’s foregoin’ a legal right to bring her action. She -ain’t askin’ a cent of money. There’s lots of ladies wouldn’t be so -easy to settle with. Better see what Mr. Walling says, hadn’t you?” - -For a second Gurdy stood hopeless. Then he said, “It’s a dirty trick,” -and took the paper. But he should keep cool. He smiled and inquired, -“You say you’ve got a written statement from Mr. Rand--” - -“Got a copy with me. Like to read it?” - -Gurdy glanced at the transparent typed sheet. He shook his head and -walked up stairs. Mark picked up the note as Gurdy dropped it on the -blue quilt, read it frowning. Then he flushed and his mouth contracted -hideously. He whispered, “Old trick! Happens all the time. I ought to -have known what’d happen.... Gimme a pen, sonny.” He signed his full -name, Mark Henderson Walling. There couldn’t be any more pain, after -this. He shut his eyes and fell through warm darkness. He could not -sleep but he must rest. He slept. - -When Gurdy came back into the bedroom, Mark was slowly breathing, sound -asleep. The boy made the place dark and went up to his own room. In the -upper black of the hall some one caught his arm. Olive followed him and -shut the door. She had cast a black fur cloak over her night dress and -her grey hair was loose. She looked at the boy without a word, leaning -on the door. - -“Blackmail. She sent her lawyer. She’s got a confession from Rand. -Mark’s signed an agreement. He’ll bring that play into New York and -she’ll live with Rand as soon as it opens.” - -“Ah!... Oh, the cad!... Oh, Gurdy, take care of Mark!” - -She walked down the hall. Gurdy followed her and heard her pity crash -into miserable sobs behind her door. He stood listening for a while -then raised his arm and pressed it against his mouth. - - - - -XI - -The Walling - - -On Saturday afternoon, Olive and Margot started for Seattle. Gurdy -drove with them to the station and Margot spoke to him for the first -time since the journey from Philadelphia. She said, “What theatre will -dad bring ‘Todgers’ into?” - -“I don’t know. It’ll be hard to find one.” - -She murmured, “It ought to be a great success,” and Gurdy admired her -stubborn air. She sat stiffly in a suit of yellow cloth and walked -stiffly down the great stairs of the station, gathering eyes, moved -ahead of Olive and himself to the coach and stood in the vestibule, -motionless, uninterested when Olive drew Gurdy away to the edge of the -concrete and raised her veil. - -“Mark need never see the child again unless--” - -“Oh, he’ll be all right,” Gurdy decided, “but it’s been an awful jolt.” - -The Englishwoman put a hand to her mouth which shivered. - -“Awful.... Oh, I don’t know, Gurdy!” - -“Don’t know what, Lady Ilden?” - -“I don’t know that he’s right in sacrificing himself.... I don’t know -that he’s wrong. Chivalry.... I can’t understand how two people can be -such beasts as this woman and her husband.... Deliberate torture.... -Isn’t it revenge?” - -Gurdy didn’t answer but asked, “You’ll go on from Japan to--” - -“South Africa. I’ve some friends at Capetown.... She’s that brutal age, -when it doesn’t matter if we get what we want.... Oh, my dear boy, this -is hideous! It’s revenge!” - -“I don’t think so,” he said, “I saw Russell at the office this morning. -‘Todgers’ doesn’t open in Baltimore until Monday. He says that Rand -talked to him in Philadelphia before this happened and wanted Russell -to persuade Mark to risk bringing the play to New York and that was -after Mark had told him he wouldn’t bring it in. Russell thinks -she--Cora Boyle--is simply crazy over Rand. Russell’s seen a good deal -of them. He says Rand talked to her by ’phone from Philadelphia on -Tuesday. She may have put him up to this. I don’t think it’s revenge. -She’s got nothing to revenge. Mark’s always been decent to her.” - -Olive smiled and then whispered, “Do take care of Mark.” A porter came -bawling, “All aboard,” and groups broke up along the train. Margot -swung and vanished into the coach. Olive said, “She’s stunned. She -won’t realize she’s been a beast to Mark for a while.” Gurdy mumbled -something about points of view. The tired woman cut him short with, -“Rot, old man! She didn’t play fair. She lied. Do take care of Mark. -Good-bye.” - -Gurdy walked away and a clerk from Mark’s office brushed by him with a -papered load of yellow roses. The boy turned and saw Olive take these -against her black furs. She stood graciously thanking the clerk for -a moment, smiling. Then she stepped into the vestibule and the train -stirred. Gurdy walked on. The colossal motion of the crowd in the -brilliant station was a relief and a band hammered out some military -march by a Red Cross booth. His spirit lifted; the strained waiting -of three days was done; Margot was gone; Gurdy wouldn’t have to watch -Mark’s piteous effort at normality. He found his uncle alone in the -office at the 45th Street Theatre, studying a model for a scene and -swiftly Mark asked, “I sent Jim with some--” - -“He got there.” - -Mark sighed and rubbed his hair. Everything confused him. He hoped -Olive would forgive him for not coming to the station. That had been -cowardly. He said, “Ought to have gone along, son.... Afraid I’d say -something I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have let you do it alone. This is -worse on you than it is on me. I--” - -“Mark, on my honour, I’m not in love with Margot!” - -He lied so nobly that Mark wondered at him and brought out a thin -chuckle. “You’re a card, son!... If I didn’t know better I’d almost -believe you.... Well, take a look at this set. That left wall looks -kind of dark to me. It’s ox blood and it might light up with spots on -it. What d’you think?” - -Callers interfered. Gurdy went down the stairs into the lobby packed -with women who came out from the matinée. All these decorated bodies -flowed left and right about a dull blue placard announcing, “Early -in December The Walling Theatre will open with ‘Captain Salvador’ by -Stephen O’Mara,” and some women paused, drawing on gloves, fussing with -veils. A slim and black haired girl stared boldly at Gurdy, passing -him. She wasn’t like Margot but he hated her for an instant and then -stalked up Sixth Avenue where the lights of restaurants roused in the -dusk and the crowd of Saturday evening brayed. In ten cool blocks Gurdy -captured his philosophy, held it firmly; Mark was unreasonably hurt--in -fact, Mark was an old-fashioned, unphilosophic fellow who hadn’t -progressed, was still a country boy in essence, hadn’t even gained the -inferior cynicism of his trade and friends. He was letting himself be -bullied by Cora Boyle on an antique concept. Why should he let himself -be laughed at and lose money for this immaterial thing? Gurdy succeeded -in getting angry at Mark and tramped about the blue library preparing a -lecture, saw a glove of Margot’s on a table and tossed it into a waste -basket. He could imagine Mark shedding tears over that empty glove and -its presence in the copper basket fretted Gurdy. He plucked it forth -and flung it into the fire of cedar logs where it made a satisfactory -hiss, blackening. It must have been perfumed. A scent floated out of -the fire. Gurdy grinned over the symbol and poked the remnant which -crumbled and was nothing. He stood reducing Margot’s importance to -logical ash and so intently that he jumped when the butler told him -that Russell was downstairs. The director strolled in and looked about -the room before speaking. - -“Nice walls,” he said, “Well, Gurdy, I’ve just seen Miss Boyle.” - -“Where?” - -“At her hotel.--I’m mixed up in this and I thought I might help Mr. -Walling out. So I went to see her and had a talk. It didn’t come to -anything.” He sat down in Mark’s fireside chair, stooped his head and -brooded, “I’d a sneaking idea that this game was a sort of revenge. -Walling’s been good to her--done things for her. That might rankle. -Well, I pointed out that ‘Todgers’ is a waste of time. I did my best to -make her see that. It was funny.... She sat on a lounge and rocked a -cushion as if it were a baby--in her arms--Has she ever had a child?” - -“I think not.” - -“And she’s ten or eleven years older than Rand.... It’s no good. She -thinks he’s great in this play and she thinks it’ll run all winter -in New York. And there we are, Bernamer. She’s set on the thing. Mr. -Walling had better get it over as soon as he can. If he doesn’t, she’ll -be ugly. I’m mighty sorry.” - -Gurdy blazed up in a mixture of wrath and impatience, “Oh, it’s all -such damned rot! Mark’s one of the best producers in the country and he -shouldn’t do this!... He should tell her to go to hell. It’s blackmail! -I’m going to tell him--” - -After a moment Russell asked, “What?” and laughed kindly. Gurdy -shrugged and flinched before the laughter. The man was right. Mark -would go through with the beastly deal, wouldn’t consider risking -Margot’s name. There was no use in argument. He snapped, “Chivalry!” - -“And you wouldn’t do it?” - -“No,” said Gurdy, “No! It’s too thick. It is ironical. And he can’t -tell any one. Everyone’ll think he thinks this is a good play--worth -doing. The critics’ll jump all over him. They’ll--” - -“The other proposition being that Miss Walling will lose her -reputation? She’s a young girl and not very clever or very -sophisticated, to judge by her talk. She’s read the smart novels, of -course. Quotes them a good deal.... You say you wouldn’t do this for -her? The world being as it is? Tell it to the fish, Bernamer!” Gurdy -felt weak before the cool, genial voice. Russell lit a pipe and went -on, “I feel the way you do. Only the world’s full of shorn lambs and -the wind’s damned cold.... Can you come to a show tonight?” - -“Lord, no,” said Gurdy, “I’ve got to stay with Mark. He’s got to have -some one with him. Needs taking care of--” - -Russell said, “To be sure,” with another laugh and went away. He sent -Gurdy the notices from the Baltimore papers after “Todgers Intrudes” -began its week there and with them a note: “Miss Boyle came down for -the opening. She is still sure this is a great play. Maternal feeling. -Rand seems nervous and loses his lines a good deal. He is probably -ashamed of himself. His English accent peels off now and then and he -talks flat Middle West American,” but the same mail brought a letter -from Olive Ilden, written at Denver, and this maddened Gurdy, as last -proof of Margot’s inconsequence. - -“Dear Gurdy, The reaction has started. She is now certain that Rand -planned the whole filthy trick. She is so angry that there is nothing -left unsaid. He is a cheap bounder and a slacker etc. An actor can not -be anything else, she says. Everything is Mark’s fault or mine for -leaving her alone in Philadelphia. Do try to pity her a little, old -man. She has made a fearful fool of herself and knows it. The whole -thing is still horrible to me. I wish Mark had more humour or more -cold blood. Anything to help him through. I keep trying to remember a -quotation from Webster I threw at his head once. ‘These be the fair -rewards of those that love.’ It may be from Shakespeare. Did you try to -argue him out of making the production in New York? That would be your -logical attitude. But do take care of him.” - -Gurdy tore the note up and went to pull on his riding clothes. The -frost had melted. Mark wanted a ride in the warm park. The boy thought -proudly that Mark hadn’t complained. He seemed quietly busy, arranging -advertisements for “Captain Salvador” which toured New England after -its week of Boston. Rumours of a triumph crept ahead of the play. Its -success, its investiture of light and colour would soothe Mark while -he still needed soothing. Gurdy rattled downstairs and Mark laughed at -him, “You look mighty well in ridin’ things, son!” - -“So do you,” said Gurdy, in all honesty, and watched Mark beam, -settling his boots, the fit of his black coat. They rode into the empty -Park. Mark talked about horses and then about Gurdy’s brothers. One of -them wanted to be a soldier. - -“You did that with your scar and all,” Mark said. - -“Funny how easy a kid gets an ambition. Only thirteen. He’ll get over -it.” - -“What did you want to be when you were thirteen, sonny?” - -Gurdy strove to remember. He had probably wanted to be a theatrical -manager. He said, “I wanted to be a barber when I was nine or ten, I -remember that. And then I wanted to be an aviator--and now I want to -write plays....” - -“Hurry and write me a good one, brother.” - -Then Mark was silent. They cantered along in the creamy sunlight. A -great lady of artistic tastes reducing her weight bowed jerkily to -Mark from her burdened gelding and called, “Can you bring Miss Walling -to luncheon Sunday?” Gurdy saw Mark’s mouth twist. It needed courage -to call so easily back, “She’s gone to Japan.” But a hundred yards -afterward Mark reined in and stared at the sun, his face tormented. - -“Sonny, I may have to open the Walling with ‘Todgers Intrudes’.” - -“No!” - -“Fact. I can’t take a chance with Cora gettin’ nasty. I can’t risk it. -And I can’t get a house for love or money. I tried to buy the show out -of the Princess last night. There ain’t a house empty.... I may have to -use the Walling--open it with this--this--” He slashed his crop though -the air, was ashamed of himself and sat chewing a lip. Gurdy could keep -his emotions so well covered just as he now hid and nobly lied about -his heartbreak over Margot. Mark’s sense of hurt swelled and broke out, -“Oh, women are hell! If they want a thing they’ll do anything to get -it! They--they scare me, Gurd! When they want a thing!... And look how -she treated you!” - -“Oh, Mark, honestly, I wasn’t in love with her!” - -Mark knew better but Gurdy’s brave mendacity cheered him. He grinned -and rode on. He must think of ways to make Gurdy forget the girl. When -they reached the house he telephoned the gayest folk he could find -and summoned them to a luncheon. He worked in a fever, keeping Gurdy -busy with new plays, ritual lunches at the Algonquin and motor trips -to country inns where they hadn’t been with Margot who somehow wavered -in Mark’s mind. He began to lose an immediate, answering picture of -her. It was hard to recall her phrases of later time. Things she had -said and poses of her childhood rose more clearly. She merged in his -perplexed hunt for a theatre. When he found, on the first of December, -that he couldn’t rent or beg a playhouse for “Todgers Intrudes” -he hated Margot for an hour and tramped his library in a sweat of -loathing. He must defame the Walling with this nonsense, finish his -bargain by dishonouring himself and his dream, for the Walling was not -altogether real. He roamed the shell where workmen were covering the -naked chairs with dull blue, in a haze. The smell of banana oil and -turpentine made him dizzy. The silver and black boxes seemed vaporous -like the mist of the ceiling when the lamps were tried on its surface. -He had moments of sheer glory through which came burning the thought -of Cora Boyle and Margot, in this queer alliance. His offices were -transferred to broad rooms by the white landing of the wide stairs in -the Walling. There was an alcove for Gurdy’s desk and here Mark told -him suddenly, “Goin’ to bring ‘Todgers’ in here next week, son.” - -Gurdy paled, leaned on the new desk and flexed his hands on his fair -head. He said, “Oh, no!” - -“Got to, son. I’ve tried all I know.” - -The boy babbled, “Don’t do it!... Oh, damn it! You’ve been working for -this place for years and--It’s not worth it! Look here, let me go talk -to this damned woman!” - -“No. I’ve got some pride left, son. You shan’t go near her. You go down -to the farm and stay with the folks.” - -Gurdy wanted nothing more. All the pressmen and underlings were puzzled -by Mark’s maintenance of the English comedy on the road. It was not -making money. The theatrical weeklies had warned New York how bad was -“Todgers Intrudes.” Gurdy drove his motor down to Fayettesville on -Saturday, had a fit of shame and hurried back on Sunday. On the face -of the Walling the dead electric bulbs told the news, “Mark Walling -Presents Todgers Intrudes With Cosmo Rand” and Mark’s treasurer came -out of the white doors to expostulate. - -“I don’t get this. Your uncle’s playin’ for a dead loss, Mr. Bernamer. -It’s no damn good.” - -“Where is he?” - -“Went up to New Haven yesterday. ‘Captain Salvador’ played there last -night. Say, what’s the idea? This ‘Todgers’ ain’t done a thing but eat -up money. Every one knows it’s a frost!” The man worried openly. - -There could be no explanation, Gurdy saw. The critics would jeer. -Mark’s friends would chaff him. The boy patted his wheel and asked, -“What night does it open?” - -“Wednesday, like ‘Captain Salvador’ was to. Honest, Mr. Bernamer, this -is hell!” - -Gurdy drove off to a restaurant for dinner and here a critic stopped -him on the sill to ask whether Mark had gone “quite, quite mad?” Monday -was barren anguish, watching Mark’s face. “Captain Salvador” would play -in Hartford and Providence all week. On Tuesday there was a rehearsal -of “Todgers Intrudes” and Gurdy found a black motor initialed C. B. -when he came to the Walling. Workmen were polishing the brass of the -outer doors and the programs for tomorrow night were ready. Everything -was ready for the sick farce. On Wednesday morning Mark ate breakfast -with heroic grins and talked of playing golf in the afternoon. But he -hadn’t slept well. His eyes were flecked with red. Bone showed under -his cheeks. His black had an air of candid mourning. - -“The best joke’d be if the damned thing made a hit,” he said. - -“I think that would be a little too ironical,” Gurdy snapped. - -“This is what you’d call ironical, ain’t it? Well, I’m going down to -the office for a minute. Don’t come. Send for the horses and we’ll go -riding about eleven.” - -He walked to the Walling, was halted a dozen times and found the -antechamber full of people. Some had appointments. He sat talking -for an hour and then started downstairs. But he saw Cosmo Rand on the -white floor of the vestibule, slim in a grey furred coat, reading a -newspaper. The blue walls of the stair seemed to press Mark’s head. -He turned back into the office and sent for his house manager. When -the man came Mark said, “I’m not going to be here tonight, Billy. Tell -anybody that asks I’m sick as a dog and couldn’t come.” - -“All right. Say, sir, would you mind telling me just why--” - -Mark beamed across the desk and lied, “Why, this fellow Dufford that -wrote this is a friend of mine and he’s poor as a churchmouse. I -thought I’d take a chance.” - -The manager shuffled and blurted, “It’s a damn poor chance.” - -“Mighty poor, Billy. Well, the show business is a gamble, anyhow.” - -Rand was gone from the vestibule. Mark walked seething over Broadway -and into Sixth Avenue. He must think of something to do, tonight. He -couldn’t sit at home. The flags on the Hippodrome wagged to him. He -went there and bought two seats. The tickets stayed unmentioned in his -pocket all the deadly afternoon. At six he said shyly to Gurdy, “Think -you want to see this tonight, son?” - -“Might as well, sir.” - -The “sir” pleased Mark. It rang respectfully. He stammered, “I got a -couple of seats for the show at the Hippodrome and--” - -“That’s good,” Gurdy said, “We needn’t dress, then.” - -But Mark sat haunted in the vast theatre, watching the stage. He had -deserted his own, run from disaster. The Walling revenged itself. He -saw the misty ceiling wane as lights lowered and the remote rims of -silver mirrors fade in the corners of the gallery. The glow from the -stage would show the massed shoulders of women in the black boxes. Cora -Boyle would be sitting in the righthand box. She might wear a yellow -gown. He would risk seeing that to be mixed in his dream. It was the -best theatre of the city, of the world. He blinked at the monstrous -evolutions of this chorus, peered at Gurdy and saw the boy sit moodily, -knee over knee, listless from grieving, his arms locked. The time -ticked on Mark’s wrist--The critics would be filing into the white -vestibule where men must admire the dull blue panels of clear enamel, -the simple, grooved ceiling and the hidden lamps. The yellow smoke -room would be full. He wanted to be there in the face of derision. -A dry aching shook Mark. It was like the past time when Gurdy first -went to school or when Margot had gone to England; the Walling was -his child. He had desired it beyond any woman. He adored it out of -his wretchedness. He pressed his shoulder against Gurdy for the sake -of warmth and Gurdy grinned loyally at him. There was no one so kind -as Gurdy who began to tell silly tales when they came home and sat on -Mark’s bed smoking cigarettes. In the morning the boy brought up the -papers and said gruffly, “Not as bad as I thought--” - -“Oh, get out! I bet they’re fierce,” Mark laughed, “Read me some.” - -Gurdy dropped the damp sheets on the quilt, glared at them and dashed -his hand against the foot of the bed. He cried, “I don’t give a d-damn -what they say about the play! They’ve no right to talk about you like -that!” - -Immense warmth flooded Mark. He sat up and said, “Sure they have. For -all they know I thought this thing was fine.... God bless you, son!” He -wanted to do something for Gurdy directly. “Say, for heaven’s sake, -brother, those clothes are too thin for winter. We’ll run down and -order you some. And let’s go down to the farm. I ain’t seen dad and -your mother in a dog’s age.--And hell, this ain’t so bad, Gurdy. The -thing’ll dry up and blow away. We’ll bring ‘Captain Salvador’ in. I’ve -had worse luck on a rabbit hunt.” - -But at Fayettesville where his father asked why Margot hadn’t come -to say good-bye, Mark was still plagued by visionary glimpses of the -Walling, half-filled by yawning folk, the black boxes empty. The flat -country was deep in moist snow. Snow had to be considered. Audiences -laughed nowadays at the best paper flakes. He talked to Gurdy about it -on Saturday morning. - -“Pale blue canvas with the whitest light you can get jammed on it. That -might work.” - -“Mark, if you couldn’t have scenery for a play would you--” - -Mark scoffed, “What’s a play without scenery?--Hey, look at the red -car.... No, it’s a motor-bike.” - -A lad on a red motorcycle whipped in a bright streak up the lane and -through a snow ball battle of Gurdy’s brothers. He had a telegram for -Mark from the house manager of the Walling: “No sale for next week. -Miss Boyle requests play be withdrawn. Instruct.” - -“Got her bellyfull,” Mark said and scribbled a return message ordering -“Todgers Intrudes” withdrawn then another to the manager of “Captain -Salvador” in Providence. He told Gurdy, “Now, she can’t say a thing. -Well, let’s get back to town, son. We’ll have a lot to do, bringing -‘Salvador’ in next Wednesday.” - -His motor carried them swiftly up New Jersey. Gurdy lounged and -chattered beside Mark who couldn’t feel triumphant though he tried. -The drive had been made so often with Margot and now he saw the child -in all clarity, her bright pumps and the silver buckles she so liked -stretched on the warmer close to his feet. Her older beauty flickered -and faded like some intervening mist. Pain stabbed and jarred him. The -snow of the upland gave out. Rain began. When they reached Broadway its -lights were violet and wistful in the swirl above umbrellas. - -“God, what an ugly town,” said Gurdy. - -“Ain’t it? Don’t know what people that like something pretty’d do if it -weren’t for the shows--and the damned movies.” - -They dined in a restaurant and another manager chaffed Mark about -“Todgers Intrudes” leaning drunk on the table. - -“And I hear it goes to the storehouse?” - -“Yes ... but the show business is a gamble, Bill.” - -“Ain’t it? Say, have you seen this hunk of nothin’ I’ve got up to my -place? Have you seen it? God, go up and take a look at it! I get a -bellyache every time I go near it. Turnin’ them away, though. Well, -here today and hell tomorrow.” - -His treasurer came to meet Mark in the glittering vestibule where a -few men smoked forlornly against the blue panels. Mark glanced at the -slip showing the receipts and laughed, commenced talking of “Captain -Salvador.” His force gathered about him. Gurdy strolled away. A petty -laughter rattled out of the doors and Gurdy passed in. The lit stage -showed him a sprinkle of heads on the sweep of the seats. There was no -one in the boxes. Two ushers were rolling dice by the white arch of the -smokeroom. A couple of women left the poor audience and hurried by the -boy dejectedly. He walked out through the vestibule where more men were -collecting around Mark’s height and the swift happiness of his face -as he talked of next week. Gurdy marched along the proud front of the -theatre and turned into the alley that led from street to street. One -bulb shone above the stage door and sent down a glistening coat for the -large black motor standing there. Gurdy kept close to the other wall. -There was a woman smoking in the limousine. The spark made a heart -inside the shadow. Gurdy stared and was eaten by rage against her. He -stood staring. - -The stage door opened. The few performers began to leave. They moved -up or down the alley to join the bright motion of the glowing streets -outside. Their feet stirred the pools of rain on the pavement. Their -voices ebbed and tinkled in the lofty alley. At last a slim man in -a grey coat ran from the door and jumped into the black motor which -moved, now, and slid away, jolted into the southward street. Gurdy was -moving, too, when other lights woke high on the brick wall. An iron -shutter grated, opening, and men appeared in the fissure. They bellowed -down to the old doorkeeper, “Ain’t them guys from Cain’s got here, yet?” - -“They ain’t to come ’til eleven fifteen.” - -“Hell, it’s after!” - -The stage hands cursed merrily. One of them mimicked Rand’s English -accent to much applause. Then the great drays from the storehouse came -grinding along the alley in a steam as the horses snorted. The stage -hands and carters swore at each other. The vast screens were slung and -handed down. The fleet quality of this failure bit Gurdy. He leaned -dreary on the wall and saw Mark standing close to him, face raised to -the lights, an odd small grin twisting his mouth. Mark did not move or -speak. - -He was thinking confusedly of many things. It was hard to think at all. -One of the stage hands whistled a waltz that people liked. The melody -caught at Mark’s mind and drew it away from the moment, forward and -back. He hunted justice. Things went wrong. People weren’t kind. Next -week the new play would glitter and people would applaud. Gurdy might -come to write plays, the best possible plays. He watched the wreck -melt. People would forget this. It would sink into shadow. No one would -understand but they would forget. It was trivial in his long success. -It horribly hurt him. He had been fooled in love. It was laughable. -Things happened so. One must go on and forget about them. One of the -horses neighed and stamped. A blue spark jetted up from the pavement, -above a pool. - -“Here goes nothin’,” a stage hand yelled, letting down the last screen. -The iron shutter closed over the laughter. The carters whined and the -drays were backed down the alley. The rain fell silently between Mark -the red of the wall making it purple--a wonderful colour. The guiding -lights went out. Mark sighed and took Gurdy’s arm. They walked together -toward the gleaming crowd of the street. Yet feeling this warmth beside -him Mark walked without much pain. - - -THE END - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fair Rewards, by Thomas Beer - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FAIR REWARDS *** - -***** This file should be named 60885-0.txt or 60885-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/8/8/60885/ - -Produced by David E. 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