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 Beaupassant had remained considerately silent he noticed Laura 
 was absorbed in observation." Page 275,
 
 MASKS 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 EMIL FRIEND. 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 GEO. W. OGILVIE & CO., Publishers 
 1905
 
 COPYRIGHT 1905 sr GEO. W. OGILVIB.
 
 MAS KB 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THEY MEET. 
 
 "If you were not a teacher what would you like 
 to be?"' 
 
 Ross, the hotel manager was passing. He heard the 
 question, and before the Jewess could answer, inter- 
 jected : ' ' Married. ' ' 
 
 "And then you would pursue me as you do all 
 married women," was the quick retort flung from the 
 nervous mouth at the big fellow whose cynical leer 
 changed to a scowl. When he was out of hearing 
 the dark, wiry woman spoke earnestly: "I should like 
 to be an actress. The theatre is the place for bright 
 women. If I had your figure your presence and my 
 ambition I'd be on the stage. For awhile it is hard 
 work, but the rewards are immense for a clever person. 
 A beautiful woman who can at never so little can com- 
 mand almost any salary. She is somebody, too. She 
 isn't buried like the rest of us among the common 
 heap." 
 
 Her running thoughts uncovered a poignant wish 
 that, plainly, had not been deeply buried, and the desire 
 impossible of attainment was shown by a drawn face 
 which changed to positive ugliness as she made the 
 transition to her own employment: 
 
 "Oh, how I hate teaching! It has taught me to 
 loathe children. I sometimes fear the thing will drive 
 me mad. If it were not for the two months' vacation 
 which I spend abroad I think I'd be driven to suicide. 
 
 2135591
 
 8 THEY MEET. 
 
 But what am I to do? My folks are poor and I can't 
 do anything at the theatre my appearance is against 
 me." 
 
 Laura professed not to agree with the severe self- 
 criticism. She urged (that Miss Rosenau had a strong 
 face and that a petite form 
 
 The Jewess interrupted savagely: "I tried several 
 times, but they wouldn't have me. I took instructions 
 from Clarence Protony at the Conservatory for six 
 months. I went every afternoon after school hours. 
 He assured me that I was full of talent and would 
 make a big hit ; but after Carl Gars who is the whole 
 thing in the theatrical world told me that I was noth- 
 ing but a bundle of bones I stopped trying. And that 
 was my reward after four weeks of persistent trying 
 to see him nothing but 'a bundle of bones'." 
 
 She stopped and there was an embarrassing pause 
 for Laura, who feared it were useless even by way of 
 courtesy to contradict the judgment of the influential 
 manager. Miss Rosenau surveyed Laura with an envi- 
 ous look: "If I had your face and figure I could get 
 an engagement in a minute. But that 's just it ; people 
 who have all the qualifications will have nothing to do 
 with the stage." 
 
 With a carelessness which was not a reflex of her 
 deep interest Laura asked : 
 
 "Who did you say was your instructor?" 
 
 "Clarence Protony. He's at the Illinois Conserva- 
 tory. It's really a musical college founded by Max 
 Blumenthal; but Protony has built up the dramatic 
 department to some importance. His class gives a per- 
 formance in the afternoon, once a month at one of the 
 theatres. The newspapers write it up. Phelon of 
 The Forum and Burrows of The Interior gave me splen- 
 did notices. I'll show them to you some day. I've 
 preserved every one of them." 
 
 This talk implanted an intention in Laura, but of 
 which she gave no hint to Rebecca Rosenau at the time. 
 She would go about the matter quietly without consult- 
 ing anybody in the hotel, an independent resolve that 
 was sustained within an hour by the receipt of a check
 
 THEY MEET. 9 
 
 from Ralph Darnby together with a penciled line 
 reading: "I'm broke, but I borrowed this to help you 
 along. May not be able to do anything for you again." 
 There was a considerable surplus after she had paid the 
 hotel bill. Her gratification in paying the debt was 
 increased by Ross being present. He seemed displeased 
 rather than pleased when she asked the amount against 
 her. The genuine convenience of having money im- 
 pressed itself forcibly upon her at that moment and she 
 was determined to have money, without which, she per- 
 ceived, dignity and independence were impossible. 
 
 Next day, with no thought of fame, no artistic im- 
 pulse, Laura stood before a double-door entrance, high, 
 broad, with letters imposingly large, announcing: 
 "Illinois Conservatory." She entered and found her- 
 self in a reception room in the midst of which was a 
 small, round transparent compartment labeled "Cash- 
 ier," enclosing a pretty girl of Irish beauty, with a 
 large ledger on one side of her and a huge cash box 
 on the other, both conspicuously employed. Chairs in 
 every variety were scattered about with a carefully 
 studied carelessness. In the center, a long, narrow 
 table littered with periodicals devoted to music and 
 the drama. 
 
 "Mr. Protony, " said Laura simply. 
 
 The pretty Irish girl touched a button. She did it 
 mechanically, as one who poses an empty question 
 without expecting an answer. After a time that 
 seemed to be fixed in her mind she descended from 
 the stool and in a routine way went to one of the numer- 
 ous doors. 
 
 ' ' As soon as you are at leisure, Mr. Protony. ' ' Her 
 voice sounded like a mechanical doll. 
 
 Laura understood that the girl was her own mana- 
 ger and that she had touched the unconnected buttons 
 to impress visitors and prospective pupils. 
 
 Apparently Mr. Protony was very busy. He did not 
 show himself for some time and when he appeared 
 Laura was disappointed. She had pictured to herself 
 a tall, distinguished gentleman of commanding mien, 
 and saw a small man of slight stature, but straight and
 
 10 THEY MEET. 
 
 well-knit; the head of intelligent form, admirably 
 poised, which was, however, qualified by an anxious 
 face with deep furrows on either side of the mouth; 
 the eyes were protean green, restive; the complexion 
 like the hair, dull ecru. He advanced toward Laura 
 and bowed gracefully. "I'm Clarence Protony." 
 Though the accent was neat, the enunciation pellucid 
 and the register low, the tone was thin and, like his 
 hair and complexion, dull ecru. 
 
 Laura was direct. "I want to qualify myself for 
 the stage, Mr. Protony." 
 
 He again took her in. Her directness was unusual 
 in his experience and the use of the verb "qualify" 
 arrested him. Her beauty was a subordinate consid- 
 eration his eyes long had been satiated with that 
 satiating quality. 
 
 "May I ask you to step in here, Miss- 
 He stopped and Laura finished: "Mrs. Dranby." 
 She emphasized "Mistress" which, to be sure, was 
 pronounced "Misses." 
 
 They entered a narrow, exiguous room which two 
 chairs and an escritoire almost filled. The walls were 
 dotted with magazine and newspaper cuts of actors 
 and playwrights. The escritoire was near a window 
 and the visitor's chair faced the light a daylight glare 
 that defined Laura's face pronouncedly to Protony, 
 who scrutinized her closely before he asked : ' ' Have 
 you decided what line you wish to take up comedy 
 or tragedy?" 
 
 "No, sir; I have no choice." 
 
 "Mrs. Darnby, it is necessary for your advantage 
 to be confiding, and I hope you will accept my ques- 
 tions in the spirit in which they are asked it will 
 expedite matters and it will enable me to outline your 
 course readily." He said it abstractedly as one who re- 
 peats a formula. With more interest he continued : 
 "What has prompted you to the stage? Is it a love of 
 the art? Or do you wish to distinguish yourself in 
 some way? Are you sure it isn't vanity which brings 
 you here? Are you leading a humdrum life that you 
 can no longer endure,"
 
 THEY MEET. 11 
 
 His tone was now soft, caressing, ingratiating even, 
 and for the first time he met her eye frankly. 
 
 "It is neither inspiration nor vanity that brings me 
 here; it is a wish to be independent, to earn a liveli- 
 hood." 
 
 Protony divined, but he asked : ' ' Then you are not 
 a widow, Mrs. Darnby?" 
 
 She briefly answered "No." 
 
 He turned to his desk with: "Excuse me," and 
 was busy for a moment or two making notations. Then 
 he got her name in full and her residence, concluding: 
 ' ' Have you read or seen many plays ? ' ' 
 
 "Very few." 
 
 "How fortunate! You will have nothing to un- 
 learn. ' ' His smile was veiled. 
 
 "It is evident," he added a moment later, "that 
 you have a good education." 
 
 "Well, I have a knowledge of varicus things with- 
 out being learned." 
 
 "An education is not an insurmountable disadvant- 
 age in dramatic art. ' ' A shadow of a smile again flitted 
 across his deadly earnest countenance. He rose, a sign 
 that the necessary preliminaries had ended. In open- 
 ing the door he added in an after-thought way: "Our 
 terms are twenty-five dollars for thirty lessons, taken 
 in class. Private lessons are one dollar each. Which 
 would you prefer, Mrs. Darnby?" 
 
 Fearing that the choice of a term would exact an 
 immediate payment in full, she ohose private instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 He stopped (he expected, surely, she would elect 
 for class study), hesitated, swept her with his multi- 
 green eyes; then, as if he had decided something of 
 importance, stepped back to the desk and returned with 
 a small, thin, paper-covered book. 
 
 "Take this, Mrs. Darnby. It is a one-act play. 
 Read it carefully, and pay particular attention to the 
 part of Mrs. Ralston. Come next Saturday." 
 
 The piece had for title "Household Spirits," writ- 
 ten bv Robert Ringold. There were four characters: 
 A husoand and a wife, an intriguer and an old servant.
 
 12 THEY MEET. 
 
 The scene there was but one a dining hall prepared 
 for an elaborate banquet. The wife in a sumptuous 
 reception gown is waiting the arrival of guests. The 
 husband, morose, is seated. She warns him not to 
 smoke, not to disarrange the napkins and unwittingly 
 nags him to severe protestations. Although married 
 four months, he complains, they have not yet enjoyed 
 an evening in seclusion. "Company! Company! 
 Always company!" in their home or others' homes. 
 A tilt ensues. He goes to the smoking room and while 
 there the intriguer appears. The latter has been away 
 he is still in traveling costume and before going 
 to his home must pay his respects to the lady he adores 
 as he protests. Hearing that an invitation is awaiting 
 him he hurries to his chamber to throw himself into 
 the regulation evening dress. Gone, the husband reap- 
 pears. The talk turns on the intriguer, whose life, 
 the wife learns, was once saved by her husband. This 
 disclosure of the intriguer's character dismays her 
 and dismay is followed by contrition. The while not 
 a carriage has drawn up to the canopy. It is now late ; 
 there must be something amiss. The butler is called 
 and the invitations are found in his pocket; he forgot 
 to post them. The couple are delighted. They will 
 dine and dance alone. The orchestra is told off to the 
 platform, the porter is instructed not to admit the 
 intriguer, and to the seductive tones of a Waldteufel 
 waltz the curtain is leisurely lowered with wife and 
 husband whirling at the entrance of the ball room. 
 
 Laura, at the end of the reading, was quite certain 
 she had a complete picture of Mrs. Ralston, the wife. 
 She memorized the lines with facility; her studies at 
 the seminary had disciplined a naturally receptive 
 mind had schooled a retentive memory. She strove 
 to become an intimate of the high-bred society woman. 
 In fancy, she saw her nervous yet graceful carriage, 
 heard her cultivated voice which, in moments of tem- 
 per, rose to a rather strident key. But she perceived, 
 the next Saturday, how difficult it was to suit action 
 to her conception. It became patent to her that act- 
 ing, like language, has a grammar which must be mas-
 
 THEY MEET. 13 
 
 tered by those who would be proficient. Protony, 
 with his hard, immobile face, illustrated every tone, 
 every movement of Mrs. Ralston unerringly. With in- 
 finite delicacy he showed Laura how stilted, how awk- 
 ward her gestures really were. Her popular pronun- 
 ciation of such words as supple, novel, interested, cir- 
 cumstances, incomparable he corrected as if involun- 
 tarily, with fine tact, as though it were infinitesimally 
 casual to the general instructions; and her quick ear 
 caught the refined distinctions. In the first lesson 
 Laura learned how much there was to be learned; in 
 the third, how to learn ; in the fifth, how to practice the 
 knowledge acquired. 
 
 And Protony 's interest in her seemingly enhanced 
 with succeeding lessons, which he prolonged beyond the 
 customary time. Again and again but always tenta- 
 tively and with finesse he touched on personal mat- 
 ters. His discreet interrogations drew Laura, imper- 
 ceptibly to herself. He soon had her brief and unhappy 
 history. But in taking from her he gave something of 
 himself. Primarily imparting shreds of personalities 
 to gain them from her, he assumed the implied atti- 
 tude of encouraging Laura to gratify her curiosity 
 about himself. Thus she found he had quarreled with 
 Archer Doyle, the autocratic manager of a highly 
 exclusive stock company in New York; had become 
 dissatisfied with and finally discouraged by the insig- 
 nificant parts allotted to him. Although he could not 
 conceive of a life other than that of the theatre, his 
 ambition rose above the minutiae of the actor. He 
 would be a maker of plays if that would further him 
 to his supreme goal, manager of a theatre. To be an 
 Aroher Doyle, to own a theatre, to produce plays, to 
 have a superb company these things absolutely com- 
 pleted his horizon. With a woman's imagination 
 quickly ignited and which takes no account of difficul- 
 tiesshe asked why, then, did he not do as he wished? 
 He confessed, confidentially, that he had formulated 
 plans to that end. "My monthly matinees are attract- 
 ing attention. The critics are all with me. I have 
 indicated with my pupils what I may do with a stock
 
 14 THEY MEET. 
 
 company. I have selected the site for my future 
 theatre. I have made a list of the actors and actresses 
 I shall engage; they are nearly all young people 
 whom I can mold to my ideas. I even have in mind 
 the first play I shall produce. All is ready but the 
 capital, and that I shall get when I'm ready to take 
 subscriptions. But I must work cautiously and 
 quietly. Koening, the head of this institution, also 
 has ambitions. He's watching me; he's envious of 
 me." 
 
 She soon knew all the details of his life. To him it 
 seemed natural to make a confidante of her, though 
 she had shown no particular sympathy for his aims. 
 He interested her because of his knowledge of the pro- 
 fession she was studying and she accepted his friend- 
 ship and confidences in a neutral mood. He might be 
 of value to her in getting an engagement with a good 
 company. She admitted, to herself, that her view was 
 selfish. Not that there was anything antipathetic 
 about him ; indeed, the delicacy, the subtlety of his mind 
 were admirable. Laura admired his refined thoughts 
 and manners, appreciated his genuine appreciation of 
 things aesthetic; but the vitally sympathetic element 
 which instantly attracts some women to men Protony 
 did not possess for Laura. Perhaps his narrow sub- 
 jectivity, his eager, paramount ambition cancelled the 
 gracious effects of his artistic temperament, which, 
 too, seemed more effeminate than virile. 
 
 It was not long before she saw him clearly, much 
 better than he saw her marital experience, especially 
 of an adverse nature, is a quickening school for some 
 women and her thorough ease in his presence pro- 
 ceeded capitally from the womanly perception that 
 she had become something more to him than his other 
 attractive pupils; so when, one day, he invited her to 
 attend a Joseph Jefferson performance she was entirely 
 prepared for the invitation and accepted it. He was, 
 of course, a most interesting and instructive escort. 
 His criticism of the work of Jefferson's associates 
 was lucid and convincing ; his enthusiasm over the aged
 
 THEY MEET. 15 
 
 comedian who appeared in old school comedy was 
 infections. Laura was certain Protony was born for 
 flie theatre ; but she did not know then to what division 
 of the art the art as it was understood years ago 
 his talents were applicable. Later and not much 
 later she comprehended that he had a grace beyond 
 the coarser understanding of the theatre of the day; 
 that h was too intellectual to succeed as an actor; 
 that he was too fine, too analytical, too imaginative, 
 and, above all, too diffident to please the theatre-goer 
 \vith a play; that to manage a play-house successfully 
 *he lacked mob instinct, lacked stern determination, 
 coarse commercial traits. 
 
 Protony emerged from the stuffy hcraae, surcharged 
 with ideas generated by the performance. To the sta- 
 tion and in the train it was a rich flow of justly phrased 
 comments. The minutest detail had not escaped him 
 he was shocked at a stage management which had 
 not instructed a footman to take a cane from a fashion- 
 able character. Not until they oame to the hotel door 
 did his critical observations cease. 
 
 Nearing the door She was surprised to see, by the 
 glow on the transom, that there was a light in her room. 
 Without inserting the key in the lock she turned the 
 knob and found Darnby jauntily seated in a rocking 
 chair, a newspaper in hand and a cigar in mouth. He 
 lowered the journal flippantly, and after an insolent 
 puff, greeted her with "It's a wonder he wouldn't 
 carry a comb with him ; your hair looks as though you 
 parted in a hurry." 
 
 She was taken back at sight of him having thought 
 he had done with her but her surprise quickly made 
 way for indignation which at once rose to hot anger, 
 and in her heated temper a comparison flashed between 
 the man who had just left her and the fellow who had 
 just insulted her, and it inspired her to a diabolical 
 retort: . . 
 
 "Well, what of it? You are low enough not to mind, 
 you know." 
 
 He looked at her amazed, astonished, at her spirit, 
 the full purport of the insult dawning upon him slowly.
 
 16 THEY MEET. 
 
 For several minutes nothing was said. Laura leisurely 
 removed her hat and wrap and Darnby looked at the 
 floor. The impatience and irritation provoked by his 
 long wait for her turned to an animosity, the more 
 dangerous because of its silence. 
 
 "With whom were you? ' The question was put 
 sullenly, mandatorily. She had mistaken his mood 
 and supposed her reply had subdued him. The tone 
 of his question had incited her further. 
 
 ' ' None of your business. ' ' 
 
 "It isn't, eh?" He got up. His face had changed 
 from an expression of sullen indifference to brutal 
 viciousness. Instinctively she made for the door and 
 received a blow at the side of her neck. A scream 
 from her arrested the second lunge which he was about 
 to make. The cry shamed him to the thought of ex- 
 posure, although he was heedless of her, who had leaped 
 into the corridor, and, more dazed by the cowardice and 
 brutality of the deed than by the effect of it, was fairly 
 stumbling down the stairs toward the office too lost to 
 self-possession to think of the lift. Touseled, confused, 
 breathless, trembling, she stood before the night clerk, 
 who anxiously asked: "What is the matter, Mrs. Darn- 
 by? Are you ill?" 
 
 "No no I I'm frightened. My hus Mr. Darnby 
 is intoxicated." She had enough presence of mind 
 to correct herself in calling Darnby husband and to 
 conceal the reason of her panic-stricken state. The 
 clerk, experienced in all the accidents and incidents 
 of hotel life, was prompt with the suggestion: "I can 
 give you a room on the parlor floor. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, yes; thank you."
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 THE ALLIANCE. 
 
 Sleep for a time was out of question. She tossed 
 from side to side, her body feverish, her head a caldron 
 of seething, disjointed thoughts. Gradually her nerves 
 were stilled. Then she wept. 
 
 Her tears exhausted, reflection was possible reflec- 
 tion of a reminiscent character. She thought of home ; 
 of the box-formed house near the seminary in the Mis- 
 souri town; of the angular, brown-faced, set-mouthed 
 mother ; of the large, heavy father from whose counte- 
 nance adversity had not entirely evicted manly beauty, 
 though it had stooped the shoulders pronouncedly 
 and had shrouded his personality with an air of sad 
 defeat; the father who had insulted Ralph Darn by 
 when that covert gamester had presented himself 
 as a prospective son-in-law. She thought of the tacit 
 consent of her mother, who had been won by Darnby 's 
 engaging manner, impressed by a name synonymous 
 with wealth and social distinction, and who did not 
 understand that while all men seared by immorality 
 may lead or follow their kind in day-to-day life, the 
 more part of such men will hesitate to welcome their 
 kind as kin what though Darnby had befriended the 
 ex-merchant (ruined through speculation) by indicat- 
 ing the lucky stable and by loans. She, Laura, a sem- 
 inary girl, knew nothing of Darnby 's character at the 
 time. She had been fascinated by the handsomely 
 molded, black-haired, dark-eyed fellow; had been in- 
 duced to elope with him who was determined upon hav- 
 ing her as much perhaps more by the father's deadly 
 opposition as by the round bosom, the sinuous waist, 
 
 (17)
 
 18 THE ALLIANCE. 
 
 the graceful hips, the warm mouth with its rich red 
 lips and the brown, joyous eyes of the daughter. 
 
 Laura's first intimation of his character the first 
 of a series of lost illusions were the days immediately 
 subsequent to the hurriedly performed wedding cere- 
 mony in Milwaukee. Darnby had no conception of 
 the subtle modesty, the infinite delicacy of a virgin 
 soul, and in wanting the mere suggestion of that under- 
 standing which proceeds from the heart even more 
 than from refinement he caused the young creature 
 to suffer an unnamable disillusion. 
 
 From Milwaukee he took her to the Lake Side 
 Hotel, Chicago, where he cynically acknowledged that 
 he had been disowned by the Darnbys. Though she 
 came to perceive his thoroughly vitiated character, she 
 had not been wholly unhappy. To her the country- 
 girl the environments were interesting. The hotel 
 was situated quite at the extreme south end of the 
 city; a pseudo-fashionable pension, on a huge plan, 
 for well-paid employees and prosperous tradesmen. 
 No transients registered there save when yellow fever 
 became dangerously contagious in the Southern states. 
 Then the Southerners would besiege the manager for 
 south front rooms, on the second floor. These sociable 
 and loquacious people would remain until the frost had 
 extirpated the disease which had impelled them to 
 flee northward. Otherwise, the Lake Side was given 
 over wholly to "resident guests," as the chief clerk 
 euphemistically phrased it. The colossal barrack-like 
 domicile was far from the route of bagmen and travel- 
 ers generally. Excluding the suburban service, no 
 trains halted near there, though the location was admir- 
 able ; acres of undulating green, studded by oak trees,' 
 the spare remains of a forest; and, in face, a wide, 
 gravelled promenade leading to the fresh water ocean, 
 Lake Michigan. 
 
 The prosperous merchant and his family were 
 domiciled in suites of five and seven rooms. Childless 
 couples of short or long terms of matrimony were con- 
 tented or discontented in two or three chambers, ac- 
 cording to the means or pecuniary disposition of the
 
 THE ALLIANCE. 19 
 
 husband. Womenless men bachelors, widowers (grass 
 or genuine) were happy or miserable in one bandbox, 
 except the handsome, middle-aged, engaging and im- 
 provident profligate Doctor Goodsell, the "house phy- 
 sician," who managed somehow to retain three finely 
 appointed rooms throughout an incessant confusion 
 of his finances. Menless women female bachelors, 
 divorcees, authentic and spurious widows were mostly 
 told off each in one room. Here and there two shared 
 an apartment, when the partnership was based on mu- 
 tual despair of hopeless spinsterhood, or on the horror 
 of nocturnal loneliness which many women feel, or 
 there were two examples on the ground of economy. 
 
 The compartments including the inner circle of 
 rooms were airy and sanitary, for the huge boarding- 
 house was free on all sides from neighborly obstruc- 
 tions. At times the clatter and chatter the noisy 
 gaiety within and the absolute silence without sug- 
 gested the idea of being on board ship. The proximity 
 of the lake heightened the illusion. 
 
 Laura made friends with mothers and daughters 
 readily; they recognized in her the sincere amiability 
 which is inseparable from innate goodness. Men ad- 
 mired her instantly and for various reasons. Women 
 wordly women either treated her with an exag- 
 gerated politeness far more wounding than a direct 
 affront that implied envy of her beauty and disdain 
 of her simplicity; or they were effusively affectionate 
 Which also implied envy of her beauty and disdain 
 of her simplicity. A few acknowledged her presence 
 with preoccupied indifference indicating more than 
 the others that there is something permanently hostile 
 in the female nature to fresh loveliness at its first 
 appearance. 
 
 The Darnbys had two rooms fronting the lake on 
 the third floor. On the one side were Mr. and Mrs. 
 Whitehead. Mr. Whitehead was a professor of mathe- 
 matics at the Chicago University ; a mild, slender, unim- 
 pressive man, a strange contrast to his large, dark 
 and sanguineous wife, who herself was a physical con- 
 tradiction in having a perfectly shaped head, from
 
 20 THE ALLIANCE. 
 
 which issued a soft, refined voice, with features of 
 classic regularity, connecting a form gross in bulk 
 and proportion. On the other side were Miss Carr and 
 Miss Rosenau, preceptresses. 
 
 In the evening, when Darnby was in the card room, 
 Laura spent some time in the company of the school 
 teachers, who were well educated, traveled and world- 
 ly; at ease in men's society, fond of the theatre and 
 liberal amusements, yet, withal, sternly circumspect 
 in morals and manners. Men young and old sought 
 the privilege of making one of a circle that assembled 
 in these women's quarters, where there was a mutual 
 diversion of a kind not too vulgar. For Laura, associa- 
 tion with the couple had been in a sense educational. 
 She got a broader, a more accurate view of the aver- 
 age city man and woman, though the knowledge had 
 not exactly heightened her esteem for men. She had 
 at once admired and feared Mrs. Whitehead, who was 
 better than a mediocre musician, was an enjoyable con- 
 versationalist, and who, when it pleased her, could be 
 almost refined. It was the Jewess, with penetrating 
 eye, who, by degrees, had instilled Laura with rational 
 sophistication, who had suggested Darnby 's calling, 
 who had offered a premonition of Darnby 's infidelity 
 with Mrs. Whitehead the subtle poison of infidelity 
 which had destroyed her affection for him in a day 
 who had prepared her for his neglect and future 
 brutality, had rendered his long absences a relief that, 
 notwithstanding in these absences Ross' attention to 
 her had been embarassingly importunate, had, above 
 all, encouraged the determination to gain an independ- 
 ent livelihood. 
 
 She thought of all these things, and when her mind 
 came down to the blow of that evening she resolved 
 to be free at any sacrifice. Her intentions fully out- 
 lined and decided, she slept well into the morning. 
 
 She ordered breakfast to be served in her room, 
 but cancelled the order when the bell boy brought a 
 note from the night clerk. "He came down about an 
 hour later last night and was told you had gone out
 
 THE ALLIANCE. 21 
 
 the side door. He took the seven o'clock train for the 
 city," it read. 
 
 She met Mrs. Whitehead at the dining-room door. 
 The woman remarked with unctuous malice: "Your 
 husband was looking for you from eight o'clock until 
 midnight. Were you at the theatre?" 
 
 "Hereafter Darnby will look for you and such as 
 you. And if you address another word to me I'll ex- 
 pose you to Mr. Whitehead," she retorted. 
 
 Half an hour later Laura had flung her effects into 
 a trunk and was instructing the expressman to "Take 
 it to your main office and leave it there subject to 
 further orders." 
 
 Ross' inquisitiveness was appeased with "I'm go- 
 ing home for awhile. Mr. Darnby will stay here." 
 She was in a highly nervous but resolute tension 
 an urging force in the rapid consummation of her 
 plan. Protony was more surprised at her early ap- 
 pearance than by her set countenance. 
 
 "Why, this is quite unusual 
 
 "Yes, and I have something unsual to propose. 
 My husband returned last night. I cannot I will not 
 live with him. I'll do anything anything but go 
 back there. Give me something to do."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A DEBUT AND A EEVELATION. 
 
 Laura's advent developed a design which Protony 
 had had in mind for a long time a purpose that his 
 procrastinating nature had deferred whenever a posi- 
 tive step was to be taken. It had been his wish to be 
 independent of the Illinois Conservatory. He imagined 
 that the director was jealous of him, was trying to 
 circumvent him, because Koening contended the pupils 
 should appear on the Conservatory's stage when pub- 
 lic performances were given and not at the theatres. 
 So when Laura asked for employment he decided to 
 put his oft-postponed plan into execution. As a pre- 
 liminary, he sent her with a letter of introduction to 
 the agent of the Beaurivage, a huge, pretentious apart- 
 ment dwelling on the boulevard, where one lived en 
 garden en fille or en famille. He lodged there and Laura 
 selected a lake front room on the floor below that of 
 Protony. The next day he rented a small suite in the 
 High Arts Building. His arrangements completed, 
 he sent Koening a curt note of resignation renounc- 
 ing his position without a moment's warning. Then 
 he appointed Laura secretary of the Protony School 
 of Acting. 
 
 A swarm of circulars and some attractive adver- 
 tising in the newspapers supplemented by compli- 
 mentary paragraphs among the dramatic notes made 
 several defections from the Illinois Conservatory and 
 brought a few recruits from the outside a typewriter 
 (a spurious blonde of uncertain age), a grocer's clerk, 
 a grammar school graduate and a superb creature with 
 red hair and yellow eyes. The latter Protony dismissed 
 within a week.
 
 A DEBUT AND A EEVELATION. 23 
 
 "I've discovered that she's a pugilist's mistress," 
 he explained. "I don't mind that part of it, of course. 
 But she might come here some day with a bruised cheek 
 or a swollen eye, and so scandalize the place." 
 
 But the classes at the opening were numerous 
 enough to give Protony a fair income after defraying 
 the limited items of expenditure, of which the largest 
 was the rent and the smallest Laura's salary. The 
 change in position was advantageous to Laura's tuition. 
 Protony gave her private instructions every day, fol- 
 lowing the regular hours. 
 
 The rehearsal of "Household Spirits" were con- 
 tinuedthe pupils taking part in the comedietta had 
 come over from the older institution. The performance 
 was announced for a Monday afternoon, a fortnight 
 after the Protony School of Acting had been in being. 
 The while, Laura and Protony dined together every 
 day at a French restaurant where the cooking was 
 thorough and the fixed price as modest as the menu. 
 
 The intimacy enhanced his affection for her, but 
 respect was not superseded by familiarity, as often hap- 
 pens in such relations with young people lacking innate 
 refinement. He was ever the gentleman one who ap- 
 preciated that the woman whom he loved appreciated 
 him for his gentle and cultured qualities. Both recog- 
 nized that marriage was impossible but the recogni- 
 tion proceeded from different premises. To her, of 
 course, Darnby was the sole obstacle. To him Darnby 
 was not so much in mind as his plans and ambitions 
 things that made him necessarily selfish. Addition- 
 ally, he had always been extremely doubtful of matri- 
 mony as an efficacy of permanent happiness; rather, 
 he held, with the major part of his profession, that 
 marriage was a guarantee of speedy infelicity and the 
 many and varied experiences of the people of the thea- 
 tre largely contributed to this conclusion. Further, 
 he with the more part of his class, believed that their 
 so-called liberalism (really nothing more than a badly 
 digested idea of Bohemianism, a superficial misinter- 
 pretation of Schopenhauerian philosophy) was incom- 
 patible with the old-fashioned institution of marriage.
 
 24 A DEBUT AND A REVELATION. 
 
 True, they had nothing to offer as a substitute, but 
 that did not matter to them. They simply trampled 
 on the old scheme that made for homes and families, 
 and allowed society to take care of itself as best it 
 could. 
 
 Laura, however, thought only of the barrier caused 
 by Darnby, but said nothing, hoping for a suggestion, 
 an initiative from Protony, who seemed completely 
 content socially. Aside from that, his thoughts were 
 with his work, with which he made Laura thoroughly 
 familiar. One day he told her he believed Koening 
 and McDougal, the critic for The Daily Spirit, were 
 leagued against him. Koening had offered McDougal 
 an interest in the theatre which the German proposed 
 to build, and the bait caught. The suspicion was con- 
 firmed by McDougal 's criticism of the performance 
 of the "Household Spirits" and "The Dawn." The 
 review of the latter composition, Protony admitted, 
 was in a degree basic, for in putting the piece in scene 
 there had only been a fortnight's preparation of five 
 new scholars. But the harsh lines written of "House- 
 hold Spirits" were voted an outrage by everybody 
 around the conservatory, a judgment in a way sus- 
 tained when the rescensions of the other critics were 
 drawn in comparison. The Interior, in long, involved 
 sentences, praised the developing talents of the students 
 in a paternal mode and suggested emendations in the 
 dialogue of "Household Spirits." In conclusion there 
 was a commendatory line for Laura. The Forum's 
 brief critique began with Laura Darnby (Protony 
 thought "Darnby" looked better on the programme 
 than her maiden name, "Ruhland," so the name was 
 retained.) It lauded her in a wealth of glowing adject- 
 ives. "The empyreal youth," "the sumptuous 
 beauty," "the cheerful self-possession of the highly- 
 promising amateur." A kind word was written of 
 Bingold's play and the pupils were told they had the 
 "adorable freshness of adolescence," "the fragrance 
 and florescence of enviable youth." The Daily Spirit 
 dismissed the "crude affair" in a disdainful paragraph. 
 
 Laura felt grateful to The Forum. She wished to
 
 A DEBUT AND A REVELATION. 25 
 
 meet the critic, Mr. Phelon. She thought that his 
 "cheerful self-possession" described her state of mind 
 precisely, for after the initial plunge after the first 
 minutes she was quite free from embarassment, pre- 
 senting a comforting contrast to her associates, who, 
 consumed with a yearning to distinguish themselves, 
 were conscious, and, in consequence, stilted ; quite free, 
 because she had begun taking the business of acting 
 as a means to an end, as a profession in which one 
 became proficient as in other professions by study, 
 diligence, practice. When the curtain had fallen on 
 "Household Spirits" Protony had said: "Admirable, 
 my dear, admirable. I wish you would finish in the 
 dressing room as soon as possible and go to the front. 
 I should like to have you tell me how 'The Dawn' 
 looks to you and how the audience takes it. I've an 
 engagement following the performance so I'll not be 
 able to see you until breakfast." 
 
 Not until the men in the boxes, who Laura knew 
 were journalists, had singled her from the audience 
 with pleased glances, was she aware that her presence 
 was distinguished. Equally gratifying were the con- 
 gratulations of Miss Rosenau and Miss Carr, who at 
 the fall of the final curtain, met her in the foyer. 
 
 "I was never so surprised in my life as when I saw 
 your name in the announcement which The Forum 
 published yesterday," ejaculated the Jewess. "I had 
 no idea you were inclined to the stage. You did won- 
 derfully well. You went through your part with the 
 ease of an experienced actress." 
 
 Miss Carr made a transition with "Are you keeping 
 house? Where do you live?" 
 
 Laura was puzzled. "Keeping house? Why, no. 
 Isn't Darnby Mr. Darnby at the hotel?" 
 
 They, in turn were puzzled. No, Mr. Darnby had 
 not been seen there for weeks. The guests supposed 
 the Darnbys had set up housekeeping or had gone to 
 another hotel. 
 
 With keen curiosity but with no feeling in the mat- 
 terLaura speculated on Darnby 's whereabouts. She
 
 26 A DEBUT AND A KEVELATION. 
 
 spoke of him to Protony the next morning, who she 
 noticed, was pale and concerned. 
 
 "He is also on my mind," Protony answered. "The 
 engagement which I had yesterday was with Darnby. 
 I thought it best not to tell you anything until I had 
 heard what he had to say. I met him at the Palmer 
 House and the first question he asked me was whether 
 I thought you had talent. Not suspecting his motive, 
 I said you were gifted and that you had a brilliant 
 future. He then wanted to know if you were behind 
 in the payment of your tuition. I told him that you 
 were employed by me and that you paid for your les- 
 sons from the salary you received. He said that it 
 was not necessary for you to be employed, that he 
 would meet all your obligations." 
 
 Laura did not understand. She asked: 
 
 "Why, what does he mean?" 
 
 In a tone that was unwontedly low and with lips 
 that betrayed tremulousness Protony replied : 
 
 "I'm afraid he will want to participate in the re- 
 sults of your probable success on the stage. And he 
 he may want you to live with him." His look was 
 stressed with supplicative anxiety. 
 
 Her swift answer acted like a powerful tonic : 
 
 "Never! No, never! I shall not live with him an 
 instant. The very thought of going back to him sickens 
 me." 
 
 "There's a way of of of avoiding him forever." 
 
 She caught the suggestion. 
 
 "You mean a " 
 
 "A div a separation." He modified the idea mid- 
 way in speech. His delicacy prompted the substitu- 
 tion of a word less harsh to her sensibility than the 
 one that first came to his lips. 
 
 In a vague way objective rather than subject- 
 ive it had come to her before. Yet now that a decision 
 was fronted she was riven by its importance. Protony, 
 keenly appreciative of her hesitative perturbation, 
 approached the initial phases of the question tact- 
 fully, gently. Well into the matter, he became more 
 pronounced, an accentuation actuated by the vital in-
 
 A DEBUT AND A EEVELATION. 27 
 
 terest he had in the subject. Exhausting the moral 
 aspect of his counsel (he had quoted Tolstoi's dictum, 
 which holds that once love ceases, further relations 
 between man and wife are immoral) he expatiated on 
 the material phase of it. He insisted that of all the 
 impedimenta to a successful stage career, for a young 
 woman to have a coarse, debauched husband was the 
 most fatal. 
 
 "But the scandal of of a divorce, Clarence!" 
 There need be no scandal, he assured. A decree 
 could be quietly obtained. Here in the city divorces 
 were granted every day without provoking a line of 
 publicity. He would make a certainty doubly sure 
 by seeing his friends, the editors of the daily papers, 
 who surely would favor him by ignoring the case. She 
 consented to institute proceedings, and he made a tour 
 of newspaper offices the next day. With the single and 
 signal exception of The Diary, the managing editor 
 promised to pass the case. Godfrey Rowland of The 
 Diary an evasive personality, with a countenance of 
 complete lubricity and vulpine duplicity said he 
 would be "governed by circumstances." Protony ex- 
 pected some difficulty here, for Rowland's prosperity 
 was contingent upon the exploitation or the suppres- 
 sion of social irregularities and infelicities. Ethically 
 and politically The Diary's standing and power was that 
 of a blackmailer. But Protony said nothing to Laura 
 about the possibility of an attack in what he consid- 
 ered an ineligible quarter, trusting to her ignorance 
 of the vicious sheet. He was sure nothing of a notori- 
 ous nature would follow out of her petition to the 
 judge, a kindly jurist, with white immense hair and a 
 patriarchal beard, who might well have been an elder 
 brother of her attorney, so alike were they in appear- 
 ance. 
 
 Darnby had been served with a notice from the court, 
 which was supplemented by a note from Laura's coun- 
 sel, who warned Darnby that if he opposed a separa- 
 tion he would be put in Professor Whitehead's danger; 
 the ground for divorce would be changed to adultery, 
 and Mrs. "Whitehead named as co-respondent.
 
 28 A DEBUT AND A EEVELATION. 
 
 The reason given was cruelty. The night clerk of 
 the Lake Side Hotel was the only witness. He testi- 
 fied Mrs. Darnby had come to him past midnight in 
 great confusion and obvious agitation and that he had 
 noted her bruised neck which appeared to have been 
 caused by a blow. The judge deemed the evidence 
 sufficient. 
 
 With a fervor that nothing less than a powerful 
 climax at the theatre could have elicited, Protony con- 
 gratulated Laura, who felt an ineffable relief when she 
 understood she was free of Darnby. But her profound 
 contentment was alloyed in the evening, when an Amer- 
 ican District Telegraph messenger presented a large 
 envelope in an inscription she at once recognized. The 
 seal broken, The Diary came to view, with the leading 
 news article on the front page conspicuously marked 
 in lines of blue pencil. Headed with big type and sensa- 
 tionally worded followed a column of comment on her 
 divorce. Of the hearing itself there was littlea bare 
 mention that a decree had been granted. But the short 
 and peppery paragraphs were stuffed with scandalous 
 inuendoes of Mrs. Darnby 's life at the Lake Side Hotel ; 
 an intimation of the relations between "the experienced 
 pupil and the experienced tutor at Protony 's School 
 of Dramatic Art." Not a word against Darnby, so it 
 was palpable that he had furnished the material for the 
 article. She read it with riveted eyes, with emotions 
 entirely suspended. But when the paper dropped from 
 her hands, a sickening sensation assailed her. Shame, 
 helpless, ungovernable, unconcealable shame, fol- 
 lowed ; a feeling as if she had been apprehended, in 
 the face of a staring crowd, in a nameless crime. She 
 wished to hide somewhere, anywhere, but away from 
 here. She pulled the curtains down, lowered the lights 
 and finally found relief in tears. She wept like a 
 child, copiously, shamefacedly. 
 
 Had not her eyes been dried before she saw Protony 
 his appearance had changed her emotions. He came 
 down with The Diary in his hand, his face decomposed 
 and a dead yellow. In a voice she did not recognize 
 he asked her if she had read "this." Laura, now fairly 
 self-controlled, feigned to make light of it, though con-
 
 A DEBUT AND A REVELATION. 29 
 
 soled in supposing that Protony should take anything 
 so much to heart in which she was concerned. She put 
 her hand on his shoulder and gently adjured him not 
 to mind she assured him that she was not affected 
 by Darnby's miserable revenge. 
 
 "But, my God, what about me? It will kill the 
 reputation I 've worked for so hard ; it may block all my 
 plans!" 
 
 This rift into his character the glimpse of its 
 fundamental selfishness shocked her more than 
 Darnby's blow. 
 
 The day he suggested that she get a divorce her 
 pride was touched because he, at the same time, had 
 omitted the implied complement of a hint of an ulti- 
 mate union between themselves. Subsequently she con- 
 soled herself with the thought that he had refrained 
 from the suggestion that she might not impugn his mo- 
 tives in counseling a separation from Darnby. She had 
 decided to hold him guiltless of crass egoism until a 
 divorce had been pronounced. And the very day she 
 had expected him to prove that his moral delicacy 
 was not surpassed by his aesthetic refinement he 
 shouted: "But, my God, what about me?" 
 
 Not a word was said for some seconds. Protony, 
 entirely self-centered, had fallen into a chair, without 
 having removed his hat his face toward the floor, 
 expressing a morose and discouraged condition of mind. 
 
 She could not entirely conceal a note of contempt 
 when she said: "Don't take it so seriously; you've 
 not been hurt. The Diary cannot hurt anybody. The 
 character of the paper is known." And she added 
 with a subtle malice: 
 
 "If your plan for a stock company is feasible, you'll 
 have no trouble in carrying it through." 
 
 The shade of doubt which she insinuated struck 
 home. In an instant The Diary had passed out his 
 mind and he was vociferous in demonstrating that the 
 success of his scheme would admit of no doubt. He had 
 altered his plans. He would not call it the Chicago 
 Theatre. The name would be the Theatre of Art and 
 Letters. He proposed an ancillary attraction ; a memo-
 
 30 A DEBUT AND A REVELATION. 
 
 rial room, containing as many souvenirs of famous 
 dramatists from Shakespeare to Pinero as were to 
 be had. This feature, he was sure, would appeal to 
 capitalists. 
 
 She interrupted inconsiderately with the challenging 
 question: "You've been talking of this from the day I 
 first met you. Why don 't you consummate your plan ? ' ' 
 
 Laura was in no mood to spare him and she fol- 
 lowed with a wounding allusion to the deficiency of 
 men who plan only to postpone. And her resentment 
 of his unguarded display of selfishness was the spur 
 that forced him to action. That night he wrote a pros- 
 pectus. The following day he solicited a written en- 
 dorsement of his project from Phelon and Burrows, 
 who approved it -warmly. With these letters he be- 
 gan a round of likely subscribers bankers, brokers, 
 financiers and men of wealth who were not financiers. 
 His initial call was on the very rich Jonathan Hatch, 
 Junior, known as the son of an eccentric cornerer of 
 cereal, and as a collector of pictorial masterpieces as- 
 sumed to be genuine. Mr. Hatch confessed he knew 
 nothing of theatres; neither he nor his family ever 
 attended the play. But if Protony believed a stock 
 company would advance art in Chicago ; if Protony was 
 quite sure the scheme were profitable, he would take 
 the matter under consideration and, the while, give a 
 letter of introduction to Charles Wellsworth, president 
 of the Park Exchange National Bank, whose cult was 
 sculpture and who, besides, interested himself in the 
 drama and such things. Protony sat half an hour in 
 the waiting room contiguous to the president's office. 
 When at last he was admitted, Mr. Wellsworth grasped 
 his hand nervously with the right and took Hatch's 
 note with the left. In reading the few lines the es- 
 sence of which was Mr. Protony wants to build a thea- 
 tre Mr. Wellsworth 's grip relaxed, his nervous exu- 
 berance suddenly subsided. Personally he could do 
 nothing just then. His own money was invested in 
 real estate. The bank, of course, could put no funds 
 in anything without ample security. No doubt Brander 
 Jones of the Eastern Trust Company would head the
 
 A DEBUT AND A EEVELATION. 31 
 
 subscription list with a handsome sum. With a few 
 strokes of the pen Mr. Wellsworth told Mr. Jones that 
 Mr. Protony was a worthy young man whose purpose 
 would elevate the community. Protony gained access 
 to Jones immediately. He was not invited to take a 
 chair; such an invitation was obviously reserved for 
 those who were known. Directly Mr. Jones scented 
 the profitlessness of the proposal he got up a sign that 
 Protony 's audience soon would end. He made a final 
 test of a possible thrift in the thing for his institution : 
 ''Have you any subscribers? Who is your banker?" 
 The negative answer sent him to the door. He turned 
 the knob himself to hasten Protony 's departure. "1 
 regret I can do nothing for you, sir. ' ' 
 
 Protony, easily elated and as easily dejected, was 
 not only discouraged but humiliated by this last ex- 
 perience. He felt as an importunate beggar must feel 
 if there be sensitive mendicants who ask for alms 
 inopportunely. Utterly put down he wandered to- 
 ward his office. On the way he heard : ' ' Have you tried 
 it on, dear boy?" It was the voice of Phelon, soft and 
 agreeably modulated with its scholarly enunciation. 
 In appearance the two men were alike. Temperamentally 
 they were antepodal. Phelon 's eyes told of indolence, 
 nonchalance, facile talent, careless independence. Pro- 
 tony 's long face shortened at sight of the journalist, 
 whose reputation had just been spread across seas by 
 Henry Irving, who, at a London banquet, between sev- 
 eral glasses of champagne, had declared Phelon to be 
 one of the best dramatic critics in the language; and 
 the eulogy, disseminated by Renter's agency through- 
 out Europe, was cabled over to the Associated Press. 
 In the cat's hump attitude which he involuntarily struck 
 in the presence of the widely-read reviewer Protony 
 acknowledged differentially : 
 
 "I'm afraid I am scoring another failure, Mr. Phe- 
 lon." 
 
 "Don't say that, dear boy. Call it successful experi- 
 ence. Besides, you haven't made any preliminary ex- 
 ploitation. You should ' work the press, ' as the advance 
 agent says. Let me have the plans and a sketch of
 
 32 A DEBUT AND A EEVELATION. 
 
 that fine theatre you are going to give us. I'll have 
 a nice notice in The Forum tomorrow." 
 
 "Why, yes, he's right," counseled Laura, when 
 Protony told her what he had done. "I wonder you 
 had not thought of that. You must give the thing wide 
 publicity." She added maliciously, "And that will 
 counteract the effect of The Diary, you know. 
 
 He took the thrust without thinking of a retort, 
 being buoyed to good humor by the expectation of what 
 Phelon would do for him. 
 
 Phelon endorsed the enterprise unqualifiedly. In- 
 clusive of a cut of the theatre The Forum published 
 two columns urging wealthy citizens to subscibe to 
 the playhouse. The stock company were an antidote 
 to the one-star and combination system which was de- 
 grading dramatic art everywhere outside of New York. 
 New York had several indigenious organizations of a 
 highly artistic order while Chicago must depend on 
 strolling companies for her theatrical performances. 
 Mr. Protony had shown by his work at the Conserva- 
 tory that he had the qualifications necessary to the 
 management of a permanent association of actors; it 
 would be a stimulant to the American dramatist who 
 received but little encouragement in New York, where 
 plays by foreign writers only were produced. Chicago 
 had the best orchestra in the country in Theodore 
 Thomas' musicians; Mr. Thomas' presence had been an 
 educational force in music. A stock company would 
 do the same for the drama. 
 
 The article lifted Protony to confident enthusiasm. 
 He was positive the subscription list must be filled that 
 day. He set out full of confidence. Presently his glow 
 lowered at the sight of Burrows of The Interior. 
 Protony greeted him with the deferential urbanity he 
 always assumed in the company of journalists other 
 than Phelon, with whom the deference was emphasized 
 and the urbanity diminished to imperceptibility. The 
 tall, imposing critic jerked his head forward less than 
 half an inch, looked savage and passed on. Protony, 
 all alarmed, turned back and in an appealing register, 
 called : ' ' Mr. Burrows ! Mr. Burrows ! ' '
 
 A DEBUT AND A REVELATION. 33 
 
 Burrows turned suddenly with: "Well?" 
 
 "I I greeted you and I was afraid you didn't 
 see me." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Protony was now sure that Burrows ' slight had been 
 intentional. Feverish to know the reason he made an 
 opening : 
 
 "Did you see The Forum this morning, Mr. Bur- 
 rows?" 
 
 He unwittingly came to the source : ' ' Protony, why 
 in hell did you give that story only to The Forumf" 
 
 Not until then did Protony realize what he had 
 done furnished The Forum with a scoop on its rivals. 
 The realization of the enormity of his tactlessness 
 dazed him. 
 
 "Mr. Burrows I I I couldn't get the money for 
 my scheme. I I was discouraged and happened to 
 meet Mr. Phelon I mean Phelon who suggested what 
 you saw in the paper. He believed such a notice would 
 put the scheme through." 
 
 The change from "Mr. Phelon" to "I mean Phelon," 
 a fugitive trifle and quite involuntary, was indicative 
 of a shifty trait which was not lost on Burrows. 
 
 "He said it would put the thing through, did he? 
 Well, we '11 see. ' ' with this he turned and walked away. 
 
 Protony 's fetish was the press. He felt superla- 
 tive joy in its praise ; an unnamable terror in its criti- 
 cism. The possibility of having incurred the enmity 
 of The Interior through lack of tact filled him with a 
 sickening terror. For an hour he paced Michigan Ave- 
 nue trying to devise a conciliatory plan. Twice he en- 
 tered a saloon for whisky. The brutal stimulant im- 
 parted transient courage and quickened his imagina- 
 tion. Finally, he thought he had hit upon a solution. 
 He would appease Burrows by giving The Interior a 
 scoop on the list of subscribers, the roster of players 
 engaged, the name of the first play to be produced. 
 He had chosen the actors some time ago and Sardou's 
 "Diplomacy" was to be the opening drama. All was 
 arranged except the subscriptions. With these he must
 
 34 A DEBUT AND A REVELATION. 
 
 begin at once. He took another drink of the violent 
 liquor and then turned toward La Salle street. 
 
 The opening solicitation was the private banking 
 house of Slamsey and Company. The senior member 
 greeted him with Southern geniality. He listened with 
 approving nods and propitious interjections; read the 
 letters and examined the plan attentively. Protony 
 watched the broker's immobile countenance in hopeful 
 expectancy which ended in the certainty that Mr. 
 Slamsey would write down for a large amount. He 
 presented the scroll destitute of names: "Now, Mr. 
 Slamsey, may I ask you to start this with a round 
 sum?" 
 
 The banker encircled Protony 's arm with his hand 
 confidentially: "Yes, I shall be glad to do so but not 
 just at present. We are not quite ready for such an 
 enterprise. In a few years say four or five. Stick 
 to your Conservatory a little longer, my man, and then 
 come back to us. We '11 start you handsomely in time. 
 Do you smoke ? Take one they are really good. ' ' 
 
 The refusal was the more telling because of its bland 
 vivacity. Protony found himself on the curbstone in 
 that state of nervous frenzy which drives balked women 
 to a hysterical persistence. In something like deliri- 
 ous desperation he made the rounds of a dozen financial 
 institutions. In the first of these he got a hideous 
 shock from the question of the President: "Who is 
 Phelon?" Why, was it possible not to know Phelon 
 Phelon the great dramatic critic? At two offices he 
 was refused access to the Presidents; they were too 
 busy to see him. Here he was cut short in the midst 
 of his exposition; there he was answered: "No", 
 directly he exposed his plan. Four more bankers had 
 never heard of Phelon, had not read The Forum article, 
 but promised to get a copy of the paper and study the 
 proposition at their leisure. Three financiers were dea- 
 cons who could not conscientiously entertain a proposal 
 to aid in the building of a theatre. At the last, he was 
 irrevocably demoralized by the head of the Occidental 
 Security Company, who said that all theatrical men 
 were swindlers.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A SAMAEITAN INTEUDEB. 
 
 "Are you ill, Clarence?" 
 
 Laura asked the question, prompted by Protony's 
 white, drawn, defeated face. He threw the prospec- 
 tus on the table and fell in a chair. 
 
 "111? No; worse; I'm killed. I couldn't raise a 
 dollar. Where I wasn't snubbed I was insulted. In 
 some places I was treated like a burglar." 
 
 To him it was impossible that he should have met 
 with such treatment. With his supersensitive tempera- 
 ment, ungovernable imagination and complete ignor- 
 ance of practical affairs it was inevitable that he should 
 arrive at an absurd conclusion ; there was a conspiracy 
 with Burrows behind it. His fixed idea could not be 
 dislodged by the gross discrepancy to which his atten- 
 tion was called by Laura that The Forum article 
 was of that day, so that Burrows could not have had 
 time to effect an opposition, especially among financial 
 men. That didn't matter, Protony insisted Burrows 
 must have heard of Phelon's intention. Had he not 
 threatened that the scheme would end disastrously? 
 If no hint had been passed around La Salle Street 
 was it possible that all should have withheld their 
 signatures. There was a conspiracy. He held to his 
 theory with the tenacity of the weak and a few days 
 later changed mind with the suddenness of the imagina- 
 tive. No, it wasn't Burrows after all. He met the 
 critic by an appointment of Burrows' making. The 
 Interior man had apologized for the way he had greeted 
 Protony the other day. His rudeness had proceeded 
 from the chagrin felt at being scooped by the The 
 Forum. That over, he wished to re-establish their 
 
 (36)
 
 36 A SAMAEITAN INTRUDER. 
 
 cordial relations. And as an earnest of his good will 
 he would submit a play upon which he had been occu- 
 pied for six months. He would send it to Protony 
 directly the stock company was formed. 
 
 "I hadn't the heart to tell him how unsuccessful I 
 was in getting subscriptions," Protony acknowledged 
 timidly. Then hopefully, ' ' I may find a way of putting 
 the thing through after all." 
 
 The hope evaporated in the failure to discover a 
 means of breaking the blockade of La Salle Street's 
 unanimous rejection of the theatre; so that if it was 
 not a conspiracy fostered by Burrows, it must be the 
 effect of the article in The Diary. Laura combated 
 this deduction futilely, for it became invincible with 
 Protony. The connection with that divorce had hurt 
 his reputation irremediably. Ignorant as a toad of the 
 prime principles which governs business, it did not 
 occur to him that he had been turned away because 
 bankers could see no profit in his proposition. "With his 
 misdirected vision on a very distant object he did not 
 see that his standing had been impaired in an intimate 
 quarter by The Diary's revelations until half his pupils 
 were gone. Two girls, sisters, whose father had be- 
 come rapidly and prodigiously rich and who were 
 burning to have grace of body and speech, were the 
 first to go their health compelled them to suspend 
 their studies for a while. This defection soon influ- 
 enced other female scholars. Laura perceived the 
 secessions and apprehended their cause, but said noth- 
 ing. She hoped the old pupils would be replaced by 
 new. A realization of the situation came to Protony 
 with a rushing force one morning when Laura was 
 compelled to call his attention to a heap of unpaid 
 bills. The rent, gas and miscellaneous charges were 
 overdue and there were no funds with which to meet 
 them. The money paid for tuition had been given to 
 Protony as usual, and he, as usual, had spent the cus- 
 tomary amount. Awakened from his dreams and 
 schemes he saw what had happened and at the discov- 
 ery his selfishness leaped to the surface. 
 
 His first impulse was self-protection. Without
 
 One of those unconscious flashes that disclose the lowest layer of 
 a man's character." Page 37.
 
 A SAMARITAN INTRUDER. 37 
 
 thought, involuntarily, he exclaimed: "Say, we'll have 
 to separate. At this rate we'll both starve." It was 
 one of those unconscious flashes that discloses the low- 
 est layer of a man's character. He had again be- 
 trayed his egoism to Laura, who once more registered 
 it against him. When his fear had subsided, when 
 his mind became pacific, he asked to be forgiven. She 
 quite calmly told him: "You are weak and selfish, 
 Clarence." 
 
 The frank description humbled him for several days. 
 He was willing to make any sacrifice for her. Instead 
 of dining at the French cafe he proposed a less expen- 
 sive restaurant and if business did not mend they could 
 give up their chambers at the Beaurivage and engage 
 rooms on the North or West side, where rent was 
 cheaper and the accommodations not bad. They made 
 the change in a fortnight, and six weeks later the 
 agent of the High Arts Building warned Protony that 
 the School of Acting was two months in arrears. A 
 smaller and less expensive suite was taken in Clark 
 street. Laura accepted the moves without complaint, 
 but Protony became irritable. His pride was wounded, 
 a wound which his acquaintances kept sensitized by 
 insinuating questions, by looks of wondering pity. 
 From a commercial point of view Clark street the 
 thoroughfare of the penny gaff, of the cheap and of 
 the distressed actor proved dear. Protony lost his 
 best male students. Now and again a rowdy (and 
 generally improvident) youth was enrolled, but he 
 would not remain beyond the period prescribed by his 
 initial payment. Protony, in Laura's presence, re- 
 strained himself with discernible effort. When alone 
 he was morose and his moroseness had the sinking 
 element of remorsefulness regret, after all, that he 
 had met Laura. For weeks she had been on trial be- 
 fore him, for having caused his professional humiliation. 
 And he convicted her she was the impediment to his 
 success. He said nothing to her of his sentence; but 
 his long silences at table, his preoccupied air when 
 they were in the street together, his evasive manner 
 at home and at the Conservatory warned her that he
 
 38 A SAMAEITAN INTRUDER. 
 
 was bitterly distrustful. She said . nothing, thinking 
 that he was in the throes of despondency from which 
 he would emerge stronger, more hopeful, more ener- 
 getic. 
 
 But he suggested his position pointedly one day. 
 "I read Schopenhauer's 'Metaphysics of Love' last 
 night. You should read it. It's a wonderful study 
 of a vital thing. What appeals to me especially is, 
 the German insists that the constant association with 
 an attractive woman clouds a man 's intellect ; that she 
 is very dangerous to a man of intellectual pursuits." 
 
 She retorted "I did not know that I was attractive 
 or that you were intellectual." 
 
 She left abruptly and repaired to her room deter- 
 mined to break with him. The direct affront had 
 wrought her to such a pitch of indignation that she 
 made ready to leave at the first opportunity. She 
 wrote to a widely-known New York dramatic agency 
 an application for an engagement and looked up the 
 address of several local agents, in readiness to call on 
 them. The next day she went to a huge building in 
 Dearborn street, was hoisted to the fourteenth floor 
 and entered a large room filled with tobacco smoke and 
 a band of smooth-shaven, blue chinned men with long 
 unkempt hair. One with the bluest chin, the longest 
 hair and the blackest pipe listened to her without re- 
 moving the pipe from his mouth. 
 
 What a pity! She had just missed it! Only an 
 hour ago the agent had sent a juvenile lead to Louis 
 James. There was nothing more at present, but he 
 would take her address. She gave her name and then 
 hesitated. He had written the "y" of Darnby and was 
 waiting pen on paper. For a second she was in a cloud 
 of confusion. Where ? Not with Protony ! The agent 
 turned inquiringly. She answered desperately : ' ' Lake 
 Side Hotel." Very good. He probably would have 
 something within a week or two. 
 
 Why had she given the Lake Side Hotel as her ad- 
 dress ? Was it desperation or inspiration ? She hardly 
 knew. She had lived there, certainly; and Ross' offer 
 of assistance made what now seemed long ago
 
 A SAMARITAN INTRUDER. 39 
 
 darted to mind at the critical moment, though he 
 had not been considered before. Many friends in Mis- 
 souri were mentally rejected as likely lenders of a sum 
 sufficient to meet her wants until she should have found 
 employment. But Ross, of whom she might be sure, 
 had not occurred to her until the eleventh minute. 
 It was certain that he would help her, but she saw 
 a public telephone as the elevator stopped at the ground 
 floor. Impulsively she entered the double panelled box, 
 lifted the transmitter and ordered: "Oakland 7778." 
 At central's request she feverishly slid the nickel in 
 the slot and hearing "Hello", audaciously called for 
 Mr. Ross. 
 
 'What is it?" She recognized his voice. 
 
 'Mr. Ross, this is Laura Ruhland." 
 
 'Who?" 
 
 'Laura Mrs. Darnby." 
 
 'Yes, oh, yes; how do you do, Mrs. Darnby?" 
 "Well, thank you. I expect to move in a day or 
 two and meanwhile I took the liberty of giving the 
 Lake Side as my address. Please hold any letters you 
 may receive." 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 "I I don't know just yet." 
 
 "Mrs. Darnby, I wish you would come down on the 
 next train. I 've something of importance to tell you. ' ' 
 He spoke eagerly. 
 
 In thirty minutes Laura met Ross at the entrance 
 to the hotel. He was waiting for her and extended his 
 hands in ardent welcome. The clerk bowed politely, 
 the telegraph operator smiled amiably ; but the women 
 in the foyer it was too early for the men to be there 
 were variously hostile. Some purposely evaded 
 recognition; others saluted her distantly with an air 
 of cold reproof; still others acknowledged her pres- 
 ence by broad stares of amazement. At these wound- 
 ing greetings there shot through Laura a feeling of 
 burning resentment. She went with Ross to a private 
 parlor, ready to accede to anything he might suggest 
 anything, so that she could retaliate the insults of these 
 creatures.
 
 40 A SAMARITAN INTRUDER. 
 
 Ross escorted her to a richly upholstered chair near 
 a window, facing south. Taking the seat she glanced 
 out. The sun enveloped the gorgeous green lawn in a 
 sumptuous glow. Beyond the verdant expanse, car- 
 riages flitted by, the wheels and horses' paraphernalia 
 glistening like a mirror's flash; bicycles, their riders in 
 high-hued costumes, darted past; on the veranda, 
 within an arm's reach, a young couple, happy and hand- 
 some, probably newly married, promenaded. The bril- 
 liancy of the scene inspired her with a wish to remain 
 there where she could see it always. As if in response 
 to her unuttered desire Ross confessed: "I've been 
 watching you far months. I know that your your 
 what's his name? Oh, Protony, is hard up. I've 
 been waiting for you to let me do something for you. 
 Come back here. You need not trouble yourself about 
 expenses. Pay your bills when you are able. I've 
 had something more in mind. I'm thinking of organ- 
 izing a theatrical company, made up of young, well- 
 bred people, with you at the head. I've often backed 
 such enterprises and know all about them. My idea 
 is to play the Chicago circuit, that is, the towns around 
 Chicago. Now what do you think?" 
 
 She frankly acknowledged that she was without 
 money and thanked him for his invitation to stop at 
 the hotel, at least until she found employment. She 
 feared that she lacked the qualifications for leading a 
 company, but would defer to his judgment. 
 
 It was settled then. She would remain. A quick 
 whispered consultation with the clerk, and the bell boy 
 accompanied her to a light, roomy chamber on the third 
 floor. She felt a thrill of satisfaction in informing Pro- 
 tony that the bearer would pack her effects for con- 
 veyance to the Lake Side Hotel. The note given the 
 porter, and her toilet made, she read until dinner time. 
 All the men were glad to see her. They shook her 
 hand with friendly warmth: Miss Carr and Miss 
 Rosenau came to her table and most cordially welcomed 
 her. Mrs. Whitehead bowed curtly, and Laura believed 
 she saw the effects of a quarrel in the woman's eye, a 
 similar sign being noticeable in Ross, who asked if he
 
 A SAMARITAN INTRUDER. 41 
 
 could do anything more to facilitate her installation, 
 a question that Mrs. Whitehead overheard and which 
 deepened her look of displeasure. Laura divined an 
 intrigue between the pair, a divination which was con- 
 firmed by Mrs. Whitehead 's insultingly bitter manner 
 toward her as Ross' attentions were massed upon his 
 latest guest. But Laura decided to be true to herself, 
 to hold her conscience and person inviolate. There 
 had come to her from the depths of sub-consciousness 
 the white, perennial truth that genuine strength of 
 mind, of volition, of talent, proceed from purity; that 
 between a virtuous genius and a vitiated, the former 
 is the greater, the more permanent; that fortitude, 
 health of body, serenity of thought are predicated, in 
 women, on virtue. 
 
 The realization of this grand moral law had come 
 suddenly and she wished to obey it; realizing, too, 
 that the woman who obeys enhances her charm. She 
 perceived that she had become for Ross an attraction 
 not altogether sensuous; an irresistible quality which 
 Protony had felt but which was interpreted differently 
 by the two men so opposite in character and tempera- 
 ment. Protony felt its mental properties, Ross its 
 physical influence. Both would have her as companion ; 
 both were too selfish for matrimony.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AN ENGAGEMENT. 
 
 During the first fortnight Ross was discreetly assidu- 
 ous in his attentions, but Laura tactfully held him dis- 
 tant. Besides, she was applying an idea that had 
 occurred to her the day of her return to the hotel. She 
 got a public library card Ross was the guarantor 
 and was making a study of the literature of the theatre. 
 She read much, memorized strong roles, declaimed in 
 private. 
 
 In the third week Protony sent a letter. He asked per- 
 mission to call. She made no answer. Then came a note 
 from the dramatic agency in Dearborn street. An en- 
 gagement with a burlesque company, ' ' The Pink Owls. ' ' 
 The offer was submitted to Ross, who earnestly advised 
 her not to accept it. "With your attractive person- 
 ality you would be a fine card and they would pay you 
 a good salary, but once identified with that kind of a 
 show you are lost to better companies. Managers of 
 the legitimate would not want you. It's rare that a 
 woman works up from a provincial burlesque com- 
 pany; she frequently descends to one. Don't take it, 
 no matter what they offer to pay you." 
 
 He simply affirmed what she had surmised and de- 
 clined the engagement in an appreciative note of 
 thanks. She also was thankful to Ross, who, however, 
 was constantly vitiating her gratitude. Careful and 
 never compromising in the presence of others his atti- 
 tude was embarrassing whenever she found herself 
 alone with him. Once when he followed her to the 
 park she was compelled to repel him pointedly. As a 
 rule, though, she parried his importunities deftly. Now 
 she feigned not to understand ; again she laughed good- 
 
 (42)
 
 AN ENGAGEMENT. 43 
 
 naturedly and fled inoffensively. One day he ex- 
 tended an invitation to attend the theatre. This she 
 accepted, feeling sure of herself and knowing that it 
 was not unusual with him to invite the women of the 
 hotel to tihe play. 
 
 Among the theatrical people in the lobby, grouped 
 on the side opposite the box office, sufficiently conspicu- 
 ous to be conveniently observed by the incoming audi- 
 ence, was Protony, drawn-faced and wan-eyed. The 
 sight of Laura stirred him almost to dispossession. He 
 dropped his hat in agitation and followed her with 
 looks of devouring attention. Coming out after the 
 performance she saw him in the same place and appar- 
 ently he was in the same state of mental disquietude. 
 Laura designedly took no notice of him ; and Ross had 
 not seen him. She guessed that he would follow them 
 and was confirmed in her conjecture when in entering 
 the vaulted railway station she turned. He stood in 
 front of the hotel that faced the station entrance. She 
 confessed to herself her satisfaction. It was the grati- 
 fication perennial in woman when she is made aware 
 that man is thrall to her. Laura understood his condi- 
 tion ; although he could not live with her or without her, 
 he was more wretched without her than he had been 
 with her, his consuming ambition and thorough selfish- 
 ness notwithstanding. It was obvious that her beauty, 
 heightened by an assumed hauteur, had quickly gen- 
 erated in him passion and jealousy. 
 
 She expected the card he sent up next day. Word 
 was sent down that Miss Ruhland would see him pres- 
 ently, in the blue parlor. She looked at the clock, 
 took up a book and read twenty-five minutes. Then 
 she descended to the first floor, but before going to the 
 appointed room she stopped leisurely to exchange com- 
 monplaces with several of the guests. He was seated 
 in an humble attitude, hat in hand, head and back bent. 
 He shot up instantly she entered. 
 
 Laura, completely self-possessed, and in a perfectly 
 unconcerned manner, allowed him to take her hand, 
 which he held sheerly absorbed, 
 
 "Well?"
 
 44 AN ENGAGEMENT. 
 
 The curt and cool interrogation straightened him. 
 A little nettled, he asked her to be seated. He had a 
 business proposition to offer the word business was 
 stressed. Catherine Fix, daughter of Mrs. Fix, the 
 society leader, and Craig Fix, the rich soap manufac- 
 turer, had written a play which had been sent to him 
 for revision. The father would pay Protony hand- 
 somely for the work of putting the piece in scene. The 
 drama as given to him was impossible. The theme was 
 not unoriginal and there were two viable characters, but 
 the thing needed reconstruction. Therefore he would 
 appear as collaborator. Cooley's Theatre had been 
 engaged for a fortnight, where the production would 
 take place. He already had outlined the charac- 
 ters and was to engage the cast. He offered her a 
 leading role. She had listened with increasing in- 
 terest. The climax his offer of an important part 
 was an unexpected proposal. She remained perfectly 
 self-contained, however, in no movement or expression 
 betraying her gratification. She thanked him formally, 
 but as she was considering an engagement offered a 
 week ago she couldn't commit herself at once. She 
 hoped an immediate acceptance or rejection was not 
 imperative ? 
 
 No, there was no hurry. It would be at least a fort- 
 night before the play could be made ready for distri- 
 bution among the cast. 
 
 Very good, then, she would give a definite answer 
 in time to meet necessary arrangements. She arose, 
 thus suggesting that the meeting was at an end. Not 
 a note of familiarity, not a word implying the slightest 
 intimacy had been touched in a conversation which had 
 the mannered tone of a business conference. While she 
 had held 'herself fully possessed, his composure had been 
 imperfect. His feelings had been revealed, now by 
 a tremolo accent, again by a restive movement of the 
 eyes with a nervous flutter of their lashes. At the 
 parlor door, as they were separating, Ross came up, 
 bowed shortly to Protony, greeted Laura with a light- 
 ened expression in which there was an overt suggestion 
 of admiration, and engaged her in a low-toned talk,
 
 B ENGAGEMENT. 45 
 
 the while walking toward the lift, his head bent confi- 
 dentially. Both Laura and Protony turned; he, just 
 before going out of the main entrance ; she, when about 
 to step into the lift. Both had abandoned their affec- 
 tation of reserve. He read retaliative satisfaction in 
 her face; she, jealousy and dejection in his. She pitied 
 him the pity one feels for a child that is in pain. 
 And, after all, she would have been content to be with 
 him, for he was an agreeable, instructive and intel- 
 lectual companion, who might have given her and him- 
 self a further reach in the affairs of the world. But 
 his abnormal selfishness a vice which she now ab- 
 horredrepelled her. Nevertheless, it was gratifying 
 to see that her charm was more potent than his egoism, 
 so she was not displeased when the bell boy again 
 brought his card the next morning. The first glance 
 told her that he had spent a wretched night ; his cheeks 
 were hectic; his breath of a feverish temperature. 
 
 He did not respond to her "Good morning," and 
 they silently took seats that looked upon the pictur- 
 esque drive. He broke silence with: "I congratulate 
 you on having found a friend with plenty of money." 
 
 The remark, though she knew it was impelled by 
 bitter jealousy, hurt her. 
 
 She replied resentfully : " Thank you. You are very 
 kind. The friend you refer to is one who does not 
 believe that the world was made for him alone. He 
 is not so self-centered as to be unmindful of everything 
 and everybody but himself. He is not likely to turn me 
 out of doors because something goes wrong with him. 
 He is a man and not an unreliable weakling." 
 
 The last sentence told the truth of it made it 
 telling. Prom offensive he became defensive ; his pupils 
 had left him; he bad been haunted by creditors: had 
 been turned away from every door in La Salle Street ; 
 had seen the possibility of success disappear for ever. 
 He had been despondent, utterly discouraged. He 
 stopped 
 
 Laura rounded her retort with: "Yes, as I say, you 
 thought only of yourself." 
 
 Admitted. But wasn't his selfishness extenuated
 
 46 AN ENGAGEMENT. 
 
 by the distressing circumstances? Come, let her be 
 considerate he uttered the word in a supplicative key 
 and he would show that his ambition was subordi- 
 nate to his love for her. A rush of misfortune had 
 upset him temporarily. Never again would he allow 
 himself to be carried away by the stress of adversity. 
 Now he was sure of success. The play upon which he 
 was working must succeed and it was virtually his 
 own. True, Miss Fix had furnished him with a theme, 
 but he had made the play. Fix's dialogues had been 
 entirely rewritten; all but two characters had been 
 extinguished. The cast had been selected. Besides 
 Laura, two of his best students would be in the pro- 
 duction. For the rest, popular professionals were en- 
 gaged. 
 
 Volatile, he jumped from a humble amatory mood 
 to enthusiasm of the theatre. Laura was vexed and 
 amused in turn. Her admiration for the refined artist 
 was alloyed by her contempt for the man. At parting 
 he relapsed to an imploring attitude. She treated him 
 then as a teacher a repentant lad. He came again at 
 the end of the week to announce that the play would 
 be read to the cast the following Friday, at ten o'clock 
 in the morning. At that hour Laura ascended a flight 
 of stairs to the left of a pretty lobby, and opened a 
 door labeled "Manager's Office." Protony and a semi- 
 circle of men and women were waiting. There were 
 hurried introductions, of which Laura had no impres- 
 sion save the presentation to Miss Fix, a nervous, shriv- 
 eled, spinster-like woman with a .high thin voice. 
 
 Protony read the play to intermittent applause, al- 
 ways led by John Burton, especially engaged for the 
 production at seven hundred dollars a week, it was 
 whispered to Laura. The reading ended, Miss Fix and 
 Protony were effusively congratulated. Laura's con- 
 ception of the piece was nebulous. She had been un- 
 able to concentrate her thoughts. She had heard Pro- 
 tony 's voice that sensitive and cultured organ with 
 its every shade of elocutionary appreciation, notwith- 
 standing its veiled quality but its meaning was lost 
 to her. Amid the buzz and fragmentary talk which fol-
 
 AN ENGAGEMENT. 47 
 
 lowed the felicitations, Protony handed Laura her part. 
 "You are to play the broker's daughter. The first 
 rehearsal will be called a week from to-day. If agree- 
 able I '11 call to-morrow and go over the part with you. ' ' 
 
 She answered, "Yes", and thanked him. At the 
 hotel she at once buried herself in the role. The char- 
 acter was conventional; all the parts were so in "The 
 Millionaire" except the title role. This was an Irish- 
 man who had accumulated money and much political 
 experience. Originally a humble laborer of very lim- 
 ited needs, well disposed, easily contented. Then, 
 progressively, purse-proud, arrogant, aggressive, irre- 
 ligious and disdainful of everything that lacked the 
 mark of wealth. He was set in a feebly familiar fable ; 
 a daughter in love with a young man opposed by the 
 father, who insists that the "garril" marry his business 
 partner, a 'heavily-mustached, scrowling fellow, who 
 utters the simplest word in deep, ominous tones. The 
 "garril" refuses. The heavily-mustached gentleman 
 concocts a scheme to ruin the father on the Board of 
 Trade. The nice young man hitherto devoid of astute- 
 nesshears of the plan. Although he allowed it to be 
 consummated he takes advantage of his knowledge to 
 win exactly what the millionaire loses. The father, 
 broken in spirit and in dollars, consents to the marriage 
 at the final curtain. Protony 's judgment had led him 
 to develop the main character. In deft touches he had 
 indicated the man's antecedents, the original warmth 
 of heart, his native wit, the source of his wealth. And 
 for spectacular effect he had decided to put the trader 's 
 hall of the Board of Trade, with its raging excitement, 
 on the stage. 
 
 Laura -saw that her role was about as subordinate to 
 the millionaire as were the other characters; but she 
 divined that the daughter could be made sympathetic, 
 even winsome, by accentuating the conciliatory spirit 
 which moved between father and lover, by drawing the 
 better nature from her untutored parent. By modi- 
 fying and transposing she drew a parallel; the quasi- 
 savage father and the gentle daughter were the Ingo- 
 mar and the Parthenia of the German play, "Der Sohn
 
 48 AN ENGAGEMENT. 
 
 der Wildniss" she had a copy of Robert Ringold's 
 translation. Protony admired the parallelism, which 
 had not occurred to him, who was so bound up in the 
 Irishman: "I see you have read and studied to advan- 
 tage," he remarked complacently. 
 
 "Thanks to you." 
 
 The exchange of compliments gratified him, who 
 was in the throes of jealousy and unrequited affection. 
 They passed an unruffled afternoon. Laura was com- 
 pletely occupied with the play. Protony had wished 
 that she had offered some token of a perfect and perma- 
 nent reconciliation ; still, for want of better, it pleased 
 him intimately to see her so intelligently and apprecia- 
 tively interested in a thing near and dear to him she, 
 his pupil. 
 
 From ten o 'clock next morning there were two cha- 
 otic hours on the dim stage of Cooley's Theatre, caused 
 by the first rehearsal of the first act of "The Million- 
 aire." None of the cast knew the lines save Laura, 
 and she was imperfect. The act was walked through, 
 the players repeating the dialogue from the typewritten 
 copies in hand. It was merely a stage introduction of 
 the characters when scenes and positions were outlined. 
 In the afternoon at two o 'clock the second act was taken 
 up and the last act the following day. At the third pro- 
 bation the actors had memorized their speeches. 
 
 Two days before the date set for the production, 
 Protony felt that he would be too nervous to manage 
 the stage on the opening night ; and as the time neared 
 for the public test his burning desire for success, com- 
 bined with absolute terror of failure, had intensified to 
 such a degree that he feared he would not have control 
 of himself or the company. The stage management de- 
 volved on John Burton, who had mastered the title 
 part in a week. 
 
 A fortnight from the first rehearsal "The Million- 
 aire" was ready for presentation.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A PLAY IS PEODUCED. 
 
 "Half hour! Half hour! Half hour! Half hour!" 
 
 It was the shrill voice of the short and sharp call 
 boy who uttered the cry as he rapped at the doors of 
 the dressing rooms. 
 
 Either a "yes" or a "here" was the response to 
 the knock. Every active participant was found to be 
 in the theatre thirty minutes before the curtain. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later the lad made another 
 round with calls of "Fifteen minutes!" "Fifteen min- 
 utes!" "Fifteen minutes!" "Fifteen minutes!" 
 
 When the orchestra was ready to intone the first 
 note the boy passed the final warning: "Overture!" 
 "Overture!" "Overture!" "Overture." 
 
 "All right," the lad reported to John Burton, who 
 repeated "All right" through a tube placed among a 
 cluster of gutta-percha buttons and iron knobs in the first 
 wing to the right of the stage. Instantly a light and joy 
 ous melody filled the theatre. Starting with a dash and 
 proceeding with a lilt and swing, it soon subsided to 
 an air of rare sweetness, then a merry key was again 
 struck, a strain of lively badinage, of caressing activity. 
 It was a captivating parody, yet beneath its seductive 
 banter was a throb of pure emotion, of sincere rever- 
 ence for the Greeks which swelled forth in the Elysian 
 finale. The overture to Von Suppe's "Die Schoene 
 Helene" ended. Burton stepped to the center of the 
 stage and ordered: "Clear!" All but two actors dis- 
 appeared. Burton, from a coulisse, touched a button. 
 A red lamp, hung high, gleamed in front. The two 
 players nervously assumed a stipulated pose. The cur- 
 tain ascended.
 
 50 A PLAY IS PKODUCED. 
 
 In Miss Fix's box, back of her numerous friends 
 and concealed from the audience, Protony sat. When 
 he heard Burton's "Clear!" he looked at the auditors 
 appealingly. The house was filled to the last seat in 
 the second balcony. There were fifteen hundred heads 
 ranged amphitheatrically and swaying indolently, as 
 leaves in sunlight. Protony recognized many people, 
 but they appeared to have changed. Their faces 
 seemed to express disdain, mockery, severity, skep- 
 ticismall, to Protony 's imagination, challenged and 
 doubted success. A score of opera glasses were turned 
 toward his box and they looked like leveled pistols. 
 Away in the rear he discovered the anxious faces of 
 an old woman, a young woman and two young men; 
 his mother, sister and brothers, relatives he had not 
 seen for a long time, whom he scarce acknowledged, 
 though they lived in the city far out among the humble 
 and laborious Irish. A feeling at once of remorse and 
 gratitude seized him at the sight. They were watchful 
 of his career; proud of him in an awesome way, no 
 doubt, and he had never given them a thought, so ab- 
 sorbed was he in himself in ambition, in personal 
 desire. But pitted against those four well-wishers 
 how many were indifferent, even malevolent! The 
 men directly in front those whom he could see dis- 
 tinctlylooked as if they were burdened with mort- 
 gagesmaterial and mental. They evidently had 
 brought into the theatre their troubles anxieties, dis- 
 tractions, pre-occupations, dislikes, contempts. Pro- 
 tony now realized very nearly what it meant to be a 
 dramatist. He must dispel the prejudices, the worri- 
 ments of these people ; must remove from them the cere- 
 ments of the carking cares of the outside world whence 
 they came; must lift them out of themselves, in fine; 
 must make them all of one mind which shall pronounce 
 "The Millionaire" a success. Again he looked at the 
 audiencethat sea of eyes, how defiant! He had an 
 impulse to postpone the production, to hold the curtain. 
 
 Too late! The final note in the orchestlra had 
 sounded. A bell rang. The curtain rose. There was 
 profound silence for what seemed an aeon of time.
 
 A PLAY IS PRODUCED. 51 
 
 Then he heard a voice muffled and indistinct, lost, seem- 
 ingly, in the immensity of th'e auditorium. An actor 
 had uttered the first lines of the play Would that he 
 could silence him ! All the imperfections of the work 
 surged to his mind. The doubts, the uncertainties of 
 several situations, instantly hardened to convictions of 
 absolute faults. He was sure the thing would end in 
 failure. But what could he do? He felt imprisoned 
 there, in the box. 
 
 An inspiration; he would put himself in the place 
 of an average spectator, would judge the piece from a 
 cold-blooded, impartial standpoint, as if he had nothing 
 to do with the production ; had not written or corrected 
 a line, and not rehearsed a scene of the drama. For a 
 bare moment he was oddly impressed; but only for 
 a moment. He found it impossible to be objective. 
 He could not listen. A thousand incoherent nothings 
 flitted through his heated brain. Everything dis- 
 tracted him. The flutter of a handkerchief; the turn 
 of a head ; the wave of a fan ; the frou-frou of a dress ; 
 a cough these diverted his intention. Directly be^ 
 neath there were whispers: "What did you get for 
 your wheat?" 
 
 "Seventy-two, and then I sold fifty short at two 
 and a quarter." 
 
 In the next box a young fellow murmured to his 
 pretty companion: "Oh, it's stupid. Why don't they 
 do something?" 
 
 An old man in the front row coughed and this be- 
 came contagious. A score seemed to be simultaneously 
 coughing so that the voices of the actors could not pen- 
 etrate the noise. Now the dialogue did not carry 
 across the footlights. The gallery grew restive. Some 
 one on high shouted : "Oh, speak up ! we can't hear you." 
 
 Protony felt himself giving away. His nervous ten- 
 sion was sinking to positive terror. He jumped from 
 the chair, hurried along the mural aisle unobserved and 
 bolted out of the lobby. The cool atmosphere brought 
 him to a nearly normal realization of things. But he was 
 mentally exhausted and after walking from La Salle 
 street to Clark street and back again, he stepped into
 
 52 A PLAY IS PKODUCED. 
 
 a saloon, near the La Salle street corner, that had near 
 the entrance a stone cutter's statute of Robert Burns. 
 He fell into a chair at a miniature table, asked for 
 whisky, drank the stimulating poison and picked up 
 a newspaper. He read, but had no sense of what he 
 was reading. With the journal close to his eyes his 
 mind persisted in presenting the scene he had just left. 
 Again he heard the price of wheat, the remarks of 
 "Oh, it's stupid," the coughs, the ominous restiveness 
 of the gallery; he saw the mechanical movements of 
 the actors. Well, -as he could not get away from the 
 play he must go back and brave it out. Going up the 
 lobby he was lifted to a new emotion, prompted by a 
 blast of applause. He leaped to the entrance of the 
 auditorium and saw the second act in progress the 
 Board of Trade scene. The stage was crowded with an 
 excited mob which was giving a pulsating picture of 
 a panicky wheat market, and the audience, recognizing 
 the truth of the illustration, was wildly approving. The 
 animated act held the house tense to the end. 
 
 The drop down, there was a roar in which 
 "Author!" "Fix!" "Protony!" were salient. Miss 
 Fix, agitated, looked to Protony, who, as white as she 
 was red, beckoned with his finger. She followed him 
 to the stage, wihere Burton drew the curtain at the left 
 corner and motioned the spinster to step before the 
 audience. With an awkward gait she shuffled toward 
 the lights, in her confusion not seeing the hand which 
 Protony, who was beside her, had the self-possession 
 to offer. Protony bowed gracefully; Fix made an 
 angular gesture with her head. The spectators were 
 tumultuous. An urchin in Paradise demanded 
 "Speech!" "Speech!" The cry was taken up insist- 
 ently. Fix, altogether unstrung, looked helplessly at 
 Protony. A week ago just such a contingency had 
 occurred to the latter wihen an opposite line from 
 "The Tempest" came to memory. He signaled silence 
 with uplifted hand. The clamor subsided to the ripple 
 of gloved applause, then ceased entirely. In a voice 
 not free from tremulousness but distinct withal, he 
 adapted Shakespeare's words:
 
 A PLAY IS PRODUCED. 53 
 
 "The only answer we can make is thanks and 
 thanks and ever thanks. ' ' 
 
 He bowed, took Miss Fix's hand and slowly sidled 
 from view. Directly they were out of sight the ap- 
 plause was renewed and Fix and Protony stopped; 
 they supposed the audience wished for their reappear- 
 ance. They turned to reappear when Burton held up 
 his hand. "Stop!" "Wait!" "Wait!" Penetrating 
 the patter of hands there was now the audible cry: 
 "Burton!" "Darnby!" "Burton!" "Darnby!" 
 
 "Send for Miss Darnby, quick," Burton ordered. 
 Laura came on, wondering what was wanted. 
 
 "They want us out there." Burton called one of 
 his assistants, who held the curtain while Laura stepped 
 forward in a hand clasp with the handsome actor. They 
 made a concinnous pair; he *tall, sinewy, symmetrical 
 and manly; she, on a line with Iris shoulder, sinuous, 
 graceful and womanly. The house shouted, and in the 
 vociferation a fine ear could detect a shade of sensuous 
 delight. 
 
 The third act pleased the gallery ; the parquet had 
 some pleasure in the work of Laura. The final scene 
 dragged and made a dispiriting impression. 
 
 Protony, bewildered, uncertain in the matter of the 
 result, stood near the box office with the treasurer as 
 the audience passed through the lobby. He scrutinized 
 faces eagerly, trying to read the verdict of the play. 
 The countenance of the average auditor told him noth- 
 ingit was nonchalant, expressionless. The remarks 
 were few and non-committal. Phelon, with his large, 
 voluptuous blond wife on his arm, nodded pleasantly, 
 saying, in passing: "Not at all bad, dear boy." Pro- 
 tony was electrified by this suggestion of a favorable 
 critique; so elated, that he was emboldened to arrest 
 Burrows, who walked along the lobby with bowed 
 head as if in perplexed thought and who was not 
 given to venturing opinions in advance of publication. 
 "What do you think of it, Mr. Burrows?" 
 
 "It isn't worth a damn," replied the critic irritably. 
 
 Protony fell from exuberance to incertitude. He 
 stood there, his emotions tense and horribly mingled,
 
 54 A PLAY IS PRODUCED. 
 
 until the lights were extinguished. Then he hurried 
 to the stage entrance, where he found Laura waiting 
 for him. The certainty of a personal success had made 
 her joyful and she saw the world through purple lenses. 
 She half convinced him that the play was safely 
 launched. Burrows' remark she dismissed with the 
 observation that he was inveterately brusque. 
 
 Nevertheless, as soon as he bade her good night, his 
 subtle, doubting nature, inevitably prone to conjure up 
 double contingencies, threw him anew into feverish per- 
 plexities. By the time he had reached his room success 
 was no longer probable it was impossible. The vocif- 
 erous reception of the Board of Trade scene was can- 
 celled by the slowness of the first act, the stupidity of 
 the third and the unsatisfactory fourth. He again 
 heard the restive gallery ; once more he saw the hostile 
 faces in the parquet. He disrobed mechanically, his 
 body feverish, his head aflame. Between the sheets 
 he wihirled mentally. If the play fell, he would lose 
 the little prestige left him. In the circumstances, what 
 could he do? Seek an engagement with a company as 
 general utility? Impossible! That were a confession 
 of defeat. No ; that would not do. He would organize 
 a company and go on the road with plays once popular 
 in large cities but never seen in towns ; indeed, he might 
 try one or two of Ringold's. He would here Laura 
 leaped to mind and the thought of her caused him 
 poignant anguish. Himself always uppermost, she had 
 not occurred to him in these night r amblings. He had 
 tried to restore their former relations. A failure at the 
 theatre he feared would nullify such a possibility. This 
 fresh phase of the general fear burned him. He turned 
 from one side to the other ; threw off the covers ; rear- 
 ranged the pillows again and again; got up to lower 
 the window still further and in passing the toilet case 
 saw a decanter half-filled with whisky. He seized the 
 squat bottle, placed the end of its thin neck to his mouth 
 and drank the liquor as if it had been water. In a 
 quarter of an hour half an hour he scarce knew how 
 long, his mind became blurred ; then unconscious.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 SUCCESS OR FAILURE? 
 
 He emerged to lucidity by degrees, but his head was 
 heavy, his body dry and hot. Struggling to a sitting 
 posture, his stomach seemed leaden; misplaced. Near 
 the decanter the sight of it nauseated him the small, 
 circular nickel-plated timepiece indicated ten o'clock. 
 He felt that he could not rise ; but the morning papers 
 as this thought came to him he jumped to the floor 
 and got into his clothes with trembling jerks, and hur- 
 ried to the street. Not a newsboy was in sight evi- 
 dently they had all sold out. The clear sunlit air partly 
 dissolved the mismatic shroud in which he had risen. 
 Two squares down, at a corner, projecting from the 
 extremities of the curb-stone he espied a news stand. 
 With nervous, impatient strides he made for it. Of the 
 five morning papers copies of three were unsold, The 
 Interior, The Times and The Advent; The Forum, The 
 Daily Spirit and The Recorder were not to be had. He 
 crossed the street in bounds, entered a saloon, ordered 
 a cocktail, fell into a chair and turned the leaves of 
 The Interior for the editorial page. The last column 
 was headed "Amusements" and directly under the cap- 
 tion "The Stedman Season" a long prospectus of the 
 plays and players which the New York managers would 
 present at Cooley's Theatre next month. Beneath 
 this, a brief and off-hand notice of "The Millionaire". 
 The critic thought a unique idea had been marred by 
 wholly incompetent literary treatment. Except the 
 mechanical effects, the presentation of the theme was 
 not even commonplace it was amateurish. Burton's 
 work was praised; Laura's adulated. Here Miss 
 Darnby was a fine talent that should be properly de- 
 
 (56)
 
 56 SUCCESS OE FAILUEE. 
 
 veloped. So far, the lady had been misdirected, had 
 lacked opportunity. That was all a contemptuous 
 condemnation. 
 
 Protony's hands trembled, not from last night's 
 whisky, but from Burrows' disdainful shafts. It was 
 several minutes before he could summon sufficient for- 
 titude to open The Times. The lukewarm, indefinite 
 decision, leaning toward a possible success and ex- 
 pressed in a strictly reportorial vein, gave him but 
 little comfort. The Advent's judgment, written in the 
 characteristic manner of a provincial reviewer, was 
 cautiously neutral. Burton was ' ' strong, ' ' Miss Darnby 
 "good", the support "acceptable". Leaving the news- 
 papers on the table, Protony went out, impregnated 
 with an aching doubt. But there was Phelon what 
 had he written? After all, The Forum was the pre- 
 dominant journalistic force in matters theatrical. The 
 most important opinion, then, was yet to be read; 
 besides, there were The Daily Spirit, The Recorder and 
 the evening papers. Four squares brought him to an- 
 other periodical stand, but the morning editions were 
 sold. Too impatient to walk the short distance to the 
 business center, he took a tram car to Randolph Street, 
 where he descended and hurried to the Sherman House. 
 
 Transient guests as a whole do not rise early, for 
 they retire late and they read at their last conven- 
 ience; so there was a mass of newspapers local and 
 out-of-town piled in square rows on a long counter 
 next the cigar case. Protony seized The Forum, The 
 Daiy Spirit and the Recorder, threw down a dime and, 
 without waiting for the change, hastened to a red plush 
 chair in the east corridor. Under the heading "Music 
 and the Drama" The Forum contained half a column 
 devoted to "The Millionaire." The first sentence 
 thrilled Protony : "Clarence Protony and Caroline Fix 
 did not disappoint their friends at Cooley's last even- 
 ing. They succeeded in interesting everybody with 
 their play, 'The Millionaire,' which, in the consecrated 
 phrase of a local mediocrity, was 'an unqualified suc- 
 cess'." 
 
 The pleasurable throb made by this approval was
 
 SUCCESS OR FAILURE? 57 
 
 intensified by the gratification of the fling at Burrows 
 the "local mediocrity" was Phelon's stamp for The 
 Interior's dramatic editor. The story of the play Phe- 
 lon thought was simple yet original and it was skill- 
 fully developed. The characters were taken from life's 
 throng and were firmly drawn. Then the plot was 
 given in detail. Histrionically, the performance, in 
 the general aspect, was adequate. Burton as usual, 
 displayed his mastery of the mechanism of the art of 
 acting. In Miss Darnby there was a rounded profi- 
 ciency surprising in one so young. She possessed the 
 repose which imparts reposefulness to auditors. The 
 smooth elegance of the presentation was in the high- 
 est degree creditable to Mr. Protony 
 
 The unreserved eulogy made Protony indifferent 
 to what The Recorder might print. He turned the pages 
 of that paper absolutely without eagerness. But as he 
 read his attention became fixed, his indifference made 
 way for pangs of uneasiness. The mise-en-scene was 
 lauded, the aotors commended. The play per se had 
 merit from a constructive standpoint, but it could have 
 no permanent value because the fundamental idea was 
 commercial. Unfortunately, too, the play could arouse 
 but limited interest, since boards of trade were con- 
 fined to three or four cities and even there the comedy 
 would appeal only to people who had a technical knowl- 
 edge of such affairs. The bourse scene exempted, there 
 was nothing in "The Millionaire" that was not conven- 
 tional and mediocre. The Daily Spirit deemed it an 
 unsuccessful fling at originality. The Recorder's was 
 a logical criticism; the tone lucid and truthful; the 
 style clear and unembarassed. Its direct diction de- 
 noted the mind of a young man. The contradictory 
 views of The Forum and The Recorder created con- 
 flicting sensations in Protony. He again grew restive. 
 He must walk ; think. The telling stroke was that the 
 play would prove incomprehensible to the masses. 
 He had not thought of that and he was now convinced 
 of the truth of the observation. The clou of the play, 
 the scene on 'change, which so far had extorted unani- 
 mous praise, would be unintelligible noise on the cir-
 
 58 SUCCESS OR FAILURE? 
 
 cuits which he had schemed to tour. What next, then ? 
 What could he do ? In his wrought-up state it occurred 
 to him that the evening press The Diary, The Mail 
 and The Bulletin might coincide with Phelon. And 
 in the last analysis, the box office might belie the opin- 
 ion of the more part of the critiques. With big receipts, 
 with the house filled nightly, he could tell Burrows and 
 his crowd, "go hang!" The hope solaced him. Men- 
 tally relieved, he now felt the physical reaction of a 
 feverish night. He would go to bed and sleep a couple 
 of hours. 
 
 He slept many hours until the cries of the news- 
 boys aroused him. He was at the outer door in a few 
 minutes putting a coin in the marvelously dirty hand 
 that issued from the marvelously tattered sleeve of a 
 kneeHhigh urchin. The Bulletin had a full column on 
 one of the forward pages. Many paragraphs told of 
 Burton's professional experiences, of his personal at- 
 tributes. Lines and lines were devoted to a description 
 of the women's costumes, but of the play no judgment 
 was given. Perplexed, exasperated, Protony threw 
 aside The Bulletin and took up The- Diary, which was 
 brief and emphatic in pronouncing "The Millionaire" 
 a success. The Mail gave a similar opinion. 
 
 The latest readings buoyed him. He repaired to 
 the theatre to find that the house had been sold out 
 for the next performance. Members of the Board of 
 Trade had engaged all of the seats on the lower floor 
 and the first gallery had been largely bespoken by 
 the brokers' bookkeepers and settling clerks. Such 
 luck Protony decided should be celebrated, celebrated 
 in company with Laura and that was just the sort of 
 an occasion to facilitate a complete reconciliation with 
 her! The thought elated him to the last degree. He 
 asked the treasurer to advance him fifty dollars and 
 then notified Laura by messenger, saying that Miss 
 Fix, Burton, Mr. and Mrs. Phelon and a few others 
 had been invited. 
 
 The second night "The Millionaire" was less try- 
 ing for the stage management, but the audience was 
 more boisterous. Cries peculiar to the Board of Trade ;
 
 SUCCESS OE FAILUEEf 59 
 
 shibboleths and shreds of commercial parlance were 
 passed in the intermissions and during the scene on 
 'change the action was all but interrupted by trade 
 phrases hurled from in front. Protony in the wings 
 this time was relieved when the final curtain fell. 
 In escorting Laura from the theatre several letters 
 were handed her by the door-keeper as they passed 
 out. 
 
 Surprised, she turned to Protony: "Why didn't 
 he give me these when I came in?" 
 
 "Notes, letters and, above all, telegrams are never 
 delivered to actors before the performance. It is an 
 excellent rule. Bad news is a bad thing for a player 
 to carry around with him during a performance. Those 
 letters you have there probably are from admirers. 
 You'll get them in every town if we go on the road, 
 which I think we '11 arrange to do, seeing that the play 
 is drawing all right provided, of course that you and 
 Burton will go on tour. ' ' 
 
 Yes, she was willing. She was now in debt and so 
 must do something to meet her obligations. On that 
 score she need not worry, Protony intimated. His 
 share of the profits at the theatre well, they would 
 talk it over later. Laura's touch on his arm lightened, 
 as if to withdraw her hand; he therefore broke mid- 
 way in his diplomatic offer to assist her. But the shot 
 of acute infelicity was fugitive. He soon felt confi- 
 dent that he would regain her confidence. 
 
 The only private supper room spacious, though 
 of low ceiling at "Tom's Chop House" was illumin- 
 ated to a pitch in consonance with the garish brilliancy 
 of the place and also entirely in accord with the mass 
 of recklessly miscellaneous prints (representing, in 
 varying inaccuracy, forgers and assassins, pugilists 
 and painters, politicians and statesmen, authors and 
 actors) strung on the wall in company with objects 
 d'art, de chasse and de course; but these gave the 
 haunt an appearance of pusillanimous bohemianism. 
 Miss Fix and her broker brother, Jack ; Phelon and his 
 buxom, rakish wife; Burton and a society editor of 
 expansive dimensions; and a very tall man once
 
 60 SUCCESS OE FAILURE f 
 
 handsome, who might have been taken for anybody 
 from a barber to a Russian prince flanked by two 
 showily prepossessing and conspicuously gowned 
 women, were waiting for Protony and Laura. The 
 society writer was introduced as Miss Primrose; the 
 once handsome man and his friends as Belmont, Mrs. 
 Harmon and Miss Clairville. Protony was then sub- 
 ject to the customary congratulations, over which Miss 
 Fix presided with the air of a schoolmistress who per- 
 mits her scholar to be praised. Seated, cocktails were 
 ordered for all save Miss Fix, who asked for ginger 
 ale. While the drinks were preparing, Mrs. Phelon 
 explained that Teddy was not very well, so she had 
 consented to his taking a little whisky a few minutes 
 ago. Phelon, with closed eyes, half smiled: "And I 
 charged it up to you, Prot., old boy," he drawled. 
 
 Protony answered effusively that he would he 
 could always contribute to Mr. Phelon 's happiness and 
 contentment or some phrase equally stilted and arti- 
 ficial. 
 
 For a few minutes there was awkward silence. 
 Miss Fix clearly was a stranger to Bohemianism she 
 seemed ludicrously out of her element. Per contra, 
 the two garishly attractive women fitted their environ- 
 mentthey were boldly unconventional, though plainly 
 conscious of their physical perfections. Phelon was 
 drowsy ; but his wife, although mute, had a round smile 
 for everybody; Laura studied faces. Evidently Jack's 
 and Belmont 's thoughts were far away. Protony was 
 trying to think of something of general interest. The 
 heterogenous company became more homogeneous after 1 
 the first cocktail. Following the second course, wine 
 was served, and the subtle flattery of the gentler drink 
 soon relaxed all in a unison of good fellowship. Phe- 
 lon awoke to the presence of the gathering; he even 
 quoted a line on wine, from Keats. Mrs. Phelon 
 beamed and pronounced the brand "good stuff, just 
 like my Teddy's writings." All applauded and the 
 applause was mainly sincere. The exceptions were Miss 
 Harmon and Miss Clairville, who were from New York. 
 While Jack was telling an Irish story, Protony leaned
 
 SUCCESS OR FAILURE! 61 
 
 toward Phelon and whispered the question, who was 
 Belmont ? A broker who had failed, and now a solici- 
 tor for Jack's firm. His business record, though bad, 
 was better than his social standing. He always had 
 two or three alluring women about him women as 
 adventurous as they were seductive. Wealthy men 
 used but despised Belmont,
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 A CELEBEATION. 
 
 The wine was loosening the tongues and imagina- 
 tions of Belmont's companions. Mrs. Harmon told an 
 historiette, barely safe. That ended, Protony continued 
 quickly with a clean, humorous anecdote, his purpose 
 being to divert the conversation to a safer channel 
 he noticed a shade of dismay in Miss Fix's eyes, al- 
 though her brother was amused. Protony now re- 
 gretted that the steward had orders to serve yet more 
 wine and of a different brand. But the regret insensi- 
 bly vanished as the intoxicant was drunk glass upon 
 glass. However, he was aroused to some sense of a 
 host's responsibility by a drastic incident. Mrs. Har- 
 mon withdrew from a black, diamond studded case 
 two cigarettes, lit one and threw the other to Miss Fix 
 with: 
 
 "Have a smoke, Miss Prude?" 
 
 For a minute the spinster alternately flushed and 
 paled. She rose, remarking, "Such breeding and such 
 familiarity are insufferable." 
 
 Phelon cooly and carelessly retorted for the famil- 
 iar woman: "Why, how can there be breeding with- 
 out familiarity?" 
 
 A chorus of laughter broke out, in which even 
 Laura joined. 
 
 Miss Fix shook. "Come, Jack, this is disreputable 
 company. ' ' 
 
 She swept to the door, her brother and Protony 
 following, the latter protesting against Mrs. Harmon's 
 conduct. 
 
 Protony returned in a few minutes to find his 
 guests unrepentant. Mrs. Harmon had placed both 
 
 (62)
 
 A CELEBRATION. 63 
 
 feet on the chair vacated by Miss Fix, her gown drawn 
 to the knee. Belmont had taken Jack's seat and was 
 throwing crumbs of bread at Miss Clairville. Laura, 
 thrall to the influence of the wine and ambient atmos- 
 phere, listened to Phelon's audacious remarks. Mrs. 
 Phelon smoked a cigarette. 
 
 Protony was greeted with: "Hello! Joseph got 
 out of and away from a fix. ' ' Clairville said it. 
 
 Mrs. Harmon took it up: "Did you escape with 
 your virtue intact, Joseph?" 
 
 ' ' Ladies, ladies ! I must insist that you desist. You 
 are manifesting a shocking irreverance for a, very es- 
 timable lady and my collaborator," Protony deris- 
 ively protested. 
 
 Mrs. Phelon had said nothing thus far, but as she 
 half rose from the chair, her cheeks crimson and her 
 eyes rakish, it was plain she would be venturesome. 
 "Mr. Protony," she asked in an innocent manner, 
 deliciously simulated, "do you think that Miss Fix 
 could collaborate in anything more vital than a literary 
 subject?" 
 
 "By Jove, that was good!" exclaimed her husband. 
 "If you were not my wife I'd kiss you. You are 
 always doing or saying something surprisingly bright." 
 
 "And you see, Eddie, it has been neither the lady 
 nor the tiger." 
 
 Belmont demanded an explanation. "Don't speak 
 in riddles. Tell me what you mean." 
 
 Not heeding Phelon's warning finger she explained 
 that he had received a check for a hundred dollars 
 from a weekly periodical for an essay on Stockton's 
 story, "The Lady or The Tiger." In cashing the 
 check for him the cashier of The Forum had jocularly 
 asked: "What will you do with so much money, Mr. 
 Phelon?" And Phelon had answered: "Well, it will 
 either be the lady or the tiger." 
 
 "I'll see to it that it will not be the lady and I'll 
 try to keep the money from the tiger," the blonde 
 added. 
 
 More applause. "Admirable! Admirable! Splen- 
 did ! The best thing I 've heard in many a day. Let
 
 64 A CELEBRATION. 
 
 us drink to Mrs. Phelon." This time all rose to Pro- 
 tony 's response and in the rising, Protony, who had 
 been comparatively moderate in his potations, noticed 
 an impairment in Laura's self-control her eyes were 
 mischievous her form oscillated. The discovery 
 shocked him, who had paid no personal attention to 
 the loose remarks and deportment of the other women. 
 But signs of abandonment in Laura were to him as a 
 visitation of sudden pain. He must do something to 
 stop the carousal, or at least to divert its course. ' ' Be- 
 fore we sit down," he suggested, "let us insist that 
 Mr. Phelon make a philosophical speech or recite some 
 of his own majestic lines." 
 
 "Good! Good! A speech! A poem!" 
 
 "A philosophical speech? No! No! I haven't 
 attempted such -a thing since my college days. Still 
 yes, I'll try to say something if what comes first 
 to my head flies straight to my tongue." 
 
 "Fellow mortals," he began with an air of mock 
 pomposity. "There is an impenetrable curtain at 
 either end of life. The first is the one through which 
 we enter; its hues are white and purple, symbolical 
 of hope, of youth. The second through which we 
 depart is black, signifying death. At present we 
 find ourselves between these curtains of morning and 
 night. What is back of the shade and shroud we do 
 not know perhaps we shall never know. Our lot 
 reminds me of a Scandinavian legend. A band of war- 
 riors were seated about a fire at night in the hall of 
 an abandoned castle. During one of those silent, medi- 
 tative moments when man, however primitive, feels 
 solitude and the sublimity of the Creator, a bird flew 
 in, fluttered around the fire and then disappeared into 
 the darkness at the other end of the hall. 'Life,' said 
 the chieftain, 'is as that bird; it comes we know not 
 whence, enjoys the warmth of life for a moment, and 
 goes we know not whither!' ' 
 
 Laura interrupted: "But the bird found its nest, 
 did it not?" 
 
 Protony was gratified to see that the current of
 
 A CELEBRATION 65 
 
 thought prompted by Phelon's remarks had subdued 
 Laura's artificial gaiety. 
 
 "That is the answer one of the warriors made and 
 remember, the hope of an hereafter was expressed by 
 a menial, not by the chief. The master mind, your 
 skeptic, is above the common-place intelligence which 
 bows down to tradition and accepts ideas second hand 
 from the past. The leader echoes Socrates: 'All 
 we know is that we do not know.' We do not know. 
 We cannot know ; so, fellow mortals, in this mysterious 
 game called life I say with Hoyle, 'when in doubt, take 
 the trick.' Take the trick! We came from darkness 
 and we return to darkness. Meanwhile we are be- 
 tween the curtains a good enough place if you know 
 how to live in it how to exercise and how to apply 
 your volition, for everything after all is volitional. 
 Everything comes to him who is determined. The 
 world belongs to the man of will. He utilizes his pas- 
 sions and instincts, he does not allow them to dominate 
 him. He commands his forces as he would a charger. 
 Keep active the fires within you but do not let them 
 consume you. Control them. Control your mind, 
 your body. Control your sentiment as you do your 
 reason. Make yourself lovable to women and formid- 
 able to men. Gain power by every strong means, but, 
 upon your life, do nothing mean or cheap. Do not 
 lose yourself in anger ; laugh but little, regret nothing. 
 Forget the past; live in the present; fear not the 
 future. When women weep and men bleed, be im- 
 passive as a pagan. But remember, above all, the 
 most precious thing in life to a man not already forty 
 who has himself well in hand is an amiable woman." 
 
 He stopped, raised his glass, depleted it slowly. He 
 meditated momentarily, as one who is trying to recall 
 something; then recited: 
 
 "Entends-tu Soupirer ces enfanta qui s'embrassent? 
 On dirait, dans 1'etreinte ou leurs bras nus s'enlancent 
 Par une double vie un seul corps anim6, 
 Des sanglots inouie, des plaintes oppressees, 
 Ouvrent en frissonnant leurs levres iiisenses,
 
 66 A CELEBRATION. 
 
 En les baisant au front le plaisir s'est pame' 
 Us sont jeiines et beaux, et, rien qu'a les entendre, 
 Comme un pavilion d'or le ciel devrait descendre. 
 Eegare! Comme ils s'aime." 
 
 "I say, Phelon, will you kindly translate all that 
 for us? I suppose it's good, but we would like to 
 know." It was Belmont who wanted to know. 
 
 "I can tell you in a word what the lines mean. 
 Youth with a big Y. They are symbolic of youth; 
 they are the apotheosis of youth." 
 
 "I'm done," he added. Protony, you are master 
 of ceremony here. Call upon some one else to con- 
 tribute to the entertainment." 
 
 Protony turned to Laura. "Miss Darnby, a reci- 
 tation or a song, s'il vous plait." 
 
 The French phrase harked Laura back to the weeks 
 of idleness when she had memorized, among other 
 things, a number of French and German songs.. "Je 
 suis grise, toute grise," from "La Perichole" occurred 
 to her. With an audacity incited by the festive cir- 
 cumstances she sang wine glass in hand "I'm tipsy, 
 oh, so tipsy" more or less correctly. There was a loud 
 clapping of hands at the end, in which all but Phelon 
 joined Phelon had fallen into "an alcoholic trance" 
 according to Belmont. Protony followed with a humor- 
 ous speech in Irish accent. Then Belmont told anec- 
 dotes perilously libidinous. Mrs. Phelon, who, up to 
 now had been drinking and laughing immoderately, 
 rose. She put one hand on the table to steady herself : 
 "I wa wa na I wa nt to shay tha Ted-dy an 
 I've been marr ried two yearsh an' I love him im 
 more 'n ev ev er. An' I wan wansht 't shay- 
 She stopped unable to fix another word. Rocking 
 back and forth for a few moments where she stood 
 she laughed incoherently, turned to Phelon who was 
 dozing and fell upon his neck with an hysterical sob. 
 Phelon awoke. "What is, dear boy? What can I do 
 for you." 
 
 Protony suggested in a mushy voice: "Let's toast 
 Mr. and Mrs. Phelon." 
 
 Belmont took it up: "To Mr. and Mrs. Teddy!"
 
 A CELEBRATION. 67 
 
 Phelon was aroused. "To Gladys and to me? You 
 are very good, dear boy. Gladys, they drink to you 
 and to me." 
 
 They all emptied their glasses unsteadily. Mrs. 
 Phelon drank tears which had fallen into her wine. 
 She drank another potation and then another. Bel- 
 mont started to tell a story several times, but lost 
 himself in the first sentence. Mrs. Phelon, Mrs. Har- 
 mon and Miss Clairville talked simultaneously and 
 incoherently. Laura laughed without knowing why. 
 She presently found herself embraced by Phelon. Bel- 
 mont kissed Mrs. Phelon. Mrs. Harmon took one of 
 Protony's hands, Miss Clairville the other. There was 
 a noisy confusion when somebody overturned the table 
 with a terrific crash. A red round face appeared in 
 the doorway and saw -a mass of broken crockery, spilled 
 wine and water and dilapidated victuals. "What's 
 the matter?" the red, round face demanded, growing 
 redder as it viewed the wreck. 
 
 " That 'shal all ri right, Tom, de dear boy; 
 al al all right," mumbled Phelon, while the rest, 
 momentarily stopped in their physical activity by the 
 angry intrusion of the proprietor, echoed tipsily, "All 
 all ri right, Tom; it'sh al all right." 
 
 "The next thing will be a raid by the police. You'd 
 better go home before I'm pulled. There are cabs at 
 the door. Get in 'em an' get out 'o here." 
 
 The menace of a ride in a patrol wagon terrorized 
 Protony, who, though in a sliding mood, had not wholly 
 lost himself. "Tom's right," he seconded; "let's go." 
 
 After much swaying, stumbling, shuffling, Belmont, 
 Mrs. Harmon and Miss Clairville were got into one car- 
 riage, the Phelons in a second, and Protony and Laura 
 in a third.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EN BOUTE. 
 
 The next day Laura was attentive to Protony's 
 plan of going on tour. He was uncertain about "The 
 Millionaire/' so he thought of adding "Charity 
 Ball/' "Men and Women" and a German play adapted 
 by Ringold. "The Millionaire" could be played in 
 cities, the other pieces in towns. Laura, approving, 
 asked about the changes in the company, the name and 
 character of the Ringold adaptation. Protony was not 
 decided about the personnel of the company that 
 would depend upon the amount of backing. The Ger- 
 man drama was well written, unconventional in theme, 
 with a striking denouement. The title "Modern 
 Love," Laura thought would prove attractive. In the 
 original, Protony explained, a man of thirty, holding 
 a high position in the diplomatic corps, seduces the 
 daughter of a labor agitator a girl of pride and fine 
 sensibilities, who had yielded in extraordinary per- 
 suasive circumstances, fortified by deep affection on 
 her part and a promise of an early marriage given in 
 all sincerity. The diplomatist becomes involved in 
 financial difficulties. His debts are paid by a par- 
 venu's vulgar widow who has a marriageable daugh- 
 ter, unattractive and ambitious. In the last act fol- 
 lowing the engagement of the diplomatist and the 
 parvenu the agitator finds his daughter in the house 
 of her rival, pistol in pocket. The father reasons with 
 her which is the greater sin, that which she has al- 
 ready committed or is about to commit? The seducer 
 enters, and face to face with him, the father in turn 
 forgets himself and grasps for the weapon. His daugh- 
 ter now stays his hand, observing as she looks at the
 
 EN ROUTE. 69 
 
 ignoble features of her rival: "He is not worth the 
 powder in this pistol. I gave myself, but he has sold 
 himself. Look at them, father. A mean and common 
 pair. They are well mated." 
 
 Ringold had transferred the place of action from 
 Berlin to Washington, and Protony feared that in the 
 adaptation the logic of the original had been weakened ; 
 but he hoped the play would be a go in the provincial 
 theatres. Laura did not share this hope. In her view 
 it was only in large cities where literary innovation 
 had a chance of acceptance. In ethics the masses are 
 like women; and woman, being intrinsically an aristo- 
 crat, is conservative, clings to the conventionalities. 
 And the further she is removed from the urban man- 
 ner and thought the more absolute is her rule in mat- 
 ters of morality. Laura, born in a country town, ex- 
 plained the situation to Protony; told him that peo- 
 ple in the interior were ultra-conservative; that they 
 insisted sin and evil in stories in plays be severely 
 punished ; that seduction was a crime heinous as mur- 
 der ; that a girl seduced was an outcast. She held that 
 "Modern Love" would stand a better trial in the 
 cities. 
 
 Then they discussed Burton. There was no doubt 
 that his artistic talent and name had a commercial 
 value where he was known and where good work was 
 appreciated ; but it was not certain that he would find 
 due recognition in one-night stands. Laura was no 
 judge of that, but she ventured a hint: she believed 
 the Jewess, Miss Rosenau, would prove a useful acqui- 
 sition. The woman was full of talent, had an intense 
 temperament and boundless ambition, and would 
 offer her services for a moderate salary just to get an 
 opportunity. Protony acted upon the suggestion 
 immediately by writing a note asking her to call at 
 the theatre within the week, between seven and eight 
 o'clock in the evening. She was there next day at 
 seven, a quarter of an hour before Protony had come 
 to the box office to look over the bookings. Yes, she 
 would do anything to be rid of teaching the odious 
 drudgery, how she detested it! The terms? Mr. Pro-
 
 70 EN EOUTE. 
 
 tony could fix the salary as he pleased. Only let her 
 get away from that hateful, that enervating school 
 house. Very good ; she could consider herself engaged. 
 He introduced her to the treasurer: "Miss Rosenau, 
 who will join our company at the end of this engage- 
 ment. Kindly extend to Miss Rosenau the courtesy 
 of the profession. I should like Miss Rosenau to see 
 the play frequently, that she may familiarize herself 
 with the characters." 
 
 She was consummately happy and her happiness 
 found visible expression in her eyes, which shone com- 
 plexly: Hope for an interesting future, joy at being 
 delivered from an irksome profession ; and through all 
 a vindictive flash somebody soon would be the vic- 
 tim of her reprisal. Protony, too, was satisfied; he 
 had secured a member amenable to all circumstances; 
 financial and utilitarian. He was also satisfied with 
 the box office returns for that night. The Board of 
 Trade scene was the talk of the town. It had been 
 discussed into a sensation. He was now sure of suc- 
 cess, and preparations for the tour a scheme which 
 until that morning had been a matter of secret reserva- 
 tion with him proceeded with confidence. One of the 
 initial steps was the engagement of an advance agent, 
 a Fred Freeman, alert, astute and hardly literate, 
 a product of South Clark street, whose memory did 
 not include recollections of progenitors, but readily 
 reverted to the time when he polished boots on week 
 days and sold newspapers on Sundays, a small, slen- 
 der, gritty fellow, who knew the ropes of the cities 
 and the routes in the provinces. The contract signed, 
 he urged that Protony purchase about two hundred 
 dollars' worth of diamonds at once. He insisted that 
 it was an investment absolutely essential to favorable 
 bookings on the road ; explaining that an advance man 
 well groomed, well dressed and with an abundance 
 of jewelry always commanded a better percentage than 
 the fellow with unadorned hands and shirt front. To 
 the provincial manager, gems were the signs of pros- 
 perity one must present a shining front in the 
 country. Protony was persuaded. He drew the
 
 EN ROUTE. 71 
 
 amount from the box office and handed the money to 
 Freeman, who appeared the following day resplend- 
 ent in a silk tile, a flaming cravat and blinding rings 
 and shirt studs. And he was fully primed for his mission. 
 He got together scores of copies of The Forum con- 
 taining Phelon's critique of "The Millionaire" and 
 had prepared a minutely arranged itinerary, com- 
 mencing at Baraboo, Wisconsin, and terminating in the 
 far northwest. 
 
 All but three members of the company were en- 
 listed to play the circuit. One was voluntarily omitted ; 
 two would not or could not go on the road. Hear- 
 ing of the defections, Miss Rosenau proposed Miss 
 Carr, who, since her companion's engagement, had 
 suddenly developed a propensity for the stage. Laura 
 approving, the schoolmistress was taken on provision- 
 ally. Of the remaining vacancies in the roles of "The 
 Millionaire," one was a minor male part which Pro- 
 tony himself could play under an assumed name; the 
 other, the character of a dashing speculator, was 
 assigned to a young man introduced by a dramatic 
 agency, Raymond Belleville, whose presence was as 
 euphonious as his name. 
 
 Laura was impressed by the contrast between the 
 departure at Chicago and the arrival at the diminu- 
 tive station in the north. In leaving, the strollers 
 were lost amongst the swarming and impatient crowds 
 which pressed against the high iron gates, eager to 
 get into the trains that would deliver them from the 
 crushing conditions of a crude, monstrous city to the 
 towns, villages and country seats on the lake's shore 
 and amid the hills and forests of Northern Illinois and 
 Southern Wisconsin. 
 
 At Madison there occurred a startling episode. 
 Two men of athletic stature and searching eyes entered 
 the coach occupied by the Protony Dramatic Company. 
 They were accompanied by the conductor. A man 
 hitherto silent, unobtrusive who occupied a seat at 
 the other end of the car leaped for the door. But a 
 porter was on the platform holding the knob. The 
 men with the searching eyes were beside the hitherto
 
 72 EN ROUTE. 
 
 silent, unobtrusive man in an instant. There was a 
 momentary struggle. When the quiet fellow turned, 
 his hands were captive in broad, thick, shining mana- 
 cles, connected by a slender steel chain. The negro 
 trainman opened the door; the detectives and their 
 prisoner disappeared. Not a word had been spoken. 
 The conductor explained: "A criminal, one of the 
 most dangerous in the country." He had eluded the 
 officers at the Chicago depot, but had been recognized 
 by him (the conductor), who had wired the Madison 
 police. 
 
 But nature's panorama elicited far different emo- 
 tions in Laura. As soon as the train shot out of Wis- 
 consin's capital, there was a sweeping change in 
 topography. Small lakes abounded. Hills, bluffs, 
 then mountains appeared in picturesque concatena- 
 tion. The ever-varying picture culminated impress- 
 ively. A circle of mountains, vine, pine and rock clad. 
 Within the circle an immense mirror of water, cold 
 and brilliant under the sun that fairly capped the 
 western mountains. Sand, white, firm and smooth, 
 margined the lake and upon the margin an hotel, a 
 few villas and a wine hut of pine logs. Not a sound 
 but the breathing of the engine, and when that had 
 ceased taking breath the silence was absolute. The 
 mountains barred the world and admitted the heavens. 
 They were walls of grandeur; walls covered with stat- 
 uesque trees through whose broad branches, at inter- 
 vals, the winds murmured melancholily ; walls of gray 
 rocks strangely formed, amid which crept wild ani- 
 mals and unpoisonous reptiles, and winding vines, 
 bearing potential joy and laughter. 
 
 The cry "Baraboo" shocked them to a realization 
 of the cares of civilization. From the low and leprous 
 looking station the 'bus went down a precipitous hill ; 
 across the bridge, which resounded the wheels and 
 horses' hoofs like the remote thunder that precedes 
 a summer's rain storm; then up a sheer acclivity. At 
 the top, the business quarter, and in the center of this 
 a square box-like hotel of rough stone. 
 
 The fat, flabby, clean shaven landlord, who looked
 
 EN ROUTE. 73 
 
 as if he would say and later did say "Yea" for 
 "Yes," scrutinized the company with a wrinkled brow 
 for a moment ; but the creases disappeared directly he 
 took stock of his visitors' clothes. The women were 
 told off in pairs. The men with the exception of Pro- 
 tony, shared rooms in twos, rooms that were all alike ; 
 the floors of unglossed wood ; walls disfigured by chro- 
 mos of screeching badness; mohair sofas, fashionable 
 in the early '60 's; upholstered chairs; a clothes closet 
 resembling an upright coffin, banged against the wall. 
 Beside a low, white bed, a strip of hand-woven carpet. 
 But the rooms were light, airy, wholesome, and the 
 genuine quietude, contrastingly reposeful to the attri- 
 tive din of Chicago, induced studious thoughts. 
 
 When Rosenau took "Une Vie" from her satchel, 
 Laura, in delighted surprise, asked if her room mate 
 understood French. Yes, almost as well as German, 
 which she commanded as readily as English. Negoti- 
 ating with the quickness and facility of young women 
 thrown in sudden intimacy, it was agreed that the ex- 
 teacher should attune Laura's ear to the language 
 which the latter now had by sight only. 
 
 "We've always called you Rosey you've never 
 told me your Christian name," said Laura, in banter- 
 ing reproach as she kissed in gratitude the full, red, 
 Semitic lips of her companion. 
 
 "You mean my Jewish name Rebecca, of course. 
 Can you conceive of a Jewess with a face like mine with 
 any other label? Look at this nose, these lips, these 
 eyes. Ah!" she made a gesture of angry despair 
 "they will always tell against me on the stage." 
 
 Laura protested. She recalled the many Jewesses, of 
 pronouncedly Oriental features, famous in dramatic art, 
 "You, Becky I'll abridge the name have a very 
 strong face. At present you are a bag of bones and 
 a bunch of nerves. You need more flesh, a more agree- 
 able expression. Your look is too sombre, too harsh, 
 too bitter, or too embittered, rather. But now that 
 you are in a calling for which you feel that you are 
 fit toward which you have striyen you will be hap- 
 pier and your contentment will reflect itself physic-
 
 74 EN EOUTE. 
 
 ally. The main thing in life some one told me is to 
 do something in which you are wholly interested. 
 Don't worry, you'll change." 
 
 "I'm afraid it will take sometime before I'll be 
 presentable. I wish I now had some of your flesh." 
 This was said enviously as she looked at Laura's per- 
 fect form. When they retired, Becky's admiration 
 deepened to absolute ecstacy. Oh, Laura, what a fig- 
 ure! You are too beautiful! And then look at me." 
 
 "Why, Becky, you have a very pretty shape after 
 all. Your waist is exquisite. Your hips want more 
 breadth and your bosom is undeveloped, but the con- 
 tours are there. You need more weight, that's all. 
 Say, do you pray? I don't I haven't since I left 
 home." 
 
 "Pray? No. I know the Lord 's prayer in Hebrew, 
 but I haven't recited it since my engagement .was 
 broken off. I observe none of the Jewish holidays not 
 even the Day of Atonement. I'm Jewish in nothing 
 but name and face. Oh, this nose, this nose." She 
 struck the feature desperately as if she would reduce 
 or flatten it. 
 
 "But, Becky, Becky! Your Jewish blood is a valu- 
 able asset. It is distinctive ; is something to be proud of. 
 I recently read somewhere that a Jew, if well directed, 
 almost always distinguishes himself. The 'ages upon 
 ages' of persecution has purified and sensitized the 
 Jew; has made him keenly susceptible to the best in 
 civilization. A Jew, the writer said, is seldom vicious 
 and never brutal. In the lower orders he is at times 
 vindictive; often tricky and a cheat; often vulgar and 
 insufferably intrusive; but with education and, above 
 all, freedom, the vulgarity and intrusiveness and the 
 shocking defects due to centuries of oppression disap- 
 pear. There is enough of the Oriental in the Jew to 
 make him like Disraeli; vain, and fond of glitter and 
 pomp; but the Orient, the author says, also has given 
 the Jew warmth and a luxurious imagination; and it 
 is the Oriental quality which makes nearly all of them 
 who take to the stage good actors." 
 
 A Semitic trait not touched upon by Laura subtly
 
 EN EOUTE. 75 
 
 showed itself next morning when Protony upon Free- 
 man's suggestion and insistance hinted to the hand- 
 some members of the company that they promenade 
 about the town for an hour or two. He did not give 
 a reason, but the experienced Burton whispered to 
 Laura it was to attract attention, create comment, ex- 
 cite interest, and thus, perhaps, make a big house. 
 When Miss Rosenau heard of it, she instantly ampli- 
 fied the hint: "Why not distribute a few dollars 
 among the women and let them do some shopping? 
 This would give the show the good will of the trades- 
 men, would start gossip among the women of the town 
 and so on. ' ' The look Freeman gave the Jewess was that 
 of a pupil toward a master who had made a marvelous 
 discovery. Everybody good naturedly fell in with the 
 piquant advertising ruse. Many stores were leisurely 
 visited and articles of small price purchased here and 
 there. Men stared admiringly. Women looked and 
 listened curiously, enviously. The smartly conceived 
 parade enhanced the attendance at the theatre in the 
 evening when the exiguous and ill ventilated audi- 
 torium was well filled with an audience fairly compre- 
 hensive of the mental exigencies of "The Charity 
 Ball." 
 
 It was a propitious start for everybody, especially 
 for Laura's sympathetic Anna Cruger and Rosenau 's 
 hoidenish Bess Van Bur en; both were promptly effect- 
 ive ; the Jewess, from her first scene to the last, romped 
 through her role with an authoritative abandon that 
 astonished Burton and Protony. The latter saw, too, 
 that he had fallen on a profitable acquisition in Ray- 
 mond Belleville. The young man betrayed hopeless 
 mediocrity, but his handsome person at every entrance 
 was welcomed with a palpable flutter. And it was ac- 
 claimedthe applause was unmistakably feminine; 
 light pattering, fugitive at every exit. But Burton's 
 vigor and vitality, his convincing talent and decided 
 personality dominated the stage. In the fustian char- 
 acter of Dick Van Buren he held the house. Protony 
 noted that the tried professional who assumed Mrs. 
 Camilla de Peyster would never do. Though not old,
 
 76 EN EOUTE. 
 
 she was exercised in the bad old school of acting; high 
 chinned, high voiced; high colored in manner, method 
 and attire. Miss Carr following preliminary nervous- 
 ness did so well in the obscure role of Sophie she 
 was potentially suggestive that he decided at the last 
 curtain to exchange the parts between the two women. 
 The Phyllis Lee of Alice Sutherland also was a phys- 
 ical find a stunning blonde in the first maturity of 
 married development, and recently separated from her 
 husband but by consequence disqualified for the 
 pseudo-sentimental and harrowingly lachrymose part. 
 The Alexander Robinson was a breezy, fun-loving youth, 
 Felix Heman, who paired well with Rosenau 's Bess Van 
 Buren. 
 
 The bounteous receipts warmed Protony to gener- 
 osity. He announced that he would stand treat after 
 the performance ; but when about to open his purse he 
 found that he was in a country town; the saloons and 
 restaurants closed at nine o'clock; at the hotel noth- 
 ing was to be had after that hour. So all of the com- 
 pany, save Laura, immediately retired. Miss Rosenau 
 was exhausted to the last nerve and fell asleep at 
 once. Laura's nerves were excited, not worn. She 
 resumed the reading of one of her companion's books, 
 "Helene," by Ivan Turgenieff, in French. Her vocab- 
 ulary was now grown considerable; it encompassed 
 the living words of the faithful translation of the 
 Russian author, whose commingled realism and ideal- 
 ism obtained their greatest triumph in this story, so 
 pervaded and colored by the light of the moral world, 
 in the center of which is a young girl of a will so 
 calmly ardent and intense that she needs nothing but 
 opportunity to become one of the figures about whom 
 admiring legends cluster. 
 
 But Laura stopped before the dark termination of 
 the tale was reached. It was past midnight when she 
 closed the book. She extinguished the lamp, drew the 
 covers carefully over Rosenau 's shoulder and opened 
 the window to air the room. She stood at the open- 
 ing for a moment. Except for one light in the dis- 
 tance the darkness was complete. In that light was a
 
 EN KOUTE. 77 
 
 youth seated at a table, bent over a book. A hand was 
 on the pages, another rested the head, which was cov- 
 ered with dark, thick hair. He was absorbed in the 
 volume a country boy, Laura thought, with a liter- 
 ary passion. A dog barked. A fugitive wind brought 
 sobs from a water wheel in a pond hard by. Then an 
 absolute hush. The silence was of the profound, im- 
 pressive kind ; one of those perfectly tranquil moments 
 so rare in tossed and jostled lives when the earth 
 disappears, and in which there is revealed to the soul 
 something of the Infinite Unknown; and when one 
 feels most intimately that there is somewhere a calm, 
 spiritual existence which will permanently compensate 
 for the cruel attritions and the harsh tempests of the 
 everyday world. 
 
 That moment in the night when she had caught 
 a glimpse of the sublime was secreted in Laura's sub- 
 consciousness, from whence it darted to memory but 
 a few times in her fated life the last time in the awe- 
 some instance when flesh and -spirit parted.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LETTERS AND OTHEE IMPORTUNITIES. 
 
 It was still dark when there were violent knocks 
 at the door. The noise repeated in diminishing tones 
 down the corridor awoke Rebecca with a start. Re- 
 membering the word which had been passed at the 
 theatre that the Company would take an early train 
 for Madison, she aroused Laura. The breakfast 
 scant and hurriedly prepared was taken in silence 
 and semi-somnolence. Burton was grumpy, the others 
 drowsy. The ride in and on an omnibus in the 
 fresh air of the dawn to the station put the Company 
 in more equable spirits. They had only a few minutes 
 to wait for the train. A day car was quickly linked 
 to the seven coaches brought down from St. Paul and 
 in less than two hours Madison was reached. They 
 were driven up an easy incline at the top of which 
 overlooking four toylike lakes was the capital, posited 
 in a green square. The hotel fronted this and af- 
 forded from the upper floor an unimpeded view of the 
 city, which was not really a city, and yet above a town 
 in population and architecture. 
 
 The Company had been booked for two nights. 
 "The Charity Ball" had been advertised for both per- 
 formances. It had proved a perplexing date for Pro- 
 tony. The place had seemed to warrant something 
 stronger than "The Charity Ball;" still he had nothing 
 more fit to offer. "The Millionaire" was incompre- 
 hensibly commercial; "Modern Love" literary caviar. 
 It had then occurred to him that he ought to have a 
 play for just such a booking something between 
 "The Charity Ball" and "Modern Love" and in run- 
 ning over the successes of the decade "Sweet Laven- 
 
 (78)
 
 LETTERS AND OTHER IMPORTUNITIES. 79 
 
 der" had come to memory. He had written at once 
 to New York for the piece and in his mail at the hotel 
 was a package forwarded from Chicago containing 
 a dozen copies of Pinero's early manner in dramatic 
 composition. 
 
 The first performance at Madison was attended to 
 the last seat in the gallery and the many students 
 from the University lent a vociferous air to the audi- 
 ence. The next morning Protony was at once grieved 
 and gratified in his selection of "Sweet Lavender" 
 to read in a curt review of the production that Mad- 
 ison was worthy of something better, from a company 
 that had finer to offer, than the cast-off and service- 
 worn delinquencies of Daniel Frohman's repertory, 
 Laura, on the contrary, was elated. Her woman's 
 pride and her sex's natural vanity were gratified by 
 numerous letters expressive of admiration of her art 
 and person. All, or nearly all, of the epistles were from 
 students. Some of these youths solicited the privilege 
 of a personal acquaintance. Two of them boldly pro- 
 posed a rendezvous. Rebecca, who had not been fa- 
 vored in that way, told Laura that Miss Carr had 
 received three notes from the University all invita- 
 tions to supper after the performance. Her comment, 
 "I'm surprised that she should get such notes, for she 
 never looked across the footlights at anybody," was 
 intended as deprecatory of Carr's physical charms. 
 The observation was not impartial, for the former 
 schoolmistress made a fetching Mrs. De Peyster. 
 Blonde, of the golden persuasion, rounded neck, arms, 
 bosom and hips, she was of the type that appealed to 
 the ordinary taste of the ordinary man and to unso- 
 phisticated youth quite in contrast to the epicurean 
 attractiveness mental as well as sensuous of Laura, 
 who then was made aware of the extreme difference 
 of character and appearance between herself and Carr. 
 Protony, too, perceived that Carr also would prove a 
 drawing card. At the same time his perception 
 made poignant by the jealousy which unrequited af- 
 fection keeps viable suggested that Carr might be an 
 effective antidote against a growing plethora on the
 
 80 LETTEES AND OTHER OPPORTUNITIES. 
 
 part of Laura, who, since the last week of "The Mil- 
 lionaire" in Chicago, had displayed a mounting prone- 
 ness to establish a distinction between herself and some 
 of the other members of the Company. Lastly, Rebecca 
 was not unenvious of her formerly intimate friend. 
 Her embodiment of Bess Van Buren was so natural, so 
 spontaneous, so within the confines of nature, that the 
 audience took it as a matter of course and omitted to 
 manifest its appreciation of her ease and harmony in 
 stage pictures. Unprepossessive, in a strictly physical 
 sense, there was no mail for her, a destitution that 
 wormed the more in the circumstance of Carr's indis- 
 creet vanity in volunteering to read the letters she 
 received. 
 
 ' ' Oh, you are too kind, ' ' the Jewess answered, ' ' but 
 I don't think I should care to hear them. I wouldn't 
 handle the precious things too much were I you. I'd 
 carefully preserve them. You may not get any more 
 when we reach the big cities, where they care more for 
 mind than for matter." 
 
 The derision inflamed Carr. "It's a pity you can't 
 borrow Laura Darnby's shape as well as her ideas. 
 
 The tart repartee took place on the stage within 
 the hearing of Protony. 
 
 "Ladies, another word of this and I shall fine you. 
 There must be no contentions in the theatre." 
 
 He was in ill humor himself. The sales at the box 
 office were light for the second night. The town threat- 
 ened to resent a repetition of "The Charity Ball." 
 
 The threat was fulfilled. Although the gallery was 
 well filled, the balcony was almost deserted and about 
 the only occupants of the parquet and orchestra cir- 
 cle were students who quite succeeded in the purpose 
 of compensating for lack of numbers by solid, roundly 
 aggressive, satisfactory and heaven-defying demonstra- 
 tiveness, emphatically so between the acts, when no 
 peace was possible until Laura and Carr had appeared 
 half a dozen times before the curtain. 
 
 In Milwaukee the Company's reception was con- 
 trastingly undemonstrative. The audience consisted 
 mostly of Germans, who, knowing Burton only, ap-
 
 LETTERS AND OTHER IMPORTUNITIES. 81 
 
 plauded him, but gave no other sign of recognition or 
 appreciation until the curtain was lifted on the Board 
 of Trade scene the play was "The 'Millionaire." 
 This was put on two nights. "The Charity Ball" was 
 given twice, at a matinee and a third evening perform- 
 ance. Meanwhile rehearsals had been called every 
 morning for "Sweet Lavender." Laura was cast for 
 Lavender, Carr for Minnie Gilnllan and Rosnau for the 
 oldish Ruth Rolf; Burton took Dick Phenyl, Belleville 
 Clement Hale and Protony Geoffrey Wedderburn. At 
 the third rehearsal the owner of the theatre a brewer, 
 enormously rich became importunate in his attentions 
 to Laura. 
 
 From the moment of arrival when he had seen her 
 pass the box office his annoying manifestations of ad- 
 miration had risen until they had become grossly dis- 
 played importunities. Several supper invitations had 
 been sent to the hotel. The first was courteously de- 
 clined, the others unanswered. The night before, after 
 the performance, there had been a carriage at the stage 
 door with the brewer beside it in an attitude of en- 
 treaty. Laura had refused, and turning to Belleville, 
 who was at the entrance, had asked him to escort her, 
 instead of waiting for Protony or Rosenau; and Pro- 
 tony had breathed a whiff of jealousy when a few min- 
 utes later he had been told that Laura had gone with 
 the handsome actor. Laura explained in the morning 
 on the way to rehearsal and the explanation was cor- 
 roborated by the brewer's presence in the box directly 
 the rehearsal had commenced. 
 
 Protony, in a high tension, demanded that the box 
 be vacated. The brewer, in a thick, asthmatic voice, 
 replied: "This is my theatre. I built it. I own it; 
 and every engagement here stipulates that the lower 
 stage box is to be at my disposal." 
 
 "I don't care whether or not it is your theatre; 
 whether you built it or whether you own it. Your con- 
 tract does not permit you to be here at rehearsals and 
 make a nuisance of yourself. If you don't get out of 
 here at once there'll be no performance to-night, and 
 I'll tell the newspapers why."
 
 82 LETTERS AKD OTHER IMPORTUNITIES. 
 
 The threat proved effective. The ponderous roue 
 shambled out of the box sullenly. But he was there 
 at the rise of the curtain in the evening, sodden with 
 drink. His presence disturbed Laura acutely lest he 
 commit some tipsy indiscretion. He glared at her, 
 now with a galliard air, again in a ferocious mood. He 
 applauded her indescriminately at every entrance, 
 every exit. The audience caught the situation, which 
 deepened Laura's embarassment, a feeling that was 
 not relieved when in the wings, for there she encoun- 
 tered the obvious jealousy of Protony, who followed 
 her every look and gesture. Both were glad not to 
 find a carriage at the door perhaps the proprietor 
 had become too befuddled to continue his offensive 
 address. 
 
 But both were disconcerted when they arrived in 
 Chicago to find Ross waiting for them at the depot 
 with a splendid brougham. He insisted that they go 
 to his hotel for the one night they were to be in Chi- 
 cago before starting for Kansas City. Protony would 
 not accept and his refusal prompted Laura to decline. 
 Ross did not completely succeed in repressing his an- 
 ger; but he had the tact to quickly invite Carr and 
 Rosenau. The former accepted, the latter refused 
 the Jewess' readily affectionate and gregarious nature 
 had developed in Laura 's intimacy, with whom she 
 was now in full sympathy. 
 
 The members of the Company who had relatives in 
 Chicago went to their homes for the night. Laura, 
 Rebecca, Protony, Burton and Belleville took a street 
 car on the line passing the depot, crossed the river 
 and registered at an hotel contiguous to the station 
 of the railway which would take them to Kansas City. 
 Protony was morosely silent until they got to the hotel, 
 when he turned to the Jewess with: "Miss Rosenau, 
 will you excuse us for a few minutes. I wish to speak 
 with Miss Darnby." 
 
 "I want to know," he demanded when they were 
 in one of the small parlors, "who informed Ross of our 
 route. ' ' 
 
 His tone was peremptory, his manner affrontive.
 
 LETTERS AND OTHER IMPORTUNITIES. 83 
 
 He challenged resentment. "Why don't you ask him? 
 Why ask me?" 
 
 "Because I believe it is you who have kept him 
 posted." 
 
 "Believing that being so well informed yourself 
 why do you ask?" 
 
 Her spirited answer quelled him. He became so- 
 licitous. "Laura, tell me, have you corresponded with 
 him?" 
 
 She reciprocated: "I assure you that I have not." 
 
 "Who in the world could have told him?" 
 
 "A member of the Company, I presume; or perhaps 
 he saw our route in a dramatic paper." 
 
 She did not say she suspected Carr, whose willing- 
 ness to keep Ross posted was traceable to several 
 motives, all leading to the main intention of doing Carr 
 some good and Laura a great deal of harm; for exam- 
 ple, Protony's jealousy might be worked up to a degree 
 and sustained where an irreparable breach between 
 him and Laura would occur; again, the possibility of 
 Laura leaving the company and joining Ross pursuant 
 to that gentleman's promotive inducements; or fail- 
 ing that by way of a last chance she 'herself might 
 find effective force with him. And Carr 's ready accept- 
 ance of Ross' carriage invitation confirmed Laura in 
 the validity of her intuition, fortified by Carr's de- 
 meanor toward Ross the next morning, when he es- 
 corted her to the depot. She thanked him profusely, 
 ostentatiously, she gave him her hand which she for- 
 got to withdraw, smiling and talking, holding her face 
 close to his the while. He at first was confused, then 
 irritated. He suddenly turned, walked directly to 
 Laura, who stood apart from the group on the plat- 
 form bidding good-by to friends, and said in accents 
 of sincere apology: "I wished to come earlier 
 so that I could have a talk with you, but Miss Carr 
 prolonged our start to the last possible moment, al- 
 though last evening she seemed anxious to be here 
 early. ' ' 
 
 Laura answered lightly; if it was merely to speak 
 with her it had been useless to have arrived sooner,
 
 84 LETTEES AND OTHER IMPORTUNITIES. 
 
 for she had just come. This' slight perversion of fact 
 was actuated by an illogical and by consequence 
 feminine idea that it would alleviate her rankle 
 against Carr, whose double motive intrigue was divined 
 rather than read. Boss wished to reiterate the assur- 
 ance that he was her friend, that she must promise 
 to command him whenever it was possible for him to 
 serve her. The theatrical career is beset with difficul- 
 ties and accidents ; one can never tell what will happen, 
 however properous a company at the beginning. 
 
 Laura had learned that a woman with a disillusioned 
 past is grateful for a man's well-meant friendship; 
 it is comforting, sustaining, even in these times of grow- 
 ing independence for women. She showed her gratitude 
 frankly, bidding him good-by with a nervously warm 
 hand shake and an illumined countenance. This pro- 
 voked a malicious smile from Carr and prevented a 
 repression of Protony's feelings, who, when the train 
 had started, observed: "I suppose you are sorry, 
 after all, that you didn't accept his invitation last even- 
 ing." 
 
 She studiously refrained from controverting him, 
 calculating that silence would disturb him more than 
 a tart retort ; and the next day as they were approach- 
 ing Kansas City he apologized they had not ex- 
 changed a sentence in the interval; he had spent most 
 of his time in the buffet car, she in reading. 
 
 "So you have thought it over and found that to 
 show gratitude is not a horrible offense?" 
 
 She soon forgot him in the abounding sense of near- 
 ing Missouri the state of her nativity. Her thoughts 
 reverted to home, to her father, her mother. 
 
 She would like to embrace her mother to meet 
 those alert brown eyes whose flash had not been dimmed 
 by the lost illusions that had depressed the counte- 
 nance to wanness and waste. Her wish to see her father 
 was alloyed by fear of him and discontent with herself 
 so far as her conduct related to having severed home 
 ties. She knew that Ruhland had sternly disapproved 
 of her course from the hour she left home and the 
 thought of meeting him was disquieting. She won-
 
 LETTERS AND OTHER IMPORTUNITIES. 85 
 
 dered how he would receive her, how she should greet 
 him, how "Kansas City!" 
 
 The porter shouted the name. The train stopped 
 in a confusing din of bells, belching smoke, hissing 
 steam and multi-voiced cries in a humid, palpable at- 
 mosphere charged with assailant odors. It all reminded 
 Laura of the first sensation imparted by Chicago, yet 
 here the atmospheric impurities were denser, deadlier, 
 the noises harsher, cruder. Looking up from the sta- 
 tion at the foot of the hill, Laura saw a repulsively 
 scabrous sight. The heights, sheer and jagged, were 
 strewn with leprous habitations ; black, rotting shanties 
 that looked as if they could not resist the weakest wind ; 
 hovels in the midst of decayed desolation ; squalid huts 
 thrown in dark, spawning squalor ; low, broken rotting 
 fences ; the lanes and streets a mass of mud and debris ; 
 the walks narrow strips of dilapidated boards. Up this 
 acclivity of foulness a tramway operated by cable. 
 From the top Laura looked down. The spectacle was 
 afflicting from above as it was from below. Through 
 a moving veil of cinders and smoke she saw pitchy, 
 sooty depots covered with advertisements. Near these 
 stations a heavy slimy river; the thick grimy waters 
 crawled as a monstrous serpent and glistened for very 
 blackness. It was impossible to distinguish the line 
 of demarcation between the polluted stream and the 
 banks ; the broad, filthy borders seemed to be the stag- 
 nant part of the river and were heaped with the refuse 
 of the city garbage of every kind, offal of every 
 stench. Between the muck-midden and the hill side, 
 a shed here and there which harbored the impaired 
 or discarded utilities of a railway; scattered among 
 the loosely built yellow pine hutches were broken- 
 down engines and ruined freight cars. And every- 
 where dirt and debris, debris and dirt. It was the val- 
 ley of hellish clangor, of filth and premature desolation. 
 
 Laura turned from the appalling view and found 
 a restorative scene in front of her; a wide arboreal 
 street of home-like houses, each in the center of kempt, 
 spacious gardens. A turn, and midway in the square 
 the car stopped before a large,, imposing hotel. As she
 
 86 LETTERS AND OTHER IMPORTUNITIES. 
 
 walked through the corridor Laura was delighted to 
 find herself featured on the posters which dotted the 
 walls. Her name stood out in huge, black letters and 
 beneath a parenthetical line, in small type, reading, 
 "A Kansas City Girl." Some one had told Fred Free- 
 man she was from Missouri, so acting upon the broad 
 license of a theatrical agent he had conferred the 
 honor upon Kansas City. Protony explained to her 
 that this was a pressman's privilege or ruse which 
 usually swelled the receipts. He added banteringly, 
 "If we ever play in St. Louis you will be born there. It 
 is not a new dodge. There are several actresses who 
 have as many as seven the Homeric number birth- 
 places. You'll have only two a modest beginning."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF THE PSYCHIC WOBLD. 
 
 Protony had decided to produce "Sweet Lavender'* 
 at Kansas City. He called the rehearsal at nine o'clock, 
 an hour earlier than customary. Laura had formed a 
 mentally seizable conception of Lavender, but found it 
 impossible to give it physical expression at the repe- 
 tition. She was inclined to blame the environments, 
 which impressed her as exceedingly unpropitious. 
 The theatre, though small, was not cozy; it had the 
 appearance of precipitate deterioation. The auditorium 
 looked infinitely dreary with the chairs draped in 
 soiled Holland covers; a few straggling sunbeams ac- 
 centuated the dismal darkness. Then the interruptions 
 were frequent. Burton disappeared several times 
 and had to be sent for when his cue was given. Once 
 in one of Laura's effective situations, Carr was not 
 present and -was found below in confidential conversa- 
 tion with Freeman, who had completed his bookings 
 and was traveling with the Company. The disturb- 
 ances appeared to be endless and Laura was highly 
 susceptible to them. Scene shifters, stage carpenters, 
 loud-voiced directions all went to her nerves. No 
 illusion seemed possible. There were six hours of this 
 the first day and six more the next, when the play was 
 to be produced. 
 
 She came to her room in the hotel in the afternoon, 
 disgusted, disheartened, exhausted. Flitting through 
 the wearisome numbness was a recurring dread of fail- 
 ure. To present a living a flesh and blood Lavender 
 seemed beyond her power. She saw the part well 
 enough but could not grasp it ; could not make it her 
 own. With her head heavy with lines, with the sweet 
 
 (87)
 
 88 A GLIMPSE OF THE PSYCHIC WCELD. 
 
 London girl hovering over her, she sank to the pillow. 
 
 She was gently awakened by Rebecca at fifteen 
 minutes before the dinner hour. She hastily dressed, 
 the speeches and the business of Pinero's heroine be- 
 setting her. At the table Lavender still was persist- 
 ently intrusive. She was insensible to her environ- 
 mentheard nothing, saw nobody, ate without the 
 slightest appreciation of that function. Freeman's 
 professional deception about Kansas City being her 
 birthplace unconsciously had inculcated her with an 
 ambition to excel here. And she was terrified by the 
 fear lest she have nothing to sustain, to fortify the am- 
 bition. She knew the words, the exits, the entrances- 
 knew the mechanism of the role, but the spirit of the 
 part eluded her. She had become a mystery to herself, 
 could not comprehend this lack of confidence, this want 
 of understanding. Was it extreme nervousness? Had 
 she become self-conscious, or supersensitive ? Here- 
 tofore, in Chicago, her fear had been wholly physical 
 ordinary stage fright which she had soon quelled. 
 Now it was a psychological obsession which would not 
 away. 
 
 It seemed impossible to remain in the dressing room, 
 where Rosenau, with much less experience, sat tran- 
 quilly going over Ruth Rolt for the last time. She 
 went upstairs and reached a wing at a moment when 
 Burton's appearance as Dick Phenyl was heartily ac- 
 claimed. His make-up, Laura even in her perturbed 
 state noticed, was marvelously vivid of the alcoholic 
 barrister, the hair frowsy, the eyes bleared, the nose 
 coppery; the mouth infirm a face conveying the idea 
 of original strength of mind and character ravaged and 
 debased by drink. The voice more than the unsteady 
 frame and uncertain hands connoted ruin; it was 
 tremulously raucous such degraded tones as are 
 heard in a police court on a Monday morning when the 
 charge is "Drunk and Disorderly." 
 
 "That is nature, that is truth," Laura thought. "Oh, 
 shall I ever " She heard her cue. In scene, self-con- 
 sciousness left her. She merely felt herself in a high 
 light, perceived a black mass the audience abutting
 
 A GLIMPSE OF THE PSYCHIC WORLD. 89 
 
 the high light. An intermittent noise came from that 
 high light. But she did not know for whom the ap- 
 plause. 
 
 In the first entr'act, when going to her room, she 
 passed Protony. His look seemed strange she did not 
 know what to make of it. Had she impaired the suc- 
 cess of the performance ? Rosenau was not there. She 
 was disappointed in not finding the Jewess, who, she 
 knew, had watched her from the wing and who 
 probably could explain Protony 's singular expression. 
 Now she realized the fugitive, the impermanent char- 
 acter of the actor's art. The musician may hear his 
 composition; the author may read his book or see his 
 play; the painter may see the effect of his brush; the 
 sculptor's work is revealed to him at every stroke of 
 the chisel; but the actor's highest inspirations are re- 
 corded in sand, are written in water. He is left to 
 his feelings, his intuitions, and these are often decept- 
 ive, illusory. 
 
 At the end of the second act as she was descending, 
 limp and fatigued, to the dressing room, some one whis- 
 pered in her ear: "Oh, you are acting admirably. 
 You and Burton are carrying the performance. ' ' It was 
 Rosenau. Laura revived instantly. The eulogy was 
 as an electric infusion of new life. Her fatigue, her 
 enervation vanished. And she was wholly conscious 
 that this brief breath of praise had transformed her. 
 A line from Carlyle leaped to her memory : ' ' Talent of 
 any sort is generally accompanied by a peculiar fine- 
 ness of sensibility ; of genius this is the most essential 
 constituent." She must have some talent, after all, to 
 be so quickly and thoroughly affected by a passing 
 word. 
 
 She made the last act, with its conventional yet 
 pleasing termination, convincing to herself, and felt 
 the warmth, sincerity and gratitude of approval that 
 came up from the dark mass at the final curtain. The 
 feeling that she had done justice to herself and her 
 position was verified by the press notices. In The 
 Epoch's crudely but earnestly written half column Bur- 
 ton and Laura were the only subjects of appreciation.
 
 93 A GLIMPSE OF THE PSYCHIC WORLD. 
 
 The Planet believed Miss Darnby "Our Kansas City 
 girl" to be "one of the best actresses in the country 
 even if she be less known than several who panade as 
 stars." Two evening papers presented, in double col- 
 umn width, Laura's picture. Protony brought the jour- 
 nals to Laura's room whilst Miss Rosenau was absent. 
 Her sensitive ear detected a note of forced effusion in 
 his congratulations and through his manner there pene- 
 trated a suggestion of a strange esuriency. He took 
 both her hands voluntarily. He leaned toward her. 
 She drew back quickly to evade the kiss. 
 
 "No; I'm not prepared for such a reconciliation." 
 He reddened, then whitened. Tortured pride, jeal- 
 ousy, despair were successively mirrored upon his fea- 
 tures. 
 
 His wish for a re-establishment of their former re- 
 lations had been prompted by selfishness as well as 
 affection. Her performance of Lavender told him ' 
 he saw and felt it that she was developing artistic- 
 ally; he perceived that she was catching glimpses of 
 the psychic world seen by the intellectually elect. He 
 feared that she would rise above him, would be inde- 
 pendent of him. 
 
 "Have you become absolutely indifferent?" 
 "No, but I am resolved to be true to my better, my 
 higher nature." 
 
 A knock interrupted the strange scene. Rosenau 
 came in and asked where the Company would go after 
 the Kansas City engagement. Protony replied, "Oma- 
 ha, ' ' and went out without a glance at Laura, who had 
 read his conflicting emotions in his face. At the thea- 
 tre that evening he passed her several times without 
 evidence of recognition. He spoke frequently with 
 Carr, assuming an attitude of earnestness the while. 
 At first Laura was amused at his boyish attempt to 
 pique her; but her nerves and experience were not 
 equal to a persistent repetition of the intrigue devised 
 by Protony. Gradually and imperceptibly her fine sus- 
 ceptibility became ruffled under the fleering glances of 
 Carr. She went to Protony and asked a casual ques- 
 tionas a means to a tentative approaehment. Be-
 
 A GLIMPSE OF THE PSYCHIC WOULD. 91 
 
 lieving that his petty ruse was succeeding he an- 
 swered with an air of studious indifference which in- 
 clined Laura toward further capitulation. She was 
 ready to offer 'additional overtures when something 
 pride or intuition, she hardly knew what intervened 
 and rescued her from a submission that had cheapened 
 her not to him but to herself. She expressed her 
 thanks for his reply to her empty question with an as- 
 sumption of indifference similar to his own and paid no 
 more attention to him that night. 
 
 She was made aware of her heightening sensitive- 
 ness a few days later when she was aroused at dawn 
 to catch an early train for Omaha. The strain of insuf- 
 ficient sleep harrowed her. She was chilled by the 
 ride to the station in a 'bus in which the Company was 
 huddled as so many head of cattle; was weak for the 
 lack of breakfast which the cook declined to prepare at 
 an irregular thour. She felt, too, humiliation in being 
 designated in the train as if she were a number or at 
 best an insignificant entity, for Freeman accompanied 
 the conductor through the car and pointing to the play- 
 ers individually a collective fare had been paid said: 
 "There's one, there's one, and there's another, 
 there's another and here's another and there, 
 there; yes, he's one, too, and so is she, and she and 
 this one." Protony, hardened to this custom of theat- 
 rical transportation, could not be impressed by that 
 which went to Laura's fiber. Rosenau accepted it 
 good naturedly, her philosophy being just a bit less- 
 ened by noticing Laura's extreme annoyance. The 
 others took it as a matter of course. They became im- 
 patient, however, as the hours passed and no meal was 
 served. Freeman had advanced an indefinite hope, 
 when they were on their way to the depot in Kansas 
 City, of a breakfast "soon." Near the noon hour 
 there was a stop at something consisting of a station 
 and a few loosely constructed houses, scattered OH 
 either side of the tracks. Freeman announced that 
 there was a "lunch counter inside." Laura's associ- 
 ates precipitated themselves upon sandwiches of 
 stringy ham and dry cheese, anaemic pies, shrivelled
 
 92 A GLIMPSE OF THE PSYCHIC WOELD. 
 
 fruit and murky coffee. The broad astonishment of the 
 passengers at the coarse Bohemianism of her compan- 
 ions did not escape Laura and in that instant shame 
 was more poignant with her than hunger. At the same 
 time the momentary animalism of the hurry and scurry 
 for food revealed, momentarily, the difference between 
 her kind and the world at large. Her class, taken gen- 
 erally, was not, after all, many removes from the vaga- 
 bondage of old when even the most favored of players 
 wore livery; was really bottomed in irregularity, irre- 
 sponsibility, superficiality; was forgetful of the past, 
 flighty in the present and apprehensive of the future; 
 had a small, distorted and unreal view of life. They 
 were not children of the world. They inhabited a nar- 
 row and artificial circle outside of which they assumed 
 there was nothing of significance. Although of a 
 higher type, Protony in the final analysis was a stroller ; 
 but whose finer imagination and sensibilities caused 
 him to feel more keenly thwarted ambition or unre- 
 quited affection. It was the stroller in him which 
 prevented his having more than one idea or desire at a 
 time, so that to him at present Laura represented the 
 all in all of existence. He imagined her to be perhaps 
 she really was his inspiration. He held her respon- 
 sible for what seemed to him unattainable aspirations. 
 He believed she should be the receptacle of his every 
 mood, his disappointments and satisfactions, his de- 
 jections and enthusiasms, his joys and sorrows. 
 
 "Why so pensive?" 
 
 It was the Jewess who asked the question of Laura. 
 
 "Because there is nothing else to do, I suppose. 
 I cannot study on the train to-day; I can't follow the 
 others in playing cards. I guess our early call and the 
 awful meal at that counter threw me out of balance. 
 I haven't enough energy even to interest myself in 
 the novel you recommended." 
 
 There was nothing about Omaha to arouse her. 
 The air was heavy and moist. The city seemed gloomy, 
 forbidding. Unlike Kansas City, which tried in a 
 rough, aggressive way to be urban, Omaha had not 
 wholly divested itself of some aspects of a country
 
 A GLIMPSE OF THE PSYCHIC WORLD. 93 
 
 town. The wooden canopy, which extended to the end 
 of the curbstone, where it was supported by two thin 
 posts, was one of the several indicia of provincialism. 
 Worse : the city showed symptoms of the most serious 
 affliction that can be visited upon a western commu- 
 nity, the disease of arrested development. Neglect, 
 abandonment , stultification, already had appeared. 
 The negligence was made personal to Laura at the 
 theatre, where the stage door opened directly on a 
 wide thoroughfare and permitted blasts of the chilly 
 night air to sweep through the region behind the cur- 
 tain. The dressing rooms were damp and had grimy 
 walls which had not been whitewashed in years. In 
 lieu of running water -were basins with a lazy fluid, 
 too vitiated for use. 
 
 After the performance of "The Charity Ball" the 
 members removed their make-up with vaseline, the men 
 muttering maledictions against a management which 
 "hasn't even a janitor's decency of keeping a house 
 clean. ' ' The women were disgusted ; with Laura 's dis- 
 gust there came a haunting sense that her association 
 was not conducive to the progress of histrionic talent, 
 and that she would develop more readily in a first-class 
 company. The small audience, too had a depressing 
 effect upon her work. In a different sense it depressed 
 Protony, who had a mind to cancel the return engage- 
 ment, three weeks hence ; but Freeman prevailed upon 
 him to hold the date, when the manager was sure they 
 would be rewarded by a larger audience. 
 
 For three weeks the Protony Dramatic Company 
 played in Omaha's territory. Every stop was a one- 
 night stand where the living was in various grades of 
 discomfort and where the "theatre" varied from a 
 miserable lodge hall to an auditorium of six hundred 
 seats and one box. In one town the Company were 
 compelled to perform ablutions in old lard cans; in 
 another the partitions between the dressing rooms con- 
 sisted of shabby canvas ; in still another there was only 
 one room, which was divided by a thin curtain; the 
 men occupied one side, the women the other. And in 
 all of those towns the players were stared at in the
 
 94 A GLIMPSE OF THE PSYCHIC WORLD. 
 
 streets as if they were strange apparitions or freak 
 animals. The more intelligent people looked askance 
 at the actors, at the actresses they leered. Laura re- 
 ceived coarse, brutal, illiterate letters designating 
 meeting places after the performance. She thought- 
 lessly handed a particularly offensive one to Protony, 
 who rent it testily: "Why bother me or yourself 
 with such cheap vulgarities." Her reserve was not 
 now entirely responsible for his abrupt manner and 
 soured temper; a depleting treasury also had made a 
 black streak. The houses had been light since leaving 
 Kansas City. To the abominable inconvenience of the 
 single performance was the serious matter of bad busi- 
 ness. When he returned to Omaha Protony 's reserve 
 fund was exhausted. 
 
 He wired Fix for money, assuring him that the tour 
 in the Northwest in the Black Hills region must 
 prove profitable. A sum much smaller than Protony 
 had expected was paid to him at the telegraph office 
 and even this relief was poisoned by a grudging tele- 
 gram: "Have wired all that I shall care to advance." 
 Protony hesitated. The country he was about to 
 play was strange to him. He had never been there and 
 knew it only from hearsay. But Freeman's urgency 
 decided Protony he would venture the tour.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CRASH! 
 
 Lincoln and North Platte, the first towns played, 
 barely paid expenses. At Lincoln a woman wrote the 
 review of "The Charity Ball" performance in the local 
 paper, a critique of polished irony, suavely denuncia- 
 tory, in which the authors Belasco and De Mille were 
 felinely ridiculed. She praised Laura's work and Bur- 
 ton's but wondered why they devoted their admirable 
 power upon such "counterfeit literature as had been 
 put out by the New York firm of carpenters and 
 joiners. ' ' Fortunately for its treasury the company was 
 booked for one night only. A return to Omaha was 
 made in time to connect with the train for the Black 
 Hills country. Laura, not being in a conversational 
 or studious mind, looked out of the window. The 
 country though flat was not uninteresting; it was 
 arboreal, with a black, rich soil. The people appeared 
 to be industrious and provident. At the village sta- 
 tions there were no indolent farm hands lounging after 
 the manner of their kind in the states farther South. 
 Briskness and business characterized even the least im- 
 portant of depots. And then there was an air of sat- 
 isfaction and contentment among the field workers here 
 that contrasted with the dissatisfaction and discontent 
 of the same class in her own state. Laura wondered 
 if, after all, it were not better to live- 
 There was a crash, a lifting jolt, a tearing noise 
 and piercing screams. Laura was thrown into the aisle 
 on to her knees, then, except for the falling of broken 
 glass there was silence. The train had suddenly 
 stopped. Getting up she found her companions in every 
 stage of demoralization, save Carr, whose head 
 
 (96)
 
 96 CRASH I 
 
 thrown back on the arm of a berth chair; her face 
 absolutely bloodless. A voice it was the guard's 
 called from the rear: "Anybody hurt in there?" 
 
 Burton answered: "No; a lady has fainted, that's 
 all. What's the matter?" 
 
 "Train wrecked. Engine in pieces." 
 
 Rosenau came up with a tumbler of water and 
 sprinkled Carr's face. Protony ran to Laura to in- 
 quire if she was hurt. 
 
 A hasty count found none injured. The porter 
 shouted they could not step out the door had been 
 locked for a few minutes after the grinding shock. 
 
 Then some one shouted: "All right; get 'em out." 
 
 Laura was the first to touch ground. She ran to 
 the group of people directly ahead and saw that the 
 reptile-like monster which had carried them so swiftly 
 from Omaha was decapitated the head a seething mass 
 of coal and iron. What had been, a few minutes 
 before a dashing, crashing, volcanic, vitality rushing 
 over the plains was heaped on the tracks in thousands 
 of inanimate particles. The wheels, the smoke 
 stack and part of the boiler were discernible under 
 the tender and its contents, which, in turn, were 
 partly covered by the first baggage car that had 
 plunged on the fuming pile. The mail coach straddled 
 the left rail; the fore wheels, after mangling a score 
 of ties, were buried to the hub in the moist sandy soil. 
 The other cars were intact and stood like stupid ani- 
 mals, sottishly indifferent to the carnage before them. 
 
 "Anybody killed?" 
 
 "No passengers, no; but I don't see the engineer or 
 fireman." The fear proved correct. The incisive 
 hissing of the steam ceased and the sharp sibilation 
 was succeeded by choking, raucous tones that articu- 
 lated: "Boys, for God's sake for God's sake get me 
 out of here!" 
 
 Many hands quickly delved into the debris that once 
 bad been the cab of the locomotive, and brought into 
 the open air two beings enveloped in overalls and 
 blouses, torn and black. The crowd drew nearer, rever- 
 entiallywith the reverence due the dead. One of
 
 CRASH! 97 
 
 the bodies, 'however, was animate. It uttered: "Don't 
 touch my left leg, boys; the pain is horrible there." He 
 was carefully carried to a hillock and as he was lowered 
 to the blanket, spread on the grass by the Pullman 
 porter, he pleaded: "Send for the doctor and pay no 
 more attention to me. Look for Cook. He must be 
 buried in there." 
 
 The conductor was bending over the other body. 
 "That's Cook, the engineer. Here (appealing to 
 Belleville) take hold of his legs and we'll put him 
 alongside the fireman." 
 
 Belleville put his hands under the limbs of the still 
 body. A patch of sooted blood soaked the blue jeans 
 and under garment at the left knee; a crimsoned, 
 sprawling blotch, a few inches below the hip, reddened 
 the other member. As Belleville rose, a bleeding, shat- 
 tered leg, scabby and fissured, dropped to the ground. 
 Belleville whitened and his arms weakened. 
 
 "This is too much for me; some one with more 
 nerve help," he murmured. 
 
 Except the brakeman, all had turned away, thor- 
 oxighly horrified. With an expression of calloused 
 contempt the railway employe muttered : "Weak fools." 
 He dragged the mass of limp, contused flesh across the 
 crushed coal and twisted iron, and as he pulled the 
 inert body up the acclivity the other limb, reddened 
 from the shoe to the trouser pocket fell off and rolled 
 to the ditch. 
 
 ' ' Don 't put him next the fireman ! ' ' 
 "What's the difference? The fireman's delirious, 
 anyway. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Annie, Annie, don't worry, Annie; I'm all 
 right, Annie," moaned the head of the fireman pro- 
 truding from the blanket as if to affirm what had been 
 said about his deranged mind.
 
 CHAPTER XIH. 
 POISONED BABBAJRISM. 
 
 The nerves of the members of the Protony Dramatic 
 Company were too fine to endure the sight. From 
 Protony to Freeman they all went back to their car, 
 which, fortunately, was the last on the train. Freeman 
 explained that this was the stock season, when freight 
 was very heavy and cattle and goods cars crowded 
 the road. There had been running, about half an hour 
 ahead of the passenger, a long train which ended 
 in a flat car loaded with a huge iron oil pipe. This 
 had fallen from the car across the tracks, unknown to 
 the freight crew. The engineer of the passenger train 
 could not see the monstrous obstacle until he had 
 turned the curve and then it was too late even to 
 lessen the speed, for the train was running down grade. 
 
 The sun was low when the wreckage was removed 
 and another engine attached. Just before starting 
 Laura heard that the fireman was dead. Both he and 
 his companion were only recently married their 
 wives had bade them good-by at the depot. The sleep 
 of the Protony Dramatic Company was fitful and fev- 
 erish that night. The scene they had witnessed or, 
 more correctly, in which they took part had shocked 
 them to the marrow, making peaceful rest impossible. 
 In consequence, they were the less fit to endure the 
 enervating journey over the vast waste to the South 
 Dakota line. The sun mercilessly glowed from a sky 
 destitute of a mitigating cloud and stilled the air 
 absolutely. The artificial wind created by the train's 
 velocity added to the misery of the travellers; it 
 aroused on either side x>f the track the sand, which 
 darted in the windows, filling ears, eyes and throats. 
 
 (98)
 
 POISONED BARBARISM. 99 
 
 For hour upon hour there was not a hill to relieve the 
 awful monotony of the flat arid earth; not a tree to 
 rest the eye. At long intervals the train momentarily 
 halted at an Indian reservation, consisting of two rows 
 of loose hutches, every one a cut-throat drinkery. Half 
 the population was in front of or inside the saloon; 
 the other half at the station ; a motley crowd of Indians, 
 indolent cowboys and liquor-besotted soldiers. Many of 
 the Indians and cowboys were on horseback ; nearly all 
 young handsome fellows, especially the savages, whose 
 large accipitral eyes vivified their dusky countenances. 
 
 These stops served only to emphasize the bound- 
 less wanness of the desert. The eternal, interminable 
 desolation of sand drove the Company to cards, a game 
 in which even Protony joined. Laura tried again and 
 again to read, but concentration of thought or attention 
 was impossible ; the heat, the scenic desolation, engen- 
 dered a vacuity of mind. She and her associates wel- 
 comed the night, which extinguished the scorching 
 sun and rendered invisible the endless aridity. 
 
 In the morning they awoke in Paradise Paradise 
 in comparison with what they had seen in fhe last 
 twenty-four hours. They were off the main line and 
 detached from the overland train. The swirling move- 
 ment of the one coach and engine made an echo in a 
 canyon that was flanked by craggy mountains of red 
 soil, gray ginting rocks and picturesque pine trees. 
 They were moving in a light of gold the morning sun 
 filled the deep, narrow depth with a shower of golden 
 sheen. The engine's joyous whistle echoed and re- 
 echoed in this valley of natural magnificence. Every- 
 body experienced a change of feeling. 
 
 "Why are these mountains called hills t/he Black 
 Hills," Laura asked the conductor. 
 
 "Because the first settlers out here were lazy, too 
 lazy to invent a fit name so they simply translated 
 the Indian equivalent for the place." 
 
 The canyon widened steadily; soon it broadened 
 into a wide valley. In this valley was a resort for 
 health and pleasure-seekers. A city of shops and 
 hotels; a city of shopocracy. The buildings were new
 
 100 POISONED BAKBAKISM. 
 
 and of bright stone. Many were pretentious. The 
 company entered the largest of these, an elaborate 
 hotel; an immense rotunda; a huge dining hall; big 
 parlors; wide corridors; every room had an air of 
 immensity. But the hotel was of the same crude new- 
 ness that was stamped upon the city and its people. 
 "Withal there was an awkward ostentation, a garish dis- 
 play, a coarse pride in everything; though through all 
 a patent solicitude about the ultimate success of the 
 place, for visitors were not numerous ; a readily notice- 
 able fact that actually distressed Protony and Free- 
 man, who saw that a light house was inevitable. 
 
 The audience that witnessed "The Charity Ball" 
 numbered less than three hundred, made up mostly of 
 men and boys. Disheartened, Protony confided to 
 Freeman that he would cancel the remainder of these 
 frontier engagements and return to Chicago, where 
 he was sure he could get a theatre for a fortnight ; in 
 the meanwhile he would arrange for an Eastern tour. 
 His company and his plays would not do for these 
 interior western towns. Freeman urged that they 
 play at least one more town, Deadwood, it was only 
 a hundred miles distant and the prospects there were 
 good. 
 
 At noon the next day the players were rehearsing 
 ,in a barn-like building, in a blaring, glaring uncouth 
 thoroughfare, of raw vulgarity, of savage levity. 
 Laura saw that here was none of the homely, narrow 
 contentedness of the towns farther east; here was 
 barely repressed lawlessness of manner and speech. 
 The most part of the men were of one class; outlaws 
 called pioneers; Caucasian savages not amendable to 
 civilization; Eastern failures failures in trade and in 
 the professions, embittered by their experience at 
 home and brutalized by their present environments. 
 Actual and potential criminals ; fugitives from the laws 
 of both coasts; cowboys a rowdy crew of untamed or 
 incorrigible youths from the East and of half-breeds 
 from the "West, many drunk and all armed; gamblers, 
 with low, depraved, hang-dog faces. Lastly, the final 
 dregs of humanity, the frontier bum; utterly lazy,
 
 POISONED BARBARISM. 101 
 
 shiftless; shifty and treacherous; thievish in a small 
 sneaking way ; too cowardly for crimes that demand a 
 show of bravery or energy; a leech of the lowest, the 
 most revolting type; accessibfe to every depravity be- 
 cause devoid of all morality. The women of two kinds ; 
 the rigidly virtuous and the wholly immoral. The 
 former all married, the latter all prostitutes. Both 
 unwomanly, both uninstructed. The public class with- 
 out a shade of shame; hopelessly degraded, thoroughly 
 dissolute ; lacking the veneer of decency, the gauze of 
 reticence, the counterfeit effort at charm which is 
 characteristic of most of these unfortunates in Eastern 
 cities. Here they were bold, bald, brazen. Unsexed, 
 they ihad the savage turpitude of desperadoes and the 
 viciousness of wild cats and flaunted their abandon- 
 ment with the vindictiveness of branded outcasts. 
 Coming from rehearsal Laura and Rosenau passed open 
 windows where these creatures sat, smoking black 
 cigars, with wthisky bottles at their side. Vile unnama- 
 ble impurities were shouted at the actresses. Along 
 this thoroughfare the main artery of the town nine 
 of ten buildings were abandoned either to reverberant 
 vulgarity or >a shrieking immorality; saloons, gaming 
 dens and stews, one after another. Some dives har- 
 bored the three ; drunkards in the first story, gamblers 
 in the second and harlots in the third. Placards an- 
 nounced the vices openly. The signs "Faro Upstairs" 
 and "Poker" were repeated from door to door. From 
 these drinkeries there was hurled nameless music 
 pounded out by half-crazed, half-drunken bedevilled 
 females loose in attire and gestures. Rosenau was 
 shocked, Laura sickened. So overcome were they by 
 the unavoidable glimpses of these scenes that they did 
 not at first get the full significance of the leers of 
 loafers who stood in the doorway or sat on barrels 
 and benches. 
 
 The Jewess remarked: "This, I suppose, is Western 
 gallantry. I've heard a great deal of the bravery and 
 chivalry of the West and I find that I don't like it." 
 
 Better, far better, Laura asserted, the repressed 
 miseries, the veiled passions, the gloved, insidious temp-
 
 102 POISONED BARBARISM. 
 
 tations and silent subtle sorrows of an Eastern city 
 than this bare ribaldry, this naked bestiality, this 
 poisoned barbarism, this outright butchery of civiliza- 
 tion. From the theatre to the hotel it was a series of 
 insults, by look, gesture and word. Those immoral 
 barbarians saw no difference, made no distinction be- 
 tween women of the stage and women of the town. 
 
 Laura dreaded the performance, for Protony, pur- 
 suant to one of those grotesque ideas of the fitness of 
 things which struck him occasionally, had billed "Sweet 
 Lavender". The women of the company were secretly 
 relieved as the curtain rose on an audience of men 
 scattered sparsely among the staring chairs in the chill 
 and uncanny auditorium ; they had feared a huge and 
 compact mob which would, figuratively, bring the thea- 
 tre down upon the heads of the players. The few 
 spectators were absolutely still until the last act, when 
 some of them threw gold coins at the feet of Laura and 
 Carr. Both were startled, but Burton whispered that 
 it was a custom among frontiersmen to express their 
 approval of an actress who usually was of the music 
 hall by throwing money on the stage. "Don't fail 
 to pick it up," he added. "You may need it for rail- 
 road fare." 
 
 The suggestion was timely, for everybody in the 
 company knew that the almost empty house had again 
 minimized the treasury. Between the first and second 
 acts there .was a hot discussion between Freeman and 
 Protony. Freeman wanted to fill the company's en- 
 gagements; he was sure luck would turn in a night 
 or two; besides he was resourceful, he could manage 
 to move along even if their cash became exhausted; 
 he knew all the managers on the circuit what was the 
 use of having such acquaintances if they could not be 
 used? His friends the managers would guarantee 
 hotel bills and provide transportation until things 
 changed for the better. 
 
 Protony was inclined to yield. He had decided to 
 wire Chicago for a date and while there arrange for 
 openings in the East. Burton's and Belleville's dis- 
 satisfied air a whisper of defection hardened Pro-
 
 POISONED BARBARISM. 103 
 
 tony to his original purpose. On the way back, at 
 Omaha, a telegram informed him that he could have a 
 week at the Prairie Theatre a down town house ! The 
 chagrin of defeat, the secret mortification of returning 
 because of ill-success were assuaged by the gratifica- 
 tion of a week's engagement at a first-class theatre 
 in Chicago. With somewhat of a flourish he announced 
 to the company : "Ladies and Gentlemen, we shall play 
 at the Prairie Theatre in Chicago for a week." He 
 smiled complacently at Laura, who had measured the 
 distance between them more and more in the last fort- 
 night. The parts of "Modern Love" were then dis- 
 tributed. The company would arrive next morning, 
 Saturday, so that two rehearsals would be held before 
 the performance. Protony telegraphed Robert Ringold 
 that the German play would be put on and asked him 
 to be present at the rehearsal. 
 
 "Where shall we stop?" asked Protony of Laura as 
 they neared Chicago. 
 
 "I shall go to the Lake Side," she replied, with 
 emphasis on the 7, and then intentionally looked out 
 of the window. This was a plain cut and his elation 
 over the engagement at The Prairie melted; it en- 
 tirely vanished when Ross greeted the company at the 
 station and invited Laura, Rosenau and Carr to step 
 into a carriage which would take them to his hotel. 
 
 "You seem to be well posted," Protony .remarked 
 in exasperation. "You always know when we come 
 and go." 
 
 "I have very good friends around the theatres," 
 was the cool reply. 
 
 Protony 's infelicity was deepened when he reached 
 the theatre, where he found Freeman in earnest argu- 
 ment with De Muth, the manager, who wanted a guar- 
 anty. De Muth insisted that the engagement was a 
 * ' long chance ' ' ; aside from Burton the people were un- 
 known, the play was untried in English ; under the cir- 
 cumstances he could not turn his theatre over without 
 some sort of a pledge. Freeman was about to take a 
 conciliatory tone when it occurred to him that the mana- 
 ger had already spent some money in advertising the
 
 104 POISONED BARBARISM. 
 
 attraction. He suddenly assumed an arbitrary manner ; 
 the Protony Dramatic Company had proved an unquali- 
 fied success in Chicago ; it could offer a good guaranty, 
 "but it never had done so and certainly would not do so 
 now. If Mr. De Muth doubted the company's drawing 
 power the engagement would be cancelled then and 
 there. He rose as if to go. Protony, who did not catch 
 Freeman's motive, interposed nervously; let the engage- 
 ment go on for two or three nights, he pleaded ; if the 
 business was not satisfactory a guaranty would be 
 given. De Muth quickly assented to the compromise. 
 "Unless you have money or can get it you are 
 putting yourself in a dangerous position," remarked 
 Freeman to Protony, in leaving the manager's office. 
 Protony could see no danger and Freeman said nothing 
 more in explanation.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE COURSE OP TWO LIVES CHANGES. 
 
 "Protony has more nerve than I supposed," ob- 
 served Ross. 
 
 "In what respect?" Laura asked. 
 
 "By not keeping his dates in the Northwest 
 which means that he will have those fellows against 
 him in the future and by coming back here in the 
 deadest part of a dead season." 
 
 He offered himself as escort to and from the thea- 
 tre. Laura would 'have accepted but for the idea that 
 Protony, with his jealousy aroused, could not give his 
 best to the production of "Modern Love". She found 
 Protony and Robert Ringold on the stage a quarter 
 of an hour before the time called for rehearsal. The 
 journalist's earnest countenance relaxed to smiling 
 amiability at sight of her. They shook hands warmly, 
 she purposely pressing warmth to covert effusiveness 
 pursuant to that instinct of coquetry which emboldens 
 women, however modest, to fluster bashful men who 
 find women inscrutable. 
 
 The company had memorized the lines on the road 
 and, generally, had an intelligent conception of the 
 respective characters. The rehearsal promised to be 
 free from difficulties until Ringold from a seat in the 
 auditorium interposed with suggestions that were rev- 
 elations. Laura did not recognize her bashful friend. 
 He was transformed. Once absorbed in the work on 
 the stage he knew neither actor or actress. To him 
 they were characters in a drama. He was earnestly 
 insistent upon simplicity of tone and action. "Divest 
 yourself of theatricality," he pleaded. "Forget that 
 you are in a theatre; forget that you are actors. Be 
 
 (105)
 
 106 THE COURSE OF TWO LIVES CHANGES. 
 
 Curran, the laborer; Lizzie, his daughter; be the re- 
 creant Lorrin for a couple of hours." 
 
 Laura satisfied (him. Her brief but trying experi- 
 ences with the world with men, specially permitted 
 her to have a sympathetic appreciation of Lizzie. The 
 vital truth of the final scene the daring, vibrant lines 
 she carried with direct conviction that thrilled even 
 at rehearsal. 
 
 "You read those lines as though you felt them, as 
 though they had a personal application," murmured 
 Carr maliciously. 
 
 "And you could feel nothing except envy and jeal- 
 ousy. Nothing but an advance agent could be per- 
 sonal to you." 
 
 The allusion made Carr burn. This was the first 
 intimation she had that her relations with Freeman 
 were suspected. She told him of Laura's retort and 
 was consoled with: "Never mind, they'll all be out of 
 an engagement before the end of the week all but 
 you. I've got something for you. The play will fail 
 and I '11 bet De Muth will close the theatre on Protony. ' ' 
 He spoke prophetically. The first night audience 
 was small and was made up largely of journalists and 
 "paper". Phelon, who had come up from West Baden 
 where he went in a collapse of nerves applauded 
 scene after scene. But he was quite alone in approv- 
 ing the play, during and after the performance. He 
 wrote a full column of his finest prose in praise of 
 the drama, of Ringold's skillful adaptation, of Laura's 
 and Burton's appreciative interpretation. Other 
 critics pronounced the thing a wild fling at originality, 
 absurd in result. The second night hot, atmosphere- 
 lessthere were about fifty auditors ; at the third, less 
 than that. The next day at five o'clock De Muth sent 
 for Protony; "You are running away behind. The re- 
 ceipts have not covered the cost of janitor service. 
 Protony, you'll have to turn in five hundred dollars." 
 
 Protony was impregnated with what he supposed 
 to be the artistic failure of "Modern Love"; the finan- 
 cial loss had not as yet given him much concern; he 
 had not thought of De Muth at all. The manager's
 
 THE COURSE OF TWO LIVES CHANGES. 107 
 
 reminder brought him to earth with something of a 
 shock. Without a concrete idea of where he could get 
 the money he promised to meet the demand "to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "To-morrow won't do, Protony. If you don't pay 
 in five hundred dollars by seven o'clock the curtain 
 will not go up." 
 
 To Protony 's perturbed mind all the gross power of 
 the heavy, swarthy face with its vulgar black eyes, 
 vulgar nose, vulgar lips and the big ponderous body 
 seemed to give a pihysical substantiation to the threat. 
 De Muth got up and went to the door, in sign that 
 he had delivered his ultimatum. Protony, enfeebled, 
 subjugated, could not but follow. Outside in the air 
 he had a better command of himself. But the clearer 
 brain gave no encouragement. To whom should he 
 apply? He feverishly recalled his friends and ac- 
 quaintances; he had many, but none was a likely 
 lender; they were actors, journalists, former pupils 
 a barren field which would not yield a large loan. 
 
 At the end he thought of Fix; the very man he 
 hesitated. No; Fix had wired he would do nothing 
 more; moreover, "The Millionaire" had not been billed 
 at the Prairie. Yet yet yes, he would do it; he 
 would take off "Modern Love" and put on "The Mil- 
 lionaire" for the rest of the engagement in considera- 
 tion of the loan. He stepped into the writing room 
 of an hotel, wrote a note to Fix, called for a messenger 
 and waited. The reply came within a few minutes. 
 It was laconic but decisive; the negative "No" was 
 boldly written across his own missive. That was all; 
 no address, no signature. The refusal, aggravated by 
 its insulting manner, extinguished him. He renounced 
 the shamed suggestion that had crossed and countered 
 within him while he was awaiting Fix's answer to see 
 Ross. A rebuff from that man who inspired him with 
 a strange commingled feeling of hate, jealousy, detes- 
 tationwould mean lingering degradation. 
 
 As a final fling, he, in turn, resolved upon an ulti- 
 matum. Returning to the theatre he fronted De Muth 
 with: "De Muth, you'll have to take chances with me
 
 108 THE COUESE OF TWO LIVES CHANGES. 
 
 on this thing ["you'll have to" was given in an 
 aggressive emphasis] ; I've thought the matter over and 
 have decided not to borrow money. If agreeable to 
 you we'll produce 'The Millionaire'. The change of 
 bill may help us out. What do you say?" 
 
 The manager gave him a metallic look. "When he 
 opened his thick fleshy mouth it was to say: "Stay 
 here a minute; you'll hear what I have to say." He 
 called an office boy: "Tell Hoyt to come here." The 
 boy dashed out and presently returned with a spare 
 individual covered with overalls and a blouse that were 
 flecked with varicolored paint evidently the scenic 
 artist. "Hoyt," fairly shouted De Muth, "make a big 
 sign with the words 'Theatre closed for the rest of 
 the week' and put it out on the sidewalk. We've 
 struck the first frost since I've been here and you bet 
 there'll not be another. Protony," turning to him, 
 ' ' it will take Hoyt about five minutes to make that sign. 
 You'll have five minutes to put up five hundred dol- 
 lars." 
 
 The fellow 's brutal arbitrariness crushed Protony, 
 who, in his disorganized state, appealed for mercy. 
 "Mr. De Muth, I really tried to raise some money but 
 could not. There are only three more nights ; suppose 
 we go on with some other play. But but if you must 
 close your house at least shield me in some way let 
 me announce that Burton or Miss Darnby is too ill 
 to act." 
 
 Protony had hardly spoken the last word when he 
 saw that he had made a fatal mistake in pleading with 
 the brute. De Muth's change of expression from what 
 had been merely feigned sternness to genuine anger re- 
 vealed that he had suspected Protony had some finan- 
 cial resource; but the confession convinced him to the 
 contrary. 
 
 ' ' Get out of here before I kick you out. ' ' 
 
 The notice was placarded by the time Protony 
 reached the curbstone. He gazed at it in helpless humil- 
 iation. Two boys stopped to look at the sign. "Gee, I 
 wonder what 's the matter ? ' ' The remark arrested sev- 
 eral passers-by. Presently the group facing the lobby
 
 THE COURSE OF TWO LIVES CHANGES. 109 
 
 was so large that it prevented free circulation. It was 
 necessary for a policeman's "Move on, gents!" to clear 
 the sidewalk. The news of the closure reached the 
 near-by saloons and restaurants; from here it floated 
 to all the theatres and newspaper offices. The legend 
 stared at Laura, who was accompanied by Rosenau, a 
 block away. 
 
 "Come; we might as well go back," she said, point- 
 ing to the black letters on the white background. The 
 Jewess ' mouth was more expressive than were her eyes ; 
 the foirmer trembled with surprise; the latter were 
 void as she turned them on Laura in blank inquiry. 
 
 "Oh, Protony, Protony, I suppose. He has no 
 business sense. He's placed us in a nice position. 
 This will help our reputation." 
 
 The ironical prophecy seemed to be fulfilled by the 
 way the press exploited the incident The Forum ex- 
 cepted. Phelon, in a few lines, censured the house 
 management. A column, with scare head lines, on the 
 front page, told of the fiasco in the other papers. The 
 unanimous reason chosen was "the repellent character 
 of the play, which shocked the moral sense of the 
 community." Burrows sententiously added: "Had a 
 clean, wholesome drama like 'The Charity Ball' been 
 given the theatre had not have been closed. As it 
 is, the public has administered a just rebuke." 
 
 For two days Protony 's courage was at a low ebb. 
 He could face no one, so held to 'his room. The posi- 
 tion at the hotel of Laura, Carr and Rosenau was dis- 
 agreeable for a time. They were the recipients of con- 
 dolences from the women guests, that were much more 
 insufferable than had been broad stares and plain 
 sneers. Assumptions of profound sympathy were 
 pressed upon them, and this the next day, was followed 
 by greetings of exaggerated politeness. One man was 
 effective : Ross knocked at Laura 's door the morning 
 after the failure and stood in the doorway long enough 
 to say: "If I can do anything for you I beg of you 
 to command me. Don't worry." 
 
 The third day she got a long letter from Protony. 
 He began by saying it was a critical time and that he
 
 110 THE COUESE OF TWO LIVES CHANGES. 
 
 would put her to the test. He was much to blame for 
 the differences that had existed between them, he ac- 
 knowledged, but was she wholly blameless? However, 
 there was no use in recalling the past. It were useless 
 to remain in Chicago. After all, Chicago was a provin- 
 cial town and the "West" had been well-named the 
 "Rowdy West". Nothing would go out here except 
 farce, melodrama or a tawdy play. In New York he 
 was sure of finding appreciation. There the real 
 home of dramatic art he would be understood. Above 
 all, the East was the place for her. She was sure of 
 winning fame in a Broadway theatre. He proposed, 
 then, that they go together. He confessed that he had 
 very little money left, yet he had enough for a few 
 months of Bohemian existence the amount would sus- 
 tain them until he or she shall have found something 
 to do. Would she go with him ? 
 
 She held the note in her hand for some time think- 
 ing. He had been much to her ; he was now much less 
 to her. Her augmenting indifference to him was due 
 not so much to his failures as to his strictly personal 
 defects his weakness, his extreme selfishness. Still, 
 she had been attached to him. And it was he who 
 had rescued her from Darnby; he who had taught 
 her all she knew of dramatic art, who had given 
 her an opportunity. Besides, he undoubtedly was 
 talented; he had the art instinct; he was refined, cul 
 tured. And and the natural, the ineradicable want 
 however talented of woman however strong of 
 character however worldly of a male companion, a 
 protector, indeed, inclined her to his proposal, provided 
 provided yes, it must be. She must have a lawful 
 standing with >him; she must be his wife. Since her 
 departure from Darnby, she had felt the tacit taunts, 
 the impalpable jibes, the covert insinuations; heard 
 the undertone innuendoes; perceived the invisible 
 looks of superiority which women convey, not the less 
 effectively because they are implied, to those whose 
 social status deviates from rigid regularity; and the 
 subtle, complex implications affected her keenly. Pro- 
 tony she knew thoroughly, and knowing him did not
 
 THE COURSE OF TWO LIVES CHANGES. Ill 
 
 fear him. He was of a fine mould, susceptible to cer- 
 tain influences. 
 
 Her answer was brief and pointed : "I will go with 
 you as your wife, so that if poverty must be endured 
 for at least a while, we may share it together, with 
 respect for ourselves." 
 
 To him it was an unexpected reply. He had 
 awaited it with feverish impatience, hope and fear 
 alternating. Her note bewildered him. Calmed, his 
 first impulse sent him to the writing desk to accept the 
 proposal. He dipped the pen ; but in thinking on what 
 form of endearment the address should take, he hesi- 
 tated. From this indecision his thoughts strayed to 
 the deep importance of the reply he was about to write. 
 He paused and in that pause the course of two lives 
 changed. 
 
 He began to analyze. After all, this was a very 
 serious matter. His affection for her was prompted 
 by absolute egoism and its quality was almost wholly 
 physical; it was charged with a feverish admiration 
 but was destitute of pure esteem. And and in 
 every man of some thought and culture there is an 
 ideal of morality for women as well as an ideal of a 
 fair woman. This ideal proscribes sensuality; it is in- 
 nocent of sensuousness even. It is associated with 
 white purity. Later, as one breathes the world's 
 vitiated atmosphere, the ideal is lost; but it returns 
 at a critical moment, long enough to compel a com- 
 parison. The ideal visited Protony the second time 
 the first was the day following Laura's divorce. Since 
 then? She was changed. She was of a stronger char- 
 acter, more worldly, her talent more developed. Mor- 
 ally? He did not know. He hardly suspected. He 
 merely feared, a fear prompted by jealousy. No mat- 
 ter, the transient, and transcendant vision of what 
 ought to be challenged a comparison. He was resolved 
 upon No. 
 
 Furthermore, here the ego revealed itself in all 
 its cowardly selfishness she might, after all, prove a 
 burden professionally and otherwise. She was abso- 
 lutely unknown in the East. There was always a
 
 112 THE COUESE OF TWO LIVES CHANGES. 
 
 swarm of gifted actresses in New York seeking engage- 
 ments. He recalled the ingenious and ingenuous peti- 
 tions; the maneuvers and the subtle intrigues, the 
 vicarious and the personal entreaties to get an audi- 
 ence with leading managers; young women and old, 
 beautiful and unprepossessing, rich and poor; of social 
 distinction, of notoriety, of humble origin; moral and 
 immoral women of every possibility and impossibility 
 women without number who were burning to have 
 a trial in New York. Decidedly she might be a burden ; 
 he certainly would not marry. 
 
 His reply was brief; he had changed his plans and 
 would go alone.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EASTWAED HO! 
 
 Masculine insight and feminine instinct told Laura 
 the reason. The same prescience promised her that 
 he would regret his decision. The while, she was 
 humiliated, for this was the second time he had rejected 
 her. The first time her willingness was implied and 
 his refusal tacit. Now she offered herself frankly and 
 he refused pointedly. His answer gave her a very 
 vivid and extremely realistic idea of what Shakes- 
 peare meant when he wrote of the woman scorned. 
 Never before had she wished him harm; to-day she 
 would like to torture him, to rankle his soul, to dis- 
 tress his mind excruciatingly. The spirit of retaliation 
 consumed her. To disturb his existence effectively, 
 to acquaint him once and for all of the impossibility 
 to live without her she must what ? He would go to 
 New York in a day or two. Then why not a some- 
 thing confused; a nebulous hope, an undefined aspira- 
 tion, a nameless timidity swirled around the central 
 thought of reprisal. Yet if Protony could succeed 
 there why not she? 
 
 She would go. Ross would lend her money but, 
 no; that wouldnU do. She must not go deeper into 
 his obligations, although of late he had become as 
 deferential in his manner as he had been bold and in- 
 trusive when she first came to the hotel. Why not 
 Rebecca Rosenau ? Perhaps the Jewess would go with 
 her. Laura knew that Rebecca had a little money and 
 could get more if necessary, for it had been confided to 
 Laura that there was a brother somewhere in the 
 Northwest who now and again sent money, a brother 
 of whom Rebecca seemed fond and yet ashamed, who
 
 114 EASTWAED HO! 
 
 was a mining camp follower selling miscellaneous mer- 
 chandise at exorbitant prices. 
 
 "What a coincidence," Rebecca answered when 
 Laura made known her intentions. "My very idea. 
 I've been thinking of going to New Yerk since they 
 shut the door on Protony." 
 
 They planned to go within the week. Laura being 
 absolutely without means, Rebecca divided half her 
 funds. The Jewess knew New York. She had seen 
 in a theatrical paper she was an omnivorous reader of 
 professional periodicals several addresses where on- 
 the-road companies and players "at liberty" made 
 their headquarters; not boarding houses exactly, but 
 places where one could engage rooms at reasonable 
 rates. She particularly had in mind Quincy's in Forty- 
 second street. Would Laura go there? Certainly! 
 Of course! Laura would agree to anything Rebecca 
 suggested; indeed, she acknowledged that, entirely 
 unacquainted with New York as she was, she de- 
 pended upon Rebecca; "Then, you know, borrowers 
 must not be ohoosers." 
 
 Rebecca dismissed the allusion to the obligation with 
 a negative gesture ; all that she asked of Laura was to 
 be a true friend. She had been disillusioned in her 
 friendship with Miss Carr. She wanted an enduring 
 friend, a trustworthy chum. Sincere in the main, there 
 was just a fine thread of calculation in Rebecca's pro- 
 posal of fast friendship ; she divined a future in Laura 
 whose developing talent she had perceived quicker than 
 Protony ; she wished to be associated with a successful 
 person, feeling rather than knowing that success and 
 failure are inductive forces which influence their en- 
 tourage. 
 
 When Ross heard, through the clerk whom Rosenau 
 had notified, of Laura's intended departure, he imme- 
 diately went to her. Wouldn't she remain a fortnight 
 longer? By that time he would have charge of the 
 Waldborough Hotel in New York, for which negotia- 
 tions were closed only yesterday. Some change in the 
 management would be made between time; after that 
 he would be happy indeed to accommodate her and
 
 EASTWARD HO! 115 
 
 Miss Rosenau. It she interrupted .him with the inac- 
 curate statement that they had already made their 
 arrangements. 
 
 "Where?" he asked quickly. 
 
 She named "The Quincy," giving the address. 
 
 He seemed .relieved Laura did not exactly know 
 why. He hoped she would meet with a big success. 
 He would esteem it a privilege to be allowed to call, 
 for he proposed spending much time in New York, at 
 least until the hotel he had leased was fairly estab- 
 lished according to his plan.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE CITY OF THE EIALTO. 
 
 It was Rebecca's information that the country be- 
 tween Chicago and Albany was flat and unpicturesque, 
 so Laura paid no heed to the fleeting panorama made by 
 the eastward special upon which the Jewess had se- 
 cured half fares for two, and devoted the hours to tHe 
 French version of "Anna Karenina." 
 
 When the train moved out of the Albany station 
 slowly, almost imperceptibly, as if it were regretfully 
 leaving an old friend Rebecca looked up from the 
 original of Freitag's "Soil und Haben" to observe: 
 ' ' I think you '11 find it worth while from now on. We '11 
 cross the Hudson in a minute." 
 
 The first sight of the stream gave Laura a thrill. 
 The lifting sensation was not imparted by beauty of 
 scenery for the Hudson at Albany is neither pictur- 
 esque nor majestic but by the imagination of the 
 observer which recalled the Driver's historic associa- 
 tionsassociations legendary, literacy, dramatic. 
 Laura had a vision of her school days ; that class book 
 with its high colored selections from the history of the 
 Revolutionary War an excerpt relating to Benedict 
 Arnold stood out came back as she gazed with avid- 
 ity at the sluggishly moving waters. She thought of 
 the Dutch settlers who the bridge was crossed. The 
 river disappeared. 
 
 1 ' Is that all ? " she asked disappointedly. 
 
 "All? Why, we'll see it all the way to New York. 
 There, it is again ! ' ' 
 
 There was a recurrence of the rush of studious 
 reminiscences instantly the sinuous stream reappeared. 
 
 (116)
 
 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 117 
 
 How it glistened under the afternoon sun, between the 
 rounded, undulating hills! Laura's memory harked 
 back to Washington Irving, to the many romances with 
 which the Hudson is interwoven. The train as it sped 
 along the left bank seemed happy to be moving amid 
 this beaming beauty of nature. The wheels as they 
 turned swiftly alongside the waters clanked in amiable 
 and confident intimacy with the country traversed. 
 There was no need of caution. A half a century of 
 familiarity, of friendship between the railway and the 
 river permitted any degree of speed without incurring 
 danger. Curves were made confidently, even merrily. 
 "Don't be uneasy ; I know it's all right. The river, the 
 hills and I are old friends. We have known each other 
 a long time. This is my country ; I rejoice in it. I may 
 run along here with impunity. Signals and folderols 
 of that kind are not needed in these regions," the 
 engine appeared to say. 
 
 West Point, on a hill's bosom, evoked a monument 
 of martial heroes whose white marble had but one yel- 
 low blemish Benedict Arnold. 
 
 There was a rift into a nightmare when "Sing 
 Sing" was shouted in the coach. The name recalled 
 a description of prison life she had read in a periodical 
 issued from this penitentiary and written and pub- 
 lished by convicts ; the spot conjured up a damned pro- 
 cession of round, guilty heads blue jaws, leaden eyes 
 carried by heavy shouldered machine-like bodies. 
 The vision of expiating souls vanished when the train 
 again dashed into the sunlight. 
 
 Now the summer homes, on the hill tops, became 
 more numerous, more pretentious. And as the stream 
 broadened, it flowed more swiftly. The cuts and tun- 
 nels increased in number and rockiness. A whisk 
 around a curve and the river disappeared. The hills, 
 smaller here, were as huge stones beset with habita- 
 tions. A high, immense bridge was passed under ; then 
 another; then yet another. The houses became serried. 
 The train slackened its speed, its air of intimacy, of 
 confidence, of conspicuousness was gone it moved 
 slowly deferentially, as something inconspicuous and
 
 118 THE CITY OF THE EIALTO. 
 
 insignificant amid an immense vastness of important 
 things. Streets well-ordered, clean some quite white 
 flitted by. Of a sudden, there was darkness. The 
 cars were plunged into night, and for what seemed to 
 Laura an endless time rumbled in a Cimmerian world. 
 Just as suddenly the train emerged from the black hole. 
 For not many seconds there was complete light; then 
 the semi-obscurity of a massive station, with a vitreous 
 canopy obscured by the steam and smoke from count- 
 less, restive engines, New York ! 
 
 Laura apprehended a difference perceived some- 
 thing new in her experience of cities directly she 
 stepped from the coach. 
 
 The luggage boy who carried her grip to the front 
 of the depot was different. He was unfamiliarly polite 
 and expressed his thanks with modulated respect when 
 she gave him a coin, as a pupil to a woman teacher to 
 whom he is partial. She noticed a difference in his 
 pronunciation, which was even more marked in a lad, 
 who at the exit cried "Joinal! Joinal! All about the 
 East Side moida!" 
 
 Once on the curbstone the difference was epic. The 
 first glance at the surroundings, the first breath of the 
 air filled her with delight. The thoroughfares were 
 clean, the atmosphere was pure, smokeless; the build- 
 ings stood out bold, untarnished. Laura felt a dis- 
 tinction in the very air of the city, which at once awed 
 and quickened her emotions. 
 
 "You like it, don't you?" observed Rosenau, noting 
 Laura's dazzled expression. She took a long breath 
 and continued: "So do I it is almost the perfection 
 of civilization." 
 
 Almost! Surprise at the qualification shadowed 
 itself on Laura's face. 
 
 "I've been abroad I've been in Paris," the Jew- 
 ess explained. "Look, isn't that a balm for outraged 
 eyes?" 
 
 The rows of thick copses made graceful lines in the 
 center of the street they were fronting. The green 
 chains extended a pert de vue and made a reposeful
 
 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 119 
 
 contrast to the urban quality of the broad, white-paved 
 way. 
 
 The tramway for which they were waiting jingled 
 up to the depot. Laura followed her companion into 
 the unoccupied car, placed her bag on the seat and 
 continued her observation from the window. At the 
 top of a knoll Rebecca exclaimed in a tone betokening 
 a sort of vicarious proprietorship: "And this is Fifth 
 Avenue." 
 
 The horses were trotting rapidly, so that Laura 
 had only a glimpse of the Avenue ; but the apparitional 
 view impressed her as a picture of an undulating, 
 palatial vista ; the hard, smooth, lustrous carriage way, 
 fringed with stately electric light posts and back of 
 these a kaleidoscope of crenelated edifices of every 
 variety of opulent architecture; nabob's residences; 
 clubs and hotels of imposing magnificence; churches 
 of secular splendor. 
 
 Laura was not yet in the second thought of Fifth 
 Avenue when Rebecca declaimed triumphantly: "And 
 this is Broadway." 
 
 Broadway had announced itself without this notice. 
 Narrow and serpentine, the street charged with hu- 
 manity and traffic emitted a gamut of sounds which 
 blended in what Laura thought was an unsuccess- 
 fully suppressed roar. Between the pavements was 
 every manner of vehicles and between these were tram 
 cars narrowly spaced, though gliding swiftly seem- 
 ingly urged to speed by the clangs of gongs. On the 
 trottoir, an endless stream of men and women, young 
 and old, attractive and unprepossessing, silent yet 
 active ; nearly all well attired ; all having the cachet of 
 that urban sophistication which is revealed far more in 
 appearance than in words. They made a somber 
 border to the winding mass of uneven buildings with 
 their high-colored, loudly appealing advertisements. 
 From Broadway there was a slight slope and near the 
 bottom Rosenau signaled the conductor to stop. Walk- 
 ing back half way from the corner they stopped midway 
 in a block crammed with a church, inferior shops, a 
 restaurant or two and mansions deteriorated to lodg-
 
 120 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 
 
 ing and boarding houses. A tousled, red-haired Irish 
 girl, with rolled-up sleeves, showing big ruddy arms and 
 a slatternly dress pulled up at the left hip, disclosing 
 heavy feet and thick ankles, said "Sure, yiss, this is 
 Mrs. Quincy's. Cumm roight in!" 
 
 Going to the door indicated, on the right from the 
 vestibule, in a room of bare-worn furniture and walls 
 covered with photographs of theatrical people, was 
 seated, reading the New York Dramatic Reflector, a 
 short rotund woman, from whom, though on the un- 
 safe side of forty, there had not yet been banished 
 every trace of physical beauty. An immense growth 
 of black, dishevelled hair, with gray threads about the 
 temples, topped a round, rather heavy and good- 
 humored countenance. 
 
 "Looking for rooms?" she asked briskly, without 
 rising. "Sit down. You want them adjoining? For 
 haw long?" 
 
 Rebecca started to answer that their tenancy would 
 be indefinite, when she was interrupted with: 
 
 "Oh, out of work. I see. Then I suppose you will 
 take one room jointly until you get an engagement. 
 Your name, please. I suppose you know I'm Mrs. 
 Quincy." 
 
 In showing what she called her "apartments", Mrs. 
 Quincy explained that she now had a lease on the houses 
 on either side, the three having been accessible to each 
 other by puncturing the walls. She had begun with 
 one house, and then took the other two. "You would 
 suppose that I would have all my rooms occupied in 
 the silly season ;" but, no, they were mostly unoccupied. 
 The class of Artists she pronounced it "Ahtists"- 
 who came to her always found engagements in summer 
 theatres at the sea shore or in the mountains. She had 
 a few permanent lodgers, talented young men and 
 women working hard for a wider recognition in stock 
 companies. "This, I think, is about what you want." 
 
 She flung a door, as she swerved from her explana- 
 tions, in a wide low room, with two windows that gazed 
 upon a back yard to which a myriad of houses turned
 
 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 121 
 
 their backs a piebald spectacle of back stairs, back 
 windows and loose linen in process of purification. 
 
 So soon as the young women had decided to abide 
 by her recommendation, Mrs. Quincy, after naming ten 
 dollars a week, stated baldly that under the circum- 
 stances of people being unknown to her it was custom- 
 ary to receive a week's rent in advance. Rebecca ac- 
 quiesced instantly with "Assuredly; of course," and in 
 giving the money inquired sweetly, "Were you ever in 
 the profession, Mrs. Quincy ? ' ' 
 
 Just a bare twitch of disconcertedness betrayed 
 itself upon the landlady's meaty face. She was quickly 
 resolute, however, and answered frankly: "Yes, I was 
 in vaudeville until I married Jack Jack Quincy, who 
 was a contractor. Things went against him in his last 
 years and when he died I was too cut up to go back 
 to variety to vaudeville so I set up in this business." 
 
 The frank acknowledgment of her past took the 
 sting from Rosenau's thrust. Laura admired the 
 woman's courage and honesty, and sincerely expressed 
 her admiration. Mrs. Quincy immediately distin- 
 guished her preference by addressing Laura ex- 
 clusively. She would do her best to help Laura to an 
 engagement. She would suggest theatres and mana- 
 gers, adding : "If you want anything about the room, 
 let me know." 
 
 The next morning Laura came first in the introduc- 
 tions; and in presenting the Jewess Mrs. Quincy de- 
 liberately mispronounced the name "Roseoff." They 
 were introduced to two musicians ; to a stage manager ; 
 to a young actor of subordinate roles at the Columbia 
 Theatre; to three actresses of indefinite ages and defi- 
 nite physical development who were "at liberty" pro- 
 fessionally; to a half dozen coryphees, all fleshly at- 
 tractive, and to several male choristers. The coryphees 
 and the choristers were working, Mrs. Quincy observed, 
 at the Alcazar, where "The Peacock's Paradise" was 
 running. Then she suggested that they take their 
 meals at the French restaurant across the way the 
 prices were moderate and the service was excellent 
 that they insert a card in The Dramatic Reflector and
 
 122 THE CITY OF THE EIALTO. 
 
 in The Mimic World; that they go to the Redburn and 
 the Dowling agencies. 
 
 They acted on the recommendation at once by go- 
 ing to Henri 's for breakfast. Once a dwelling for a staid 
 New York family, the lower floor was given to what 
 the sign told was a Cafe. Nothing had been changed 
 architecturally. The basement was still divided into 
 four rooms, now crowded with ordinary chairs and 
 plain tables covered by cloths that were fairly white. 
 Laura and her companion were told in English with a 
 thick French coating that the dinner was table d'hote, 
 at fifty cents, breakfast and luncheon were "at the 
 discretion of the ladies." Rebecca addressed the 
 waiter in French, which immediately expanded him 
 to easy amiability. Confidentially, les mademoiselles 
 could have a light breakfast for barely nothing and 
 luncheon for not much more. Les artistes were not 
 particular about their early repasts neither was mon- 
 sieur le patron. He the waiter brought them coffee 
 and rolls and eggs a la coque and the total charge for 
 both les mademoiselles was forty cents, which Rebecca 
 thought much more than nothing after all. "We must 
 be economical until we get a job," she remarked 
 gravely, and Laura assented. 
 
 They started for the hunt directly, though Laura 
 forgot her mission when in the full swing of Broadway. 
 Her senses were holden to the winding, undulating high- 
 way of sophisticated humanity. "This part of the city 
 is known as 'The Tenderloin,'" Rebecca explained. 
 Then she stopped at the door of a low, frail, many win- 
 dowed and architecturally odd building whose front 
 was lined with handsome, clean shaven men whom 
 Laura recognized as of the profession. "And this is 
 the office of the New York Dramatic Reflector, the ac- 
 tors' friend, philosopher and guide." Two advertise- 
 ments were inserted: "Laura Darnby, leading lady, 
 disengaged. Address The Reflector. Rebecca Rosenau, 
 general utility, disengaged. Address The Reflector." 
 
 Rebecca, with hereditary enterprise fully aroused 
 by the transaction with the advertising clerk asked 
 if Mr. Farnum could be seen. The well-groomed, com-
 
 THE CITY OF THE EIALTO. 123 
 
 fortable-bodied editor was affable. He had heard of 
 both the ladies through his Chicago correspondent, 
 Bluff Hill, and he regretted that their season had ended 
 untowardly Laura thought this a considerate term 
 for a sorry fact. His tone was encouraging ; they soon 
 would make a connection in New York. He would keep 
 them in mind. They must not forget to command him 
 in any way he could serve them. In his absence, Mr. 
 Knoll he introduced a diminutive, disappointed, as- 
 sistant editor would look to their interests. 
 
 On their way to the office of The Mimic World 
 Laura looked closer at the clean shaven loiterers. They 
 were not all young. Some had white hair, seared brows 
 and the eye that tells of the most tragic thing in life 
 lost illusions. The second scrutiny also showed a 
 sheen on the clothes that proceeds from long wear and 
 much brushing. While the collars were immaculate, 
 the cravats were broad and obviously inexpensive. 
 Here and there a woman in a nondescript gown, dowd- 
 ily worn, stood talking with the disillusioned-eyed men ; 
 women of lost youth, lost waists, fleshly, formless women 
 with painted cheeks, wan eyes and thick, fat voices. 
 They, too, were or had been of the profession. How 
 do such people the disillusioned, indigent actor and 
 actress live? What were their thoughts? What sort 
 of an existence is it that watches for the crumbs which 
 do not always fall from the table of the more prosper- 
 ous ? Watching with old age upon them ! And, horror 
 of horrors, they were creatures of some sensibility, 
 some pride, some intelligence, some refinement, who 
 could not endure poverty and degradation with the 
 stolid, brutish indifference of the multitude. A feeling 
 of mingled pity and dread seized Laura. She felt like 
 taking Rebecca's arm as if to beseech protection from 
 such a fate. 
 
 At the office of The Mimic World there plainly was 
 less prosperity yet even more affability than at The 
 Dramatic Reflector and the affability had the air of 
 familiarity. A larger card was inserted here, for the 
 rates were cheaper by one-half. Back of the business 
 office was the editorial room where they met Mr. Pear-
 
 124 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 
 
 son, who instantly assured them, with give-and-take in- 
 timacy, that The Mimic World soon would replace The 
 Dramatic Reflector in the affections of the profession. 
 He had the assurance of Mansfield and Southern, of Jef- 
 ferson and Crane, of Drew and Goodwin, of Adams and 
 Marlowe and he dropped his voice to a strictly confi- 
 dential tone of the Frohmans Charles and Daniel, for 
 Gustave meant nothing that they would exert them- 
 selves to further the interests of The Mimic World. He 
 would show Farnum how to run a dramatic paper ; would 
 put Farnum in a position where the receipts of Mrs. Far- 
 num 's tour would be drawn upon to meet the deficit 
 of The Reflector. As he proceeded he became more 
 heated. He emphasized portentious injuries to his rival 
 with lurid oaths. Rebecca, ever ready to filch an ad- 
 vantage from a situation, glided one of her naively 
 expressed but tactual expressions between the vituper- 
 ative sentences: "Mr. Pearson, are the chances of get- 
 ting an answer to a card in The Mimic World as good 
 as in The Reflector f Your rates are so much cheaper, 
 you know that is why I ask?" 
 
 "Chances as good!" He ejaculated. "They are 
 better, far better; and what is more, your correspond- 
 ence through us will be with first-class people, not with 
 the most numerous class in the business, the class of 
 fools the one-night-stand crew that uses The Reflector. 
 Say" this with sudden transition "Did Farnum say 
 anything about me?" 
 
 With a dart of malicious mendacity provoked by 
 the possibility that the prevarication might prove of 
 some advantage to Laura and to herself Rebecca re- 
 joined that Mr. Farnum had advised them not to adver- 
 tise in The Mimic World, for they would throw away 
 their money. 
 
 With this Pearson forgot himself altogether and 
 belched forth a volley of garish expletives that shocked 
 even Rebecca. Why, The Reflector was notorious for its 
 blackmailing methods. A member of the profession at 
 all known who did not advertise in that wretched gut- 
 ter rag was sure of being roasted. Why, that miserable 
 insect which disgraces the name of journalism solicits
 
 THE CITY OF THE EIALTO. 125 
 
 the photographs of actors, playwrights and managers, 
 prints them and then deliberately demands a round 
 sum for their publication. Its constant and prolonged 
 abuse of poor Augustin Daly some years ago was 
 due to Daly's refusal to be held up. And with all this 
 the dirty sheet doesn't pay. Farnum has to keep his 
 wife on the road to make a living for him. He offered 
 the support of his miserable paper to the theatrical 
 trust, but the Jews would have nothing to do with him ; 
 that's why he's always burning up the syndicate. He 
 lies when he says that he's against the combination be- 
 cause he wants to protect the actor. But they would 
 see; the profession wouldn't stand such a blackmailer 
 much longer; they would see, too, that they could get 
 a good engagement through The Mimic World. 
 
 "I believe that man will get us something," said 
 Rebecca, as they turned in the direction of the Redburn 
 agency. 
 
 In the airy sweep of an upper square they found 
 the intermediary between worker and managements. 
 He filled every possible want of managers; furnished 
 all grades of histrionic talent; had translators of plays 
 from the French and German and from the Spanish; 
 provided original dramas; had the addresses of stage 
 managers, carpenters and an army of supernumeraries. 
 Redburn had one assistant in his bare and exiguous 
 office a thin, faded typewriter with pale, sad blue 
 eyes. He took their names and promised that they 
 should soon hear from him. The Dowling Agency, 
 further down in a more commercial square, was a con- 
 trastingly bustling place. The winding suite of rooms 
 was noisy with the rattle of tyewriters, with the talk 
 of all sorts and conditions of theatrical people. Laura 
 and Rebecca were accorded only a few minutes. A 
 busy woman secretary interrogated them briskly, as- 
 sured them they shortly would be sent for and wished 
 them good day. 
 
 "Now, where?" asked the Jewess when the ele- 
 vator had descended to the ground floor. "Back to 
 our room?" 
 
 The question at first seemed incomprehensible to
 
 126 THE CITY OF THE EIALTO. 
 
 Laura, who, being filled with the fervid desire to see 
 New York in all its aspects and all at once, supposed 
 that her companion shared the same prediliction, for- 
 getting that the Jewess was a cosmopolitan who had 
 seen and lived in many cities. 
 
 "Back to our room?" echoed Laura in astonish- 
 ment. You forget that this is the first time I 've been in 
 New York. I want to see the city." 
 
 "And you forget, my dear, that we are nearly 
 broke." 
 
 Laura had not thought of that. The spell of the new 
 conditions had banished all thoughts of pecuniary ne- 
 cessities. Yet it seemed a cruel deprivation to be so 
 near a long-cherished wish that of seeing the ocean 
 and not attempt to gratify it. 
 
 "But I should like to see the Bay, Becky. Can't 
 we get there by a street car?" 
 
 Rebecca lifted her hand in signal to the motorman 
 to halt. "This car goes to the Battery, where you can 
 see the Bay. Some other time when we have a job 
 we'll pass the Hook or go to Manhattan." 
 
 They had been in the car two minutes when Rebecca 
 pointed to a low square building that was almost ob- 
 scured by the mass of new edifices. "That was A. 
 T. Stewart's store." 
 
 Broadway was now narrower, the structures higher, 
 the men more numerous and busier, the women fewer; 
 retail stores gave way to huge wholesale establishments 
 whose signs announced proprietorship in German names 
 of oriental floweriness. "These are my people," re- 
 marked Rebecca with mock pride. Most of them came 
 over as peddlers ; now they own the town. The Jew is 
 irrepressible; he's eternal eternally getting the best 
 of it except when the Jew is a Jewess and the Jewess 
 an actress, and then it's a case of knowing where you 
 get your next meal after you've had it." 
 
 Laura but half heard. Her senses were subject to 
 the din and movement of a square in which a gray and 
 ancient looking piece of architecture was set. "City 
 Hall," Rebecca explained, "and that old little build- 
 ing to the right, which looks like a block of gray gran-
 
 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 127 
 
 ite, is the once famous Astor House, the grandparent 
 of the Waldorf-Astoria; it still is popular with people 
 who believe the country was at its best half a century 
 ago." 
 
 The tramway now seemed to have plunged into a 
 canyon, so narrow appeared the street and so high were 
 the buildings twelve, sixteen, twenty and more stories 
 making a tortuous and torturing sky line. 
 
 "Why, what's this?" 
 
 The interrogation was drawn by the sight of a 
 strip of street filled with men and boys dashing in 
 every direction. They were all somber and desperately 
 preoccupied. 
 
 "Wall Street," answered Rebecca, laconically. 
 ' ' Turn this way quick. ' ' Laura saw amid worn and de- 
 caying tombstones a dark solemn church whose grace- 
 fully thinning spire was a deliverance from the archi- 
 tectural monstrosities surrounding it. The sacrilegious 
 incongruity of this reminiscence of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury set in the seething commercialism of the twentieth 
 startled Laura, as if she had seen an angel with uplifted 
 finger at the head of the financial thoroughfare. 
 
 "Trinity Church," Rebecca interpreted. "I've 
 never been able to tell whether it is blessing or cursing 
 Wall Street." 
 
 From here the car descended an easy incline into 
 a park-like square, bordered at the further end by 
 mildly agitated pale green waters, which made a 
 roughly round circle within the serrated shores. 
 
 "So this is the sea," mumured Laura, her emotions 
 moved by the spectacle the ships at anchor; the varie- 
 gated craft coming and going; among them scowling, 
 huge-mouthed ferries and those gamins of the river and 
 the bay, the dirty, impudent tugs. 
 
 "Not the sea, exactly; rather a nook of the sea. 
 The ocean comes out there at our left, between the 
 break in that long strip. Some day, when you've made 
 a big hit, you'll be able to cross it in swell style go 
 to Paris for your gowns." 
 
 "You'll be there before me," rejoined Laura in 
 that low, self-communicative tone which connotes con-
 
 128 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 
 
 viction. "And who are these?" she asked with wide 
 transition, meaning the every variety of laborer loung- 
 ing with hebetated sullenness on the rude benches of 
 the common. 
 
 "Men who want to work but cannot find employ- 
 ment; men so long out of work that they despair of 
 finding it and have degenerated into tramps ; men who 
 cannot work, who are sick or disabled, and pickpock- 
 ets, thieves and hoodlums." 
 
 A few old women, wretchedly clad, were inter- 
 spersed among the male outcasts, and the sight of them 
 made Laura more miserable than the creatures once 
 men, but now dissolved by idleness, sodden with drink, 
 steeped in vice, eaten up by every social and physical 
 malady. "Come, let us go back," she pleaded. "This 
 makes me miserable." 
 
 In the return ride Laura thought the material and 
 psychological aspects of Broadway exhaustless. 
 Though from end to end the American was preponder- 
 ant, it was a street of nations ; a thoroughfare genuinely 
 cosmopolitan, for every race was represented. With 
 her mind dazzled by these kaleidoscopic views she 
 ascended the steps of Mrs. Quincy's. When she was 
 about to open the door Clarence Protony stepped out. 
 
 He bowed ceremoniously, she distantly, Rosenau 
 conventionally. But it was all surface play. Laura 
 could see that he was mentally staggered; she felt 
 that the gratification of getting an unexpectedly prompt 
 cue for retaliation must have been mirrored upon her 
 countenance and so it was, although Protony was too 
 nonplussed to notice it. Even Rosenau 's conventional 
 nod was assumed she was almost as surprised as 
 Laura and immediately suggested that they find a 
 room elsewhere. She feared his proximity would dis- 
 turb Laura, who protested. A change, Laura said, was 
 not necessary, for as a vital entity he had passed out 
 of her life. 
 
 She evinced no interest in him. At first they rarely 
 met, he being lodged in the further house. But the 
 fact of her presence soon affected him. He discovered 
 that she was still in his nerves. He found himself
 
 THE CITY OF THE KIALTO. 129 
 
 watching for her coming and going, unobserved, as 
 he thought ; but she frequently caught a glimpse of his 
 eager face between the curtains of his window. She 
 heard from Rebecca, who got it from the roomers, 
 that he was making inquiries about her as to what she 
 was doing and what her prospects were for getting an 
 engagement. One day, when his nerves refused to be 
 controlled, he made a confidant of Mrs. Quincy told 
 her all; how he had met Laura, what she had been to 
 him. Women, however old, are said to be responsive 
 to confidences of the heart. She singled out Laura for 
 specific attention and soon retailed small things about 
 her to Protony, who was told where she had been, who 
 in the world of theatres she had met ; was informed of 
 her hopes, her expectations of an advantageous engage- 
 ment. One evening about a fortnight after he had 
 confided in Mrs. Quincy she told him in an undertone 
 and with a contraction of concern about the eyes, for 
 she clearly feared the effect of the news upon him, that 
 Laura and Rebecca had engaged to join Roland Mar- 
 shall's Company the next day at Washington. 
 
 This was true. The Dowling Agency had sent a 
 messenger to the house that morning asking the ladies 
 to hurry to the office, where they heard that Mr. Mar- 
 shall had wired from the National Capital for a general 
 utility and for a leading lady. "Mrs. Marshall," the 
 agent explained, "has been doing the lead, but I under- 
 stand she is soon to play the part of a mother in a real- 
 istic manner. Clara Boon has been doing the odd jobs 
 for Marshall, but he's peppery and he's hard to please, 
 so the inevitable row occurred. He wants two young 
 women who don't know it all; who are plastic; who 
 can fit themselves to his ideas, and I guess you'll answer 
 his purpose. Don't oppose him in any way and remem- 
 ber that he's eccentric." 
 
 They found him extremely eccentric and Laura 
 thought, after the first rehearsal, that his eccentricity 
 proceeded chiefly from his affectation of eccentricity. 
 Physically there was nothing eccentric about him; a 
 strong, rubicund man, inclined to be stocky, charged 
 with exhaustless vitality and fine energy. He was
 
 130 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 
 
 prompt at the rehearsals of "A Romance of Madrid," 
 in which he had made a reputation by lifting the sub- 
 ordinate role of an intriguing, dissolute Senator to 
 that of a protagonist. When introduced by his business 
 manager, he bowed to Laura and Rebecca carelessly, 
 without offering his hand, leisurely walked up to the 
 footlights and addressed the orchestra leader: "Guten 
 Tag, Herr Becker; hoffentlich geht die 'Don Juan' 
 Ouvertuere besser heute Abend; es war ganz verfuschf 
 gestern" Then turning to the bassonist, who was either 
 a Swiss or a Frenchman: "Bon jour, monsieur le Con- 
 trebassiste; il fait beau temps." This caused an electric 
 commotion among the musicians. They smiled ecstat- 
 ically; lifted their heads in unison and to the same 
 angle ; all seemed supremely happy to be noticed by the 
 great actor whose linguistic powers made him obvi- 
 ously self-satisfied until he turned to go up stage, 
 when he saw, flushed of face and breathing hard from 
 extreme haste, a belated member of the company. 
 Roland Marshall's face became shaded. He read- 
 justed his monocle, riveted his eyes upon the panting 
 actor, then deliberately strode up to him. After scrut- 
 inizing the confused member from head to foot and 
 back again, Marshall broke the awed silence with: 
 ' ' Are-you-a-member-of-this-company ? ' ' 
 
 The words were drawled in distinct insolence. The 
 young man's flush and confusion deepened under 
 the supercilious affront. He answered in a barely audi- 
 ble tone: "Yes, sir, I am a member of your company, 
 Mr. Marshall." 
 
 The humble manner and contrite air, instead of 
 appeasing the great actor, seemingly were interpreted 
 as an invitation to stamp further humiliation upon the 
 already humiliated. The great actor drew back a step 
 or two and surveyed his subject anew, this time with 
 an assumption of insolent curiosity. A prolonged pause 
 and then, drawlingly, the better to stress the insult: 
 
 "Awh-awh-awh; you-you a member; awh-awh-in- 
 deed. I should not have thought it." Turning to 
 the other members, who stood in stilted array in the 
 background: "I am not sure, ladies and gentlemen,
 
 THE CITY OF THE HIALTO. 131 
 
 but I am emboldened to venture that we now have this 
 gentleman 's permission to proceed with the rehearsal. ' ' 
 
 That gentleman was the lightning rod upon which 
 all of Marshall's irascibility was deflected through- 
 out the repetition. Marshall offered no suggestion to 
 Laura, who played a premiere danseuse, or to Rebecca, 
 who did a subordinate dancer; he scarcely noticed the 
 new acquisitions. But he had incessant sneers and 
 fleers for the unfortunate creature who had come late 
 and who was become demoralized under the derisive 
 nagging. "I say what's your name have you never 
 been at a smart dinner? You have? Well, I'm aston- 
 ished. One would not have thought it." Or: "What 
 were you before you tried to become an actor ? What ? 
 You were just from college? Well! Well! I should 
 have guessed a cigar clerk." 
 
 Laura's mounting indignation at the man for his 
 currish conduct was transformed into spell-bound ad- 
 miration near the end of the rehearsal when he essayed 
 the death by paralysis of the vice-ridden viveur. She 
 had read and heard much of the scene, but was hardly 
 prepared for its griping intensity. It was a banquet 
 in the sumptuous apartment of the dissolute Spanish 
 nobleman. The fete was set for midnight to meet the 
 convenience of the ballerini who had been invited. 
 The guests were of all ages but of two ranks only; 
 the men of nobility, the women of the kind that sap 
 the nobility the demi-mondaines and actresses. A 
 toast had been drunk to Clara, to Rosa, to Anita, to 
 Perdita; the diners were warming to the glow of the 
 festivity when a tall young man with a huge bouton- 
 niere, insolent grin and tone proposed: "Now one to 
 our host, who must respond with a speech." "To our 
 host, to old Juanny." The table shook under the 
 thump of hands ; knives rattled against plates ; glasses 
 clinked. The used-up rake lifted himself slowly from his 
 chair, glass in hand. In a voice cracked by false think- 
 ing and living he spoke sentiments marvelously similar 
 to those expressed by Phelon at the midnight dinner 
 given at Tom Chandler's. The words "women, money, 
 materialism" were recurrent ; but he stopped in the mid-
 
 132 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 
 
 die of a sentence. He had again uttered the word 
 "materialism." He seemed unable to proceed. The cor- 
 ners of his mouth were nervously drawn, his hands 
 quivered. He made another effort "materialism 
 materialism materialism " his face twitched convuls- 
 ively; his body swayed, then suddenly turned rigid, 
 wavered a moment and fell forward on the table. With 
 the crash of the crockery were mingled feminine 
 screams, cries of alarm from the men ; while the orches- 
 tra, hidden in the foliaged balcony, continued to pour 
 forth the sensuous strains of a Strauss waltz. One of 
 the guests, a physician, lifted the black clothed body 
 with its white, drawn face from the table and placed 
 it on the floor. Solemnly he raised his hand and said : 
 ' ' Stop the music. The Senator is dead ! ' ' 
 
 The effect of Marshall's illustration of death was 
 so abiding that Laura and Rebecca had no sense for the 
 splendid avenue in which they found themselves after 
 the rehearsal. Not until the hectic applause of the 
 night audience was dispelled by eight hours of perfect 
 repose did Laura have eyes for the white and wide 
 spread capital which has its back turned upon the town 
 in general and the White House in particular; for the 
 glitteringly conspicuous library; for the foreign look- 
 ing men, diplomatists, whose very walk bespoke some- 
 thing alien and who seemed to regard everything 
 American with either disinterested cheerfulness or 
 with half-amused interest ; for the women who appeared 
 steeped in officiality their countenances high-chinned 
 in the consciousness of possessed rank or wistfully 
 drawn in the desire to gain something higher for a hus- 
 band, a father, a brother or a son. Laura had a feel- 
 ing that it was a place for those who strive for place, 
 an outwardly calm city which inwardly suggested in- 
 sincerity, uncertainty, unceasing apprehension; anx- 
 iety of those who fear for their positions, of those who 
 want the positions even social of others; a city 
 which covertly seethed with plans, schemes, intrigues- 
 like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each strug- 
 gling to get its head above the others. 
 
 Laura's objective observations precluded her from
 
 THE CITY OF THE BIALTO. 133 
 
 observing subjectively until after the second perform- 
 ance, which was given to a much smaller house than 
 the first and which exasperated Marshall to the remark, 
 just before the curtain rose: "I shall not permit my 
 manager to make another engagement here. These peo- 
 ple care nothing for art. They are all for social show, 
 for jobs and for emoluments." She noticed that Wash- 
 ington, in contrast to other cities, was coolly incurious 
 to the people of the theatre. Rebecca, as usual, was 
 ready with an uncharitable explanation. She explained 
 the difference on professional grounds. Washington 
 was the national theatre, peopled with the nation's fa- 
 voritespoliticians and statesmen whose every act was 
 applauded or hissed by an audience of millions. Wash- 
 ingtonians were always in the limelight's glare, where 
 there was no room for an outsider. 
 
 None was so mortified as Marshall himself, as he 
 drove down the avenue from the hotel to his private 
 car the morning following the last night of the engage- 
 ment. Entirely unnoticed, he reached the station in 
 sullen mortification. In the presence of the company he 
 instructed his manager to "never again make a date in 
 this town. They are too busy showing off to come near 
 me." Then Mrs. Marshall who was assisted gently 
 a valet, a messenger and two servants entered a private 
 coach. The troupe got in a public car directly ahead. 
 Laura wondered why the porter stood guard at the 
 door of the private car; Rebecca was prompt with a 
 devination : 
 
 "He wants to be guarded against the common herd 
 in this wagon." 
 
 "You've guessed it," supplemented the messenger 
 boy, a strip of a lad with dancing brown eyes. "Mr. 
 Marshall is very particular about the kind of people he 
 meets away from the theatre. If ever you want to see 
 him you must send him a note and ask if you may have 
 so and so much of his time. He won't associate with his 
 people, but he's always making social rules for them. 
 He won't allow the men to go into saloons. He says 
 that if they want to drink they can send for what they 
 want from their apartments. He thinks saloons are vul-
 
 134 THE CITY OF THE EIALTO. 
 
 gar places. He thinks its vulgar, too, for a lady to go 
 about alone, so he's made a rule that no woman of his 
 company must be seen without an escort. Another 
 rule" 
 
 The guard had crossed the vestibule and interrupt- 
 ing with: "Joe, you're wanted." The lad leapt from 
 his seat and in a bolt was in the private car. He re-ap- 
 peared almost instantly with the command: "Miss 
 Darnby, Mr. Mars-hall wants to see you." 
 
 The porter saluted Laura ceremoniously, like a sen- 
 tinel at a general's tent. In a vision of blue and gold 
 decorations sat Marshall on an elevated seat. The dark 
 trousers were lost between the Chinese slippers traced 
 delicately in white and yellow and the Oriental smok- 
 ing jacket in black and yellow. Thus, with his round 
 head and smooth shaven face, he looked like a high- 
 caste Chinaman in the front view. Beside him, in hum- 
 ble posture, was a large, black bundle not relieved but 
 emphasized by a drawn, pale, concerned visage. Mar- 
 shall introduced the black bundle hurriedly: "Gladys, 
 this is Miss Darnby. Miss Darnby, my wife. I called 
 you in, Miss Darnby, to go over the supper scene in 'A 
 Romance of Madrid.' Your reading is not altogether 
 satisfactory. It lacks dash and finish. Clara is more 
 than a premiere danseuse; she is a clever, worldly- 
 wise girl who knows that a dissolute millionaire is in- 
 fatuated with her. You must show more spirit, not of 
 a brazen but of a self-possessed sort. And then when 
 you tell of the wreck in which your former companion, 
 Piquinta, went down, you are not fully convincing. You 
 see, Piquinta loved life; she was luxurious and sensu- 
 ous and here is the subtle point she had been your 
 rival before she had decided to make a tour of South 
 America. You were rivals, which, with women, of 
 course, means enemies. You must, in your recital, 
 illustrate the peculiar tragedy of such a creature going 
 down in an awful storm in mid-ocean and yet subtly 
 convey the terribly sinful satisfaction which we all feel 
 I'm speaking frankly, you see when a competitor 
 disappears, however he may be removed. Now let us 
 go over those lines."
 
 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 135 
 
 Laura began: "Have you heard the news?" 
 Why" 
 
 "Stop," interrupted Marshall. "You speak as if 
 you were frightened. You should eject into your tone 
 something of the sublimial satisfaction I just men- 
 tioned. Try again, and put the exclamation ' Oh ! ' at the 
 beginning. Now then, 'Oh, have you heard the news?" 
 Laura recommenced. Marshall's countenance turned 
 sullen; but he said nothing, so she continued to the 
 last sentence : "Good God ! think of a young and beau- 
 tiful woman who loves life being hurled into the mad 
 waters of the ocean on a black and stormy wintry night 
 into the freezing waves, with rain and snow coming 
 down and with the crazed cries of men, women and 
 children in your ears. Ugh! Ugh! May God pre- 
 serve us!" 
 
 What was it that came over her as she spoke those 
 words? Her face whitened in the ineffable tremor that 
 seized her. In that moment of psychic phenomena 
 in a moment of wondrous mystery when the portals 
 of the future are opened she had a premonition of that 
 awful tragedy which 
 
 "How well you read the last lines, Miss Darnby" 
 it was Marshall's voice which turned her from Fate's 
 vision. "Why don't you read the first with the same 
 feeling and intelligence? Let us go back again. Step 
 to the back of the car and come forward as though 
 you came from the wings to the banquet table. 
 Now-" 
 
 'Oh! Have you heard the news?" 
 
 'No, no! That won't do at all. Again go back." 
 
 'Oh! Have you heard the news?" 
 
 'No, again go back." 
 
 'Oh! Have you heard the news?" 
 
 'For heaven's sake, Miss Darnby, can't you put 
 some meaning into those lines? You repeat them 
 like a frightened school girl. You know a little Ger- 
 man don 't you ? Perhaps you know what Schadenfreude 
 means. That is what I tried to think of Schadenfreude. 
 Put Schadenfreude in your reading. Now again!" 
 
 "Oh! Have you heard the news?"
 
 136 THE CITY OF THE RIALTO. 
 
 Marshall rose, his face purple, and moved toward 
 Laura. She drew back instinctively, while Mrs. Mar- 
 shall, who had been silent to that moment, got to her 
 feet in a haste that caused her pain and seized Mar- 
 shall's arm. "Roland" her voice was gently suppli- 
 cative come, be calm, be considerate. Miss Darnby 
 is nervous. She will do better tomorrow." 
 
 "Tell her to go away. She is intolerable." 
 
 Laura hurried to the door and in an instant was 
 beside Rebecca, to whom she told her experience. 
 "The man is mad," was Rebecca's comment. Just be- 
 fore the train reached New York the messenger boy 
 whispered to several members of the company that Mar- 
 shall had decided to discharge his entire support and 
 engage new people. 
 
 "Will he do it?" Rebecca asked. 
 
 "That depends; he will if he don't get over his fit 
 before to-morrow morning." 
 
 He had not wholly recovered from his anger the 
 next day, for at the rehearsal he dismissed out of 
 hand three ballet girls including the Anita because 
 they were in his way as he came en scene. Of Laura 
 he took no notice whatever, passing the reading of her 
 introductory lines without recognition.
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 AGAIN THE INTRUDER. 
 
 That evening two surprises confronted Laura and 
 Rebecca. Their dressing room being in the flies they 
 had to cross the stage to reach it, and in crossing they 
 found Carr going over the final business of Anita. 
 
 "You here," exclaimed Laura, involuntarily. 
 
 "Evidently," the ash-blonde responded icily, turn- 
 ing her back. 
 
 But they were in no mind to discuss Carr. It was 
 to be their first appearance in New York, and, however 
 obscured by the overwhelming talent of Marshall, the 
 performance might mean much to them. Laura flung 
 herself into the part of Clara. From first to last she 
 threw off everything and lost herself in the character. 
 Now and again she heard a burst of genteel approval 
 which swelled into a hurricane at the death of the Sena- 
 tor. There were shouts of * ' Marshall ! " * ' Marshall ! ' ' 
 "Marshall!!!" The actor stepped forward and those 
 behind could hear his remarks to the house. He 
 thanked the audience for its loud appreciation of him- 
 self and his co-workers. He was glad to know there 
 were at least a few Americans who approved of Ameri- 
 can art, who did not follow every theatrical fad a 
 fad that admired a French actress with her hysterical 
 method, that adored an Italian with her neurotic real- 
 ism, that made a lion social and otherwise of an 
 Englishman who had attained to the lowest rank of a 
 rank nobility by sycophancy incomprehensible to a 
 free-born citizen of the United States. The audience 
 was probably aware that he (Marshall) had a complete 
 command of several languages. He could, if he wished, 
 distinguish himself in France, in Germany, in Italy or
 
 138 AGAIN THE INTRUDER. 
 
 in England; but he preferred reserving his gifts and 
 strength for his countrymen, who, he hoped, would ap- 
 preciate his patriotism and his efforts to surpass at 
 least the English theatre. 
 
 Amid thunderous approval the curtain lazily de- 
 scended. Laura, who had been down stage near enough 
 to hear the speech, returned to her room, where she 
 found Rebecca. 
 
 "I've found out all about it about Carr," ex- 
 plained the Jewess. "I made up with her during the 
 waits. She's stopping at the Waldborough, the hotel 
 Ross took in management here a week ago. She got 
 in the company through Ross, who is a friend of the 
 manager, and the manager is to be at the Waldborough 
 during Marshall's engagement in New York. I can't 
 understand why Ross goes out of his way for Carr. 
 He never seemed to care for her. ' ' 
 
 "Did she speak of me?" Laura asked. 
 
 "No yes. She said Ross asked her to inquire 
 about you, so she wanted to know how you were get- 
 ting on." 
 
 'Roman's intermittent possession of the sixth sense 
 when passion or affection concerns them directly 
 suggested to Laura why Ross had gone out of his 
 way for Carr, who considering that Rosenau had taken 
 the conciliatory step, bowed to Laura at the stage door. 
 Laura was about to return the salutation when her eye 
 caught some one entering Marshall's carriage. She 
 was not trustful of her view until he looked from 
 the window; the some one was Protony. The super- 
 cilious expression in those eyes did not disconcert Re- 
 becca as it did Laura. The little brunette made sev- 
 eral calm conjectures. Perhaps Protony had been en- 
 gaged to stage a new play or to revise an old one or to 
 dramatize an idea of Marshall's. 
 
 One of Rebecca's surmises proved approximately 
 correct. Mrs. Quincy told them that Protony had 
 packed and gone to the Waldborough that morning at 
 the invitation of Roland Marshall, with whom he would 
 collaborate in a play. The subject, she understood, 
 was the French Revolution, with Robespierre as the
 
 AGAIN THE INTRUDER 139 
 
 central figure. Rebecca scented danger. She hinted 
 to Laura it were best to be at least on friendly terms 
 with Protony, who would necessarily have confidential 
 relations with Marshall. Interpreting Laura's silence 
 as consent she offered herself as an intermediary. 
 Laura interrupted her sharply. No, no and evermore 
 no! She would have nothing to do with him. He was 
 small, mean, inconceivably selfish, grossly jealous. She 
 had found him wanting at the most crucial time of her 
 life. He had shown cowardice and weakness in every 
 critical moment. Perhaps he had talent for stagecraft, 
 but she knew that at bottom his extreme selfishness re- 
 pelled everybody, especially a woman upon close ac- 
 quaintance. No matter what his influence with Marshall, 
 she would have nothing to do with him. Rosenau saw it 
 were futile to dissuade Laura from her determination, 
 so bade her good night. But whilst disrobing she 
 saw a letter on the chiffonier addressed to her. It was 
 an invitation from Ross to come to the Waldborough. 
 Though written to her, Rosenau divined that it was 
 intended for Laura, particularly as "This includes Miss 
 Darnby. There will be no trouble about rates they '11 
 be low enough to meet your income." 
 
 "Don't put out the lights. I have something for 
 you. Here. ' ' The paper was handed Laura, who, after 
 a hurried perusal, returned it without comment. 
 ' ' Well, what have you to say ? ' ' 
 "I have nothing to say. Good night."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 FOOTLTGHT FLASHES- AND DASHES. 
 
 Like all the lodgers of Mrs. Quincy's, Laura and 
 Rebecca had asked that the newspapers be sent to their 
 rooms early every Tuesday morning. Both were burn- 
 ing to read what the New York critics would write of 
 their first appearance. This was Rebecca's thought on 
 awakening. She jumped to the floor, unlocked the door 
 and feverishly grasped a bundle of journals. Her move- 
 ment aroused Laura, who demanded half of them. The 
 Tribunal congratulated Mr. Marshall on his sumptuous 
 revival of a genuine drama at a time when there was 
 a dangerous tendency to degrade the theatre with 
 so-called realistic plays. Mr. Marshall's Senator had 
 deepened in conviction and broadened in authority it 
 would endure as one of the great creations of the 
 American stage. The audience was affected to copi- 
 ous tears in the second act and at the death scene was 
 absolutely transfixed. There were two noteworthy 
 changes in the cast. A western lady, a Miss Darnby, 
 essayed Clara unimpressively; her enunciation was dis- 
 tinctly of the West; her gestures far from rounded. 
 She was young, however, and in time might assume 
 some of the graces so essential to refined theatre-goers. 
 Anita, an episodical role, was convincingly enacted by 
 a Miss Rosenau. 
 
 The Current congratulated Mr. Marshall on the re- 
 vival of the Spanish play. Mr. Marshall's Senator was 
 so well-known that it were redundant to comment on 
 his work. Clara was entrusted to a Western lady, a 
 Miss Laura Darnby, who will doubtless conceive the 
 role in all its possibilities with continued interpreta- 
 tion. Rosenau was not mentioned. 
 
 (140)
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 141 
 
 The Diary wondered that with so many new and 
 popular novels yet undramatized Mr. Marshall should 
 revert to his success of a past decade. The changes 
 in the personnel of his company were not advantageous 
 to the art of acting as it is understood in New York. 
 
 The Courier thought Mr. Marshall's career coursed 
 more and more toward garish contradictions. None 
 was more progressive in the actor's art; none more 
 reactionary in the literature of the stage. With his 
 matchless abilities, Mr. Marshall could give a really 
 intellectual reading of Sudermann and Hauptmann, of 
 Ibsen and Shaw; instead, he resorted to the tattered 
 stock of romantic contrivances fit only for the past gen- 
 eration. His personal work was, of course, of super- 
 lative excellence and in a corresponding respect he 
 displayed excellent judgment in the selection of his 
 associates. Miss Darmby, for instance, revealed an 
 original talent for modernity, absolutely free from the 
 annoying conventions of the routinists of the boards. 
 There were amendable crudities and these were quite 
 forgotten in the high intelligence and fresh conception 
 exhibited. Almost the same eulogy might be written 
 of Miss Rosenau, albeit there was a marked difference 
 in the talents of the ladies. Physically and tempera- 
 mentally she was the Spanish dancer, Anita. 
 
 The Comet did not deem it worth while to resus- 
 citate a well-buried play for the purpose of introducing 
 a pair of Western actresses of mediocre ability for 
 surely Roland Marshall did not exhume "A Romance of 
 Madrid" to astonish the Metropolis with his Senator, 
 which was as over-familiar as Jefferson's "Rip." 
 
 The Sphere thought two prairie ladies with harsh 
 accents a light penance to impose for the high privilege 
 of again seeing Roland Marshall as the Spanish Sen- 
 ator. 
 
 "Does that exhaust the supply?" queried Laura 
 scornfully. 
 
 ' ' Oh, no ; we 'have to run the gantlet of the evening 
 papers besides the weekly periodicals." 
 
 "The main objection to us seems to be that we had
 
 142 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 the bad taste not to be born somewhere east of Pitts- 
 burg." 
 
 "Yes; we have no right to exist on the stage be- 
 cause we are too long with our r's and too short with 
 our a's." 
 
 "Well, we can soon remedy that; it will be easy to 
 change our pronunciation to suit the ears of Broad- 
 way. ' ' 
 
 "And after we have done that it will be easy to 
 change our birthplace." 
 
 "Certainly; for public purposes it's just as easy 
 to be born in Boston or New York as in a small town 
 near Kansas City. And, by the way, Becky, where 
 did you come from? You've never told me." 
 
 "You could never guess. I was born in a village 
 called Kaunitz, near Prague in Bohemia." 
 
 "Bohemia? Why where is " 
 
 "Austria, Europe. I came over with my parents 
 when I was seven." 
 
 "Where are they your father and mother?" 
 
 "Dead. Died in Chicago. Unlike most Jews, my 
 father left nothing not even an insurance policy." 
 
 "He left you plenty of brains." 
 
 "Of what good are brains to a woman, especially 
 to an actress? They are an impediment. I already 
 know enough of the art I mean of the profession 
 to know that brains lead you into too many mistakes. 
 Instinct and intuition are far better in this business 
 than intellect. Best of all is beauty ; a superb sensuous 
 sort of beauty. A stunning, commanding figure with 
 superb hips and magnificent arms and a cool contralto 
 voice. A few fine gowns will do the rest. Ah (sigh- 
 ing), I have none of these things. All I have are a 
 terribly big ambition and some intelligence. You can't 
 catch the public with such negative qualities you 
 couldn't, were you so disposed, catch even one man of 
 the public worth the catching." 
 
 "You horrible little pessimist" Laura laughed 
 lightly as she leapt from the bed to the floor "You'll 
 leave us all behind. Some day we'll look up from the 
 lower rung and find you at the top."
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 143 
 
 "On the top of a ridiculously big wreck, you 
 mean." 
 
 Rebecca's cynical prophecy was fulfilled with un- 
 expected celerity. The portent was a circular notifi- 
 cation (typewritten) from Marshall requesting mem- 
 bers of the company to carefully study Carlyle's 
 "French Revolution". This notice eame with the 
 evening papers, so that little thought was given at 
 the time to the order. Among the criticisms of the 
 performance The Mail supposed it must be gratifying 
 to those who set the player above the play to be 
 favored with Mr. Marshall's exhibition of virtuosity; 
 otherwise the revival of "A Romance of Madrid" had 
 no meaning except that it introduced two potentially 
 good actresses in Miss Darnby and Miss Rosenau. 
 
 The Express rejoiced that Marshall had returned 
 to the muttons of the drama. "A Romance of Madrid" 
 was a play in the genuine and not in the current ac- 
 ceptance of the term. It was regrettable, however, 
 that the personnel of the company had not changed 
 for the better. A Miss Darnby and a Miss Rosenau 
 were acquisitions that did not demonstrate their desira- 
 bility last evening. 
 
 The Financial Advertiser heard that a new play was 
 preparing for Mr. Marshall. For the sake of Mr. 
 Marshall's army of admirers and for the furtherance 
 of the American theatre it was to be hoped that the 
 prospective piece would be something more than a con- 
 trivance for the display of Mr. Marshall's mechanical 
 mastery of the actor's art. Mr. Marshall's versatil- 
 ity was unusual; his mimicry wonderful, his knowl- 
 edge of life as it is understood in the theatre complete. 
 But to one who could see men better than pictures, 
 who loved art for humanity's sake quite as well as for 
 art's sake, who caught a glimpse of things that were 
 below the superficialities, Mr. Marshall's power was 
 irresistible. There was a genuine gift in Miss Darnby, 
 whose personality drew the audience toward her. 
 Miss Rosenau 's temperamental qualities would in time 
 make her work distinctive. Nature intended her for
 
 144 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 the portrayal of dark Southern women of intense tem- 
 perament. 
 
 The Planet dismissed the production in a colorless, 
 non-committal paragraph. Marshall only was men- 
 tioned. 
 
 The Transcript approved of the play, of Marshall 
 and of Miss Darnby in brief conventionality. 
 
 The Daily Intelligence said the audience was pleased 
 with everything and everybody. 
 
 "Are we a success or are we a failure?" asked 
 Laura musingly as the last paper slipped from her 
 hand. 
 
 'We are both according to what we have just 
 read. I hope we can make it decisive make it de- 
 cisively successful in "Robespierre". 
 
 "I wonder what parts we'll have?" 
 
 "That's easy. You'll be asked to play Marie An- 
 toinette and I'll be told to be a crazy old hag, the 
 leader of the mob of red, ragged and screaming female 
 demons. ' ' 
 
 The next day a circular note, this time signed 
 by Clarence Protony, informed Miss Darnby that proba- 
 bly she would be asked to study Marie Antoinette and 
 Miss Rosenau Germanie Boucheron, a proletariate. For 
 a week they read Carlyle assiduously. Laura had 
 caught in her seminary days the oddities, as they are 
 called, of the master; her re-reading was instructive 
 and not difficult. She now appreciated the grandeur 
 of the style, the sustained brilliancy of the diction. For 
 a day or two Rebecca was exasperated. She could not 
 grasp the elemental originality of this spiritual mind; 
 could not accustom herself to the mode of presenta- 
 tion of these grandly moral ideas. Several times she 
 flung the book to the further end of the room, resolved 
 to replace it with Guizot's history, or Thier's or Mich- 
 elet's; but Laura persuaded her to persevere; she 
 would surely be rewarded for this seemingly difficult 
 introduction to the Sage. 
 
 One morning as Rebecca took up the volume and 
 for the first time was unconscious of any singularity 
 of rhetoric, a circular similar in form to the former
 
 FOOTLIQHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 145 
 
 notification was delivered by the letter carrier. 
 Through his secretary Mr. Marshall informed them 
 that "Robespierre" was abandoned in favor of pro- 
 ducing a dramatization of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Let- 
 ter." The members of Mr. Marshall's company would 
 please study tha-t work at once. An hour later Re- 
 becca received a note from Protony requesting permis- 
 sion to call. She comprehended that the note was 
 intended for Laura, who when she heard of the indi- 
 rect advances for a reconciliation flatly declined. He 
 had passed out of her life, she declared, and the bare 
 possibility of a recurrence of the mental anguish ex- 
 perienced with Protony steeled the purpose not to see 
 him. No; it was impossible absolutely impossible. 
 Of course, Rebecca could see him ; could listen to what 
 he had to say; she would absent herself meanwhile; 
 but for her part she was absolutely out of it. Rebecca 
 answered yes, that he might come in the afternoon. 
 
 When he came his hand grasp was moist and trem- 
 ulous as one who is perturbed in mind and who, mutely, 
 beseeches aid and consolation. Seated, he circled the 
 room in a glance and then looked at Rebecca appeal- 
 ingly. She understood: "Laura Miss Darnby was 
 called away about an hour ago she was sorry " 
 
 She stopped. The cold dejection which usurped his 
 feverish expectancy disturbed her in the stammering 
 excuse. Manifestly 'he had suffered in the last few 
 weeks ; there had been an intense struggle between his 
 pride and his passion before the latter had succeeded 
 in persuading him to this attempt at a reconciliation. 
 He gave way: "I'm miserable. I know that I've not 
 treated Laura well. But I was ambitious. I did not 
 want anything to stand in my way. I sacrificed every- 
 thing in the hope of making a name in the theatre. But 
 I find that the heart is more vital to man than art." 
 
 Always something of a poseur, the last sentence 
 pleased him so that its discovery assuaged his distress 
 for a moment. Then he turned to his experience with 
 Marshall, and as he voided his bile he was the more re- 
 lieved. God, what a man! It was impossible to get 
 on with him. He was not of one mind for five con-
 
 146 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 secutive minutes. First he wanted this and then he 
 wanted the reverse. Marshall had sent for him to col- 
 laborate in a dramatization of "Robespierre". There 
 was no collaboration about it. Marshall simply said 
 What he wanted and Protony must do all the work. 
 He was well on with "Robespierre" when Marshall 
 had burst into his room one morning and ordered that 
 the play be dropped, that the "Scarlet Letter" be 
 dramatized. He (Marshall) was sure that Arthur 
 Dimmesdale would add to his reputation far more than 
 the French Revolutionist. Two days later he thought 
 that Charles Reade's "What Will He Do With It?" 
 would be the thing to put on. Then he came back 
 to "The Scarlet Letter". The man was mad. That 
 very day, an hour before leaving the hotel, Marshall 
 had asked him what he thought of writing a play with 
 Machiavelli as the central character. And so it went on 
 from day to day, from hour to hour. Intense in his 
 want of one thing one minute and just as intense in 
 his want of the opposite the next. It was impossible to 
 accomplish anything with such a vacillating, self-con- 
 tradictory creature around you. And then his egotism 
 was something phenomenal. There was nothing in the 
 world, discovered or undiscovered, that in his imagina- 
 tion he could not do. He imagined he knew all the 
 languages ; in his mind he was a painter, sculptor, com- 
 poser, architect and more than all, a writer. Oh, yes, 
 indeed; there were no difficulties in literature for Ro- 
 land Marshall; poetry, prose; plays farce, comedy, 
 tragedy, novels ; philosophical studies and essays on 
 the drama he was a master in all these departments. 
 Temporarily relieved of his bitterness against Marshall, 
 Protony tactfully and tentatively reconnoitered the 
 subject of Laura. He put a few tentative questions. 
 Rebecca answered evasively. As he became more di- 
 rect Rebecca's hints grew broader. Finally he under- 
 stood. The flush in his face told of the hurt to his 
 pride and the color deepened as Rebecca's sympathy 
 aroused itself by his manner. When he muttered 
 "Good-by" the Jewess saw that he had a substitute 
 for his rancor against Marshall.
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 147 
 
 "Laura," said her companion on the way to the 
 theatre, "if you had seen Clarence you would have 
 offered your hand perhaps your lips." 
 
 "Never. My affection for him died some time ago 
 and contempt soon took the place of respect. I had 
 rather seen in him an open, a courageous brutality, 
 than the weak, the cowardly, the vacillating refinement 
 and selfishness of which he is full. I have come to 
 the conclusion that I would rather be the mistress of 
 one of those stock gamblers who pester me with notes 
 than to be Protony's wife. I'd despise myself in try- 
 ing to live with one whom I despise." 
 
 These communications from the auditors became 
 more numerous as the engagement advanced; they 
 were different from the letters of adolescent admirers 
 she had received in some parts of the West, in Univer- 
 sity towns; here in New York the writers were young 
 men and old, men-about-town and men of standing. 
 Some of the letters were beseechingly prurient; some 
 nonchalantly rakish; a few were formal in form and 
 eased by an apologetic air hoping that the unusual 
 manner of extending a dinner invitation would be ex- 
 cusedthese, every one, asked that a reply be sent to 
 general delivery. Several were boldly libidinous ; they 
 seemed either to exhale something feverishly faunis- 
 tic, or suggested the perfume of eros. One writer was 
 persistent. His first lines were informal; he admired 
 her as an actress ; he hoped that some day they would 
 meet and so on. This was written on an unstamped 
 page. Then as he got no recognition and as he warmed 
 to his object he disclosed his private and business 
 identity by writing on the letter-head of a Wall Street 
 firm of which Laura saw by the signature he was 
 the senior. One afternoon Laura was told that there 
 was a lady downstairs who wished to speak with her 
 privately. She descended to the dingy little parlor, 
 where she fronted a tall, loosely constructed woman 
 of unguessable age sallow, hard-featured and half- 
 veiled. 
 
 The woman extended her hand cordially: "My
 
 148 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 name is Mrs. Hopper; I am known as 'Hop' in the 
 profession have you heard of me?" 
 Laura admitted her ignorance. 
 
 Mrs. Hopper showed her relief. "I take a deep 
 interest in the theatre artistic and commercial. I 
 haven't failed to attend a first-night in twenty years. 
 I have a wide acquaintance among theatrical people, 
 especially among the ladies to whom I make myself 
 useful in many ways. I frequently assist them in 
 making desirable engagements. If agreeable, I should 
 like to have you for a friend." She paused for a 
 reply. 
 
 Laura listened to her with rising wonder. Was 
 the woman one of those harmless monomaniacs who 
 have a craze for everything pertaining to the stage, 
 who infest theatres and pester actors with their in- 
 tense but miscellaneous attention? But this conclu- 
 sion was vitiated by the woman's appearance sharp, 
 shrewd, with a shadow of depravity on the counte- 
 nance. Laura could only murmur some platitude about 
 being gratified to have prompted the approval of such 
 a critical habitue of the theatre. 
 
 Mrs. Hopper pressed her motive; would Miss 
 Darnby take dinner at Mrs. Hopper's some day this 
 week say Friday? She would meet at least one ad- 
 mirer there. 
 
 Indeed? And who was he or she? 
 
 A Mr. J. C. Wilson, a wealthy broker. 
 
 Laura's comprehension was swift. She rose 
 quickly and asked Mrs. Hopper to excuse her. Mrs. 
 Hopper displayed no surprise at this change in man- 
 ner ; she no doubt was accustomed to a rapid change in 
 treatment. She assumed an easy, unoffended deport- 
 ment, wished Miss Darnby good day, and passed out 
 with an air of having completed an errand satisfac- 
 torily. Laura, meeting Mrs. Quincy in the hall, asked 
 her if she knew the Hopper woman. Personally, no; 
 Mrs. Quincy, however, knew of her; she had called 
 frequently to see lodgers; knew her "profession"- 
 Mrs. Quincy threw a long sentence of meaning into
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLA8HES-AND DASHES. 149 
 
 the word and then paused, looking at Laura inquir- 
 ingly as if in doubt about something. 
 
 "Then why do you allow her to come here?" 
 The question settled Mrs. Quincy's doubt. She 
 turned voluble. "What can I do? Some girls will, 
 others will not. You know the profession. All kinds 
 of theatrical people come and go here. I can't govern 
 their morals. And then Hopper really makes busi- 
 ness engagements for a few actresses. There is Maud 
 Carp; it was through 'Hop' that Maud was put on 
 the road as a star." 
 
 "Did Mrs. Hopper furnish the money?" 
 "I don't know what the arrangements were; but 
 'Hop' had much to do with it." 
 
 Laura found out the exact relations a few days 
 later, when Mrs. Hopper again called. Word was sent 
 up that though the caller had something important to 
 say she would be very brief would speak with Miss 
 Darnby a few minutes only. Laura, encouraged by 
 Rebecca's assent, went dowstairs. The woman was 
 diffident in manner, as one who had committed an in- 
 discretion and wished to make amends. She hoped 
 that what she was about to say would be accepted in 
 the spirit in which it was imparted. She had assisted 
 many of the profession to higher positions. Wealthy 
 men's motives were not always selfish, frequently 
 they admired the talent and the person of an actress 
 disinterestedly; they were happy to further them 
 professionally. Now, she believed that Mr. Wilson 
 Laura started at the name, but "Hop" continued gently 
 was one of these. He made a fine offer. He would 
 advance the money with which to star Miss Darnby 
 would have a play written for her, would engage a 
 good company and would back the enterprise liber- 
 ally. He sincerely admired Miss Darnby; he 
 
 Laura vacated her chair abruptly. The feeling 
 that welled up in her was new ; it surprised and mysti- 
 fied her; it was devoid of indignation. Her moral 
 nature was not offended. She was rather exasperated, 
 exasperated at the unknown's persistency. She inter-
 
 150 FOOTLIGHT FLASIlES-AND DASHES. 
 
 rupted "Hop" with a swish-like "No," and quit the 
 room. 
 
 Mrs. Quincy was talking with Rebecca when Laura 
 came back. With slowly cooling emotions Laura told 
 of the latest overture. Mrs. Quincy listened attentively 
 and at the conclusion remarked: "That's right; pay 
 no attention to him, yet. Don't cheapen yourself. If 
 he's dead gone on you he'll marry you. Many girls 
 have caught rich men that way." 
 
 "Marry me? Where did you get the idea that I 
 want to marry him?" 
 
 Then what did she want? What was she waiting 
 for? Her lifelong association with the lower stratum 
 of the stage had so blunted Mrs. Quincy 's ethical sense 
 that she could not understand Laura's total rejection 
 of a man of money. To her understanding, the wealth 
 possessed by a rich admirer should be extracted some- 
 how and the most complete and efficacious mode was 
 to marry him. Rebecca was silent; she said nothing 
 until the light was turned off and they were retiring; 
 then she murmured in a preoccupied tone: "So he 
 offered to star you?" 
 
 For some time notes and letters were handed Laura 
 by the door-keeper, but the graded diversion in their 
 perusal was lost one day when a notice came from the 
 theatre, signed by Marshall personally, that he had 
 decided to put "Robespierre" on instead of a drama- 
 tized version of "The Scarlet Letter." 
 
 In the meanwhile Ross had frequently called. 
 Laura always had excused herself but once. In that 
 meeting he urged her and Rebecca to come to the 
 Waldborough. He would make a rate commensurate 
 with their income. Carr was there. The hotel had 
 become the rendezvous of Chicago people; they would 
 find it very agreeable. But when Laura answered 
 "Yes, and Protony is there", he understood. 
 
 Protony now passed her in and about the theatre 
 without recognition. Once she formally bowed to him 
 but he did not respond going by with a stiff, aloofish 
 air slightly stressed by implication of reprisal. She 
 felt that he had been affronted in an ultimate degree;
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 151 
 
 yet in all their quarrels and separations she had never 
 before detected a retaliatory trait in him. She thought 
 her observation must be at fault when it indicated re- 
 sentment on his part until rehearsals for "Robes- 
 pierre" began. Laura and Rebecca both were letter 
 perfect at the first call, when they found Protony in 
 charge of the stage. The company was told that Mr. 
 Marshall would not be present until the dress rehear- 
 sal. Robespierre in the interim would be done by Mr. 
 Oarruthers, a minor member. 
 
 Protony was calm and considerate with everybody 
 but Laura. When he addressed her it was in a po- 
 litely irritated tone. He required her to repeat lines, 
 suggesting that her intonation was faulty. At the sec- 
 ond rehearsal her bow displeased him ; it was not suffi- 
 ciently stately. "Miss Darnby" he drawled the 
 Darnby "you do it as an indifferent actress, not as 
 a queen." 
 
 Though calm outwardly the taunt stirred her; but 
 she was ready with a retort: "Mr. Mr. Um what 
 is Oh, yes; Protony: Mr. Protony, Marie Antoinette 
 was not a stately woman. If you don't know you 
 ought to know that Marie Theresa was constantly up- 
 braiding her daughter for being frivolous in manner 
 and reckless in dress. Why, she returned a portrait 
 of her daughter with these very words: 'I should 
 have been happy to receive a portrait of the Queen of 
 France, but as you have sent me the picture of an 
 actress, I return it'." 
 
 The rebuke administered before the company paled 
 him. He answered in a keyed voice that betrayed ris- 
 ing temper: "And if you don't know, Miss Miss 
 Miss Darnby, I will tell you that this play acts when 
 Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette's husband, was deposed, 
 acts when Marie Antoinette's life had turned to trag- 
 edy. The very act we are rehearsing is in a prison, 
 notwithstanding the Queen is surrounded by people 
 of the court all political prisoners. Marie Antoinette 
 had become a woman whose trials had dignified her. 
 
 "Then, sir, you are taking liberties with history. 
 At no time during Marie Antoinette's prison life was
 
 152 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 she surrounded by people of the court. At first she 
 was with her children, the King and his sister. Finally 
 she was alone. Better re-write your play. It is idiotic 
 as it is." 
 
 She regretted the last sentence immediately she had 
 uttered it, though she had wished for an inspiration 
 which would hurt him. It struck square ; it made him 
 white and rigid. The company stopped astounded; 
 even Rebecca was surprised at Laura's impertinence. 
 
 The first word came from Protony; they were 
 uttered in a low tremulous tone : ' ' Thank you, I shall 
 convey your suggestion to Mr. Marshall. ' ' 
 
 Then he ordered the rehearsal to proceed. Laura 
 went through her part mechanically, feeling as one who 
 had committed an overt act to her own astonishment. 
 Protony was deliberate the rest of the day. Laura had 
 never seen him with that determined expression. 
 
 "I'm afraid you went too far to-day," said Rebecca 
 on the way home. "You struck him deep." 
 
 "He exasperated me," was the laconic reply. 
 
 The third morning after she and Protony had ex- 
 asperated each other she received her conge. Enclosed 
 in the note from Marshall's manager was a checque 
 calling in amount for the salary earned and a fort- 
 night's advance. Her dismissal was briefly worded: 
 "Your services have become unsatisfactory. I must ask 
 you not to favor us with your presence at the theatre." 
 She had expected this the morning after her tilt with 
 Protony, but as nothing was said the second day the 
 fear of discharge had been allayed. The peremptory 
 expulsion, then, shocked her after all. 
 
 The same evening the newspapers announced that 
 Miss Laura Darnby, having been dismissed for insub- 
 ordination, her parts would be taken by Miss Caroline 
 Carr, whose character, in turn, would be assumed by 
 Felicia Eoyle, of Sol Smiles Runnels Company. When 
 Rebecca read of the change she immediately advised 
 Lanra to appi^ for Felicia Royle's work. "Send a note 
 to Runnels at once and tker -U on him tomorrow at 
 noon." 
 
 Laura wrote that her separation troir *h. Marshall
 
 
 Vv '_ 
 
 " {Jetter re-write your play. It is idiotic." Page 154.
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 153 
 
 Company was not due to insubordination; it was the 
 result of an enmity between one of the authors of 
 "Robespierre" and herself. A reply over an illegi- 
 ble signature came within an hour and with it the part 
 of Vinnie, the Southern girl, in "A Lonely Valley," 
 which she would please study this evening and come to 
 rehearsal at ten o'clock the next day. Laura was still 
 going over the lines when Rebecca returned from the 
 theatre at midnight. She was charged with news, 
 but vowed she would say nothing until Laura was well 
 in her role. Anything, no matter how startling, from 
 the Marshall Company would not disturb her, Laura 
 insisted. 
 
 Very well, then. Carr was positively wretched as 
 Clara. She had to be prompted right along; she didn't 
 get a band from the house; Marshall was in a dog's 
 humor because Carr nearly wrecked the banquet scene 
 by her nervousness. But the most interesting of all 
 here the Jewess looked at Laura intently 
 
 "I saw Protony; or, rather he was waiting for me 
 at the door of the dressing room." She stopped to 
 note the effect of this, but as Laura looked unmoved, 
 even unconcerned, she continued: "He was badly cut 
 up, poor devil. He wanted to assure me in a breath 
 that he had nothing to do with your dicharge. He said 
 some one reported your row to Marshall. Marshall 
 then sent for Protony, who had to tell him what you 
 said. He tried to make light of the affair; tried to 
 excuse you, but Marshall would not have it. He or- 
 dered the manager to discharge you. Do you believe 
 that?" 
 
 "Yes. I know Protony so well that I believe he 
 regretted the quarrel by the time he reached the hotel. 
 And I believe that Carr told Marshall." 
 
 Before starting for the theatre a note came from 
 Ross, again inviting her to make the Waldborough her 
 home. 
 
 "He certainly knows of your doings," Rebecca ob- 
 served. 
 
 "And I certainly know nothing of his." 
 
 In the manager's office sh'e recognized the voice of
 
 154 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES- AND DASHES. 
 
 the man who greeted her and the face was not unfamil- 
 iar; but the bearing, the manner and the sartorial ap- 
 pearance were completely transformed. "Is it you, 
 Mr. Freeman?" 
 
 " 'Tis I," was the reply, in mock theatricals. Then, 
 naturally : ' ' That is why you were engaged so promptly. 
 I told Mr. Runnels that I knew your work, so he told 
 me to send for you immediately. I've been with him a 
 month. ' ' 
 
 He was not the Fred Freeman of the West, but 
 Frederick S. Freeman, of New York, perfectly adapted 
 to the new conditions ; his clothes were almost elegant, 
 with not a suspicion of extravagance in cut or color; 
 the only ornament was a watch and that was incon- 
 spicuously worn in the trousers with a black fob. His 
 deportment was subdued. The broad, aggressive smile 
 had been exchanged for a countenance of quiet good 
 nature and the perennial cigar had been extracted from 
 his teeth. 
 
 While they waited for Runnels, Freeman told of 
 his shifts and wanderings with chance companies or- 
 ganized in Chicago for a month, a week, a night even 
 for one performance to make a couple of hundred 
 dollars in a county fair town. But now he was posi- 
 tioned. He had attained that which he had sought for 
 years, the business head of an organization of high 
 standing. And Mr. Runnels was perfection. Never 
 any misunderstanding. Why he "Here he comes." 
 
 The typical Yankee comedian, very tall, very thin 
 and dyspeptic. A humorous mouth, and big clear eyes 
 in a face that defied an estimate of age he could be 
 either thirty* or sixty. In a low dry voice that hit the 
 r's roughly, Laura was told that she would do. Then 
 they went back, and following introductions to mem- 
 bers of the company only one of which, Byron, a hand- 
 some leading man, projected, Laura thought, from the 
 ordinary shop line the one hurried rehearsal necessary 
 for Laura's co-operation in "Lonely Valley" began. 
 It was a pitiably, commonplace dramatic concoction, 
 but it gave Sol Smiles Runnels complete scope to play 
 himself a Yankee youth- of raw manners, dry humor
 
 FOOTLIGIIT FLASHES- AND DASHES. 155 
 
 and infinite invention. On the way back to Mrs. Quin- 
 cy's it occurred to Laura that she could enliven her 
 part by giving the Southern girl a Southern accent. 
 A native of lower Missouri, she knew the South and 
 its speech well ; so she spent the afternoon in softening 
 the consonants and accentuating the vowels of the lines. 
 In the evening, after the first act, Byron complimented 
 her warmly ; it was an innovation ; she had done some- 
 thing with a role that had always been a lay figure. 
 The women of the cast, two old, one uncertain, one 
 young, assumed an attitude so pronouncedly high 
 chinned that Laura, at first doubtful of the sincerity 
 of Byron's commendation, was now certain of the dis- 
 tinction of her work until she met Runnels; he did 
 not respond to her formal salutation, but turned aside 
 with an air that was affectedly preoccupied. This con- 
 fused her; perhaps the women were right; perhaps 
 their disdain was really justified ; perhaps her endeavor 
 to give tone and blood to a wooden image was over- 
 leaping in its effect. And yet she was twice applauded 
 in open scene. 
 
 No, she had not been mistaken ; the morning papers 
 dispelled all misgivings and confirmed all hopes. Though 
 the notices were brief they were unanimously favora- 
 ble; the critics with realistic convictions were emphat- 
 ically eulogistic. 
 
 She passed the women of the company that evening 
 with a superb sweep, her head stiffly poised, an atti- 
 tude that was very much modified a moment later when 
 she met Runnels. To her warm, full toned, "Good 
 evening, Mr. Runnels," he returned an iron stare. 
 There was no mistaking it this time ; he was sheerly dis- 
 pleased. Like all sensitive, conscientious natures, she 
 became self-accusative, sought for the cause of other 
 people's displeasure in herself in something that she 
 had inadvertantly said or done. She thought of all 
 manner of indiscretions she probably had committed. 
 Was it the tacit tilt with the women* Had she pro- 
 voked jealousy or fomented disharmony in the com- 
 pany ? Stars and managers dislike a troublesome mem- 
 ber and she perhaps had unwittingly become one. She
 
 156 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 decided to explain to Runnels, to express her regrets 
 to no; she would say nothing to Runnels. Instead 
 she would go to Freeman and let him explain. With 
 her mind eased she played the Southern girl heart 
 whole. The applause from the refined ripple of gloves 
 in the parquet to the positive clap of bare hands in 
 the gallery was frequent and swelling applause whose 
 emphasis seemed suggested by the favorable notices in 
 the newspapers. After the one scene in the last act 
 from which Runnels and Laura exit together, the 
 actor was almost rude; he scowled and turned away 
 brusquely. The thought that Freeman would soon de- 
 fine her position prevented an evaporation of her ex- 
 uberant serenity even when he saluted her distantly as 
 she met him going toward the stage door. 
 
 "Mr. Freeman, when and where could I see you to- 
 morrow ? ' ' 
 
 "That's a coincidence. I wanted to see you. I'll 
 call at the house sometime in the morning. ' ' 
 
 He came quite early for a man of the theatre. He 
 was told to come upstairs, where he found Laura don- 
 ning a light waist and Rebecca combing her deep black 
 hair. Neither he nor they were embarassed by the 
 negligee appearance of the apartment and its occu- 
 pants; it was as if he had entered a dressing room at 
 the theatre. Without preliminaries she plunged into 
 her worriment: 
 
 "It isn't my fault that Mr. Runnels was displeased. 
 The women are jealous ; they snubbed me and I resented 
 it. Now Fred, I" 
 
 "My dear girl, you are on the wrong tack. The 
 jealousy of the women and your resentment of it have 
 nothing to do with it. You alone are at fault." 
 
 "Well, what have I done?" 
 
 He paused as if hesitating between a choke of sug- 
 gestions that would convey his answer implicitly, 
 rather than explicitly. Finally: "When you rehearsed 
 your part did anyone tell you to use a dialect?" 
 
 Rebecca, who was still busy at the mirror, turned, 
 faced him fully, gave him a sharp look and then smiled 
 knowingly as if she had detected the trouble. Laura
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 157 
 
 answered : ' ' Why, no ; but as Vinnie is a Southern 
 girl I thought it quite in character to give her the soft 
 intonation of the South. I thought it would make her 
 more interesting." 
 
 He hesitated again, seeming to search for a phrase 
 that would not be too compromising: "Laura" his 
 tone was low and intimate "Mr. Runnels makes it 
 a rule not to allow innovations without being consulted. 
 The part has always been played in a plain sort of way, 
 so you had better drop the dialect and not exert your- 
 self too much. Mr. Runnels will do the heavy work 
 himself. You understand what I mean." 
 
 She did not get his meaning completely; but Re- 
 becca, whose smile broadened, understood. 
 
 Freeman, seeing that Rebecca had caught the situ- 
 ation, quickly changed the talk. He spoke of the com- 
 pany's route. After playing in New York a month 
 longer they would play all the big towns directly west 
 to San Francisco. From San Francisco they would go 
 to Texas, then the Gulf cities and from Florida along 
 the Atlantic Coast back to New York, where a new play 
 would be produced. Carl Smith was writing the new 
 piece ; the locale was in Illinois, in Lincoln 's early days, 
 and Runnels would be a country lawyer who was in 
 sympathy with Lincoln's ideas; he would be droll, 
 heroic and sympathetic. 
 
 In a tone in which ingenious mockery was inno- 
 cently infused Rebecca asked : Will it be a one-part 
 play? Will there be other parts besides that of the 
 Illinois attorney?" 
 
 He feigned to be dull to her sarcasm and responded 
 cheerily that there would be several strong characters. 
 The leading lady Laura would have an excellent 
 part. He believed, indeed, that the drama required a 
 larger company. Perhaps Miss Rosenau might be in- 
 duced to join next season? This as he took his hat to 
 leave. 
 
 But Rebecca would have a parting shot. It was 
 unlikely. While Mr. Marshall was not the most amia- 
 ble fellow in or out of the theatre, he allowed develop-
 
 158 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 merit, was not small or cheap ; was not envious of atten- 
 tion that a member of his company might attract. 
 
 Laura understood. To be sure of her understand- 
 ing she asked directly that Freeman had gone: "So 
 you believe Runnels is jealous of the notices I got?" 
 
 "To be sure. It is that and nothing else. He 
 thinks your work belittles him just so much and I 
 think he is right. The man can't act. He's got enough 
 Yankee humor in him to entertain an audience for about 
 fifteen minutes. He's Yankee in everything he tries 
 to do; a Yankee in classic comedy, a Yankee in farce 
 melodrama. He ought to go back to where he came 
 from, vaudeville." 
 
 Laura grew more indignant than Rebecca the longer 
 she thought of the virtual command to suppress her- 
 self. For the first time she had been ordered not to 
 do her best. And this suppression was to innure to the 
 benefit of an inconceiva'ble egotist, of a small, narrow 
 and incompetent actor. It was a monstrous demand ! It 
 was unheard of ! It was contemptible ! She walked the 
 floor, burning in anger. No! she would not submit! 
 She would treat the order with contempt. From now 
 on she would surpass herself, just to defy that Yankee. 
 
 As Laura's indignation waxed, Rebecca's waned. 
 The Jewess became thoughtful. She had her eyes on the 
 floor contemplatively until Laura was calmed by the 
 resolve to do her utmost. Then Rebecca observed re- 
 flectively in a low voice : "If you don 't do as he wants 
 he may dismiss you." 
 
 To Rebecca's dismay this re-inflamed Laura. Very 
 
 well, let Trim dismiss and be . The oath surprised 
 
 Rebecca; it shocked Laura. But in her intensity she 
 involuntarily uttered the smallest blasphemy of the 
 many which ihad entered her ear since she became a 
 player. The little word hushed Rebecca's intention 
 to bring her friend to a compromising state. 
 
 Laura played her part in a defiant strain all week. 
 The Southern enunciation was specialized. On Satur- 
 day, after the performance, she got a note with a fort- 
 night's salary enclosed notifying her that her work
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 159 
 
 being unsatisfactory, the management was compelled 
 to dispense with her services. 
 
 On Monday The Diary said: "Miss Darnby was 
 compelled to disengage herself from the Runnels Com- 
 pany in consequence of the recurrence of the fatal 
 malady with which she was afflicted whilst a member 
 of the Marshall Company, namely, exaggerated self- 
 esteem." 
 
 Two papers announced shortly and brutally that 
 she had been discharged for the second time for insub- 
 ordination. Other journals had only two lines in the 
 column given to the gossip of the theatre. These read : 
 ' ' The Vinnie of the Lonely Valley, Miss Laura Darnby, 
 has severed her relations with the Runnels Company." 
 
 The fling in The Diary stung Laura. Without con- 
 sulting Rebecca, scarcely reflecting, she wrote a note 
 to the editor protesting against the injustice of the 
 irony. She explained the cause of her discharge, end- 
 ing the explanation with : "I tried to make Vinnie the 
 Southern girl as I understood her, and in trying to 
 make her truthful I collided with Mr. Runnel's vanity." 
 
 The Diary published the protest with the curt com- 
 ment: "Miss Darnby mistakes Mr. Runnel's vanity 
 for her own phenomenal conceit and recusancy." 
 
 Rebecca, when she read the lines, stared at Laura. 
 Her astonishment prevented speech for several minutes. 
 She let the paper drop, walked to the window and stood 
 there without seeing anything. She seemed to be try- 
 ing to control or to extenuate something that pos- 
 sessed her. Finally she turned: "Laura, you've done 
 some surprisingly indiscreet things lately, but in this 
 you've gone about as far as the law allows." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that you are barring yourself from engage- 
 ments; you are committing professional suicide. It is 
 well enough to be talked about, to be written about 
 such things help when they do not conflict with man- 
 agers. But you are making enemies amongst the very 
 people upon whom you must depend for advancement. 
 You will get the reputation of a kicker, which is even 
 worse than, having the reputation of a Jonah. No man-
 
 160 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 ager will dare to engage you. I have not been In this 
 profession very long, but I know that in order to get on 
 a woman must make concessions, she must flatter and 
 cajole people in authority; must twist and turn until 
 she gets an absolutely strong foothold. Then she may 
 do as she pleases. But what are we you and I? We 
 are nobodies as yet. We've got to take our medicine 
 as it comes. But really, Laura, I didn't think you could 
 lose your head so far as to write such a note, and of 
 all the papers, to The Diary. Why, don 't you know that 
 the critic, Rob Roy, is hand in glove with the big men ? 
 
 "What do you mean by the big men? Runnels man- 
 ages his own company. Freeman is a hired man. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, but does Runnels own a theatre in New York? 
 He couldn't play here without the consent of the own- 
 ers, the big men, they who control the best theatres 
 in New York, and what do stars or companies amount 
 to if they cannot play in a popular house in New 
 York from time to time? New York makes or breaks 
 an actor or a play. Then you should never attempt 
 to correct a newspaper until you are at the top. If I 
 were accused of murder I shouldn't protest unless I 
 were a star, and then I'd sue the publisher for adver- 
 tising purposes." - .,"4 
 
 "Well, I'm not important enough for the big men 
 to pay any attention to me." 
 
 A fortnight later she was not so sure. A call at 
 the office of the dramatic journals to change the read- 
 ing of her card, a visit to the agencies to remind them 
 that she was at liberty prompted the suspicion that she 
 had incurred the displeasure of somebody high in 
 authority. Mr. Farnum was polite, but his politeness 
 had a nipping air. The other editor was impatiently 
 laconic. Yes, yes, he would see that her card was 
 changed, but she must excuse him, he was very busy. 
 At the Brown Agency, Brown looked at her wonder- 
 ingly for a moment. She was looking for an engage- 
 ment ? Oh, of course, he would see what he could do 
 for her. Then he became absorbed in an apparently 
 deep matter with his assistant. The other agent mo- 
 tioned Laura o'ff-handedly to take a seat and continued
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 161 
 
 his conversation with an inflated and flabby, false- 
 voiced and false-haired 'blonde whose business had evi- 
 dently ended and who made ready to go several times 
 but something always occurred to the agent just as 
 she was about to rise; finally as Laura and the other 
 woman showed signs of impatience, ingenuity to pro- 
 long the one-sided talk failed him. But for fully five 
 minutes after he did not remember that Laura was 
 present. A very important letter held him. Laura at 
 last spoke up determinedly. Oh, yes, to be sure, to be 
 sure. He was becoming wretchedly absent-minded. An 
 engagement? Why, what was the matter with the 
 Runnels Company ? Laura told him, shortly, the cause 
 of her discharge, though she felt that he knew the 
 trouble. He affected surprise as she related her diffi- 
 culty. Too bad; too bad. Runnels was a fine fellow; 
 he had a fine company ; one of the most popular actors 
 in the country and what a money-maker. Too bad, too 
 bad. Well, he would see what he could do. But he 
 was very busy this afternoon. She would excuse him, 
 wouldn't she? 
 
 Laura walked out with humiliation and indignation 
 contending within her. At that moment she was very 
 near accepting Ross' renewed invitation to come 
 to the hotel. But no; Protony was there and Carr. 
 This momentary weakness was not a moral relapse; 
 it was more a wish to feel secure materially. 
 
 "Did you find anything, Laura?" Rebecca asked. 
 
 She answered shortly, "No." 
 
 The Jewess' quick perception told her that her com- 
 panion was in no mood to exchange ideas that day, so 
 Laura was not disturbed in her thoughts and vague 
 plans. Amongst these was a recurrent wish to go 
 home, impulsive desires that were as quickly extin- 
 guished by pride and cold reason. Her father had not 
 yet written. The mother's letters had become dis- 
 tinctly infrequent as the daughter's correspondence 
 became negligent. Had she been very successful in 
 her profession a success which had spread through- 
 out the country and were she correspondingly pros- 
 perous she would go home. But now twice dismissed
 
 162 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 without an engagement with very little money 
 Impossible! Her pride forbade it. But what could 
 she do ? 
 
 That question occupied her in increasing anxiety 
 from day to day. No word came from the agencies. 
 The dramatic papers contained nothing but out-of- 
 town offers from third-rate managers of unknown re- 
 sponsibility. At every manifestation of never so tact- 
 ful sympathy from Rebecca, Laura withdrew within 
 herself the more. Besides the little Jewess soon had 
 troubles of her own. "Robespierre" was finally pro- 
 duced. It proved an egregious failure and Marshall 
 went down in the wreck. Not since he had left the 
 concert stage, a young man with a pretty voice, had he 
 been so criticised. Even the critics, who always had 
 been friendly to Marshall's work, exposed the crass 
 crudeness of the authors and the complete misconcep- 
 tion of Robespierre by Marshall, who the Courier 
 averred, gave the Revolutionist Napoleon's strut, La- 
 martine's face, Grammont's garments and delicacy of 
 manner and a woman's tenderness; instead of making 
 him "a poor sea-green atrabiliar formula of a man, 
 without head, without heart, or any grace, gift or even 
 vice beyond the common, if it were not vanity, astucity, 
 diseased rigor (which some count strength) as of a 
 cramp ; meant by nature to be a Methodist parson of the 
 structural sort ; to doom men who depart from the writ- 
 ten confession; to chop fruitless logic; to contend to 
 suspect and ineffectually wrestle and wriggle; and on 
 the whole to lose or to be nothing; who, the sport of 
 wrecking winds, saw himself whirled aloft to command 
 la premiere nation de 1' universe and all men shouting 
 long life to him ; one of the most lamentable sea-green 
 objects ever whirled aloft in that manner in any coun- 
 try to his own swift destruction and the world's long 
 wonder. ' ' 
 
 Rebecca alone was saved, and in being rescued her 
 prophecy, made weeks ago, that she would be found 
 solitary on a wreckage heap, was fulfilled. The mob 
 woman was exempted from the lava of disapprobation 
 that poured upon the theatre. She was the single
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES- AND DASHES. 163 
 
 gleaming truth that shone through the dark, laborious 
 mass of impossibilities. Marshall, Rebecca said, was 
 in a hyena's humor all week. She feared discharge, 
 so savage was he with her that she should be an excep- 
 tion to the crushing fiasco. She slighted her work in 
 the two last nights of the week, hoping thus to diminish 
 the applause and mollify Marshall accordingly. When 
 "A Romance of Old Madrid" was reproduced the fol- 
 lowing week she almost obliterated herself. Marshall 
 then condescended to address her civilly. "To get 
 ahead," Rebecca explained to Laura, "we must step 
 aside occasionally to let the people who pay your board 
 pass. ' ' 
 
 Despite her troubles Laura was curious to know 
 how Protony took the failure. 
 
 "I don't know how he took it, but Marshall dis- 
 charged him the next day. But, my dear," she added, 
 "I've got good news for you and bad news for me 
 for both of us, I mean. I've got an engagement for 
 you in New York, while our company leaves for the 
 West. I see by your face that you are pleased and 
 sorry at the same time ; so am I ! " 
 
 The opening was at the National Theatre in Sixth 
 Avenue, a house with a stock company, whose repertoire 
 commenced with Shakespeare and ended with plays 
 popular in the early '70 's. The manager, Edelstein, 
 wanted a second lead and hearing that the failure of 
 "Robespierre" had compelled Marshall to cancel the 
 major part of his New York date, thought that some 
 woman of the company, preferably Rosenau, would pre- 
 fer playing in New York at the National to remaining 
 with Marshall on the road. In declining the offer Re- 
 becca recommended Laura and explained her compan- 
 ion's former difficulties. 
 
 Laura found the manager and his establishment 
 charged with very recent prosperity. Edelstein was 
 doing for himself and the drama what a Boston spec- 
 ulator in theatricals, Harold Savant, had done a year 
 before and was still doing for himself and for music; 
 getting rich by producing opera at a minimum price 
 of admission. It was Edelstein 's minutely wrought de-
 
 164 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 cluction that he could do with plays what Savant was 
 doing with operas and after the same manner. The 
 chief points of this manner were in selecting uncopy- 
 right works; in engaging a few competent players 
 who were pressed for employment, men and women 
 once popular, but whose popularity had been impaired 
 by time's ravages, by scandal, by a hurried course of 
 living. The others were actors admired in the interior 
 who seized this opportunity to appear in the metropolis ; 
 actors stranded high and dry on the Rialto by the fail- 
 ure of a company or because of an uncompromising 
 quarrel with a star or management; actors recruited 
 from the most promising students of the schools of act- 
 ing. The lesser points to success were in leasing a prac- 
 tically abandoned theatre at a deep concession, a thea- 
 tre ill-starred and away from Broadway's magic; in 
 giving two performances daily. It was the latter inno- 
 vation which Laura soon found trying. By Saturday 
 night she was undone and felt that she must have a 
 day's rest; but Sunday was the day of large receipts, 
 the manager's real bread winner. Rebecca, preparing 
 to leave with the Marshall Company, was all encourage- 
 ment. She buoyed her companion with the prospect 
 of a week's rest, for a play was sure to be put on in 
 whose cast Laura would have no place. As for being 
 alone, that was only temporary, and a change of room 
 didn't matter. 
 
 The Marshall organization would return soon; she 
 had heard talk of Marshall building a theatre in New 
 York where he could permanently remain. 
 
 They bade each other an affectionate good-bye 
 tearful on Laura's part. Rebecca once gone, an acute 
 sense of loneliness overcame Laura in the small cham- 
 ber with one window gazing upon the alley, to which 
 she had been transferred. She then realized the worth 
 of the little Jewess' companionship of her incisive 
 cleverness, her cautious energy, her diplomatic deter- 
 mination, her long-sighted advke. Never was she so 
 much in need of a companion as now, for the work at 
 the National Theatre had reduced her to that state of 
 neurasthenia which makes fine-nerved women a dread
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES- AND DASHES. 165 
 
 to themselves. The hours not spent at the theatre or 
 in bed were not many, but these were become intolera- 
 ble. She tried walking, tried reading, even resorted 
 to the conversation of Mrs. Quincy and the servants, 
 but these diversions were superficial. She was wrought 
 to a condition of morbid intensity which kept her mov- 
 ing from one thing to another. 
 
 At the theatre there was no time for social acquaint- 
 ance. Mrs. Burbridge, nearly sixty, large, inflated, ter- 
 ribly disillusionized by horrible matrimonial and bitter 
 stage experiences, shared a dressing room with Laura. 
 Mrs. Burbridge 's roles always were long and she never 
 appeared until the sixtieth minute and was the first to 
 leave, donning her street costume hastily. It was 
 merely "Good evening, my dear; good night, my dear." 
 The others she saw in scene or in and out of the stage 
 door. Her part in "A Celebrated Case," a harrowing 
 French melodrama, ruthlessly drew on her vitality. 
 The play was down for a fortnight and one afternoon 
 in the middle of the second week she felt so exhausted 
 that she decided to skimp the role for one performance 
 that she might save herself for the evening. The conse- 
 quence was faint, damning applause. After the cur- 
 tain the stage manager looked at her with a wonder- 
 ing air. Edelstein came on, and although he said noth- 
 ing, his manner showed displeasure. She went home 
 mortified and dispirited. In the evening, to make 
 amends, she summoned all her energy and distributed 
 it through the five acts of the coarse, consuming play. 
 At the end the call boy handed her a part with a type- 
 written circular. She was notified to be ready for re- 
 hearsal at nine o'clock Sunday morning. The drama 
 was "The Two Orphans" her role was Louisa a 
 racking, agonizing piece of carpentry by the builders 
 of "A Celebrated Case." 
 
 Laura stiffened when she read the note. So she was 
 to have no rest! Glancing over the part a wave of 
 despair overcame her ; it was even longer than the char- 
 acter she was doing. She dragged herslf to the car 
 quite undone. Her limbs ached, her head ached right 
 above the nose there was a dull, blinding, insistent pain.
 
 166 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES-AND DASHES. 
 
 In her room she flung herself upon the bed without dis- 
 robing and wept for sheer nervousness. She sobbed 
 to unconsciousness. It was twelve o'clock when Mrs. 
 Quincy knocked to ask if Laura intended to go without 
 her breakfast. Still half asleep Laura opened the door. 
 Her first complete idea was of the new part and the 
 dread thought aroused her. The gnawing torment 
 above the nose had subsided but not disappeared. She 
 seized the new role directly she was robed, and the 
 nervous headache returned in full intensity. Soon she 
 could scarce distinguish the letters on the page. She 
 dropped the typewritten sheets and went across the 
 wiay for breakfast. A bite or two of a roll, a sip of 
 coffee and she stopped. She had no appetite. That 
 pressing pain in the lower part of the brow reasserted 
 itself. It became acute. Coming back she met Mrs. 
 Quincy in the lower hall, who asked her what was the 
 matter? "You are so white." In mingled feelings 
 of despair and exasperation she cried: "I won't stand 
 it; I can't stand it. It's an imposition, an outrage. 
 And then she told her experience. 
 
 "Just send those fellows word I'll send Maggie 
 down with a note that you are sick and can't play 
 to-day and to-night. That'll teach them to give you 
 a rest once in awhile." 
 
 Words to that effect were sent to Edelstein and the 
 next day as Laura was about to start for the matinee 
 performance, a messenger brought a note from Mr. 
 Edelstein 's secretary, saying that the management was 
 sorry to hear of Miss Darnby 's indisposition ; but Miss 
 Darnby must not permit the worry of involuntary de- 
 fection to retard her convalescence, for the manage- 
 ment would strive to give as many and as good perform- 
 ances as before, though they would not have Miss 
 Darnby 's invaluable collaboration. Miss Darnby, there- 
 fore, was advised not to make her appearance until she 
 was positive that she could appear at least four consecu- 
 tive weeks without complaint. The management sug- 
 gested several months' rest; in fact, the longer Miss 
 Darnby refrained from appearing at the National Thea- 
 ;tre tlie better the management would be pleased. In
 
 FOOTLIGHT FLASHES- AND DASHES. 167 
 
 conclusion the management esteemed it a privilege to 
 bestow a gift of a fortnight's salary on Miss Darnby. 
 
 The ironical, peremptory dismissal agitated Laura 
 for a few minutes. Then came anger and indignation, 
 followed by the hurting sense of mysterious persecu- 
 tion. It seemed clear to her that she had incurred the 
 implacable ill will of some one whose influence was wide 
 and thorough. Though 'her thoughts were absorbed by 
 her part the two first days of her engagement, she now 
 remembered that scattered and very brief notices were 
 printed about her appearance at the National. True, 
 this house was a secondary consideration with the re- 
 viewers. An assistant to the critic or a good reporter 
 was told off to write a paragraph or two whenever the 
 bill was changed, and this was tagged on to the more 
 important reviews ; but in her instance only two notices 
 were given of her work at the National; these very 
 brief were published by the journals that had bravely 
 praised her performance with the Marshall Company. 
 
 Mrs. Quincy was more agitated than Laura herself, 
 for had she not advised her lodger to take the course 
 which had led to Laura's discharge ? But she did every- 
 thing to make amends. Laura need be in no haste to 
 seek another engagement; Laura must regard Mrs. 
 Quincy as a mother who would take care of her indefi- 
 nitely, and so on ; all of which did not check the ever- 
 increasing anxiety on Laura's part. Neither did a 
 note from Ross two days later comfort her; it was 
 the inevitable invitation, phrased more urgently, to 
 come to the Waldborough. Carr and Protony were 
 gone and if she objected to anyone else his or her room 
 would be asked for. She again thanked him but de- 
 clined to accept. As she sealed the reply she wondered 
 what had become of Protony. That evening, in look- 
 ing over the Snippet items of the theatre in an after- 
 noon paper her indifferent curiosity was satisfied; he 
 was assisting in the staging of the extravaganza, "Ori- 
 ental Nights," at the Victory Theatre.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A TUBBULENT REHEABSAL. 
 
 At the end of the week Laura was requested to call 
 upon Mr. Bolton, the proprietor, director and manager 
 of the Victory Theatre. The request at once suggested 
 to her the relation between a prospective engagement 
 and Protony. But she could not see herself in such 
 a production. She had always supposed that extrava- 
 ganza was merely synthetic for prize animal women 
 obviously on exhibition, rococo costumes, garish scen- 
 ery, heady music and an imbecile libretto. The thea- 
 tre's exterior announced its character; the architect- 
 ure gaudy and insolent, bastard byzantine, brazen in 
 posture, impudent in contour and barbariously ornate. 
 The ante-room to the manager's office was the begin- 
 ning, inside, of a continuation of what was outside, 
 though its gildings and furnishings were meant to be 
 imposing, especially the full-length portrait aggress- 
 ively vulgar of the manager. Many women no men 
 were awaiting an audience with Mr. Bolton. It was 
 clear that they nearly all were experienced chorus girls. 
 A few youthful faces that had never been painted and 
 powdered looked timid among the bold and set, hard- 
 'feartured countenances. The boy in uniform at the door 
 had just taken Laura's card when a well fed, rather 
 handsome fellow, of a Jewish type, came out, his head 
 high, his air important, as though he had just termin- 
 ated negotiations of tremendous importance. His im- 
 pressive bearing did not, however, impose upon half 
 a dozen of the waiting women who surrounded him 
 instantly, and Laura could hear such endearing appel- 
 lations as "my dear" and "pet" pass between them. 
 Finally the handsome fellow, as if to release himself 
 
 (108)
 
 A TURBULENT REHEARSAL. 169 
 
 and inform everybody in the room at the same time, 
 said in a loud voice: "It will be impossible for Mr. 
 Bolton to see anybody for sometime. He is in confer- 
 ence with Monsieur De Bargy, of the Chatelet Theatre 
 of Paris." 
 
 He was mistaken. Hardly was the announcement 
 made when another boy in uniform dashed out and 
 called "Miss Darnby." None had noticed Laura, so 
 When she rose all eyes darted at her darts of surprise, 
 of envy, of curiosity, but not of disdain. A mass of fat 
 relieved by black side whiskers slowly got up from the 
 ohair in which it had been lolling; a very dicommod- 
 ing proceeding that denoted consideration for his vis- 
 itor. 
 
 ' ' Miss Darnby, I am happy to see you. ' ' Be seated. ' ' 
 
 The voice also was fat, but the big bituminous eyes 
 were alert and incisive as they appraised the caller. Mr. 
 Bolton at once said that she had been recommended 
 to him by Mr. Protony. Here he interjected a paren- 
 thesis : The production of the ' ' Oriental Nights ' ' would 
 be the most expensive and elaborate in the history of 
 American extravaganza. Then he straightway offered 
 Laura the part of Princess Chali. He explained quickly 
 that it was a costume role ; the gowns to be worn were 
 high in the neck and trailing ; very rich, of course, but 
 "complete." The character called for considerable dia- 
 logue and two solos, but it would not ask much action. 
 "You can sing a bit, I presume" Laura nodded assent- 
 ingly "but I was about to say if you can't we could 
 soon manufacture a voice for you good enough for the 
 music that Declaven has written. The work will be 
 easy this encouragingly and there are no matinees 
 except on Saturday this was significantly emphasized. 
 And that decided her even before she heard the salary 
 of forty dollars a week. Bolton gave her a typewritten 
 pamphlet with the notice that rehearsal's would begin 
 Monday of next week the day was Thursday. 
 
 As she crossed the waiting room the boy announced : 
 "Mr. Bolton can see no more visitors to-day." A feeling 
 of compaesionshot through Laura in catching the shadow 
 of disappointment that fell upon the faces of the wait-
 
 170 A TUEBULENT REHEARSAL. 
 
 ing women, and the painful commiseration was with her 
 until she dismissed it resolutely in the evening, when 
 she applied her thoughts to 1 'Princess Chali." She found 
 the lines difficult to memorize. The words were simple, 
 the sentences plain, but the book was destitute of sense, 
 of coherence, of intelligence. The two musical numbers 
 were equally senseless jingles without point or mean- 
 ingand the score was an evil echo of everybody from 
 Strauss to Offenbach. But she had plenty of time to 
 coax the vaporous imbecilities into her head. She 
 found at the first rehearsal that her part was less sig- 
 nificant than even the typewritten copy indicated. Its 
 insignificance was made apparent by the time and care 
 devoted to the mounting and to the chorus. These were 
 everything ; the lines nothing. The latter began to be cut 
 at the first rehearsal. "Protony, too much talk; slash 
 it, slash it." Max Sigman, to whom Protony was an 
 assitant, gave the orders. Protony took the various 
 parts and ran a pencil across the pages. He displayed 
 no energy or enthusiasm in the proceeding. He stood 
 in a wing, occasionally interrupting the principals with 
 a suggestion. With the drill and grouping of the 
 chorus, with the marches and pictures, he had nothing 
 to do. He corrected the reading of a line, the enuncia- 
 tion of a phrase, the pronunciation of a word these 
 players needed such corrections, particularly as to some 
 words whose syllables they emphasized in defiance of 
 cultivation and scholarship. The failure of "Robes- 
 pierre," however, appeared not to have impaired his 
 confidence or disturbed his poise. He was perfectly 
 self-possessed, giving hints, from his secondary posi- 
 tion, distantly and in a coldly dignified way as if he 
 merely were an onlooker who had had experience in 
 such things and had chanced in whilst the rehearsal 
 was on, and had been invited by the management to 
 make a few recommendations. But to Laura's intui- 
 tive eye he was not the passive person he looked. Back 
 of his formal bow of greeting, when they met, she 
 divined an emotion and throughout the four hours 
 she was on the stage she felt rather than saw his 
 furtive glances, especially when she stood beside him,
 
 A TUEBULENT REHEARSAL. 171 
 
 awaiting the excisions ordered in her copy; her fine 
 observation caught the ebb and tide of his perturba- 
 tion; his hand trembled a little and the "Thank you" 
 the erasure made had a tremulous note. Twice he 
 was about to say something, but the chorus, at a signal 
 from Declaven, intoned one of the numbers of the score 
 and hushed Protony's intentions. 
 
 After the third march came Laura 's first song. She 
 faced the composer, whose ribbon-counter countenance 
 was supported by a long thick neck, through which 
 there issued a cackling, Yankee voice. She sang the 
 number to Declaven 's satisfaction. He was easily sat- 
 isfied. He did not mind a disparity in tone between 
 the chorus and orchestra; a difference in tempo be- 
 tween these bodies gave his musical conscience no more 
 concern than the absolutely unacknowledged loans 
 which he made from French and German masters. 
 After the rehearsal, on the way out, Laura heard a 
 musician say to a companion, evidently discussing De- 
 claven: "Venn he rob, vatt for he rob zo he vont not 
 pe fount ouid? De vay to rob ees to rob zo goot dat 
 you keel de feller vatt you rob. Dees feller youst take 
 someding und run away mit it. Efrey potty fint him 
 out dat vay." 
 
 Laura had heard only few opera bouffe composi- 
 tions, but even to her the score rehearsed that day had 
 a familiar ring. She recalled one air, with its deli- 
 cate, graceful orchestration, which was tellingly remin- 
 iscent of an operetta heard in Chicago. But Declaven 
 looked wholly unconscious of these conscious assimilla- 
 tions. He was genial, kindly, unpretentious. The next 
 day at the second rehearsal he brought his wife 
 a tall, dignified lady with learned airs on the stage 
 and introduced her to Laura. He was, indeed, cordial 
 with everyone t'he easy, jovial manner of a man who 
 has taken things easily, who has accepted success as 
 he found it. Conversely, Harry Carpenter, the libret- 
 tist, made difficulties. The ordinary, immobile face 
 with its anaemic mustache and Indian nose would con- 
 tract disagreeably whenever the empty words were de- 
 livered carelessly. There were many stops. At last,
 
 172 A TUBBULENT KEHEAKSAL. 
 
 in the second act of the third rehearsal, Max Sigmau 
 exploded: "Carpenter, this won't do. At this pace 
 we '11 be ready for the first performance about the year 
 of the resurrection." 
 
 Carpenter reddened and retorted: "I should think 
 you and your kind who are sometimes accused of cruci- 
 fying Him would feel uncomfortable in thinking of the 
 resurrection. ' ' 
 
 Max's heat instantly cooled. He lifted his Hebraic 
 head and gave Carpenter a look of admiration through 
 a pair of glistening spectacles. "Now that's good; 
 it's better than anything you've got in your book, 
 which, my dear boy, is hopelessly idiotic." 
 
 Carpenter turned from red to white. The insult, 
 calmly uttered, made everybody mute the hush that 
 precedes a catastrophe. For several seconds Carpenter 
 seemed too hard hit to utter a rejoinder. Then he stam- 
 mered : ' ' Idiot yourself, you cur ! ' ' 
 
 The smile on Sigman's face broadened and his air 
 of pretended admiration deepened : "Good! Good! I 
 always said you were a good actor off the stage. 
 When you were carrying a spear in a leg show in Chi- 
 cago I said you'd make your mark some day in tragedy. 
 And when I saw you holding Lawrence Barrett's robe 
 in "Richelieu" I was sure you'd make a good farce 
 comedian. You were always a fine contradiction. Why 
 don't you drop this sort of work and write a tragedy?" 
 
 "I'll drop you in a few minutes, you impudent 
 monkey. ' ' 
 
 "Yes? About the same time the public drops 
 you?" This as Carpenter dropped the book on the 
 table and was walking toward the manager's office. 
 While he was still in hearing Sigman called: "Mr. 
 Protony! Be so good as to take Mr. Carpenter's 
 part. And as you go along try to make the lines less 
 idiotic." 
 
 There was another scene within the scene when Pro- 
 tony suggested an elision of the lines that fell to the 
 comedian, Gharlie Rookshaw: "I won't have it," Rook- 
 shaw objected. "There's nothing in the part as it is. 
 I'm the favorite in this company. The public wants
 
 A TUEBULENT EEHEAESAL. ITS 
 
 as much of me as it can get and I won't be cut out this 
 way." 
 
 "But, my dear 'boy, the lines don't mean anything. 
 They don't carry anything forward and there isn't a 
 hand in it for you," Max explained. Rookshaw didn't 
 care about that. He wanted the lines and wouldn't be 
 done out of them. Max called Rookshaw mulish. Rook- 
 shaw retorted that he might be mulish but that he 
 wasn't an East side junk man. Max stepped toward 
 the comedian menacingly and ordered him off the 
 stage. Protony interceded; there was no sense in two 
 gentlemen forgetting themselves. Let them understand 
 each other. Max, he could see from the stage manager's 
 standpoint, was right in eliminating ineffective lines; 
 yet Rookshaw, he could also understand, did not care 
 to have his part curtailed. Why not compromise? Cut 
 out the speech and let Rookshaw substitute something 
 of his own, no matter what some business or some 
 gags of his own invention. For instance 
 
 Here Bolton appeared. His jaw hung, his eyes were 
 set. The company knew the meaning of that expres- 
 sionthere was a dead pause. Even Max's anger 
 cooled at sight of the manager, who, before he spoke, 
 was joined by Carpenter. He turned on Max and de- 
 manded an explanation. Max started to explain the 
 necessity of brighter lines, of curtailments, but Car- 
 penter and Rookshaw interrupted him simultaneously, 
 and as they tried to vitiate his defense, he in turn 
 interrupted them. Presently they were all talking to- 
 gether in keyed voices and this excited babble was 
 re-enforced by titters and low laughter from the prin- 
 cipals and the chorus. Bolton was mute for a few min- 
 untes only. He struck Max's table, paced down front 
 and shouted: "Shut up! Shut up, all of you! If 
 there's another row like this I'll fine every one of you 
 and shut up shop. Sigman, 'how long does this thing 
 play?" 
 
 "Nearly four hours." 
 
 "Then cut it. Carpenter, we can't stay here every 
 night until after twelve to listen to your dialogue."
 
 174 A TUEBULENT EEHEAESAL. 
 
 "Well, what's the matter with cutting some of the 
 music ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, have a little sense. You might as well ask me 
 to hide the shapes of some of these fine girls. You 
 ought to know that in a show like this there's never 
 too much leg or too much music. And you, Rookshaw, 
 have no kick coming. You can throw in a few more 
 gags. We've got to have three good waits of ten 
 minutes each. The bar must have a chance to make 
 some money." 
 
 The last exigency provoked a smile from Declaven; 
 but Carpenter turned an unhealthy color. "I didn't 
 know," he muttered, "that I was writing plays to suit 
 the necessity of a gin mill." 
 
 The ' ' gin mill ' ' inflamed Bolton. He turned on Car- 
 penter brutally: "Plays? Plays? You write plays? 
 My God, man, who ever told you that you write plays? 
 You spin out a few cheap lines about fairy tales that 
 are as old as civilization. We could take these kinder- 
 garten stories and let the company fill in the speeches 
 themselves and the audience wouldn't care about or 
 know the difference. People come here to hear the 
 music, to see legs and to drink liquor. Say turning 
 to Max don't waste any more time arguing about the 
 book. Make all the cuts you want and that settles it. ' ' 
 
 There was another taunting titter which seemed to 
 affect Carpenter more than Bolton 's insults. "It isn't 
 settled by any means. I give you notice that I withdraw 
 my play and if you attempt to produce it I'll enjoin 
 you." With this he started for the door. 
 
 "You can't enjoin a thing that doesn't exist. You've 
 got nothing here. Declaven provides the music and I 
 furnish the legs there's nothing more." 
 
 Protony and Laura had at first listened to the dis- 
 pute between Sigman and Carpenter with indifference, 
 for they were not unfamiliar with such scenes, but 
 they heard the exdhange of insults between Carpenter 
 and Bolton with amazement mingled with a feeling of 
 decency grossly wounded. Both had experienced the 
 acute disappointments and the gnaws of poverty which 
 the stage sometimes inflicts; but not until to-day had
 
 A TUEBULENT EEHEAESAL. 175 
 
 they felt a sense of absolute degradation in connection 
 with the profession. Bolton 's shameless and mercenary 
 view of the theatre was as if he had forced his mistress 
 to expose herself at a street corner for money. In their 
 surprised indignation they glanced at one another and 
 the one sympathized with the other's sensation of 
 shame. With Laura, naturally, the feeling was keener 
 and more pervading. On the way to Mrs. Quincy's 
 she had thoughts of renouncing her part; she had an 
 accusative sensation of fostering a shameless produc- 
 tion, an impression which she imparted to the landlady, 
 after describing the scenes at the rehearsal. 
 
 The ex-actress also was astonished in an inverse 
 manner. What! Give up an easy part because there 
 had been a fight between author and manager! Why, 
 how ridiculous! There was nothing the matter with 
 the show itself. There was nothing wrong about a lot 
 of pretty girls in tights so long as their limbs were 
 well formed. Anyhow, she Laura would wear a 
 "straight" costume. And any theatre that attracted 
 good women was all right. It was ia bad habit this 
 in a low, insinuating tone to quarrel with one's bread 
 and butter. 
 
 Laura, knowing Mrs. Quincy as she did, accused 
 herself of inexcusable futility in consulting with her 
 on points of professional taste and delicacy. What 
 was to be expected of a former vaudeville performer 
 of the third class? True, she had seen nothing among 
 the members of the company to make her squeamish. 
 The girls were followed from the theatre, but thajb 
 happened to actresses in the best of companies. She 
 herself had been coarsely insulted in the Northwest 
 and several times some one had trailed after her from 
 the National. Analyzed closer, it was Bolton 's loose 
 idea of dramatic art that provoked the ignoble feeling. 
 
 Apparently Carpenter had less professional pride 
 than Protony and a much lower view of the theatre 
 than Laura, for he appeared the next day unruffled, 
 as if nothing had happened. Everybody was cordial 
 and the rehearsal began in perfect harmony. But dis- 
 cord broke out anew at the end of the first act and
 
 176 A TURBULENT REHEARSAL. 
 
 increased in intensity as the rehearsal proceeded. The 
 row again was between Sigman .and Carpenter. Sig- 
 man was for more cuts; Carpenter protested vigor- 
 ously. Bolton appeared and told Sigman to "slash 
 away until you get this d thing right." 
 
 "All right," returned Carpenter in burning dudg- 
 eon, as he took his coat to go, "but if this d thing, 
 as you elegantly term it, is roasted to the last turn 
 it will not be my fault." 
 
 "If this d thing, as I call it, is a go, it will not 
 be because you've had a hand in it," retorted Bolton 
 curtly.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A PATBON OF AET. 
 
 The anathematized extravaganza was proclaimed a 
 success. The more serious reviewers of the theatre 
 either sent a sub-editor or commended the production 
 in easy, negligent phrases which meant that the per- 
 formance was a good thing for that sort of thing a 
 thing of fleeting diversion. The weekly periodicals 
 given to sports and kindred amusements were several 
 degrees higher in enthusiasm than the dailies. There 
 was one exception and this deviation from unanimity 
 made a row the afternoon "The Spirit of Sport" came 
 out. 
 
 "Bringle" (the press agent), "why in hell didn't 
 you see Hammond?" Bolton interrogated shoutingly. 
 " 'The Spirit of Sport' hasn't even got our ad." 
 
 "Hammond wasn't in, but I thought I left a big 
 ad with them," murmured the agent dejectedly, of a 
 sudden conscious that he had overlooked that publi- 
 cation. 
 
 "Well, you've got another think coming. Go over 
 right away. Tell Hammond we've made cuts and 
 changes. That '11 give him a chance to revise his views. 
 Take half a dozen good seats with you." 
 
 From the moment he had detained two women at 
 the entrance on the opening night (holding them on 
 a pretext until a man entered, for it was his supersti- 
 tion that a dead-head or a woman first in the house on 
 an opening night argued failure) until well into the 
 week, Bolton was spreading sail to the favorable wind 
 that invited a big pecuniary success. He advertised 
 the press encomiums broadly ; he sent tickets for well- 
 placed seats to popular clubmen and talked-of rounders. 
 In the piece itself he took out something here and put 
 
 (H!)
 
 178 A PATRON OP ART. 
 
 in something there; a negro melody was interpolated 
 with Declaven's cheerful assent; he suggested current 
 gags and new business to the comedians; he replaced 
 members of the female chorus whose manner and phy- 
 sical attraction had proved inconspicuous by women 
 of aggressive and flamboyant beauty. His energy and 
 resourcefulness elicited the wonder of Protony, who, 
 at the end of the production week, came to Laura 
 with the idea of making his astonishment the loop for 
 a rapprochement: 
 
 "Bolton is an extraordinary fellow, after all, don't 
 you think so ? " He neither prefixed nor affixed Laura 
 or Miss Laura or Miss Darnby. 
 
 "He is extraordinary in a certain sense." Her 
 tone was cool, her manner caustic ; she turned from him 
 as she spoke. Protony was unfortunate in the time and 
 the subject chosen for a tentative reconciliation. Bol- 
 tora had only a few days before proposed to Laura 
 another custome, a glittering gown beginning at the 
 low line of the bosom; corset tight at the waist and 
 with a wide rift starting at the hips, on either side. 
 Beneath this open skirt nothing but a pair of pink 
 fleshlings. She had peremptorily refused. He became 
 persuasive. He reminded her that with the exception 
 of Mrs. Olive, once the old woman of Daly's company, 
 who now played a comic part and whose age and figure 
 precluded fleshlings, all the "girls" were in tights. 
 And the costume he proposed was a delicate compro- 
 mise; it would add piquancy to the role without im- 
 pairing her professional dignity. Why, all the stars 
 who play "Rosalind" expose themselves far more than 
 would the Princess Chali. He added a material consid- 
 eration to his plea; he would make her salary fifty 
 dollars. He concluded with a dose of what he con- 
 sidered subtle flattery ; her person had captivated troops 
 of men about town who had fairly demanded that she 
 heighten their pleasure by according a less veiled view 
 of her charms. 
 
 Although innately modest, Laura's experience of the 
 world, especially of the theatrical world, had taught her
 
 A PATRON OF ART. 179 
 
 the difference between genuine modesty and false 
 shame; her ready insight had told her that handsome 
 women were the loadstone of the stage valuable gems 
 which the manager must display attractively. She 
 recognized that Bolton's view was strictly one of busi- 
 ness. Therefore, after mature deliberation, she herself 
 proposed a compromise gown ; open laterally, from the 
 knee down displaying purple hose this hue to escape 
 conventionality, pink being too general. Bolton enum- 
 erated the anatomical concessions ; bosom, arms, ankles, 
 calves. Very well, he was content, but the salary would 
 be forty-five dollars instead of the full fifty, offered 
 for a more luxurious revelation. 
 
 It was a bizarre dress, a strange mingling of old 
 Spanish and Byzantine; ink black with slight streaks 
 of yellow, the relieving hue modulated by dark, cling- 
 ing laces. The drapery, though it covered, did not 
 conceal Laura's form. Her contours undulated visibly 
 beneath the somber-colored but withal gay costume, so 
 singularly in harmony with her brunette beauty. She 
 presented a vivid contrast to the blond banality of the 
 other women in their conventional crimson fleshlings, 
 their automatic movements, their stilted gestures, their 
 mechanical voices, their cattle-like gregariousness, 
 their artistic imbecility. In a glance, it was manifest 
 that Laura was physically, artistically, temperament- 
 ally different from all in the gorgeous though garish 
 picture. Her increased saliency drew a large corres- 
 pondence of a meretricious kind. They who had written 
 before wrote again, some more humbly, others less 
 flippantly, others again more importunately. Most 
 all of the correspondence was infused with peculiar 
 importunity. They implored an immediate audience. 
 One fellow in a vein of laconic cynicism wrote: 
 "Where? When? How much?" and boldly signed his 
 name and address. Among the mass of scented letters 
 was one from Ross. He congratulated her upon her 
 success he called it. In a postscript which Laura per- 
 ceived lucidly was really the purport of the communi- 
 cation he asked : " Are you ever at home ? I've called 
 several times but never find you in or, at least, Mrs.
 
 180 A PATRON OF AET. 
 
 Quincy says you are not there. Why live in such a 
 barrack when you may have superior accommodations 
 at one of my hotels at the same rate you pay on 42nd 
 Street? Come, let us take care of you." 
 
 On another day, in the same conditions, the solicita- 
 tion had tempted her for the first time Ross had the 
 tact to ask a monetary consideration. "But coming in 
 the same mail with the heap of amatory letters his 
 invitation was confounded with the rest she feared 
 it contained an analagous motive. 
 
 She felt the difference in her professional position, 
 once the communications were in a shredded pile in 
 the basket. Whilst in other performances she had re- 
 ceived a salacious letter now and again, the more part 
 in the past contained pure and disinterested compli- 
 ments, many from women. The difference was in deeper 
 contrast a few days later when Mrs. Hopper appeared, 
 not at Mrs. Quincy 's, but on the stage, during the per- 
 formance. One-half of the people on the boards knew 
 her either intimately or distantly. Those who had no 
 personal acquaintance glanced at her with something 
 like awe, especially the back line chorus girls whose 
 physical flaws relegated them to the inconspicuous row. 
 These put themselves in her view as she passed from 
 wing to wing, vaguely hoping that she would con- 
 descend to look them over. Her gaze was not once 
 focused upon any one of the indifferently formed girls, 
 She exchanged a few familiar remarks with Bolton, 
 was greeted cordially by the stage manager and nodded 
 pleasantly to the male cast. But with the women she 
 had various -and incisive degrees of salutation. She 
 bowed deeply and deferentially to Laura, who barely 
 acknowledged the silently respectful greeting; one 
 of two handsome girls she kissed, with the other she 
 shook hands and made a remark that brought a laugh 
 from both. She complimented several, smiled on some. 
 With a few she spoke briefly and formally. Upon two 
 she frowned, after uttering a high and dry "How do 
 you do?" Three girls she cut decisively, refusing to 
 pass the conventionalities of the day with them. At 
 the drop of the last curtain many of the coryphees
 
 A PATRON OF ART. 181 
 
 lingered in the wings; and while talking they had 
 glanced furtively toward Mrs. Hopper. 
 
 Mrs. Hopper was now occupied. To the chorister 
 she had kissed she whispered a few sentences. The girl 
 assented with a nod. Her companion was given a thin, 
 narrow card. She looked at it and nodded. Mrs. 
 Hopper then approached a figurante who stood, appar- 
 ently waiting, near Laura. The woman said something 
 in a very low tone. Laura heard the emphatic answer : 
 "No, no; I will not." 
 
 There were certain of the ensemble with whom 
 Mrs. Hopper did not speak, the more part of them 
 were amongst the most attractive; but they were dis- 
 tinctive in their mien; more reserved, their counte- 
 nances denoting something purposeful; and whilst 
 avoiding Hopper, their stealthy glances at the woman 's 
 negotiations told of the ineffable revulsion which a 
 virtuous woman feels when she is an involuntary wit- 
 ness of iniquitous negotiations. Laura perceived the 
 repellency of these girls and instinctively joined them. 
 
 "Do you live at home?" she asked of the one near- 
 est her. 
 
 "No. I live with Maude" pointing to a slender, 
 earnest-eyed creature "she lives with her mother and 
 youngest sister." 
 
 "Have most of them homes here?" Sweeping the 
 detached group with her eye as indicative of her mean- 
 ing. 
 
 "No; they room in pairs as a rule for the sake of 
 economy. They nearly all are ambitious. They study 
 hard ; they read and go in for voice culture. We hope 
 to do better some day." 
 
 "I wish you every success." 
 
 Never was Laura more sincere ; the wish was given 
 by a heart that felt it fervently at that moment. It 
 was in her to embrace the young women who evaded 
 pleasure who were contemptuous of tempting impor- 
 tunitiesto pursue a purpose. Compunction seared 
 her in reflecting that she had compromised her profes- 
 sional position in making part of this extravaganza 
 she who had appeared with Marshall, with Runnels;
 
 182 A PATRON OF AET. 
 
 had played in the legitimate so successfully. She had 
 taken a retrograde step, had placed herself on the 
 champagne-supper plane where promiscuous invita- 
 tions were fairly invited. It was nothing less than 
 degrading that was the word, degrading. But she 
 was resolved to hold herself aloof; to emulate the 
 aloofness of the virtuous group; to be in "Oriental 
 Nights" without being of it socially. 
 
 As performance succeeded performance adhesion 
 to the resolution became more difficult than she had 
 thought possible. She perceived it was comparatively 
 easy for a member of the chorus to hold herself, to 
 be apart, particularly so if nature had not been lavish 
 with the bestowal of physical charms. A mere indica- 
 tion of a reservation and she was ignored. With 
 Laura's place in the cast and her beauty it was wholly 
 different. She must return greetings and compliments 
 with interest, for nothing is more dangerous to a 
 superior or wounding to an inferior than for the former 
 to slight the latter. And then some one had said 
 some where, at Mrs. Quincy 's, in the theatre or around 
 the theatre, she could not recall "it's all right for a 
 girl to be straight, but it isn't good business to let 
 the town know it.'* 
 
 She could see that Bolton took that view of it. Not 
 that he was a libertine. With the chance of the box 
 office being the same he had preferred strict morality 
 in his theatre; but as custom had made burlesque a 
 synonym for latitudinous sociability the manager was 
 partial to the members of his company who drew the 
 largest number of rich loafers. He had thanked Laura 
 for donning the costume she wore; but since then his 
 manner had become a carefully adjusted gradation of 
 reservation. Within -a fortnight the low degree of 
 temperature in which he enveloped himself whenever 
 he saw her congealed his neck so that he could scarcely 
 bow. He never spoke as he passed. She caught the 
 cause, which was quite substantiated by an imp of a 
 call boy one of those precocious packages of humanity 
 that catch every whisper, however inarticulate, around 
 a theatre, that sound every secret though never so well
 
 A PATRON OF ART. 183 
 
 guarded who derisively grinned the significant in- 
 formation one night as she awaited her cue: "Say, I 
 hear they are going to bill you as Sainte Chali in- 
 stead of Princess Chali," Thereafter it was "Sainte 
 Chali" with him. The by-name quickly gained cur- 
 rency. One of the ballet a big, handsome creature 
 bold and brazen presumably just from a champagne 
 luncheon, accosted Laura in a tone of extravagant rev- 
 erence: "Good evening, Sainte Chali, when were you 
 canonized?" 
 
 Laura, inflamed, answered: "When were you taken 
 from the stews?" 
 
 The other raised her hand as if to strike ; but in the 
 quick second reflection laughed derisively. 
 
 "How did that insulting reply pop into my head?" 
 Laura asked herself when calmed. She did not know. 
 It surprised her as much as her sudden loss of self- 
 control. Probably a bit of the dirt thrown up from the 
 eruptions which occurred frequently in the free and 
 easy section of the ballet had lodged in her memory. 
 The quick quarrels which were as speedily quelled; 
 the familiarity between the sexes; the course jeal- 
 ousies, coarsely expressed; the craze for money; the 
 bald adulations of the men who possessed it ; the boast 
 of the amount of bills of the dinners to which the chor- 
 isters were invited ; the low vanities displayed ; the nar- 
 row selfishness, the sensuality and the self-centered talk 
 had generally an inductive effect upon her. She never 
 could find comfort in talking with Mrs. Quincy. Mrs. 
 Quincy 's ideas did not even border on the ethical. Her 
 views were altogether of a circumspect and material- 
 istic order. She continued to admonish Laura with: 
 "Be careful not to cheapen yourself. Some day a rich 
 man will want to marry you." Even Signran took up 
 " Sainte Chali". The sobriquet reached the office of a 
 theatrical weekly and the following Thursday there was 
 a long paragraph in its broad pages. The allusion was 
 direct and unmistakable. Though the perfectly propor- 
 tioned burlesquer such was the intimation of the lines 
 had never made herself conspicuous in a legitimate 
 way she had succeeded in making herself intrusive in
 
 184 A PATRON OF AET. 
 
 burlesque. She had made a striking innovation in the 
 hip and ankle drama by the introduction of invincible 
 chastity. As a reward for this innovation Bolton had 
 sanctified her he had promoted the princess of bur- 
 lesque to the princess of virtue Sainte Chali. The 
 change was the more extraordinary in that the virtuous 
 lady had not thought of distinguishing herself in such 
 a model way when her opportunity was more fit and 
 much larger, when she was a member of strictly dra- 
 matic companies where her distinction consisted of 
 colorless interpretations of the author's ideas, of deep- 
 hued insubordination of the manager's orders and of 
 the exchange of vivid, social amenities with some gen- 
 tleman (or gentleman) of sympathetic qualities. De- 
 spite a strenuous matrimonial career there are women 
 who bring an astonishing quantity and a surprising 
 quality of morality to the stage, which, however, was 
 in danger of being impaired by an assistant stage mana- 
 ger whose devotion had not diminished by experiences 
 in Chicago and by repeated repulsions in New York. 
 
 There were allusive sentences to an hotel proprietor, 
 to a persistent Wall Street broker. The flaunting 
 fling struck home. Not since the soandal-mongering 
 paper in Chicago had referred to her divorce from 
 Darnby had Laura been so affected. She was angered 
 and humiliated, wounded, depressed and bewildered 
 by turns. The periodical came to her in the morning. 
 Toward evening she was still so enervated that she 'had 
 no heart to go to the theatre. But sheer pride and an 
 admixture of woman's nervous energy and obstinacy 
 urged her to be in her dressing room promptly. Di- 
 rectly she stepped out to go to the wings she was met 
 by the call boy's shrill voice: "Good evening, Miss 
 Sainte." The repetition of the flagrant impertinence, 
 flung in her face by the impudent urchin, threw her 
 out of self-control. She went headlong to Sigman. 
 With flaming cheeks and uncertain tongue she com- 
 plained. Sigman affected indignation. He remon- 
 strated with the lad; but Laura even in her temper 
 detected the mock tone in the remonstrance. To the 
 boy the tacit sanction of his impudence was obvious.
 
 A PATEON OF AET. 185 
 
 He went away grinning and his grin was repeated, in 
 varying shades, upon all faces save the studious chorus 
 girls. 
 
 Laura struggled with herself throughout the even- 
 ing, but her burning feeling, which was fed by an 
 askant or persifiant glance from females of the cast, 
 and by cynical smiles from some of the men, seemed 
 uncontrollable. Next morning lingering anger was dis- 
 placed by elation. The mail carrier brought her a long, 
 narrow manila paper wrapper in which periodicals are 
 enclosed. She ran her fingers through the covering 
 listlessly. The Dramatic Times unfolded itself and dis- 
 played in the full length .and breadth of the first page 
 an attractive picture of Miss Darnby as "Princess Chali" 
 of the "Oriental Nights" company. Laura's blood 
 quickened as that of a girl who had been presented 
 with a beautiful jewel. It was an .admirable likeness 
 which illustrated her winsome visage and attractive 
 figure faithfully. Her gratification lowered a degree 
 as she turned the pages and failed to find a biography. 
 However, the shade of disappointment in the seeming 
 omission passed quickly in the thought that the dis- 
 tinction of having her portrait in the Dramatic Times 
 would bring envy to the members of the "Oriental 
 Nights" company who had derided her recently. 
 
 Though the men and women of the theatre as a 
 whole evidenced no recognition of having seen the 
 weekly journal Laura's fine perception informed her 
 that she was envied by some of the women. One 
 woman 's question somewhat spoiled her silent triumph ; 
 the thin and hard-featured Miss Cartout, asked in a 
 sarcastic key: "How did you get it in? What did 
 it cost you?" 
 
 Although Laura retorted quickly, "Much less than 
 it cost you to get your wrinkles," she was taken back 
 by the inquiry. She had met the editor twice only; 
 and now that she thougtht of it, with her satisfaction 
 cooled, she confessed to herself that she had done 
 nothing to prompt the front-page consideration; knew 
 nobody in journalism who admired her sufficiently to 
 signal her for such a distinction.
 
 186 A PATRON OF ART. 
 
 The explanation came next day, and it was quite 
 simple; the business office of the Dramatic Times pre- 
 sented a bill, by mail, for $50.00, "for insertion of 
 picture." The letter's first effect on Laura was cha- 
 grined dismay; then contemptuous indignation, which 
 brought the written effrontery into the refuse basket 
 in a fling. She dismissed this species of petty, polite 
 blackmail from her mind for three days, when it was 
 again ushered into her thoughts by a second account 
 marked at the top duplicate and at the bottom, "Please 
 remit immediately." She turned the paper and wrote 
 in answer: "I gave you no order to publish my 
 picture. I owe you nothing." Her reply was posted in 
 the morning. In the evening, half an hour before she 
 started for the theatre, the chambermaid brought in 
 a card: "P. S. Sheehan, Press Agent." Awaiting 
 her in the parlor was an actor-like head upon a high, 
 athletic figure. He stated frankly and at once that he 
 conducted a bureau of publicity for actors. Several 
 prominent members of New York companies were sub- 
 scribers. He knew everybody connected with the 
 theatrical department of the press and counted as a 
 personal friend nearly every dramatic critic of distinc- 
 tion in the country. These gentlemen or their assist- 
 ants were always willing to print paragraphs relating 
 to his clients. Anecdotes of personal interest and bio- 
 graphical notes in the gossip column were far more 
 effectual in a promotive sense than favorable criticisms. 
 He solicited Laura's subscription. Before committing 
 herself she told of her experience with the Dramatic 
 Times told what answer she had made. Sheehan 's 
 rich voice became a salvo of exclamation points. Good 
 heavens! No! She should not have done that! Her 
 course indeed proved that she needed some one to 
 attend to her interests. Pay the amount by all means 
 and at once. Such class papers could do her much 
 good or much harm. If she did not meet the demand 
 the Dramatic Times would remember her in an un- 
 complimentary way for months to come. She must 
 allow him to extricate her from the difficulty. He 
 would pay the bill at once by sending his own cheque
 
 A PATRON OF ART. 187 
 
 he was always in funds. What were Sheehan's terms? 
 Oh, they were not excessive it was not necessary to 
 speak of that now. His charges would be contingent 
 upon tihe result of his services, which he was confident 
 would prove valuable, his confidence being based 
 upon what he had done for here, in low, confidential 
 tones he mentioned names of very high currency in 
 the profession. Miss Darnby would please allow him 
 to take charge of her affairs; he would vouch for re- 
 sults. If the outcome were not satisfactory, why the 
 arrangement could be dissolved by either party at any 
 time. He became more persuasive by illustrating the 
 splendid chances of constantly increasing celebrity and 
 the certainty of a larger income. Laura, persuaded by 
 the plausibility of the scheme, consented. 
 
 She awaited eagerly what Sheehan had euphemis- 
 tically termed results. Two evening papers of small 
 circulation and slender reputation obscure sheets 
 whose very existence hung upon the patronage of cor- 
 rupt politics referred briefly to the ''Brilliant work" 
 of Miss Laura Darnby at the Victory. A morning 
 mediocrity, of precarious existence, printed a duplicate 
 of the Dramatic Times' picture. Beneath was a eulo- 
 gistic record of Laura Darnby from her first appear- 
 ance in New York. But in the journals of standing, 
 of influence, not a line. On Saturday at noon, the girl- 
 of-all-work brought up a roll ; it contained a few weekly 
 periodicals given to art affairs. All were more or less 
 loquacious in praise of Miss Darnby, the fascinating 
 feature of "Oriental Nights.*' The Dramatic Times 
 was affectionately panegyric. In this journal Chicago 
 was given as her birthplace. She had received her 
 first dramatic instructions under the "protection" of 
 Mrs. Gilbert, who had seen in the girl a "mine of 
 talent." She had toured with a number of "high- 
 class companies" before risking her New York debut, 
 and when she finally appeared with Roland Marshall 
 her "success was instantaneous." "Hard study and in- 
 tensity of interest" in her profession had compelled 
 Miss Darnby 's medical adviser to "insist that she desist 
 from work or play only light roles." Pursuant thereto
 
 188 A FATBON OF AET. 
 
 she consented to accept Manager Bolton's handsome 
 offer to appear in the ' ' Oriental Nights. ' ' In the read- 
 ing Laura's sensation ranged from blank amazement 
 to amusement. She wondered after scanning the last 
 line what the Dramatic Times had said had its bill 
 remained unpaid. Recognizing the venality of the arti- 
 cle Laura forgot it by the time she reached the theatre, 
 but Sigman brought it back by the leering expression 
 on his face when he said in a falsified prophetic key: 
 "Ah, Miss Darnby, you are coming on; splendid no- 
 tices! Splendid!" 
 
 Laura, catching his intent : "Of course ! Of course ! 
 How could it be otherwise with you as stage manager." 
 
 She was surprised, however, and no doubt was Sig- 
 man, the next day by a highly favorable notice of a 
 half- column in the Evening Wire. Followed to its root, 
 it was an obvious and a voluminous expression with 
 no other inspiration than that found in an agency 
 whose only scrutable influence was of a financial char- 
 acter. But the article was discreetly written. The tone 
 was high quite in keeping with the general attitude 
 of the journal and the praising phrases reserved; 
 yet the effect of the criticism, whidh seemed to have a 
 reconsideration of "Oriental Nights" as a basis but 
 which had Laura for object, *was one of discreet 
 praise of Princess Chali. She believed Sheehan when 
 he assured her that "it was a hard job getting that 
 in," but was bewildered when he added, "but a great 
 admirer of yours fixed it." He was smilingly reticent 
 when she asked the name of her admirer: "Never 
 mind; you may know him some day." And then he 
 made a suggestion: It were better to leave Mrs. 
 Quincy's for a good hotel in fashion. A first-class ad- 
 dress is as necessary to one in New York as a correct 
 suit or a handsome gown and markedly so for stage 
 people who are forging on. Laura thought of Ross, 
 of the importunities she had rejected, and then she 
 realized that Mrs. Quincy's had become something of 
 a home and Mrs. Quincy a confidante, not an intel- 
 lectual nor indeed always perspicacious, yet a well-in- 
 tentioned confidante ; and the large room, once occupied
 
 A x>ATBON OF AET. 189 
 
 by two, had been placed at her disposal at a fair reduc- 
 tion in rent. Everything was comfortable. She was 
 a favorite with the domestics was popular with every- 
 body, from the chambermaid to the restaurateur across 
 the way. Finally, she considered the increased ex- 
 pense which such a change would entail. No, she 
 would remain; though Sheehan's demonstration that 
 she was sacrificing prestige appeared convincing. 
 
 Nevertheless, his promotive methods had made a 
 radical change in her standing at the theatre. From Bol- 
 ton down to the call-boy deference was now the atti- 
 tude toward her. From impish, the call-boy had been 
 transformed into a being who showed respect for her. 
 Sigman's easy familiarity was lost in his manner of 
 polite esteem. Bolton came to her dressing room and 
 thanked her for the .recognition she was conferring 
 upon his theatre. Keen, he recognized in her one of 
 the rare species of players upon whom a compliment 
 may be bestowed without inflating their self-esteem 
 and the inevitable sequence of such inflation a larger 
 share of the house's receipts. He was solicitous of 
 her satisfaction with her role of Princess Chali; would 
 she care to have the part amplified? Declaven would 
 be happy to compose new numbers and add them to 
 the character. Perhaps the lines were -too few? She 
 had only to express a wish and Carpenter would write 
 more epigrams. If she considered her costume in the 
 second act too revealing she had but to order a more 
 modest gown. He was suave and consummately con- 
 siderate; completely changed from the brutal mer- 
 cenary animal that had shocked her at rehearsals. 
 Though Laura estimated his intended homage at its 
 true worth she, womanlike, was not displeased to 
 work in an environment grown more congenial to her 
 nerves. She thanked him; but no, everything was 
 entirely satisfactory; even the cab which he thought 
 she should have to and from the theatre was declined. 
 She was satisfied to come and go with one of the chor- 
 isters as usual. 
 
 The sudden serenity of her position was as sud- 
 denly clouded by a visit from Sheehan. She had quite
 
 190 A PATRON OF ART. 
 
 forgotten the law of compensation, but she was re- 
 minded of it with smooth tact by Sheehan : A banker 
 who had done much for once obscure but now estab- 
 lished actresses had become interested in her in a thor- 
 oughly high sense to be sure. This gentleman had sent 
 many talented girls abroad. Miss Arton and Miss 
 Carton, Mary Mellony and Clara Carles and others 
 of this and that opera company had been educated 
 at the expense of the financier. He was a wholly un- 
 pretentious philanthropist and Sheehan did not ex- 
 actly know what he wished to do for Laura, but he 
 thought it was in the way of offering larger opportuni- 
 tiespossibly he would suggest an organization of 
 her own. 
 
 "Do you know Mrs. Hopper?" interrupted Laura, 
 Significantly. 
 
 His surprise at the apparent irrelevancy of the 
 question deceived her. No ; he had never heard of 
 her; if she were a patroness of art he had certainly 
 known of her. 
 
 "Well, no, she is not that. But go on. 
 
 Well, that was all. It was a purely disinter- 
 ested matter which she ought to consider. Please let 
 him know and he would arrange to introduce her. 
 She thought of it for an hour after he had gone. Then 
 Mrs. Quincy was called in and consulted. It was, of 
 course, possible that the unknown's notices were phi- 
 lanthropic, but the chance favored her own experi- 
 ences, in such cases. Still an introduction would do 
 no harm, and it was barely likely it would be advan- 
 tageous to her. Yes, meet him by all means; never 
 throw a chance away. Wishing to free her mind of 
 the doubtful matter she wrote Sheehan before going 
 to the theatre, that she would be pleased to see his 
 friend. It was Thursday afternoon when the letter 
 was posted, but Sheehan 's response was not received 
 until Saturday at midday. The time for the introduc- 
 tion was set for the next day, Sunday. He would call 
 about five o 'clock and escort her to the Koyalty, where 
 his friend would await them. The day chosen when 
 there was no performance the hour and the manner
 
 A PATRON OF AET. 191 
 
 of the rendezvous strengthened Laura's suspicion that 
 Sheehan's calling was identical with that of Mrs. Hop- 
 per. Now that she had started she would abide by 
 her course to the positive proof of Sheehan's suspected 
 profession. He came in a carriage and his conversa- 
 tion and demeanor from the house to the luxurious 
 hotel were irreproachable. In his talk of the theatre 
 he deftly made known Strathmore's name, whom he 
 extolled with fine taste, tact and skillful discriminat- 
 tion. He touched upon his wealth lightly; he spoke 
 of his influence emphatically. He commended his ap- 
 pearance and charming manner, neither of which Laura 
 was prepared to endorse when they were seated in the 
 discreetly screened corner of the be-planted, be-foun- 
 tained and be-pictured dining room. Sheehan excused 
 himself and left her with a man who at the first 
 glance, but only at the first, looked younger than she 
 had pictured him. Tall and washed out, his scant 
 hair was yellowish gray and his mustache a grayish 
 yellow. There were no hairs above the ears, below they 
 were sparse and withered. The flaccid cheeks, the 
 loose, fishy mouth, the long, protuberant nose and the 
 narrow forehead were changing from yellow to white 
 by apparently too much washing. The flabbiness, 
 the huelessness of the man was in his voice even, which 
 was thin and white. His wan eye gave an occasional 
 dart, when Laura shifted her position or made a gest- 
 ure. This chance illumination of the eye seemed for 
 a moment to vivify the pulpy figure, but only for a 
 moment; presently the flabby body relapsed to a jellied 
 state and its only token of life was the colorless voice ; 
 but the colorless tones were at times insinuating ; again 
 they were suggestive; they were always interesting. 
 He spoke facilely. He was conversant with the arts, 
 with paintings, with books, with music, with plays. 
 He had a personal acquaintance with many artists. 
 
 But with succeeding minutes Laura became ill at 
 ease. She had disliked him in the initial look, and 
 though his talk interested her, the more wine he drank 
 the stronger her repulsion grew, for with increased 
 potations the dormant animal concealed in the pulpy
 
 192 A PATRON OF ART. 
 
 man awakened. The appearance of the real creature 
 was gradual; it became slowly visible in the creeping 
 glow of the skin, the steady brilliancy of the eye, the 
 nervous twist of the nose, the nervous quiver of the 
 mouth. Not an indecorous word came from him, how- 
 ever. He expressed no thought not in perfect pro- 
 prietyuntil the bill was paid and the waiter was feed. 
 He then moved almost imperceptibly on a tentative 
 plane. It had always afforded him the highest grati- 
 fication to promote the interests of people of talent, 
 preferably the interests of young ladies without influ- 
 ential connections. If he could do anything more for 
 Miss Darnby would she be good enough to command 
 him? The emphasis on the more prompted Laura to 
 demand : 
 
 "You say more, Mr. Strathmore. Am I indebted 
 to you in any way?" 
 
 He promptly replied: "Indebted, no, no. But 
 perhaps Mr. Sheehan will tell you that I suggested 
 more prominence in the press in your behalf." 
 
 She understood. There had been complete silence but 
 for his slight sips of coffee, taken at leisurely inter- 
 vals, and the light, genteel showers of the crested 
 fountains. 
 
 When he put the cup down, empty, he drew his 
 head toward his shoulder, leaned forward and asked 
 slowly and deliberately: "Laura, will you permit 
 me to entertain you this evening?" 
 
 She had expected something of that kind, but not 
 so soon ; nor did she expect it would come in that way. 
 His abrupt familiarity shocked her; his cool self-pos- 
 session in posing the question gave her a momentary 
 feeling of humiliation. Her face lowered for a mo- 
 ment and changed color; then she raised her eyes and 
 said decisively: "No" in a tone an octave above the 
 conversational key and rose. 
 
 The waiter, at a deferential distance, stood in an 
 uncertain suspense; the woman had risen, probably 
 waiting to be assisted with her cloak. But the liberal 
 Mr. Strathmore had not changed position. The waiter 
 thought he saw something painful between the din-
 
 A PATEON OF ART. 193 
 
 ers; he decided to see nothing until the liberal Mr. 
 Strathmore should give him a cue. 
 
 Laura reached for her cloak. Strathmore rose 
 lazily. He drawled: "Oh, you are going, are you?" 
 
 She answered firmly : "Yes, I am going. Waiter!" 
 
 Seeing the liberal Mr. Strathmore up, the flunkey 
 responded. 
 
 "I didn't suppose there was so much of the prude 
 in a divorced woman." 
 
 The answer came: "You see there is; and with it 
 there is disgust for very ordinary libertines." 
 
 She winced him quite as much as he startled her 
 by his knowledge of the past. Obviously some one 
 very probably Sheehan had been busy with her rec- 
 ord. Who had imparted the information? Protony? 
 No. He had shown too much regret for his part in 
 her dismissal from the Marshall Company to reveal 
 the miseries of her experience. Carr ? Again no. She 
 had left town long before Sheehan first called at 
 Mrs. Quincy's. A fairly certain solution offered 
 itself when she returned to her room after having 
 been escorted to the carriage by a fellow whose self- 
 control was so demoralized by the appellation "or- 
 dinary libertine" that he churlishly declined to enter 
 the cab. There was a letter on the table in an inscrip- 
 tion which she recognized instantly, though not seen 
 since what had seemed the forgotten past; it was an 
 appeal from Darnby for money. He was in dire dis- 
 tress. He had lost his last dollar at Sheepshead Bay. 
 He was threatened with expulsion from a Raines-law 
 hotel. In barely decent grammar and crude phrase- 
 ology he was cheaply sentimental in a peroration 
 meant to move her to assist him. Fag ends of cigar 
 clerk's pathos "Remember what we were to each 
 other; I can't forget the lovely days we passed together. 
 I know I was not good to you sometimes, but I always 
 loved you," etc., etc. made up the last paragraphs. 
 The concluding line assured that he would return in 
 a little while any sum she might send him: "So help 
 me, God!" The cheap, degraded effrontery which the 
 plea implied its puerile presentation aroused in her
 
 194 A PATEON OF AET. 
 
 a mingled feeling of peculiar contempt and gratifica- 
 tion. Contempt for him; gratification in the thought 
 that she had at least the strength to emerge from the 
 mud in which Darnhy was living. The certainty that 
 Sheehan had been posted impelled her to apply the let- 
 ter to the gas light in order to be rid of it as of some 
 pestilent thing. She retired, nauseated with Darnby, 
 with Sheehan, with Strathmore. 
 
 The feeling was not dispelled when the maid brought 
 up, at about noon, a letter inscribed in a loose, nerve- 
 less, uneven hand. Strathmore begged to apologize. 
 For the first time in 'his life he had lost control of 
 himself. He wished to be forgiven for his discourte- 
 ous treatment if for no other purpose than to have 
 an opportunity to make amends. Might he hope that 
 she would drop a line of forgiveness ? 
 
 She did not gratify that hope, not even after Shee- 
 han had called and urged the acceptance of Strath- 
 more 's offer to star her. To that end a play would 
 be written for her Sidney Kleeblatt would write it. 
 
 No! No! and again No! She would not accept; 
 she would have nothing to do with Strathmore. And 
 would Sheehan oblige her by not calling again? She 
 did not need an agent.
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 PERFUME AND VIVID HUES. 
 
 The next morning The Wire published a paragraph 
 suggesting that the Princess Chali in the "Oriental 
 Nights" had changed out of all recognition. Notwith- 
 standing the warmth which her role had suggested 
 she had become cold ; her coldness affected the ambient 
 air so that one was immune from fervor or fever in 
 her presence. Neither prosperity nor adversity had 
 taught Princess Chali anything; she continued to add 
 to her surplus zeal in her own behalf and a deficit of 
 discretion in behalf of others. Her insubordination was 
 the terror of the stage that tolerated her. 
 
 This thrust was soon followed by others in the 
 various papers that had puffed her. The fateful con- 
 sequence was a change of atmosphere at the theatre. 
 The call-boy again spoke to her in a loud voice. Sig- 
 man resumed his familiarity; Bolton's head was high, 
 his face stern when he passed her and as before he 
 forgot to speak. Some members of the chorus took 
 on a sniffing air whenever she appeared; a few, the 
 frankly frail, smiled maliciously. Before the end of 
 the week the postman brought her two letters. One 
 was from Ross, urging her again and again to come 
 to the Waldborough curious that she always heard 
 from him in days of distress. The other gave her an 
 acutely disagreeable sensation; it was merely a bill 
 "for services rendered" from Sheehan, but the sum 
 demanded was sensationally large, $500.00 almost the 
 amount of her savings. 
 
 That night as she entered the dressing room after 
 the last curtain a note was handed her, from Bolton 
 notifying that the management having decided to make 
 certain changes in the cast, Miss Darnby's engagement 
 
 (196)
 
 196 PEEFUME AND VIVID HUES. 
 
 with the Victory Company would be discontinued two 
 weeks from date. 
 
 Laura readily perceived the cumulative pressure 
 brought to bear and it aroused her to resentment, but 
 she commanded herself sufficiently to give no intima- 
 tion of what She would do. She determined to em- 
 barass Bolton. Knowing him to be shrewd and suspi- 
 cious aware that he would be on the alert she ap- 
 peared as usual the first and second nights following 
 the notification. The third evening she went to the 
 dressing room as usual, at the customary hour, taking 
 care to be seen by Sigman and some other members. 
 At ten minutes after eight o'clock or five minutes 
 before the time set for the curtain to rise she walked 
 out of the stage door unperceived. Half an hour later 
 Sigman, red and short of breath, appeared at Mrs. 
 Quincy's imploring Laura to return. The curtain was 
 being held. He promised everything and anything; 
 Bolton would retain her and increase her salary; she 
 would be starred in the next production. Finding her 
 obdurate he changed front and threatened all manner 
 of things ; he would have her denounced in every paper 
 in the country; she would never get another engage- 
 ment; she would be sued for breach of contract, for 
 the management was entitled to a fortnight's notice. 
 At this juncture Laura calmly wished him "good 
 night" and walked upstairs to her room. 
 
 She awoke early and her awaking moments were 
 charged with terror at what She had done. Sleep had 
 banished anger. The morning's calm brought full 
 realization of her audacity. She feared to look at the 
 morning papers. In her terrorized state she sent for 
 Ross, who came within half an hour after the messen- 
 ger had found him. She told him everything about 
 Sheehan, about Strathmore; the change from defer- 
 ence to indignity at the theatre. Ross had listened 
 with rising approval indicated by nods and looks. 
 When she had finished he asked if she had read the 
 papers. 
 
 "Good, don't read them to-day. They do not treat 
 you well, and it would only exasperate you to read
 
 PERFUME AND VIVID HUES. 197 
 
 them. Madge Fleming was put in your place after 
 they had held the curtain for an hour. Now, why 
 don't you come over to one of my hotels. I'm pretty 
 well known among the profession and among my ac- 
 quaintances are several managers. After what has oc- 
 curredyou've got an undeserved reputation for 
 insubordination it may not be easy to get another 
 engagement without assistance." 
 
 She thanked him sincerely, but said that this of 
 all times when she had just been dismissed, when 
 she was 'without an engagement would be the most 
 compromising for her to accept. What she really 
 wanted of him was to help her to get her version of 
 the trouble in the press . 
 
 "I'll get Ringold to square you with some of the 
 papers," he instantly promised. "You remember Rin- 
 gold? He was a Chicagoan. He says he met you at 
 Rector's with Protony one evening. Yes, the soldierly 
 fellow, who translates plays. He's now editor of the 
 World Wide Magazine and stands well with the New 
 York papers." 
 
 Both Ross and Ringold were prompt, for the next 
 day a circular letter appeared in all of the morning 
 and evening journals; it was an unmincing communi- 
 cation, trenchantly written and signed by Ringold. Its 
 purport was that Miss Darnby's original sins were in- 
 dependence, a high view of her art and a just estimate 
 of individual dignity. Thus equipped it was infalli- 
 ble that she should offend those managers who had 
 made an industry of an art; infallible that she should 
 give outrage to diseased vanity and to egregious egotism 
 Her latest offense was to defend personal purity against 
 libertinism. Because she did not care to exchange her 
 person as well as her talents for money she had of- 
 fended the keeper of an exhibition where amplitude of 
 limb was the cardinal requisite of success and where 
 the estimate of women was oriental and nothing but 
 oriental. If the management felt at all constrained 
 to refute these inferences specific facts and names 
 in proof were forthcoming. An interesting bill for serv- 
 ices rendered by a serviceable fellow about town was
 
 198 PERFUME AND VIVID HUES. 
 
 ready to be given in evidence of an earnest beginning. 
 
 Laura saw that the allusion to Sheehan had a double 
 purpose; primarily it was a notice to the journalists 
 who had in turn attacked and eulogized her that their 
 connection with Sheehan was known ; literally a warn- 
 ing to Sheehan to desist from any attempt to intimidate 
 her. Soon after sihe received a note to come to the 
 Waldborough immediately. 
 
 A bell boy guided her through a labyrinth of cor- 
 ridors to a high and sweeping parlor in purple, where 
 Ross and a rubicund man were awaiting her. She was 
 introduced to an Englishman who remarked at once: 
 "Oh, yes. I think she will do. Just the look; just the 
 build." He then explained: He was Mrs. Michael 
 McDonald's manager. Mrs. McDonald's leading lady, 
 he feared, would fail them in New York. She was 
 playing her roles in Chicago through sheer strength 
 of will ; but nothing must be left to time or chance dur- 
 ing the New York engagement. It was as necessary 
 that Mrs. McDonald make a favorable debut in New 
 York as in Chicago in Chicago where the people had 
 risen to her. Here were the parts Marie in ' ' Magda ; ' ' 
 Ellean in "The Second Mrs. Tanquery;" Gertrude in 
 "The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith;" Clara in "Mariana." 
 Would Miss Darnby look them over at once and per- 
 fect herself in the first of these at least ? There would 
 be no trouble about the salary. 
 
 She thanked Ross gratefully, and sped to Forty- 
 second Street and buried herself in the parts for a 
 week. Sunday afternoon the district messenger service 
 requested her to appear for rehearsal Monday morning 
 at the Liberty Theatre. It was definite that the lead- 
 ing lady could not play. From the day when Laura had 
 first read of Mrs. McDonald an impressionist critique 
 cabled over from London to the New York Diary 
 when New York was new to Laura her interest in 
 the British actress had been aroused. In the criticism 
 Laura felt there was psychic affinity between herself 
 and the woman, for the description of Mrs. McDonald's 
 spiritual and tempermental qualities had drawn her 
 sympathy completely; a feeling of accord which can
 
 PERFUME AND VIVID HITES. 199 
 
 never be expressed in words it can only be divined 
 by each of us according to the instructions of our hearts. 
 And from the day of Mrs. McDonald 's American debut 
 at Chicago Laura had eagerly followed the reviews of 
 the performances as they were wired from the West. 
 The reports of the actress' art were confusing and con- 
 tradictory; they countered and crossed vehemently, 
 but there was unanimity as to the woman's unique 
 force. 
 
 Laura's sensations as she entered the stage door 
 to meet Mrs. McDonald were disturbing ; extreme eager- 
 ness, diffidence, even fear were strangely commingled. 
 
 A regal figure stood near the center of the stage, 
 the head lowered to a pamphlet which she held in her 
 left hand. Though extremely tall and commanding, a 
 slight elegant bend took from her height and added to 
 her interesting appearance. One would have at once in- 
 ferred her to be a queen accustomed to command 
 admiration yet winning to preserve it. The head lifted, 
 a pair of large, dark eyes, liquid, luminous, set in a 
 mobile, olive-tinted countenance; a face with a fine 
 nose of nervous nostrils, a warm mouth with rich, 
 sensitive lips. A luxurious bank of black hair of 
 Southern sheen crowned a woman which was English 
 in form and Latin in face. 
 
 "I am sure this is Miss Darnby. Let me make you 
 welcome." 
 
 So, too, was the voice un-English ; a rich contralto ; 
 deep, melodious, haunting; a voice from a land of 
 golden sunshine, of a sky intensely blue and waters 
 of sparkling emerald ; a voice from a poetic and ancient 
 country; the voice of a soul that had once lived in an 
 Aeolian harp; the tone was as if heard in a dream; 
 reminiscent of a distant joy, an everlasting hope; sug- 
 gestive of a world that might be. 
 
 Laura drew back, awed. But only for a moment. 
 The warmth of the smile, the welcoming attitude of 
 the hand attracted like a magnet. 
 
 "I know that we will get on famously. I already 
 see that you possess an inestimable quality: prompti- 
 tude."
 
 200 PEEFTJME AND VIVID HUES. 
 
 "And I see that you set an admirable example in 
 that respect." 
 
 "In me that is not a virtue; I am stage manager." 
 Laura was profoundly surprised. Yes, Mrs. McDon- 
 ald staged every play ; presided at every rehearsal ; she 
 designed all the costumes, attended to all the properties. 
 It was quite necessary that every detail have her per- 
 sonal attention since the character of her repertory 
 was of a school foreign to the traditional stage mana- 
 gerplays by German and Scandinavian realists, by 
 the one English naturalist, by Belgian symbolists. 
 She wished to abandon the empty and unreal past, 
 wished to concentrate her energies upon the works 
 of men who were striving to do living things dramas 
 quickened by the life of to-day. "The masses the 
 barbarians of art are content with seeing something 
 going on. They want wrecks, robberies, assassina- 
 tions. The semi-refined demand something that will 
 move their emotions; psuedo-sentimentality, artificial 
 comedy or tragedy, anything that will make them weep 
 or laugh. But our authors appeal to the completely 
 refined; to those who can be made to think." 
 
 "Such writers were more successful," she added, 
 smiling quizzically, "if they could find interpreters 
 who had thinking faculties . It is difficult to make 
 the profession understand these plays." 
 
 Laura was soon made aware of the difficulty. She 
 was introduced to a lot of stiffly polite English men 
 and women whose intellects seemed to be as stilted 
 as their manners. Time and again they were besought : 
 "Please don't take the scene that way. Here, some- 
 thing like this. Be as the man and woman of a human 
 world." Or again: "Miss Arliss, you are an actress, 
 you are acting. There is no place for theatrical peo- 
 ple in this play: We are dealing with men and 
 women." Or again: "Mr. Wadham, please lower 
 your voice and repeat those words quietly but firmly. ' ' 
 
 "I regret," she said to Laura, at the end of 
 the rehearsal, "that your part is not longer in 
 'Magda.' Your conception of it, I can see, is so 
 true that you are sure to be conspicuous. "We shall
 
 PERFUME AND VIVID HUES. 201 
 
 be antithetical: I, the elder sister, who have had 
 the strength to crush through the deadening conven- 
 tionalities; have had the force to defy society in gen- 
 eral and the iron rules of a bourgeois home in par- 
 ticular; have triumphed over the instincts of blood. 
 "While you, my sister, are all that I am not obedient 
 to the convention of society and the home. The play 
 is well-named 'Heimath' in the original. Why 'Magda' 
 I wonder? Why not 'Home' as in the German?" 
 
 Laura hardly heeded the words. She was absolutely 
 drawn by the woman's face as it mirrored the senti- 
 ments spoken. But the first night, which Laura, 
 despite her experience, dreaded with the apprehen- 
 sion characteristic of a novice or a genuine artist- 
 she quite forgot herself in her eagerness to see the 
 superlatively individual work of Mrs. McDonald. 
 From the moment that high, lithesome, strangely mag- 
 netic presence entered the scene its face was beauti- 
 fully serious the deep and soulful beauty of one who 
 is in harmony with herself in having resolved to live 
 a life dictated by her own reason and not by that of 
 others or by the rote of tradition. There were mo- 
 ments in scenes when sihe appeared to Laura as if she 
 perceived the white light of art ; a great glory seemed 
 to have fallen upon her visage as the shadow of a 
 greater. It was then that Laura drew back awed. 
 Anon, she was a woman of passion ; one who delighted 
 in gold, marble and purple; delighted in brilliancy, 
 solidity, color; whose five senses were made that they 
 might become articulate; who spoke for them all with 
 a dreadful unconcern ; whose words were in love with 
 matter that enjoyed their lust and had no recollection ; 
 one who loved imperishable things; the body as gen- 
 eration after generation refashioned it; the world as 
 it is restored and rebuilt; loved gems, hewn stone, 
 carved ivory, woven tapestry and perfume and vivid 
 hues. She seemed a pagan Roman woman with the 
 intensely black hair and eyes; hard and delicate with 
 something of cruelty in her sympathy with things 
 that could be seen and handled; who hated the soul 
 for its qualifying and disturbing power upon the body;
 
 202 PERFUME AND VIVID HUES. 
 
 but not the body as a frail, perishable thing that she 
 wished to perpetuate; it was the beauty of life itself 
 imperishable at least in its recurrence. Again, there 
 was a quick change to spirituality; an ethereal being 
 stood before Laura; a devout creature who had pene- 
 trated to the chamber of a great art ; had sounded the 
 deep and secret joys of mystic communion, had wit- 
 nessed the unveiling of the inner beauties of the high- 
 est life by proving her love and worthiness and was 
 rewarded by that ineffable rapture which only art 
 can bestow, when it responds to the earnest interro- 
 gation of a worthy supplicant. When, at the finale, 
 she sank to her knees moved to the genuflexion by 
 the death of the father whose inexorable volition had 
 been opposed by her invincible will a hallowed hush, 
 as if by command of an invisible spirit, came upon the 
 audience. Never had Laura been so thoroughly 
 lifted out of herself, never had she felt the supreme 
 calm of spirituality as when she looked upon that up- 
 turned visage in mute prayer. The Roman woman was 
 transformed into a Madonna whose evolution was an- 
 swered in a glimpse of sublimity. In that moment the 
 secrets of existence were opened to Laura, mysterious 
 things flitted over her soul. Life seemed wonderful, 
 seemed holier. 
 
 For several minutes not a sound was heard from 
 the huge mass now divided by the curtain from the 
 stage. Then in a sudden charge of unanimity a pro- 
 longed peal of thrilled and thrilling paeans. The cur- 
 tain went up and down, up and down, and Mrs. McDon- 
 ald bowed and bowed and bowed. The enthusiasm 
 roared thunderously from the top, but it was not sub- 
 dued from the circle and boxes. 
 
 Laura was aglow with gladness that the audience 
 had been spell-bound by the truth of the actress' ex- 
 position. The purely unselfish feeling did not escape 
 the perspicuity of Mrs. McDonald, who, as she passed 
 her to the dressing room, said: "Will you come to 
 me when you, are dressed?" 
 
 Laura rushed -her toilet in feverish haste, and hur- 
 ried to the Latin artist with the English name and
 
 PERFUME AND VIVID HUES. 203 
 
 manner, who was then in the hands of a deft but 
 unhurried maid. 
 
 "The audience seemed pleased with our work, Miss 
 Darnby." 
 
 "Pleased" seemed such a woefully inadequate 
 description of the big, palpitating fact that Laura burst 
 the bonds of conventional reservation with: 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. McDonald, they gave you the most won- 
 derful reception! And yet it is not half what you 
 deserved. But I never supposed that our fashionable 
 world could be so moved." 
 
 "The fashionable people were moved because it 
 is the fashion to be so. I not my art or the plays 
 I produce am in vogue in London. It were too long 
 and the matter too involved to tell you how or 
 why I was taken up by the set who confer and diffuse 
 social distinction in England. From the day I was 
 hall-marked socially, everything I did in the theatre 
 was approved. The English, who never would have 
 Ibsen or Suderman or would permit any of their own 
 playwrights to do anything stronger than the teacup 
 and saucer kind of plays, took Ibsen and Suderman 
 from me, an innovation that allowed Pinero to do 
 "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," "The Notorious Mrs. 
 Ebbsmith" and virile things of that sort. In a way, 
 it was a ludicrous incongruity ; the very class that had 
 made it impossible for a dramatist worthy of the name 
 to get a hearing in London who insisted on the play- 
 thing play came to applaud the impossible because 
 it was presented by me who, by the merest chance, 
 was socially baptized. And because I am received in 
 certain London drawing rooms, your " dollarocracy " 
 is besieging the theatre and my hotel. Invitations, 
 invitations, invitations, nothing but invitations and 
 nearly all from Fifth Avenue. It was grotesquely con- 
 tradictory ; the ' dollarocracy, ' whose desire is pleasure, 
 crushing to see unpleasant plays ; problem plays ; psych- 
 ological plays that demand thought and a world sym- 
 pathyand all because they are presented by one whom 
 a king happened to approve. A strange contrast, in- 
 deed; they who are chiefly responsible for the shal-
 
 204 PEEFUME AND VIVID HUES. 
 
 low optimism of the day, crowding to see pictures 
 depicting the dark, stern realities of life." 
 
 "Yes, we have much in common with the English." 
 
 "Much? Everything everything except language, 
 of course, ' ' she smiled at the cynicism that had escaped 
 her. "But I do hope that the New York critics will 
 not be influenced by the size and character of the 
 audience that greeted us to-night." 
 
 They were not. There was no difference in the 
 kind of admiration they had of the actress ; it differed 
 in degree only. But they were savagely apart in their 
 judgment of her repertoire. The most of them sen- 
 tenced it off-hand. Laura liked the dramas. They 
 requisitioned to the full her intellectual capacity ; they 
 completely engaged her sensibility; they asked all 
 that her heart could give; they gave her a deeper 
 appreciation of the play that Robert Ringold had 
 adapted from the German. 
 
 Ringold was one of her early congratulators the 
 day following her appearance with Mrs. McDonald, the 
 day that she finally decided to take a room at the Wald- 
 borough. He purposed devoting a long paper to the 
 English actress in the next number of his magazine. 
 Would Laura introduce him? Gladly. 
 
 He came to the back just before the curtain fell 
 on "The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith" and awaited the 
 introduction with the nervous trepidity of a lad who 
 is to meet his ideal for the first time. It was to be 
 seen that she favored Ringold. She looked him frankly 
 in the eye, extended her hand freely, though not un- 
 femininely. Her frankness, her sincere ease put him 
 in self-possession at once. He expressed as well as 
 he could, verbally, his admiration of her as an expon- 
 ent of the abiding things in dramatic art, as the one 
 actress in the English language who had intellect to 
 appreciate and the moral courage to produce such 
 plays. An omniverous reader, she knew the long- 
 established magazine which he was regenerating; she 
 had read two articles on the modern drama written 
 by him. 
 
 He experienced the intimate gratification of rela- 
 tively unknown writers when they find they are ap-
 
 PERFUME AND VIVID HUES. 205 
 
 predated by one who is really authoritative. He, on 
 his part, complimented her. He wished to convey his 
 admiration in quiet dignity. Instead his compliment 
 was charged with moderately suppressed ardency: 
 ''You delivered those lines to the duke: 'You are 
 going as surely as the people are coming' with the 
 fervor of a zealot; they electrified the house. Even 
 the boxes were aroused as I never saw them before. 
 But," he added gravely, "that is about all you must 
 expect from our aristocracy of wealth applause. A 
 few of them will buy a picture with a big name at a 
 big price now and again. Their 'patronage' of art 
 stops at that, with the exception of the spendthrift 
 subscription to the opera. They would not open their 
 purses even for this if opera had not become an inci- 
 dent to a social function. Why, New York will not 
 maintain an orchestra that musicians can respect. We 
 must go to Chicago or Boston or Pittsburg for orches- 
 tral music. The American millionaire will do nothing 
 for the theatre. He confines his contributions to the 
 support of the individuals of the profession provided 
 the individual is young and attractive and has no 
 moral scruples." 
 
 "Your criticism, Mr. Ringold, covers the whole 
 Anglo-Saxon race, which insists that if the theatre 
 must do something serious occasionally, it should re- 
 strict itself to shallow optimism. The play is consid- 
 ered a plaything that should either amuse the mob 
 or conform to the view of life entertained by a girl 
 of sixteen. I have striven to present the continental 
 idea to England, but have not succeeded in getting 
 a sincere hearing. London stuffs my suburban play- 
 house every night when I am there, but the town cares 
 nothing for the plays I produce they come to see 
 me, because it happens to be good form. I am to them 
 a fad, nothing more. And you have taken me up here 
 for the same reason." 
 
 "But you have made some of us think." Lowering 
 his voice to a more confidential tone, he added: "I 
 wish that Miss Darnby were always with you. She has 
 it in her to respond to higher things in vour art. For
 
 206 PEEFUME AND VIVID HUES. 
 
 perfect development she needs only the environment 
 which you afford. ' ' 
 
 "I agree with you," was the quick response. 
 "Her comprehension of these parts is sane and lucid. 
 Hers is a fine, healthful mind ' She stopped, Laura 
 had approached. "We were speaking of you," she re- 
 sumed. "I wish that I could have you in London. 
 However, perhaps perhaps " she did not finish what 
 Kdngold more than wanted Laura to hear. It was as 
 if a vague possibility that she could not well express 
 had occurred to her.
 
 CHAPTER XXTT. 
 
 REFINEMENT'S REFUGE. 
 
 "It is a burning shame that you are not in a high- 
 class company," said Ringold, taking up the theme 
 on the way to the hotel. "In a company like that 
 at the Fourth Avenue or the Royalty or the Keene, 
 companies that remain in New York, that change their 
 plays with sufficient frequency to develop every vein 
 in your splendid talent. It seems to me that Ross 
 could do something for you in that way. He's well 
 in with little Gars, one of the big men of the theatrical 
 world." 
 
 Laura had thought of that. She had heard that 
 Gars was one of the silent partners with Ross in the 
 ownership of the Waldborough Hotel where nearly 
 all the high-salaried actors were guests and inferred 
 that his business relations had made Ross' influence 
 effective enough to reinstate her in the good graces 
 of the theatre powers. And Ross anticipated her. 
 ' ' When Mrs. McDonald sails, ' ' he remarked, a few days 
 before the expiration of the English actress' engage- 
 ment, "you'll be asked to sign for a season with the 
 Fourth Avenue Company." 
 
 It was the fulfillment of Laura 's professional yearn- 
 ings. A member of the Fourth Avenue Company! 
 This was a position to which every actor not a star 
 aspired. To be a Fourth Avenue player conferred a 
 rare, a fine distinction; it meant refinement, implied 
 the best culture the American stage afforded ; signified 
 at least some intellectuality. Though not emancipated 
 from theatrical tradition in dramatic literature, now 
 and 'again Gars ventured a production that was above 
 the mere mechanics of a playwright's jonventional 
 output. The Portuguese Jew, Pinero, who wrote in 
 
 (207)
 
 208 KEFINEMENT'S REFUGE. 
 
 English, was played; Shakespeare and Sheridan were 
 occasionally taken up with due humility and expounded 
 with reverence; a good solid German composition was 
 put in scene when the machine-made money-makers 
 displayed signs of fatigue; when occasion permitted 
 a dainty bit of satire like "Society" was understand- 
 ingly staged. 
 
 Laura was not so sure of herself as usual when 
 she sent in her card to Carl Gars, to whom she was ad- 
 mitted at once. In the round, compact, pursy little 
 fellow with the alert almost refined countenance she 
 recognized a figure familiar in the dining room of the 
 hotel. And he put her instantly at ease. He knew her 
 by sight and reputation; was indebted to Mr. Ross for 
 the suggestion that she become a member of the 
 Fourth Avenue. Then he went to the matter in hand 
 briskly. She would be assigned miscellaneous roles 
 for the first season ; the salary $75.00 a week. Within 
 a fortnight a new comedy would be rehearsed. Her 
 part would be sent her to the hotel. That was all; 
 the briefness and simplicity of it all surprised her. 
 She permitted herself to remark that she expected 
 more formality, more circumlocution ; expected, indeed, 
 an army of people awaiting their turn in the ante 
 room to see the manager who was known as the busiest 
 man in the country. 
 
 "You have answered your own question; by being 
 the busiest man I must do my work quickly; and I 
 never see any one personally, except by appointment." 
 
 She signed the season's contract with a happy heart 
 and, returning to the Waldborough, thanked Ross with 
 a warmth that flushed his face. His face quickly 
 changed to provisional malaise when he asked: "Did 
 you did you meet any acquaintances there?" 
 
 "Well well," he cleared his throat "you know, 
 or rather you don't know" really for a man of the 
 world Ross was beginning to display extraordinary 
 embarrassment in Laura's presence "that that Pro- 
 tony" why didn't he prefix the Mister? "is em- 
 ployed there as assistant stage manager." 
 
 Without showing the least sign of interest, she an-
 
 REFINEMENT'S REFUGE. 209 
 
 swered, unconcerned : "Mr. Protony is nothing to me." 
 
 He knew: what disquieted him was that she was 
 still a great deal to Protony, who, when she appeared 
 at the first rehearsal of "The Case of Rebellious Susan" 
 changed color, stared at her without responding to the 
 formal salutation. It was with an effort that he made 
 himself aware of his surroundings. 
 
 "I wasn't notified that you were to be in this pro- 
 duction." There were distinct tones of reproach and 
 disapproval in the remark. 
 
 "Why should you have been notified. You are only 
 a subordinate here as you have been everywhere. ' ' The 
 appearance of a stout, spectacled man excused Protony 
 from making a reply, which he was too upset to formu- 
 late. Thinking Protony and Laura unacquainted the 
 rotund individual ventured politely, "Permit me; I 
 am Mr. Perley, the stage manager. May I ask if you 
 are the new member, Miss Darnby?" 
 
 This was the key-note to the theatre's manners. 
 There were no familiar informalities even amongst the 
 stage hands. Everybody was considerately formal. 
 Immediately that Laura was introduced to Jeannette 
 Huff, the stately leading lady; to Mary Warner, the 
 emotional juvenile lead; to the magnificently con- 
 structed Ida Vendome; to the fluttering, diminutive 
 soubrette Alice Shlady; to Henry Favorim, the strut- 
 ting pug-nosed lover; to Raymond Hackney, the 
 dreamy-eyed romancist; to William Lowney, the roll- 
 ing voiced character lead and to Mrs. Lowney, the fine 
 flower of dowager duchesses, Laura was aware of a 
 professional society quite different from what she had 
 ever experienced. There was a strict observance of the 
 amenities. The women were graceful, gracious and 
 held the graces as a primal thing. The men were polite 
 and decorous as a corps of diplomatists at a conference 
 involving the destiny of nations. Not that the pursy 
 Perley was not a rigid disciplinarian; but his steeled 
 hand was encased in a velvet glove; his orders, his 
 suggestions were conveyed in pleasant words unctu- 
 ously turned. The lack of such association hitherto 
 made Laura ill at ease at the first rehearsal, though
 
 210 REFINEMENT'S REFUGE. 
 
 she was well up in her part, though the actors were 
 heedful of her position and though Mr. Lowney whis- 
 pered encouragement occasionally. 
 
 But the evening of the production Laura was in 
 perfect self-command, and she perceived the company's 
 distinction clearer than during the rehearsals. Her 
 small role permitted her to witness the play from 
 the wings during the more part of the evening. She 
 saw that the women were perfect in technique and 
 deportment; that the men looked and acted the part 
 of gentlemen. 
 
 The last line of the comedy spoken, Laura went to 
 her dressing room nervous, uncertain. She wondered 
 what position she had assumed in this otherwise fine pic- 
 ture. She felt her imperfections keenly ; were they ob- 
 servable to others? Soon she was alleviated by the 
 thought that if badly done her character was episodic ; 
 it would not mar the production. She wished most anx- 
 iously, however, to have an opinion of her work before 
 retiring, but her innate modesty would not allow her to 
 hint of such a question to anybody, her experience 
 in the profession notwithstanding. She had a hope 
 that Henry Favorim would enlighten her when he 
 offered to escort her to the hotel, but this was chilled 
 near the stage entrance when he introduced her to a 
 matronly woman with a worried look, older than him- 
 self, as Mrs. Favorim. She scrutinized Laura sharply 
 at the introduction, bowed only relentingly, then de- 
 voted her attention exclusively to Favorim. She told 
 about the impression he had made, went into the veriest 
 details of his acting, answered all his questions in 
 extenso. Not a word with reference to others was 
 spoken; Laura felt herself absolutely forgotten and 
 was only reminded of her existence by a hurried 
 "good night" at the lobby of the hotel, where Ross 
 was awaiting her. He had been at the theatre and 
 elated her by sincere congratulations, and by assuring 
 that Gars was pleased with her first appearance. The 
 encouragement was not modified by the morning papers. 
 All praised the play; nearly all the production. The 
 views on the acting were divergent, but while Laura's
 
 REFINEMENT'S REFUGE. 211 
 
 first appearance in the company was dismissed with 
 a few lines the notices were favorable. Nothing was 
 said of her insubordination, of her trouble with other 
 managers. Not in many days did unalloyed gratifi- 
 cation possess her so fully as that morning. There 
 was no false note in her satisfaction with herself and 
 her circumstances. She felt that the pinching, trying, 
 goading and miserable past was gone; felt that she 
 was in a new world on a higher, more refined plane 
 of life where one was shielded from the carking cares 
 and the sordidness of the inferior stratum of the pro- 
 fession. 
 
 This ideal mental elevation was presently lowered. 
 The third time she was invited to accompany the 
 Favorims, Laura sensed the wife's jealousy and divined 
 that the jealousy was founded on something more sub- 
 stantial than the consciousness on the woman's part 
 of superior age and an unattractive person. From 
 that evening she went home in Ida Vendome's car- 
 riage. Next she read Alice Shlady's ill will; it was 
 not exactly jealousie de metier, nor precisely envy of 
 Laura's stature or beauty that the mercurial midget 
 displayed; it was a little of each with a small dose 
 of dislike which some people harbor for new comers. 
 Manifestations of the little soubrette's aversion began 
 with cool, only half-audible replies to Laura's saluta- 
 tions ; a few days later she feigned not to hear Laura, 
 passing her without recognition. Presently a spiteful 
 smile would mirror itself upon the diminutive features 
 of the talented creature whenever she met Laura. The 
 latter soon assumed absolute ignorance of Shlady's 
 existence. The indifference that kills infallibly told 
 on the soubrette. She affronted Laura one day with: 
 "You've been married, haven't you?" 
 
 "Yes, and you haven't, have you? And never can 
 be. Men don't like a cheap pocket edition of a 
 woman." 
 
 This was a home thrust which hushed the peckings 
 in that quarter. But there were disagreeable whiffs, 
 occasionally from other sides. Huff was condescend- 
 ing to a degree that was almost unpleasant. Perley,
 
 212 REFINEMENT'S REFUGE. 
 
 the stage manager, became exigent Laura suspected 
 that Protony figured here. The looks of the super- 
 numeraries were less deferential when Laura passed. 
 These needled currents were fugitive, however, and 
 Laura's ruffled sensibilities were quickly soothed by 
 the invincible gentility of the men (Gars always had 
 an encouraging word for her ), and the wholesome com- 
 araderie of Ida Vendome, who was the good fellow of 
 the company. Everybody liked "Big Ida" everybody 
 from the door-keeper to the manager. Even the peck- 
 ing, prying, pin-tongued Shlady became rational in 
 the presence of Ida, for that presence was healthful. 
 She was so sane and so splendid that littleness, mean- 
 ness everything that was low and unworthy vanished 
 with her appearance. Withal she was womanly in 
 the wide acceptance of the term. And she was the 
 receptacle for the general troubles of the women and 
 the domestic -and feminine infelicities of the men. She 
 gave counsel to all. She was indulgent to the foibles 
 of everybody and readily condoned the moral imper- 
 fections of her own and the other sex. She called 
 herself the "Lilliputian's Idol." Like most women 
 of massive and imposing charms, she inspired ardent 
 admiration in little men and the .ardency intensified 
 the smaller and the more nervous the man. If she did 
 not receive a marriage proposal from an undersized 
 votary at least once a week she was in mock despair. 
 Her lament would be: "I'm fading;" or, "I'm grow- 
 ing thin I'm shrinking; the little fellows have de- 
 serted me." She would call Laura into her room 
 at the hotel and read letters from the "stunted aspir- 
 ants," as s<he named them. They were all sternly 
 serious in their protestations of devotion; all were 
 signed, the address following. Laura suspected there 
 was somebody who need not write. She wondered 
 who it was until one afternoon, when Ida was read- 
 ing an unusually large consignment of amatory epis- 
 tles, Carl Gars was announced. Ida had just finished 
 a heated letter and was laughing immoderately. 
 "What's the joke? Let me laugh, too," was Gars' 
 greeting as he entered.
 
 REFINEMENT'S EEFUGE. 213 
 
 "Oh, the little fellows are getting worse and worse 
 as I grow larger. Here's one from a sa wed-off that 
 is quite tragic." 
 
 The round, diminutive manager became grave of 
 aspect. He had a meaningful look as he said: "I 
 believe it is tragic. It certainly is not a laughable 
 matter." Ida's smile hardened into a repentant ex- 
 pression. Then Laura understood. The identity was 
 disclosed. Laura marveled at their consummate dis- 
 cretion. She had not heard their names connected 
 even by inuendo in or around the theatre. She doubted 
 if any one suspected, for aside from the rebuking 
 remark and the exchange of glances, there was noth- 
 ing in their countenances allusive of an engagement; 
 for it was apparently a strictly business talk for which 
 Ida seemed prepared. Gars had bought another the- 
 atrehe explained to Laura after he had insisted that 
 she remain in the room and it was his intention to 
 star Miss Vendome star her for engagements in New 
 York and nearby cities only. He had ordered a play 
 from Hyde Fish the other day which would be finished 
 in a fortnight. 
 
 In thanking Laura for her good wishes Ida added 
 apologetically that she had not been at liberty to tell 
 of the plan before. In a day or two a general announce- 
 ment would be made. 
 
 Gars' selection of Ida for stellar honors confirmed 
 Laura in her identification of "somebody;" it also 
 demonstrated to her the all but supreme importance 
 of influence with the influential elements in the pro- 
 fession. This truism wrought deep into 'her when in 
 response to Gars' request that she step into his office 
 he told her that: "Ida Miss Vendome recommends 
 you for such parts as she has been playing here. She 
 leaves us next week. You will have her position and, 
 of course, her salary." 
 
 She thanked him in confused delight and expressed 
 her gratitude to Vendome by throwing her arms around 
 her neck and kissing her repeatedly. 
 
 Vendome protested : "It was not I alone. I merely 
 endorsed another's recommendation, though I intended
 
 214 KEFINEMENT'S REFUGE. 
 
 to be the first. Carl Mr. Gars wanted my opinion 
 and of course I said yes. I was chagrined that I had 
 been forestalled." 
 
 "Why, who was it?" 
 
 "Don't you know?" She had turned and drawn 
 the sentence in slow surprise; her glance was of the 
 penetrating kind. 
 
 "Protony," came from her. She had hardly uttered 
 the name, when its improbability was apparent. 
 
 Vendome was genuinely astonished: "Protony, 
 the assistant stage manager? Why, what is he to 
 you? Certainly not. Can't you think of somebody 
 else?" Her look was again like the glint from steel. 
 
 Laura had now had time to bring reason into play. 
 "Mr. Ross?" 
 
 "Exactly. But why should you have thought of 
 Protony? Carl Mr. Gars on the contrary said that 
 Protony had made disparaging comments on your 
 work. ' ' 
 
 The quips of mentality which ignore finely drawn 
 consistency, nice analogy, striking similes brought 
 to her mind Queen Elizabeth's lover, Essex, who, in 
 jealous frenzy, sought to revile the woman lost to him. 
 Ida's remarks told Laura that she still was the all in 
 all of Protony 's life, though now that she recalled him 
 she remembered that he had studiously avoided her 
 since her engagement at the Fourth Avenue Theatre. 
 Neither had she seen anything of him at the hotel, 
 where Ross was as discreetly attentive as ever ; or bet- 
 ter said, his discretion had not been strained under 
 his increased attention. When she thought of the early 
 days at the Lake Side in Chicago she could not recon- 
 cile the Ross of that time and to-day. He was changed 
 and so was she. And, alas! so was Protony. How 
 different was her position! Then she was apprehen- 
 sive, clinging, confiding, afraid and yet trustful; 
 uncertain of mind, of feeling, wholly unknown to her- 
 self. Now she knew the world, and better still she 
 knew herself. She was confidently poised, aware of 
 the persuasive power of her sex in a magnificently 
 opulent city where that power is strengthened in one
 
 REFINEMENT'S REFUGE. 215 
 
 who has just self-appreciation, who has self-respect 
 in the old-fashioned meaning of that term. It had come 
 to her steadily and surely that neither art nor ambi- 
 tion alone will insure a woman against the loss or 
 depreciation of that ineffable influence over men which 
 nature has given her. There are times when art looks 
 hollow and ambition seems a phantasy. To be what 
 nature intended her to be and not to be what many 
 women are, a woman must have a deep but unostenta- 
 tious recognition of the fact that she is a woman; 
 rightly estimated, the most precious thing Providence 
 has bestowed upon a confused, inchoate and incompre- 
 hensible universe. She had seen gifted women and 
 beautiful women and women both gifted and beauti- 
 ful totally impotent where a shop girl, with a conscious 
 value of her sex, was omnipotent. As she gradually 
 took to herself the never-changing and ever-effectual 
 truth, Ross' feeling for her deepened to deferential 
 devotion. In little things and large he showed his 
 growing devotion; but in nothing did he show it so 
 much as When Laura asked him one day: 
 
 "Where is Clarence Protony? I have not seen him 
 for a long time." 
 
 It was an unexepected question; before he an- 
 swered an odd cast fell in his eye and his head hung 
 quietly. "He's gone over to the other hotel." His 
 attitude told Laura clearly: "My jealousy sent him 
 to the other hotel."
 
 CHAPTER XXIH. 
 
 THE INTEUDEE TEIUMPHANT. 
 
 His love and jealousy showed themselves in other 
 ways. He wished to know where she had been when 
 he failed to find her in the hotel. He came to ask her 
 directly and was wounded when she gave a careless 
 or evasive reply. He became disparaging in his ob- 
 servations of Favorim and the other young men of 
 the company; he even had an unkind word for Carl 
 Gars "they are all free lances and a woman who 
 respects herself must be on her guard." Her room 
 was changed several times. Again, Ross insisted that 
 she take a larger room on the same etage with his 
 apartments. Then he arranged to take luncheon and 
 dinner with her every day. Finally came a vital pro- 
 posal : he offered to escort her to and from the theatre. 
 She accepted with an air of studied indifference. Even 
 this closer surveilance did not satisfy him. He re- 
 mained until the curtain went up and returned half 
 an hour before it fell. The newspaper notices of her, 
 which were now uniformly favorable, displeased him. 
 The criticisms of her work did not affect him so much 
 as the complimentary green room gossip. One item in 
 praise of her sunny disposition, her popularity with 
 everybody around the theatre, her charitable nature, 
 moved him to condemn the whole brood of journalists : 
 "They are all grafters in one way or another. They 
 never write up anything without expecting to get some- 
 thing for it. I wouldn't talk to them if I were you." 
 
 Laura perceived this passion rising and intensify- 
 ing from day to day. The subtle flattery which every 
 woman feels in creating that ruling sensation in men 
 was not full compensation for the acute perturbation 
 of mind actuated by the situation. She was determined 
 
 (816)
 
 THE INTRUDES TRIUMPHANT. 217 
 
 not to yield after the manner of weaker or inexperi- 
 enced women, although yet undetermined what answer 
 to make should he propose marriage. She knew as well 
 as a woman may which in such a case is knowing 
 that his passion was become uncontrollable; that he 
 must make an end either by declaring himself or 
 permanently avoid her. She hoped she hardly knew 
 what. There was to one side material security. Ross' 
 affluence was augmenting rapidly; he was already 
 wealthy. His influence was widening. There was 
 every promise that he would become a considerable fac- 
 tor in New York's affairs. On the other side, there 
 was no love on her part perhaps, all said, affection 
 for men had been blighted in her by experience. She 
 neither liked nor disliked him. This had its advant- 
 agesand disadvantages. There could be no soul- 
 tearing moments, for her, if he proved delinquent. 
 But how would she stand with her art? Her love for 
 it had deepened since her introduction to its rarer 
 atmosphere. Her understanding of it had become 
 broader, clearer. She certainly would not renounce 
 it in any circumstances. And yet and yet through 
 all these considerations the instinctive want of her sex 
 for a male companion or protector would ebb and flow 
 according to her mood or state of nerves. 
 
 "With Ross there were no doubts, no hesitations, 
 no misgivings, no subtleties. He had sufficient pene- 
 tration to know that Laura would entertain only one 
 proposal and he had decided that he would have her 
 if he could on that condition; and he instinctively 
 chose the right moment. Calling for Laura at the 
 theatre as usual one night he found her put out: it 
 was a mixture of chagrin, dejection and exasperation. 
 Protony had again given way to the tension on nerve 
 and brain which constant thought on one idea brings; 
 he had sent a note pathetically pleading for a recon- 
 ciliation. Perley had weakened one of the scenes and 
 a quarrel had ensued. Favorim had renewed his an- 
 noying attentions regardless of his wife's surveilance. 
 
 "When in the carriage he asked: "Aren't you feel- 
 ing well ? " He was about to affix ' ' Laura ' ' but checked
 
 218 THE INTRUDER TRIUMPHANT. 
 
 himself. To that time he had used neither "Miss 
 Darnby" nor "Laura." 
 
 "I'm well, but those people at the theatre have a 
 diabolical way of putting me out." 
 
 A pause, which Ross broke slowly and in a low 
 voice: "Laura, you know how I feel toward you. Will 
 you have me?" He took her hand. 
 
 There had been something in the silence preceding 
 his declaration which had prepared her. She gave no 
 immediate indication of acceptance. In a few mo- 
 ments, as if quite unconsciously, she leaned her head 
 upon his shoulder. He encircled her waist, and kissed 
 her, not so much in passion as in the joy of possessing 
 that which might have eluded him. 
 
 Nothing more was said on the way to the hotel. 
 This time he escorted her to the door of her room, 
 where he again kissed her with a "Good night." She 
 returned the "Good night" and these were the first 
 words she had spoken from the moment of the proposal.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ART BEFORE MATRIMONY. 
 
 Her awakening thought was not of Ross, but of 
 the responsibilities and perplexities of the engagement. 
 She lay in bed thinking, thinking. One idea was dom- 
 inant, determined : She would not give up the theatre. 
 She would not permit marriage to interfere with her 
 art, her aspirations. By degrees ambition had per- 
 vaded her; the unnamable fascination of the footlights 
 had imperceptibly enveloped her; by insensible grada- 
 tion she had lifted herself from the paltry cares, the 
 paltry miseries, the carking annoyances of the con- 
 ventional life. Her indifference to them had been sim- 
 ultaneous with her steadily augmenting interest in 
 the theatre. From the resolve not to let matrimony 
 thwart her independence there followed a stronger 
 resolution to utilize, if possible, her changed social 
 condition as a furtherance to her professional stand- 
 ing. The yielding mood, the leaning tendency of the 
 day before when her nerves were weakened by the 
 work and importunities on the stage and by the night, 
 were gone. The rest and the daylight had restored 
 her to herself as she would be. 
 
 While she was making her toilet, at ten o'clock, 
 the usual hour with her, a bell boy brought a note 
 from Ross addressed "Dear Laura," asking her what 
 time it would please her to breakfast with him. The 
 implication of possession in the address struck her 
 disagreeably. She replied on the same paper: "At 
 10:30, my customary hour," and signed it L. D. 
 
 If the short reply had ruffled his joyous spirits 
 there was no sign of it when he greeted her as she 
 stepped from the lift. His complete happiness in- 
 fected Laura at first, but soon the strain of restraint 
 
 (219)
 
 220 ART BEFOEE MATEIMONY. 
 
 became so pronounced that Ross asked in accents o? 
 solicitude: "Laura, there is something troubling you. 
 Tell me what it is. Make a confidant of me. ' ' 
 
 The question urged her to have an understanding 
 at once. "It is not a troublesome thing exactly. It 
 is a matter that we should have discussed and decided 
 before before I consented last night." She paused 
 to formulate her position when he, his face changing 
 from an expression of contentment to nervous, pinched 
 anxiety, asked: 
 
 "What is it, Laura? What is it?" 
 
 "If when we marry I expect to continue to act 
 and-" 
 
 He interrupted in a tone that told his anxiety had 
 vanished: "Why to be sure my dear girl. I thought 
 out a plan weeks before I proposed to you. I talked 
 it over with Gars. He agreed with me that you were 
 too much engrossed in your work to give it up for 
 anything or anybody. So we've roughed out a scheme 
 to star you." "Yes, to star you," he repeated, noting 
 her look of genuine surprise. "It depended, of course, 
 upon your accepting me as husband "this with a 
 humorously shrewd smile "but I insisted that your 
 territory should be confined to New York and the cities 
 that may be reached in a few hours Boston, Phila- 
 delphia, Baltimore, Washington. You anticipated 
 me. It wias the very thing I wanted to talk over with 
 you this morning."
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 LATENT JEALOUSIES AFLAME. 
 
 The knowledge of the engagement was confined 
 to three persons Laura, Ross and Gars. The mar- 
 riage was not known until the day following the cere- 
 mony, when it was proclaimed in the sensational press. 
 To everybody it was a surprise, except to the one 
 whom it struck vitally Protony. He had feared that 
 culmination. It was the dread, the gnawing expectancy 
 born of sensed rather than perceived danger; a tele- 
 pathic jealousy, for he had no visual evidence of 
 Ross' intentions; the ostensible facts made for the re- 
 verse of what had actually occurred. A guest at one 
 of Ross' hotels, Laura, Protony thought, was at the 
 furthest a circumstantial possibility of a relation the 
 contrary of licit. Protony was not even aware that 
 Ross' influence had made Laura a member of Gars' 
 company. In cool reflection he had concluded that 
 Laura at the Waldborough Hotel was the result of 
 her association with the Gars Company, instead of vice 
 versa. That indefinable sense which is not of the five 
 defined faculties, but lies in the deep covered well 
 called the sub-conscious, had acted as a precursive 
 agent. Yet the premonition did not temper him to 
 the anguish of the morning. Though he read the gar- 
 ishly written news without astonishment he read it 
 as something that had been inevitable the forewarn- 
 ing could not forefend the torture that began directly 
 the paper slipped from his clammy hand. It was as 
 if he had swallowed a collapsing poison. He conceived 
 a mortal hatred for Laura; then for Ross; then for 
 both. The hate changed quickly to a passion for her 
 a passion whose glow was intensified by long pass- 
 ivity and whose virulence harked back to the feeling
 
 222 LATENT JEALOUSIES AFLAME. 
 
 that had overpowered him when she refused reconcil- 
 iation, following their first quarrel. 
 
 His inflamed imagination continued to picture Ross 
 and Laura in conjugal relations and the vision threw 
 him into spasms of jealousy, a jealousy which he had 
 supposed to the moment of hearing of Laura's mar- 
 riage had become innocuous. It would be unbearable 
 torture for him to remain in the Gars Company, where 
 he must see her, must hear her voice night after night. 
 He had decided to resign when Perley, by a remark, 
 stayed his intentions: "Your friend, Laura Darnby, 
 leaves us this week. Gars will star her. Sidney Rose- 
 bed will write a play around her."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 REALIZING A DREAM. 
 
 The character of the play which Sidney Rosebud had 
 been commissioned to write was left to the judgment 
 of that shock-haired, spectacled individual. The play- 
 wright called but twice on Laura. The first time "to 
 get a line on her temperament, " as he phrased it. The 
 second time this was a week later, after she had re- 
 signedhe had the plot and the characters outlined. 
 The scheme of the drama Laura thought had very 
 familiar ear-marks; the locale of the first act was in 
 the interior of Missouri. Laura would have an admirer 
 and lover. The admirer was from New York, who 
 "happened" in the Western town; a handsome man 
 whose deportment was elegant and whose clothes 
 were irreproachable. The lover, a farmer's son; good, 
 upright, sincere ; quite poor and no prospects. Laura 
 would love the New Yorker, who could not fully recip- 
 rocate her affection because of her social inferiority. 
 An uncle in the Klondyke would die leaving her sev- 
 eral millions. There would be a change of scene to 
 New York City showing Laura in an apothosis of afflu- 
 ence and social brilliancy courted by troops of fash- 
 ionable men, the most ardent being the New Yorker, 
 who had jilted her in Missouri. She brings the New 
 Yorker to his knees, rejects him sheerly, returns to 
 Missouri and marries the farmer's son. 
 
 Rosebed read the surprised disapproval on Laura's 
 face. But he explained with plausible volubility that the 
 plot was nothing. He would fill the play with stirring 
 incidents, with tense situations. The dialogue, he 
 assured her, would be epigrammatic throughout, especi- 
 ally in the New York acts, where there would be an 
 exceptional opportunity for attractive scenery and cos- 
 
 (828)
 
 224 EEALIZING A DREAM. 
 
 tumes. But the crude improbability, the crass conven- 
 tionality of the story shocked Laura. She protested 
 to Ross, who sent Gars to her. The manager was per- 
 emptory in his decision. ' ' You don 't want to handicap 
 yourself with an unconventional play at the start, do 
 you? Just let Rosebed and me launch you. After 
 that you may indulge your fads and fancies as you 
 please. I want to make you a success, but I can't do 
 it unless you submit to the usual thing, the usual 
 process. Remember that success in the theatrical busi- 
 ness depends upon brokers, brokers' wives, shopkeep- 
 ers, clerks and shop girls and not on two or three 
 literary cranks with so-called 'advanced ideas.' I 
 know what you would like; your idea would be to 
 call that fellow Ringold in and write something after 
 the manner of those German or Norwegian faddists. 
 For God's sake get Mrs. McDonald out of your head 
 for awhile. She had to start as you are going to start. 
 It was not until ten years later when she had been 
 taken up by society that she could go in for this realistic 
 or naturalistic fad or whatever you call it. The pub- 
 lic doesn't accept her because of herself or her play, 
 but because she is or was a social rage. You haven't 
 got to that yet; so meanwhile you had better please 
 the public. Rosebed will fit you all right in the mat- 
 ter of play. I'll do the rest. You see how clever 
 Rosebed is to have thought of placing the first acts 
 in the state where you were born. That will give my 
 press agent a chance to send out some interesting gossip 
 about you. Then you'll have to go to Paris don't jump ; 
 yes, to Paris for your costumes for the New York 
 scene. You could get them here in New York, but 
 the trip abroad for that purpose will mean about a 
 column with your picture, in all the papers, a lot of 
 descriptive cablegrams when you are in Paris and 
 again a column with your picture when you return. 
 I would rather have such reading matter than columns 
 upon columns of favorable criticism. A favorable or 
 unfavorable critique doesn't matter either way. Good 
 or bad reviews from a professional critic never made 
 or unmade a play or an actor. It's the popular gos-
 
 REALIZING A DREAM. 225 
 
 sip about the play or an actor that counts. On the 
 first night of a production before the critics have 
 written a word I can tell you within fifty dollars 
 what the week's receipts will be. So you see we must 
 make a right beginning. The rest will be easy. But 
 for Heaven's sake don't interfere with any of our 
 'literary principles.' Get literature out of your head 
 until hard times come. So long as the country is pros- 
 perous the people will pay any money for any kind 
 of show; all they need is to have their attention at- 
 tracted by advertising free ads and paid ads. When 
 general business is at a low ebb, why then the good thing 
 only can live. But we haven 't come to that. We must 
 make a first-class star out of you while we can. Trust 
 to me and Rosebed. And by the way" this as he took 
 his hat as a signal of conclusion "don't take an ac- 
 tress friend with you to Paris, no matter how insig- 
 nificant her reputation may be. The foreign corre- 
 spondents and the reporters here might mention her. 
 We don 't want to detract attention from you. I don 't 
 suppose that Ross will be able to go with you, so I 
 suggest that you engage a bright maid a negress if 
 possible or a quiet elderly woman." 
 
 Paris had banished everything else from her mind. 
 She heard not a word of his advice after that. Paris ! 
 The name aroused a dream latent in her from the day 
 she first took in hand a French primer. It was diffi- 
 cult to realize that she was approaching a realization 
 which had always been to her and to all women of super- 
 ior intellect and inferior fortune a beatitude so distant 
 in perspective that it seemed impossible of attainment. 
 For a moment she forgot her marriage to Ross, the 
 mass of congratulatory letters and telegrams heaped 
 on the table; forgot her prospective position in the 
 profession; and Gars and Rosebed and Ringold and 
 Mrs. McDonald everything. Her first matter-of-fact 
 thought came when Gars mentioned a companion. 
 Rebecca, Carr, Vendome no, they were rejected as fast 
 as thought suggested them. Though they had been dis- 
 engaged they would meet Gars' elemental objection of 
 having nobody who might divert attention from her.
 
 226 REALIZING A DREAM. 
 
 She conned the mass of felicitations telegrams 
 from all manner of people; managers, actors, hotel 
 keepers, wine merchants, tailors, modistes. She knew 
 very few of them. Ross knew some; Gars probably 
 laiew them all. Eebecca and Carr had sent telegrams. 
 From her mother a long letter. From her father and 
 Protony nothing. In looking over these notes and 
 dispatches she discovered how limited was her ac- 
 quaintance, how very few her lasting friends. Her 
 parents and Ross and Rebecca Rosenau; Gars and Ida 
 Vendome perhaps these were all. Cities were wil- 
 dernesses after all, and the larger the city the fewer 
 the intimacies. 
 
 Mrs. Quincy! The very companion if she could be 
 persuaded to go. Action followed the thought. Laura 
 drove over to Forty-second Street at once. Mrs. Quincy 
 was overwhelmed with the proposal. From agitation 
 and confusion there ensued alternate gusts of trans- 
 ports and despair. The chance of re-living a few 
 months of her twentieth year, however distantly or 
 vicariously, threw her into ecstacy for, to Laura's 
 amazement, Mrs. Quincy had been in Paris forty years 
 ago; the seemingly sheer impossibility of leaving her 
 house and lodgers for a month threw her into the oppo- 
 site extreme. A council of her maids was held. The 
 girls urged her to go. One of them, Stella, was chosen 
 landlady pro tern. 
 
 It was final then that Mrs. Quincy would go as 
 Laura's duenna, a choice that Ross who had not con- 
 sulted with Laura about the trip until she returned 
 from Forty-second Street approved. He added that 
 when Gars had made the suggestion his only concern 
 was the selection of a suitable companion, for in the 
 busy state of his affairs it was out of the question for 
 him to go.
 
 CHAPTER XXVU. 
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 On the day set for sailing the press told of Carl 
 Gars' plans for Laura Darnby the Ross was not af- 
 fixed. She would sail that day on La Provence for 
 Havre en route for Paris, where an elaborate order 
 for gowns would be placed with Chevet the famous 
 Chevet, the tailor of queens and empresses. In the 
 meanwhile Gars would engage Miss Darnby 's support 
 and Rosebed finish the domestic drama written for 
 Miss Darnby, who had stipulated that Rebecca Rosenau 
 and Miss Carr must be members of her company; 
 accordingly, at no little sacrifice, Mr. Gars had ar- 
 ranged to have these ladies released from their con- 
 tracts with Roland Marshall and Sol Runnels. A two- 
 column width picture of Laura accentuated the mana- 
 gerial accent of the article, which, however, had the 
 effect of bringing a few of Ross' acquaintances and ad- 
 mirers of actresses and many idlers to the dock. 
 
 Without these Laura had not known which of the 
 serried docks was busied with the departure of a trans- 
 atlantic liner. The Latin people soon made it strik- 
 ingly obvious. Not that the preparations were con- 
 sciously spectacular. Never were 'longshoremen and 
 travellers and their friends less self-conscious. But 
 the buoyant temper of employees and passengers made 
 this strip of the harbor a scene of complex and mer- 
 curial animation and enlivened the low, lymphatic 
 architecture of the sea-station. The awesome and for- 
 bidding aspect of the rafters was relieved by the gayety 
 of fluttering flags from aloft. The roar of trucks on 
 sullen planks was mitigated by commands voiced in 
 a melodious tongue; the oppressive impression made 
 by the prosaic commodities of commerce, in deadly
 
 228 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 dull arrays of boxes and bales, was eased by the high- 
 hued gowns of the gesticulating women in whose dark 
 visages were eyes reluscent as pools at eventide. These 
 orbs at the first sign to go aboard were immersed in 
 tears. Parting words were broken by sobs. Embrace 
 after embrace was exchanged and the emotional scene 
 was emphasized by gray-beards kissing one another 
 with the farewell fervency of school girls. In Laura's 
 group there was no weeping; there were many hand- 
 shakesmainly with people who Laura saw for the 
 first time and voluble wishes for a happy voyage. 
 Mrs. Quincy's girls and lodgers were far more moved 
 than Laura's well-wishers; there were wet eyes here, 
 but a high-tensioned cheerfulness pervaded all, which 
 expressed itself in a dheer when Ross, Laura and Mrs 
 Quincy crossed the gang plank to the steamer. 
 
 Ross had arranged everything to perfection. The 
 best state-room was secured. He had directed the 
 New York agent's special attention to Laura, who was 
 on board waiting to introduce her to the commander, 
 a bulky muscular sailor, bearded like a primitive Teu- 
 ton, with no characteristics of the popular conception 
 of a Frenchman except the thick accent when he spoke 
 English. At the final signal Ross gave Laura letters 
 of introduction from Gars to several correspondents 
 of American newspapers, to authors and to Chevet. He 
 gave her only one kiss, but it was prolonged and fer- 
 vent; the pressure of his hand and the fervor of his 
 lips told her that she had aroused in him all the pow- 
 erful though incompletely refined affection such men 
 possess. He was the last to leave the steamer, and 
 immediately the plank was hauled in there was a per- 
 ceptible rumble in the immense shed that sounded ab- 
 solutely like thunder; it was made by the rush of feet 
 to the extreme end of the landing, where a band 
 had intoned an inspiriting march which Laura recog- 
 nized as Metra's "Volontier." The leaping tones 
 measures that inspired joyous courage \had an im- 
 provised accompaniment of a choral character. The 
 chorus came from French, Italian, Spanish and Ameri- 
 can throats that cheered two words in four accents:
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 229 
 
 "Bon Voyage." The wish was expressed in full 
 chested voices and was stressed by the mad waving 
 of men's hats of every conceivable shape and fashion 
 and of women's handkerchiefs. Ross was at the very 
 front of the agitated mass of humanity; behind him 
 Gars, and back of Gars Boss' many, motley acquaint- 
 ances. 
 
 But who was that in the forward line, at the other 
 end from Ross, half-concealed by the rope's stump, 
 upon which one of his elbows rested? Protony! He 
 and one more were the silent exceptions in the cheer- 
 ing crowd. For a full minute Laura had eyes for none 
 but him, who had been much and now was nothing 
 to her. He saw that she recognized him, but he had 
 not the force to assume other than he was: broken 
 spirited; a drawn, wan face expressing hopelessly de- 
 jection, utter melancholy and a gnawing heart. 
 
 T^he other exception stood midway between Ross 
 and Protony; a slouchy, half-drunken, unshaven, leer- 
 ing figure. At sight of Darnby, Laura had no emo- 
 tion whatever. Her gaze returned quickly to Ross, to 
 whose now mute salutation she continued to respond 
 exuberantly. 
 
 When distance had subdued the vociferousness of 
 the adieux the multi-hued crowd suggested a huge 
 fluttering bouquet, endowed for a moment with vocal 
 power. Gradually individuals became indistinguish- 
 able ; they were welded in a mass in a throng which, 
 in growing smaller, became mute and immutable ; pres- 
 ently it was a vague spot, anon it disappeared en- 
 tirely. 
 
 Then Laura looked about on board. The glow of 
 excitement had faded from faces; they had saddened 
 as land diminished into a shore line on the horizon 
 into which it had slowly vanished. 
 
 A woman of commanding presence, tall, strong, a 
 face firm but not unwomanly, who had came on board 
 unattended, was quietly weeping. She was contained, 
 Laura had noticed the agitation of departure had not 
 suspended Laura's developing power of observation 
 while the ship was in harbor ; but now that land had
 
 230 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 disappeared she could not master her feelings. There 
 had been none to say adieu. She was alone. Who 
 was she? The steamer stopped. The big Yankee pilot 
 who had given orders in a high, authoritative tone, 
 descended into a lunging boat. The Latin officers bade 
 him good-by effusively. He responded with a curt flap 
 of the hand, his back turned. 
 
 The pilot's departure seemed to be a signal for a 
 quick change among the crew and passengers. Mon- 
 sieur le commandant doffed his parade uniform for the 
 clothes of a hard working sailor. He appeared less 
 ceremonious, but more commanding. Instead of shak- 
 ing his hand the French travellers lifted their yacht 
 caps as they passed him. The more part of the passen- 
 gers, their friends out of sight and hearing and per- 
 haps out of mind in selfish haste rushed to secure a 
 comfortable voyage. They cadged for a seat at the 
 Captain's table, for their bath, for a good position 
 for their steamer chair. Women changed their gowns, 
 men their garments. Within an hour there was less 
 color on deck and a total subsidence of excitement. 
 Laura, leaving all material care and details to Mrs. 
 Quincy, remained at the bulwarks. 
 
 When the pilot was gone when he was out of 
 sight a presentment of the sea's solitude, a prevision 
 of its grandeur came upon her. Though the waters 
 were still green, a sign that the ship was not yet float- 
 ing over the ocean's greatest depths; though the sun, 
 unobscured by a cloud, warmed the blood and bright- 
 ened the scene, a circular look at the horizon offer- 
 ing not an acre of earth, not a yard of sail gave her 
 a sense of the sublime desolation of the sea. 
 
 She was rudely aroused by a man who tottered 
 to the bulwarks, his face a map of anguish. Laura 
 then noticed that several passengers, men and women, 
 were at the ship's side in the throes of sea sickness. 
 Laura had not thought of such a distressing possi- 
 bility. She turned away. The sight made her unsure 
 of herself. Her condition was voiced to precision by 
 tftie pretty girl in front of her, who murmured: "Je 
 sens que ga commence," a simple expression, but how
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 231 
 
 exactly and yet subtly it expressed the fear of the 
 initial stage of the physical malaise. She repeated the 
 almost colloquial expression: "Je sens que ga com- 
 mence." But the feeling did not go further with her, 
 Mrs. Quincy, nine or ten of the Latin people and her- 
 self were unaffected. Toward evening the general 
 trial the test of the survival of the fittest had ended. 
 The unfit were few, the fit many. Among the sea- 
 worthy to whom Laura was introduced was a priest, 
 whose elevated character was mirrored in a pale and 
 mobile face, expressing the final thought in piety and 
 sincerity; a Canadian visually a James G. Elaine 
 who had not permitted a vast commercial business to 
 destroy a deep love of music and literature. A Paris 
 merchant who talked like an artist; a French artist 
 who talked like a hunter ; a French lawyer who quoted 
 beautiful sentiments; an Italian pianist small as a 
 thumb and nervous as an aspen leaf whose mind when 
 not at the piano was haunted by a liberal income and 
 who spoke of nothing but high, interest paying mort- 
 gages; an English actress who traduced the French 
 language mercilessly, dressed dowdily and recited 
 poetry divinely; a Hebrew banker whose smallness of 
 stature was requited by largeness of fortune, who com- 
 pensated an aggressive manner and acute inquisitive- 
 ness by a deep devotion to a pursy and dumpish wife 
 and three disenchanting daughters; two Germans, one 
 who spoke the German of Luxemburg; the other, the 
 German of Austria ; several Englishmen ; a few Ameri- 
 cans; a doctor, Mons. Paquin, his wife, and a Madame 
 Volney. Lastly Mons. Chicard, a professor of French 
 in a New York college. 
 
 Before dinner Laura had one prejudice less ; was cor- 
 rected of a cant idea; that beneath Latin politeness 
 everything was hollow. Her quickened perception, 
 her trained observation told her these people were 
 sincerely amiable, that their supposed volatileness was 
 a matter of temperament; they were nervously quick 
 witted, conversational, mercurial ; their volubility was 
 physical, not mental. Laura involuntarily compared 
 them with the few Anglo-Saxons on board j how stolid
 
 232 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 and stilted, how pompous, how self-conscious were her 
 people! The Latins were frank, free, companiona- 
 ble. She read their individual characters readily. 
 Their beliefs, their hopes, their fears were as an open 
 book. Withal, they were not intrusive, not familiar; 
 they were, to the contrary, tactful and discreet and ever 
 polite. They had the fine intuition of children they 
 knew to whom to address themselves and how far. 
 To the sympathetic they were whole-souled; to others 
 they were finely reserved or suggestive in an elevated 
 sense. Laura, known almost immediately as an actress, 
 appealed to them at once. The women wished to be 
 her friend. Finding it was her first voyage they made 
 suggestions, offered to assist her. The men showed 
 their admiration, made way for her everywhere, were 
 courteously companionable or deferential, according to 
 Laura's mood or demeanor; the women were motherly 
 or sisterly according to their age. 
 
 Mons. Chicard was exceptional momentarily. 
 One evening while Laura was alone on deck Mons. 
 Chicard 's attention crossed the line which divides 
 formal acquaintance from informal friendship. She 
 then provided herself with the usual shield of disap- 
 probation in which at the first sign of the insinuation 
 of familiarity in men she would suffer them to dissolve 
 in their own humiliation. This was effective; it also 
 was an object lesson to others who might have wished 
 to emulate Mons. Chicard. Thenceforth she was im- 
 mune from masculine annoyances, was free to continue 
 her observations, to study the little comedies and 
 tragedies about her. There was an element of both 
 comedy and tragedy in the affair of Mme. Volney and 
 Paquin. 
 
 The former was decidedly handsome. Her phys- 
 ical charms she was commandingly tall with pro- 
 nounced contours were of an ostentatious type. Mme. 
 Paquin 's attractions were not, on the contrary, extrin- 
 sic. She was tall and somewhat shriven, making an 
 extraordinary contrast to her husband, a big, healthy, 
 muscular fellow who soon was drawn to Mme. Volney. 
 They were placed vis a vis in the dining hall. Their
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 233 
 
 mutual admiration soon induced them to seek each 
 other's society in the salon and on the promenade 
 deck. For neglecting to endow Mme. Paquin with an 
 engaging personality, Providence's requital was an 
 acute perception combined with determination. She 
 quickly perceived Mons. Paquin 's attentions and Mme. 
 Volney 's intentions. But she appeared so unmindful 
 that the passengers who had noticed the attachment 
 concluded that Mms. Paquin was not jealous. 
 
 This conclusion was modified by an embarassing 
 incident. It appeared that on the third afternoon out 
 Mme. Paquin told the doctor she would not care to 
 take dinner in the salle a manger that evening ; as her 
 appetite was not good she would prefer to have a light 
 luncheon served on deck a 1' invalide. This proved a 
 stratagem of the most perfidious character. Hearing 
 of Mme. Paquin 's absence Mme. Volney invited the doc- 
 tor to sit beside her at table. At about a quarter after 
 six o'clock, when Mme. Volney and Mons. Paquin had 
 become interested in each other, Mme. Paquin ap- 
 peared most unexpectedly at the head of the long table. 
 She stood there a full minute until all save Mme. 
 Volney and her admirer saw her and her face told 
 she would do something unusual. 
 
 "Mme. Volney!" The key was rather high and 
 the tone somewhat metallic. Mme. Volney and the 
 doctor looked up. The former flushed, the latter paled 
 both felt the premonition of the calamity which 
 occurred instantly, delivered in French : 
 
 "Mme. Volney, permit me to solicit a favor of you. 
 Please leave the doctor to his lawful wife and legiti- 
 mate children. I assure you that I appreciate the com- 
 pliment you imply by thinking my husband a charming 
 man, nevertheless I must ask you to indicate your 
 admiration in a more formal manner than by alienat- 
 ing his affections from me, who am a faithful wife 
 and who loves the doctor more sincerely than you do." 
 
 The warning was uttered in a perfectly clear voice 
 pitched, perhaps, a little above the medium regis- 
 terand everybody seated at the captain's board 
 caught its meaning. Mme. Volney in a visible degree
 
 234 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 understood the import perfectly. She arose quite 
 agitated, her countenance a plain reflection of her 
 disturbed and painful feeling, and walked nervously 
 to the door, where Mme. Paquin, with ceremonious 
 politeness, stepped aside to let her pass. Then Mme. 
 Paquin took her customary place beside Monsieur: 
 "I am feeling better, my appetite now is excellent; 
 I shall dine here as usual. ' ' 
 
 The doctor, a French gentleman, who had himself 
 well in hand, feigned his part admirably. He was all 
 niceties and delicate attention. But after the repast, 
 as he crossed the door-sill, his features stiffened and 
 their expression sombered. Neither he nor Madame 
 were seen that evening. Mme. Volney was not visible 
 until the second day she had a state-room following 
 the embarassing incident. She then appeared for a 
 most commendable purpose to solicit charity for an 
 Italian emigrant, who had been disqualified for admis- 
 sion by the Emigrant Commissioners. The rejected 
 piece of humanity was below an old woman very ill. 
 
 Laura went down between decks with the ship's 
 physician. In descending she was assailed by a name- 
 less odor the malodor of unkempt misery, of unclean 
 nudity. Entering the steerage in appearance a sub- 
 terranean arrangement, low and dark like the galleries 
 of a mine Laura saw a mass of men, women and 
 children stretched on superposed planks or swarming 
 on the floor. She could scarcely distinguish one face 
 from another. Near the extreme end there was a bright 
 light, and in the light Laura saw the face of the priest 
 bending toward the lower plank. Approaching, Laura 
 distinguished a dozen steerage passengers, heads un- 
 covered, on their knees in attitude of prayer. A voice 
 reached Laura's ears that entered her nerves. It began 
 in a moan and ended in a wail. The low gasps, the 
 strident respiration announced suffering. The grating 
 convulsions, the only half-controlled shrieks told of 
 swiftly recurring transitions from uniform pain to in- 
 tense agony. The doctor glanced at the tortured and 
 writhing bundle of wretched flesh. 
 
 "She cannot last half an hour," he said and turned
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 235 
 
 away. Laura remained, chained by keen sympathy 
 and a feeling that it were not dutiful to desert a dying 
 being, though a complete stranger. Although the pro- 
 fuse gray hair, disheveled, hid part of the face, Laura 
 could see that toil and moil, anxiety, worriment and 
 insufficient nourishment, general neglect of the body 
 and forced starvation of the soul had made their ruth- 
 less impress upon the face, which was hard featured 
 and deeply seared. Through the sounds of agony 
 there was articulate lamentation. She was beseech- 
 ing God to forgive her sins she who had experienced 
 poverty only and suffered misery throughout her toil- 
 some life. She prayed the Lord to be merciful she 
 who had found the world so merciless. As Laura heard 
 this agonizing invocation to the Diety from a hard- 
 driven, poverty-killed creature, whose conscience, 
 nevertheless, was so vibrant and susceptible, she to 
 whom life of late had not spoken harshly was stirred 
 to consciousness of her moral responsibility. 
 
 The body was given to the sea next day. A plank, 
 a shroud and a shot no more. But it was a funeral that 
 Laura hoped never to forget. The well-pursed, well-fed 
 and well-groomed passengers preferred the salon, their 
 state rooms and their first-class cabins during the brief 
 ceremony. The occupants of the steerage were all 
 present, on their knees, with their heads bowed. The 
 words of the priest's prayer were moving; they were 
 charged with an hallowed pathos that sank into the 
 soul of the soul. He was so calm, so sincere, so con- 
 vincing, that young man in the dark garb, and his pure 
 face seemed as if illuminated by a Light from Above 
 as he signalled the sailors to offer the Rested Spirit to 
 the waters. 
 
 A concert was given the next evening for the bene- 
 fit of the Fisherman's Life Saving Society. Laura was 
 invited to give a recitation, but she had witnessed death 
 had felt its mystery too intimately, too recently, to 
 be in a mood to participate in an entertainment. The 
 programme was long enough without Laura's proposed 
 contribution. Mme. Paquin was down to recite "Love's 
 Repentance". The Italian who was director of the
 
 236 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 entertainment and who heroically presented himseli 
 with the final number his own arrangement of Saint- 
 Saens' "Le Cygne" complimented Mme. Volney with 
 two selections, Bach's "Ave Maria" and the soprano 
 part in the trio from "Faust". In the steerage there 
 was found a violinist a youth all aglow for his art, 
 whose view did not descend below the clouds and 
 among the second-class v passengers a contralto a voice 
 deep, rich, finished and majestic who had just com- 
 pleted a winter 's engagement in Montreal. Laura gave 
 her ticket to an old lady travelling between decks, 
 whose refinement of countenance and gentle deport- 
 ment encouraged the general fallacy that high morality 
 and refined sentiment may grow out of harsh social 
 relations. Laura thought it were better to be on deck 
 alone while the dining room was filled with an elabor- 
 ately attired audience and resounded with indiscrim- 
 inate applause to well or ill expressed music and poetry. 
 Laura and Mrs. Quincy went forward to the bow, where 
 she could see the steamer part the waves which were 
 subsiding as the sun disappeared. The gold of the 
 West was turning to a crimson hue, coloring the island- 
 like clouds in the horizon. From dim red there was a 
 change to vague amber. Suddenly a flash of purple, 
 followed by a streak of violet, gradually turning 
 to intense blue. It was night the gates of day were 
 now closed. Laura turned in the course of the ship 
 toward the East. An immensity of darkness dotted, 
 above, with stars. The sea was black and hushed. The 
 silence broken only by the throb of the engines. The 
 winds were wholly whist. Looking up she saw the 
 stars appearing rapidly; they shone with a spectral 
 lustre, not affected by the white light of the moon. 
 Right ahead, the sister beam of the Pleiades clustered 
 together and at their view Laura's memory harked 
 back to her school days when she had studied a history 
 containing an engraving of Columbus' voyage. The 
 print pictured the discoverer on board at night, seated 
 near the foremast in deep meditation under a celestial 
 conclave as brilliant as it was to-night; then, as now, 
 a meteor would blaze for a moment and expire in the
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 237 
 
 star^paved courts of the empyrean. Just then the wind 
 veered: A melody, haunting, appealing, moving, came 
 from the salon, wafted by the night breeze. The air 
 was at once new and familiar ; the ear had never heard 
 it, yet it was known to the heart. Like all things of 
 beauty which are responsive, the song explained, gave 
 voice to something fine, latent or dormant within 
 Laura something she had often felt and wished to 
 express. The little Italian pianist's appreciation of 
 Saint-Saens' "Le Cygne" lifted Laura from the definite 
 anxieties of the world to the indefinite hopes of a 
 higher, a happier, a better life. 
 
 The following morning, quite early, Laura saw, 
 vaguely lying in the extreme distance between the sky 
 and waters, a thing dark, misty and immovable. 
 
 "Land! France!" some one cried. 
 
 "Land, yes," the commander rejoined, "but Eng- 
 land, not France once France, but now England. 
 Those two islands are all that William the Conqueror 
 retained of France. The people there are French to 
 the marrow, but they prefer the British government to 
 ours." Nearer, Laura saw that the long and high 
 strips of land, barren as the fishermen's domain, yet 
 picturesque withal, were separated by a rocky channel, 
 adventurous and as dangerous as a pirate's ambush. 
 In the center, a narrow rock, reaching to the height 
 of either island, which divided the aperture into two 
 passages of menacing, rocky projections. Both open- 
 ings were filmed with a fine hazy mist, in which there 
 flew and fluttered a swarm of guillemots, the rare 
 birds whose hunters are become rarer with succeeding 
 years. 
 
 In the olden time this divide was the scene of many 
 sea-tragedies. It was the pirates' decoy, where wreckers 
 on stormy nights luring distressed ships with signals 
 of refuge. Lighthouses now abounded along the shore. 
 There were two ports and no forts. Further on, when 
 the coast of France was reached, the forts became 
 many. To Laura they marred the picturesque coast of 
 Normandy; they were the surly guards of what she 
 had conceived to be a sunny country. As the steamer
 
 238 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 moved further up the watery valley known as the 
 English Channel, the water turned greener, the waves 
 less forceful and the double ("ship to the right") and 
 treble ("ship to the left") toots of the sailor perched 
 on the foremast became frequent. Steamers light, 
 white and speedy crossed the bow and stern of "La 
 Provence," which steamed slower as the ships became 
 more numerous. Laura was loath to leave the boat. 
 She had not been ill a moment and now the sun was 
 so gracious, the winds so caressing, the verdant Norman 
 shore with every foot of every acre industriously cul- 
 tivatedso restful to the eye. The sight of land had 
 rectified the stomachs of the unseaworthy; everybody 
 was on deck, eager to see, to feel, to comment. French- 
 Americans who had not seen their country for years 
 were quite as agitated as she who saw France for the 
 first time. 
 
 There were two simultaneous cries: "Havre!" 
 "Trouville!" 
 
 Instinctively Laura turned to the left ; an attractive 
 spot, on the slope of a hill; calm and so placed as to 
 have the sun from dawn to eventide. The houses of 
 restful architecture, in reposeful array from the hill 
 to the water's edge. The streets like private driveways. 
 On the beach a few men and women. The latter, when 
 not quite deferentially escorted by the former, were 
 attended by young or elderly companions of their own 
 sex. The place even from the ship's distance had an 
 exclusive, an aristocratic air. The resort, fashionable 
 under many monarchs, drew Laura's gaze until the ship 
 was piloted in the locks. Havre stood sheer before 
 her. The docks swarmed with people and the sombre 
 swarm was relieved by the uniform of the French sol- 
 diery. Though the ship's passengers were strangers 
 to those on shore, Laura was disappointed in not hear- 
 ing a demonstration of welcome; not a cheer was 
 heard, not a handkerchief waved. The crowd was 
 drawn by curiosity; it was coldly curious. Could this 
 be Latin effusiveness and then Laura remembered 
 that she was in Normandy, amongst the cautious and 
 calculating Normans. It was a relieving transition to
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 239 
 
 turn from the multitude to the streets. Some of the 
 thoroughfares were rifts into the mediaeval period; 
 small, narrow, devious, picturesque thoroughly of the 
 middle ages. 
 
 Laura landed. She designedly chose a hotel in 
 vogue in the last years of the restoration. The build- 
 ing was of old French, the landlady from the south 
 of France' was old French and the service was old 
 French. The welcome was effusive without a suspicion 
 of insincerity. Laura would remember the gracious 
 smile of the daughter with the dark, ardent eyes; the 
 eager bustle of the servants, the anticipatory bustle of 
 the manager. The narrow, spiral stairs; the winding, 
 mazy hallways; the high, carpetless room; the four- 
 teenth century bed, the seventeenth century couch, 
 and the eighteenth century chairs; the huge windows 
 extending from ceiling to floor, in three sections and 
 opening inwardly. And these windows faced the 
 square of Havre, susceptible to the zephyrs of the 
 Seine and the breezes of the Channel. In the center 
 of this sweeping space two statues ; one to the memory 
 of the author of "Paul and Virginia," the other in 
 remembrance of the dramatist of "Louis XI." Though 
 both were born here, neither the novelist Bernard de 
 St. Pierre nor the dramatist Casmir Delavigne were 
 associated in Laura's mind with Havre. It was a Nor- 
 man of Rouen who was constantly in thought as she 
 wandered from the docks to Tortoni's, from the sea 
 shore through the mediaeval passages called streets 
 across the vast carrefour and parks to the residential 
 heights. She thought of "Pierre et Jean," of the many 
 little master-pieces of the same writer that have Havre 
 for their locale. 
 
 The wind was forceful along the quay and as its 
 sea-laden breath permeated the wharf, "L'lvrogne" 
 came to memory; a whistle by one of the steamers in 
 port and "Pierre et Jean" filled the mind. Every step 
 in this city of modern water-front and fourteenth cen- 
 tury streets recalled that clear yet intense being whose 
 clearness was classic, whose realism was as unconscious, 
 as irrevocable and as inevitable as nature, whose direct-
 
 240 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 ness was epochal, whose artistry remains inimitable in 
 French letters and whose inborn psychology read the 
 miseries of the lowest peasant as well as the cultured 
 subtleties and worldly complexities of a cabinet min- 
 istera psychology that tempted him to penetrate into 
 the regions of the Forbidden Unknown, where he was 
 destroyed. 
 
 But the emotions which the thoughts of that Nor- 
 man stirred were deeper, more intimate when, the next 
 morning, the train entered the valley in which Rouen 
 lies. Perhaps she thought that at the view of the 
 former home of the Dukes of Normandy she should 
 have remembered its historical associations, recalled 
 that the ancient city was replete with stony reminis- 
 cences of knight-errantry and adventures of chivalry; 
 remembered that Robert the Devil had lived in yonder 
 house, that Jeanne d'Arc was burned in the market 
 place, that the heart of Richard the Lion-hearted lies 
 in the dome of that imposing church; that from this 
 soil sprang the hero of Hastings, the sons of Tancred 
 and so many more flowers of Norman knighthood. But 
 Laura was not ashamed to confess that she thought 
 only of the Norman author, until one of the most beau- 
 tiful women with which her eyes had ever been favored 
 appeared on the platform. A tall, curved, sinuous fig- 
 ure illuminated by a visage flushed by a delicate self- 
 consciousness of complex characteristics, potential 
 rather than pronounced. The auburn hair was uncon- 
 trollably profuse; the mouth large and warm. The 
 eyes full, negative as to hue they were not dark set 
 reposefully; they appeared to reflect all the other 
 colors ; they expressed a rich secular heart and an im- 
 mense temperament. 
 
 Her mien was perfect and absolutely self-possessed ; 
 her movement graceful, undulating. In attire she was 
 unostentatious. She seemed to Laura to possess in per- 
 fection what the Norman writer called the mysterious 
 attraction of sex which infallibly drew men. Yet Laura 
 conceived that this beauty would impart no joy as all 
 beautiful things should it was wholly disturbing. 
 
 Laura turned to something equally beautiful but of
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 241 
 
 an altogether different beauty a river. She knew it 
 was the Seine. It looked serene in the Norman mead- 
 ows. The train crossed and recrossed it, sped beside 
 it for miles. Here the stream coursed through a farm 
 which had devolved from peasant father to peasant 
 son for centuries every inch of the soil carefully cul- 
 tivatedand the houses all encircled by a double line 
 of high, serried trees; there it paralleled the white 
 highway; again it flowed between calcareous hills. 
 Anon it was bordered by pretty landscapes. Very nar- 
 row and low steamers crowded with excursionists ap- 
 peared. Row boats passed. Electric launches flitted 
 by. Laura felt that the fulfillment of a long and ardent 
 expectation was near. Suddenly the river was lost. 
 Large white mansions (many wit/h the legend "A 
 louer") posited in thickly wooded parks leaped into 
 view. 
 
 Then all was shrouded in the smoke and darkness 
 of a tunnel. When light returned there was a reful- 
 gence of kaleidoscopic splendor. The sun, seemingly 
 passionate "with partiality, lit up a mighty, a majestic, 
 a magnificent city. Laura had never seen but she 
 knew that tower, that gilded dome, that church on the 
 heights and the one below, between the streams; that 
 exotic edifice resembling a monstrous bird about to 
 take flight; that arch and those woods just beneath 
 her she knew that it was Paris. 
 
 The depot was not like other depots. The ap- 
 proaches were not dark and grimy and unwholesome; 
 the streets were not defiled ; the houses not smoked and 
 leprous; the air was not vitiated. The environments 
 were touched with age, but they were clear and clean 
 and wholesome. The tenements were on high embank- 
 ments that flanked both sides of the wide space strewn 
 with tracks. Those old buildings were laved and pic- 
 turesque; were of a uniform height and made an 
 agreeable sky line. Heads of dark hair and eyes looked 
 out of the windows some small, those of children; 
 others large, those of mothers. There was activity 
 and animation everywhere, but no harsh or strident 
 noises. Bright colors predominated here a red apron,
 
 242 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 there a high-hued kerchief on a girl's head but no 
 garishness. In an instant the absorbing panorama 
 passed from Laura 's intent gaze and they dashed under 
 a very high and an immensely expansive roof of glass. 
 
 "We are in Paris, my dear." 
 
 Laura heard but did not heed Mrs. Quincy 's remark, 
 for her senses were enslaved by the absolutely new sit- 
 uation. Here was something bewilderingly novel. There 
 was great activity without noise or hurry. The clank 
 of wheels, the hiss of steam, the puffs from smoke stacks 
 seemed tempered. At the long and high iron gate 
 which separated the trains from the waiting rooms there 
 was a row of sentinels, one for each platform, and at 
 one of these exits the guard took Laura's tickets. 
 
 "This way, my dear; the carriages are here." 
 
 Seeing she had not heard, Mrs. Quincy took Laura 
 by the arm and half motherly, half joculary : "My girl, 
 you'll 'have to keep your head better than this or you'll 
 be lost." 
 
 Before they could reach the coach panoply they 
 were countered by something important the customs 
 office. Both' had forgotten it. Laura was reminded of 
 the function by the word "Octroi" over the first door 
 they were about to enter. They found themselves amid 
 a crowd four or five deep awaiting in turn before a 
 long counter the examination of their satchels. Mrs. 
 Quincy suggested that they go back among the trucks 
 and trunks and secure all of their baggage at once. 
 
 They were confronted by an alert little fellow, thor- 
 oughly military, stern and martinet-like. Laura pointed 
 to her trunk: "Voila, monsieur!" The inspector had 
 a mouthful of interrogations, which he emitted with 
 such velocity that Laura could not keep pace with his 
 questions. Her somewhat helpless hesitation stirred 
 his professional suspicion. He ordered an assistant to 
 open the trunk. During his brief inspection of her 
 effects Laura inspected the inspector. Plainly a drill 
 sergeant; hair and mustache closely cropped and dead 
 white; the eyes metallic blue, restive and keen. His 
 gestures quick and of military precision. Those orbs 
 their hard vivacity, their military keenness suggested
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 243 
 
 fife and drum and somehow brought Napoleon to mind, 
 though they were not at all Napoleonic. Perhaps it 
 was that Laura thought the little fellow had been proud 
 to serve under the Little Corporal. 
 
 Finding everything satisfactory, his manner loos- 
 ened quickly. He doffed his hat in a way that exceeded 
 formality a requital, probably, for his severe suspic- 
 ionand pointed to the counter. By this time two of 
 the minor inspectors of portable baggage were unoccu- 
 pied. To Laura's amazement they simply drew an 
 unintelligible chalk line through the center of the two 
 stachels, smiled, inclined their heads politely and indi- 
 cated a conclusion with "C'est tout." 
 
 In a moment they were in the outer section of the 
 great station ; it was more like an annex than an integral 
 part of the building ; or yet, more precisely, like a porte 
 cochere a colossal porte cochere vaulted and so long 
 that the other end seemed the outlet from a tunnel. 
 Again was Laura surprised. There was no commotion 
 in the prolonged line of cabmen on the other side ; she 
 expected an importunate rush among the Jehus; but 
 no; some looked at her with a disinterested stare; 
 others were lazily indifferent. Laura beckoned timidly 
 to the nearest. He remained immovable. Mrs. Quincy 
 did not interpose until that moment, but now a vivid 
 red tinge had touched her cheek bones and her eyes 
 hardened. 
 
 "What's the French for cabman?" she asked de- 
 cisively. 
 
 "Cocher." 
 
 She yelled the word at the fellow directly across 
 and accompanied it with a threatening gesture. The 
 man took up his reins indolently, directed his horse 
 slowly to the waiting women and Laura named the 
 hotel. He contracted his nose in displeasure plainly 
 the distance displeased him. 
 
 The vehicle was roomy, open, comfortable, and once 
 seated Laura forgot the annoyance of the moment be- 
 fore. The momentary embarrassment had given way 
 to a sensation akin to that which permeated her when 
 she was about to take her first lesson in French. A kind
 
 244 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 of trembling adoration for the thing she had loved since 
 girlhood as one may love that which is distant and 
 indistinct. Everything French had fascinated her; 
 French history, French literature, French manners and 
 above all French refinement. Now the feeling was in- 
 expressibly heightened. Before, she had entered her 
 France through a book; now, she would enter the real 
 France France itself. Her heart fluttered. At the 
 first turn of the carriage her senses seemed to have 
 suspended their functions; they were overwhelmed by 
 their environments. She barely apprehended she was 
 passing a building of unimagined magnificence ; barely 
 apprehended a sign "Avenue de 1'Opera." She could 
 see nothing in detail ; she was as if in a dream of bril- 
 liancy where everything dazzled. Her mind was still 
 catching breath, she was still panting mentally when 
 she was calmed by sight of an edifice that she intui- 
 tively knew was holy. The other creation had evoked 
 a vision of sumptuousness, of refined sensuousness ; 
 this one of spiritual awe. The horse was driven at a high 
 pace and Laura had just time to read Magdalenae. Mrs. 
 Quincy a Catholic perceiving the name, His figure 
 and that of the repentant woman, crossed herself. 
 
 And then I/aura was carried into a scene of such 
 splendor that she could not contain herself. She wept. 
 She breathed Greek ether; she was in the sweeping 
 spaciousness of the Greeks; she saw Greek purity, 
 Greek grandeur. In this seemingly infinite space was 
 an obelisk, glistening in the golden sunlight. On either 
 side of it were stately fountains, whose emissions 
 thrown from the mouth of fish, dolphins and other 
 oceanic emblems ended in lacy, graceful sprays; 
 they were undulous and suggestive of the sea with their 
 Nereids wreathed in scallops, corals and seaweed. 
 Around the obelisk and fountain a roadway broad 
 enough for a score of chariots abreast. Flanking these 
 a gorgeous pavement, white, a square wide, and at the 
 extremity a series of seated figures. Surrounding all, 
 gardens, through whose trees penetrated edifices of 
 marvelous beauty, palaces, churches, legislative halls. 
 
 The coachman, observing the impression this archi-
 
 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 245 
 
 tectural magnificence had made upon his fare, remarked 
 relentingly : "La place est belle, n'est-pas?" Laura 
 heard but could not answer. Later, three weeks later, 
 when she had partly found herself, she tried to tell 
 Rebecca Rosenau in a letter what she felt. "If I 
 were endowed with a sixth faculty, nobly trained 
 and exercised to convey the thoughts, feelings, and 
 sensations of our deep and unknown selves, I might 
 give you a conception of what I felt and thought, 
 of what I was sensible wihen I saw the Place. To use 
 the common phrase of being in another world is a plat- 
 itude which expresses nothing -at all; but taken in a 
 most literal sense the "words mean something. If I 
 had been suddenly lifted to another planet, a planet 
 dazzlingly beautiful, of a beauty unimaginable, un- 
 dreamable, I had not been more lost than I was when 
 I entered the Place. 1 ' 
 
 Another turn and they were in a road of sur- 
 passing splendor, formed, it had seemed, in a park of 
 regal conception. Laura read the legend on one of the 
 high, artistically designed electric pillars: Avenue de 
 Champs Elysee. Ah, they were appropriately named, 
 these elysran fields; for fields of delight to senses and 
 soul they were, and between these series of luxuriant 
 gardens lay the grandiose boulevard terminating in 
 an arch which was bathed in the purple rays of a 
 setting sun. This powder from the yellow planet also 
 was poured upon the majestic thoroughfare which was 
 charged with two streams of flashing vehicles going in 
 opposite directions. 
 
 The vehicle stopped before a vision in white marble ; 
 solid, yet graceful, bold in outline yet delicate in exe- 
 cution. 
 
 "Ici, Mesdames!" 
 
 The coachman had hardly uttered the word when 
 two liveried attendants were at the carriage door. 
 They were all that reminded Laura of an hotel; other- 
 wise it was as if she were entering a palace prepared 
 for her reception. There were no gaping or inquisitive 
 guests inside or out. Save for the gentle splash of the 
 fountain in the rotunda, perfect quiet. The chief clerk
 
 246 THE SEA'S MAGIC MONOTONY. 
 
 bowed in a discreet crescent, but said nothing until 
 Laura and Mrs. Quincy had registered. Then he spoke 
 the English of an Englishman. They were conducted 
 to three rooms facing the boulevard. 
 
 Laura began feverishly to disrobe. Mrs. Quincy 
 looked at her inquiringly: "What are you doing? 
 What is the matter?" 
 
 "I want to change my dress and go out I want to 
 see Paris." 
 
 "No, you must not do that. You must rest. Don't 
 be in a hurry. Don't try to see too much in a short 
 time. If you do you'll become exhausted and in the 
 end disgusted. Make yourself comfortable. Order 
 your dinner brought to the room for this time. Read 
 a little while and retire early. See your modists in the 
 morning. Drive around an hour or so in the afternoon 
 and if you are not too tired go to the theatre in the 
 evening. But don't try to see too much in one day."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 Laura dreamed that night not of Paris, of Havre, 
 of Rouen, or of the sea, but of Paul Bourgeon. Why 
 that French author should have troubled her sleep 
 passed her comprehension. To dream of Beaupassant, 
 of Azola, of Bidet or even of Sartat had been compre- 
 hensible, for she had read these writers quite com- 
 pletely, especially Beaupassant, and had a wish of 
 meeting one of them, but of Bourgeon she had not 
 thought. She was not familiar with his works; had 
 read, indeed, only one of them. Why then should she 
 ah, yes! she had once read a fragment of science 
 which had strayed into a newspaper column to the 
 effect that the last thing touching thought just before 
 the mind loses itself in sleep will invariably be the 
 subject of a dream. She must therefore have seen 
 something or somebody that reminded her of Bourgeon 
 as slumber softly rendered her unconscious. Her 
 psychological curiosity satisfied, the wish to meet with 
 the famous Parisian recurred vaguely. But how? Who 
 could introduce her? Her letters of introduction to 
 correspondents of American journals? Perhaps 
 
 "Laura, I'm ready, are you?" 
 
 Mrs. Quincy's question was a reminder of her prime 
 motive in coming to Paris her gowns. A sign from 
 the porter and there was one cab less in the long line 
 filed at a respectful distance from the hotel. It was 
 a low, roomy vehicle, and as the day was young the 
 cabman took it for granted that his fares were in no 
 hurry. He drove gently down the wonderfully beautiful 
 avenue across the still and more beautiful Place, and 
 into a bustling, dashing street which Laura noticed 
 bore the euphonious name, Rue de Rivoli. He soon 
 
 (47)
 
 248 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 turned and in a few paces was in a broad circle that 
 contained, exactly in the center, a dark, round monu- 
 ment that lifted in the air, away above the harmonious 
 sky line made by the series of hotels within the circular 
 space. There were soldiers and cannon, guns and 
 swords, drums and fifes, and battle scenes chiseled 
 upon that towering memorial which was crowned by 
 a figure in Roman costume. 
 
 Cocher, qu'est-ce que c'est la?" 
 
 "Mais, c'est Lui!" There was unfeigned amaze- 
 ment in his answer. 
 
 "Lui? Qu'est-ce que Lui?" she persisted bravely. 
 
 "Mais mais Napoleon! C'est la colonne Ven- 
 dome. ' ' 
 
 Now she knew, and she was rather discomforted 
 not to have recognized the original of the many prints 
 she had seen of that shaft which was made up of cannon 
 captured by that marvelous warrior. 
 
 Again a quick turn and almost directly another. It 
 was a short street, but brilliant with fine shops. At 
 a corner the horse was reined. Laura looked up saw 
 the name Chevet. A simple, modest store, two wooden 
 models perfectly gowned in an unpretentious window, 
 nothing more. Inside a handsome boy in uniform at 
 the door; a woman on a stool within a wire enclosure 
 opening and filing letters ; two men clerks, one of whom 
 advanced politely. 
 
 Mons. Chevet? (The interrogation had a note of 
 polite surprise.) But mons. Chevet never came down 
 from St. Cloud before eleven o'clock. And mademoi- 
 selle had made no engagement with him? How unfor- 
 tunate. It is absolutely necessary for Mons. Chevet 's 
 clients to make appointments. Mons. Chevet 's clients 
 are many. A letter of introduction from Mons. Gars? 
 Oh, very good, very good indeed. If mademoiselle 
 will permit an hour will now be fixed. Say at 11 :30 to- 
 morrow morning. Ordinarily he would not dare to 
 take it upon himself to make the appointment, but 
 coming from Mons. Gars most valued and esteemed 
 client mademoiselle may be sure to make her ar- 
 rangements to-morrow.
 
 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 249 
 
 To-morrow then. In the meanwhile why noi present 
 other letters to the American correspondents of the 
 Dial or the Courrier? The idea was acted upon the 
 more readily that the Courrier office was the cabman 
 said only two blocks away. They were hardly in the 
 cab than they stood before a building in a spirited 
 street named Boulevard de Capucin Laura had 
 quickly formed the habit of looking at the blue legend 
 at the corner giving the names of thoroughfares a 
 building made conspicuous by a large and glaringly 
 white sign announcing the office of the American news- 
 paper. The interior was altogether modest and it was 
 seen that the two small rooms in the entresol were the 
 offices of not only the Courrier but a dozen other Ameri- 
 can journals and periodicals as well. A tall, slender, 
 gray-haired and youthful looking individual re- 
 sponded to the inquiry: Theodore Stanley. In thor- 
 oughly Yankee inflections he was glad to meet his 
 countrywomen. With the directness characteristic 
 of his race he promised at once to introduce Laura 
 to any of the famous people she should elect; or, 
 rather, Mr. Woodlock would perform the function of 
 introductions. Mr. Woodlock was presented. An 
 entirely boyish young man. Though of a self-effac- 
 ing nature his high English breeding was perceptible 
 in a glance and his English was as restful to the ear 
 as his official superior's tones was grating. He sug- 
 gested that they go to Le Barbier; it was an oppor- 
 tune time before noon for the visit, unless the ladies 
 wished to spend half an hour in looking over the 
 American newspapers. No, Laura would defer that 
 pleasure she almost said duty for a few days. Any- 
 how, she read French readily, so would read the Paris 
 dailies and thus keep herself informed. A suspicion 
 of a smile flitted over the young Englishman; he was 
 afraid Miss Darnby would find very little news of 
 her country in the French papers. A line or two of 
 political information appeared once or twice a week but 
 seldom more or oftener. Even the doings of the coun- 
 tries immediately beyond the borders were treated 
 meagerly. Paris was for Paris quite completely the
 
 250 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 residum was for the provinces. Had Miss Darnby 
 observed that they were walking? Then perhaps she 
 preferred to walk. It was not far anyway. Laura had 
 observed so well that she scarcely heard his remarks 
 about the Paris press. The leafy boulevard itself 
 did not draw her observation so much as the people 
 in it. For the first time she saw with clear recog- 
 nition and in detail. The men belied the foreign fal- 
 lacy of being small of stature, of being nervous, mer- 
 curial and generally irresponsible in movement. Three 
 of five of the men wiho passed her were above the aver- 
 age height and they were handsome. Nearly all of the 
 young men were bearded in the Henry IVth style. 
 Those who had crossed the middle-age line wore mus- 
 taches or were smooth shaven. They moved leisurely, 
 always observantly. Many were dignified, many dis- 
 tingue; a few were heavy of face and body and of 
 movement. Remembering Havre, the contrast in 
 complexion was striking. Here and there a light brown 
 head with metal blue eyes was met. Interspersed 
 again were 'heads and physiques familiar to Laura in 
 her own country. Of these, the young men were alert 
 in manner; alert blue eyes, alert faces of high healthy 
 color; tall, slight and the glance a spirited fusion 
 of the mischievous and daring. The older men were 
 somewhat bulky of figure; their countenances smooth, 
 massive and deeply character-lined; the eyes were the 
 eyes of the young men, a glittering and interchange- 
 able blue gray. The heads were also massive and when 
 not whitened were from blue-black to brown. When 
 Laura heard one of them speak she was surprised not 
 to hear a brogue. "Why some of these men look so 
 Irish," she remarked. "I could have sworn they were 
 Irish priests or politicians." 
 
 "Quite natural. What you see is a racial affinity. 
 They or their ancestors came from the Celtic provinces. 
 Paulus of the Amibassadeurs is a thorough Celt. To 
 you he will seem an Irish comedian. ' ' 
 
 But the more part of the men 'were swarthy, the 
 pronounced black hair and eyes of the extreme south
 
 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 251 
 
 or the modified swarthiness of the country not go far 
 south. Their aspect was Roman. 
 
 The predominant hue among the women likewise 
 was Roman. Laura was struck with the similarity 
 of carriage. From the shop girl to the woman shopping 
 the walk was remarkably similar; light, easy, grace- 
 ful; the lightness, ease and grace of cheerful insouci- 
 ance. At one place an accident had befallen the street 
 sprinkler. The water had gushed upon the curb and 
 made a little pool. The way the women managed it 
 was a wonder even to Laura, who had studied such 
 niceties. They would stop for half a minute beneath 
 a door way on either side of the wet spot while they 
 picked up their skirts in little gathers in the left hand, 
 draw the bottom tight against the right ankle and 
 start off, lifting the pleats airily before them. Both 
 the dexterity of the folding and the lightness of the 
 holding were touches of grace beyond the reach of art. 
 
 Up the resplendent boulevard they continued, 
 Laura finding every step of the way crowded with 
 interest. 
 
 "You of the theatre will be interested to know that 
 across the way is the Varieties, where many of Offen- 
 bach's opera bouffes were produced." 
 
 A narrow front of Greek architecture, wedged in 
 among a series of shops and cafes; very conspicuous 
 amidst the buildings of uniform style. Placards placed 
 at either side of the entrance to the lobby announced 
 a revival of "Les Brigands." 
 
 They turned on a street to the left; not many steps 
 and they stood before a crescent sign, "Le Barbier," the 
 famous French journal. Unpretentious in dimensions 
 but highly ornamental in design, the newspaper build- 
 ing had an entrance like that of a theatre. A stiff 
 and high porter in a gorgeous uniform saluted as they 
 passed. Further down the lobby another uniform of 
 equal height and rigidity saluted. A short turn and 
 they were in a narrow corridor lined with doors. An 
 elderly gentleman in black, supporting, apparently, 
 with difficulty a dome-like head, bowed low, and an- 
 ticipated Woodlock with "Monsieur Pelletier?"
 
 252 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 Precisely. 
 
 Would they take the pains to be seated while he 
 announced them? 
 
 In the few minutes they waited there was a con- 
 tinuous in and out movement of the many doors. 
 Young men with a busy air hurried to and fro carry- 
 ing fluttering proof sheets; older men, compositors 
 in blouses spotted with ink, dodged past them. A nerv- 
 ous little man appeared elegantly attired the ele- 
 gance was somewhat too striking, the Prince Albert 
 molded too tightly at the waist, the spats too broad, 
 the shoes too pointed. "The society reporter," Wood- 
 lock explained. 
 
 Other journalists followed; but they were seem- 
 ingly of more importance ; they were in no hurry ; their 
 step was more deliberate, their manner more grave 
 and all wore black slouched hats, as though this form 
 of head covering would distinguish them from aver- 
 age mortals. Among them Woodlock saluted a high 
 imposing individual in black frock and white cravat; 
 straight as a drill sergeant; head somewhat whitened 
 very erect; the mustache thick and horizontal and 
 insolently pointed. "Scholl the famous chroniqueur, 
 and the last of the Boulevardiers of the old school; 
 Henri Murger's friend and the friend or foe of every 
 celebrity since the old Latin Quarter day. He is paid 
 $10,000 a year for a couple of articles a week. Oh, 
 here's Pelletier." 
 
 The man who said in a caressing voice that he 
 was altogether enchanted to make the ladies' acquaint- 
 ance seemed soft and smooth in every particular. Of 
 feminine height and delicacy; the large brown and 
 gentle eyes of a woman; although bearded black 
 silken hairs the beard did not conceal a small, ex- 
 pressive mouth. The white hand which he extended 
 to Woodlock was delicate. His bow, his every move- 
 ment signified grace. First he would beg his visitors 
 to come to his office. On the way up the stairs he 
 assured Laura in unctuous accents that it was an 
 unusual pleasure for him to meet Americans. The 
 American ladies were not only more beautiful than
 
 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 253 
 
 the French but they had the Parisienne's esprit; and 
 then they understood everything so quickly. As for 
 the men, they were phenomenal, nothing less than phe- 
 nomenal. What force! What energy! Nothing was 
 impossible for an American. They performed the 
 wonders of the world. Lowering his voice in sudden 
 transition he admitted that Le Barbier was partial to 
 Americans, for the paper had many subscribers over 
 there. The door opened and Laura stepped into what 
 appeared to be a luxurious library; richly carpeted, 
 elegantly tapestried. In the center, a large heavy 
 sumptuous table, the black hue relieved by a white urn 
 filled with roses. Chairs of every size and descrip- 
 tion. The room contained a semi-circular bookcase. 
 Laura had been in the editorial department only an 
 instant when her attention was drawn to the portraits 
 on the wall. Many of them she recognized. It was 
 a gallery of famous faces from Balzac down to Paul 
 Bourget, and Pelletier in accents of pride said that 
 they had all been contributors to Le Barbier. He was 
 showing the manuscripts of some of these celebrated 
 authors when a liveried porter opened the door and 
 in hurried but deferential tone whispered something. 
 As he caught the name the editor's air of easy courtesy 
 took on a shade of deference: "Ask him to step in." 
 The portrait that Laura had just been studying 
 was ushered into the room. The editor turned to 
 the newcomer effusively and shook hands eagerly. 
 Laura recognized the identity between the picture and 
 the man, though it was a telling instance of how far 
 the cry between the canvas and the living being. A 
 strong head set firmly and calmly upon large, mus- 
 cular shoulders. The face a strange blending of con- 
 tradictory elements ; it was martial and dreamy, sensu- 
 ous and bourgeois. The hair coarse but wavy, short 
 but thrown back, in the fashion of a musician; the 
 forehead broad but low; the eyes large and brown, 
 by turns alert and dreamful ; the nose heavy but strong. 
 The carelessly brushed brown mustache, and the nar- 
 row stubble beneath the lower lip did not conceal a 
 large, somewhat loose but vigorous mouth. In the
 
 254 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 same glance he gave the idea of strength and indif- 
 ference, of a dreamer and a materialist; of frank- 
 ness and reticence; of a poet and a man of the world. 
 But through the conflicting impressions Laura felt 
 in an overwhelming way that she was in the pres- 
 ence of a man rather than a writer. The picture had 
 told her nothing, but before the editor pronounced 
 ' ' Monsieur Beaupassant ' ' she knew instinctively it was 
 he to those who had read him his strangely impress- 
 ive presence revealed it. His voice harmonized with 
 his personality i/t was what she had expected a deep, 
 round, vibrant baritone with a low nervous note that 
 drew her clandestinely. When she said in an awed, 
 nervous manner that she was very pleased to make 
 his acquaintance, he answered in English, correctly 
 but with a definite accent: "Ah, the pleasure is mine; 
 it is always a pleasure for me to meet Americans. ' ' 
 
 He shook hands with Woodlock, bowed genially 
 to Mrs. Quincy, who, though she knew nothing of him, 
 frankly looked her admiration of his manly appear- 
 ance. It was when he turned for a moment to Mrs. 
 Quincy that Laura noticed that he was not tall; the 
 illusion, at first, of his height was made by his mus- 
 cularity, his athletic strength ; a gladiator whom nature 
 had forgotten to endow with the final perfection, 
 stature. 
 
 "You are an author I have always wished to meet. 
 I had read only one of your books when I wished 
 to know all about you." 
 
 She was more amazed at her bold and direct com- 
 plimment than he, who allowed an outline of a smile 
 to flit over his countenance. He said nothing in reply 
 but asked with a suspicion of banter in the tone: 
 "And now that you have met me?" 
 
 "I am more than gratified. I expected to meet an 
 author, but I have also met a man." 
 
 His personality had inspired Laura to a compli- 
 ment to which he ,was palpably susceptible. He gave 
 her a deep, a profoundly interested look. 
 
 "You are, I believe, visiting this office. May I be 
 permitted to accompany you?"
 
 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 255 
 
 This was his answer to her uncontrollably sincere 
 compliment a refined, a delicate, an incisively ap- 
 preciative reciprocity. 
 
 "But you wish to confer with Mons. Pelletier." 
 
 "That can wait. Monsieur Pelletier, I have Miss 
 Darnby's permission to see the office with you." 
 
 Going up the stair, behind the others, Laura re- 
 marked: "Mons. Pelletier is is " She hesitated, 
 she could not find the word. 
 
 "Feminine you wish to say, I suppose," he inter- 
 posed. "Yet he is not. In manner he is feline. That 
 softness, that delicacy is merely the velvet glove that 
 covers a hand of iron. He is a fighter. He fears 
 nothing on earth. And he conducts his staif by the 
 rule of absolutism Could you guess what I came 
 for to-day ? It is to tell him that I shall sue his paper 
 for libel. And he knows it." 
 
 There was something in his element and something 
 in hers that made mutual confidences irresistible. 
 
 Laura now asked why with a directness and a tone 
 which were almost familiar. Le Barbier, he answered, 
 had imputed to him an intrigue of a peculiarly dis- 
 creditable nature. It was invented out of hand, simply 
 because he recently had contributed several articles 
 to a rival journal. Now Laura noticed they were in 
 a theatre. The stage a little gem; the diminutive 
 auditorium a pit and balcony a dream in white and 
 gold. "Pretty, isn't it?" But Beaupassant continued 
 an advertisement paid by people of the theatre. 
 Every European player or cantatrice who comes to Paris 
 is invited to display her talents here. The invitation is 
 a courteous synoym for a command. They who ignore 
 these requests are made to regret it. An advertise- 
 ment for the paper, nothing more. This was all that 
 could be of interest to her. The rest was machinery. 
 There was nothing so repugnant to the artistic tem- 
 perament as machinery it was Beaupassant speaking. 
 Art and mechanism were irreconcilable. He addressed 
 Pelletier: "You will please cease your aspersions; 
 otherwise we shall be embroiled in disagreeable litiga- 
 tion."
 
 256 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 Turning again to Laura he asked her hotel; and 
 would she give 'him permission to call? Laura gave 
 a confused yes; a confusion in which sentiments of 
 an overwhelming compliment, of an embarassment of 
 propriety, of a dread of fascination were mingled. He 
 muttered au revoir and walked away abruptly. 
 
 The editor showed them the manuscripts of famous 
 writers, but Laura saw nothing, heard nothing. The 
 man in whose presence she had been only a few min- 
 utes occupied her intimately and she did not come to 
 complete social consciousness until Woodlock spoke of 
 him, immediately Le Barbier's ornate facade was out 
 of view. 
 
 "Are you aware that you have performed almost a 
 miracle? You have, I assure you. You have made 
 Beaupassant talk; more marvelous still, he has men- 
 tioned something about his preferences and his antipa- 
 thies. It is a precedent in his reputation for reticence. 
 He is a silent and inscrutable fellow. Nobody knows 
 him. I have heard that Aloza, Bourgeon, Bidet and 
 others who are supposed to know him as nearly as 
 it is possible to know the man do not understand 
 your favorite novelist. He's as taciturn as a Bedouin 
 about himself, and his own affairs. Nobody knows 
 what he is doing. His nearest friends are not aware 
 that he has written anything until the story or novel 
 is in print. Occasionally he will discuss a subject 
 of art, but it is always with clarity and precision; 
 he will tolerate nothing that is nebulous or abstruse 
 or indefinite or undefined. You must say what you 
 mean in clear, plain terms. And with all that his per- 
 sonality is mysterious ; there is even something question- 
 able about his birth. His mother is gifted mentally. 
 She is the highest type of the brilliant Frenchwoman. 
 Her husband is connected with the Bourse, but they 
 separated years ago. Meanwhile Flaubert took an 
 extraordinary interest in Beaupassant. He educated 
 him. For years he was his literary instructor. Flau- 
 bert and Madame Beaupassant were friends from child- 
 hood and there are whispers that the separation of 
 the Beaupassants was caused by the husband's jealousy
 
 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 257 
 
 of Flaubert. There are inuendoes that Flaubert's 
 paternal interest in the boy was prompted by some- 
 thing more vital than the mere wish to develop the 
 youth's literary talents. It has occurred to me that 
 a suspicion of his illegitimacy has created the secret- 
 ive strain in Beaupassant; the same kind of morbid 
 trait with which the younger Dumas is affected; but 
 in Dumas the morbidity vents itself in an increasing 
 denunciation of society. Beaupassant never speaks 
 of his mother. He is a profound favorite with Dumas. 
 Dumas is his second godfather as Flaubert was his 
 first. Dumas wanted him to marry, to propose himself 
 for the Academy, but he would do neither. He has 
 sworn there are two things he will never be, a member 
 of the Academy and a Benedict. He is a great favor- 
 ite with the women of Paris, but he will never allow 
 himself to be drawn too affectionately to any one of 
 them. He wants to be complete master of his thoughts 
 and feelings, he says. He has intermittent trouble 
 with his eyes, so he engaged an amenuensis, who hap- 
 pened to be a highly cultured and beautiful woman. 
 Finding himself attracted toward her, he jumped into 
 a yacht and roamed the ocean until he forgot her." 
 
 "Has he no companion whatever?" 
 
 "Not in an intimate sense, no. Bourgeon and a 
 newspaper man, La Pierre, are perhaps nearer to him 
 than anybody, but they know only the outer man. I 
 know all this merely from hearsay. I am giving you 
 nothing more authentic than the gossip that circu- 
 lates in journalistic circles. It may all be true, it 
 may all be untrue. I have retailed the small talk of 
 newspaperdom because I see you admire the man's 
 work and so do I. I think he is the most perfect, 
 the most finished of French novelists. I would I 
 knew more of him, but I meet him casually only, just 
 as I met him to-day. When we meet alone he asks 
 me about America and his questions are always 
 intelligent; unlike most Frenchmen, however, edu- 
 cated, he has a correct understanding of American 
 affairs in general. Though nobody knows, everybody 
 is acquainted with Beaupassant. When he chooses he
 
 258 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 goes in all circles; aristocratic, bourgeois, plebian, 
 monarchistic, Republican, socialist, all are happy to 
 entertain him. He is one of the few men in the lit- 
 erary world who has no enemies among men of let- 
 ters. He is liked by all and he reciprocates by dis- 
 liking nobody. While he is a mystery to all, he under- 
 stands everybody. His understanding of character, 
 especially of women, is marvelous; but again I speak 
 at second hand, or at best from his books. They are 
 playing his drama, "Musotte," at the Gymnase. Per- 
 haps you would like to see it. I should be pleased 
 to secure seats for you. ' ' 
 
 Yes, but not that night, later. First she must see 
 the Comedie Frangaise, must attend the Opera, the 
 Grand and the Comique ; after these the others. 
 
 Woodlock advised her -to go to the Frangaise that 
 evening. Pailleron's "Le monde ou Ton s 'ennui" was 
 the comedy. The refinement of the company was well 
 exampled in this piece. They came to a square, busy 
 but unhurried; metropolitan, still town-like; the trees 
 lent a rural air; an exclusive yet an inviting atmos- 
 phere; modern yet historical; Laura felt that she was 
 in the presence of an illustrious tradition, of an art 
 under the aegis of an artistic people. Facing her an 
 oblong building with an arched roof. Unpretentious 
 yet imposing; inornate yet harmonious. Under the 
 portico a small poster headed "Comedie Frangaise" 
 announcing the play for a week. There were two box 
 offices, a woman in each. At the windows a soldier 
 who took Woodlock 's order for seats repeated the 
 order to the women and handed the tickets and change 
 to the Englishman with a military salute. 
 
 In the evening their vehicle was the eleventh in 
 the row; but so rapidly and withal so quietly were 
 these carriages dismissed that in a few minutes Laura 
 and Mrs. Quincy were passing the superb soldiers 
 standing near the pillars which, in rigidity, they re- 
 sembled. Directly they were in a wide semi-circular 
 vestibule, where they followed the many women who 
 preceded them from the carriages. They entered a 
 large, lateral apartment. Middle-aged and old women,
 
 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 259 
 
 all fat, were exchanging metal checks for apparel. 
 Emerging from the wardrobe one of these looked at 
 their seat number and conducted them to their aisle. 
 
 "Why, are all the ushers of Paris women?" 
 
 "Yes, that much I remember of Paris. And I 
 remember that somebody told me they were made up 
 of women who had failed as actresses and of former 
 mistresses of government officials." 
 
 Laura lost Mrs. Quincy's reply in viewing the in- 
 terior. There were many galleries, but they were nar- 
 row. They hugged the walls and left the auditorium 
 free and spacious. The boxes, though numerous, were 
 not huddled in family or familiar proximity; they 
 were politely segregated and some of them extended 
 from the galleries. 
 
 But details and audience quickly vanished from 
 Laura in the consciousness of the traditions of the 
 house. A feeling almost sacred, almost hollowed, im- 
 pregnated her as she thought of the theatre's past. 
 It was this organization that had been led by Moliere, 
 that produced his ever-living comedies; this that in- 
 spired Racine and Corneille. This the company with 
 which Adrienne Lecouvieur and Talma and Mars and 
 Rachel had been associated. The date on the curtain 
 took her back more than two centuries. She was about 
 to witness the art of players whose ancestry sur- 
 passed the splendors of all European playhouses. The 
 traditions of the place swelled her heart, filled her 
 imagination and inclined her head to reverence. She 
 now felt that she was in the presence of something 
 consecrated. Classicism was in the air; a place 
 where a precious torch had been passed on from gen- 
 eration to generation. 
 
 She was aroused from her reverie of veneration 
 by hurried raps on the stage floor ; these were followed 
 by three distinct knocks. The curtain ascended 
 slowly. A thrill of pleasure permeated her when 
 the cast came on. With her experience of the drama 
 and her ready perception she perceived that the 
 Comedie Frangaise was not only better tban other 
 companies, but entirely different. She noticed that
 
 260 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 its manner was suggested by that great body of un- 
 written laws which none has in his keeping but every 
 member has in his memory and respect. Many of 
 the women were beautiful; to a few nature had not 
 contributed an embarassment of physical charms. But 
 all young and old were graceful, agreeable, sym- 
 pathetic, ladylike. They spoke with purity, in melo- 
 dious voices; their gestures were agreeable; their 
 movements harmonious and elegant and their attitudes 
 always pleased the eye. There was no false note, no 
 crudity; no awkwardness, no roughness. The men 
 could command the illusion of gentlemen a form of 
 dramatic art apparently primary yet counting its prac- 
 tical illustration not convincingly exponible by the 
 greater part of actors of Laura's day, whose air, in- 
 tonation and presence spelled good fellowship and 
 familiarity rather than innate gentility. Here all 
 was smooth and finished, harmonious and complete 
 and elaborated by consummate artistry. Nothing was 
 deemed trivial. Attention was accorded the smallest 
 detail. The servant who took a hat or a cane per- 
 formed his function as a well ordered domestic in a 
 country famed for its graces ; the marquis who removed 
 his gloves removed them leisurely, unostentatiously, 
 almost imperceptibly, occupied the while, seemingly, 
 with an infinitude of nothings. 
 
 The actress who played the part of duchess drew 
 Laura particularly. She was a genuine duchess; a 
 woman who was aware but not self-conscious of her 
 splendid ancestry ; who combated the inevitable ascend- 
 ency of democracy with unembittered mockery, yet 
 flouted the uncompromisingly defiant attitude of the 
 reactionary families (families much more recent in 
 heraldry than that of the Duchess, in St. Germain), 
 who accepted her niece's radical husband with frank 
 admiration, observing the while : ' ' My dear girl, how 
 could you have married such a frightful Republican?" 
 then took his arm affectionately : "Come walk with 
 me. I want to talk against your horrible government." 
 Her gowns were black, but her mood and temperament 
 were spirited; her tone, her manner, her carriage be-
 
 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 261 
 
 fitted one of her station in the old regime, but they 
 were real without simulation. She uttered distin- 
 guished impertinences, but everybody loved and for- 
 gave her. She had a thoroughly aristocratic temper- 
 ament but a democratic mind. The same by birth 
 and blood though contrastingly ingenuous was Suzanne 
 de Valliere, the Duchess' granddaughter, and the 
 jeune fille of the comedy. In the actress' conception, 
 Suzanne was the personification of the daughters of 
 centuries of le sang pur, with all of the exclusiveness 
 that the term implies, and it summed up the refine- 
 ments of a privileged civilization. She was the final 
 issue of ages of exclusiveness, of especial education, 
 of fastidious etiquette. To produce this exquisite 
 flower of rare perfume this ultra-refined result men 
 and women in Paris had toiled and moiled and hun- 
 gered and fought and bled. The Reign of Horror 
 was a protest that the Suzannes were born and raised 
 at too great a sacrifice. For three hours whilst Laura 
 was under the charm of the French actress' art- 
 Laura protested against the Red Terror's protest. . No 
 price she vowed was too dear for such a rapturous 
 creature the essence of art and feminine enchantment. 
 And the witchery had the vital element of spon- 
 taneity. 
 
 The curtain down, Laura rose with the voluntary 
 exclamation: "Oh, Quincy, I do not want to act any 
 more." Her efforts, the efforts she had seen at home, 
 seemed fumbling, stumbling; crude, amateurish, primi- 
 tive, frontier-like, after seeing the superfine art of a 
 perfected civilization. How was it possible to attempt 
 such perfection? She followed Mrs. Quincy down the 
 aisle mechanically in a daze of despair and revering 
 admiration at what she had witnessed. So fully had 
 the performance gripped her from the first act that it 
 occupied her thoughts to the exclusion of joining the 
 promenaders in the foyer. She was aroused by a heavy 
 raucous voice pitched in indignant tones : "Oh Madame ! 
 Madame! Is it possible that you would offer me this 
 beggar's coin?" 
 
 It was the garde robe woman who was protesting at
 
 262 IDEALS AND AN IDOL. 
 
 Mrs. Quincy's meager fee. Laura was hot with embar- 
 rassment, feeling that all eyes were focused on her. 
 Mrs. Quincy, though not conversant with French, 
 caught the woman's meaning, but paid no attention to 
 her. Within a flash a coin was flung at her feet. Laura 
 was too demoralized to think of feeing the woman prop- 
 erly. She ran to the exit desperately and there awaited 
 her companion, who came up unruffled. 
 
 Laura said nothing in expostulation, for she blamed 
 herself in not remembering Quincy's innate frugality. 
 She decided then and there never to allow her escort 
 to fee anybody in the future. The incident was a false 
 note in the beautiful harmony of the evening, neverthe- 
 less, and Laura could not refrain from uttering a curt 
 and utterly displeased "Good night" when she turned 
 off the electric light.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 WOMAN'S PAEADISE. 
 
 Laura's chiding mood had vanished next morning 
 when Mrs. Quincy brought in two communications, one 
 in English, the other in French. The first was from the 
 American correspondent, Stanley, enclosing two seats 
 for the grand opera; the second from Beaupassant in 
 French, who made bold to hope that perhaps Miss 
 Darnby might find it convenient to be at home (chez 
 soi) in the afternoon. The French note fluttered her. 
 She was incomparably flattered. Yet somehow she 
 feared no dreaded, rather to meet him. Afraid of 
 herself perhaps. There was something subtly, myster- 
 iously impressive in the man. Much as she would dis- 
 cuss the propriety (or safety) of receiving him, she 
 knew that she would do so. 
 
 But in the meanwhile she must keep her appoint- 
 ment with the costumer. She presented her letter of in- 
 troduction to a short, stout, healthy, grey-headed, mat- 
 ter-of-fact business man, who read the lines hurriedly, 
 said he was pleased to make her acquaintance, called a 
 bulky woman whom he introduced as Mme. Gervaise 
 and then disappeared. Mme. Gervaise submitted a 
 sheath of patterns, suggested one or two. Mrs. Quincy 
 had several preferences. Between the three the selec- 
 tions were soon made. It was all so business-like, so 
 expeditious, that Laura in her disappointment asked : 
 ' ' Is this all there is to your establishment ? Where are 
 your gowns made?" 
 
 All? at Mons. Chevet 's establishment? Mon Dieu! 
 No! No! Mons. Chevet employs 500 people. He has 
 twenty models. The whole upper floor which extends 
 to the Rue de Rivoli, is Mons. Chevet 's atelier. Per- 
 haps Madame would be interested if she went upstairs 
 
 (283)
 
 264 WOMAN'S PAEADISE. 
 
 to-day Friday ? There were quite a number of nota- 
 ble persons there already. Mme. Baretta-Worms was 
 there; and the Grand Duchess of Leuchtenberg and 
 Bernhardt and many Americans. 
 
 Through a long corridor and up one flight of stairs 
 and Laura and Mrs. Quincy were in an environment 
 that recalled to Laura one of the vast department 
 stores of her own country, with the difference of 
 quietude and only one instead of dozens of objects of 
 traffic. Mons. Chevet was near the stair entrance and 
 when he heard that Laura had come up to inspect his 
 establishment she an American actress who would 
 wear his gowns the bulky and sober man of affairs 
 dissolved into an amiable guide. Did she observe that 
 lady at the counter with the rare sweetness of face? 
 That was Madame Baretta-Worms. She was always 
 considerate, always gentle and deferred to suggestions. 
 A beautiful woman, whose black tresses, luminous eyes 
 and square, firm countenance atoned for the great 
 superfluity of flesh from the rounded neck down. And 
 that tall creature with the air and manner of a police- 
 man? Ah, a different client, the Duchess of Leuchten- 
 berg. She will not suffer an instant's delay or an in- 
 finitesimal defect. One day she slapped an essayeuse 
 and terrified the whole force by her temper. And 
 with all her masculine traits she had the most ex- 
 quisite taste in dress. When she wished she could 
 surpass Mdlle. Bartet in grace of attire. That angu- 
 lar woman with the face of a gamine? Is it possi- 
 ble Mdlle. Darnby did not recognize her? That is 
 Rejane, or Sans Gene as we call her. She is Sans Gene 
 in everything; with the employes, with her raiment, in 
 her speech. Everything goes. She is familiar with 
 everybody and everybody is familiar with her. Bern- 
 hardt? Yes; Bernhardt is here. See, there, amid the 
 models, watching the effect of green in the sunlight. 
 Very hard to please, too. She insists upon having sev- 
 eral models and they must pose for her and walk up 
 and down innumerable times. For a while the models 
 detest her, but after it is all over, when the Bernhardt 
 in real kindness of feeling offers them a loge in her
 
 WOMAN'S PAEADISE. 265 
 
 theatre and thanks them sincerely for their exertions, 
 they would do anything for her. She is very elusive. 
 Never in one spot more than a moment, never on one 
 topic for more than a minute; always turning, always 
 flitting. You cannot catch a fair view of her. That 
 (there was a malicious smile when he shot the innu- 
 endo) has been so since she passed her second youth. 
 Still, a wonderful woman, a wonderful woman, notwith- 
 standing that she never pays her bills here. But no 
 matter, she advertises us throughout the world so that 
 when she does not respond to our collector we always 
 charge it to advertising expenses. Those groups at the 
 other end ? A miscellaneous lot Americans, Brazilians, 
 Chilians; women from the North, from the South 
 from everywhere. They are easily pleased. Our 
 troubles are all with the Germans, Austrians, the Vien- 
 neseand with the Parisians. We 
 
 Laura ceased listening. She was riveted by the sight 
 of several women gliding up and down the aisles to 
 the south of the vast hall before some clients. She 
 drew nearer. They were living manikins; tall, well- 
 proportioned, young, with slender waists. Their gait 
 slow, languorous, elegant. 
 
 Ah, yes, our models, was Mons. Chevet's comment. 
 From morning until evening they have nothing to do 
 but don robes and promenade through the apartments 
 before our clients. Unless our customer be exceedingly 
 hard to please, they walk by the customer once, offer- 
 ing the front and back view of a toilet. But they 
 are so difficult to find and yet more difficult to 
 retain the models, not the clients. Artists are al- 
 ways luring our women away to their studios, and 
 when it isn't a studio it is a private establish- 
 ment offered by a wealthy foreigner or a rich stock- 
 oroker. Models are highly paid. When they are vir- 
 tuous (sage) they are so absolutely; and absolute 
 virtue with an unmarried Frenchwoman who must earn 
 an income means a rage for an accumulation of francs. 
 They soon have a respectable dot and then they are 
 lost to us forever. The others those who go to the 
 boursier and the rich foreigner sometimes come back.
 
 266 WOMAN'S PAEADISE. 
 
 You (he meant the American women) are easy to serve. 
 You pay well, you select quickly. Only on one point are 
 you difficult: You will not tolerate the insolence of the 
 essayeuse. You will not accept abuse from them, which, 
 in Europe, is considered their rooted perogative. 
 Hence the only time the essayeuse is on time is when 
 she has an engagement with an American. She is at 
 your mercy, not you at hers. All our women are 
 afraid of her. We should wish to be honored with 
 Madame 's presence when our inventions are presented. 
 They are our two gala days of the year. We draw a 
 high curtain at the back of the room and there the 
 models don our new creations. When all is ready they 
 step forth and promenade around the hall and then we 
 note the effect upon our employes and upon the specta- 
 tors. Ah, yes, it is a difficult profession, this of pro- 
 viding gowns. Racial traits, climatic conditions must 
 always be remembered. We must please the whole 
 world, you know. But if we please Bernhardt or Bartet 
 we are quite sure to please Europe and that quite com- 
 pensates us for the superstition these charming ladies 
 have in never paying their bills. However, they ask 
 for them their accounts and return them with rigid 
 regularity if an error is made. You know nothing of 
 that in New York? you shrewd Americans who Ah, 
 true ! you get your gowns here ! Mons. Chevet talked 
 on and on. The loquaciousness of the man who was 
 so frugal of his time who would meet only by ap- 
 pointment very late in the morning puzzled Laura for 
 a few moments, but in reflecting it fell to her that his 
 calling was the all in all in the world for him, so once 
 started he knew no end. She had ceased to listen. She 
 was thinking of Beaupassant, and noticing her preoc- 
 cupied air, Mrs. Quincy interrupted Mons. Chevet 's 
 expatiations : 
 
 "My dear, don't forget your engagement!" 
 The hint brought Mons. Chevet, who understood 
 English, to a halt. He bade them a hasty au revoir. 
 
 Thus released, they returned to the Champs Elysee, 
 where, two hours later, Beaupassant 's card came up. 
 There was a smile in the eyes (not on the lips) of the
 
 WOMAN'S PARADISE. 267 
 
 novelist, a smile matured by the frank charm of her 
 person, spreading radiance around her. She extended 
 her hand cordially, expecting, of course, that he would 
 press it; instead 'he raised it gently, even tenderly, to 
 his inclined head and pressed his lips to it. Never, 
 outside the theatre, had she experienced this. It came 
 to her most personally that she was in France. 
 
 But she had determined to be terribly direct with 
 him to express her suspicion at once: "Monsieur 
 Beaupassant, do you really think I'm worth a study 
 for a short story?" 
 
 His look told her she was mistaken. The buoyancy 
 vanished from his eyes; it was replaced by a disap- 
 pointed resignation which frequent disappointment of 
 a similar kind begets. 
 
 "I'm interested, yes; but not professionally. I had 
 hoped that you would forget the novelist in me so few 
 women do." 
 
 His voice and manner confirmed his sincerity. She 
 could only say: "Pardon me." 
 
 That he could not immediately forgive her she per- 
 ceived in his reply. "I called to suggest a visit to 
 Napoleon's tomb all Americans, men women and chil- 
 dren, are, I am told, more interested in Napoleon than 
 the French." 
 
 She apprehended that he had changed his inten- 
 tions, because of her suspicious question; no doubt he 
 had intended a drive through the Bois de Boulogne or 
 a call at some distinguished Parisian's house whose 
 afternoon it was. But recantation would be awkward 
 their aquaintance was too young for that. She could 
 not protest against a carriage even. In crossing the 
 corridor she noticed the hotel attendants glanced at her 
 escort with furtive awe and in the drive of four squares 
 up the avenue, which was gorgeously golden under the 
 sun's rays, there were salutations to the right and to 
 the left occupants of glittering vehicles going in the 
 same and coming from an opposite direction. The salut- 
 ing women did not deign to look at Laura ; their bows 
 and smiles were for Beaupassant. The men gave her a 
 swift appraising glance in lifting their hats. Once off
 
 268 WOMAN 'S PARADISE. 
 
 the resplendent way and in turning toward the river 
 the greetings ceased. They passed the Oriental-like 
 building, which had the appearance of a monstrous bird 
 about to take wing. Directly below this exotic edifice 
 was a bridge; in crossing it, as Laura was absorbed in 
 the car-like boats, filled with passengers, flitting back 
 and forth, Beaupassant broke silence: "The Seine is 
 picturesque, isn't it? When a young man, in the years 
 I was imprisoned in a ministerial office, the river was 
 my only joy. On a Sunday, in a boat, with fifty sous 
 in my pocket, I was completely happy. To row, to be 
 on the water, compensated me for the six days of miser- 
 able drudgery for the government. I have always loved 
 the Seine for the relief it gave me to continue my liter- 
 ary efforts. I love rivers, lakes, oceans. Upon them 
 one finds ideal quietude. ' ' 
 
 There was a dreamy, pleasurable expression in his 
 eye as he looked upon the stream. Laura saw that he 
 was not a staring, avid observer ; he did not observe at 
 all; he became passive, or more exactly objective, and 
 allowed objects and people and events to impress him. 
 As he sat there, his eyes half closed, he was impres- 
 sionability incarnate. Presently the carriage turned 
 into a broad street with an infinite vista. In the mass, 
 the thoroughfare was beautiful; in detail, heteroclitic 
 Here a shop, there an imposing residence of ancient 
 aspect. A public cabman lounging a few feet from a 
 stiff exclusive-appearing coachman whose horses and 
 wheels proclaimed extreme privacy. "This is Boule- 
 vard Saint Germain", Beaupassant volunteered. "Once 
 the most aristocratic street in Paris, the street of the 
 old nobility. There have been many, many defections 
 in the last century, for these people did not recognize 
 the empire any more than they do the Republic. For 
 them government suspended with Charles X. and 
 the tradition is handed down from one generation to 
 another. Many have become reconciled to the new 
 order of things, but there are enough dukes and mar- 
 quises and counts, or rather enough Duchesses, Mar- 
 quises and Countesses, to make a society which will 
 have nothing to do with the rest of Paris their rela-
 
 WOMAN'S PAEADISE. 269 
 
 tions are all with the aristocracy of other nations. 
 Here, in Paris, they intermarry ; they live among them- 
 selvesthey live in the past." 
 
 "Do you ridicule them?" 
 
 "Oh, not at all. I am one of their circle just as I 
 am a Bonapartist and a Republican, for I go every- 
 where when I go at all." 
 
 "There, that typifies the Saint Germain set." Laura 
 looked as he indicated. Under a row of lime trees an 
 old-fashioned barouche. A fat, white-haired, red-faced, 
 scrupulously shaven coachman sat dozing on the box. 
 Below, on a bench, an elderly lady and a nun. The 
 first, in plain black, large, rather stout; the counten- 
 ance severely, uncompromisingly aristocratic listen- 
 ing to the reading of Bousset. 
 
 "That looks like Danton." She pointed to a bold, 
 heroic statue placed in what appeared to be the heart 
 of aristocracy. 
 
 "It is he. And the memorial to the great revolu- 
 tionist was put here designedly to remind the mon- 
 archists that their form of government expired in 
 France a century ago." 
 
 The carriage's course was diverted through ancient 
 and narrow streets which were lined with odd chop 
 houses, queer little shops, sinister liquor dens, disrep- 
 utable curiosity stores and, above, a miscellaneous 
 horde of lodgers. Suddenly, and to Laura quite unex- 
 pectedly, a broad, sweeping, refulgent opening, an 
 esplanade dotted with cannons and bent, crippled men 
 in fatigue uniforms. In the background a church-like 
 building with a halo of gold that glowed in the sunlight ; 
 a proud, stately edifice; the glittering dome noble and 
 imposingly impressive. A moment later the cabman 
 stopped: "Ici, monsieur!" 
 
 Beaupassant nodded genially to the low bow of the 
 old guard at the door. A second later Laura was trans- 
 fixed. She could see nothing but a high altar of holy 
 emblems clustered about a golden prefiguration of the 
 Christ. From there descended a hallowed light; soft 
 and purple, that transformed the church in a super-
 
 270 WOMAN'S PARADISE. 
 
 natural glamour. Laura's eyes followed this reful- 
 gence, which was lost in a huge basin in the center 
 of the temple. Slowly, reverently, Laura approached 
 the balustrade of the opening. It was a crypt; and 
 in the middle, on a high elevation, slendor, masterly 
 fashioned caryatides which perform the function of 
 pillars for the base. And on this a coffin, simple in 
 design, but massive, imposing, impressive. There were 
 other tombs in this fane where some of the dem- 
 ocratic conqueror's relations lie but everything, the 
 church, the Christ-inspired altar itself, were lost, for- 
 gotten, in the supreme presence of that sarcophagus; 
 it drew one's vision and thought compellingly. The 
 sacred edifice the church seemed merely a shelter for 
 the grave. In the rounded excavation a series of 
 angelic figures bearing laurel wreaths. But between 
 these statues of sanctity were tattered things that told 
 more eloquently than monuments or volumnes the story 
 of him whom they encircle. They were flags; ragged, 
 riddled, dusty, bepowdered; emblems taken from the 
 vanquished enemy at Rivoli, at Jena, at Wagram, at 
 Austerlitz. They hung in clusters, bowed, drooping as 
 if weeping for their captor. Laura turned away from 
 the emotional spectacle. Her eyes again met the altar, 
 and there on the marble tablet, immediately above the 
 portals which lead to the subterranean entrance of the 
 vault, was written in golden letters the words: "I 
 desire that my ashes lie upon the banks of the Seine, 
 amidst the French people whom I loved so well. ' ' Well 
 may caste and political strife end here; well may the 
 quarrels of nations be hushed ; well may racial hatreds 
 cease in sight of that coffin, for even Clio, the judge, 
 the justice of history, lowers her stylus and gazes 
 mournfully upon the casket whose contents is all that 
 remains of many crowns and thrones and world revo- 
 lutionizing deeds and plans Death. 
 
 Beaupassant said nothing, but Laura knew as surely 
 as if he had confessed it that he was noting the effect 
 of the scene on her. At the exit when he saluted the 
 guard in military fashion, it occurred to her that he 
 had been a soldier, a vocation which seems irrecon-
 
 WOMAN'S PARADISE. 271 
 
 cilable with the author. When well away from les 
 Invalides she broke the silence interrogatively: "Were 
 you in the army?" 
 
 ' ' Yes, I was in the Franco-Prussian slaughter. Yes, 
 I know war. I know what an army means. It means 
 a mob of some hundreds of thousand men; marching 
 day and night without rest ; thinking of nothing, study- 
 ing nothing, learning nothing, reading nothing ; useless 
 to others and to themselves; sleeping anywhere and 
 everywhere, rotting in dirt; living as brutes, pillaging 
 towns, burning villages, ruining the masses. Then there 
 is an encounter with another agglomeration of brutes; 
 a horrible clash ; lakes of blood are shed ; piles of human 
 flesh are mixed with the reddened, muddy earth; 
 corpses are strewn for miles around ; arms and legs are 
 torn from bodies, brains are blown out. And all this 
 without good to anybody. And while men are miser- 
 ably perishing behind a hedge or in a dug-out their 
 parents, their wives, their children are dying of hun- 
 ger. This is what is called valor, courage, heroism; 
 dying for one's country, for humanity, for a noble 
 cause. As a matter of fact soldiers are the scourge 
 of the world. We endeavor to solve, to control nature ; 
 we fight ignorance, superstition and every dark obsta- 
 cle in order to make our existence less miserable. Cer- 
 tain men sages, philosophers, philanthropists, scien- 
 tistsdevote their lives to things that will aid and 
 elevate their fellow man. They work incessantly at 
 their useful tasks ; make discovery after discovery ; ex- 
 pand our knowledge ; widen the scope of science ; give 
 every day to the human understanding a new thought ; 
 add each day to the comfort, to the strength and to the 
 intelligence of their country. War is declared. In six 
 months the chief butchers, called generals, destroy 
 twenty years of effort, of patience, of the result of 
 genius. And this is called purifying a nation. I have 
 seen men transformed into brutes, seen them degen- 
 erate into savages; seen them kill wantonly for the 
 devilish delight of killing; kill because of terror, be- 
 cause of bravado. Law does not exist ; it is dead ; and 
 when all idea of justice had disappeared I saw innocent
 
 272 WOMAN'S PARADISE. 
 
 people shot who were found on the highway and were 
 suspected simply because they betrayed fear. I have 
 seen dogs killed while chained to the front doors of 
 their masters, simply to try the aim of a new revolver ; 
 I have seen cows riddled that were pasturing peace- 
 ably, riddled for no other reason than to 'try a shot 
 at something.' Invade a country, cut the throat of a 
 man who is defending his home because he wears a 
 blouse and not a kepi; burn the houses of wretched 
 people who are without bread. Break the furniture ; 
 steal all the valuables; drink the wine found in the 
 cellar; violate the women met in the streets; burn up 
 millions upon millions of pounds of powder and leave 
 in the wake awful misery and unspeakable diseases 
 that is war! glorious war!" 
 
 "What have military men done to prove that they 
 are intelligent? Nothing whatever. What have they 
 invented? Cannon and gun nothing more. The in- 
 ventor of the wheelbarrow has done more by the sim- 
 ple idea of placing a stick through a wheel than the 
 inventor of modern fortifications. What have we in- 
 herited from Greece? Books and statues. What made 
 the grandeur of Greece, her wars or her intellectual 
 productions ? Was it the invasion of the Romans that 
 saved her from falling to the most hideous material- 
 ism? Was it the invasion of the barbarians that res- 
 cued and regenerated Rome? Did Napoleon continue 
 the great intellectual movement commenced by the 
 philosophers at the end of the eighteenth century? I 
 hold that since every government arrogates to itself the 
 right of sending people to their death the people have 
 the right to destroy every government which has failed 
 to maintain peace. My people the French have from 
 time to time defended themselves and they were right 
 in doing so. Nobody has an absolute right to govern 
 others; but if such an unwarranted privilege is as- 
 sumed the assumption should carry with it beneficent 
 results. Every government should avoid a war as care- 
 fully as a captain avoids the sinking of his ship. When 
 a captain loses his ship judgment is passed on him, and 
 if he has been negligent or even incompetent he is con-
 
 WOMAN'S PARADISE. 273 
 
 demned. Why not bring governments to trial when- 
 ever they declare war? If the people would view the 
 case in that light ; if they themselves passed judgment 
 upon murderous powers ; if they would refuse to allow 
 themselves to be killed without reason; if they would 
 use their weapons against those who command them 
 to shoot, then there were an end to war. But that day 
 will never come, I fear." 
 
 With a change of thought not to be expected from 
 one so highly organized and cultivated he abandoned 
 war, asking abruptly : "You mentioned the opera as we 
 came up the boulevard ; it would afford me great pleas- 
 ure to escort you. ' ' 
 
 Laura explained that two seats only had been sent 
 her, one of which would be occupied by Mrs. Quincy. 
 
 "Never mind them. I have or can have a box." 
 And with the understanding of one profoundly versed 
 in femininity he tempted her by adding artfully : ' ' This 
 Friday is one of the subscription nights at the 
 opera. Everybody will be there. I shall be happy to 
 introduce you to some notable people."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 
 
 If not more distinguished Beaupassant looked more 
 refined in evening vestment. His broad, belligerent 
 shoulders were diminished under the black cloth; his 
 strong, aggressive neck was placated behind the high 
 collar and white tie. His top hat gave him height. 
 His eyes spoke his admiration for her appearance in 
 white. He looked admiringly for some moments before 
 he said a word. Her gown, though seemingly simple, 
 was a study of the couturiere's art, notwithstanding 
 its American make; it was fleecy and there were deli- 
 cate folds and subtle ornamentations. 
 
 The magnificent monument with its legend, "1'Acad- 
 demie Nationale de Musique," stood out boldly under 
 the dark blue heavens; to the public massed in front, 
 it displayed its wide ornate facade. The marble colon- 
 nade of its gallery was illuminated in a high, glittering 
 light by invisible electricity. Upon the sweeping space 
 in front were cavalrymen directing the circulation of 
 the crowd and the vehicles which swarmed from every 
 direction of Paris vehicles that revealed, for a mo- 
 ment, through their lowered windows, pale, aristocratic 
 heads, en cheveux, in high relief from rich, light-hued 
 gowns. Coupes and landaus drew into line under the 
 arcades reserved for them and stopped a few instants 
 just long enough to allow the women of society, on 
 the fringe of society, and those out of society to 
 descend; a descension of physical loveliness divinely 
 clad. Then came the ascension. A stairway beyond 
 the dream and imagination of a poet it was the con- 
 ception of one who had been allowed to discount an 
 atom of heaven. The first flight of marble immensely 
 broad and easily, almost imperceptibly inclined upward, 
 
 (274)
 
 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 275 
 
 ending in a landing spacious as a theatre foyer and 
 resumed on either side in flights as white and graceful 
 as angel 's wings. The whole an inspiration in architec- 
 ture. It was impossible for Laura to perceive that this 
 fairy-like scene was not part of the performance itself ; 
 it was an ascension of the fairies, an endless ascent of 
 women, whose necks and ears scintillated with jewels, 
 whose long gowns trailed upon the stairway. The 
 supremely beautiful entrance was hardly preparatory 
 for the auditorium. The first was ethereal, celestial 
 even ; it had the purity and whiteness of a thing super- 
 terrestrial. The second had the brilliancy of a thor- 
 oughly material world. That essentially materialistic 
 hue, gold predominated. Gilding everywhere; on the 
 proscenium arch crowded with allegorical figures 
 on the boxes. But there was modifying red, too, 
 and this rich tone aided in transmuting garishness 
 into a regal luxuriousness. There were masses of 
 boxes on either side and encircling the entire main 
 balcony. Though many, and orientally ornate, each 
 loge had an aspect of individuality, of strict privacy. 
 The balconies, above the main, were numerous how 
 many Laura could not count for the brilliancy of the 
 scene and they were unobstrusive, being narrow, 
 seemingly a mere strip against the walls, which gave 
 the auditorium an air of immeasurable vastness, an ap- 
 pearance of great space for the purpose of throwing 
 the boxes in attractive perspective. Indeed, the opera 
 seemed to have been designed for a sovereign and his 
 court. Looking at the stalls Laura felt herself in the 
 midst of ancient aristocracy such as she had seen pic- 
 tured of Louis XV 's time. The pit was massed, unin- 
 dividual, obscured. Only the loges and their apparently 
 aristocratic occupants were salient. 
 
 Beaupassant had remained considerately silent. He 
 noticed Laura was absorbed in observation, but when 
 she asked: "You have heard 'Faust' frequently, I pre- 
 sume?" a shadow of a smile flitted ove<r his counten- 
 ance. "Very frequently. As a youth I was present at 
 the first performance. It was at the Theatre Lyrique. 
 Personally, the music captivated me, but the audience
 
 276 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 
 
 was cold. The critics pronounced the work a failure. 
 Two weeks later the opera burst into a striking suc- 
 cess. ' ' 
 
 A rapid thumping on the stage as if some one were 
 calling the auditors to order followed by three solemn, 
 prolonged knocks, such as Laura had heard at the 
 Theatre Frangais the night before. The house hushed. 
 A succession of light taps from the baton on the con- 
 ductor's desk. An instant's deep silence and the first 
 notes of the mystic prelude ascended from the depths 
 of the orchestra and filled the auditorium with the in- 
 visible and irresistible influence called music which pen- 
 etrated the spectators, touched their nerves, imparted 
 to them a commingling of poetic and material fever, 
 and infused the air with sound waves that to a fine 
 intelligence suggested the ultimate futility of knowl- 
 edge, far better than the dark auditorium, the somber 
 stage and the despairing gestures of the old erudite 
 Faust. 
 
 Two lines of the^text clearly enunciated by the tenor 
 sunk themselves in Laura's understanding: 
 
 "Je veux un tresor qui les contient tous, 
 Je veux la jeunesse. " 
 
 It came to her then, as such thoughts always come, 
 instantly, inspiringly that if youth be a treasure to 
 men how much more precious was it to her own sex- 
 to whom nature has imparted a mysterious magnet 
 which ceases to attract as years succeed one another; 
 whose attractions consists of a loveliness predicated 
 on youth. 
 
 The scenic effect of the second act thrilled her. This 
 was mediaeval Germany a world living, throbbing, 
 complete. Not a single touch or figure from the im- 
 mense and picturesque canvas was wanting. The illu- 
 sion of a colorful town with all its variegated inhab- 
 itants was fulfilled to the last detail. Laura forgot 
 there was a stage. In narrow, crowded streets she 
 saw moving, pulsating humanity lifted to an ideal 
 sphere by Gounod's genius. As at the Theatre Fran- 
 $ais, every character, however minute , contributed
 
 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 277 
 
 naturally to an harmonious whole. Everybody had a 
 part to play as well as a note to sing, and in giving of 
 themselves perfectly they made the picture perfect. 
 Everything in that temple of music seemed perfect. 
 The audience as an audience assumed its function in 
 the scheme of art as unconsciously as the artists. Be- 
 tween the second and the third act Laura's eyes if 
 not her ears were fully occupied studying the house, 
 from the hundred musicians, just below her, who 
 formed an unrelieved mass of black to the resplendency 
 in the salle. 
 
 Beaupassant, being silent, unobserving, Laura 
 turned to him. 
 
 "Are you never interested in the audience?" 
 "In the feminine part, on opera nights, yes, always. 
 But only when the curtain is up, when Gounod is para- 
 mount; Gounod, who especially appeals to the heart 
 of woman, who is the tone poet par excellence of love. 
 Then I watch them, your sex, I mean. They listen to 
 music as if they were under the influence of a divine 
 fascination; listen to it as if in the vague immobility 
 of a dream that at times stirs them softly like the 
 first touch of a divine thrill. All, in listening, are a 
 poetical study; their faces heighten, become by turns 
 spiritual and radiant with a tender ecstasy, their eyes 
 become either moist or languorous and turn aside or 
 are raised heavenward. The fans that move toward 
 bosoms are like softly descending flakes of snow; or, 
 better still, like a swoon-like palpitation of the white 
 wing of a wounded bird. Here and there I see hands 
 fall helplessly in the folds of beautiful gowns ; or I see 
 that other hands are used to lift the small ivory-ribbed 
 screens to faces that are smiling ecstatically. The wist- 
 ful, distended mouths with their parted lips seem to 
 me to breathe a fugitive sensuousness. Not a woman 
 with a soul for music dares face music fully; I mean 
 dares to look straight at the stage while the entrancing 
 tones touch her nerves. You may notice that many 
 incline heads toward their shoulders as though they 
 were listening to some one who was whispering some- 
 thing deep and responsive into their ears. At certain
 
 278 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 
 
 moments the heart-drawn notes of the melancholy 
 violoncello arouse them from their enrapture; then a 
 fleeting pallor flits over their countenances translu- 
 cencies of a second, hardly visible, which are followed 
 by momentary trembling. Suspended above the spheric 
 sound, caressing and vibrant, they seem to absorb with 
 their entire entity the song, the emotion of the voice 
 and the strains of the instruments. The whole is a mass 
 of love for women." 
 
 He had just spoken the word "love" when the cur- 
 tain disclosed the garden scene in the third act. Im- 
 mediately a sort of amatory fever spread through the 
 auditors, for never had this music which is essen- 
 tially love's sighs been more ardently breathed by 
 two voices on the stage. The vocalists were no longer 
 two actors. They were two beings of the ideal world- 
 nay, they were not two beings but two voices: the 
 eternal voice of the man who loves, the eternal voice 
 of the woman who yields, and together they sighed the 
 poetry of human rapture. 
 
 When Faust sang: "Laisse-moi, laisse-moi contem- 
 pler ton visage," there were in those notes such an 
 accent of adoration, of transport and of supplication 
 that longing seemed to fill all hearts. Laura was quite 
 overcome by the intensity of the scene and not until 
 the final bar the sad, perennial echo of lovely woman 
 stooping to folly had died away did she regain com- 
 posure. Beaupassant then proposed a promenade in 
 the foyer. Two streams were already moving gently, 
 leisurely in those stately corridors whose ceilings were 
 frescoed by a master's brush, whose walls were a suc- 
 cession of pictorial masterpieces, whose illuminations 
 and decorations gave Laura a haunting idea of para- 
 dise. As on the boulevard the day before, Beaupassant 
 was frequently saluted and when not openly greeted 
 was recognized everywhere. At the end of the foyer, 
 near the buffet, he was stopped. "Tien! c'est Guy," 
 exclaimed one of them, a man of somewhat common 
 stature but of an extraordinary head ; large, heavy ; the 
 hair absolutely white but of the whiteness seen on 
 negroes. The eyes, too, were African; the skin had
 
 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 27S 
 
 a yellow tinge, but the features were peculiarly French. 
 Beaupassant presented him : "Monsieur Dumas." Then 
 to the other "Monsieur Bourgeon" thin, dark hair 
 and mustache, high cheek bones, salient mouth, the 
 complexion pale, a stoop in the shoulders. A slender, 
 rather ungraceful man but the ordinary aspect re- 
 trieved by a pair of wonderfully luminous eyes, soft, 
 forbearing deferential even, yet keenly penetrating. 
 Dumas offered a smooth womanly hand; Bourgeon a 
 hard, bony one. Both were fixedly interested when 
 Beaupassant mentioned her country and profession. 
 Dumas inquired of Mojeska. It had been his wish to 
 see her play his Marguerite Gauthier. She made the 
 part so spiritual, he was told. And he hesitated here 
 as if it were an effort to recall the name Rhea did 
 she know an actress named Rhea? A Belgian, he be- 
 lieved. She had called on him once and wanted a new 
 play. A persistent person, not easy to be rid of. He 
 was surprised to hear that Mojeska had retired and 
 that the name Rhea was unknown. He added it was in 
 his mind to know the United States personally. He 
 would go over soon and make a study of the country. 
 Was there anything beyond Chicago? California? 
 That was farther than Chicago? Which way and how 
 far from Chicago was New Orleans? Beaupassant in- 
 tervened; how many times must he (Dumas) be set 
 right on American. geography? Had he not been told 
 A bell resounded throughout the corridors. The 
 countering procession dissolved. The first notes of the 
 prison scene dispelled in Laura all thought for the time 
 of her newly-made acquaintances, though ever after 
 she saw indelibly M. Dumas' negro white hair and 
 Bourgeon's wonderful eyes. The ballet music of that 
 earlier scene in the work, with the sensuous visions 
 it conjured up, now sounded as the ominous tones of 
 fate, a prelude to prison tragedy. The somber scene 
 brought a sinking of the heart and a terror to the 
 luxuriously sensitized feelings. But gradually its psy- 
 chic effort changed. The diabolical evil, the wringing 
 remorse were mollified by deep repentance; and then 
 a burst of spiritual light, of a celestial pardon. To 

 
 280 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 
 
 one side Mephistopheles, the incarnation of the sin- 
 ister ; to the other Faust, the damned sin ; in the center 
 Marguerite, a symbol of heaven's clemency. At the 
 beginning Satan's voice was dominant, leeringly tri- 
 umphant. Faust's the piteous despair of a condemned 
 criminal who has but one bare moment to live and then 
 must be damned perpetually; who wishes the ever- 
 moving spheres of heaven to stand still that time might 
 oease ; who would leap up to his God, who in his agony 
 imagines Christ's blood streaming in the heavens, one 
 drop of which would save his soul. Marguerite, all 
 reverent confidence ; the frail, yielding sinner confident 
 of forgiveness, whose very weakness of sex is extenua- 
 tion of her sin. Her first tones low, of holy reverence, 
 as becomes one in prayer, drowned by the shouts of 
 Satan and the despairing shriek of Faust ; gradually if 
 strengthens, and when the white light from above is 
 revealed to her alone, her heaven-inspired notes hush, 
 the vitiated spirits at her side, who descend as she 
 ascends. 
 
 "It is a glimpse of the sublime," murmured Beau- 
 passant. 
 
 "It is a sublime revelation," rejoined Laura lowly. 
 
 "To attain that divine height," he continued mur- 
 muringly, "has been given to only three composers of 
 opera, and then once briefly to each. Meyerbeer was 
 thus inspired for a moment in the finale to "L'Afri- 
 caine," Beethoven in the prison scene of "Fidelio" and 
 Gounod in what we have just heard. Wagner is often 
 superhuman, supernatural, even superterrestrial, if you 
 like, but never purely celestial. He is intense, he is thrill- 
 ing, he holds you in a vise, as it were, but his genius 
 is that of an overwhelming power which cannot for 
 never so brieflly lift you to the deities. The German, 
 Beethoven; the Jew, Meyerbeer and our own effemin- 
 ate Gounod, though of far less elemental power than 
 Wagner, were now and again divinely favored." 
 
 "You love music, don't you, Monsieur Beaupas- 
 sant?" 
 
 "As I love all beautiful things that I do not thor- 
 oughly understand; as I love flowers without having
 
 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 281 
 
 a knowledge of botany ; as I love women without being 
 a feminist." 
 
 They had reached their carriage, but Laura through 
 the press of the resplendent throng had not lost his 
 remark about her sex. Seated, she took up his con- 
 fession of having merely an amateurish understanding 
 of women. "You amaze me, monsieur; none, I sup- 
 posed, understood women as you do." 
 
 There was a bare suspicion of jocularity in his ac- 
 centsor was it a lack of sincerity in replying: "How 
 is it possible to read woman when she is not clear to 
 herself? It is her infinite incomprehensibility that ir- 
 resistibly draws man to her, and the more incomprehen- 
 sible they are to themselves and to others the more 
 womanly, the more fascinating. The most complex, 
 the most womanly women are those that are seemingly 
 cool, self-contained; ruled, apparently, by reason. But 
 beneath these triple qualities are contradictory char- 
 acteristics in three secret compartments: The first is 
 feminine restiveness. The second is filled with a para- 
 dox that may be called sincere insincerity, a sort of 
 highly colored talent for doing wrong in good faith; 
 a trait you will find in devout women and women of 
 the world; it is unconsciously sophisticated and ex- 
 tremely dangerous. The third is replete with disquiet- 
 ing charms; exquisite deceits, delightful perfidies that 
 stop just this side of a vocation for brilliant infideli- 
 tiesall those perverse qualities that drive simple and 
 credulous lovers to suicide but which captivate exper- 
 ienced men." 
 
 Flattered at the subtle compliments to her sex, she 
 murmured half-protestingly : "You artists are all 
 woman worshipers." 
 
 "Artists woman worshipers? You surprise me. 
 They are the worst, the emptiest of lovers. Listen: 
 Some years ago I traveled through Sicily, a country, 
 thank God, that is not beset by tourists and accordingly 
 more interesting than any place in Europe. I there 
 saw the statue of a woman. It was not the woman 
 poetized, the woman idealized, the woman divine or 
 majestic like the Venus of Milo; it was the woman as
 
 282 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 
 
 she is; the woman we love, we desire; the woman we 
 long to embrace. She was buxom, with a full, round 
 bosom ; the hips large, the limbs rather thick ; a carnal 
 Venus, the Venus of flesh and blood. She is represented 
 as raising a drapery which conceals her womanhood 
 and the entire figure is molded, conceived and in- 
 clined for this movement; every line, every thought is 
 concentrated upon it. The gesture is superb and nat- 
 ural ; at once bashful and unchaste ; hides and reveals ; 
 veils and unveils; attracts and eludes seeming to de- 
 fine completely woman's attitude on earth. It is a 
 miracle. One feels that it will cede to the touch like 
 a palpitating body. The loins above all are inexpres- 
 sibly fine and animated. It is traced charmingly, 
 that undulous and voluptuous line of woman that 
 descends gracefully from the neck to the heel and that 
 shows in the contour of the shoulders, in the decres- 
 cendo of the thighs and in the slight curve from the 
 delicate calf to the ankles, all of the modulations of 
 human grace." 
 
 ''To me a work of art is not real unless it is at 
 the same time a symbol and an exact expression of a 
 reality. The Venus of Sicily is a woman and also a 
 symbol of sensuousness. In looking at the statues of 
 the Greeks we dream; we are confused; or, perhaps, 
 obsessed by illusions, by figmental allurements. There 
 are women, I believe, who evoke that sort of illusion; 
 they seem to possess and to express something of the 
 intangible ideal. Men pursue without, of course, ever 
 attaining this will-o'-the-wisp ideal, this perfect soul 
 which they imagine they see in a woman's look which 
 in fact is nothing but a certain shade of the iris in 
 the charm of a smile barely perceptible upon lips 
 which are as pure as enamel; in a graceful movement 
 which is born of inadvertence and harmony of figure. 
 Poets Bourgeon calls them impotent star gazers- 
 are always tormented by what they call mystic love. 
 The natural exultation of a poetic mind, impels such 
 elect beings to conceive a sort of superhuman love 
 hopelessly impalpable and ecstatic. And you will notice 
 that poets are perhaps the only men who have never
 
 "FAUST'S" FINALE. 283 
 
 loved a woman, a real woman of flesh and blood, with 
 all the faults and qualities of a woman, with her charm- 
 ingly limited rationality, her strange nerves, her dis- 
 quieting femininity. But if certain women can create 
 in certain men such fine illusions others excite in our 
 veins an impetuous passion which characterized our 
 remote ancestors. The statue I referred to is the per- 
 fect image of such a sane and simple and powerful 
 heauty. The head has been lost, but that doesn't mat- 
 ter. Hers is a female form that completely expresses 
 the poetry of passion." 
 
 Laura thought it time to discreetly turn the sub- 
 ject. She went to the other extreme by asking: "Mon- 
 sieur Beaupassant, you have often described death. 
 Do you fear it?" 
 
 "I fear and loath it."
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 
 
 "Paul Bourgeon" was the name on the card brought 
 up by the bell boy directly after breakfast. Laura was 
 surprised and flattered but rather regretted that Mrs. 
 Quincy was somewhere below roaming about the par- 
 lors and reception rooms.. She regretted it the more 
 when Bourgeon entered, a half- familiar, half -signifi- 
 cant look in his eyes eoncealing the effect of his defer- 
 ential smile and respectful bow. Perhaps it was bold 
 of him he said after so brief an introduction, but 
 Mons. Beaupassant's friends were his friends; they 
 had been familiar for years; that is, as intimate as 
 it was possible to be with Beaupassant, with one whose 
 nature was intensely unresponsive. Further would 
 madamoiselle permit the confidence ? he was in nego- 
 tiation with an American editor, now in Paris, to go 
 to the United States and write his impressions of the 
 country. Perhaps he might presume to confer with 
 mademoiselle. He was to go to New York, Boston, 
 Washington and Chicago. From these cities he would 
 write a series of articles. The compensation offered 
 was highly tempting but but the academy would 
 soon hold an election and and perhaps; but that was 
 another matter. When would madamoiselle return? 
 Perhaps (this word which recurred so frequently in 
 his speech had an insinuating and equivocal sound 
 with him) they could take the same steamer. It would 
 afford him inexpressible pleasure to travel with such 
 a beautiful woman. 
 
 The beautiful woman was too abrupt a transition. 
 It denoted a carelessness of bearing, a defect in per- 
 spective ; a want of delicacy ; an imperfect understand- 
 
 (284)
 
 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 285 
 
 ing or a loose comprehension of foreign women. He had 
 judged Laura an actress who would not. only be flat- 
 tered but eager for his attentions. With the instinc- 
 tive recoil which men's egoistic presumption usually 
 inspires in fine-nerved women, Laura felt resentment 
 when she perceived the insidious surety and self-suffi- 
 ciency of his keen, observant eyes. 
 
 "You take a commonplace view of actresses, Mon- 
 sieur Bourgeon." 
 
 The sudden accusation did not entirely dispel his 
 conceited smirk: "I want to take a correct view of 
 everybody and everything." 
 
 "I've read somewhere that somebody called you 
 un cochon trist. Who said it? Augier?" 
 
 The rush of color on his pale face betrayed the 
 effect of the thrust, though he responded spiritedly: 
 "Some one whom nature had long deprived of viril- 
 ity." 
 
 "And as a substitute gave a higher sense of 
 morality, especially of women. Monsieur Bourgeon, I 
 suppose there is nothing to prevent you from taking the 
 same steamer with myself but " 
 
 There was a knock. She relievedly and audibly read 
 the name on the card which the bell boy brought : ' ' Guy 
 de Beaupassanrt ". He may come up immediately." 
 Turning to Bourgeon: "You shall be glad to meet him 
 here? You are friends, I suppose." 
 
 "We are old friends, fast friends, yes." Yet he did 
 not look as if he were pleased. 
 
 Beaupassant was more surprised than pleased. They 
 shook hands, but Beaupassant retained his astonished 
 countenance until Borgeon in complete self-command 
 bowed himself out: "I thank you for the information 
 about your country. It is very likely that I shall 
 accept M. Barnett's invitation to go there." 
 
 Beaupassant 's amazed features relaxed as soon as 
 the door closed. "I've been trying to persuade him 
 not to go to America. His* forte is not description or 
 analysis of masses. I'm afraid he wall fail in that. His 
 fine talent will not tolerate the study of more than three 
 or four characters; and there he is a master. He goes
 
 286 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEEa 
 
 deeper than any of us. Not an emotion, not a sensa- 
 tion escapes him. His subtlety is marvelous. But for 
 masses, never." 
 
 Even while he was speaking Laura asked herself 
 again why she felt wholly at ease with Beaupassant. 
 She made a quick comparison between him and the 
 man just gone. The latter looked more metaphysical, 
 more intellectual, yet while freely communicative he 
 gave the impression of ever concealing his thoughts- 
 according to Tallyrand's formula. The former she 
 felt to be open, direct, though reticent except to his 
 intimates; one in contradistinction to Tallyrand's 
 dictum whose silence seemed to have been given to 
 him to reveal his thougths. 
 
 He swerved from Bourgeon, saying in English : ' ' I 
 want to propose something." 
 
 "I didn't suppose that you would ever propose to 
 anybody. ' ' 
 
 "Not in your meaning." (He returned to French.) 
 "There are now three things which I have determined 
 to avoid : Marriage, the Academy, Le Revue des Deux 
 Mondes I'll never be a husband, an academician or 
 a contributor to Buloz's magazine; for all three mean 
 a repression of personality, a compromise with society, 
 if not a ban upon the intellect. Mais c'est autre chose. 
 You mentioned Versailles yesterday. I want to submit 
 an invitation to go there this afternoon and then to 
 some theatre this evening. I leave the choice of the 
 theatre to you." 
 
 "Yes, with pleasure. I shall be delighted. I should 
 like to see one of your music halls Folie Bergere for 
 instance; and then" she hesitated here "I I 
 might after that, want to see a little of of Bohemian 
 Paris." 
 
 "With pleasure, with pleasure. A glimpse of the 
 Moulin Rouge or Bullier, or both, and then the Bo- 
 hemian cafes. I understand. It is quite the thing for 
 everybody, especially for French women of society." 
 
 They had not walked many steps from the station 
 at Versailles when Laura saw that the place was 
 neither a suburb nor a country town. There were a few
 
 PAEIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 287 
 
 shops and many residences ; the streets wide and white 
 and lined on either side with majestic trees. While 
 neither a suburb or a country town it had least of all 
 a watering-place or summer-resort aspect. It was an 
 habitation apart, unique, exclusive, original, as if not 
 only a king but extraordinary people dwelt there. 
 They met many monks, hatless, shoeless, in rude, brown 
 garbs with ropes around the waists. One it presented 
 a memorable dissimilarity was talking to a woman 
 modishly attired, tall, svelt and beautiful. He, gray 
 bearded, heavy; manifestly charged with religious 
 zeal, though his manner and voice were gentle. She 
 listened in an attitude of deep deference. 
 Laura heard Beaupassant say: "There!" 
 Looking up she found herself at a magnificent open- 
 ing and in the back ground a picture familiar from 
 girlhood. She had seen it in illustrated histories, 
 framed upon the walls of friends' houses and read of 
 it in the lives of European monarchs. She recognized 
 them at once; they were nothing new to her these 
 palaces of Versailles. Entering the iron gateway 
 and approaching them, they became less recognizable, 
 they lost the pictorial idea familiar to Laura. They 
 were oldish; the stones looked shabby, the windows 
 neglected; there was more of an air of negligence 
 than age about the buildings so marvelously propor- 
 tioned, so perfectly 'harmonious. Inside, her nerves 
 told her she was in the hall of royalty of romantic 
 royalty. She had but to look from one of the many, 
 many apartments to the paths, the drives, the gardens 
 (that orangery, how Watteau-like!) to see that refined 
 sentimentality had suggested it all. The court yard, 
 the very nooks and intervals were the product of a 
 mediaeval tendency rather than the dictates of a luxur- 
 ious king. Laura walked through the gallery of bat- 
 tle paintings without emotion. In the hall of the por- 
 traits of rulers she was arrested. The Napoleons in- 
 terested her, and, strangely enough, especially the pic- 
 ture of the Third Napoleon with his dreamy eyes and 
 inscrutable countenance; yet more particulary the 
 portrait of the Due de Moray ; the face of a real aris-
 
 288 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 
 
 tocrat ; proud, erect, the head firm, the breast soldierly ; 
 the countenance light, highbred, with traces of polite 
 cynicism the mouth that could say: "Establish an- 
 other empire? Why, certainly, I'm agreeable. It will 
 not last long but 'twill be amusing while it lasts." 
 
 Then the hall of mirrors truly an idea of a ro- 
 mancist of the Middle Ages. Ceiling and walls of mir- 
 rors that had evaded time for over two centuries. Laura 
 noticed several Germans, hats on, walking up and down 
 with a bold air and -aggressive steps as if their heels 
 were grinding the floor. Beaupassant, quiet to this 
 time, broke silence with: "Look at those Germans. 
 They always have a conquering air in this place. They 
 formed their empire here; their first emperor was 
 crowned here. They seem to have a contempt for the 
 monarchs who have lived here. How different their 
 manner at the tomb of the first Napoleon! There 
 they weep with the deepest admirer of that Soldier 
 of Fortune. It is an extraordinary anomaly that they 
 should be moved at the grave of one who almost 
 destroyed them." 
 
 They had stepped into a west front chamber. For 
 a moment, as she looked out of the window, Laura 
 wavered between the illusion of a dream and a mistrust 
 of the sense of sight. A vision of her subconscious 
 longing; a scene that she had seen in some other ex- 
 istence when she was freed from the carking cares 
 of life. Like an artist's highest inspiration; like the 
 best moment in a literary masterpiece; like the soul- 
 ful notes in music this apparition of graceful poplars, 
 of a romantic stream divided from an ideal lake by 
 an oval yard of groves; and a softly undulating 
 meadow, bejeweled with luscent ponds and ending in 
 a vague, dreamy distance, with an Italian fountain 
 whose pearly sprays were kissed by sunbeams this 
 Laura knew was a heaven-born sight because, as in 
 the rare moments of painting, of literature, of music, 
 it echoed something subliminal and responded to a 
 promise of a beautiful hereafter. 
 
 Though often seen by him, Beaupassant felt the 
 picture fully. "It is an inspiration of past centuries.
 
 PABIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 289 
 
 No landscape gardener no, not even a painter of to-day 
 could divine it. They could only imitate it. Such 
 visions are a rebuke to our age. It would seem that in 
 those days man's soul turned toward art and that a jeal- 
 ous divinity had said to him: 'I forbid you to think 
 longer upon such things ; but if you devote yourself to 
 more material things I promise you that you shall make 
 worlds of discoveries.' To-day it appears that the 
 world is following the suggestion of the jealous divin- 
 ity. The seductive and all-pervading artistic emotion of 
 centuries has been extinguished and supplanted by an 
 order of mind that invents machines of all kinds ; amaz- 
 ing apparatuses, mechanisms complicated as living 
 bodies; inventions that combine substances and arrive 
 at results astonishing as they are admirable. And all 
 this to cater to the physical necessities of man or to 
 kill him. The ideal conceptions of science pure and 
 disinterested those of Galileo, of Newton, of Pascal, 
 seem inaccessible to us; our imagination is attracted 
 more and more to inventions of utility. Now, does 
 it not seem to you that the genius of one whose intel- 
 lect discovered in the fall of an apple the grand 
 law which rules the world is born of a germ more 
 noble, more divine than the penetrating intelligence 
 of your American inventor, of the miraculous fabri- 
 cator of electric bells, of the telegraph, of the telephone, 
 of electric lights? Do you not see in this difference 
 the secret vice of modern man, the mark of his inferior- 
 ity in his apparent triumph? I would call it a sheer 
 defeat in his apparent triumph. While he is frankly 
 solicitous of his body, his soul has been starved." 
 
 Laura confessed inattention by murmuring, at 
 every fresh look, "How romantic it all is! Romance, 
 romance, everywhere!" 
 
 "Let us go below and you shall see." 
 He beckoned to one of the many cabmen in the 
 half moon court and directed: "Le petit Trianon." 
 In two turns the carriage was in a wood, wild, 
 yet exclusive, old yet not unkempt. The paths ap- 
 peared not to have been trodden for generations only 
 the single roadway looked used. The trees wer,e high,
 
 290 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 
 
 the shrubbery thick, the foliage wildly luxurious. And 
 over all there was something apart from other wood- 
 lands Laura had seen. Was it age? Was it the mem- 
 ory of kings and queens, of princes and princesses 
 who had dwelt here? No, it was something more 
 tangible, yet less definite; something that had been 
 stamped there when the palaces were built and that 
 time may never efface. 
 
 The carriage's third turn quickened Laura's pulse. 
 Tfhe horses had left the wood and dashed into a leafy 
 avenue. Beaupassant saw how Laura was inspired 
 BO shouted to the coachman, "Slower." The earth 
 of the roadway was black, soft, though not deeply 
 unyielding, and bordered widely by negligent verdure. 
 But the trees! Elms at once towering and stately 
 and gracious. They were on either side, equi-distant, 
 and met in the very center of the road, forming a 
 romantic arch of nature the whole length to the Tria- 
 non. A sweetly melancholy sensation crept over Laura. 
 It recalled to her a French phrase she had read some- 
 where : ' ' The happy days when I was so melancholy. ' ' 
 Her first view of the former homes of French sov- 
 ereigns drew from her the exclamation: "Oh, Mon- 
 sieur, how romantically situated!" 
 
 The modesty and delicacy of the architecture; its 
 whiteness; its simplicity. Apparently small, compact, 
 it still was royal and spacious. Seen from the exterior, 
 Laura had never believed that the rooms were so manv 
 and so airy. She went from one to another and the uni- 
 form harmony of the furniture in color and propor- 
 tionssurprised and delighted her far more than the 
 richness of the appointments. Tested by the appoint- 
 ments of even tlhe moderately rich in her own land 
 this country residence of the proudest princes of Europe 
 was a negligible affair. The coaches were gilded and 
 so were the couches; the draperies were heavy and 
 of a peculiarly reposeful hue, but they were not 
 numerous. Laura stood long in Marie Antoinette's 
 apartment; that unhappy though vivacious queen had 
 been in Laura's thought the moment she alighted 
 from the carriage. She forgot the several Louises who
 
 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 2S1 
 
 had dwelt there ; forgot Napoleon and even Josephine ; 
 went through their apartments as an ordinary sight- 
 seerbut the daughter of Marie Therese occupied 
 her. She could see the romping yet romantic Austrian 
 gliding from chamber to chamber, from tree to tree, 
 from pond to pond. Though the grand Trianon was 
 designed long before her time, both Trianons and Marie 
 were one, seemed inseparable in an historical sense. 
 Marie was a charming commingling of vivacity and 
 simplicity and romanticism bestowed upon simple un- 
 affected royalty and so were the Trianons. 
 
 A short drive brought Laura to the smallest of 
 the two Trianons and here was romanticism run riot 
 in the pond fringed with willows; the cottages and 
 the marble arbor of love, named Temple de 1 'amour; 
 in the woods with their hushed, reposeful lanes and 
 captivating perspectives; in the statues how singu- 
 larly lovely the combination of white marble amid the 
 arborous green allegorical of love; in the regal quiet- 
 ude whose impassiveness was deepened by memories 
 of the chivalrous gallantries of the amatory adventures' 
 that had taken place here. 
 
 There were no tourists, no excursionists here, for 
 which Laura was thankful, and she expressed her grat- 
 itude. 
 
 "Yes, it is well; it were still better if the crowd 
 did not invade the grand Trianon and the palaces of 
 Versailles. One's artistic sense revolts at the sight 
 of the mob at these places fit only for an old aritoc- 
 racy. Think of it: the terribly common throng, with 
 its common birth, its common appearance, its com- 
 mon manner and its worse than common ideal, swag- 
 gering about in the woods, the parks, the gardens, 
 the lanes, the halls, the very chambers of them who 
 were the exquisities in deportment and breeding of 
 their day. It is an infamous desecration. Even Na- 
 poleon (the conqueror not of mere man but of nations) 
 was a garish incongruity at Versailles. Though he 
 had the perception of youth, the intuition of woman 
 and the nerves of an artist, he knew that he had too 
 much of the pleb, of the democrat, to be at home
 
 292 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 in the palaces of the Valois; so he spent but little 
 time there. His nephew, Louis, had too, a fine sense 
 of conformity. He and his retinue of political ad- 
 venturers seldom came to Varsailles and never to 
 the Trianons. But the average passer-by (Ce monsieur 
 qui passe) coming here in droves, swaggering impu- 
 dently, is like spitting in the face of the gloriously 
 exclusive and elegant past. You may think me hyper- 
 sensitive, but 
 
 "Then perhaps you may not wish to make the 
 rounds this evening?" She said it half banteringly. 
 
 "That is a different matter, for in the halls (bas- 
 tringues) and in the students' quarters there are no 
 afflicting discrepencies between people and environ- 
 ment. ' ' 
 
 Nevertheless, Laura noticed that 'his contentment 
 was feigned when they entered the theatre of the Gay 
 Shepherdess. The beginning of a disdainful smile 
 shadowed itself upon his mouth as they came to the 
 vast court leading to the smoky auditorium. Laura 
 was too nonplused by her surroundings to comment 
 upon it, still less to suggest retreat. 
 
 "Suppose we stop a bit here before taking our seats 
 in the theatre, so as to have done with the whole matter 
 as soon as possible?" 
 
 They were soon in the current of the promenade, 
 pressed, pushed, jostled. For a few moments Laura 
 could see nothing but a sea of hats of all kinds and 
 of both genders. Getting to one side of the hall she 
 saw that the crowd was making a circuit of the place 
 around the row of fountains. On either side of them 
 were marble tables, where were seated men young 
 and old, and women young or striving to give them- 
 selves a youthful appearance. All had glasses before 
 them; glasses large and small, filled with liquids of 
 various hues, green predominating. At first sight, the 
 women looked handsome, but of a boldly brazen, sens- 
 uous beauty. The men were of all races, even Arabs 
 and Madagascar negroes, and these were in company 
 of the youngest and most prepossessing of the women.
 
 PABIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 293 
 
 Laura was not sure of her eyes and could not contain 
 her astonishment: 
 
 "Monsieur Beaupassant, are those girls associating 
 with the blacks?" 
 
 "Certainly. Certainly; that's a sign of progressive 
 civilization, you know." 
 
 She withdrew attention from them and watched 
 the women in the slowly moving procession; or, more 
 exactly, the women in and out of the procession. They 
 walked in pairs amid this mob of men, crossing the 
 line with ease, gliding between elbows, between breasts, 
 between backs, entirely at home, like fish in familiar 
 waters. Although they had a supercilious air, as 
 though they were indifferent to everything, including 
 man, they would stop now and then and solicit some one 
 to stand treat and when refused would turn their backs 
 angrily and ejaculate a word or two that Laura did 
 not understand. At that moment their flamboyant 
 beauty the large hips, the swelling bosoms, the enor- 
 mous black eyes, the huge, red lips took on some- 
 thing of bestiality. Several were ranged near a bar 
 at the other end of the hall, where the attendants 
 were maids with artificially blond hair to give them 
 an English look which contrasted grotesquely with 
 their dark, flashing eyes. The maids were busy dis- 
 pensing cigars and drinks, the while entertaining a 
 running conversation with the cocottes in front of 
 them ; and their ever alert and declamatory movements 
 were reflected in the high and broad mirror back of 
 them. 
 
 As the orchestra intoned a Metra march, Beaupas- 
 sant turned to the salle. "We've missed the first part, 
 but it doesn't matter." 
 
 A cloud of tobacco smoke veiled the stage and the 
 other side of the theatre like a thin fog; it was con- 
 stantly replenished by the white-blue emanations of 
 the cigars and cigarettes smoked by the spectators, 
 including the women, and the moving haze accumulated 
 at the ceiling, beneath the big dome around the su- 
 perb chandeliers that hung just above the top gallery, 
 and formed strange figures there.
 
 294 PABIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 Laura and her escort were enclosed in one of the 
 several rows of open boxes that formed a semi-circle 
 between the orchestra and dress circle ; the loges were 
 decorated in red and contained four chairs of the 
 same color, chairs so closely placed that one could 
 barely pass between them. 
 
 The raised curtain disclosed three trapeze perform- 
 ers. In the next turn were four acrobats who went 
 through the usual evolutions ; following this a presti- 
 digitator, who did nothing that Laura had not seen 
 before. Finally, when a man and a troupe of trick 
 dogs came on Laura asked: "Is there no singing, no 
 acting, no dialogue here? Do they get up these enter- 
 tainments for people who are deaf or hard of hear- 
 ing?" 
 
 "The programmes are arranged for the benfit of 
 strangers who know little or no French, and for peo- 
 ple who are content with seeing something going on. 
 Look about you; in front are peddlers and grocers 
 with their beefy wives, a bunch of stupid heads that 
 wateh the stage with their mouths agape. In the boxes, 
 nearly all strangers, from every quarter of the earth 
 Americans, Brazilians, Englishmen, Japs, Russians, 
 South and North Africans, some with, some without 
 women of the town. Back of you, an extraordinary 
 mixture; the riff-raff of almost every profession; fel- 
 lows who have failed through corruption or a total 
 want of ability. These are few, however; the crooks 
 predominate. The other sex is all of one character, 
 as you have noticed, I suppose. The same women, in 
 the same number, come here night after night for years 
 except when they are in the hospital. 
 
 "I see an annoucement at the end of the programme 
 ! Le Cygne Dormant.' Is it a play?" 
 
 "Not at all. Simply a thing for the eyes. There 
 isn't a word spoken. A liberal display of heavy female 
 anatomy. You can see such things much better done 
 at the Marigny in the Champs Elysee." 
 
 His inflection was a hint that he had had quite 
 enough.
 
 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 295 
 
 "Then I had rather some time see the thing done 
 at the Marigny." 
 
 Before stepping into the carriage she looked him 
 full in the eyes and asked : 
 
 "Monsieur, what is it in me that really interests 
 you ? Why do you expose yourself to ennui by escort- 
 ing me to places that are tiresome to you?" 
 
 For the first time he betrayed a shade of embarrass- 
 ment, as though he had been discovered in something 
 he was sure had been perfectly concealed. He flushed ; 
 his reply was slow in coming. 
 
 "Well, (eh bien) I I find you are interesting 
 because because you are different from our French- 
 women because you Miss Darnby, I'll be frank 
 with you later. Before you return to your America 
 I'll give you another reason." 
 
 Ah, then there was another reason ! 
 
 The unstated cause the unknown, the mysterious 
 provoked Laura to such absorbing speculation that 
 she did not notice the course and the slowness of the 
 carriage. Not until a stop was made was she aroused. 
 A long, grimy, sinister-looking building; at the height 
 of one's head a blind aperture in the door. Beaupas- 
 sant knocked loudly. Waiting two minutes he knocked 
 again. At the end of three minutes a board in the blind 
 aperture was withdrawn and in the opening a scurvy 
 head. 
 
 "What do you want?" was asked brashly. 
 
 "Aristide, if you please, Monsieur" Beaupassant 
 was very deferential purposely so, perhaps, in con- 
 trast with the fellow's grossness. Monsieur took 
 his time in opening the door and when he dad so it 
 was with insulting reluctance. For a moment they 
 were in utter darkness, as though in an antilair to 
 a thieves' den. A second door was opened; the light 
 blinded them for a moment. Four steps down and 
 Laura found herself in what appeared to her a topsy- 
 turvy inn. Bizarre objects hung against the walls. 
 A sanded floor and a long table. At the sides, against 
 the walls, desk-like tables. The ceiling of rafters. At 
 the back, from high to low, a series of shelves, filled
 
 296 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 with bottles, decanters, glasses. The light was high 
 and glaring, notwithstanding the curls of smoke puffed 
 by men whose long, black, unkempt hair stuck out 
 in rebellious masses from beneath slouched hats. All 
 the tables were occupied by these individuals; all had 
 absinthe tumblers in front of them, a few of which 
 were full, some half-filled, many empty. There were 
 no women present, but Laura's presence elicited no 
 attention whatever no attention was paid to her or 
 to Beaupassant. They took two unoccupied seats in 
 a corner, and once seated a waiter grudgingly came 
 up and asked surlily: "What do you want?" 
 
 "Absinthe for two." 
 
 Turning to Laura: "Of course you will not drink 
 the stuff ; neither shall I. But we must do what others 
 do in these places these poets' dens. They all write 
 verses." 
 
 But why is it so difficult to enter? Why is the 
 waiter rude? And are you unknown to these these 
 literary men?" 
 
 "The difficulty of entering is apparent only, the 
 rudeness simulated; they are the trade-mark of the 
 place; all these dens have something to distinguish 
 or to mark them. Insolence is Aristide's trade-mark. 
 I am not known to the people here; even if I were, 
 they would despise me, for I deserted poetry for prose. 
 A prosaist, in the view of Aristide's admirers is a 
 menial of letters to whom any sort of recognition 
 would be traitorous. How do they live ? Heaven only 
 knows. Aristide, of course, makes a comfortable 
 income here. Verlaine receives a good price for his 
 lines. For the rest, existence is a mystery. But any 
 one of them who is applauded by the habitues is 
 sure to have his rhymes appear in Gil Bias with an 
 illustration by Steinlen, and the glory of such recog- 
 nition suffices to keep the glorified in purple clouds for 
 months. It's a vagabond life that ends one in thous- 
 ends in permanent fame, in many, many times at 
 the morgue, or what is worse than the morgue 
 a small, mean, stultifying clerkship. My God! When 
 I think of the souls that 'have been extinguished
 
 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 297 
 
 behind counters and bookkeepers' desks; in nar- 
 row, stinting marriages; I know something of office 
 prisons. I once was an office clerk, as I have re- 
 marked, and I shudder when I recall those days. 
 I had rather be a rude miner, digging in the bowels of 
 the earth; <a farmer toiling in the open fields; a com- 
 mon sailor; even a common soldier much as I hate 
 the horrible trade of war than hold a clerkship, the 
 shabbiest, the meanest, the most ignominious, the 
 most humiliating position imaginable for a manly spirit. 
 But look; Aristide is mounting the table." 
 
 A square, muscular figure set off by a big, shaggy 
 head, whose face was an anomaly to all his other 
 physical aspects : clear cut as a cameo and of a healthy 
 brown. But there was something untamed, bestial 
 about the eyes, and this something came out in the 
 tone of the voice and the words uttered. The song 
 was perfect in construction ; the harmony of the rhyme 
 was delightful; but it was wholly sullied by its base 
 idea. While the frenziedly noisy applause was deafen- 
 ing the ear, the door opened for a limping being, lean- 
 ing on the arm of what had been thought an attend- 
 ant had not both been grimily and indigently clothed. 
 One glance at the second he who offered his arm- 
 told him to be a mendicant, or a peddler taken with 
 a canine devotion for the other, who as he limped 
 past Laura, all but startled her into a cry. He had 
 removed a dirty, holely hat, disclosing a huge, lumpy 
 cranium, bald to the ears and almost to the neck, 
 which, like his countenance, was blotchy the blotches 
 that announce a venereal disease. The body was quite 
 bent and he presented an ensemble so appallingly 
 depraved, so befouled with degradation, so denatural- 
 ized with hideous appetites, that a gorilla would seem 
 an angel of purity beside him; a physiognomy that, 
 without actually staring at (him, Laura had not supposed 
 possible in man. He could not be described as an 
 animal, for no beast is capable of expressing such pol- 
 lution and of exhibiting such vice; face and form 
 had a meaning which humanity alone, dragged down 
 to its deepest corruption, can convey.
 
 298 PABIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 ' ' Merciful heaven ! What who is that ? ' ' 
 
 Beaupassant had eyed him steadily, without emo- 
 tion, as one familiar with the sight. 
 
 "Paul Venlaine, if not our greatest, surely our 
 most genuine poet. A genius who wallows in filth 
 and criminality. Frangois Villon was a saint com- 
 pared to that creature. He hasn't the remotest con- 
 ception of morality he's a moral imbecile. There are 
 only four places in the world for him: the brothel 
 and the hospital; the prison and these drinkeries." 
 
 His entrance was a signal for -a hush of rever- 
 ence. Many half rose from their seats and bowed. 
 Only to one to Aristide did he extend his hand. 
 Place was made for him at the proprietor's table. A 
 few instants after he was seated a tall glass of absinthe 
 was in his hand. 
 
 Beaupassant anticipating further questions con- 
 tinued, his eyes on Verlaine: "In all things men of 
 genius are intense and they are rewarded or punished 
 beyond other men. Nature had never stamped vice 
 upon the form and features of an ordinary man as 
 she has on Verlaine. She has made him vice incar- 
 nate. His appetites are animalistic, his passions mon- 
 strous. He is taken to the hospital eve>ry few months 
 and he escapes when only half cured. If he conde- 
 scends to recite any of his verses we had better leave 
 for the sake of your ears." 
 
 He had scarce uttered the admonition when Ver- 
 laine, his absinthe swallowed, limped toward the cen- 
 ter table to the clapping of hands. Laura came to 
 her feet instantly and made for the door. The surly 
 porter leered lewdly in withdrawing the bolt. 
 
 Where next 1 Laura suggested a studio or two. She 
 had never been in one. Ah, they were very much alike 
 up here, on Montmatre, Beaupassant observed. The 
 exceptions were Mke white ravens heard of in seam- 
 stresses romances but never seen. The rule suffered 
 unceasingly not for the poorest comforts of life but 
 for its necessities; ambitions without energy; hope- 
 ful without effort; trying to be cheerful under the 
 direst pressure of need. There was nothing pictur-
 
 PAKIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 299 
 
 esque about studios up here. The majority of them 
 were on the Cinquieme, around sharp corners, and 
 barely accessible. Once on the final floor, after stum- 
 bling along a narrow hall as black as Erebus and 
 floundering through a curtained doorway, one comes 
 abruptly on a door, falls headlong over a little rattan 
 stool or an easel or a box of paints and is picked up 
 in a room eight metres in width by ten in length with 
 a narrow skylight above. It is romantic that sort 
 of life for a year or so when one is eighteen or twenty 
 and has a superabundance of health, but the more part 
 end in the manner of Aristide's habitues. You cannot 
 live in semi-starvation amid evil odors and retain your 
 illusions for long. 
 
 "But stay, there is a studio further up, on the 
 very heights that is worth while. And this is Thurs- 
 day, Madeline's evening. It may be interesting enough 
 to endure for an hour. Let us go there." 
 
 He was about to signal the hackman when Laura 
 stayed his hand with a request ; she would like to walk 
 there, for that would bring her in more personal con- 
 tact with Bohemian Paris than a closed oairriage 
 affords. Yes, certainly, but the Bohemian quarters 
 were not all Bohemian, mademoiselle would soon see. 
 The cab was sent on ahead and Laura took the author's 
 arm. No, it was not all Bohemian; some of it was 
 pious; some of it work-a-day, some thievish, criminal, 
 some the haunts of the ultimate dregs of prostitution. 
 They met priests and nuns ; artisans men, women and 
 children prematurely aged by over-work in miasmic 
 conditions met thieves who slunked and other crim- 
 inals who glared aggressively ; met cocottes young and 
 old who gave men speculative stares; who accosted 
 youths openly, who walked langourously or stood at 
 the corners of the narrow, winding streets, who, when 
 they were successful in arresting passers-by, solicited 
 them avidly. Then there were lorettes hanging on 
 students' arms, the generality laughing impudently. 
 Now and again a young laborer with his sweetheart 
 would pass, he happy in his possession, she bareheaded, 
 a red rose in her hair, gratified to be possessed. They
 
 300 PABIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 passed churches, monasteries, convents, where God was 
 worshiped by the lowly ; passed dens where future mas- 
 ter pieces could be bought for a franc ; dens where one 's 
 throat would be cut for a sou ; passed shops, some bright, 
 others dingy; passed dancing halls and concert halls, 
 all small and nearly all disreputable. It was a kaleido- 
 scope of wealth and penury, vice and virtue, piety and 
 sin, of industry and of crime. 
 
 ' ' Montmartre is a world /in itself, ' ' murmured Laura. 
 
 "It is," he confirmed, and a most trying crucible 
 for artistic talent. They who have gone through it 
 successfully are at Fontainebleau, at Suresnes, or St. 
 Cloud or Poissy living like as Meissonier lived. There 
 that is the one exception I have in mind." 
 
 He pointed to a somber structure near the summit 
 whose gloom was deepened by two illuminated win- 
 dows at the top. The windows were open, whence 
 issued the harmony of piano and violin. 
 
 "Somerive is there. I know his bow," observed 
 Beaupassant. 
 
 The concierge, in recognizing Beaupassant, doffed 
 his hat. Four flights and they were at the destined 
 landing. They waited until the composition was fin- 
 ished, then Beaupassant knocked. A hostess of slight 
 aristocratic form and refinement of feature welcomed 
 Beaupassant. At the introduction she scanned Laura 
 critically and the quick appraisement gratified her so 
 that she threw out both hands, exclaiming in English, 
 "Welcome! Welcome!" 
 
 She ushered them into an apartment at once domes- 
 tic and bohemian, cozy and spacious, artistic and home- 
 like, frugal and prodigal. It was the Bohemianism of 
 a cultured woman. Contrasts met the eye everywhere, 
 from the large room itself its size was anti-Bohemian 
 to the satin-covered stool. Near the repulsive little 
 stove with an interminable pipe and hissing kettle 
 was a Flemish cupboard heavily carved, replete with 
 delicate crockery. 
 
 The long divan, a contrivance of various packing 
 boxes, was covered with rich rugs. At the back, on 
 a line with a long pine table, a piano. Scattered about,
 
 PAKIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 301 
 
 chairs of various forms and values. The walls were 
 cracked, but they were pure, and their decorations of 
 garlands and miscellaneous ornaments were in fault- 
 less taste. Woman's taste was everywhere. 
 
 There were six in the room and they were quite 
 all of distinguished appearance. One Laura knew at 
 once. The heavy mane of hair in which gray and black 
 struggled for domination in color; the artist's beard; 
 the absolutely black and resplendent eyes ; the slender, 
 somewhat inclined frame she perceived Alphonse 
 Bidet before he was presented; and when Beaupas- 
 sant supplemented her name with "une actrice Ameri- 
 caine" Bidet's woman companion greeted Laura with 
 a Gallic fervor that dissolved the rigidly high-bred and 
 hauteur-like countenance into womanly warmth and 
 girlish simplicity. Then Mme. Bidet it was she- 
 would have it that she herself complete the presenta- 
 tion of Laura to the company. With an arm encircling 
 Laura's waist she murmured low and affectionately, 
 "Monsieur de Somerive," indicating an old, white-haired 
 man, holding a violin caressingly. There was a note of 
 high esteem when she pronounced "Monsieur Godin," 
 sculptor, and "Monsieur Beringer," musician; the one 
 sanguinous, belligerent, heavy of form and hard of 
 feature; the other waspish, attenuated; feminine 
 hands and voice; his small face all but buried by an 
 enormous shock of coarse, Saxon hair. The shade of ap- 
 proval and reproval in Mme. Bidet's voice was dex- 
 terously blended in the naming of Monsieur Romaine ; 
 the handsome painter with the rakish air stopped puff- 
 ing a thick cigarette long enough to bow admiringly. 
 
 "And now we must be quiet for a few minutes and 
 listen to a Bach air." 
 
 Monsieur.de Somerive had turned to Madeleine, who 
 was at the piano. A preparatory hush, and the beauti- 
 ful woman and gentle old man, their countenances up- 
 lifted as if to read the score from on high, affused 
 themselves and their listeners with the seraphic com- 
 position which, ignoring the precedent of prefectoriness, 
 at once loosened its divine notes in a celestial shower. 
 Oh, how Laura drank of the spirit of that beatific
 
 302 PAKIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 sound! It banished the serpent with which care and 
 disillusioning experience had bound her heart. She 
 was lifted into the empyrean, where the soul freed 
 from its earthly prison finds the longed-for perfec- 
 tions that the world will ever deny. Madeleine and 
 Somerive had ceased playing, but the charm of the 
 melodic inspiration still held all in spell. Bidet on 
 the divan with his hands clasping his knees, had a 
 far-away look; almost stern. His wife, facing him, 
 seemed in a mute prayer. The sculptor, on a chair 
 against the wall, was lost in infinite meditation. The 
 musician, seated, was bent forward, has head buried 
 in his hands, as if weeping. The painter's demeanor 
 was transformed. The rakishness had given way to 
 an attitude of awe. He stood against the table, his 
 head deeply inclined. The composer's dissolving 
 strain through every vein had passed into the painter's 
 heart and brain. Beaupassant's eyes were fixed upon 
 the floor. He acknowledged he was moved by break- 
 ing silence with 
 
 "It is touching, this morceau by Bach." 
 
 "And now," he continued, raising his voice to the 
 hostess and the old violinist who were waiting as if 
 to be prompted to the next number, "permit me to sug- 
 gest a song by Beringer here, his '1 'Amour' for exam- 
 ple." 
 
 In a round, mellow contralto, Madeleine intoned 
 an amorous air, which changed the aspect of the 
 auditors into a glow of sensuous warmth; it conjured 
 up a warm, moonlight night; a chateau with illumin- 
 ated windows before which flitted encircled couples 
 waltzing to voluptuous music that was wafted down 
 to the river's bank; where mated youth, seated beneath 
 trees, with eyes upon the moonlight water, listened 
 to the ingratiating orchestra and to the response by a 
 nightingale. The instrumental part of the amatory 
 measure was nothing ; a casual accompaniment contrib- 
 utory to a better hearing of the musician in the scene. 
 
 They all congratulated Beringer, Bidet enthusias- 
 tically, for the hirsute novelist, Laura had noticed, 
 was something of a melomaniac. His extremely dark
 
 PAEIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 303 
 
 eyes, still under the spell of languorous strains, seemed 
 to swim in sentimentality. Beside him Mme. Bidet 
 was calmly contained, sweetly dignified. Of the two 
 one had thought him the woman. He turned to Laura 
 and spoke of music in America. The Americas, he 
 thought, had given the world many valuable execut- 
 ants, more especially the United States, but they had 
 given only one creator of music the composer of "II 
 Guarany, ' ' Gomes, a Brazilian. There was some prom- 
 ise in a youth of Laura's country, Nevins by name, 
 he believed. He hoped the young man's environments 
 would not sterilize his talent. Still, far be it from him 
 to criticize unmusical atmospheres. Many of his 
 friends had no ears for the art. Flaubert had had 
 no interest in it; it was lost on the Goncourts. Aloza 
 was stone deaf to music; Beaupassant was suscepti- 
 ble to it, but only to the sensuous. Tourgenieff alone 
 among them all had had a true appreciation of the 
 divine art. And he continued to expatiate knowingly 
 and interestingly on music and musicians while the 
 others talked of one thing and another. 
 
 The platitude about Nevins and his environment 
 touched Laura disagreeably. She felt as others have 
 felt; no matter how censorious one may be about 
 one's country when at home, it is a keen thrust when 
 abroad to have it critisized by a stranger. She made 
 the observation to Beaupassant when they were again 
 in the street. 
 
 "I am no judge of that, for I have always held 
 that patriotism in this age is an anomaly. I have heard 
 France criticised in foreign countries with no emo- 
 tion or resentment whatever. You will pardon me 
 for expressing the view, but I cannot argue away 
 the thought that patriotism is a savage thought handed 
 down to us by barbarians who fought one another 
 for no other reason than that their noses were not all 
 alike." 
 
 They walked in silence until they turned into a 
 broad, sloping street, which at some distance from 
 them was garishly illuminated. Beaupassant stopped 
 as if something had suddenly occurred to him. "My
 
 304 PAEIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 dear Miss Darnby, I want to make a suggestion. I 
 suggest that we do not go to the Moulin Noir. It is 
 not because I think you would find it immoral, but 
 that it is uninteresting and, worse still, very vulgar. 
 In the center there is a large platform for professional 
 dancers, male and female. On the sides drinking tables 
 infested by dancers and women, whose business it is 
 to make men consume as much liquor as they can induce 
 them to buy. In a few side alleys so-called groves 
 you may chance upon a disgusting scene or two or may 
 have your pocket picked. It is all very dull and hope- 
 lessly cheap ; a place for provincial people and for for- 
 eigners who suppose that Parisian manners and char- 
 acteristics are exemplified there." 
 
 "Manners and characteristics? I did not know that 
 there were people so ignorant as to expect such a 
 thing." 
 
 "It is so, nevertheless. The only interesting thing 
 about the place is the stranger and his delusion. In 
 the Moulin Noir the man from the interior meets 
 the man from abroad. The fellow from Bezrere who 
 has had trouble with his wife meets the Norwegian 
 nobleman, Marquis de Gondremarck. A bourgeois 
 family from Bavaria rubs elbows in the gravelled mall 
 with a group of Japanese; you may see a Russian 
 prince by the side of a hardware merchant from 
 Liseaux; see Slovaks, Servians, Poles, Portuguese, 
 Spanish and English anybody save Parisians. If by 
 chance one of us strays into the place, he dashes out 
 directly he has gone around that circle where it is 
 pretended the dancing is not professional. A mall 
 of artificial scenery; palms of zinc; a gaping crowd 
 from all quarters of the globe; professional dancers; 
 mechanical grottoes; an old sink transformed into a 
 fountain; an old, second cook disguised as a fortune 
 teller ; and, on gala nights, a couple of English boxers, 
 who break each other's noses. It is a scheme espe- 
 cially arranged to lure as many francs as possible 
 from the pockets of foreigners who are made to believe 
 they are seeing a fine specimen of Parisian gaiety 
 and wickedness. For a franc the foreigner can see
 
 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 305 
 
 six salaried high kickers, who are supposed to repre- 
 sent Parisian folly ; a dozen dissolute women who pass 
 for Parisian grace and fascination; in the side alleys 
 a disgusting scene or two and everywhere a lot of 
 persons who are yawning hard enough to dislocate 
 their jaws ; Brazilians who come -via Bordeaux ; Ameri- 
 cans landed at Havre; Germans from the Northern 
 railway depot; Austrians brought here by the East- 
 ern line; Turks who come up the Danube; Spaniards 
 from Old Castile, and here and there a low-paid clerk 
 who mounted an omnibus near some obscure street on 
 the left bank of the river. All these people eye one 
 another with curiosity ; every foreigner thinks his neigh- 
 bor a Parisian and for that reason, you see, the Moulin 
 Noir is so thoroughly Parisian. There really is nothing 
 less Parisian than these places. Paris is synonymous 
 with grace, wit, taste; tihere is nothing of this at the 
 Moulin Noir ; grace is represented by a dozen hardened 
 prostitutes who prowl around the orchestra; by a few 
 young dancers who change their gowns for dancing pur- 
 poses at the office just as an actress "makes up" in her 
 dressing room before going on; wit by a lot of pick- 
 pockets ; while taste is shown in the zinc palms and the 
 Chinese lanterns. The foreigner who arrives in Paris 
 hurriedly takes a bath, jumps into a cab and gets out 
 at the Moulin Noir, where he thinks he will get a 
 large sample of Paris in a night. The three men 
 wearing white ties at the box office offer the first 
 example of Parisian distinction ; the leafy mall, painted 
 on canvas, Parisian art; the orchestra playing a silly 
 composition is Parisian music; a third rate cocotte, 
 who lifts up her skirts, is representative of the Parisian 
 dance; the young man who kicks up his legs in uni- 
 son with the female dancer's vulgar audacities and 
 to whom the management has entrusted a dress suit, 
 ready made, impersonates the youth of Paris. To the 
 average foreigner, places like the Moulin Noir are sym- 
 bolic of Paris life. Oftener than not he goes home in a 
 week positively convinced that for a few francs he 
 has seen Paris thoroughly. If he is a writer the 
 Moulin Noir experience warrants him to write two
 
 306 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 
 
 or three volumes on Parisian morals and the press of 
 his country in reviewing his book declares that he 
 has made a profound study of French morality or 
 immorality." 
 
 "I certainly shall defer to your suggestion and 
 I thank you for making it. Now let me make one: 
 let us return to the hotel at once and on the way back 
 tell me about the Bidets." 
 
 "Everybody adores Mme. Bidet," 'he answered 
 after directing the driver, "but the feeling is not so 
 unanimous regarding Bidet. He is highly complex, 
 even for an author. Flaubert once called him, in con- 
 fidential undertone, a feline fellow. You will overlook 
 the comparison, I know; he is feminine in his envy. 
 The enormous success of Aloza's 'Anna' threw him 
 into an envious rage for a week, though Aloza is his 
 best friend. Tourgenieff, who is deeply penetrating, 
 distrusts him and at bottom dislikes him. Edmond de 
 Goncourt says he lacks singleness of purpose. He is 
 very vain, the vanity of a Southerner. I am prejudiced 
 against men who are dosed with personal sentimen- 
 tality, and Bidet has all the faults and virtues that 
 come from that trait. He has an extremely nervous 
 organization, has all the nerves and sensibilities and 
 susceptibilities of a woman and also her contradic- 
 tions and amazing mutabilities. He likes Germans 
 because they are strong, heavy and victorious a 
 woman's secret adoration for her opposite. Finally 
 he has the delicate perfidy and ingratitude of a woman. 
 He will not hesitate to put a sacred secret imparted 
 by a friend into his books. His 'Mogul' is a perfidious 
 volume filled with his ingratitude and violations of con- 
 fidences. His greatest benefactors, from the Due de 
 Morny down, are traduced and vilified. He does not 
 do these things wantonly. He does them uncon- 
 sciously; or, better, according to his nature; the un- 
 scrupulousness of a writer who thinks all material 
 (friend or foe) is his prey. The real man in the Bidet 
 menage is Mme. Bidet." 
 
 The open carriage moved slowly. There were in- 
 numerable vehicles aihead, bunched closely, compelling
 
 PAEIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTBES. 307 
 
 slackened pace. On Laura's side was a long drink- 
 ery, glittering with crude lights, and beneath the gar- 
 ish illuminations, at small round, marble-top tables, 
 a mass of miscellaneous and for the most part pusillani- 
 mous humanity. There were young men and old. And 
 the young were as bald as the old. It was Bohemian- 
 ism of a more energetic character than that at Aristides ; 
 an open air Bohemianism against the cave kind at the 
 other place. The air of abandon was the same in both. 
 But what quickly arrested Laura's attention to the 
 exclusion of the rest were the women. In the brief 
 glances which the slowly moving cab permitted she 
 noticed the types were several; many were young and 
 these all singularly attractive; the forms svelt, the 
 faces of beautiful strength. The partial or wholly 
 faded predominated, however, and they imparted a 
 momentary wave of depression to Laura; they were 
 so palpably rouged, their struggle with encroaching 
 age so futile and frantic. 
 
 "What place is this?" 
 
 "Brasserie des Hirondelles, a rendezvous for artists, 
 students and failures and their mistresses. You are 
 interested in the women, I see. All models, actual or 
 ancient. Their heads are as striking as their sobriquets, 
 though their piquant appellations insists upon nobility. 
 They all are de somebody or countess so and so. Heaven 
 only knows where they come from. A few, originally, 
 had aspirations ; they wished to be artists or actresses ; 
 they failed for want of talent or perseverance or moral- 
 ity. But the mass is made up of cocottes. They pass 
 from hand to hand and from each ' ' friend ' ' they absorb 
 a little artistic erudition. They talk well; they have 
 opinions second hand about everything. They are 
 realists and impressionists and romanticists, catholic 
 and protestants, Jewesses and atheists by turns ac- 
 cording to the lover of the week or day. They all smoke 
 as well as drink. It's bad for them and worse for their 
 men. How many promising fellows have I known who 
 began coming here once a week ! then twice ; then every 
 night and finally made it their home a home of guz- 
 zled beer and sipped absinthe ; of hurrying waiters ; of
 
 308 PAEIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 heated discussions ; no, not discussions, but of vocifera- 
 tions; shouts, cries; gesticulating arms, and shaking 
 manes you notice the men are all long-haired, when 
 they have any. They come here to intoxicate themselves 
 with wild ideas as well as with brutal beverages. They 
 form collaborations, outline masterpieces of art and 
 literature which, are not started even hypnotize 
 themselves and forget that they are growing older and 
 the brasserie odious. They end by finding it impossi- 
 ble to do anything. Bohemianism in Murger's sense 
 and as depicted by him is a lie, the most dangerous 
 falsehood ever perpetrated in our literature; it is a 
 delusion that has given young men a basis of quicksand 
 for a beginning; it has vitiated the will, sapped the 
 energy and poisoned the blood and mind of myriads 
 of geniuses." 
 
 They had now reached the boulevards, which were 
 ablaze. The shops cast floods of brilliant light half 
 across the streets, and encircled the crowd in a golden 
 haze. The illuminated Kiosques, extending in two in- 
 terminable rows and resembling enormous Chinese lan- 
 terns, gave to the street the fantastic and childlike 
 aspect of an Oriental fete. The flood of light, the 
 thousands of luminous points shining through the 
 trees; the flitting carriage lights that seemed like 
 myriads of fire flies; the purple lamps of the omni- 
 buses, the hundred thousand illuminated windows, 
 these theatrical splendors produced an indescribable 
 impression on Laura. It seemed like an immense dis- 
 play of fireworks, which if suddenly extinguished 
 would leave the city buried in smoke. 
 
 Beaupassant said nothing until they reached the 
 Madeleine, when his words told that the trend of his 
 thought had veered completely. 
 
 "I'm thinking what must be the social freedom of 
 women in your country. I have always known that 
 young men and women, especially when engaged, go 
 about everywhere unescorted. And it seems that mar- 
 ried women have the same privilege ; that is, they are 
 permitted to be accompanied by their male friends, in 
 the absence of their husbands. It seems singular to
 
 PAEIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 309 
 
 the French mind. Here such a thing would be seriously 
 compromising." 
 
 "Well, it is quite regular with us provided the hus- 
 band approves of it." 
 
 "And are there no accidents?" This with derisive 
 glitter in the eye. 
 
 "Not as many as with you." 
 
 "And it is known your husband and friends know 
 that I am your friend, philosopher and guide, as your 
 Dr. Johnson expresses it?" 
 
 "My husband knows. I have written him." 
 
 "And your friends will know through your friend, 
 the American journalist here." 
 
 Laura had quite forgotten Woodlock. What had he 
 cabled his paper? What written? She realized that 
 to have been taken up by Beaupassant and introduced 
 to the artistic circles of Paris implied at home an en- 
 hancement of personal prestige and professional repu- 
 tationif tactfully presented to American readers. 
 Otherwise they were near the hotel and Beaupassant 
 took her hand with "allow me." He kissed it for the 
 first time since they had met. 
 
 Laura was sufficiently versed in French customs to 
 know that the kissing of the hand was a convention; 
 but being belated on Beaupassant 's part and coming 
 with the discussion of American manners, it provoked 
 that malaise when women are uncertain whether they 
 should feel insulted, flattered or complimented. The 
 ruffled sensation vanished as Mrs. Quincy who had 
 waited for Laura called attention to a package of 
 letters on the table. The subtle perplexities of the 
 higher world the world of letters, of elegance, of 
 higher thought disappeared in the ruder cares of do- 
 mestic intimacies, in the homely anxieties of her own 
 country. The short stay in Paris had made her quite 
 oblivious to Ross, her parents, her American intimatea 
 and to Gars her profession. 
 
 There was a. letter from Gars; this reminded her 
 that she was an actress aspiring to the best which her 
 profession affords in America. There were several 
 from Ross written one each day from the moment of
 
 310 PARIS-ITS VISIONS AND SPECTEES. 
 
 her departure to the sailing of the next steamer; they 
 produced mingling emotions of an antithetical char- 
 acter. Did she regret her marriage? Should she be 
 grateful? Knowing the intellectual world as she now 
 knew it had she married Ross Ross entirely practical 
 and mentally quite elemental? And one from her 
 mother from that primitive form of life in Missouri. 
 For a moment her retrospective vision was profoundly 
 tragic, embracing the tragedy of the soul at war with 
 conditions and the more awful spectacle of human 
 character, capable of good, of brilliancy even, defeated 
 by the ox-like if not ignoble association and in so 
 many instances finally abandoned to its baser instincts. 
 And the more sensitized the man or woman who suc- 
 sumbs at last to the cerements of miserable environ- 
 ments, the deeper is his or her debasement. After 
 these thoughts had passed over her brain she rejoiced 
 that she had married Ross. In her heart she thanked 
 him, she was grateful to him for surrounding her with 
 that which she now knew was best for the more 
 part of women intelligent luxury and refinement. 
 The thankfulness, the gratitude melted momentarily as 
 Darnby leaped to her mind; an incandescent hate, an 
 inflamed resentment possessed her. Then Protony; he 
 was quite objective now. He evoked pity, admiration 
 and resentment too fugitive and diaphanous for defini- 
 tion ; but through all there was a well-defined contempt 
 which every womanly woman feels for men who are 
 evasive, hesitative, compliant, deferential, melancholy 
 and completely ineffective. 
 
 From members of her own profession from the 
 actors and actresses to whom she had been "My dear" 
 not a line. They were an insincere and a self-cen- 
 tered lot, these butterflies. 
 
 The letters read, she sat near the window pensive. 
 It was a strange contrast; here was glorious Paris, 
 with its diadem, the Champs Elysee (symbolic of a 
 realized dream) in front of her; there, on a table, were 
 communications which were witnesses of ties with a 
 mean past and perhaps an indifferent future. Oh, would 
 that Paris and the ideals and enjoyments which it had
 
 PARIS- ITS VISIONS AND SPECTRES. 311 
 
 inspired could be perpetuated! But she was sure of 
 a few days more ; she would live those days to the very 
 seconds. And, meanwhile, no mare thoughts of the 
 past or of a future whose only inviting glance was 
 an ambition that had been discouraged by the impossi- 
 bility of attaining the perfection she had seen in French 
 theatres. She bade Mrs. Quincy to cast the letters in 
 a trunk she would sever the bonds for a few days at 
 least and then retired, her mind, just before slumber 
 supervened, in a confusion of cloudy casuistry with 
 regard to Beaupassant and hazy anticipations of a visit 
 to Aloza at Medan.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE SOULS OF PAEIS. 
 
 For a while the route followed the Seine, where the 
 river is dotted with charming islands ; then swerves to 
 cross the pretty village of Villaines; there redescends 
 gently, and finally penetrates the country where lives 
 the author with the penetrating look. 
 
 An ancient and unique church, flanked by two tur- 
 rets, first appeared to the left. A few steps further and 
 a passing peasant pointed out the door of the novelist. 
 Before ringing, Beaupassant suggested that Laura look 
 at the residence. A large building, square and high. 
 It appeared to have given birth after the manner of 
 the fable of the mountain and the mouse to a little 
 house, very white, couched at the foot of the big edifice. 
 The small one, Beaupassant explained, was the original 
 home, built by a former proprietor. The other had 
 been constructed by Aloza. 
 
 They rang. A massive dog a cross breed of St. 
 Bernard and Newfoundland barked so ferociously that 
 Laura stepped back. But a servant ran forward and 
 before opening directed, "Be quiet, Bertrand". She 
 greeted Beaupassant with the gentle respect and polite 
 familiarity that Laura had observed to be the rule 
 among French domestics. Beaupassant had merely to 
 say "M'lle Darnby" for Laura to be greeted with a 
 sweet smile and a respectful bow. They followed her 
 from the old to the new building, where they ascended 
 a pair of stairs to the second floor. In a few moments 
 in following the servant, Laura, who had not thought 
 of it before, asked herself what manner of man she 
 expected to see. She had seen a bust picture of him 
 in magazines and newspapers, but every cut had been 
 
 (812)
 
 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 313 
 
 different from the other ; they were confusing and made 
 for no adequate conception of the writer whose sonor- 
 ous name had already at that time resounded in all 
 quarters of the world to the invincible hate of some, 
 the indignation real or feigned of others, to the envy 
 of certain fellow writers, the deep respect of an army 
 of readers and to the admiration of hosts of people. 
 In her fancy she saw a bearded giant, of terrifying 
 aspect, with a resounding voice far from agreeable. 
 
 The door opened, disclosing an immense apartment 
 which was lighted by Venetian windows facing a 
 sweeping landscape. Ancient tapestries covered the 
 walls; to the left, a monumental fireplace, flanked by 
 staituettes. A big table crowded with books, manu- 
 scripts and newspapers occupied, or, rather monopol- 
 ized the middle of the room in such a way as to 
 attract attention to the momentary exclusion of the 
 man upon an oriental divan where at least twenty 
 men could have slept. 
 
 As they entered the man sat tailor wise. A book 
 with the leaves thumbed lay at his side. In his right 
 hand he fumbled an ivory paper knife whose tip he 
 had contemplated with one eye, in closing the other, 
 with the obstinate squint of a myope. He slid down 
 directly he recognized Beaupassant, advanced quickly 
 and shook hands heartily. He bowed rather formally 
 to Laura, and observed, again facing Beaupassant : 
 ' ' You the first, and on time ? You who are always late 
 when you come >at all? Ah, perhaps madamoiselle is 
 to be credited with your promptness." 
 
 Whilst he was speaking Laura examined him: of 
 medium height ; of the comfortable -circumference of a 
 contented bourgeois. His head, very like those that 
 are found in the Italian portraits of the sixteenth cen- 
 turn, without being handsome in the plastic sense, pre- 
 sented a cogent example of strength and intelligence. 
 Thick and short hair stood out upon a highly developed 
 brow. His straight nose was as if suddenly arrested 
 in its growth by the stroke of a chisel just above the 
 upper lip, which was covered by a black, heavy mus- 
 tache. The entire chin was of a beard clipped very
 
 314 THE SOULS OF PAEIS. 
 
 close. The black eyes shot out as if they were about 
 to discharge a volley of ironical and penetrating am- 
 munition. Laura felt that back of these orbs was 
 a highly active mind that understood men, was not 
 misled by their words, interpreted their gestures, de- 
 nuded their souls. This round and strong head was in 
 consonance with the short and resonant name of three 
 bounding syllables and three ringing vowels. 
 
 A woman entered. She was introduced to Laura as 
 Mrs. Aloza. She was tall as Aloza was short, thin as 
 he was stout, characterless in mien and features as he 
 was vivid with strength and intellectual vivacity; a 
 faithful mate and no more one who looked to the 
 creature comforts of her forceful husband. Then en- 
 tered the Bidets, both of whom greeted Laura warmly. 
 Mme. Bidet exclaiming: "Ah, there is our brilliant 
 brunnette!" Upon their heels came two men obviously 
 painters and clearly brothers. They were presented 
 as the Messieurs Guillemet. Another artist whom 
 Aloza fairly embraced and whom he introduced in a 
 paternal way followed. He was Monsieur Monet; a 
 strong face, hard and determined. Then came the 
 M. M. Hansmann, Henrique, Creux, Robin and Alexique. 
 The first made a hybrid impression on Laura; it was 
 a mixture of repulsion and attraction. He might have 
 been anything from a clerk to an abbe. His eyes were 
 restive and changed constantly in expression. He had 
 a hungry look which was animalistic and philosoph- 
 ically wistful by turns. Henrique and Robin were 
 Frenchmen as they are met on the street ces mes- 
 sieurs qui passe. Creux had the air of a soured hermit, 
 Alexique that of a despondent watch dog. 
 
 Mme. Aloza suggested that they go into the dining 
 room. Aloza interposed: "Let us wait. Perhaps the 
 ancient will come- after all." 
 
 The ancient did come presently. He stooped de- 
 cidedly, walked undecidedly like an invalid soldier. 
 The simile was emphasized by the white military mus- 
 tache, the florid face. His reception was that of a 
 retired general by young soldiers; enthusiasm blended 
 with deference. Beaupassant made Laura known to
 
 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 315 
 
 him as "An American actress distinguished." He to 
 her as Emile dc Boncourse. 
 
 The ancient's arrival was a signal to repair to the 
 dining room. As was the library and other apart- 
 ments through which they passed, the hall in which 
 they were to have dinner was decidedly unrealistic 
 and pronouncedly romantic. From it Laura had a full 
 view of the colossal ribbon called the Seine. 
 
 Aloza took one end of the oblong table, Bon- 
 course the other. Laura was placed near Boncourse 's 
 end, between him and Beaupassant and directly oppo- 
 site Hanseman. Henri Rochefort was the subject of 
 comment as they took their sats. To-day's article in 
 L'lntransigeant Boncourse vowed would again send 
 him into exile. The attack on the ministry was the 
 most vicious that had appeared since the commune. 
 At heart Rochefort was a communist ; he 
 
 ' ' Pardon, ' ' Bidet interrupted. ' ' At heart Rochefort 
 is a dead literary ambition, the victim of a perverted 
 talent. As a young man Rochefort wished to be an 
 author. He wrote farces which were very mediocre, dra- 
 matic critiques which were virile and original. In the 
 same office with him was a violently opinionated youth, 
 the butt of the staff's sarcasm, who was continually 
 denouncing men high in office. One day Rochefort, 
 in a spirit of jest, made a transcript of these ravings 
 and sent it to an obscure weekly. To the astonish- 
 ment of Rochefort and the editor, the disconnected 
 vaporings were the talk of the boulevard for a whole 
 evening. The editor demanded m6re of the same 
 nature and from that day to this Rochefort has been 
 writing the inanities which were begun in a joke. At 
 first, Rochefort threw off the copy as though it were 
 a bit of humorous hack work ; then it became a habit ; 
 now it is a vice. At the beginning they were facetious 
 and well written; to-day the paragraphs are the inco- 
 herencies of a madman. Rochefort was a disappointed 
 author without convictions, political or otherwise. 
 No matter what the government monarchical, Re- 
 publican, Communistic he would revile it in a style 
 thafc had changed from caustic to foul. ' '
 
 316 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 
 
 "What do you think of Rochefort?" was asked of 
 Boncourse. 
 
 "I cannot be exact until I have finished with this 
 most excellent dinner. It is after dinner that I get 
 my ideas. With me a full stomach is synonymous 
 with a s head full of thoughts. I am like those plants 
 whose leaves at once exude the water poured at the 
 base." 
 
 This was a hint to lower the tone of talk to brief 
 commonplaces until the finger bowls were presented, 
 for Boncourse, Laura perceived, was the nestor of 
 these gatherings. She paid little heed to the loose, 
 choppy remarks passed to and fro, but she felt a 
 sensation of being in an atmosphere of mental exhil- 
 eration. The air was psychologically electric. She 
 now felt herself visibly and acutely alive. She found 
 all her faculties keenly alert; found herself thinking 
 faster and clearer but without fatigue. It was as if 
 respiration were effortless and energy unconscious of 
 exertion. Some strong force, universal in its operation, 
 had manifestly so exalted the spirit of the Parisians, 
 centered and focused in its representation of art, as to 
 produce on every hand that phenomenon which some 
 one tried to characterize in declaring that "the last per- 
 fection of our qualities is when their activity, without 
 ceasing to be sure and earnest, becomes a sport." 
 
 "The only sane quality possessed of Rochefort," 
 began Boncourse in an oracular strain, as he put down 
 his serviette, "is his innate dislike of the Jews. That 
 trait is sincere. He recognizes that they are the evil 
 genius of humanity in that they are making money 
 the supreme test of worldly power and influence. ' ' 
 
 Aloza's head shot up as if touched by an electric 
 shock. His look of indignant astonishment denoted 
 a total disappearance of deference to his white-haired 
 friend. "Boncourse, I always knew you had a vague 
 prejudice against tne Bourse and commercialism, but I 
 am amazed to find that you have been infected by the 
 stupid attempt of a few discredited politicians to make 
 a little cheap capital by resurrecting a superstition 
 as shameful as it is barbarous."
 
 THE SOULS OF PAEIS. 317 
 
 Aloza's vehemence evidently was new to Boncourse, 
 who, unaccustomed to such an emphatic rebuttal, 
 was dislodged from complacency: "Why, Aloza, you 
 surprise me. Since when have you become a cham- 
 pion of money lenders, you who only recently have 
 emerged from the abject misery which the lack of 
 money breeds?" 
 
 "The Jews had nothing to do with my poverty. 
 I was poor because I was refused a hearing, and the 
 very class that is endorsing this puerile agitation of 
 discredited politicians the class that stands for every 
 reactionary movement, for progressive adversity did 
 more to retard my recognition than the critics who 
 affected to despise my work. What, after all, is there 
 against the Jews? What have they done? Some peo- 
 ple say they find Jews insufferable, that they cannot 
 shake hands with them without a feeling of repug- 
 nance. That I suppose, is a physical antipathy, the 
 repulsion of one race for another, the aversion of the 
 Caucasian for the Mongolian, the copper-colored bar- 
 barian for the black heathen. I do not know if in 
 this repugnance there does not enter the old hate for 
 the Jew who is ignorantly accused of having crucified 
 the Christ. However, physical repulsion is a good rea- 
 son, indeed the only reason, for there is nothing to 
 be said to people who tell you 'I think they are hateful 
 because I find them hateful ; because the very sight of 
 their nose exasperates me; because my flesh revolts 
 at finding them different and contrary ,to myself.' But 
 this hostility of one race for another will never do. We 
 might as well go back to the depths of the forest, 
 begin again the barbarous warfare of tribe against 
 tribe and devour one another because we haven't got 
 the same cry or because the hairs on our bodies are 
 not of the same color. The essential meaning of civil- 
 ization is the extinction of the savage instinct. In the 
 course of centuries the lesson which the history of 
 humanity teaches is that of mutual tolerance ; so obvi- 
 ous is this that every man of progress hopes for a uni- 
 versal fraternity ultimately. Therefore, to bite and to 
 hate in our time because one man's head is not shaped
 
 318 THE SOULS OF PAB1S. 
 
 exactly like another's is the beginning of a monstrous 
 madness. The Jews, I know are accused of being a 
 nation within a nation, of living apart, of being, as it 
 were, an international sect, without a country, capable 
 some day if sufficiently strong and successful of cap- 
 turing the world. The Jews in marrying among them- 
 selves are really a large family, with ties tightly drawn 
 amid the widening bands of modern times ; they sustain 
 one another, encourage each other, and display in 
 their isolation an irresistible force and a spirit of 
 gradual conquest that is extraordinary; above all, 
 they are a practical and shrewd race ; they are acquisi- 
 tive; they have an especial talent for business, which 
 in less than a century has put in their hands enormous 
 fortunes and which appears to assure them the kingdom 
 at a time when money shall be king. All this is true, but 
 who is responsible ? The Jews as they exist to-day are as 
 we have made them : the result of our eighteen hundred 
 years of idiotic persecution. They have been herded 
 in infamous ghetti, like lepers, so that it is not at all 
 astonishing that they have lived apart, have preserved 
 their traditions, have tightened family ties, have re- 
 mained like the conquered among the conquerors. 
 They have been beaten, abused, have been subjected 
 to all manner of judicial outrages and physical vio- 
 lences; it is not surprising, then that they harbor, 
 though unconsciously, the hope of revenge, of being 
 irresistible, of becoming in turn, conquerors. Above 
 all, the world disdainfully left the domain of money 
 to them, forcing them to be traffickers and usurers; 
 it is not surprising then that when the reign of brutal 
 might had given way to the reign of intelligence and 
 labor the Jews were found to be masters of money, 
 their brains developed, exercised by centuries of ex- 
 perience and thoroughly equipped for the strife in 
 the new social war." 
 
 "And now terrified by the result of blind perse- 
 cution, frightened at beholding what the fanaticism 
 of the middle ages has made of the Jews, you can con- 
 ceive of nothing better than to turn back a thousand 
 years, resume the persecutions, preach anew the holy
 
 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 319 
 
 war so that the Jews may be hounded, despoiled, 
 herded together as before; filled with the old hatred 
 and treated like slaves. This certainly is a very fine 
 conception of civilization, a lovely view of social order. 
 Seriously, is it possible that you with your countless 
 millions of Gentiles call for the police to protect you 
 against a handful of Jews? I really cannot compli- 
 ment you upon your bravery. The conditions of the 
 battle are very fair. Wihy not be as intelligent and 
 as clever as the Jews in the commercial field. While 
 I was around the Stock Exchange gathering material 
 for my novel, 'L 'Argent,' a Gentile banker in speak- 
 ing of the Jews said to me: 'They are too smart for 
 us; they overreach us in everything.' If that were 
 so it would be very humiliating. But why should it 
 be true? To be gifted is well enough, but work and 
 fair intelligence are better than mere gifts. The field 
 is free, and though the Jews have had several cen- 
 turies of training in money matters there is nothing to 
 do but to emulate them, to adopt their methods, beat 
 them with their own weapons. That is the only way. 
 To abuse them is worse than futile it is an acknowl- 
 edgment of your own weakness. Vanquish them by 
 being their superior in business. Nothing is more 
 simple. It is the law of life. What proud satisfac- 
 tion it must be to them to hear your cries of distress! 
 Think of it, though only an infinitesimal minority they 
 compel tremendous defensive operations. Every morn- 
 ing you blaze away at them, you soured the call to arms 
 as if your fort were in danger of capture. In listen- 
 ing to you one would think it were absolutely neces- 
 sary to re-establish the ghetto, with its Rue des Juifs, 
 to be barred at night with chains; and this quaran- 
 tine arrangement in our free cities would be a charm- 
 ing arrangement, would it not? I can well under- 
 stand that they are not at all disturbed, that they 
 continue to be supreme in the world of finance; for 
 abuse and injustice are the legendary arrow which 
 turns to pierce the eye of the malevolent archer. Con- 
 tinue to persecute them if you want them to continue 
 to be your superiors."
 
 320 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 
 
 "Persecution! Is it possible that you are still at 
 that primitive stage? You still imagine that you can 
 circumvent people by persecuting them? Let me 
 assure you that it is quite the contrary; nothing has 
 furthered the cause quite so effectively as the blood 
 of martyrs. If there are still Jews in the world, 
 the fault is yours. They had disappeared, had been 
 absorbed, had they not been forced to defend them- 
 selves, to live together, forced to cling to their tradi- 
 tions. Even to-day their greatest power proceeds 
 from the fact that you render that power more effective 
 by exaggerating it. In the end danger is created by 
 loudly acknowledging that it exists. By showing the 
 people a scarecrow, a real monster is created. If you 
 cease to agitate the question it will no longer exist. 
 The day the Jew becomes an ordinary man like our- 
 selves he will be our brother. 
 
 " Adopt a different course. Open your arms. Make 
 the law of equality real by making it social. Welcome 
 the Jew everywhere that you may absorb him and 
 make him an equal in your social order. Enrich your- 
 selves with his qualities, for he has many. Make 
 an end of this barbarous war of races by an ab- 
 sorption of a race. Encourage intermarriages, and 
 leave to the children the task of reconciling the fathers. 
 This, and only this, is what is meant by unity, 
 humanity and charity. Anti-Semitism in a country 
 where it has any real importance is either a political 
 weapon or the result of a serious economic situation. 
 But in Prance, where it is not true as we have been 
 told that the Jews are the money power, anti-semit- 
 ism is an absolute fallacy. To give the propaganda 
 the appearance of entity the Rothc'hilds, by an absurd 
 theory of chronology, have been connected with Judas, 
 and in them is pursued and delivered the being who 
 delivered the Son of God. And I may add that the 
 craving for notoriety has no small part in the attempt 
 to inflame the public, an attempt that happily has ended 
 in failure. Yes, a happy failure, when you remember 
 the months of abuse, of defamation; when you recall 
 that every day the Jews have been denounced as
 
 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 321 
 
 thieves and assasins; remember that whenever a 
 Christian has protested he has been stamped a Jew 
 the entire Jewish world hunted, insulted, vilified. 
 However, the movement has resolved itself in noth- 
 ing but noise, in vile epithets, in low passions. The 
 people of France have certainly shown wisdom, hon- 
 esty, and goodness in not listening to the daily call 
 for a civil war, in preserving their sanity amidst 
 these abominable incitements in which there has been a 
 daily howl for the blood of the Jews. It is no longer 
 a priest upon which certain journals breakfast, but 
 upon a Jew, the largest and fattest that can be found. 
 A breakfast as meager as the old one and equally 
 foolish. And in all this there remains only the dregs 
 of drudgery, a task than which there is none more 
 senseless and more execrable. The extraordinary part 
 of it is that the agitators assume to be doing some- 
 thing reasonable and necessary. The poor fools, how 
 I pity them, if they are sincere. What a reputation 
 they are making for themselves! A mass of errors, 
 of falsehoods, of furious envies, of lunacies these are 
 piling up daily. A critic who descends to this slough 
 recoils in horror in seeing that there is nothing but 
 religious bigotry and unbalanced mentality. The mob 
 inciters will be pilloried by history. I must confess 
 that I ain amazed at such a reversion to fanaticism; 
 amazed that such a tentative step toward a religious 
 war should have been taken in our time, in our mag- 
 nificent Paris, amidst enlightened Frenchmen. And 
 this is a day of democracy, of universal tolerance, 
 when everywhere there is a general manifestation in 
 favor of equality, of fraternity and of justice! We 
 were -about to efface national border lines, were dream- 
 ing of one nationality for all peoples; had called a 
 congress of religions so that the ministers of all 
 beliefs might embrace each other, so that we might 
 be made one by the common tie of humanity. But 
 here is a handful of madmen, of imbeciles, or of un- 
 scrupulous adventurers who every morning command 
 us 'to kill the Jews;' 'devour the Jews;' 'massacre 
 them;' 'exterminate them;' 'let us return to the days
 
 322 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 
 
 of quartering and dragonnading. ' A very timely mo- 
 ment for such actions ! Nothing would be more idiotic 
 were it not so abominable." 
 
 "That certain number of Jews possess enormous 
 wealth there can be no question. But the same is 
 true of Catholics and Protestants. To exploit the pop- 
 ular protest against immense riches by giving them 
 an aspect of religious prejudice and above all to throw 
 the Jew in the stew brewed by improvidence under 
 the pretext that he alone represents capital is a social 
 hypocrisy and a lie that should be denounced. If 
 some day the law of labor be formulated according 
 to the dictates of truth and therefore for the welfare 
 of all it will transform humanity; whether one be 
 a Jew or a Gentile there will be no distinctions, for 
 responsibilities will be equal and rights and duties 
 the same. We should all strive for a union of the 
 human race if we wish to live a genuine life, and 
 maintain a hopeful heart. The union of humanity! 
 The signal is indistinct as yet, but it will become 
 clearer and clearer and at last reach the peoples of all 
 nations, the peoples who are thirsting for truth, justice 
 and peace. Let us extinguish hate ; let us strive to make 
 all races one happy family. Granted that it will take 
 thousands of years ; let us, nevertheless, have sufficient 
 faith in its ultimate realization by appreciating each 
 other to-day as much as the imperfections of our social 
 order will permit." 
 
 Beaupassant and Alexique nodded approval. The 
 others made no sign ; they did not care to commit them- 
 selves for Aloza or against Boncourse. Mme. Bidet 
 made a deft move to turn the subject: "Whatever 
 the Jews may be I quite admire Jewesses. They are 
 among my best friends. They are artistic and impres- 
 sionable, sympathetic and susceptible to culture. They 
 are examples of womanly virtue." 
 
 "Womanly virtue?" took up Boncourse grimly 
 the mortification produced by Aloza 's rejoinder was 
 an audible note in his tone: "that is a relative 
 quantity. There are women who have the virtue of 
 a Zoophyte, who are passionless, without feeling ;
 
 THE SOULS OF PAEIS. 323 
 
 who regard virtue as so much capital that must not 
 be impaired without a material equivalent a husband 
 or some other worldly advantage. The others, who 
 are more finely organized, who have a perception of 
 the dignity, the moral beauty which chastity confers, 
 waive virtue the instant their emotions are involved. 
 I am convined nor virtue nor honor nor purity can pre- 
 vent a woman from being a women, can shield her 
 from the caprices and the temptations of her sex." 
 
 "The judgment of an inveterate bachelor who has 
 never never known a real woman, never known pure 
 love, ' ' mumured Mme. Bidet, as if to herself. 
 
 "Pure love," he rejoined, in no way abashed by 
 her sotto voce retort. "That is an irreconcilable para- 
 dox. There can be no such thing between man and 
 woman. There is an affection between mother and 
 son, father and daughter, sister and brother, but pure 
 love. It is impossible! The ultimate manifestation of 
 love is impure. Hence the absurdity of the phrase, 
 'The purifying influence of woman's love.' A woman 
 makes for refinement, not for purity. And love itself, 
 as it is understood among you to-day, is no longer the 
 healthful, the almost hygienic love of the good old 
 days. You have heaped upon woman, you have made 
 her responsible for, all your ideals, all your aspirations. 
 She has become for you the nest and the altar of all 
 sorts of acute and poignant and delirious sensations. 
 In her and through her you would satisfy the frenzied 
 and insatiable longings and ambitions within you. You 
 no longer know how to be happy in a simple way with 
 a woman." 
 
 "We wish to give her a chance to come into her 
 own; we wish to make her our equal in everything," 
 ventured Hansmann. 
 
 "By that you mean you would have her your super- 
 ior. Confer upon her the rights of man and the 
 privileges of woman. But why not return to the sensi- 
 ble idea of our fathers and make her your companion * 
 In life there must be a male and a female. Either 
 you must remain male or become female and put 
 woman in your place. If woman has a grievance for
 
 324 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 
 
 having been born a woman, she should blame nature, 
 not society. By effacing yourself and putting woman 
 foremost you disorganize the social system. You could 
 give woman every possible power, put her in public 
 offices, clothe her with the highest authority and she 
 still would be a woman ruled by her emotions, de- 
 fective in judgment." 
 
 "Because man from the first warped her judgment 
 by withholding opportunities to exercise it; her emo- 
 tions are uncontrolled because her other faculties have 
 been repressed by man's law." It was Hansmann who 
 said it, slowly but distinctly. 
 
 "Oh, that is your view, is it "? Boncourse eyed 
 him with a look of mingled malignity and disdain. 
 Then, turning to the others as if he were examining 
 a patient for the benefit of the students in a clinic : 
 "Now, you see, he is become a woman suffragist. 
 Everything in quick succession with him. He will 
 be all things in turn. Yesterday he was a realist more 
 accurate and minute than Aloza here; to-morrow he 
 will be a monk, will wish to join the Trappists. Young 
 man, he again faced Hansmann "it were well for you 
 to remember that all earnest observers are at bottom 
 sad and necessarily so. They are students of life. 
 They are not actors but spectators of life. They take 
 nothing that is deceptive or that intoxicates. Their 
 normal state is melancholy serenity. You are swayed 
 by what you see. That will never do. If you want 
 to be somebody, if you wish to do something of prom- 
 inence, keep yourself in hand and keep away from 
 the cafes and political discussions." 
 
 "Exactly," emphasized Creux maliciously, and as 
 if to disprove the thrust. "Aloza, early in my career, 
 told me to work, work. It is all there. Keep away 
 from the cafes and get Murger's 'Vie de Boheme' out 
 of your head. Don't waste a minute. Don't think 
 of pleasure until you have made a name ; and it is only 
 in front of your easel that you will make a name. ' ' 
 
 "Admirable advice," took up Sartost, "but like 
 all admirable things it has its defects and its day. 
 You, yourself," looking at Aloza "I know are not
 
 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 325 
 
 as convinced of the efficacy of continuous application 
 as you were, say, ten years ago. As a basis for work 
 there must be palpable talent, urging, incentive talent. 
 One may have immense energy, enthusiasm even, which 
 will hold a student in his workshop day and night, 
 but of what avail if he be not gifted? I grant you 
 that powerful inclination together with indomitable 
 industry, will produce cerain results, but they will be 
 inferior if the gift be lacking. It is a dangerous fallacy, 
 that mere work will produce masterpieces. It is my 
 observation that the higher the genius the less effort 
 is required for its manifestation. ' ' 
 
 "What do you mean by genius? Are not patience 
 and determination genius?" Paul Alexis asked as if in 
 defense of Aloza. 
 
 "By no means. I should say they are the nega- 
 tive of what the term implies. A genius does things 
 with facility, without effort, does them indeed with 
 almost unconscious inevitability. How would you 
 define it, Beaupassant?" 
 
 "I should define a genius one who apprehends 
 something of that which we call a sixth sense." 
 
 "By a sixth sense I think you mean a complete 
 imagination. All artists have imaginations, but among 
 the few who are really great the imagination is com- 
 plete. That was Tourgenieff's definition," added Bidet. 
 
 "Renan has it but has never exercised it," ven- 
 tured Robin. 
 
 "Renan would have many transcendant qualities 
 if he cared for them. But Renan lacks not only ini- 
 tiative, he wants a sense of affirmation. He is equivo- 
 cation incarnate, a defect women cannot forgive," was 
 Mme. Bidet's conviction. 
 
 "Yes, in conversation he agrees with everybody. 
 To me he will say yes, to Creux no, when I say yes and 
 Creux says no," affirmed Henrique. 
 
 "And yet he is not insincere," interposed Bon- 
 course, "because he sees all sides of all things. That 
 is why he cannot be affirmative. He is your opposite, 
 Aloza. You see one side only and therein lies your
 
 326 THE SOULS OF PAEIS. 
 
 strength, your invincible conviction. You have no 
 trouble in finding truth." 
 
 "If Renan sees so many sides he should select one 
 of many, the best," rejoined Aloza. 
 
 "Ah, what is the best? In this Paris of yours it 
 is difficult to decide. The very air is charged with 
 theories all plausible and subtleties." The senti- 
 ment was voiced with a despairing sigh by the big 
 Guillemet, from whom it seemed incongruous. 
 
 "I don't find it so. My subjects and forms are very 
 clear to me, ' ' returned Robin positively. 
 
 "You, of course you don't. You are to sculpture 
 what Aloza is to letters, ' ' answered Mme. Bidet equally 
 positive. "The observation is not original. I read it 
 in the Figaro to-day. Lazarre said it. ' ' 
 
 "What pleasure does Lemaitre find in calling 
 Lazarre a Prussian Jew ? There is no wit in that even 
 if it were true," declared Hansmann. 
 
 "In default of other abuse I suppose," responded 
 Robin. "But it may give Lemaitre a little personal 
 satisfaction. At heart he's a Jew hater and in pro- 
 clivities a Jew baiter. If he ever enters politics he 
 will show himself a monarchist. He professes progress 
 in the arts, but I doubt his sincerity. A reactionary 
 in politics and a radical in literature they do not 
 coincide." 
 
 "I differ from you about Lemaitre 's prejudice 
 against the Jews," objected Creux. "Read his praises 
 of Bernhardt ; and he was the first to welcome a revival 
 of Offenbach. Look at his brilliant review of 'Le Belle 
 Helene' a startling innovation for the ' Journal des 
 Debats'." 
 
 "What else could he say?" queried Boncourse 
 calmly. "He discovered neither Bernhardt nor Offen- 
 bach. Bernhardt had been recognized by Sarcy and 
 Offenbach was dead before Lemaitre came to Paris. 
 Both were world famous before Lemaitre wrote a line 
 of criticism. Do you know" he swerved "I have 
 always thought that Offenbach is the Aristophanes of 
 music. ' ' 
 
 "Lazarre told me the other day he was writing a
 
 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 327 
 
 biographical sketch of Offenbach for Figaro," added 
 Alexis. "He and Melhac were Offenbach's house mates 
 during the summer months. He says that the last six 
 years of Offenbach's life the composer suffered the tor- 
 ture which made Heine's final years a prolonged agony 
 and for the same reason. But there was a difference. 
 Offenbach's iron will kept him out of bed, enabled him 
 to work until death extinguished the last flickering 
 light in his emaciated body. He died like Meyerbeer, 
 with stylus in hand (sur la breche). 
 
 "His was an extraordinary gift. The masters in 
 music as well as the crowd revelled in his compositions. 
 Gounod is an exception. I think Gounod does not ap- 
 prove because of the librettos. Delibes, Massenet, Masse 
 and Saint-Saens, all have told me they love Offen- 
 bach's scores. Delibes says that in his time he had not 
 missed an Offenbach premier." 
 
 "But I'm afraid," continued Bidet, "that Delibes' 
 strength is failing. I saw him on Monday. He looked 
 as if a mortal disease had seized him. These latter 
 days (de nos jours) musicians live a tense life; all 
 emotion; very little calm, although Saint-Saens reim- 
 burses nature by a regularity of physical exercise he, 
 the athlete, who needs it less." 
 
 "But Massenet escapes Paris and its enervating 
 indulgences. He dashes to Africa and Asia now and 
 again, as you did several times," said Mme. Bidet to 
 her husband, quite directly. 
 
 "Which did not prevent me from returning immedi- 
 ately when word reached me that the Odeon had ac- 
 cepted my first play. Heavens! what emotions I felt 
 in that return from Algiers. I had been there one day 
 only when the news reached me. I forgot my illness, 
 my pecuniary distress, everything. Those were the days 
 of youth, of enthusiasm. Beaupassant, I wonder you've 
 never tried a play, you who like the theatre." 
 
 "I have tried; I have two plays, one in verse, the 
 other in prose. I have not submitted them. There is 
 no hurry. I hope to persuade Mademoiselle (turning 
 to Laura) to become French and appear in my plays." 
 
 Everybody applauded. Yes, one must make con-
 
 328 THE SOULS OP PABIS. 
 
 verts; France needs women as well as men. Talents 
 are more useful to a nation than soldiers. They would 
 not let Madamoiselle return to America. She must be- 
 come French. They would speak to Perrin and insist 
 that she be given a chance at the Theatre Franchise. 
 If not there, then at the Odeon or the Gymnase. These 
 only half-earnest and entirely jovial protestations were 
 flattering nevertheless and embarrassing ; so when Bon- 
 course questioned her about the stage of her own coun- 
 try she was glad to be drawn from her confusion. They 
 were astonished that the States had so few good play- 
 wrights, that the American theatre drew so largely on 
 France, England and Germany for plays. She created 
 amazement and amusement in telling that French and 
 German plays were calmly appropriated without a sug- 
 gestion of credit by American adapters, who confidently 
 claimed authorship by simply changing the names of the 
 characters and transferring the scene of action from 
 Berlin and Paris to New York. The author's interest 
 deepened when she told of the French novelists' popu- 
 larity in the United States ; but a feeling of humiliation 
 came upon her when Aloza added that neither he nor his 
 friends had received a franc from the sales of their 
 translated books in the States. 
 
 She was relieved when the talk turned to other 
 subjects. There was less continuity of ideas as the 
 dinner came to an end, but the observations if not 
 more bold in form were brilliant. Laura noticed that 
 Aloza was a heavy eater, Bidet also ; Boncourse drank 
 many glasses of red wine, but ate moderately. Beau- 
 passant had no appetite ; he touched a few dishes only 
 and took no wine. Mme. Bidet partook of food so deli- 
 cately that her dining was almost imperceptible. 
 Mme. Aloza 's employment of knife and fork was as 
 conspicuous as her husband's; both dined like hearty 
 burghers. The others were liberal consumers. Creux's 
 glass was reversed from the beginning. To Laura's 
 look of casual inquiry he explained that he would be- 
 gin taking stimulants when he shall have attained 
 the age of sixty. People of health, he held should
 
 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 329 
 
 not drink before that age. From sixty on wine was 
 beneficial. 
 
 As repletion progressed the talk became more 
 snippety. But Laura, who was all attention, was im- 
 pressed by many observations emitted randomly. Al- 
 fred de Vigny was declared to be a "mediocre mind 
 with fine lyrical manifestations. ' ' Sarah Bernhardt had 
 "a pretty brain without a rudder," Bandelaire was 
 "the quintessence of Musset;" Verlaine "the lees of 
 Badelaire." Bidet declared there was an overwhelm- 
 ing dose of the provincial in Balzac which was crassly 
 manifested in the description of modish society. He 
 described the high life of Paris like a rustic with a 
 dazzled imagination, as one who had never dreamed 
 of such splendor. Bidet also observed the most try- 
 ing age with children is between eleven and thirteen, 
 the time between childhood and youth, the years of 
 ingratitude when boys and girls are stupid and sulky, 
 recusant and ungrateful; their movements awkward, 
 their voices strident and transitory. And then he made 
 a memorable analogy ; he insisted that all artists writ- 
 ers, painters, musicians have that age in art. Aloza 
 spoke of a politician, a neurotic, who was swayed 
 altogether by his nerves. He judged through his 
 nerves and there were days when his nerves seemed 
 to have common sense. Beaupassant mentioned some- 
 body who was a bundle of expansiveness ; somebody 
 who expands before everybody, indiscriminately, reck- 
 lessly. That was not indiscretion, it was self-abandon- 
 ment. Boncourse remembered a thought which Tour- 
 genieff expresses; as they grow old, great artists, the 
 conquerors of the masses and of hearts, and very 
 beautiful women all beings who have lived a trium- 
 phant life sadden, become melancholy when they 
 feel that their power and their charms are waning. 
 This reminded Aloza of a comparison the Russian once 
 made; extinguished stars, extinct perhaps thousands 
 of years, but whose luster continues, are like departed 
 geniuses whose voices through their works we shall 
 hear for countless centuries. We still hear Homer. 
 Bidet recalled a less lyrical analogy uttered by Tour-
 
 330 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 
 
 genieff: Noon was the critical hour of the day and 
 thirty years the critical period in a woman's life. Be- 
 fore noon time one could not tell that the day would 
 be fine; before woman had attained her thirtieth year 
 it was impossible to predict her future virtue. 
 
 Although the transitions were many and sudden 
 and the talk more and more careless and disjointed 
 Laura was deeply impressed with what had been said 
 of Tourgenieff. She resolved to ask Beaupassant, on 
 their return to the hotel, to tell her more of this author. 
 As the moment for going neared, Laura observed the 
 manners of the company and paid less attention to 
 what they said. These people were simple, easy, yet 
 not undignified; they were intimate but not familiar; 
 confidential though not to the degree of abandonment. 
 Still there was something wanting in the men. Per- 
 haps the defect was an assumption on her part or 
 the result of her birth, her way of looking at the 
 world. Ah, a suggestion of the explanation had just 
 come from Boncourse; he spoke of the suicide of 
 Charles Marchal, a painter, who was found almost in 
 rags, in a garret, without bread, a grisette of sixteen 
 sleeping beside his cold body. He had snuffed out his 
 light in a moment of despair. Laura thought, these 
 Frenchmen feel too deeply on one thing. Their in- 
 tensely emotional nature is focal and they are de- 
 moralized too easily through exterior causes. They 
 lack serenity, an ingrained determination; and above 
 all, they are devoid of that touch of Homeric indiffer- 
 ence which allows an Englishman or an American 
 to retain his poise in a crisis. 
 
 In Boncourse 's narration of the suicide there was 
 an incident that struck Laura as characteristically 
 Latin and beautiful. Just before the coffin was closed 
 the young grisette had cut off her hair, which reached 
 almost to her feet, and had tied it around her lover's 
 neck. The last thing Laura remembered of the many 
 interesting observations made at this dinner was Bon- 
 course's reply to Hansmann's question as to when a 
 man feels that he is growing old ; age is not a thing of 
 gradations; it does not "steal" upon one as psuedo-
 
 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 331 
 
 sentimentalists have phrased it; it comes upon one 
 suddenly, as a solemn revelation. Something casual, 
 something incidental reveals it ; a random illustration : 
 We meet a man or a woman whom we had last seen 
 a child and not until then do we realize our sixty 
 years. 
 
 "Does Boncourse fear death?" was Laura's first 
 question when seated in the cab. 
 
 "No, not death. He fears for his reputation after 
 death. He burns to be immortal. I believe there is 
 no one you met to-night who is afraid to die, but 
 nearly all dread old age and its attendant infirmities. 
 Aloza has a positive terror of a loss of his mental 
 faculties. On the contrary, Bidet has a horror of phys- 
 ical weakness; to be weak of limb or short of breath 
 or dim of sight would be absolute torture to him. But 
 Tourgenieff " 
 
 "You were to tell me of Tourgenieff." 
 
 "He was an exception. He looked upon death with 
 indifference if he did not welcome it. When he was 
 ill here in Paris he wished for death. Not that his 
 spinal trouble gave him unbearable pain. He simply 
 did not want to live longer ; he did not think it worth 
 while. I have an idea that Tourgenieff was disap- 
 pointed in love as a young man, a deep disappointment 
 that stamped itself upon his heart and accentuated 
 his melancholy temperament, for he was melancholy, 
 not pessimistic. You can imagine nothing more incon- 
 gruous than this Russian giant ; I mean the uncompro- 
 mising discrepancy between the psychic and the physi- 
 cal ; one would think that the Creator had made a mis- 
 take in placing the tender emotional soul of a woman 
 in that cyclopean frame, huge and rugged even for 
 a Russian; a colossus who towered above everybody, 
 above Flaubert himself, who was one of the tallest men 
 in France. He was awkard, angular, his head bent for- 
 ward; his voice deep, almost raucous, his feet flat and 
 spreading, his hands bony and coarse; the thumb of a 
 blacksmith; his beard thick, unkempt. Yet in this 
 giant body there was a being the essence of grace, 
 and refinement ; a heart always aglow and vibrant, sen-
 
 332 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 
 
 sitive and highly susceptible. An intellect highly pene- 
 trating. And permeating all the Slav "the fatalism of 
 the Asiatic, the sweet sadness of the North. Music was 
 his all in all ; it was not his passion, he did not merely 
 love it, it was his religion. Flaubert called Tourgen- 
 ieff's books poems in prose. To my thinking the de- 
 scription is wide of the mark. To me they are musical 
 romances; the plaintive, the pathetic music of the 
 slave, the sad song of the Moujik whose sobs are in 
 every chapter of those Russian novels that, when you've 
 finished them, make you think of the sigh of humanity 
 of which Homer speaks. For years he lived in an atmos- 
 phere of music at the house of Mme. Viardot, Viardot- 
 Garcia, the brilliant cantatrice and the sister of Mali- 
 bran. The art of letters, in which he was one of the 
 supreme masters, he deemed a secondary thing. When- 
 ever he wished to convey an inexpressible thought or 
 emotion his expression was always the same, 'this can 
 only be told in music ; music begins where words end. ' 
 His generosity was limitless, his endeavors to further 
 his friends ceaseless. He called the attention of Tol- 
 stoy and other Russians to my first stories. He ar- 
 ranged for Aloza a weekly correspondence in a St. 
 Petersburg journal. His acts of charity were almost 
 daily and were bounded only by his income. His learn- 
 ing was prodigious but never obstrusive. He wrote 
 French as well as Russian and German. He knew En- 
 glish like a cultured foreign resident of England ; and 
 Italian and Spanish were to him easy if not intimate. 
 But he was simple to timidity and deferential as a 
 neophyte. At bottom he did not like Bidet; he dis- 
 trusted him. The dislike and distrust may have had 
 their origin in the racial antipathy of the man of the 
 north for the man of the south. And again, the keen- 
 ness of his understanding, the surety of his fine per- 
 ception, may have revealed Bidet's character in a 
 clearer light than that which governs our perception 
 of him. There certainly is something petty, something 
 femininely envious about Bidet which broad, manly 
 natures like Aloza and Boncourse and even Flaubert 
 could not see."
 
 THE SOULS OF PAEIS. 333 
 
 "I believe but two of you have married Aloza and 
 Bidet." 
 
 ' ' Yes, Aloza wanted a housekeeper and Bidet a com- 
 panion and a literary helpmate. ' ' 
 
 "And the others why did they not marry?" 
 
 "I cannot speak for all. Flaubert had a peculiar 
 view of women. He prized their intelligence, their in- 
 fluence for refinement. But he considered them men- 
 tally feeble and ultimately destructive to artistic force. 
 The Boncourses were inseparable. They were to each 
 other wife, sister, brother. When Edouard died it was 
 as if Emile had lost a cherished wife for whom he must 
 mourn forever and a day. Tourgenieff, as I have said, 
 had, I believe, an affair of the heart when a young man 
 which stamped itself upon his intensely Slav nature." 
 
 Beaupassant subsided to silence. The hack had lined 
 up among a long file of vehicles in front of the hotel, 
 awaiting its turn to the carriage entrance. Laura broke 
 the dead pause. "And you, why have you not mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 He did not answer immediately. He seemed to be 
 groping for an expression which would give his reason 
 clearly. Finally: "I have not married because I wish 
 to have mind and heart entirely free. I must have them 
 disengaged and unaffected else I cannot think clearly, 
 act wisely. Shall I now tell you why I pressed an inti- 
 mate acquaintance between ourselves so quickly?" 
 
 Laura nodded. 
 
 "And you will promise me not to be offended, not 
 even piqued." 
 
 She again nodded, fairly charged with the curiosity 
 which her eyes disclosed. 
 
 "Of late my sight has compelled me to dictate my 
 work. The doctor says my eyes are perfect, or, rather, 
 each eye is perfect jn its way ; but they do not har- 
 monize; they are like two high bred horses of totally 
 different breed that will not be driven under the same 
 rein. I was compelled to engage an amanuensis, who 
 proved fatally attractive. I was in danger of falling 
 in love; perhaps I was already infatuated. Anyhow, 
 I could not forget her. She was in my thoughts, in
 
 334 THE SOULS OF PARIS. 
 
 my nerves. Another stenographer could not expel her 
 from my mind. Then you came. I hoped that with you 
 I could forget her and I have forgotten. Thank you. ' ' 
 
 "Then I was used as a counter irritant?" 
 
 "No, as a delightful antidote." 
 
 "Thank you, monsieur. I feel highly, most highly 
 complimented ! ' ' 
 
 She had promised not to be even piqued. But her 
 woman's vanity was affronted and withal she was 
 shocked that a Frenchman of Beaupassant 's tact had 
 made such an avowal, above all to her. She scarce 
 touched his hand as she stepped from the carriage; 
 her acknowledgment of his good-night was a mere nod. 
 As he turned away there flashed upon her mind a line 
 she had read in Le Temps the other day ; in a literary 
 review a woman, a Madame Somebody, presumed the 
 view that men authors, even those whose specific gift 
 was delicacy of touch, had their moments of inconceiv- 
 able ineptitude, grossness, stupidity.
 
 CHAPTER XXX IH. 
 
 NIRVANA. 
 
 When Laura entered Mrs. Quincy called attention 
 to a cablegram sent up late in the evening. It read: 
 "Sail as soon as possible. Opening date advanced. 
 Gars." Obviously he had shifted his plans and in the 
 shift Laura had been moved forward in point of time. 
 What she had thought and felt that day vanished in- 
 stantly; from the world of aspirations with its hopes, 
 high but vague, its rare joys and acute doubts, its ob- 
 jective elevations and subjective humiliations she 
 descended instantly to the exactions of her profession. 
 A Journal des Debats was lying on the table. Passing 
 Jules Lemaitre's review of the theatre, she quickly 
 turned to the sailings. The next steamer of the Native 
 Transatlantic Company would not put off for six days, 
 but there was a fast boat which would lift anchor at 
 an English port the third day at five o'clock in the 
 afternoon. Before retiring there was a half hour's 
 parley with Mrs. Quincy. Laura's gowns had been de- 
 livered, yet there then occurred to her a batch of mis- 
 cellaneous things she wished to purchase. But before 
 all she must engage a state room. 
 
 She was about to leave for Tavenue de 1 'Opera the 
 next morning to secure passage for home when the 
 American correspondent's card was brought up. He 
 had just received word from the home office that Miss 
 Darnby was to return immediately. If agreeable, he 
 would accompany her to the steamship office and on 
 the way Miss Darnby could say what she had to say. 
 To whom had Beaupassant introduced her? And what 
 were her impressions of the people she had met * What 
 in particular did she think of Beaupassant. Had she 
 
 (883)
 
 336 NIRVANA. 
 
 seen Mounet Sully 's "Hamlet"? He was an artillery 
 of interrogations to the door of the International Navi- 
 gation Company, where he bade her adieu abruptly and 
 hurried away as if impatient to deliver himself of the 
 column that had rapidly grown in his journalistic brain. 
 
 Yes, the English-speaking clerk had a pleasant 
 stateroom at her disposal; on the promenade deck, 
 away from the engines. Was she an American citizen 
 citizeness? he corrected himself smilingly. He noted 
 the apparently important affirmative and then sug- 
 gested that by paying a little more she could have her 
 luggage checked right through without examination 
 in England to the English dock. He confided to her 
 that he was going to England himself by way of Dieppe, 
 the third day. His elation at going to London seemed 
 irrepressible, and to Laura it was incomprehensible that 
 anyone should feel other than dejected at leaving Paris. 
 Her dejection was mixed with unnamable sadness, 
 when the train moved out of S. Lazzarre station; and 
 when the domes of Val de Grace, the Pantheon and les 
 Invalides were lost to sight she could not control her 
 tears. Mrs. Quincy tried to console her; she surely 
 would return to Paris next year; her husband would 
 accompany her next time. Paris, after all, was not far 
 from New York; you simply boarded a steamer near 
 the foot of Rector Street and in less than a week you 
 were in Paris. The trip was not much longer and cer- 
 tainly was less fatiguing than going to San Fran- 
 cisco, etc., etc., 
 
 Hope, that elusive and illusive, always deferring and 
 ever-recurring impalpability, had not yet completely 
 instilled itself in her at Mrs. Quincy 's suggestion, when 
 the train halted. She recognized Rouen and Beaupas- 
 sant rose before her in full palpability. She did not 
 know until the next stop, which was at Dieppe's limits, 
 that her fellow passengers were mostly of the modish 
 world. The compartment system of railways precluded 
 a knowledge of the number and character of travelers. 
 At the city's entrance the train was fairly pre-empted 
 of Mondains and Mondaines, all having that air of 
 cheerful indifference which is affected by people who
 
 NIEVANA. 337 
 
 are or who would be fashionable. A quarter of an hour 
 later the train dashed upon a dock facing ocean waves 
 flashing in the sunlight. The channel craft, bright and 
 white, looked like a blending of a large yacht and a 
 small excursion boat ; it appeared inadequate for rough 
 seas and the considerable body of passengers who were 
 permitted to cross the gang plank. Immediately Laura 
 was on deck some one doffed a hat and said: "I took 
 the liberty to reserve chairs for you, ladies." 
 
 It was the clerk from the steamship office in Paris. 
 Laura was pleased and frankly expressed her apprecia- 
 tion. She invited him to be seated beside them and at 
 once confessed that a channel voyage was new to her, 
 that she had never been in England. He reciprocally 
 expanded. He made the trip every fortnight. His home 
 was in London and he visited his folks twice a month. 
 The seasickness going over? That had been obviated. 
 The malady had ceased with the advent of the new steam- 
 ers Which now plied between first-class ports. More- 
 over, the weal/her favored fine sailing. Whilst he was 
 describing the miseries of such a trip in the old boats, 
 Laura heard the decidedly English-looking captain 
 shouting orders in French as the ropes were loosened 
 for the departure. She asked if the officer was English. 
 Yes, and the only Englishman in the crew. The sailors 
 were French, who though they were in English towns 
 every day knew not a word of the language and in that 
 they were characteristically French. 
 
 Certain French officers only pretended to English. 
 The naval college compelled a knowledge of the tongue 
 since the Franco-Prussian war. The indolence was 
 of ancient date and was not the fault of France. Before 
 the fight with Prussia every European with even a 
 pretense of education knew French, so why should the 
 French have bothered with foreign tongues? 
 
 Many sails were in view, steaming and sailing in 
 every direction. Ships from the north, from the south, 
 from east, from west. Laura wondered how it was pos- 
 sible to avoid a collision at night and especially in a 
 fog. She expressed the wonder. He did not answer 
 directly, but noted that mariners care little for storms,
 
 338 NIEVANA. 
 
 however severe; did not dread the night, but were al- 
 ways fearful of fogs next to fire the most dangerous 
 element in the experience of seafarers. A singular 
 sensation enwrapt Laura; thoughts so swiftly succes- 
 sive as to be almost simultaneous, came to her, of 
 descriptions of death at sea she had read in novels, in 
 newspapers; of suicide by drowning; of an evolution- 
 ist's theory that as life itself originated in water it 
 should end there; instead of in the ground; she re- 
 called the vision was marvelously vivid the funeral 
 of the steerage passenger, the poor woman who had 
 prayed so fervently that her sins might be forgiven. 
 
 "I beg pardon, but are you ill?" 
 
 The question lifted her from the somber spell. 
 
 "No, I am just thinking of a sad affair that occurred 
 on board ship when I came over." 
 
 "You were so pale I was afraid that, after all, the 
 channel did not agree with you." 
 
 He turned the subject. He called attention to the 
 elderly, portly man wearing green spectacles, who had 
 been scrutinizing passengers furtively and who had 
 just formed the acquaintance of a young man of ner- 
 vous appearance. As both walked past, the elderly man 
 exclaimed: "So you are from Philadelphia? It's an 
 interesting city. I've property there." 
 
 "That fellow," the clerk said, "is a detective and 
 a very awkward one. To any one at all observant, he 
 would be impossible. Everything about him shows who 
 he is. He could deceive nobody except an absolutely 
 innocent traveler. With the exception of the German, 
 English detectives were the worst in the world." 
 
 Several of the travelers who were familiar with the 
 route smiled broadly as they observed the innocence of 
 both the traveler who thought he had met a property 
 owner in his city, the sleuth who believed he was 
 enmeshing a fugitive criminal. 
 
 The voyage was without further incident. The clerk, 
 in response to Mrs. Quincy's questions, suggested a 
 hotel in London. Just before the landing he confessed 
 his all-embracing admiration for American women; 
 they were such a relief from the affected demureness
 
 NIEVANA. 339 
 
 of English women. Americans were growing favorites 
 everywhere in England; so much so, that society 
 papers were coming to the defense of his country 
 women. The foreigner was subject to attack; she was 
 called bold, intriguing, immodest to a degree inconceiv- 
 able to the home maiden. She 
 
 But Laura was not listening. England was now at 
 her elbow the steamer was entering port. Something 
 she knew not what made everybody inclined to 
 move less briskly than at Dieppe. The passengers 
 awaited their turn in a more orderly manner. But 
 Laura realized more intimately that she was in -another 
 country when the final guard at the custom house took 
 her brusquely by the arm and demanded roughly: 
 "Where's your mark?" She had forgotten, in passing 
 the gate, to show the chalked sign on her satchel. 
 
 But better evidence were the stations passed; they 
 were tidy, some of them even picturesque, and all in 
 the midst of well-ordered, garden-like plots. The walls 
 separating the towns from the railway tracks were high, 
 solid and covered with ivy, lending an air at once 
 ornate and ancient. Mrs. Quincy was mute from the 
 emotion which the sight of the country traversed 
 caused her. She had not seen England since her girl- 
 hood and when she recognized certain landmarks tears 
 jetted from her eyes. To Laura the contrast between 
 this trip and the ride from Havre to Paris was vivid. 
 Here, everything, even the fields, had an air of anti- 
 quity. And yet, when she recalled history, France's 
 civilization antedated that of England by several cen- 
 turies. Perhaps it was due to the atmosphere which 
 was something between pale and gray and certainly 
 was heavy. 
 
 They were whirled past buildings always vine clad, 
 that looked like 'castles, but which Mrs. Quincy vowed 
 were hospitals and asylums. The air thickened; cot- 
 tages and mansions became numerous; rows of houses 
 of identical architecture appeared. A curve of the 
 track and they were in an immensity of buildings in 
 and around which mankind swarmed; buildings low 
 and high, squalid and splendid ; mankind miserable and
 
 340 NIRVANA. 
 
 happy, noble and humble, proud and abject. Laura saw 
 this in a glance from the car window, and as the train 
 slackened in speed the sky darkened ; something almost 
 palpably black hung over the city. Laura felt pre- 
 cisely as she did when she saw Chicago for the first 
 time; it was the same feeling of depressed awe, of 
 acute malaise, of entering a monstrous cavern echoing 
 with noise, the difference being that in Chicago the roar 
 was harsh, here it was muffled. The train stopped for a 
 moment in a spot of squalor. Not many feet away a huge 
 factory, low, long, dark, sinister; surrounding it, lep- 
 rous-looking huts as hopeless and wretched as the be- 
 ings who lived there; these were swarming about 
 dejectedly the factory was closed either for lack of 
 orders or because of a strike apparently as terribly 
 superfluous in the world's scheme as scrofula. They 
 were nothing but rags, dirt, misery. The very children 
 in the arms of mothers young in years, old in the 
 experience of hunger were stamped with vice and star- 
 vation. A group of the males hung about the forbid- 
 ding station of this abandoned quarter. Laura heard 
 voices hoarse and dead. The grimy vests open, the 
 shirts tattered, disclosing the odious flesh of animal- 
 istic humanity. Through the car window she heard 
 an abusive jargon as revolting as a gush from a sewer. 
 She turned away; it was impossible to look longer 
 at such foul wretchedness. 
 
 Two minutes later the train traversed quarters 
 crowded with buildings of solidity and splendor, where 
 the fleeting glance revealed people of prosperous ro- 
 tundity and healthful rubicundity. The juxtaposition 
 was confounding. But suppression seemed to prevail 
 everywhere; sullen at the station of penury, dignified 
 elsewhere. This suppression, this almost motionless 
 activity, was elaborate at the Central depot in which 
 the locomotive entered silently submissive, its steam 
 subdued, its clang subjugated. 
 
 In the gigantic depot, lowering and somber, serried 
 along the limitless platform were cabmen mute as posts. 
 The clerk from Paris beckoned to one of them. He gave 
 the address of the hotel in Trafalgar Square which he
 
 NIEVANA. 341 
 
 had recommended; and delighted and no doubt sur- 
 prised at the warmth and sincerity of Laura's thanks, 
 he disappeared unceremoniously. Laura did not hear 
 Mrs. Quincy's exclamations of reminiscence. She felt 
 as if the world were made of heavy, orderly streets, 
 of mutely orderly men and women the order that pro- 
 ceeds from rigid laws. In Paris she could see heights, 
 trees, water ; in Paris there were vistas, gloriously open 
 spaces; there was air, a feeling of freedom. Here 
 streets and streets and streets; a world of stone; a 
 world regulated by machinery which was not less op- 
 pressive because it was not wholly visible. In front of 
 her, in the carriage, the law in the form of a placard 
 told her the amount which the coachman may exact. 
 At every square a high sign instructed the driver to 
 drive to the left. Newspaper vendors, men and women, 
 girls and boys, bore an inscription on their breasts giv- 
 ing the names of the journals for sale. The law did not 
 permit them to announce their wares. A universe con- 
 ducted by silent automata ; silent animation, mute dem- 
 onstrations; a city that seemed to have absorbed the 
 whole of humanity in the few last hours; a city, in 
 Laura's first impression, of depression and repression, 
 of contradiction and compulsion, whose citizens had 
 become automatically dutiful. 
 
 After miles of stone, an opening of stone. In the 
 center a high black column of stone. The hackman 
 stopped at one of the buildings in the opening. He 
 bowed his head in acknowledgment of the fare paid. 
 A red-faced, red-liveried lackey took Laura 's hand lug- 
 gage without a word. The clerk in the office silently 
 offered a pen to her. When she had indicated the ac- 
 commodations required he nodded "very good" and 
 called for a bell boy. A handsome, perfectly mannered 
 lad, with a respectfully modulated voice that spoke an 
 English of soothing enunciation, led the way to the lift, 
 and from there, after devious turns and bewildering 
 combinations of marvelously narrow corridors, opened 
 a midget hallway to a suite that elicited exclamations 
 of pleasure from both women. The rooms fronted the 
 square; they were roomy, but with not too much high
 
 342 NIRVANA. 
 
 light to affect their home-like quality; they contained 
 every essential of a home and some of its luxuries and 
 edifications, including a large, handsomely bound bible, 
 a church directory, and a theatre guide. The bathroom 
 was as spacious as an alcove, in which nothing was 
 omitted, not even robes. "They are a home people" 
 Laura thought, "just as the Parisians are children olE 
 the air." She felt that she would wish to remain 
 within doors while in England to enjoy the creature 
 comforts of an interior which, compared with the 
 gloomy out-door life, was contrastingly comforting. 
 
 Ensconsed in a low, broad chair, her mind carried 
 her back to early girlhood when she had read Dickens 
 at home, in vacation days. As she had thought of 
 Beaupassant the first night in France, so Dickens now 
 occupied her thoughts. She pressed the electric button 
 once and when the natty bell boy answered she asked 
 if it were possible to get a volume of Dickens; "David 
 Copperfield" and "Dombey and Son" preferred. 
 
 He returned with the "Old Curiosity Shop". 
 American guests, he said, had taken the specified books 
 from the library earlier in the day. 
 
 She read of Little Nell until late. She slept pro- 
 foundly that night and was awakened by Mrs. Quincy 
 next morning, who said the London correspondent of 
 an American paper had sent up his card, and at her 
 request would return. He oame back after luncheon. 
 A magnificent creature, superb of carriage, superbund- 
 antly healthy, straight as a post, though not stiff. He 
 had lived in New York but was London born. If Miss 
 Darnby would give him the pleasure he would like to 
 drive about an hour or two ; conduct her to the Abbey, 
 to Parliament. A most agreeable way of being inter- 
 viewed Laura thought in accepting. The first carriage 
 in the long line of vehicles stationed silently in the cen- 
 ter of the thoroughfare to the side of the hotel an- 
 swered to the mute motion of the porter. A sloping 
 street, several twists and turns and they were before a 
 moldy and bituminous minster. The most obstrusive 
 objects were the merry sight-seers; they were so many 
 and so gapingly obvious that it was some time before
 
 NIRVANA. 343 
 
 Laura could forget her worldly cerements and give 
 herself wholly to the impressiveness of the interior. 
 Even then she was forced to make a comparison of the 
 grandeur of Notre Dame of Paris, and found tihe Abbey 
 wanting. The statues and sarcophagi of the monarch- 
 ial nonentities, of forgotten statesmen, of artists, lit- 
 erary and otherwise, whose only title to recognition 
 was their ancientry, crowded and dwarfed the meed 
 of tableted and statuary praise accorded the genuine 
 English souls thus represented. There was, too, some- 
 thing harshly incongruous in the offer of a sub-sexton 
 to show the tombs of kings for money ; there was some- 
 thing trade-like in the call for services in one part of 
 the church whilst gaping strangers were feeding their 
 curiosity elsewhere; something painfully business-like 
 in the rou<tinist who went through the forms of worship 
 in a nasal, mechanical voice and with mechanical ges- 
 tures. Laura went away unedified, unimpressed. 
 
 Parliament, if not more impressive, was more im- 
 posing. It had a sweep of the river, was free of streets, 
 had a magnificent circle of air. She separated from the 
 journalist at the stairs, English rule did not permit 
 a mixture of the sexes in the spectators' gallery. She 
 was taken up to a small, stuffy, loft, screened from 
 side to side, that looked as if it had been made for de- 
 classed creatures, for Turkish women or for that con- 
 ception of women as revealed by early English chroni- 
 cles. She saw very fat and healthy and very thin 
 and unhealthy men lounging on benches; some were 
 asleep, many were not listening to a tall and meaty, 
 bald and bearded man, who in a fleshy voice was 
 descanting upon the maltreatment of mine laborers. He 
 had a mass of documents before him from which he 
 read desultorily. His discourse was jerky, his words 
 unspontaneous, his effort laborious, his manner uncon- 
 vincing. "That was Wilke you heard," said the cor- 
 respondent when she came down. "A curious com- 
 pound, that fellow. Very rich, he has made it a spec- 
 ialty in Parliament to plead for workman, since he was 
 involved in a malodorous social scandal, that is. He is 
 quick to second any motion of morality which Smith
 
 344 NIRVANA. 
 
 introduces. But his trouble is that he throws a mass 
 of undigested and undigestible stuff at the house. He 
 has two secretaries who do nothing but delve for fig- 
 ures, which he cannot, or leastwise, does not assimi- 
 late. Perhaps he is sincere, but the role of protector 
 of the masses does not fit him. He should leave that 
 to Burns." 
 
 He ushered her out on a wide terrace. It was a 
 restful sight. A broad river flowed there and its 
 breadth gave a considerable view of the lead-hued city. 
 Parliament, Laura thought, was in session qn the ter- 
 race, not in the house. The tables from end to end 
 were occupied. Laura was introduced to a few of the 
 occupants; of one, a member from Scotland, she asked 
 why they were out there and not in the house. He 
 answered they were conservatives who could see noth- 
 ing practical in Wilke. The Scotchman, in answering, 
 smiled shrewdly with his eyes. Of a sudden there was 
 a mild commotion along the line of tea drinkers ; there 
 entered, with two scrawny women, a pursy fellow of 
 huge trunk and short legs; heavy, florid face and chop 
 whiskered a vivid resemblance to the John Bull as 
 typified by cartoonists. He elicited deferential bows 
 from everybody. "That," whispered the Scotch mem- 
 ber, in a tone in which deep consideration penetrated, 
 "is Papsop, of Papsop's Ale, you know. He's the richest 
 brewer in the country. ' ' 
 
 She did not know and she did not care. The men's 
 wives interested her, in their strange contrast to the 
 other women she had seen and known. They were all 
 very tall or very small; all positively ill-gowned, all 
 absolutely unprepossessing. They were either exceed- 
 ingly thin or grossly fait. The thin were scrawny, 
 awkward, angular; the fat puffy, waddling. Their 
 gowns in most part were caricatures in fit and hues. 
 "How can men marry such women?" Laura asked her- 
 self. "How is it possible to love them? Why, indeed, 
 are they born ? ' ' 
 
 After this reflection she was relieved when the 
 Scotch member invited her to go below. On the way 
 down he remarked that the house was built of stone
 
 NIEVANA. 345 
 
 quarried in France. At the first descent he pointed 
 where an attempt had been made to destroy Parliament 
 with dynamite ; the spot where Lords so and so had been 
 tried. It was all bare, like an immense cell. Further 
 down there was something to attract. A chapel; pious 
 members of Parliament in prolonged sessions cover- 
 ing Sundays came down there on the Sabbath to wor- 
 ship. An altar cloth, rich, heavy, a magnificent piece 
 in which gold and black predominated, drew Laura. 
 As she felt it, the member told her it had been made 
 by Queen Elizabeth. On hearing the name of the maker, 
 Laura dropped it. She hated Elizabeth for her treat- 
 ment of Marie Stuart (who from early childhood had 
 engaged Laura's sympathy), for her stealth and hypoc- 
 risy in love affairs. 
 
 The same feeling of resentment came over her when 
 she stood before the tomb of "Arthur, Duke of Wel- 
 lington" in St. Paul's, that gloomy house of prayer. 
 "Arthur the Little", Laura thought, "whom fortune in 
 a moment of blindness ihad allowed to conquer Napoleon 
 the Great." 
 
 Coming out she asked the correspondent to dismiss 
 the carriage, as she wished to walk back. 
 
 The wings of dusk were spreading over the huge 
 city and it had seemed that their shadows subdued the 
 more the muffled roar of the impassively animated 
 streets. The vehicles in the roadway and the leisurely 
 active throng on the curb thickened. The people 
 seemed voiceless; their eyes seemed to do the duty of 
 their voice ; they looked -their thoughts and these ap- 
 peared to be cheerless. The pervading expression was 
 seriousness of variant shades; canine determination; 
 despondency, savagery, brutish stupidity, philosophical 
 gravity and thoughtfulness. Two painted women in 
 garish gowns passed. One of them laughed. The 
 laughter was harrowing. A calibanistic creature with 
 yellow eyes leered at Laura in passing. Laura shud- 
 dered. Those eyes were horribly bestial; they showed 
 a being in whom lurked rapine and murder. 
 
 A gentle turn and Laura and the correspondent were 
 in a lane of bookstalls. "Fleet Street," uttered her
 
 346 NTBVANA. 
 
 companion. She saw faces poring over books, that 
 swelled her heart. Pale faces mostly, young and old, 
 but all lit up by the divine spark of superior intelli- 
 gence. The name, Fleet Street, crowded Laura's mem- 
 ory with spirit stirring and exalted thoughts. Now she 
 loved England. She remembered the men that kept 
 awake the finest parts of the Nation's soul, that gave 
 to the country better aims than conquest of trade and 
 wiho withstood the sovereignty of Mammon nobly. 
 They were the vanguards of the march of mind in Great 
 Britain, who, amid the temptations and sorrows, the 
 cruel and wounding subordination of pure intellectual- 
 ity to material power, traveled their own way in calm 
 majesty. 
 
 Another turn: "Strand," said the correspondent. 
 The crowd though denser was more sullen. Now and 
 again it uttered oaths. One fellow, whose counten- 
 ance was so deeply branded by depravity that Laura 
 could not withhold a stare, slhouted: "What in hell 
 are you looking at?" 
 
 And before the correspondent could turn on him 
 he had slunk in the moving, grimy mass. Laura asked 
 him why the monumental buildings looked so much 
 older than in Paris, though those of the French capital 
 antedated London's by centuries. 
 
 "It is the climate. The air is purer in France; it 
 is less humid ; they have more sunshine there. ' ' 
 
 "That also may account for the difference in the 
 people," Laura thought. 
 
 They were now at the embankment, 'and instantly 
 Laura got sight of the Thames, which appeared slow 
 and squalid here, Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" came 
 to mind. The army of characters in the novel passed 
 by her mind's eye, and then it seemed to her that she 
 had witnessed a panoramic illustration of Dickens' 
 pages since she had left Fleet Street. Small crafts, 
 like black swollen beetles, puffed and panted up and 
 down the stream. On both shores were a forest of masts 
 with a background of smoked or reeking walls whose 
 dull windows but stressed the smoke and reek of the 
 wihole. There were penetrating scents of Oriental per-
 
 NIRVANA. 347 
 
 fumes; and revolting smells of Occidental filth; odors 
 of hides and spices, of fresh, clean timber, of decaying 
 vegetables and nameless putrefactions. Everybody 
 walked slowly, morosely, sullenly. Even a pair of 
 lovers, with arms about waists, were affected by the 
 gloom ; they moved heavily with an air of depression. 
 
 "If you don't mind, I had rather ride to the hotel, 
 after all, ' ' requested Laura. 
 
 She was happy to be back to those home quarters. 
 The closing of the door seemed a change to a world of 
 physical well-being and mental serenity. But once out 
 again, the next morning, on the way to the station in 
 a densely yellow fog, the bodily heaviness and spiritual 
 dejection of the day before eame back with double em- 
 phasis. She would be out of London; she was fever- 
 ishly impatient to be away, away! Yet in this feverish 
 desire to be out of London, to detach herself from 
 earth, to escape from her dejection, from herself, there 
 was something of physical dehortation, something of 
 instinctive recoil, of purely bodily premonition. And 
 while the train was dashing toward the seaport, this 
 singular sensation was accompanied by a recurrence 
 of spiritual phenomena; again it seemed tha/t all ahe 
 had done and felt since morning she had done and felt 
 before, a long time ago, in another existence, or per- 
 haps, in a dream; in slightly different circumstances, 
 but in essentially similar conditions; the little girl in 
 the next seat who was staring with wondering eyes 
 at the fleeting landscape, Laura had seen before. The 
 mother's voice, with its caressing intonations, appeared 
 singularly familiar to Laura 's ears. The tall conductor 
 with the kindly smile ; the American who laughed at an 
 Englishman's slip in English; the bearded man who 
 said in a tone clearly aibove tihe clang of the rushing 
 train: "England is the land of the puritan and hypo- 
 crite:" the glimpse of the scrupulously cultivated 
 fields; the whitish atmosphere; the intense green of 
 the trees clustered on low, short and infrequent hills; 
 the penetrancy of the grassy odor when the train 
 skirted a concave and heavily bedewed and heavily 
 grown meadow all had been known to Laura's senses
 
 348 NIRVANA. 
 
 in time long past, in a different state of existence it 
 seemed. 
 
 Those large blond officers that determined- jawed 
 captain and those little, dark, thin, nervous and vil- 
 lainous-looking sailors, reptile-looking fellows who 
 might have been picked up on either shore of the Medi- 
 terranean; that ponderous steamer, which left her 
 dock without a cheer in almost ominous silence, con- 
 secrated only by Mrs. Quincy's tears Laura had seen) 
 all this before. Witnessed before, also, had been the 
 greeting just out of the harbor from a smaller boat o! 
 the same line coming from America. The incoming 
 craft bounded in gayly. The sight of land had made 
 its passengers exultant ; they cheered the out-going ship 
 wildly flags and handkerchiefs fluttered gayly; hats 
 and canes flew in the air. But the only response from 
 the departing sail was the unrolling of a black crepe 
 of smoke as if the ship had been cast off by the earth 
 and had gone in mourning. 
 
 Tttie passengers had the air of mourners. Many 
 were moody; some wore an air of indifference; some 
 of chagrin; some of detestation; a few of downright 
 desolation; all but one, Laura imagined, were shadow- 
 vested by apprehension. That one was a priest; a 
 young man with the dark hair, blue eyes, handsome, 
 genial countenance and the open erect bearing of an 
 Irishman. He neither avoided nor courted recogni- 
 tion. Several (Catholics) lifted their hats to him. 
 With these he at once became acquainted, pacing the 
 deck with them directly the ship was out of the harbor, 
 at dusk. It was then that Laura's nerves created un- 
 cheerful reflections. A feeling of deep solemnity en- 
 veloped her. She realized more intensely than when 
 leaving New York that she had left safety the shore 
 to spend a week of uncertainty upon a perilous salty 
 plain, the epiderm of an abyss that covers worlds of 
 lost lives and vessels; realized that she was separated 
 from a turbulent chiasm by a plank only. She looked 
 out at the rolling water which seemed to turn blacker 
 with every knot; never had she so intimately felt the
 
 NIRVANA. 349 
 
 narrow and quick transition between life and death. 
 Life was represented >by the ship, an almost infinitesi- 
 mal speck, seemingly afloat by the grace of death, 
 which was represented by the omnipotent and om- 
 nipresent ocean. Her strange malaise impelled her to 
 go to the salon. On the way she went aft, and looking 
 below she saw a group of sailors playing at some sort 
 of a game. They underhand-looking knaves with 
 shifty eyes were jabbering in an unknown tongue 
 and gesticulating violently. Surrounding them were 
 emigrants apparently of the same race dirty, seedy, 
 who looked horribly predatory with their carniverous 
 jaws and convex noses. Compared with that sight the 
 sea was magic. Laura hurried along with a feeling 
 that the steamer was full of reptiles. 
 
 At the entrance to the salon she started back. 
 Directly across, facing the door, was a broad stair- 
 way. On either side were caryatides of ebony, melan- 
 choly-visa ged, who held up coils of electric lights in 
 the shape of snakes. The vast parlor was quite de- 
 serted. Only in the corner was there a semblance of 
 life. There a long-haired, narrow-backed individual 
 sat at a piano, emitting wildly weird sounds to which 
 a ring of boys and girls danced. To Laura they seemed 
 a wild saraband of dancing shadows. She crossed the 
 salon in feverish haste and in again coming into the 
 air her teeth chattered violently. Before she turned 
 toward her cabin she caught sight of the moon back 
 of a maze of torn, smoky clouds, rushing backward 
 over the sky. It seemed -to her that the universe was 
 permeated with awe and mystery. 
 
 Mrs. Quancy was already asleep. "Even she does 
 not bear me company," Laura murmured. "I'll try 
 to forget myself in the same way." While disrobing 
 she thought she heard cannonading. She opened the 
 port hole. The sea hissed. The night moaned, and 
 there was a continuous loud tremor as of incessant sobs, 
 accompanied by something which sounded like drums 
 beating afar off. Then again, shrieks passed through 
 the air, followed by half-voiced roars, as if Neptune
 
 350 NIEVANA. 
 
 held the waves in semi-restraint. She closed the globu- 
 lar window, for the sea sounds heightened her enfev- 
 ered state. Once between the covers, in a reclining 
 position, partial relief came. The organic throbs of the 
 engines disturbed her somewhat, but they were soon 
 drowned by dull blows which made the steamer 
 tremble. At times it seemed to Laura that the ship 
 soared up as if it were jumping to the skies and then 
 fell through a void ; it plunged and heaved alternately 
 for what appeared to be hours. But gradually the 
 shrieks, the roars, the drum-like noises and the tre- 
 mendous rocking subsided. The organic throbs re- 
 curred; to those mechanical pulse beats Laura finally 
 sank to troubled slumber. 
 
 At the hotel on the South Side of Chicago, where 
 Laura had lived, tihere was a fire signal. Laura had 
 heard it tested one morning; a dreadful dissonance of 
 distress, of weirdness, of warning. She dreamed she 
 was in the hotel, in the room she ihad once occupied, 
 lying on the bed. She heard a thunder of feet in the 
 corridor as of an escaping host. Her mother was at 
 the door beseeching her to rise; and all the while, 
 above her mother's voice and the trooping feet, were 
 the uncanny sounds of the fire signal. She could not 
 move. An invisible power rendered her helpless. 
 
 In this seeming struggle to escape death she awoke 
 to a prolonged moaning sound, a dreadfully distressed 
 appeal. She fancied she must still be dreaming, but she 
 recognized the cabin and heard tlie constitutional throb 
 of the engines. It was dark within; yet a glance at 
 the port window told it was no longer black night with- 
 out, although the air appeared veiled. She felt for her 
 watch, turned toward the clouded ligiht and saw it 
 was barely half past four o'clock. That uncomfort- 
 able feeling on board ship of the moments which pre- 
 cede the dawn, and that inheres in those of the strong- 
 est nerves even, was stressed by a mournful sound from 
 above. She felt an icy humidity in the air and the 
 physical shiver was concomitant with a vague dread of 
 a nameless danger. She felt weak bodily and mentally ;
 
 NIRVANA. 351 
 
 her mind seemed light, loose, undirigible; her body 
 heavy, incapable of effort. Phantoms, unnamable ter- 
 rors seemed, in passing to and fro, to touch her with 
 their cold, bat-like wings. She thought of dead friends 
 and she recalled having read somewhere that it was in 
 the early morn that invalids who had struggled to live 
 lost heart and died. With wihat was like a supreme 
 effort to her she rose. Getting into a morning wrapper 
 hastily she unlatched the window. For a few moments 
 she could see nothing ; a lead-colored fog had gathered 
 up from the deep, that prevented her at first from 
 seeing the high, tumultuous and deadly leaden waves. 
 Even while she looked upon the turbulent and partly 
 obscured waters, the scene turned to ghastly gray, the 
 mist became transparent; the savagery of the waters 
 was alarmingly definite. As she was about to close the 
 port-hole she heard, as if in response to the lugubrious 
 fog-horn, a moan-like whistle that seemed to be near. 
 Both noises were now simultaneous. Suddenly, as if 
 it had risen from the wild waves, Laura saw a ship in 
 the dissolving mist. It was only a few yards away and 
 was coming directly toward her. In instinctive alarm 
 Laura closed the porthole. 
 
 Both signals became mute. There was tHe awful 
 stillness which precedes a catastrophe, that mysterious 
 silence of a moment before the tragically inevitable. 
 A thundering crash ; a grating, grinding noise all along 
 the steamer's keel. The craft seemed to stagger under 
 a mortal shock as if she had been struck and crushed 
 on a rock. Mrs. Quincy, thrown against the partition, 
 awoke in fright. Seeing her companion standing in the 
 middle of the cabin white, dumb, motionless, she 
 screamed. Laura's breath was checked, while her brain 
 and heart together were pierced as with daggers by 
 panic-stricken sounds. There was a rush of feet, of 
 cries, of yells. 
 
 Mrs. Quincy leaped for the door. Laura as in- 
 stinctively followed. Precipitate forms, some uttering 
 hoarse roars, others scre-aming, were rushing to the 
 stairway in a break-neck way. At the broad stairs
 
 352 NIEVANA. 
 
 there was a struggle as of panic-stricken cattle ; a child 
 was jostled out of its mother's arms, a tall, thin, 
 bearded fellow with staring eyes, tripped a woman and 
 trampled upon another in his frenzied drive to the 
 top. Laura hardly knew how she reached the main 
 deck. Once there, her senses were assailed with a 
 mind-arresting madness. Cleaving the terrible roar of 
 the sea were the mad shouts of the ship's officers the 
 captain on the bridge was yelling through a trumpet 
 the hysterical shrieks of women in their nightgowns 
 and the frantic bellowing of half-nude men who were 
 stumbling and crushing and running to and fro, wholly 
 distracted, absolutely ungovernable. Near Laura were 
 two officers, pistols in 'hand, shouting orders to groups 
 of fiercely industrious sailors toiling like demons for 
 the freeing of life boats, now groveling on all fours, 
 now standing up in despair, tugging, pushing, snarling 
 at each other venomously, apparently ready to kill and 
 only kept from flying at each other's throats by the 
 weapons leveled at them. 
 
 Sheer helplessness overcame Laura; but with the 
 feeling of physical desertion her faculties, spiritualized, 
 returned. The elemental outburst around her she now 
 saw in a clarified, intensified light; above, the clouds 
 were rushing at each other with black velocity. The 
 horizon seemed to have come on all sides within arm's 
 length of the steamer, whose stern was lowering. In 
 that narrow circle furious seas leaped in, struck and 
 leaped out; a lull of a second and then a big foaming 
 sea came out of the whitish mist; it made for the 
 wounded ship, roaring wildly as a madman with an ax ; 
 then a sudden swing of the dark sky line ; the breath- 
 less tilt up of the vast plain of the waters ; the swift, 
 still rise, the brutal fling, the rasp of the albyss, the dark 
 fighting clouds closing over her head. A momentary 
 pause and another mountain of water dashed itself 
 against the groaning Ship. 
 
 The mountain became a canyon and the ship for 
 an instant seemed to be staggering in the depths be- 
 tween two volcanic heights of green glass topped with
 
 NIRVANA. 353 
 
 snow. Penetrating the din, Laura heard a shot. A 
 body, with a stream of blood gushing from the neck, 
 fell at her feet. Then a succession of shots. A bell 
 rang whose knell was death-like. Men ran into each 
 other as if they had been stone blind. A reeling sailor, 
 heavy, squat, leering, flung a lantern into an officer's 
 face. Supernaturally agonized voices were crying: 
 "My God, let me in let me in! Save me! For God's 
 sake let me in!" "I'll give you ten thousand dollars 
 for a place; at least let my children in!" 
 
 The responses were "Get back there! Get back! 
 Get back! Will you let go, damn you!" One woman 
 was flung to the other side of the ship; another was 
 struck in the face and fell, bleeding, to the deck. A 
 horde of black grimy emigrants joined the maddened 
 sailors in the inhuman struggle for the boats. A dozen 
 drew knives and fought their way to a place. As the 
 boats were lowered, without a woman or child in them, 
 there was a stampede to the other end, where Laura 
 saw a similar struggle was going on for the life pre- 
 servers. She turned to follow, mechanically, and quite 
 calm, when a firm voice asked her: "My daughter, are 
 you a Catholic?" And, without awaiting her reply, 
 the priest raised his hands and uttered a benison. He 
 repeated this, going quickly from men and women, who 
 in their life preservers were jumping about like caged 
 beasts. Looking up, Laura saw the megaphone drop 
 from the captain's hand; he fell forward as the ship 
 gave a list on the starboard side, turning, bow up. 
 Amidst a rush of air and water, Laura heard a fearful 
 roar, as if it had issued from the jagged jaw of a 
 monster. 
 
 An instant later the ship had disappeared and Laura 
 found herself in the center of another madness. Top- 
 ping the ferocious waves and in the quickly changing 
 watery valleys were bodies and boats and rafts and 
 hundreds of inanimate objects. Piercing the mugiency 
 of the maddened elements were wild yells, awful ap- 
 peals, harrowing moans and the lacerating laughter of 
 the suddenly demented.
 
 354 NIRVANA. 
 
 With succeeding seconds Laura's ears became 
 deafer to the agonizing sounds of extinguishing human- 
 ity ; she still saw women struck on the heads with oars, 
 or stabbed in the shoulder as in final desperation they 
 had clutched to loaded boats and rafts. Some of the 
 blood of the knifed stragglers dashed into her face 
 and imparted a terror of death; it acted as an ele- 
 mental revolt of her young life. She would not die; 
 she must not die. The pristine instinct rebelled against 
 dissolution. She from early girlhood a good swimmer 
 swam toward the nearest boat. Though she saw the 
 distance widening she continued 'her strokes desper- 
 ately. Something in a high wave it felt like a hammer 
 struck her and sent her under the waters for a 
 moment; it was one >of the many pieces of wreckage 
 and it weakened her exhausting strength. She was 
 gasping despairingly when a flabby object grazed her ; 
 it was the fleshy, bloated body of a bald, middle-aged 
 man. The fugitive contact with the ugly corpse 
 thrilled her grewsomely; the thought that she would 
 be like that inspired her to a crazed effort to save her- 
 self. 
 
 But as the glassy walls fell against her again and 
 again with, roaring rushes, her breath shortened and 
 her arms refused their office. She could not go on. 
 Her physical power was undone and her nerves com- 
 municated the intelligence to her brain. 
 
 As her muscles relaxed she had a momentary glimpse 
 of Westminster Abbey; she saw the interior of Notre 
 Dame and Beaupassant was there awaiting her. When 
 she spoke, he answered in a voice that was Darnby's. 
 Darnby lifted her and she found herself at home. Her 
 mother advised 'her to go to the Holy Name Cathedral 
 in Chicago. Protony was at the door of the church, 
 but she passed him and went directly to the altar. She 
 heard music and prayers. Looking up she saw the 
 church was roofless. Christ's blood was streaming in 
 the firmament. 
 
 In that supplicative impulsion toward her Redeemer 
 there was a sudden flash of the dying flame, her
 
 NIRVANA. 
 
 355 
 
 strength seemed ten-fold, her faculties aflame. It was 
 the ultimate gleam. Soon her eyes turned upward and 
 inward, sinking gradually into their sockets. The 
 mouth, now wide open, called for air and received 
 gushes of water. As a hill of liquid green engulfed 
 her for the last time the light was extinguished. 
 
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