Joan Thursday: A Novel

The stage-wise have long since learned to discount a "slump" in the next performance to follow a brilliantly successful première: the phenomenon is as inevitable as poor food on a route of one-night stands.

At Springfield, on Monday afternoon, "The Lie" was presented in a manner of unpardonable crudity. Quard forgot his lines and extemporized and "gagged" desperately to cover the consequent breaks in the dialogue; leaving poor Joan hopelessly at sea, floundering for cues that were never uttered.

At the last moment it was discovered that nothing had been provided to simulate, at the beginning of the second scene, the sound of a clock striking twelve, off-stage. The property man could offer nothing better than an iron crowbar and a hammer; the twelve strokes, consequently, resembled nothing in the world other than a wholly untemperamental crowbar banged by a dispassionate hammer. Fortunately, the effect was so thin and dead that it convulsed only the first few rows of the orchestra.

The light cues went wrong when they were not altogether ignored; and once, when Joan having indicated in a brief soliloquy her depression on being left alone in the gloomy house, gave the cue "I must have more light," at the same time touching a property switch on the wall, every light in the house other than the red "exit" lamps was "blacked out." And at all other times the required changes either anticipated or dragged far behind their cues.

The Thief forgot to load his revolver, with the result that Quard fired the only shot in their duel—and then fell dead. This so rattled David that he anticipated his first entrance and rushed on the stage only to back off precipitately while Joan was urging the Thief to go and leave her to shoulder his crime.

The only misadventure that failed to attend upon the performance was a traditional one of the stage: the theatre cat by some accident did not walk upon the scene at a climax and seat itself before the footlights to wash its face.

Nevertheless the sketch "got over" at the matinée, receiving three curtain calls; and at night—when the little company, conscious of its crimes, pulled itself together and acted with an intensity of effort only equalled by that of its first performance in New York—the house gave the piece a rousing reception.

Thereafter they played it well and consistently, with increasing assurance as days passed and use bred the habit in them all.

On Thursday Quard heard from Boskerk, and announced that the company would return to New York the following Monday to play a six weeks' engagement in the Percy Williams houses, beginning with a fortnight in Manhattan and winding up in Greenpoint, Long Island. He added that Boskerk was busy arranging a subsequent tour which would take them to the Pacific Coast and back. He did not add that the agent had successfully demanded as much as four hundred and fifty dollars a week for the offering from many of the more prosperous houses on their list; from which figure the price ranged down to as little as three hundred in some of the smaller inland towns. But even at this minimum, Quard had so scaled his salary list, contrary to his representations to Joan, that his gross weekly profit (excluding personal living expenses) would seldom be less than one hundred dollars a week.

Back in New York, Joan established herself temporarily at a small and very poor hotel on the west side of Harlem. Since their engagement took her no farther south than Sixty-third Street and Broadway during its first week, and the second week was played at One-hundred-and-twenty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue, she felt tolerably insured against meeting either Matthias or any member of her own family.

She really meant to go home some time and see how her mother and Edna were doing, but from day to day put it off, if with no better excuse on the ground that she was too tired and too busy.

As a matter of fact she was in the habit of waking up at about ten, but never rose until noon; spent the hours between three and four and nine and ten in the theatre; and was ordinarily abed by half-past twelve or one o'clock. Up to the matinée hour, and between that and the night, she managed without great difficulty to kill time, spending a deal of it, and a fair proportion of her earnings, in the uptown department stores. She dined with Quard quite frequently, and almost invariably after the last performance they supped together, often in company with friends of his—for the most part vaudeville people whom he had previously known or with whom he struck up fervent, facile friendships of a week's duration.

They were a quaint, scandalous crew, feather-brained, irresponsible and, most of them, destitute of any sort of originality; but their spirits were high as long as they had a pay-day ahead, their tongues were quick with the patter of the circuits, and their humour was of an order new and vastly diverting to Joan. She had with them what she called a good time, and soon learned to look leniently upon the irregular lives of some who entertained her. Once or twice she was invited to "parties", sociable gatherings in flats rented furnished, at which she learned to regard the consumption of large quantities of bottled beer as a polite and even humorous accomplishment, and to permit a degree of freedom in song and joke and innuendo that would have seemed impossible in another environment.

Probably she would have felt less tolerant of these matters had Quard betrayed the least tendency to "fall off the wagon." But in her company, at least, he refrained sedulously from drink; and since his was one of those constitutions whose normal vitality is so high and constant that alcohol benumbs rather than stimulates its functions, he shone the more by contrast with their occasionally befuddled companions.

Joan admired him intensely for the steadfastness of his stand, and still more when she saw how established was the habit of regular if not always heavy drinking in the world of their peers. No one but herself pretended for a moment to regard the reformation of Quard as anything but a fugitive whim; and now and again she was made aware that his abstinence was resented. She once heard him contemptuously advised to "chuck the halo and kick in and get human again." At another time he explained a false excuse given in her presence for refusing an invitation: "It's no use trying to travel with that gang unless you're boozing. They got no use for me unless I'm willing to get an edge on. What's the use?"

There was a surliness, a resentment underlying his tone. Intuitively Joan bristled.

"No use," she said sharply. "You know what you're up against better than they do. You've got to stick to the soft stuff if you want to keep going."

"Oh, I know," he grumbled. "But it ain't as easy as you'd think."

"All right," she retorted calmly; "but I give you fair warning, I'll quit you the very first time you come around with so much as a whiff of the stuff on you."

"You don't have to worry," he responded. "I'm on all right.... But," he added abruptly, "you needn't run away with any notion this piece would head for the storehouse if you was to quit it. The woods are full of girls who'd jump at your chance."

Joan answered only with an enigmatic smile. It is doubtful if Quard himself realized, just then, as keenly as the girl did, the depth and strength of his infatuation.

But Joan did not doubt her power. Neither did she overestimate it.

It was toward the end of their "time" in New York that she learned of the failure of "The Jade God," the information coming to her through the medium of one of those coincidences which would be singular anywhere but on the stage. An actress in a farcical sketch, which followed the intermission preceded by "The Lie," was assigned to use Joan's dressing-room when the latter was through with it. Naturally, the two struck up a chatting acquaintance. Joan one time replied to a question with the information that "The Lie" was booked for the Pacific Coast, and (Matthias in mind) confessed to some curiosity regarding Los Angeles. The other actress admitted ignorance of the West, but had only that morning received a letter from a sister who was playing with the Algerson stock company in Los Angeles. The letter contained a clipping describing the immediate and disastrous collapse of "The Jade God," which had been withdrawn after its third repetition. Reading the review, Joan was puzzled to recognize some of its references; she was fairly familiar with the play, but here and there she encountered strictures which seemed to involve scenes she couldn't remember. But of the fact of the failure there could be no doubt.

She was genuinely sorry. Her first impulse was to seek Matthias, if he were in town, and tell him of her sympathy; her second (discarded with even less ceremony than the first) to write to him. Two things held her back: sheer moral cowardice, that would not let her face the man whom she had failed even as had his play; and the impossibility of explaining that she loved the stage more than him or anything else in the world—except his ring. And while she never faltered from meaning to return this last "before long," she could not yet bring herself to part with it. Always it was with her, on her finger when at home and alone, in her pocket-book when abroad or with Quard; still in her imagination retaining something of its vaguely talismanic virtue; standing to her for something fanciful and magic, which she could not name, a visible token of the mystical powers that worked for her good fortune....

It was mid-October: sweetest of all seasons in New York; a time of early evenings and long, clear gloamings beneath skies of exquisite suavity and depth; of crisp and heady days whose air is wine in a crystal chalice; when thoughts are long and sweet, gentle with the beauty and the sadness of aging autumn.

At the first hint of winter Joan's heart turned in longing to the thought of furs. She wasted hours studying advertisements, and many more going from place to place, examining, rejecting, coveting. Her fancy was not modest: a year ago she would have been delighted with the meanest strip of squirrel for a neckpiece; today she felt a little ashamed even to price the less expensive furs, and would make no attempt to purchase until she had saved up enough money to meet her desires.

And then, one morning—they were playing at the Orpheum Theatre in Brooklyn—a messenger brought her a package from one of the Fulton Street stores and required a signed receipt. It contained a handsome coat of imitation seal with a collar of rich black fur and lined with golden brocade. Fitting her perfectly, it enclosed her in generous warmth from throat to ankle. Accompanying it was the card of "Mr. Charles Harborough Quard, Presenting 'The Lie,' the Sketch Sensation of the Year, Address c/o Jas. K. Boskerk, St. James Building, N.Y."

Not since that day when she had received his ring from Matthias had she been so happy.

Meeting Quard in the gangway outside her dressing-room, before the matinée performance, she showed her gratitude by lifting her face for his kiss.

In the world in which they existed, kisses were commonplaces, quite perfunctory, of little more significance than a slap on the shoulder between acquaintances. Not so Joan's: she had set a value upon her caresses, a standard peculiarly inflexible with respect to Quard. None the less, this was not the second time he had known her lips. But the occasion was one rare enough to render him appreciative.

He wound an arm round her, and held her tight.

"Like it, eh, girlie?"

"I love it!"

"Then I'm satisfied."

"But how did you guess what I wanted most?"

"Maybe I did a little head-work to find out."

"It's dear of you!"

"So long's you think so, I've got no kick coming."

She disengaged, drew a pace or two away.

"But what made you do it, Charlie?"

"Well, I can't afford to have my leading lady out of the cast with a cold."

Joan shook her head at him in gay reproof.

"Or do you want me to tell you what you know already—that I'm crazy about you?"

"Foolish! It's time we were dressing!"

But her laugh was fond, and so was the look she threw over her shoulder as she evaded his arms and vanished into her dressing-room.

Quard lingered a moment, with a fatuous smile for the panels of the closed door, and wagged his head doggishly. He felt that he was winning ground at a famous rate—the difficulties, the coolness and craft of his antagonist, considered. And in a way he was right, though perhaps not precisely the way he had in mind.

Even before his princely gift, Joan had been thinking a great deal about him, and very seriously. Instinctively she foresaw that their relationship could not long continue on its present basis of simple good-fellowship. Quard wasn't the sort to be content at arm's-length: he must either come closer or go farther away, and might be depended upon not to adopt the latter course until the former had proved impracticable.

And Joan didn't want him to go farther away. She was positive about this. But she was also very sure that the arm's-length relationship must be abridged only under certain indispensable conditions—decorously—and soon, if at all: else she must be the one to withdraw, lest a worse thing befall her. It was a problem of two factors: Quard's nature and her own; she had herself to reckon with no less than with him; and herself she distrusted, who was no stronger than her greatest weakness. He attracted her. She often caught herself thinking of him as she had thought of no other man—not Matthias, not the Quard of "The Convict's Return," not even Marbridge except, perhaps, for one shameful instant.

Something in the lawless, ranging, wanton grain of this man called to her with a call of infinite allure: something latent in her thrilled to the call and answered.... That way lurked danger, disguised, but deadly.

They moved on to Greenpoint, thence to Trenton for a week.

Daily Quard's attentions became more constant, intimate and tender. They were much together, and now far more exclusively together than had been possible in New York, where acquaintances commandeered so much of their time. In Trenton they lodged at the same hotel, the other members of the company finding cheaper accommodations at greater distance from the theatre. This increased their close and confidential association. They fell into the habit of breakfasting together. Quard, always first to rise, would telephone to Joan's room, ascertain how soon she would be dressed, and order for both of them accordingly. In return for this privilege he had that of paying for both meals.

A negro waiter spoke of Joan one morning, in her presence, as "the Missus." When he had retired out of earshot, their eyes sought one another's; constraint was swept away in laughter.

"We might's well be married, the way we're together all the time," Quard presently ventured.

"Oh, I don't know about that," Joan retorted pertly.

"I mean, the way other people see us. I shouldn't be surprised if everybody in the hotel thought we was married, girlie."

Joan coloured faintly....

"Well, the room-clerk knows better," she said definitely. "I'd like another cup of coffee, please."

Quard snapped his fingers loudly to attract the attention of the waiter.

He grew aware of an awkward silence: that the thoughts of both were converging to a common point.

"Folks are fools that get married in the profession," he observed consciously. "It's all right if you've got a husband or I've got a wife at home—"

"I don't see it," Joan interrupted smartly. "Anyway, I haven't. Have you?"

The actor stared, confused. "Have I—what?"

"Got a wife at home?" Joan repeated, laughing.

"No—nothing like that!" he asserted with intense earnestness. "I mean, it's all right if you've got somebody keeping a flat warm for you, some place not too far off Broadway; but if you marry into the business—good night! You got all the trouble of being tied up for life, and that's all."

"Why?"

"Managers don't want husband and wife in the same company. They're always fighting each other's battles when they ain't fighting between themselves. So you're always playing different routes, and the chances are they never cross except it's inconvenient and you get caught and nominated for the Alimony Club."

"Do you belong?"

"Didn't I just tell you nothing like that?" Quard protested with unnecessary heat.

"Well," Joan murmured mischievously, "you seem to know so much about it. I only wondered...."

Their place on the bill was near the end, that week: a trick bicyclist followed them, and moving-pictures wound up the performance. Consequently, by the time they were able to leave the theatre in the afternoon the sun was already below the horizon. They emerged the same evening from the stage-door to view a cloudless sky of pulsing amber, shading into purple at the zenith, melting into rose along the western rim of the world. A wash of old rose flooded the streets, lifting the meanest structures out of their ugliness, lending an added dignity to rows of square-set, old-fashioned residences of red-brick with white marble trimmings.

"Which way are you going?" Quard enquired as they approached the corner of a main thoroughfare. "Back to the hotel?"

"No; I'm sick of that hole," Joan replied with a vivid shudder. "I'm going to take a walk. Want to come?"

"I was just going to ask you."

They turned off toward the Delaware.

It was the twenty-first of November—winter still a month away; yet the breath of winter was in the air. It came up cool and brisk from the river, enriching the colour in Joan's cheeks that were bright and glowing from the scrubbing she always gave them after removing grease-paint with cold cream. The blood coursed tingling through her veins. Her eyes shone with deepened lustre. They walked with spirit, in step, in a pensive silence infrequently disturbed.

"Of course," Quard presently offered without preface, "it's different in vodeveal, if you stick to it."

"What's different?"

"Being married."

Joan's eyes widened momentarily. Then she laughed outright. "Gee! You don't mean to say you've been chewing that rag ever since breakfast?"

"Ah, I just happened to think of it again," said Quard with the air of one whose motives are wantonly misconstrued.

Nevertheless, he wouldn't let the subject languish.

"There's plenty of family acts been playing the circuits Gawd knows how long," he pursued, with a vast display of interest in the sunset glow. "Look't the Cohans, before George planted the American flag in Longacre Square and annexed it to the United States. And they ain't the only ones by a long shot. I could name a plenty that'll stick in the big time until their toes curl. It's all right to trot in double-harness so long's you manage your own company."

"Well?" Joan asked with a sober mouth and mischievous eyes.

"Well—what?"

"If you're getting ready to slip me my two-weeks' notice, why not be a man and say so?"

"What would I do that for?" Quard demanded indignantly.

"Because you're thinking about getting married; and there's only room for one leading lady in any company I play in."

"Quit your kidding," the man advised sulkily; "you know I couldn't get along without you."

"Yes," Joan admitted calmly, "I know it, but I didn't know you did."

Quard shot a suspicious glance askance, but her face was immobile in its flawless loveliness.

He started to say something, choked up and reconsidered with a painful frown. A mature man's perfect freedom is not lightly to be thrown away. And yet ... he doubted darkly the perfection of his freedom....

They held on in silence until they came to Riverside Park.

Over the dark profile of the Pennsylvania hills the sky was jade and amethyst, a pool of light that dwindled swiftly in the thickening shades of violet. Below them, as they paused on a lonely walk, the river stole swiftly, like a great black serpent writhing through the shadows. A frosty wind swept steadily into their faces, making cool and firm the flesh flushed with exercise. There was no one near them. A train of jewelled lights swept over the railroad bridge and vanished into the night with a purring rumble that lent an accent to their isolation. Joan hugged about her voluptuously her wonderful coat, stole a glance warm with gratitude at the face of Quard. He intercepted it, and edged nearer. Aglow and eager, she murmured something vapid about the prettiness of the sky.

He answered only with the arm he passed about her. She suffered him, lashes veiling her eyes, her head at rest in the hollow of his shoulder. The man stared down at her exquisite, suffused face, luminous in the last light of gloaming.

"Joan," he said throatily—"girlie, don't you love me—a little?"

Her mouth grew tremulous.

"I ... don't ... know," she whispered.

"I love you!" he cried suddenly in an exultant voice—"I love you!"

He folded her, unresisting, in both his arms, covering her face with kisses, ardent, violent kisses that bruised and hurt her tender flesh but which she still sought and hungered for, insatiable. She sobbed a little in her happiness, feeling her body yield and yearn to his, transported by that sweet, exquisite, nameless longing....

Then suddenly she was like a steel spring in his embrace, writhing to free herself. Wondering, he tried to hold her closer, but she twisted and fended him off with all the power of her strong young arms. And still wondering, he humoured her. She drew away, but yet not wholly out of his clasp.

"Charlie!" she panted.

"Darling!"

"How do you get married in New Jersey?"

He pulled up, dashed and a little disappointed, and laughed nervously.

"Why, you get a license and then—well, almost anybody'll do to tie the knot."

She nodded tensely: "I guess a regular minister will be good enough for us."

"I guess so," he demurred; and with another laugh: "I wasn't thinking serious' about it, but I guess I might's well be married as the way I am."

"Well," she said quietly, "we've got to. It's the only way...."

And then, suddenly, the face of life was indescribably changed: Joan Thursday seemed but a memory, a slight and somehow wistful shadow in the shadowed depths of that darkling mirror, yesterday; in her place another creature altogether reigned, the Joan Quard of today, woman, actress, wife; with a gold band round her finger; mature, initiate of mysteries, ripe in wisdom; strong, poised serenely, clear of eye; with added graciousness in her beauty, conscious of added powers over Man, but discreet in their employment.

She thought a great deal about herself in those days: not, perhaps, more than had been common with her in that so-dead yesterday, but much, and more profoundly; reading a new meaning into the riddle of existence, so changed had all things become since her marriage.

Before her pensive vision Life unfolded rare, golden-vista'd promises.

With another man, or in another stratum of society, she might have fulfilled herself wonderfully, even unto her salvation....

To begin with, she was very happy. Fond to distraction of her husband, she never doubted that he worshipped her; he gave her quick wits no cause to entertain a doubt. They were together always, inseparable. She felt that nature must truly have fashioned them solely for one another, and could not forget her wonder that their passion should be so mutual, so complete. She loved him to distraction: all his traits, his robust swagger, his sonorous and flexible tones, the flowery eloquence of his gesture, his broad, easy-going, tolerant good-humour, the way he wore his clothes and the very cut and texture of them. And she ruled him like a despot.

Quard submitted without complaint. She was all his fancy had painted her, and something more; recognizing dimly that she excelled him variously (although he was quite incapable of analyzing these distinctions) he served her humbly, with unconscious deference to her many excellences. She was by way of making him a better wife than he deserved. If at times conscious of some little irk from her amiable but inflexible autocracy, he reminded himself that she was a finer woman than any he had ever known, well worth humouring: it wasn't on every corner a fellow'd pick up one like Joan.

He liked to follow her into hotel lobbies and restaurants and watch people turn to eye her, the men with sudden interest, the women with instinctive hostility. It even amused him to quell a too-ambitious stare with a fixed, grim, and truculent regard backed by the menace of his powerful physique. It gave a man standing, license to swagger, to own a woman like Joan.

He came to pander oddly to this vanity—would leave Joan to go to their room alone, while he strolled off to a bar to meet some crony or acquaintance of the day, tell his best story, and then suddenly excuse himself:

"Well, s'long. The wife's waiting for me."

The response rarely failed: "Ah, let her wait; have another drink. Did I ever tell you—"

A lifted, deprecatory palm, a knowing look: "No—guess I'll kick along; y'see, she's some wife...."

Conscious only of his adoration, Joan was enchanted by their mode of life, with its constant shifts of scene, its spice of vagabondage. She believed she could never tire of travelling.

Railroad journeys, with their inevitable concomitants of dirt, noise, and discomfort, never discouraged her: she really liked them; they were taking her somewhere—it didn't much matter where. She even derived a sort of pleasure from such nauseating experiences as rising to catch a train at four-thirty in the morning, against their "long jumps." And there was keen delight in napping in a parlour-car chair or with a head upon her husband's shoulder in a day-coach, to wake all drowsy, breathe air foul with coal-smoke, and peer through a black window-pane (shadowed by her hand) to catch a glimpse of some darkly fulgent breadth of strange water, or the marching defile of great alien hills, or a sweep of semi-wooded countryside bleached with moonlight—remembering that, only a few short months ago, the world of her travels had been bounded by Fort George on the north, Coney Island on the south, knowing neither east nor west.

She was discovering America: even as she was discovering Life....

Their route from Trenton took them south through Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, and Norfolk; whence they doubled back by steamer to New York, took a Sound boat to Fall River, played Boston, and drifted through New England in bitter cold weather, eventually striking westward again, via Albany, Buffalo, and the middle country.

Quard drew her attention to the fact that it was "a liberal education...."

Sometimes she thought pityingly of Matthias, and wondered if he knew she was married and what she was doing; and whether he were angry, or heart-broken, or eaten up with morbid jealousy; and how he would act should chance ever throw them together again. She was sorry for him: he had lost her. If only he had been a little more enterprising.... She wondered what would have happened if Matthias had been more enterprising; he could have possessed her at any time during the brief period of their infatuation. If he had married her then, would she be as contented as she was now, with Charlie? She doubted it; Quard was so completely his opposite....

She ceased to worry about the ring. She meant to return it some day, perhaps. Though she did not wear it and had never so much as mentioned Matthias to Quard, it remained a possession whose charms tugged at her heart-strings. At times she amused herself formulating idle little intrigues, with the object (if ever set in motion) of excusing the appearance of the jewel upon her hand. But all her schemes seemed to possess some fatal flaw, and she was desperately afraid of the truth. Meanwhile, the ring lay perdue at the bottom of a work-basket of woven sweet-grass which she had purchased shortly after her marriage; twisted in an old, empty needle-paper and mixed in with a worthless confusion of trash, such as women accumulate in such receptacles, its hiding place was well calculated to escape detection by even an informed purloiner.

Quard's tardy engagement ring was set with an inferior diamond flanked by artificial pearls. Joan despised it secretly. For a long time it was the sole blemish on the bright shield of her happiness....

And then, the night of their opening day in Cincinnati, Quard escorted her from the theatre to the hotel, left her at the door, and turned back to "see a friend" who happened to be playing on the same bill.

This was quite the usual thing, and Joan went contentedly off to her room and in due course to bed, confident that Quard would return within an hour.

Five hours later she awoke to startled apprehension of the facts, first that she must have dropped off to sleep without meaning to, next that Quard had not returned, finally that it was past four o'clock in the morning.

With a little shiver of sickening premonition she rose, slipped into a dressing-gown, called a bell-boy, and instructed him to look for her husband. Some time later the boy reported that the bar was closed and the gentleman not to be found.

It was broad daylight when Quard staggered in with the assistance of the same bell-boy and his negro dresser. His eyes were glazed, his face ghastly, his mind wandered: he was as helpless as a child. With the aid of the boys, Joan managed to undress the man and put him to bed. At once he fell asleep, with the cold stump of a half-burned cigar obstinately clenched between his teeth. It was an hour before the muscles of his jaw relaxed enough to release it.

Dressing, Joan left the hotel, swallowed some coffee and rolls, tasteless to her, in a nearby restaurant, and wandered about until eight o'clock, when she found a drug-store open, and consulted the clerk. He advised bromo seltzer and aromatic spirits of ammonia. Armed with these, she returned to her husband, and shortly after noon, daring to delay no longer, roused him by sprinkling cold water in his face—all other methods having failed even to interrupt his stertorous breathing. Even then it was some time before she could induce him to swallow the medicine, and it required no less than three powerful doses, together with much black coffee and followed by a cold bath, to restore him to presentable condition. In the end, however, she succeeded in getting him to the theatre in time for the matinée.

Through it all she uttered no single word of reproach, but waited on the man with at least every outward sign of sympathy and devotion.

His remorse (when another nap at the hotel after the matinée had brought him to more complete realization of what had happened) was touching and, as long as it lasted, unquestionably sincere. Joan accepted without comment his lame explanation as to the manner of his temptation and fall during an all-night session at poker "with the boys," and gave genuine credulity to his protestations that it would never, never happen again.

But three weeks later in Chicago he repeated the performance, though under somewhat less distressing circumstances. As before, he left her in the lobby, "to finish his cigar and chin with Soandso." Within an hour he was half-led, half-carried to their room, in a hopelessly sodden condition. The actor with whom he had been drinking accompanied him, apparently quite sober, but puzzled; and after Quard had been helped to bed, explained to the girl that her husband's collapse had been incomprehensibly due to no more than three drinks.

"I never seen nothin' like it!" the man expostulated, with an air of grievance. "There he was, standin' up against the bar, with his foot on the rail, laughin' and kiddin', same's the rest of us; and he'd only had three whiskeys—though I will say they was man-size drinks; and then, all of a sudden, he turns white as a sheet and starts mumblin' to himself, and we all thinks he's joshin' until he keels over, limp's a rag. If the stuff gets to him like that, he's got no business touchin' it, ever!"

These experiences continued at varying intervals; and presently Joan began to understand that Quard had not only primarily a weakness to tempt him, but a constitutional inability to assert his will-power after he had surrendered to the extent of a single drink. One modest dose of alcohol seemed to exercise upon him a sort of hypnotic power, driving him on whether he would or not to the next, the next, and the next—until the nadir of unconsciousness was reached. It was not that he invariably succumbed to moderate indulgence, but that once started he rarely stopped until his identity was completely submerged. Indeed, the way of alcohol with him seemed never twice to follow the same route; but its end was invariably the same.

Hoping against hope, fighting with him, pleading, reasoning, threatening with him, even praying, Joan endured for a long time—much longer than, in retrospective days, seemed possible even to her; for she was honestly fond of her husband, far more so than she was ever of any other living being save herself.

They reached San Francisco the third week in April. For some time Quard had been drinking rather methodically but stealthily. A threat made by Joan, while he was sobering up from his last debauch, to the effect that on repetition of the offence she would leave him without an hour's notice, had frightened the man to the extent of making him hesitate to add one drink to another except at intervals long enough to retard the cumulative effect; but never a day passed on which, in spite of her watchfulness, he did not contrive to throw several sops to the devil in possession, if without ever quite losing his wits.

Detected with reeking breath, he would adopt one of three attitudes: he was a man, subject to the domination of no woman and of no appetite, had learned his lesson and now knew when to stop; or he was sorry—hadn't stopped to think—and wouldn't let it go any further; or nothing of the sort had happened, he had drunk nothing except a glass of soda-fountain nerve-tonic, or possibly it was his cigar that she smelled. With the first, Joan had no patience; and since she had a temper, it was the last resort in Quard's more sober stages, seldom employed save when potations had made him either indifferent or vicious. In his contrition, whether real or assumed, she tried hard to believe. But his lies never deceived her: to these she listened in the silence of contempt and despair.

On the Wednesday afternoon of their week in San Francisco, the girl did a bit of shopping after the matinée; it was half after five before she returned to the hotel, and walked into their room to find Quard, with his coat off, seated in a chair that faced the door. His back was to the windows, through which the declining sun threw a flood of blinding golden light, so that Joan's dazzled vision comprehended only the dark silhouette of his body.

She said "Hello, dearie!" lightly enough in the abstraction of reviewing some especially pleasing purchases, closed the door, walked over to the bureau, put down her handbag and a small parcel, and removed her hat. Then the fact that Quard had not answered penetrated her reverie. Disposing of her hat, she looked half casually over her shoulder, to discover that he hadn't moved. Two surmises struck through her wonder: that he had fallen asleep waiting for her; with poignant apprehension, that he had been drinking again. But this seemed hardly likely: he had been entirely rational and unintoxicated during the matinée.

She said sharply: "What's the matter?"

Quard made no answer.

With a troubled sigh she moved to his chair and bent over him. His eyes, wide and blazing, met hers with a look of inflexible hostility and rage; his mouth was set like a trap, his lips, like his face, were almost colourless. The air was pungent with his breath, but intuitively she divined that it was not drunkenness alone which had aroused this temper, the more dismaying since it was for the time being under control.

From the look in his eyes she started back as from a blow.

"Charlie! What's the matter?"

Quard opened his lips, gulped spasmodically, closed them without speaking. The muscles on the left side of his face twitched nervously.

Abruptly he shot up out of his chair, strode to the door, locked it and pocketed the key. His face as he turned was terrible to see.

She shrank away, but his eyes held hers in the fascination of fright.

"Why—Charlie!—what—"

He interrupted with an imperative gesture, took a step toward her, and shook his hand in her face. Between his thumb and forefinger glittered something exquisitely coruscant in the sunlight.

"What's that?" he demanded in a quivering voice.

She moved her head in assumed bewilderment, staggered to recognize the symbol of her broken troth with Matthias.

"I don't know. What is it? You keep moving it around so, I can't see...."

"There, then!" he cried, steadying the hand under her nose.

Instinctively her gaze veered to her trunk. Its lid was up. On the floor lay her work-basket in the litter of its former contents. Her indignation mounted.

"What were you doing in my trunk?" she demanded hotly.

Quard's eyes clouded under the impact of this counter attack. Momentarily his dazed expression made it very plain that he had taken advantage of her absence to drink heavily. And this was even more plain in the blurred accents, robbed of the sharpness rage had lent them, in which he endeavoured to justify himself.

"I wanted—shew on s'pender button—wanted work-basket...."

Anger returned; his voice mounted: "And I found this! What is it?"

Joan snatched at the ring, but he drew back his hand too quickly for her.

"It's mine. Give it to me!"

"Where'd you get it? Tha'sh what I wanna know!"

"None of your business. Give it—"

"T' hell it ain't my business. I'm your husband—gotta right to know where you get diamonds"—he sneered—"diamonds like this! I never bought it."

"No," she flamed back; "you're too stingy!"

"Stingy, am I?" He faltered swaying. "Tha'snough. I'm tightwad, so s'nother guy gets chansh to buy you diamonds. Tha's way of it, hey?"

"You give me that ring, Charlie," Joan demanded ominously.

"You got anotha good guess coming. What I'll give you is jush two minutes to tell me name of the fellow't give it to you."

"Don't be a fool, Charlie!"

"I don't intend to be fool—any longer. You tell me or—"

He checked, searching his befuddled mind for a compelling threat.

With a shift of manner, Joan extended her hand in pleading.

"Give me the ring, Charlie, and be sensible. I haven't done anything wrong. I can explain."

"Well...." Grudgingly he dropped the ring into her palm. But immediately her fingers had closed upon it, mistrust again possessed him. "Now, you tell me—"

"Very well," she interrupted patiently. "You needn't shout. I don't mind telling you now. It's my engagement ring."

"Your what?" sharply.

"My engagement ring. I was engaged last summer to Mr. Matthias, before we began to rehearse the sketch."

"Engaged?" he iterated stupidly. "Engaged for what?"

"Engaged to be married. He was in love with me. I meant to marry him until you and I met the second time—"

"Meant to marry who?"

"Mr. Matthias. We—"

"Matthias? What Matthias?"

"John Matthias, the author—the playwright. He wrote 'The Jade God.'"

Quard wagged his head cunningly. "Y'mean to tell me you was engaged to that guy, and—didn't marry him?"

"Certainly. I married you, didn't I, dear?"

"And if that's true, how't happen you didn't give'm back his ring? Eh?"

"I meant to, Charlie, but he was out of town and I didn't know his address."

"That's likely!" The actor laughed harshly. "Tha'sh good one, that is! You going to marry him, and didn't know his address. Expect me to believe that?"

"It's true, Charlie—it's God's truth."

"You're a liar!"

"Charlie—!"

"I say, you're a liar! Wha'sh more, I mean it."

Quard waved his hand, palm down, to indicate his scornful disposition of her yarn. Then he staggered, steadied himself by clutching the back of a chair, and conscious how this betrayed his condition, worked himself into a towering rage to cover it.

"I know better. 'F you'd ever got a chance to marry that feller, you'd 've jumped at it. He'd never've got away. You wouldn't 've given him no more chance'n you did me—you'd 've pulled wool over his eyes same way. I know what'm talking about. You're a liar, a dam' dirty little liar, tha's what you are."

Joan's colour deserted her face entirely.

"Charlie! don't you say that to me again."

"And what'll you do? Think I care? I know what you'll do, all right, because I'm going make you do it."

"What do you mean?"

"Wha's more, I know now who gave you that ring. I was fool not to guess it before. I didn't give it to you—no! Mist' Matthias didn't give it to you—no! But somebody did give it to you—eh? Tha's right, isn't it? And his name—'s name was Vincent Marbridge! Wasn't it?"

He thrust his inflamed face close to hers, leering wickedly.

"Marbridge!" Joan echoed blankly.

"Vincent Marbridge—tha's the feller't give you the ring. He's the feller't could do it, too—got all the money in the world—enough to buy dozens'r rings—enough to buy you all them good clothes you got hold of after you threw me down and before I was ass enough to take up with you again! A' that, you were a fool not to get more outa him."

The insult ate like an acid into the pride of the girl. She flushed crimson, then in an instant paled again. Her eyes grew cold and hard.

"That will do," she said bitterly. "You've said enough—too much. After all I've endured from you—your drunkenness, your—"

There was a maniac glare in the eyes of the man as he thrust his face still closer.

"And what'll you do, eh?" he shouted violently. "What'll you do?"

She turned her face aside, in disgust of his reeking breath.

"And what'll you do? Tell me that!"

"I'll leave you—"

"You betcha life you'll leave me. I knew that before you come into this room!"

"And I'm sorry I didn't go long ago—"

"The hell you are!" In a gust of uncontrollable frenzy, Quard struck her sharply over the mouth. "You go—d'you hear?—you damn'——"

In blind fury Joan flung herself upon him, sobbing, biting, scratching, kicking. He reeled back before that unexpected assault, then, sobered a trifle by its viciousness, caught her wrists, held her helpless for an instant, and threw her violently from him. She fell to her knees, lurched over on her side....

The door slammed: he was gone.