"Poor girl!" said Austin, faintly. "If I'd known more about horses I might have saved her."
"If you'd known more about horses you'd have let Pointer run," declared his friend. "Nobody but an idiot or a Bob Austin would have taken the chance you did. How is your head?"
The sick man closed his eyes wearily. "It hurts all the time. What's the matter with it?"
"We've none of us been able to discover what isn't the matter with it!
Why in thunder did you hold on so long?"
"Because I—I love her, I suppose."
"Did you ask her to marry you?" Suydam had been itching to ask the question for days.
"No, I was just getting to it when Pointer bolted. I—I'm slow at such things." There was a moment's pause. "Doc, what's the matter with my eyes? I can't see very well."
"Don't talk so much," ordered the physician. "You're lucky to be here at all. Thanks to that copper-riveted constitution of yours, you'll get well."
But it seemed that the patient was fated to disappoint the predictions of his friend as well as those of the surgeons at Mercy Hospital. He did not recover in a manner satisfactory to his medical adviser, and although he regained the most of his bodily vigor, the injury to his eyes baffled even the most skilled specialists.
He was very brave about it, however, and wrung the heart of Doctor Suydam by the uncomplaining fortitude with which he bore examination after examination. Learned oculists theorized vaporously about optic atrophies, fractures, and brain pressures of one sort and another; and meanwhile Robert Austin, in the highest perfection of bodily vigor, in the fullest possession of those faculties that had raised him from an unschooled farm-boy to a position of eminence in the business world, went slowly blind. The shadows crept in upon him with a deadly, merciless certainty that would have filled the stoutest heart with gloom, and yet he maintained a smiling stoicism that deceived all but his closest associates. To Doctor Suydam, however, the incontestable progress of the malady was frightfully tragic. He alone knew the man's abundant spirits, his lofty ambitions, and his active habits. He alone knew of the overmastering love that had come so late and was destined to go unvoiced, and he raved at the maddening limits of his profession. In Austin's presence he strove to be cheerful and to lighten the burden he knew was crushing the sick man; but at other times he bent every energy toward a discovery of some means to check the affliction, some hand more skilled than those he knew of. In time, however, he recognized the futility of his efforts, and resigned himself to the worst. He had a furious desire to acquaint Marmion Moore with the truth, and to tell her, with all the brutal frankness he could muster, of her part in this calamity. But Austin would not hear of it.
"She doesn't dream of the truth," the invalid told him. "And I don't want her to learn. She thinks I'm merely weak, and it grieves her terribly to know that I haven't recovered. If she really knew—it might ruin her life, for she is a girl who feels deeply. I want to spare her that; it's the least I can do."
"But she'll find it out some time."
"I think not. She comes to see me every day—"
"Every day?"
"Yes. I'm expecting her soon."
"And she doesn't know?"
Austin shook his head. "I never let her see there's anything the matter with my sight. She drives up with her mother, and I wait for her there in the bay-window. It's getting hard for me to distinguish her now, but I recognize the hoofbeats—I can tell them every time."
"But—I don't understand."
"I pretend to be very weak," explained the elder man, with a guilty flush. "I sit in the big chair yonder and my Jap boy waits on her. She is very kind." Austin's voice grew husky. "I'm sorry to lose sight of the Park out yonder, and the trees and the children—they're growing indistinct. I—I like children. I've always wanted some for myself. I've dreamed about—that." His thin, haggard face broke into a wistful smile. "I guess that is all over with now."
"Why?" questioned Suydam, savagely. "Why don't you ask her to marry you, Bob? She couldn't refuse—and God knows you need her."
"That's just it; she couldn't refuse. This is the sort of thing a fellow must bear alone. She's too young, and beautiful, and fine to be harnessed up to a worn-out old—cripple."
"Cripple!" The other choked. "Don't talk like that. Don't be so blamed resigned. It tears my heart out. I—I—why, I believe I feel this more than you do."
Austin turned his face to the speaker with a look of such tragic suffering that the younger man fell silent.
"I'm glad I can hide my feelings," Austin told him, slowly, "for that is what I have to do every instant she is with me. I don't wish to inflict unnecessary pain upon my friends, but don't you suppose I know what this means? It means the destruction of all my fine hopes, the death of all I hold dear in the world. I love my work, for I am—or I was—a success; this means I must give it up. I'm strong in body and brain; this robs me of my usefulness. All my life I have prayed that I might some time love a woman; that time has come, but this means I must give her up and be lonely all my days. I must grope my way through the dark with never a ray of light to guide me. Do you know how awful the darkness is?" He clasped his hands tightly. "I must go hungering through the night, with a voiceless love to torture me. Just at the crowning point of my life I've been snuffed out. I must fall behind and see my friends desert me."
"Bob!" cried the other, in shocked denial.
"Oh, you know it will come to that. People don't like to feel pity forever tugging at them. I've been a lonely fellow and my friends are numbered. For a time they will come to see me, and try to cheer me up; they will even try to include me in their pleasures; then when it is no longer a new story and their commiseration has worn itself out they will gradually fall away. It always happens so. I'll be 'poor Bob Austin,' and I'll go feeling my way through life an object of pity, a stumbling, incomplete thing that has no place to fill, no object to work for, no one to care. God! I'm not the sort to go blind! Where's the justice of it? I've lived clean. Why did this happen to me? Why? Why? I know what the world is; I've been a part of it. I've seen the spring and the autumn colors and I've watched the sunsets. I've looked into men's faces and read their souls, and when you've done that you can't live in darkness. I can't and—I won't!"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going away."
"When? Where?"
"When I can no longer see Marmion Moore and before my affliction becomes known to her. Where—you can guess."
"Oh, that's cowardly, Bob! You're not that sort. You mustn't! It's unbelievable," his friend cried, in a panic.
Austin smiled bitterly. "We have discussed that too often, and—I'm not sure that what I intend doing is cowardly. I can't go now, for the thing is too fresh in her memory, she might learn the truth and hold herself to blame; but when she has lost the first shock of it I shall walk out quietly and she won't even suspect. Other interests will come into her life; I'll be only a memory. Then—" After a pause he went on, "I couldn't bear to see her drop away with the rest."
"Don't give up yet," urged the physician. "She is leaving for the summer, and while she is gone we'll try that Berlin chap. He'll be here in August."
"And he will fail, as the others did. He will lecture some clinic about me, that's all. Marmion will hear that my eyes have given out from overwork, or something like that. Then I'll go abroad, and—I won't come back." Austin, divining the rebellion in his friend's heart, said, quickly: "You're the only one who could enlighten her, Doc, but you won't do it. You owe me too much."
"I—I suppose I do," acknowledged Suydam, slowly. "I owe you more than
I can ever repay—"
"Wait—" The sick man raised his hand, while a sudden light blazed up in his face. "She's coming!"
To the doctor's trained ear the noises of the street rose in a confused murmur, but Austin spoke in an awed, breathless tone, almost as if he were clairvoyant.
"I can hear the horses. She's coming to—see me."
"I'll go," exclaimed the visitor, quickly, but the other shook his head.
"I'd rather have you stay."
Austin was poised in an attitude of the intensest alertness, his angular, awkward body was drawn to its full height, his lean face was lighted by some hidden fire that lent it almost beauty.
"She's getting out of the carriage," he cried, in a nervous voice; then he felt his way to his accustomed arm-chair. Suydam was about to go to the bay-window when he paused, regarding his friend curiously.
"What are you doing?"
The blind man had begun to beat time with his hand, counting under his breath: "One! Two! Three!—"
"She'll knock when I reach twenty-five. 'Sh! 'sh!" He continued his pantomime, and Suydam realized that from repeated practice Austin had gauged to a nicety the seconds Marmion Moore required to mount the stairs. This was his means of holding himself in check. True to prediction, at "Twenty-five" a gentle knock sounded, and Suydam opened the door.
"Come in, Marmion."
The girl paused for the briefest instant on the threshold, and the doctor noted her fleeting disappointment at seeing him; then she took his hand.
"This is a surprise," she exclaimed. "I haven't seen you for ever so long."
Her anxious glance swept past him to the big, awkward figure against the window's light. Austin was rising with apparent difficulty, and she glided to him.
"Please! Don't rise! How many times have I told you not to exert yourself?"
Suydam noted the gentle, proprietary tone of her voice, and it amazed him.
"I—am very glad that you came to see me." The afflicted man's voice was jerky and unmusical. "How are you to-day, Miss?"
"He shouldn't rise, should he?" Miss Moore appealed to the physician.
"He is very weak and shouldn't exert himself."
The doctor wished that his friend might see the girl's face as he saw it; he suddenly began to doubt his own judgment of women.
"Oh, I'm doing finely," Austin announced. "Won't you be seated?" He waved a comprehensive gesture, and Suydam, marveling at the manner in which the fellow concealed his infirmity, brought a chair for the caller.
"I came alone to-day. Mother is shopping," Miss Moore was saying. "See! I brought these flowers to cheer up your room." She held up a great bunch of sweet peas. "I love the pink ones, don't you?"
Austin addressed the doctor. "Miss Moore has been very kind to me; I'm afraid she feels it her duty—"
"No! No!" cried the girl.
"She rarely misses a day, and she always brings flowers. I'm very fond of bright colors."
Suydam cursed at the stiff formality in the man's tone. How could any woman see past that glacial front and glimpse the big, aching heart beyond? Austin was harsh and repellent when the least bit self-conscious, and now he was striving deliberately to heighten the effect.
The physician wondered why Marmion Moore had gone even thus far in showing her gratitude, for she was not the self-sacrificing kind. As for a love match between two such opposite types, Suydam could not conceive of it. Even if the girl understood the sweet, simple nature of this man, even if she felt her own affections answer to his, Suydam believed he knew the women of her set too well to imagine that she could bring herself to marry a blind man, particularly one of no address.
"We leave for the mountains to-morrow," Marmion said, "so I came to say good-by, for a time."
"I—shall miss your visits," Austin could not disguise his genuine regret, "but when you return I shall be thoroughly recovered. Perhaps we can ride again."
"Never!" declared Miss Moore. "I shall never ride again. Think of the suffering I've caused you. I—I—am dreadfully sorry."
To Suydam's amazement, he saw the speaker's eyes fill with tears. A doubt concerning the correctness of his surmises came over him and he rose quickly. After all, he reflected, she might see and love the real Bob as he did, and if so she might wish to be alone with him in this last hour. But Austin laughed at his friend's muttered excuse.
"You know there's nobody waiting for you. That's only a pretense to find livelier company. You promised to dine with me." To Miss Moore he explained: "He isn't really busy; why, he has been complaining for an hour that the heat has driven all his patients to the country, and that he is dying of idleness."
The girl's expression altered curiously. She shrank as if wounded; she scanned the speaker's face with startled eyes before turning with a strained smile to say:
"So, Doctor, we caught you that time. That comes from being a high-priced society physician. Why don't you practise among the masses? I believe the poor are always in need of help."
"I really have an engagement," Suydam muttered.
"Then break it for Mr. Austin's sake. He is lonely and—I must be going in a moment."
The three talked for a time in the manner all people adopt for a sick-room, then the girl rose and said, with her palm in Austin's hand:
"I owe you so much that I can never hope to repay you, but you—you will come to see me frequently this season. Promise! You won't hide yourself, will you?"
The blind man smiled his thanks and spoke his farewell with meaningless politeness; then, as the physician prepared to see her to her carriage, Miss Moore said:
"No! Please stay and gossip with our invalid. It's only a step."
She walked quickly to the door, flashed them a smile, and was gone.
Suydam heard his patient counting as before.
"One! Two! Three—!"
At "Twenty-five" the elder man groped his way to the open bay-window and bowed at the carriage below. There came the sound of hoofs and rolling wheels, and the doctor, who had taken stand beside his friend, saw Marmion Moore turn in her seat and wave a last adieu. Austin continued to nod and smile in her direction, even after the carriage was lost to view; then he felt his way back to the arm-chair and sank limply into it.
"Gone! I—I'll never be able to see her again."
Suydam's throat tightened miserably. "Could you see her at all?"
"Only her outlines; but when she comes back in the fall I'll be as blind as a bat." He raised an unsteady hand to his head and closed his eyes. "I can stand anything except that! To lose sight of her dear face—" The force of his emotion wrenched a groan from him.
"I don't know what to make of her," said the other. "Why didn't you let me go, Bob? It was her last good-by; she wanted to be alone with you. She might have—"
"That's it!" exclaimed Austin. "I was afraid of myself; afraid I'd speak if I had the chance." His voice was husky as he went on. "It's hard—hard, for sometimes I think she loves me, she's so sweet and so tender. At such times I'm a god. But I know it can't be; that it is only pity and gratitude that prompts her. Heaven knows I'm uncouth enough at best, but now I have to exaggerate my rudeness. I play a part—the part of a lumbering, stupid lout, while my heart is breaking." He bowed his head in his hands, closing his dry, feverish eyes once more. "It's cruelly hard. I can't keep it up."
The other man laid a hand on his shoulder, saying: "I don't know whether you're doing right or not. I half suspect you are doing Marmion a bitter wrong."
"Oh, but she can't—she can't love me!" Austin rose as if frightened. "She might yield to her impulse and—well, marry me, for she has a heart of gold, but it wouldn't last. She would learn some time that it wasn't real love that prompted the sacrifice. Then I should die."
The specialist from Berlin came, but he refused to operate, declaring bluntly that there was no use, and all during the long, hot summer days Robert Austin sat beside his open window watching the light die out of the world, waiting, waiting, for the time to make his sacrifice.
Suydam read Marmion's cheery letters aloud, wondering the while at the wistful note they sounded now and then. He answered them in his own handwriting, which she had never seen.
One day came the announcement that she was returning the first week in October. Already September was partly gone, so Austin decided to sail in a week. At his dictation Suydam wrote to her, saying that the strain of overwork had rendered a long vacation necessary. The doctor writhed internally as he penned the careful sentences, wondering if the hurt of the deliberately chosen words would prevent her sensing the truth back of them. As days passed and no answer came he judged it had.
The apartment was stripped and bare, the trunks were packed on the afternoon before Austin's departure. All through the dreary mockery of the process the blind man had withstood his friend's appeal, his stern face set, his heavy heart full of a despairing stubbornness. Now, being alone at last, he groped his way about the premises to fix them in his memory; then he sank into his chair beside the window.
He heard a knock at the door and summoned the stranger to enter, then he rose with a gasp of dismay. Marmion Moore was greeting him with sweet, yet hesitating effusiveness.
"I—I thought you were not coming back until next week," he stammered.
"We changed our plans." She searched his face as best she could in the shaded light, a strange, anxious expression upon her own. "Your letter surprised me."
"The doctor's orders," he said, carelessly. "They say I have broken down."
"I know! I know what caused it!" she panted. "You never recovered from that accident. You did not tell me the truth. I've always felt that you were hiding something from me. Why? Oh, why?"
"Nonsense!" He undertook to laugh, but failed in a ghastly manner.
"I've been working too hard. Now I'm paying the penalty."
"How long will you be gone?" she queried.
"Oh, I haven't decided. A long time, however." His tone bewildered her. "It is the first vacation I ever had; I want to make the most of it."
"You—you were going away without saying good-by to—your old friends?" Her lips were white, and her brave attempt to smile would have told him the truth had he seen it, but he only had her tone to go by, so he answered, indifferently:
"All my arrangements were made; I couldn't wait."
"You are offended with me," Miss Moore said, after a pause. "How have
I hurt you? What is it; please? I—I have been too forward, perhaps?"
Austin dared not trust himself to answer, and when he made no sign the girl went on, painfully:
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to seem bold. I owe you so much; we were such good friends—" In spite of her efforts her voice showed her suffering.
The man felt his lonely heart swell with the wild impulse to tell her all, to voice his love in one breathless torrent of words that would undeceive her. The strain of repression lent him added brusqueness when he strove to explain, and his coldness left her sorely hurt. His indifference filled her with a sense of betrayal; it chilled the impulsive yearning in her breast. She had battled long with herself before coming and now she repented of her rashness, for it was plain he did not need her. This certainty left her sick and listless, therefore she bade him adieu a few moments later, and with aching throat went blindly out and down the stairs.
The instant she was gone Austin leaped to his feet; the agony of death was upon his features. Breathlessly he began to count:
"One! Two! Three—!"
He felt himself smothering, and with one sweep of his hand ripped the collar from his throat.
"Five! Six! Seven—!"
He was battling like a drowning man, for, in truth, the very breath of his life was leaving him. A drumming came into his ears. He felt that he must call out to her before it was too late. He was counting aloud now, his voice like the moan of a man on the rack.
"Nine! Ten—!"
A frenzy to voice his sufferings swept over him, but he held himself. Only a moment more and she would be gone; her life would be spared this dark shadow, and she would never know, but he—he would indeed be face to face with darkness.
Toward the last he was reeling, but he continued to tell off the seconds with the monotonous regularity of a timepiece, his every power centered on that process. The idea came to him that he was counting his own flickering pulse-throbs for the last time. With a tremendous effort of will he smoothed his face and felt his way to the open window, for by now she must be entering the landau. A moment later and she would turn to waft him her last adieu. Her last! God! How the seconds lagged! That infernal thumping in his ears had drowned the noises from the street below. He felt that for all time the torture of this moment would live with him.
Then he smiled! He smiled blindly out into the glaring sunlight, and bowed. And bowed and smiled again, clinging to the window-casing to support himself. By now she must have reached the corner. He freed one hand and waved it gaily, then with outflung arms he stumbled back into the room, the hot tears coursing down his cheeks.
Marmion Moore halted upon the stairs and felt mechanically for her gold chatelaine. She recalled dropping it upon the center-table as she went forward with hands outstretched to Austin; so she turned back, then hesitated. But he was leaving to-morrow; surely he would not misinterpret the meaning of her reappearance. Summoning her self-control, she remounted the stairs quickly.
The door was half ajar as she had left it in her confusion. Mustering a careless smile, she was about to knock, then paused. Austin was facing her in the middle of the room, beating time. He was counting aloud—but was that his voice? In the brief instant she had been gone he had changed astoundingly. Moreover, notwithstanding the fact that she stood plainly revealed, he made no sign of recognition, but merely counted on and on, with the voice of a dying man. She divined that something was sadly amiss; she wondered for an instant if the man had lost his senses.
She stood transfixed, half-minded to flee, yet held by some pitying desire to help; then she saw him reach forward and grope his way uncertainly to the window. In his progress he stumbled against a chair; he had to feel for the casing. Then she knew.
Marmion Moore found herself inside the room, staring with wide, affrighted eyes at the man whose life she had spoiled. She pressed her hands to her bosom to still its heavings. She saw Austin nodding down at the street below; she saw his ghastly attempt to smile; she heard the breath sighing from his lungs and heard him muttering her name. Then he turned and lurched past her, groping, groping for his chair. She cried out, sharply, in a stricken voice:
"Mr. Austin!"
The man froze in his tracks; he swung his head slowly from side to side, as if listening.
"What!" The word came like the crack of a gun. Then, after a moment, "Marmion!" He spoke her name as if to test his own hearing. It was the first time she had ever heard him use it.
She slipped forward until within an arm's-length of him, then stretched forth a wildly shaking hand and passed it before his unwinking eyes, as if she still disbelieved. Then he heard her moan.
"Marmion!" he cried again. "My God! little girl, I—thought I heard you go!"
"Then this, this is the reason," she said. "Oh-h-h!"
"What are you doing here? Why did you come back?" he demanded, brutally.
"I forgot my—No! God sent me back!"
There was a pause, during which the man strove to master himself; then he asked, in the same harsh accents:
"How long have you been here?"
"Long enough to see—and to understand."
"Well, you know the truth at last. I—have gone—blind." The last word caused his lips to twitch. He knew from the sound that she was weeping bitterly. "Please don't. I've used my eyes too much, that is all. It is—nothing."
"No! No! No!" she said, brokenly. "Don't you think I understand? Don't you think I see it all now? But why—why didn't you tell me? Why?" When he did not answer she repeated: "God sent me back. I—I was not meant to be so unhappy."
Austin felt himself shaken as if by a panic. He cried, hurriedly: "You see, we've been such good friends. I knew it would distress you. I—wanted to spare you that! You were a good comrade to me; we were like chums. Yes, we were chums. No friend could have been dearer to me than you, Miss Moore. I never had a sister, you know. I—I thought of you that way, and I—" He was struggling desperately to save the girl, but his incoherent words died on his lips when he felt her come close and lay her cheek against his arm.
"You mustn't try to deceive me any more," she said, gently. "I was here. I know the truth, and—I want to be happy."
Even then he stood dazed and disbelieving until she continued:
"I know that you love me, and that I love you."
"It is pity!" he exclaimed, hoarsely. "You don't mean it."
But she drew herself closer to him and turned her tear-stained face up to his, saying, wistfully, "If your dear eyes could have seen, they would have told you long ago."
"Oh, my love!" He was too weak to resist longer. His arms were trembling as they enfolded her, but in his heart was a gladness that comes to but few men.
"And you won't go away without me, will you?" she questioned, fearfully.
"No, no!" he breathed. "Oh, Marmion, I have lost a little, but I have gained much! God has been good to me."
THE REAL AND THE MAKE-BELIEVE
On his way down-town Phillips stopped at a Subway news-stand and bought all the morning papers. He acknowledged that he was vastly excited. As he turned in at the stage door he thrilled at sight of the big electric sign over the theater, pallid now in the morning sunshine, but symbolizing in frosted letters the thing for which he had toiled and fought, had hoped and despaired these many years. There it hung, a dream come true, and it read, "A Woman's Thrall, By Henry Phillips."
The stage-door man greeted him with a toothless smile and handed him a bundle of telegrams, mumbling: "I knew it would go over, Mr. Phillips. The notices are swell, ain't they?"
"They seem to be."
"I ain't seen their equal since 'The Music Master' opened. We'll run a year."
This differed from the feverish, half-hysterical praise of the evening before. Phillips had made allowances then for the spell of a first-night enthusiasm and had prepared himself for a rude awakening this morning—he had seen too many plays fail, to put much faith in the fulsomeness of first-nighters—but the words of the doorman carried conviction. He had felt confident up to the last moment, to be sure, for he knew he had put his life's best work into this drama, and he believed he had written with a master's cunning; nevertheless, when his message had gone forth a sudden panic had seized him. He had begun to fear that his judgment was distorted by his nearness to the play, or that his absorption in it had blinded him to its defects. It was evident now, however, that these fears had been ill-founded, for no play could receive such laudatory reviews as these and fail to set New-Yorkers aflame.
Certain printed sentences kept dancing through his memory: "Unknown dramatist of tremendous power," "A love story so pitiless, so true, that it electrifies," "The deep cry of a suffering heart," "Norma Berwynd enters the galaxy of stars."
That last sentence was the most significant, the most wonderful of all. Norma Berwynd a star! Phillips could scarcely credit it; he wondered if she had the faintest notion of how or why her triumph had been effected.
The property man met him, and he too was smiling.
"I just came from the office," he began. "Say! they're raving. It's the biggest hit in ten years."
"Oh, come now! It's too early for the afternoon papers—"
"The papers be blowed! It's the public that makes a play; the whole town knows about this one already. It's in and over, I tell you; we'll sell out tonight. Believe me, this is a knock-out—a regular bull's-eye. It won't take no government bonds to bridge us over the next two weeks."
"Did you get the new props?"
"Sure! The electrician is working on the drop light for the first act; we'll have a better glass crash tonight, and I've got a brand-new dagger. That other knife was all right, but Mr. Francis forgot how to handle it."
"Nevertheless, it's dangerous. We came near having a real tragedy last evening. Don't let's take any more chances."
"It wasn't my fault, on the level," the property man insisted.
"Francis always 'goes up' at an opening."
"Thank Heaven the papers didn't notice it."
"Huh! We could afford to kill an actor for notices like them. It would make great advertising and please the critics. Say! I knew this show was a hit."
Under the dim-lit vault of the stage Phillips found the third-act scenery set for the rehearsal he had called, then, having given his instructions to the wardrobe woman, he drew a chair up before a bunch light and prepared to read for a second time the morning reviews.
He had attempted to read them at breakfast, but his wife—The playwright sighed heavily at the memory of that scene. Léontine had been very unjust, as usual. Her temper had run away with her again and had forced him to leave the house with his splendid triumph spoiled, his first taste of victory like ashes in his mouth. He was, in a way, accustomed to these endless, senseless rows, but their increasing frequency was becoming more and more trying, and he was beginning to doubt his ability to stand them much longer. It seemed particularly nasty of Léontine to seize upon this occasion to vent her open dislike of him—their relations were already sufficiently strained. Marriage, all at once, assumed a very lopsided aspect to the playwright; he had given so much and received so little.
With an effort he dismissed the subject from his mind and set himself to the more pleasant task of looking at his play through the eyes of the reviewers.
They had been very fair, he decided at last. Their only criticism was one which he had known to be inevitable, therefore he felt no resentment.
"Norma Berwynd was superb," he read; "she combined with rare beauty a personality at once bewitching and natural. She gave life to her lines; she was deep, intense, true; she rose to her emotional heights in a burst of power which electrified the audience. We cannot but wonder why such an artist has remained so long undiscovered."
The dramatist smiled; surely that was sufficient praise to compensate him for the miserable experience he had just undergone. He read further:
"Alas, that the same kind things cannot be said of Irving Francis, whose name is blazoned forth in letters of fire above the theater. He has established himself as one of America's brightest stars; but the rôle of John Danton does not enhance his reputation. In his lighter scenes he was delightful, but his emotional moments did not ring true. In the white-hot climax of the third act, for instance, which is the big scene of the play, he was stiff, unnatural, unconvincing. Either he saw Miss Berwynd taking the honors of stardom away from him and generously submerged his own talent in order to enhance her triumph, or it is but another proof of the statement that husband and wife do not make convincing lovers in the realm of the make-believe. It was surely due to no lack of opportunity on his part—"
So the writer thought Irving Francis had voluntarily allowed his wife to rival him. Phillips smiled at this. Some actors might be capable of such generosity, but hardly Irving Francis. He recalled the man's insistent demands during rehearsals that the 'script be changed to build up his own part and undermine that of his wife; the many heated arguments which had even threatened to prevent the final performance of the piece. Irving's egotism had blinded him to the true result of these quarrels, for although he had been given more lines, more scenes, Phillips had seen to it that Norma was the one to really profit by the changes. Author and star had been upon the verge of rupture more than once during that heartbreaking period of preparation, but Phillips was supremely glad now that he had held himself in control. Léontine's constant nagging had borne fruit, after all, in that it had at least taught him to bite down on his words, and to smile at provocation.
Yes! Norma Berwynd was a star in spite of herself, in spite of her husband. She was no longer merely the wife of Irving Francis, the popular idol. Phillips was glad that she did not know how long it had taken him to effect her independence, nor the price he had paid for it, since, under the circumstances, the truth could help neither of them.
He was aroused from his abstraction by the rustle of a woman's garments, and leaped to his feet with a glad light in his eyes, only to find Léontine, his wife, confronting him.
"Oh!" he said; then with an effort, "What is the matter?"
"Nothing."
"I didn't know you were coming down-town."
"Whom were you expecting?" Léontine mocked, with that slight accent which betrayed her Gallic origin.
"No one."
She regarded him with fixed hostility. "I came down to see your rehearsal. You don't object, I hope?"
"Why should I object?" Phillips turned away with a shrug. "I'm surprised, that's all—after what you said this morning. Isn't your interest in the play a trifle—tardy?"
"No! I've been greatly interested in it all the time. I read it several times in manuscript."
"Indeed! I didn't know that. It won't be much of a rehearsal this morning; I'm merely going to run over the third act with Mr. and Mrs. Francis."
"You can rehearse her forty years and she'll never play the part."
"The critics don't agree with you; they rave over her. If Francis himself—"
Mrs. Phillips uttered an exclamation of anger. "Oh, of course, she is perfect! You wouldn't give me the part, would you? No. You gave it to her. But it's mine by rights; I have the personality."
"I wrote it for her," said the husband, after a pause. "I can't see you in it."
"Naturally," she sneered. "Well, I can, and it's not too late to make the change. I'll replace her. My name will help the piece."
"Léontine!" he exclaimed, in amazement. "What are you talking about? The play is a tremendous success as it is, and Miss Berwynd is a big hit. I'd be crazy to make a change."
"You won't give me the part?"
"Certainly not. You shouldn't ask it."
"Doesn't Léontine Murat mean more to the public than Norma Berwynd?" she demanded.
"Until last night, yes. To-day—well, no. She has created this rôle.
Besides—you—couldn't play the part."
"And why not, if you please?"
"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Léontine."
"Go on!" she commanded, in a voice roughened by passion.
"In the first place you're not—young enough." The woman quivered. "In the second place, you've grown heavy. Then, too, your accent—"
She broke out at him furiously. "So! I'm old and fat and foreign. I've lost my beauty. You think so, eh? Well, other men don't. I'll show you what men think of me—"
"This is no time for threats," he interrupted, coldly.
"Bah! I don't threaten." Seizing him by the arm, she swung him about, for she was a large woman and still in the fullest vigor of her womanhood. "Listen! You can't fool me. I know why you wrote this play. I know why you took that girl and made a star of her. I've known the truth all along."
"You have no cause to—"
"Don't lie!" she stormed at him. "I can read you like a book. But I won't stand for it." She flung his arm violently from her and turned away.
"I think you'd better go home," he told her. "You'll have the stage hands talking in a minute."
She laughed disagreeably, ignoring his words. "I watched you write this play! I have eyes, even if Irving Francis is blind. It's time he knew what is going on."
"There is nothing going on," Phillips cried, heatedly; but his wife merely shrugged her splendid shoulders and, opening her gold vanity case, gave her face a deft going over with a tiny powder puff. After a time the man continued: "I could understand your attitude if you—cared for me, but some years ago you took pains to undeceive me on that point."
Léontine's lip curled, and she made no answer.
"This play is a fine piece of property; it will bring us a great deal of money; it is the thing for which I have worked years."
"I am going to tell Francis the truth about you and his wife!" she said.
"But there's nothing to tell," the man insisted, with an effort to restrain himself. "Besides, you must know the result if you start a thing like that. He'll walk out and take his wife with him. That would ruin—"
"Give me her part."
"I won't be coerced," he flared up, angrily. "You are willing to ruin me, out of pique, I suppose, but I won't permit it. This is the biggest thing I ever did, or ever will do, perhaps; it means honor and recognition, and—you're selfish enough to spoil it all. I've never spoken to Norma Berwynd in any way to which her husband or you could object. Therefore I resent your attitude."
"My attitude! I'm your wife."
He took a turn across the stage, followed by her eyes. Pausing before her at length, he said, quietly: "I've asked you to go home and now I insist upon it. If you are here when I return I shall dismiss the rehearsal. I refuse to allow our domestic relations to interfere with my business." He strode out to the front of the house and then paced the dark foyer, striving to master his emotions. A moment later he saw his wife leave the stage and assumed that she had obeyed his admonitions and gone home.
The property-man appeared with an armful of draperies and mechanical appliances, interrupting his whistling long enough to call out.
"Here's the new hangings, Mr. Phillips, and the Oriental rugs. I've got the dagger, too." He held a gleaming object on high. "Believe me, it's some Davy Crockett. There's a newspaper guy out back and he wants your ideas on the American drama. I told him they were great. Will you see him?"
"Not now. Tell him to come back later."
"Say! That John Danton is some character. Why don't you let him have the gal?"
"Because—well, because it doesn't happen in real life, and I've tried to make this play real, more than anything else."
When Norma Berwynd and her husband arrived Phillips had completely regained his composure, and he greeted them cordially. The woman seemed awed, half-frightened, by her sudden rise to fame. She seemed to be walking in a dream, and a great wonder dwelt in her eyes. As for Francis, he returned the author's greeting curtly, making it plain that he was in no agreeable temper.
"I congratulate you, Phillips," he said. "You and Norma have become famous overnight."
The open resentment in his tone angered the playwright and caused him to wonder if their long-deferred clash was destined to occur this morning. He knew himself to be overwrought, and he imagined Francis to be in no better frame of mind; nevertheless, he answered, pacifically:
"If that is so we owe it to your art."
"Not at all. I see now what I failed to detect in reading and rehearsing the piece, and what you neglected to tell me, namely, that this is a woman's play. There's nothing in it for me. There's nothing in my part."
"Oh, come now! The part is tremendous; you merely haven't got the most out of it as yet."
Francis drew himself up and eyed the speaker coldly. "You're quoting the newspapers. Pray be more original. You know, of course, how I stand with these penny-a-liners; they never have liked me, but as for the part—" He shrugged. "I can't get any more out of it than there is in it."
"Doubtless that was my fault at rehearsals. I've called this one so we can fix up the weak spot in the third act."
"Well! We're on time. Where are the others?" Francis cast an inquiring glance about.
"I'll only rehearse you and Mrs. Francis."
"Indeed!" The former speaker opened his mouth for a cutting rejoinder, but changed his mind and stalked away into the shadowy depths of the wings.
"Please make allowances for him," Norma begged, approaching Phillips in order that her words might not be overheard. "I've never seen him so broken up over anything. He is always unstrung after an opening, but he is—terrible, this morning."
There was trouble, timidity, and another indefinable expression in the woman's eyes as they followed the vanishing figure of her husband; faint lines appeared at the corners of her mouth, lines which had no place in the face of a happily married woman. She was trembling, moreover, as if she had but recently played some big, emotional rôle, and Phillips felt the old aching pity for her tugging at his heart. He wondered if those stories about Francis could be true.
"It has been a great strain on all of us," he told her. "But you? How do you feel after all this?" He indicated the pile of morning papers, and at sight of them her eyes suddenly filled with that same wonder and gladness he had noticed when she first arrived.
"Oh-h! I—I'm breathless. Something clutches me—here." She laid her hand upon her bosom. "It's so new I can't express it yet, except—well, all of my dreams came true in a night. Some fairy waved her wand and, lo! poor ugly little me—" She laughed, although it was more like a sob. "I had no idea my part was so immense. Had you?"
"I had. I wrote it that way. My dreams, also, came true."
"But why?" A faint flush stole into her cheeks. "There are so many women who could have played the part better than I. You had courage to risk your piece in my hands, Mr. Phillips."
"Perhaps I knew you better than you knew yourself." She searched his face with startled curiosity. "Or better at least than the world knew you. Tell me, there is something wrong? I'm afraid he—resents your—"
"Oh no, no!" she denied, hastily, letting her eyes fall, but not before he had seen them fill again with that same expression of pain and bewilderment. "He's—not himself, that's all. I—You—won't irritate him? Please! He has such a temper."
Francis came out of the shadows scowling. "Well, let's get at it," said he.
Phillips agreed. "If you don't mind we'll start with your entrance. I wish you would try to express more depth of feeling, more tenderness, if you please, Mr. Francis. Remember, John Danton has fought this love of his for many years, undertaking to remain loyal to his wife. He doesn't dream that Diane returns his love, for he has never spoken, never even hinted of his feelings until this instant. Now, however, they are forced into expression. He begins reluctantly, frightened at the thing which makes him speak, then when she responds the dam breaks and his love over-rides his will power, his loyalty, his lifelong principles; it sweeps him onward and it takes her with him. The truth appals them both. They recognize its certain consequences and yet they respond freely, fiercely. You can't overplay the scene, Mr. Francis."
"Certainly I can overplay it," the star declared. "That's the danger.
My effects should come from repression."
"I must differ with you. Repressive methods are out of place here. You see, John Danton loses control of himself—"
"Nonsense!" Francis declared, angrily.
"The effectiveness of the scene depends altogether upon its—well, its savagery. It must sweep the audience off its feet in order that the climax shall appear logical."
"Nonsense again! I'm not an old-school actor, and I can't chew scenery. I've gained my reputation by repressive acting, by intensity."
"This is not acting; this is real life."
Francis's voice rose a tone in pitch, and his eyes flashed at this stubborn resistance to his own set ideas.
"Great heavens, Phillips! Don't try to tell me my own business.
People don't behave that way in real life; they don't explode under
passion—not even jealousy or revenge; they are reserved. Reserve!
That's the real thing; the other is all make-believe."
Seeing that it was useless to argue with the man, Phillips said nothing more, so Francis and his wife assumed their positions and began their lines.
It was a long scene and one demanding great force to sustain. It was this, in fact, which had led to the choice of Irving Francis for the principal rôle, for he was a man of tremendous physical power. He had great ability, moreover, and yet never, even at rehearsals, had he been able to invest this particular scene with conviction. Phillips had rehearsed him in it time and again, but he seemed strangely incapable of rising to the necessary heights. He was hollow, artificial; his tricks and mannerisms showed through like familiar trade marks. Strangely enough, the girl also had failed to get the most out of the scene, and this morning, both star and leading woman seemed particularly cold and unresponsive. They lacked the spark, the uplifting intensity, which was essential, therefore, in desperation, Phillips finally tried the expedient of altering their "business," of changing positions, postures, and crosses; but they went through the scene for a second time as mechanically as before.
Knowing every line as he did, feeling every heart throb, living and suffering as John Danton was supposed to be living and suffering, Phillips was nearly distracted. To him this was a wanton butchery of his finest work. He interrupted, at last, in a heart-sick, hopeless tone which sorely offended the already irritated Francis.
"I'm—afraid it's no use. You don't seem to get it."
"What is it I don't get?" roughly demanded the actor.
"You're not genuine—either of you. You don't seem to feel it."
"Humph! We're married!" said the star, so brutally that his wife flushed painfully. "I tell you I get all it's possible to get out of the scene. You wrote it and you see a lot of imaginary values; but they're not there. I'm no superman—no god! I can't give you more than the part contains."
"Look at it in this light," Phillips argued, after a pause. "Diane is a married woman; she, too, is fighting a battle; she is restrained by every convention, every sense of right, every instinct of wifehood and womanhood. Now, then, you must sweep all that aside; your own fire must set her ablaze despite—"
"I? I must do all this?" mocked the other, furiously. "Why must I do it all? Make Norma play up to me. She underplays me all the time; she's not in my key. That's what's the matter—and I'm damned tired of this everlasting criticism."
There was a strained silence, during which the two men faced each other threateningly, and a panic seized the woman.
She managed to say, uncertainly: "Perhaps I—should play up to you,
Irving."
"On the contrary, I don't think the fault is yours," Phillips said, stiffly.
Again there was a dramatic silence, in which there was no element of the make-believe. It was the clash of two strong men who disliked each other intensely and whose masks were slipping. Neither they nor the leading woman detected a figure stealing out from the gloom, as if drawn by the magnetism of their anger.
"My fault, as usual," Francis sneered. "Understand this, Phillips, my reputation means something to me, and I won't be forced out of a good engagement by a—well, by you or by any other stage manager."
Phillips saw that same fearful look leap into the woman's eyes, and it checked his heated retort. "I don't mean to find fault with you," he declared, evenly. "I have the greatest respect for your ability as an actor, but—"
The star tossed his massive head in a peculiarly aggravating manner.
"Perhaps you think you can play the part better than I?"
"Irving! Please!" breathed his wife.
"Show me how it should be done, if you feel it so strongly."
"Thank you, I will," Phillips answered, impulsively. "I'm not an actor, but I wrote this piece. What's more, I lived it before I wrote it. It's my own story, and I think I know how it should be played."
Francis smiled mockingly. "Good!" said he; "I shall learn something."
"Do you mind?" The author turned to the real Diane, and she shook her head, saying, uncertainly:
"It's—very good of you."
"Very well. If you will hold the manuscript, Mr. Francis, I'll try to show what I feel the scene lacks. However, I don't think I'll need any prompting. Now, then, we'll begin at John Danton's entrance."
With the mocking smile still upon his lips, Francis took the manuscript and seated himself upon the prompter's table.
It was by no means remarkable that Henry Phillips should know something about acting, for he had long been a stage manager, and in emergencies he has assumed a good many divergent rôles. He felt no self-consciousness, therefore, as he exchanged places with Francis; only an intense desire to prove his contentions. He nerved himself to an unusual effort, but before he had played more than a few moments he forgot the hostile husband and began to live the part of John Danton as he had lived it in the writing, as he invariably lived it every time he read the play or saw it acted.
Nor, as he had said, did he need prompting, for the lines were not the written speeches of another which had been impressed upon his brain by the mechanical process of repetition; they were his own thoughts expressed in the simplest terms he knew, and they came forth unbidden, hot, eager. Once he began to voice them he was seized by that same mighty current which had drawn them from him in the first place and left them strewn upon paper like driftwood after a flood. He had acted every part of his play; he had spoken every line many times in solitude; but this was the first time he had faced the real Diane. He found himself mastered by a fierce exultation; he forgot that he was acting or that the woman opposite him was playing a rôle of his creation; he began to live his true life for the first time since he had met the wife of Irving Francis. Clothed in the make-believe, the real Henry Phillips spoke freely, feelingly. His very voice changed in timbre, in quality; it became rich, alive; his eyes caressed the woman and stirred her to a new response.
As for Irving Francis, he watched the transformation with astonishment. Grudgingly, resentfully, he acknowledged that this was indeed fine acting. He realized, too, that his blind egotism had served merely to prove the truth of the author's criticism and to emphasize his own shortcomings. The idea enraged him, but the spectacle held him enthralled.
Norma Berwynd was not slow to appreciate the truth. Accustomed thoroughly to every phase of the make-believe world in which she dwelt, she recognized unerringly in the new John Danton's words and actions something entirely unreal and apart from the theatrical. The conviction that Henry Phillips was not acting came to her with a blinding suddenness, and it threw her into momentary confusion, hence her responses were mechanical. But soon, without effort on her part, this embarrassment fell away and she in turn began to blaze. The flame grew as Phillips breathed upon it. She realized wildly that her heart had always hungered for words like these, and that, coming from his lips, they carried an altogether new and wondrous meaning; that they filled some long-felt, aching want of which she had been ignorant until this moment. The certainty that it was Phillips himself who spoke, and not a mere character of his creation, filled her with an exultant recklessness. She forgot her surroundings, her husband's presence, even the fact that the lines she spoke were not of her own making.
Never had the scene been played like this. It grew vital, it took on a tremendous significance. No one could have observed it and remained unresponsive. Francis let fall the manuscript and stared at the actors wonderingly. Since he was an actor, nothing was so real to him, nothing so thrilling, as the make-believe. He realized that this was indeed a magnificent exhibition of the artificial. With parted lips and pulse athrob he followed the wooing of that imaginary John Danton, in whom he could see no one but himself.
After a time he became conscious of a presence at his side, and heard some one breathing heavily. Turning with a start, he found Léontine Phillips at his shoulder. She, too, was aroused, but in her sneering visage was that which brought the actor abruptly out of his spell. She had emerged from the shadows noiselessly, and was leaning forward, her strong hands gripping the edge of the table littered with its many properties.
Mrs. Phillips had played emotional scenes herself, but never with such melodramatic intensity as she now unconsciously displayed. Her whole body shook as with an ague, her dark face was alive with a jealous fury which told Irving Francis the story he had been too dull to suspect. The truth, when it came home, smote him like a blow; his hatred for the author, which had been momentarily forgotten—momentarily lost in his admiration of the artist—rose up anew, and he recognized this occult spell which had held him breathless as the thrall of a vital reality, not, after all, the result of inspired acting. Instantly he saw past the make-believe, into the real, and what he saw caused him to utter a smothered cry.
Léontine turned her face to him. "You fool!" she whispered through livid lips.
Francis was a huge, leonine man; he rose now to his full height, as a cat rises. But the drama drew his gaze in spite of himself; he could not keep his eyes from his wife's face. Léontine plucked at his sleeve and whispered again:
"You fool!"
Something contorted the actor's frame bitterly, and he gasped like a man throttled. Léontine could feel his muscles stiffen.
But the two players were in Elysium. They had reached the climax of the scene; Danton had told his love as only a great, starved love can tell itself, and with swimming eyes and fluttering lids, with heart pounding beneath her folded hands, Diane swayed toward him and his arms enfolded her. Her body met his, yielded; her face was upturned; her fragrant, half-opened lips were crushed to his in a fierce, impassioned kiss of genuine ecstasy.
Up to this moment the intensity of Francis's rage had held him paralyzed, despite the voice which was whispering so constantly at his ear; but now, when he saw his wife swooning upon the breast of the man who had played his part, he awoke.
"She knows he loves her," Léontine was saying. "You let him tell her in front of your face. He has taken her away from you!"
Mrs. Phillips's eyes fell upon the working fingers of the man as they rested beside her own. They were opening and closing hungrily. She also saw the naked knife which lay upon the table, and she moved it forward cautiously until the eager fingers twined about it. Then she breathed, "Go!" and shoved him forward fiercely.
It was Irving Francis's cry of rage as he rushed upon them which aroused Norma Berwynd from her dream, from her intoxication. She saw him towering at Phillips's back, and with a scream she tried to save the latter.
The husband's blow fell, however; it was delivered with all the savage fury that lay in Irving Francis's body, and his victim was fairly driven to his knees beneath it. The latter rose, then staggered, and, half sliding through the woman's sheltering embrace, crumpled limply into a massive upholstered chair. He, too, was dazed by the sudden transition from his real world to his make-believe.
When his eyes cleared he saw Norma Berwynd struggling with her husband, interposing her own slender body in his path. Francis was cursing her foully for her unfaithfulness; his voice was thick and brutal.
"Yes! It's true!" she cried, with hysterical defiance. "I never knew till now; but it's true! It's true!"
"You've killed him!" Léontine chattered, shrilly, and emerged from the shadows, her dark features ashen, her eyes ringed with white. Mrs. Francis turned from her husband and flung her arms about the recumbent man, calling wildly to him.
The dénouement had come with such swiftness that it left all four of them appalled at their actions. Seeing what his brief insanity had led him into, Francis felt his strength evaporate; his face went white, his legs buckled beneath him. He scanned the place wildly in search of means of escape.
"My God! My God!" Léontine was repeating. "Why doesn't somebody come?"
Now that his brain had cleared, and he knew what hand had smitten him, and why, Phillips was by far the calmest of the four. He saw the knife at his feet and smiled, for no steel could rob him of that gladness which was pulsing through his veins. He was still smiling when he stooped and picked up the weapon. He arose, lifting Norma to her feet; then his hand slid down and sought hers.
"You needn't worry," he said to Francis. "You see—this is the new dagger I got for the end of the act."
He held it out in his open palm for all of them to see, and they noted that it was strangely shortened—that the point of the sliding blade was barely exposed beneath the hilt.
Francis wiped his wet face, then shuddered and cursed weakly with relief, meanwhile groping at the prompter's table for support. "Sold! A prop knife!" he cried.
"You—you're not really—" Norma swayed forward with eyes closed.
Léontine laughed.
"By God! I meant it," the star exclaimed, uncertainly. "You can't deny—" He gasped and tugged at his collar.
"I believe there is nothing to deny," the author said, quietly. He looked first at his wife, then at his enemy, and then down at the quivering, white face upturned to his. "There is nothing to deny, is there?" he inquired of Norma.
"Nothing!" she said. "I—I'm glad to know the truth, that's all."
Francis glared first at one, then at the other, and as he did so he began to realize the full cost of his action. When it came home to him in terms of dollars and cents, he showed his true character by stammering:
"I—I made a frightful mistake. I'm—not myself; really, I'm not. It was your wife's fault." In a panic he ran on, unmindful of Léontine's scorn. "She did it, Mr. Phillips. She gave me the knife. She whispered things—she made me—I—I'm very sorry—Mr. Phillips, and I'll play the part the way you want it. I will, indeed."
Léontine met her husband's look defiantly; hence it was as much to her as to the cringing actor that the playwright said:
"Your salary will go on as usual, under your contract, Mr. Francis—that is, until the management supplies you with a new play; but I'm the real John Danton, and I shall play him tonight and henceforth."
"Then, I'm—discharged? Norma—d'you hear that? We're canceled.
Fired!"
"No, Miss Berwynd's name will go up in lights as the star, if she cares to stay," said Phillips. "Do you wish to remain?" He looked down at the woman, and she nodded.
"Yes, oh yes!" she said. "I must stay. I daren't go back." That hunted look leaped into her eyes again, and Phillips recognized it now as fear, the abject physical terror of the weaker animal. "I want to go—forward—not backward, if there is any way."
"I'll show you the way," he told her, gently. "We'll find it together."
He smiled reassuringly, and with a little gasping sigh she placed her hand in his.