Before a table sat a young woman reading.
"How do you do, Mr. Hepworth?" She stretched out her hand with a boyish gesture, smiling into his eyes, and the sunshine grew dim. "Won't you sit down? I've just ordered some tea. If you don't drink it, won't you tell the man to bring you something else when he comes? Father said—"
"But father is surely not Fleming, Jim Fleming," he said, firmly determined to get this absurd mistake straightened out at once.
"But father just is," she asserted as firmly. "And since you asked for Miss Fleming, I am she, Fuschia Fleming. That is my ridiculous name."
But Hepworth had so far lost his mental equilibrium that he could not immediately recover himself.
"Fuschia Fleming is a little girl," he insisted, although this time not half so positively, "and great Heavens," with one of his quick smiles, "I've brought you a box of candy and just barely escaped buying you a doll."
"I wish you had," she said. "I love dolls, especially the kind that you would bring me." There was undeniably something heady about Fuschia Fleming's glance. "And as for sweets, they're grateful and comforting to any age. You'd better give me that box at once, and I'll give you a practical demonstration of my appreciation."
Fuschia had the curliest mouth. There is no other way to describe it. It was all in ripples, not small, but looking smaller than it really was because it turned up quite sharply at the corners, like her father's. And the lashes that lay on her pale, smooth cheeks were the curliest and longest Hepworth had ever seen. Her eyes were blue, blue as the sea, and very cool and gay and inclusive. Without being sharp or speculative or inquisitive, they yet took in all the details of whatever they rested upon.
But Hepworth was a keen observer, and he noticed at once that although her pale face was for the most part alive with laughter, there was yet a certain worn look about it, as if she had been recently over-taxed and fatigued. There were faint but undeniable lines about the mouth and eyes that time had never etched there; and that blythe assured bearing, her detached, yet ready manner, were not suggestive of the ease of confident youth. They bespoke training.
Hepworth's eyes, their droop rather more pronounced than usual, were fastened on an adjacent palm, as if he demanded from it the answer to this riddle. Getting no response there, he turned his speculating eye on a tree of magnificent crimson roses as if hoping for some enlightenment from that quarter.
"Why do you not tell me all about it?" urged Fuschia gently. "What's the use of trying to puzzle me out unaided? Father has evidently told you a lot of conflicting things. I really can throw more light on the subject than any one else."
Her voice was beautiful, soft and full and creamy, with all exquisite modulations and inflections, and its music cleared Hepworth's befogged brain. He released the palm and the rose tree from the third degree to which he had been subjecting them, and leaned back in his chair as if he relaxed his mind as well as his body, smiling back at her, as confident now, and as assured as herself.
"I don't have to," he said. "I know. It's just come to me. You see your father didn't happen to mention that you are studying for the stage."
"Studying for the stage!" she cried, as if to refute him, considered, and then nodded emphatically. "Of course I am, and expect to be until I die; but hardly in the sense you mean. My field of study at the present time includes a good deal of practical experience. I've been on the stage now for three years, ever since I left school."
"On the stage!" he exclaimed. "But my dear child, under what name?"
"My own," she answered. "Oh, do not look so puzzled. It is the most unlikely thing in the world that you should ever have heard of me. I'm far from a star, just one of the humble members of first this and then that western stock company. You see, my idea was to get my training and experience before I burst upon New York. But New York is beginning to seem too iridescent a dream ever to be realized."
There was a fall in her voice, a touch of wistfulness, which Hepworth found rather touching because its pathos was both uncalculated and unconscious.
"Why?" he asked in surprise. This note of resignation in her tones, of acceptance of a disappointing, inevitable circumstance, struck him as singularly out of character and aroused his curiosity.
"It's been the same thing several times in succession now," said Fuschia, a touch of superstitious gravity in her expression. "Just as father is preparing to stake me, and I'm getting a company together to take New York by storm as Rosalind, why, father loses his last dime on a dead-sure thing. There's a law about it. The biggest winning proposition in years, always comes along just as I am ready to cross the Alps and storm Italy. Uncanny, isn't it?"
"What nonsense!" Hepworth clipped off the end of a cigar as if it were Fleming's head. "Do not let yourself be affected by such an absurdity. The only law, and I admit it's a strong and binding one, is Jim's selfishness and irresponsibility. Now my dear child," Hepworth was beginning to fancy himself enormously in the rôle of paternal adviser, "you make him give you as much as possible."
"I do," she interrupted softly.
"And you lay it all aside, very securely, never touching a penny of it—"
"What about my clothes?" another interruption.
"Never touching a penny of it," went on Hepworth firmly, ignoring these asides on her part, "until you have saved enough to finance yourself. Isn't that reasonable?"
"Ye-s," admitted Fuschia. "It is a very reasonable and sensible suggestion, Mr. Hepworth, that is," thoughtfully, "if you leave out father and me. But just get it into your head that at the moment I'd save a nice little heap, father would be hit with an overwhelming impulse to back the wrong horse, and, here's something awfully queer psychologically, Mr. Hepworth, I'd know as sure as I'm Fuschia Fleming that it was the wrong horse, and yet, I'd get inoculated with the mental virus before I'd know it, and beg him to let me in on it. And you know that father is incapable of staking half or even two thirds of his little all against any proposition he believes in. The only thing that can satisfy him and make his blood tingle is to stake the whole. No limit but the blue canopy of heaven. Limits do fret father."
Mr. Hepworth slightly lifted his shoulders. Then he dropped another lump of sugar into a cup of hot tea she had given him.
"I wish to seem neither irrelevant nor impertinent," he said at last, "but can you act?"
Miss Fuschia Fleming threw up her white chin and laughter bubbled unquenchable from her throat, not vain-glorious mirth, as if the fact of her superlative achievement mocked his crude question, but the unrestrained laughter of genuine amusement.
"The idea of asking an actress such a question," she said at last, touching each eye lightly and deftly with a delicate handkerchief. "You may thank your lucky stars that I don't nearly drown you with picturesque and highly colored tales of my triumphs and then hurl the full scrap-book at you. My, but you are a rash man! To ask a professional if she can act!" Again her full-throated laughter rang out delightfully and so heartily that it shook the petals from the cluster of pale golden roses she wore on her breast.
"But look here, seriously now," her laughter died quickly away, her face assumed a gravity he had not dreamed her mobile features could express, her gaze fastened upon him with a sort of hungry, passionate eagerness.
"That was a horrible question of yours," she shivered, as if the breeze blowing over the gardens from the Elysian sea chilled her. "One should know intuitively, instinctively whether an actress can act or not. Good Lord!" she brought her hand down on the table. "If you don't feel it, know it, beyond all argument, why it isn't there, that's all.
"Unless I set you dreaming, unless I suggest in this or that varying pose or expression, the whole world of women, I'm not a born actress. Training, study can make a good mechanical nightingale of me, a clever imitation of the real thing. That's all. But unless I have the chameleon quality of reflecting my part, the unerring understanding of any type of woman I may be called upon to represent, how can I be an actress? What does it profit me to give the public a carefully studied, intellectual representation of Portia or Nora, or Juliet or Candida, wide apart as the poles as they may be? I must not only apprehend them, I must be them in every fibre of my being, in every cell of my brain, in every beat of my heart, or I'm nothing. Unless I can convince you that Camille and I are one in emotion and view of life, and then obliterate that impression when I speak to you as Rosalind, why I'm not an actress, not the kind I care to be, anyway."
"By Jove, my dear," cried Hepworth, "you need have no doubts on that score." He had not felt the thrill of such genuine enthusiasm for many a long day.
He forgot the delicate and uncertain state of his marital affairs, forgot the censorious world, his ennui and doubt and regret.
"I have a conviction," he said, "that Jim is going to win a lot on this new proposition of his. If he doesn't, it's all the same anyway. Why should you waste your youth and your genius in twentieth rate stock companies?"
In spite of these cheering words, her head continued to droop. Her face had grown paler, and sad were the eyes she lifted to his.
"But you asked me if I could act. You weren't sure. You didn't see me as Camille or Rosalind. You just saw Fuschia Fleming all the time."
"Of course I did." His smile was most comfortingly reassuring. "But I saw Fuschia Fleming as Juliet and Portia and all the others. I merely asked you if you could act to see what you would say. No, no, my dear, your future is written so plainly that he who runs may read. No more one-night stands in dreary little towns, Miss Fuschia Fleming, but long engagements, crowded houses, enormous box-office receipts, wildly enthusiastic audiences. Can't you hear and see them? New York, London, Paris for you!"
"Oh-h!" Fuschia was herself again. She exhaled rapture in an ecstatic sigh. She rose. It is impossible to sit in moments of such high exultation. She positively seemed to soar, to tread on clouds. It was growing late and chill. Almost every one had left the garden, only a few absorbed groups remained. Fuschia was an actress. Self-expression was a necessity to her. She rested her hand, a snowflake, gratefully on his arm, she floated against him, a thistledown, and before he knew it had lightly, enthusiastically, unconcernedly kissed him on the cheek.
"You dear," she cried, "I'll repay you by showing you what I can do. To tread the forest of Arden in New York! Oh-h! But you are not going. No, no, no!"
That was what Hepworth, rather overcome by the unconventional and unexpected expression of her thanks, was preparing to do. He thought it best, but his decision was not adamantine, far from it. He always prided himself upon the open mind, and an ability to see all sides of a question, so when Fuschia suggested that he return later and dine with her, it struck him as a possible, even admirable solution of his daily puzzle how to put in the evening and he accepted without more debate, with an alacrity, in fact, bordering on gratitude.
He was therefore on time to the minute and Miss Fleming was equally punctual.
As they sat through a dinner, not elaborate, but as prolonged as if it were composed of all the courses on the menu, Hepworth was struck by the positive quality of Fuschia's beauty. It was not always so, evidently. She was as changeful as the chameleon she had spoken of. In the garden that afternoon, in her white serge frock, she had at first impressed him as a pale, rather attractive looking young woman whose charm was greater than her prettiness; but viewed in the rose-colored lights, and across the pink blossoms on their small table, she was a very wonderful creature. She was, in truth, wild with joy and her expression of it was delightful. Her eyes were blue as the sea when the sun is one vast sparkle over it, her mouth, made for laughter, grew curlier every moment. Her white evening gown was a dream.
In addition to her admirable outward appearance, Miss Fuschia Fleming was a comédienne of unsurpassed gifts. She was also witty, well-read and sweet-natured, and when she chose to exert herself she could make sixty minutes seem sixty seconds by any one's watch, even that of the grimmest old curmudgeon, and Hepworth certainly was not the grimmest old curmudgeon. He was only a very lonely and sad-hearted man whose days had been hanging heavily on his hands.
"Good old Jim," he soliloquized as he took his way homeward that evening. "He believed sufficiently in my friendship to come right to me when he was in a hole. Made no bones about it. Asked me to keep an eye on his daughter, sure enough of my affection for him to know I'd do it. I shouldn't wonder if this Idaho proposition is a good thing if it's properly financed. Jim's judgment is pretty sound. Well, we'll see, we'll see."
CHAPTER XIII
SHOCKING THE HEWSTONS
As the winter wore on the weather in New York offered daily a more violent and odious comparison to the blue seas and balmy airs of California. The cold, sullen skies, dull, damp days and piercing winds set more than one dreaming of sunshine and summer, and among the many was Alice Wilstead.
She was pondering thus, looking about her with surprise, one especially snowy, dreary winter afternoon as she took her way to Mrs. Hewston's. It was one of those thoroughly depressing days when nothing could really raise one's spirits but the inspiring glow of firelight. Mrs. Wilstead certainly looked as if she needed that and all positively cheering if not inebriating things as she entered Mrs. Hewston's drawing-room. Her piquant dark face was meant for smiles and gaiety, all of her features apparently designed to that end, for the corners of her mouth, the tip of her nose, the slant of her eyes, all inclined upward. It is a tragedy when a person of such countenance is in an introspective or melancholy mood. Sober meditations have an aging and blighting effect on the features of those born to look out upon the world with an arch and piquant interest.
Isabel Hewston roused herself a little reluctantly. She was sitting alone most comfortably in a delightfully easy chair, she had on a becoming and loose Paris tea-gown. She had resolutely put behind her the haunting specter of increasing flesh, had taken an afternoon off from the persistent and continued battle she had been forced to wage with it, and now lay, a box of sweets on the table beside her, a new novel in her hand, enjoying to the full her temporary respite. It is to her credit that she put aside her book at the most nerve-tingling paragraph without a sigh.
"Dear Alice," she exclaimed, lifting herself on one elbow, "you have a bad-news look all over you, the very rustle of your skirt proclaims it. What can be the matter?"
"Give me some tea," said Mrs. Wilstead gloomily, "and let me sit down and rest." She slowly removed her furs. "My dear Isabel, do you mean to say you do not know?"
"Know what?" asked Mrs. Hewston in bewilderment, ringing and mechanically ordering tea. "How could I possibly know anything after just getting off the steamer this morning? What has happened? You haven't been speculating, Alice, and losing all your money?"
Mrs. Wilstead hastily disclaimed any such unforgivable crime and inconsolable grief as losing money. "Then really you have not heard," she exclaimed. "Isabel, I am more worried than I can say. Lemon, please. It is stupid of you, Isabel, never to get into your head the fact that I couldn't be guilty of taking cream. To think of such a thing occurring! I had hoped that with Eugene Gresham out of the way, having the decency to go to England and France, and the papers full of his spectacular stunts, that all talk would cease and that when Cresswell Hepworth came back from that western trip that everything would be all right."
"What are you talking about?" asked Isabel Hewston with the calmness of despair. "If it isn't too much trouble, would you mind making a few explanations? Just one might suffice."
"It is that absurd, undisciplined Perdita Hepworth. She has had her head completely turned by the success of Maud Carmine and now she and Maud have gone into business together."
"Into business?" Mrs. Hewston made a tremendous clatter among the tea-cups. "Business! What can you mean? Cresswell has not failed?"
"Good heavens, no! But that is the reason he has been so long in the West. At least that is what every one says. Dita and Maud informed him of this scheme, and he, of course, expressed his opinion of the whole matter, refused to countenance it; but he couldn't do anything with such a headstrong creature as Dita, and so he simply cleared out; went West and has stayed there, while those two girls have gone stubbornly on and carried out their plans."
"Business!" Isabel still rolled her eyes in dazed speculation. "But what kind of business? What could they possibly do? Lamp-shades, menu-cards? I'm sure I've always heard that Perdita didn't make such a brilliant success when she tried that sort of thing before!"
"Menu-cards! Lamp-shades!" Alice laughed scornfully. "That's mere paper dolls to this venture. This is a business of their own invention, although Dita does take orders for house decoration also; but the main purpose is dressing the wealthy, telling the plain little daughters of the rich what to wear."
"For pity's sake!" gasped Isabel. "What sort of place is it, beauty parlors or dressmaking?"
"Oh, dear me, neither! Nothing so commonplace. They have taken a house just on the Avenue (they say it is a dream within), and you have to write for an appointment, and then if they will consider you at all they write back and set a time, and you go exactly as if you were calling, you know, and you are received by either Maud or Dita or both. Then you come again whenever they tell you, and all the time Dita is studying you just as a portrait painter would. Finally, when she feels that she has you thoroughly in mind, and is quite decided about the way you shall be clothed, she has designs made for you of hats and gowns, little water colors, you know, and sends you to her dressmaker. She also has your maid come and dress your hair before her, according to her directions. And it costs you!" Alice Wilstead pursed her mouth and lifted her brows, "It costs you! Oh, like the dickens!"
"Who is that?" said Mrs. Hewston turning.
"Only me," Wallace Martin replied modestly and ungrammatically, entering, as usual, unannounced, a privileged friend of the family, and greeting the two women with his usual barking cheerfulness.
"I just walked up home with that pretty little Lolita Withers, and, as you were only a block or two farther, I came on here."
The two women gazed at each other with a long, wondering stare. "Lolita Withers!" they exclaimed simultaneously. "Pretty!" Nothing could have been more eloquent than their tones.
"My dear Wallace," said Mrs. Hewston, finding her voice, "is this some new joke? Are you quite sane?"
"He means it for a joke," said Mrs. Wilstead, who had been peering at him curiously. "He is going in for eccentricity, or else the success of his play has gone to his head."
"Not a bit of it," replied Martin with unmoved smiles. "Lolita Withers is at present an obviously pretty girl. Any one would so consider her."
"Obviously pretty." Mrs. Wilstead had found her tongue by this time, and acrid and scoffing it proved. "That skinny, ineffective little Lolita Withers! Dull-eyed, anæmic, with stooping shoulders and wispy light hair."
"She looks like a dream of spring," said Wallace, helping himself lavishly to tea and cakes. "A sort of an evanescent beauty. Truly, yes," he affirmed, "she's been to Maud Carmine and Perdita Hepworth." He gave a great burst of laughter.
"If they can make any one believe that Lolita Withers is pretty," said Mrs. Hewston dazedly, "they are indeed benefactors of the race."
"Perdita Hepworth is a genius, a wizard. I always said so." Alice announced this with a sort of triumphant conviction. "She could make Aaron's rod blossom like the rose."
"But where did they get the money?" Mrs. Hewston's mind turned always to practical things. "If Dita really quarreled with Cress, would he—?"
"Maud's money." Martin spoke with the assurance of one possessing authoritative knowledge. "Cresswell Hepworth! Oh, no, he went off in a terrible huff because the girls laid their plans before him and told him what they were going to do. At least," he amended, "that is the idea I got from the little that Maud has occasionally told me. Yes, it's Maud's money; but they'll lose nothing, plucky girls! Double and treble it, more likely. They've already had an overwhelming success."
"I'm going to them," cried Isabel Hewston excitedly. "If they are so wonderful they ought to be able to make me look slender without my having to go to all the bother of being really slender."
"You'll have to stand in line then; that old Mrs. Peter Huff is jumping for joy and calling down blessings on their heads because they've literally transformed her three ugly daughters. Maud said they were splendid material, and Dita did wonders with them. The old lady hopes to get them married off now."
"Alice! When can we go to them?" Mrs. Hewston's voice was trembling with excitement.
"I can't go now." There was a distinct fall of disappointment in Alice Wilstead's voice. "The truth is, I'm going to California with the Warrens the first of next week. Why, what is that?"
There was a sound of some one wheezing, puffing, muttering without the door, and then the curtain was violently jerked aside and Mr. Hewston entered. His hair stood up white and ruffled about his head, his face was of a much livelier crimson than usual, and he was puffing out his lips as if blowing fire and smoke from his mouth. In one hand he was tightly clasping a newspaper.
"Willoughby! My dear!" his wife rose in consternation. "What is it, what has happened?"
For answer Mr. Hewston spread open the paper and struck it with his hand. "Read that," he cried tragically, "read that! My poor friend, driven from his home by the vagaries of a mad, irresponsible girl, his life ruined by the foolish, frivolous creature he married! Turned from his home, he was driven to this."
Wallace had seized the paper, and the two women hung over his shoulder to scan the sheet before them.
What met their eyes were huge, black head-lines above and below the pictures of Cresswell Hepworth and a very pretty woman.
The head-lines announced that the two had been in an accident in Mr. Hepworth's motor-car at Santa Barbara. Both were thrown out, but neither sustained any serious injuries. The article went on to say that Mr. Hepworth had, during his stay in the West, evinced great interest in the career of this beautiful and gifted young woman, an actress of reputation in her part of the world, but unknown in the East. It was understood, however, that she was to play a New York engagement during the coming spring, making her first bow to a metropolitan audience as Rosalind in a superb stage presentation of As You Like It. There was no question of the beauty of the mounting of this famous comedy, nor the strength of the company with which the young star would be surrounded, as the capital behind her was practically unlimited.
CHAPTER XIV
PUBLICITY
When the beautiful, young wife of a multi-millionaire takes advantage of her husband's absence on a prolonged and unavoidable business trip to embark upon a rather bizarre and eccentric venture of her own, it is to be expected the situation will be hugely discussed, especially in its three-fold phases—the lady first, the exact relations existing between husband and wife next, and third, the business itself.
Perhaps in this case the business should be put first, above the lady, and above any sentimental interest in marital misunderstandings, for Perdita's skill in "bedecking and bedraping" was well known among her sisters, whose ideals in bedecking were those of Paris, and who had no Greek longings to be "noble and nude and antique." And had they not for the past two years enviously regarded Maud Carmine—who had been as a walking mannequin among them, the living, breathing advertisement of Perdita's abilities.
Therefore from the very first business bade fair to engulf the new firm and sweep the two partners off their feet, and if the list of those who daily assembled in "Hepworth and Carmine's" reception-rooms were to be published, it would look like a social registry or a page from Who's Who; that is, a page with all of the masculine names carefully culled.
There were elderly ladies and young girls, and ladies in all the waning stages between the two. The elderly and waning ones all hoped before Mrs. Hepworth got through with them to look like the young girls, and the young girls, with all the enthusiasm of youth, hoped to look like Perdita Hepworth.
There arrived then, one morning, at this palace of hope, Mrs. Willoughby Hewston, who, as she stepped from her motor, glanced nervously right and left and ascended the steps of the house Perdita and Maud had taken just off the Avenue with an agility of which her best friends would not have considered her capable. This nervousness, this hurry was due to the fact that only the day before she had mentioned her intention to her husband, with the result that she was thunderously ordered not to go near the place, under penalty of his worse than censure. He gave her to understand that this would be something too terrible for her imagination even to apprehend. Consequently, Mrs. Hewston wasted no time in getting to Hepworth and Carmine's as early as possible the next morning. She would have been less than woman had she not done so.
The reception-room was spacious, sunny and restful, depending for its effect upon beautiful woods and long, unbroken lines; for color, there was the hint of ivory and tea-green, ineffably serene, and there Mrs. Hewston awaited Dita, her agitation subsiding somewhat under the calm influence of the place.
But when Dita appeared it returned in full force. "Oh, my dear," she exclaimed, "what a charming spot this is! How original! How daring of you and Maud! Oh, my dear, if Willoughby knew I was here!" She raised her hands with a gesture full of meaning. "You know that he is in such a state anyway over those newspaper articles."
"What newspaper articles?" asked Perdita. "Do you mean those that have appeared about all this?" she waved her hand comprehensively about her.
"Haven't you seen them?" Mrs. Hewston looked frightened. "Oh, my dear child, how very stupid of me. Why, why did I mention them? I supposed, of course, that you knew. But if you do not, please do not ask me anything more, for I never, never will be the bearer of bad news."
Dita stared at her in puzzled amazement for a moment and then she took her firmly by the shoulders. "Look here, Mrs. Hewston, you are frightening me dreadfully. I haven't an idea what you are talking about. Now you must tell me, indeed you must. Do you not see the state of mind in which you leave me unless you do?"
"Oh, my dear," Mrs. Hewston shook her handkerchief out of her bag, evidently preparing for its possible use. "I didn't mean to frighten you, and you shouldn't allow yourself to be so easily upset. Now, understand, no one was hurt, but those dreadful papers yesterday were full of a motor accident which occurred in California."
"Cresswell's car?" interrupted Dita quickly. "Was he—" She was about to say "injured," but Mrs. Hewston took the word from her mouth, or rather, substituted another for it.
"Alone? No, dear," shaking her head a little as at the regrettable, but to be expected frailties of men. "He was not alone. He was driving the car, it seems, with a beautiful young actress by his side. She must be a very—er—persuasive person, too, because the papers said that she is to appear here this spring in some superb production or other, and they strongly insinuated that Cress' money is behind the whole thing. But you see, that, as I said, there's nothing in it all, nothing really to worry over."
"I see," said Dita, but slowly and without enthusiasm.
"And now, my dear," Mrs. Hewston had suddenly grown quite brisk, "let's forget all this and talk of something that is more interesting to you, because it's in your line. Perdita," in her most wheedling and cooing tones, "I want you to make me lovely."
"You are lovely, Mrs. Hewston."
"Oh, in a middle-aged, broad, pink kind of way, but I want you to make me look slender and lissome and girlish without all this awful dieting and exercise and these dreadfully tight corsets that make one feel as if one were nothing more nor less than blanc-mange in a tin mold. And you know you do come out of them with your flesh all fluted, just like the blanc-mange when it's set."
"You shall be quite lissome, I promise you that," said Dita consolingly, if rather absently. "Come to me again early next week and I shall have some designs for you to consider, beautiful, long folds and all that. But I can't perform miracles, you know, and you'll have to diet a little and exercise; yes, and wear the boned corset; you don't want to look like a—"
"Do not say it!" cried Mrs. Hewston nervously. "I am sure you are going to say either 'whale' or 'tub,' and I can't stand it. That's what those awful corsettières always say when I protest the least bit against their tortures.
"And Perdita, one thing more—my chin. I always say the chin is the greatest give-away a woman's got. She can get around anything else, but, no matter what she does, that chin sticks out like a cliff and reveals every year she's lived. Of course, you may try to draw off attention with a diamond dog collar or jeweled black velvets, but at the best they're only poor, miserable makeshifts; and one must wear evening dress no matter whether one has rolls of flesh or a gridiron of bones. If you don't, people either think you come from the woods or have something worse than bones or superfluous flesh to conceal. Just look at Willoughby!" Mrs. Hewston's emotions overcame her here and she dabbed her eyes carefully with her handkerchief. "He is fat as a pig. He shuffles and hobbles about with the gout. He eats anything he pleases, and never thinks of cultivating a pleasant expression. Yet if I should die, he could marry again without difficulty. Oh, it's a hard world for us women! But really, I must go, dear. Just look out and see if you see Willoughby by chance, either up or down the street."
As soon as she was assured of safety and had departed, Perdita, who, fortunately for herself and her customers, had no other appointments for the morning, sent for the papers of the day before and carefully considered the incident of Mr. Hepworth, Miss Fuschia Fleming and the motor-car as set forth in the various journals.
"And so," said Perdita to herself with glooming eyes, when she had finished an exhausting perusal, "he is going to back this deserving young adventuress, who has, no doubt, played upon his sympathies, in a great spectacular presentation this spring, and in New York. Well, there will be something else spectacular. I will make this venture of ours a stupendous success now or I will know the reason why. Where on earth is Maud? She is never about when I really need her."
She frowned a moment over Maud's delinquency and then happened to remember that Miss Carmine had expressed an intention of being present at a rehearsal of one of Wallace Martin's plays. Dita then decided on the moment to drive to the theater and consult with her partner at once on the new and spectacular policy of their house which she was mentally outlining.
But first, before starting, she thoughtfully selected some of a number of photographs of herself and also of Maud. "I suppose I shall have a dreadful time persuading her," she reflected as she drove through the streets. "She has bred in the bone those old-fashioned ideals of New York when it lived in Bleecker and Houston Streets."
But curiously enough, while events of one character had led Perdita strongly to consider the adoption of a certain line of action, circumstances of a widely differing nature had impelled Maud practically to the same conclusion. Which only goes to show how clever a weaver is Fate and how wonderfully she contrasts and combines all her various threads.
For two or three hours Maud had been sitting in a dimly-lighted, empty playhouse, watching the rather dreary and disillusionizing progress of Martin's latest play.
It was an odd thing, she mournfully reflected, that Wallace never got himself, his own, bubbling, merry, joyous self, full of quirks and quips, into his plays. They would seem to have been written by a secondary personality, for they were all, without exception, intensely serious and depressing, dealing with problems of the most complex and dun-colored character.
Maud was extremely practical. She never dreamed of buoying up her spirits with any ambrosial reflections that this latest offering was "a distinct contribution to the more serious drama." Neither did she attempt to convince herself that there were enough high-browed folk in the town to keep the play on for, peradventure, three nights. No, she simply, and with her usual common sense, reserved judgment until the third act, and then after a moment of wonder that Wallace had found a firm of managers willing to undertake the production, with all the expense entailed, when they had just one chance in a million to win (in her opinion, at least), she turned to more practical issues.
"Dita and I," she remarked mentally, "have got to make a stupendous success if I want to marry Wallace, which I do, and he is going to continue to write plays, which he is. But I'll have a frightful time persuading Dita to run her business along the lines of twentieth century advertising. She has all sorts of ante-bellum ideas about stately procedure and measured methods, derived, of course, from those generations of lazy southern aristocrats."
While she mused, amid the terrific racket of moving things about the stage in preparation for the fourth act, she felt a light touch upon her shoulder, and looked up to see Perdita, pale but determined, standing beside her.
"I'll just slip into this seat beside you," said Mrs. Hepworth, suiting the action to the word. "I want to talk to you a few minutes. Now, Maudie, I know that you will not like it, but we've been doing awfully well lately, and I think it would be a good idea to put what we've made in advertisement. Of course, there's a lot we can get without paying for it. The Sunday newspapers will print pages about us, especially—especially if we let them have some of our most stunning pictures and allow those interviews where the artists sit and make sketches of you."
Maud looked at her business partner as one who, bidden to rub a magic ring on his finger and wish, sees his wish come true. Here was Perdita approaching her tactfully, and timidly entreating her to do the very thing that was in her mind to accomplish. She could not grasp it, but sat staring at her companion in an amazement so profound that it bereft her of speech.
Perdita misinterpreted the silence. "I've got to make a red-and-yellow success," she exclaimed with emotion. "I've—I've just got to be in the newspapers. Don't take it in this cold, reproving way."
"My dear Perdita," Maud spoke with crisp distinctness. "I'm not! It's your attitude of mind, not your sentiments, that surprises me. The latter are my own. You," she continued virtuously, "are probably actuated by your vanity; I, by my heart. Look at that!" she waved one hand toward the stage, "or rather don't look at it. Now let us come to an understanding. You know that I have always loved Wallace. You know that he has lately loved me. You also know what it costs me a year to be one of the best-dressed women in New York and maintain my newly acquired reputation for good looks; consequently the business has to make handsome returns. We live in the twentieth century under artificial conditions, and it's no use pretending it's Arcadia and the simple life. It's not. We're hothouse blossoms, Perdita, products of this great forcing bed, New York, and we might just as well adapt ourselves to conservatory conditions. Wallace wouldn't look at me if I were a hardy annual. He didn't when I was what God and nature made me. But Wallace suits me, child though he is, in many ways, and I can do a great deal with him. I may even," but Maud's tone had lost its high confidence and was a trifle dubious now, "I may even make a playwright of him."
"Why, here he is now with—with Eugene Gresham," interrupted Perdita. This was but the second time Perdita had seen Eugene since his return a few days before.
Out from the wings stepped the two men and then clambered over the footlights and the orchestra space, and hastened down the aisle to join Mrs. Hepworth and Miss Carmine, who had now a number of large photographs spread over their knees, intently studying them.
"Good morning," Wallace shook hands exuberantly with both women. "Went splendidly, didn't it? We're going to have the first act over again."
"Very impressive, very," said Gresham, who looked in the best of health and spirits.
Maud cast one withering look at him, but it glanced lightly off, turned aside by his smile. He saw it, however, and as quickly as possible got into a seat on the other side of Perdita.
"Have you seen the papers?" he asked happily. "Blessings on Miss Fuschia Fleming. I shall do my humble best to keep the ball rolling. As soon as she appears in New York, I'm going to put in a request to do her portrait. Something bizarre, weird and splotchily thrilling, you know. Quite violent. That will keep a crowd around it from dawn to dark as soon as it's exhibited. It doesn't make the least difference whether she has any ability or not. She may be, and probably is, the most awkward, scrawny and nasal of western actresses; what of it? With Hepworth for her angel and Gresham for her painter, her vogue is secure. And Perdita, Rosita, your freedom is that much nearer."
"Eugene," Perdita's eyes flashed, "I think it extremely bad taste, even vulgar, of you to talk in that vein."
And Eugene hastened to retrieve his blunder, and soon Perdita, who was never long impervious to his spell, was smiling once more.
Miss Carmine, however, was of sterner stuff. She did not wince, although she saw that there was no remedy for Wallace's malady but the knife, and he, unwittingly, wasted no time in precipitating his destiny.
"What are you doing with all those photographs of yourself and Mrs. Hepworth?" he asked.
"We are going to give them to some reporters, who are getting up stories for the Sunday papers."
"Maud!" Martin spoke in the deep, pained tones of his leading man. "Maud, I have said nothing. In fact I admired and approved when you and Mrs. Hepworth went into this business venture. But such methods for you, for her! Do you not feel that you owe something to yourselves, and that she at least owes something to Hepworth? Oh, of what are you thinking?"
"Money," said Maud succinctly. "Something you evidently are not thinking of." She glanced toward the stage.
"I hope not," he answered stiffly. "Art—"
"Art, art! Don't prate about art." Maud did not intend to spare the knife. "Art must be an individual expression and your play is simply hash seasoned with reminiscences. Oh, dear, dear Wallace, you can write a good play. I know you can, when you will write as Wallace Martin, and not after Sudermann, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Shaw. Look at this act. Wallace, tell me, is there no other way of picturing the gay, irresponsible life than by a costume ball in an artist's studio? Must the vie de Bohème always be thus presented? Then why does the lover in a problem play usually have to be a Russian prince in Moujik costume? And the heroine's midnight visit to his apartments! Couldn't you, wouldn't they allow you, to write just one play without it? And need the lady, after her past has been discovered and fully discussed, always go out into the tempest in search of her better self, and slam the door behind her?"
"Maud! Maud! You—you are pulling down the pillars of the temple," gasped Martin. "It's blasphemous! Every one says the play is good. You can not judge from a rehearsal. Let us change the subject," with dignity. "Since you have not hesitated to criticize me, I feel that I am justified in again urging you not to go into these gaudy advertising methods. Willoughby Hewston seems to feel that Cresswell was terribly chagrined at his wife's going into business. And truly, you should urge her to show some consideration for him."
"A fig for Willoughby Hewston." Maud fumbled in her bag and drew forth an envelope. "Here is a letter I got from Cresswell yesterday. He congratulates me on the enterprise we have shown, and says that he is delighted that Dita's interests have found so congenial and healthful a channel in which to flow."
CHAPTER XV
A WIDOW'S SMILE
One morning, a California morning, all sea-breezes and flower-scents and golden sunshine, Mr. Hepworth read, as he ate his breakfast, a letter from Willoughby Hewston. The letter, in itself, was a long one, and it also contained a bulky enclosure. This enclosure was the full page of a sensational New York newspaper. This exhibited enormous, black head-lines, screaming innuendo of the most blasting character. In the center of the page were pictures of Hepworth and a dark, heavy-browed young woman, with large eyes and strongly-marked Hebraic features. The page was further embellished by pen sketches surrounding these photographic reproductions, sketches of a startling and romantic nature, a wrecked automobile, a picturesque young woman in very high heels and a very long coat, fainting into the arms of a tall, rather elderly man, presumably Hepworth.
Hepworth had scowled and reddened at the first sight of this dreadful page, and his expression did not improve as he continued his perusal of it. Finally, however, his face cleared. He folded it neatly together and placed it carefully in his pocket-book. Not a pleasant incident, but closed. No use in crying over spilled milk. This newspaper account of an adventure had occurred nearly nine days ago and therefore any wonder it may have excited was practically over. He turned again to Hewston's letter and re-read it with mixed expressions in which amusement predominated.
When Hewston set out to be profoundly serious, Hepworth always found him intensely funny. Finishing his friend's admonitory epistle, Hepworth next picked up one addressed to him in a smart feminine hand, Alice Wilstead's. He ran his eye over several pages, and then paused at a paragraph which he read over two or three times, his rather worried look changing the while to one of profound dismay, for Mrs. Wilstead not only stated that she was carrying out a long-cherished intention of visiting California with her friends, the Warrens, but, what was more, she was staying not upon the order of her coming, but coming at once.
She digressed at this point to express her pleasure at the thought of seeing him so soon again. He bestowed upon these protestations of friendship one bare, ungrateful glance and rustled over the various sheets of her letter, hoping to gain, if possible, some more definite information; and there it was before his incredulous and resentful eyes.
She was, she explained, writing this "hasty note" (it was eight pages) within an hour of leaving. She expected to arrive in Santa Barbara on the Thursday afternoon train. Why, Great Heavens! He clattered his coffee-cup impatiently in the saucer. This was Thursday morning and he had made all arrangements to spend a rather diversified day, including golf and a luncheon at Monticito with Fuschia and her father, a little fête in honor of Jim's triumphant return, with "the earth, by George, the earth and nothing less in my vest pocket."
"And Alice," Hepworth clattered his cup again, he knew her of old. She was quite as inquisitive as her delicately-pointed tip-tilted nose indicated, and if he wasn't on hand to greet her, she would make life a burden to him until she discovered why.
Hepworth, however, was used to coping with difficult situations. He took what odds fortune offered him and coldly, nonchalantly played to win. He sat for a few moments in deep thought. He had no intention whatever of giving up his day's pleasuring. The only problem which occupied him was what to do with Alice. Inspiration followed thought. He rang the bell and despatched a hasty request that Mr. Hayward Preston come to him at once.
Mr. Preston was a favorite with all mothers, especially those with daughters. They spoke of him in an almost lyric strain. Naturally, one might expect to find him an egregious ass, and avoided of all men. The wonder is that he was not. He had an agreeable appearance, admirable manners, excellent business abilities. His virtues were all a little obvious and robust, and if one insisted on a flaw, it might be said that he lacked subtlety. So much the better. Subtlety destroys a healthy interest in the commonplace and makes of the straight and narrow way a tame and monotonous pathway too rocky for speed.
"Preston," said Hepworth with his usual courteous charm when this younger associate in certain business enterprises appeared, "I wish to ask you a favor, or, to put it more correctly, I am going to do you a favor. I have just received a letter from an old friend of mine, Mrs. Wilstead, saying that she will arrive this afternoon on the three-thirty train. Unfortunately I have another engagement and can not meet her at the station, as, under other circumstances, I should very much wish to do; so," with another cordial smile, "I am hoping that you will be free to act as my proxy."
Mr. Preston was not free. He had something else on hand, but this fact he did not hint by so much as a flicker of an eyelash, relegated it to the background of his thoughts to be settled later. He was not letting any opportunities to do "the chief" a favor slip lightly by him.
"I shall be very glad to meet Mrs. Wilstead, if you can assure me that she will accept me as your proxy," he said with a frank smile. "Let me see. The afternoon train. And how shall I know the lady?"
"I will send my chauffeur with you. He knows her. You are sure, Preston," solicitously, "that this does not interfere with any of your plans?"
"Quite sure," returned Preston with convincing sincerity.
"Thank you," said Mr. Hepworth devoutly; he made a mental vow to the effect that Preston should never rue this day.
Thus, it happened that Alice Wilstead, on stepping from the train at the conclusion of her trip across the continent, found, instead of her old friend, a good-looking young man awaiting her, a young man after her own heart, with that gravity and stability of mien, and the dependable smile, which, being in strong contrast to her own volatile self, always impressed her pleasantly.
Hayward Preston, on his part, gazed at the most attractive woman he had ever seen, of the type he particularly admired. Tall, graceful, her vivacious irregular face lighted by the gleam of white teeth and the sparkle of dark eyes, the air of the great world clinging about her as lightly as a perfume.
To her joy, this delightful, wholesome-looking, grave man stopped before her. "Mrs. Wilstead?" he asked.
She looked at him and smiled. It was the most effective smile in her whole arsenal reserved only for very special occasions.
"Mr. Hepworth was at the last moment detained by certain business matters which are holding him a prisoner at his office and he asked me to act as his proxy. This ought to identify me, ought it not?" with a smile, and he gave her the card upon which Hepworth had written a few lines.
She barely glanced at it and then smiled again, the same smile, only a little diluted. She had seen at once that it was strong wine for Preston.
"You must meet Mr. and Mrs. Warren," she turned to the two who were fussing over their luggage. Warren was a tall, good-looking man and his wife an amiable, attractive little person.
Preston left the question open to them whether they wished to go to their hotel at once or would prefer to drive about, and see something of this new world, into which they had just stepped, and they decided in favor of the latter suggestion.
Through the town they drove, exclaiming over the roses, along the palm-lined boulevard by the shore and then in a rash moment at Alice's request, they turned toward the mountains. A rash suggestion and one that Preston had cause to rue, for presently they passed a carriage being rapidly driven in another direction and all apparently in the highest spirits. It was a party of three, two men and a girl, a slender, tanned, laughing girl, who caught Alice's eye at once. The next glance revealed the man who sat beside her, and who was leaning toward her explaining something, to be Cresswell Hepworth. As Alice bent forward, doubting the evidence of her senses, this girl lifted a bonbon from a box on her knees and held it out toward Hepworth with a pair of tiny gilt tongs. He snatched it deftly in one bite, to the accompaniment of immoderate laughter from his friends, in which he joined.
Oh, dignity! Oh, austere grief! What crimes are committed in thy name! In these days one might well paraphrase the famous lines from The School for Scandal and render them: "When a young girl marries a middle-aged man, what is she to expect?" The situation was graver than even Willoughby Hewston could have predicted. In the first surprise Alice had exclaimed, "Why, that's Cress!" And then to relieve Preston of embarrassment before the Warrens, an embarrassment which was manifesting itself in the deep flush which overspread his face, "He probably got through sooner than he expected," she said in a matter-of-fact tone and dropped the subject.
But she thanked fortune that both Mr. and Mrs. Warren were talkative people given volubly to voice their enthusiasm over the beauty about them, and thus her rather stunned preoccupation passed unnoticed.
She had upon her journey, and even before she started, pictured herself as a sort of missionary, with the not altogether unpleasant task before her of cheering up poor Cresswell. She knew the strength of his few affections, his devotion to Perdita and therefore she had some idea of how deeply this breach between them had affected him. But like most women, even the experienced ones, she had never realized that the masculine and feminine attitude toward grief is as wide apart as the poles. They may both wear rue, but with a difference. Woman seeks a cloister that she may brood over her sorrow, commune with it, hug it to her heart in solitude, but man does his best to shake that black, haunting shape, tries to lose it in a crowd, and willingly sips any kind of a nepenthes which seems to offer him forgetfulness.
Alice Wilstead had not expected that Hepworth would make any unmanly exhibition of his woes, weep on her shoulder or be excitingly dramatic; she knew him too well. But she had expected to see him a little older, perhaps; a little grayer, sadder, more quiet, with a hint of melancholy in his eyes. He might—occasionally she pictured the scene—open his heart to her now and then in a grave and reticent way and disclose a strong man's grief; but instead she had seen him sitting up in a very smartly appointed carriage beside a correspondingly smart young woman in a white serge gown, who was in the very act of popping an enormous marron glacé between his willing teeth.
"Men," said Mrs. Wilstead to herself, with cynical humor, "are all alike." A nugget of wisdom, by the way, which frequently falls from the lips of a sex prone to generalize from a personal experience.
On arriving at the hotel, Mrs. Warren professed herself a bit weary and retired to her rooms, followed by her dutiful husband, but Alice Wilstead, afire with repressed curiosity, suggested, with another of those smiles, full strength now, that Mr. Preston take a cup of tea with her. She was more tired than she had thought.
For a few moments, Mrs. Wilstead spent herself in enthusiasm for the beauty and charm of the place. Such air! Such scenery! Such flowers! Then she was solicitous about Preston's tea; two lumps of sugar and two slices of lemon? What mathematical exactness! She took a sip of her own. Just the right strength and of excellent flavor. What interesting looking people at the table over there; she believed, no, she was quite sure that she had seen them, perhaps met them before. Yes, she remembered the daughter distinctly. It was in Switzerland, a year ago. She was completely absorbed in the scene before her. "Look at that absurd man yonder, Mr. Preston." Preston eagerly fell in with her mood, lulled to a false sense of security. Then without a minute's warning she opened fire.
"A charming young woman," she began, "is a much more plausible, less hackneyed and convincing excuse than a 'pressing business engagement.' I'm surprised Cresswell did not think of it. But that would be telling the truth, and you men avoid that as much as possible in dealing with women, do you not?"
"You have taught us that you prefer the other thing," he returned with some spirit, although his soul quaked within him.
"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Wilstead, without preamble.
"I don't know," said Mr. Preston miserably. He knew perfectly well that Mrs. Wilstead was too experienced to believe him, and would scorn his clumsy subterfuge. This confused him frightfully, but he hadn't the faintest idea what else to say, so he stumbled on with what he felt was yokel-like stupidity. "Really, I do not know."
"No, of course you would not know under the circumstances." Mrs. Wilstead's tone was sweet and sincere, but beneath the sugar-coating of innocence he discerned the bitter pill of her complete understanding. His ears burned and felt the size of an elephant's. He was very unhappy. He stirred his tea round and round, as if his spoon were an egg-beater.
"Now that you are here," he said awkwardly, "she will be heard of no more."
Although he never knew it, that speech advanced him leagues in Alice Wilstead's favor. The genuine sincerity of his tone would have warmed the heart of any woman standing with reluctant feet where the brook of passé joins the river of middle-age.
Alice regarded the opals on her fingers (she was born in October) with a pleased yet humorous smile.
"Accepting your inference, what chance has an elderly widow against a young and lovely actress?"
Preston started. She had played trumps when he was least expecting them. "Then you know—" he said.
"That Miss Fuschia Fleming is a star that will shoot madly from her sphere to brighten the firmament of New York this spring."
"I supposed, of course, that was her game," he said soberly. But he was thinking not so much of Fuschia Fleming as of that after revelation which this delightful woman had made. A widow of charm, of sparkle, of money. One felt the latter. She unconsciously exhaled it. And best asset of all, the old and valued friend of Cresswell Hepworth. Preston was no cold-blooded schemer, neither was he an ardent, impetuous Hotspur. He merely calculated chances, not only by virtue of temperament but training, and when this jewel of a chance flashed its dazzling rays, he instinctively estimated its weight, the accuracy of the cutting and possible value.
Therefore Mr. Hayward Preston made such hay in the next few minutes, that when he left, or rather when Mrs. Wilstead dismissed him, he received another of that particular brand of smiles and walked home with his head among the stars.
CHAPTER XVI
FATHER AND DAUGHTER
One morning, shortly before she left for New York, Miss Fuschia Fleming and her father sat in the sitting-room of their suite in the hotel at Santa Barbara. The sunshine without lay broad and white and dazzling. Within it seemed to be reflected, although through many tonal shadings in subdued, but still golden points of emphasis. There were bowls of yellow roses, there were baskets of oranges and lemons, there was Fuschia herself in a morning gown as pale as the gold of her hair which looked paler than ever in contrast to a great tawny, orange-colored flower, which she had leaned from her window and plucked a short while before and thrust carelessly above one ear.
Her chair was completely surrounded by newspapers, colored supplements, Sunday magazine sections. They billowed about her like waves. Whoever would reach her must cross a crackling sea. On the opposite side of the room, her father reclined comfortably in a large easy chair, smoking an excellent cigar and poring intently over a page of "past performances," with pencil in hand poised above it.
"Goodness!" said Fuschia suddenly, "she's a dream!"
"Who?" asked her father, looking up.
"Mrs. Hepworth." Fuschia was gazing at a page which presented many pictures of the same lady. "Put down that dope sheet, papa; it's time wasted studying it. All your money is needed to back just one favorite, and copper just one bet, and that's me."
"In common with my brothers, men, the workers and the shirkers, I am always ready with advice," obediently laying aside his paper.
"Save it for the weak brother then. I want to talk to you, to clear out my own thoughts. Now Mrs. Hepworth—"
"Cress' wife?" her father interrupted with a show of interest. "What's the matter there, Fuschia? Why isn't she here?"
"She's got a mission in life, just like you and me," Fuschia showed her beautiful even teeth in one of her widest, curliest smiles. "Yours, with the great motto inscribed upon your banner, 'Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits,' is to rescue your brother from the deadly thraldom of the home; mine is to reform the stage; Mrs. Hepworth's is to redeem women's clothes. She has all kinds of theories about color and design and she wanted to put them in practice. That nice Mrs. Wilstead says that she's an odd, capricious, undisciplined creature, but a genius in her line. Oh, I've learned a lot about her from what Mrs. Wilstead and all these newspapers have told me, and what Mr. Hepworth hasn't told me. Papa, dear, I never admired any one in my life as I do that man. I've tried every way but using a drag-net to get him to tell me the whole story, but he's stood every test. He'll talk freely on any other subject."
"Didn't happen to give you any inside talk about those Arizona properties, did he?"
"He did not. You see he married the poor but beautiful girl, and then she got playing too gaily with Eugene Gresham, the great artist. You've heard of him surely. It was the triangle, you see. Same old dramatic motive. Then suddenly, just as every one was standing on their tiptoes to enjoy the view, why the triangle flew to pieces. The Cresswell Hepworth part landed out here, the Eugene Gresham part went to Europe, the Mrs. Hepworth part went into business with a Miss Carmine, and opened a big establishment in New York, and every one came down on their heels with a thud, and are still staring at each other wondering what's doing."
"If Cress really wants her," remarked Fleming, flicking the ashes from his cigar, "he surely wouldn't be such a fool as to leave the field. He'd stay and fight for her."
"That's man-talk," said Fuschia lightly contemptuous. "A crazy idea you all have, that you can make women love you. Don't you know how the leading man always walks about the stage clenching and unclenching his hands, and muttering, 'By heaven, I'll make her love me; I'll win her against all the wir-r-rld.' Poor souls, they think they can dazzle us into loving them; and many feel that if they only talk enough about themselves, and their great achievements, what they've done and what they're going to do, that they can't fail to fascinate us; and it often suits us to let them think so. Awfully funny, isn't it?"
"I never succeeded in fascinating 'em, no matter what line I took," said her father with feeling.
"Women don't care much for you, do they? Well, cheer up, Daddy, dear. They've never loved me. Once in a while, they're very nice to me, and we purr and purr and rub noses, but all the time we are watching each other out of our green eyes, and then one day there's the swift stroke of the velvet paw and the deep mark of claws."
"Mighty little purr and velvet for me," Fleming's petticoat reminiscences were invariably gloomy, "mostly claws."
Fuschia's unfeeling smile curved nearly up to her eyes. "How is that Idaho property anyway?" she asked with apparent irrelevance.
"Fine, my dear, fine. I think Cress may really make something on it himself, but in any event, he'll have no difficulty in unloading it."
"I'll need a pile of money for my campaign." She took an orange from the basket and began tossing it from one hand to the other. "I've brought a good deal of study to bear on the arrangement of this checker-board. I always like to get on to the game just as much as possible. Why have I been traveling about with those miserable little stock companies putting up with all kinds of hardships? Just to get experience. Now I'm ready for New York!" She mused a moment, and then took up the subject with fresh enthusiasm. "It's helped me a lot, all this newspaper notoriety about myself and Mr. Hepworth. Puts me before the public as nothing else could. Just look at these pictures!" She plunged her hand down into the rustling sea, and held out a Sunday supplement to him. "There's a lovely picture of the auto tumbling over a cliff and me landing in a tree. Simply great! Now just as soon as I get to New York, Mrs. Hepworth's got to be a sister to me."
"How do you know she'll cotton to you?" asked Fleming.
"What's that got to do with it?" His daughter opened her eyes in surprise. "I need her, for through her, I mean to have my portrait painted by Gresham. And his prices! La, la! Sure, you can put your hands on real money and plenty of it?"
"Fuschia, my child," her father laid aside his "dope sheet" and bent impressively toward her, "this new proposition has more in it than even you can spend, and you know what that means. It's one of those spectacular properties that make a poet of a man. You can talk it beautifully, splash on the color, you know, and it writes as well as it talks. Shows up superbly in a prospectus, photographs like an artist's dream. Just the thing to capture the eastern imagination. You see, it matters very little whether the property is intrinsically all right or not. That is always problematical, and to be left in the hands of Providence. The great thing is to know what is going to capture the eastern imagination. That's what you're really dealing with, not the proposition itself, by Jingo, but the eastern imagination."
"That's just what I tried to tell that unborn babe of a press agent this morning," cried Fuschia, nodding her head in emphatic agreement. "I got him because he was a Mayflower Yankee, just out of Harvard, and yet he's got no more idea of how to deal with his own people than a new-laid kitten. He came bounding to me an hour or two ago with a lot of stuff he'd been working over nights with wet towels around his head and a pot of black coffee at his elbow.
"'I think I've struck it,' said he. 'It is both true and new!' Pop, it was like this. 'Miss Fuschia Fleming can really do things, therefore she does not waste time talking about them. One of the most competent of stage managers, she never loses her temper. Admirable self-control a striking characteristic. Thoroughly systematic and methodical.'
"Lord, Papa! I felt sorry for the kid. It like to killed me, you know. Well, I waited a bit till the daze wore off and then I said, 'I'm sorry, honey, but it won't do. If I'd made good in New York and had 'em all rooting for me, it would be different, but they're effete Easterners, boy, used to ruts and routine, and you can't change their breakfast food on 'em like that. They won't stand for it. Give 'em the same good old press notices that mother used to make back in 1860. Don't talk about my "trim neatness." You won't believe it, Daddy, but the poor kid actually did that! I said, 'Say that my favorite house costume is a Mexican riding-suit hung with silver dollars, and that, in cold weather, I always wear a Navajo blanket over my shoulders. Have a sketch of me rolling a cigarette between the thumb and second finger of one hand and throwing the lariat with the other. Describe me, when only fifteen, playing Rosalind in the redwoods of the Yosemite before a wildly enthusiastic audience of miners and cowboys. Then say that once before, when appearing before the most brilliant audience ever assembled in a San Francisco theater, I became so overwrought that I began to shoot holes through the drop curtain.' Do you think that was all right, Papa?"
Her father gazed at her with an almost awed admiration. "Honest to God, Fuschia," he said at last, "I don't know what to think of you. Here I've spent my life handling those Easterners, singly and in bunches, and here are you, without either experience or training, on to the game intuitively. Fuschia, this is a proud day for me. I've never told you, little girl, but sometimes I've had my doubts about your bringing up. I tell you after your mother ran away with my best friend and then divorced me for desertion and shortly died, leaving you, a two-year-old girl baby to me as a last bequest, it was a black hour. Like one of those Bible boys—Peter, wasn't it?—I went out and crew bitterly. 'If she was only a boy!' I said. 'What can Jim Fleming do with a she thing like this?' Then I took another look at you, in your white dress and blue shoes, smiling at me with your mouth all over your face, and, true as I stand here, Fuschia, you were the first thing in skirts that didn't seem to be looking at me across a great gulf.
"And then I talked to myself a while. You see, if your mother had come to me as man to man and said, 'Jim, I'm tired of you and I want to marry Henry,' I'd have said, hard as it might have hit me, you know that, Fuschia, 'Kate, I don't blame you, and I'll do what I can to help you.' But she preferred the feminine route, a note on the pincushion and she gone with all her jewels and ten thousand I'd given her to buy a diamond necklace. But as I say, I looked at you in your white dress and blue shoes and that friendly grin on your little mug, and I said, 'God knows how it'll work, but this girl thing here ain't going to grow up thinking that there's fences built all around her and that she's got to coax and sneak and pretend to get her way. Poor Kate! With great price she obtained her freedom, but my little Fuschia, here, she's born free.'"
"Good old Poppy-doppy!" Fuschia's tone was fondly approving and something like a tear glimmered in the depths of her turquoise eyes. "I'm glad you never tried the snaffle bit of parental training and home influences on me, because I'd sure have kicked myself free, and it mightn't have been pleasant. But to come back to the present, Mr. Hepworth is so splendid, that unless his wife is really in love with this boy-Raphael or whatever he is, I'm going to get into the game and make home happy for the Hepworths."
"Cautiously, cautiously, daughter," admonished Fleming, looking a trifle alarmed. "That's all right on the stage; but in real life when an outsider tries to join the parted hands of husband and wife, he's likely to get a cuff on the ear."
"Oh, men are crude," sighed Fuschia. "You didn't suppose I was going to do the child at Christmas act, did you? No, what I mean to do, that is, if it's just her imagination and not really her heart that's captured, is to take her boy-Raphael away from her."
Fleming gasped, and, lowering his head slightly, looked at his daughter from under his eyebrows. "Fuschia," he said, "there are few things that can feaze me. 'No limitations and no limits' has always been my motto, but you do, child, you really do take my breath away sometimes. Why, if report is true, Cress' wife is one of the most beautiful women in the world."
"Um-huh," Fuschia yawned indifferently. "What has that got to do with it? I've usually," she continued thoughtfully, "succeeded in getting anything I wanted; that is, men. The wildest of them will trot right up to me, and eat out of my hand."
"You're your father's own little girl, Fuschia," said Jim with emotion.
"Yes, and it's a good thing I inherited father's constitution as well as his spell-binding abilities, considering that I have to be practically my own press agent, stage manager and all the rest of it; the management of Fuschia Fleming and Fuschia Fleming herself and then take up the task of reuniting families besides. But Mr. Hepworth is a good, good man, Papa, and we're going to make him happy, even if we have to do it on his money."