The Globe Theatre had closed for the summer and the season had ended in the triumphant manner desired by the manager. He had waved his flags and beaten his tin pans lustily up to the very last moment, and had successfully hived the public's swarm of bees in his theatre, as the honey in the box-office amply proved. Nothing that made for this success had been too small to receive personal attention, so even that city directory-like quarter column of "among those present were" had been cleverly made to serve him through his careful and judicious introduction of the names of two or three of the great nouveau riche, among the fashionably holy ones of the Vandergrifts, the Asteroids, the revolutionary Byrds, the colonial Fishers, the Carmichaels, and the Vinelanders, etc.—not, mind you, as of them, but as notedly close students of Shakspere. Oh, what a court-jester was lost in Thrall!
These very new rich men, who, had they owned a folio of earliest edition, would eagerly have swapped it for an édition de luxe of to-day and given fifty dollars to boot—so much they knew of Shakspere—were nevertheless filled with joy to see their names in that dear list, "among those present were." And their gratitude to the man who had worked the miracle for them would take the form of steady attendance in the future, of many box parties, of loud public praise.
So, with these additions to his sure clientèle, the season closed, and Manager Thrall, at first amused and then annoyed by the haunting memory of a twice seen face, accepted, as had been his wont in former summers, an invitation to join a gay yachting party, only to find himself more or less bored. Eating too much, drinking too much, and smoking like a chimney palled on him. The stories told were all frankly old or poorly revamped, and he grumbled one night that "chestnuts in summer-time were an anomaly!"
A young sap-head, dizzy with champagne, gazing at him in heavy-eyed admiration, remarked: "Isn't he deep? Must be college man, eh—Thrall? I'm pretty f-fly myself; I know 'chestnut' a-and 'summer,' but 'n-nomaly' puts me out in the first round!"
And with a pencil and paper he went about almost tearfully, begging people to explain the meaning of the word "anomaly"; and each one appealed to wrote out a more wildly absurd definition than had the man before him, which was a highly intellectual amusement indeed.
Only one thing had power to lay, for a little while, the lovely, dark-eyed ghost haunting the actor, and that was poker—the great American game played with the aid of the gayly colored pasteboards and an astonishing vocabulary, containing, among other things, "kitties," "antes," and "lob—" no, "jack-pots." A long line of "flushes," "straights"—royal, bob-tailed; and people "came in" and "went out" and "stood pat," and "opened things" and "shut them," and, indeed, did so much in the course of the wonderful game that it claimed the whole attention and left no room for memories of any kind. Still poker could not go on all the time, and finally when one night all hands went ashore to attend a hotel-hop, Thrall, the waltzer par excellence, suddenly realized that each frisky young matron, each pretty débutante who so readily honored him, was being measured by the standard of Sybil's beauty. This one he found slender to the point of angularity; that one plump to the verge of lost outlines; another pretty but crudely overdressed; while the fair face that seemed floating before him as on waves of melody, with the almost sullen red mouth that could flash into smiles of such penetrating sweetness, the sensitive color, wavering, fading, flaming again, the level, tragic brows and dark eyes, in which burning passion still slept, but lightly—he knew but lightly—was, he told himself, "simply incomparable"! And then he pulled up short, saying, angrily: "What in the devil's name has come to me? Am I a green boy to be bowled over and left sprawling in the dust by a glance from a pair of fine eyes? Eyes owned by an inexperienced girl, too, a mere miss—one of those creatures who, knowing nothing, suspect everything, and keep you ever on guard? Bah! I hate green fruit! let me have it ripe, with all its florid coloring and rich mellowness—even if many rough experiences have left a bruised spot here or there. One can turn the blemished side away, and until the bruise becomes a taint that embitters all the pulp—then?—why then leave the fruit and seek something fresher, but not green enough to be astringent to the lips."
He decided, finally, "This is a case of nerves, just such an one as women suffer from. I am at the end of a long season, I have overworked, I have lived well but not wisely—no, certainly not wisely! Result—nerves are all at loose ends, imagination over-stimulated, so that a strange face makes an unusually vivid impression. Now the thing for me to do is to see this girl's face again and let a second impression efface the first, since my imagination has, no doubt, been playing me tricks, and the real face will fall far short of the beauty of the imaginary one."
So, acting at once upon that idea, he fell back upon the perennial "business telegram" excuse, tore himself away from his jovial companions, and returned to the oven-like city, from which wild horses could not have dragged Mrs. Van Camp until August, when she left with a heavy heart and "wholly in the interest of appearances," she said. He arranged with the old lady for a business chat with her god-daughter next day but one and spent the intervening time superintending the movements of a brigade of cleaners, painters, and paper-hangers whom he had sent charging through the closed theatre—the cleaners routing out dust and dirt from stairs and floors and long-dimmed windows, the painters following and covering up head-marks, finger-marks, scratches, or bruises appearing on the white woodwork and retouching the gilding where it had darkened or worn thin; while the paper-hangers made the boxes not only fresh but most attractive to women, through hanging them with the dull, lustreless velvet paper that makes such a perfect background for a careful toilette and its lovely wearer.
It was a dreary job, for surely one can find no more desolate and melancholy place in a great city than a theatre seen by daylight. From the front of the house one receives an impression of loss. The sight of an empty chair is saddening—here are a thousand of them. This dimness and vastness, this gilding and crystal and metal that does not glisten nor glitter. The depressing silence of checked music, of vanished laughter—even an actor shivers at sight of the auditorium of a closed theatre; it is like looking on the face of a dead pleasure. But to turn about and look at the stage is even worse, so distressingly complete is the betrayal of its shabby deceptions. It is as though an admired, brilliant, and successful liar stood there who had been found out and suddenly reduced to telling the bare, bald truth. No, a day in a closed theatre during the house-cleaning period is not an enlivening experience, and Thrall told himself that that was why he looked forward so eagerly to his late afternoon call at Mrs. Van Camp's, where he was to have his business chat with Sybil.
And then when he had arrived and was being effusively greeted by Mrs. Van Camp, a gracious young figure in a white linen gown came slowly out from the shadows of the darkened room, a red damask rose drowsing on her breast, and, smiling, waited to offer him greeting; and in that moment he knew his plan had failed—the second impression would not efface the first, because the real, the living face was fairer than his mental portrait of it.
So it happened that Mr. Thrall's manner toward this young would-be actress was one of dignity and reserve that was in sharp contrast to the gay freedom and almost boyish liberty of his conduct toward his ancient hostess, who did her fair share toward spoiling him. And not knowing the true cause of the swift change and difference, she could but consider him a very properly correct young man in his attitude as the manager of her namesake, Sybil Lawton; and therefore she withdrew into the far extension breakfast-room and conversed with a mumbling old parrot, who for thirty years had implored the people of his world to "scratch Polly's head," and had invariably rewarded the good Samaritan who heeded his appeal by biting viciously the hand that scratched.
Only an occasional artificial laugh from Polly reached to the dim parlor, whose white-matted floor, flowery chintz furniture covering, great Chinese screens, strange sea-shells, old portraits, and mighty china jars made a quaint eighteenth century sort of background for the white-gowned maiden with the dark, eager face, whom her father had lovingly likened to a June rose. And the ever-alert dramatic instinct of the actor-manager, working in seeming independence of the preoccupied mere man and naissant lover, took note of the room as a possible charming stage-setting for some new comedy. That instinct, keen, never sleeping, is one of the unpleasant traits in the make-up of a great actor; for there is no situation in life too sacred, no emotion even of his own heart too tender not to be "used" if it seems dramatic.
And so now, through the bald, forced questions with which he began his interview, like his dignified reserve of manner, were the result of a violent restraint, he was putting upon a sudden passionate longing—an idiotic impulse that had seized him at sight of Sybil, to take her head between his hands and bury his face in the warm darkness of her cloudy hair—even that struggle with impulse did not prevent the dramatic instinct of the stage-manager from taking note of surroundings.
Presently the calm and earnest answers of the girl and his own effort at self-control restored his poise, and his more gracious manner returned to him. He found that she was faithfully devoting herself to the small parts first; and in discussing the Shaksperian characters she put questions to him anent the meaning of certain passages that more than once "gave him pause" ere he could answer them. She even so far forgot her awe of him as manager as boldly to differ with the view he took of Desdemona's character, she declaring that a greater tragedy than mere physical murder would have come about had the fair Venetian lived longer.
"No! no!" cried Sybil, "she was not the doll you think her! High-born, high-bred, musician, artist, student, over-accomplished, over-cultivated—the intellect rebelled! Over-guarded, over-restrained, repressed—nature revolted. Othello, the splendid perfection of the animal-man looming in black majesty against a background of flame and smoke, glittering in harness, blazing with honors and orders, armed with barbaric weapons—his very power to destroy fascinated! Contrariety attracted and a great wave of passion swept the petted daughter of the Venetian senator into the arms of the Moorish warrior. But had she lived to regain her normal vision—to see her husband as the world saw him, merely a rough but very honest soldier, without tastes or even memories in common—she would have wearied of him and of their wandering life. She would have longed for the ease and luxury and refinement of old days. She would have sighed for the companionship of the learned and accomplished—and the beautiful "misunderstood," being no longer blind with passion, would probably have gone, girl fashion, to the other extreme and have loathed the blackness of her lord, while adoring, possibly, the whiteness of—y-e-s, there might be a worse tragedy than the dreadful murder of innocent Desdemona!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Sybil, in trepidation, for Thrall had broken into sudden, hearty laughter, "oh, are my ideas so bad as that? It's—it's horrid to be laughed at, but I suppose I have not expressed myself very clearly; only if Desdemona inherited the characteristics of her people, duplicity was as strong in her as love of luxury and appreciation of art—and a dead passion is a thing to conceal; and when concealment begins, duplicity may follow, may it not?"
She stopped suddenly; she had spoken rapidly, in impetuous self-defence. Now angry tears rushed to her eyes. "Oh," she cried, "I don't make you understand one bit! No wonder you laugh! Only I feel somehow that Desdemona's was not a love that would have lasted. But I'm punished for going out beyond my depth in argument. I won't do it again!"
The fact that Sybil's reasoning had been so good made it all the harder for Thrall to explain his laughter. Few men understood the eternal feminine better than he did; and when the young girl, with innocent, instinctive knowledge, was speaking of a "passion" as distinct from "love," her glance met his as straightly, as frankly, as if she had been a boy. And suddenly there came to him the memory of a little child he had once seen playing, ignorantly happy, with his mother's scissors and his father's knife, and he laughed aloud in spite of himself, for he knew well that the girl was clashing together her terms of "love" and "passion" with just as much real knowledge as the baby had had of the scissors and the knife. And when he saw the angry tears shining in her eyes he could have kissed them away with as pure tenderness as if she had been that baby's self.
And all the time the managerial side of his brain, so to speak, was receiving impressions and was trying to get the attention of the man's whole mind; and presently, through the smallest of incidents, it succeeded. While Thrall was trying to reassure Sybil and convince her that he had meant no mockery by his laughter, she sat with down-bent face, hiding her mortifying tears. He noted the hair, dark clouding over the straight, black brows, the outward thrust of the sullen, red lip that made and kept the whole face mutinous, when a quick glint came to the averted eyes, a lift to the brows, a tremor to the lips that suddenly parted, curling like petals into the most delicious smile ever made for man's undoing. Old Poll, sidling into view and waddling across the floor in search of mischief, had caused the swift change of expression, and the expression had brought the stage-manager to the front with a bound.
"Great Shakspere!" said Thrall to himself; "what a face for the balcony scene! The sweetness—the positive radiance—the lovely outline of the down-bent face! I've half a mind—I—why, the girl has just shown she has brains, whether her ideas of Desdemona are right or wrong; it proves that she can think for herself! And—and if to her beauty, youth, and brains you can add good family, and to them all the subtle, intangible thing we call charm—what do all these things mean to a manager? Why, unless he's a dolt, a blind bat, they mean a find, a discovery, a future card of great commercial value! Dear Lord! if I only knew whether she could walk across the stage without going to pieces, whether the sight of the audience would give her a palsy!"
He had come there intending to tell her that she was to have a part of eight lines in the opening play of the New York season—but now, but now! New ideas were rushing through his mind. If only she had a little training! All at once—apropos of nothing, he asked: "Miss Lawton, do you dance?"
She raised her eyes in unspeakable surprise.
His face brightened; he went on rising as he spoke: "Do you waltz?"
In a breath she was swaying in his encircling arms to the waltz he softly hummed. As they circled the big room and stopped by the window a boy went down the street, whistling high and clear, and simply from the actor-like habit of quoting, Thrall said, with a laugh:
"It was the lark—the herald of the morn!"
When, like a flash, Sybil, with pretty impatience and obstinacy, made response:
"It was the nightingale and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear!"
The surprise was so startling that Thrall caught the girl's face between his hands almost roughly, exclaiming: "Why! do you know the lines of Juliet?"
And poutingly she answered: "Does not every stage-struck girl know them?"
But he frowned: "That's no answer! Be direct in matters of business! Do you or do you not know Juliet's lines?"
She was vaguely conscious that she really ought to be angry at the liberty this man was guilty of, but she quailed at the frown and answered, meekly: "Only part of them. I studied up to the potion scene, and there I got frightened and stopped!"
"Ah!" he exclaimed; "and may I ask what frightened you?" He released her as he spoke.
"Well," she said, with her head a little to one side, as she traced the pattern on the curtain with one slim finger, "well, you see, it was night, and—and Dorrie was asleep—and—there are a good many owls in our trees, and they do hoot and shiver their voices so! And they and the vault and the 'dead men's bones' rather got on my nerves, I suppose, for I only got as far as Tybalt—in his 'festering shroud'—when I was so scared I backed over to the bed and Dorrie! Oh, I didn't dare turn around, you see!"
Stewart Thrall fairly shook with laughter, in which this time both Sybil and Polly joined. Then he said at last, not without a touch of sarcasm: "It was not the fear of acting the part that disturbed you, then?"
"Oh, no!" she replied with great simplicity. "It's too soon to get frightened about that—ages too soon!" She sighed heavily: "I'm nineteen now, and I suppose I must wait years and years—five at the very least—before I dare even to hope to act Juliet? And then people say no one can play her unless they have loved."
"No one can," assented Thrall.
"Oh, well, in five years," Sybil responded, hopefully and vaguely.
"Yes," thought the man, "in far less than five years, you lovely child, you will have learned to play Juliet!"
An old engraving of Mrs. Siddons hung upon the wall, and Sybil stood looking at it. The crown the actress wore well became the high chill beauty of her face.
"Queen of the English-speaking stage," murmured Sybil. "How proud and happy she must have been! what love and homage her fame must have won from her countrymen!" Quickly turning her head, she asked: "Mr. Thrall, when you have become famous, do you forget all the bitterness of past struggles and feel like loving the whole world for very joy and gratitude?"
"Having no experience to guide me, I am unable to answer your question," was the somewhat curt reply.
"Unable?" repeated the girl, all her respectful admiration writ large upon her face. "You mean——"
"I mean," he interrupted, "that I am not famous; that now I never shall be! I started out meaning to—to win fame, but I—missed the way." He paused a moment, then went on, bitterly: "Question me about notoriety, Miss Lawton, and no man alive can give you more authentic information as to the method of its creation, its staying power, and its value. But I know not fame! If I died to-morrow I'd die like a dog—so far as memory or renown is concerned. Learn early to distinguish between the sound, noise, and rumor of notoriety and the credit, honor, and excellence of fame!"
"I'll try," the girl answered, simply, and then she added, gently: "I'm sorry you missed the way!"
A dimness came into the man's eyes as he responded, briefly, "Thank you!" and gazed at the picture that Sybil had returned to.
"Crowned queen!" she repeated. "Of course if you give me the chance, Mr. Thrall, I shall work hard for work's own sake, as well as to be a bread-winner. But all the time down in my heart I shall hope and hope that some day, in years to come, I may win a crown like that!"
The actor laughed derisively. "A pasteboard crown," he cried, "so thinly covered with gold-leaf you dare not try to burnish it!"
"You do not mean that, Mr. Thrall!"
"I do mean it! A cheap and gaudy thing, the outside blazing with rare jewels, made of glass! Inside, paper, glue—a pasteboard crown! A thing worthless, meaningless!"
"No!" protested the girl; "your words are very cruel! I do not think you rightly judge the value of the Crown Dramatic, for even if it were but pasteboard it would not be worthless or meaningless! It would still be a sign, a symbol, of artistic triumph, of true excellence, of the world's approval!"
"You are obstinate," he declared.
"And you are not grateful to your profession, I'm afraid," she said, reproachfully; then she hurriedly added: "I beg your pardon! Of course you know of what you speak, and I am very presuming in my ignorance, but"—she clasped her hands tightly above the rose on her breast—"I long to wear that crown some day."
A few red petals fell from the rose and were caught in Thrall's hand. He glanced at Sybil's rapt young face—his resolve was taken. "You shall have your wish," he said. "I will place the crown upon your head; only promise not to reproach me when you find for yourself that it is only pasteboard!"
That Stewart Thrall wasted no time when once a plan was settled upon and a thing seriously undertaken may be gathered from a letter written in a Western city by the manager of a stock company playing a summer season in the theatre attached to a soldiers' home. The park coaxed people from the city, and the theatre then drew them from the park to the play.
This letter, having mentioned the safe arrival of certain manuscripts, scene-plots, and property-plots, continued:
"And now about the young maid of high degree you sent us, with the valiant Jim Roberts acting as guard and henchman. And, to begin at the ending, like the Irishman I am, let me just tell you no better sheep-dog ever lived than this same James. He's kept as straight as a colonial front-door—honest, he has! If you could see the poor devil shake and quake for need of a few drops of 'mountain dew,' you'd believe me fast enough! He escorts her to and from the theatre and follows her like a secret-service man whenever she goes to the city of an errand. Of course, keeping straight to play sheep-dog leaves him all right as to memory too, and he hasn't lost a word since he's been here.
"Now as to the young damsel you want me to report on. She's all right and safe in the boarding-house my wife secured for her. She's a little too stiff and reserved and a great deal too pretty to be very thoroughly liked by the women. She started out very friendly and pleasant, but—well, you see, Lou Daskam and Dick Turner are engaged to each other, and George Jones and his wife Grace have only been married a few months, and their unrestrained endearments were somewhat confusing to her conservative mind. My wife explained matters to her; but though she now understands that the whole affair was a question of manners, not of morals, she remains a bit starchy toward the amorous four.
"As to business—she's doing well. She's got act in her, sure! And Lord! what a face for the footlights! My wife's teaching her how to make-up, and when she's properly rouged and carmined and promaded, and that fleece of black hair loosened about her head, she's a cross between a princess and a gypsy, with the bearing of one and the coloring of the other. The audience has not disturbed her much. At my advice she looks at the people who are on the stage with her, instead of staring in front all the time. The thing that embarrassed her most was the tilt of the stage, which is very steep in this shop. That worried her a bit at first, but she walks quite naturally and unconsciously now. She is learning to gauge her voice to the house—by my rule. I send someone out in front, who stands at the back of the seats. When her scene is on, she glances at him. If he shifts about, or bends his head as if to hear better, she gently raises her voice or speaks with a little more force, until he stands still, hearing satisfactorily. She will soon be able to make the voice test in any theatre by watching for a moment or two some distant auditor.
"The greatest stumbling-block in her way is that, so far, she simply cannot talk while walking. She speaks her exit speech standing still, and then walks off in an awkward silence, or she walks to the door silently, then speaks her lines and pops off—making the house laugh.
"To-day Jim Roberts has taken her in hand, and out on the stage I can hear this going on: (Girl's voice) 'I will go' (Jim's voice, warningly: 'Step!') 'to my aunt's' (Jim: 'Step!') 'and say' ('Step!') 'I shall keep' ('Step!') 'my promise' ('Step!') 'to marry Harry!' ('Exit!!' shouts Jim.) 'Now, Miss Sybil, try it again, and say "step" to yourself this time. Pretty soon your feet will carry you along unconsciously.'
"Now her voice, sounding very forlorn and unbelieving, begins: 'I will go (step) to my aunt's (step)——'
"It sounds awfully funny, but she's a persistent little devil, and she will hang on till she can make a decent exit.
"I'd like to bet something, old man, that I'm on to your game! You are not a man to put me into baby-farming like this for nothing. Well, good luck! She's bright and quick, and I'm crowding as much 'shop' into her head as I can on short notice. Jim Roberts has done a good deal in the way of teaching her technicalities. She understands all the entrance directions, the uppers and lowers and centres, etc.
"I believe that's all. Any further orders will be attended to. Thank you for the use of that play—it pulled us through in fine shape.
"Fraternally,
"J. A. Williamson."
By the same mail there had come a second letter from the theatre at the Soldiers' Home. It was written with woful shakiness showing in every spidery line, and with more than a spider's venom in its words. The envelope held, too, a folded ten-dollar note, which was a return for the like amount paid out by Thrall to a certain Mrs. Hoskins, who in her character of suspicious landlady had basely broken her promise "to wait a week," and had impudently presented her claim against Roberts to his manager—which was certainly an injurious proceeding and treacherous as well. Therefore the letter opened with some remarks about landladies, individual and in bulk, and though his style was a trifle florid and his spirit somewhat bitter, he nevertheless showed a thorough and discriminating knowledge of his subject, particularly where he pointed out the difference between a "she-shylock" and a harpy (Mrs. Hoskins was a harpy), the shylock being, he declared, ever satisfied with her single pound of flesh, while the harpy, beginning with your eyes, picks your every bone bare, and then tries to reach through your vitals.
Having eased his bosom of much perilous stuff, he went on:
"Business is very good. The company is far better than you'd expect to see at the salaries paid, but every one's so devilish glad to get something to do in the summer that they are willing to work on half pay. Old Williamson's a first-class stage-manager—queer thing he never gets into New York, and he's taking so much pains with Miss Lawton, or Miss Sylvia Latimer, as you've got her billed here, that everyone is talking and wondering about it. But there's no mystery to me in this matter any longer. I went to her door yesterday to hand in a few pounds of mail from her people—they must all write every day of the week to her. She was not in the room, but the door was ajar, and I entered and placed the letters on the table. As I did so the wind fluttered open the leaves of a play-book—it was 'Romeo and Juliet,' and the lines of Juliet were all pencil-marked for study. So that's the game, is it? That's why the girl is hidden under a stage-name, while she is learning her acting a-b-abs out here in the West? That's why I suddenly become of service to you? I am to guard this fruit from wicked little boys who may look over the orchard wall and spy it out? Oh, you think you are immeasurably deep, don't you? Well, you're not! But you're the damndest, luckiest beggar on earth! And you're smart—oh, yes, you're smart, where number one comes in!
"What a card you have found! and how cleverly you will play it, and gather in the stakes—for yourself! Beautiful, talented, poor, and good—now! Don't give me your sneer, please! Even a drunkard knows an honest woman when he comes up with one. And this girl is a wonder! She is innocent, though she's not ignorant. Theoretically she knows of sin's existence—her stories, poems, and plays have all made her so monstrous wise; but, practically, she is as much of a child as was that other girl who came to you to learn to be an actress. Damn you! Oh, yes, I know this girl has gifts my sister Bess never had, but—purity is the subject now, and Sybil Lawton looks at you with precisely the same innocent, dauntless eyes that made my sister irresistible. Poor little maid! If it were not that she and the Missus, and even this last, your pet devil of a divorcée, were all such fair women, I'd think your sending me on here to guard this girl would have made me suspicious of another sort of game! See here, Thrall, don't you come any of your dam'd drooping-eyelid and lowered-voice effect over this girl! Leave her alone, if you know when you are well off. I know I've been your dog, your cur, but curs snap sometimes, and a silence, however long, may be broken. No, we don't want any Bessie in this! Stewart Thrall, manager—even Stewart Thrall, Romeo to the loveliest Juliet God ever made! But, don't you see how like she is to your victim, little Bessie, save in color of her hair and eyes? How like! For God's sake let that likeness protect— I—oh, my head's all gone to pieces! No, I'm not drunk! I'm queer for want of drink—but I dare not touch it while I have her to care for. I think if I met her eyes when I was 'off' I'd curl up like a worm that's stepped on!
"She—so gentle and so kind! And yet Herod could not touch her for pride! There, I've had a smoke; I'm steadier now. Yes, your find is a great one. When once she conquers her trouble over her exits she will be quite a decent actress. Her voice is clear and carries well. Hers is a genuine stage beauty too, lighting up radiantly. To your question—yes, she is easily coached. I've got rather a long part to break in, so I guess I'll go at it, after I mail this and get a bite. Watching others' preserves is hungry work. Tout à vous!—which I wish I wasn't!
"Jim."
"Confound him!" said Thrall, "I don't know when he is worst—crazy drunk or crazy sober! Why must he remind me of that resemblance? For, deuce take him, it does exist! It's not his drunken fancy, as I wish it were!"
He shivered in the warmth as he recalled the fair, childish face that used to beam with adoration upon him, unconscious avowal shining in each blue, honest eye. Shallow and inconsequent he had thought the little creature, and yet she had snapped the thread of life with her own hand rather than wait for its slow fraying under abandonment and separation from him. And Jim, by his silence and his craft combined, had averted an awful scandal.
He wiped his forehead and re-read the letter. Suddenly his face flushed. "The drivelling idiot!" he muttered. "I believe in my soul he's in love with this little Crown Princess, who yearns to be a Queen! If he dares to let her know of it I'll wring his neck! He's mighty brave on paper—threatening me, who has kept him out of the poor-house these five years! And my young affections are supposed to be strictly confined to 'the fair Ophelia' type, eh? I am to be blind to the fact that there's more beauty in this dark, lowering young face, more temptation in the upward curl of her swift smile, than could be found in the pink-and-white redundancy of the most perfect Rubens type alive! Oh, I am a fool to notice his rambling, maudlin nonsense! Let me keep to the business in hand. It's very evident that this girl has something in her, when tough old Williamson finds her promising and can see her beauty too. And this crazy wretch, Jim, who knows the requirements of a good actress as well as I do, says she's quite a decent actress now. All of which means that if she is let alone she will probably succeed only after years of struggle and hard work and many disappointments. Yet that is the natural, normal way to success. Perhaps I'd better leave her alone [surely, if Stewart Thrall ever had a guardian angel, its friendly whisper was in his ear at that moment]—leave her to work out her own artistic salvation? I—I could give her a start—I could use my influence to secure a good position somewhere for her first season. That would be the wise thing, Stewart, my boy! For there's no denying the girl's getting too strong a hold on my imagination. Yet what a furore it would create to spring this unknown, unheard-of beauty upon the public! What a vision she would be in the white satin lace and pearls of Juliet, with her young, dark, swift-changing face; and, as for acting the part, why—" A slow smile crept across his lips, unconsciously he drooped his heavily fringed eyelids, in the very way that Jim Roberts had cursed, and murmured: "I could teach her—I could teach her. This letter says she is easily coached. I could open the season with this new French play, holding 'The Duke's Motto' ready for revival in case the new play doesn't strike hard enough; and meantime I could either place my little Princess with old Mrs. Mordaunt for training, or—coach her myself, work the press to arouse curiosity, and by February at furthest spring my surprise—play my great card! The production will cost—but I'll gather it in again from the houses she will draw, if I bring her out as a star. I suppose I'd be wiser to drop this plan—but, oh, by Jove, I can't! I promised, fairly and squarely promised, she should have her crown. Poor little girl! I'd like to make the path to success easier to her than most people find it. Then, again, some cheap tuppenny-ha'penny actor may gather her up and marry her, out of hand, and so spoil all her future. Oh, devil take it! I'll toss a coin. No, I won't, either; that doesn't seem decent! But I'll wait for the next letter, and if she has learned by that time to make a correct exit, I'll bring her back here at the end of old Williamson's summer season, and begin coaching her on the quiet for the great coup! If she has not yet succeeded, I leave her to her own efforts. There, fate has it to manage now! I stand aside and wait!"
Seven days later this telegram reached Jim Roberts: "Bring Miss L—— on here at close. She can't go with Williamson for winter season. Train arrives late, so escort her to Riverdale first, then report to me at theatre.—Thrall." While in a certain paper's "Stage Gossip" there appeared:
"The air of the Rialto is full of mystery just now. There are whispers of a society débutante who is to become a stage débutante. Sometimes she comes from the West with consenting friends; sometimes, being wealthy, she has defied the authority of lover and guardian alike and is openly preparing for a stage career. The one thing that steadies the wavering rumor is that the name of the theatre to be favored by this shadowy society actress never changes—that part of the story is ever the same. Stewart Thrall is to be her manager and the Globe is to be the scene of her triumph. So much for the on dit of the Rialto. Perhaps Mr. Thrall will kindly rise and explain."
And a more staid and conservative paper stated: "That it was undoubtedly true that a young lady of birth and breeding, a member of one of New York's oldest families, was to be brought before the public as soon as the full consent of her family could be obtained, Mr. Stewart Thrall, with a most commendable sense of honor, refusing by his aid to place the beautiful suppliant in opposition to her natural guardians. The lady's name will only be given to the public when all opposition to her wishes have been withdrawn."
So the good angel had whispered his warning all in vain; and Thrall was already busy with glue-pot and paper and book of gold-leaf, for had he not promised, with the rose-petals that fell from her breast held red in his hand—had he not promised to crown the obstinate, ambitious girl who longed to be Queen of that fair domain, the Drama, who, while hoping to win fame herself, was "sorry that he had missed the way"? "God bless her!" he murmured, "God bless her!" and he made note of several new fables to give to the press anent the social débutante's private brougham, her lovers, her maids; for thus is the chrysalis formed from which, the dormant time being passed, the radiant butterfly will flutter forth to gladden the eyes of those whose curiosity has been cleverly aroused. Ah, yes! no chrysalis, no butterfly!
It was October already. The old White house stood and shivered when the wind came sharp from the steely river. Lena, making ineffectual war upon fallen leaves, could not even keep the porch free from them, and they skirled and whirled and gently slid and madly rushed, while in the house their movement could be distinctly heard like light pattering footsteps, ever seeking, never resting.
They even disturbed Lena's nerves. She looked about uneasily, while Dorothy laughed as they tied up each other's fingers, for they had been engaged in what Lena called "veather vending," and what Dorothy called "battening" the windows in her mother's room. For there was no question about it, the Lawtons had to face the winter right where they were. So Lena, with Dorothy's help, was doing her best to make a few rooms comfortable, and the hammering of nails and tacks had included thumb-nails as well. But what of that; their "veather vending" was turning lots of cold air from the rooms, and there was a comforting smell of freshly baked cookies coming from the kitchen, and great crimson and dappled branches of dogwood—Sybil's favorite autumn leaf—were over mantel and door, while dark purple and pale grayish lavender asters were nodding from corner and vase. For joy! oh joy! Sybil was coming home from the West—that vague, chaotic place that had swallowed her sister, an outsider, and now cast her back a professional, a "for-true" actress, with three real newspaper notices of her work, though they had been won under an assumed name. Dear Syb! how proud they all were! Papa had split up a cigar-box and made a little frame for her very first newspaper notice and had it hanging in the corner by the window where he shaved.
And then, late that night, poor, pallid Jim Roberts had handed Sybil out of the shaky old hack at the White house door, and saying "Good-night," had turned to go, when grateful hands had drawn him inside, to receive courteous thanks from John Lawton and an explanation from Mrs. Lawton as to her present inability to send a comfortable carriage for her daughter and her escort.
"Oh, Mrs. Jones was Miss Lawton's escort quite as much as I was!" stammered Roberts. "I—I only looked after the checks and things, and——"
"And," said Sybil, "hungry and tired, came away up here with me instead of going straight to your supper and your bed. And, papa, he had no overcoat with him, and he shivered dreadfully in the hack after the fearful heat of the car." Whereupon Dorothy insisted upon coffee being brought to him, and Sybil cried out: "I smell fresh cookies! Oh, Lena, bring some here!" Then, still in hat and gloves, she stood before him, saying: "You shall not miss the next train down. I will watch the time for you, so please drink your coffee and eat your cookies in peace!"
"Cookies and coffee!" moaned Mrs. Lawton. "Barbarous combination! Mr. Roberts's dinner will be destroyed, or, to speak more correctly, his appetite will be destroyed. And while I'll not call it vulgar, still there is something so very domestic, so very intimate about a home-made cookie, that personally—no, my daughter, I could not have offered one to a stranger! Still I suppose we must expect these touches of bohemianism, now that you have become a professional actress!"
In the few moments that he sat there, Jim saw the poverty surrounding them. He could not help noticing the carpets and curtains, worn to the bone; the ancient and honorable furniture, the severity of the chairs; and yet the Lawtons were, temporarily at least, unconscious of it all. They were caught up in a golden glory of family love, of mutual admiration, of ineffable tenderness, and while all other eyes were turned with pride upon the dear wanderer returned, she, still timing him, still holding the plate of cookies, with an impulse that would not be denied, stretched out her free arm and drew her sister close to her side, gazing at her with an expression of love so protecting, so maternal, she might have been Dorrie's elder by ten years instead of two.
"Ah!" thought Roberts, "you'd be quick to suspect danger for her, and you'd be strong to protect; but to your own peril you'd be as blind as a young white owl facing the sun!"
With almost a groan he sprang to his feet, a movement that wrung a disappointed "Ach!" from Lena, who, to the amusement of Dorothy and the fuming indignation of Mrs. Lawton, had been eagerly peering through the crack of the door, trying to get a good look at "Vun of dem Herr actin' mens, ven dey vasn't makin' no believes to nobody," and her betraying "Ach!" came with such a pony-like snort that even Mr. Lawton had joined in his daughters' laughter.
Then Sybil stepped close to Roberts and whispered, swiftly: "Will you be vexed if I ask you just to speak one word to our little German maid, who is the staff of the whole family, and whose manner is the only bad thing about her? Ah, you are good! [What would he not have done for Sybil's asking?] Dorrie, you call her. She wouldn't come for anyone else now."
"Lena! Lena!" called Dorothy's gay voice. "Lena! Quick, please!" And then, very, very red in the face, the sturdy, square little serving-woman stood in the doorway.
"We are in such a hurry, Lena," said Sybil, "because Mr. Roberts has to catch this next train; but, as he is the gentleman who brought me safe home after helping me to learn to act, I know you too want to thank him."
"Oh, ja! I doos so!" answered Lena, heartily, making her peasant-like bob of a courtesy.
But Jim Roberts went over to her, saying, with a laugh: "If there's any thanking to be done, I'm the one to do it; for, Mistress Lena, I haven't tasted cookies like yours since, as a bad boy, I came home at recess to hook them fresh and warm from my mother's pantry. Thank you, Lena!"
As she backed smilingly out of the doorway, Sybil laughed: "You have saved her life by granting her a good look at that wondrous thing, a real, sure-enough actor!"
"Carefully edited and lavishly illustrated, this tale will doubtless reach her grandchildren," smiled John Lawton.
"Oh!" cried the girls, "hear papa making jokes!"
"You all seem to forget that you have an actress of your own in the family now for your little maid to feast her eyes upon," remarked Roberts.
"Oh!" exclaimed Sybil, flushing beautifully, "not yet. I am only 'a trying-to-be actress' yet! There, your time's up!" And she caught up his travelling cap and tossed it to him.
"Sybil!" remonstrated Mrs. Lawton, "Sybil! a little more decorum, even in the protecting presence of your family! Good-night, sir! In former days I should have sent you in my own brougham to the——"
But Mr. Lawton had swept the actor out of the room to a chorus of "Good-nights." On the porch, he said: "Mr. Roberts, I have some clippings from the papers about my little daughter's work. Can you tell me, for I am very ignorant of such things, whether those—er—those notices were inspired, or—you understand me, were they—er—commanded from the box-office, or at—er—a manager's suggestion, or were they unsought by anyone?" The old gentleman's voice trembled with eagerness and anxiety.
"My dear sir," replied Roberts, "what may happen in that line in the future I dare not say, but as to the past, nothing was inspired. Those notices commending Miss Lawton's work were honestly earned, for she has natural gifts, neither is she afraid of work, and does not resent criticism—as yet."
Mr. Lawton took his hand and pressed it gratefully. "Thank you!" he said, "thank you, for your goodness to my Sybil!"
Roberts flung himself into the old hack, muttering, as he slammed the door: "Hear him! Just hear him!" He burst into a laugh that ended in a groan. "Oh!" he continued, "I wonder if God, in some mighty shuffle of His worlds, has dropped this one out of His hands entirely! For surely nothing higher, nothing wiser than blind fate or a malicious devil can be guiding the affairs of man!"
He threw off his cap and held his head hard between his bony, long hands, and broke out again: "That gentle, helpless old fool, with his unmistakably aristocratic elbows nearly out of his sleeves, is the natural protector of two lovely daughters! How the devil will laugh when he takes note of the situation! If so weak a creature was to be trusted with daughters at all, they should for their own sakes have been plain girls, whose homeliness would have acted as a prohibitory tariff on folly of any kind! Again, the circling arms of some mothers would be as towers of strength for the guarding of innocent beauty; but not this mother—this elegant 'has been,' who twists her memories of past wealth and power into thongs to lash her friends and family with! And, by Jove, the old rattle can carry herself well! She's been a fine-looking woman in her day—a fact she will never forget in this world, probably not in the next! But selfish? Lord! I'll bet her time is principally given to pulling out for her own use any plum of comfort to be found in their economical family pie! But they see nothing amiss! It's 'this chair for mamma!' One places a stool for her feet, and another brings a cushion for her back, and papa throws a scarf about her shoulders and lowers the light to suit her eyes; and when they have all made her quite comfortable, she rewards them with sighs and moans and tales of her former glory. But for family love commend me to this Lawton set. I never saw anything so beautiful in my life as the palpitating pride of that old gentleman in his daughters and their protecting love for him! And there it is. The natural position of father and child is reversed, and that lovely creature, Sybil, with father and mother both living, is as absolutely unprotected as any orphan on earth! Lord! How I wish I had a drink of whiskey! My nerves will jump clear through my skin before I get to the city! I wonder what Stewart would say if he knew I'd been travelling without a flask? Wouldn't believe it, I suppose. Gad! I've had heaven and hell pretty thoroughly well mixed together these last few weeks. Thrall gave me a bit of heaven when he sent me to act as sheep-dog for this girl, and I ordered up a portion from the other place when I doomed myself to sobriety, out of consideration for her trust in me! Not a drop of anything to be had either at this infernal, suicidal station, and I've had nothing since Albany! Well, I must grin and bear it! I wish I hadn't to see Thrall to-night, and yet I want to know just what he's up to. Of course I'm dead sure he's going to coach this ambitious child for Juliet, but maybe he'll pass her over to old mother Mordaunt. She's clever and knows her business. Perhaps, too, he means to put young Fitzallen up for Romeo, and play Mercutio himself? May be! Ah, bah! May-bees don't fly at this time of year. I'd bet my bottom dollar—a coin always within easy reach—that he will coach her himself—yes, and play Romeo, too! But as I live by bread, Stewart, my boy, there must be no Bessie in this case, or something will happen—something that would have happened five years ago had I not been as completely under the spell of your fascination as ever she was, poor little maid! Hello, here we are, and the train coming, thank the Lord!"
Roberts hurried through the little waiting-room, past the small office, from which came the curt, short "tick-tick tack" that is as the voice of the ever-imperative telegraph wire, crossed the open space, tripping over the line of rails in the darkness, clambered up the steps, and entered the purgatorial heat of the car, made nauseating by the odor of banana and stale orange-peel, and dropped into a seat by the side of a sleeping man, only to spring up again when suddenly aware that he had sat upon a bottle.
The movement aroused the sleeper, who, with his hat on the back of his head and a lock of hair clinging damply to his forehead, muttered apologies as he gathered up his overcoat out of the way. Having felt carefully in one of its outer pockets, he turned to Roberts with that loose smile of world-embracing geniality peculiar to the good-natured man who is "three sheets in the wind," and thickly remarked: "I's all right! Best kind of glass! I've sat on that flask dozen times myself 'nd never cracked it!" His head wobbled a moment, then he added, confidentially: "Soon's I can think—w-where in thunder I put cup—w-we'll have a drink together—like little men, eh? Why h-here it is, r-right in other pocket! Been a b-bear it might 'a' tore my g-gizzard out! Join me?"
Jim Roberts glanced a moment down the brilliantly lighted, well-filled car, then clenched his hands and, drawing a long, almost sobbing breath—declined.
"W-what's—w-what's reason you won't join me?" demanded the stranger, indignantly, yet showing at the same time a disposition to weep. "W-what have I done—say, now, w-what have I done? Slept with my m-mouth open, I s'pose? Slept out loud, too—very likely? But w-what of that? It isn't pretty, of course—but's no crime—eh?" He brought forth the metal cup and carefully wiped it out with a stubby forefinger, while he tearfully added that "the very dogs in the streets'd bark at him when they knew a gentleman had refused to drink with him!"
And Roberts, with set jaws and feet twisting together, tried to control the leaping muscles and nerves that seemed to be crying out with a thousand gasping mouths for liquor! liquor! The tears of self-inflicted disappointment were stinging beneath his lids when there came to his ears, with infernal power to charm, the delicious "blub-blub-blub" of whiskey poured from a full bottle. He gave a gasp. In an instant his left hand held his hat before his face, his right hand grasped the cup and poured the contents straight and raw down his aching throat. The drink was followed by that convulsive shudder, so familiar to most drunkards. Heart shock someone has called it; but almost before he had returned the cup to its rejoicing owner a delicious warmth and comfort was stealing over him, a sense of well-being made him tolerant even of the disjointed conversation of his chance acquaintance.
He reported presently at the private office of Manager Thrall, who received him eagerly and greeted him with unusual heartiness. The interview was long and confidential—very. When Jim Roberts finally reached his own room he had been drinking heavily and had been tramping the streets for hours. He was at his very worst. Flinging off only his hat and coat, he cast himself across the bed, and rolling his head face downward on his folded arms, he groaned: "I can't do anything! I'm less than a fly on the wheel! He's all right now—he means well—he honestly does! But, oh! good God! don't I know the man better than he knows himself! Don't I know that Stewart Thrall is never more dangerous than when he means well?" and the poor wretch lay there and grovelled in helpless, drunken misery.
Before Sybil's trunks had been opened and her simple little home-coming gifts distributed, she knew that her sister, the patient, cheerful Dorothy, was being seriously worried by somebody or something, and she had not sat at the family table three times before she saw that her mother waged a secret, petty warfare against the young girl, who was really the mainspring that kept the whole family machinery in clock-work motion.
They had been so wholly united in their home-life that this surreptitious nagging, these swift side-glances that made sure John Lawton was out of ear-shot before the jeer or sneer or wounding innuendo was delivered, filled Sybil with amazement as well as hot anger.
"Poor little Dorrie!" she thought; "denied every pleasure that a young, healthy, pretty girl longs for! Skimping and saving, turning and cleaning and pressing, rarely going out dressed entirely in her own garments, never complaining, always smilingly winking back threatening tears, smoothing rough places, straightening out the tangles for others, and when the burden becomes too heavy, the cloud of small torments unendurable, instead of bursting into bitter railing or furious tears as I do, Dorrie, with the absolute, unquestioning faith of a child, goes to her room and prays, asking that her burden be made lighter, or, if that may not be, that the blessed Lord will give her strength and patience and please make her understand what it is wisest for her to do in that special emergency! Poor little trusting ninny! As though God could trouble about her infinitesimal affairs! As though He would distinguish her faint appeal when once it had fluttered upward and been caught in that mighty whirlwind of a world's anguished prayer that, with a thousand times Niagara's sound, goes thundering to the Throne! Dear Dorrie! Such a patient little slave as she is to mamma, too! But I'll take a few hours from work and find out what is going on here—yes, even if I have to question Lena!"
She shook her head. "An indecorous and undignified proceeding that, but what else can I do? Poor papa never sees an inch beyond his handsome old nose! If it concerned anyone but mamma, Dorothy would tell me everything herself, for we have confided in each other ever since we had to 'make up' the secrets we shared. But she and papa always make a sort of fetish of mamma. It's strange, too," said Sybil to herself, "for mamma was very little to either of us, indeed, in the old days of luxury. As that English housemaid once said of us, 'we were little better nor horphans for all our finery and our sweets!' Mamma was always out, or going out, or just getting ready to go out. Or there were people staying with her, and we had to keep close to the nursery. We should just have been servant-bred but for papa. Shall I ever forget his face the day he asked Dorrie some question, which she answered with a hearty, 'Bedad! I have then!' After he had read us a lecture on the subject of English as it should be used by intelligent and obedient little girls, Dorothy lifted her repentant, small countenance to be kissed, saying, 'Please forgive me, papa!' and he caught her up in his arms and said, 'Oh, baby girl, it is for you to forgive us—forgive us!' And when he was gone we talked and talked, and finally concluded that 'us' meant papa and Delia, because she was all the time saying 'bedad' and 'bad-cess,' and such words. That same night I heard mamma's voice, high and excited, from her dressing-room. She was saying, 'I really do not see why I am to be held responsible for the aimless chatter of children of that age. Of course, when they are older, and it's worth while, I shall impress myself upon them—shall take complete charge of—what? my mother? Never mind my mother! Times are changed, and really it's more than a trifle presumptuous for any Lawton to attempt to teach a Bassett how to—' and the voice became inaudible, because mamma had entered her sleeping-room and closed the door. But next day we took our drive with her, instead of the nurse or maid, and in our big feathered hats—I in pink and Dorrie in blue—we sat one on each side of her and swung our slim, black-silk legs against her skirts and wished papa was there. And that very day she cut Mr. Bulkley dead as he saluted her in passing, and said, under her breath, 'Horrid wretch!' Horrid wretch then! And now? She can't be too cordial to him, actually pressing him to come again. Has she no eyes? Can't she see how he stares poor Dorrie out of countenance, and how—how—" Suddenly the girl started. "Why," she said, "it can't be! Oh, it can't be that she does see and understand and—and—still welcomes him—that she is tormenting my little sister about him?"
A certain ominous tremble of the ceiling told of the energetic Lena's presence in the room above. Sybil flew up the stairs, went first to her trunk, and a moment later came to Lena, holding in her hand a spray of artificial flowers, and saying: "If you will bring me your hat I'll freshen it up with these velvet roses. I can do it right here while you are finishing mamma's room." With a cry of rapture the little, square-rigged German girl dropped the pillow she was holding between her teeth, while trying to introduce its further end into a fresh cover, and rushed from the room, to return in the twinkling of an eye with one of those forlornly tawdry hats, peculiar to the foreign servant. They always seemed to be trimmed with samples, boasting a pale spring blossom twisted with a dahlia or a few hips and haws of autumnal tinting, a bit of feather, always straight; a bit of lace, always cotton; a scrap of velvet, always dusty—the whole incongruity invariably suggesting the police station, no matter how respectable the wearer of the "mussy" confection may be. For a moment Lena looked frightened as Sybil's long fingers swiftly tore the rubbish apart; but a glance at the deep rich glow of color in the crushed velvet rose with the trail of bronzy-green leaves reassured her, and she smiled the whole breadth of her honest moon-face as she exclaimed:
"Mein Gott! my Miss Lady! Dot mash-man will sure make me of der name of Miss Klippert, ven I make der Sunday valk, mit der roses on, youst like I com' by America! Ja! dot is too fine youst for Lena—all short! Dot make of me Miss Klippert—sure! you see now!" And full of excitement and happy anticipations, Lena rose like a hungry trout to Sybil's first cast, which was the remark: "I don't think Miss Dorothy is looking quite well?"
In her broken English the maid poured out the story of the trials and persecutions to which Dorothy had been subjected; of how her mother's selfishness in her imaginary illness had taxed the girl's strength; of how Leslie Galt had tried unsuccessfully to take Miss Dorrie for a drive, to bring the color back to her cheeks; of how Mrs. Lawton had changed her mind about the proprieties when Mr. Bulkley had driven up to the house with a similar object; and of a disgraceful scene at a near-by resort in which Mr. Bulkley and several "painted ladies" figured—a scene of which she and her "mash-man" were the witnesses.
The pitiful story finished, Sybil, controlling her feelings, went to the troubled Lena, set the newly trimmed hat on her head, gave her a little push toward the glass, and then fled to her own room, where, with blazing eyes and flushed cheeks, she paced the floor, repeating, over and over: "How dare he? How dare he force his attentions upon an innocent young girl? He is as vulgar as he is wicked! His conduct is unpardonable—disgraceful! Oh, what can I do? How can I shield Dorrie, and where is Leslie Galt? I know he loves her, devotedly, but he can't have spoken yet, for she would have shared the secret with me within an hour of my coming! He's not a man to change, nor yet to hesitate without grave cause. Oh, I suppose it's poverty that commands his silence—poverty, fruitful mother of many miseries, of shame and humiliation! And yet—and yet," frowned Sybil, as she called up a mental picture of Leslie Galt, "he never looks like a poor man; and surely I ought to recognize any or all of the symptoms of indigence, know all the dear little earmarks made by straitened circumstances. And now that I think of it, his dress is perfect in its way, quiet, oh, yes, quiet enough, but such perfect cut and fit can scarcely belong to ready-made 'marked-downs.'"
And when had she ever seen spot or soil or sagging pocket, loose button, frayed binding, or faded tie? Her mother had called him "a salaried boy," but she recalled Lena's statement that he wished to take her sister to drive. She knew he often rode a horse, hired in Yonkers. He lavished gifts of fruit upon Mrs. Lawton and music and books and flowers on Dorrie. Surely, she thought, a young lawyer must receive a good salary to do all that and dress so well. She wondered if she ought to make him understand Dorothy's position. Even if they were only engaged, that engagement would protect the young fiancée from the detested approaches of another man. Papa? Ah! poor dear papa had no authority where mamma was concerned! What should she do? Then suddenly she began to dress for the street. She decided that she would go to her god-mother with her trouble. She had always been fond of Dorothy, and if Mrs. Lawton feared any adverse opinion it was that of Mrs. Van Camp.
As she hurried down-stairs, hoping, by fast walking to the station, to catch the next train cityward, Mrs. Lawton came into the hall, to express shocked disapproval of her daughter's action and her sorrow at not having more fully impressed herself upon that daughter's mind and character, in which case she could have seen for herself the horrible impropriety of going to the city unaccompanied; in fact, to be perfectly explicit and exact, 'er alone! And Sybil, as she rapidly buttoned her gloves, replied with the humble deference of tone, which usually cloaked her worst impertinences: "Yes, mamma dear, undoubtedly the girl who can buy tickets for two and pay the salary of a chaperon who watches her, is guilty of a criminal impropriety in travelling alone. You see the point, don't you, dear mamma? Without wealth there is no impropriety. Of course that's unfair, but the fact remains that a poor girl may ride for an hour in a public car in broad daylight, and not only retain her self-respect, but fail to hear a single charge of impropriety. Of course it's hard, but since we have fallen upon poverty, we must not lay claim to the attributes of the wealthy. Good-by, dear mamma! Tell Dorrie and papa I shall probably have to see the costumer to-morrow, if Mr. Thrall can spare the time to accompany me, and decide upon correct designs; but I shall be home in time for tea—D. V.—I mean of course."
As she flew down the steep driveway leading to the street, Mrs. Lawton, looking after her, said, aloud: "Dear me! With Sybil assuming this freedom of action and Dorothy developing a streak of real obstinacy, I have to ask myself why I ever assumed the responsibility of bringing daughters into the worlds. Sons would doubtless have been far more satisfactory, particularly under the present unfortunate circumstances." And she returned to her rocker, her smelling-bottle, and her French novel, shaking her head and sighing portentously.