The name of Madame Olga Stephano was conspicuously absent from the
columns of the Star next morning, but this fact passed unnoticed by one
James Martin, who had moved on to the next town, unwept, unhonored and
unsung. Gone was the rakish tilt to his derby hat and vanished like the
roses of yesterday were the glad, eager look and the jaunty bearing that
usually distinguished him as one upon whom fortune was wont to smile.
Gloom was in his heart and a sweet melancholy pervaded his thoughts.
A letter dated before Jimmy’s fatal first meeting with Miss Slosson,
awaited him at the theatre. It brought tidings that did not have a
tendency to make life more interesting. It was from Jordan, Madame
Stephano’s personal manager on tour with the company, and it summoned
him back to Cleveland for the opening performance on Monday night.
“There are many matters on which Madame Stephano and myself wish to
consult with you,” the letter ran, “among them being the methods of
publicity best calculated to further her interests as a star. Our
appeal, as you know, is to the intellectual element in the community and
you must carefully avoid anything in the nature of cheap or sensational
stories or what are vulgarly known as ‘stunts.’ We will go into this at
greater length when I see you.”
“I’m in for a spring canning,” Jimmy observed to the manager of the
theatre when he had finished reading Jordan’s letter. “I wouldn’t mind
that so much if I could have got my exit cue in a blaze of glory, but
this thing of being bumped off on top of an awful fall-down like that
gets under the little old epidermis.”
Madame Stephano occasionally varied her Ibsen repertoire with
performances of plays by other European dramatists. She had chosen a
modern Spanish tragedy for her opening in Cleveland, and the first act
was under way when a certain forlorn looking figure slouched wearily
into the manager’s office and moodily inquired for Mr. Jordan. The
company manager, a thoroughly house-broken slave to the temperamental
caprices of the star, came forward.
“I’m Martin,” gloomily vouchsafed the visitor.
“You are, eh?” responded the manager, acridly, looking him over with
indifferently concealed scorn. “We’ve been waiting for you all day.”
“Who do you mean by ‘we’?” timidly inquired the chastened press agent.
“Why, the madame and myself. We were curious to see what you looked
like. You seem fairly intelligent.”
Ordinarily Jimmy would have resented the implied sneer in this remark
and would have flared up with an indignant rejoinder, but his spirit
seemed crushed to earth never to rise again. The surrounding atmosphere
was to him pregnant with impending tragedy. He contented himself with a
nervous little laugh.
“I’ve never been accused of it,” he said foolishly.
“Of course, we’ve heard about your ridiculous fiasco last week,” went on
Jordan. “You’ve certainly let yourself in for it with the madame. I
wonder what you think this attraction is, anyway—a circus side show or a
cabaret? I’ll give you credit, though. You had a cast iron nerve to
attempt such a thing with her. They say God looks after fools and
drunken folks. I hope He’s on your side tonight.”
Jimmy gulped before he made reply.
“Is she—is she a little annoyed?” he stammered.
“Yes, just a little,” laughed the other sarcastically. “Just a wee bit
put out. It’s hardly worth mentioning, but if I were you I’d stick
around on this side of the footlights until after the show. We’ve got
eighteen hundred inside tonight and I wouldn’t like to have to give the
money back. Something might happen if you went back stage. I’ll see you
later.”
He slipped into an inner office and Jimmy was left alone with his
misery. He wandered out into the brilliantly lighted lobby and sauntered
into the auditorium for his first view of the great actress. She was on
the stage as he entered and he peered at her from behind the plush
curtains which hung back of the last row of seats. She was playing a
scene of brisk and brittle comedy and she moved about the stage with all
the lithe and lissome grace of a beautiful tiger. She was making mordant
mockery of another woman in the play, assailing her with wicked rapier
thrusts of biting wit and smiling a smile that struck terror into
Jimmy’s heart. There was a malicious gleam in her black eyes that
fascinated him. They seemed to his over-wrought imagination like the
nasty eyes of a serpent he had once seen in a glass case in the zoo. He
shuddered with apprehension.
As the curtain fell and the lights went up he caught sight of the figure
of E. Cartwright Jenkins coming up the aisle. He effaced himself with
surprising suddenness by making for the nearest exit door. It led to a
fire-escape and he stood there in the semi-darkness letting the cool
night air soothe his fevered brow and trying to collect his befuddled
train of thought. This last was impossible. All that he seemed able to
comprehend was that he was in for the most disagreeable experience of
his fair young life, and that there was no possible escape from it
except in flight. He was too good a soldier to run away. That much was
certain.
When the lights went out again and the second act began Jimmy resumed
his place behind the curtains once more and continued his observations
of Madame Stephano. It was in this act that the “big scene” of the play
occurred, the scene in which the outraged wife reverted to the primitive
passions of her Andalusian peasant ancestors and made things decidedly
uncomfortable for her husband and several other characters in the piece.
It was full of lines in which, as the old actor said, “one could get
one’s teeth into” and it may be stated that the famous Russian-American
actress played it for all it was worth and then some. She erupted,
exploded, and otherwise comported herself in an extremely violent and
disturbing manner. As a final touch she committed aggravated assault and
battery on the person of her husband and wound up the festivities by
making a general wreck of the drawing room in which the scene was laid.
Jimmy watched the early proceedings with growing distrust. When the
final nerve-shattering moment arrived and the curtain fell amid a wild
uproar from the audience he found himself sagging and he clutched a
pillar for support. A clammy perspiration bespangled his brow. He felt
decidedly sick and he longed for the comforts of home and the quiet
ministrations of some gentle female who would soothe and mother him.
In a daze, he sauntered out into the lobby again. Jordan, who had just
come back from back stage, touched him on the arm.
“The madame wishes to see you right after the last act,” he remarked
with a sinister smile.
Only that and nothing more. He turned on his heel and disappeared into
the office. Jimmy leaned against the wall and eyed with envy the noisy
and laughing throng of men who had come out for a smoke between the
acts.
At precisely the same time an usher slipped down one of the theatre
aisles, touched E. Cartwright Jenkins on the shoulder and handed him a
note. The critic adjusted his glasses and tore it open. This is what he
read: