E. Cartwright smiled expansively. It may also be remarked that he beamed
and it may be further added that he felt himself once more securely
affixed upon a pedestal in his personal Hall of Fame.
The final moment of the Spanish play found Madame Stephano sitting alone
at the dinner table in the heroine’s home. Fate and the fell clutch of
circumstance had resulted in her estrangement from her family and from
her friends and she had dined alone. As the curtain fell, disillusioned
and miserable, she dropped her head in her hands and sobbed bitterly.
Jimmy, having been assured that his nemesis would be on the stage
throughout the entire act, had tip-toed back when the scene was half
finished. A hopeless fear gnawed at his vitals, but he tried to put on a
brave face. He watched the curtain descend from a place in the wings and
he saw it rise again and again in response to tumultuous applause. The
actress, artist that she was, never raised her head or stepped out of
the picture.
After the last call had been taken he heard the orchestra strike up the
exit march. Determined to get the unpleasant business over with he
stepped through a door leading to the boxed-off scene. To his utter
bewilderment at precisely the same moment there entered upon the scene
from the opposite side no less a personage than E. Cartwright Jenkins.
That gentleman’s buoyant air of self-confidence and serene self-approval
left him with an abruptness that was startling. He stopped his progress
and stood rooted to the spot. The two gazed at each other in amazement.
E. Cartwright’s lips moved, but he found himself inarticulate. Swayed by
a common impulse they both turned to Madame Stephano.
That lady still sat with her head in her hands. As they looked she
raised herself slowly and gazed from one to the other. A nasty glint
came into her eyes. She sprang to her feet so suddenly that she
overturned the chair in which she had been sitting. She swept a long arm
out in front of her body and shook it at them both in turn.
Jimmy instinctively put up his guard. E. Cartwright’s face paled.
“You have come, eh?” screamed Madame Stephano, “you are both here. You
have come to let me tell you what I zink of you, eh?”
Her voice was stridently intense and her whole face was ablaze with
uncontrolled fury. Her accent was more marked than usual. She poured out
her words with a rapidity that was amazing.
“You have come to let me tell you both zat you have insult Olga Marie
Stephano and zat Olga Marie Stephano does not let herself be made ze
target for ze insult. You poor leetle fool, you”—this to Jimmy—“you have
meex my name up with zis crazee pastree pie announcement. Am I to have
no deegnety. Is Olga Marie Stephano a cook or an actress—wheech? And
you, Meestaire Cartwright Jeenkens, your paper it preent zis crazee
theeng, it preent it and it make me into one great, beeg, foolish
crazee—what you call?—what you call, I say?—one great, beeg, foolish,
crazee dam fool. Eet ees too much, oh, much too much. Mon Dieu, mon
Dieu—eet ees too much.”
She paused, her bosom heaving like a prima donna’s after an aria. Her
two visitors began to back gingerly away. She looked from one to the
other and then there slowly broke upon her face, a smile. It came like a
blessed benison, and it presently merged into a laugh, light and silvery
at first and then hearty and uncontrolled.
“Gentlemen,” she said sweetly when the laughter had died down, “excuse
me, please, eef I make such a laugh. You look so funee. Pardonnez moi,
pardonnez moi. Eet ees just my leetle joke, gentlemen, just my leetle
joke. I have here one grand surprise for you. Voila!!”
With all the easy grace and dexterity of a prestidigitator she reached
toward the table and plucked a napkin off a dish in the centre. To the
astonished eyes of the press agent and the dramatic editor there was
revealed an apple pie that transcended in appearance even that famous
piece of pastry which had met with such a disastrous end in the Star
office a few days before.
“Will you not please take seats,” cooed the actress.
Her hypnotized guests dropped into chairs. Madame Stephano took the
place between them. At her side was a bowl filled with whipped cream.
Ample portions of the pie were anointed with this by her own hands and
served. A mouthful of the delicious dessert proved to each its
surpassing excellence. The actress watched them eat with pardonable
pride.
“Meestaire Jimmy,” she said, turning to the now thoroughly flabbergasted
press agent. “I have play zis leetle scene to—what you call it?—to make
good. I have hear all about zat affaire of ze hot pie. I have invite
Meestaire Jenkeens to let heem see zat I really can bake ze apple pie
pastree. I bake heem in ze hotel keetchen zis afternoon. It was
funee—zat hot pie, eh?”
She had turned to E. Cartwright. Concealed somewhere about his person
that worthy gentleman had a slight sense of humor which occasionally
revealed itself. This was one of the occasions. He laughed heartily.
When he left a few minutes afterwards to write his review the entente
cordiale had been re-established between himself and Jimmy. She had a
way with her when she chose, had Madame Stephano, and never were her
wiles more effectively utilized than a moment later when she found
herself alone with her press agent.
“Meestaire Jimmy,” she purred. “I have for many years been ze foolish
woman. I have been too much what you Americans so quaintly call—ze up
stage. I have tried to be oh, so deegnefied, so very much deegnefied. I
was mad wiz you, Meestaire Jimmy, when I read about ze pie and when I
hear yesterday about ze catastrophe in ze newspaper office I could have
keel you. But I find I have ze beegest advance sale I have ever had, and
I have change my mind. I am going to lose my deegnety, Meestaire Jimmy.
Go ahead, Meestaire Jimmy, you tell ze lies and I will—what you call him
again—I will—make good.”
“Say, Madame,” responded Jimmy, whose self-assurance once more enveloped
him like an aura, “do you know what you are?”
“No, Meestaire Jimmy. What I am?”
“I’ll say you’re one regular guy.”
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