“Everything passes,” runs the old saying, and the contrary is also true.
Nothing passes.
If you had looked at that stalwart and serious gentleman in the box,
correct, evidently prosperous, with his honest and rather blank gaze,
you would certainly have imagined him to be one of those fortunate
creatures without a history, a soul without a scar. He was there with an
agreeable, well-bred wife and a pretty young daughter, and he was
apparently enjoying the play with a temperate and sedate
enjoyment--interested, but not very much interested, you know.
And yet he is none other than the black sheep of twenty years ago, the
disgraced and abandoned Tommy. Moreover, the actress whom he is watching
with so tepid an air is Esther herself, and he is very cunningly
concealing a great confusion of feelings.
He had casually suggested going to see her act that evening, as he had
done four or five times before, since he had by chance discovered that
Esther and the celebrated Elinor Vaughn were one and the same person. He
had no knowledge of the means by which she had risen, but he was by no
means surprised to find her at the top. Why shouldn’t she be? Indeed,
how could she not be? She was certainly born for victory.
Each time that he watched her magnificent outbursts of dramatic passion,
her rages and her griefs, he felt a secret and delightful joy. Only
imagine what he had escaped! Only think what such a woman, capable of
moving the most cynical heart, could have done with him! He looked
cautiously at the people about him, saw them stirred to horror, grief,
or delight, and he felt himself superior to them all. They didn’t know
that it was only Esther Van Brink!
He watched her to-night, at the end of her famous second act, winning by
heartbreaking entreaties the mercy of a vindictive and obdurate husband.
Never could he have withstood her. He would have been lost!
The curtain fell, rose again, fell, and she came out to stand for a
moment before the footlights, bowing, smiling a little wearily; and then
she saw him.
He drew back hastily, but it was too late. When she came before the
curtain again, she looked at him and smiled. Before the third act began,
a boy came to the box with a note:
Please, Tommy, come behind and see me for a moment.