week,” supplemented Ellen. “Sheila leads them all about by the nose, her
society. Well,” with a sigh, “I wish she’d come. Even her affectations
are charming; it’s only to herself that she doesn’t do justice. To other
people she’s delightful.”
“I wish she’d come, too,” joined in Doromea. “Somehow I never have time
to go to see her--it’s such an undertaking to go in to town.”
“And it used to be such an undertaking to come out,” Ellen laughed. “I
think it’s rather sweet of Sheila to bother. Ah”--as a cloud of dust
came round the corner of the road--“there she is now--at least I
suppose she will emerge shortly.”
And in another minute she had emerged; a tiny, wild-rose sort of
creature, all fluffy chiffons and flying yellow curls--a baby, you would
have said, until you saw her reach up and kiss her husband.
“Wasn’t he a darling to bring me?” she asked the other women, when he
and the machine had vanished down the drive. “He had two men to see by
three o’clock, and a simply terrifically important race to follow; but
he brought me out just the same. And he’s coming back for me--those
wretched Elbert Lewises!--but I promised Peter Butler I’d go to
something of theirs; they took care of Peter when he broke his knee that
time, and as long as he’s my cousin--well, what I meant to say in the
very first place was, how are you all? Patsy, where’s the Angel?”
“Up-stairs on Ellen’s bed, asleep,” returned Patsy, promptly. “Want to
go look at him?”
“Rather!” Sheila was tugging at the strings of her frilly blue
motor-bonnet. “There!--and I’ll just shed this coat, too; then I can’t
get him the least bit dusty.” She was out of the coat in a second, and
more childish than ever in her simple rose-colored frock.
“Fancy Sheila thinking about getting dust on the baby!” Doromea turned
to Ellen, as the two ridiculously young mothers disappeared inside the
house.
“A society person with ideas on hygiene!” echoed Ellen.
* * * * *
“He does look so well and rosy.” Sheila peered wistfully at Patsy’s
Angel from under her long curling eyelashes. “And in Washington, too,
you can keep him always out-of-doors--there are so many squares and
flowery places.”
“Oh, yes,” said Patsy, cheerfully. “There are dozens of parks for him in
Washington; though I always look forward to this real country when we
come to visit Timothy and Dorry.”
“The twins have only our back yard,” reflected Sheila, her wide blue
eyes very serious. “Hawley got them swings and a sand-pile, but--it’s
always city for them; and they’re four years old now.”
“Why don’t you send them to the Park--Central Park, I mean?” Patsy’s
impulsive sympathy darted at once to the most obvious idea.
“I couldn’t go with them,” said Sheila, simply. “They would have to play
with their governess, and they wouldn’t like that. You see, when we come
home, either Hawley or I, we can always run down to the yard with them
right away. But it’s rather grim and stiff for them, poor dears, with
only trees in tubs and a fence all round. Some day perhaps we can afford
to live in the country.”
“Oh!” Patsy’s glance was rather blank. If she had not known Sheila to be
simply a society person, she would have suspected her of trying to make
an epigram. But, as Ellen said, Sheila paid no attention to herself--it
would never have occurred to her to attempt being clever.
“How was the new machine?” asked Patsy, steering away from what she did
not understand.
Sheila’s lovely little face beamed. “Hawley was _so_ pleased over it!
He says it’s a rip-snorter--the bulliest engine he’s had yet!” Hawley’s
large enthusiasm came quaintly from the small, almost infantile mouth.
“I’m so delighted; though it--it does go rather fast. I had to hold on
to the rail all the way out.”
“I’m crazy over them when they go fast,” protested Patsy, relapsing into
her old sportsman vernacular. “At the Vanderbilt Cup race----”
“Ah! You saw the play, then? You remember----” and the babyish features
lit up with a something that made downright Patsy blink with surprise,
as Sheila went on to enumerate certain scenes in the play, certain
thrilling passages--quoting, explaining, mimicking--so eagerly that one
had not the heart or any longer the interest to explain that one had
meant the actual race itself.
Patsy listened absorbedly. “And I never had thought she could talk,” she
told Doromea afterward. “But then she really didn’t talk; something just
talked through her.”
The something kept on talking, until Ellen came and “shooed” them
downstairs to the porch and Doromea. “Here I’ve been waiting for days to
see Sheila, and now you two go off and look at a year-old baby the whole
while! Tell me, Sheila, when are you going to free yourself of clubs and
bridge and suffrage leagues and theatres and things?”
“When Hawley makes me,” answered Sheila, serenely. She was fumbling for
something in her exquisite little gold bag--a half-finished lace collar
it rolled out to be. “I’m just crocheting this bit of fluff for
Margretta,” she explained, laughing a delicious, gurgling sort of laugh.
“Isn’t it a joke? I carry it about with me, and work on it between
acts--I did two rows in bed this morning--Fanchon was late with my
breakfast--and then lots more during the lectures at the Mechanics’
Association.”
“The Mechanics’ Association?” bolted Doromea.
“Yes--every Thursday at noon, you know.” Sheila was counting stitches
busily. “Air-ships it was to-day--the most _thrilling_ subject.”
“Oh!” Doromea sat back again. Air-ships; one could understand. Society
was engrossed with air-ships just at present.
“I do hope Maurice will take to air-ships,” murmured Sheila, dreamily.
“He’s so given over to fireworks now--some part of him’s always
exploded. If he keeps it up, he’ll look a guy by the time he’s old
enough to lead cotillons.” Behind Sheila’s back, Ellen and Patsy and
Doromea exchanged a triumvirate “I told you so”; if it was not polo, it
was less than polo; cotillons!
“And Margretta,” suggested Ellen, wondering if Sheila would have looked
as absolutely charming had she been hemming dish-towels instead of
crocheting Irish lace, “what is Margretta’s _raison de vivre_?”
“Margretta is going to be an actress,” said Margretta’s mother, slowly.
“She is absorbed with playing Little Red Riding-hood to Peter Butler’s
wolf at the moment. But later she will be playing--other things in Peter
Butler’s theatres. It saves so much management, having a cousin who owns
things one wants to enter.”
“And when your two offspring are at their separate vocations,” Doromea
smiled above the childish curly head, “while the one is whirring
furiously through the air, and the other acknowledging a triumphant
series of curtain-calls, what will you be doing? Where will you and
Hawley be?”
“Oh, I----!” Sheila shook her hair all into her eyes, as she laughed,
gayly insouciant. “I shall be still in society, of course--simply a
society butterfly! Hawley and I shall be still giving dinners and going
to Elbert Lewises’ and living within call of Wall Street and our clubs.
And perhaps--when we feel specially bored--we shall sneak down and play
in the sand-pile. But we shall always be doing the conventional, Hawley
and I--just Plain People, like the ones in Timothy’s stories” (she
turned to Doromea with a little nod of homage); “it is the children who
must accomplish the extraordinary. As Hawley says, we shall just be
going round the same old track, taking the same old hurdles--and happy
as larks at it!”
The careless, rippling voice stopped; for some reason Ellen and Doromea
had caught up their sewing again, and were stitching away at a hectic
pace. Patsy decided with great suddenness that she must go up and wake
the baby. Dumbness seemed to have seized everybody--except Sheila. But
then a society person is expected to keep on talking.
“That reminds me--I meant to speak of it when I first came--can’t you
come with me one night to see this play, _The Rut_, that Peter’s putting
on? He’s given me a box for all next week, knowing how I’ve always
remained the matinée girl!”--Sheila’s face looked up for a moment from
Margretta’s collar with an appealing ingenuousness--“and it would be
jolly if we could all go; you two and Knollys and Timothy. Patsy, too,
if she could be persuaded while Warren is away, and if she’ll leave the
Angel. I don’t know much about the play’s merits,” added Sheila,
indifferently. “But--they say it’s being talked about a good deal.”
“Timothy says it’s the most subtle satire of our generation,” put in
Doromea, eagerly. “He’s been trying to get seats for us all week, but it
was quite impossible. You see, a critic took him the first night, but
they had to stand the whole time--it _is_ good of you to ask us,
Sheila!”
“That play is absolutely the only thing that could get me to town on a
June night,” chimed in Ellen. “But that--why, it’s been running only ten
days, and already it is a classic; what a pity the author can’t be here
to receive his ovation! Mr. Butler gave it out that the man who wrote it
is abroad, and won’t even allow his identity to be divulged. So
extraordinary, in this day of the fame-greedy!”
“Perhaps he didn’t write the play for fame,” suggested Sheila, always
continuing to count stitches. “Perhaps he wrote it just because he
couldn’t help it; and now he wants to stay a Plain Person, with his home
and children and all.”
“He has children, then? But, yes--of course; it said in the papers that
that had been the most phenomenal part of his creation--introducing two
perfectly natural children in a satire of society! And then they say he
has the most remarkable range--that he handles theories of electricity
and deepest economical problems with the same piercing ease that he
does feminine psychology. _The Rut!_--you can’t know what a treat you’ll
be giving us, Sheila.”
“Then we’ll say Monday night, shall we?” Sheila had a trick of
reflecting other people’s eagerness--a quick little turn of the head,
that was compelling of still more enthusiasm. “Hawley will be able to go
Monday night, and we will motor you out in the new machine afterward.”
“Heavenly!” Doromea forgot that she had ever
felt--vaguely--uncomfortable, and dropped her work again.
“You are such satisfactory society people,” sighed Ellen. “Except when
you have to go away,” she added, as a siren blew its warning up the
drive.
Sheila jumped up. “It’s the bondage of our rut,” she said, lightly, once
more tying on the frilly bonnet; “you see, it is us this new playwright
has satirized--and idealized a bit as well, perhaps? Doesn’t he show
that we never go or stay, just as we please--that we’re forever doing
the things we don’t want to do; just because we fit our groove so
exactly? I think that’s it--awfully serious, isn’t it?” Her laugh rang
softly amused as she went out to meet her husband. “Till Monday,
then--you’ll meet us at the theatre at half past eight, and, oh--do
bring Patsy--where is she?”
“Coming!” Patsy’s pretty auburn head appeared at the door--over the
Angel whom she was holding. “Where am I to be brought, Sheila?”
“To see two perfectly natural children!” The blue eyes under the
motor-hood sought her husband’s. “But society children, I suppose,
Hawley--in _The Rut_, you know?”
“Yes, m’ dear, certainly; jus’ ’s you say.” He looked down at her with
the benignity of a large Newfoundland.
“To the Elbert Lewises’, then--good-by, good-by!” And Sheila’s fluffy
curls swirled round, hiding her face, as she was carried smoothly away.
“In the groove,” Ellen reminded Patsy and Doromea. “The man who wrote
_The Rut_ was right when he called it bondage, because the people fit
it so exactly. Poor little Sheila!--there’s something very pathetic
about her at times.”
“It’s because of her blind satisfaction with surface things,” said
Doromea.
“Because she’s simply a society person,” said Patsy.
* * * * *
Monday night, and, at Peter Butler’s Theatre, _The Rut_ was nearing its
big scene. Doromea and Timothy, Ellen and Knollys, sat well toward the
front of the box--breathless with anticipations realized; Sheila and her
big, immovable husband were farther back--out of sight almost, against
the box door.
Timothy looked back at them anxiously. “I don’t suppose they’re thinking
much about it,” he sighed; “they look a good deal more taken up with
each other. And it’s the greatest play of our age--such a shame Patsy
didn’t come--nobody will ever do anything that can touch it; unless, of
course, the same author----”
“Sheila says the author doesn’t care to write any more,” said Doromea,
as the curtain went down on the first act. “Mr. Butler told Sheila that
if only the man would keep on, he could make a fortune and anything else
he liked out of plays. But he seems a strange creature, the author; he
prefers to remain just a Plain Person. No one even knows his name,
except Peter Butler.”
“Then how do they know he’s a man?” asked Timothy, suddenly. “Very
probably, you know, he isn’t---- I say, Dorry, Mr. Butler’s coming into
the box. After this next act I’m going to ask him.”
“Are you enjoying it?” Sheila called, her smile including Ellen and
Knollys. She was a veritable bit of froth to-night, Sheila, a Dresden
shepherdess in a cloud of chiffons.
“It’s splendid!” Ellen answered for them all. “But we want to know about
the author, Sheila--Timothy thinks it may be a woman, and----”
“I want to ask Mr. Butler,” said Timothy, looking at the manager, who
was absorbed in conversation with Hawley. “You see,” he smiled at
Sheila, “I’ve gone quite foolish over this play; it has stirred me so
enormously that----”
“Wait until after this second act.” Sheila’s small, frivolous head was
bent over an unruly glove-button. “Peter has an announcement to make
then, something or other about this author creature, and it might throw
some light on what you want to know. I think I’ll go outside for a bit,”
she added, as the curtain went up. “One gets so warm--and I’ve seen the
play before.”
Ellen and Doromea looked after her. Then they looked at each other. “If
only she could be brought to realize herself,” was in their eyes.
“Overlooking the big scene in the biggest play of her time because one
gets warm--and she has seen it before! Poor Sheila!”
Then the scene was on, and they forgot all about Sheila. Doromea sat
close to the box rail, and when once in a while she came to, stole a
second to look at Timothy, whose eyes were round and sending out little
sparks behind his glasses. Knollys and Ellen sat on the edge of their
chairs, oblivious even of each other. But in the back of the box was a
man who paid the deepest attention of them all; who watched the stage
with only less interest than he ordinarily watched Sheila. His big
thumbs held a book, which he followed closely as he followed the play; a
conscientious creature, Hawley, though perhaps not like Warren, or
Knollys, or Timothy.
When the curtain went down, he sat back and wiped his forehead
exhaustedly; though he had come every night, it was always the same. The
others were sitting back too, limp with the wonder of the playwright’s
conception.
“And now for the announcement.” Timothy drew a long breath.
Peter Butler had come out before the footlights: his clever, shrewd face
was very keen. “Playgoers,” he began, slowly, “have certain rights that
are all their own; one right is to adore the star, another to hear the
author make a speech. This play has been running two weeks now, and
still the author has not satisfied the theatregoer’s curiosity
about--herself.” He paused a moment to let the revelation sink
in--“herself.” “To-night, however, she has decided to break her silence.
I will let her tell you why.”
He stepped back into the wings; there was an excited buzz--which grew
into an uproar, and cries of “Author!” “Author!” followed each other
with an enthusiasm headed by the group in Sheila’s box. They were on the
_qui vive_, impatient, insistent; all except Hawley, who simply sat
quietly stolid, like an excellent husband-person.
“I could shake him!” declared Ellen to Doromea, her eyes always on the
stage. “This dazzling play--and now the author, and--oh!” She stopped
with a quick gasp, as once more the curtains parted and out in front
stepped--Sheila! “Why, what--what----” Sheila’s two friends fell back
speechless. It was the small butterfly creature who spoke
now--deliberately, and with a faintly smiling friendliness. She stood
scarcely five feet in her tiny, frivolous French slippers, a wide-eyed
rose-leaf doll, in a halo of golden curls and gossamer rose fluff,
before the dark dignity of the velvet curtain.
“Yes, I wrote it,” she confessed, looking out over the crowd without an
atom of self-consciousness. “I didn’t want to tell, because I’ve always
wanted the twins to do the extraordinary. I wanted to stay just their
mother. But Mr. Butler says it will help the play if people know who
wrote it; and I want to help the play. It’s a good play?” Like Peter
Pan, she searched their faces eagerly. “You think it’s a good play,
don’t you?”
“Yes!”
“Well, rather!”
“You betcherlife!”
Sheila dimpled. “Then it’s all right. I don’t mind your knowing; and I
can stay on in ‘The Rut’--it’s not such a bad rut,” she pleaded. “I’ve
dug it to pieces for you, but for myself I have had to put it together
again, since the groove of it is my life. After all, you see, the author
is just a plain, ordinary person!” With a gay little nod she slipped
back behind the scenes, and so to Hawley.
“That _is_ all I am, isn’t it, Hawley?” she asked, hiding herself behind
his bigness, as the applause rose more and more enthusiastic. “Simply a
society person and your wife--the mother of the twins.”
“Yes, darlin’--certainly; jus’ ’s you say.” But this time Hawley’s
expression was quite satisfactory to Ellen and Doromea.
“And we said she didn’t realize herself”--Doromea turned to Ellen--“we
said she could never swing wide enough to get outside the circle!
Ellen!”
“Just shows we have a rut all our own, doesn’t it?” Ellen was wiping her
eyes joyously. “We hadn’t the sense to see that she was staying in hers
voluntarily--that she was creating an ideal society person!”
“And they’re the most rarely plain people of all,” added Timothy--not
without reverence.
V
WARNER--WHAT ELSE BUT A WAG?
“ ... Just as I was telling Timmie the other night, when a man’s
serious--and only then--his trouble begins! Well, I must be tripping
along; promised to help Sheila give Lady Trotworthy tea--the dear old
soul’s mind isn’t so light on its feet any more, you know. Bye-bye,
Hawley. Bye, Plunkett.” Warner threw his coat over his shoulder and
departed.
Hawley moved his feet still an inch higher on one of the Club’s red
leather chairs. “Awful’ good fellow, Warner,” he vouchsafed, as
intelligibly as his cigar would let him.
“Fine,” agreed Plunkett (respectfully speaking, Mr. Knollys Verplanck)
from the depths of another red leather chair.
“Er--awfully _funny_, and all that, you know. Keeps things goin’. I
don’t know what Sheila’d do if it wasn’t for Warner, since she has that
old English Someone to stop. Nice old lady, y’know, but--well, her mind
_is_ a bit heavy on its feet, just as Warner said. Don’t know what he’d
say if he knew there was another coming to-morrow--another Englishwoman
I mean, but nothing like Lady Trot; Sheila says this one’s young and
tremendously good-looking. Well, I’m glad--for Warner. He deserves some
kind of reward after a week of Lady Trot. Deuced good of him to help
Sheila; he’s so--so funny, don’ che know.”
“Very funny,” agreed Verplanck again.
“But--but I say, Plunkett”--uneasily the substantial tan boots drew
themselves down from comfort, and Hawley’s big, solid body bent
confidentially toward his friend--“I wouldn’t have any of these other
chaps hear me, you know, not for worlds; but I’ve often wondered--d’ye
think Warner’s anything _besides_ funny, Plunkett? D’ye think--well,
what else but a wag is he, eh? _I_ dunno.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Verplanck, frankly; and he stared out across the
crowded Avenue, with an expression that paid Warner no little
compliment--by its regret. “I tell you candidly, Deverence, I’ve known
Jim Warner now for nearly twelve years, and I’ve never yet heard him say
anything but a joke. By George, the other night at Treadham’s, when that
girl’s dress was on fire, I could have _killed_ Warner! There the girl
was, in flames, and Warner, _with his eyes right on her_, sitting still
on the other side of the room, _telling a funny story_! Why half the
people in the room didn’t know she was on fire, even. I tell you, it
made me mad--so mad, I’ve scarcely been civil to Jim since.”
“D’you say anything to him about it?” Hawley’s cigar had gone out. His
big, good-humored face looked almost earnest.
“I told him--I couldn’t help telling him--I thought he might have made
some pretence at least, at aiding the girl, as long as he saw----”
“And what d’ he say?”
“He said ‘my dear boy, there were five of you aiding her already. I
never deliberately make myself inconspicuous!’ Yes, sir, that was just
exactly what he said!”
Hawley swore; plentifully. “And d’ye know,” he added, plaintive through
his disgust, “Sheila told me that was the funniest story she ever heard
in her life; told me about it after we got home, and by Gad, it _was_
funny! Began with----”
“Oh, of course!” Knollys shook his shoulders impatiently. “His stories
always are funny. He’s always funny. He can’t help being funny. But
great Heavens, Hawley, he _can_ help being nothing else! It does seem to
me that a fellow ought to have something come to him besides a laugh.
He’s got an almighty fine face.”
“Right!” Genuine affection beamed from Hawley’s dog-eyes. “I--don’t you
suppose it’s rather because he--there’s never been any woman, I mean?”
The big “society man” lapsed into sudden shyness. “I think all
that--that sort of thing, y’know, makes a tremendous difference, old
chap.”
The other man met his eyes squarely. “So do I,” he said; and it was as
though their hands had gripped for the moment. “Yes, I daresay you’re
right: Warner’s never had much to do with women--now I think of it, I’ve
never seen him with one, except Ellen and Sheila, and then only at
parties, or when there’s some guest to help entertain, like now at your
house. Odd, too, for Warner’s just the sort that ought to succeed with a
woman----”
“Yes”--Hawley nodded--“devilish good-lookin’, plenty of money, and
er--what d’ye call it? Debonair, y’know; um-m, that’s it, debonair.
Asked Sheila what it meant, and she said the sort of person who could
tell you his own tragedy as though it were some one’s else. Poor little
Sheila! I’ll bet she’s having her own troubles this afternoon--a
tea-party and Lady Trot all together--whew! S’pose I’d better run along
and help ’em out, what?” He drained his glass regretfully. “Come up for
a bit, Plunkett?”
“Thanks”--Knollys too was reaching for his hat--“I’ve to do ‘notions’
for Ellen: beeswax and binding-tape, and er--ah, yes! Elastic, you
know! Pale blue, a yard and--and how much, Hawley?” Mr. Verplanck’s
aristocratic nose wrinkled thoughtfully. “Blessed if I know.”
Hawley roared. “Come on up, when you’ve found out,” he called, as they
left each other at the foot of the Club steps. “Warner’s sure to have
some ripping story for us; so--er--so deuced funny, y’know, Warner!”
* * * * *
In Sheila’s charming octagon room, an impatient little group of people
crowded about some one seated cross-legged on a quaint Chinese stool.
“Come, Sheila, do make him! He’s such a lazy beggar----”
“And he’s had his eternal three cups of tea; there’s not a particle of
excuse----”
“Warner, you Sphinx, unravel! We’re waiting, these fifteen minutes; why
are you invited, d’ye suppose, if not to tell stories? You’re no good at
all _en tête-à-tête_, you know.”
“My _dear_ Mr. Warner (it was a delightfully ugly old lady in a
marvelous tea-gown, who spoke to him), I’m afraid you really _must_
gratify them. Such noise--and my poor neuralgia--_really_!”
The person on the tabouret raised his careless attractive face to her,
smiling. “You win, Lady Trot! What shall it be, Sheila? Broad farce, or
screaming tragedy? Nothing so appallingly funny, you know, as a really
tremendous tragedy.”