The dinner was on Monday. On Wednesday morning she met him at the Fort
Lee Ferry at seven o'clock for one of their rare tramps. She wore
high-laced boots of soft leather, a short skirt and jersey and a soft
hat; and if she had met any of her guests of that memorable dinner they
would have looked profoundly thoughtful, and renounced whatever hope of
having seared her to the bone they may have cherished. She strode
through the woods above the Palisades beside Clavering with high head
and sparkling eyes, her arms swinging like a schoolboy's. It was
evident even to him, who had waited for her anxiously, that she had
rubbed a sponge over her memory. She was in high spirits and looked as
if she had not a care in the world.
There was a soft mist of green on the trees of the wood, a few birds
had already migrated northward, their own world-old wireless having
warned them of the early awakening of spring after an unusually mild
winter, and they were singing their matins.
She did not seem inclined for more than desultory conversation, but she
had the gift of making silence eloquent, and Clavering, his fears
banished, although by no means at peace, gave himself up to the
pleasure of the moment. They walked briskly for several miles, then
had their breakfast at a roadside inn; and both were so hungry that
they talked even less than before. But there was little need for words
between them; the current was too strong, and both were merely vital
beings to whom companionship and healthy exercise were the highest good
at the moment.
During the long walk back to the ferry she talked with a certain
excitement. But it was all of the woods of Austria, the carefully
tended woods with their leaping stags, their winding paths where no
trolley-cars over-laden with commuters rushed shrieking by, their
enchanting vistas with a green lake at the end, or a monastery, or a
castle on a lofty rock. She told him of the river Inn roaring through
its gorges, with its solitary mills, its clustered old villages huddled
at the foot of the heavy silent woods and forgotten by the world. The
millers were all old men now, no doubt, and the poor villages inhabited
only by women and children. Or blinded and broken men who had dragged
themselves back from the war to exist where they once had given life
and energy to that quiet valley of the Inn. If this made her sad for a
moment it was purely an impersonal sadness, and when they parted on the
New York side of the ferry Clavering had forgotten his doubts and went
back to his work with a light heart and an untroubled mind.
The play was almost finished, and its chances for swift production were
far greater than is usually the case with the new adventurer into the
most inhospitable of all fields of artistic endeavor. Adrian Hogarth,
who had a play on Broadway every year, and Edwin Scores, who had
recently exchanged the esteem of the few for the enthusiasm of The
Public, had read it act by act and given him the practical advice he
needed. A dramatic critic always believes he knows more about plays
than any one else until he attempts to write one, but Clavering, at
least, if not unduly modest, was too anxious to succeed not to welcome
all the help he could get.
They even "sat in" with him during the final revision, and the dispute
was hot over the last act, an act so daring in technique they were
loath to believe that even Clavering, whose striking gifts they had
always recognized, could "put it over." Moreover, there was only one
woman on the American stage who could act it and that was Margaret
Anglin. If it didn't appeal to her he might as well dock it. The
younger actresses, clever as some of them were, had so far given no
evidence of sustained emotional power. During the entire act no one
was on the stage but the woman and she sat at a telephone talking with
the man who controlled her destiny. Not only must that one-sided
dialogue give as sharp and clear an idea of what the man was saying as
if he had been present, with the vivid personality, the gestures and
the mobile face he must have for the part, but the conversation,
beginning in happy confidence, ran the gamut of the emotions,
portraying a war of wills and souls, and rising to inexorable spiritual
tragedy. It was a scene whose like had never before been attempted
without both protagonists on the stage, and it lasted twenty-five
minutes; a scene as difficult to write as to act; but the two
playwrights admitted that in the deft use of words which, without
repetitions by the woman, left the audience in no doubt what the man
was saying, made it almost possible to see him, and in the rising scale
of emotion, the act was a surpassingly brilliant piece of work.
Clavering rewrote it fourteen times, and Hogarth and Scores were
finally almost as excited as himself, although it was the last sort of
thing either would have "tackled." Whatever the originality of their
own ideas they were careful to stick to the orthodox in treatment,
knowing the striking lack of originality in audiences.
Gora Dwight was more enthusiastic than he had ever known her to be over
anything, and one night he read the play to a select few at her house.
Abbott was there and two other critics, as well as Suzan Forbes and her
distinguished consort, De Witt Turner.
The critics preserved their ferocious and frozen demeanor common to
first-nights and less common where cocktails were plentiful. Not for
them to encourage a tyro and a confrère, as if they were mere friends
and well-wishers. They left that to the others, but after the last act
had been discussed with fury, Abbott arose and said with a yawn:
"Oh, well, what's the use? It's about the hardest play for actors ever
written and the audience will either crack on that last act or pass
away of their own emotions. It would be the former if any one else had
written the damn thing, but it'll go because it isn't time yet for the
Clavering luck to break. You'll get it in the neck, old man, one of
these days, and when you least expect it. You're one of Fate's pets,
her pampered pup, and she'll purr over you until she has you besotted,
and then she'll give you such a skinning that you'll wish you were
little Jimmy Jones, cub reporter, with a snub nose and freckles. I
only hope to be in at the death to gloat." Then he shot out his hand.
"Good stuff, Clavey. Congratulate you. Count on me."
And he drank a highball and waddled out.
The others, expressing their congratulations in various keys, soon
followed, and Clavering was left alone with Gora. He was flushed and
restless, but he doubted if he would feel happier on the first-night
with the entire Sophisticate body howling for "author." He had been
more afraid of Abbott and the two other critics than he, a hardened
critic himself, had dared admit.
Gora watched him from her ottoman, where she sat stark upright, as
usual, and smoking calmly. But her cold gray eyes were softer than
usual. She knew exactly how he felt and rejoiced with him, but her
expression in the long silence grew more and more thoughtful. Finally
she threw away her cigarette and said abruptly:
"Clavey."
"Yes, Gora." He had been wandering about the room, but he halted in
front of her, smiling.
She smiled also. "You do look so happy. But you're such a mercurial
creature that you'll probably wake up tomorrow morning with your soul
steeped in indigo."
"Oh, no, I won't. It isn't as if I had nothing else in my life." Gora
alone knew of his engagement to Mary Zattiany.
"That is it. I want to say something. I know you'll be angry with me,
but just remember that I am not speaking as a friend, merely as an
artist."
"What are you driving at?" Some of the exultation faded from
Clavering's face.
"This. I no longer want you to marry Madame Zattiany. She's served
her purpose."