The first scene of the play opened upon a handsome New York drawing
room, where preparations were evidently being made for a ball, for the
room was filled with flowers, and servants were seen walking in and out,
completing the final arrangements. Within a few moments two girls
wearing dainty tea gowns, stole quietly down the stairway and stood in
the center of the stage, discussing their approaching entertainment.
They were both pretty and fashionable young women, evidently about
eighteen and twenty-one. From their conversation it soon became evident
that they were of plain origin and making a desperate effort to secure a
place for themselves among the "smart set" in New York City. Moreover,
they were spending more money than they should in the effort. The father
had been an Irish politician, but, as he had died several years before,
no outsiders knew the extent of the family fortune. Upon the horizon
there was a friend upon whom much depended. He was evidently a member of
an old New York family and of far better social standing than the rest
of their acquaintances; moreover, he was wealthy, handsome and agreeable
and had paid the older of the two sisters, Kate, somewhat marked
attention.
When after a few moments' delay the second scene was revealed the ball
had already begun. The stage setting was remarkably beautiful, the
costumes charming and the dialogue clever. Yet so far the play had no
poignant interest, so that now and then Betty found her attention
wandering.
What could have made this little play such a pronounced success that the
dramatic critics had been almost universal in their praise of it? she
wondered. What special charm did it have which crowded the theater every
evening as it was crowded tonight? It was only a frivolous society drama
of a kind that must have been acted many times before.
Behind her lace handkerchief Betty gracefully concealed a yawn. Then she
glanced across the theater toward Margaret Adams' box, hoping she might
catch another smile or nod from the great lady. But Miss Adams was
leaning forward with her figure tense with interest and her eyes
fastened in eager expectancy upon a door at the rear of the stage. Back
of her, and it seemed to Betty even at this distance, that his face
looked unusually white and strained, stood Richard Hunt. Assuredly he
seemed as intent upon the play as Miss Adams.
Betty stared at the stage again. A dance had just ended, the guests were
separating into groups and standing about talking. But a timid knock now
sounded on the door which apparently no one heard. A moment later this
door is slowly opened. There followed a murmur of excitement, a little
electric thrill passing through the audience so that unexpectedly Betty
found her own pulses tingling with interest and excitement. What a goose
she had been! Surely she had heard half a dozen times at least that the
success of this new play was entirely due to the charm and talent of the
young actress, Peggy Moore, who took the part of the heroine.
At the open door the newcomer was seen hesitating. No one noticed her,
then she walked timidly forward and stood alone in the center of the
stage, one of the most appealing, delicious and picturesque of figures
in the world of fiction or reality.
The girl was wearing an absurd costume, a bright red blouse, open at the
throat, a plaid skirt too short for the slender legs beneath it and a
big flapping straw hat decorated with a single rose. In one hand she
carried an old-fashioned carpet bag and in the other a tiny Maltese
kitten. The girl had two long braids of black hair that hung below her
waist, scarlet lips, a white imploring face and wistful, humorous,
tender blue eyes.
Betty was growing cold to the tips of her fingers, although her face
flushed until it felt almost painful. Then she overheard a queer,
half-restrained sound near her and the next instant Mrs. Wharton leaned
forward from her place and placed a hand on her arm and on Mollie's.
"Yes, girls, it is Polly!" she whispered quietly, although with shining
eyes. "But please, please don't stir or do anything in the world to
attract her attention. It was Polly's own idea to surprise you like
this, and yet she is dreadfully afraid that the sight of you may make
her break down and forget her part. She is simply wonderful!"
Naturally this was a mother's opinion; however, nothing that Mrs.
Wharton was saying was making the slightest impression, for neither
Mollie nor Betty had heard a word.
For Moira, the little Irish girl, had begun to speak and everybody on
the stage was looking toward her, smiling and shrugging their shoulders,
except the two daughters of the house and their fashionable mother.
Moira had asked for her aunt, Mrs. Mulholland. She was not an emigrant
maid-of-all-work, as the guests presumed her to be, but a niece of the
wealthy household. She had crossed the ocean alone and was expecting a
welcome from her relatives.
At this point in the drama the hero came forward to the little Irish
maid's assistance. Then her aunt and cousins dared not display the anger
they felt for this undesired guest. Later it was explained that Moira
had been sent to New York by her old grandfather, who, fearing that he
was about to die, wished the girl looked after by her relatives. Moira's
father had been the son that stayed behind in Ireland. He had been
desperately poor and the grandfather was supposed to be equally so.
Then, of course, followed the history of the child's efforts to fit
herself into the insincere and unkind household.
Nothing remarkable in the story of the little play, surely, but
everything in the art with which Polly O'Neill acted it!
Tears and smiles, both in writing and acting: these are what the artist
desires as his true recognition. And Polly seldom spoke half a dozen
lines without receiving one or the other. Sometimes the smiles and tears
crowded so close together that the one had not sufficient time to thrust
the other away.
"I didn't dream the child had it in her: it is genius!" Margaret Adams
whispered to her companion, when the curtain had finally fallen on the
second act and she had leaned back in her chair with a sigh of mingled
pleasure and relief.
"She had my promise to say nothing until tonight. Yes, I have been in
the secret since last winter." Richard explained. "It was a blessed
accident Polly's finding just this particular kind of play. She could
have played no other so well while still so young. You see, she was
acting in a cheap stock company when a manager happened quite by chance
to discover her. But she will want to tell you the story herself. I must
not anticipate."
For a moment, instead of replying, Margaret Adams looked slightly
amazed. "I did not know that you and Polly were such great friends,
Richard, that she has preferred confiding in you to any one else," she
said at length.
Richard Hunt had taken his seat and was now watching the unconcealed
triumph and delight among the group of Polly's family and friends in the
box across the theater.
"I wasn't chosen; I was an accident," the man smiled. "Last winter in
Boston I met Polly--Miss O'Neill," he corrected himself, "and she told me
what she was trying to do, fight things out for herself without advice
or assistance from any one of us. But, of course, after I was taken into
her secret she allowed me to keep in touch with her now and then. The
child was lonely and dreadfully afraid you and her other friends would
not understand or forgive what she had tried to do."
"Polly is not exactly a child, Richard; she must be nearly twenty-two,"
Margaret Adams replied quietly.
In the final act the little Irish heroine had her hour of triumph. The
hero had fallen in love with her instead of with the fashionable cousin.
Yet Moira was not the pauper her relatives had believed her, for the old
grandfather had recently died and his solicitor appeared with his will.
The Irish township had purchased his acres of supposedly worthless land
and Moira was proclaimed an heiress.
At the end Polly was her gayest, most inimitable, laughing self. Half a
dozen times Betty, Mollie and Sylvia found themselves forgetting that
she was acting at all. How many times had they not known her just as
wilful and charming, their Polly of a hundred swift, succeeding moods.
Moira was not angry with any one in the world, certainly not with the
cousins who had been almost cruel to her. During her stay among them she
had learned of their need of money and was now quick to offer all that
she had. She was so generous, so happy, and with it all so petulant and
charming, that at last even the stern aunt and the envious cousins
succumbed to her.
Then the curtain descended on a very differently clad heroine, but one
who was essentially unchanged. Moira was dressed in a white satin made
in the latest and most exquisite fashion; and her black hair was
beautifully arranged on her small, graceful head. Only the people who
loved her could have dreamed that Polly O'Neill would ever look so
pretty. And in one hand the girl was holding a single red rose, though
under the other arm she was still clutching her beloved Maltese cat.
"Polly will not answer any curtain calls tonight," Mrs. Wharton
whispered hurriedly when the last scene was over. "If the others will
excuse us she has asked that only Sylvia, Betty and Mollie come to her
room. Margaret Adams will be there, but no one else. She is very tired
at the close of her performances, but she is afraid you girls may not
forgive her long silence and her deception. Will you come this way with
me?"