In a similar tempest of infinitely much ado about next to nothing the
distant Bret Winfield was browbeating himself silently, pleading with
himself not to disgrace himself by running away from his loathsome
factory. His father needed his presence, and Sheila needed his absence.
But gusts of desire for the sight of her swept through him like manias.
He would try to reach her on the long-distance telephone. At the
theater, where there was as yet no one in the box-office, it was usually
impossible to get an answer or to get a message delivered. The
attendants would as soon have called a priest from mass as an actor from
rehearsal. Sometimes, after hours of search with the long-distance
probe, he would find Sheila at the hotel and they would pour out their
longings across the distance till strange voices broke in and mocked
their sentimentalities or begged them to get off the wire. It was
strange to be eavesdropped by ghosts whose names or even whereabouts one
could never know.
Winfield’s mother observed her son’s distress and insisted that he was
ill. She demanded that he see a doctor; it might be some lingering fever
or something infectious. It was both, but there is no inoculation, no
antitoxin, yet discovered to prevent the attack on a normal being. The
mumps, scarlet fever, malaria, typhoid and other ailments have their
serums, but love has none. Light attacks of those affections procure
immunity, but not of this.
Winfield finally told his mother what his malady was. “Mother, I’m in
love—mad crazy about a girl.”
Mrs. Winfield smiled. “You always are.”
“It’s real this time—”
“It always was.”
“It means marriage.”
This was not so amusing.
“Who is she?”
“Nobody you ever saw.”
This was reassuring. Mrs. Winfield had never seen any girl in town quite
good enough for her daughter-in-law.
Mrs. Winfield was very strict, and very religious in so far as religion
is concerned with trying one’s neighbors as well as oneself by very
lofty and very inelastic laws of conduct.
Bret dreaded to tell his mother who Sheila was or what she was. He knew
her opinion of the stage and its people. She had not expressed it often
because she winced even at the mention of hopelessly improper subjects
like French literature, the theater, classic art, playing cards, the
works of Herbert Spencer, Ouida, Huxley, and people like that.
She knew so little of the theater that when she made him tell her the
girl’s name, “Sheila Kemble” meant nothing to her.
Mrs. Winfield demanded full information on the vital subject of her
son’s fiancée. Bret dodged her cross-examination in vain. He dilated on
Sheila’s beauty, her culture, her fascination, her devotion to him. But
those were details; Mrs. Winfield wanted to know the important things:
“What church does she belong to?”
“I never thought to ask her.”
“Are her people in good circumstances?”
“Very!”
“What is her father’s business?”
“Er—he’s a professional man.”
“Oh! A lawyer?”
“No.”
“Doctor?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Er—well—you see—he’s very successful. He’s famous in his line—makes
a heap of money. He stands very high in his profession.”
“That’s good, but what is it?”
“Why—he— If you knew him—you’d be proud to have him for a
father-in-law or—a—whatever relative he’d be to you.”
“No doubt; but what _does_ this wonderful man do for a living?”
“He’s an actor.”
Mrs. Winfield would have screamed the word in echo, but she was too
weak. When she got her breath she hardly knew which of the myriad
objections to mention first.
“An actor! You are engaged to the daughter of an actor! Why, that’s
nearly as bad as if she were an actress herself!”
Bret mumbled, “Sheila is an actress.”
Then he ran for a glass of water.
At length his mother rallied sufficiently to flutter tenderly, with a
mother’s infinite capacity for forgiving her children—and nobody else:
“Oh, Bret! Bret! has my poor boy gone and fallen into the snare of some
adventuress—some bad, bad woman?”
“Hush, mother; you mustn’t speak so. Sheila is a good girl, the best in
the world.”
“I thought you said she was an actress.”
This seemed to end the argument, but he amazed her by proceeding: “She
is! and a fine one, the best actress in the country—in the world.”
When Mrs. Winfield tried to prove from the profundity of her ignorance
and her prejudice that an actress must be doomed he put his hand over
his ears till she stopped. Then she began again:
“And are you going to follow this angel about, or is she going to
reform?”
“She can’t quit just now. She has a contract, but after this season
she’ll stop, and then we’ll get married.”
Mrs. Winfield caught at this eagerly. “You’re not going to marry her at
once then?”
“No. I wish I could, but she can’t break her contract.”
Mrs. Winfield smiled and settled back with relief. She felt as if an
earthquake had passed by, leaving her alive and the house still on its
foundations. She knew Bret and she was sure that any marriage scheduled
for next year was as good as canceled already.
She wanted nothing more said about it. Her son’s relations with an
actress might be deplorable, but, fortunately, they were only transient
and need not be discussed.
But Bret would not permit his love to be dismissed with scorn. He
insisted that he adored Sheila and that she was adorable. He produced
photographs of her, and the mother could not deny the girl’s beauty. But
she regarded it with an eye of such hostility that she found all the
guiles and wiles that she wanted to find in it.
Bret insisted on his mother’s meeting Sheila, which she refused to do.
She announced that she would not meet her if she became his wife. She
would not permit the creature to sully her home. She warned Bret not to
mention it to his father, for the old man’s heart was weak and he was
discouraged enough over the conflict with the scales trust. The shock of
a stage scandal might kill him.
The elder Winfield wandered into the dispute at its height. He insisted
on knowing what it was. His wife tried to break it to him gently and
nearly drove him mad with her delay. When she finally reached the
horrible disclosure he did not swoon; he just laughed.
“Is that all! Mother, where’s your common sense of humor? The young cub
has been sowing some wild oats and he’s trying to spare your feelings.
Think nothing more about it. Bret is going to settle down to work, and
he won’t have time for much more foolishness. And now let’s drop it. Get
your things packed and mine, for I’ve got to run over to New York for a
board of directors’ meeting with some big interests, and while I’m there
I’ll just go to a real doctor. These fossils here all prescribe the same
pills.”
Bret glared at his father almost contemptuously. He was heavily
disappointed in his parents. They were unable to rise to a noble
occasion.
An inspiration occurred to him. Their trip to New York came pat to his
necessities. They had been cold to his description of Sheila. But once
they met her, they could not but be swept off their feet—not if they
had his blood in their veins.
He sent a voluminous telegram to Sheila asking her to call on his father
and mother and make them hers. It was a manlike outrage on the etiquette
of calls, but Sheila cared little for conventions of the stupid sort.
Bret could not persuade his mother to consent to meet Sheila and be
polite until he implored her to treat Sheila at least with the humanity
deserved by a Magdalen. That magic word disarmed Mrs. Winfield and gave
her the courage of a missionary. She saw that it was plainly her duty to
see the misguided creature. She might persuade her to change her ways.
Of course she would incidentally persuade her of the impossibility of a
marriage with Bret. She would appeal to the girl’s better nature, for
she imagined that even an actress was not totally depraved.
In an important conference with her husband Mrs. Winfield drew up a
splendid campaign. She would try the effect of reason, and, if she
failed, her husband would bring up the heavy artillery.
Mr. Charles Winfield determined to do his share by pointing out to the
woman that Bret had no income and would have none. This would scare the
creature away, for she was undoubtedly after the boy’s money. What else
could she want? If worst came to worst, they might even buy her off. A
few thousand dollars would be a cheap blackmail to pay for the release
of their son.
* * * * *
The train that carried the elder Winfields to the ordeal of meeting with
the threatening invader of their family was due in New York in the
forenoon.
When Charles Winfield bought a paper to glance over it during his
dining-car breakfast he was pleased to find a brief mention of the
meeting of the directors. His own name was included in small type, with
the initials wrong. Still, it was pleasant to be named in a New York
paper.
As he turned the page he was startled to see a familiar face pop up
before him as if with a cheerful “Good morning!” He studied it. It was
familiar, but he could not place it. He read the name beneath—“Sheila
Kemble”!
It was a large portrait and the text accompanying it was an adroit piece
of press-agency. Reben’s publicity man, Starr Coleman, had smuggled past
the dramatic editor’s jealous guard a convincing piece of fiction
purporting to describe Sheila’s opinions on woman suffrage as it would
affect the home. He had been unable to get at Sheila during rehearsals
and he had concocted the interview out of his own head.
Winfield passed the paper across to his wife. Both were decidedly
shaken. Winfield’s logical mind automatically worked out a problem in
ratio. If he himself felt important because a New York newspaper
included his name in a list of arrivals, how important was Sheila, who
received half a column of quotation and a photograph?
Furthermore, Sheila’s name was coupled with that of a prominent woman
whose social distinction was nation-wide.
Mrs. Winfield fetched forth her spectacles, read Sheila’s dictum
carefully and with some awe. There were two or three words in it that
Mrs. Winfield could not understand—neither could Sheila when she read
it. Starr Coleman liked big words. But in any case the interview scared
Mrs. Winfield out of her scheme to play the missionary. By the same
token Mr. Winfield decided not to offer Sheila a bribe.
Their plans were in complete disarray when they reached New York.
They had not been settled long in their hotel when the telephone-bell
rang.
Mrs. Winfield answered the call, since her husband was belatedly shaving
himself.
The telephone operator said, “M’ Skemble to speak to M’ Swinfield.”
Mrs. Winfield’s heart began to skip. She answered, feebly, “This is Mrs.
Winfield.”
The operator snapped, “Go ahead,” and another voice appeared, putting
extraordinary music into a lyrical “Hello!”
Mrs. Winfield answered: “Hello! This is Mrs. Winfield.”
“Oh, how do you do? This is Mrs. Kemble, Sheila’s mother. Your son asked
her to call you up as soon as you got in, but she is rehearsing and
asked me to.”
“That’s very n-nice of you.”
“Why, thank you. Your son probably explained to you that Sheila is a
horribly busy young woman. I know you are busy, too. You’ll be doing a
lot of shopping, I presume. I should like to call on you as one helpless
parent on another, but my husband and I are leaving in a day or two for
one of our awful tours to the Coast. The ocean is so beautiful that I
wondered if you wouldn’t be willing to run out here and take dinner with
us to-night.”
Mrs. Winfield’s wits were so scattered that she had not the strength
even to improvise another engagement. She was not an agile liar. She
murmured, feebly: “It would be very nice. Thank you.”
Then the irresistible Polly Farren voice purred on: “That’s splendid!
We’ll send our car for you. It’s not a long run out here, and the car
can bring Sheila out at the same time. You can have a little visit
together.”
“That would be very nice. Thank you,” Mrs. Winfield babbled.
“One more thing, if I may,” Polly chanted. “Our town car is in New York.
It took Sheila in, you know. The driver has nothing at all to do till
five. My husband says he would be ever so pleased if you’d let me put it
at your disposal. Please call it your very own while you’re in the city,
won’t you? The chauffeur is quite reliable, really.”
Poor Mrs. Winfield could only wail, “Hold the wire a moment, please.”
She was unutterably miserable. She dropped the receiver and called her
lather-jawed husband in conference. They whispered like two
counterfeiters with the police at the door. They could see no way of
escape without brutality.
Mrs. Winfield took up the receiver and wailed, “My husband says it is
very nice of you and of course we accept.”
“Oh, that’s splendid!” throbbed in her ear. “I’ll telephone the man to
call for you at once. Good-by till dinner, then. Good-by.”
Mr. Winfield glared at his wife, and she looked away, sighing:
“She has a right nice voice, anyway.”