The next morning Pennock did not call Sheila till the last moment. Then
her breakfast was on the table and her bath in the tub. The old dragon
had again forbidden the telephone operator to ring the bell, and the
bell-boys that came to the door with messages from Bret she shooed away.
Sheila found on her breakfast-tray a small stack of notes from Bret.
They ranged from incredulous amazement at her neglect to towering rage.
Sheila was still new enough to wedlock to feel sorrier for him than for
herself. She had a dim feeling that Bret had in him the makings of a
very difficult specimen of that most difficult class, the prima donna’s
husband. But she blamed her profession and hated the theater and Reben
for tormenting her poor, patient, devoted, long-suffering lover.
Yet as the soldier bridegroom, however he hates the war, obeys his
captain none the less, so Sheila never dreamed of mutiny. She was an
actor’s daughter and no treachery could be worse than to desert a
manager, a company, and a work of art at the crisis of the whole
investment. She regretted that she was not even giving her whole mind
and ambition to her work. But how could she with her husband in such a
plight?
She wrote Bret a little note of mad regret, abject apology, and insane
devotion, and asked Pennock to get it to him at once.
Pennock growled: “You better give that young man to me. You’ll never
have time to see him. And his jealousy is simply dretful.”
At the theater Sheila met Reben in a morning-after mood. He had had
little sleep and he was sure that the play was hopeless. The only thing
that could have cured him would have been a line of people at the
box-office. The lobby was empty, and few spaces can look quite so empty
as a theater lobby. The box-office man spoke to him, too, with a
familiarity based undoubtedly on the notices.
One of the papers published a fulsome eulogy that Starr Coleman would
not have dared to submit. Of the opposite tenor was the slashing abuse
of a more important paper that nursed one of those critics of which each
town has at least a single specimen—the local Archilochus whose similar
ambition seems to be to drive the objects of his satire to suicide.
His chief support is his knowledge that his readers enjoy his vigor in
pelting transient actors as a small boy throws rocks at express trains.
His highest reward is the town boast, “We got a critic can roast an
actor as good as anybuddy in N’York, and ain’t afraid to do it, either.”
As children these humorists first show their genius by placing bent pins
on chairs; later they pull the chairs from under old ladies and start
baby-carriages on a downward path. Every day is April fool to them.
Reben was always arguing that critics had nothing to do with success or
failure and always ready to document his argument, and always trembled
before them, none the less. It is small wonder that critics learn to
secrete vitriol, since their praise makes so little effect and only
their acid etches.
Reben had tossed aside the paper that praised his company and his play,
but he clipped the hostile articles. The play-roaster began, as usual,
with a pun on the title, “The Woman Pays but the audience won’t.”
As a matter of fact, Reben was about convinced that the play was a
failure. It had succeeded in France because it was written for the
French. The process of adaptation had taken away its Gallic brilliance
without adding any Anglo-Saxon trickery. Reben would make a fight for
it, before he gave up, but he had a cold, dismal intuition which he
summed up to Batterson in that simple fatal phrase:
“It won’t do.”
He did not tell Sheila so, lest he hurt her work, but he told Prior that
the play was deficient in viscera—only he used the grand old
Anglo-Saxon phrasing.
He gave Prior some ideas for the visceration of the play and set him to
work on a radical reconstruction, chiefly involving a powerful injection
of heart-interest. Till this was ready there was no use meddling with
details.
When Sheila reached the theater the rehearsal was brief and perfunctory.
Reben explained the situation, and told her to take a good rest and give
a performance at night. He had only one suggestion:
“Put more pep in the love-scenes and restore the clutch at the last
curtain.”
Sheila gasped, “But I thought it was so much more artistic the way we
played it last night.”
Reben laughed: “Ah, behave! When the curtain fell last night the thud
could be heard a mile. The people thought it fell by accident. If the
box-office hadn’t been closed they’d have hollered for their money back.
You jump into Eldon’s arms to-night and hug as hard as you can. The same
to you, Eldon. It’s youth and love they come to see, not artistic
omissions.”
Sheila felt grave misgivings as to the effect of the restoration on her
own arch-critic and private audience. But she rejoiced at being granted
a holiday. She telephoned to Bret from a drug-store.
“I’ve got a day off, honey. Isn’t it gee-lo-rious!”
Then she sped to him as fast as a taxicab could take her. He had an
avalanche of grievances waiting for her, but the sight of her beauty
running home to him melted the stored-up snows. The chafing-dish was
still in place after its all-night vigil, and it cooked a luncheon that
rivaled quails and manna.
That afternoon Bret chartered a motor and they rode afar. They talked
much of their first moonlight ride. It was still moonlight about them,
though people better acquainted with the region would have called it
afternoon sunlight. When Bret kissed her now she did not complain or
threaten. In fact, she complained and threatened when he did not kiss
her.
They dined outside the city walls and scudded home in the sunset. Sheila
would not let Bret take her near the theater, lest he be seen. Indeed,
she begged him not to go to the theater at all that night, but to spend
the hours of waiting at the vaudeville or some moving-picture house. He
protested that he did not want her out of his sight.
The reason she gave was not the real one: “Everybody always plays badly
at a second performance, honey. I’d hate to have you see how badly I can
play. Please don’t go to-night.”
He consented sulkily; she had a hope that the romantic emphasis Reben
had commanded and the final embrace would fail so badly that he would
not insist on their retention. She did not want Bret to see the
experiment. But there was no denying that warmth helped the play
immensely. Sheila’s increased success distressed her. Her marriage had
tied all her ambitions into such a snarl that she could be true neither
to Bret nor to Reben and least of all to herself.
Reben was jubilant. “What d’I tell you? That’s what they pay for; a lot
of heart-throbs and one or two big punches. We’ll get ’em yet. Will you
have a bite of supper with us to-night?”
“Thanks ever so much,” said Sheila. “I have an engagement
with—friends.”
She simply had not the courage to use the singular.
Reben laughed: “So long as it’s not just one. By the by, where were you
all day? I tried all afternoon to get you at the hotel. I wanted to take
you out for a little fresh air.”
“That’s awfully nice of you, but I got the air. I—I was motoring.”
“With friendzz?” he asked, peculiarly.
“Naturally not with enemies.”
She thought that rather quick work. But he gave her a suspicious look.
“Remember, Sheila—your picture is pasted all over town. These small
cities are gossip-factories. Be careful. Remember the old saying, if you
can’t be good, be careful.”
She blushed scarlet and protested, “Mr. Reben!”
He apologized in haste, convinced that his suspicions were outrageous,
and glad to be wrong. He added: “I’ve got good news for you: the office
sale for to-morrow’s matinee and night shows a little jump. That tells
the story. When the business grows, we can laugh at the critics.”
“Fine!” said Sheila, half-heartedly. Then she hurried from the theater
to the carriage waiting at the appointed spot. The door opened magically
and she was drawn into the dark and cuddled into the arms of her
“friends,” her family, her world.
After the first informalities Bret asked, “Well, how did it go?”
“Pretty well, everybody said. But it needs a lot of work. Reben is sure
we’ve got a success, eventually.”
“That’s good,” Bret sighed.
When they reached the hotel they found that they had neglected to
provide supplies for the chafing-dish. Sheila was hungry.
“We’re old married people now,” said Sheila. “Let’s have supper in the
dining-room. There’ll be nobody we know in this little hotel.”
They took supper in the little dining-room. There were only two other
people there. Sheila noted that they stared at her with frank delight
and plainly kept talking about her. She was used to it; Winfield did not
see anybody on earth but Sheila.
“Kind of nice being together in public like decent people,” he beamed.
“Isn’t it?” she gleamed.
“Let’s have another motor-ride to-morrow afternoon.”
“I can’t, honey. It’s matinée day.”
“We’ll get up early and go in the morning, then.”
“Oh, but I’ve got to sleep as late as I can, honey! It’s a hard day for
me.”
The next morning they had breakfast served in their apartment at twelve
o’clock. She called it breakfast. It was lunch for Bret.
He had stolen out of the darkened room at eight and gone down to his
breakfast in the cafe. He had dawdled about the town, buying her flowers
and gifts. When he got back at eleven she was still asleep. She looked
as if she had been drowned.
He sat in the dim light till it was time to call her. They were eating
grapefruit out of the same spoon when the telephone rang. A gruff voice
greeted Bret:
“Is this Mr. Winfield?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Is—Miss—is Sheila there?”
“Ye—yes. Who are you?”
“Mr. Reben.”