Meanwhile Sheila was immured with her husband. She sent Pennock away and
locked the door, pressed Bret into a chair, and knelt against his knee
and stretched her arms up.
“What is it, honey? What’s happened? I didn’t know you were within a
thousand miles of here.”
He was still ugly enough to growl, “Evidently not!”
She seemed to understand and recoiled from him, sank back on her heels
as if his fist had struck her down. “What do you mean?” she whispered.
“That I—I—You can’t mean you distrust me?”
“That dog loves you and you—”
“Don’t say it!” She rose to her knees again and put up her hands. “I
could never forgive you if you said that now—and our honeymoon just
begun.”
“Honeymoon!” he laughed. “Look at this.” He held up his right hand.
Grease-paint from Eldon’s jaw was on his knuckles. He put his finger on
her cheek and it was covered with the same unction. Then he rubbed the
odious ointment from his hands. She blushed under her rouge.
“I know it’s been a pitiful honeymoon. But I couldn’t help it, Bret. I
did what I could. It has been harder for me than for you, and I’m just
worn out. There’s no joy in the world for me. The success is nothing.”
“He loves you, I tell you, and you let him make love to you.”
“Of course, honey; it’s in the play; it’s in the play!”
“Not love like that. Why, everybody in the audience was saying it was
real. All the people round me were saying you two were in love with each
other.”
“That’s what we were working for, isn’t it?”
“Oh, not the characters, but you two; you and Eldon. Couldn’t I see how
he looked at you, how you looked at him, how you—you crushed him in
your arms?”
“How else could we show that the characters were madly in love with each
other, dear?”
“But you didn’t have to play it so earnestly.”
“It wouldn’t be honest not to do our best, would it? Can’t you
understand?”
“I can understand that my wife was in the arms of a man that loves her,
and that even if you don’t love him, you pretended to, and he took
advantage of it to—to—to kiss you!”
“Why, he didn’t kiss me, honey.”
“I saw him.”
“No, you didn’t. We just pretended to kiss each other. Not that a stage
kiss makes any difference with rouge pressing on grease-paint—but,
anyway, he didn’t.”
“You’ll be telling me he didn’t make love to you next.”
“Of course he didn’t, honey. We’d be fined for it if Reben or Batterson
had noticed it; but the fact is we were trying to break each other up.
Actors are always doing that when they’re sure of a success. We’ve been
under a heavy strain, you know, and now we let down a little.”
Bret could hardly believe what he wanted so to believe—that while the
audience was sobbing the actors were juggling with emotions, the mere
properties of their trade. He asked, grimly, “If he wasn’t making love
to you, what was he saying?”
“It was nothing very clever. He’s not witty, Eldon; he’s rather heavy
when he tries to write his own stuff. He accused me of letting the scene
lag, and he was whispering to me that I was ‘asleep at the switch, and
the switch was falling off,’ and I answered him back that Dulcie Ormerod
would please him better.”
“Dulcie Ormerod? Who’s Dulcie Ormerod?”
“Oh, she’s a little tike of an actress that took my place in the ‘Friend
in Need’ company a long while ago. And she’s come on here to be my
understudy. Eldon hates her because she makes love to him all the time.”
Bret’s gaze pierced her eyes, trying to find a lie behind their defense.
“And you dare to tell me that you and Eldon were joking?”
“Of course we were, honey. If I’d been in love with him I wouldn’t
choose the theater to display it in, with a packed house watching, would
I? If we’d been carried away with our own emotion we’d have played the
scene badly.
“Another thing happened. Batterson noticed that something was wrong with
our work, and he stood in the wings close to me and began to whip us up.
He was snarling at us: ‘Get to work, you two. Put some ginger in it.’
And he swore at us. That made us work harder.”
Bret was dumfounded. “You mean to tell me that you played a love-scene
better because the stage-manager was swearing at you?”
Sheila frowned at his ignorance. “Of course, you dear old stupid. Acting
is like horse-racing. Sometimes we need the spur and the whip; sometimes
we need a kind word or a pat on the head. Acting is a business, honey.
Can’t you understand? We played it well because it’s a business and we
know our business. If you can’t understand the first thing about my
profession I might as well give it up.”
“That’s one thing we agree on, thank God.”
“Oh, I’d be glad to quit any time. I’m worn out. I don’t like this play.
It hasn’t a new idea in it. I’m tired of it already and I dread the
thought of going on with it for a year—two years, maybe. I wish I could
quit to-night.”
“You’re going to.”
She was startled by the quiet conviction of his tone. Again she sighed:
“If I only could!”
“I mean it, Sheila,” he declared. “This is your last night on the stage
or your last night as my wife.”
She studied him narrowly. He really meant it! He went on:
“Joking or no joking, you were in another man’s arms and you had no idea
when you were coming home. We have no home. I have no wife. It can’t go
on. You come back with me to-morrow or I go back alone for good and
all.”
“But Reben—” she interposed, helpless between the millstones of her two
destinies as woman and artist.
“I’ll settle with Reben.”
She hardly pondered the decision. Suddenly it was made for her. She
looked at her husband and felt that she belonged to him first, last, and
forever. She was at the period when all her inheritances and all nature
commanded her to be woman, to be wife to her man. It was good to have
him decide for her.
She dropped to the floor again and breathed a little final, comfortable,
“All right.”
Bret bent over and caught her up into his arms with a strength that
assured her protection against all other claimants of her, and he kissed
her with a contented certainty that he had never known before. Then he
set her on her feet and said with a noble authority:
“Hurry and get out of those things and into your own.”
She laughed at his magistral tone, and her last act of independence was
to put him out of the actress’s room and call Pennock to her aid. Bret
stood guard in the corridor. If he had had any qualms of conscience they
would have been eased by the sound of Sheila’s cheerful voice as she
made old Pennock bestir herself.
At length Sheila emerged with no trace of the actress about her, just a
neat little, tight little armful of wife.
As they were about to turn out at the stage door they saw Reben
lingering in the wings. He beckoned to Sheila and called her by name.
She moved toward him, not because he was her boss, but because he did
not know that he was not. She rejoiced to feel that she had changed
masters. Her husband, already the protector and champion, motioned her
back and went to Reben in her stead.
“I wanted Miss Kemble,” Reben said, very coldly.
To which Bret retorted, calmly, “Mrs. Winfield has decided to resign
from your company.”
Reben had fought himself to a state of self-control. He had resolved to
leave Sheila and Bret to settle their own feud. He would observe a
strict neutrality. His business was to keep the company together and at
work. The word “resign” alarmed him anew.
“Resign!” he gasped. “When?”
“To-night.”
“Nonsense! She plays to-morrow.”
“She cannot play to-morrow.”
“She is ill? I don’t wonder, after such scenes. Her understudy might get
through to-morrow night, but after that she must appear.”
“She cannot appear again.”
“My dear fellow, I have a contract.”
“I am breaking the contract.”
“Your name is not on the contract.”
“It is on a contract of marriage.”
“So you told me. She plays, just the same.”
“She does not play.”
“I will make her play.”
“How?”
“I—She—You—Sheila, you can’t put such a trick on me.”
Sheila crept forward to interpose again: “I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Reben.
But my husband—”
“Have I treated you badly? Have I neglected anything? Have I done you
any injury?”
“No, no. I have no fault to find with you, Mr. Reben. But my husband—”
“Before you married him—before you met him, you promised me—”
“I know. I’m terribly sorry, but my duty to my husband is my highest
duty. Please forgive me, but I can’t play any more.”
“You shall play. I have invested a fortune in your future. I have made
you a success. You can’t desert me and the company now. You can’t! You
sha’n’t, by—”
Sheila shook her head. She was done with the stage. Reben was throttled
with his own anger. He turned again on Winfield and shook a jeweled fist
under his nose:
“This is your infernal meddling. You get out of here and never come near
again.”
Winfield pressed Reben’s fist down with a quiet strength. “We’re not
going to.”
“You, I mean; not Sheila. Sheila belongs to me. She is my star. I made
her. I need her. She means a fortune to me.”
“How much of a fortune does she mean to you?”
“I will clear a hundred thousand dollars from this piece at least; a
hundred thousand dollars! You think I will let you rob me of that?”
“I’m not going to. I will pay you that much to cancel her contract.”
Reben gasped in his face. “You—you will pay me
a—hun—dred—thou—sand—dol—lars?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I haven’t that much cash in the bank.”
“Ha, ha! I guess not!”
“But I will pay it to you long before Sheila could earn it for you.”
“I will believe that when I see it.”
“I haven’t my check-book with me. I will send you a check for ten
thousand on account to-morrow morning.”
Reben laughed wildly at him. Bret took out his card-case. There was a
small gold pencil on his key-chain. He wrote a few words and handed the
card to Reben:
──────────────────────────────
_I O U $100,000_
=MR. BRET WINFIELD=
_Bret Winfield_
──────────────────────────────
Reben tossed his mane in scorn.
Bret answered: “It is a debt of honor. I’m able to pay it and I will.”
Reben stared up into the man’s cold eyes, looked down at the card,
tightened his mouth, put the card into his pocketbook, and snarled:
“Honor! We’ll see. Now get out—both of you!”
Winfield accepted the dismissal with a smile of pride, and, turning,
took Sheila’s arm and led her away.
“Oh, Bret! Bret!” she moaned.
“Don’t you worry, honey. You’re worth it,” he laughed.
“I wonder!” she sighed.
* * * * *
The next morning after breakfast Bret sat down to write the
ten-thousand-dollar check. “It makes an awful hole in my back account,”
he said, “but it heals a bigger one in my heart.”
Just then a note was brought to the door. When he opened it the “I O U”
torn into small bits fell into his hands from a sheet of letter-paper
containing these words:
MY DEAR MR. WINFIELD,—Please find inclosed a little
wedding-present for your charming bride. One of the unavoidable
hazards of the manager’s life is the fatal curiosity of
actresses concerning the experiment of marriage. Please tell
Miss Kemble—I should say Mrs. Winfield—that no fear of
inconveniencing me must disturb her honeymoon. Miss Dulcie
Ormerod will step into her vacant shoes and fill them nicely. I
cannot return her contract, as it is in my safe in New York. I
will leave it there until she feels that her vacation is over,
when I shall be glad to renew it. The clever little lady
insisted on cutting out the two weeks’ clause in her contract
with me—I wonder if she left it in yours.
With all felicitation, I am, dear Mr. and Mrs. Winfield,
Faithfully yours,
HENRY REBEN.
BRET WINFIELD, Esq.
Sheila read the ironic words across Bret’s arm. She clung to it as to a
spar of rescue and laughed. “I’ll never go back.”
And this time it was Bret who sighed, “I wonder.”