In the course of his present stay in Chicago, Drouet paid some slight
attention to the secret order to which he belonged. During his last
trip he had received a new light on its importance.
“I tell you,” said another drummer to him, “it’s a great thing. Look at
Hazenstab. He isn’t so deuced clever. Of course he’s got a good house
behind him, but that won’t do alone. I tell you it’s his degree. He’s a
way-up Mason, and that goes a long way. He’s got a secret sign that
stands for something.”
Drouet resolved then and there that he would take more interest in such
matters. So when he got back to Chicago he repaired to his local lodge
headquarters.
“I say, Drouet,” said Mr. Harry Quincel, an individual who was very
prominent in this local branch of the Elks, “you’re the man that can
help us out.”
It was after the business meeting and things were going socially with a
hum. Drouet was bobbing around chatting and joking with a score of
individuals whom he knew.
“What are you up to?” he inquired genially, turning a smiling face upon
his secret brother.
“We’re trying to get up some theatricals for two weeks from to-day, and
we want to know if you don’t know some young lady who could take a
part—it’s an easy part.”
“Sure,” said Drouet, “what is it?” He did not trouble to remember that
he knew no one to whom he could appeal on this score. His innate
good-nature, however, dictated a favourable reply.
“Well, now, I’ll tell you what we are trying to do,” went on Mr.
Quincel. “We are trying to get a new set of furniture for the lodge.
There isn’t enough money in the treasury at the present time, and we
thought we would raise it by a little entertainment.”
“Sure,” interrupted Drouet, “that’s a good idea.”
“Several of the boys around here have got talent. There’s Harry
Burbeck, he does a fine black-face turn. Mac Lewis is all right at
heavy dramatics. Did you ever hear him recite ‘Over the Hills’?”
“Never did.”
“Well, I tell you, he does it fine.”
“And you want me to get some woman to take a part?” questioned Drouet,
anxious to terminate the subject and get on to something else. “What
are you going to play?”
“‘Under the Gaslight,’” said Mr. Quincel, mentioning Augustin Daly’s
famous production, which had worn from a great public success down to
an amateur theatrical favourite, with many of the troublesome
accessories cut out and the _dramatis personæ_ reduced to the smallest
possible number.
Drouet had seen this play some time in the past.
“That’s it,” he said; “that’s a fine play. It will go all right. You
ought to make a lot of money out of that.”
“We think we’ll do very well,” Mr. Quincel replied. “Don’t you forget
now,” he concluded, Drouet showing signs of restlessness; “some young
woman to take the part of Laura.”
“Sure, I’ll attend to it.”
He moved away, forgetting almost all about it the moment Mr. Quincel
had ceased talking. He had not even thought to ask the time or place.
Drouet was reminded of his promise a day or two later by the receipt of
a letter announcing that the first rehearsal was set for the following
Friday evening, and urging him to kindly forward the young lady’s
address at once, in order that the part might be delivered to her.
“Now, who the deuce do I know?” asked the drummer reflectively,
scratching his rosy ear. “I don’t know any one that knows anything
about amateur theatricals.”
He went over in memory the names of a number of women he knew, and
finally fixed on one, largely because of the convenient location of her
home on the West Side, and promised himself that as he came out that
evening he would see her. When, however, he started west on the car he
forgot, and was only reminded of his delinquency by an item in the
“Evening News”—a small three-line affair under the head of Secret
Society Notes—which stated the Custer Lodge of the Order of Elks would
give a theatrical performance in Avery Hall on the 16th, when “Under
the Gaslight” would be produced.
“George!” exclaimed Drouet, “I forgot that.”
“What?” inquired Carrie.
They were at their little table in the room which might have been used
for a kitchen, where Carrie occasionally served a meal. To-night the
fancy had caught her, and the little table was spread with a pleasing
repast.
“Why, my lodge entertainment. They’re going to give a play, and they
wanted me to get them some young lady to take a part.”
“What is it they’re going to play?”
“‘Under the Gaslight.’”
“When?”
“On the 16th.”
“Well, why don’t you?” asked Carrie.
“I don’t know any one,” he replied.
Suddenly he looked up.
“Say,” he said, “how would you like to take the part?”
“Me?” said Carrie. “I can’t act.”
“How do you know?” questioned Drouet reflectively.
“Because,” answered Carrie, “I never did.”
Nevertheless, she was pleased to think he would ask. Her eyes
brightened, for if there was anything that enlisted her sympathies it
was the art of the stage. True to his nature, Drouet clung to this idea
as an easy way out.
“That’s nothing. You can act all you have to down there.”
“No, I can’t,” said Carrie weakly, very much drawn toward the
proposition and yet fearful.
“Yes, you can. Now, why don’t you do it? They need some one, and it
will be lots of fun for you.”
“Oh, no, it won’t,” said Carrie seriously.
“You’d like that. I know you would. I’ve seen you dancing around here
and giving imitations and that’s why I asked you. You’re clever enough,
all right.”
“No, I’m not,” said Carrie shyly.
“Now, I’ll tell you what you do. You go down and see about it. It’ll be
fun for you. The rest of the company isn’t going to be any good. They
haven’t any experience. What do they know about theatricals?”
He frowned as he thought of their ignorance.
“Hand me the coffee,” he added.
“I don’t believe I could act, Charlie,” Carrie went on pettishly. “You
don’t think I could, do you?”
“Sure. Out o’ sight. I bet you make a hit. Now you want to go, I know
you do. I knew it when I came home. That’s why I asked you.”
“What is the play, did you say?”
“‘Under the Gaslight.’”
“What part would they want me to take?”
“Oh, one of the heroines—I don’t know.”
“What sort of a play is it?”
“Well,” said Drouet, whose memory for such things was not the best,
“it’s about a girl who gets kidnapped by a couple of crooks—a man and a
woman that live in the slums. She had some money or something and they
wanted to get it. I don’t know now how it did go exactly.”
“Don’t you know what part I would have to take?”
“No, I don’t, to tell the truth.” He thought a moment. “Yes, I do, too.
Laura, that’s the thing—you’re to be Laura.”
“And you can’t remember what the part is like?”
“To save me, Cad, I can’t,” he answered. “I ought to, too; I’ve seen
the play enough. There’s a girl in it that was stolen when she was an
infant—was picked off the street or something—and she’s the one that’s
hounded by the two old criminals I was telling you about.” He stopped
with a mouthful of pie poised on a fork before his face. “She comes
very near getting drowned—no, that’s not it. I’ll tell you what I’ll
do,” he concluded hopelessly, “I’ll get you the book. I can’t remember
now for the life of me.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Carrie, when he had concluded, her interest
and desire to shine dramatically struggling with her timidity for the
mastery. “I might go if you thought I’d do all right.”
“Of course, you’ll do,” said Drouet, who, in his efforts to enthuse
Carrie, had interested himself. “Do you think I’d come home here and
urge you to do something that I didn’t think you would make a success
of? You can act all right. It’ll be good for you.”
“When must I go?” said Carrie, reflectively.
“The first rehearsal is Friday night. I’ll get the part for you
to-night.”
“All right,” said Carrie resignedly, “I’ll do it, but if I make a
failure now it’s your fault.”
“You won’t fail,” assured Drouet. “Just act as you do around here. Be
natural. You’re all right. I’ve often thought you’d make a corking good
actress.”
“Did you really?” asked Carrie.
“That’s right,” said the drummer.
He little knew as he went out of the door that night what a secret
flame he had kindled in the bosom of the girl he left behind. Carrie
was possessed of that sympathetic, impressionable nature which, ever in
the most developed form, has been the glory of the drama. She was
created with that passivity of soul which is always the mirror of the
active world. She possessed an innate taste for imitation and no small
ability. Even without practice, she could sometimes restore dramatic
situations she had witnessed by re-creating, before her mirror, the
expressions of the various faces taking part in the scene. She loved to
modulate her voice after the conventional manner of the distressed
heroine, and repeat such pathetic fragments as appealed most to her
sympathies. Of late, seeing the airy grace of the _ingenue_ in several
well-constructed plays, she had been moved to secretly imitate it, and
many were the little movements and expressions of the body in which she
indulged from time to time in the privacy of her chamber. On several
occasions, when Drouet had caught her admiring herself, as he imagined,
in the mirror, she was doing nothing more than recalling some little
grace of the mouth or the eyes which she had witnessed in another.
Under his airy accusation she mistook this for vanity and accepted the
blame with a faint sense of error, though, as a matter of fact, it was
nothing more than the first subtle outcroppings of an artistic nature,
endeavouring to re-create the perfect likeness of some phase of beauty
which appealed to her. In such feeble tendencies, be it known, such
outworking of desire to reproduce life, lies the basis of all dramatic
art.
Now, when Carrie heard Drouet’s laudatory opinion of her dramatic
ability, her body tingled with satisfaction. Like the flame which welds
the loosened particles into a solid mass, his words united those
floating wisps of feeling which she had felt, but never believed,
concerning her possible ability, and made them into a gaudy shred of
hope. Like all human beings, she had a touch of vanity. She felt that
she could do things if she only had a chance. How often had she looked
at the well-dressed actresses on the stage and wondered how she would
look, how delightful she would feel if only she were in their place.
The glamour, the tense situation, the fine clothes, the applause, these
had lured her until she felt that she, too, could act—that she, too,
could compel acknowledgment of power. Now she was told that she really
could—that little things she had done about the house had made even him
feel her power. It was a delightful sensation while it lasted.
When Drouet was gone, she sat down in her rocking-chair by the window
to think about it. As usual, imagination exaggerated the possibilities
for her. It was as if he had put fifty cents in her hand and she had
exercised the thoughts of a thousand dollars. She saw herself in a
score of pathetic situations in which she assumed a tremulous voice and
suffering manner. Her mind delighted itself with scenes of luxury and
refinement, situations in which she was the cynosure of all eyes, the
arbiter of all fates. As she rocked to and fro she felt the tensity of
woe in abandonment, the magnificence of wrath after deception, the
languour of sorrow after defeat. Thoughts of all the charming women she
had seen in plays—every fancy, every illusion which she had concerning
the stage—now came back as a returning tide after the ebb. She built up
feelings and a determination which the occasion did not warrant.
Drouet dropped in at the lodge when he went down town, and swashed
around with a great _air_, as Quincel met him.
“Where is that young lady you were going to get for us?” asked the
latter.
“I’ve got her,” said Drouet.
“Have you?” said Quincel, rather surprised by his promptness; “that’s
good. What’s her address?” and he pulled out his notebook in order to
be able to send her part to her.
“You want to send her her part?” asked the drummer.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll take it. I’m going right by her house in the morning.
“What did you say her address was? We only want it in case we have any
information to send her.”
“Twenty-nine Ogden Place.”
“And her name?”
“Carrie Madenda,” said the drummer, firing at random. The lodge members
knew him to be single.
“That sounds like somebody that can act, doesn’t it?” said Quincel.
“Yes, it does.”
He took the part home to Carrie and handed it to her with the manner of
one who does a favour.
“He says that’s the best part. Do you think you can do it?”
“I don’t know until I look it over. You know I’m afraid, now that I’ve
said I would.”
“Oh, go on. What have you got to be afraid of? It’s a cheap company.
The rest of them aren’t as good as you are.”
“Well, I’ll see,” said Carrie, pleased to have the part, for all her
misgivings.
He sidled around, dressing and fidgeting before he arranged to make his
next remark.
“They were getting ready to print the programmes,” he said, “and I gave
them the name of Carrie Madenda. Was that all right?”
“Yes, I guess so,” said his companion, looking up at him. She was
thinking it was slightly strange.
“If you didn’t make a hit, you know,” he went on.
“Oh, yes,” she answered, rather pleased now with his caution. It was
clever for Drouet.
“I didn’t want to introduce you as my wife, because you’d feel worse
then if you didn’t _go_. They all know me so well. But you’ll _go_ all
right. Anyhow, you’ll probably never meet any of them again.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” said Carrie desperately. She was determined now to
have a try at the fascinating game.
Drouet breathed a sigh of relief. He had been afraid that he was about
to precipitate another conversation upon the marriage question.
The part of Laura, as Carrie found out when she began to examine it,
was one of suffering and tears. As delineated by Mr. Daly, it was true
to the most sacred traditions of melodrama as he found it when he began
his career. The sorrowful demeanour, the tremolo music, the long,
explanatory, cumulative addresses, all were there.
“Poor fellow,” read Carrie, consulting the text and drawing her voice
out pathetically. “Martin, be sure and give him a glass of wine before
he goes.”
She was surprised at the briefness of the entire part, not knowing that
she must be on the stage while others were talking, and not only be
there, but also keep herself in harmony with the dramatic movement of
the scenes.
“I think I can do that, though,” she concluded.
When Drouet came the next night, she was very much satisfied with her
day’s study.
“Well, how goes it, Caddie?” he said.
“All right,” she laughed. “I think I have it memorised nearly.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Let’s hear some of it.”
“Oh, I don’t know whether I can get up and say it off here,” she said
bashfully.
“Well, I don’t know why you shouldn’t. It’ll be easier here than it
will there.”
“I don’t know about that,” she answered. Eventually she took off the
ballroom episode with considerable feeling, forgetting, as she got
deeper in the scene, all about Drouet, and letting herself rise to a
fine state of feeling.
“Good,” said Drouet; “fine, out o’ sight! You’re all right Caddie, I
tell you.”
He was really moved by her excellent representation and the general
appearance of the pathetic little figure as it swayed and finally
fainted to the floor. He had bounded up to catch her, and now held her
laughing in his arms.
“Ain’t you afraid you’ll hurt yourself?” he asked.
“Not a bit.”
“Well, you’re a wonder. Say, I never knew you could do anything like
that.”
“I never did, either,” said Carrie merrily, her face flushed with
delight.
“Well, you can bet that you’re all right,” said Drouet. “You can take
my word for that. You won’t fail.”