Douglass rose next morning with a bound, as if life had somehow become
surcharged with fresh significance, fresh opportunity. His professional
career seemed dull and prosaic--his critical work of small avail. His
whole mind centred on his play.
His was a moody, sensitive nature. Stern as he looked, and strong as he
really was, he could be depressed by a trifle or exalted by a word. And
reviewing his meeting with Helen in the light of the morning, he had
more than a suspicion that he had allowed himself to talk too freely in
the presence of the brother and mother, and that he had been
over-enthusiastic, not to say egotistic; but he was saved from dejection
by the memory of the star's great, brown-black eyes. There was no
pretence in them. She had been rapt--carried out of conventional words
and graces by something which rose from the lines he had written, the
characters he had depicted.
The deeper his scrutiny went the more important she became to him. She
was not simple--she was very complex, and an artist of wonderful range,
and certainty of appeal. He liked the plain and simple (almost angular)
gestures and attitudes she used when talking to him. They were so
broadly indicative of the real Helen Merival, and so far from the
affectations he had expected to see. Of course, she was the actress--the
mobility of her face, her command of herself, was far beyond that of any
untrained woman, no matter how versatile; but she was nobly the actress,
broadened and deepened by her art.
He was very eager to see her again, and as the day wore on this desire
grew to be an ache at his heart most disturbing. He became very restless
at last, and did little but walk around the park, returning occasionally
as the hour for the postman came. "I don't know why I should expect a
letter from her. I know well the dilatory methods of theatrical
people--and to-day is rehearsal, too. I am unreasonable. If I hear from
her in a week I may count myself lucky."
A message from the dramatic editor of _The Blazon_, asking him to do a
special study of an English actor opening that night at the Broadway,
annoyed him. "I can't do it," he answered. "I have another engagement."
And recklessly put aside the opportunity to earn a week's board, so
exalted was he by reason of the word of the woman.
At dinner he lacked appetite entirely, and as he had taken but an egg
and a cup of coffee for breakfast, and had missed luncheon altogether,
he began to question himself as to the meaning of his ailment, with sad
attempt at humor. "It isn't exactly as serious as dying. Even if she
reconsiders and returns my play, I can still make a living." He would
not admit that any other motive was involved.
He had barely returned to his room before a knock at the door announced
a boy with a note. As he took it in his hand his nerves tingled as
though he had touched the wondrous woman's hand. The note was brief, yet
fateful:
"I enclose a ticket for the manager's box. I hope you can come. I
want to talk about your play. I will send my brother to bring you
in back to see me. I have been rehearsing all the afternoon, but I
re-read the play this morning while in bed. I like it better and
better, but you can do more with it--I feel that you have
suppressed the poetry here and there. My quarrel with you realists
is that you are afraid to put into your representations of life the
emotions that make life a dynamic thing. But it is stirring and
suggestive as it is. Come in and talk with me, for I am full of it
and see great possibilities in the final act."
His hands were tremulous and his eyes glowing as he put the note down
and faced himself in the glass. The pleasure of meeting her again under
such conditions made him forget, for the moment, the rôle she was to
play--a part he particularly detested. Truly he was the most fortunate
and distinguished of men--to be thus taken by the hand and lifted from
nameless obscurity to the most desired position beside a great star.
He dressed with unusual care, and was a noticeably handsome figure as he
sat alone in the box; and elated, tense, self-conscious. When she came
on and walked close down to the foot-lights nearest him, flashing a
glance of recognition into his eyes, his breath quickened and his face
flushed. A swift interchange of light and fire took place at the moment,
her eyelids fell. She recoiled as if in dismay, then turned and
apparently forgot him and every one else in the fervor of her art.
A transforming readjustment of all the lines of her face took place. She
became sinister, mocking, and pitiless. An exultant cruelty croaked in
her voice. Minute, repulsive remodellings of her neck and cheeks changed
her to a harpy, and seeing these evidences of her great genius Douglass
grew bitterly resentful, and when she laughed, with the action of a
vulture thrusting her head forward from the shoulders, he sickened and
turned away. It was marvellous work, but how desecrating to her glorious
womanhood. Coming so close on that moment of mystic tenderness it was
horrible. "My God! She must not play such parts. They will leave their
mark upon her."
When the curtain fell he did not applaud, but drew back into the shadow,
sullen, brooding, sorrowful. In the tableau which followed the recall,
her eyes again sought for him (though she still moved in character),
and the curtain fell upon the scene while yet she was seeking him.
Here now began a transformation in the man. He had come to the theatre
tremulous with eagerness to look upon her face, to touch her hand, but
when her brother entered the box, saying, "Mr. Douglass, this is the
best time to see my sister," he rose slowly with a curious reluctance.
Through devious passages beneath the theatre, Hugh led the way, while
with greater poignancy than ever before the young playwright sensed the
vulgarity, the immodesty, and the dirt of the world behind and below the
scenes. It was all familiar enough to him, for he had several friends
among the actors, but the thought of one so sovereign as Helen in the
midst of a region so squalid stung him. He was jealous of the actors,
the scene-shifters, who were permitted to see her come and go.
He was reserved and rather pale, but perfectly self-contained, as he
entered the little reception-hall leading to her dressing-room. He
faced her with a sense of dread--apprehensive of some disenchantment.
She met him cordially, without the slightest reference to her make-up,
which was less offensive than he had feared; but he winced,
nevertheless, at the vulgarity of her part so skilfully suggested by
paint and powder. She gave him her hand with a frank gesture. "You
didn't applaud my scenes to-night," she said, with a smile as enigmatic
as the one she used in _The Baroness_.
His voice was curt with emotion as he replied, "No, I did not; I
couldn't. They saddened me."
"What do you mean?" she asked, with a startled, anxious paling beneath
her rouge.
His voice was low, but fiercely reproachful in answer. "I mean you
should treat your beautiful self and your splendid art with greater
consideration."
"You mean I should not be playing such women? I know it--I hate them.
But no one ever accused me of taking my art lightly. I work harder on
these uncongenial rôles than upon any other. They require infinitely
more effort, because I loathe them so."
"I mean more than that. I am afraid to have you simulate such passions.
They will leave their mark on you. It is defilement. Your womanhood is
too fine, too beautiful to be so degraded."
She put her hand to her bosom and looked about her restlessly. His
intensity scared her. "I know what you mean, but let us not talk of that
now; let us discuss your play. I want to suggest something for your
third act, but I must dress now. You will wait, won't you? We will have
a few minutes before I go on. Please sit here and wait for me."
He acquiesced silently, as was his fashion. There was little of the
courtier about him, but he became very ill at ease as he realized how
significant his waiting must seem to those who saw him there. Deeply in
the snare as he was, this sitting beside an actress's dressing-room door
became intolerable to his arrogant soul, and he was about to flee when
Hugh came back and engaged him in conversation. So gratified was
Douglass for this kindness, he made himself agreeable till such time as
Helen, in brilliant evening-dress, came out; and when Hugh left them
together he was less assertive and brusque in manner.
She was so luminous, so queenly, she dissipated his cloud of doubts and
scruples, and the tremor of the boyish lover came back into his limbs as
he turned to meet her. His voice all but failed him as he answered to
her question.
For some ten minutes from behind her mask she talked of the play with
enthusiasm--her sweet eyes untouched of the part she was about to
resume. At last she said: "There is my cue. Good-bye! Can you breakfast
with us to-morrow, at eleven-thirty? It's really a luncheon. I know you
are an early riser; but we will have something substantial. Will you
come?"
Her smooth, strong fingers closed cordially on his hand as she spoke,
and he answered, quickly, "With the greatest pleasure in the world."
"We can talk at our leisure then. Good-bye!" and as she opened the
canvas door in the "box-scene" he heard her say, with high, cool,
insulting voice, "Ah, my dear Countess, you are early." She was _The
Baroness_ again. After the fall of the curtain at the end, Douglass
slipped out upon the pavement, his eyes blinded by the radiant picture
she made in her splendid bridal robes. It was desolating to see her
represent such a rôle, such agony, such despair; and yet his feet were
reluctant to carry him away.
He was like a famishing man, who has been politely turned from the
glittering, savory dining-room into the street--only his hunger,
immaterial as light, was a thousand times keener than that of the one
who lacks only bread and meat. He demanded her face, her voice, as one
calls for sunlight, for air. He knew that this day, this night, marked a
new era in his life. Old things were passed away--new things, sweet,
incredible things, were now happening.
Nothing like this unrest and deep-seated desire had ever come into his
life, and the realization troubled him as a dangerous weakness. It
enslaved him, and he resented it. He secured a new view on his play,
also, with its accusing defiance of dramatic law and custom. In this
moment of clear vision he was permitted a prevision of Helen struggling
with the rebellious critics. Now that he had twice taken her hand he was
no longer so indifferent to the warfare of the critics, though he knew
they could not harm one so powerful as she.
In the end of his tumult he wrote her a letter, wherein he began by
begging her pardon for seeming to interfere in the slightest degree with
her work in the world. His letter continued:
"I have back of me the conscience of my Scotch forebears, and
though my training in college and in my office has covered my
conscience with a layer of office dust it is still there. Of course
(and obviously) you are not touched by the words and deeds of the
women you represent, but I somehow feel that it is a desecration of
your face and voice to put them to such uses. That is the reason I
dreaded to go back and see you to-night. If you were seeking praise
of your own proper self, the sincerity of this compliment is
unquestionable. I ought to say, 'I hope my words to-night did not
disturb you,' but I will not, for I hope to see you speedily drop
all such hideous characters as _The Baroness Telka_. I felt as an
artist might upon seeing a glorious statue befouled with mire. I
say this not because I wish you to do _Lillian_. In the light of
last night's performance my own play is a gray autumn day with a
touch of frost in the air. It is inconceivable that you should be
vitally interested in it. I fear no play that I care to write will
please a sufficient number of people to make its production worth
your while. I release you from your promise. Believe me, I am
shaken in my confidence to-night. Your audience seemed so
heartless, so debased of taste. They applauded most loudly the
things most revolting to me. Since I have come to know you I cannot
afford to have you make a sacrifice of yourself to produce my play,
much as I desire to see you in new characters."
As he dropped this letter into the box a storm-wave of his former
bitterness and self-accusation swept over him.
"That ends another attempt to get my play staged. Her manager will
unquestionably refuse to consider it."