At the last moment, when face to face with the public, young Douglass
lost courage. The stake for which he played was so great! Like a man who
has put his last dollar upon the hazard, he was ready to snatch his gold
from the boards. The whole thing seemed weakly tenuous at
dress-rehearsal, and Royleston, half-drunk as usual, persistently
bungled his lines. The children in the second act squeaked like nervous
poll-parrots, and even Helen's sunny brow was darkened by a frown as her
leading man stumbled along to a dead halt again and again.
"Mr. Royleston," she said, with dismay and anger in her voice, "I beg of
you to remember that this is a most serious matter."
Her tone steadied the man, for he was a really brilliant and famous
actor beginning to break. He grew courtly. "Miss Merival, I assure you I
shall be all right to-night."
At this Douglass, tense and hot, shouted an angry word, and rushed into
the semi-darkness of the side aisle. There Helen found him when she came
off, his face black with anger and disgust. "It's all off," he said.
"That conceited fool will ruin us."
"Don't take things too seriously," she pleaded. "Royleston isn't half so
hopeless as he seems; he will come on to-night alert as a sparrow and
astonish you. We have worked very hard, and the whole company needs rest
now rather than more drill. To show your own worry would make them worse
than they are."
In the end he went back to his seat ashamed of his outburst of temper,
and the rehearsal came to an end almost triumphantly, due entirely to
the spirit and example of the star, who permitted herself to act for the
first time.
It was a marvellous experience to see her transformed, by the mere
putting aside of her cloak, from the sweet-faced, thoughtful girl to the
stern, accusing, dark, and tense woman of the play. Her voice took on
the quivering intonation of the seeress, and her spread hand seemed to
clutch at the hearts of her perfidious friends. At such moments Douglass
sat entranced, afraid to breathe for fear of breaking the spell, and
when she dropped her rôle and resumed her cloak he shivered with pain.
It hurt him, also, to have her say to Royleston: "Now, to-morrow night I
shall be here at the mirror when you enter; I will turn and walk towards
you till I reach this little stand. I will move around this to the
right," etc. It seemed to belittle her art, to render it mechanical, and
yet he admitted the necessity; for those who were to play with her were
entitled to know, within certain limits, where to find her in the
scene. He began to regret having had anything to do with the rehearsal.
It would have been so much more splendid to see the finished product of
her art with no vexing memory of the prosaic processes of its
upbuilding.
She seemed to divine his feelings, and explained: "Up to a certain point
every art is mechanical; the outlines of my acting are fixed, but within
those limits I am guided by impulse. Even if I dared to rely on the
inspiration of the moment my support cannot; they must know what I am
going to do. I sincerely wish now that you had left us to our struggle;
and yet we've had a good time, haven't we?"
"The best of my whole life," he answered, fervently.
"Now, let's rest. Let's go to the opera to-night, for to-morrow I cannot
see you--no, nor Monday, either. I shall remain in seclusion all day in
a darkened room. I must think my part all out alone. There in the dark
I shall sleep as much as possible. Helen's 'unconscious cerebration'
must now get in its work," she ended, laughingly.
They all dined together at her table, and sat together in the box, while
the vast harmonies of _Siegfried_ rose like sun-shot mist from beneath
them.
Helen was rapt, swept out of herself; and Douglass, with delicate
consideration, left her alone with her musings, whose depth and
intensity appeared in the lines of her sensitive face. He had begun to
understand the sources of her power--that is to say, her fluid and
instant imagination which permitted her to share in the joy of every
art. Under the spell of a great master she was able to divine the
passion which directed him. She understood the sense of power, the
supreme ease and dignity of Ternina, of De Reszke, just as she was able
to partake in the pride of the great athlete who wrestled upon the mat.
She touched life through her marvellous intuition at a hundred points.
He was not discouraged, therefore, when, as they were going out, she
said, with a quick clasp of her hand on his arm, "This matchless music
makes our venture seem very small." He understood her mood, and to a
lesser degree shared it.
"I don't want to talk," she said at the door of her carriage. "Good-bye
till Monday night. Courage!"