A FACE OF GRAY STEEL
Angelo had a few well chosen friends in the world of stage people. As
soon as offices were open the next morning, his card was presented to
one of these. An hour later, with a bulky manuscript under his arm and a
letter of introduction in his pocket, he entered the lobby of a second
office.
He was ushered at once into the presence of a broad shouldered, rather
dull, but quite determined appearing man who sat in a swivel chair
before a birch-mahogany desk. In another corner of the room sat a tall,
dark, young man whose face had the appearance of having been moulded out
of chilled gray steel.
“It’s a light opera,” said Angelo, placing his manuscript on the desk.
“If you’ll let me tell you about it I am sure you will be able to decide
at once whether or not it will fit the Blackmoore Theatre.”
The stout man nodded.
Angelo began to talk. As he continued to talk he began to glow. He was
full of his subject.
“Wait!” The stout man held up a hand.
“Drysdale,” he said to the gray, steel-eyed man, “you had better sit in
on this.”
Gray Steel arose, dragged a chair forward and sat down.
“All right.” The stout man nodded to Angelo.
“Shall—shall I begin over again?”
“Not necessary. Drysdale is clever. Takes a thing in the middle, and
works both ways.”
Angelo talked and glowed once more. For fully half an hour, like a small
car on a country road at night, he rattled and glowed.
“What do you think of it?” the stout man demanded, when the recital was
finished. “Drysdale, what do you think? Find a chorus, right enough.
Know one right now. House is dark. What do you think?”
“Paris.” Gray Steel Face cupped his chin. “Americans go wild over
Paris.”
“Sure they do, just wild. They—” Angelo’s flow of enthusiasm was cut
short by a glower from Gray Steel Face.
“Mr. Drysdale is our director,” the stout man explained. “Directed many
plays. Very successful. Makes ’em march. You’re right he does!”
“Gypsy stuff goes well,” Drysdale continued. “But who ever heard of
taking a gypsy for a star? She’d need training. No end of it.”
“Oh, no! She—”
“We’d have to read the script. Have to see them perform.” Drysdale gave
no heed to Angelo. “Say you bring ’em here to-morrow night, say eight
o’clock.”
“No stage,” said the stout manager.
“We—we have a small one,” Angelo explained eagerly. “Come to my studio,
won’t you? There you’ll see them at their best.”
“What say, Drysdale?”
“We’ll be there. Mind! Eight sharp. None of your artistic foolishness!”
Next night, the two men did see Petite Jeanne and Dan Baker at their
best.
Was their best good enough? The face of the director was still a steel
mask. He conferred with his manager in the corner of the room for half
an hour.
In the meantime Angelo perspired profusely. Petite Jeanne felt hot and
cold spasms chase one another up her back, but Dan Baker sat placidly
smoking by the fire. He was an old trouper. The road lay always before
him.
But for Angelo and Jeanne hopes had run high. Their ambitions were on
the altar. They were waiting for the fire.
“We’ll have a contract for you by eleven o’clock to-morrow,” said the
stout man, in a tone as unemotional as he might have used to call a
waiter. “Drysdale here says it’s a bit crude; but emotional stuff—got
some pull, he believes. Office at eleven.”
Petite Jeanne could scarcely await their departure. Hardly had the door
closed when, in true French fashion, she threw her arms about the old
trouper and kissed him on both cheeks. Nor was Angelo neglected.
“We’re made!” she cried joyously. “The footlights, oh, the blessed
footlights!” She walked the young composer about the room until she was
dizzy. Then, springing like a top, she landed in a corner by the fire
and demanded a demi-tasse of coffee.
As they drank their coffee Angelo was strangely silent. “I don’t like
what they said about the opera,” he explained, when Jeanne teased him.
“They’ll want to tear it all to pieces, like as not, and put in a lot of
half-indecent stuff.
“And that theatre,” he sighed. “It’s a frightful old barn of a place.
Going to be torn down to make way for a skyscraper next year, I’m told.
I hope you may not hate it too much.” As he looked at Petite Jeanne two
wrinkles appeared on his high forehead.
“Oh, the Paris Opera,” she laughed. “That was but a small bit. I am sure
I shall be quite deliriously happy!”
It was thus that she left Angelo’s studio. But the morrow, a gray day,
was to find them all in quite another mood.
When Angelo returned to the studio next day at noon, he was in a sober
mood.
His eyes lighted as he found a small table standing before the fire,
spread with spotless linen and piled with good things to eat.
“This,” he said, taking Petite Jeanne’s hands in his own, “is your
doing.”
“Not entirely, and not hardly at all,” laughed the little French girl.
“I’m a poor cook, and a very bad manager. You may credit it all to
Florence.”
Florence, at that, stepped from the shadows. For once her ready smile
was not forthcoming.
“Florence!” he exclaimed in surprise. “How is it you are here? I thought
you were at your work at the gym.”
“There is no more gym,” said the girl soberly. “It has been turned into
a lodging house for those poor unfortunates who in these sad times have
no place to sleep.
“Of course,” she added quickly, as a mellow tone crept into her voice,
“I am glad for them! But this leaves me exactly flat; no job, and no
prospect of one for months.”
“No job? Of course you have one!” Jeanne placed an inadequate arm about
Florence’s ample waist. “You will be my stage ‘mother’ once more.”
At this they turned an inquiring glance upon Angelo. For once it seemed
he had nothing to say.
The meal was half finished before he spoke about the matter nearest all
their hearts. When he did speak, it was in a very indirect manner. “In
this world,” he began quite soberly, “there’s very little real
generosity. People who have money cling to it as if it had power to
carry them to the very gates of Heaven. Those who have nothing often
feel very generous, but have nothing with which to prove the genuineness
of their feeling.
“Generosity!” He almost growled. “You read a lot about it in the papers.
Capital agrees to do this. Big money is ready to do that. Wages shall be
kept up. Those who are in tight places shall be dealt with in a generous
fashion. That’s what they give out for publication.
“What they’re really doing, many of them, is undermining the uncertain
foothold of those who have very little. They’re cutting wages here,
putting on screws there, in secret, wherever they dare. And our friendly
enemy, the manager, who wants our light opera, old Mr. Rockledge,” he
declared with a flourish, as if to conclude the whole matter, “is no
exception.”
“Didn’t he give us a contract?” asked Petite Jeanne, as her eyes opened
wide.
“Yes. A contract. But such a contract! He said we could take it or leave
it. And old Gray Steel Face nodded his head and snapped his steel jaw
shut, so I took it away; but we needn’t sign if we don’t care to.”
The remainder of the meal was eaten for the most part in silence. Just
as they finished, Swen and Dan Baker entered. They had been for a long
stroll along the lake front, and had dined at a place which Swen had
found where they could get genuine black bread and spiced fillet of
sole.
“What luck?” Swen demanded.
“Rotten!” Angelo threw the contract on the table. “Read it and weep!”
The others crowded around to do so.
A silence, broken only by the rustle of turned pages, ensued.
As the perusal was concluded Jeanne’s face was a brown study. Florence,
who had read over her shoulder, was plainly angry. Baker neither smiled
nor frowned. Swen smiled.
“Well,” Swen drawled, “since this is to be our first production, and
success will keep the wolf from the door for six months to come, I don’t
see that it’s so worse. One success calls for another. And it’s on the
second that you have a chance to tell ’em where they get off.”
“I think,” said Petite Jeanne quietly, “that Swen is right. It means
renewed hope for all of us. Winter is at our door. There are no turnips
in our cellar, nor hams in our smoke-house.” She thought of the old days
in France.
“That’s me,” agreed Dan Baker.
Since Florence had no contract to sign, she said nothing.
“Then,” said Angelo with a sigh, half of relief and half of
disappointment, “we sign on the dotted line. To-day we visit the
theatre. To-morrow rehearsals begin. The thing is to be put on as soon
as it can be whipped into shape. Every day a theatre is dark means a
loss to its owners.”
They signed in silence. Then, drawing chairs before the fire, they sat
down for half an hour of quiet meditation. Many and varied were the
thoughts that, like thin smoke, passed off into space as they lingered
there.