A SHADOW FALLS
Her glorious Golden Circle; this is what the fellow members of her cast
were coming to be. How different was the atmosphere of this new setting
from that of the old Blackmoore.
“Of course,” she whispered charitably, “the Blackmoore was a horrible
shell of a place. And it is easier to be happy and kind in beautiful
surroundings. And yet I am sure that some of the most wonderful circles
of friendship are found in the west side tenement region.” She was
thinking of the blue-eyed Merry’s Golden Circle.
“Surely their lot is hard enough,” she told herself. “And yet they are
happy in their own little circles.
“What a sad place this grim old city would be,” she philosophized, “if
it were not for the thousands upon thousands of these little golden
circles of friendship we find everywhere! Sometimes it is a group that
meets periodically in a pool room or a drug store. There are tiny club
rooms everywhere. The people who work long days in downtown stores call
one another Mary, Bob and Tom. They, too, are happy as they feel their
tiny golden circle bind them round and round.
“But not one of them all,” she exclaimed loyally, “can boast of a more
wonderful circle than ours!”
She thought of the Junior Ballet, those beautiful, talented young women
who were being trained as her chorus. Their caresses and words of
encouragement on that first night were not flattery. Every day, by
little acts of kindness and courtesy, they proved this. They also
bestowed their affections upon the old trouper, Dan Baker.
“And how I love them for that!” the little French girl said fervently.
“And yet, who would not love him? His gray hair, his brooding blue eyes,
his gentle, kindly manner toward all; how could anyone resist them?”
Soon enough she was to learn that there were those who could resist the
old trouper’s kindly good nature. She was to learn, too, that this
gentle old man held within his heart the courage of a soldier, the will
and the power, if need be, to become a martyr for the right.
It was on that very evening that, as they loafed and talked over tea and
toast in the studio, Dan Baker was called to the telephone, and Petite
Jeanne heard him use language that she had believed quite foreign to his
tongue.
“What’s that?” she heard him say. “A fund for actors? I have subscribed
to the Fund for Aged Actors, yes. Yes. What’s that? Another fund? Five
hundred dollars? Impossible!
“You will!” She saw his face turn red. His hands twisted themselves into
livid knots. “Say, you! I know who you are now. It’s a racket! You’re
trying to shake me down. You’ll never do it! Good-bye!”
He slammed the receiver down on the hook and stood there until the hot
blood drained from his face and left him white as marble. Watching him,
Jeanne saw him totter. Thinking he was about to fall she hurried up to
encircle him with her slender arms.
“What is it, old trouper?” she asked gently.
“It—why, it’s nothing.”
“Please don’t lie to me,” she pleaded. “One has no need to lie to a
friend.”
“Well, then, if you must have it.” On his face a curious smile formed
itself. “There’s a racket been going on in this town for a long time. My
old friend Barney Bobson told me about it.
“You see,” he explained, leading her back to the fire, “most actors are
nervous, temperamental people. They can’t stand suspense, lurking danger
and all that. These crooks, knowing that, have taken to demanding sums
of money for what they term a good cause: The Actors’ Benefit. They are
the only actors benefited, and they are not actors at all, but deep-dyed
villains. They have reaped a harvest.
“But here—” He threw back his shock of gray hair. “Here is one golden
harvest that will never be reaped. I’d rather die. I’m an old man.
What’s a year more or less? How wonderful to go out like a candle;
providing you go for a good cause!”
As Jeanne looked at him it seemed to her that his face was lit with a
strange glory.
“But what will they do?” she asked. “And why do they come to you before
the opera has gone on the stage?”
“They know we have had some advances; can perhaps get others. The opera
may be a failure; at least that’s what they think. Now is the time to
strike.”
“And if you continue to refuse?”
“I may meet them on a dark night. Or—” His face turned gray. “Or they
may kidnap you.”
“Kidnap me?”
“Sometimes villains work through our friends to undo their victims,” he
replied wearily. “You must be very careful. Never go out on the street
without your capable Florence. And never walk when you can use a cab.
So, I think you will be safe.
“There!” he exclaimed, noting the wrinkles in her brow. “I have got you
worrying. Do not think of it again. Those men are cowards. All evil
doers are. We will not hear from them again.”
“No, no! Dear old trouper,” Jeanne said in the gentlest of tones, “I was
not thinking of myself, but of you.
“However,” she added a moment later, “I shall be careful.”
Florence, in her big-hearted way, had given up her work at the
settlement house and, casting her lot with the others, had once more
become the little French girl’s stage “mother” and protector. She also
became the guardian of his Majesty the God of Fire. And it seemed to her
that he was quite as much in need of mothering as his youthful
possessor. For was there not a dark-faced gypsy lurking, as she
sometimes imagined, in every dark corner, ready at any moment to spring
upon her and snatch her strange treasure away?
She had fitted up a Boston bag with a chain, ending in a lock, run
through the leather and clamping the top tight. This she carried when
the ancient God of Fire, in pursuance of his art as a silent actor, was
obliged to make his way from their room to the theatre and back again.
At all other times his Highness continued to remain in hiding in the
hole beneath the floor of the room.
At times Florence thought of the red-faced man, their chance enemy of
Maxwell Street, the one who on that stormy night had apparently ridden
half way across the city in order to take down their street address.
“He’s planning some meanness,” she assured herself. “What it will be
only time can tell.”
When Petite Jeanne told her of the threat made to the old trouper over
the telephone, she redoubled her vigil. They traveled only in taxicabs,
and kept a sharp watch on every occasion. One other change was made by
the stout young guardian. Whenever the gypsy god went with them she
carried beneath her arm a rather heavy, paper-bound package, whose
contents were her secret.