|WHEN Hy set out for dinner, a little later, he found Peter sitting on a
bench in the Square.
“Go in and get your overcoat,” said Hy. “Unless you're out for
pneumonia.”
“Hy,” said Peter, his color vivid, his eyes wild, “we can't let those
brutes play with Sue; like that. We've got to save her.”
Hy squinted down at his bamboo stick. “Very good, my son. But just how?”
“If I could talk with her, Hy!... I know that game so well!”
“You could call her up--”
“Call her up nothing! I can't ask to see her and start cold.” He
gestured vehemently. “Look here, you're seeing Betty every day--you fix
it.”
Hy mused. “They're great hands to take tramps in the country, those two.
Most every Sunday.... If I could arrange a little party of four.... See
here! Betty's going to have dinner with me to-morrow night.”
“For God's sake, Hy, get me in on it!”
“Now you just wait! Sue'll be playing to-morrow night at the Crossroads,
It's Saturday, you know.”
Peter's face fell.
“But it gives me the chance to talk it over with friend Betty and
perhaps plan for Sunday. If Zanin'll just leave her alone that long.”
“It isn't as if I were thinking of myself, Hy...”
“Of course not, Pete.”
“The girl's in danger. We've _got_ to save her.”
“What if she won't listen! She's high-strung.”
“Then,” said Peter, flaring up with a righteous passion that made him
feel suddenly like the hero of his own new play--“then I'll go straight
to Zanin and force him to declare himself! I will face him, as man to
man!”
Thus the two Seventh-Story Men!
At moments, during the few weeks just past, thoughts of his anonymous
letter had risen to disturb Peter; on each occasion, until to-night, to
be instantly overwhelmed by the buoyant egotism that always justified
Peter to himself. But the thoughts had been there. They had kept him
from attempts to see Sue, had even restrained him from appearing where
there was likelihood of her seeing him; and they had kept him excited
about her. Now they rose again in unsuspected strength. Of course she
would refuse to see him! He slept hardly at all that night. The next day
he was unstrung. And Saturday night (or early Sunday morning) when Hy
crept in, Peter, in pajamas, all lights out, was sitting by the window
nursing a headache, staring out with smarting eyeballs at the empty
Square.
“Worm here?” asked Hy guardedly.
“Asleep.”
Hy lighted the gas; then looked closely at the wretched Peter.
“Look here, my son,” he said then, “you need sleep.”
“Sleep”--muttered Peter, “good God!”
“Yes, I know, but you've got a delicate job on your hands. It'll take
expert handling. You've got to be fit.”
“Did you--did you see Sue?”
“No, only Betty. But they've been talking you over. Sue told Betty that
you interest her.”
“Oh--she did! Say anything else?”
“More or less. Look here--has anything happened that I'm not in on? I
mean between you and Sue.”
Peter shivered slightly. “How could anything happen? I haven't been
seeing her.”
“Well--Sue says you're the strangest man she ever knew. She can't figure
you out. Betty was wondering.”
Hy was removing his overcoat now. Suddenly he gave way to a soft little
chuckle.
“For Heaven's sake, don't laugh!”
“I was thinking of something else. Yes, I fixed it. But there's
something up--a new deal. This here Silverstone saw _Any Street_ last
night and went dippy over Sue. Betty told me that much but says she
can't tell me the rest because it's Sue's secret, not hers. Only it came
out that Zanin has dropped the idea of bringing you into it. Silverstone
bought supper for the girls and Zanin last night, and this afternoon he
took Zanin out to his Long Beach house for the night, in a big car. And
took his stenographer along. Everybody's mysterious and in a hurry. Oh,
there's a hen on, all right!”
“So I'm out!” muttered Peter between set teeth. “But it's no mystery.
Think I don't know Silverstone?”
“What'll he do?”
“Freeze out everybody and put Sue across himself. What's that guy's is
his. Findings is keepings.”
“But will Sue let him freeze Zanin out?”
“That's a point.... But if she won't, he'll he wise in a minute. Trust
Silverstone! He'll let Zanin _think_ he's in, then.”
“Things look worse, I take it.”
“A lot.”
Hy was undressing. He sat now, caught by a sudden fragrant memory,
holding a shoe in midair, and chuckled again.
“Stop that cackle!” growled Peter. “You said you fixed it.”
“I did. Quit abusing me and you'll realize that I'm coming through with
all you could ask. We leave at eleven, Hudson Tunnel, for the Jersey
hills--we four. I bring the girls; you meet us at the Tunnel. Zanin is
safe at Long Beach. We eat at a country road house. We walk miles in the
open country. We drift home in the evening, God knows when!... Here I
hand you, in one neat parcel, pleasant hillsides, purling brooks, twelve
mortal hours of the blessed damosel, and”--he caught up the evening
paper--“'fair and warmer'--and perfect weather. And what do I get?
Abuse. Nothing but abuse!”
With this, he deftly juggled his two shoes, caught both in a final
flourish, looked across at the abject Peter and grinned.
“Shut up,” muttered Peter wearily.
“Very good, sir. And you go to bed. Your nerves are a mess.”
Into Peter's brain as he hurried toward the Tunnel Station, the next
morning, darted an uninvited, startling thought.
Here was Zanin, idealist in the drama, prophet of the new Russianism,
deserting the stage for the screen!
What was it the Worm had represented him as saying to Sue... that she
would be enabled to express her ideals to millions where Isadora Duncan
could reach only thousands?
Millions in place of thousands!
His imagination pounced on the thought. He stopped short on the street
to consider it--until a small boy laughed; then he hurried on.
He looked with new eyes at the bill-boards he passed. Two-thirds of them
flaunted moving-picture features.... He had been passing such posters
for a year or more without once reading out of them a meaning personal
to himself. He had been sticking blindly, doggedly to plays--ninety per
cent, of which, of all plays, failed utterly. It suddenly came home
to him that the greatest dramatists, like the greatest actors and
actresses, were working for the camera. All but himself, apparently!...
The theaters were fighting for the barest existence where they were not
surrendering outright. Why, he himself patronized movies more often than
plays! Yet he had stupidly refused to catch the significance of it....
_The Truffler_ would fail, of course; just as the two before it had
failed. Still he had, until this actual minute, clung to it as his one
hope.
Millions for thousands!
He was thinking now not of persons but of dollars.
Millions for thousands.
He paused at a news stand. Sprawled over it were specimens of the new
sort of periodical, the moving-picture magazines. So the publishers,
like the theatrical men, were being driven back by the invader.
He bought the fattest, most brightly colored of these publications and
turned the pages eagerly as he descended into the station.
He stood half-hidden behind a pillar, his eyes wandering from the
magazine to the ticket gate where Hy and the two girls would appear,
then back to the magazine. Those pages reeked of enthusiasm, fresh
ideas, prosperity. They stirred new depths within his soul.
He saw his little party coming in through the gate.
The two girls wore sweaters. Their skirts were short, their tan shoes
low and flat of heel.
They were attractive, each in her individual way; Sue less regular as
to features, but brighter, slimmer, more alive. Betty's more luxurious
figure was set off almost too well by the snug sweater. As she moved,
swaying a little from the hips, her eyelids drooping rather languidly,
the color stirring faintly under her fair fine skin, she was, Peter
decided, unconscious neither of the sweater nor of the body within
it.... Just before the train roared in, while Sue, all alertness, was
looking out along the track, Peter saw Hy's hand brush Betty's. For
an instant their fingers intertwined; then the hands drifted casually
apart.