|THE TRUFFLER opened at Albany. Before ten o'clock of that first
evening even the author knew that-something was wrong with the second
act.
The company wandered across New York State into Pennsylvania; Peter,
by day and night, rewriting that unhappy act. The famous producer, Max
Neuerman, fat but tireless, called endless rehearsals. There was hot
coffee at one a. m., more hot coffee at five A. m., but it was never
so hot as the scalding tears of the leading lady, Miss Trevelyan, who
couldn't, to save her, make Peter's lines come real.
'There were, also, dingy Eagle Houses and Hotel Lincolns where soggy
food was hurled at you in thick dishes by strong-armed waitresses.
Finally, Neuerman himself dictated a new scene that proved worse than
any of Peter's. The publicity man submitted a new second-act curtain.
The stage manager said that you couldn't blame Miss Trevelyan; she was
an emotional actress, and should not be asked to convey the restraint of
ironic comedy--in which belief he rewrote the act himself.
By this time, the second act had lost whatever threads of connecting
interest it may have had with the first and third; so Neuerman suggested
that Peter do those over. Peter began this--locked up over Sunday in a
hotel room.
Then Neuerman made this announcement:
“Well--got one more string to my bow. Trevelyan can't do your play, and
she's not good enough to swing it on personality. We're going to try
some one that can.”
“Who, for instance?” muttered Peter weakly.
“Grace Derring.”
We have spoken of Grace Derring. It was not a year since that tumultuous
affair had brought Peter to the brink of self-destruction. And that not
because of any coldness between them. Not exactly. You see--well, life
gets complicated at times. You are not to think harshly of Peter; for
your city bachelor does _not_ inhabit a vacuum. There have usually
been--well, episodes. Nor are you to feel surprise that Peter's face, in
the space of a moment, assumed an appearance of something near helpless
pain.
So Grace Herring was to be whirled back into his life--caught up out of
the nowhere, just as his devotion to Sue had touched exalted heights!
The voice of the fat manager was humming in his ears.
“She made good for us in _The Buzzard_. Of course her work in _The Gold
Heart_ has put her price up. But she has the personality. I guess we've
got to pay her.”
Peter started to protest, quite blindly. Then, telling himself that he
was too tired to think (which was true), he subsided.
“Can you get her?” he asked cautiously.
“She's due here at five-thirty.”
Peter slipped away. Neuerman had acted without consulting him. It seemed
to him that he should be angry. But he was merely dazed.
He walked the streets, a solitary, rather elegant figure, conspicuously
a New Yorker, swinging his stick savagely and occasionally muttering to
himself. He roved out to the open country. Maple buds were sprouting.
New grass was pushing upward into the soft air. The robins were singing.
But there were neither buds nor robins in Peter's heart. He decided to
be friendly with Grace, but reserved.
It was nearly six when he entered the barnlike office of the hotel, his
eyes on the floor, full of himself. Then he saw her, registering at the
desk.
He had stopped short. He could not very well turn and go out. She might
see him.. And he was not afraid.
She did see him. He raised his hat, Their hands met--he extremely
dignified, she smiling a very little.
“Well, Peter!”
“You're looking well, Grace.”
“Am I?”
They moved, tacitly, into the adjoining parlor and stood by the window.
“I thought--” he began.
“What did you think, Peter?” Then, before he could reply, she went on
to say: “I've been working through the Middle West. Closed in Cincinnati
last week.”
“Had a hard season?”
“Hard--yes.” She glanced down at a large envelope held under her arm.
“Mr. Neuerman sent your play. I've just read it--on the train.”
“Oh, you've read it?”
“Yes.” Again that hint of a smile. Peter's eyes wandered about the room.
“It's funny,” she murmured.
“What's funny?” said he severely.
“I was thinking of this play.” She took it out of the envelope and
rapidly turned the typewritten pages. “So bachelor women are--what you
call 'trufflers,' Peter!”
“It is quite impersonal, Grace.”
“Oh, of course--a work of art--”
Not clear what that twisted little smile of hers meant, he kept silent.
“Oh, Peter!” she said then, and left him. Everything considered, he felt
that he had handled it rather well.
This was Tuesday. It was arranged that Miss Derring should make her
first appearance Thursday night. Meantime, she was to get up her part
and watch the play closely with the idea of possible suggestions. Peter
kept austerely aloof, working day and night on the revision of Acts I
and III. Neuerman and Miss Derring consulted together a good deal. On
Thursday, Peter caught them at the luncheon table, deep in a heap of
scribbled sheets of paper that appeared to be in Grace's large hand.
They urged him to join them, but he shook his head. He did agree,
however, to sit through the rehearsal, later in the afternoon.
Thus it was that he found himself seated next to Grace in one of the
rear rows of a dim empty theater, all but lost in the shadows under the
balcony. Neuerman left them, and hurried down to the stage to pull his
jaded company together.
It seemed to Peter that they were very close, he and Grace, there in
the shadow. He could feel her sleeve against his arm. He wished Neuerman
would come back.
Unexpectedly to himself, Peter started nervously. His hat slipped from
his knees. He caught it. His hand brushed Grace's skirt, then her hand.
Slowly their fingers interlocked.
They sat there, minute after minute, without a sound, her fingers tight
in his. Then, suddenly, he threw an arm about her shoulders and tried to
kiss her. With a quick little rustle, she pressed him back.
“Don't,” she whispered. “Not here.”
So Peter leaned back and sat very still again, holding her hand down
between the two seats.
Finally the rehearsal was over. They evaded the manager and walked.
There was a river in this town, and a river road. Peter sought it. And
out there in the country, with buds and robins all about them and buds
and robins in his heart, he kissed her. He knew that there had never
been any woman in all the world but Grace, and told her so. All of his
life except the hours he had spent with her faded into an unreal and
remote dream.
Grace had something on her mind. But it was a long time before she could
bring Peter to earth. Finally he bethought himself.
“My dear child,” he said--they were strolling hand in hand--“here it is
after seven! You've had no dinner--and you're going on to-night.”
“Not to-night, Peter. Not until Monday.”
“But--but--”
“Mr. Neuerman and I have been trying to explain what we were doing, but
you wouldn't listen. Peter, I've made a lot of suggestions for the part,
He asked me to. I want your approval, of course. I'm going to ask him
to show you what I've done.” But Peter heard only dimly. Near the hotel,
she left him, saying, with a trace of anxiety: “I don't want to see you
again, Peter, until you have read it. Look me up for lunch to-morrow,
and tell me if you think I've hurt your play.”
Neuerman came to him late that night with a freshly typed manuscript. He
tried to read it, but the buds and robins were still alive, the play a
stale dead thing.
Friday morning, there was a letter for Peter, addressed in Sue's hand.
The sight of it confused him, so that he put it in his pocket and did
not open it until after his solitary breakfast. It had the effect of
bringing Sue suddenly to life again in his heart without, at first,
crowding Grace out.
“It's love that is the great thing,” he thought, explaining the
phenomenon to himself. “The object of it is an incident, after all. It
may be this woman, or that--or both. But the creative artist must have
love. It is his life.”
Then he read Sue's letter; and pictures of her arose. It began to appear
to him that Sue had inspired him as Grace never had. Perhaps it was
Sue's youth. Grace, in her way, was as honest as Sue, but she was not so
young. And the creative artist must have youth, too!
The letter was brief.
“_Could you, by any chance, run back to New York Saturday--have tea with
me? I want you here. Come about four_.”
But it fired his imagination. It was like Sue to reach out to him in
that abrupt way, explaining nothing.
Then he settled down in his room, a glow in his heart, to find out just
what Grace and Neuerman had done, between! them, to _The Truffler_.
At noon that day a white Peter, lips trembling, very still and stiff,
knocked at Miss Derring's door.
She opened it, just dressed for luncheon.
“Oh,” she cried--“Peter!”
“Here,” said he frigidly, “is the manuscript of your play.”
Her eyes, very wide, searched his face.
“It is not mine. I wash my hands of it.”
“Oh, Peter--please don't talk like this.”
“You have chosen to enter into a conspiracy with Neuerman to wreck what
little was left of my play. With Neuerman!” He emphasized the name. “I
am through.”
“But, Peter--be sensible. Come to lunch and we'll straighten this up in
five minutes. Nothing is being forced on you. I was asked...”
“You were brought here without my knowledge. And now--this!”
He strode away, leaving the manuscript in her hands.
She stood there in the door, following him with bewildered eyes until he
had disappeared around a turn in the hall.
Peter, feeling strongly (if vaguely) that he had sacrificed everything
for a principle, packed his suitcase, caught a train to Pittsburgh, and
later, a sleeper for New York.