|THEY wandered into the crowded lobby.
Friends were there from Greenwich Village. There was a high buzz of
excitement. Jaded critics were smiling with pleasure; it was a relief,
now and then, to be spared boredom. Peter had spared them.
Peter himself appeared, wearing his high hat--flushed, his eyes blazing,
but unsmiling. He held a folded envelope against his shirt-front.
Acquaintances caught at him as he passed. One critic publicly
congratulated him. It was an ovation; or it would have been had he
responded. But he saw, out near the entrance, through the crowd, the
face of Sue Wilde. He pressed through to her side.
“Sue,” he murmured in her ear. “I want to see you? How about to-morrow?
Lunch with me perhaps? I've written something....”
His excited eyes wandered down to the paper in his hand.
Sue, smiling a little, suddenly rather excited herself, pulled at the
Worm's elbow. That young man turned.
“It seems to be across, Pete,” he said casually.
Peter glared at him.
But the words he might have uttered, by way of putting this too casual
old friend in his place, remained unsaid. For Sue, demure of everything
excepting eyes, remarked:
“My husband, Peter. We were married to-day.”
The playwright dropped, in one instant, from the pinnacle of fame, money
power, on which, for nearly two hours, he had been exultingly poised.
His chin sagged. His eyes were dazed. A white pinched expression came
over his long face.
“Married--to-day!” He repeated the words in a flat voice.
She nodded. “You must congratulate us, Peter. We're dreadfully happy.”
Peter seemed unable, however, to say anything more. He continued to
stare. The beginnings of a low laugh of sheer delight bubbled upward
within Sue's radiant being. Peter heard it, or felt it. Suddenly he
bolted--out through the crowd to the sidewalk. He brushed aside the
enthusiastic hands that would detain him. He disappeared.
There are conflicting reports as to what occurred after this. _The
Evening Earth_ described the incident as taking place on the sidewalk
directly in front of the theater. _The Press-Record_ had it on the
farther corner, across the side street. _The Morning Bulletin_ and _The
Continental_ agreed that the woman pursued him through the stage door.
Outside there, the traffic was heavy. Street-cars and motors filled the
street from curb to curb. Women and their escorts were passing out of
and into the famous restaurant that is next door but one to the Astoria.
The sidewalk was crowded as always in the theater district on a fine
September evening.
MacMerry, dramatic critic of _The Standard_, was the one closest to
it. He had stepped outside to smoke his cigarette, found himself at the
playwright's elbow, and spoke pleasantly to him of the play. He noted at
the time, as he explained later at his club, that Mann was oblivious. He
was very pale, stared straight ahead, and appeared to be drifting with
the crowd.
The stage entrance to the Astoria is not around the corner, but is a
narrow passage leading back from the street on the farther side of the
restaurant. It was at this point, said MacMerry, that Mann came to
a stop. He seemed dazed. Which was not unnatural, considering the
occasion.
As he stood there, a young woman rushed forward. She was of an Italian
cast of countenance, not bad-looking, but evidently in a state of
extreme excitement. Apparently she had been standing close to the
building, watching the crowd. She had a knife in her hand.
This knife she wielded on the playwright. Three or four separate times
she stabbed at his chest, evidently striking for the heart. Trying to
seize her hand, Mann received a slight cut on the fingers. MacMerry
himself finally caught her forearm, threw her back against the building,
and took the knife away from her. By this time, of course, a dense crowd
had pressed about them. And Mann, without a word, had slipped into the
passage leading to the stage. Certainly, when the policeman got through
to the critic's side, Mann was not there.
They talked it over in the lobby. There the Worm, catching an inkling of
the catastrophe, took a hand. Learning from MacMerry that the girl was
evidently an Italian, he put forth the theory that she had probably
mistaken Pete for a man of her own blood. Peter was dark of hair and
skin. Considering this, MacMerry recalled that Peter had given no sign
of knowing the woman. And he could not recall that she had spoken his
name. He and the Worm then talked this over with the newspaper men that
came rushing to the scene. The theory-found its acceptors. The Worm
pointed out that Peter was a man of quiet manners and of considerable
dignity. He was never a roysterer. His ideas were serious. It was not
likely that the woman had any claim upon him.
Perhaps the strongest influence working in Peter's interest was the fact
that he was actually, at the moment, bursting into a big success. Every
one, newspaper workers among the others, was glad to help him along. It
was the thing to do. So by midnight all had agreed that it was a case of
mistaken identity. Peter's luck held.
Meantime a little drama more real than any Peter had yet been credited
with writing was taking place behind the scenes.
Act four was short; and from curtain to curtain Miss Derring held the
stage. Therefore she had no knowledge of what was taking place in her
dressing-room. Whether Peter came back with any coherent intention
of finding Grace. I can not say. It is not likely. The most intensely
exciting evening of his life had reached its climax in a short scene in
which a young woman had stabbed him. Immediately preceding this event,
he had encountered the astounding fact that the girl it seemed to him
he had always loved more than any one else in the world was
married--married to his old chum.
As he ran through the dark passage from the street to the stage door,
his hand still clutched the paper on which he had written the sonnet
that was to touch her heart. You are to remember that this bit of verse
had considerable emotional quality and more than a touch of grace. He
had written it on an old envelope, seated in a crowded theater; but
then, Schubert wrote wonderful songs on restaurant menus. It is so that
things are done in the world of temperament.... I don't believe he knew
what he was doing, then or later; perhaps, until the next morning. If
Peter ever knew what he was doing!
The curtain was already up when he slipped sidewise past the doorman,
through the vestibule, on to the stage. It was dim and still back there.
Far away, beyond the great shadowy cluster of canvas and wood structures
that made up the fourth act set, he could hear Grace's voice. Down
front, by the prompt corner stood a silent little group--four or five
actors, the electrician, the mighty Max Neuerman in his shirt-sleeves.
Scene flats, six deep, were propped against the wall. He had to pick
his way between piled-up properties and furniture. Two stage hands moved
aside and let him by. He was conscious of feeling weak. His head was a
maelstrom of whirling emotions. He was frightened. He couldn't get his
breath. It wouldn't do to stay around here--perhaps make a scene and
spoil his own play. He had no means of knowing for certain that Maria
had not escaped MacMerry and pursued him up the passage. What if she
should overpower the doorman--a superannuated actor--and get at him
again! Even if she shouldn't, he might faint, or die. It was curiously
hard to breathe.
He felt his way past more scenery, more properties. There was a doorway
in the concrete stage wall, leading to dressing-rooms on a corridor, and
more dressing-rooms up a twisting iron stairway.
Grace would have the star's room, of course. She wasn't a star yet,
but Neuerman was featuring her name in all the advertising. That would
naturally entitle her to the star's room. That would be the end room
with the outside light. The door was ajar. It was a large room. Yes, he
could see her first act frock, over a chair. And Minna, the maid who had
been with her when--when he and she had been on rather good terms, very
good terms--was sitting quietly by the dresser, sewing. Minna was a
discreet little person. She had carried notes and things. Still, it
was awkward. He would prefer not having Minna see him just now.... He
_was_ weak.
He found it necessary to catch at the iron stair rail and steady
himself... Grace, you had to admit, was a good deal of a girl. It
was rather remarkable, considering her hard life, the work, the travel,
the--well, the one or two experiences--how fresh she looked, how young,
how full of magnetic charm. Why, Grace was twenty-eight if she was a
day! But she was putting the play over in great style. You had to admire
her for that. It was too bad, thinking it all ever, that their relations
hadn't gone quietly along on a friendly basis, that emotions should have
torn her so, intensifying her demands on him, making it really necessary
for him to break off with her.
He plunged into the dressing-room.