Mrs. Donnie Pearmain, as everybody knows, is the only daughter of old
Joseph P. Barton, the founder of the milk trust, and derived her very
ample personal fortune from that famous financier’s successful
manipulation of the milk market. Starting as a plain New Jersey farmer,
who peddled his own milk, Barton organized the great trust, and when he
died was its largest individual stockholder. It was he, too, who first
generally introduced the use of the small glass bottle instead of the
large tin can in the distribution of milk, thereby enabling the trust to
add at least thirty per cent to the retail price of its product.
In spite of these accomplishments, financial and hygienic, Barton was one
of the most widely misunderstood and execrated of the older generation of
millionaires, doubtless because of the abnormal increase in cost of this
necessary article of domestic consumption, and its deterioration in
quality, since the formation of the milk trust. Consequently, although
Barton’s daughter had married into glue—one of the Pearmain sons—which
is, of course, an eminently quiet and respectable fortune that has
escaped the keen eyes of the muckrakers, she had never been able wholly
to live down the taint of milk. Too many even of the social leaders of
the city remembered the small bottles of Barton’s pale-blue fluid,
retailed as milk at nine cents a quart, to forgive the social ambitions
of Mrs. Donnie Pearmain, in spite of her respectable veneer of glue.
The energetic little lady, however, had learned from her rich father his
great life axiom—if you can’t do what you want in one way, you can in
another. So she attacked the citadels of social leadership by the way
first of Philanthropy and now of Art, as the magazine man had accurately
related to Brainard. Thanks to her energy as patroness in these allied
fields, she was in a fair way of living down at last the odor of milk and
attaining the coveted reward of social leadership.
Mrs. Pearmain had received Edgar Brainard most graciously in the previous
interviews that had been arranged between them by the young secretary,
and had shown a most intelligent interest in his scheme of creating a
People’s Theater. The young sulfur king appealed to her all the more
because he expected no financial assistance in developing his hobby. She
would not be called upon to pour any milk into this philanthropy.
She did not in the least doubt that Brainard’s controlling purpose was
the same as hers—to become properly known in society by identifying
himself with a popular cause, and she commended his sagacity in taking
this means of living down sulfur. Therefore she had easily been brought
to lend her influence to the Idea. At Farson’s suggestion, she had
gathered together, in her great house on the upper avenue, a most
distinguished luncheon party, which, as the secretary had shrewdly said,
would give éclat to any letterhead.
When Brainard arrived, with his companions, he was shown into the picture
gallery, where Mrs. Pearmain was chatting with her guests. He was
immediately presented to each one. They examined him with curiosity, for
even in New York a young man with an annual income of more than half a
million, which he desires to spend upon the public, is not a common
phenomenon.
The university president, who looked like a banker, was especially
affable, and stuck closely to Brainard’s side. Dr. Butterfield sincerely
regretted that he had not had the good luck to capture this young Croesus
before he had committed himself to this freakish idea about the drama,
and hoped that there was still some stray million which he might divert
into the channels of the higher education at Eureka. It was for this
purpose that he had torn himself away at midday from his many duties at
the university. The other guests, understanding the game, looked on with
sympathetic smiles.
Brainard had spent two dreary years at Eureka where he had found little
to relieve the ignominy of his dire poverty, and thus he knew something
about “old Nat,” as the head of that institution was familiarly known
among the undergraduates. When in the course of their conversation
Brainard admitted that he had been enrolled at the university,
Butterfield beamed upon him with a new warmth and remarked eagerly:
“How interesting! I didn’t know that you were a Eureka man.”
“I didn’t graduate,” Brainard confessed.
“Ah, that’s too bad! I presume you left college for the more arduous
education of a business career?” the college president suggested.
“I left it to earn a living,” Brainard replied simply.
“Exactly,” the president said with a deprecatory cough. “That’s what I
meant.”
He made a mental note of the fact that Brainard had been a student at
Eureka. The university should be able to use that happy fact; the
trustees might consider it proper to bestow an honorary degree upon this
distinguished half son, who had somehow managed to achieve fame and
wealth after deserting the maternal halls. And immediately he began to
compose in imagination a few of those celebrated periods with which he
was accustomed to bestow academic honors upon similar practical “sons of
Eureka.”
“Can’t you find time to come out to us some day?” he inquired
deferentially. “I’m sure the boys will be delighted to welcome you back
to your old home. A little address at chapel? It is a great inspiration
for young men thus to come into touch with persons who have made their
mark in life.”
Brainard merely laughed. He remembered a number of occasions when “old
Nat” had introduced distinguished visitors to the academic audience in
somewhat similar words. . . .
At the luncheon Brainard was seated between the college president and his
hostess. He easily recovered from his natural shyness and talked
fluently of Arizona and sulfur. The others listened deferentially to
him, and in the many subtle ways that these people understood of
testifying their consideration for a promising man he was made to feel
welcome.
The banker, who had already put him on his list of capitalists that might
be interested in some “undigested” railroad bonds his house had on their
hands, was especially attentive. Indeed there was something of a contest
for the guest’s attention between the banker and the university
president, who each understood the other only too well. The banker, of
course, did not commit the crudity of talking finance or even business;
instead he discussed “public service” and “the new spirit of capital.”
The kindly gleam of his shrewd blue eyes seemed to say to Brainard,—“You
are one of the new kind, who will do everything for the dear Public!”
And so before the succession of excellent courses had gone far, Brainard
had forgotten his distaste for the social side of life, which he had
expressed so vigorously to Farson that morning, and really believed that
all these good people were as eager as he was to give the American public
a superior form of dramatic art at prices within the reach of the
poorest. And when he began to talk to the company at the conclusion of
the luncheon, after a few words of flattering introduction from the
hostess, he had no trouble in finding what he wanted to say.
“First, you will forgive me if I say a word about myself, by way of
introduction,” he began, with an engaging smile. “Four years ago, just
about, I was here in New York, down and out—a poor, discouraged
scribbler, earning a precarious existence by writing furniture
advertisements, and sneaking into the upper gallery of a theater when I
could get the price of an admission ticket.”
The magazine man, at the farther end of the table, writhed uncomfortably
over this introduction. Why, he said to himself, go back—so far back?
But the others seemed much interested, and as Brainard went on with his
personal story, describing, in simple, straightforward language, life as
he had lived it on the other side of the fence—its monotony and
sordidness, its lack of interests that relieved from toil and worry—it
was apparent that he had hit upon the best way to secure the attention of
these people. There were some present, like Butterfield and Haggard, who
had begun very near the beginning, and these liked to feel again the
unmeasurable distance that separated them from their former state.
Others, like Bunker and Mrs. Pearmain, thought the story so “picturesque”
or “dramatic.” It served to increase their complacency at not “having
been through all that, you know.” To Toowit of the _Beacon_ and the few
of a middling prosperity the tale of a rich man’s marvelous rise was
exasperatingly titillating to the nerves.
Brainard touched briefly on the dramatic occurrence that had suddenly
lifted him into action. His auditors looked as if they would like to
hear more of this; but he paused after saying:
“I won’t go into that. It made another man of me—the man you see here
now, that’s all!”
In a few moments he resumed, throwing back his head:
“My friends, I have had a vision!”
“Oh,” thought the secretary, “why doesn’t he come to the point? They
don’t want to hear about his dreams!” But with that simple earnestness
which was the most characteristic quality in his developed character,
Brainard persisted in his effort to share his idealistic enthusiasm. He
concluded his confession of faith with the words,—“It is not mere
amusement, my friends, that I wish to further—it is life!”
Dr. Butterfield nodded his head approvingly at this point. He had said
something not unlike this a few weeks before, when his college dedicated
a new hall, the gift of a whisky millionaire. But the editor of the
_Daily Beacon_ looked thoroughly bored, and presently slipped away. All
this idealistic talk was merely angel food for ladies and parsons, he
seemed to think.
“I promised myself,” Brainard continued, “that if I were ever free to do
so, I would give myself wholly to this Idea—give myself and all that I
could command of resources to found a national theater worthy of our
great people.”
Then, taking his little worn note-book from his pocket, Brainard ran
rapidly over the details of his plan, most of which we have already
learned. The magnitude of the scheme seemed to appeal at first to this
fashionable audience; they were accustomed to deal in large figures,
complex enterprises, and size stimulated their imaginations like alcohol.
Oddly enough, it was only when he mentioned a small detail—the low, fixed
scale of prices to be charged at the theaters—that the first dissenting
voice made itself heard.
“You will pauperize the people!” the banker objected. That, he urged,
was the trouble with so many humanitarian movements; they deprived the
poor people of the joys of competition. The point passed, however, after
a feeble discussion. That was a detail evidently to be settled later
when the exigencies of deficits would doubtless force a more practical
view upon this enthusiast. But a chorus of objections rose when Brainard
said that the theaters were to have no reserved seats and no boxes.
“No boxes!” Mrs. Pearmain murmured, as if personally affronted. “But
where shall _we_ sit?”
“Where the others do,” Brainard replied promptly.
Significant glances were exchanged about the table. Was this a socialist
who had slipped in among them in disguise?
“Think what the opera would be without the boxes!” a large bejeweled
woman whispered to her neighbor.
“These are to be the people’s theaters!” Brainard remarked somewhat
sharply.
“Oh, I hadn’t understood!”
“Where will your theater be in New York?” some one asked.
“That is yet to be decided. I am looking into the matter to determine
where the largest number of people can most easily reach a theater by the
transportation system of the city. Somewhere on the lower West Side, I
suspect.”
“Nobody will ever go down _there_!” several protested. “Everything is
going up town all the time. . . . The Opera is too far away. . . .”
“Everybody can get there most cheaply and easily,” Brainard returned.
From this point interest waned visibly, and the company merely gave a
polite half attention to the remaining notes, including the plan for a
great summer festival of drama.
“It sounds like a Chautauqua,” Butterfield superciliously remarked. He
detested these popular efforts for education, regarding them as “scabs”
on the genuine industry.
“It would be exceedingly drafty, an open-air theater in the American
climate,” said an old gentleman. “Think of a Bar Harbor fog!”
When these trivialities had passed, Brainard hastily read a few notes on
the ideals of the enterprise—the careful staging of plays, the giving of
classics, the revival of old plays, the need for purity of speech,
something about poetic plays and the new drama.
As he read, there were signs of impatience. At the close came the hard,
round voice of the Rev. Thomson Spicer:
“What sort of plays, may I inquire, Mr. Brainard, do you propose to give
in your theaters?”
“All sorts,” Brainard replied, surprised.
“I trust there will be a strict moral censorship.”
“I agree with you, Dr. Spicer,” Mrs. Pearmain added in a severe tone.
“The greatest care should be taken not to incite the people to discontent
with their lot. Many of the plays given to-day are most dangerous in
their tendency. They hold us up to ridicule, and even criticize our
morals and our fortunes!”
It was here that Brainard committed his unpardonable blunder, and the
secretary knew that he had finally “queered himself” with these
influential people.
“I think,” he said sternly, “that the people should be the judge of what
plays they want to see. You would not try to tell them what to eat or
drink, would you, Mrs. Pearmain?”
There was an unfortunate allusion, perhaps, though unconscious, in the
word “drink”; for that was precisely what Joseph Barton had done to the
people—he had made them drink a very inferior grade of blue-white fluid
called milk.
Brainard was rebuked by a stony silence, for his unintentional _faux
pas_, and then there burst forth a flood of criticism. For an hour these
good people tore to tatters the fabric of his dream. There seemed to be
a perplexing double fire of objections. A few, the Reverend Spicer among
them, felt that Brainard’s ideas about the sort of dramatic art suited to
the people were dangerous and anarchistic. Unless such a scheme were
carefully hedged in by a sound conservatism, it might work more harm than
good. Others—and these were in the majority—asserted that it was
altogether a mistake to found a people’s theater on the level of the
people. Art was always aristocratic, they maintained, and the people
should be invited guardedly to partake of the intellectual entertainment
provided for them by their superiors in a playhouse situated where the
best classes could patronize it, with obscure galleries to which the
commonalty might penetrate.
“You must appeal to the intelligent classes,” the college president told
Brainard dogmatically.
“Where are they?” he asked caustically.
Thereafter he sat silent, and did not answer any of the comments made.
At this point Farson circulated the plans for the new theater, in order
to create a diversion, if possible, and explained to a little group the
design of the grandiose edifice. Here the banker, who prided himself on
his knowledge of architecture, took a hand and condemned the plans
severely as “mixed in style,” “not indicative of the purpose of the
building,” and so on.
The sheets passed up and down the drawing-room, to which the party had
adjourned, and were ogled by fine ladies with lorgnettes, until Brainard
rose, and, bowing to his hostess, prepared to leave.
“It’s so interesting, your plan, Mr. Brainard,” Mrs. Pearmain gushed;
“but I think you must modify some of your ideas. You must start from
_above_ always, and work _down_.”
“Perhaps I shall, when I discover what is above,” he retorted.
The secretary gathered up the plans, and overtook Brainard in the hall.
MacNaughton was already there. The old actor’s face was very red; he had
not said a single word all the afternoon, and his self-control was making
him positively apoplectic. He stalked majestically past the footman,
metaphorically shaking the dust of the milk-trust millions from his feet
as he crossed the threshold.
“Asses, fools, imbeciles!” he cried, as the three reached the pavement.
“What do _they_ know about the drama? About anything but food and drink?
They want us to build a theater for _them_!”
“Rather a frost, wasn’t it, Ned?” Brainard observed, smiling humorously
at the secretary.
Farson said nothing; he was too utterly depressed for words. The great
social engagement on which he had counted so much had utterly missed
fire, and he blamed himself for the fiasco. He should have written
Brainard’s remarks for him and rehearsed him carefully beforehand, thus
guarding against the “bad breaks” that his employer had been guilty of.
And yet he had not expected to encounter such stiff prejudice, such
conservatism as took offense at trivialities, and stuck fast on some
nonessential detail. But his experience with the “patron” class of
society had not been large.
They walked back to Brainard’s little house, and all the way the old
Scotsman delivered himself of invective against the leisure class.
Brainard remarked once:
“This is a democracy, so called! Art is to be handed to the public on a
gilt plate by the upper classes!”
He laughed sardonically.
When they entered the library, the fire was burning cheerily on the
hearth. Brainard, taking the roll of plans from his secretary, glanced
at the elaborate blueprints and water-color sketches of the palatial
theater, which might be built for three millions. Slowly he poked the
roll into the flames, and watched it burn until the last bit was licked
up. His companions looked on in consternation.
“You are not going to give up?” Farson asked.
“Not much!”
“I’m so sorry for this afternoon,” the young man said apologetically.
“How could one tell—”
“You couldn’t! I don’t regret it. They taught me a lot—a whole lot,”
Brainard mused. “It was worth while for that. We shall learn all along
the way, all of us.” After another silence he roused himself suddenly,
and said, with characteristic optimism and good humor: “There’s been too
much talk—let’s get to work! You, Mac, go ahead and engage the best
company you can get together for love of art or of money. I will attend
to building the theater. Farson can read those.” He pointed whimsically
at the pile of plays in the corner. “We’ll let publicity take care of
itself for a time.”
V
It was very nearly a year from the day of the disastrous luncheon at Mrs.
Pearmain’s before the new theater was ready for rehearsal of the first
play. The year, as Brainard had foreseen, had been replete with
education, if nothing else. To find a suitable site for a popular
playhouse, to erect thereon a pleasing building, commodious and
attractive in design, and to engage a competent body of actors, would not
seem a tremendous task. It had been done before; in fact, Messrs.
Einstein & Flukeheimer, and their fellows, were doing it all the time.
But the amateur with ideas and ideals was at a disadvantage.
Brainard had chosen the site, which was removed from the theater district
but quite accessible—in fact, not far from the side street where he had
once lodged. As the result of a large search he had discovered an
architect who would devote himself to making a useful and suitable
building instead of exploiting his patron’s purse, and together they had
worked over the plans until a satisfactory theater of modest proportions
was evolved. It was decided to postpone the starting of the Actors’
College until the general scheme had established itself. Almost all the
other features of Brainard’s model playhouse for the people were included
in the plans.
The site bought and the plans finished, Brainard thought that his
difficulties in regard to the building were over, but in fact they had
not yet begun. There was one strike after another upon the building from
the excavation up, with an annoying regularity and persistence. They
were usually ended by a compromise, which consisted in Brainard’s paying
a contractor a slight increase in contract price, to “square” some union
or labor leader. MacNaughton, whose imagination was much given to plots
and dire machinations of the enemy, held that these labor troubles
emanated from the offices of Einstein & Flukeheimer in upper Broadway.
Farson and Brainard tried to convince him of the folly of this delusion,
telling him that the noted managers probably had enough troubles of their
own to keep them busy, and indeed would doubtless be glad to give the
People’s Theater one of their own empty playhouses for a reasonable
consideration if Brainard would take it off their hands. But they could
not convince the Scotsman, who would go to Brainard’s house at all hours
with mysterious information about the plot, which had to be confided in
deep whispers. He had thought it all out in his own mind and believed
that their hated rivals were working through the powerful agency of the
Catholic Church. He said that was their favorite weapon when they wished
to put any rival out of business or ruin a promising star, who had
refused to listen to their offers.
When Brainard on his return from a hurried trip to Monument to inspect
the mine found all work suspended upon the theater building, he was
almost inclined to take Mac’s view of the plot against the People’s.
This time it proved to be a dispute between two rival unions over the job
of electric lighting. The contractor had given the work to the regular
union, and the union of theatrical electricians had declared war. Every
workman was called out. Brainard’s patience was exhausted, and he would
not listen to the usual proposal for compromise suggested by a suave
“business agent.” Instead he telegraphed his manager in Arizona to send
up at once old Steve and the “emergency gang,”—the name by which a choice
collection of spirits under the command of the old miner Steve operated
either as miners or strike breakers. On the third day they
arrived,—twenty lean and lank specimens from the plains, in sombreros and
riding boots, prepared for immediate action. They did not know much
about gas fitting, electric wiring, tile laying, and allied trades, but
they took possession of the unfinished building with an unconcern that
created a sensation in labor circles, and before long work had begun
again and this time was pushed uninterruptedly towards a belated
conclusion—all under the careful supervision of the “emergency gang,” who
rolled cigarettes and spat upon the premises, while they discussed the
drama with MacNaughton.
This prompt action by Brainard raised him highly in the esteem not only
of the contractors and workmen, but of his associates in the venture.
They saw that beneath his good nature and smiling placidity, he was a man
to be reckoned with who meant to carry out his purposes. After this
final flurry he took more pleasure in watching the work on the building,
and thus realizing as far as the outside went his old dream. It would
be, he flattered himself, the most delightful and convenient recreation
center in the city,—not merely a garish, ugly auditorium where the
largest number of unfortunates possible would be packed into the smallest
area. . . . At last the building was sufficiently near completion to
permit the beginning of rehearsals. . . .
* * * * *
On his way to the first general rehearsal Brainard stumbled over the
marble workers, who were laying the mosaic floors with what seemed
incredible deliberation. At this rate, push the work as he might, the
theater would be a rough barn on the night of its opening to the public,
which had been announced for the first of December. It was easier to
capture a fortune and develop a great mine than to build a playhouse in
America! That gave him something to think of.
He dropped his coat and hat in the pleasant library on the second floor,
where the carpenters were languidly putting up bookcases. He had watched
these same carpenters at their work for a number of weeks and had
marveled at their grudging slowness of movement. Certainly they were not
touched with enthusiasm for the great Idea, although the philanthropic
object of the building had been carefully explained to them. Some of
these carpenters lived in the neighborhood, and the theater was designed
to give pleasure to them and their wives and their children—it was to be
their playhouse. And yet they seemingly took no more interest in it than
they would in the Octopus Building farther down town, on which they would
be employed next. Brainard himself had put much more than money into
every detail of the place; he had given it loving thought and care, and
he wished a beautiful product which should reflect that spirit in every
line and tone,—something intimate and lovely and human. But nothing of
all this could he evoke in workman or contractor. It was all just
“business,” to be skimped and shirked wherever possible. With a sigh
from these reflections, thinking dubiously of the state of mind it
betrayed in that “public,” on which he was counting so hopefully, he
turned toward the stage. It gave him a thrill of real pleasure to push
aside the heavy hangings and enter the mysterious darkness of the empty
auditorium. At least this was real!
In the bare spaces of the undecorated stage, with a background of white
brick wall, the new company was rehearsing _Lear_. It had been
Brainard’s idea to open with what he considered to be the greatest play
of the greatest English dramatist,—to be followed, he hoped, by a new
American comedy. Thus the new company would pay their respects both to
the past and to the future. Farson had tried to dissuade him from
attempting _Lear_, saying lightly,—“You don’t want to queer us with the
profession at the start.” But Brainard, whose first conscious interest
in the drama had been aroused by a performance of _Lear_ by the elder
Salvini, which he had witnessed with his father in the hazy years of his
youth, clung to his idea. Perhaps the part of Cordelia also touched his
feeling for that lonely girl, whose memory in some way this undertaking
was to commemorate. And MacNaughton came to his support in the
discussion with Farson, assuring him of the popular triumphs he had
scored throughout the West in this masterpiece.
It was not until the parts were to be assigned that Brainard discovered
the reason for the old actor’s unshaken faith in the ability of the
people to rise to _Lear_. He wished to play the title rôle himself, and
had broken into tears when forced to yield to a more suitable actor. It
had been a very painful incident, and also an enlightening one, to the
inexperienced patron of the theater. . . .
At the moment of Brainard’s arrival this morning, little Margaret Leroy,
who, for the lack of a better actress, was their present leading lady,
was languidly reciting Cordelia’s lines:
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our aged father’s rights,
In a few moments a voice with a beery tang boomed forth heavily into the
dusky auditorium:
Aye, every inch a king;
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes!
At this point Brainard had his first misgivings. Perhaps, with their
present company, _Lear_ was overambitious. It gave him a pang to realize
that the faded little Leroy, with her childish blond wig, was the best
actress they could secure. She had had a quarrel with her manager at the
opening of the season, because he wanted to send her to Omaha, in
somebody else’s last season’s success, and had accepted the offer of the
People’s Theater in a fit of pique, and with obvious reluctance.
“It queers one so with the profession,” she had told Farson
confidentially.
She had insisted upon bringing along with her that ancient idol of the
matinée, Dudley Warner. He was doing _Lear_ in the style of _Beau
Brummel_, in which he had made his last tour on the road.
As Brainard listened to the shrill pipings of Cordelia answered by
Warner’s beery bass, his heart sank. He recalled all the rebuffs he had
received from the better players whom he had approached—their insincere
and voluble sympathy, their flimsy excuses, and the selfish fears that
kept them from offending Einstein & Flukeheimer, in spite of the generous
salaries and all the other temptations Brainard could think of to win
them to the cause of art.
“Maybe your gold mine will give out, or you will get tired of the stage,”
one well-known actress had said to him pertly. “Anyway, Einstein has
promised to put me on in one of Dudu Smith’s plays, and that’s good
enough for me!”
The People’s would have to do the best they could with second-rate and
third-rate people until they had “made good,” or could train their own
actors, Brainard reflected. Meanwhile Miss Leroy continued to pipe and
Dudley Warner to bawl, interrupted now and then by MacNaughton’s resonant
voice from the wings “No, no! That won’t do at all. Begin that once
more, Miss Leroy,” etc.
“Ah, it’s rotten! Cut it out!” a voice murmured out of the darkness
close to Brainard.
The fresh young voice so near to him startled Brainard, and he turned to
see who had spoken. In the gloom he could make out a girl sitting
hunched up, with crossed legs, a newspaper on her lap, from which she
seemed to be eating her luncheon.
“It _is_ pretty rotten,” Brainard admitted.
“The whole bunch is no account trash, anyway,” the young person continued
impersonally, dangling a slice of sausage before her mouth. “Like last
year’s grass or yesterday’s supper. But that Jenny! Why, she couldn’t
decorate a cemetery properly!”
Thereupon, having disposed of the company, the young woman devoted
herself unreservedly to her food, ignoring Brainard’s presence. The next
time that the stage manager opened a discussion with Miss Leroy that
promised to last for some moments, Brainard turned to the girl.
“Pardon my curiosity,” he said, taking the seat behind her, “but I should
like to know how you happen to be here at the rehearsal.”
“Me? Why, I belong!” she replied, with a funny wrinkling of her small
lips. “I’m part of it—this great uplift movement for the American
drá-ma!”
Brainard winced at the gibe.
“Is that what they call us?”
“And a lot of other things,” the young woman admitted frankly.
“Highbrows and amateurs and boneheads and—”
“I don’t know you, and I thought I had met every one in the company.”
“I’m not in the front row, you see. I am what they call a nee-o-phyte—a
pupil in the Actors’ College, when there is any college.”
“Oh, I remember now!” Brainard said, recalling the first and only pupil
enrolled. “Your name is—”
“Delacourt—Louisiana Delacourt,” the girl rolled out with gusto, as if
she enjoyed her name, and hadn’t many opportunities of using it.
The slightly Southern accent of the girl set puzzling currents of memory
at work in Brainard’s mind. He looked at her more closely, but in the
dim light of the auditorium could not make out distinctly the face which
was shrouded in one of the inverted “peach-basket” hats of the period.
She seemed a slight little body.
“Say,” Miss Delacourt remarked confidentially, “I bet I could show that
wiggle-tailed Flossie a stunt or two!”
“Do you know _Lear_?”
“Do I know _Lear_? I was nursed on Shakespeare. My mother knew the
plays by heart, and used to recite ’em all over. Mr. Farson says he’ll
get me a boy’s part in the last act. Five lines—but you’ll see how I’ll
make ’em hum!”
Just then Farson came up to them out of the darkness of the auditorium,
and nodded to the girl, who presently slipped off.
“So you know Miss Delacourt?” Brainard observed.
“Of course! Everybody about the place knows Louisiana. Queer little
piece, isn’t she? Slangy and fresh, but she knows how to handle herself.
. . . It’s pretty rotten!” he remarked cheerfully, glancing at the
stage.
“Just what Louisiana said.”
“I guess she knows!”
Brainard and the secretary thereupon went out to lunch, and tried to
forget their troubles.