Latterly the critics had completely ignored the existence of the People’s
Theater. Its announcements aroused no more public interest than the
program of an ethical culture society. Brainard, who had at last learned
the real importance of publicity, feared lest this same contemptuous
indifference on the part of the press might bury his young secretary’s
play in hasty and undeserved oblivion.
But as he sank into his seat on the following Monday night he was
surprised and relieved at the size and the character of the audience.
All the leading critics of the metropolitan press were there, also many
of “those who know,” and whose verdict is useful indirectly. There were
some theatrical people, and a few fashionable folk from Mrs. Donnie
Pearmain’s world. The rest were of the ordinary, semi-intelligent
theater-going sort.
It was an ideal house before which to try out the new piece. If the play
had anything enduring in it, there were those present who could recognize
the fact. Ned Farson had many personal friends in the city—college mates
at various clubs, young literary aspirants, dramatists, newspaper and
professional men. Among these, evidently, the word had been passed
around that Ned’s play was to be produced—and that was enough. Louisiana
had also worked Cissie, and Cissie Pyce had reached other professional
circles.
“And now for the play,” Brainard sighed, dropping his glasses after this
preliminary reconnaissance, “and for our one actress!”
At last, in the hush of a well-trained, expectant audience, the heavy
curtains drew apart noiselessly, revealing the first scene—a rough shack
in a mining camp, with a splendid background of mountains and desert.
There was no doubt from the first curtain that the piece would go—would
hold this audience, any audience, by the simple power of its story, its
honest pathos and humor, its vitality and veracity. But it was not until
the first scene of the third act that the people gathered there awoke to
the fact that a real actress, and one whose very name had not been heard
before that night, was taking this piece, and the part of the Western
girl, Gertrude, to present herself as an artist. “Melody White” was her
name on the program.
“Who is she?” was the whisper that ran around the theater.
Certainly she was not the Louisiana Delacourt whose liberties with
Cordelia had made a farce of Lear! Quiet, almost subdued in her methods,
with an extraordinary variety of power, she gave the lines—many of which
had a real poetic quality—with a musical accent that swept over the ears
of the audience like a soft, summer wave. Her face was lighted with a
glow; her slightest gesture seemed to reveal something of the
character—the free, fearless, capable woman of the great West.
As the play went on, hardened theatergoers looked at one another in
wonder and joy. Here, beyond the shadow of doubt, was a fresh talent, as
Brainard had predicted.
At the close of the act, after the furious applause, the flowers, and the
curtain calls for company, actress, and author, there was a clamor behind
the scenes for a speech from the founder. The company gathered about
Brainard and insisted that he “must say something.”
“You talked to ’em when I was down, do you remember?” Melody remarked.
“I think you ought to say a word now that I am up!”
So for the second and last time Brainard faced an audience in the
People’s Theater, and the irrepressible young actress was the occasion
for both his speeches. In a few rapid words he reviewed the purposes he
had had in mind in opening the theater, two years before.
“We have made many mistakes, of course. Perhaps some of you may think
that we have made more mistakes than anything else. We have learned a
great deal; and first of all, that in our country there is no ‘people’—no
_one_ public. At least, they haven’t patronized their own theater! But
I can’t think that we have altogether failed, after such a night as this.
“One of our desires was to produce truthful American plays of American
life. _Her Great Adventure_ is American to the core, and you seem to
think it good. Another object was to discover and educate persons of
unusual dramatic talent, to create artists and free them from the base
compromises of the commercial stage. To-night you have witnessed the
début of such a talent. Having given the world _Her Great Adventure_ and
Miss Melody White, who shall say that we have failed? . . .”
After the play, the company gathered in the library for supper, to
celebrate their triumph. It was Brainard’s custom to give such a feast
at every premiere, but to-night there was among the fifty or sixty guests
an unaccustomed air of success and intoxication that bubbled into
speeches and songs and kept them until long after midnight. At last,
after dreary failures, contempt, and neglect, the People’s had achieved a
real, big, popular success! The critics had scattered to tell all New
York to go to the People’s Theater in West Twelfth Street, to see _Her
Great Adventure_ and a real American actress.
“We shan’t be closing right off, I reckon,” Miss White whispered across
the table to Brainard.
“Not as soon as I expected!” he replied with a smile.
When the party finally broke up, he looked to see the successful author
lead away his triumphant star; but, to his surprise, Farson went off with
some young men, to finish his triumph with them at a club. Brainard
questioned the actress with his eyes.
“Yes, you’ve got to take me home in your car! Cissie has left. Don’t
you see that I have waited until all the women are gone, and now you are
making me ask you for a ride outright?”
“I merely wished to efface myself before the hero of the occasion,” he
replied joyfully.
“No need of such consideration. He’s left me to cab it up alone.”
“Have you already had the usual tiff between two collaborators?”
“Oh, no,” she drawled, as the car started with them. “Not at all! But
you see, he wanted to push the contract.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ned asked me yesterday to marry him. It would be a convenient
arrangement, you know; he could write the plays and I make ’em famous!”
“Don’t put it that way!” Brainard protested quickly. “He’s the best of
fellows, and I know that he cares for you.”
“It won’t hurt him, I reckon. Clever boy—my, how big his head will be
after to-night, though!”
The young actress yawned, and snuggled under the fur robe.
“How about yours?”
“I’m just happy. You see, I was right. The play is going to be a great
money-maker.”
“It certainly looks that way to-night That means that we shall be able to
keep the theater open till the end of the season, and close with the band
playing. For all of which we have to thank you!”
“And your clever secretary! Tell me, have you heard anything more about
the case?”
“The lawyers telephoned me late this afternoon that the judge had given
his decree—in _their_ favor.”
Her hand stole across to his under the robe.
“Of course, we appeal,” Brainard went on; “but they’ve got a strong case.
Fraud, of course, but we can’t prove it.”
“Why not? Tell me more about the case. I’ve been meaning to ask you all
along; but this play has filled every corner of my little head. Now I
can think of something else. Come on upstairs. I don’t feel the least
bit sleepy, and you can tell me all about your case—why they won when
it’s a fraud.”
“That’s simple enough,” Brainard began, when they had seated themselves
in the actress’s tiny parlor. “This man Krutzmacht, it seems, had
married his stenographer out there in San Francisco. At least, she’s got
a perfectly good certificate.”
“But how could he have really married her, if he was already married?”
“You mean if he was already married to the lost Melody’s mother? But
_was_ he married to her mother? We can’t find any record of it. Nobody
knows, unless we could find Melody herself, and I have given up all hope
of that. Krutzmacht might have deceived her, too, you know.”
“Why, of course he _was_ married to Melody’s mother—and wasn’t divorced,
either!”
“What do you know of it?”
“Stupid!” she said gently, rising and putting her hands on his shoulders.
“Can’t you see that—I am Melody—yes, the real Melody!”
“Louisiana—”
“Name of my mother’s State. I made up Delacourt for the stage.
Louisiana Delacourt was to be my stage name but Cordelia spoiled it.”
She laughed at his astonishment.
“And you are Melody Krutzmacht?”
“Lord, no! Melody White. Krutzmacht wasn’t any father of mine, thank
goodness!”
“And your mother?”
“Was Mrs. Della White—legally married to Herbert Krutzmacht in the
American consulate at Guatemala City. He met mama down there, and
married her, when I was a child, and adopted me, too. I’ve got
everything necessary to prove what I say. So you just telegraph that
judge to hold his horses and get ready to write another decree!”
“And they hadn’t been divorced?” Brainard pursued, bewildered.
“Not that! He was bad enough, gave mother a dreadful life, took her up
to that desolate mining town in Arizona, and left her there. Poor ma!
But he sent her money when he had any—even that last time when he was in
New York—and always called her his wife. I have letters to show it.”
“But you weren’t his child!” Brainard mused.
“Only by adoption; but I am my mother’s only living relative, and she
died _after_ him!”
“So, as the old man seems to have had no other living heirs to make
claim, it is all your money!”
Melody shook her head smilingly.
“Not quite that! A good part of it must belong to my able trustee, who
discovered the sulfur and made it pay. Dad Krutzmacht couldn’t have had
very much to the good when he died. He wasn’t a nice sort of man, Dad
Krutzmacht,” she added thoughtfully.
“Well, he left you a nice little fortune—something that should run into
the millions. You will have to think more tenderly of the old fellow.”
“Ugh! How I hated him and Monument! That’s why I dropped his name. And
just as soon as mother was gone, I fled.”
“In the night—rode down to the railroad. I remember it all. But tell
me, where did you go then, and what happened to you? How did you escape
the search I made for you all over the world?”
“That’s _my_ story! I’ll tell it to you some day—how I dishwashed and
cooked on a ranch for a living, peddled corsets, and worked in a
factory—it’s a long yarn. Some of it is in the play; I told Ned the
amusing things. But he has fixed it up a whole lot—I don’t know myself!”
“It must have been hard for a girl.”
“It was, but I am not sorry. It gave you a chance to work the mine, for
one thing.”
There was a pause, and then Brainard rose to leave, saying:
“Well, Miss White—”
“Just plain Melody, please! I like the name—don’t you?”
“It means a good deal to me, as I told you.”
The girl blushed, remembering what Brainard had said about his unknown
mistress, and drawled:
“But you didn’t like my taking it a little bit.”
“No,” Brainard admitted. “But I don’t mind now.”
“You oughtn’t to, really, seeing that it is my own name by baptism.”
They both laughed at this. Melody danced about the small room, woke up
the new Boston bull, and made him dance with her. She was once more the
child Brainard had first known at the opening of the theater.
“You’ll have to squelch that woman who’s trying to take poor mama’s
place,” she remarked, in a pause.
“Of course I shall attend to that at once—and all other business until I
can straighten out your property and hand it over to you clear of
tangles.”
“What do you mean? Do you think I am going to take your old mine?”
Melody fairly shouted. “It’s yours, yours, all yours! You won the first
stake with your nerve, and you made the rest of it. And you’ll keep it,
too, my friend—at least, most of it. Perhaps some day, when I get the
fool-bug in my head, and want a company of my own, I’ll come around and
call on you for a couple of hundred thousand.”
Brainard looked at the girl almost severely.
“All the property is _yours_, of course. Krutzmacht meant it so. Your
name was the last word on his lips. I have been merely your guardian.
It would be impossible for me to keep it now. You can see that it would
be entirely different from what it has been while you were only a name to
me.”
“I see what _you_ are,” she replied slowly. “The honestest, most
generous, most unselfish of men—and the foolishest! Come, let’s stop
this swapping of compliments like a couple of children—‘You take it,
George!’ ‘No, you take it, Edith!’ . . . So old Pap Krutz wanted me to
have his money when he was dying! I suppose he thought to make it square
for what he put mother and me through. He treated us like _peons_!”
Brainard laughed.
“You may think differently about your millions in the morning. We’ll
wait till then. Good night, and double congratulations, Melody!” he
said.
“Yes, we’d quite forgotten how good I was in the play. I’ll send you
those papers about mother to-morrow morning, and you see that the
scalawags don’t make good! I can’t be bothered with law suits and things
until after the season closes. I’m making _my_ great adventure now, the
same as you did once! I don’t want to be disturbed until I have carried
it through.”
“I’ll see that you are not disturbed. Before I go, please tell me why
you didn’t let me know the truth when you found that picture in my room?”
“I had my idea,” Melody replied vaguely, her eyes shining into his. “I
shouldn’t have given it away now—not until I had really made good—if it
hadn’t been for that woman winning the law suit. When I discovered what
the trouble was, I had to tell, of course.”
“I almost wish you hadn’t!” Brainard exclaimed, starting for the door.
“Why?”
“I think you can tell why!”
And he was gone, leaving Melody with a thoughtful smile on her pretty
face.
“I believe,” she remarked after a time, as in rapid, unstarlike haste she
divested herself of her clothes, “that I shall find a way of compelling
him to keep the money—somehow or other!”