On Thursday night Horace Tarbox sat in an aisle seat in the fifth
row and witnessed "Home James." Oddly enough he found that he
was enjoying himself. The cynical students near him were annoyed
at his audible appreciation of time-honored jokes in the
Hammerstein tradition. But Horace was waiting with anxiety for
Marcia Meadow singing her song about a Jazz-bound Blundering
Blimp. When she did appear, radiant under a floppity flower-faced
hat, a warm glow settled over him, and when the song was over he
did not join in the storm of applause. He felt somewhat numb.
In the intermission after the second act an usher materialized
beside him, demanded to know if he were Mr. Tarbox, and then
handed him a note written in a round adolescent band. Horace read
it in some confusion, while the usher lingered with withering
patience in the aisle.
"Dear Omar: After the show I always grow an awful hunger. If you
want to satisfy it for me in the Taft Grill just communicate your
answer to the big-timber guide that brought this and oblige.
Your friend,
Marcia Meadow."
"Tell her,"--he coughed--"tell her that it will be quite all
right. I'll meet her in front of the theatre."
The big-timber guide smiled arrogantly.
"I giss she meant for you to come roun' t' the stage door."
"Where--where is it?"
"Ou'side. Tunayulef. Down ee alley."
"What?"
"Ou'side. Turn to y' left! Down ee alley!"
The arrogant person withdrew. A freshman behind Horace snickered.
Then half an hour later, sitting in the Taft Grill opposite the
hair that was yellow by natural pigment, the prodigy was saying
an odd thing.
"Do you have to do that dance in the last act?" he was asking
earnestly--"I mean, would they dismiss you if you refused to do it?"
Marcia grinned.
"It's fun to do it. I like to do it."
And then Horace came out with a FAUX PAS.
"I should think you'd detest it," he remarked succinctly. "The
people behind me were making remarks about your bosom."
Marcia blushed fiery red.
"I can't help that," she said quickly. "The dance to me is only
a sort of acrobatic stunt. Lord, it's hard enough to do! I rub
liniment into my shoulders for an hour every night."
"Do you have--fun while you're on the stage?"
"Uh-huh--sure! I got in the habit of having people look at me,
Omar, and I like it."
"Hm!" Horace sank into a brownish study.
"How's the Brazilian trimmings?"
"Hm!" repeated Horace, and then after a pause: "Where does the
play go from here?"
"New York."
"For how long?"
"All depends. Winter--maybe."
"Oh!"
"Coming up to lay eyes on me, Omar, or aren't you int'rested?
Not as nice here, is it, as it was up in your room? I wish we
was there now."
"I feel idiotic in this place," confessed Horace, looking round
him nervously.
"Too bad! We got along pretty well."
At this he looked suddenly so melancholy that she changed her
tone, and reaching over patted his hand.
"Ever take an actress out to supper before?"
"No," said Horace miserably, "and I never will again. I don't
know why I came to-night. Here under all these lights and with
all these people laughing and chattering I feel completely out
of my sphere. I don't know what to talk to you about."
"We'll talk about me. We talked about you last time."
"Very well."
"Well, my name really is Meadow, but my first name isn't Marcia--
it's Veronica. I'm nineteen. Question--how did the girl make
her leap to the footlights? Answer--she was born in Passaic, New
Jersey, and up to a year ago she got the right to breathe by
pushing Nabiscoes in Marcel's tea-room in Trenton. She started
going with a guy named Robbins, a singer in the Trent House
cabaret, and he got her to try a song and dance with him one
evening. In a month we were filling the supper-room every night.
Then we went to New York with meet-my-friend letters thick as a
pile of napkins.
"In two days we landed a job at Divinerries', and I learned to
shimmy from a kid at the Palais Royal. We stayed at Divinerries'
six months until one night Peter Boyce Wendell, the columnist,
ate his milk-toast there. Next morning a poem about Marvellous
Marcia came out in his newspaper, and within two days I had
three vaudeville offers and a chance at the Midnight Frolic. I
wrote Wendell a thank-you letter, and he printed it in his
column--said that the style was like Carlyle's, only more
rugged and that I ought to quit dancing and do North American
literature. This got me a coupla more vaudeville offers and a
chance as an ingénue in a regular show. I took it--and here I
am, Omar."
When she finished they sat for a moment in silence she draping
the last skeins of a Welsh rabbit on her fork and waiting for
him to speak.
"Let's get out of here," he said suddenly.
Marcia's eyes hardened.
"What's the idea? Am I making you sick?"
"No, but I don't like it here. I don't like to be sitting here
with you."
Without another word Marcia signalled for the waiter.
"What's the check?" she demanded briskly "My part--the rabbit
and the ginger ale."
Horace watched blankly as the waiter figured it.
"See here," he began, "I intended to pay for yours too. You're
my guest."
With a half-sigh Marcia rose from the table and walked from the
room. Horace, his face a document in bewilderment, laid a bill
down and followed her out, up the stairs and into the lobby. He
overtook her in front of the elevator and they faced each other.
"See here," he repeated "You're my guest. Have I said something to
offend you?"
After an instant of wonder Marcia's eyes softened.
"You're a rude fella!" she said slowly. "Don't you know you're
rude?"
"I can't help it," said Horace with a directness she found quite
disarming. "You know I like you."
"You said you didn't like being with me."
"I didn't like it."
"Why not?" Fire blazed suddenly from the gray forests of his
eyes.
"Because I didn't. I've formed the habit of liking you. I've
been thinking of nothing much else for two days."
"Well, if you---"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "I've got something to say. It's
this: in six weeks I'll be eighteen years old. When I'm
eighteen years old I'm coming up to New York to see you. Is
there some place in New York where we can go and not have a lot
of people in the room?"
"Sure!" smiled Marcia. "You can come up to my 'partment. Sleep
on the couch if you want to."
"I can't sleep on couches," he said shortly. "But I want to talk
to you."
"Why, sure," repeated Marcia, "in my 'partment."
In his excitement Horace put his hands in his pockets.
"All right--just so I can see you alone. I want to talk to you
as we talked up in my room."
"Honey boy," cried Marcia, laughing, "is it that you want to kiss
me?"
"Yes," Horace almost shouted. "I'll kiss you if you want me to."
The elevator man was looking at them reproachfully. Marcia edged
toward the grated door.
"I'll drop you a post-card," she said.
Horace's eyes were quite wild.
"Send me a post-card! I'll come up any time after January first.
I'll be eighteen then."
And as she stepped into the elevator he coughed enigmatically,
yet with a vague challenge, at the calling, and walked quickly
away.