The stage-wise have long since learned to discount a "slump" in the next
performance to follow a brilliantly successful première: the phenomenon
is as inevitable as poor food on a route of one-night stands.
At Springfield, on Monday afternoon, "The Lie" was presented in a manner
of unpardonable crudity. Quard forgot his lines and extemporized and
"gagged" desperately to cover the consequent breaks in the dialogue;
leaving poor Joan hopelessly at sea, floundering for cues that were
never uttered.
At the last moment it was discovered that nothing had been provided to
simulate, at the beginning of the second scene, the sound of a clock
striking twelve, off-stage. The property man could offer nothing better
than an iron crowbar and a hammer; the twelve strokes, consequently,
resembled nothing in the world other than a wholly untemperamental
crowbar banged by a dispassionate hammer. Fortunately, the effect was so
thin and dead that it convulsed only the first few rows of the
orchestra.
The light cues went wrong when they were not altogether ignored; and
once, when Joan having indicated in a brief soliloquy her depression on
being left alone in the gloomy house, gave the cue "_I must have more
light_," at the same time touching a property switch on the wall, every
light in the house other than the red "exit" lamps was "blacked out."
And at all other times the required changes either anticipated or
dragged far behind their cues.
The _Thief_ forgot to load his revolver, with the result that Quard
fired the only shot in their duel--and then fell dead. This so rattled
_David_ that he anticipated his first entrance and rushed on the stage
only to back off precipitately while Joan was urging the _Thief_ to go
and leave her to shoulder his crime.
The only misadventure that failed to attend upon the performance was a
traditional one of the stage: the theatre cat by some accident did _not_
walk upon the scene at a climax and seat itself before the footlights to
wash its face.
Nevertheless the sketch "got over" at the matinée, receiving three
curtain calls; and at night--when the little company, conscious of its
crimes, pulled itself together and acted with an intensity of effort
only equalled by that of its first performance in New York--the house
gave the piece a rousing reception.
Thereafter they played it well and consistently, with increasing
assurance as days passed and use bred the habit in them all.
On Thursday Quard heard from Boskerk, and announced that the company
would return to New York the following Monday to play a six weeks'
engagement in the Percy Williams houses, beginning with a fortnight in
Manhattan and winding up in Greenpoint, Long Island. He added that
Boskerk was busy arranging a subsequent tour which would take them to
the Pacific Coast and back. He did not add that the agent had
successfully demanded as much as four hundred and fifty dollars a week
for the offering from many of the more prosperous houses on their list;
from which figure the price ranged down to as little as three hundred in
some of the smaller inland towns. But even at this minimum, Quard had so
scaled his salary list, contrary to his representations to Joan, that
his gross weekly profit (excluding personal living expenses) would
seldom be less than one hundred dollars a week.
Back in New York, Joan established herself temporarily at a small
and very poor hotel on the west side of Harlem. Since their
engagement took her no farther south than Sixty-third Street and
Broadway during its first week, and the second week was played at
One-hundred-and-twenty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue, she felt
tolerably insured against meeting either Matthias or any member of her
own family.
She really meant to go home some time and see how her mother and Edna
were doing, but from day to day put it off, if with no better excuse on
the ground that she was too tired and too busy.
As a matter of fact she was in the habit of waking up at about ten, but
never rose until noon; spent the hours between three and four and nine
and ten in the theatre; and was ordinarily abed by half-past twelve or
one o'clock. Up to the matinée hour, and between that and the night, she
managed without great difficulty to kill time, spending a deal of it,
and a fair proportion of her earnings, in the uptown department stores.
She dined with Quard quite frequently, and almost invariably after the
last performance they supped together, often in company with friends of
his--for the most part vaudeville people whom he had previously known or
with whom he struck up fervent, facile friendships of a week's duration.
They were a quaint, scandalous crew, feather-brained, irresponsible and,
most of them, destitute of any sort of originality; but their spirits
were high as long as they had a pay-day ahead, their tongues were quick
with the patter of the circuits, and their humour was of an order new
and vastly diverting to Joan. She had with them what she called a good
time, and soon learned to look leniently upon the irregular lives of
some who entertained her. Once or twice she was invited to "parties",
sociable gatherings in flats rented furnished, at which she learned to
regard the consumption of large quantities of bottled beer as a polite
and even humorous accomplishment, and to permit a degree of freedom in
song and joke and innuendo that would have seemed impossible in another
environment.
Probably she would have felt less tolerant of these matters had Quard
betrayed the least tendency to "fall off the wagon." But in her
company, at least, he refrained sedulously from drink; and since his was
one of those constitutions whose normal vitality is so high and constant
that alcohol benumbs rather than stimulates its functions, he shone the
more by contrast with their occasionally befuddled companions.
Joan admired him intensely for the steadfastness of his stand, and still
more when she saw how established was the habit of regular if not always
heavy drinking in the world of their peers. No one but herself pretended
for a moment to regard the reformation of Quard as anything but a
fugitive whim; and now and again she was made aware that his abstinence
was resented. She once heard him contemptuously advised to "chuck the
halo and kick in and get human again." At another time he explained a
false excuse given in her presence for refusing an invitation: "It's no
use trying to travel with that gang unless you're boozing. They got no
use for me unless I'm willing to get an edge on. What's the use?"
There was a surliness, a resentment underlying his tone. Intuitively
Joan bristled.
"No use," she said sharply. "You know what you're up against better than
they do. You've got to stick to the soft stuff if you want to keep
going."
"Oh, I know," he grumbled. "But it ain't as easy as you'd think."
"All right," she retorted calmly; "but I give you fair warning, I'll
quit you the very first time you come around with so much as a whiff of
the stuff on you."
"You don't have to worry," he responded. "I'm on all right.... But," he
added abruptly, "you needn't run away with any notion this piece would
head for the storehouse if you _was_ to quit it. The woods are full of
girls who'd jump at your chance."
Joan answered only with an enigmatic smile. It is doubtful if Quard
himself realized, just then, as keenly as the girl did, the depth and
strength of his infatuation.
But Joan did not doubt her power. Neither did she overestimate it.
It was toward the end of their "time" in New York that she learned of
the failure of "The Jade God," the information coming to her through the
medium of one of those coincidences which would be singular anywhere but
on the stage. An actress in a farcical sketch, which followed the
intermission preceded by "The Lie," was assigned to use Joan's
dressing-room when the latter was through with it. Naturally, the two
struck up a chatting acquaintance. Joan one time replied to a question
with the information that "The Lie" was booked for the Pacific Coast,
and (Matthias in mind) confessed to some curiosity regarding Los
Angeles. The other actress admitted ignorance of the West, but had only
that morning received a letter from a sister who was playing with the
Algerson stock company in Los Angeles. The letter contained a clipping
describing the immediate and disastrous collapse of "The Jade God,"
which had been withdrawn after its third repetition. Reading the review,
Joan was puzzled to recognize some of its references; she was fairly
familiar with the play, but here and there she encountered strictures
which seemed to involve scenes she couldn't remember. But of the fact of
the failure there could be no doubt.
She was genuinely sorry. Her first impulse was to seek Matthias, if he
were in town, and tell him of her sympathy; her second (discarded with
even less ceremony than the first) to write to him. Two things held her
back: sheer moral cowardice, that would not let her face the man whom
she had failed even as had his play; and the impossibility of explaining
that she loved the stage more than him or anything else in the
world--except his ring. And while she never faltered from meaning to
return this last "before long," she could not yet bring herself to part
with it. Always it was with her, on her finger when at home and alone,
in her pocket-book when abroad or with Quard; still in her imagination
retaining something of its vaguely talismanic virtue; standing to her
for something fanciful and magic, which she could not name, a visible
token of the mystical powers that worked for her good fortune....
It was mid-October: sweetest of all seasons in New York; a time of early
evenings and long, clear gloamings beneath skies of exquisite suavity
and depth; of crisp and heady days whose air is wine in a crystal
chalice; when thoughts are long and sweet, gentle with the beauty and
the sadness of aging autumn.
At the first hint of winter Joan's heart turned in longing to the
thought of furs. She wasted hours studying advertisements, and many more
going from place to place, examining, rejecting, coveting. Her fancy was
not modest: a year ago she would have been delighted with the meanest
strip of squirrel for a neckpiece; today she felt a little ashamed even
to price the less expensive furs, and would make no attempt to purchase
until she had saved up enough money to meet her desires.
And then, one morning--they were playing at the Orpheum Theatre in
Brooklyn--a messenger brought her a package from one of the Fulton
Street stores and required a signed receipt. It contained a handsome
coat of imitation seal with a collar of rich black fur and lined with
golden brocade. Fitting her perfectly, it enclosed her in generous
warmth from throat to ankle. Accompanying it was the card of "_Mr.
Charles Harborough Quard, Presenting 'The Lie,' the Sketch Sensation of
the Year, Address c/o Jas. K. Boskerk, St. James Building, N.Y._"
Not since that day when she had received his ring from Matthias had she
been so happy.
Meeting Quard in the gangway outside her dressing-room, before the
matinée performance, she showed her gratitude by lifting her face for
his kiss.
In the world in which they existed, kisses were commonplaces, quite
perfunctory, of little more significance than a slap on the shoulder
between acquaintances. Not so Joan's: she had set a value upon her
caresses, a standard peculiarly inflexible with respect to Quard. None
the less, this was not the second time he had known her lips. But the
occasion was one rare enough to render him appreciative.
He wound an arm round her, and held her tight.
"Like it, eh, girlie?"
"I love it!"
"Then I'm satisfied."
"But how did you guess what I wanted most?"
"Maybe I did a little head-work to find out."
"It's dear of you!"
"So long's you think so, I've got no kick coming."
She disengaged, drew a pace or two away.
"But what made you do it, Charlie?"
"Well, I can't afford to have my leading lady out of the cast with a
cold."
Joan shook her head at him in gay reproof.
"Or do you want me to tell you what you know already--that I'm crazy
about you?"
"Foolish! It's time we were dressing!"
But her laugh was fond, and so was the look she threw over her shoulder
as she evaded his arms and vanished into her dressing-room.
Quard lingered a moment, with a fatuous smile for the panels of the
closed door, and wagged his head doggishly. He felt that he was winning
ground at a famous rate--the difficulties, the coolness and craft of his
antagonist, considered. And in a way he was right, though perhaps not
precisely the way he had in mind.
Even before his princely gift, Joan had been thinking a great deal about
him, and very seriously. Instinctively she foresaw that their
relationship could not long continue on its present basis of simple
good-fellowship. Quard wasn't the sort to be content at arm's-length:
he must either come closer or go farther away, and might be depended
upon not to adopt the latter course until the former had proved
impracticable.
And Joan didn't want him to go farther away. She was positive about
this. But she was also very sure that the arm's-length relationship must
be abridged only under certain indispensable conditions--decorously--and
soon, if at all: else she must be the one to withdraw, lest a worse
thing befall her. It was a problem of two factors: Quard's nature and
her own; she had herself to reckon with no less than with him; and
herself she distrusted, who was no stronger than her greatest weakness.
He attracted her. She often caught herself thinking of him as she had
thought of no other man--not Matthias, not the Quard of "The Convict's
Return," not even Marbridge except, perhaps, for one shameful instant.
Something in the lawless, ranging, wanton grain of this man called to
her with a call of infinite allure: something latent in her thrilled to
the call and answered.... That way lurked danger, disguised, but deadly.
They moved on to Greenpoint, thence to Trenton for a week.
Daily Quard's attentions became more constant, intimate and tender. They
were much together, and now far more exclusively together than had been
possible in New York, where acquaintances commandeered so much of their
time. In Trenton they lodged at the same hotel, the other members of the
company finding cheaper accommodations at greater distance from the
theatre. This increased their close and confidential association. They
fell into the habit of breakfasting together. Quard, always first to
rise, would telephone to Joan's room, ascertain how soon she would be
dressed, and order for both of them accordingly. In return for this
privilege he had that of paying for both meals.
A negro waiter spoke of Joan one morning, in her presence, as "the
Missus." When he had retired out of earshot, their eyes sought one
another's; constraint was swept away in laughter.
"We might's well be married, the way we're together all the time," Quard
presently ventured.
"Oh, I don't know about that," Joan retorted pertly.
"I mean, the way other people see us. I shouldn't be surprised if
everybody in the hotel thought we was married, girlie."
Joan coloured faintly....
"Well, the room-clerk knows better," she said definitely. "I'd like
another cup of coffee, please."
Quard snapped his fingers loudly to attract the attention of the waiter.
He grew aware of an awkward silence: that the thoughts of both were
converging to a common point.
"Folks are fools that get married in the profession," he observed
consciously. "It's all right if you've got a husband or I've got a wife
at home--"
"I don't see it," Joan interrupted smartly. "Anyway, _I_ haven't. Have
you?"