In the Deerfield Street apartment a young man stood waiting with
perhaps less calm than was strictly Oriental. This could no doubt be
attributed to the fact that he anticipated with distinct pleasure the
coming of somebody, while a true Oriental never really anticipates
anything--or if he does, the thought gives him no delight.
But Smith, as he sat in the straight-backed chair, felt very glad
indeed that he was about to see the somebody for whom he was waiting.
The time which had elapsed since his most recent trip to Boston had
somehow gone with unconscionable slowness, and the medium of the mails
had proved an alternative means of communication only measurably
compensating. He had, in short, discovered that a great deal of his
life was concerned with the girl whose footsteps were now to be heard
advancing down the hall.
"I'm awfully glad to see you," said Miss Maitland.
"And I you," returned the visitor; and if the words carried only the
conventionalities, each found a way to make them more significant.
"Mother will be in to welcome you," the girl continued. "It's a
compliment she doesn't pay everyone," she added, with a smile. "She
doesn't care, as a rule, for young gentlemen visitors. By the way, we
have plenty of time, have we not, before we need to start?"
"Fully twenty minutes," he answered. "I guess I'm absurdly early, but
I thought I ought to give the young lady an opportunity to get
acquainted with me before starting out alone with me in a taxi."
"Are we ever acquainted with any one?" the girl parried; and a moment
later the conversation shifted to meet the entrance of Mrs. Maitland.
Shortly before eight o'clock they set forth for the theater. It was
the evening of the twenty-first of February, and the following day,
Sunday, was also a holiday in memory of a great man. It was of him
that they chanced to speak, almost on entering their conveyance.
"I'm glad to-morrow is a holiday," said Smith. "After a party on the
previous night it is always soothing to think one isn't obliged to get
up at any particular hour in the morning. But I don't suppose that
point of view would appeal to you."
"No," said his companion, with a laugh. "I much prefer having
something particular to get up for. But as I seldom have, I presume
that's merely another way of saying that every one wants what one
hasn't got. I fancy if I had to appear punctually at breakfast every
morning, I'd appreciate holidays a great deal more than I do now."
"I used to think we had too many. That was because it tears things up
so abominably in an insurance office to get two or three days' work
slammed at you at once. But I'm reconciled now. And if we celebrate
for any one, we certainly ought to do so for George."
"Seriously speaking, why?" Helen asked. "Probably I should be ashamed
of myself, but I've never been able to get up as much enthusiasm for
him as I feel I should. Can you tell me any way of doing so?"
"I can tell you how I came to, at all events," said her companion.
"The story may not be so romantic, but it made more of a hit with me
than the account of the same heroic gentleman nearly freezing to death
at Valley Forge, or standing up in a boat while he crossed the
Delaware, which is a silly thing to do, even for a hero. Nothing of
that sort. But somewhere--I forget just where--I ran across the
account of a little episode which showed me that the General was a man
of real ability, after all."
"What was it?" asked the girl, with interest.
"Well, it seems that some earnest society of antiquaries had been
digging up the back yards of Rhode Island and making idiots of
themselves generally in an effort to prove that the Vikings came to
America."
"But they did come, didn't they?" Helen interrupted.
"Of course they did; but it wasn't known in Washington's time.
However, somebody with a vein of enterprise or malice had salted a
Viking mine, so to speak, and under the auspices--and the pay--of the
society had contrived to exhume a stone tablet on which were some
extremely apropos inscriptions, proving exactly what the amiable old
gentlemen desired to prove."
"About the Vikings?"
"Yes. Well, the discovery of this tablet made a deep impression. The
society held meetings and passed resolutions and went through all kinds
of ponderous and absurd conventionalities, culminating in asking
General Washington--at that time I don't believe he was President--to
make a speech. He came over from Boston, and they showed him the
tablet. And after he had looked it carefully over, he casually called
their attention to the fact that the inscription, which was supposed to
have been cut in the eleventh century, contained script characters
which appeared in no northern alphabet prior to the sixteen hundreds.
And what is more, when they looked it up, they found that he was right."
"That is really very interesting," Helen said.
"It gave me a respect for him that I'd never had before, anyway,"
rejoined Smith. "Think of the old General knowing anything at all
about Icelandic sagas--and the offhand way he picked out the
anachronism and smashed it in the eye. No--so far as I am concerned,
he is entitled to his holiday. Long may it wave--especially as I hope
to see you, if you'll let me, while if it were an ordinary business day
I should probably have to devote myself to certain distinguished legal
gentlemen."
"How is the lawsuit progressing?" asked the girl.
Smith surveyed her doubtfully.
"Have you seen Mr. Osgood recently?" he inquired suspiciously. "One
time, you remember, you made me tell a long story all of which you knew
perfectly well before I began."
"No--honestly," Helen laughingly denied. "I have hardly seen Uncle
Silas for two or three weeks, and the last time we met, he said nothing
about it."
"Well, then, in confidence it is my hope and belief that unless our
present expectations fall through with a sickening thud, another month
or two will see the Guardian and your uncle back in the office that
neither of them should ever have left."
"Not really!" said the girl, delighted.
"I have no longer any real doubt of it," Smith said seriously. "It can
hardly fail now. I don't mind saying to you that it's about time, too.
The Conference has made a good fight; but they were beaten from the
start, and they know it now. And I'll be very glad to see some Boston
business coming in to us again, I can assure you."
"Haven't you been getting any this last year?"
"Only a little, principally suburban business through a small agent
named George Greenwood. Of course we got a lot through Sternberg,
Bloom, and McCoy, but it was so bad that I canceled nearly every policy
they wrote for us. All the Guardian has left in the down-town district
is some building business--a few lines written by the Osgood office for
three or five years, and which haven't expired yet. And there aren't
many of them, for Cole switched some into the Salamander, and besides,
we always tried to keep our congested district business on an annual
basis. If Boston burned to-morrow, I don't believe the Guardian would
lose more than a hundred thousand dollars."
"That sounds to me like quite a loss."
"So it is, but it's only a small fraction of what most companies have
at risk here. I'm really not sure but that a year ago we didn't have
more than we should. I certainly know a lot of companies that would
sit up and take notice with a vengeance if a big fire ever did occur."
"Do you think one likely?" asked Helen. "It makes one shudder just a
little to think of it."
"No--probably not. Still, there's really no reason why one shouldn't
happen here as well as elsewhere. And big fires are certain to happen
somewhere. The city's improving right along, but it's still got its
possibilities."
"Yes," said the girl. "For now that I come to think of it, I remember
that the conflagration hazard in the congested district is not a thing
one can precisely calculate, but it would be difficult to overestimate
its gravity. Isn't that so?"
Smith looked at her, turning in the taxi to do so. By the flash of a
street lamp that they were passing he could see she was smiling
whimsically.
"Where did you get that?" he demanded.
"Don't you recall?" she rejoined. "Whether it's greatly to his credit
or not, I can't judge, but certainly he himself hath said it."
"That's true," her companion admitted, with a laugh. "I remember now.
But how in the world did you happen to?"
"Should an humble apprentice--an ignorant pupil--forget the first pearl
of wisdom that fell from the master's lips? It was the first speech of
Mr. Richard Smith that I ever heard repeated--the first time I ever
heard his name mentioned."
"If I'd had any idea it would have lived so long, I certainly would
have tried to say something more eloquent," the other returned.
"However, I still stand by the sentiment. And incidentally, I don't
mind saying that if Boston is going to burn, I hope it does so inside
of the next two or three months--before Mr. Osgood puts the Guardian
back with a half a million dollars' liability scattered about down
town."
"Don't talk of so terrible a possibility as the burning of Boston,"
said the girl. "There has been one very great fire here. Surely there
will never be another."
"Surely not," agreed Smith. "At least for the sake of your fellow
citizens and my fellow underwriters I cordially hope not. But here we
are, apparently."
The taxi was coming to a stop across the street from the Aquitaine, and
in front of the theater where already a crowd was congregating. The
avenue between the theater itself and the Common was filled with cabs
and motor cars moving spasmodically about under the autocracy of a
large mounted policeman whose voice easily defied the whirring motors.
In the raw northeast wind there was the unpleasant smell and oily smoke
of burnt-out gasolene.
Smith and Helen, disembarking at the curb, managed to avoid the worst
of the mêlée; and presently, when their coats were checked and out of
the way, they reached their seats just as Christopher Sly began his
opening speech. The prologue soon played itself through, and the
house, now completely filled, burst audibly into speech, as though a
long departed sense had been suddenly and miraculously restored. From
all sides the swelling tide surged forth, and Helen listened for a
moment before she herself spoke.
"You would certainly suppose that no one of them had been allowed to
speak for the last five years, wouldn't you?" she asked.
"Oh, well," Smith answered, "perhaps every one of them has some one
he's as glad to talk to as I am to you. Although, come to think of it,
I hear several voices not possessed by my sex, and I don't know but
that I would really rather listen to you."
"But you won't have the opportunity," the girl rejoined. "No, this is
your party, and you must be as agreeable and entertaining as you
possibly can. You may begin by telling me all about the actors
to-night. Why does the star choose to play such a part as old Sly? It
surely isn't the star part, is it?"
"It is the tradition--or years ago it used to be. Very few actors do
it now; in fact, this is the first time I've seen the star play it for
years. It's well done, too, and I haven't seen it well done since old
George Clark had his last curtain. This man is a good man."
"He is indeed. I noticed in the _Transcript_ he was English. Is she
his wife? I gathered that she was."
"Yes. They've been playing together in London for several years now,
and this is their first trip to America. I fancy that he is the real
brains and ability of the combination, and her reputation seems mainly
to rest on adding obedience and decorative embellishment to his
effects. And she certainly is decorative, don't you think?"
"Yes--in a certain way. Tell me--do they always play Shakespeare? I
was in London two years ago, but I don't recall hearing anything about
them at that time. I should think I would if they'd been there."
"That's odd. I should surely have thought you'd have heard of them.
They've been well known over there for some years. I suppose, though,
they play the provinces, like every one else. No, they don't play
Shakespeare all the time, by any means; they couldn't do it and live."
"You mean that they couldn't get audiences? Why, some actors do.
Mantell, for instance--and Sothern and Marlowe. They seem to go on
year after year, and they must be at least moderately successful, or
they wouldn't keep it up."
"Mantell ought to; he is a real actor--of the traditional school, of
course--but great, all the same. It has always seemed to me that his
Lear was one of the fine performances of the stage to-day. But even
Mantell has to travel halfway across the country every season; he
couldn't stay in New York--no, nor in intellectual and appreciative
Boston, either. And I doubt whether a man would fare much better
trying to play nothing but Shakespeare in London. No, this man can
play virtually anything; he made his first big hit--in recent years,
that is--playing Maldonado in Pinero's 'Iris.'"
"But go back to Sothern and Marlowe. They go on Shakespearing, world
without end."
"If you can call it Shakespeare. I have never been able to see much in
their way of doing it. Marlowe does some things well, but I confess
that to see her now as Juliet is too great a strain on me. As for
Sothern, he's a good romantic actor, but not a Shakespearean one."
"They play this---'The Taming of the Shrew'--do they not? It seems to
me they were here last spring."
"Quite likely. I think they try. One wet and miserable night I went
to see. But remembering, as I did, the immortal Katherine of Rehan and
the hardly less magnificent Petruchio of Skinner, I never should have
gone. There was only one redeeming feature."
"What was that?"
"When the scene comes, watch how this man carries Katherine off.
That's one great test. See if he backs her up onto a bench; see if he
guides her premeditated fall to the precise center of equilibrium of
his shoulders; see if he staggers painfully off with his knees
tottering, almost flapping beneath him. By heavens, I have seen
Skinner abduct a one hundred and sixty pound Katherine with as little
effort as if she had been a wicker basket full of eggshells!"
"Is this dramatic criticism?" asked Helen, maliciously.
"Perhaps not of the academic brand," admitted Smith, laughingly; "but I
believe it's good sound criticism just the same. If a man is going to
play the swashbuckler, I like to see him able to swash his buckle. But
seriously, I shouldn't have objected to that one bad piece of business
if it hadn't seemed to me that the whole performance was out of key and
wrong. But here's the curtain going up."
The curtain rose on Signor Baptista's house, and for the next half hour
farce comedy supreme held the audience in its grasp.
"Katherine is very good, don't you think?" queried Helen, when once
more the inane wanderings of the orchestra began to compete with the
conversation.
"Very good indeed; I like her rages."
"I have always been sorry that I never saw Ada Rehan; every one who
ever saw her says just as you do that no one could equal her."
"I'm sure no one could. I have seen her sit with her hands in her lap
and tears--genuine tears--streaming down her cheeks for very rage when
Petruchio harries her in this act. Heavens! but she was in a fine
fury! Do you know that the only objection I ever had to this play was
that I grew sorry for Katherine--sorry to see her proud neck bent to
any yoke, so to speak."
"She is made finally to like it, though."
"Yes; she is--in the play. But I never could more than half believe
that she actually liked it, for all that. Oh, I've no doubt it's wrong
to prefer ungoverned wrath to sane and controlled sobriety; but she was
so magnificent in her savagery that it seemed a shame she had to be
tamed at all. Like the lions and the other animals that they train to
jump through hoops, you miss something, you know; some splendid essence
has evaporated, and I for one am sorry to watch it go."
"They tell me," said the girl, demurely, "that under the proper
conditions and auspices young ladies are secretly glad to be
subjugated."
"I suppose they have it naturally--cradle of the race, and all that
sort of thing. Just the same, I still continue to prefer Katherine in
her first state."
"You speak of her as though she were an etching."
"She suggests one, in that gown she wore in the last act--or would,
except for the color."
"From that rather supercilious remark I should gather that you do not
admire colored etchings."
"Hybrid affairs, don't you think?"
But before this subject could be pursued, the play once more resumed
the center of the stage.
It is the immortal prototype of farce comedy, this play of the "Taming
of the Shrew." In the hands of a lesser author it would have lost its
comedy and degenerated purely into farce, restricting itself to more
ignoble aims and to a more indulgent public. For farce, after all, is
farcical, and the mood for its appreciation is not one which is
sympathetic to any great or moving thing. And in the hands of
interpreters less than intelligently fine, the play may still descend
into the lower class; but this cannot be done without degrading it
beyond any likeness to its real self.
Played rightly, however, Petruchio becomes not a brawler, not a kind of
damn-my-eyes bully and braggart, but a practical idealist, a man who,
happening by chance upon a creature of stupendous undirected power,
sets himself to the direction of that power toward nature's, if not
humanity's, ends. At the first he cares nothing for Katherine save
that the rumor of her fire and spirit has pleased his wild fancy. And
never is there the faintest hint of the sentimentalist about him; his
is never the softness of the lover, but rather the careful prudence of
the utilitarian. Yet he unstintedly admires Katherine; this is somehow
felt to be so by his rather pompous implication that he would hardly be
taking all this trouble about the woman were she not the makings of a
royal mate, fit even for his sky-wide vision and heart and humor.
Perhaps in Elizabethan days most of this was lost; possibly during the
author's own life the play assumed rather the wild gayety and license
of a farce, and all the comedy had to wait in abeyance for the years to
bring it into its own. Undoubtedly very few, if any, of the auditors
of Shakespeare's time felt the compunction to which Smith confessed
when the pride of a proud woman was seen dragged at a man's chariot
wheel. What the women of those days thought about it is not so
certain, but probably it was pretty much what they think to-day.
Certainly Helen's expressed view was in approximate accordance with the
presumably unexpressed opinion of Elizabethan ladies; and to this, in
the intermission before the last act, Smith called her attention.
"Do you realize that your belief that Katherine was pleased at being
conquered is not at all modern?--it's absolutely medieval."
"Well, we are all medieval--quite largely--are we not?"
"Possibly--in spots. When the girl of to-day is not overpoweringly
advanced, perhaps she is quite far behind. But I should hardly have
expected so distinctly a medieval opinion from you."
"Heavens! why not? I sound horribly Bostonian. Am I so hopelessly
advanced that you can credit me with no human sentiments at all?"
"Well, that," said Smith, "was scarcely my thought."
"It sounded very much like it. However, I'm glad if I were mistaken."
"You know very well," said her companion, in a lower voice, "what I
think of you. I think--"
"Oh, but I don't--really," Helen quickly parried. This was getting
hazardous; the conversation must be switched at once. "No matter what
you think of me, you are almost sure to be quite mistaken. But some
things I am willing to confess. And one of them, which may be very
primitive, is this--that just because I myself am not a wild,
tigress-like creature is no indication that I cannot realize how she
would feel. Is it, now?"
Smith said nothing for a long moment.
"I'm very glad that you feel that way about it," he said at last,
rather to himself, however, than to her. And for the rest of the
intermission he hardly spoke.
It was by this time about half-past ten. Here and there in the house a
vacated seat showed that some hopeless and inveterate commuter had felt
the call of his homeward street car or train. Never in Boston can an
entire audience remain to the close of an entertainment; the lure of
the thronging, all-pervading suburb is too strong. Helen, idly
watching the exodus of these prudent or sleepy citizens, heard outside
what might have been the warning bell that called them forth. She
directed Smith's attention to the coincidence.
"They have to go home, you know; and that sounds like the signal they
obey."
"It sounds to me like a fire engine," said her companion.
But further speculation was cut short by the sight of "A Road," where
presently was to be seen the old man who was so oddly mistook for a
"young, budding virgin," and on which soon beat the doubtful rays of
the "blessed sun"--or moon, as the case might be. The intermission
between the last two scenes of the act was a brief one only--the mere
moment required for the rising of a scene curtain upon the banquet hall
of Katherine's father. But during that little interval, two things
came to Smith's notice; the first being the sound of vague noises in
the outside world, and the second the peculiar behavior of a man in
evening clothes at the extreme side of the stage aperture.
The seats which the two occupied were in the lower rows of the parquet,
close under the right-hand stage box; and from where they sat it was
thus possible to look into the wings on the opposite side of the stage.
It was in the little opening between the proscenium and the curtain
that the man in evening dress unexpectedly appeared. His appearance
caught Smith's eye, and he watched curiously to see what was to follow.
In his hand this person held a watch at which he glanced hastily, and
then made two steps to come before the footlights. But just as he was
nearly clear of the scenes, some one out of sight in the wing evidently
summoned him, for he stopped short, and then turned back. After a
brief colloquy, in which the watch was again consulted, he retired, and
a moment later the curtain went up.
It seemed to Smith, watching closely, his curiosity aroused by this
half-seen and wholly uncomprehended episode, that the actors in the
last act were playing under the pressure of an odd excitement, a sort
of suppressed anxiety and haste. It seemed to him they hurried through
their lines, and the messengers to the brides came back with an
electric promptness more to be desired in real life than in the
circumstances of the play.
Finally the whole was done--all except Katherine's final address to the
ladies, and this took but a brief moment. Smith, listening tensely to
sounds from without, turned and spoke to Helen; and as the curtain fell
they started quickly up the aisle. Their seats chanced to be open to
the side aisle of the house, and a moment later Smith was handing his
check to the cloakroom attendant, with a "Hurry up, please"--and a
lubricant to celerity.
The applause was still to be heard in the theater, but after one brief
bow the actors appeared no more, and the house began to empty. By this
time Smith had reclaimed the wraps, and he and Helen, ready for the
open air, moved out through the lobby and onto the sidewalk in front of
the theater.
On the sidewalk there was a curious tone of constrained excitement.
Evidently something much out of the ordinary had happened--or was
happening. People stood in groups, staring northward up Tremont
Street; and almost all the passers-by, as though impelled by a
nameless, inexplicable force that could not be controlled, were
hurrying in the same direction. An ambulance with clattering gong
dashed by. The urgent crowds, pouring out of the big theater, were
pressing Smith and Helen toward the curb.
"Come on," said the New Yorker, "something's up; let's get out of
this." He took the girl's arm, and they crossed Boylston Street and
made their stand on the opposite, less crowded walk that edged the
Common.
On the sidewalk about them knots of people were eagerly talking, all
looking northward as though drawn by the same magnetic force. And as
Smith and his companion raised their eyes, they saw in the northern sky
an ugly crimson glare that seemed to widen and grow brighter even in
the moment as they watched it. From far up Tremont Street, carried by
the wind, came an odd murmur of confused noises, and nearer by the
sharper sounds of clanging bells and the clatter of galloping horses'
feet on the pavement. The crowds were hurrying up the walk, and out in
the street, where it was less crowded, men were running in the same
direction. The trolley cars seemed to have been blocked; none were
coming from the north.
"Great Scott! That must be something terrific!" Smith said, and he
felt the beat of his heart perceptibly quicken.
But before he had time to make any further remark, from directly behind
them came with the electric unexpectedness of a sharp thunder clap one
loud cry, compelling, exigent, almost barbaric.
"Fire!" it said. "Fire!"