peter rushed like a wild man down the stairs to the street. he looked up street and down for a cruising taxi; saw one at the opposite curb; dodged across, behind automobiles and in front of a street-car. a traffic policeman shouted from the corner. peter was unaware, he dove into the taxi, shouting as he did so, the address of the rooms in washington square. the taxi whirled away to the south. peter, a blaze of nerves, watched the dial, taking silver coins from his pocket as the charge mounted. at his door, he plunged out to the walk, threw the money on the driver's seat, dashed into the old bachelor apartment building. the rooms had been lonely of late without hy and the worm. now, his mind on the one great purpose, he forgot that these friends had ever lived. he ran from the elevator to the apartment door, key in hand, hurried within and tore into the closet. he emerged with his evening clothes—the coat on the hanger, the trousers in the press—and his patent leather shoes. from a bureau drawer he produced white silk waistcoat (wrapped in tissue-paper) and dress shirt. a moment more and he was removing, hurriedly yet not without an eye for buttons and the crease in the trousers, his business suit. he did not forget to transfer the folded envelope to the inner pocket of his dress coat. but first he read the sonnet that was penciled on it; and reread it. it seemed to him astonishingly good. “that's the way,” he reflected, during the process, standing before the mirror, of knotting his white tie,—“when your emotions are stirred to white heat, and an idea comes, write it down. no matter where you are, write it down. then you've got it.”
he looked thoughtfully at the long serious face that confronted him in the mirror, made longer by the ribbon that hung from his glasses. his hair was dark and thick, and it waved back from a high forehead. he straightened his shoulders, drew in his chin. that really distinguished young man, there in the mirror, was none other than eric mann, the playwright; author of the new broadway success, the truffler, a man of many gifts; a man, in short, of genius. forgetting for the moment, his hurry, he drew the folded envelope from his pocket and read the sonnet aloud, with feeling and with gestures. in the intervals of glancing at the measured lines, he studied the poet before him. the spectacle thrilled him. just as he meant that the poem should thrill the errant sue when he should read it to her. he determined now that she should not see it until he could get her alone and read it aloud. once before during this strange year of ups and downs, he had read a thing of his to sue and had thrilled her as he was now thrilling himself. right here in these rooms. he had swept her off her feet, had kissed her..well... he smiled exultingly at the germs in the mirror. then he had been a discouraged young playwright, beaten down by failure. how he was—or shortly would be—the sensation of broadway, author of the enormously successful nature film, and following up that triumph by picking to pieces the soul of the selfish “modern” bachelor girl—picking it to pieces so deftly, with such unerring theatrical instinct, that even the bachelor girl herself would have to join the throngs that would be crowding into the theater to see how supremely well he did it. more, was he not minting a new word, a needed word, to describe the creature. “the truffler”—truffling—to truffle!
a grand word; it perfectly hit off the sort of thing. within ten years it would be in the dictionaries; and he, peter ericson mann, would have put it there. he must jog neuerman up about this. to-morrow. neuerman must see to it that the word did get into the language. no time to lose. a publicity job!... come to think of it he didn't even know who was doing the publicity for neuerman now. he must look into that. to-morrow. shrewd, hard-hitting publicity work is everything. that's what lands you. puts your name in among the household treasures. people take you for granted; assume your greatness without exactly knowing why you are great. then you're entrenched. then you're famous. no matter if you do bad work. they don't know the difference. you're famous, that's all there is to it. they have to take you, talk about you, buy your books, go to your plays. mere merit hasn't a chance against you. you smash 'em every time... fame—money—power!
he saw the simply-clad sue wilde; short hair all massed shadows and shining high lights; olive skin with rose in it; the figure of a boy; all lightness, ease, grace; those stirring green eyes....
he would read to her again. his sonnet! from the heart—glowing with the fire that even in his triumph he could not forget.
she would listen!
the third was the “big act”; (there were four in all). all was ready for the artificial triumph that was to follow it—trained ushers, ticket sellers, door man, behind the last row of orchestra seats, clapping like mad. experienced friends of the management in groups where they could do the most good. trick curtains, each suggesting, by grouping or movement on the stage, the next. neuerman wanted eight curtains after the big act. he got them—and five more. for the claques were overwhelmed. a sophisticated audience that had forgotten for once how to be cold-blooded, tears drying unheeded on grizzled cheeks, was on its feet, clapping, stamping, shouting. after the third curtain came the first shouts for “author.” the shouts grew into an insistent roar. again and again the curtain rose on the shifting, carefully devised group effects; the audience had been stirred, and it wanted the man whose genius had stirred it.
behind, in the prompt corner, there was some confusion. you couldn't tell that excited mob that peter mann hadn't written fifty lines of that cumulatively moving story. it was his play, by contract. the credit was his; and the money. but no one had seen him for months.
after the tenth call neuerman ordered the footlights down and the house-lights up. he wore part of a wrinkled business suit; his collar was a rag; his waistcoat partly unbuttoned. he didn't know where he had thrown his coat. the sweat rolled in rivulets down his fat face.
out front the roar grew louder. neuerman ordered the house-lights down again and the footlights up.
“here, grace,” he said, to miss herring who stood, in the shirt-waist and short skirt of the part, looking very girlish and utterly dazed—“for god's sake take the author's call.”
she shook her head. “you take it,” she replied. “i couldn't say a word—not if it was for my life!”
“me take it!” he was mimicking her, from sheer nervousness. “me take it? in these clothes?”
she laughed a little at this, absently. flowers had come to her—great heaps of them. she snatched up an armful of long-stemmed roses; buried her face in them.
neuerman waved the curtain up again; took her arm, made her go on. she bowed again, out there, hugging her roses, an excited light in her eyes; and once more backed off.
“for god's sake, say something!” cried the manager.
she ignored this; bent over and looked through the heaps of flowers for a certain card. it was not there. she pouted—not like her rather experienced self but like the girl she was playing—and hugged the roses again.
for the twelfth time the curtain rose. again she could only bow.
neuerman mopped his forehead; then wrung out his handkerchief.
“somebody say something,” he cried. “ardrey could do it.” (ardrey was the leading man.) “where's ardrey? here you—call mr. ardrey! quick!”
“i'll take the call,” said a quiet voice at his elbow.
neuerman gave the newcomer a look of intense relief.
miss derring caught her breath, reached for a scene-support to steady herself; murmured:
“why—peter!”
the curtain slid swiftly up. and peter ericson mann, looking really distinguished in his evening clothes, with the big glasses and the heavy black ribbon, very grave, walked deliberately out front, faced the footlights and the indistinct sea of faces, and unsmiling, waited for the uproar that greeted him to die down. he waited—it was almost painful—until the house was still..
up in the gallery, sue wilde, leaning forward, her chin propped on her two small fists, said:
“that beats anything i ever....” she ended with a slow smile.
the worm was studying the erect dignified figure down there on the stage. “you've got to hand it to pete,” said he musingly. “he sensed it in the first act. he saw it was going to be a knock-out.”
“and,” said sue, “he decided, after all, that it was his play. henry, i'm not sure that he isn't the most irritating man on the earth.”
“he's that, all right, sue, child; but i'm not sure that he isn't a genius.”
“i suppose they are like that,” said sue, thoughtful.
“egotists, of course, looking at everything with a squint—all off balance! take pete's own heroes, cellini, wagner—”
“hush!” she said, slipping her hand into his, twisting her slim fingers among his—“listen!”
peter began speaking. his voice was well placed.
you could hear every syllable. and he looked straight up at sue. she noted this, and pressed closer to the man at her side.
“this is an unfashionable play (thus peter). if you like it, i am of course deeply pleased. i did not write it to please you. it is a preachment. for some years i have quietly observed the modern young woman, the more or less self-supporting bachelor girl, the girl who places her independence, her capricious freedom, her 'rights' above all those functions and duties to others on which woman's traditional quality, her finest quality, must rest. she is not interested in marriage, this bachelor girl, because she will surrender no item in her program of self indulgence. she is not interested in motherhood, because that implies self-abnegation. she talks economic independence while profiting by her sex-attraction. she uses men by disturbing them, confusing them; and thus shrewdly makes her own way. she plays with life, producing nothing. she builds no home, she rears no young. she talks glibly the selfish philosophy of nietzsche, of artzibasheff. she bases her self-justifying faith on the hideous animalism of freud. she asserts her right, as she says, to give love, not to sell it in what she terms the property marriage. she speaks casually of 'the free relation' in love. she will not use the phrase 'free love'; but that, of course, is what she means.
“no nation can become better that the quality of its womanhood, of its motherhood. no nation without an ideal, a standard of nobility, can endure. we have come upon the days, these devastating days of war, when each nation is put to the test. each nation must now exhibit its quality or die. this quality, in the last analysis, is capacity for sacrifice. it is endurance, and self-abnegation in the interest of all. it is surrender—the surrender to principle, order, duty, without which there can be no victory. the woman, like the man, who will not live for her country may yet be forced to die for her country.
“the educated young woman of to-day, the bachelor girl, the 'modern' girl, will speak loudly of her right to vote, her right to express herself,—that is her great phrase, 'self-expression'!—her intellectual superiority to marriage and motherhood. she will insist on what she calls freedom. for that she will even become militant. these phrases, and the not very pleasant life they cover, mean sterility, they mean anarchism, they mean disorganization, and perhaps death. they are the doctrine of the truffler, the woman who turns from duty to a passionate pursuit of enjoyment. they are eating, those phrases, like foul bacteria, at the once sound heart of our national life.
“so you see, in presenting this little picture of a girl who thought freedom—for herself—was everything, and of the havoc she wrought in one perhaps representative home, i have not been trying to entertain you. i have been preaching at you. if, inadvertently, i have entertained you as well, so much the better. for then my little sermon will have a wider audience.”
and, deliberately, he walked off stage.
on the stairs, moving slowly down from the gallery, sue and the worm looked at each other.
“i'm rather bewildered,” said she.
“yes. nobody knew the play was about all that. but they believe him. hear them yelling in there. he has put it over. pete is a serious artist now. he admits it.”
“there was rather a personal animus in the speech. didn't you think so?”
“oh, yes. he was talking straight at you. back last spring i gathered that he was writing the play at you—his original version of it.”
from one landing to another sue was silent. then she said:
“i never knew such a contradictory man. why, he wrote the nature film. and that is all for freedom.”
the worm smiled. “pete never had an idea in his life. he soaks up atmospheres and then, because he is a playwright and a dam' good one, he turns them into plays. he sees nothing but effects. pete can't think! and then, of course, he sees the main chance. he never misses that. why, that speech was pure genius. gives 'em a chance to believe that the stuff they love because it's amusing and makes 'em blubber is really serious and important. once you can make 'em believe that, you're made. pete is made, right now. he's a whale of a success. he's going to be rich.”
“but, henry, they'll see through him.”
“not for a minute!”
“but—but”—she was laughing a little—“it's outrageous. here are two successes—right here on broadway—both by peter—each a preachment and each flatly contradicting the other. do you mean to say that somebody won't point it out?”
“what if somebody does? who'd care? the public can't think either, you see. they're like pete, all they can see is effects. and, of course, the main chance. they love his effectiveness. and they admire him for succeeding. i'm not sure, myself, that he isn't on the way to becoming what they call a great man.”
