the next night eldon reached the theater in a new mood. he had been promoted. he still felt sorry for poor tuell. the grief of the wife whom he had met at the train and taken to the undertaker’s shop where tuell rested had torn his heart as with claws. he had told her all things beautiful of tuell. he had wept to see her weep. he wept his heart clean as a sheep’s heart.
as villon said, “the dead go quick.” eldon was ashamed to be so merciless, but in spite of himself ambition blazed up in him. he was a comedian. batterson had told him so. the house had told him so. sheila had murmured, “you’re splendid.”
and now he was a comedian with a screamingly funny r?le. now he could build it up. he had been working on it half unconsciously all night and all day.
the second night he marched into the scene with the authority of one who is about to be very funny. in his first scenes he delivered his lines with enthusiasm, with appreciation of their humor. he took pains not to “walk into his laughs” as he had done the night before, when he had not expected any laughs. he waited for his laughs. he was amazed to note that they did not come. his pause left a hole in the action. he worked harder, underlined his important words, cocked his head as one who says, “the story i am about to tell you is the funniest thing you ever heard. you’ll die when you hear it.”
it was the scene that died. a new form of stage-fright sickened him. hope perished. he was not a comedian, after all. his one success had been an accident.
when the first curtain fell he slunk away by himself to avoid batterson’s searching eyes. to complete his shame he saw that batterson was talking earnestly with the new-comer from new york.
old mrs. vining sauntered his way. he tried to escape, but the heavy standard of a bunch-light cut him off. she approached him and began in that acid tone of hers:
“young man, there are two things that are important to a comedian. one is to get a laugh, and the other is to nail it. you got your laughs last night and you’ve lost ’em to-night. do you know why?”
“if i only did! i’m playing twice as hard to-night.”
“you bet you are, and you’re hard as zinc. you keep telling the audience how funny you’re going to be, and that finishes you. now you’ve lived long enough to know that there are few jokes in the world so funny that they can stand being boosted before they’re told. play your part straight, man. you can fake pathos and rub it in, but of all things always play comedy straight.
“and another thing, don’t fidget! one of the best comedians that ever walked the stage told me once, ‘i know only one secret for getting laughs, and that is, nobody must move when the laugh comes.’ but to-night you never waited for anybody else to kill your laughs. you butchered ’em yourself by lolling your head and making fool gestures. quit it! now you go on in the next act and play the part as you did last night. be gloomy and quiet and depressed. that’s what makes ’em laugh out there—the sight of your misery. there’s nothing funny to them in your being so damned cheerful as you were to-night.”
eldon said, “thank you very much, mrs. vining.” but he was not convinced of anything except his fatal and eternal unfitness to be an actor. he walked into the second act carrying his old burden of dejection; he rather moaned than delivered his lines. and the people laughed.
the cruelty of the public heart angered eldon and he made further experiment in dolor. laughs came now that he had not secured the night before. the others were bigger than then. he threw into some of his lines such subcellar misery that he broke up sheila. when he made the laughing exit he did not even chuckle, he moaned. and the result was a tornado. people mopped their eyes.
batterson met him with a quizzical smile: “you got ’em going to-night nearly as good as the time your lantern went out.”
that was higher praise than it sounded at first hearing.
when mrs. vining made her exit she said, “aha! what did i tell you, young man?”
when sheila came off she sought him out, and cried, “oh, you were wonderful, simply wonderful!”
and when batterson growled at her: “you spoiled several of his best laughs by talking through ’em. you ought to know better than that,” sheila was so pleased for eldon’s sake that she relished the rebuke.
mrs. vining had warned him to nail his laughs. at the next performance he tried to repeat his exact effects. some of them he forgot, some of them he remembered. but they did not work this time. others went better than ever. each point was a new battle.
and so it was with every repetition. no two audiences were alike. each had its own individuality. he began to study audiences as individuals. the first part of his first act was his period of getting acquainted. some houses were quick and some slow, some noisily demonstrative, some quietly satisfied. it took all his powers to play his part. and he could not tire of it because every night was a first night in a new r?le.
success made another man of him. he was interested in his task. he was winning praise for it. the management voluntarily raised his salary a little. he held his head a trifle higher.
sheila noted the change at once. she liked him the better for it. she repeated her invitation to tea. he accepted now, and appeared in some new clothes. they were vastly becoming. on the stage he played a middle-aged henpecked plebeian. off the stage he was young and handsome and thoroughbred.
he was a reader, too, and sheila, like most actresses, was an omnivorous browser. they talked books. she lent him one of hers. he cherished it as if it were a breviary. they argued over literature and life. he ventured to contradict her. he was no longer a big mastiff at heel. he was forceful and stubborn. these qualities do not greatly displease a woman who likes a man.
mrs. vining was amused at first by the change in sheila. latterly the girl was constantly quoting “mr. eldon.” by and by it was “as floyd eldon says,” and one day mrs. vining heard, “last night floyd was telling me.” then aunt john grew alarmed, for she did not want sheila to be in love—not for a long while yet, and never with an actor.
and sheila had no intention of falling in love with an actor. but this did not prevent her from being the best of friends with one. all of eldon’s qualities charmed sheila as she discovered them. she had leisure for the discovery. there were no rehearsals; business was good at the theater; eldon grew better and better in his performance. sheila kept up her pace and enlarged her following. they dwelt in an atmosphere of contentment. but as her personal public increased and as the demands on her spirits and her time increased she began to take more pleasure in the company of eldon and to like him best alone. she began to break old engagements, or fulfil them briefly, and to refuse new invitations.
mrs. vining was not able to be about for a while. her neuralgia was revived by the knife-winds of chicago. but sheila and eldon found them highly stimulating. he joined her in her constitutionals.
chicago was large enough to give them a kind of seclusion by multitude, the solitude of a great forest. among chicago’s myriads the little “friend in need” company was lost to view. it was possible to go about with eldon and never meet a fellow-trooper; to walk miles with him along the lake front, or through lincoln park, to sidle past the pictures in the art institute or the field museum, and rest upon the benches in galleries where the dumb beauty on the walls warmed the soul to sensitiveness.
and when they were not alone their hearts seemed to commune without exchange of word or glance. he told her first how wonderful an artist she was, and by and by he was crediting her art to her wonderful “personality.” she told him that he had “personality,” too, lots of it, and charming. she told him that the stage needed men of birth and breeding and higher education, especially when these were combined with such—such—she could hardly say beauty—so she fell back again on that useful term—“personality.”
they never tired of discussing the technic of their trade and its emotional grandeurs. he told her that his main ambition was to see her achieve the heights god meant her for; he only wished that he might trudge on after her, in her wake. she told him that he had far greater gifts than she had, and that his future was boundless.
finally she convinced him that she was convinced of this, and over a tea-table in the auditorium hotel he murmured—and trembled with the terrific audacity of it as he murmured:
“if only we could always play together—twin stars.”
she was shocked as if she had touched a live wire of frightful beatitude. and her lips shivered as she mumbled, “would you like that?”
he could only sigh enormously. and his eyes were full of devout longing as he whispered, “let’s!”
they burst into laughter like children planning some tremendous game. and then mrs. vining had to walk into their cloud-eden and dissolve it into a plain table at which she seated herself.
mrs. vining was thinking “aha!” as she crossed the room to their table. “it’s high time i was getting well. affairs have been progressing since i began to nurse my neuralgia.”
she resolved to stick around, like the “demon chaperon” of fontaine fox’s comic pictures. at all costs she must rescue sheila from the wiles of this good-looking young man. for her ward to lose her head and find her heart in an affair with an actor would be a disaster indeed; the very disaster that sheila’s mother had warned her against.
of course sheila’s mother had married an actor and been as happy as a woman had a right to expect to be with any man. and of course mrs. vining’s own dear dead john vining had been the most lovable of rascals. but such bits of luck could not keep on recurring in the same family.
and mr. reben did not believe in marriage for actors, either. he had many reasons far from romantic. the public did not like its innocent heroines to be wives. the prima donna’s husband is a proverb of trouble-making. separated, the couple pine; united, they quarrel with other members of the company or with each other. children arrive contrary to bookings and play havoc with youth and vivacity, changing the frivolous juliet into a nurse or a roman matron.
reben would have been infuriated to learn that sheila kemble, his sheila of the golden future, was dallying on the brink of an infatuation for an infatuated minor member of one of his companies. a flirtation, even, was too dangerous to permit. he would have dismissed eldon without a moment’s pity if he had known what none of the company had yet suspected. unwittingly he accomplished the effect he would have sought if he had been aware.
reben ran out to chicago ostensibly, according to his custom, to inspect the troupe in the last fortnight of its run there. he invited sheila to supper with mrs. vining. he criticized sheila severely and praised miss griffen. later, as if quite casually, he spoke to mrs. vining of a new play he had found abroad. it was a man star’s play. “i bought it for tom brereton,” he said, “but the leadin’ woman’s r?le is rather interestin’.”
he described one of her scenes and noted that sheila was instantly excited. it was one of those craftsmanly achievements the english dramatists arrive at oftener than ours, and it had made the instant fame of the actress who played it in london. having dropped this golden apple before atalanta, he changed the subject carelessly.
sheila turned back to the apple:
“tell me more about the play, please!”
reben told her more, permitted her to coax him to tell it all. he yawned so crudely that she would have noticed his wiles if she had been able to think of anything but that r?le; for an actress thrills at the thought of putting on one of these costumes of the soul as quickly as an average woman grows incandescent before a new gown.
sheila clasped her hands and shook her head like a beggar outside a restaurant window: “oh, but i envy the woman who plays that part! who is she?”
“parton, i suppose,” reben yawned. “but she’s fallen off lately. gone and got herself in love—and with a fool actor, of all people! the idiot! i’ve a notion to chuck her. after all the money and publicity i’ve wasted on her, to fall for a dub like that!”
sheila did not dare plead for the part. but her eyes prayed; her very attitude implored it.
reben laughed: “in case anything awful happened to parton—like sudden death or matrimony—i don’t suppose the r?le would interest you?”
“i’d give ten years off my life to play that part.”
“would you, now?” reben laughed. “you don’t mean it. ten years off your life, eh? would you give ten dollars off your salary?” he chuckled at his shrewdness.
but she answered, solemnly, “i’d play it for nothing.”
“well, well!” said reben. “that would be a savin’!” he always would have his little joke. then he said: “but jokin’ aside, of course i couldn’t afford to let you work for nothin’. fact is, if the play was a success i could afford to pay you a little better than you’re gettin’ now. what are you gettin’ now?”
“seventy-five,” said sheila.
“is that all!” said reben. “well, well, i don’t have to be as stingy as that. but there’s one thing i can’t afford to do and that’s to work for an actor—or actress—who quits me as soon as i make him—or her.”
“i’d never quit you if you gave me chances like that,” sheila sighed, hopelessly.
“so they all tell me,” said reben. “then they chuck me for the management of cupid & co. would you be willin’ to sign a five years’ contract with me, young lady?”
“in a minute!”
“well, well! i’ll see what can be done. good night!”
he left her to fret herself to an edge with the insomnia of frantic ambition. the next day he sent her a contract to look over.
“aha!” said sheila to mrs. vining. “that’s his little game. he wanted me all the time. why couldn’t he have said so? i’ll make him pay for being so clever.”
she sent the contract back with emendations.
he emended her emendations and returned it to her.
she emended further and wrote in the margin, “oh, mr. reben!” and, “greedy, greedy!”
he rather enjoyed the duel with the little haggler. he belonged to the race that best manages to combine really good art with really good business and really good generosity.
when at last he had bargained sheila to the wall he made her a present of better terms than she had accepted—as if he were tossing her a handsome diamond.
sheila embraced him and called him an angel. he belonged, indeed, to the same race as the only original angels.
she signed the contract with exclamations of gratitude. with his copy in his pocket he put out both hands and wished her all the glory he planned for her. then he told her to get ready to leave within a week for new york and rehearsals.
he had brought to chicago a young woman stage-named dulcie ormerod to replace her. he wanted dulcie to play the part at least a week so that the company could be advertised as “exactly the same that appeared in chicago.”
when he had gone sheila fell from the clouds—at least she struck a hole in the air and sank suddenly nearer to the earth. she cried, “oh, aunt john, i forgot to ask if he wanted you in the new play!”
“no, he doesn’t, dearie. he told me how sorry he was that there was no part for me while you were signing the contract.”
“oh, i’m so sorry! i won’t leave you!”
“of course you will, my child. you can’t go on forever chained to my old slow heels. besides, i’m too tired to learn a new part this season. i’ll jog on out to the coast with this company. i think california will be good for me.”
a little later sheila remembered floyd eldon. she gasped as if she had been stabbed.
“why, what’s wrong now, honey?” cried mrs. vining.
“i was just thinking—oh, nothing!”
sheila was dismayed at the idea of leaving eldon, leaving him all by himself—no, not by himself, for that dulcie creature would replace her in the company, and perhaps—no doubt—in his lonely heart. sheila had grown ever so fond of eldon, but she could not expect any man, least of all so handsome, so big-hearted a man, to resist the wiles of a cat, or, worse, a kitten, who would select such a name as “dulcie.”
an inspiration gave sheila sudden cheer. she would ask dear mr. reben to give eldon a chance in the new company. it would be far better for floyd to “create” something than to continue hammering at his present second-hand r?le. he might have to take a smallish part, but they would be in each other’s neighborhood, and perhaps the star might fall ill. eldon would step in; he would make an enormous sensation; and then and thus in a few short months they would have accomplished their dream—they would be revolving as twin stars in the high sky together.
she called up reben at the theater; he had gone to the hotel. at the hotel, he had left for the station. at the station, he had taken the train. well, she would write to him or, better yet, see him in person and arrange it the minute she reached new york.
that night she took her contract to the theater in her hand-bag. she must tell floyd about it.
he was loitering outside when she reached the stage door. her face was agleam with joy as she beckoned him under a light in the corridor. his face was agleam, too, as he hurried forward. before she could whisk out her contract he brandished before her one of his own. before she could say, “see what i have!” he was murmuring: “sheila! sheila! what do you suppose? reben—the great reben likes my work. he said he thought i was worth keeping, but i ought to be playing the juvenile lead instead of a second old man. he’s going to shift eric folwell to a new production east, and he offered me his place! think of it! of course i grabbed it. i’m to replace folwell as soon as i can get up in the part. would you believe it—reben gave me a contract for three years. he’s boosted me to fifty a week already. i’m to play this part all season through to the coast. and next season he’ll give me a better part in something else—and at a better salary.
“i wanted to telephone you about it, but i was afraid to mention it to you for fear something might prevent him from signing. but he did!—just before he took the train. see, there’s his own great name! after next week i’m to be your lover in the play as well as in reality. our dream is coming true already, isn’t it—” he hesitated before the absolute word, then, having made the plunge, went on and whispered, “sheila mine!”
sheila stared at him, at the love and triumph in his eyes; and suddenly her cake was dough. her mouth twisted like a child’s when the rain begins on a holiday. she turned her head away and passed the side of her hand childishly across her clenched eyes, whence the tears came thronging. she half murmured, half wept:
“i’m not your sheila. i’m that hateful old reben’s slave. and i don’t go any further with you. miss—dulcie somebody-or-other is to have my part. she’s prettier than i am. and i’ve got to go to new york next week to begin rehearsals of—a horrid old b-british success.”
the voice of the call-boy warning them of the half-hour sent them scurrying to their cells with their plight unsolved. they had a few chances to exchange regrets during the performance, but other members of the company who had heard of the good luck of both of them kept breaking in with felicitations that sounded like irony. they were so desperate for talk that eldon waited for sheila in the alley and walked to her hotel with her. mrs. vining went along, very much along. they had to accept her presence; she would not be ignored. she put in sarcastic allusions to the uselessness of good luck in this world. in her day actors and actresses would have been dancing along the streets over such double fortune. as to their separation, it would be a good test of their alleged affection. if it was serious it would outlast the test; if not, it was a good time to learn how unimportant the whole thing was.
she regarded the elegies of young love with all the skepticism of the old who have seen so much of it, heard so much repetition of such words as “undying” and “forever,” and have seen the “undying” dying all about like autumn leaves, and few of the “forevers” lasting a year.
sheila accepted eldon’s invitation to have a bite of supper in the grill-room. mrs. vining was in a grill-room mood and invited herself along. other members of the troupe appeared and visited the funeral table with words of envy.
in the spaces between these interruptions sheila explained her plan to ask reben to give eldon a chance with the new company.
mrs. vining sniffed: “sheila, you ought to have sense enough to know that the minute you mentioned this young man’s name reben would send him to australia—or fire him.”
“fire him?” said sheila. “he has a three years’ contract.”
“yes, with a two weeks’ clause in it, i’ll bet.”
they fetched the contract out and looked it over again. there was the iniquitous clause, seated like a toad overlooked among the flowers, and now it was impossible to see the flowers for the toad.
“oh, you ought to have changed that,” said sheila. “it’s different in mine.”
“i didn’t know,” said eldon, “and i shouldn’t have dared to argue with reben. i was afraid he might change his mind. but i could resign and come east and get a job with another manager.”
mrs. vining poured on more vinegar: “you can’t resign. that two weeks’ notice works only one way. and if you break with reben you’ll have a fine chance getting in with any other manager! besides, why let your—well, call it ‘love’ if you want to—why let it make fools of you both? mr. eldon has had a great compliment from the best manager in the country, and a raise of salary, and a promise of his interest. are you thinking of slapping him in the face and kicking your own feet out from under yourself just because this foolish little girl is going along about her business?
“and another thing, mr. floyd eldon, if you love this girl as much as you say you’re taking a pretty way to prove it. do you want to ruin her career just as it’s beginning, drag this rising star back to the drudgery of being the wife of a fifty-dollar-a-week actor? oh, you’ll do better. you’re the type that matinée girls make a pet of. you’ll have draught, too, as soon as you learn a little more about your business. but it wouldn’t help you any just now to be known as an old married man. you mind your business and let her mind hers.
“you think you’re romeo and juliet in modern costume, i suppose. well, look what a mess they made of it. you are two fine young things and i love you both, but you mustn’t try to prove your devotion to each other by committing suicide together.”
eldon’s thoughts were dark and bitter. his own career meant nothing to him at the moment. his love of sheila was all-important to him, and her career was, above all, important. he said: “i certainly won’t do anything to hurt sheila’s career. that’s my religion—her career.”
he poured into her eyes all the idolatry a man can feel for a woman. he had a curious feeling that he read in her eyes a faint fleck of disappointment. his sacrifice was perfect and complete, but he felt an odious little suspicion that it was not absolutely welcome.
perhaps he guessed right. sheila was hastening to that point in womanhood where the chief demand of her soul is not that her lover should exalt her on a pedestal and worship her, but should tear her thence and love her. she did not suspect this yet herself. all she knew was that she was dissatisfied with her triumph. she bade eldon a ghostly farewell at the hotel elevator and went up to her room, while he turned away to his dingy boarding-house. he had not yet bettered his lodgings; he was trying to save his pennies against the future need of a married man.
when sheila had made ready for bed she put out the lights and leaned across the sill and stared across the dark boundless prairie of the starlit lake. it had an oceanic vastitude and loneliness. it was as blank as her own future.
