in the eyes of the playwright sir ralph incledon, as in the eyes of the early spaniards, the americans were savages with unlimited gold to exchange for glass beads. he

had a noble contempt for all of us except our dollars, and he was almost ashamed to take those; their very nomenclature was vulgar and the decimal system was french.

the london success of his piece following upon his arrival at knighthood had completely spoiled him. other great writers and actors who had received the accolade had

been rendered a little meeker and more knightly as knights, but incledon became almost unendurably offensive, even to his fellows in london. the decent english in new

york who had to meet him abominated him as civilized americans abroad abominate the noisy specimens of yankee insolence who go twanging their illiterate contempt

through the palaces and galleries and restaurants of europe.

sir ralph was greatly distressed with the company reben had proudly mustered for him. tom brereton was english born and bred, but sir ralph accused him of “an

extraord’n’r’ly atrowcious amayric’n acs’nt.” americans who had seen the london performance had been amazed not only at the success of miss berkshire, but at her

very tolerance on the stage; they said she looked like a giraffe and talked like a cow. but she pleased her own public somehow. when sir ralph saw sheila he was not

impressed; he said that she was “even wahss” than brereton and under “absolutely neigh-o sec’mst’nces could he permit hah to deviate from the p’fawm’nce of

d’yah aold bahkshah.”

sheila had flattered herself that she knew something of england and english; she had visited the island enough, and some of its stateliest homes; and she had had some

of the worst young peers making love to her. but sir ralph, she wrote her aunt, evidently regarded her “as something between a squaw and a pork-packer’s daughter.”

sir ralph threw her into such a bog of humiliation that she floundered at every step. how could she give an intelligent reading to a line when he wanted every word

sung according to the idiom of another woman of another race? how could she embody a r?le in its entirety when every utterance and motion was to be patterned on sir

ralph’s wretched imitations of a woman she had never seen?

sir ralph not only threw his company into a panic, but he revealed a positive genius for offending the reporters, the critics, the public. before the first curtain

rose there was a feeling of hostility, against which the disaffected and disorganized players struggled in vain.

his play was a beautiful structure, full of beautiful thoughts expertly wrought into form. but sir ralph, like so many authors, seemed to contradict in his person

everything worth while in his work.

his wife, lady incledon, knew him to be earnest, hard-working, emotional, timorous. his anxiety and modesty when at bay before the public gave the impression of

conceit, contempt, and insolence. if he had been more cocksure of his play he would not have been so critical of its interpreters. if he had not been so afraid of the

americans he would not have tried to make them afraid of him. no tenderer-hearted novelist ever wrote than dickens, yet he had the knack of infuriating mobs of people

into a warm desire to lynch him. no sweeter-souled poet ever sang than keats, yet byron said he never saw him but he wanted to kick him.

sir ralph incledon had the misfortune to belong to this class. he was not popular at home and he was maddening abroad. he made americans remember bunker hill and long

to avenge nathan hale. the critics felt it their patriotic duty to make reprisals for all the americans who had failed in london and to send this piccadillian back

with his coat-tails between his legs.

the opening performance in new york was a first-class disaster. the audience did not follow the london custom of calling the author out and booing him. it left him in

the wings, excruciated with ingrowing speech. he had drawn up one of the most tactless orations ever prepared in advance by a well-meaning author. he was not permitted

to deliver it. he had a cablegram written out to send his anxious wife overseas. he did not send it. when he read the next morning’s papers he was simply dazed. he

had come as a missionary direct from the capital to a benighted province and he was received with jeers—or “jahs,” as his dialect would be spelled in our dialect.

he wept privately and then put on an armor of contempt. he sailed shortly after, leaving the americans marooned on their desert continent.

the actors were treated with little mercy by most of the critics, except to be used as bludgeons to whack the author with. sheila’s notices were of the “however”

sort. “miss sheila kemble is a promising young actress; the part she played, however, was so irritating—” or, “in spite of all the cleverness of—” or, “sheila

kemble exhausted her resources in vain to give a semblance of life to—”

sheila sent the clippings to mrs. vining, and added: “every bouquet had a brickbat in it. we are not long for this world, i fear.”

reben fought valiantly for the play. he squandered money on extra spaces in the papers and on the bill-boards. he quoted from the critics who praise everything and he

emphasized lines about the scenery. the play simply did not endure the sea change. people who came would not enjoy it, and would not recommend it. it was hard even to

give away complimentary seats, and the result was one that would have been more amazing if it were less common; a successful play by a famous author produced with a

famous cast at a leading theater in the largest city of the new world was played to a theater that could not be filled at any or no price. the receipts fell to forty

dollars one night.

a newspaper wit wrote, “last night the crowds on broadway were so dense that a man was accidentally pushed into the odeon theater.” on another day he said, “last

night during a performance of sir ralph incledon’s masterpiece some miscreant entered the odeon theater and stole all the orchestra chairs.”

the slow death of a play is a miserable process. the actors began to see the nobilities of the work once the author was removed from in front of it. they regretted its

passing, but plays cannot live in a vacuum. novels and paintings can wait patiently and calmly in suspended animation till their understanders grow up, but plays, like

infants, must be nourished at once or they die and stay dead.

sheila and all the company had fought valiantly for the drama. once sir ralph’s back was turned, they fell to playing their r?les their own way, and they at least

enjoyed their work more. but the audiences never came.

sheila was plunged into deeps of gloom. she felt that she must suffer part of the blame or at least the punishment of the play’s non-success. she wished she had

stayed with “a friend in need.”

but reben had always been known as a good sport, a plucky taker of whatever medicine the public gave him. after a bastinado from the critics he had waited to see what

the people would do. there was never any telling. sometimes the critics would write p?ans of rapture and the lobby would be as deserted as a graveyard, leaving the

box-office man nothing to do but manicure his nails. sometimes the critics would unanimously condemn, and there would be a queue at the door the next morning.

sometimes the critics would praise and the mob would storm the window. sometimes they would blame and audiences would stay away as if by conspiracy. in any case, “the

box-office tells the story.”

cassard, the manager, once said that he could tell if a play were a success by merely passing the theater an hour after the performance was over. a more certain test

at the odeon theater was the manner of mr. chittick, the box-office man. if he laid aside his nail-file without a sigh and proved patient and gracious with the

autobiographical woman who loitered over a choice of seats and their date, the play was a failure. if mr. chittick insulted the brisk business man who pushed the exact

sum of money over the ledge and weakly requested “the two best, please” the play was a triumph. mr. chittick was a very model of affability while incledon’s play

occupied the stage of the unoccupied theater.

reben’s motto was “the critics can make or break the first three weeks of a play and no more. after that they are forgotten.” if he saw the business growing by so

much as five dollars a night he hung on. but the incledon play sagged steadily. at the end of a week reben had the company rehearsing another play called “your uncle

dudley,” an old manuscript he had bought years ago to please a star he quarreled with later.

reben talked big for a while about forcing the run; then he talked smaller and smaller with the receipts. finally he announced that “owing to previous bookings it

will be necessary,” etc. “mr. reben is looking for another theater to which to transfer this masterwork of sir ralph incledon. he may take it to boston, then to

chicago for an all-summer run.”

eventually he took it to mr. cain’s storage warehouse.

“your uncle dudley,” appealed to reben as a stop-gap. it would cost little. the cast was small; only one set was required. the title r?le fitted brereton to a

nicety. he offered sheila the heroine, who was a “straight.” she cannily chose a smaller part that had “character.” the play was flung on “cold”—that is,

without an out-of-town try-out.

it caught the public at “the psychological moment,” to use a denatured french expression. the morning after the first night the telephone drove mr. chittick frantic.

he almost snapped the head off a dear old lady who wanted to buy two boxes. it was a hopeless success.

the only sour face about the place except his was the star’s. the critics accused tom brereton of giving “a creditable performance.” all the raptures were for

sheila. she was lauded as the discovery of the year.

the critics are always “discovering” people, as columbus discovered the indians, who had been there a long while before. two critics told reben in the lobby between

the acts that there was star-stuff in sheila. he thanked them both for giving him a novel idea: “i never thought of that, old man.” and the old men walked away like

praised children. like children, they were very, very innocent when they were good and very, very incorrigible when they were horrid.

tom brereton behaved badly, to sheila’s thinking. to his thinking she was the evil spirit. he gave one of those examples of good business policy which is called

“professional jealousy” in the theater. he did what any manufacturer does who resists the substitution of a “just as good” for his own widely advertised ware. tom

brereton was the star of the piece according to his contracts and his prestige. he had toiled lifelong to attain his height and he was old enough and wise enough to

realize that he must maintain himself stubbornly or new ambitions would crowd him from his private peak.

sheila had youth, femininity, and beauty, none of which qualities were brereton’s. the critics and the public acclaimed the comet and neglected the planet. reben’s

press agent, starr coleman, flooded the press with sheila’s photographs and omitted brereton’s, partly because the papers will always give more space to a pretty

woman than a plain man, and would rather publish the likeness of a rear-row chorus girl than of the eccentric comedian who heads the cast.

coleman arranged interviews with sheila, wrote them and gave them to dramatic editors and the gush-girls of the press. coleman compiled what he called the “sheila

kemble cocktail” and demanded it at the bars to which he led the arid newspaper men. he did not object to the recipe being mentioned.

sheila won the audiences, and if brereton omitted her at a curtain call the audience kept on applauding stubbornly till he was forced to lead her out. she was always

waiting. she was greedy for points, and kept building her scenes, encroaching little by little.

brereton sulked awhile, then protested formally to the stage-manager, who gave him little sympathy. eventually brereton tried to repress sheila’s usurpations.

little unpleasantnesses developed into open wrangles. it was purely a business rivalry, and sheila had no right to expect gallantry in a field where she condescended

to put herself on an equality with men. but she expected it, none the less. the labor-unions show the same jealousy of women when they trespass on their profits in the

mills or the coal-mines.

sheila began to hate brereton with a young woman’s vivacity and frankness, and to torment him mischievously. in one scene he had to embrace her with fervor. she used

to fill her belt with pins and watch him wince as he smiled. he retaliated with as much dignity as he could muster. he could not always muster much. his heart was full

of rage.

he visited reben in his office and demanded his rights or his release. reben tried to appease him; business was too good to be tampered with. reben promised him

complete relief—next season. then he would put somebody else in sheila’s place.

he could afford to be gracious because he felt that the hour had come to launch sheila as a star. her success in a character r?le of peculiarly american traits led him

to abandon hope of finding a foreign success to float her in. besides, he had lost so much money on incledon’s london triumph that he was an intense partisan for the

native drama—till the next american play should fail, and the next importation succeed.

one evening, during the second entr’acte, he led a tall and scholarly-looking young man down the side aisle and back of a box to the stage. he left the uneasy alien

to dodge the sections of scenery that went scudding about like sails without hulls. then he went to dressing-room “no. 2” and tapped.

old pennock’s glum face appeared at the door with a threatening, “we-ell?”

the intruder spoke meekly. “it’s mr. reben.”

pennock repeated, “we-ell?”

reben shifted to his other foot and pleaded, “may i speak to miss kemble a moment?”

pennock closed the door. later sheila opened it a little and peered through, clutching together a light wrapper she had slipped into.

“oh, hello!” she cried. “i’m sorry i can’t ask you in. i’ve got a quick change, you know.”

even the manager must yield to such conditions and reben spoke around the casement. “i’ve been thinking,” he said, “that since you are so unhappy in this company

you’d better have one of your own.”

“for heaven’s sake!” sheila gasped at this unexpected bouquet.

reben went on: “since we had such bad success with the masterpiece of the foremost english dramatist, perhaps you might have good luck by going to the other extreme.

i’ve found the youngest playwright in captivity. nowadays these kindergarten college boys write a lot of successes. joking aside, the boy has a manuscript i’d like

you to look over. there is a germ of something in it, i think. will you just say hello to him, please?”

sheila consented with eagerness. reben beckoned forward a long effigy of youthful terror.

“miss kemble, let me present mr. eugene vickery.”

“how do you do, mr. nickerson?” said sheila, and thrust one bare arm through the chink to give her hand to vickery. the arm was all he could see of her except a

narrow longitudinal section of silhouette against the light over her mirror.

vickery was so hurt, and so unreasonably hurt, by her failure to recall him who had cherished her remembrance all these years, that his surprise escaped him: “i met

you once before, but you don’t remember me.”

she lied politely, and squeezed the hand she felt around hers with a prevaricating cordiality. “indeed i do. let me see, where was it we met—in chicago, wasn’t it,

this fall?”

“no; it was in braywood.”

“braywood? but i’ve never been in braywood, have i? mr. reben, have i ever played bray—oh, that’s where my aunt and uncle live! but was i ever there?”

“very long ago.”

“oh, don’t say that! not before my manager!”

“as a very little girl.”

“oh, that’s better. you see, i go to so many places. and that’s where i met you? you’ve changed, haven’t you?”

she could see nothing of him except the large hand that still clung to hers. she got it back as he laughed:

“yes, i’ve grown some taller. i played hamlet to your ophelia. then i wrote a play for you, but you got away without hearing it. now i’ve written another for you.

you can’t escape this time.”

“i won’t try to. i’m just dying to play it. what is it?”

a voice spoke in sternly: “curtain’s going up. you ready, miss kemble?”

“good lord! yes!” then to vickery. “i’ve got to fly. when can i see you, mr. bickerton?”

reben solved the problem: “got an engagement to supper?”

“yes, but i’ll break it.”

“we’ll call for you.”

“fine! good-by, mr.—mr. braywood!”

the door closed and vickery turned away in such a whirl of elation that he almost walked into the scene where tom brereton was giving an unusually creditable

performance, since sheila was off the stage.