the thud of the fist, the grunt of bret’s effort, the shriek of sheila, the clatter of eldon’s fall, the hubbub of the startled spectators, were all jumbled.
when eldon, dazed almost to unconsciousness, gathered himself together for self-defense and counter attack, the stage was revolving about him. instinctively he put up
his guard, clenched his right fist, and shifted clear of the table.
then his anger flamed through his bewilderment. he realized who had struck him, and he dimly understood why. a blaze of rage against this foreigner, this vandal, shot
up in his soul, and he advanced on winfield with his arm drawn back. but he found winfield struggling with batterson and mcnish, who had flung themselves on him,
grappling his arms. eldon stopped with his fists poised. he could not strike that unprotected face, though it was gray with hatred of him.
an instant he paused, then unclenched his hand and fell to straightening his collar and rubbing his stinging flesh. sheila had run between the two men in a panic. all
her thought was to protect her husband. her eyes blazed against eldon. he saw the look, and it hurt him worse than his other shame. he laughed bitterly into bret’s
face.
“we’re even now. i struck you when you didn’t expect it because you didn’t belong on the stage. you don’t belong here now. get off! get off or—god help you!”
this challenge infuriated bret, and he made such violent effort to reach eldon that batterson, prior, mcnish, and an intensely interested and hopeful group of stage-
hands could hardly smother his struggles. he bent and wrestled like the withed samson, and his hatred for eldon could find no word bitter enough but “you—you—you
actor!”
eldon laughed at this taunt and answered with equal contempt, “you thug—you business man!” then, seeing how sheila urged bret away, how dismayed and frantic she
was, he cried in bret’s face: “you thought you struck me—but it was your wife you struck in the face!”
sheila did not thank him for that pity. she silenced him with a glare, then turned again to her husband, put her arms about his arms, and clung to them with little
fetters that he could not break for fear of hurting her. she laid her head on his breast and talked to his battling heart:
“oh, bret, bret! honey, my love! don’t, don’t! i can’t bear it! you’ll kill me if you fight any more!”
the fights of men and dogs are almost never carried to a finish. one surrenders or runs or a crowd interferes.
winfield felt all his strength leave him. his wife’s voice softened him; the triumph of his registered blow satisfied him to a surprising degree; the conspicuousness
of his position disgusted him. he nodded his head and his captors let him go.
the reaction and the exhaustion of wrath weakened him so that he could hardly stand, and sheila supported him almost as much as he supported her.
and now reben began on him. an outsider had invaded the sanctum of his stage, had attacked one of his people—an actor who had made good. winfield had broken up the
happy family of success with an omen of scandal.
reben denounced him in a livid fury: “why did you do it? why? what right have you to come back here and slug one of my actors? why? he is a gentleman! your wife is a
lady! why should you be—what you are? you should apologize, you should!”
“apologize!” bret sneered, with all loathing in his grin.
eldon flared at the look, but controlled himself. “he doesn’t owe me any apology. let him apologize to his wife, if he has any decency in him.”
he sat down on the table, but stood up again lest he appear weak. again sheila threw him a look of hatred. then she began to coax winfield from the scene, whispering
to him pleadingly and patting his arms soothingly:
“come away, honey. come away, please. they’re all staring. don’t fight any more, please—oh, please, for my sake!”
he suffered her to lead him into the wings and through the labyrinth to her dressing-room.
and now the stage was like a church at a funeral after the dead has been taken away. everybody felt that sheila was dead to the theater. the look in her eyes, her
failure to rebuke her husband for his outrage on the company, her failure to resent his attitude toward herself—all these pointed to a slavish submission. everybody
knew that if sheila took it into her head to leave the stage there would be no stopping her.
the curtain went up, disclosing the empty house with all the soul gone out of it. in the cavernous balconies and the cave of the orchestra the ushers moved about
banging the seats together. they went waist-deep in the rows, vanishing as they stooped to pick up programs and rubbish. they were exchanging light persiflage with the
charwomen who were spreading shrouds over the long windrows. the ushers and the scrub-ladies knew nothing of what had taken place after the curtain fell. they knew
strangely little about theatrical affairs.
they were hardly interested in the groups lingering on the stage in quiet, after-the-funeral conversation. but the situation was vitally interesting to the actors and
the staff. without sheila the play would be starless. how could it go on? the company would be disbanded, the few weeks of salary would not have paid for the long
rehearsals or the costumes. the people would be taken back to new york and dumped on the market again, and at a time when most of the opportunities were gone.
it meant a relapse to poverty for some of them, a postponement of ambitions and of loves, a further deferment of old bills; it meant children taken out of good
schools, parents cut off from their allowances; it meant all that the sudden closing of any other factory means.
the disaster was so unexpected and so outrageous that some of them found it incredible. they could not believe that sheila would not come back and patch up a peace
with reben and eldon and let the success continue. successes were so rare and so hard to make that it was unbelievable that this tremendous gold-mine should be closed
down because of a little quarrel, a little jealousy, a little rough temper and hot language.
eldon alone did not believe that sheila would return. he had loved her and lost her. he had known her great ambitions, how lofty and beautiful they had been. he had
dreamed of climbing the heights at her side; then he had learned of her marriage and had seen how completely her art had ceased to be the big dream of her soul, how
completely it had been shifted to a place secondary to love.
no, sheila would not make peace. sheila was dead to this play, and this play dead without her, and without this play sheila would die. of this he felt solemnly
assured.
therefore when the others expressed their sympathy for the attack he had endured, or made jokes about it, he did not boast of what he might have done, or apologize for
what he had left undone, or try to laugh it off or lie it off.
he could think only solemnly of the devastation in an artist’s career and the deep damnation of her taking off.
batterson said, “say, that was a nasty one he handed you.”
eldon confessed: “yes, it nearly knocked my head off; but it was coming to me.”
“why didn’t you hand him one back?”
“how could i hit him when you held his hands? how could i hit him when his wife was clinging to him? and what’s a blow? i’ve had worse ones than that in knock-down
and drag-out fights. i’ll get a lot more later, no doubt. but i couldn’t hit winfield. he doesn’t understand. sheila has trouble enough ahead of her with him. poor
sheila! she’s the one that will pay. the rest of us will get other jobs. but sheila is done for.”
by now the scenery was all folded and stacked against the walls. the drops were lost in the flies. the furniture and properties were withdrawn. the bare walls of the
naked stage were visible.
the electrician was at the switchboard, throwing off the house lights in order. they went out like great eyes closing. the theater grew darker and more forlorn. the
stage itself yielded to the night. the footlights and borders blinked and were gone. there was no light save a little glow upon a standard set in the center of the
apron.
eldon sighed and went to his dressing-room.
