She trembled, but did not speak.

"Beloved," he went on, "I only live through you! My soul is yours! I worship--I adore you! Let me serve you! I dare not say forgive, but try to forget this private pain in public triumph. You have great gifts; don't neglect them. You are a fashion now--if I live you shall have fame. You shall not be hippodromed, as I was, into the success that stifles faith in the purity of art, the prosperity that swallows up energy and sincerity."

She sat as in a trance, her heart thrilling to the music of a voice that even the public found irresistible. Half her torture had been in the belief that she had become contemptible in his eyes--that she had been a mere "pour pa.s.ser le temps"; therefore, this homage had something of comfort in its respectful wording as he went on: "I have experience, knowledge, skill; let me use them for your advancement. You shall be left free to study, to realize your beautiful ideals, unhampered by commercial questions of any kind. I will do my best, my very best, to warn you away from pitfalls of mannerisms; to polish and refine without producing artificiality. The service of my whole life shall be yours--the sole object of my life, the secure placing of the dramatic crown upon your head; and in return I ask [he held out empty, trembling hands] such sc.r.a.ps of affection as may fall from your table of family love--such crumbs of your time as you can spare to me!"

And that humble pleading came from Stewart Thrall, to whom love had been before such a tumultuous, triumphant distraction and amus.e.m.e.nt!

The girl flushed and paled, but kept her sombre eyes averted from the face, where rage had changed to tender pity and pa.s.sionate pleading.

"Sybil?" he almost whispered.

Still she was silent. It was very hard what she had in mind to say. This winning, gracious man had been the hero of all her girlish dreams, as well as the honored "master," who was arbiter of her fate, and only now she realized how he had absorbed her life--how hard it was to give him up, all in a moment. Poor child! this second peril was almost greater than the first; but, worn and weary, she was incapable of reasoning, of seeking out motives then.

"Sybil?" came again the dear, tempting voice, "if I begged for bread, you would not treat me so! Beloved, answer me!" Kneeling there he reached out his arms and clasped her waist. "Answer me, at least!"

She sprang to her feet, and as she put her hands behind her, striving to break his strong clasp, she answered confusedly, brokenly: "I--I--can't--I must go--go quite away! You must know that! I--I--can't play--ever--any more!"

Very compa.s.sionately he reminded her: "You must have learned before this, Princess, the inexorable claim of the stage. Nothing but death releases an actor from duty."

"Well," she answered, bitterly, "that Sybil Lawton _is_ dead!"

His face contracted painfully, but he answered steadily: "The world does not know that. It would be fatal to us all to close. I am sorry, but the play must go on, beloved."

Like lightning she recalled the warm hand pressures, the whispered sweet "asides," the pa.s.sionate love-scene, and that long embrace in the chamber balcony, and cried out sharply: "With _you_? with _you_? I must act again with _you_?"

His arms fell from her waist; his face was hard and white as marble as he rose to his feet. His voice was icy, but during his next courteous, chill words he kept his eyes downcast that the tears might not bear witness to his pain.

"I forgot," he said, "that you were not experienced enough to sink the man in the artist, and--and you must pardon my dulness, but--I did not fully appreciate the--[he moistened his unwilling, stammering lips] the loathing you feel for me personally. I have proved very slow-witted, but I am not a pachyderm, and my intelligence can be reached, you see, by sharp, stinging pain. Your method is severe, Miss Lawton, but eminently successful. I am not likely to forget the lesson now that I have learned it."

Sybil's dark eyes dilated with pain. Her need of sympathy was so great that those icy tones turned her faint with misery.

"It was hard enough before," she murmured, and a piteous quiver came about her lips.

He had been mortified, humbled, and wounded when she shrank so from acting with him again. He thought it signified bitter hate, unconquerable aversion; and, instead, it had been an expression of terror, a confession of a weakness which she only began to realize when she found how hard if was not to yield at once to his pleading. There was something so pathetic, so unconsciously pleading in those words, "It was hard enough before," that he asked pardon, and went gravely on: "It is my duty to obey your wishes so far as my power goes. I cannot take off the play; you will understand yourself when you have time for thought, but being a gentleman, at least superficially [he corrected himself with a flush rising to his face], I will not publicly force my companionship upon you as Romeo, to your private annoyance [his voice shook a little in spite of himself, and he paused a moment]. I will put things in motion at once--looking to your relief."

Sybil sank into the corner of the couch, and, folding her arms upon a pillow, buried her face in the loose sleeve of her kimona.

"My throat," he went on, "can be in bad shape, and a drop of atropia now and then will keep me hoa.r.s.e enough for our purpose--just at first.

Young Fitzallen [Sybil's hand clenched suddenly], who is quite up in the lines, will take my place 'at short notice to oblige,' and--and, well, after a while we will find some excuse for continuing him in the part.

'Sufficient unto the day,' I have to scurry a bit about the printing and the finding of the young man. He will have to wear some of my costumes; you won't mind that, I hope--Monday night is so very close. He will come over here about ten or half-past in the morning to rehea.r.s.e with you, and you must be very exacting about the 'business.' See that nothing is forgotten; the public is quick to miss anything it has become accustomed to. The balcony scene [the girl's figure seemed to writhe among the cushions] is--very--important--and--" He stopped, and then quite suddenly he turned toward the door, saying: "I'll do my best to save you from the degradation you dread. I'll send your new Romeo to you early."

Like pictures on a scroll, she saw all the tender love-scenes, growing one out from another, ever sweeter, stronger, more intense, and at the balcony of Juliet's chamber, at the farewell embrace--that the applause made long--she thought "another's arms about me, another's eyes searching mine," and so, shuddering, repulsion seized upon her and wrung from her lips the cry: "No! no! don't! Oh, don't! I could not bear it--I should die!"

She was standing, one bent knee among the cushions, leaning forward on one supporting arm. He turned. "Sybil--do you mean--you will have mercy on me--that you will try for art's sake to forget the man in the actor?

Oh, beloved, if you could believe! To my arid life you brought freshness and strength and reverence--yes, in spite of my sin against you, oh, wife of my soul! Pity me! my sin is very hard to bear!"

Suddenly she stretched out her arms to him. With wide, almost unbelieving eyes he sank on his knees before her, asking, faintly: "You pity me? But, oh, you cannot forgive?"

She took his head between her hands and kissed his brow, saying: "To love is to forgive!"

He gave a cry and started to his feet. A deadly paleness came upon her face.

"I am not strong enough," she said, "for martyrdom--alas! I am no child of light! But where I love--be it strength or be it weakness--I love forever!"

His arms closed about her, her weary head sank upon his breast. He stooped and kissed her tenderly, solemnly. She lifted her heavy eyes and added "My fidelity shall be my purification!"

CHAPTER XXVI

THE OPAL

Three years had pa.s.sed, and Sybil, now the reigning queen of the New York stage, still lived in the quiet little red brick house among the West Thirtieths, to the great indignation of Mrs. Lawton. Inside there was a frank luxury clearly explained to love-sealed eyes by that one elastic word "salary"; though an observant outsider, noting the age-darkened, carved wood, the rare polar-bear robes, and the exquisite bits of bronze, must have thought her a marvellously lucky buyer, or a remarkably well-paid actress. But there were no such observers at hand; perhaps that was why Sybil's vine-dripping, flower-crowded windows seemed to laugh in the face of the grim, shade-drawn propriety of the entire block.

At the rear of the red brick house was a small cooper or carpenter shop that faced on the other street. It had long been unoccupied, so that when Stivers took a notion to hire it for a store-room and sort of laundry, she got it cheap; and after the neighbors had once or twice seen her going in and out, and hanging a few pieces of linen to dry, there was no further heed paid to the matter. But if one was very intimate with Mrs. Stivers, and received from her a shop key, why, one could both enter and leave the house from the back street without bothering with the front door bell.

Sybil had "overflowed," as Dorothy said, and had swept away Stivers's too dreadful parlor, and in its stead there was now a library and sitting-room combined--a nook glorious in winter because of an open fire and in summer made dim and cool by many clambering vines, and sweet by boxes of mignonette crowding the small balcony, a room full of the scattered riches of rare books, of carved ivories, of miniatures, of bubbles of Venetian gla.s.s, beautiful as jewels and almost as precious, a room for study, for dreams, for love, and sometimes a room for bitter brooding and regret.

Visitors to this house were a rare occurrence, but Sybil had just been speeding the parting guest in the person of her mother, who was "to pick up" John at Forty-second Street, and thus receive protection on the homeward ride to Riverdale; for "positively in these days," she declared, "unless you're perfectly white and doubled together with age, men ogle you as if you were twenty. There was a dreadful little pot-bellied, Hebraic person--that sounds queer, doesn't it, but it's an absolutely correct expression and perfectly descriptive of the man's shape--and I declare to you he kept his eyes on my face until I felt quite agitated, and everyone in the car must have noticed his conduct.

Yet John Lawton was so unfeeling as to tell me that if I stopped looking at the man, I wouldn't know that he was staring. Not know it, indeed!

Why, I could feel anyone ogling me through the back of my neck! Still, after such an experience, I hope I shall not miss John!"

Mrs. Lawton had devoted one of her three days to her old friend, Mrs.

Van Camp, and to shopping, and two days to Sybil. She had arrived in state, and after a supercilious glance at her, had addressed the owner and mistress of the house as "Stivers"--though Sybil was most punctilious in calling her Mrs. Stivers. She had so traduced the coffee (which was perfect) by asking "if the blackness was not the result of licorice," that, though Jane Penny had maintained a strictly respectful att.i.tude, murder had shown so plainly in her eye that Let.i.tia had not dared to take the second cup she longed for, for fear of poison. And when she was alone with her daughter she remarked: "She's a cat, that Stivers! Clean and neat, like any other cat, and purry! Oh, yes, she can purr about _you_, but she's crafty, cunning, shrewd! You keep your desk locked, my dear! She's too soft-footed for my taste; she's got an eye for a key-hole, too!"

While Jane said to herself: "There's a vain old c.o.c.katoo--overbearing, hectoring, using her high and mighty birth as an excuse for wiping her shoes on us as is beneath her. I guess I could add a chapter to her family history that would take the wind out of her sails pretty quick!

But my bank book's more important to me than her nasty slurs! 'Stivers,'

indeed! It's a wonder it wasn't 'Penny.' The young ladies don't find it beneath them to call me Mrs. Of course in this one it might be policy, but the other one does it, too. It's plain enough to me the daughters get their decent manners from the father. A nice old man that, a gentleman clear through and always welcome here, even by Mr. Thrall; though for appearance sake he does then have to come hat and stick in hand and make a proper fifteen-minute or half-hour call and go. Poor, pale old gentleman; he's an idolator, if ever there was one, just bowing down to and worshipping those girls of his'n. If he knew the secret of that little locked closet upstairs, if he knew of the dinner-jacket, the lounging robe hanging there, he'd die without a word right as he stood.

Poor old gentleman! But, Lord! how our boss does hate that old c.o.c.katoo!

and how she does ko-tow to him and bridle and smirk! Not but what she looks well enough at the supper-table, for with all her rouge she can carry her clothes well. I think Mr. Thrall dislikes her for one thing, because of the likeness he sees in her to Miss Sybil. I overheard her saying in fun to him: 'I shall be just like mamma when I am as old,' and he said: 'Then for G.o.d's sake die in your youth!' and, though she tried hard to look angry, she had to laugh, and he looked ashamed of himself, and asked pardon.

"It does beat all, how long this affair lasts. Talk about worshipping the ground she walks on; I believe he's jealous of the air she breathes.

Well, my nest is getting a good warm lining, for they are both generous, and she's easy to serve besides, which is more than I can say of the Missus, who is always prowling about the wardrobe room, ready to make a fuss about a quarter of a yard of gold or silver lace, or an inch or two of linen-backed velvet, and weighing the camphor-gum to see if it agrees with the amount mentioned in the bill. These splendid Shaksperian productions deprive her of the delight of d.i.c.kering with authors for new plays, and so she drives Barney wild by her visits to the box-office, and keeps tab on me in the wardrobe, hoping to prevent the escape of a nickel through someone's hands. That woman's heart--if she has one--bears the dollar-mark, I'll wager!"

In the library, Sybil, being alone, dropped down on an old French tabouret, and with chin in hand fell into a reverie. Her other hand drew from her bosom the little diamond heart, whose centre was a registered ruby, flawless and exquisite. It had been Stewart's first gift to her after she had forgiven him, and he had said, very earnestly: "The real value of this jewel is in a word engraved back of that ruby. No, beloved! you cannot open and read without a jeweler's help, but if the locket will not open for you, why, when you have to remove it in your dressing-room, it will not open for another and betray our secret. No, I will not tell the precious word--only wear it always. If the ornament is not suitable to your gown or the occasion, then wear it inside and out of sight--but wear it, beloved, for my sake!"

And now she wondered still what was the word that to him made the value of this rare gift? Was it _love_? Was it _forgiveness_? Was it _beloved_? She sighed a little. The house was rather lonely since her father and mother had departed. They had come down to see her new great triumph as Beatrice in "Much Ado about Nothing."

Her improvement was wonderful, and Thrall had thrilled with pride when he had heard it commented upon. For Beatrice is a test part that combines comedy the lightest, airiest, and most polished, with both pathos and pa.s.sion. All actors know that more technical knowledge is required for fine high-comedy acting than for sentiment or even tragedy.

And it would have been a bold man who in the first weeks of Juliet had ventured to suggest a future Beatrice in the inexperienced, though immensely tragic, young actress.

Yet here she was, Thrall's ideal Beatrice, well-born, well-bred, beautiful, graceful, but possessed of a young devil of mockery that you saw dancing in her eyes and heard in her bubbling laughter. The stings of her wit seemed healed by the honey of her manner. Full of affectations, airs, and graces toward the courtiers, her "If I were a man!" speech was so full of tender love and sorrow for her injured cousin Hero that its final hot burst of rage and scorn left her with tears wet upon her cheeks.

And consummate artist that he was, Thrall threw such sudden pa.s.sionate intensity into Bened.i.c.k's answer, "By this hand I love thee!" that it was no wonder the act brought the people upstanding; and one old playgoer remarked that "it was like watching an exhibition of skilful fencing, where flying sparks made you uncertain whether the bout was friendly or a duel to the death."

Thrall had kept his promise; he had warned her away from so many pitfalls that some of the critics declared she had triumphed through what she had not done almost as much as through what she had. She had avoided the absolute shrewishness with which Beatrice is often invested; also the vindictive ferocity of the "If I were a man!" that catches the gallery, while it "makes the judicious grieve," and wonder, too, why Bened.i.c.k should have been called upon for a.s.sistance by such a man-eating creature. Neither did she fire her best witticisms point-blank at the audience and pause--to make her "point." And better still, she avoided that strained, unnatural merriment that makes the public pity the evident fatigue of an otherwise satisfactory Beatrice.