x.x.xIV

Before Joan left Marbridge, they had arrived at an understanding which was not less complete and satisfactory in that it was largely implicit.

Without receiving any definite explanation of the circ.u.mstances complicating the production of "Mrs. Mixer," Joan carried away with her a tolerably clear notion thereof, both confirming and supplementing the second-hand information of Hattie Morrison.

Mrs. Cardrow owned a heavy interest in the play, Joan had gathered; and there existed, as well, a contract between her and Arlington which would have to be eliminated before it would be possible to go ahead and make the production with another actress in place of the erstwhile star. Some very delicate diplomatic manoeuvring was indicated....

Interim, Joan was to be privately drilled by Peter Gloucester for some weeks prior to calling together the full company to rehea.r.s.e for the September production. Gloucester was just then out of Town, but she would be advised when and where to meet him on his return.

Marbridge was to be absent from New York until the middle of September or longer; but he promised to be back a week or two before the opening performance.

There were other promises exchanged....

With her future thus schemed, the girl was very well content, who had attained by easy stages to one of mental development in which those primary moral distinctions upon which she had been reared were no longer perceptible--or, if perceptible, had diminished to purely negligible stature.

It was not in nature for her to disdain or reject her bargain on moral grounds: she knew, or recognized, none that applied.

For over a year during the most impressionable period of her life, Joan Thursday had breathed the atmosphere of the stage. She had become thoroughly accustomed to recognize without criticism those irregular unions and regular disunions that characterized the lives of her a.s.sociates. She had observed many an instance where the most steadfast and loyal love existed without bonds of any sort, and as many where it existed in matrimony, and as many again where neither party to a marriage made aught but the barest pretence of fidelity.

She had remarked that material and artistic success seemed to depend upon neither the observance nor the disregard of s.e.xual morality. She knew of husbands and wives against whom scandal uttered no whisper and whose talents were considerable, but who had struggled for years and would struggle until the end without winning substantial recognition.

And she knew of the reverse. The one unpardonable sin in her world was the sin of drunkenness, and even it was venial except when it "held the curtain" or prevented its rising altogether.

As far as concerned her att.i.tude toward herself, she considered Joan Thursday above reproach, seeing that she had withdrawn from her marriage long before even as much as contemplating any man other than her husband. She held that she was now free, at liberty to do as she liked, untrammelled by opinion whether public or private: that she had outgrown criticism.

True, Quard might divorce her. But what of that? If he did, Joan Thursday wouldn't suffer. If he didn't, he himself would be the last to pretend he was leading a life of celibacy because of her defection.

Marbridge she really liked; his appeal to her nature was stronger than that of any man she had as yet encountered. He attracted her in every way, and he excited her curiosity as well. He was a new type--but in what respect different from other men? He was famously successful with women: why? He had wealth, cultivation of a certain sort (real or spurious, Joan couldn't discriminate) and social position; and this flattered, that such an one should reject the women of his own sphere for Joan Thursday--late of the stocking counter.

And if she could turn this infatuation of his to material profit, while at the same time satisfying the several appet.i.tes Marbridge excited in her: why not? Other women by the score did as much without censure or obvious cause for regret. Why not she?

How many women of her acquaintance--women whose interests, running in grooves parallel to hers, were intelligible to Joan--would have refused the chance that was now hers through Marbridge? Not one; none, at least, who was free as Joan was free; not even Hattie Morrison, whose views upon the subject of such arrangements were strong, whom Joan considered straitlaced to the verge of absurdity. Hattie, Joan believed, would have jumped at the opportunity.

But of course, denied, Hattie would be sure to decry it, and with the more bitterness since Joan had won it in the wreck of Hattie's hopes.

And here was the only shadow upon the fair prospect of Joan's contentment. She who had questioned Hattie's right to become a party to the conspiracy against Mrs. Cardrow--how could she ever go home and face the girl, with this treachery on her conscience?

True: Hattie didn't know, wouldn't know before morning, might never learn the truth during the term of their a.s.sociation.

None the less, to be with Hattie that night would be to sit with a skeleton at the feast of her felicity....

On impulse Joan turned to the left on leaving the New York Theatre building, and moved slowly, purposelessly, down Broadway.

It was an afternoon of withering heat: the pavements burning palpably through the paper-thin soles of her pretty slippers, and the air close with the smell of hot asphaltum. The rays of the westering sun made nothing of the fabric of Joan's white parasol, their heat penetrating its sheer shield as though it were gla.s.s. Mankind in general sought the shadowed side of the street and moved only reluctantly, with its coat over its arm, a handkerchief tucked in between neck and collar--effectually choking off ventilation and threatening "sun-stroke."

Waiting upon the northeast corner of Forty-second Street for the traffic police to check the cross-town tide, Joan felt half-suffocated and thought longingly of the seash.o.r.e....

Once across the street, she turned directly in beneath the permanent awning of the Knickerbocker Hotel, and entered the lobby, making her way round, past the entrance to the bar, to the recess dedicated to the public telephone booths.

A semi-exhausted and apathetic operator looked up reluctantly as Joan approached, with one glance appraising her from head to heels. At any other time the dainty perfection of Joan's toilet would have roused antagonism in the woman; today she found energy only sufficient for a perfunctory mumble.

"What numba, please?"

Joan hesitated, feeling herself suddenly upon the verge of dangerous indiscretion, but stung by the operator's look of jaded disdain, took her courage in hand and pursued her original intention.

"One Bryant," she said.

The operator jammed a plug into one of the rows of sockets before her and iterated the number mechanically.

In another moment she nodded, indicating the rank of booths.

"Numba five--One Bryant," she said.

Joan shut herself in with the sliding door and took up the receiver.

"h.e.l.lo--Lambs' Club?" she enquired.... "Is Mr. Fowey in the club?... Will you page him, please.... Miss Thursday.... Yes, I'll hold the wire."

The booth was hermetically sealed. Perspiration was starting out all over her body. And somewhere in that airless box, probably at her feet, lurked a long unburied cigar. She thrust the door ajar, but only to close it immediately as Fowey's voice saluted her.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"h.e.l.lo, Hubert," Joan drawled, with a little touch of laughing mockery in her accents.

"Is that you, Joan--really?" the voice demanded excitedly.

"Real-ly!" she affirmed. "What're you doing there, shut up all alone by yourself in that stupid club, Hubert?"

Prefaced by a brief but intelligible pause, the man's response came briskly: "Where are you now, anyway?"

"That doesn't matter," she retorted. She had meant to ask him to meet her at the hotel, but reconsidered, fearing lest Marbridge might chance to see them. "What really matters is that this is my birthday and I'm going to give a party. Have you got anything better to do?"

"No--"

"Then meet me in half an hour on the southbound platform of the Sixth Avenue L at Battery Place."

"Battery Place! What in thunder--"

"Never mind--tell you all about it when we meet. Will you come?"

"Will I! Well, rawther!"

"Half an hour, then--"

"I'll be there, with bells on!"

"Then good-bye for a little--Hubert."