"Well, but you thought this summer----"

"I thought you were a clever little girl doing a sleight-of-hand performance," was his crushing answer.

"But----"

"Can you dance? Can you fence? Can you run? Is your body as mobile and lithe as an animal's? Do you breathe properly? Can you sing? Is your voice a cultivated instrument with an octave and a half of tones, or have you five tones at your command? Do you know how to fill a theatre with a whisper? Can you carry your body with distinction? Can you sit and rise with grace? Is your speech perfect?" He hurled the questions at her.

"No," she admitted.

"Then you don't know the a-b-c's of this art. When you can say 'yes' to all these questions, then you are ready to begin, and not until then.

Mind you--to _begin_!"

"But everybody on the stage cannot say 'yes' to all those things."

"No, worse luck! Because soft-hearted fools like me permit crude little girls like you to speak a line without any excuse for so doing. We'll have no great acting in America until we shut the door upon every boy and girl who thinks he can act, by the grace of G.o.d."

With this finale, the great man walked away, leaving Isabelle feeling very young and very flat. But she rallied presently. Of course, he had exaggerated it. It might be that the majority of people had to go that long, hard road of preparation, but always there would be some who would leap to the top without the ladder. In her deepest, secret heart she knew herself to be of that few.

She took up the subject again that very night, after dinner, with Miss Watts.

"What do you think is the most necessary thing for success, Miss Watts?"

"Work."

"But in something like the stage, I mean."

"It doesn't make any difference what it is, true success is the result of hard work and nothing else," that lady persisted, bromidically enough.

"Don't you think it is ever an accident?"

"If it is, it's the worst accident that can happen to you."

"Why?"

"Because then you have to live up to something you haven't earned. You don't know what to do, and in most cases you slump back into mediocrity."

"But there must be some people who don't grind----"

"Geniuses, maybe; but they usually do."

"How do you suppose geniuses recognize themselves?"

"They don't, in most cases."

"But if you felt that you had a great gift, that you were going to do wonderful things, mightn't it be that you were a genius?"

"I should say that it meant that you were merely young," smiled Miss Watts.

Isabelle decided that doubtless all geniuses met with this lack of recognition in those about them. She pinned her faith to herself! In spite of Cartel and Miss Watts--who, after all, were _old_--she rather thought that on the opening night, when she spoke her lines, few as they were, the critics would say simply, in large-type headlines:

"CARTEL HAS FOUND A GENIUS!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

October came, dragged by, with the opening night of the play coming nearer. Wally induced Max to come to town and open the house. It was a cold autumn and nearly all of their friends returned early, too.

"I had hoped that n.o.body would be in town when this idiot child of ours makes her ridiculous debut, but now everybody on earth is home. Even the weather favours Isabelle's plans," complained Max to her spouse.

"No one need know about it, if we can keep it out of the papers."

"Yes, IF!"

"Better make the best of it. Ask a lot of people to dinner, take all the boxes, and make a joke of it."

"Isabelle may make a joke of us," commented her mother.

"She gets away with things," Wally encouraged her.

As for Isabelle, she was bored to the point of despair with her career.

Day in, day out, she said her stupid lines. If she varied one inflection from yesterday's inflection she was reprimanded by Jenkins. Mary and her lines were as standardized as Webster's Dictionary, and no original turns were to be permitted. Cartel continued distant, every inch a star, wrapped in his greatness. The other members of the company paid scant attention to her, so she made no friends.

It was all very dull and mechanical. The play started off and ground itself through as automatically as a machine. Jenkins ruled like the boss of the shop. There was no room for genius.

Just to help herself endure the tedium of eternal rehearsal, Isabelle invented an absorbing game. She rewrote the play, in innumerable ways, with the plot revolving around Mary as the central figure. Mary was now the friend and adviser of Mrs. Horton, now the trusted confidante of Mr.

Horton. But whichever she was, she was a n.o.ble, sublimated creature--no possible relation to Mary, the automatic servant. She had long, beautiful speeches, interesting and unusual stage business; she wore a striking maid's costume, designed by Isabelle. This Mary managed to keep Isabelle's imagination awake during the weary weeks in which the other Mary walked on and off, with her "Yes, Mrs. Horton," and her "No, Mr.

Horton."

Suddenly a Sunday Supplement blossomed out with a full-page drawing of Isabelle, and the announcement of her coming debut on the stage, in Sidney Cartel's new production to open on such-and-such a date. Thereafter every paper in town blared forth the news of this event. There were full columns of talk about the Bryces, their money, their position, Mrs. Bryce's beauty, Isabelle's eccentricities. The originality and daring of their only child were dwelt upon at great length.

The performance with Cartel at the mountain inn was described. The hungry public was told how Cartel had seen her genius at a glance and persuaded her parents to let him have the training of her talent.

Isabelle was snapshotted leaving the theatre, or riding in the Park. She was not safe a moment from reporters and camera men.

There was unanimous disapproval of this state of affairs on the part of her parents and her manager. It was difficult to tell which was the angrier. The Bryces accused Isabelle, but for once she was innocent. She had no idea how the reports started. She had talked to n.o.body. Miss Watts corroborated this statement. Neither of them knew when the artist made the sketch of her, and they never supposed that the photographers were taking her picture.

Cartel was furious. It was not in his plans at all to let this youngster take the middle of his stage on the occasion of his New York opening. He would have dismissed her at once, had the newspaper talk not gone so far. As it was he joined her parents heartily in a determined effort to shut them off. But it couldn't be done. Isabelle had caught the public eye; she was a marked personality, and editors played her up big.

Secretly she triumphed. It was only the beginning in the inevitable recognition of her greatness. It strengthened her belief that she was of the elect, and she rarely ever thought of the "Mary" part with which she was actually to prove herself, but she hurled herself into the development of the other Mary, which should have been hers, by all the laws of right. The two creatures merged--were one. Once or twice at rehearsal, aroused by her cue from some wonderful scene where Mary held the spotlight, she faltered for a second for those barren lines of the real Mary.

"What's the matter with you, Miss Bryce? Keep your mind on what you're doing," warned Jenkins.

She smiled at him. Poor fool! In a few weeks he would be bragging that he stage-managed her first appearance. She could afford to be patient with his bad temper, now.

Dress rehearsal was called and became a fevered memory. The day of the opening Isabelle spent quietly at home, except for a ride in the Park.

She was to rest, and have her supper in her sitting room. Wally came in, in the midst of her repast, and fussed about her room.