Hugh was blunt, but not so abusive as he had declared his intention to be. "There's nothing in _Lillian_," he said--"not a dollar. We're throwing our money away. We might better close the theatre. We won't have fifty dollars in the house to-night. It's all right as a story, but it won't do for the stage."

Dougla.s.s kept his temper. "It was too long; but I can better that in a few hours. I'll have a much closer-knit action by Wednesday night."

As they were rising from the table Westervelt entered with a face like a horse, so long and lax was it. "They have burned us alive!" he exclaimed, as he sank into a chair and mopped his red neck. He shook like a gelatine pudding, and Helen could not repress a smile.

"Your mistake was in reading them. We burned the critics."

The manager stared in vast amaze. "You didn't read the papers?"

"Not one."

"Well, they say--"

She stopped him. "Don't tell me what they say--not a word. We did our best and we did good work, and will do better to-night, so don't come here like a bird of ill-omen, Herr Westervelt. Go kill the critics if you feel like it, but don't worry us with tales of woe. Our duty is to the play. We cannot afford to waste nervous energy writhing under criticism. What is said is said, and repeating it only hurts us all."

Her tone became friendly. "Really, you take it too hard. It is only a matter of a few thousand dollars at the worst, and to free you from all further anxiety I will a.s.sume the entire risk. I will rent your theatre."

"No, no!" cried Hugh. "We can't afford to do that."

"We can't afford to do less. I insist," she replied, firmly.

The manager lifted his fat shoulders in a convulsive shrug. His face indicated despair of her folly. "Good Gott! Well, you are the doctor, only remember there will not be one hundred people in the house to-night." He began to recover speech. "Think of that! Helen Merival playing to empty chairs--in _my_ theatre. Himmel!"

"It is sad, I confess, but not hopeless, Herr Westervelt. We must work the harder to let the thoughtful people of the city know what we are trying to do."

"Thoughtful people!" Again his scorn ran beyond his words for a moment and his tongue grew German. "Doughtful beople. Dey dondt bay dwo tollors fer seats! _Our_ pusiness iss to attract the rich--the gay theatre-goers. Who is going to pring a theatre-barty to see a sermon on the stage--hay?"

"You are unjust to _Lillian's Duty_. It is not a sermon; it is a powerful acting play--the best part, from a purely acting standpoint, I have ever undertaken to do. But we will not discuss that now. The venture is my own, and you will be safe-guarded. I will instruct my brother to make the new arrangement at once."

With a final, despairing shrug the manager rose and went out, and Helen, turning an amused face to Dougla.s.s, asked, humorously: "Isn't he the typical manager?--in the clouds to-day, stuck in the mud to-morrow.

Sometimes he is excruciatingly funny, and then he disgusts me. They're almost all alike. If business should be unexpectedly good to-night he would be a man transformed. His face would shine, he would grasp every actor by the hand, he would fairly fall upon your neck; but if business went down ten dollars on Wednesday night then look for the 'icy mitt'

again. Big as he is he curls up like a sensitive plant when touched by adversity. He can't help it; he's really a child--a big, fat boy. But come, we must now consider the cuts for _Lillian_; then to our scenario."

As the attendants whisked away the breakfast things Helen brought out the original ma.n.u.script of _Lillian's Duty_, and took a seat beside her playwright. "Now, what is the matter with the first act?"

"Nothing."

"I agree. What is out in the second?"

"Needs cutting."

"Where?"

"Here and here and here," he answered, turning the leaves rapidly.

"I felt it. I couldn't hold them there. Royleston's part wants the knife badly. Now, the third act?"

"It is too diffuse, and the sociologic background gets obstinately into the foreground. As I sat there last night I saw that the interest was too abstract, too impersonal for the ordinary play-goer. I can better that. The fourth act must be entirely rewritten. I will do that this afternoon."

She faced him, glowing with recovered joy and recovered confidence. "Now you are Richard once again upon his horse."

"A hobby horse," he answered, with a laugh, then sobered. "In truth, my strength comes from you. At least you roused me. I was fairly in the grasp of the Evil One when your note came. Your splendid confidence set me free. It was beautiful of you to write me after I had sneaked away like a wounded coyote. I cannot tell you what your letter was to me."

She held up a finger. "Hush! No more of that. We are forgetting, and you are becoming personal." She said this in a tone peculiarly at variance with the words. "Now read me the scenario of the new play. I am eager to know what has moved you, set you on high again."

The creative fire began to glow in his eyes. "This is to be as individual, as poetic, as the other was sociologic. The character you are to play is that of a young girl who knows nothing of life, but a great deal of books. _Enid's_ whole world is revealed by the light which streams from the window of a convent library--a gray, cold light with deep shadows. She is tall and pale and severe of line, but her blue eyes are deep and brooding. Her father, a Western mine-owner, losing his second wife, calls on his daughter to return from the Canadian convent in which she has spent seven years. She takes her position as an heiress in his great house. She is plunged at once into the midst of a pleasure-seeking, thoughtless throng of young people whose interests in life seem to her to be grossly material. She becomes the prey of adventurers, male and female, and has nothing but her innate purity to defend her. Ultimately there come to her two men who type the forces at war around her, and she is forced to choose between them."

As he outlined this new drama the mind of the actress took hold of _Enid's_ character, so opposite in energy to _Lillian_, and its great possibilities exalted her, filled her with admiration for the mind which could so quickly create a new character.

"I see I shall never want for parts while you are my playwright," she said, when he had finished.

"Oh, I can write--so long as I have you to write for and to work for,"

he replied. "You are the greatest woman in the world. Your faith in me, your forgiveness of my cowardice, have given me a sense of power--"

She spoke quickly and with an effort to smile. "We are getting personal again."

He bowed to the reminder. "I beg your pardon. I will not offend again."

XI

Helen's warning was not as playful as it seemed to her lover, for something in the glow of his eyes and something vibrant in the tones of his voice had disturbed her profoundly. The fear of something which he seemed perilously near saying filled her with unrest, bringing up questions which had thus far been kept in the background of her scheme of life.

"Some time I shall marry, I suppose," she had said to one of her friends, "but not now; my art will not permit it. Wedlock to an actress," she added, "is almost as significant as death. It may mean an end of her playing--a death to her ambitions. When I decide to marry I shall also decide to give up the stage."

"Oh, I don't know," replied the other. "There are plenty who do not. In fact, Mary Anderson is the exception. When the conquering one comes along you'll marry him and make him your leading man, the way so many others do."

"When 'the conquering one' comes along I shall despise the stage,"

retorted Helen, with laughing eyes--"at least I'm told I will."

"Pish! You'd give a dozen husbands for the joy of facing a big first-night audience. I tell Horace that if it comes to a matter of choice for me he'll have to go. Gracious goodness! I could no more live without the applause of the stage--"

"How about the children?"

"The children! Oh, that's different. The dear tots! Well, luckily, they're not absolutely barred. It's hard to leave the darlings behind.

When I go on the road I miss their sweet little caresses; but I have to earn their bread, you see, and what better career is open to me."

Helen grew grave also. "I don't like to think of myself as an _old_ actress. I want to have a fixed abiding-place when I am forty-five. Gray hairs should shine in the light of a fireside."

"There's always peroxide," put in the other, and their little mood of seriousness vanished.

It was, indeed, a very unusual situation for a young and charming actress. The Hotel Embric stood just where three great streams of wealth and power and fashion met and mingled. Its halls rustled with the spread silks of pride and glittered with the jewels of spendthrift vanity, and yet few knew that high in the building one of the most admired women of the city lived in almost monastic seclusion. The few men who recognized her in the elevator or in the hall bowed with deferential admiration.

She was never seen in the dining-rooms, and it was known that she denied herself to all callers except a very few intimate friends.

This seclusion--this close adherence to her work--added to her mystery, and her allurement in the eyes of her suitors increased as they sought vainly for an introduction. It was reported that this way of life was "all a matter of business, a cold, managerial proposition," a method of advertising; but so far as Helen herself was implicated, it was a method of protection.