"Where's Benton?"

"Switch that table over!"

"Throw on your borders!"

"_B_ flat, then the chord of _A_."

"That's cut out. Yes--_yes_!"

"Try that curtain again."

"Bring it down slow. No! G.o.d! Carey, do you call that slow? Again!"

The piece was a truly fairy-like creation of a modern Offenbach, romantic in libretto, distinguished and delicate in music, a true operetta of the sort that ten years from now will take its just place as a work of art, no longer subject to the mutilations and humiliations that now attend such Americanizations into the loosely tied vaudeville numbers justly termed _comic_ opera.

At this moment some one touched Dore on the arm, and looking up, she beheld Roderigo Sanderson. In the shadow she perceived nothing but the flash of a diamond stick-pin and the white sheen of his collar, while an odor of perfume distilled itself from the handkerchief he wore in his sleeve and the heavy curls on his forehead.

"You here?"

"T. B. wants to see me," he answered, giving Blainey, with the American pa.s.sion for intimacy, the initials under which he was known from one end of the Rialto to the other. He took a seat back of her, leaning over her shoulder, speaking in a guarded tone in the mezzo-Anglican accent which he had almost acquired.

"It's uncommon good, you know. Saw it in Vienna. A gem! Trimble has really staged it jolly well. Sada Quichy--they've imported her, you know--really knows a bit about singing as well as dancing. If they'd put it on as it is now, it would go big--by jove, it would be a revolution!

But they won't. The slaughter-house gets a chance at it to-day. You'll see what's left after T. B. gets his meat-ax into it!"

"Who's in the stage-box?" said Dore curiously.

"The silent partners," said Sanderson, with a laugh. "Look at the brutes! They're in a fog--in a panic! They already see their money flowing in a gutter. Never mind! they'll get a bit more cheery when T.

B. begins his popularizing. It'll be quite amusing. I always get to these executions. It's a brutal appet.i.te, but it sort of consoles one, you know!"

In the box, the silent partners, Guntz, Borgfeldt and Keppelman, suddenly enriched commission agents from the Central West, new to the dishabille of the theater, sat motionless, three black, ill-smelling cigars on parade, three enormous bodies, tortured by tight collars, tight vests, tight chairs, each derby set over one ear to shade the fat folds of the jowled head. Sanderson had made no mistake: the exquisite and melodious first act had left them absolutely petrified with horror.

Sanderson, _au courant_, continued his exposition after a preparatory glance around the stalls.

"They say they've made millions. How the deuce did L. and B." (the theatrical firm of Lipswitch and Berger) "ever entice them into it? They say they're back of the firm for a third in everything! I'd give a good deal, now, to see the contract those bandits drew up for mutual protection! Jove! that would be a curiosity!"

At that moment, when the stage was in a bedlam, with the cross-fire of the stage-manager coaxing on the soubrette, Brangstar furiously reprimanding the little polyglot tenor, who sang of "lof," and was insufferably pleased with his slender legs, Baum moving indifferently in the confusion, giving ideas for the readjustment of the ravine and the bridge, O'Reilly darkening the blue lights to try the effect of dawn, despite the complaints of the dressmaker, who was defending her costumes and endeavoring to save the hussar boots of the chorus girls by a bolder rearrangement of the draperies--in the midst of this inferno, Blainey came shouldering in, the reverberations of his deep ba.s.s stilling the uproar.

"First act, now. Get at it! Don't bring me in here, O'Reilly, for a rehearsal on lights. Ring down your curtain. Gus, want to hear that overture! Let's get at it, boys!"

"All on stage for first curtain!"

Instantly there was a scurrying of the chorus from the lobby down the stage aisle; the dressmaker went hurriedly over the footlights, via a box; the curtain slowly settled; Brangstar climbed to his chair; and the voice of O'Reilly floated out in a final curse at the calcium lights.

"Blind your blues and clear slow. Pete, bring it on slow this time! Do you get me? _Do you get me?_"

And from above, the voice of the labor union, unruffled, neither to be coaxed nor driven, came impudently down:

"Sure I get you!"

"Overture, now. Then go through the first act. No stops!" said Blainey, lumbering up the aisle.

Against the firefly lights of the orchestra his figure showed like a great barrel, short legs and short arms, with the sense of brute power in the blocked head sunk in the shoulders. He came to where they sat, shading his eyes. Sanderson stood up abruptly, at attention.

"h.e.l.lo, kid!" he said, perceiving Dore.

"h.e.l.lo, Blainey!"

"See you after first act," he said, leaning over the chairs until they groaned, to take her hand in his enveloping grasp. "Who's that with you--the judge? Oh, Sanderson! What are you--oh, yes, I remember. Judge, glad you came; I want your opinion!"

At this moment Ma.s.singale came down from the lobby and took a seat beside Dore, while Blainey, readjusting his soft black, broad-brimmed hat with a nervous revolving motion, sauntered on, impatient at the sc.r.a.ping of the violins and the preparatory pumping of the horns.

Sanderson, at a nod from Blainey, had followed him into the lobby.

"Surprised to see me here?" said Ma.s.singale, taking his seat. "You know, I turn up everywhere. I'm one of those who circulate. I came with Sada Quichy--she's great fun!"

In fact, in New York three cla.s.ses are privileged at every door--privileged because they have the power to make themselves feared: the politician in office; the representative of the press; and the judge who, at a word, can unloose the terrors of both the others.

"Don't forget what you told me yesterday," she said, turning to him directly, haunted by the malice in his eyes when he had seen her handed down from Sa.s.soon's automobile.

"What did I tell you?"

"That you would not misunderstand me!"

"I don't!" he said, after an ineffectual attempt to see her face.

"But--are you strong enough to play the game you are playing?"

"Sa.s.soon?"

"Yes, Sa.s.soon!"

She thought of him, ruffled and rebellious, forced to accompany her to the stage entrance. She held him in slight respect.

"Pooh! Sa.s.soon!" She had a feeling that this man already had her confidence, that she could talk freely with him. "Harrigan Blood, yes; but not Sa.s.soon!"

"You are wrong about Sa.s.soon," he said quietly. "It is not the clever man that is difficult to manage; it is the relentless one! That's Sa.s.soon!"

"Did you call yesterday--to warn me?" she said, turning to him.

"No; moralizing is not my forte," he said, shaking his head. "You are unusual. I should like to watch--your progress!"

"You like to be behind the scenes?"

"Adore it!"

"I wonder just what you think of me," she said pensively. "Have you decided what I am to become?"

"Yes."

She looked up, startled.