"What?"

"Oh, not now--later; some time when we can really talk."

She wished him to invite her, but he was one of those who had the rare instinct of making women believe they were pursuing him. She was silent, thinking, too, of Sada Quichy, doubly resolved to steal him from her.

"Very well," she said suddenly; "we'll dine together. They'll go on here till midnight. We can bring back some sandwiches and cold chicken for the prima donna." But, in her mind, she was resolved that, once they were at dinner, she would carry him off boldly, Sada Quichy or not.

"Splendid!" he said laconically, and prepared himself for the overture, that was being announced by a vigorous lashing of the conductor's stand.

Blainey had settled his body a short way in front of them, ears p.r.i.c.ked for the commercially vital waltz motif.

But in the present overture this essential did not at once appear. The operetta, which had been given the name of _The Red Prince_, was a fantastic romance of Hungary, strangely endowed with an intelligible plot, and this fresh presentation of wild dancing melodies, pa.s.sionate strains of melancholy and yearning, abandoned delight and fierce exultation, was summarized in the overture.

Ma.s.singale, who was an amateur of music, bent forward, breathing full, murmuring his approbation. Dore too felt strangely lifted from herself, leaping along perilous heights, striving with invisible windy shapes, that caught her and whirled her, with closed eyes and bated lips, in giddy whirlpools or sudden languorous calms. All the instincts that yesterday, in the change of the year, had vibrated to melancholy, now suddenly seemed to awake with the sufficiency of the instant. A fig for the future! She had a need of the present, of the day, of the hour, gloriously, deliciously stirred from blank realities. Her breath came quick, the little nostrils quivered, and glancing at Ma.s.singale's aristocratic forehead and jaw, she found him more than interesting-- strong, virile, fascinating in the chained-up impulses which a sudden wild burst of the czardas brought glowing to his eyes.

The overture ceased amid a murmur of approbation; she moved a little way from the shoulder she had instinctively approached.

"Take up that waltz again," said Blainey instantly.

Brangstar, as if warned of what was coming, rebelliously gave the signal. The motif occurred in the middle of the overture, directly after the czardas. It was a tum-ti-tum but undeniably catchy affair.

"Stop there!" Blainey rose and moved into the aisle. "Cut out all that follows. No grand opera stuff--we don't want it! End with that waltz.

Fake it. Play it once pianissimo, fiddles; second time louder--bring in your horns. Then let go with your bra.s.s. Cut loose. Soak it to 'em!

Start it up, Gus!"

Brangstar, who had given three fretful weeks to this beloved production, musician at heart, loathing his servitude to Mammon, seeing in the present work of art his opportunity to emerge, to do the true, the big thing, raised his fists in horror. He had either to burst into tears or swear. Swear he did, d.a.m.ning Blainey, Lipswitch, the whole gang of Pharisees and infidels he served, calling them every name his rage flung to his lips, vowing he never would be a party to such an atrocity.

Blainey, composed, allowed him to vent his fury, rather admiring his manner. Brangstar was a valuable man, a blooded race-horse harnessed to a delivery-wagon.

"You know your music, Gus; I know my public!" he said finally. "What's going to make this opera is just one thing--what you can get under the skin of your audience! We'll soak that waltz at 'em until every mother's son of them goes out whistling it--till the whole town whistles it!

That's success, and I know it, and you know it! Now, get at it!"

When the overture had been repeated as he had ordered, Guntz, Borgfeldt and Keppelman began to warm up and to slap one another with delight, while from the recesses of the theater the shrill whistle of the ushers was heard continuing the catchy:

"Tum-ti-tum-ti, Tum-ti-tum-ti, Tum-tum-tum!"

Blainey, not insensible to dramatic effects, indicated the box, where joy now reigned, pursed his lips and nodded knowingly to Ma.s.singale.

The execution continued in the first act. The waltz appeared only in the third. Blainey put it forward into the first, arranged for the comics to give a light twist to it in the second, and built it up again in the third, with all the resources of the chorus and repeated encores.

At each moment he stopped the progress of the act:

"Too pretty, pretty! Never go! Cut it!"

"Throw in some gags, there."

"Rush it--rush it!"

"Explode something, there."

"Trimble, got to get your chorus in here. Rush 'em in!"

"Oh, that's enough atmosphere!"

"The public wants dancing!"

"All right! Strike for the second act!"

The curtain rolled down and up, and the scene-shifters flung themselves on the ravine. Brangstar went out to a saloon, strewing curses; Guntz, Borgfeldt and Keppelman followed to celebrate; and Blainey, moving up to Ma.s.singale, said, with a shrewd twinkle:

"Well, Judge, how do you like the first act?"

"Tim, if I had you before me I'd send you up for ten years!"

"Not if you had your money behind it, you wouldn't," said Blainey good-humoredly. "Art be d.a.m.ned. I'm here to make money--yes, as every one else is, in this town! I know what the public wants, and I soak it to 'em. Why, this show wouldn't run six nights on a South Troy circuit!"

At this moment some one whispered to him that Sada Quichy was in hysterics.

"What's the matter with Sadie, anyhow?" said Blainey, shrugging his shoulders. "What's she kicking about? She gets twenty weeks, whether we smash or not. I say, Judge, go and jolly her up a bit. Tell her she's got a grand part! I want to talk business with this little girl."

And without concerning himself further, he led the way to his private office.

Dore followed quietly. During the last two hours she had been balancing on various emotions. The first glamour of the intoxicating overture had been shattered. She looked on with sober eyes at this spectacle of the theater reduced to its materialistic verities. She was too imaginative not to perceive the outrages committed in the name of the box-office, and too keen not to credit Blainey's logic. The fat idol-like figures of Guntz, Borgfeldt and Keppelman were realities, too; she would have to deal with that type, too--many of that type--if she chose to continue.

And she had remained in long periods of absorption, scarcely hearing the remarks Ma.s.singale whispered to her, wondering, trying to see into the future, asking herself if this were to be the solution, and, if it were, how to play it. Musing thus, she continued to watch Blainey closely, wondering. Blainey and Harrigan Blood were of the same tribe; they could not be fed on sugar-plums!

The office was a comfortable, pleasantly lighted room, in the greatest disorder possible. Blainey swept aside a litter of papers, and sank into a huge upholstered chair, studying Dore, who vaulted to a seat on the desk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dore vaulted to a seat on the desk]

Seen in the daylight, his head seemed to have been sc.r.a.ped and roughened by the long buffeting of adversity and the rough pa.s.sage upward. The ears that leaped from the solid head, the sharp pointed nose with large nostrils, the wide mouth of a great fish, the s.h.a.ggy brows and eyes of the fighter, the thin gray c.o.c.katoo rise of hair on the forehead as if grasped by an invisible hand--all had about them the signs of the battler, whose defiant motto might appropriately have been: "Don't b.u.mp me!"

Blainey glanced at half a dozen telegrams, news from productions scattered over the country, and raised his glance again.

"You're not mixed up with Roderigo Sanderson, are you?"

"Who?"

She had taken off her fur toque with a charming gesture of intimacy, and was arranging her hair in the opposite mirror, her feet swinging merrily.

"Sanderson."

"Did you see who brought me here?" she said impertinently. The answer saved the actor an engagement. With Blainey she a.s.sumed always the disdain of a woman of the world.

"Don't get mixed up with actors," he persisted, a note of jealousy in his voice. "Steer clear!"

"Managers are safer, you mean!" she said, laughing at him.

That was not his meaning, but he continued: