The curtain went up, I sitting there, the orchestra softly breathing Ma.s.senet's _Elegy_--meant to be the music sent from the spirit world, the melody that I, Iistral, heard, whenever my dead mistress was present....

The orchestra finished the melody. It stopped and left the house in expectancy.

A mistake had been made on the entrance-cue of little Lisel, my child-nephew.

There I sat, in my strange robe, like a bath-robe, with stars cast over it, waiting.

I knew something had gone wrong.

Several girls (of course everyone in the audience knew me) began to t.i.tter at my strange appearance, in my apotheosised bathrobe, in my close Van d.y.k.e beard....

I knew inwardly that in a moment all the house would be laughing ... at first out of sheer nervousness over the delay in the progress of the play--then from genuine amus.e.m.e.nt....

I threw my will, my entire spirit, against the incoming tide of ridicule which would wreck the play even with the rising of the curtain.

I pictured to myself the beautiful woman who had drowned herself; I burned with her unhappiness ... I felt her hovering near me ... I thought of the lovely pa.s.sion we had known together ... I _was_ Iistral.

I was not on a stage, but in a room, holding actual and rapt communion with my spirit-bride, Egeria!...

"Egeria! Egeria!" I sobbed ... and tears streamed down my face.

I was miserable, without her, in the flesh ... though she was there, beside me, in soul!

I was aware of the audience again. I was proud and strong in my confidence now. The t.i.ttering had stopped. The house was filling with awe. I was pushing something back, back, back--over the footlights. I did not stop pushing till it had reached the topmost galleries....

I _had_ them....

The applause after the first act was wonderful.

"Great! You're great ... you've vindicated my belief in you entirely!"

Dineen was shouting, as he clapped me on the back, beside himself.

"Oh, I knew I'd do it!... I want a drink!"

"Here's some grape juice!" Gertie Black hold out a gla.s.s to me....

"No, I won't drink that stuff," I replied, with all the petulance and ill-humour traditionally allowed a star.

A Sig-Kapp, whom I had got into the play as a supe, slipped me a drink of real booze....

I had to run to the toilet three times before the second act, I was so nervous and excited.

"For G.o.d's sake, keep it up!" urged Dineen.

"For Christ's sake, let me alone, all of you,--I know what I'm doing,"

this, as the elocution teacher tried to press home some advice....

During the second act I was as electric as during the first, but now I allowed myself to see over the foot-lights and recognise people I knew.

I even overheard one girl say to another, "why, Johnnie Gregory is handsome in that Van d.y.k.e!"

"Yes, he has a fine profile ... he looks quite distinguished."

Before the curtain for the third act, Jack Travers worked his way back through the props to my dressing room....

"Sh! I've brought a nip of something real for you, Johnnie!"

"Bill already has given me some. It's enough! I don't want any more!--wait till the last act, and then I'll take it!

"I don't want it _now_! _Do you hear_!" I almost screamed, as he mischievously insisted.

The bell rang for the third curtain....

The news had come for Iistral that his rich uncle in America had died and left him a fortune ... now his family would try and have him adjudged insane, in order to lay hands on the wealth for their own uses....

That third act went off well....

"But you skipped a few lines in that act, Mr. Gregory," warned the directress, concerned.

"Oh, let me alone, will you!" I returned, enjoying the petulance of stardom to the full....

"Remember the fight-scene at the finish," she persisted, "just _pretend_ to strike with the shovel ... you might hurt someone!" anxiously.

"I am going to act the thing realistically, not as a matter of stagecraft."

She tiptoed away. And I had the satisfaction of hearing her instruct the boys who acted as guards, and who were to seize on me--in my moment of physical exasperation--

"Grab him before the cue, just a trifle before it! I think Mr. Gregory is going to forget himself!"

I swung the shovel high in the air, making at all my relatives, crying out terms of reproach ... sobbing....

In the audience, everybody sat still with wonder.

The actors scattered from my brandished shovel, just as they would have done in real life ... the directress had schooled them to crowd about me so as to mask the action.

But the action needed no masking. It was real.

The two guards were on me,--boys who, in everyday life, were big football men on the freshman team....

I fought them, frenzied, back and forth over the stage, smashing down the pasteboard hedge, falling ... getting up again....