PART II: MELODY

I

“So that’s why I missed you in San Francisco four years ago!” Brainard exclaimed. “Because you wanted to write a play!”

He threw back his head and laughed as if the idea was peculiarly ironical.

“Yes!” the ex-reporter Farson replied, with an echo of Brainard’s irony. “You see I had always meant to be a playwright and took to reporting to make a living. When you came along and gave me that five hundred for helping you crack the safe and get away with the contents, I chucked the newspaper job and moved on to Broadway—been here ever since.”

“Well, how has it gone?”

Farson’s face wrinkled comically.

“I haven’t quite persuaded Broadway that I am another Sardou. In fact the only creation of mine that ever saw the footlights is a melodrama, founded on our adventures that evening in Frisco. And I sold that for fifty dollars to a western syndicate. I have never heard from it since. I need hardly say it does not satisfy my aspirations.”

“So you went back to reporting?”

“Of a kind,” the young man replied with a sudden attempt to become important. “I am on the staff of Bunker’s Magazine.”

“And they sent you here to interview me!” Brainard laughed again.

“Bunker’s thought that the public would be interested in your rapid rise into the limelight, and as I had some experience in the great West they sent me to extract from you the crude ore of a personal document article,” Farson explained with engaging impudence, glancing appreciatively at his subject.

The interview happened to take place in the parlor of a suite in the same large hotel on Fifth Avenue from which almost exactly four years before Brainard had slunk away with the manuscript of his rejected play in his pocket, and had thence wended his way disconsolately homeward to meet the fate that whirled him on during four years of exciting adventure. Numerous trunks and other impedimenta cluttered the room, indicating that the miner, who in the words of Farson “had succeeded in climbing into the limelight” had but just arrived from Arizona and did not yet know that he needed a man servant.

Through the open windows came the roar of the traffic on the avenue, so long unfamiliar to the miner’s ears. He rose from the table, where over a bottle of wine he had been telling the magazine man something about the wonderful Melody mine, and gazed out of the window into the seething stream of humanity below. This unexpected meeting with the reporter of the Despatch who had helped him in his first exploit with Krutzmacht’s fortune had brought to his memory sharply the great contrast between his last appearance in New York and the present.

His face, now adorned by a mustache and a short brown beard, which the hotel barber had not yet had an opportunity to trim to an artistic point, was reddened and roughened by exposure to the fierce Arizona sun. His hands were large and coarse, as if they had handled every instrument but the pen. His whole person had filled out solidly, and he walked with the awkward gait of one accustomed to the saddle rather than the motor car. But what occupied his mind at this moment was the curious consciousness of that other self, so vastly different, so inconceivably discouraged and weak, whom he could see down below on the pavement, dragging his thin body through the April mist. Whole worlds separated the two! . . .

The magazine man disturbed his revery by a question.

“You went out there after copper in the first place, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Brainard said, turning with a twinkle in his eyes, “I went after copper and got sulfur instead! That often happens in life.”

“You went out there as a rank greenhorn,” Farson translated, “and come back as the chief representative on this earth of his satanic majesty,—the Sulfur King.”

“The Sulfur King!” Brainard repeated with an appreciative chuckle. “That’s good. Are you going to write me up for Bunker’s as the Sulfur King?”

“You had rather have me do that than play you up as a successful safe-breaker?”

Farson looked at the miner with admiration mixed with a little envy, perhaps, as one to whom splendid chances of living had come. From the professional point of view Brainard would make excellent material for eulogy as type of “the man who does things,” so ardently beloved by magazine editors.

“Do whatever you like with me,” Brainard remarked slowly. “You couldn’t make it too wonderful,—nor explain it all. . . . Do you know that four years ago, just at nightfall like this, I stood out there in the crowd, wondering how I could best spend my last quarter for a meal? I never dreamed I should be looking down from this window some day!”

He chuckled quietly to himself over the picture. The magazine man pricked his ears for “the human interest note,” divining a life story, and hinted broadly:

“What really put you into mining, after you left Frisco?”

“How did I get to Arizona? Oh, that’s a long story. I went by way of Mexico and Paris and New York. Help yourself to another cigar.”

After a few moments he added in a less joking tone,—“I went out there in search of an heir to Krutzmacht’s property. I didn’t find her—instead I found the Melody mine!”

“I’d like to hear that story,” Farson said quickly, with the keen scent of the old newspaper man.

Brainard shook his head.

“Not to-day—perhaps sometime. . . . But not for publication—that! I’ve given you one good newspaper scoop four years ago, and this thing for your magazine. But the other I’ll keep for myself.”

Farson’s face expressed a momentary disappointment. But he merely remarked:

“I’ve often wondered about you ever since I helped you aboard the ferry with that big bag. Got it still?”

“Yes, what’s left of it.” . . .

Frank as Brainard had become under the influences of his new life and much as he was attracted by the careless, good-humored young newspaper man, he could not bring himself to tell him the intimate details of his story, which in his feelings was so much more concerned with his unknown mistress than with himself. Ever since that evening when he had stood in the abandoned house above the Arizona desert, surrounded by the mute evidences of the girl’s existence, he had prosecuted vigorously the search for the elusive Melody, using every means known to him—and all in vain. There had been no clew whatever that led beyond the railroad tracks. Neither in San Francisco, where he had looked first, nor in New Orleans, where he had gone in the hope of finding some trace of the girl’s mother, nor in New York, where the old German was well known, could he learn anything definite of Krutzmacht’s family affairs. There were many who had known the business man, but as sometimes happens the business man had admitted no one into his personal confidence.

After the first few months of this search, when forced finally to fall back upon the usual devices of advertising and employing detectives, Brainard returned to Monument,—the spot where he had found and lost his one substantial proof of the girl’s reality,—and there he had taken up the project he had conceived of working the abandoned mine until some heir should be found. Into this project he had thrown himself with all the ardor of his newly awakened temperament and found in the struggles that ensued a relief from the aimless hunting for the lost girl. As time passed with no results from all the agencies he had used in his search, his mind became less occupied with the vision of his unknown mistress, and his life concentrated itself upon this accidental undertaking,—all the more as it proved unexpectedly difficult and failure frequently threatened. His pride and good faith as well as his new manhood were challenged in the struggle, which had only quite recently resulted in abounding triumph. Now that he was free to look about him again and direct his energy into a new channel, the thought of Melody returned to haunt his mind. One of his purposes in coming to New York was to start afresh the hopeless search. An idea came to him as he talked with Farson about the mine. Perhaps publicity of his success with the Melody mine in Arizona might attract the attention of the one most concerned. With this thought in mind he said to the magazine man, turning away from the window:

“I’ll tell you all you want to know about the mine—you can put it in your story.”

He gave him a lively account of the vicissitudes of the great Melody mine at Monument, Arizona, and his experiences with it.

“So,” Farson summed up at the end, “the copper gave out?”

Brainard laughed.

“I should say not! There are millions of tons of copper in those hills.”

“Then what was the trouble?”

“It cost too much to mine and smelt it at present prices. After pouring a good bit of money into the thing, I found that out. The sulfur looked promising, and we went in for that; but that, too, came near taking our last dollar before it made good.”

He told the magazine man how he had discovered traces of sulfur in an old crater among the hills, had made tests, and had found that the mineral existed in great quantities and almost pure. But when they went after it, new difficulties were encountered—quicksands. One method after another was tried and found useless, until the experts he had summoned were ready to give up the job. Then, almost in despair, Brainard had experimented with a novel method of extracting the sulfur by pumping steam through one pipe into the earth and taking the solution out by another. It was successful.

“It’s a steady yellow stream out of the bowels of the earth—a stream of gold!”

The young man sighed with envy.

“Better than gold,” Brainard continued. “A thousand per cent better! I wouldn’t dare tell you how much money that yellow stream pours into my pockets every twenty-four hours.”

Farson’s eyes gleamed, and he looked covetously at the bulging pockets of the miner’s loose coat.

“So you made good,” he said; “and of course you came up here to New York, straight off, to spend your money.”

“That’s it,” Brainard assented with a laugh.

“It’s a good place to enjoy oneself. What are you going to do?”

Brainard looked quizzically at the ex-reporter. “Get some clothes, first. I need ’em, don’t you think?”

Farson candidly admitted that he did.

“But,” he added, “you don’t seem the sort to blow your money the usual way—chorus-girls, or country places, or yachts, or stock market, or—”

Brainard shook his head vigorously at each item of gratification mentioned.

“What are you going to do with that yellow stream?”

“I have my idea,” Brainard admitted.

“That’s what I want to know.”

“I’ll tell you, and you can make another article about it, if you like.”

The young man leaned forward, all eager attention. Brainard smoked thoughtfully, then began.

“You’ve written plays—got one in your pocket this minute, probably.”

“You don’t mean you are going to write plays!” Farson said disgustedly.

“No, my boy—not now. I tried it once. But I hope to make it possible for you and other young men to write their plays and get them put on the stage. I’m going to build theaters, here and in other cities. I shall found a national society of dramatic art. That’s the way I’m going to blow in the money from the sulfur stream as long as it flows!”

“Whew!” The magazine man whistled dubiously. “Another uplift movement for the poor drama?”

“Let me explain,” Brainard continued.

With much more eagerness than he had shown over his exploits with copper and sulfur, he sketched the story of his great idea, which had first taken possession of him that last night of his week’s stay in Paris, while he wandered through the silent streets. He told of the vision that had come to him in the snowy heights of the Arizona mountains, in the silence of earth and sky—a vision of beautiful art that might be created into reality by the aid of the wealth which he could give it. He had set himself earnestly to the task of getting the necessary gold out of the ground, and all through these years, in the vigils of his lonely nights in the mining camp, he had nursed his vision.

He poured out his heart freely to Farson, because he was young and a would-be dramatist, and could understand; and Farson, listening to the story of this idea, became warmed with the enthusiasm of the other and forgot his habitual journalistic skepticism.

“It’s big!” he murmured.

“And now it will no longer be just an idea. It’s to become fact! I have the money—at least, it’s mine for the present.” Brainard corrected himself. “One can do something with half a million or so a year.”

“Half a million a year!” the young man gasped.

“More or less—at present rather more, I should say,” Brainard admitted carelessly. “Depends on the market for crude sulfur, you understand. It’s pretty strong just now. And there’s the copper to fall back upon, when the price of copper goes up. There’s no need to worry about the money.”

Just here they were interrupted by a boy with a card.

“Show the gentleman up!” Brainard exclaimed, glancing a second time at the card.

The magazine man rose reluctantly to go, saying:

“Another time, if you would be good enough to tell me more about your plans—”

“Don’t go!” Brainard interrupted warmly. “If you are interested, stay, and you will hear more about my great idea. This gentleman has come from Chicago by appointment to talk it over.”

“Thanks!”

“Why don’t you drop that magazine job?” Brainard suggested abruptly. “I shall need a secretary. I think you would be the right sort. Why not begin now?”

“Done!” the journalist exclaimed boyishly, and they shook hands. This was a millionaire after his own heart, who did things casually at the drop of the hat with the most surprising ease.

“You’ll have a better chance to write your plays,” Brainard remarked genially.

It pleased him to think that here, on the spot where he had experienced his last defeat, he was able to play the part of good fortune to youth.

“Somehow,” said Farson enthusiastically, “I feel it’s going to be like a play all the time with you!”

“The chap that’s coming up to see me,” explained Brainard, “is an actor and a manager in a small way. He calls himself Ferris MacNaughton—an odd genius, a Scotsman who has played all over the world. I ran across him in a small Arizona town, doing Shakespeare to the mining camps, and doing it well, too. He seemed interested in the idea, and so, when I got ready to pull out, I wired him to meet me here. He hasn’t lost any time,” he added as the door swung open.

II

It was a curious figure that entered the room. The Scotsman was short, thick-set, about fifty years old, with a round, bald head fringed with white hair. He was dressed with an evident attempt at youthful smartness, and dangled a small cane. Between his thick lips was the end of a black cigar. His large face, portentous brows, and mild blue eyes looked as if he had started as Falstaff and ended as a Scottish Hamlet.

MacNaughton bowed profoundly, and said in deep, measured tones, that were reminiscent of blank verse:

“Good afternoon, gentlemen! I received your telegram yesterday, Mr. Brainard. It found me at an unoccupied moment in my career, and I am happy to place myself at your disposal.”

Farson grinned. He judged from his acquaintance with Broadway that the unoccupied moments in the Scotsman’s career had been frequent of late years, and that he had spent a good many of them in the outer offices of theatrical managers. He wondered how his new employer, who seemed wide awake enough to capture one fortune and make a second, had come to mix himself up with this seedy actor.

“Good!” Brainard exclaimed genially, shaking MacNaughton’s hand. “This is my secretary, Edward Farson—Ferris MacNaughton. Let us get to work at once and see how we can spend the better part of half a million a year on the theater!”

At the casual mention of this large sum of money, the old actor did a bit of unpremeditated acting, displaying astonishment so genuine that it set the secretary laughing. He recovered himself, and remarked in his Shakespearian tones:

“One might do a good deal on even less!”

The three sat down about the table, and lighted fresh cigars. Brainard presently drew a small, much worn note book from an inner pocket, and began turning its leaves, reading thoughtfully from time to time:

“Item first—create an organization that will build and support theaters in the chief cities of the United States—to be called in every instance ‘The People’s Theater.’

“Good!” the actor assented loudly. “I have always maintained that the drama came originally from the ranks of the common people, and should be the chief means of their education.”

The magazine man made a wry face. The “People” according to Broadway were visitors from out of town who would pay two fifty apiece for the “show”—any show. Brainard read on:

“Item second—no boxes and no reserved seats in the People’s Theaters. Highest price of seats, one dollar, and free matinees on Saturdays.”

“You will need a million!” Farson murmured.

“I used to find it so hard to get a good seat when I wanted to go to the theater,” Brainard explained. “Even when I had scooped together the price, for some extraordinary occasion, I couldn’t get nearer than the twelfth row. Every theater was always sold up to that row, no matter how early in the day I got to the box office. I have an invention in mind that will register every seat sold or given out, and show it on a diagram, to put an end to the usual practice. But let us get to more important matters!”

He read out different items:

“Exchange of the different companies in the organization—a college of dramatic art—cafés in the theaters—libraries of dramatic literature—open-air theaters in the suburbs and city parks, etc.”

“But,” the actor inquired sententiously, “what do you propose to give the people in your theaters?”

“Plays, of course!” Brainard replied. “All sorts of plays that are worth while, old and new!”

“Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Hauptmann,” the actor remarked voluptuously. “Sophocles, Molière—”

“Hold on!” Farson put in. “Where will you get the people to sit through that?”

“My dear young sir,” the actor retorted paternally, “the people love the best. I have played the classics in every State in the Union to enthusiastic audiences,—sometimes small.”

“You bet!” Farson murmured.

“But always enthusiastic!”

“We must have modern plays, too,” Brainard added.

“But all the modern plays are copyrighted, and the dramatists are under contract to Einstein & Flukeheimer, and their brethren.”

“Then we’ll make our own playwrights,” Brainard replied placidly. “Here’s one!” He tapped the younger man fraternally on the knee.

The secretary subsided.

“And the companies?” the Scotsman inquired. “They make the piece!”

“The very best actors, of course,” Brainard agreed enthusiastically. “We’ll pay the highest salaries and give long contracts and pensions—that’s all in the scheme. You will help us to organize the parent company, Mac. I’ll give you a free hand.”

The old actor closed his eyes in a happy dream. He saw himself at last as a metropolitan impresario, dealing magnificently with the “talent.”

Brainard read on, but before he had finished the note book—which contained a remarkable mixture of detail and aspiration—dinner came up. They talked as they ate, and they talked afterward as they sipped their coffee and smoked. They became heady with enthusiasm, for Brainard’s imperturbable optimism and faith in his idea were like drafts of Arizona air, intoxicating to those who lived in lower altitudes.

The actor, mellowed by good food and good wine,—and more by the confidence this new Croesus seemed to have in him,—discoursed almost tearfully of aspirations and ambitions suppressed through long years that were now within the possibility of realization. He had always wished to devote his life to Ibsen and the great classics, he declared, but the box office had prevented the fulfillment of his artistic ideals.

“I’m the box office now,” Brainard laughed, “and I am here to fulfill ideals!” He picked up the note book again. “I had forgotten the college of actors, for both sexes, which we must run in connection with the enterprise. It will give free tuition, of course, and there will be scholarships for promising pupils. You will have to look after that, too, Mac.”

“Haven’t I been training lads and lassies who couldn’t speak the language all my life?” the old Scotsman burred.

“We should recruit our road companies from the college,” Brainard suggested.

“It will take a good deal of time to do all that,” Farson remarked.

“We’ve all the time in the world,” Brainard retorted confidently. “Make a note of that, Mr. Secretary!”

So they talked on as men will talk, when it is still a matter of words and not actions. Late in the evening, or rather early in the morning, Brainard developed his plan for an outdoor theater in some beautiful mountain spot, or on an island along the seacoast. It was a bit of fairy fancy which he called the “Summer Festival.” Every summer, for a few weeks in August, in some sylvan spot of great natural beauty, with a background of lofty trees and cliffs, there would be held a dramatic festival, where lovers of the art could resort to live for a time in the atmosphere of Sophocles, Calderon, Molière, Goethe, Shakespeare.

“A kind of theatrical camp meeting,” the secretary jokingly named it.

“Exactly. Imagine an open-air theater built upon a cliff, with the blue sea below, backed by thick trees and a wild forest park, where the audience might stroll between the acts and after the performance. Think what could be made of such a place!”

It was the final flash of Brainard’s vision, and they sat for some time in silent contemplation of what was before them. At last the old actor spoke in a husky voice:

“My boy, it is sublime! It has come almost too late for me. I cannot walk your great stage and triumph in your triumph. My days are nearly over, spent in miserable efforts to exist and not debase my noble art. But I can help, and I pledge to you and to the People’s Theater all the strength that is left in me.”

The old Scotsman’s eyes were moist with tears. Here was another whom the great idea had touched and lifted to unexpected heights, Brainard thought happily.

“You’ll have your chance to act, too,” Brainard remarked consolingly.

“What do you mean to do first?” the secretary demanded impatiently.

“Incorporate, and find an architect,” Brainard replied concisely.

“Another trust!”

“A beneficent trust.”

“What we need is publicity,” the young magazine man announced. “I’ll look out for that!”

“What we all need now,” laughed Brainard, “is sleep. We’ve done enough for one day.” For the early morning procession of drays had begun to thunder over the pavements beneath the window. “And to-day I must engage a tailor and consult with my banker.”

“Before we go,” Farson said, “let us drink to Aladdin and his sulfur lamp! Here’s to Aladdin, the Sulfur King!”

They drank the toast, and another proposed by the actor:

“The American Drama!”

And a third which was scarcely intelligible to Farson, although the old actor considered it quite suitable:

“To Melody!”

Then they separated. In this gay and careless fashion the plot was laid for pouring half a million a year into the Sulfur King’s great Idea.

III

The new secretary had some difficulty in convincing Brainard of the importance of what he called “publicity.” His own varied experience as a newspaper and magazine writer had given him a deep faith in this modern method of propaganda. He constituted himself at once the publicity agent of the new undertaking.

“It’s the only way to do things in this country. You must scatter your idea about in the newspapers and magazines, get people to talk about it and read about it, or it is dead before you start.”

Rather against Brainard’s inclination, Farson set off the first of a series of journalistic squibs concerning the “Sulfur King,” his spectacular fortune, and the novel manner in which he purposed to spend it, in a profusely illustrated article in the new Bunker’s Magazine. Brainard submitted to this indignity because of his desire to advertise the Melody mine and in this way possibly attract the attention of its unknown mistress. But of all the letters that came to him after the publication of his spectacular biography, not one was from “Melody.”

The People’s National Drama Society had not been incorporated before the sputter in the daily press began, with long-winded remarks by theatrical experts—actors, managers, and critics—predicting failure and ridiculing “the new uplifter of the stage from Arizona.” The public yawned and skipped. There was nothing new in this “uplift” talk about the drama; but the “Sulfur King” was new, and the public was much more interested in him and his golden stream of wealth than in his dream of creating a popular drama.

All sorts of mythical tales began to appear in print concerning his personality. The story that obtained the widest vogue was that Brainard, having in his younger and penniless days sighed in vain for the favor of a theatrical lady, had gone off to Arizona with despair in his heart, “struck sulfur,” and now had returned to build a palatial theater on Broadway for his old flame. A rather obscure young actress was named as the heroine of the tale, and the lady, when asked about the story by reporters, failed to deny it. Instead, she coyly led the newspaper men to embroider further details on the theme.

“See what you’ve got me into with your publicity business!” Brainard exclaimed ruefully, holding out the morning newspaper to Farson, when the latter came for the day’s work to the little house on Gramercy Park into which Brainard had moved.

The secretary, who had already seen the article, merely grinned and admitted:

“She has the cheek! They are all like that—anything to get themselves talked about. But it’s all right—it helps to spread the great idea.”

“I should say it did! Look at that!” Brainard pointed to a sack of mail that had been poured out over the library table. “And there’s a lot more, they tell me, at the post office. We shall have to open an office and hire some clerks, or chuck it into the fire.”

“It all helps,” the ex-reporter affirmed, dipping his hands into the mass with zest. “You don’t understand the American public yet. It has to have Romance with a capital R to sugar-coat any idea before it will swallow it.”

“There was pretty nearly everything in yesterday’s mail, from an offer of marriage to a recipe for making a successful play, not to mention one hundred and eighty-seven specimens of original American drama.”

“Here are a few more of the same sort,” the secretary laughed, tossing out a handful of bulky packages. “The literary committee will have something to do when it finds time. That’s me!”

He tossed the manuscripts into a corner.

“The thirty-first application for position as leading lady from an actress ‘of established reputation, at present on the Oregon circuit’—that goes to Mac’s pile,” he remarked, throwing the lady’s letter into a basket. “Proposal of marriage, marked ‘strictly personal,’” he continued, handing over an envelope to his employer. “We must get out some printed forms for acknowledgment of these—one for marriage, one for plays, and one for positions in the company.”

“If this is publicity, let’s try for privacy!” Brainard groaned, tearing the marriage letter into bits.

“Here’s a new note!” Farson exclaimed, pausing in his swift disposal of the mail to read aloud a letter.

“Gents:

“I saw in yesterday’s Kansas City papers a piece about your new theater. I think your idea is fine! It’s all right! Have you got a part for a beginner who will take anything or everything, but wants to begin? I know I’ve got stuff in me, and I must see New York. Please reply.

“Yours anxiously,

“Louisiana Delacourt, “P. O. Box 8, Iole, Kansas.”

“I think that Louisiana should get a chance to see New York,” Brainard observed.

“She might take less than everything then. What do you say?”

“Put her down for the college,” laughed Brainard. “She thinks the Idea is fine.”

And that is how Miss Louisiana Delacourt, of Iole, Kansas, became the first pupil in the new college of dramatic art, which was not yet founded.

When the second mail came in with a large assortment of begging letters and more manuscript plays, Brainard rose in disgust and seized his hat to flee from his own house.

“Don’t forget Mrs. Pearmain’s—luncheon at half past one!” the secretary warned.

“Confound Mrs. Pearmain!” Brainard muttered. “Just tell her I’ve gone out of town, Ned.”

A look of horror spread over the secretary’s handsome face.

“It wouldn’t do! She’s to have a lot of important people there to hear about the Idea. She would never forgive you. It would spoil everything at the social end,” the young man pleaded. He had worked for weeks to “start the social business,” as he called it, and thus arouse an interest of a fashionable kind in their undertaking. This luncheon at Mrs. Pearmain’s was to be the brilliant opening of a social campaign that should go hand in hand with the more democratic press campaign. It was unthinkable for Brainard to refuse from whim or shyness or fastidiousness the gracious advances of Society!

“I don’t like all this woman business,” Brainard remarked sulkily, laying aside his hat. “Whatever did you get us into it for, Ned? I don’t need their money.”

“No, you don’t need their money,” Farson pronounced oracularly, “and that’s just why you’ll get what you do need. You need their influence. You can’t get anything started without the women—not in America. A movement for art in any form couldn’t exist, if the women didn’t take it up. Why, there isn’t any Art in any form in this country, except what the women keep going. So far as literature, drama, and music go, there’s but one sex in America, and it doesn’t wear trousers either!”

“Lord!” the young Mæcenus groaned, “I didn’t know that, Ned.”

“There’s a good deal you don’t know about America and Americans that you’ll have to learn, if you want to make good in this thing,” the secretary commented severely. “That’s what you need me for—to open your eyes.”

“Thanks,” Brainard murmured humbly.

“You will find Mrs. Donnie Pearmain the very one to give the right cachet to the movement.”

The young man rather prided himself on his social knowingness acquired since his return to New York. Brainard sighed, and, with a grimace, resigned himself to Mrs. Donnie Pearmain. The secretary proceeded to prepare his master for the coming luncheon.

“You know what she did for the half orphans last year? The year before it was the tuberculosis campaign. But now she’s giving up mere charity for art, and ours is the very thing to interest her. The Rev. Thomson Spicer will be there.”

“The clergy, too!”

“Of course. They make the next best publicity agents after the newspapers. They preach about popular movements, you know. You’ll see what Spicer will do for us next Sunday. He’s much interested in the moral influence of the theater upon the masses.”

Brainard groaned.

“President Nathaniel Butterfield of Eureka University has also promised to be there.”

“Professors? Ye gods! Where will you stop, Ned?”

“Dr. Butterfield has views on the educational value of the stage.”

“I’m not founding a religious kindergarten!”

The secretary, ignoring this feeble protest, consulted his note book for further details.

“Jaggard, the banker, has been asked, and Toowit, of the Daily Beacon, and my old boss, Howard Bunker. A very representative gathering of prominent persons!” the secretary commented complacently. “They would make an admirable board of trustees.”

“What do you propose to trustee—me?” Brainard roared.

“Every movement has to have a board of trustees—a list of good names to print at the head of the note paper, you know,” the young man explained patiently. Brainard’s simplicity was occasionally wearisome, and he was proving more difficult to handle than Farson had expected. It required considerable tact at times “to keep the ‘Sulfur King’ all on the track.” He remarked to pacify his employer, “They don’t interfere unless you ask them for money, and of course you won’t have to do so in this case.”

What Brainard might have said about wrapping his great idea in a wad of distinguished trustees was prevented by the appearance of MacNaughton. He came into the library at that moment, with the air of an old diplomat, which was the rôle he had affected since he had joined the movement. His quiet gray suit was adorned with a small red button. He wore horn-bowed eyeglasses and carried a large leather portfolio. An unlighted cigar protruded from his mouth.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he remarked, settling himself in a chair opposite the secretary and turning over the pile of applications for positions in the companies of the new society. He slowly dropped the letters to the floor. “All rotters, every one of them,” he announced with a profound sigh. “My boy, will you please hang out the sign, ‘No lady help wanted’?”

“Are you sure they are all so bad?” Brainard asked hopefully.

“My dear fellow,” the old Scotsman replied languidly, “there are at least three thousand women in New York to-day, young and old, who think they can act and want a chance to take your money. I’ve seen twenty-nine hundred and ninety-nine of them!”

“There must be some good ones eager for the opportunity we offer.”

“All those that are any good, and many that aren’t, have signed up with Einstein & Flukeheimer and the other managers. I tell you they have passed the word up and down Broadway to have nothing to do with us. They call us cranks!” the old actor cried. “We are blacklisted, sir—that’s what it is.”

“But with this great chance to do something for dramatic art?” Brainard protested, quoting from a conversation he had had with a famous actress.

“Talk!”

“The opportunity to devote themselves to their profession, relieved of all sordid cares?”

“More talk!”

“Their desire to subordinate personal ambitions for the good of dramatic art?”

“All talk!”

“We’ll have to double the salaries, then.”

“Even that won’t bring the better ones who have made names already. They don’t want to compromise themselves with highbrows. We shall have to start with unknown talent and build up our company gradually.”

“That will take time, but I like it better,” Brainard replied optimistically. “Show him Louisiana’s letter, Ned. That’s the right spirit.”

“The little dear,” MacNaughton commented ironically. “How many like her there are!” He dropped the letter in the secretary’s basket.

Presently there appeared the architect who had been asked to prepare plans for the first playhouse. The three gathered around him and examined the voluminous prints and watercolor sketches that he had brought with him. He was a young man, and he had seen his opportunity, with the wealth of the sulfur king behind him He had planned a monumental building of marble, with beautiful colonnades, a magnificent foyer, reception rooms, a restaurant, and a library. Behind, in the form of an annex, was the college of dramatic art with its own little theater, lecture rooms, and dormitory. The whole looked like a public institution for the insane rather than a simple theater.

“What do you think it would cost to build?” Brainard inquired, as they came to the last sheet.

“I should think it could be done for three millions,” the architect replied glibly.

“Three millions,” the secretary repeated easily.

“Three millions—um!” MacNaughton echoed, as one who dealt habitually in seven figures.

Brainard said nothing. He was thinking, perhaps, that the Melody sulfur spring must gush like a yellow geyser to pour forth enough gold for the Idea as it was expanding from day to day. He had learned, however, not to be daunted by large figures—the mine had taught him that—nor did he ever allow himself to worry over expense. He had wasted his youth in such fruitless cares. As a man he would do what he could, and then stop.

Presently the three left for Mrs. Pearmain’s luncheon. The secretary thoughtfully took with him the plans for the new theater.

IV

Mrs. Donnie Pearmain, as everybody knows, is the only daughter of old Joseph P. Barton, the founder of the milk trust, and derived her very ample personal fortune from that famous financier’s successful manipulation of the milk market. Starting as a plain New Jersey farmer, who peddled his own milk, Barton organized the great trust, and when he died was its largest individual stockholder. It was he, too, who first generally introduced the use of the small glass bottle instead of the large tin can in the distribution of milk, thereby enabling the trust to add at least thirty per cent to the retail price of its product.

In spite of these accomplishments, financial and hygienic, Barton was one of the most widely misunderstood and execrated of the older generation of millionaires, doubtless because of the abnormal increase in cost of this necessary article of domestic consumption, and its deterioration in quality, since the formation of the milk trust. Consequently, although Barton’s daughter had married into glue—one of the Pearmain sons—which is, of course, an eminently quiet and respectable fortune that has escaped the keen eyes of the muckrakers, she had never been able wholly to live down the taint of milk. Too many even of the social leaders of the city remembered the small bottles of Barton’s pale-blue fluid, retailed as milk at nine cents a quart, to forgive the social ambitions of Mrs. Donnie Pearmain, in spite of her respectable veneer of glue.

The energetic little lady, however, had learned from her rich father his great life axiom—if you can’t do what you want in one way, you can in another. So she attacked the citadels of social leadership by the way first of Philanthropy and now of Art, as the magazine man had accurately related to Brainard. Thanks to her energy as patroness in these allied fields, she was in a fair way of living down at last the odor of milk and attaining the coveted reward of social leadership.

Mrs. Pearmain had received Edgar Brainard most graciously in the previous interviews that had been arranged between them by the young secretary, and had shown a most intelligent interest in his scheme of creating a People’s Theater. The young sulfur king appealed to her all the more because he expected no financial assistance in developing his hobby. She would not be called upon to pour any milk into this philanthropy.

She did not in the least doubt that Brainard’s controlling purpose was the same as hers—to become properly known in society by identifying himself with a popular cause, and she commended his sagacity in taking this means of living down sulfur. Therefore she had easily been brought to lend her influence to the Idea. At Farson’s suggestion, she had gathered together, in her great house on the upper avenue, a most distinguished luncheon party, which, as the secretary had shrewdly said, would give éclat to any letterhead.

When Brainard arrived, with his companions, he was shown into the picture gallery, where Mrs. Pearmain was chatting with her guests. He was immediately presented to each one. They examined him with curiosity, for even in New York a young man with an annual income of more than half a million, which he desires to spend upon the public, is not a common phenomenon.

The university president, who looked like a banker, was especially affable, and stuck closely to Brainard’s side. Dr. Butterfield sincerely regretted that he had not had the good luck to capture this young Croesus before he had committed himself to this freakish idea about the drama, and hoped that there was still some stray million which he might divert into the channels of the higher education at Eureka. It was for this purpose that he had torn himself away at midday from his many duties at the university. The other guests, understanding the game, looked on with sympathetic smiles.

Brainard had spent two dreary years at Eureka where he had found little to relieve the ignominy of his dire poverty, and thus he knew something about “old Nat,” as the head of that institution was familiarly known among the undergraduates. When in the course of their conversation Brainard admitted that he had been enrolled at the university, Butterfield beamed upon him with a new warmth and remarked eagerly:

“How interesting! I didn’t know that you were a Eureka man.”

“I didn’t graduate,” Brainard confessed.

“Ah, that’s too bad! I presume you left college for the more arduous education of a business career?” the college president suggested.

“I left it to earn a living,” Brainard replied simply.

“Exactly,” the president said with a deprecatory cough. “That’s what I meant.”

He made a mental note of the fact that Brainard had been a student at Eureka. The university should be able to use that happy fact; the trustees might consider it proper to bestow an honorary degree upon this distinguished half son, who had somehow managed to achieve fame and wealth after deserting the maternal halls. And immediately he began to compose in imagination a few of those celebrated periods with which he was accustomed to bestow academic honors upon similar practical “sons of Eureka.”

“Can’t you find time to come out to us some day?” he inquired deferentially. “I’m sure the boys will be delighted to welcome you back to your old home. A little address at chapel? It is a great inspiration for young men thus to come into touch with persons who have made their mark in life.”

Brainard merely laughed. He remembered a number of occasions when “old Nat” had introduced distinguished visitors to the academic audience in somewhat similar words. . . .

At the luncheon Brainard was seated between the college president and his hostess. He easily recovered from his natural shyness and talked fluently of Arizona and sulfur. The others listened deferentially to him, and in the many subtle ways that these people understood of testifying their consideration for a promising man he was made to feel welcome.

The banker, who had already put him on his list of capitalists that might be interested in some “undigested” railroad bonds his house had on their hands, was especially attentive. Indeed there was something of a contest for the guest’s attention between the banker and the university president, who each understood the other only too well. The banker, of course, did not commit the crudity of talking finance or even business; instead he discussed “public service” and “the new spirit of capital.” The kindly gleam of his shrewd blue eyes seemed to say to Brainard,—“You are one of the new kind, who will do everything for the dear Public!”

And so before the succession of excellent courses had gone far, Brainard had forgotten his distaste for the social side of life, which he had expressed so vigorously to Farson that morning, and really believed that all these good people were as eager as he was to give the American public a superior form of dramatic art at prices within the reach of the poorest. And when he began to talk to the company at the conclusion of the luncheon, after a few words of flattering introduction from the hostess, he had no trouble in finding what he wanted to say.

“First, you will forgive me if I say a word about myself, by way of introduction,” he began, with an engaging smile. “Four years ago, just about, I was here in New York, down and out—a poor, discouraged scribbler, earning a precarious existence by writing furniture advertisements, and sneaking into the upper gallery of a theater when I could get the price of an admission ticket.”

The magazine man, at the farther end of the table, writhed uncomfortably over this introduction. Why, he said to himself, go back—so far back? But the others seemed much interested, and as Brainard went on with his personal story, describing, in simple, straightforward language, life as he had lived it on the other side of the fence—its monotony and sordidness, its lack of interests that relieved from toil and worry—it was apparent that he had hit upon the best way to secure the attention of these people. There were some present, like Butterfield and Haggard, who had begun very near the beginning, and these liked to feel again the unmeasurable distance that separated them from their former state. Others, like Bunker and Mrs. Pearmain, thought the story so “picturesque” or “dramatic.” It served to increase their complacency at not “having been through all that, you know.” To Toowit of the Beacon and the few of a middling prosperity the tale of a rich man’s marvelous rise was exasperatingly titillating to the nerves.

Brainard touched briefly on the dramatic occurrence that had suddenly lifted him into action. His auditors looked as if they would like to hear more of this; but he paused after saying:

“I won’t go into that. It made another man of me—the man you see here now, that’s all!”

In a few moments he resumed, throwing back his head:

“My friends, I have had a vision!”

“Oh,” thought the secretary, “why doesn’t he come to the point? They don’t want to hear about his dreams!” But with that simple earnestness which was the most characteristic quality in his developed character, Brainard persisted in his effort to share his idealistic enthusiasm. He concluded his confession of faith with the words,—“It is not mere amusement, my friends, that I wish to further—it is life!”

Dr. Butterfield nodded his head approvingly at this point. He had said something not unlike this a few weeks before, when his college dedicated a new hall, the gift of a whisky millionaire. But the editor of the Daily Beacon looked thoroughly bored, and presently slipped away. All this idealistic talk was merely angel food for ladies and parsons, he seemed to think.

“I promised myself,” Brainard continued, “that if I were ever free to do so, I would give myself wholly to this Idea—give myself and all that I could command of resources to found a national theater worthy of our great people.”

Then, taking his little worn note-book from his pocket, Brainard ran rapidly over the details of his plan, most of which we have already learned. The magnitude of the scheme seemed to appeal at first to this fashionable audience; they were accustomed to deal in large figures, complex enterprises, and size stimulated their imaginations like alcohol. Oddly enough, it was only when he mentioned a small detail—the low, fixed scale of prices to be charged at the theaters—that the first dissenting voice made itself heard.

“You will pauperize the people!” the banker objected. That, he urged, was the trouble with so many humanitarian movements; they deprived the poor people of the joys of competition. The point passed, however, after a feeble discussion. That was a detail evidently to be settled later when the exigencies of deficits would doubtless force a more practical view upon this enthusiast. But a chorus of objections rose when Brainard said that the theaters were to have no reserved seats and no boxes.

“No boxes!” Mrs. Pearmain murmured, as if personally affronted. “But where shall we sit?”

“Where the others do,” Brainard replied promptly.

Significant glances were exchanged about the table. Was this a socialist who had slipped in among them in disguise?

“Think what the opera would be without the boxes!” a large bejeweled woman whispered to her neighbor.

“These are to be the people’s theaters!” Brainard remarked somewhat sharply.

“Oh, I hadn’t understood!”

“Where will your theater be in New York?” some one asked.

“That is yet to be decided. I am looking into the matter to determine where the largest number of people can most easily reach a theater by the transportation system of the city. Somewhere on the lower West Side, I suspect.”

“Nobody will ever go down there!” several protested. “Everything is going up town all the time. . . . The Opera is too far away. . . .”

“Everybody can get there most cheaply and easily,” Brainard returned.

From this point interest waned visibly, and the company merely gave a polite half attention to the remaining notes, including the plan for a great summer festival of drama.

“It sounds like a Chautauqua,” Butterfield superciliously remarked. He detested these popular efforts for education, regarding them as “scabs” on the genuine industry.

“It would be exceedingly drafty, an open-air theater in the American climate,” said an old gentleman. “Think of a Bar Harbor fog!”

When these trivialities had passed, Brainard hastily read a few notes on the ideals of the enterprise—the careful staging of plays, the giving of classics, the revival of old plays, the need for purity of speech, something about poetic plays and the new drama.

As he read, there were signs of impatience. At the close came the hard, round voice of the Rev. Thomson Spicer:

“What sort of plays, may I inquire, Mr. Brainard, do you propose to give in your theaters?”

“All sorts,” Brainard replied, surprised.

“I trust there will be a strict moral censorship.”

“I agree with you, Dr. Spicer,” Mrs. Pearmain added in a severe tone. “The greatest care should be taken not to incite the people to discontent with their lot. Many of the plays given to-day are most dangerous in their tendency. They hold us up to ridicule, and even criticize our morals and our fortunes!”

It was here that Brainard committed his unpardonable blunder, and the secretary knew that he had finally “queered himself” with these influential people.

“I think,” he said sternly, “that the people should be the judge of what plays they want to see. You would not try to tell them what to eat or drink, would you, Mrs. Pearmain?”

There was an unfortunate allusion, perhaps, though unconscious, in the word “drink”; for that was precisely what Joseph Barton had done to the people—he had made them drink a very inferior grade of blue-white fluid called milk.

Brainard was rebuked by a stony silence, for his unintentional faux pas, and then there burst forth a flood of criticism. For an hour these good people tore to tatters the fabric of his dream. There seemed to be a perplexing double fire of objections. A few, the Reverend Spicer among them, felt that Brainard’s ideas about the sort of dramatic art suited to the people were dangerous and anarchistic. Unless such a scheme were carefully hedged in by a sound conservatism, it might work more harm than good. Others—and these were in the majority—asserted that it was altogether a mistake to found a people’s theater on the level of the people. Art was always aristocratic, they maintained, and the people should be invited guardedly to partake of the intellectual entertainment provided for them by their superiors in a playhouse situated where the best classes could patronize it, with obscure galleries to which the commonalty might penetrate.

“You must appeal to the intelligent classes,” the college president told Brainard dogmatically.

“Where are they?” he asked caustically.

Thereafter he sat silent, and did not answer any of the comments made.

At this point Farson circulated the plans for the new theater, in order to create a diversion, if possible, and explained to a little group the design of the grandiose edifice. Here the banker, who prided himself on his knowledge of architecture, took a hand and condemned the plans severely as “mixed in style,” “not indicative of the purpose of the building,” and so on.

The sheets passed up and down the drawing-room, to which the party had adjourned, and were ogled by fine ladies with lorgnettes, until Brainard rose, and, bowing to his hostess, prepared to leave.

“It’s so interesting, your plan, Mr. Brainard,” Mrs. Pearmain gushed; “but I think you must modify some of your ideas. You must start from above always, and work down.”

“Perhaps I shall, when I discover what is above,” he retorted.

The secretary gathered up the plans, and overtook Brainard in the hall. MacNaughton was already there. The old actor’s face was very red; he had not said a single word all the afternoon, and his self-control was making him positively apoplectic. He stalked majestically past the footman, metaphorically shaking the dust of the milk-trust millions from his feet as he crossed the threshold.

“Asses, fools, imbeciles!” he cried, as the three reached the pavement. “What do they know about the drama? About anything but food and drink? They want us to build a theater for them!”

“Rather a frost, wasn’t it, Ned?” Brainard observed, smiling humorously at the secretary.

Farson said nothing; he was too utterly depressed for words. The great social engagement on which he had counted so much had utterly missed fire, and he blamed himself for the fiasco. He should have written Brainard’s remarks for him and rehearsed him carefully beforehand, thus guarding against the “bad breaks” that his employer had been guilty of. And yet he had not expected to encounter such stiff prejudice, such conservatism as took offense at trivialities, and stuck fast on some nonessential detail. But his experience with the “patron” class of society had not been large.

They walked back to Brainard’s little house, and all the way the old Scotsman delivered himself of invective against the leisure class. Brainard remarked once:

“This is a democracy, so called! Art is to be handed to the public on a gilt plate by the upper classes!”

He laughed sardonically.

When they entered the library, the fire was burning cheerily on the hearth. Brainard, taking the roll of plans from his secretary, glanced at the elaborate blueprints and water-color sketches of the palatial theater, which might be built for three millions. Slowly he poked the roll into the flames, and watched it burn until the last bit was licked up. His companions looked on in consternation.

“You are not going to give up?” Farson asked.

“Not much!”

“I’m so sorry for this afternoon,” the young man said apologetically. “How could one tell—”

“You couldn’t! I don’t regret it. They taught me a lot—a whole lot,” Brainard mused. “It was worth while for that. We shall learn all along the way, all of us.” After another silence he roused himself suddenly, and said, with characteristic optimism and good humor: “There’s been too much talk—let’s get to work! You, Mac, go ahead and engage the best company you can get together for love of art or of money. I will attend to building the theater. Farson can read those.” He pointed whimsically at the pile of plays in the corner. “We’ll let publicity take care of itself for a time.”

V

It was very nearly a year from the day of the disastrous luncheon at Mrs. Pearmain’s before the new theater was ready for rehearsal of the first play. The year, as Brainard had foreseen, had been replete with education, if nothing else. To find a suitable site for a popular playhouse, to erect thereon a pleasing building, commodious and attractive in design, and to engage a competent body of actors, would not seem a tremendous task. It had been done before; in fact, Messrs. Einstein & Flukeheimer, and their fellows, were doing it all the time. But the amateur with ideas and ideals was at a disadvantage.

Brainard had chosen the site, which was removed from the theater district but quite accessible—in fact, not far from the side street where he had once lodged. As the result of a large search he had discovered an architect who would devote himself to making a useful and suitable building instead of exploiting his patron’s purse, and together they had worked over the plans until a satisfactory theater of modest proportions was evolved. It was decided to postpone the starting of the Actors’ College until the general scheme had established itself. Almost all the other features of Brainard’s model playhouse for the people were included in the plans.

The site bought and the plans finished, Brainard thought that his difficulties in regard to the building were over, but in fact they had not yet begun. There was one strike after another upon the building from the excavation up, with an annoying regularity and persistence. They were usually ended by a compromise, which consisted in Brainard’s paying a contractor a slight increase in contract price, to “square” some union or labor leader. MacNaughton, whose imagination was much given to plots and dire machinations of the enemy, held that these labor troubles emanated from the offices of Einstein & Flukeheimer in upper Broadway. Farson and Brainard tried to convince him of the folly of this delusion, telling him that the noted managers probably had enough troubles of their own to keep them busy, and indeed would doubtless be glad to give the People’s Theater one of their own empty playhouses for a reasonable consideration if Brainard would take it off their hands. But they could not convince the Scotsman, who would go to Brainard’s house at all hours with mysterious information about the plot, which had to be confided in deep whispers. He had thought it all out in his own mind and believed that their hated rivals were working through the powerful agency of the Catholic Church. He said that was their favorite weapon when they wished to put any rival out of business or ruin a promising star, who had refused to listen to their offers.

When Brainard on his return from a hurried trip to Monument to inspect the mine found all work suspended upon the theater building, he was almost inclined to take Mac’s view of the plot against the People’s. This time it proved to be a dispute between two rival unions over the job of electric lighting. The contractor had given the work to the regular union, and the union of theatrical electricians had declared war. Every workman was called out. Brainard’s patience was exhausted, and he would not listen to the usual proposal for compromise suggested by a suave “business agent.” Instead he telegraphed his manager in Arizona to send up at once old Steve and the “emergency gang,”—the name by which a choice collection of spirits under the command of the old miner Steve operated either as miners or strike breakers. On the third day they arrived,—twenty lean and lank specimens from the plains, in sombreros and riding boots, prepared for immediate action. They did not know much about gas fitting, electric wiring, tile laying, and allied trades, but they took possession of the unfinished building with an unconcern that created a sensation in labor circles, and before long work had begun again and this time was pushed uninterruptedly towards a belated conclusion—all under the careful supervision of the “emergency gang,” who rolled cigarettes and spat upon the premises, while they discussed the drama with MacNaughton.

This prompt action by Brainard raised him highly in the esteem not only of the contractors and workmen, but of his associates in the venture. They saw that beneath his good nature and smiling placidity, he was a man to be reckoned with who meant to carry out his purposes. After this final flurry he took more pleasure in watching the work on the building, and thus realizing as far as the outside went his old dream. It would be, he flattered himself, the most delightful and convenient recreation center in the city,—not merely a garish, ugly auditorium where the largest number of unfortunates possible would be packed into the smallest area. . . . At last the building was sufficiently near completion to permit the beginning of rehearsals. . . .

On his way to the first general rehearsal Brainard stumbled over the marble workers, who were laying the mosaic floors with what seemed incredible deliberation. At this rate, push the work as he might, the theater would be a rough barn on the night of its opening to the public, which had been announced for the first of December. It was easier to capture a fortune and develop a great mine than to build a playhouse in America! That gave him something to think of.

He dropped his coat and hat in the pleasant library on the second floor, where the carpenters were languidly putting up bookcases. He had watched these same carpenters at their work for a number of weeks and had marveled at their grudging slowness of movement. Certainly they were not touched with enthusiasm for the great Idea, although the philanthropic object of the building had been carefully explained to them. Some of these carpenters lived in the neighborhood, and the theater was designed to give pleasure to them and their wives and their children—it was to be their playhouse. And yet they seemingly took no more interest in it than they would in the Octopus Building farther down town, on which they would be employed next. Brainard himself had put much more than money into every detail of the place; he had given it loving thought and care, and he wished a beautiful product which should reflect that spirit in every line and tone,—something intimate and lovely and human. But nothing of all this could he evoke in workman or contractor. It was all just “business,” to be skimped and shirked wherever possible. With a sigh from these reflections, thinking dubiously of the state of mind it betrayed in that “public,” on which he was counting so hopefully, he turned toward the stage. It gave him a thrill of real pleasure to push aside the heavy hangings and enter the mysterious darkness of the empty auditorium. At least this was real!

In the bare spaces of the undecorated stage, with a background of white brick wall, the new company was rehearsing Lear. It had been Brainard’s idea to open with what he considered to be the greatest play of the greatest English dramatist,—to be followed, he hoped, by a new American comedy. Thus the new company would pay their respects both to the past and to the future. Farson had tried to dissuade him from attempting Lear, saying lightly,—“You don’t want to queer us with the profession at the start.” But Brainard, whose first conscious interest in the drama had been aroused by a performance of Lear by the elder Salvini, which he had witnessed with his father in the hazy years of his youth, clung to his idea. Perhaps the part of Cordelia also touched his feeling for that lonely girl, whose memory in some way this undertaking was to commemorate. And MacNaughton came to his support in the discussion with Farson, assuring him of the popular triumphs he had scored throughout the West in this masterpiece.

It was not until the parts were to be assigned that Brainard discovered the reason for the old actor’s unshaken faith in the ability of the people to rise to Lear. He wished to play the title rôle himself, and had broken into tears when forced to yield to a more suitable actor. It had been a very painful incident, and also an enlightening one, to the inexperienced patron of the theater. . . .

At the moment of Brainard’s arrival this morning, little Margaret Leroy, who, for the lack of a better actress, was their present leading lady, was languidly reciting Cordelia’s lines:

No blown ambition doth our arms incite, But love, dear love, and our aged father’s rights,

In a few moments a voice with a beery tang boomed forth heavily into the dusky auditorium:

Aye, every inch a king; When I do stare, see how the subject quakes!

At this point Brainard had his first misgivings. Perhaps, with their present company, Lear was overambitious. It gave him a pang to realize that the faded little Leroy, with her childish blond wig, was the best actress they could secure. She had had a quarrel with her manager at the opening of the season, because he wanted to send her to Omaha, in somebody else’s last season’s success, and had accepted the offer of the People’s Theater in a fit of pique, and with obvious reluctance.

“It queers one so with the profession,” she had told Farson confidentially.

She had insisted upon bringing along with her that ancient idol of the matinée, Dudley Warner. He was doing Lear in the style of Beau Brummel, in which he had made his last tour on the road.

As Brainard listened to the shrill pipings of Cordelia answered by Warner’s beery bass, his heart sank. He recalled all the rebuffs he had received from the better players whom he had approached—their insincere and voluble sympathy, their flimsy excuses, and the selfish fears that kept them from offending Einstein & Flukeheimer, in spite of the generous salaries and all the other temptations Brainard could think of to win them to the cause of art.

“Maybe your gold mine will give out, or you will get tired of the stage,” one well-known actress had said to him pertly. “Anyway, Einstein has promised to put me on in one of Dudu Smith’s plays, and that’s good enough for me!”

The People’s would have to do the best they could with second-rate and third-rate people until they had “made good,” or could train their own actors, Brainard reflected. Meanwhile Miss Leroy continued to pipe and Dudley Warner to bawl, interrupted now and then by MacNaughton’s resonant voice from the wings “No, no! That won’t do at all. Begin that once more, Miss Leroy,” etc.

“Ah, it’s rotten! Cut it out!” a voice murmured out of the darkness close to Brainard.

The fresh young voice so near to him startled Brainard, and he turned to see who had spoken. In the gloom he could make out a girl sitting hunched up, with crossed legs, a newspaper on her lap, from which she seemed to be eating her luncheon.

“It is pretty rotten,” Brainard admitted.

“The whole bunch is no account trash, anyway,” the young person continued impersonally, dangling a slice of sausage before her mouth. “Like last year’s grass or yesterday’s supper. But that Jenny! Why, she couldn’t decorate a cemetery properly!”

Thereupon, having disposed of the company, the young woman devoted herself unreservedly to her food, ignoring Brainard’s presence. The next time that the stage manager opened a discussion with Miss Leroy that promised to last for some moments, Brainard turned to the girl.

“Pardon my curiosity,” he said, taking the seat behind her, “but I should like to know how you happen to be here at the rehearsal.”

“Me? Why, I belong!” she replied, with a funny wrinkling of her small lips. “I’m part of it—this great uplift movement for the American drá-ma!”

Brainard winced at the gibe.

“Is that what they call us?”

“And a lot of other things,” the young woman admitted frankly. “Highbrows and amateurs and boneheads and—”

“I don’t know you, and I thought I had met every one in the company.”

“I’m not in the front row, you see. I am what they call a nee-o-phyte—a pupil in the Actors’ College, when there is any college.”

“Oh, I remember now!” Brainard said, recalling the first and only pupil enrolled. “Your name is—”

“Delacourt—Louisiana Delacourt,” the girl rolled out with gusto, as if she enjoyed her name, and hadn’t many opportunities of using it.

The slightly Southern accent of the girl set puzzling currents of memory at work in Brainard’s mind. He looked at her more closely, but in the dim light of the auditorium could not make out distinctly the face which was shrouded in one of the inverted “peach-basket” hats of the period. She seemed a slight little body.

“Say,” Miss Delacourt remarked confidentially, “I bet I could show that wiggle-tailed Flossie a stunt or two!”

“Do you know Lear?”

“Do I know Lear? I was nursed on Shakespeare. My mother knew the plays by heart, and used to recite ’em all over. Mr. Farson says he’ll get me a boy’s part in the last act. Five lines—but you’ll see how I’ll make ’em hum!”

Just then Farson came up to them out of the darkness of the auditorium, and nodded to the girl, who presently slipped off.

“So you know Miss Delacourt?” Brainard observed.

“Of course! Everybody about the place knows Louisiana. Queer little piece, isn’t she? Slangy and fresh, but she knows how to handle herself. . . . It’s pretty rotten!” he remarked cheerfully, glancing at the stage.

“Just what Louisiana said.”

“I guess she knows!”

Brainard and the secretary thereupon went out to lunch, and tried to forget their troubles.

VI

At last, amid turmoil and excitement, the opening day came. Brainard and Farson had been at the theater since early morning, doing what they could to bring order out of chaos. About lunch time MacNaughton rushed up to them, his face white with excitement.

“A telegram from Miss Leroy!” he gasped. “Doctor thinks she’s got appendicitis. She’s got Einsteinitis, all right,—that’s what is the matter with her! We can’t raise an actress in New York who knows Cordelia’s lines, let alone having rehearsed it. We’ll have to postpone the opening!”

“Not that!” Brainard said, with tightening lips. “Not if you read the lines, Mac!” The old actor stormed back and forth, snapping his fingers and cursing with equal warmth stars and managers, the stage and life.

“Isn’t there some one in the company who could take the part?” Brainard asked.

“Not one, man or woman!” the Scotsman growled. “We’re using the whole company.”

“Where’s Louisiana?” Farson inquired, a little smile wreathing his lips.

“You mean that Kansas kid? She’s knocking about the stage somewhere,” MacNaughton replied. He had had several passages with Miss Delacourt already, and had no great opinion of her ability except in repartee. “You aren’t thinking of that child?”

“Let’s find her,” Farson said. “She knows Shakespeare by heart—her mother used to put her to sleep on it—she’s always getting it off when she isn’t ragging the show with her Kansas slang.”

They found Louisiana sitting on a pile of properties, playing with a lanky pup. She smiled on Farson in a friendly fashion, and ignored the manager.

“Say, what’s broken down now?” she drawled. “Have Miss Leroy’s stays given warning, or did the big bass fiddle bust a string?”

“Look here, Miss Louisiana,” Farson replied. “Quit your guying, and get ready for Cordelia. We’ll rehearse you all the afternoon.”

“Gee whiz!” the young woman remarked, rising and yanking the puppy by the leash. “But you’re sudden, my dear!”

“Miss Leroy is sick—going to have an operation.”

“She needed it, if ever a woman did!” Miss Delacourt tossed back over her shoulder as she tied the puppy to the gilded throne.

“She’ll do!” Farson whispered encouragingly.

“She’ll do something,” MacNaughton growled gloomily.

It was not an auspicious outlook for the opening of the People’s Theater.

At eight o’clock that evening, the new playhouse was fairly well filled with what the local press calls a “highbrow audience.” Of these, not a few had come to scoff, for from the beginning the newspapers, led by the Beacon, had taken the People’s Theater as a pet toy with which to play during the silly season. It was variously described as the “Sulfur Extravaganza,” the “Cowboy Show,” or the “Arizona Théâtre Français.”

For ever since that fatal luncheon, the editor of the Beacon had directed the most skillful members of his celebrated stiletto gang in their sneers at Brainard. To the New York newspaper mind it was simply inconceivable that a man with a great fortune could put it to so purely childish a use as running a popular theater. A few friendly souls, however, were scattered up and down the house—those who follow the banner of “new ideas” wherever it may wave; and there were a few of the “people”—a very few—on free tickets.

As the curtains slowly parted, Brainard, sitting alone in the rear of the house, regretted more than ever that they had attempted to open with Lear. There were surely some in the audience whose memories, like his, would carry them back to the godlike fury of the elder Salvini. What could they make of the squat figure, the perspiring muscularity of Dudley Warner?

As the fated king waddled forth and began, Brainard shut his eyes. He opened them suddenly on hearing:

What shall Cordelia do? Love, and be silent.

It was Louisiana in walk and bearing,—the swagger from Iole, Kansas,—but the voice was rich and sweet, with an unpremeditated, girlish modulation that suggested depths of feeling unsuspected.

The audience, puzzled, was respectful through Cordelia’s humble replies, until the young actress essayed her first long speech:

You have begot me, bred me, loved me; I Return those duties back as are right fit . . . Haply when I shall wed, That lord must take my—my—

Louisiana stumbled at the word, then brought out triumphantly:

My fist—

There was a ripple of amusement. Miss Delacourt heard it, flushed defiance in an un-Cordelia-like manner, and tore through the concluding lines. She got on well enough in the short responses, but the critics were waiting—as was Brainard, with trepidation—to see what the girl would make of her next long speech.

Alas! Miss Louisiana sailed in, as she would have said, to paint the lines. She drew herself up in all her girlish dignity.

I yet beseech your majesty, If for I want that glib and oily part To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend I’ll do’t before I speak—that you make known—

A frightened look came over the girl’s face. “She is rattled,” Brainard said to himself, “and will break!”

Evidently the audience thought so, too, and there was a painful hush, in which MacNaughton’s efforts to whisper the words from the side could be heard.

“It is no—no—oh, hang it all, how does the talk go?” Louisiana muttered audibly, swinging on her heel toward the wings.

There was a roar of laughter from the house. With one contemptuous glance at the audience, Cordelia walked deliberately into the wings, and, returning in fierce haste, finished her speech. As she made her exit at the end of the scene, she jerked the train of her dress and gave it a kick in good vaudeville style. The galleries caught fire, and began to stamp and hoot. Louisiana turned and distinctly made a face, as a child might, at her tormentors. The applause was furious. It lasted so long that to resume the play with any degree of seriousness seemed utterly impossible.

At the end of the act, the manager pushed the unwilling Cordelia out upon the stage. She made a sulky little bow and another face. There were calls and whistles. She was a hit. But Lear!

Brainard, laughing in spite of himself, bit his lips with mortification. After this nothing could bring the audience to take the performance seriously. The galleries began to guy Warner, and to exchange repartee with the fool.

Fortunately, Cordelia did not appear during the next two acts. When she came on at the conclusion of the fourth act, for the affecting scene with the blind king, the gallery received her uproariously. She was white, with set lips, and she threw herself into her lines with a fine scorn of the mirthful house. When her memory failed her, she cut or improvised with fluent inspiration.

“She’s acting!” Farson whispered in amazement to Brainard.

“Yes, she’s acting, but they don’t know it!”

For the house, having amused itself once with Miss Delacourt, refused to take her seriously, and was ready to explode with derisive mirth at any unconventional gesture, any wrong accent. Poor Louisiana gave them enough openings; but she held herself steadily, and was winning her way with the sweetness of her voice and her real charm, when, alas, there came a long, hard line. She wavered, tried to bluff it out, but broke down, burst into tears, and fled to the wings.

“Poor child! It was too much for her,” Brainard murmured, while Farson tried to hiss down the laughter.

It would not down, however. Finally Brainard rose and walked down the aisle to the front. Holding up his hand to still the noise, he said:

“Miss Delacourt came to us merely as a pupil. We were compelled to ask her to take the difficult rôle of Cordelia at five hours’ notice, owing to the sudden illness of Miss Leroy. I think that Miss Delacourt deserves our thanks and our sympathy, instead of these jeers.”

There was silence, but Lear was doomed. The critics had left, and others followed. Those that stayed until the curtain swept together for the last time snickered contemptuously over the affair. Louisiana had saved the occasion from dismal dullness; she had turned Lear into a farce!

VII

The pleasant drawing-room and the library of the theater, which were on the second floor above the foyer, had been thrown open after the performance, and a few well-wishers of the enterprise lingered there to examine the new playhouse and to meet the shamefaced members of the company, to whom Brainard was giving a supper. Miss Delacourt did not appear with the others.

“She’s probably gone home, poor girl,” Farson said, as Brainard started to find her. He went directly to the dressing rooms and knocked at one of the closed doors. He had to knock twice before a sulky voice replied irritably:

“Well, come in!”

Louisiana had torn off the blond wig in which she had played Cordelia and tossed it into a corner. She had also removed the embroidered gold bodice of her costume and put on a rumpled dressing sack, and was sitting curled up on her long train, the big puppy in her lap. She was pulling his ears; her brown hair fell about his head. It was plain that she had been crying.

“What do you want?” she asked crossly, recognizing Brainard.

“I came to—to thank you for helping us in our emergency this evening,” Brainard stammered.

“Helping! That’s a smooth word, I must say!” the girl flashed. “You may like that sort of help; but it’s the last you’ll get from me, I reckon!”

“I hope not,” Brainard protested heartily. “You saved the performance from being just a soggy failure, anyway.”

He could not help smiling at the memory of her saucy antics, yet the picture of childish despair she presented, crumpled, with her hair falling about the puppy’s head, roused another unfamiliar feeling of sympathy and pity. She was such a forlorn little person, for all the bravado of her speech!

“Is that what you call saving it?” Louisiana turned the puppy from her lap and devoted all her passion to scorn. “Saving! To make yourself a guy, to be ‘it’ for the merry haw-haws of the smart Alecks in New York! I must say I don’t like your taste. I’d rather fail in some other way.” She pushed back her falling hair and tied it excitedly in a knot, then shrank into her dressing gown and glared at Brainard very much like a kitten that has been cornered and is ruffled, “Let me tell you right here, dear sir, if you are the big gun responsible for this whole show, you haven’t got much to be proud of!”

“I heard you say that once before,” Brainard admitted humbly. “You said it was rotten, and I guess it is. But we are going to try to make it better.”

“Yes, try! You’d better try. I haven’t seen much acting, but I’ve seen road shows in one-horse towns back in the State of Kansas that could play all over your swell outfit. You think you are uplifting the theater, do you? What do you know about the theater, anyway? You’d better go right out to Iole, or over in the Bowery, and look at a ten-twent’-thirt’ show and learn something about play-acting. This young ladies’ boarding-school sissy show—oh, why did I ever come to you? I’d have learned more in a Kansas City variety!”

She crossed the room to hunt up a cigarette, and puffed the smoke with a disdainful shrug of her thin shoulders, walking to and fro in the small dressing room, kicking her dress about like a football, and generally emitting sparks.

“So I saved your show from being too awfully dull—at the expense of my reputation!”

Brainard could not help laughing at this display of childish vanity. She was a child attempting to be dignified with something more than a child’s intelligence. He suppressed his laughter and let her emotion explode.

“What do you think those writer-guys in the front row are going to say about Louisiana Delacourt to-morrow morning? They’ll hand me the merry laugh, that’s all. I’ll be a deader in the profession after this. Anyway, I’ll have to make up another name.”

“Your name wasn’t on the program, you know,” Brainard suggested soothingly. Louisiana merely cast him a withering glance. “Of course, our company isn’t what it should be yet,” he admitted. “We’ll try to give you a better chance—”

“You’ll have to do some mighty smart trying,” the girl sneered fiercely. “You highbrows think all you’ve got to do is to open a theater and print ‘Ideals’ in big letters on the program, and the public will run to your show. Folks have been going to the theater some before you undertook to uplift it!”

“Do you think they do good work at the other theaters?”

“They ain’t all they might be, perhaps, but they’re so much more in the game than you are, Mr. Head-in-the-Clouds, that you can’t see ’em at all, at all! And to start off with Shakespeare, of course!”

She sniffed outrageously.

“Lear was a mistake.”

“I should say it was!” she agreed with infinite sarcasm. “Why don’t you look around and see what the others are doing—what the horrid trust is putting on? They know their business, anyway.”

“Oh, come—you are a little hard on us!”

“I mean it. . . . Now, if you don’t mind stepping along, I’m going to shake off this meal sack and hike home to bed. Good-by to high art for me, thank you!”

Brainard started for the door on this broad hint, but paused with his hand on the knob.

“Miss Delacourt,” he said, facing the angry girl, “I came here to-night to say to you what I sincerely believe—that you have in you the making of a fine actress. I gather from what you have said about our undertaking that my opinion means nothing to you. But let me assure you that I didn’t see your mistakes to-night as much as the spirit and the talent—the very great talent, if I am not mistaken.”

“Very kind of you, I am sure,” the girl snapped.

“I don’t wish to persuade you to stay with us against your inclination. In our present shape, we can’t give you what you need.”

“I should think not!”

“One of my purposes, however, in this enterprise was to discover just such talent as I think you have, and develop it. Perhaps, if I can’t help you in one way to develop your talent, I can in another.”

Miss Delacourt deigned to pause in her toilette to stare at Brainard.

“I’m sure you have the real thing in you, even after this one unfortunate performance. I can’t tell whether the vein will hold deep, whether you have the character to develop it thoroughly, or will be content with the superficial success you might easily achieve in one of the commercial theaters. But I want to help you to do better than that—to give your talent a chance.”

“Well?”

“You must go where you can study—where you can see good acting also. You must go abroad—to England and France and Germany.”

The girl’s eyes opened wider and wider. She murmured:

“But that would take a sight of time and money, and I haven’t a cent in the world!”

“You have the time, at your age, and I can give you all the money you need,” he went on earnestly. “To-morrow Mr. Farson and I will talk the matter over with you and decide on what’s the best way to go about it.”

Louisiana threw back her head, as if to embrace the splendid vision opened before her. Still gazing at Brainard to see whether he really meant it all, or was perpetrating a cruel joke, she gave a long sigh. There was something pathetically wistful and desirous in her small face that stirred Brainard strongly. He seemed to be looking into a little starved soul that was trying to grasp the meaning of his promise.

“You don’t mean—”

She began and stopped. Her look wavered for one moment, as if an unpleasant idea had crossed her mind and made her doubt Brainard’s disinterestedness. Brainard understood the expression. Probably in her short experience of life she had met with little real generosity from men.

“I mean exactly what I said—and nothing more!” he added with meaning emphasis.

The girl’s face cleared with wonderful rapidity. Once more it had the eager, wistful expression of the child.

“My, but you are a good one!” she exclaimed at last, convinced of his earnestness and his singleness of purpose. “After all those fancy compliments I just passed you, too!”

“I guess we deserved a good part of what you said. Perhaps you’ll save the day for us again sometime—when you come back.”

“I sure hope I can! But not that way!” she blushed. “You mean it all—the study and travel? To go to Paris?”

“And London and Berlin and Vienna,” Brainard added with a smile. “And a lot of hard work, too, remember!”

“That never rattled me!” Louisiana exclaimed, gathering the sleepy pup into her arms and hugging him until he yelped. Presently she held out a hand to Brainard with an expression on her mobile face more mature than he had yet seen there. “Some day I’ll tell you my story, and then you’ll see what it means to me. You’ve given me—life!”

He left her hastily to spare her the embarrassment of a second fit of tears. In spite of all the humiliation that the evening had brought him, Brainard returned to his house in a happy and contented frame of mind.

VIII

When Brainard confided to Farson the plan he had formed for Louisiana Delacourt’s education, the younger man looked sharply at him for one moment as if he also suspected ulterior motives in this unexpected interest in the young woman, who had given the People’s Theater such dubious notoriety by her performance of Cordelia. In that rapid interchange of glances between the two men, Brainard felt for the first time a slight antagonism to his cheerful and companionable secretary. Why should Farson immediately infer that there was anything more than a disinterested desire on his part to help a poor and promising girl, whom fate had rather casually thrown in his path? Was it necessary that in the theater world this should inevitably be the implication,—that there could be no simple kindness between men and women!

“No!” he exclaimed, with a slight smile, answering Farson’s glance, “I don’t mean that!”

“Why do you think that it would be a good thing for Louisiana to go abroad now? She’s got a good deal to learn that she could learn here just as well,” the secretary observed evasively.

Brainard smiled more openly. It was plain enough that the young secretary did not like the idea of losing sight of their Kansas star, of whom he had seen a good deal in the course of business these last months.

“She’s nothing but a kid, you know,” he added in an indifferent tone.

“Exactly! And it’s just because she is so much of a child that I think the best thing for her is to have a lot of new experience of a totally different kind from any she’s likely to get over here. What she wants is to grow,—not learn grammar and elocution. She must develop in every way to become the actress that is in her, and that development she will get more easily somewhere out of her old environment—apart from all the inspiration that will come to her eager little mind by seeing real acting and real plays, of which there is much more just at present in Europe than in New York.”

“I see you have thought it all out,” the secretary replied dryly.

“Yes, I have thought a good deal about Louisiana since last night,” Brainard admitted.

It had occurred to him possibly in the course of this thought that the secretary’s growing intimacy with the girl was not altogether advantageous. His nature was too generous, however, to entertain this consideration seriously. The idea of rivalry between them for the girl’s interest was too ridiculous to be thought of, and yet he was forced to recognize in himself a trace of that subtle sex jealousy that seems inevitable wherever two men are concerned with one woman, no matter how trivial the occasion. He put it summarily out of his head.

“She won’t be away for always, Ned,” he observed good-naturedly. “And we must give the girl her chance—it’s the least we can do after encouraging her to come on here and join our organization, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” the secretary agreed more cordially.

When Brainard told MacNaughton of his purpose, the old actor expressed an unfeigned and unflattering surprise.

“What do you want to turn that silly’s little head for?” he roared, flourishing his cigar. “Send her abroad to study! You’d much better send her to a grammar school or a young lady’s fem sem where she could learn ordinary deportment. She’ll never make an actress.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Brainard replied quickly. “She’s the best we’ve got already.”

Farson watched the two with an amused smile. The old actor shrugged his shoulders in mute disgust.

“It isn’t saying much either,” the patron of the People’s Theater continued somewhat tartly. “Cordelia wasn’t the worst that happened last night by any means.”

“My God!” the Scotsman groaned fervently. “I hope nothing as bad will ever happen to me again in this life.”

Brainard’s doubts of MacNaughton’s fitness for his position of manager grew rapidly from this moment into a conviction that eventually produced difficulties in the hitherto harmonious management of the theatrical enterprise. Another disturbing current set in motion by the young person from Iole, Kansas!

Brainard and Farson discussed at some length the details of Louisiana’s trip. The secretary was firmly convinced that some sort of chaperone should be provided for the girl. She needed a duenna or guardian, he said, to keep her out of scrapes, if ever a woman did. When this idea was suggested to Miss Delacourt, it received an immediate and positive discouragement.

“I don’t know any female whom I could endure to have trailing around after me,” she said. “And what’s the use, anyhow? They won’t eat me up over there, I reckon. I’ve always managed to look out for myself so far, and I’m not likely to forget how now I’ve something worth doing to keep me busy. . . . No, I’ll go it alone, thank you, or not at all until I’m ready to select my own guardian.”

With this she cast Farson a belligerent look that delighted Brainard. When the secretary tried to explain in circumspect terms the manifold dangers to which a young woman traveling alone was necessarily exposed, she said:

“I’m going to take the pup along. A good dog is worth any two chaperones in case of trouble.”

Brainard observed finally:

“I think Miss Delacourt is right. She will get on very well anywhere by herself. She has the habit of independence.”

“You see!” the young woman remarked, nodding loftily to Farson. “You are too conventional for the theater. I have the habit of perfect independence, as your boss said. And I don’t propose to give it up in a hurry either.”

With this second jab at the secretary she squeezed her dog in an ecstasy of good spirits.

This important question being settled, there remained merely the plan of work and travel, which Brainard undertook to prepare and to which he gave much careful consideration. Then the passage was engaged, and the morning of the sailing the three had a pleasant breakfast together at a little down-town restaurant. Louisiana appeared in what she called “the proper make-up for her new part,”—a smart traveling costume, with fresh hat, gloves, boots, and parasol. Brainard was glad to see that she had made such an immediate and natural use of the liberal means he had placed at her disposal through his secretary, although the transformation worked by her new costume took away a certain quality of primitive girlishness that was pleasant to him. Louisiana was emerging rapidly from her chrysalis under the stimulus of the opportunity he had provided for her. As he sat back and watched her spar with Farson, he wondered whether the old Louisiana would ever return from Europe. What sort of woman would take the place of the girl who had made her début in the most unconventional Cordelia the English stage had ever seen?

At any rate everything was spontaneous in her now,—not a trace of self-consciousness in her attitude to him as her benefactor, and all the simplicity and directness of the child which had first touched him.

“He says he’s going to write a piece for the theater and put me in,” Louisiana remarked turning to Brainard. “He’d better let me see it first—I’ll give him a few points most men writers overlook. . . . You’ll keep the theater open until I get back?”

“Longer than that, we hope!” Brainard laughed.

“I want to make my début there—my real début,” she said importantly.

“I promise you we’ll keep it open for that!”

“You’d better fire the whole bunch and start over,” she observed thoughtfully. . . .

At the last moment, when Farson had already gone down the gangway, the girl drew Brainard to one side and uttered the first serious words they had had since their talk in her dressing room the night of Lear.

“It’s no use saying thanks, you know!”

“I don’t want you to thank me.”

“I know you don’t and I’m not—but I want you to know I understand.”

“What?”

“What you’re doing for me. . . . I’ll make good.”

“I believe you will!”