 CHAPTER IX. BUBBLE. Todgers and Trudes now went smoothly. Mark came to one of the last rehearsals, approved Russell's method, but, as they walked up Broadway, told Gertie that this was a lousy play. All plays were just then nonsense, besides Captain Salvador. Mark's absorption seemed to exclude even Margot, of whom the idolater once gently complained. The dark goddess had returned to town, been a week at the Fifty-Fifth Street House, and was sitting with Olive at the rear of the Forty-Fifth Street Theatre. Her voice reached Mark clearly, where he stood assembling the picture for a scene, a leg swung over the rail of the orchestra pit. She don't seem much interested in Salvador Gerd, why's that? Rather heavy for her, perhaps. Mark rubbed his nose, and accepted wisdom. A girl of eighteen mightn't care for this tale of shipwrecked ruffians, frantic negroes, moonlit death. And what innocent girl of eighteen could know or believe that men got tired of women? Gertie understood, and was helpful, had found a wailing negro song for the shipboard scene of the first act. Mark beamed at Gertie, then turned to the stage and patiently corrected the six negro actors, timid among the white folk of the big company, pathetic in sapphire and sage-green suits. You boys in a circle round the table left, keep looking at Mr. Leslie. He picked spots for the grouping. His brown fingers pointed. He named attitudes, dropping his lids as he built the picture with glances at the watercolor sketch in his hand. An intricate chatter began on the stage. Gertie slipped up the aisle and joined Olive under the balcony. How careful he is, she whispered, like a ballet-master. Gertie nodded. No one will ever move without being told to. The whole thing's planned. He's going to run the lights himself in Boston next Monday. He'll go up there with him. He looks dreadfully thin. His black height made a center against the footlights. His mastery of this human paint was impressive, admirable. He visibly labored, silent, listening. She asked, would he work as hard over an ordinary commercial play? No. Oh, he'd work hard, but not as hard as this. Margo glanced across Olive then at her watch. She said, Let's clear out, Olive, tea time. I'd much rather stay here, fascinating. But you told Mrs. Marlott-Smith you'd come. Olive sighed and gathered her furs. It was important that Margo should go to this tea at the Marlott-Smith house. Mrs. Marlott-Smith was a liberal, amusing woman, who had met Mark by way of some playwright, and had called on Olive at the seaside cottage. They left the theatre, and Gertie came to open the door of the blue car. To him, Margo suddenly spoke. How will Dad open the silly thing in Boston Monday night, and then get to Washington by Tuesday night to open tajers? We'll be there, he said, and closed the door. Olive looked back at his colorless dress, his shapely head, and vanishing grave face with a frank wistfulness. I don't see why you should make such a point of annoying Gertie, and why call this place silly when it's so plainly good. I've carefully refrained from asking you why you quarreled with Gertie. He behaves charmingly to you, and keeps the peace, paying him back for being nasty about tajers and trudes. But he's not been nasty. He's very sensibly given his opinion that it's feeble. As it is, the man's taking us down Broadway loathsome sewer. The motor slowly passed toward 42nd Street, and across that jam. Olive saw lean and stolid Englishmen stalking in the harsh dusty November wind that blew women along in the whirling similitude of rotted flowers. Margo got notice here. There was a jerk of male heads from the curb. Empty faces turned to the girl's brilliance in rosecloth. A tanned sailor flapped his white cap. Yet in the Marlott-Smith Library on Park Avenue, Margo was prettily discreet for half an hour below Chinese panels, among gayer frocks where she lost color, merged in a fluctuation of dress. On the way home her restraint snapped into a, damn, very stiff, said Olive. One reads about the American informality. T. at Sandringham is giddy beside this. But Mrs. Marlott-Smith's clever. Who were those twins in black velvet who so violently kissed you? The Venines, Amberzine and Gretchen, knew them at school. They came out in December. But what maddens me is this everlasting jabber about France? Some of those girls know Gertie. Their brothers were at St. Andrews with him. He seems to have made himself frightfully conspicuous about Paris. No, I'm bored with Gertie. If dad tries to make me marry him, I'll take poison and die to slow music, such tosh. He made a gesture of enlisting. You're being silly, Olive said, coldly hurt, and I'm sick of the word gesture. Pray was the gesture of the third-rate artists and actors who wouldn't leave their work anything madly glorious. I can understand a man conscious of great talent, preferring to stick to his last. And I can understand a complete refusal to mix in the abominable business. But I have no patience for dreary little wasters who shouted for blood and then took acetanolid to cheat the doctors. As for Gertie's military career, he's very quiet about it. I dislike this venom against Gertie. Margot chuckled, perhaps I'm jealous, and got down before the house. She opened the door with her latch-key, and they entered a flow of minor music from the drawing-room. Gertie was playing. Mark leaned on the curve of the piano, and his brown hands were deeply reflected in the black pool of its top. Listen to this, Olive, nigger song Gertie raked up for Captain Salvador, sing it for me. Don't run off, Margot, listen. He caught the girl to him, held her cheek against his chin. A scent of mild sandal and cigarettes ebbed from the black hair into his nostrils. He was tired after the tense rehearsal, and chilled from half an hour in the cold of the walling. This moving warmth and scent was luxury. Mark shut his eyes. Gertie chanted in plausible baritone, Life is like a mountain railway, from the cradle to the grave. Keep your hand upon the throttle, and your eyes upon the rail. It would sound splendidly in the dim forecastle of the first scene. It would float and die under the blue vault of the walling. He had just seen the lights turned on a recession of faint silver rims in the dull cloud of that ceiling. He was still drugged by the sight. His theatre was like a desirable body, promised to his arms. Gertie played again the slow air in curious variations, flutters of notes. Mark opened his eyes to watch the slide of the long fingers on the keys. Olive was smiling. Delightful, very moral, too. Sound advice. How well you play, Gertie! Always did, said Mark. He could play like a streak when he was ten. Come along up and have a fight with Mr. Carlson, daughter. Olive let Margot's voice melt into the old man's cackle above. Gertie said, We went to the walling after rehearsal, Lady Ilden. Honestly, it's a corker. The ceiling's nearly finished. Theatres don't last, worse luck. But there's nothing like it in the city. Marcus worked like a pup over it. How was your tea? Very decent. Varieties of women there, almost no men. A debutante told me she admired Walt Whitman more than most English poets, and was rather positive that he was English. I can't understand the American taboo on Whitman. Immoral. But good heavens! I fascinated two elderly girls by telling them I knew Swinburne. Swinburne was lewd. Poor Whitman was merely rather frank. But Algie was a foreigner, Gertie laughed. So it was all right. Margot have a good time? Olive asked, What were you and Margot rowing about in the library last night? I could hear her voice getting acid. Gertie commenced to Walt, and said, We weren't rowing. Mark asked me whether Cosmo Rand was in the British Army. He wasn't, and I said so. She seemed to think I was sniffing at Rand and blew me up a little. That was all. We made peace. I rather like Rand, you know. Now that he stopped making an ass of himself for rehearsals. He talks well. He knows a lot about painting, for instance. These actors who have been all over the landscape and don't think they're better than Richard Mansfield. Pretty interesting. There's not much to Rand, but he isn't a walking egotism. Olive laughed. Come back to Margot. She's pointedly offensive to you, and rather assertive about it. I hope you'll go on being patient and try to remember how young she is. You're very mature for twenty-one. You never bray. I brayed very wildly at Margot's age. I horribly recall telling Henry Arthur Jones how to improve his plays, and one of my saddest memories is of telling a nice Montchourette beau what a poor novel Taïs was. He quite agreed with me. I didn't know. He was an Antoine France until he left the room. I've all the patience going with youth. You're almost too mature. Don't know about being mature, said Gertie. I'm not, probably. But every other book you read is about youth, golden youth. Youth always finds a way, for a mint. Get pretty tired of it. Makes me want to be forty-nine. And some of the poets make me sick, hammering their chests and saying, yow, I'm young. Not their fault. I'm proud of being six-foot-one, runs in the family. That's a very cool bit of conversation, old man. You've taken me away from Margot twice, very tactfully, so I'll drop it. Play some Debussy. His music reminds me of a very handsome man with too much scent on his coat. Can't approve of it. Rather like it. He evaded discussions of Margot until Sunday night, when he went with Mark to Boston for the opening of Captain Salvador there. On Monday night he sat a spy in the middle of the large audience. A critic had come from New York to see the play before it could reach the Metropolitan Shoals. Gertie saw the slender, sharp face intent. The ten scenes of the Cuban romance passed without a hitch before the placid Bostonians. Mark was directing the lights that raised peaks of gloom on the walls, since shimmerings along the moonlit beach where the hero squatted in a purple shadow. About him Gertie heard appropriate murmurs. A fat woman whimpered her objection to the half-naked celebrants of the voodoo scene. An old man complained that this was unlike life. Two smart matrons chatted happily about a Harvard cabal against some friend, while Captain Salvador affected his wooing. A thin boy in spectacles wailed in argument that true art wasn't possible in a capitalistic nation. A girl giggled every time the sailors of the story swore, and almost winnied when the word strumpet rattled over the lights. But this herd redeemed itself in heavy applause. The thin boy wailed a blanket ascent to the merits of the plot and the setting. After all, Walling's Irish, and he studied under Reinhardt in Berlin, the Celts have some feeling for values. Still, the fat woman thought, loudly, that the play didn't prove anything, and Gertie decided that one of his future satires must be named the Kingdom of Swine. He found Mark in high delight behind the scenes, snapping directions to the manager, his leading man, and the electrician in the New Jersey Sing Song. Have the tom-tom some louder for the voodoo-ike. Bill, you send the notices special delivery to the Willard in Washington. Mr. O'Mara and Haiti, if the transcript wants an interview. Beach scene blue enough, Gertie? All right, Ed. I told you it was. Now, Leslie, take your fall at the end a little quieter. You're all right the rest of it. Come along, Gertie. Taxi's waiting. In the taxi, he cried. Damn this lousy Todgers thing, son. I want to stay here. People like it, huh? They did. Oh, you're Irish, and you learned all your business from Reinhardt. Sure, blame it on Europe. My God, didn't the tom-tom business go like a breeze? Oh, this Todgers thing will be too bad. Tell you, I'll play it in Washington and Philadelphia, Baltimore, if it don't just roll on its belly and die. Sorry if Margot gets sore. She and Olive went to Washington this afternoon, didn't they, huh? Was the ship scene light enough, sonny? He sat in their stateroom on the train, his eyes still black with excitement, and drank watered brandy. He dreamed of Captain Salvador's first night at the Walling, and tremors of applause mounting to the blue vault of that perfected ceiling. He was so tired that he struggled, undressing. Mark, you're thin as a bean, nothing but some muscles and skin. Mark flexed his arms, beamed up at the tall boy's anxiety, and rolled into his birth. The must-red hair disappeared under a pillow. Gertie smoked and stared, humbly. This was surely half of an artist, laborious, patient, contriving beauty. The man had his strange perception of the lovely thing. He should do better and better. If his trade was that of the booth, the sale of charming sensualities, he raised it by his passion. He begot fondness. He created. Gertie tucked the blankets over the blue silk pajamas, and planned a long talk on the purpose of the theater for the morning. Then wondered what that purpose was, and put the lecture off. They fled all morning down the land, and came to Washington in time for late lunch with Russell at the Shoram, where Mark halted to look at a pretty dark woman in the suave gray lounge smelling of flowers. Fell behind Gertie and Russell found himself suddenly lifting his hat to core a boil. She wore a cloak, banded with black fur, and a gold hat too young for her paint. Mark smiled, rather sorry for the blown coarseness of her chin, asked how she liked California, and heard her flat voice crackle. A nightmare. All these girls who were absolutely no one last week in ten thousand dollar cars. No, I'm glad they brought me east. I'm taking three days off to see Cosmos start this. Tells me it plays here the rest of the week, then Philadelphia. When are you bringing it to New York? He shifted a little and said, can't say Cora. Hard to get a house in New York right now. This thing I've got at the 45th Street is doing big business. Todgers will be on the road two weeks anyhow before I decide what'll become of it. What are you opening the walling with? Captain Salvador opened in Boston last night. Best play I've ever touched. Say, remind me to send you seats when it opens at the walling. That's dear of you. But couldn't you get one of the small houses for Cosmo, the princess or the punch in Judy? Intimate comedy. Cosmo really does better in a small house, and, she smiled, you could take a bigger one after a month or so. He had an odd second of wonder. She'd been almost thirty years on the stage, and she thought Todgers intrudes a good play. He began to ask, but do you think this will? Then two men charged up to shake hands with the actress. Mark scuttled down the stairs toward the grill. If she was quarreling with Rand her manner didn't show it. Cosmo really does better in a small house. He joined Russell and Gertie at their table, puzzled and said, Say, if she's fighting with Rand it's funny she'd come down to see him open this flap doodle. Habit, Russell shrugged. They've been married twelve years, but are they fighting? I had breakfast with him this morning and she almost crucified herself because his tea wasn't right. Mark wondered why Margot thought that Rand and the woman quarreled, but he shed the wonder. He liked Washington especially as the pale city showed itself now in a vapor where the abiding leaves seemed glazed in their red and yellow along the streets. All of new people here. There was a tea with a British attaché. Margot's rosecloth suit gleamed about the dancing floor of the restaurant. Gertie had friends who were produced, fell subject to Margot, and came between the acts that night to lean over the girl's chair in the box of the big theater. Todger's intrudes went its placid course. Rand gave, Mark fancied, an excellent imitation of an English conservative. The packed house laughed at the right points. Margot's face rippled so eagerly that Mark wanted to kiss it and covertly held her hand below the rail. Why, this was the pretty gentle sort of nonsense. Eighteen years would relish. A pity it had no staying wit. A pity this fragile, polished man she so admired wasn't a real comedian. Mark looked at Gertie's stolid boredom and the fine chest hidden by the dinner-jacket beyond Olive's bare shoulders. It might be as well to let Gertie tell Margot the play wouldn't do for New York. Mark shrank from that. Gertie could put the thing much better in his cool, bred fashion. Here and there men were leaving the theater with an air of final retirement. In the opposite box there was a waving of feathers. How well Cora Boyle could use a fan. A youngster with curly orange hair slipped into his box as the second curtain fell. Gertie introduced young Theodore Janin to Olive and Margot, then to Mark. Mr. Janin had come over from Philadelphia to do something in Washington. This play, The Janin Air, Bit Off a Rotten, was advertised as coming to Philadelphia next week, opens there Monday, said Mark. My mother's giving a baby dance for my sister. Couldn't you bring Miss Walling Gertie Monday night? How smoothly Margot said she'd like to come to a dance at Mrs. Aspley Janin's house in Philadelphia. The nonsense of social position and illusion. A little training, a little charm, good clothes. A Healy, one of Margot's cousins, had risen to be a foreman in one of the Janin steel mills. Gertie had played football with this pleasant lad at St. Andrew's School. Who on earth would ever know or care that Margot and Gertie were born on a farm? The last curtain fell. Margot wanted to dance. Russell came to join the party. They went to a restaurant and found a table at the edge of the oval floor. Margot's yellow frock was swept off into the florid seething on Gertie's arm. Russell poured brandy neatly into the coffee pot and shrugged to Mark. Bad sign. 15 or 20 men left at the second act. We'll have a vile time in Philadelphia, Lady Yildon. It's a queer town on plays. There come the rands. A head-waiter lifted a reserved sign from a table across the floor. Cora Boyle and her husband appeared in the light threaded by cigarette smoke. The actress draped a green and black skirt carelessly, refused to dance with a British officer in a trim pantomime, bowed slowly to Mark, who was taken with fright. She'd wanted to talk about this driveling play, and before her slight quiet husband. He slipped a bill under the edge of Russell's plate. Bring Olive back to the hotel, will you Russell? I'm all in. Night, Olive. His retreat through the smoky tables was comic. Russell fingered his chin. Olive ended by laughing. He's ridiculously timid about her. The director patted his bald forehead and drank some coffee. He said, it happens he's got some reason. Miss Boyle's bad-tempered and an inveterate liar. She's fond of her husband, and she seems to think this comedy will have a New York run. Mr. Walling means to let it die on the road, naturally. She won't like that, she'll talk. Her voice will be loud all up and down Broadway. But surely he's callous to that sort of thing. Do you see anything callous about him? I don't. The director nodded to the floating of Margot's skirt. This is the first time I've ever directed a play put on to please a debutante, Lady Olden. No, Mr. Walling seems mighty sensitive to gossip. And Cora boils in a strong position. She's a woman, obviously. And she can make a good yarn, spite, and so on. She's quite capable of giving out interviews on the subject. She can't hurt Mr. Walling, but she might cause any quantity of gossip. Which he couldn't very well answer. She can play the woman wronged, you see. What a nation of woman-worshippers you are. Wurr, said Russell. We're getting over it. I don't see any signs of it. Russell said, You can't send two million men into countries where women, well, admit that they're human, not goddesses anyhow, without getting a reaction. My wife's a lawyer. She helped a young fellow, an ex-soldier, out of some trouble the other day. And he told her she was almost as nice as a foreigner. Ten years ago, if Cora Boyle had wanted to have a fight with Mr. Walling, she could have taken the line that he was jealous of Rand. And she'd have found newspapers that would print front-page columns about it. She'd get about two paragraphs now. But she probably has better sense. Beastly handsome, isn't she? Very. Gertie tells me she's paid a thousand dollars a day to play Camille for the cinema. Why? Oh, she's the kind of thing a lot of respectable middle-aged women adore, I think. Look at them. There were many women in the rim of tables. They stared at the flaring green and black gown, at the exhibited bodry of gold wrought calves, at the feathers of the waving profuse fan. There was an attitude of furtive adventure in the turn of heads. They stared, disapproved, perhaps envied. Some men in this, some that, their pleasure take. But every woman is at heart a rake, all have quoted. The director laughed, you're right. And I often think that the movie queens take the place of an aristocracy in this country. Something very fast and bold for the women to stare at. Now Rand there is the ideal aristocrat, in appearance anyhow, don't you think? And nobody's looking at him. I wonder if Miss Walling would dance with me. He relieved Gertie close to the Rand table. When the boy joined Olive, she asked, Mr. Russell's not a typical stage director, is he? I thought not. One of the new school in your theatre, a well-educated man, rather entertaining. He writes a little, been an engineer, stage directors are weird. One of them used to be an Egyptologist. I say, help me keep Mark here the rest of the week, will you? He's dead tired. Did he run when he saw Coral Boyle coming? Yes, he seems positively afraid of her. Gertie said, he is afraid of her. Great Scott! He was only sixteen when he married her. And dad said he was pretty blooming innocent. Mark's all full of moral conventions, Lady Yildon. Ever noticed that? When you were in Pinafores, my child, I always thought he'd shed some of his puritan fancies. He doesn't. Grandfather's awfully strict. Even if he is an atheist and mother, isn't what you'd call reckless. They brought him up. And he still thinks their, well, moral standards are just about right. I'm the same way. God had pounded into me at school that bad grammar and loud clothes were immoral. Don't suppose I'll get over that. Mark says he's never flirted with a married woman in his life. Olive yawned. I don't suppose he has, consciously. Oh, to be sure, I can understand why Mark would think of Miss Boyle as the scarlet woman, the puritan upbringing. We never quite get over our early influences, Gertie. I always find myself bristling a bit over dropped H's, even when a famous novelist does the dropping. Mark prophesies bad reviews for the play in the morning. To leave word to have the paper sent up to me. I'm so sleepy I shall forget about it. Thank heaven. Margot stopped dancing. In their double bedroom at the new Willard, Margot talked jauntily of Todger's intrudes, until Olive fell asleep, wondering why the girl should interpret amiable laughter as the shout of success. In the morning two newspapers arrived with breakfast. The critics praised the acting and both sniffed at the play. Olive read the columns over her tea. Both critics dealt kindly with Rand. One thought his manner resembled that of Cyril Maud. The other said that he imitated George Arliss. Margot came trailing a green robe from the bathtub and stood pressed against the brass bedfoot, reading the comments. The sun redoubled on her silver girdle and the numerous polychrome tassels of the foolish, charming drapery, inside which her body stirred, before she cried. How American! Thin! It's no thinner than that rot-dad has running on the forty-fifth street. My darling Margot, that's thin American comedy. It's something national, comprehensible. As for Todger's, why? Why should you expect a pack of American war office clerks and provincials to care whether a baron proceeds in Earl? I can't help being surprised that so many of them seemed to know what it was all about. The play is thin, horribly thin. I'm sure it did well at home on account of Morris Ely's following. The critics say rather nice things about Rand, all things considered. Well, were you impressed with him last night? Do you still think he's a fine actor? Margot tilted her face toward the ceiling, and the sun made a wizard across her narrowed eyes. She twisted the silver girdle between her hands and stood silent. Olive felt the final barrier between creatures, suddenly and keenly. She had lived in intimacy with the girl for five years. Here was a strange mind revolving under the black, carven hair and the mask of sun. No, I didn't think him very good last night, nervous, and perhaps the play did seem rather thin, but it'll do better in New York, more civilized people there. Olive lifted her breakfast tray to the bedside table and thought. Then her patience snapped. Before the girl's sunny and motionless certitude, she said, New York, do you think Mark will risk bringing this poor ghost of a thing to New York? Hardly. He told me last night that it will be played in Philadelphia and Baltimore, then he'll discard it. You're silly, dearest. The play is wretched and Rand's no better than a hundred other young leading men I've seen. He appeals to you for some reason or other. He seems very, very feeble to me. He has no virility, no. The silver girdle broke between the tawny hands. Margot's face rippled. She said loudly, This is all Gertie. He doesn't like the play. He's made dad dislike it, he. Olive cut in. I shan't listen to that. That's mere ill temper and untrue. The play is a waste of Mark's time and of his money. Between your very exaggerated loyalty to Ronnie Dufford, and your liking this doll of an actor, you've probably cost Mark three or four thousand pounds. He produced this play entirely to please you. Don't tease him any farther. Don't try to make him bring this nonsense to New York. You've a dreadful power over, Mark. Don't trade on it. You're behaving like a spoiled child. You disappoint me. The black eyes widened. Margot pushed herself back from the bed with both hands, staring. She said, I daresay, sorry. You should be. He's done everything he can to keep you amused. He isn't a millionaire. You've been treated like a mistress of extravagant tastes, not like a daughter. There is such a thing as gratitude. He's humored you in regard to the silly play and in regard to Rand. Gertie and Mr. Russell tell me the coral boil can make herself a disgusting nuisance. Now that the play is a failure, you've pushed Mark into this very bad bargain. Don't try to make it worse by whimpering now, and don't. Oh, please! Then please bite on the bullet, and let's hear no more of this. When Mark tells you that he'll drop the play, don't tease him. Margot said, poor Ronnie Dufford, I thought, I'm sorry Ronnie's broke. It's the destiny of younger sons whose father's had a taste for bakarat. I shall start for Japan as soon as I've seen the walling opened. I shan't go in a very easy frame of mind if I feel that you've constituted yourself a charitable committee of one with Mark as the treasurer. Olive laughed. Margot said, yes, my lady, and made a curtsy. Then fluttered off to telephone for breakfast, began to chuckle, and the delicate chime of that mirth was soothing after the rasp of Olive's tirade. The girl seemed unresentful. Olive had never so seriously scolded her. Now she thought that she would talk to Mark about his folly. This idolatry was delightful to watch, but unhealthy. A temptation to Margot. The girl had other pets in London. There was an amateur actress constantly wobbling on the edge of professional engagements. Two or three of the young painters experimented in stage setting. She deliberated and listed these artists to Mark, while they were driving about the broad city in a hired Victoria. All nice children and hopeless dabblers, old man. Beware of them, or you'll have the house filled with immigrants. Rans a giant beside any of them. The little man ain't so bad. Guess I'll put him in as leading man for a woman in a scotch play I'm going to work on after Christmas. That'll shut Cora Boyle up. He'll do all right. I'll offer him the part when I tell him Tadgers goes to Canes. To where? It's a warehouse in New York where dead plays go. The scenery, I mean. Mark pointed to a full wreath of steam floating above the pan American building. Watch it go. No wind. Aught to last a minute. Busted. He sighed as the lovely cream melted. But I ain't sorry for this happened, Olive. Teacher she don't know so much about the show business. Tadgers'll make a little money here because the town's packed full. But I'm afraid Philadelphia'll be its waterloo. Well, the Boston transcript had three columns on Captain Salvador. It's in the biggest theater in Boston, and they had standing room only last night. Gertie got a wire from a kid he knows at Harvard that a couple of professors came out of the woods and told their classes to go see the thing. His talk came turning back to Captain Salvador for the rest of the week. He was bodily listless after the strain of the Boston production. Gertie forced him to play golf and tramp the spread city when Olive and Margot were at tease in the British colony. Russell often walked and every night dined with them, examining Margot with his sharp hazel eyes so that Gertie fancied the man exhaling her essence with his cigarette smoke. He sat with Gertie on Monday afternoon in the smoking-car on the road to Philadelphia and observed, Miss Walling's very much interested in Tadgers. How will she take the blow when it fails here? It'll be a flat failure tonight, Gertie. See if it isn't. Margot and I are going to a dance. We shan't see it flop. It'll flop very flat and hard. I'm a Philadelphian. You should warn Miss Walling. Mark startled Gertie by warning Margot during tea in the small suite of the Philadelphia Hotel while she stood at the tin-voiced piano rattling tunes with one hand. Mark said nervously, Now, sister, if Tadgers is a fluke here, why I can't waste time and cash fooling with it any longer. He coughed and finished. I'll send your friend Duffer to check and amen. You're an old duck, said Margot, and I'll be good. Shant ever try to choose another play for you, never, never, never. She tinkled the negro song from Captain Salvador, tapping one foot so that the silver buckle sparkled. Wish I could sing. Life is like a, what's good old life like, Gertie? Like a mountain railway. That a simile or a metaphor? I say I must get scrubbed, six o'clock. She passed Gertie, leaving the room. He saw her teeth white against the red translucency of her lower lip, and Carmine streaks rising in her face, but the door shut slowly. Took it like a Trojan, Mark proudly said. Guess the Washington papers opened her eyes some. Well, let's go see if Russell's downstairs, Gerd. He's got a room on this floor. Gad, Olive. I wish we were going to a dance tonight instead of this junk. Margot should wear something very smart for this dance, shouldn't she? Olive asked. The Janans are the mighty of the earth, aren't they? Old family, steel mills, Gertie explained. I've met some of them in Scotland. Wasn't there a Miss Janan who did something extraordinary? I remember a row in the New York papers. Didn't she? Mark laughed. Ran off with a married man. They've got a couple of kids, too. Doesn't that domestic touch redeem the performance, Mark? Mark chuckled and drawled. Now, here. You make out you're a wild-eyed radical, and so on. Suppose some girl that ought to know better came and lived next to you in Chelsea with a married man. Ask her to dinner. I cheerfully would, if I thought her worth knowing, gentle Puritan. If I thought she was simply a sloppily uncontrolled sentimentalist, I should no more bother myself than I would to meet a society preacher, or some hero of the Russian ballet who's paid a hundred guineas a night to exhibit his abdominal surface in the name of art. Six o'clock I should tub myself. I've several cinders on my spine. Run along, both of you. Mark said on the way to the elevators. All of the wonder, ain't she, bud? Don't know why, but she always puts me in mind of your dad. Calm and cool. Oh, say, tomorrow's your momma's birthday. It is, and I'm going up to the farm after lunch. Todgers and Trudes has got me. Shut up, said Mark. See, in Cosmo Rand, ringing the button for the elevator, he beamed at the actor and asked in the car, Mrs. Rand went back to New York? Yes. Just been talking to her by phone. They started the film of Camille today, very trying, she said. They've some promoted cowboy playing Armand, I say. I've quite some decent gin in my flask. We might have a cocktail. Gertie thought how clever the man was to wear gray, increasing his height and embellishing his rosy skin. He understood dress expertly. At the Janon dance, toward midnight, a girl told him that she'd just come from a simply idiotic play, but praised Rand's appearance. Englishmen do turn themselves out so well. The dance was supported by sparkling Moselle, and Gertie didn't have to perform with Margot. She found friends. He was summoned to be introduced to a young Mrs. Calder, who at once invited him to die in the next evening. Gertie excused himself on the score of his mother's birthday. As they drove away from the emptying house, Margot explained, Peggy Calder's nice. She was in the Red Cross in London. You're really going up to the farm? Certainly. She said nothing, restless in her dark cloak for a time. Then chattered about the Janon grandeur. She enjoyed spectacles. The great suburban house and the green ballroom pleased her. But you people drink too much, you know. Mrs. Janon's a second wife, isn't she? Rather pretty. Heavens, what a long way back to the hotel. You're tired. Frightfully and blue. Can't you make dad try togers in New York, Gertie? Directly and with a sharp motion, she added. No, that's utterly silly. I've no business asking it. But I do feel. And yet I don't know the New York taste. You really think it wouldn't do. I really don't, Margot. And you can't get a theatre for love, blood or money. They're even trying to buy theatres to bring plays into. Mark would have to run the play on the road for weeks, months perhaps, before he could get a theatre. She dropped the matter, spoke of the dance again, and at the hotel, hurried up the corridor to her rooms. Mark sat up, as Gertie slid into the other bed of his chamber, and passed a hand across his throat. Oh, son, what an evening. Todgers to the boneyard, crepe on the door. Fizzled, people were knocking it at the Janons. Awful, everyone coughed. I will say Rand worked hard. No, it's dead. I'll let it run tomorrow night and then close it. Stick with me tomorrow. I'll have to break the news to Rand. He broke the news to Rand, just as Gertie was leaving to take the train for Triton after lunch. The actor strolled up to them beside the door, a grey-furred coat over his arm, and his bronze eyes patently anxious. Going away, burnamer. The country. Decent day for it. I say, Walling, they weren't nice to us in the papers. Gertie saw Mark begin to act. The voice deepened to its kindest drawl. Mark said. Just called up the theatre. Only sold two hundred seats for the night, and it's almost three now. That's too bad. Rand passed the polished nails across his soft mustache. The son of the door sent true gold into his hair. He murmured, Shocking bad, eh? We play Baltimore next week, don't we? No, said Mark easily. It's too thin. I'll close it to-night. Now I'm putting on a piece called The Last Warrior, English. Start rehearsals after Christmas. Good part for you in that. Marian Hart's the lead. Know her? Nice to play with, and a damn good play. Oh, thanks awfully. Yes, I know Miss Hart. Thanks very much, sir. You shan't risk bringing Todgers to New York. No, I'm sorry. You've worked mighty hard, and I like your work. You'll be a lot better off in this other play. Todgers is too thin, Rand. Might have done five or six years back. The actor nodded. Dare say your right, sir. Bit of a bubble, really. An awfully good of you to want me for this other thing. Be delighted to try. Yes, this is rather bublish. Anyhow, this lets me out of Baltimore. I do hate that town. Well, thanks ever so. Better luck next time, let's hope. He walked off, gray, into the duller gray of the columned lounge. Mark nodded after him. Took it damned well, Gertie. He'll be all right in this other show, and Cora can't say I haven't been decent to him. Well, hustle along. Got that whiskey for your dad? Give him my love. Look at that pink car, for lord's sake. Volgarity on four wheels, huh? So long, sonny. Gertie was glad that Rand hadn't whined. This was a feeble, tame fellow, without much attraction beyond his hands and face. Perhaps it was for this mannerly tameness that Margot liked him. Perhaps that fable of women, liking the masterly male, was faulty. Margot liked to domineer. She had bullied Rand a trifle at the rehearsal in London. Perhaps Coral Boyle liked the tame little creature for some such reason. Gertie dismissed him and the theatre. There was vexing sadness in the collapse of even so poor a play. Russell and the actors had worked. It came to nothing. Bubble. Expensive, futile, unheroic evanescence. Margot's fault. He mustn't let Mark do such a thing again. The girl must confine her restless self to dances and clothes. She had looked very well at the Janon party. She had smartness, instant magnetism. She was still asleep and would dine with her acquaintance, Mrs. Calder, to-night. Gertie yawned as Trenton foully spouted its industry toward the sky. Burnamer was wading along the car at the station, gave him a crushing hug, and told him he looked like hell. Danced all night. I see you did in the ledger. Among those present at Mrs. Aspley Janon's party. Your mama's all upset about it. Saw a movie of a millionaire party with naked huzzies riding ostriches in the conservatory. She thinks Margot's led you astray. How's this Todd play done? It's all done, Dad. Closes tonight. Burnamer sent the car through Trenton and cursed Margot astoundingly. Ten or twelve thousand dollars with a little skunk. Cure Mark of listening to her. Say, he's still wanting you to marry her, bud? Afraid he is, Dad. Sure. Next best he could do to marry in her himself. Funny boy. Likes her cause she's pretty. Black hair. This English woman's black-headed, ain't she? Will you sick some fella onto Margot and get her off Mark's hands? If you fell in love with her again, your mama'd puff up and bust. Again? Burnamer gave him a blue stare and winked, wrinkling his nose. The weathered face creased into a snort. Sure, you were losing sleep over her before she got back from England. Not now, Daddy. Gertie wondered about the absolute death of his passion. His father, who so seldom saw him, knew it was done. Mark saw him daily, talked to him of Margot urgently, and saw nothing. Well, said Burnamer, Mark's awful fond of you, and you ain't bad, really. Don't you get married until you catch one you can stand for a steady diet? Oh, your mama's gone on a vegetable diet and lost four pounds in two weeks. Ed's got a boil on his neck. Bad, too, poor pup. Jim done an algebra problem right yesterday and made a touchdown Saturday. He's got his head swelled a mile. The man's tolerant dealing with his family impressed Gertie. Here was a controlled and level affection, not Mark's worship. It was a healthier thing. He watched his father's amiable scorn, while Mrs. Burnamer and the whole household fussed variously over young Edward's inflamed neck after supper. The boil was central in the talk of the Red Living Room. Grandfather Walling tried to think of some ancient remedy and fell asleep pondering. The two bigger lads hovered and chuckled over the eruption. The sisters neglected some sway in who came calling. Mrs. Burnamer sat mending the gray breeches of the military uniform Edward wasn't wearing. The boil maintained itself over gossip of the village, the military academy, and the female questions about the Janon dance. At ten Burnamer said, Go to bed, all of you. Got to talk business to Gertie. The family kissed Gertie and departed. Grandfather Walling's snore roamed tenderly down into the stillness. Burnamer got out the chessboard and uncorked a bottle of vicious pear cider. They smoked and played the endless game. At twelve the telephone bell shore off his father's sentences. Gertie clapped a palm on the jangling at his elbow and picked up the instrument. Olive Ilden spoke in her most artificial, clearest voice. We're in New York, dear. The doctor telephoned about eight and we came up directly. I think you'd best come, Gertie. Mr. Carlson? Yes, he'll be gone in a few hours. Mark so distressed and the man asked for you. Burnamer said, No train until three thirty, son. I'll get there as fast as I can, Gertie told her. Margot there? No, she's gone to dine with her friend, Mrs. Calder, and Mark didn't want her here. I'll tell Mark you're coming then. Goodbye. Gertie rang off. His father nodded. Mark'll miss the old feller, been mighty good to him, funny old man, always liked him, poor Mark. Will you say this English woman's sensible? That's some help. Gertie was glad of Olive's sanity. Wished that the thought of this death didn't make his heart thump for a little. His father would drive him into Trenton at two. They played chess again. Burnamer made sandwiches of beef and thick bread. The red walls clouded with cigarette smoke. It was two when the bell rang again. Dead, probably, said Burnamer. The operator asked for Gertie. There was a shrill wrangling of women behind which a man spoke loudly and savagely. His impatience cracked through the buzzing. It wasn't Mark when the man spoke directly at last. This is Russell, Gertie. Can you hear? You must come here at once. To Philadelphia? What happened? Mr. Carlson's dying and... I know, and I can't bother walling. You must come here as fast as you can. Can you speak German? I'll try to talk French then. After a moment, Gertie said. All right, I'll come as fast as I can. Get hold of the hotel manager. Money. The detectives gotta check. That's all right. Hurry up, though. Gertie found himself standing and dropped the telephone. It brushed the chessman in a clattering volley to the floor. His father's blue eyes bit through the smoke. When's a train to Philadelphia, Dad? That damn fool girl gone and got herself into... This actor. Of course she has. Of course. Oh, hell, in her room! When's there a train to Philadelphia? CHAPTER X. THE IDOLATOR. All have left the telephone table and strolled across the bright library to the fire. The saturation of dragged silk behind her moving gown gave her a queer discomfort. There had been no time to change in the rush. It seemed improper to attend the deathbed in evening dress, and she was intrusive here and helpless. Mark's pain was calm. He would suffer later at the end of these hours or minutes. The bored, plump doctor came into the library, closed the door and lit a cigarette, joining Olive at the warm hearth. He was asking for Miss Walling just now. She's in Philadelphia. She was dining with some friends at the Ritz there. So we left her. The doctor said, very sensible, and blew a smoke ring. Under its dissolution, his eyes admired Olive's shoulders, then the pastel of Gertie in a black frame on the mantle. Tell me, Olive asked, how far is he conscious? It would be interesting to know. And these collapses, we're not sure. His conscious mind probably asserts itself now and then. The unconscious, I really can't say. Still, before you and Mr. Walling came, he spoke in Swedish several times. And that was the unconscious. He forgot his Swedish years ago, been in this country ever since 1868. But he spoke Swedish quite correctly, and very fast. I'm a swede, it surprised me. Indeed, said Olive, and shivered before his science, cool, weary, and not much interested. The doctor looked at his watch, murmured, twelve-thirty, and tossed his cigarette to the fire. He observed, but the old gentleman is in no pain. The reversion is quite interesting. He was talking to someone about Augustine Daily, very interesting. The clipped brisk voice denied the least interest. The doctor went from the library, as Olive heard wheels halt outside. This couldn't be girdy. She looked through a window and recognized her maid paying a taxi cab driver. The black and yellow taxi cab, trembled behind a car entirely black and windowless. The undertaker awaited Carlson's body. Olive threw the curtains across the glass, shook herself, and went down to speak with her maid. Margot hadn't come back from her dinner when you came away, Lane. No, Milady, such a nuisance getting the luggage to the station down there. Might I have some tea in your pantry, Mr. Collins? The woman asked Mark's butler, as Olive turned away. These two would sit in the butler's pantry, drinking tea, and discussing deaths. Olive went up the soft stairs and into Carlson's bedroom behind the library. She entered in a mutable group. The two nurses sat in a corner. The doctor examined one of the framed old photographs that paledly gleamed on the walls, made brown by the lowered light. Mark stood with his hands clutching the white bedfoot. His black seemed to rise super-natural from the floor. He was taller, thinner. He glared at the stretched length of his patron. To Olive, the dying man appeared more like an exhumed pharaoh than ever. The yellow head was unchanged. She had a dizzy picturesque fancy, that his eyes might open, that he might speak in some unknown, sonorous dialect of the Nile. As she dropped a hand beside Mark's fingers on the rail, the old man spoke without breath in a sound of torn fabric, yet with an airy, human amusement. All right, Mr. Casanova, don't get flustered. I'll tell Miss Morris. Mark writhed. The plastering of his shirt crackled. He gripped Olive's arm and drew her from the room. In the hall he panted. A gustin' daily, a prompter, a Frenchman. I guess he meant Clara Morris. But in the cooler hall, away from the insufferable bed, he was ashamed. This was bad behavior, unmanly, ridiculous. He smiled timidly at Olive, who suddenly put her hands on his face and kissed him. I talked to Gertie. He'll be here as soon as he can, dear. Thanks, got to go back. Mark sighed. You go to bed, though. No. Mark didn't want her to go to bed. He smiled and went back to his watch. Odious time passed. The smell of cigarettes crept from the walls and the furniture. Carlson had smoked many thousands here. One of the nurses clicked a string of beads. The tiny cross was silver and lustrous as it swung. The bead seemed amethyst. What good did the woman think she was doing? But she had liked Carlson. She was praying for his soul, and Carlson thought he had a soul. Let her pray. The amethyst flicker, soothed Mark, took his eyes from the bed. The voice surprised him with his name. Mark. Yes, sir. It's a poor house, rain. Mark's throat was full of dry fire. He gripped the rail, waiting. But the voice did not come again. After four, the doctor nodded. One nurse yawned. The Irish woman fell gently on her knees under the large signed photograph of Ada Rhian in the frilled, insolent dress of Lady Teasel. All of led Mark quickly from the room into the library. He pressed his hands on his eyes. He wouldn't cry over this. Carlson had too often called him a crybaby, a big calf. Dear Mark. Oh, can't be helped. God, I did want him to see the walling. Won't be any funeral. Body goes straight to Sweden. He's left Gertie and Margot some money. Awful kind-hearted. A lot of old down-and-out actors had come here. Gave him money, awful kind of me, no reason. His husky speech made a chant for his old friend. Olive's eyes filled. He was childish in his woe, charming. She wished that he'd weep so she could fondle the red hair on her shoulder. This would hurt his pleasure in the new theatre and the splendid play. The butler came in after the heavy descending action of men on the stairs was over, and the dull wheels had rolled off from the curb. He brought a small, gold-capped bottle and two glasses on his tray. Dr. Lunkworth said to bring this up, sir. The champagne whispered delicately in the glasses and washed down the muffling dry taste from Mark's tongue. He smiled at Olive and said, Don't know what I'd have done without you being here. What a brave woman. Her daughter had died swiftly of pneumonia before Olive could reach her. Her son had been blown to pieces. I'm glad Gertie didn't get here, she said. He seemed quite enough of death, and he was fond of Mr. Carlson. Of course, fonderer than Margo was. Being a man, though, he never showed it too much. Olive hoped that Margo would never tell him how she disliked the old man's coarseness, his manifold derisions. She said, But go to bed, Mark. You really should. These things strain one. Awful! They packed me off to Aunt Edith's when Mama died. First time ever saw anyone I liked. Froman was drowned. Clyde Fitch died in France. Good night, Olive. He wished she would kiss him again, and watched her pass up to her rooms. Then he slept soundly and woke slowly into the warm, luxurious sun that modeled the blue quilt. He said, Hello, brother. To Gertie, who leaned on the dresser between the windows, Solomon grieved in a dark suit. His pale hair ruffled and gay with light. Gertie must be cheered up. Well, you missed it. He didn't have a pain. When did you get here? A while ago. Dad's here. Eddie? Well, that's good of him. Burnamer came about the bed and dropped a hand on Mark's chest. He said nothing but grinned and sat down. His seemly clothes and cropped head made him seem amazingly like Gertie. Mark beamed at both of them. Had your breakfast? Hell, yes, said Burnamer. Had, too. Had some coffee in Philadelphia, and then Lady Ilden made us eat something when we got here. Mark swung out of bed and ordered Gertie. Tell him to bring me up some coffee in the library, sonny. Oh, Margot ain't got here? Yes, she's here. Said Gertie quickly and left the room. The son filled his shower-bath. Mark cheered further, babbled to his brother-in-law, while he shaved and wondered what Burnamer had talked about to all of at breakfast. Oh, we just talked, said the farmer, curtly. Nice kind of woman. He leaned on the door of the bathroom and rolled a cigarette in his big shapely hands. Now that he had five hired men, his hands were softer and not so thick. A fine, quiet man, full of scents. Awful good of you to come up, Eddie. I ain't makin' a fool of myself. The old man was eighty, it's a wonder he lasted as long. Better get some coffee in you, bud. You look run down. Been workin' like a horse, Eddie. Mark nodded his tie, took Burnamer's arm, and hugged it a little. Walking into the library, Olive dropped a newspaper and told him he looked gorgeous in a weary voice. Then poured coffee into his cup, on the low stand, by the large chair close to the fire. She was smoking. The vapor didn't hide yellowish hollows about her eyes. No, I didn't sleep well, old man, rather fagged. We waked you up pretty early, said Burnamer. Sit down, bud, and drink your coffee. Mark lounged in the deep chair. Burnamer asked Olive if she had liked Washington, but stood patting Mark's shoulder and rather troubled the drinking of coffee. Gertie came down the blue rug with some mail. Look and see if there's anything important, sonny. Probably ain't. Hello, sister. Margot roamed down the library in a black dress. But she paused, yards from his stretched hand, and frowned incomprehensibly. Gertie turned at the desk with a letter against his gray coat. Margo said, I suppose Gertie told you. Gertie thrust his jaw up toward the ceiling. Olive rose with a flat, rasping, Margo. And Burnamer hissed, his fingers tight on Mark's shoulder. Mark sat down his coffee-cup and looked at them all. Oh, no one said anything. Margo put a knee on a small chair and stroked the velvet back. Well, we'd better get it over. I was turned out of the hotel in Philadelphia last. Shut up, said Burnamer. Shut your mouth. She went on, staring at Mark. I'm going to marry him as soon as he can get a divorce, Dad. No use to lie about it. I belong to Cosmo, and that's all. She passed a hand over her mouth. Then her bright slippers twinkled as she walked out of the room. Mark blinked after her. Something had happened. He looked up at Burnamer, whose face was rocky, meaningless. Curdie ran to Mark and spoke in gasps, beating a fist on his hip. Russell called me at the farm about two. Dad came down with me. We talked to the manager. We bribed him. Russell gave the hotel detective a check for a thousand dollars. I guess that'll keep their mouths shut, said Burnamer. Told him that each get another check in six months if we didn't hear nothing about it. Now it ain't so bad, bud. Margo says this fella can get a divorce from Coraboyle. He was gone and we didn't see him. It might be worse. Stop hitting your leg, Gerd. You'll hurt yourself, said Mark. He rose and began to walk up and down the tiles of the hearth. One of his hands padded the front of his coat. His face was empty. He seemed wonderfully thin. All of watched him in terror of a cry. Gerdie and his father drew off against the shelves of still books. Burnamer commenced rolling a cigarette. After a while, Mark said, It's the way I brought her up, Olive. Oh, Mark. Try to see her point of view. She loved him. She sees something we don't. It's… Sure, that's so. Oh, you're right. He walked on, aware of them watching, helpless. Things passed and turned in his head. He was being silly, old-fashioned. Off to collect himself. Off to do something for Gerdie, who wouldn't have her now. Get the boy something to do. Get his mind off it. Call the office, Sonny. Tell them to close Todger's intrudes. Give the company two weeks' pay. Half-Hamlin' write checks. Didn't try to thrash this ran, did you? We didn't see him. He'd gone. That's good. Call the office. The boy went to the telephone, far off on its desk, and began to talk evenly. Mark stumbled over to Burnamer and mumbled, Keep him busy. Awful jolt for him, Eddie. Takes it fine. He ain't in love with her, bud. Yes, he is. Set down, bud. Better drink. No, ain't been any saint myself. Girls are different. Maybe he's a nice fellow. Took it nice about the play being closed. I'm all right, Olive. Sort of a shock. He walked on. Then he was too tired to walk, and Burnamer made him sit in the chair by the hearth. He stared at the blue rug. And it seemed to clear his head. He became immobile, watching a white thread. The world centered on this wriggle of white on the blue down. He lapsed into dullness, knowing that Gertie stood close to him. He should think of things to say, consolations. The boy must be in tortures. He was dull, empty. Burnamer beckoned, Olive. They went out of the library, and the farmer shut the door without jarring the silver handle. Olive found herself dizzy. She said, You have something to— Let's go downstairs, where I can smoke. You're sick. This is as bad on you. He helped her downstairs into the drawing-room, and was gone. Came back with water, in which she tasted brandy. The big man lit his cigarette, and spoke in a drawl, like Mark, but heavier. I don't understand this business. The little fool says she's been in love with this fellow a long time, a couple of years. He ain't made love to her till last night. Well— I don't understand it any more than you do. I'm horrified. I knew she admired his acting. He's handsome. Very handsome. The man nodded, and his blue eyes were gentle on her. He drawled. Why the hell didn't he stay and face the music? The manager told him to get out. Mr. Russell says he packed up and left. I can't make this out. Margot had Mr. Russell wake up because she hadn't any money to come home with. I must talk to her. Why did we leave her there? You thought she had sense enough to know better. It ain't your fault. I got to go home because I don't want the family to know about this. But there's something damn funny in it. Will you please get it out of Mark's head that Gertie's in love with that girl? Make him feel better. I'll do all I can. He said, and scorned. She ain't worth fussing with, and held the door open. All of shivered, passing the library where there was no sound. She climbed to Margot's room and found the girl sitting on the edge of the sunny bed, still smiling. You must be very tired, darling. The red lips a little parted. Margot said, oh, no. In a soft whisper. The faint noise died in the sun like the passage of a moth. Olive stood fixed before the sleek tranquility of the black hair and the contented face. The restless stirring was gone. She smiled in beautiful contentment. The gold cord, which was the girdle of this velvet gown, hung brilliantly and rich about the straight body. The sunny room made a shell of color for the figure. The hair had a dazzling margin against the windows. She was untroubled, happy. Olive dragged at her own girdle, biting her lips. She asked, where is Mr. Rand, dear? He was coming to New York to-day, Margot said in the same voice. She lifted an end of the trailing gold, then let it fall. She seemed asleep, lost in a visible dream. But she roused and spoke. He's loved me ever so long, Olive. I didn't know, and was still again. Olive choked before this happiness, turned and went down the stairs. There was no use in artifice, reasoning. Mark must accept what was done. His good sense would come back. The shock would ease into regret. His convention was outraged, of course. It was dreadful to see him in pain. Olive thrust back her own pain, a vast and weary disappointment. This wasn't the man for the girl. This was senseless. She entered the library and Mark raised his face from the long stare at the floor, dreading Margot. Oh, he said. It ain't your fault, Olive, don't cry, I'm being a fool. He rose and walked again, began a circular tramp about the room. He passed through a whispering tunnel, completely black. He was marching in the dark, and knew that Olive and Gertie watched him. That bernamer came into the room with his hat in his hand. Yet he walked in blackness. He would go mad of this. She had lied to him. She had thrown herself to a married man. Well, girls did that. Things were changing. People did queer things. He was jealous for Gertie, that was the trouble. He had wanted her married to Gertie. She had said such good things of Gertie. All this time she'd been lying. She was in love with this pink, married actor. The talk would roll among the restaurants, in the offices. People would laugh. Awful names. All the other noises would slacken and fail in this whispering. They would sneer when the walling opened. She wouldn't care anything for him, or she wouldn't have lied. Gertie didn't lie. Mark tore himself out of the black whispering, and went to take Gertie's sleeve. Don't you mind, Sonny. She ought to have told you she liked this. Oh, Mark, I don't care about her. All right to say that, but don't you mind. Bernamer came across the room and took Mark in his arms. He said, Now, bud, don't upset yourself. I got to go home. The family don't know nothing. I shan't say a word. What you do is this. Get hold of Coraboyle and give her money to let this fellow divorcer see. That'll save talk and trouble. That's right, Eddie. Yes, good idea. Bernamer hugged him and left the room. Mark's head cleared. There was no black tunnel. Eddie was right. He must make the best of this. It could be hushed up. Women like Cora needed money for clothes. He nodded to Gertie. You'll never be any smarter than your dad, Son. Ain't he a nice fellow, Olive? Of course, dear. But I'm being a fool. I know it. Only there's lots of men that feel like I do about these kinds of things. One o'clock. You and Gertie have some lunch. Olive said, Mark, would you like me to talk to her? He cried, No, I might say something. You folks go have lunch. They went away, and at once he wanted them back. Walked to the floor with his hands clenched. He was afraid that Margot might come in now. He dreaded seeing her. He wished her out of the house and away. The wish bit him. He had been fooled. He had to love her, help her. Couldn't she go away to the farm, where no one knew, but they might find out? They would shrink from her as bad. They weren't knowing and tolerant like Brnemer. He mustn't stop loving her, or let her see that he was hurt. Nothing eased him. The afternoon lagged along. Gertie played the piano downstairs. Gertie and Olive drifted in, out, consoling him. It was sunset. A van full of boxes went slowly past, and the house and the shadows on the pine were amethyst. Some friend of Gertie's came calling in a yellow, low car that turned ochre as the light failed. Its lamps made ovals on the street as it drove away. He mustn't let this sour the boy. In the darker room the whispering began again. It might be the blood in his ears. Gertie brought him dinner and white wine. Olive came afterwards and tried to make him eat, lit all the soft lamps. He drank some wine and smoked a cigarette. Gertie takes it well, doesn't he? Perhaps he didn't care as much as you think, Mark. Mark laughed. Awful cool outside. No, he's being brave, to cheer me up. And I feel better, honest, my God, Olive, if that woman wants to make a scandal. Don't think of it, Mark. He was tired of thinking, he said. I'll try not to. And smiled at Gertie coming in. But he now thought of Coral Boyle. Perhaps she liked Rand, wouldn't give him up. He examined the rosy face, the trim gray suits. Yellow-haired. Perhaps these dark women liked yellow-haired men best. He was afraid of Coral. She could lie to her friends and make things worse. He stared at a lamp a long time and his mind felt dull again. Mark, it's after ten, go to bed. Please, old man. You folks go, not sleepy. They left him. He was lonely. He sat by the hearth and lit a cigarette. Above him there was a slow noise of Gertie strolling about, getting undressed. The ripple of little sounds kept Mark company, then deserted him. Mark shuddered in the peace of the lit room. Something would happen. What? He must save Gertie more pain. The boy was too young for this. Mark's throat ached suddenly, and he began to weep, spent in his chair. The lamps of the room swelled like luminous pearls melting, and through the mist came Gertie and white pajamas that flapped. Oh, for God's sake, Mark, bed! I'm scared, said Mark, gulping. Gert, I'm scared of Cora. Suppose she likes him. Suppose she won't let go of him. She's bad-tempered, Sonny. You don't know her. It's the talk, the talk. People ain't as broad-minded as you and all of think, the women especially. And she's a young girl. It ain't like she was one of these women that have been divorced three or four times. If Cora makes a fuss. Gertie pulled him up out of the chair and gently shook him. You must come to bed. All right, making a fool of myself. Only, you're in love with her. It's hard on you. I'm not in love with her, Mark. Mark thought this a splendid sort of lie, but he shivered. Something else might happen. I feel— Come and get me in bed, Son. He became limply ashamed of himself. Gertie helped him to strip, and he found the boy buttoning his jacket for him as he sat on the edge of his bed. He watched the long, wiry fingers at work on the buttons and the holes of the blue silk. The cold linen of the pillow caressed his neck. He smiled, wanting Gertie to stay there until he fell asleep. The doorbell rang with a steady and ripping insistence. Damn, said Gertie, and went into the hall, where the cold air mounting from the open door chilled his bared feet. The butler ascended like a shadow on the white wainscote. A Mr. Fuller, sir. He can't see, Mr. Walling. He's asleep. He says he must see, Mr. Walling, Mr. Gertie. The butler held out his salver. Gertie read the card, Henry Fuller. Fuller and Markovitz, attorneys at law. Under the engraving was penciled, Four Miss Boyle. Gertie walked down the stairs into the drawing room. A burly man in a furred coat was standing by the C&E's cabinet, running a thumb over the smooth panel of its little door. The light made his gray hair glisten slickly. He turned a broad, pleasing face on Gertie, and nodded. Sorry to get round here so late at night. Pretty important I should see Mr. Walling right away. That's absolutely impossible. He's ill and in bed. I'm—oh, you're his nephew, ain't you? Mr. Burnamer. Yes. The man nodded and undid his coat. He wore a dinner jacket with a fluted shirt. Gay stones were blue in the soft pleats of the bosom. He stated, I'm for Miss Boyle's legal representative. You tell Mr. Walling that Miss Boyle's willing to not bring in action against Miss Walling. Understand what I mean? Yes. The lawyer continued his air of genial discretion, getting a paper from some pocket. Miss Boyle's willing to overlook this business in Philadelphia and not sue her husband or Miss Walling, provided that this place brought into New York by New Year's Day, and Mr. Rand has featured name in electric lights and so on. Soon as the place opened in New York, she'll live with her husband again. Condemnation C and Blackmail, said Gertie. The genial man went on. I've got a memorandum here. All Mr. Walling's got to do is sign it. I'll read it. New York City, November 18, 1919. My dear Miss Boyle, in pursuance of our agreement, I promise you that Todgers and Trudes will be presented in New York City before January 1st, 1920, and that Mr. Rand will be featured in the usual manner. Yours very truly. All he has to do is put his name to that, and there you are. Gertie hated this fellow. He rubbed a foot on the carpet and sighed, then asked, What's the good of this? It's a bad play. It'll fail. Why does Miss Boyle want this? Don't ask me. Yes. I hear it's a bum show. I guess she wants her husband featured. I don't know. If Mark, if Mr. Walling won't sign this, then Miss Boyle will bring her action in the morning. That's no defense either, Mr. Burnamer. Miss Boyle's got a written statement from Mr. Rand, and testimony from his valet. Gertie was sick now. An unconquerable trimmer made the muscles of his back rigid. It was a trap. Margo was caught in a trap, he said. Blackmail. No. Miss Boyle's foregoing a legal right to bring her action. She ain't asking a cent of money. There's lots of ladies wouldn't be so easy to settle with. Better see what Mr. Walling says, hadn't you? For a second Gertie stood hopeless. Then he said, It's a dirty trick, and took the paper. But he should keep cool. He smiled and inquired. You say he's got a written statement from Mr. Rand. Got a copy with me, like to read it? Gertie glanced at the transparent type sheet. He shook his head and walked upstairs. Mark picked up the note, as Gertie dropped it on the blue quilt, read it, frowning. Then he flushed, and his mouth contracted hideously. He whispered, Old trick, happens all the time. I ought to have known what had happened. Give me a pen, sonny. He signed his full name, Mark Henderson Walling. There couldn't be any more pain after this. He shut his eyes, and fell through warm darkness. He could not sleep, but he must rest. He slept. When Gertie came back into the bedroom, Mark was slowly breathing, sound asleep. The boy made the place dark, and went up to his own room. In the upper black of the hall, someone caught his arm. Olive followed him and shut the door. She had cast a black fur cloak over her nightdress, and her gray hair was loose. She looked at the boy without a word, leaning on the door. Blackmail, she sent her lawyer. She's got a confession from Rand. Mark signed an agreement. He'll bring that play into New York, and she'll live with Rand as soon as it opens. Ah, oh the cad! Oh, Gertie, take care of Mark. She walked down the hall. Gertie followed her, and heard her pity crash into miserable sobs behind her door. He stood listening for a while, then raised his arm, and pressed it against his mouth. END OF CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI OF THE FAIR REWARDS BY TOMAS BEER THE SLUBERVOX RECORDING IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN THE FAIR REWARDS BY TOMAS BEER CHAPTER XI THE WALLING On Saturday afternoon, Olive and Margot started for Seattle. Gertie drove with them to the station, and Margot spoke to him for the first time since the journey from Philadelphia. She said, What theater will Dad bring Todgers into? I don't know, it'll be hard to find one. She murmured, It ought to be a great success, and Gertie admired her stubborn air. She sat stiffly in a suit of yellow cloth, and walked stiffly down the great stairs of the station, gathering eyes, moved ahead of Olive and himself to the coach, and stood in the vestibule motionless, uninterested when Olive drew Gertie away to the edge of the concrete and raised her veil. Mark need never see the child again, unless— Oh, he'll be all right, Gertie decided, but it's been an awful jolt. The English woman put a hand to her mouth, which shivered. Awful. Oh, I don't know, Gertie. Don't know what, Lady Yilden. I don't know that he's right in sacrificing himself. I don't know that he's wrong. Chivalry. I can't understand how two people can be such beasts as this woman and her husband deliberate torture. Isn't it revenge? Gertie didn't answer, but asked. You'll go on from Japan to South Africa. I've some friends at Cape Town. She's that brutal age, when it doesn't matter if we get what we want. Oh, my dear boy, this is hideous. It's revenge. I don't think so, he said. I saw Russell at the office this morning. Todgers doesn't open in Baltimore until Monday. He said that Rand talked to him in Philadelphia before this happened, and wanted Russell to persuade Mark to risk bringing the play to New York. And that was after Mark told him he wouldn't bring it in. Russell thinks she, Coral Boyle, is simply crazy over Rand. Russell's seen a good deal of them. He says Rand talked to her by phone from Philadelphia on Tuesday. She may have put him up to this. I don't think it's revenge. She's got nothing to revenge. Mark's always been decent to her. All have smiled, then whispered. Do take care of Mark. A porter came bawling. All aboard! And groups broke up along the train. Margot swung and vanished into the coach. All have said. She stunned. She won't realize she's been a beast to Mark for a while. Gertie mumbled something about points of view. The tired woman cut him short with, rot, old man, she didn't play fair, she lied. Do take care of Mark. Goodbye. Gertie walked away, and a clerk from Mark's office brushed by him with a papered load of yellow roses. The boy turned and saw all of take these against her black furs. She stood graciously thanking the clerk for a moment, smiling. Then she stepped into the vestibule, and the train stirred. Gertie walked on. The colossal motion of the crowd in the brilliant station was a relief, and the band hammered out some military march by a Red Cross booth. His spirit lifted. The strained waiting of three days was done. Marko was gone. Gertie wouldn't have to watch Mark's piteous effort at normality. He found his uncle alone in the office in the 45th Street Theater, studying a model for a scene, and swiftly, Mark asked, I sent Jim with some. He got there. Mark sighed and rubbed his hair. Everything confused him. He hoped Olive would forgive him for not coming to the station. That had been cowardly. He said, ought to have gone along, son. Afraid I'd say something I shouldn't. I shouldn't have let you do it alone. This is worse on you than it is on me. Mark, on my honor, I'm not in love with Marko. He lied so nobly that Mark wondered at him, and brought out a thin chuckle. You're a card, son. If I didn't know better, I'd almost believe you. Well, take a look at this set. That left wall looks kind of dark to me. It's ox blood, and it might lighten up with spots on it. What do you think? Collars interfered. Gertie went down the stairs into the lobby, packed with women, who came out of the matinee. All these decorated bodies flowed left and right, about a dull blue placard announcing. Early in December, the Walling Theater will open with Captain Salvador, by Stephen O'Meara. And some women paused, drawing on gloves, fussing with veils. A slim and black-haired girl stared boldly at Gertie, passing him. She wasn't like Margot, but he hated her for an instant, and then stalked up Sixth Avenue, where the lights of restaurants roused in the dusk, and the crowd of Saturday evening braided. In ten cool blocks, Gertie captured his philosophy, held it firmly. Mark was unreasonably hurt. In fact, Mark was an old-fashioned, unphilosophic fellow who hadn't progressed, was still a country boy, in essence. Hadn't even gained the inferior cynicism of his trade and friends. He was letting himself be bullied by Cora Boyle on an antique concept. Why should he let himself be laughed at and lose money for this immaterial thing? Gertie succeeded in getting angry at Mark, and tramped about the blue library, preparing a lecture, saw a glove of Margot's on the table, and tossed it into the waste-basket. He could imagine Mark shedding tears over that empty glove, and its presence in the copper basket fretted Gertie. He plucked it forth, and flung it into the fire of cedar logs, where it made a satisfactory hiss, blackening. It must have been perfumed. The scent floated out of the fire. Gertie grinned over the symbol, and poked the remnant, which crumbled, and was nothing. He stood reducing Margot's importance to logical ash, and so intently, that he jumped, when the butler told him that Russell was downstairs. The director strolled in, and looked about the room before speaking. Nice walls, he said. Well, Gertie, I've just seen Miss Boyle. Where? At her hotel. I've mixed up in this, and I thought I might help Mr. Walling out, so I went to see her, and had a talk. It didn't come to anything. He sat down in Mark's fireside chair, stooped his head, and brooded. I had a sneaking idea that this game was a sort of revenge. Walling's been good to her, dumb things for her. That might wrinkle. Well, I pointed out that Todgers is a waste of time. I did my best to make her see that. It was funny. She sat on a lounge, and rocked a cushion, as if it were a baby, in her arms. Has she ever had a child? I think not. And she's ten or eleven years older than Rand. It's no good. She thinks he's great in this play, and she thinks it'll run all winter in New York. And there we are, bernamer. She's set on the thing. Mr. Walling had better get it over as soon as he can. If he doesn't, she'll be ugly. I'm mighty sorry. Gertie blazed up, in a mixture of wrath and impatience. Oh, it's all such damned rot. Mark's one of the best producers in the country, and he shouldn't do this. He should tell her to go to hell, it's blackmail. I'm going to tell him. After a moment, Russell asked. What? And laughed kindly. Gertie shrugged and flinched before the laughter. The man was right. Mark would go through with the beastly deal, wouldn't consider risking Margo's name. There was no use in argument. He snapped. Chivalry. And you wouldn't do it? No, Gertie said. No, it's too thick. It's—it is ironical. And he can't tell any one. Everyone will think he thinks this is a good play, worth doing. The critics will jump all over him, though— the other proposition being that Ms. Walling will lose her reputation. She's a young girl and not very clever or very sophisticated to judge by her talk. She's read the smart novels, of course, quotes them a good deal. You say you wouldn't do this for her. The world being as it is. Tell it to the fish, Burnamer. Gertie felt weak before the cool, genial voice. Russell lit a pipe and went on. I feel the way you do. Only the world's full of shorn lambs and the wind's damn cold. Can you come to a show tonight? Lord know, said Gertie. I've got to stay with Mark. He's got to have someone with him, needs taken care of. Russell said, to be sure, with another laugh and went away. He sent Gertie the notices from the Baltimore Papers, after Todgers and Trudes began its week there, and with them a note. Ms. Boyle came down for the opening. She is still sure it is a great play. Maternal feeling. Rand seems nervous and loses his lines a good deal. He is probably ashamed of himself. His English accent peels off now and then, and he talks flat Middle West American. But the same mail brought a letter from Olive Ilden, written at Denver, and this maddened Gertie, as last proof of Margot's inconsequence. Dear Gertie, the reaction has started. She is now certain that Rand planned the whole filthy trick. She is so angry that there is nothing left unsaid. He is a cheap bounder and a slacker, etc. An actor cannot be anything else, she says. Everything is Mark's fault or mine, for leaving her alone in Philadelphia. Do try to pity her, a little old man. She has made a fearful fool of herself and knows it. The whole thing is still horrible to me. I wish Mark had more humor or more cold blood. Anything to help him through. I keep trying to remember a quotation from Webster I threw at his head once. These be the fair rewards of those that love. It may be from Shakespeare. Did you try to argue him out of making the production in New York? That would be your logical attitude. But do take care of him. Gertie tore the note up and went to put on his riding clothes. The frost had melted. Mark wanted a ride in the warm park. The boy thought proudly that Mark hadn't complained. He seemed quietly busy arranging advertisements for Captain Salvador, which toured New England after its week of Boston. Rumors of a triumph crept ahead of the play. Its success, its investiture of light and color, would soothe Mark while he still needed soothing. Gertie rattled downstairs and Mark laughed at him. You look mighty well in riding things, son. So do you, said Gertie, in all honesty, and watched Mark beam, settling his boots, the fit of his black coat. They rode into the empty park. Mark talked about horses and then about Gertie's brothers. One of them wanted to be a soldier. You did that with your scar and all, Mark said. Funny how easy a kid gets an ambition. Only thirteen. He'll get over it. What did you want to be when you were thirteen, sonny? Gertie strove to remember. He'd probably wanted to be a theatrical manager. He said, I wanted to be a barber when I was nine or ten. I remember that. And then I wanted to be an aviator. And now I want to write plays. Hurry and write me a good one, brother. Then Mark was silent. They cantered along in the creamy sunlight. A great lady of artistic tastes, reducing her weight, bowed jerkily to Mark from her burdened gelding and called, Can you bring Miss Walling to luncheon Sunday? Gertie saw Mark's mouth twist. It needed courage to call so easily back. She's gone to Japan. But a hundred yards afterward, Mark reigned in and stared at the sun. His face tormented. Sonny, I may have to open the walling with Todgers and Trudes. No. Fact. I can't take a chance with Cora getting nasty. I can't risk it. I can't get a house for love or money. I tried to buy the show out of the Princess last night. There ain't a house empty. I may have to use the walling. Open it with this—this. He slashed his crop through the air, was ashamed of himself, and sat chewing a lip. Gertie could keep his emotions. So well covered, just as he now hid, and nobly lied about his heartbreak over Margo. Mark's sense of hurt swelled and broke out. Oh, women are hell. If they want a thing, they'll do anything to get it. They scare me, Gert. When they want a thing, and look how she treated you. Oh, Mark, honestly, I wasn't in love with her. Mark knew better, but Gertie's brave mendacity cheered him. He grinned and rode on. He must think of ways to make Gertie forget the girl. When they reached the house, he telephoned the gayest folk he could find, and summoned them to a luncheon. He worked in a fever, keeping Gertie busy with new plays, ritual lunches at the Algonquin, and motor trips to country ends where they hadn't been with Margo, who somehow wavered in Mark's mind. He began to lose an immediate answering picture of her. It was hard to recall her phrases of later time. Things she had said and poses of her childhood rose more clearly. She merged in his perplexed hunt for a theatre. When he found on the 1st of December that he couldn't rent or beg a playhouse for Tajer's intrudes, he hated Margo for an hour, and tramped his library in a sweat of loathing. He must defame the walling with this nonsense, finish his bargain by dishonoring himself and his dream, for the walling was not altogether real. He roamed the shell where Workland were covering the naked chairs with dull blue in a haze. The smell of banana oil and turpentine made him dizzy. The silver and black boxes seemed vaporous, like the mist of the ceiling, when the lamps were tried on its surface. He had moments of sheer glory, through which came burning the thought of Cora Boyle and Margo in this queer alliance. His offices were transferred to broad rooms by the white landing of the wide stairs in the walling. There was an alcove for Gertie's desk, and here Mark told him suddenly, going to bring Tajer's in here next week, son. Gertie paled, leaned on the new desk, and flexed his hands on his fair head. He said, Oh no! Got to, son, I've tried all I know. The boy babbled, Don't do it, oh damn it! You've been working for this place for years, and it's not worth it. Look here, let me go talk to this damned woman. No, I've got some pride left, son. You shan't go near her. You go down to the farm and stay with the folks. Gertie wanted nothing more. All the pressmen and underlings were puzzled by Mark's maintenance of the English comedy on the road. It was not making money. The theatrical weeklies had warned New York how bad was Tajer's intrudes. Gertie drove his motor down to Fatesville on Saturday, had a fit of shame, and hurried back on Sunday. On the face of the walling, the dead electric bulbs told the news, Mark Walling presents Tajer's intrudes with Cosmo Rand, and Mark's treasurer came out of the white doors to expostulate, I don't get this, your uncle's playing for a dead loss, Mr. Bernamer. It's no damned good. Where is he? Went up to New Haven yesterday. Captain Salvador played there last night. Say, what's the idea? This Tajer's ain't done a thing but eat up money. Everyone knows it's a frost. The man worried, openly. There could be no explanation, Gertie saw. The critics would jeer, Mark's friends would chaff him. The boy padded his wheel and asked, What night does it open? Wednesday, like Captain Salvador was to. Honest, Mr. Bernamer, this is hell. Gertie drove off to a restaurant for dinner, and here a critic stopped him on the sill, to ask whether Mark had gone quite, quite mad. Monday was barren anguish, watching Mark's face. Captain Salvador would play in Hartford and Providence all week. On Tuesday there was a rehearsal of Tajer's intrudes, and Gertie found a black motor, initialed CB, when he came to the walling. Workmen were polishing the brass of the outer doors, and the programs for tomorrow night were ready. Everything was ready for the slick farce. On Wednesday morning Mark ate breakfast with heroic grins, and talked of playing golf in the afternoon, but he hadn't slept well. His eyes were flecked with red. Bone showed under his cheeks. His black had an air of candid mourning. The best joke would be if the thing made a hit, he said. I think that would be a little too ironical, Gertie snapped. This is what you'd call ironical, ain't it? Well, I'm going down to the office for a minute. Don't come. Send for the horses and we'll go riding about eleven. He walked to the walling, was halted a dozen times, and found the antechamber full of people. Some had appointments. He sat talking for an hour, and then started downstairs. But he saw a Cosmo rand on the white floor of the vestibule, slim in a gray furred coat, reading a newspaper. The blue walls of the stair seemed to press Mark's head. He turned back into the office and sent for his house manager. When the man came, Mark said, I'm not going to be here tonight, Billy. Tell anybody that asks I'm sick as a dog and couldn't come. All right, say, sir. Would you mind telling me just why? Mark beamed across the desk and lied. Why, this fellow Dufford that wrote this is a friend of mine, and he's poor as a church mouse. I thought I'd take a chance. The manager shuffled and blurted. It's a damn poor chance. Mighty poor Billy. Well, the show business is a gamble, anyhow. Rand was gone from the vestibule. Mark walked, seething over Broadway and into Sixth Avenue. He must think of something to do to-night. He couldn't sit at home. The flags on the hippodrome wagged to him. He went there and bought two seats. The ticket stayed unmentioned in his pocket all the deadly afternoon. At six he said shyly to Gertie. Think you want to see this to-night, son? Might as well, sir. The sir pleased Mark. It rang respectfully. He stammered. I got a couple of seats for the show at the hippodrome, and... That's good, Gertie said. We needn't dress, then. But Mark sat haunted in the vast theater, watching the stage. He had deserted his own, run from disaster. The walling revenged itself. He saw the misty ceiling wane as lights lowered, and the remote rims of silver mirrors fade in the corners of the gallery. The glow from the stage would show the massed shoulders of women in the black boxes. Cora Boyle would be sitting in the right handbox. She might wear a yellow gown. He would risk seeing that, to be mixed in his dream. It was the best theater of the city, of the world. He blinked at the monstrous evolutions of this chorus. Peered at Gertie, and saw the boy sit mootily, knee over knee, listless from grieving, his arms locked. The time ticked on Mark's wrist. The critics would be filing into the white vestibule, where men must admire the dull blue panels of clear enamel, the clear grooved ceiling, and the hidden lamps. The yellow smoke room would be full. He wanted to be there in the face of derision. A dry aching shook Mark. It was like the past time, when Gertie first went to school, or when Margot had gone to England. The walling was his child. He had desired it beyond any woman. He adored it out of his wretchedness. He pressed his shoulder against Gertie, for the sake of warmth, and Gertie grinned, loyally at him. There was no one so kind as Gertie, who began to tell silly tales when they came home, and sat on Mark's bed smoking cigarettes. In the morning the boy brought up the papers, and said gruffly, Not as bad as I thought. Oh, get out! I bet they're fierce, Mark laughed. Read me some. Gertie dropped the damp sheets on the quilt, glared at them, and dashed his hand against the foot of the bed. He cried, I don't give a damn about what they say about the play. They've no right to talk about you like that. A mince warmth flooded Mark. He sat up and said, Sure they have. For all they know I thought this thing was fine. God bless you, son. He wanted to do something for Gertie directly. Say, for heaven's sakes, brother, those clothes are too thin for winter. We'll run down and order you some, and let's go down to the farm. I ain't seen dad and your mother in a dog's age, and hell, this ain't so bad, Gertie. The thing'll dry up and blow away. We'll bring Captain Salvador in. I've had worse luck on a rabbit hunt. But at Fatesville, where his father asked why Marko hadn't come to say goodbye, Mark was still plagued by visionary glimpses of the walling, half filled by yawning folk, the black boxes empty. The flat country was deep in moist snow. Snow had to be considered. Audiences laugh nowadays at the best paper flakes. He talked to Gertie about it on Saturday morning. Pale blue canvas with the widest light you can get jammed on it. That might work. Mark, if you couldn't have scenery for a play, would you? Mark scoffed. What's a play without scenery? Hey, look at the red car. No, it's a motorbike. A lad on a red motorcycle whipped in a bright streak up the lane, and through a snowball battle of Gertie's brothers, he had a telegram from Mark from the house manager of the walling. No sale for next week. Miss Boyle requests play be withdrawn, instruct. Got her belly full, Mark said, and scribbled a return message ordering, Todgers and Trude's withdrawn, then another to the manager of Captain Salvador and Providence. He told Gertie, now she can't say a thing. Well, let's get back to town, son. We'll have a lot to do, bringing Salvador in next Wednesday. His motor carried them swiftly up New Jersey. Gertie lounged and chattered beside Mark, who couldn't feel triumphant, though he tried. The drive had been made so often with Margo, and now he saw the child in all clarity. Her bright pumps and the silver buckles she so liked stretched on the warmer close to his feet. Her older beauty flickered and faded, like some intervening mist. Pain stabbed and jarred him. The snow of the upland gave out, rain began. When they reached Broadway, its lights were violent and wistful in the swirl above umbrellas. God, what an ugly town, said Gertie. Ain't it? Don't know what people who like something pretty do if it weren't for the shows and the damn movies. They dined in a restaurant, and another manager chaffed Mark about Todgers and Trude's, leaning drunk on the table. And I hear it goes to the storehouse. Yes, but the show business is a gamble, Bill. Ain't it? Say, have you seen this hunk of nothing I've got up at my place? Have you seen it? God, go up and take a look at it. I get a bellyache every time I go near it. Turn in them away, though. Well, here to-day, and hell to-morrow. His treasurer came to meet Mark in the glittering vestibule, where a few men smoked for lonely against the blue panels. Mark glanced at the slip showing the receipts and laughed, commenced talking of Captain Salvador. His force gathered about him. Gertie strolled away. A petty laughter rattled out of the doors and Gertie passed in. The lit stage showed him a sprinkle of heads on the sweep of the seats. There was no one in the boxes. Two ushers were rolling dice by the white arch of the smoke room. A couple of women left the poor audience, and hurried by the boy dejectedly. He walked out through the vestibule, where more men were gathering around Mark's height and the swift happiness of his face as he talked of next week. Gertie marched along the proud front of the theatre, and turned into the alley that led from street to street. One bulb shone above the stage door and sent down a glistening coat for the large black motor standing there. Gertie kept close to the other wall. There was a woman smoking in the limousine. The spark made a heart inside the shadow. Gertie stared, and was eaten by rage against her. He stood staring. The stage door opened. The few performers began to leave. They moved up or down the alley to join the bright motion of the glowing streets outside. Their feet stirred the pools of rain on the pavement. Their voices ebbed and tinkled in the lofty alley. At last a slim man in a gray coat ran from the door and jumped into the black motor which moved now and slid away, jolted into the southward street. Gertie was moving too. When other lights woke him high on the brick wall, an iron shutter graded opening, and men appeared in the fissure. They bellowed down to the old doorkeeper. Ain't them guys from Keynes got here yet? They ain't to come till eleven-fifteen. Hell, it's after! The stagehands cursed merrily. One of them mimicked Rand's English accent to much applause. Then the great drays from the storehouse came grinding along the alley in esteem as the horses snorted. The stagehands and carters swore at each other. The vast screens were slung and handed down. The fleet quality of this failure bit Gertie. He leaned dreary on the wall and saw Mark standing close to him, face raised to the lights, an odd small grin twisting his mouth. Mark did not move or speak. He was thinking confusedly of many things. It was hard to think at all. One of the stagehands whistled a waltz that people liked. The melody caught at Mark's mind and blew it away from the moment, forward and back. He hunted justice. Things went wrong. People weren't kind. Next week the new play would glitter and people would applaud. Gertie might come to write some plays. The best possible plays. He watched the wreck melt. People would forget this. It would sink into shadow. No one would understand, but they would forget. It was trivial in his long success. It horribly hurt him. He had been fooled in love. It was laughable. Things happened so. One must go on and forget about them. One of the horses nade and stamped. A blue spark jetted up from the pavement, above a pool. Here goes nothing. A stagehand yelled, letting down the last screen. The iron shutter closed over the laughter. The carters whined and the drays were back down the alley. The rain fell silently between Mark, the red of the wall making a purple, a wonderful color. The guiding lights went down. Mark sighed and took Gertie's arm. They walked together toward the gleaming crowd of the street, yet feeling this warmth beside him, Mark walked without much pain. The end of the fair rewards by Thomas Beer.