Blue-grass and Broadway 2 – Daviess · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
Blue-grass and Broadway 2Chapter 2
18
Literature · Romance
Blue-grass and Broadway 2
Chapter 2
DaviessEnglish
There is a certain kind of man over whom all other men smile inwardly. The tone of voice in which they speak of him has an affectionate growl, which, once heard, cannot be mistaken. Such a man is apt to cherish what other men call "impossible ideals about women," and it behooves his masculine friends to watch out for him carefully lest he come a cropper. Mr. Dennis Farraday was such a man among men, and Mr. Godfrey Vandeford loved him deeply. They had met when they were both twenty-three, on board a tramp steamer, bound for adventure in South Africa, and in the seven years that had elapsed since then they had spent periods of time together, in various kinds of sports. Killing time on Broadway was about the only sport that they had not tried together. By very solid banking and brokering Mr. Vandeford enjoyed and increased for himself and an aristocratic, Knickerbocker-descended mother a few ancestral millions. Incidentally, he took care of the sole hundred thousand dollars of which Mr. Vandeford's high financiering on Broadway had left him possessed. Mr. Farraday and Mrs. Justus Farraday represented the sole family ties possessed by Mr. Vandeford, and he considered them both most valuable. In fact, the maternal regard of Mrs. Justus Farraday was looked upon by Mr. Vandeford as his chief treasure and sheet-anchor in times of the high winds of life.
"What makes you do it, Van?" questioned Mr. Farraday, as he sat with Mr. Vandeford in the early morning in the latter's rooms after the tumult of the first night of the unsuccessful "Miss Cut-up."
"Excitement," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he put his bare heels, protruding from his Chinese slippers, up on the edge of the mahogany reading-table in his living-room, and began to pull at a long, evil-smelling, briar pipe. "Nothing like it."
"Do you really care for all that noise, those explosions of chorus girls, sweating stage hands, cursing director and cursing star, paint, powder, electricity, paper walls and furniture, call-bells and hand-clapping from boozy critics in front?"
"I do," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, with a glint in his eyes deep back in his head. "And so would you if you had bet about twenty thousand on that combination and could see the people begin to eat it up right before your eyes as you sat in a box and watched 'em. When you've backed your own combination of inferno on riot, it gives you a thrill to stand before the box-office and watch a line of people that stretches to the next block plunk down dollars that they have earned at their own particular combinations of life to see the combination you have made of yours. Why, tears come into my eyes when I see some little, old, dried-up seamstress pay a dollar to sit in the roost to see Gerald Height love the powder off of Violet while she is cursing him under her breath for so doing, and it tickles me under my ribs to see some fat, jolly, lonely, old party buy a front seat two days hand-running to sit and watch Mazie Villines dance over her own head and take the child out to supper afterward in all propriety. It does him good all over after selling white goods in Squeedunck, Illinois, eleven and three-quarter months of every year. It's all to the good, Denny, and I wish you could get the drag of it."
"Perhaps it would be well if I could," agreed Mr. Farraday, as he rose and shook his big, lithe body with the agility of a frolicsome puppy who knows he is going into mischief, and looked cautiously at Godfrey. "Is backing the life of the Violet sport, too?" he ventured.
"Best I know. Took nothing and made it into something in five years. If it bites my hand that's all in the game."
"Same force could beget and train about eleven small Vandefords into pretty good American citizens," Mr. Farraday snapped out, and then backed away.
"Absinthe cocktails ruin the taste for sweet milk. Don't talk about things you know nothing about; thank God for that same ignorance," Mr. Vandeford commanded. "Go to bed and sleep like the cherub you are, while I expiate here with my pipe."
From that conversation it was natural to man nature that the demand for a half-interest in the next Hawtry show would have been made by Mr. Dennis Farraday of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and acceded to with the brotherly reservations already related. The eye-teeth of Mr. Dennis Farraday were very precious to Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and he had the intention of taking great care that their edges should not be dulled. It was well that he did not know that the eleven-fifteen train he had taken in his flight to New York passed the huge, eight-cylinder Surreness of his beloved Jonathan in its race up the beach for the home of the Violet.
Now, when all is said and considered, a large admiration is due and much should be forgiven Miss Violet Hawtry, who, as half-starved Maggie Murphy, had darted out of the gutter into the back stage-door at the age of fifteen, snapped her huge violet eyes with their fringes of black, trilled a vulgar, Irish street song in accompaniment to sundry provocative swayings of her lissome, maturing young body, and thus had made enough impression on her world to hang on by the tips of her fingers until she dropped into the outstretched arms of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, who was prowling around Weehawken and the vicinity for just such ripe fruit as she when he was casting his first musical girl-show for the purpose of some violent excitement after a snowed-in winter in the Klondike.
He had taken her to an old stage-mother he knew, had her thoroughly washed, combed, manicured, dressed, schooled, and had given her the benefit of his respect for five years while she worked up into the star of "Dear Geraldine" with all the might of the Irish eyes and lissome figure and cooing, creamy voice. He had then built Highcliff in the artist's colony of the Beach for the joint domicile of mother and daughter. However, it is easier to bathe, comb, manicure, and luxuriously clothe a body than it is to renovate a soul, and within the Violet Maggie dwelt in all her gutter vigor. It is also safe to say that perhaps it was no little part of the Maggie that the beautiful and haughty Violet threw across the footlights to draw to her the primitive in the hearts of her vast audiences. It was to some extent the wisdom of Maggie that the Violet was using as she prepared for her first encounter alone with Mr. Dennis Farraday as he raced down the moonlit beach to her.
"Not the violet and jet, Susette, but that white embroidered lisle, and take time to sew three inches of tulle around the top of the bodice in front and put folds five inches deep across the back. Let it come just below the shoulder," she commanded, as she commenced the whirlwind of a toilette with which, she had assured the hurrying Dennis, she was already adorned.
"Mais, Mademoiselle--" Susette began.
"He'd shy at too much omitted clothing when we are alone. I'll have to introduce him to myself gradually," she answered the protest, laughing as she tossed her pale, yellow mane high on her head, and dabbed a little curl against her cheek with the rose oil, and made a skilful use of the lip-stick brought by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford from the famed Celeste's.
"He will behold that Mademoiselle Simone dance with very few garments alors," Susette pouted as she laid in the folds of modest tulle.
"But he won't be alone in the moonlight with her, that is, if I can help it," answered the mistress, as she further perfumed and painted the lily of her beauty. "Don't worry, Susette; I'm going to give monsieur the time of his life."
"That is without saying, Mademoiselle," answered Susette, as she slipped the silky fluff over the Violet's head, and fastened the one or two hooks that held it in place over the filmy undergarments in which the Violet stood waiting for its veiling. "Mon Dieu, what a beauty it gives you, and that placing of the tulle is ravissant."
"That is what I meant it to be," laughed the Violet. "There's his car! Bring me that orchid wrap when I ring for it." And leaving the admiration of Susette, the Violet hurried down to drink from the cup of the same vintage she was sure would be offered her by Mr. Dennis Farraday. It was offered.
"It's awfully good of you people to help a poor lonely dub to a pleasant evening," were the words with which the victim greeted the Violet, while his eyes offered the expected portion of admiration as he beheld her bathed in the radiance of the moon.
"Sure the pleasure is ours--or rather mine, poor old Van," she answered, with not a little trepidation well hidden under her rich voice.
"Couldn't you wake him up, the old scout? Let me get to him. I have a way with him I learned in the Nova Scotia woods." Mr. Farraday laughed a big laugh, which had in it the tang of the breeze in the tops of pine-trees. But the Violet was ready for him.
"He's not there for your torture. The poor darling got a telephone message just twenty minutes ago to come back to New York to-night. I've just motored him up the beach to catch the eleven-fifteen train. Some day that tiresome Dolph will follow Van about some play snarl into--into Paradise."
"He did that to-night, didn't he?" asked Mr. Farraday, with a merry laugh as he ruffled his red forelock up off his broad brow, and made himself look like a huge, tame lion.
"Away with your blarney, boy!" laughed the Violet, in return, using her Maggie Murphy form of speech with telling effect, as she often did. "He left a thousand apologies for you," she added, slipping back into her veneer of the--for Maggie--upper world. "And you've had your race down for nothing; poor Simone!"
"Oh, I say, can't we just go on over to supper at the Beach Inn? The Clyde Trevors asked me, and we can have supper with them. Wouldn't you like that? We can tell them about poor Van." He was as eager as a boy in his friendly efforts to mend what he thought must be a broken evening for her.
"I'd love it," answered the Violet, with a flash of her white teeth and violet eyes at him.
After a summons Susette appeared with the alluring orchid garment, and a white film of seed-pearls for her mistress's hair. She assisted the Violet's discreet Japanese butler to put them into the big car, which Mr. Farraday was driving himself, and then stood for a minute watching them hurl themselves away across the white sand.
"Quelle vie!" she muttered to herself as she turned back into the darkened house.
The Beach Inn was aglow and atwinkle and in full laugh as they ascended the steps of the wide veranda hung out over the ocean, where members and guests were having supper at small tables lit with shaded lamps. Men and girls, in bathing suits that were lineal descendants of the scant fig-leaf, were eating and drinking together sparsely because of their intention of taking a midnight plunge in the breakers under the hot moon, while other women in radiant evening garb were almost as scantily attired, though attended by stuffily garbed men. Most of the parties turned and called a laughing greeting to the Violet, for they were the men and women of her world disporting themselves away from Broadway, and Clyde Trevor, who had written the book for "Miss Cut-up," rose and came over to claim his guests.
"Lost Van?" he questioned, as he led them to their seats beside Mrs. Trevor, who had danced fifty thousand dollars out of New York the winter just ended. His voice held a hint of irony, which the Violet got and Mr. Dennis Farraday missed.
"Not quite yet," she said, with a coo at which Trevor smiled, and under his breath he gave her the word, "Good hunting!"
"Thanks."
"Old Van had to hop back to New York on the eleven-fifteen, but we came on to glad with you anyway," Mr. Farraday was saying to Mrs. Trevor, with an ingenuous smile.
"Go to it, baby," commanded Trevor to his wife, as a rich negro melody began to fling its invitation against the roaring call of the ocean, and at his word Simone rose from the seat of Mrs. Trevor and slid out into the cleared space at the head of the steps.
"Just in time," commented Mr. Farraday under his breath, as he turned his chair to watch her drop her silk coat, and float out on the waves of sound just as she would later float on the waves of the ocean after she had plunged from the steps to lead the midnight bathing in the surf, for which the management of the inn paid her the sum of two hundred dollars per plunge.
All of this gaiety and amusement was just a prelude to the ride home in the moonlight, which the Violet took with good Dennis Farraday and during which she discovered that there is such a thing as honor among men about poaching on other men's preserves, and during which, also, the fate of Major Adair, Patricia, Roger, and old black Jeff hung in the balance.
"Just what are we racing?" she questioned as they flew along the beach with rubber tires that just skimmed the hard, white sand.
"A bit fast?" asked Mr. Farraday, with a protective laugh, as he slowed down the flight.
"Let's loaf and talk a while," the Violet answered, with a tentative note of invitation in her voice.
"I had thought you and Van and I would have a great powwow over the play this evening, and it's fierce that he had to get back to that furnace a night like this, but we can limp along on a few ideas without him, maybe. What do you think of 'The Purple Slipper'?" As he set the car at an easy pace he turned and looked down at the lovely face so near his shoulder with a great and extremely boyish enthusiasm, which was very delightful and very irritating to the Violet.
"What do you think about it? You tell first," she said with a smile that answered his enthusiasm adequately and which served to cover with agility the fact that she had not read the play.
"Well, at first it seemed a queer kind of vehicle for you, but as I read on I could see you queening it in all those furbelows of dress as well as adventure and sentiment. It's a little serious in situation, but it is full of comedy adventure in line, and I can just see the audience eat you up in it. I told Van so, and I bought in before I had read more than half the second act. I don't feel as though I could wait to see you in that dinner scene while you hold the enemies of your spouse confounded. I agree with Van that your emotional qualities may exceed your comedy."
"Does Van back my emotional acting against my comedy?" the Violet asked, with barely concealed surprise in her voice.
"He does. He says that 'The Purple Slipper' is going to be the sensation of Broadway for the early fall, and I agree with him. Do you feel as sure of it as he says you are?"
"Yes," answered the Violet, and by her assent in premeditated ignorance of the contents of the play manuscript she put the second cross on the production which made it a double on the fate of Mr. Dennis Farraday as a theatrical producer. However, that fact may have been balanced by the fact that it was the third cross on the fate of Miss Patricia Adair. Crosses on fates in the world of Broadway go in singles, doubles, and threes, and no man can tell their exact significance.
"Good!" answered Mr. Dennis Farraday, with another and still broader smile of gratification and admiration of the Violet as an artist--a smile which further infuriated, but equally inspired her. "And what a grand time we'll all have putting it across! I'm going to help Van see actors for the cast on Friday, and I'm going to sit in on rehearsals straight through. I'm due a month's vacation, and I'm going to have my mail from the office relayed back to New York from the yacht off Nantucket so that bunch of money grubbers can't find me. Think of having the honor of being co-producer for Violet Hawtry for my first shot!"
All of which enthusiasm and admiration went like wine to the head of the Violet, though it left her heart uncomfortably cold; and beautiful, cool moonlight heats the heart of a fair woman when it is not more than two feet away from that of a brave and fair man.
"Sure I'll make it a success for you, man dear!" Maggie Murphy in the Violet made an attempt to put a glow into the situation, using the brogue that was like rich cream poured over peaches, as she snuggled her bare shoulder, from which the orchid wrap had slipped, with a natural little shiver against good Dennis's wheel arm.
"You and Van are trumps to take me in for the fun, and I'm no end grateful to you both," was all she got for her manoeuver.
"Yes--Van is a dear," she hedged in a matter-of-fact voice.
"Yes, and I suppose after my co-first night with him the old scout will stop baiting me about blinking the white lights. I always have been obliged to beat Van at any game before I could rest in peace." And at the thought of getting in at his David big Jonathan laughed heartily just as he began to slow up the car for the turn along the sea-wall that led under the porch of Highcliff.
"Have you ever competed with him in the biggest game of all?" the Violet asked softly, as the car swept into the shadow and stopped by the broad stone steps.
"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Farraday, with a countenance so open and a voice so hearty that the Violet, used to artifice from everybody, suspected that they could not be real, and this suspicion made her give up the game for the time being. She laughed with a mocking sweetness as she sprang out of the car and to the top of the steps before he could help her.
"Some day I'll tell you what I mean," she mocked from the dark doorway. "Good-night!" And while he stood at the bottom step looking up at her, she vanished into the darkness of the house, leaving him out in the cool moonlight, a fate very different from what she had been planning for him for several hours.
"Just as old Van said, they are nothing but children, and I blame him about trifling with her more than I thought I did; she's a dear thing and a little pathetic in her anxiety to make good for him. Scout has just got to do something about it all. She's a fine and devoted woman. And beautiful--whee-ugh!" The big thirty-year-old boy ended his soliloquy with a whistle, which showed that in a measure he had appreciated the dangers of the last hours. One of the eternal questions is how can a mere man be so wicked--or so good as he is often discovered by temptation to be?
"I'll have to be publicly and finally severed from Van before I annex him, the boob," was the soliloquy of the Violet as she prepared for her slumber of beauty. Another question is how thin a veneer of feminine beauty weathers indefinitely the wash of circumstances.
Then after that moonlit night in August Fate spun her web, which she called "The Purple Slipper," rapidly, and for a number of the people involved life became very hectic. The center of the whirl was Mr. Adolph Meyers, though he was safely functioning with power behind the throne occupied by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's nonchalant and elegantly clad figure.
"But Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is never before that you have produced a play without a reading," he remonstrated on the morning of the day set for the picking of the cast from those probably suitable chosen by Chambers, the invaluable agent of the great army of those theatrically employed. "Actors will be here from twelve o'clock even to six. How will a choice be made?"
"I'm trusting to your hunch about the purple manuscript falling on the day of the Violet letter, Pops," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. "Make out a little memorandum against each name that tells me what to pick. I like the idea of going it blind that way: it may be lucky. And, Pops, split that five-thousand-dollar check of Mr. Farraday's in three ways. Pay Lindenberg two-fifty as his advance on the scenery for 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' provided he furbishes up something that will do for the little road sally of Violet's spanking-machine, to be emblazoned as 'The Purple Slipper' on the cheapest black bills ever run off in New York. Give Hugh Willings a thousand advance for the music of 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' but make him write as many as six waltz songs even if you are sure the first is a hit; it is good to make people, specially any kind of artists, work for the money you pay 'em. The other fifteen hundred you had better put off by itself as a starter on the Violet's gowns. She likes to pay an Irish woman with a French name three hundred dollars for six dollars' worth of chiffon sewed with seventy-five cents' worth of silk."
"What is for costumes for the 'Purple Slipper'?"
"Oh, any old dolling up will do for that. The women can wear what they've got and the men borrow or rent." With a wave of the cigarette in his hand, Mr. Vandeford dismissed the scenic effects of the play for whose début Miss Elvira Henderson was concocting a dream costume to adorn the author for receiving triumphal plaudits.
"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is a costume play of a period," the humble power behind the throne pleaded.
"Oh, is it? Then rent the nearest layout to its date that Grossmidt has for all of 'em in a lump, and make him give you a bargain. Tell him they won't be worn more than two weeks. I guess Violet will be in line by that time." With which significant order Mr. Godfrey Vandeford turned from the anxious Mr. Meyers to answer the tinkling telephone at his elbow. In a second he was speaking to the most eminent stage director on Broadway.
"Yes, this is Godfrey Vandeford, Bill."
"Yes. Called to know if you would like to stage a little show for me right away."
"Yes. I'm going to give Hawtry a little canter before 'The Rosie Posie Girl.' New line for her, and doubtful. Like to take hold for a pittance?"
"Oh, yes, that three hundred a week for the 'Posie Girl' goes, of course, but this play is just a Hawtry whim that I have got to let her get out of her system. One hundred a week is my limit, and you ought to do it for seventy-five. You can sit in your chair all the time for all I care."
"Now you get me--a hundred it is. Let her have her head and work off steam before we start 'The Rosie Posie.' Yes, Willings is doing the Rosie songs for us. They'll be hot stuff."
"Yes, Corbett's making sketches for 'The Rosie Posie' scenery now. We'll start 'The Purple Slipper' on Monday. Yes, that's its blooming name. By!"
"Is it William Rooney to stage 'The Purple Slipper'?" asked Mr. Meyers, with a shrug of his narrow shoulders as he began pecking out on his machine the notes that were to guide his chief in picking the artists who were to embody the characters in the play founded on the life romance of that old grandame Madam Patricia Adair of colonial Kentucky.
"Why do you reckon Samuel Goldstein likes to build up a reputation for himself on Broadway by the name of William Rooney, Pops?" inquired Mr. Vandeford, with the idle curiosity of a free and untroubled mind.
"It is the prejudice against Hebrews for a reason," answered Mr. Meyers, with a glint in his gem-like eyes and a wave of color flushing across his high, scholarly forehead.
"Well, the top crust of the whole show business is Hebrew, and I should think the bunch of you would be proud of the fact. I'm even proud that a man named Adolph Meyers runs this whole company, and me included," said Mr. Vandeford, without taking the trouble to note the wave of gratified pride, devotion, and embarrassment that swept over the countenance of his faithful henchman. "Now I'll get a little booking for your 'Purple Slipper,' and that is all you need expect me to do, except shoulder all the loss I haven't shunted on Denny."
"It is to be a win, not a loss," murmured the loyal Adolph under his breath, with a glance of affection at the absorbed Mr. Godfrey Vandeford.
This vow of Mr. Adolph Meyers shows that it is as dangerous to arouse the affection and loyalty of one genius as it is to incur the anger of another.
The casting of "The Purple Slipper" was a joy to Mr. Dennis Farraday. He was to pay well for it in the future, but it was conducted in pure glee. He sat beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford in the latter's long, Persian carpeted, soft-tinted, and famous-actor-photograph-bedecked, private office beside that eminent producer, and watched the strong light from over their shoulders reveal the points of the men and women who came in to exhibit themselves. From the moment they entered the door, through the walk or waddle or lope or saunter with which they approached their fate to the expressions of joy or disappointment which their emotions showed under Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's grilling, Mr. Farraday was deeply interested.
"You know, Bébé, it is not necessary to put on more than a hundred extra pounds when in training for the heavy mother," he genially admonished a very large lady of uncertain age--an age artfully covered with rouge, powder, pencil, and lip-stick--who sank into the chair facing him with a pathetic remnant of the former lissome grace which had got her as far as being a dependable leading woman to any star who could go her a few points better.
"Well, it's not from living on large salaries from you that I have put on the pounds, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford!" she answered with a jovial laugh.
"Still eating half of old Wallace Kent's salary checks?" Mr. Vandeford demanded. This seemed a lack of delicacy to Mr. Dennis Farraday, who blushed with a color equal to that which rose in the cheeks of the old beauty as her eyes snapped and she rose to her feet.
"As you know, he's feeding a squab chicken at Rector's to get her into the broiler class. Good-day, sir," and she prepared to sweep out of the office with all the fire she had used in many a queenly situation.
"Good old Bébé," Mr. Vandeford said, as he rose and put a restraining arm around her broad waist. "I was just teasing to see what was smouldering. How'll seventy-five a week, with costumes of frills and powdered hair, do you? Thirty sides and the center of the stage four times." "Sides," meaning single sheets of dialogue, puzzled Mr. Farraday, but he made a mental note to seek enlightenment.
"I haven't had a part this winter, Godfrey," she laughed, and sobbed on Mr. Vandeford's shoulder. "I'm living in a suitcase at Mrs. Pinkham's."
"Stop and get a twenty-five check from Dolph, and be on the job Monday at the Barrett Theatre. Now run!" Mr. Vandeford gave Miss Bébé Herne's two hundred pounds of avoirdupois a gentle shove toward the door, which hint she took with an alacrity that had in it a great deal of left-over grace.
"Supported a lot of big guns for years. Knows her business better than any actress on Broadway," said Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to his horrified confrère as the door closed behind the old beauty. "Picked up Wallace Kent when he was a piffling, faded juvenile, and taught him to be a good elderly support worth his hundred to any director. He's left her flat for a pony in the Big Show, old hound!"
"Pretty raw," observed Mr. Dennis Farraday, with a great deal of emotion very poorly concealed in his sympathetic voice.
"Oh, she's had her fling in life! Dopes a bit, but can be depended upon. Next!"
This time there entered a husky, young brute of a boy with shoulders broad enough to run a double-decker plough. His hair was long and sleeked close to his well-shaped head, but his fine mouth and chin sagged, and his eyes were bold and sophisticated. In costume he was the glass and mould of Broadway fashion.
"Reginald Leigh," he announced himself in a nice voice, and, as he spoke, took from a case a card and laid it on the edge of Mr. Vandeford's desk.
"Experience, Mr. Leigh?" asked Mr. Vandeford, still standing and with not an atom of encouragement in his whole body from head to toe.
"College dramatics and last summer in stock at Buffalo. I've worked in two pictures for the Universal."
"Heavy juvenile at fifty a week," offered Mr. Vandeford, with an indifferent glance up from the paper in his hand prepared for his guidance by the indefatigable Mr. Meyers. The word "handsome" was typed in the offer from which Mr. Vandeford made to Mr. Leigh.
"My price is a hundred, Mr. Vandeford," answered Mr. Leigh, very pleasantly, and he took a grip on his hat and stick that was meant to convey the idea of immediate departure.
"Sorry," answered Mr. Vandeford, with a finality that staggered Mr. Dennis Farraday; for the youngster's looks and charm were so evident that it pained him to see "The Purple Slipper" lose them. "Costumes historical, furnished," added Mr. Vandeford, with increased indifference.
"Oh, in that case--" murmured the boy, almost, but not quite, unleashing his eagerness.
"Just leave your telephone number with Mr. Meyers in the outer office, please. Good-morning, Mr. Leigh," was the answer his concession got along with the dismissal in the "good-morning," which was spoken in such a tone that it was obeyed in short order.
"That is a find," said Mr. Godfrey Vandeford to the gasping Mr. Dennis Farraday. "Handsome young chaps who have any kind of manliness are hard to find these days. Too busy to be actors."
"Why didn't you engage him?" further gasped his partner in the adventure of "The Purple Slipper."
"I'll let him cool his heels, to get some of the know-it out of his system. Dolph will make him come around and beg in less than twenty-four hours."
"See here, Van, these people are artists to whom you are trusting your money and reputation as a producer, and you treat them like--"
"The foolish children that they are," interrupted Mr. Vandeford. "Next!" and he pressed a button under his desk that buzzed for Mr. Meyers's ears alone.
The next three applicants were girls, who respectively giggled, glowered, and simpered. Mr. Godfrey Vandeford chose the two who glowered and simpered and got rid of the giggler by referring her telephone number to Mr. Adolph Meyers.
"That second that you sent away was the prettiest of the bunch," commented Mr. Dennis Farraday, with interest that had survived to that point with undiminished intensity.
"Not at home under that little cocked hat. That giggle was the whole bag of tricks," instructed Mr. Vandeford. "Got any men out there, Pops?" he asked through the telephone to Mr. Adolph Meyers.
Immediately there entered a debonair, very handsome, and sleek gentleman of uncertain age.
"Hello, Kent, want to support Bébé in a costume play for a hundred a week?" asked Mr. Vandeford, with not an instant's greeting in answer to that gentleman's cordial good-morning.
"In New York or on the road?" questioned Mr. Kent, with an assurance that he tried to make bold.
"To the devil if I send you there," was the answer he got straight off the bat.
"A hundred with costumes?"
"With costumes."
"Done."
"See Dolph; but not over ten-dollar advance to save your hide."
"He's giving fifty."
"To whom?"
"Bébé."
"He did that because he knew that you'd get half of what he gave her. Ten's your limit."
"All right. Good-morning!"
"Barrett on Monday morning."
"All right!"
With which Mr. Kent rapidly made his exit.
"Old reprobate! But he does feed the lines to his opposite, and Bébé happy is worth twice Bébé in a grouch. You see what the whole blamed thing is like and--" Mr. Vandeford was interrupted by the tinkle of the telephone at his elbow.
"Godfrey Vandeford speaking."
"When did you get in?"
"Not busy at all."
"The Claridge?"
"Right away."
"Haven't seen or heard from him in two days."
"Right over. By!"
From overhearing, as he was forced to do, this one-sided conversation, how could Mr. Dennis Farraday imagine that Violet Hawtry had come into sultry New York seeking him to devour and that his keeper was rushing away from his presence to his defense?
"You and Pops engage the rest, Denny. You see the trick now. Nothing left important but what Dolph puts down on this paper as 'woman support for character parts with looks.' Try your hand, old man, and if you pick a flivver there are plenty more to cast in and her out. By!" And before Mr. Farraday could protest he was left alone in the inquisition-room. And as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford went down in an elevator on his way to the Claridge to deliver the next instalment of the spanking of Miss Violet Hawtry, he passed a live wire going up opposite him and met one walking down Forty-second Street, neither of which he could be expected to recognize, as he had never seen either.
The first of the two dynamos walked into the office of the Vandeford Producing Company and failed to thrill Mr. Adolph Meyers in the least, a fact for which he could never afterward account. He motioned her into the inner office, and left her to her fate and Mr. Dennis Farraday.
"Good-morning, Mr. Vandeford," she said in a queer, throaty kind of voice that had in it a "come hither" of unusual quality, which suggested that in her production a Romney woman might have loved a Greek dancer well. She stood at ease before the long desk with a grace that was unmistakably that of complete assurance.
"I'm not Mr. Vandeford, but his--his partner, Dennis Farraday. Er--er, won't you be seated?" and with the happy, considerate manner of his that he had always used to all women, he offered her his own chair and appropriated the one of authority that Mr. Vandeford always occupied.
"Thank you," answered the young woman, with an ease equal to his own. And then they both waited while regarding each other seriously. Finally the tension relaxed and Dennis Farraday gave a big, jovial laugh while he made his admission:
"I don't know a thing about the play business. I'm just sitting in with Mr. Vandeford for the fun of it."
"An angel?" asked the girl, with a laugh that somehow accorded with his.
"That's it. He's gone out and left me to--to cut my eye teeth."
"On me?"
"Looks that way," and again they both laughed.
"Maybe I can help you," volunteered the girl, after the laugh. "I am Mildred Lindsey, and Mr. Chambers sent me in to see if I could support Miss Hawtry."
"Er--er, what experience?" Mr. Dennis Farraday managed to ask by fishing into his impressions of the last two hours.
"Five years in stock on the Pacific coast, two years in towns between, and two weeks in a flivver here on Broadway early in the spring. Dead broke, hungry, and about ready to make good for some manager." As the answer was fired point-blank at him, Mr. Dennis Farraday seemed to see a fire of psychic hunger blaze as high as that of wolfish, physical agony in the girl's eyes.
Mr. Dennis Farraday eagerly searched on the paper of guidance in casting made out by Mr. Adolph Meyers for the benefit of Mr. Vandeford and found "woman support," and opposite the item of salary, seventy-five dollars. He doubled.
"How would a hundred and fifty a week with costumes do for salary? You can have a couple of weeks advance right now if you like," he said in an easy, nonchalant manner as much like that of Mr. Vandeford as he could muster, for those fires of hunger in the girl's eyes were searching holes in Mr. Dennis Farraday's pocket.
"It would save my life--but--but could you tell me a little about the part? I might not be able to play it." There were both hope and fear in her compelling voice.
The question found Mr. Dennis Farraday unprepared by any precedent established in the two foregoing hours, for between the artists and Mr. Vandeford there had been alone the matter of salary to be settled and not one of them had inquired whether they were being engaged to play a Billy Sunday or an Ethiopian slave. But in another way it found him better prepared than would have been Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. He had read the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper" and Mr. Vandeford had not.
"Well, to my uninitiated way of thinking, the supporting part is about as good as the leading one," said Mr. Dennis Farraday, and forthwith he launched out on an eager, enthusiastic resumé of the plot and atmosphere, even quoting lines of "The Purple Slipper." And as he talked Mildred Lindsey leaned across the table toward him and fairly drank in his words.
"I see--it's wonderful how she keeps his enemies at bay during the first half of the banquet--while she waits. It's great!" Her enthusiasm expressed in her wonderful voice urged Mr. Dennis Farraday on and on to a fuller exposition of the play and its beauties.
"You see, the sister is really the one to carry the plot. It is on her that Rosalind leans, and she has to be all there in her quiet way."
"Yes, I see, and it can be made--" At this juncture the eye of Mr. Adolph Meyer was inserted to a crack of the door and then removed as he shook his head in puzzled doubt. He had intended to intrude to the rescue of his co-employer's inexperience, but he decided that the time was not ripe by one glance at Mr. Farraday's eager face, surmounted by its rampant, red leonine locks.
"I have pity for Mr. Farraday," Mr. Meyers remarked to himself as he seated himself at his machine, not knowing that in a very few minutes the second live wire would arrive in the office and this time he would get a shock himself.
For a half-hour he wrote on, while the animated voices boomed and purled and bubbled in the office beyond the crack of the door he had left open to observe the first lull that might call for relief. Then he got his shock.
The office door opened timidly, and somebody entered so quietly that she stood beside Mr. Adolph Meyers before he had lifted his head.
It was the author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind," now "The Purple Slipper," and she looked every inch of it! Miss Elvira, the genius guided by "The Feminist Review," had done her best with the blue-silk suit, and Fifth Avenue could have done no better.
"May I see Mr. Vandeford? I am Miss Patricia Adair," she announced in a rich and calm Southern voice and manner.
Mr. Adolph Meyers sprang to his feet with the impact of the shock.
"Mr. Vandeford is not in the office, Madam, at present," he managed to gasp. Then he followed her big, gray eyes as they rested on the crack of the door through which the boom of Mr. Dennis Farraday's voice mingled with the excited chime of Miss Lindsey's laughter, and noticed as though for the first time that it had emblazoned upon it in large, gilt letters, "Mr. Vandeford. Private."
"It is Mr. Dennis Farraday, the partner of Mr. Vandeford, engaging actors, Miss, in his absence. Will you walk in?" and in almost the first panic in which he had ever indulged Mr. Adolph Meyers showed the proud young author into the sanctum sanctorum from which he had barricaded many an enraged virago who had threatened his life if he kept her from an appeal to the manager.
"It is Miss Adair, the author of your play, Mr. Farraday, would speak with you," he announced across the long room, bowed in a way he had never done in his life, and shut the door behind Miss Adair.
It is interesting to wonder how it would have affected the end of the whole matter if Patricia Adair had walked in behind the giggler when Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, with all his experience with authors, was seated on the throne instead of poor inexperienced Dennis Farraday, enjoying "The Purple Slipper" with his newly engaged, supporting lady.
"By jove, Miss Adair, it is little bit of all right that you should come in and catch Miss Lindsey and me chewing joy-rags over our--your play. Let me introduce Miss Lindsey, who is to support Miss Hawtry in the part of Harriet." And bonnie Dennis, the angel, beamed with pure joy at the good time he was having as a producer. At the very sight and sound of him poor Patricia, who for half an hour had been wandering up and down Forty-second Street, looking for the tallest building on it, took both comfort and delight, and her sea-gray eyes with stars in their depths returned the beam of his eyes.
"It's so wonderful that you like my play and are going to produce it--and you to act in it, Miss Lindsey," she said as she seated herself in the chair Mr. Farraday had drawn up for her. She looked at them both with respectful awe in her eyes and in her cheeks a flush of color that came and went as she spoke, in a way that at first puzzled Miss Lindsey as to its brand and then in turn awed her as she decided it was the real thing. The blue-silk triumph of Miss Elvira and "The Review" also puzzled her for a moment, but she put it down to some little Fifth Avenue shop that only débutantes and authors of plays could afford, and took it in with delight at its exquisite detail.
"I think it is a dandy play, as Mr. Farraday has been telling it to me. Crooks and--and cut-ups are about done for," said Miss Lindsey. She gave a quick glance at Mr. Farraday, to see if he resented the allusion to Mr. Vandeford's recent failure.
"Right-o!" agreed Mr. Farraday, with a sympathetic smile at her allusion, which passed over the head of the lady from Adairville, Kentucky.
Then ensued more than a half-hour of the most enthusiastic discussion of plays in general, and Miss Adair's in particular. Both Mr. Dennis Farraday and Miss Mildred Lindsey were impressed with the fact that the author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind" had learned her business from the most erudite sources, and they talked Shakespeare and Fielding until they at last wound themselves up into a complete pause.
Miss Adair broke the strain.
"I'm awfully hungry, and I don't know where to go to get something to eat," she said, with exactly the same tone of confidence she had used in asking old Jeff for a cold muffin in between the meals of her eighth summer.
"By Jove, we are all hungry! You girls come with me," exclaimed Mr. Dennis Farraday, as he jumped to his feet and looked around for his hat.
"Thank you, but I think I had better go home to--to see about--" Miss Lindsey was faltering with the embarrassment of those who are both proud and hungry, when food is offered them socially.
"Nonsense! You are coming over to the Claridge with Miss Adair and me for a bite. Then you can come back by here and see Dolph.--Dolph, make out a check for Miss Lindsey's advance. Shall we say one or two hundred, Miss Lindsey?" Dennis Farraday was in his element when doing the breezy protective to two girls at once.
"One hundred, please," answered Miss Lindsey, with color mounting to her cheeks that underpainted that already there. She smiled with amusement at the surprise that manifested itself for an instant on the round face of Mr. Meyers that an actress should not "grab" all offered her and then plead for more. "But I really do feel that I had better not--go to luncheon, for I am--"
"Please do! I'd rather you would," the eminent author urged, and she clung to the show girl in a way that showed Dennis Farraday, accustomed to the women of her world, that vague proprieties were hovering beside the gates that were opening for Patricia from her old world into her new.
"You'll have to come, Miss Lindsey, to celebrate, or we shall think you are not all for the play," Mr. Farraday said with a finality in his voice that settled the matter.
And the three of them scudded along a few blocks of the sun-steamed streets into the coolness of the Claridge, also into the heart of a situation that had been seething for an hour between Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and Miss Violet Hawtry.
"How wonderful of you, Van dear, to find me such a play at the eleventh and three-quarters hour!" had been the volley that Violet had fired at him.
"Glad you like it," he had parried, feeling sure that she was jockeying with him for position for the clinch.
"Dennis Farraday told me that you were backing my emotional handling even more than my comedy scenes. Could you for once be playing square with me and really looking forward to my development in getting this--this rather remarkable kind of a play for me?"
"I've done my best for you for five years, Violet," he quietly answered the insult, as he looked across the empty white tables that stretched away from Violet's favorite and reserved seat in the black and gold dining-room.
"'Miss Cut-up,' for instance?"
"There were several ways to put that play across. You had your way in every particular. Mine might have succeeded," was his calm answer.
"The really amusing thing about you is that you don't at all know how little brains you have," was the polite broadside delivered him as Violet began to sip the clear coffee from her cup.
"Same to you," was the reply she received. Godfrey spoke in a good-natured tone of voice. "Now, what did you come to town to talk about--'The Purple Slipper'?"
"Why did you leave Highcliff like a thief in the night?"
"Did you read the deeds Dolph gave you when he went up to pack my personal effects?"
"Yes, thanks! I suppose you consider Highcliff the price of your freedom?"
"And cheap at that."
"Then why not turn me over to Weiner?" Violet asked in a dangerous tone of voice that made Mr. Vandeford glance around with apprehension to see who would witness the explosion if it occurred.
"I tried to buy Denny off yesterday, but you fastened 'The Purple Slipper' firmly in his head, maybe his heart, the other evening, and it would be like taking candy from a child. Maybe you can--can influence him to let go--if I give you the chance." There was something coolly insulting in his voice that told Violet he had surmised her intentions and the failure of her assault on his big Jonathan.
"Your usual impertinence! I'll get him yet, just to spite you. I'll go in and play that 'Purple Slipper' to win, and--"
"Again Miss Adair breaks in on enthusiasm for her play." Dennis Farraday's big voice boomed right at the elbows of the embattled pair. "Look who's here, Van!"
Mr. Godfrey Vandeford looked up quickly, and as quickly rose to his feet. And with one glance into slate-gray eyes behind long black lashes--eyes filled with awed, worshipful gratitude to him--his heart rose in his breast and all but flitted out upon his sleeve.
"Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford, the producer of your play," good Dennis flourished. "And Miss Violet Hawtry! In fact, the whole happy family!"
