CHAPTER VII

The first two weeks of September spent in torrid New York were a strange

period of time to have projected itself into the calm life of Miss

Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Suddenly she found herself a cog

screwed tight into a rapid-fire piece of machinery that was running at

top speed night and day, by name, "The Purple Slipper."

For long hours she sat in the coolness of that stage-box and held her

breath while she threw her whole self into the building of the play,

which so fascinatingly was and was not hers. And through all those

hours, close at her side, between her and the big dim theater, sat Mr.

Godfrey Vandeford, with his arm across the back of her chair and his

eager face close to hers and tilted at the same angle. Her slightest

murmur or his lowest whisper caught and was answered, and they almost

seemed to be breathing one breath, so absorbed were they in the destiny

of their mutual adventure. Like all women of her kind, Patricia Adair

had known men only through a cloud, which sex traditions had firmly held

between her and them, and Godfrey Vandeford was the first man she had

encountered since she had slipped outside of its deadening density into

a world where men and women endeavored together first, and left their

sentinel undertakings to a fitting secondary time and place. In all

sincerity she accepted him as a co-worker and was as happy working with

him as it was possible for a woman to be. She specially liked being

beside him in the office, and watched him settle the details of the

running the big machine smoothly, from the hiring of the property-man to

the firing of three successive stage-carpenters.

"Real eats, Mr. Vandeford?" the former had inquired one morning.

"Brown-bread turkey, nice and tasty, good crackers, but soda-pop and so

forth for booze. Remember, they've got to face it, we hope, many weeks;

don't turn their stomachs so they'll all gag."

"I see, sir, I see. I fed 'Maple Leaves' for two years, and they all et

every night and gimme a purse when it closed to go to London."

"Goes!"

"Brown-bread turkey sounds nice. I'm hungry," said Miss Adair, as the

good-providing property-man departed.

"Pop is going to bring us a piece of pie and a bottle of milk from the

automat," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he began putting busy stabs with

the press pencil on a pile of papers. "I ought to send him to get Denny

to motor you for a real feed in the cool somewhere, but I want you

here." With perfect unconcern, he went on checking the list the

property-man had left him. He had ceased trying to decide the meaning of

the flutter which he was not sure Miss Adair really gave when she was

pleased. He was too busy to think about anything but the rush and roar

of the machinery of "The Purple Slipper," so he just kept Miss Adair so

near him for all the waking hours of the day that he could have no

occasion to have his thoughts distracted by worrying over just what

might be befalling her. Day after day he extracted her from the Y. W. C.

A. at ten o'clock A. M., fed her and Miss Lindsey coffee and rolls and

berries just any place that they happened to see (often he even ate with

the two girls in the big empty cafeteria at the institution), lunched

with her in the same haphazard fashion, sought a cool and quiet spot to

give her dinner, and a ride on a country road, turned her into the big

safety at about eleven o'clock, and went to bed to sleep the sleep of

the interestedly absorbed.

The few evenings that Miss Adair spent with Mr. Gerald Height Mr.

Vandeford did not find repose so early or with such ease. Also, his

awakening on those mornings after was not so joyous, and he arrived at

the Y. W. C. A. fifteen and twenty minutes too early upon each occasion.

However, his time was well spent in chatting with the brisk young

secretary, and his anxiety was entirely relieved each time by finding

the look intact in the gray eyes raised to his in eager greeting after

the prolonged absence of fourteen hours, when the usual separation was

about ten.

"We went out to a place called the Beach Inn last night, and whom do you

suppose we saw there?" she demanded on one of the mornings after, over

her bowl of halved peaches.

"Mr. and Mrs. Devil?" he asked, with a sparkle breaking through the

frown with which he had instantly greeted her mention of that gay beach

resort.

"No; Miss Hawtry and Mr. Farraday. She wasn't nice to us at all, but Mr.

Height says she always treats him badly when they are rehearsing

together. I think Mr. Height is perfectly wonderful to her on the

stage. He's so gentle and kind; but then he's that in real life, isn't

he?"

"Is he?" growled Mr. Vandeford over his corn-flakes.

"Yes, and he's so just and fine in the way he speaks about everybody. He

told me how poor Miss Hawtry used to be and how you pushed her along

until she could buy that lovely house we passed, in which the Trevors

are staying while she is in town. It is hard on you, too, not to be out

there boarding with them and her instead of in this heat."

"Did Height say that I--I boarded--out there?" demanded Mr. Vandeford,

pushing his coffee-cup away from him with a sudden snap.

"Yes, he said you stayed out there in the summer always, and--"

"We're late," interrupted Mr. Vandeford, snapping his watch with the

same temper he had used on his coffee-cup. "Bring that saucer of peaches

along and eat it in the car."

"I'll take an orange instead," assented Miss Adair, as with all

good-nature and in all naturalness she deserted the last half of the

rosy peach, took an orange from the bowl before her and stood up to go

out to the car, which Valentine had parked in the shadow of the building

opposite.

"You kid, you!" scoffed Mr. Vandeford, with an ache in his heart, but

thanksgiving for that same youthful unsophistication. "Height or

somebody will get it all across to her, and then what'll I do?" he

growled to himself as he followed her into the car.

"And I saw that Mazie--Mazie woman there, too, with a terrible-looking

man that has written ever so many plays that are successful." Mr.

Vandeford was devoutly thankful that Mr. Grant Howard's name had not

stuck in the consciousness of the author of "The Purple Slipper." "I--I

was introduced to them too--because you know you said that I must--must

accept broad standards, and I did--last night." Miss Adair looked away,

but Mr. Vandeford could see that her little ears, set close against her

small head, with their tips covered by a smooth band of hair, grew rosy.

"What?" he gasped, uncertain as to what she meant.

"Talked to that--that playwright and--and drank some champagne. I like

cider better, but Mr. Height ordered it, and I thought--"

Here the car stopped, and Valentine was at the door. Valentine never

failed to be at the door instantly when Miss Adair was in Mr.

Vandeford's car, because his French soul rejoiced within him for thus

serving a grand dame.

"Rooney is on the last lap of the last act, and then he'll begin to

polish the whole for dress rehearsals," Mr. Vandeford said as he held

the curtains of their box aside for her to enter.

"And Mr. Height told me, too, that the Trevors had--"

"Hush!" commanded Mr. Vandeford, becoming the stern producer, because he

felt that he could stand no more of Mr. Height at the Beach Inn, though

he began to listen intently to that same gentleman and Bébé Herne in the

beginning of the great scene of the now authorless play. The anxieties

passed from him, and in a moment he was in harness again with his author

and running in perfect unison.

"Cut it off, Height, cut it off!" commanded Mr. Rooney, and he ran his

hands into his shock of black hair, which stood up all over his head

like a black, sooty mop. "That scene needs something. It isn't big and

simple enough. What did she say to him in your first layout, miss?" he

demanded of Miss Adair, for the first time acknowledging to the company

the presence of the author of their play at the rehearsals. "Can you

remember?"

"Yes," answered Miss Adair, with the home-made color blazing in her

cheeks and fires in her gray eyes as she rose in the box, and gave the

six lines as she had written them. Her lovely, slurring, Blue-grass

voice made the whole company smile with pleasure.

"That's it! That's it! That's real people jawing and not a lot of smarty

guff. Put that in, Fido, and write it in, Miss Herne," commanded Mr.

Rooney, without any form of thanks to the accommodating and forgiving

author.

And truth to say the author of "The Purple Slipper" did not notice his

omission. She was in such joy at having something of the "big scene"

express what she had intended that she was clasping one of Mr.

Vandeford's hands in both hers and holding on tight to keep from

shedding tears of joy.

"What did I tell you?" he asked, taking the two nervously clutched

little hands into his warm, strong ones, unseen in the shadow of the

box. "You keep getting things across to Bill by letting him ask you for

what he wants. See?"

"Yes, and I'm always glad when I do as you tell me," she whispered, with

her lips almost against his ear as they both turned back to the stage

and watched their machine begin to run on greased wheels. Mr. Vandeford

thought of the Beach Inn, Mazie, the bottle of champagne, and Mr. Gerald

Height, and groaned inwardly.

The last week of the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper" was a hectic

rush, the like of which Miss Adair had never imagined. She had gone out

again for the week-end to Mrs. Farraday's, up in Westchester, and this

time Mr. Vandeford drove out on Sunday for tea and crape myrtle with Mr.

Dennis Farraday, and, he was surprised to note again, Miss Mildred

Lindsey. The day passed like an oasis in the midst of a desert storm,

and Mr. Vandeford had the pleasure of making all arrangements for Mrs.

Farraday, Mr. and Mrs. Van Tyne, and several other old Manhattaners, who

had fallen under the spell of the young Kentuckian who had in an off

moment perpetrated "The Purple Slipper," to go to Atlantic City the

following week to be upon the spot for the opening of the play. Suites

in the great new hotel were engaged by long-distance telephone,

time-tables discussed, and trains settled upon by the time tea was over

and the golden sun had let the twilight purple the rosy plumes of the

huge myrtle hedges. In the dusk Valentine brought Mr. Vandeford's car

from the garage and Mrs. Farraday's chauffeur drove out Mr. Dennis

Farraday's beloved Surreness. Miss Lindsey said her farewell, and it

again surprised Mr. Vandeford to see the gracious kiss Mrs. Farraday put

upon the dusky red of the beautiful Western girl's cheek, while good

Dennis stood smilingly by in the friendliest delight. Then a wistful

sigh from the talented young author by his side claimed his instant

attention.

"What is it?" he asked, with no attempt to control the tenderness in his

voice, though the dusk hid that in his eyes.

"I want to go back to town with you," she answered him, with a little

catch in her voice. "I feel so far away from you and--and IT, up here."

"You shall," he answered, and turned toward Mrs. Farraday, who was

coming across the grass towards them with a huge sheaf of myrtles for

his car flower-baskets in her arms. "I wonder if you'll let me take my

author back to town in a hurry to-night, Mater Farraday," he pleaded,

with the affectionate smile in both his voice and eyes that he had

learned to use in coaxing her since the days ten years ago when she had

begun to mother him along with big Dennis. "I--I sorter--sorter need

her."

Mrs. Farraday looked at them both with a keenness under the affection in

her glance, and then laughed merrily.

"Yes, go with him, Patricia," she commanded. "I have lived through the

week before the presentation of five plays for Van, and I think that it

is only just that you should share that ordeal with me. He's impossible,

and demands--everything. I gave him a perfectly new and wonderful hat

that cost a hundred and ten dollars for the second scene of 'Dear

Geraldine' right off my head at the dress rehearsal, and 'Miss Cut-up'

did her dances on one of my most choice Chinese rugs. Now he's taking

you from me. But go!"

"Here's your wrap, still in the car, so hop in," commanded Mr. Vandeford

hurriedly, as though he feared that Mrs. Farraday would withdraw her

sympathetic permission. "Good-night, and thank you!"

"Good-night, you two--two dear children," returned Mrs. Farraday, as she

saw them off, after tenderly embracing Miss Adair and making plans for

their future meeting. "How _lovely_ it would be!" she murmured to

herself, with a lack of definition, as she went back to the stately

house behind the tree, where windows were beginning to glow.

For a long time the producer and his author were silent.

"I hate it--and I love it," Miss Adair finally said, with her soft,

slurring voice lowered almost to a whisper as Valentine sped them along

the country road perfumed and dusky with the early night, though a

silvery radiance proclaimed a chaperoning moon as imminent.

"That is the proper way for an author to feel about a play one week

before the opening," Mr. Vandeford assured her, with a laugh keyed to

match her declaration. "It shows an entire sympathy with the poor

producer."

"Suppose, just suppose, that the producer had been anybody but you and I

had had to stand all--" Words failed Miss Adair in imaging her plight as

author to another producer than Mr. Vandeford.

"Any other producer might have done better than I have done for you,"

Mr. Vandeford answered her, with a sadness in his voice that he himself

had never heard before. And as he spoke he resolved to tell her the

whole Hawtry situation, which was haunting him day and night; to begin

with the purple, letter-manuscript hunch, which he had lightly taken up

to spank Miss Hawtry for trying to double-cross him with Weiner about

"The Rosie Posie Girl," and end up with the hopeless state of his

feelings about herself. Miss Adair herself stemmed the confession which

might have altered the fate of that good machine "The Purple Slipper."

"You've made the whole horrible experience worth while to me, and I'm

going to be a great playwright yet, just to make you--you proud of me,"

she assured his sadness in the purple dusk, and this time Mr. Vandeford

was so sure of the flutter that he reached out his hand and captured a

part of it, a white, slim little hand that nestled into his as though it

were not in any way aware of doing so. "I'm going to dinner with Miss

Herne to-morrow night, so Mr. Kent can show me what is the matter with

part of his costume for the third act, and then I'm going to coax Mr.

Corbett to fix it over for him," she continued, speaking of the business

of learning to be the great playwright she had promised him to become.

"Er--er, did you say dinner with Bébé and--and Kent?" Mr. Vandeford

stammered as a desperate opening for letting his author know just what

she was doing in visiting that establishment without-the-law.

"Yes, I know about them; Mildred told me, but I told her that I was

going to accept the 'broad standard' that prevailed in my profession. I

like both of those people a lot. What business is it of mine if they

don't want to get married?" Miss Adair's voice was coolly unconcerned

and professional.

"Help!" ejaculated Mr. Vandeford, holding the slim little hand as if

drowning. And indeed he did have a sinking sensation, which, strange to

say, was relieved by a quick mental vision of the capable young woman at

the desk of the great international safety.

"And I know about Mr. Height's three divorces, and I think he is to be

pitied instead of criticized for being so unfortunate and lonely.

Mildred says she doesn't believe he is as lonely as he tells me he is,

but I know he is. I asked Miss Herne to ask him to dinner, too, and she

did," Miss Adair continued, thus making little stabs into Mr.

Vandeford's vitals.

And right there Mr. Vandeford paid the entire penalty for all his tilts

against organized morality by feeling unworthy to take a beautiful,

fragrant, adoring, confiding girl in his arms and telling her all he had

learned of the tragic results of such tilts. His predicament was tragic,

though unique. If he summed up these others, he sized up himself to her,

and by what judgment he taught her to judge them she would judge him

when the time came. If he taught her to turn from Kent or Height she

would turn from him, when she knew him entirely, as she surely would

soon. And, forsooth, how would he prove to her that he was a better man

than the copper-headed tango lizard, Height, though he knew himself to

be? And who was this girl, anyway, to come out of a little back-woods

town where the standards of life were so narrow that all who could lived

out of them in degrading secrecy, and make him feel himself unworthy

when he had lived openly in a way about which his own conscience had not

troubled him? Why did he hesitate to tell her about his affair with the

Violet and his anxiety about her contract, and why should his face burn

at the thought of telling her how he had coolly let his best friend in

for the prospect of an affair with the star for the purpose of

protecting her and her play? And why should the sex and business

standards of his world be entirely different from those of hers or any

other world! On the other hand why shouldn't they all double-cross and

prey on and defame and applaud each other to their heart's content? Why

should they care if they were judged by--? At this part Mr. Vandeford's

bitter reflections were suddenly invaded by a perceptible collapse of

Miss Adair's soft and proud young body against his, and a round, warm

cheek fell against his silk-clad sleeve, as he perceived that his

eminent author had plunged suddenly into the depths of healthy and

innocent slumber, while he had been moralizing about her and the rest

of the universe. He slipped his arm about her with cautious tenderness

and made her comfortable, while he muttered to himself:

"She's a white flame and, God willing, I'm going to keep her that!"

During the next week the "white flame" burned high and bright while the

author of "The Purple Slipper" threw herself into her place in the

grinding of the machine that was to turn out a perfected play on the

following Tuesday night at Atlantic City. Everywhere Mr. Rooney was

tightening bolts and polishing surfaces until they glistened while he

snapped and tried out all bands.

Miss Lindsey was pale and quiet, but she acted her part to Mr. Rooney's

entire satisfaction, though he never said so. Mr. Leigh's feet were

still a target, and the glowering girl, Miss Grayson, was always

tearful, but constantly improving. When the company was not being ground

and polished, Mr. Corbett's tailors and dressmakers were fitting

costumes, and the property man was checking over and over each demand of

each and every person, from the fresh rose Mr. Kent was to give to Dame

Carrington to the mud that was to be splashed every day upon Mr. Gerald

Height's riding-boots for his last and triumphant entry. Miss Adair had

lost all sense of the play as a whole and only thought of it as

distracting and distracted bits. She had, of course, never witnessed the

scenes between Miss Hawtry and Mr. Height, as they were still rehearsed

in private and would be until the night of the dress rehearsal on Monday

at Atlantic City. This was well.

But one thing she kept with her through the whole strain; the sense of

being one with Mr. Godfrey Vandeford and that one working for pure joy.

As for Mr. Vandeford, his eyes sank back under his brows, and Mr. Adolph

Meyers was with him far into every night.

"How does the booking stand now, Pops?" Mr. Vandeford demanded on the

Thursday night before the opening Tuesday.

"Atlantic City next week, Wilmington and New Haven the next if need be,

and--it is to Syracuse or Toronto we must jump, Mr. Vandeford, sir,"

answered Mr. Meyers, with beads of perspiration on his high brow.

"Violet will never make that jump, Pops. Her contract closes the day we

open in Atlantic City, and there we'll close, too, if we haven't New

York right in sight. What'll we do?"

"It is many a show closed before it opened," Mr. Meyers said, with a

wary look at Mr. Vandeford.

"This show is going to open and never close--until it's had a thorough

Broadway try-out, Pops," said Mr. Vandeford, quietly. "Anything from Mr.

Breit?"

"Nothing to hope for a Broadway opening before November first."

"I'll pass the question up Friday, and then see what I'll do," Mr.

Vandeford said slowly as if turning his back for the moment to

something that stared him in the face.

All Friday morning he worked with "The Purple Slipper" machine with a

bitter defiance in his eyes that made Miss Adair keep close to his side,

though she didn't understand her reason for doing so.

"Is anything the matter?" she questioned, with her gray eyes stricken

with alarm. The fear for her play in those gray eyes sent Mr. Vandeford

into desperate measures. He asked Miss Hawtry to go to luncheon with

him, and she graciously accepted.

"Where do we get in on Broadway after Atlantic City, Van?" she asked as

soon as she was served with her iced melon.

"We get in all right," he parried, putting his spoon into his

cantaloupe.

"That's fine. I don't mind that Atlantic City week, but I'm glad I'm

past ever doing the road again except to the Coast. They'll eat up 'The

Rosie Posie Girl' in Chicago and San Francisco." Miss Hawtry was

deliberately declaring her intentions to Mr. Vandeford without saying a

word about them.

"I'm going to take 'The Purple Slipper' over to London before I take it

West." Mr. Vandeford answered her declaration with another not put in

words, but so well did he know the workings of her shrewd, small mind

that he saw that the game was up unless he did what he must do. During

the rest of their luncheon they talked about the Trevors.

Straight from the Astor Mr. Vandeford walked into the office of Mr.

Weiner.

"Weiner," he asked, without any sort of preamble, "will you give a

month's try-out of my play, 'The Purple Slipper,' in your New Carnival

Theater from October first to November first, with a proper guarantee,

and then an option on an unlimited run there if it makes good, for a

half-interest in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' _without_ Hawtry?" Mr. Vandeford

knew that he was offering Mr. Weiner a good thing, for the rights of

"The Rosie Posie Girl" had been hotly contested by all the big

theatrical managers on Broadway the winter before, and Mr. Vandeford had

got them from Hilliard because of his success with "Dear Geraldine" by

the same author. They had all coveted it because it was one of those

combinations about the success of which there could be no doubt. In

offering Weiner a half-interest Mr. Vandeford was aware that he was

offering him at least a hundred thousand dollars, but Mr. Vandeford's

hunch about the purple on purple was beginning to cost him dear, though

at least a hundred thousand dollars did not seem too much to pay to keep

the agony of failure out of a pair of sea-gray eyes that had trusted him

the first time they had looked into his.

"With Hawtry it goes; without Hawtry, no, Mr. Vandeford," was the prompt

answer.

"With Hawtry six months from now?" questioned Mr. Vandeford.

"It is that I have a weak heart, Mr. Vandeford, and I do not trade in

futures," answered Mr. Weiner, with a spark in his black eyes.

"You know my fix, Weiner; now what will you take for the New Carnival

October first for my Hawtry show?"

"I will trade that entire 'Rosie Posie Girl' manuscript, with all rights

for that New Carnival Theater on October first, with option for the

entire season, Mr. Vandeford," said Mr. Weiner, rolling his big cigar

from one side of his mouth to the other.

"Without Hawtry?"

"I have a new Hawtry right now--in pickle," Mr. Weiner answered.

"Will the New Carnival certainly be finished October first?"

"Yes, to a certainty of a large guarantee."

"How long will you give me to answer?" asked Mr. Vandeford.

"I have made an appointment with S. & K. to talk that New Carnival

Theater for a show at five o'clock to-day, Mr. Vandeford. I will call it

six o'clock for you," answered Weiner, as he turned the screw with all

show of consideration for his fellow producer.

"I'll be back at four-forty-five," Mr. Vandeford answered him, and with

no further good-by took his departure.

Arriving at his office, Mr. Vandeford directed Mr. Meyers that he was to

have half an hour entirely undisturbed, entered his own office, and

after a second's pause went into the little office that had been

assigned to Miss Adair, the author, and sat down in the chair she very

seldom occupied, but which was hers by tenancy. On the desk were a pair

of silk gloves she had left there the day before, and in a blue vase

were several roses in a good state of preservation, which he recognized

as having come from a bunch Miss Adair had been wearing after having had

luncheon with Mr. Gerald Height on Monday. These objects disturbed Mr.

Vandeford vaguely. He put them out of his mind roughly and went into

conference with himself sternly. Literally he was weighing the

question.

On one side of the balance he laid "The Rosie Posie Girl," which, with

Hawtry, was sure to run on Broadway for at least two seasons and make

for him a fortune that was indefinitely large and sure. Beside this, its

production would insure him a position among the country's really great

producers. The show was big enough in conception to admit of a

spectacularly artistic treatment, which he had intended to give it so

that it would place musical comedy on a plane upon which it had never

stood before. He knew himself well enough to know that a real triumph of

that kind once accomplished, he would want to turn to other fields of

endeavor, and he could see his greater self standing patiently waiting

for his lesser to be liberated by the process of climbing out of the

very top of the theatrical profession.

Sternly he turned from himself to the filling of the other pan of the

scales in which he was weighing the question. He looked for something to

put in to over-balance the certainty of "The Rosie Posie Girl," and

found nothing but a vast uncertainty with many potentialities. "The

Purple Slipper" was a play of no known classification, and with Hawtry

in it was still less fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring. And there

was added the uncertainty of that week from the twenty-third to the

first during which he had no legal hold on the fair Violet. He felt

reasonably sure that the announcement that "The Purple Slipper" would

open the big new Weiner theater, with all the clash of publicity which

he could give to it, would hold her steady on her job, but as he laid it

down on the scales, it had to be classed as an uncertainty. The fifteen

per cent. seat sales based on Mr. Gerald Height's appearance in silk

tights, velvet, and lace was about the only positive he had to lay in

the scales, and that, of course, failed to tip them to any degree. For

about fifteen minutes he sat perfectly rigid. Then he gently laid on the

uncertain side of the scales the positive and concrete faith in a pair

of sea-gray eyes, jeweled with tears, and watched "The Rosie Posie

Girl" rise high as "The Purple Slipper" sank down heavily.

After this he took a rose from the green vase, stuck it in his

buttonhole, and went forth--into his own office. He there rang his

buzzer for Mr. Meyers, and seated himself with the air of a man who has

had a burden lifted off his shoulders rather than with the air of one

about to give away half a million dollars.

"Pops, 'The Rosie Posie Girl' is sold, lock, stock, and barrel, to

Weiner for a month's try-out of 'The Purple Slipper' at the New Carnival

Theater, good guarantee for that month, and an option on a run to the

limit for eight-thousand-a-week houses. Get Lusky over the 'phone, and

you and he have the contracts drawn as tight as wax by four-thirty."

"But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I must have a say that--"

"No, Pops, don't say anything."

"With a pardon it is that I think that Miss Adair is a very fine lady,

and so also 'The Purple Slipper.'" With this incoherent pronouncement

of sympathy and encouragement, though devastated at the loss of "The

Rosie Posie Girl," upon which he had already spent many creative days,

Mr. Meyers departed into the outer office.

For a long minute Mr. Vandeford glared at the unoffending rose in his

buttonhole, then smiled, ran his hands through his hair, turned to the

telephone, and plunged into the last lap of the race of "The Purple

Slipper." Until four o'clock he was closeted with the most brilliant

theatrical publicity man in New York City; then he took his contracts

and went over to Weiner's office and sacrificed "The Rosie Posie Girl"

to--

An hour later he had told his partner, Mr. Dennis Farraday, all about

it, and showed him the deeds of execution.

"You ought not to have done it, Van. It was too big a price to pay," Mr.

Farraday declared, with his mane rumpled on high.

"No," answered Mr. Vandeford, in happy calmness. "'The Purple Slipper'

will pay it all out--one way or another."

"It must," declared Mr. Farraday, with helpless energy. "What can I do?"

"Oh, be the usual ray of sunshine around the place and--and keep the

Violet happy and busy until we land on Broadway." Mr. Vandeford said

this with a coldness in tone and voice that he had to force hard. His

attitude was that he had had to sacrifice himself so why not sacrifice

Mr. Farraday also? And he hated himself for that attitude.

"I understand, and you can count on me," answered Mr. Farraday, with

such an innocently happy face that Mr. Vandeford groaned inwardly at the

fact that he did not understand, and would surely be made to soon if his

calculations on the intentions of Miss Hawtry were correct.

"I've arranged for a chair-car to take the whole company down to

Atlantic City Sunday morning, so the whole bunch can have a plunge and a

good rest-up before the Monday dress rehearsal." Mr. Farraday produced

that piece of business with great pride.

"Good!" was all the commendation that he got, and he betook himself off

for other good-natured efforts on the affairs of "The Purple Slipper."

Though at times Mr. Godfrey Vandeford approached the heroic in action,

he was very human in reflexes and, having paid a price for the happiness

of Miss Patricia Adair, he proceeded to partake of as much of that

happiness as he could get hold of. He captured the author of "The Purple

Slipper" after the rehearsals on Friday, which were the last before the

dress rehearsal in Atlantic City on Monday night, because the cast of a

play are, after all, so many human beings, who have to be given at least

a day for such animal functions as packing trunks, closing apartments,

dodging creditors, and severing home ties, and he carried her off to the

country with the intention of having her all to himself for dinner at a

little inn up Westchester way. After they had started in that direction

and were flying behind Valentine along sun-gilded country lanes, he

changed his mind, changed the road slightly, and had them landed under

the wing of Mrs. Farraday for dinner. He did this with direct intention.

He judged himself, and decided that it would be safest to announce to

Miss Adair that her play was to have the honor of opening the great New

Carnival Theatre on Broadway somewhere within two hundred yards of Mrs.

Farraday. This program he carried out with efficient directness and then

found a strange lacking in himself.

"Oh, how wonderful you are!" was Miss Adair's exclamation when he had

imparted his news just as a young moon was silvering the poplar under

which they sat on an old stone bench at the bottom of the sunken garden.

"Everybody has said that you couldn't do it, but I didn't worry at all

like the rest of them. I knew that you could."

"How did you know that I could do it?" he asked, and he rejoiced with

pride that his author did not yet know of either the existence or his

sacrifice of "The Rosie Posie Girl."

"Why, I don't know--I knew just because I--I--" For the first time Mr.

Vandeford was absolutely certain of the flutter towards him, and at the

same time felt certain that he was the first man who ever had been

certain of it; and just as his breast and arms were hollowing themselves

to nest it he--denied it and himself. He didn't want it at a purchase

price, and he took Miss Adair home and locked her in the Y. W. C. A.

before midnight.

The journey down to Atlantic City on Sunday morning was accomplished

with much joy and hilarity. The entire cast of "The Purple Slipper"

acted like boys and girls let out of school, and mischievous children at

that. Miss Adair enjoyed it all immensely, and at times she very timidly

joined in the fun, which was centering itself upon putting Mr. Leigh of

the uncertain feet, and Miss Grayson, the glowerer, into white ribbon

bonds, which bonds were supplied from a large box of bonbons, the

identity of the donor of which she refused to reveal, though Mr. Kent

declared he had brought her to the station in a gold limousine with

diamond wheels, and bore the name of Billy Astorbilt.

Only Miss Hawtry held aloof, as she and her maid and various pieces of

ultra luggage occupied the four seats at the end of the car. The seat

next her was kept vacant, and at various times during the several hours'

run Mr. Vandeford, Mr. Height, and Miss Adair occupied it with

respectful tribute, but most of the time Mr. Farraday sat considerately

beside her, and smiled upon the fun. Mr. William Rooney and Fido rode in

the day-coach and worked the entire way on duplicate prompt copies.

Also Mr. Rooney and Fido were absent that evening from the dinner-party

given by Mr. Farraday in the great new hotel to the entire cast of "The

Purple Slipper"--in honor of Miss Hawtry. They were working with the

stage-carpenter, the property-man, and the electrician until a late

hour, when they met the members of the dinner-party in pairs in

wheel-chairs being trundled along the board-walk for sea air before

retiring.

"Hope the angel gave the bunch enough drink to keep 'em asleep until

two-thirty to-morrow," Mr. Rooney remarked to Fido as he spat out into

the Atlantic Ocean. "I'm going to put the gaff to 'em to-morrow night,

and I want to start with 'em unstrung and string 'em to suit myself.

That little author is some girl, but I wonder why Vandeford wanted to

shunt that white devil onto a nice boob like Farraday, and him his

friend, too," he further remarked as he watched the star and the angel

being trundled by in one of the big wicker perambulators that infest the

board walk.

In the other direction were being trundled the author and the producer

of "The Purple Slipper," and at that moment they were in the mood of

fellow-workmen at the machine of "The Purple Slipper."

"Rooney sent me word that the lighting is doubtful. This rotten little

theater is hard to count on for any kind of unusual lighting, and we

must have that diffusion for the dinner scene so as to make the candle

effect seem real," Mr. Vandeford was saying with great animation to Miss

Adair and with a total lack of sentiment under the same young moon that

had baffled him Friday night out in Westchester.

"The whole thing seems a confused jumble to me," admitted Miss Adair. "I

feel as if I couldn't wait until to-morrow night to really see the play

with the costumes and scenery and love scenes and all in the right

place. And yet I'm so tired I feel as if I could sleep a week."

"I'll shake you if you go dead on me here as you did the other night in

the car," threatened Mr. Vandeford, with a laugh, but he adjusted his

shoulder back of hers as if he considered the danger entirely real.

"I'll certainly do it if you don't take me back where I belong, wherever

it is," threatened Miss Adair. "I hope Mildred isn't as--as tired as I

am and--and can help me. I'll go to bed with my clothes on if she

doesn't," Miss Adair gasped between yawns, and fluttered to Mr.

Vandeford with a frank intention of gaining support.

"Back to the hotel, boy, and go a good pace. Double tip," commanded Mr.

Vandeford to their propelling Italian youth, with an alarm which puzzled

him as much as it would have puzzled many of his friends, while he

accorded his exhausted author the amount of support needed for the

occasion--and no more.

And as Mr. Rooney had hoped, the entire cast of "The Purple Slipper"

slept into the afternoon of the dress-rehearsal day in the complete

collapse which the sea air induced, and they were in a good condition

for restringing. In fact, some of them began that process for themselves

by an afternoon plunge in the ocean.

One of those plunges had an after-effect on the fate of "The Purple

Slipper" further than keying up Mr. Gerald Height for his dress

rehearsals. When he discovered, while detaining Miss Adair for a chat

after his late luncheon, that the author had never beheld the sea before

in all her inland existence, and had never been in it, he insisted on

procuring a bathing-suit and initiating her into that sport. She

assented to the proposition with the greatest eagerness, and in less

than half an hour she had trusted herself to the arms of Mr. Gerald

Height and the Atlantic Ocean. They were both rough in their handling,

and finally she came to resent the boldness of the former as much as she

enjoyed that of the latter. With crimson in her cheeks and lightning in

her eyes, she first attempted to drown them both, then waded to shore,

sat down on the sand, and said things to Mr. Gerald Height, which had

the magic effect of making him unburden himself and his lizard-like

career to her in its entirety.

"You see, I didn't know what a girl who--who wrote your play was like

exactly, and because I couldn't find out I have kept on trying.

Now--now, by George, I know," he said, with a boyishness coming into his

murky eyes. "Say, you know my mother was a Kentucky girl, and I guess

that is one reason I have stuck by this fool--this 'Purple Slipper.'

That and wanting to chase you down."

"Well, now that you've 'chased me down' and found that I'm not--not

there, you'll stay by me and 'The Purple Slipper,' won't you?" Miss

Adair asked, and then like two merry children they both laughed at her

jumble.

"I will," answered Mr. Height, with the queer attachment in his heart

that a man feels for a perfectly good woman who is jolly and friendly

with him after she has allowed him to tell her just how wicked he is or

thinks he is. "I thought the whole thing was a flivver, but when

Vandeford got the opening of the New Carnival for it, I sat up and took

notice. Just you watch the stuff between Hawtry and me put a line a mile

long from the box office."

"I'm wild to see you and Miss Hawtry in your scenes, and we must go to

dress for early dinner. The rehearsals are called for six-thirty. Thank

you for--for being my friend." As she rose from the sand Miss Adair held

out her hand to Mr. Height, with the friendliness and confidence in her

eyes that had smoothed over other rough, though not so rough, places of

the same character in her young life.

"That's some kid and there are lots like her. I've got to halt sooner or

later," Mr. Height muttered to himself as he dressed for his early

dinner. "I'm going to put this fool play across for her, too." There are

a few women who distill loyalty out of declined passion; but not many.

They make their mark on their generation.

The dress rehearsals of a play are varied in finish and intensity, but

the variety which Mr. William Rooney conducted was of the most

brilliant, and he expected them to go as well as the opening night. He

made small allowance for the strangeness of lights, scenery, and

costuming, and that allowance was only for time, not in smoothness. As

he willed, his cast generally performed. The cast of "The Purple

Slipper" was of experienced actors, and he felt certain that they would

meet his expectations. At six-thirty o'clock he seated himself in the

middle seat of the sixth row center, looked around to see that the

electrician and the costumer were at hand to catch any criticism he

wished to make, and in a crisp hard voice that exploded like a cannon he

called up the curtain.

The author was at her post in the left stage box, and bulwarked and

buttressed by the producer as usual, while Mr. Dennis Farraday, the

angel, sat alone in the box opposite, with a delighted smile on his

broad face.

The curtain went up, and "The Purple Slipper" glided on the stage with

never a creak or a careen. The lights scintillated and glared on the

wonderful costumes and scenery, and the sparkling dialogue began to

unwind itself into the startling plot. For the first ten minutes the

author glowed with such joyous excitement that the producer felt the

actual radiations; then little by little he felt her begin to cool, and

a chill ran up and down his own spine as Hawtry and Height held the

stage alone in the first dash of Howard-"pepped" dalliance near the last

of the first act. He held his breath, frozen within him, until the

curtain went down, and then he refused to turn to the author at his

side. He was in a panic and undecided what to do until Mr. Rooney

relieved him of the need of action.

"Mr. Vandeford," he commanded from the middle of the theater, "get New

York on the wire and have Lindenberg start a good scenery man out on the

early morning train. That back-drop must have a toning wash: it jumps

out at the costumes. Lindenberg is in his office until seven to get a

message from you. It's ten to now. You gotter jump."

Without a look at Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford "jumped," and thus she was

left alone to watch the second act grind along to its climax, with

Hawtry acting the high-bred virago with an extremity of brilliant

sensuality, with Mr. Height supporting her in broad lines that could be

well-read between. Once the author looked at Mr. Dennis Farraday in the

box opposite, and then looked away from his blazing enjoyment of the

startling climax, which the lovers acted in such beauty of body, and

such beauty of execution that, without knowing why, she was thrilled

from her head to her feet.

"Broad standards," she whispered to encourage herself, as her eyes shone

and her cheeks glowed as she lowered her head and re-read the proof of

the program to be used on Tuesday night, which Mr. Vandeford had given

her and upon which she observed the name Patricia Adair in type only

slightly smaller than that of Violet Hawtry. In a few minutes the

curtain was again called up; Mr. Vandeford was still absent, and again

her attention was riveted to the stage.

Almost the entire first half of the last act was hers, and the tension

in her glowing young body had relaxed and she gave Mr. Vandeford a

semblance of a smile as he seated himself beside her just before Hawtry

came on the scene to lay with Height the foundation of the great dinner

scene. This hurdle was held firmly in front of the young author.

Miss Hawtry entered in a blaze of eighteenth century glory, only with

her authentic costume cunningly contrived to reveal more of her

wonderful white body than any woman of that period would have done, and

beautiful in his velvet and ruffles, Gerald Height followed her to

thereupon enact a scene which was a slow and marvellous distilling of

the very wine of emotion intended to go through human blood like a

stinging poison. It had reached its climax, and even the emptiness of

the theater was breathless when, like a whip, Mr. Rooney's cold voice

brought Miss Hawtry out of Mr. Height's arms.

"Cut it, cut it!" he commanded. "You couldn't get that across even on

Broadway. The censor will close the show. Play it fifty per cent. and

then all the subway will quit you."

"I'll play it as I choose, you black monkey, you, with your Irish name."

Maggie Murphy sprang out from the body of the beautiful Hawtry to answer

back gutter with gutter.

"Wait a minute, Miss Hawtry." Mr. Vandeford rose in his box from beside

the author of the violent scene that was becoming a basis of a scene of

violence. "Rooney, it can be played with--"

"You sit down and help your bread-and-butter baby hide her face for

writing such rot instead of trying to tell me how to act." Maggie was

now commanding the Violet, and she was wild with nervous rage. "She's

welcome to you; five years of your living off me and my work is enough,

and I don't intend to--"

"Back to your lines on which Miss Hawtry enters, Miss Lindsey,"

commanded Mr. Rooney, in his machine-gun manner. "Get ready for your

cue, Height."

Completely ignoring Miss Hawtry, who was standing down center, Mildred

Lindsey calmly entered and began the beautiful little bit of persiflage

with Miss Herne, who had gone on before her with an agility unlike her

usual slow gait. There was nothing for Miss Hawtry to do but retire to

the wings, which she did, and with the nervous bomb exploded, she

continued the rehearsals to a finish with the greatest brilliancy,

playing the interrupted scene at fifty per cent. of its fire, as

directed by Mr. Rooney.

But the author of "The Purple Slipper" was not there to see the ending

in calm after the storm, for she had fled at the Violet's attack upon

Mr. Vandeford, and while he stood his ground to see the matter settled

in the face of the insult, she had vanished.