Ainslee's Magazine/The Greater Part

by I. A. R. Wylie

 

The
Greater Part

By I. A. R. Wylie

IF you please, ma'am, dinner is served.”

David Hardy, who had been staring into the fire, started and looked back over his shoulder into the room behind him. Then he smiled. The smile was tender, a trifle amused, and a trifle pitying; but it did not help to make him look younger or less bitter.

“Upon my word, I had forgotten you were there, Kit,” he said, as though excusing his movement of surprise. “What are you doing? I presume that remark about dinner was not addressed to me?”

“Goodness, no! It's my part—such a horrid, stupid little part! Fancy me as a comic servant in old, ugly clothes! And I ought to be playing leading lady! Oughtn't I, David?”

“No doubt,” he answered, looking back into the fire.

The little figure, which had been huddled together in the corner of the sofa, rose and threw the untidy, paper-covered book in the farther end of the room. Drawn to her full height, she must have measured an inch over five feet; and the extreme delicacy of her build made her seem smaller—almost childishly small.

At first sight, she looked pretty and well dressed. In reality, she was neither. Like the room, with its tawdry hangings and cheap New Art ornaments, she was effective in a way that did not stand close inspection. Her dress, made of some clinging, black material, set off her slender figure to its best advantage; but the neckband was untidy, the bottom of her skirt frayed; and, as she moved across the imitation Persian rugs to the fireplace, a pair of velvet slippers peeped out in slatternly shamefacedness. And her prettiness was of the same order. She had fair, curly hair, and bright blue eyes, and a doll's complexion; but the hair was disordered, the eyes were too bright, and the complexion had a hectic tinge.

When she reached her husband's side, she stretched out a white hand, and laid it thoughtfully and admiringly on his coat sleeve. She wore large diamond and ruby rings of doubtful quality, and of the type affected by actresses trying to anticipate success.

“A comic servant!” she repeated, with childish resentment. “It isn't fair, is it, David? They're nothing but a set of jealous cats, ready to claw out anybody's eyes if they happen to be prettier than their own; and they'd move heaven and earth to keep me out of a good billet. There's Helen Calhoun—it isn't her real name, I'll be bound—she loathes me because of my figure. I should, too, in her place—and she can't act any more than a kangaroo. Can she, David?”

“I don't know,” he said absently, still staring into the fire.

Kitty Hardy gave a little laugh of satisfied malice, which ended in a cough.

“Of course she can't! But she's hand in glove with Simmons; and he'll give her any part she likes to ask for. You should see how she ogles him. It makes me sick.”

“Don't!” he interrupted sharply. “Helen Calhoun isn't that sort of woman. I know her better.”

“You know her better?” She questioned his thin, haggard face with restless eyes. “Why, when did you know her?”

“Years ago,” he answered evasively, “before she went on the stage. A sort of boy-and-girl acquaintanceship. She has forgotten me by now; but I remember her very well. She was proud and independent; not the woman to lower herself to mean subterfuges.”

The white, bejeweled hand slipped from his arm.

“What enthusiasm! But all men are fools where women are concerned. A pretty face and a 'hands-off!' manner, and the trick is done. Or perhaps she has influence—back-stair influence. Most of them have. Only I have not.”

He looked round then, and his face softened.

“And that's my fault, isn't it? I thought myself a great gun when I married you, Kit, and meant to make things smooth. But apparently there was something wrong with the powder, for I haven't gone off very well, and you have had to suffer. Now, if you had married Carter——”

“You're not to,” she interrupted, putting her fingers to his lips with a movement that was grotesquely theatrical. “You've been the dearest fellow in the world to me, and I wouldn't change you for an actor-manager! Positively I wouldn't! Do you think I have forgotten the old days? Don't you remember? You saw me first in 'The Dairy Maid'—a miserable part. The leading lady hated me because of my voice; but I made the best of it, didn't I? Didn't I?” she reiterated, as he remained silent; and David Hardy started at the rising petulancy in her voice.

“Yes—yes, of course.”

She smiled with gratification.

“You fell in love with me on the spot, you poor boy; and then when they gave me the chuck because of that cat, you married me out of hand, and swore you would write a masterpiece, and let me play the chief part—just to give me my chance.” She laughed. “So you did; only there wasn't a manager to take you on, poor old fellow!”

He winced.

“I was a young fool,” he said roughly. “I ought not to have married you, but I believed in myself.”

“And I loved you for it. You were like the hero out of a play. That night when I came from the manager crying my eyes out—it was pouring with rain, do you remember, and I was soaked through?—you were quite magnificent. You would have brought the house down, you dear, chivalrous fellow! How could I have helped marrying you?”

He tried to laugh, but failed rather badly; and she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.

“There! Who knows, I may get my chance yet!” she cried; and then coughed again so long and painfully that, when the attack was over, she sank down in the chair which he pushed toward her, a piteous little heap of disordered, faded prettiness.

“You must keep quite quiet,” he said gently. “You shouldn't excite yourself. You know it always upsets you. Try and sleep or read. Shall I bring you a book?”

She looked up at him, the brightness in her eyes curiously deadened.

“Your play,” she said huskily; “your new play. I want to read it.”

He hesitated. For a full minute, he stood looking away from her; and then, with a slow, uncertain step, he went to the writing table by the window, and came back bearing a parcel of typewritten manuscript. He held it tenderly; and when he gave it into her hands it was with a reluctance that was almost painful.

“It won't interest you,” he said awkwardly. “It's tragic—not your style. I've given up comedies. One can't go on offering the world sugared buns and milk when one lives on stale bread and water. Of course, nobody will take it; but, cost what it might, I had to write once as I felt, not as the public wants its court fools to feel. It's my last bit of freedom before I sink into eternal penny-a-line slavedom—a sort of farewell to the things that might have been.”

He waited a moment, as though he expected her to give the manuscript back to him; but, instead, she began to turn over the pages with nervous fingers.

“Tragedy!” she said. “No, that hasn't been my line so far. I haven't had the chance. They've always tried to make a buffoon of me when I ought to be doing big things—tragic things. But if I had the chance!” Her voice deepened, and took on a curiously artificial sonority. “If I had the chance, I know I could take my place with the best of them.”

She began to read, with her fair head thrown back against the dark red plush of her chair; and the attitude was suggestive of an unconscious and gentle disparagement such as a good-natured critic might feel who is accustomed to softening the fall of failure.

Her husband went back to his place by the fireside. His hand shaded his face, and he seemed indifferent; but an occasional restless movement as the pages were turned betrayed a rising anxiety. Almost as though he were reading with her, the color deepened in his pale cheeks; and, as she finished the first act, he drew a quick sigh. Then he shrugged his shoulders impatiently. The blue eyes glanced up at him.

“It's strong, David,” she said. “Real strong—I know that. And that woman—that Margaret Anstruther—what a magnificent creature! Where did you get her from?”

He made no answer; and she did not seem to expect one, but went on reading without further comment to the end. Then she laid her thin hands on the pile. The hectic flush had deepened to crimson, the eyes were again bright and burning.

“Why, David, it's grand!” she said, awestruck, “I didn't know you had it in you. You'll make your pile, boy. One situation stronger than the other, first-rate curtains, and a star part for the woman! Oh, you have done it at last!” She rose up in a whirlwind of enthusiasm, and caught him by the shoulders. “David, it was of me you were thinking when you wrote that? I know—you must have loved that woman—you couldn't have made her like that unless you cared. Oh, my dear, I swear to you I'll play it as you meant it to be played!”

He stared as though she had struck him.

“You!”

“Yes, I. Oh, David, you meant it for me, didn't you?” She fell back, a childish look of incredulous pain in her round eyes. “David, you did, didn't you? You—you promised me!”

The hot tears were already rolling down her cheeks, the high voice sank to a husky whisper. He put his arms about her shoulders.

“Of course, Kit. Who else? I promised you.” She tried to look up at him, but he held her firmly. “But it's all a long way off yet, dear. Other people may not think as you do.”

“They will. I am sure of it.” She freed herself, the moment's fear already forgotten, and clapped her hands. “Oh, I can see it all—the crowded theater, the critics, and Helen Calhoun in the manager's box, green with envy! Oh, how I shall act! And my dresses! I shall have beautiful dresses. Shan't I, David?”

“Yes, beautiful dresses,” he answered dully.

“Yes; it will be grand. My chance!”

She sank back, exhausted; and, with a great tenderness, he picked her up and laid her on the couch.

“You mustn't tire yourself, Kit,” he said, with an attempt at light-hearted reproof. “If you do not get well, how will you be able to act? Isn't my heroine a 'fine, strong woman'? Now, confess, you are not living up to the part, are you?”

She laughed; and the laugh turned into the old, dry cough.

“It's nothing—only this silly cold—and—and the disappointment and depression of it all. Success will make me well. I have been longing and hungering for this chance so long. Oh, David!” She flung her arms around him and drew his pale face down to her burning cheek. “Oh, David, you don't know how the failure has hurt!”

“I think I do,” he answered quietly.

He stood by her side, with his hand in hers until the rough breathing grew quiet and regular. His eyes never left the face, which even in sleep did not lose its expression of thirsty desire. Presently, when he felt her clasp relax, he turned and crept from the room.

The landing outside was now in pitch darkness, as were the rickety stairs which led down from the fourth floor into the street; but long custom had taught him to overcome such difficulties, just as it had taught him to judge to a nicety how much food and drink a man can do without and still keep his faculties alive. Long custom, too, winged this time with a hope which the mocking twist of his lips tried to deny, led him through the bustling crowds, past the brightly lit shops, to the scene of earlier hopes and crushing disappointments.

The Coronet Theater was already preparing for its nightly performance. A long, black queue of patient pleasure seekers stood outside the gallery entrance; and now and again a wave of agitation passed along the line as some popular figure emerged from a hansom and disappeared into the mysterious precincts behind the scenes.

Hardy pushed his way through the onlookers, and at the entrance collided with a small boy who had been standing in the shadow.

“Mr. Hardy, sir?”

“Yes; that's my name.”

“Would you please step this way? Mr. Simmons told me I was to bring you up at once.”

Hardy followed his guide silently down the long, ill-lit passage. There was a dull thudding at his temples, and his mouth had relaxed from its hard lines. He was still young enough to feel all the intoxication of a wild, reawakening hope; and this deference was a new thing, prophetic of much.

The stout, florid-faced man in the manager's room rose at his entrance; and that, too, savored well. When a manager rises at the approach of a would-be dramatist, success is already in the air.

“How d'ye do, Mr. Hardy? Glad you've been able to come. Won't you sit down?”

Hardy took the proffered chair. He looked about him, mechanically taking in all the details of the untidy, busy-looking room, while his host sorted out some papers and gave orders down the telephone. He had just discovered the portrait of a beautiful woman on the writing table when Simmons once more turned to him.

“You sent me a play called 'Error,' Mr. Hardy,” the latter began, with businesslike curtness, “and I asked you to drop in and speak to me about it. Briefly, it's good stuff. It will go down well, if I know my public; and I guess I ought to by this time. You can take it from me that it's peculiarly square of me to tell you so. I might slang the whole thing, and take it as a favor, with fifty dollars for you as a soother; but I've got a confounded weakness for dealing straight; and I guess I'll give you fair terms right away. Five thousand dollars, ten per cent down, and royalties; immediate production, and a first-class cast. What do you say?”

“It'll do,” said Hardy briefly.

His eyes had narrowed. It was typical of the man that, at that moment of unexpected realization of a life's ambition, he thought of his wife's faded gown and worn-out slippers.

“H'm! I thought you would jump. There's the contract ready for you, Sign it, unless you want time to think it over.”

Hardy shook his head. His face had suddenly paled.

“I know that your offer is square,” he said; “and I have only one condition to make, and I might as well make it now as later. It concerns the casting of the chief part.”

“What's that? Oh, yes, Margaret Anstruther. A rattling chance for a first-class actress. Let me see. What do you say to Miss Calhoun? She's the very woman. The part might have been written for her.”

“Yes,” Hardy answered slowly, “that may be; but that's where my condition comes in. I want the part given to another member of your company.”

Simmons sat back in his chair.

“Excuse me, my dear sir, but may I inquire whom you suggest in preference to Miss Calhoun?”

“She is an actress who, as yet, has had no chance.”

“What name?”

“Kitty O'Connor.”

The manager burst out into an annoyed laugh.

“What, that little consumptive beggar, who can't act more than a child! Why, I only gave her a few lines out of sheer pity——”

“Mr. Simmons, you are speaking of my wife!”

The two men looked at each other steadily. The manager's jaw had dropped.

“Upon my word, my dear sir, I didn't know—— How in the world was I to know? No offense meant, I assure you; but you must see for yourself—the thing is simply impossible.”

Hardy pushed the contract on one side and rose to go.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I shall have to try elsewhere.”

“Here! Wait! Man, don't you see that you are throwing away the chance of a lifetime? I tell you, the play may mean a gold mine to you. You'll be a made man if the thing is done properly. But with a heroine who can't act—— Well, there! It's the truth; and I haven't said a word more than any other man in his right senses would say.”

“I'm sorry,” Hardy repeated doggedly. “It's the only condition I make; but I stick to it.”

“In that case—— Thank Heaven! Here's the woman who ought to bring you round. Miss Calhoun, please come in for a moment. Here's the man who wrote 'Error,' and he's gone mad—stark, staring mad. Perhaps you'd be so good as to help me with him.”

The excited, angry manager waved a sheet of paper from one to the other by way of introduction; and the tall, straight-shouldered woman came across the room, her hand outstretched.

“Why, David!” she said, simply and frankly. “How glad I am!”

He made no articulate answer. He stood staring at her in blank wonder. The hood of her opera cloak had fallen back, revealing the burnished copper of her hair, the nobly classic features, the keen gray eyes, which smiled gravely at him.

“Mr. Simmons gave me your play to read,” she went on. “It's good, David. But, then, I always knew you would write like that—one day when you opened your heart and told the truth. Why did you not write it before?”

Still Hardy made no answer. Simmons looked from one to the other, as though vaguely conscious that something was going on before him which he did not understand.

“You seem to know each other pretty well already,” he said, with an irritable movement of the 'heavy shoulders. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I thought Miss Calhoun would have forgotten,” Hardy answered.

She shook her head.

“I do not forget like that,” she said. “And I thank Heaven that I read your play, David.” A call bell rang somewhere in the passage, and she went on hurriedly: “David, if you—you intrust Margaret Anstruther to me, I think I shall be able to act it as you would wish it.”

Simmons stamped impatiently.

“Don't you see, Miss Calhoun, that's where he is mad! You'd make the play a classic, and he won't have you. He wants that—that Miss O'Connor to play the part.”

“Why, David!”

He faced her with the determination of despair.

“My wife,” he explained briefly.

“Your wife?”

He nodded.

“I married—ten years ago.”

There was a short silence. Then he went on very quietly, with his eyes fixed on the grave, white face before him:

“I owe you an explanation. You are a great actress, and I know what it would have meant if you had played the part. No one could play it as you would. But there is my wife. Ten years ago we married when the world would have none of us. We were comrades in failure. All these years we have been waiting our chance; and, now that it has come to me, it must come to her also, or not at all. I am not going on alone.”

Simmons cursed under his breath; but Miss Calhoun turned to him with a quick, authoritative gesture.

“Mr. Hardy is right,” she said firmly. “And his play is worth the risk. And who knows, Miss O'Connor—Mrs. Hardy—may rise to the occasion. At least, I shall do all that I can to help her.”

“You!” The manager laughed furiously. “You are throwing yourself clean away.”

“That's my affair. At any rate, there is one thing clear: If you do not consent, I shall cancel my next engagement with you. I swear it.”

Simmons ran his hand through his disordered hair.

“It's infectious,” he declared hopelessly. “You want to ruin yourselves, and me into the bargain; and all to give a hundred-to-one chance to a professional nobody who would have had her chance years ago if she had deserved it.”

“Kindly remember——”

“Oh, I remember, all right; but you'll be just enough to acknowledge that the mere fact of her being your wife does not make a woman an actress. I should be a fool to give way.”

“And you would be a bigger fool if you refused the best play that has been offered you for years.”

There was a moment's hesitation; then Simmons threw up his hands.

“Have it your own way,” he said. “It's a tom-fool business, and I consider I have been hectored into it; but I can't afford to lose you, Miss Calhoun. There, Mr. Hardy, sign your contract and bring your wife round to-morrow, and we'll settle matters. Lord, what an ass I am!”

Helen Calhoun accompanied Hardy to the door.

“Give your wife my love, as from an old friend,” she said gently; “and say I will help her if I may.”

He bent over her hand, and kissed it.

“You are very generous to me, Helen,” he said huskily.

When he reached home, he found his wife in a slatternly garb, a so-called tea gown, seated by the fire, her ill-shod little feet in the fender. Some cold tea and toast waited on the table, which boasted of no tablecloth; and a dismal atmosphere of thriftless disorder hung over the room and its cheap ornaments and faded fineries. She rose as he entered, and stretched her arms above her head. The movement revealed the dirty lace trimmings on the sleeves of her gown—and a piteous thinness.

“Well?” she queried

“Simmons has taken my play,” he said joyously. “It's all settled.”

Still she stared at him. In the yellow gaslight, she looked old and shrunken; but there were a feverish, thirsty youth and longing in her eyes.

“Well?”

“And you are to act Margaret Anstruther,” he said, almost inaudibly.

She threw up her head.

“My chance!” she cried wildly, triumphantly. “My chance at last! Oh, David, David!”

She threw herself into his arms: and he held her to him so that she should not see his face.

 

The first full rehearsal had come to an abrupt end. Kitty O'Connor, late “walker-on” and now “leading lady,” had broken down; fainted sheer away in the middle of her big scene, and they had carried her into the greenroom, where she lay now, at her own request, alone. The room was in half darkness, and very quiet after the bustle and shouting on the stage; and she watched the shadows on the white ceiling with a languid content.

The rehearsal had been a great success, she thought. She had managed her part with dramatic force, and had had the pleasure of seeing her rival, Helen Calhoun, seated in the front row of the stalls, white with envy. She was glad to have hurt the woman who had had the audacity to offer to help her—coach her; and who, of course, hated her for that one brilliant leap into fame and influence. It was a nuisance that that horrid cold had weakened her so that her strength had failed her at the critical moment.

But on the night she would be strong enough—strong enough to listen to the thundering plaudits, and to bear the weight of congratulation which would shower upon her. In a single hour to spring from nothingness to everything, to be great, fêted, admired, flattered, rich, and to help the man with whom she had borne failure to deserved success!

She lifted herself on her elbow, spurred by the thought, and dragged herself from her couch. Unconsciously her lips repeated the first words of her part. The sound of her voice startled her by its huskiness, and she coughed anxiously, trying to bring back the sonority which she used in the tragic scenes as a tour de force. It failed her; and, with an impatient movement of the shoulders, she made her way languidly to the door. She was feeling better—the rehearsal could go on.

But outside everything was dark and quiet. The stage was empty, save for the chairs and tables had which been arranged for the rehearsal; and a profound gloom hung over the dimly lit theater. The unoccupied stalls seemed to gape up at her like so many ghostly spectators. They frightened her with their silence and their emptiness; and she pattered in her slipshod way across to the opposite wing.

Halfway she stopped short. Two supers were standing with their backs toward her; and the gruff murmur of their voices caught her ear. She heard her own name; and ambition, greedy for every crumb, bade her listen. She heard a short outburst of ironical laughter; and the sound brought a rush of feverish color to her cheeks. Why were they laughing? Whom were they laughing at?

“What ye'd call a regular damp squib,” one voice said. “The boss must be fairly off his head. And Miss Calhoun with nothing to do but gnash her teeth while that little waxwork goes through its tricks! Lor' love me, I knows something of the business; and I tells you, with her, it won't be nothing but a ghastly failure. She'd get Shakespeare hissed off.”

“Who gave her the part?” the second man asked.

“Her husband, so they say. He must be mighty well in love with her.”

“Or perhaps it's pity. She won't last long. But the worst of it is that she'll last long enough to ruin the whole show, and him into the bargain.”

“Poor little cuss! How she worked herself up! Regular tore the thing to tatters. I saw her husband's face. It was white like that sheet there.”

“Hold your tongue! There he is!”

The two men disappeared behind a piece of scenery. The tiny, fragile figure in the middle of the stage reeled, and then crept back into the shadow of the wings. From there she saw David Hardy come out, and at his side Helen Calhoun. They were not speaking; but instinctively it seemed both stood still and looked at the empty stage; and then at each other. A thin, gray light, filtering through an open door at the back of the theater, fell on their faces. He was intensely harassed. Hers bore the stamp of a great pity.

She stretched out her hand and laid it on his arm.

“Poor David!” she said, scarcely above a whisper. “Poor David! I wish to Heaven I could help you!”

He shook his head.

“You can't. And, after all, it doesn't matter. One has to learn to give up things. I have given up so much that this little bit of hope and ambition can go to join the rest. And it makes her happy. Poor little soul!”

“Poor little soul!” she echoed. “David, what will happen when the crash comes, as it must come?”

“I don't know. It will break her heart. But at least she will have had her chance.”

“And you will have lost yours. Would it not be better, kinder, to tell her the truth now before it is too late?”

He shook his head.

“No; I can't. Don't you see? I have to make good the wrong I did her. Yes. Don't look at me like that—the wrong. Helen, you know why my play was written. Out of the crushing need to break my own silence. I wrote it for you—to you. It was you who stood before my mind's eye when I created Margaret Anstruther. It was my confession, my defense, my——”

“Oh, hush!” she begged earnestly.

“No; listen! I am giving up everything. I claim the right for one hour to confront you with the truth. Helen, ten years ago you believed me guilty. You believed that I had lied to you and deceived you?”

She bowed her head in faint acknowledgment.

“I was young, and headstrong, and very proud, You hurt me in my pride. Am I not punished enough? Can you forgive me?”

“Don't let us talk of punishment or forgiveness. It's too late. I only want to take this comfort with me—that you know now that I did not fail you.”

She looked him full in the eyes.

“Margaret Anstruther knows more than you can tell her. Do you think I did not recognize myself, and you? Did you not understand why I thanked God for that play? David, why did you not come then with the truth?”

“I, too, was hurt,” he answered. “And I went down—right down to the bottom of things with despair in my heart, and only a kind of reverence for my own powers to save me from utter degradation. And there, at the bottom of things, I found another human being as wretched, as forsaken as myself; some one who needed me. You do not know what that need meant to me. It pulled me up. It gave me a new purpose, a new reason why I should drag myself out of the mire. And so it happened. And the wrong was done—to you, to myself; above all, to her.”

“To her?”

He nodded.

“I tried to make her happy with a lie,” he said. “And one can't do that. A lie is poison, and it poisons everything, even to the one being it may have been meant to save or shield. I have not made her happy, and the canker warped my own powers—until the day I dared to tell the truth. But it was too late. My truth has become a caricature, and it must fail with the rest.”

“Oh, David, the pity of it all!”

He straightened his shoulders.

“TI did not mean to ask for pity. I only wanted to explain. And she has been so good and loyal, so patient, with that poor, frail little body wracked with pain and devouring ambition for us both. And now she has her chance—her big part, as she calls it.” He smiled whimsically. “It's such a little thing to give her.”

“Your whole future.”

“My future?” He shrugged his shoulders. “My future became valueless—ten years ago.”

A silence fell between them. Then he took her hand and pressed it between his own.

“You have been very good to me, Helen. Your goodness has given me the courage to ask you something which I have no right to ask.”

“I give you the right,” she answered gravely.

“They say you are to marry Simmons. Is it true?”

She looked him steadily in the eyes.

“No; it is not true. I shall never marry.”

“Thank you. It was good of you to answer me. Good-by, Helen!”

“Good-by.”

Helen Calhoun stood where he left her. The tear which she had fought back rolled down her cheek; but she brushed it away as a sharp, imperative cough warned her that she was no longer alone.

She turned, and saw that Kitty Hardy was approaching her from the other side of the stage. She walked with the curiously pathetic little swagger which she adopted as “dignity” on the stage; and her flushed face wore its customary expression when she spoke with her rival—that of hauteur and extreme self-satisfaction, mingled with that distrust which comes with an inner sense of inferiority.

“I want to speak with you a moment, Miss Calhoun,” she said.

Her tone was frigid, even impertinent; but there were black rings under her eyes and fever burned in the sunken cheeks. Helen Calhoun waited patiently.

“Can I help you in any way?” she asked. “Are you better now?”

“Better? Oh, yes, I suppose so. It doesn't much matter, anyhow.” She gave a dry little laugh. “You know, I suppose, that I don't much love you, Miss Calhoun?”

“Yes. I have felt that you distrusted me,” the other answered gently. “I did not know why. I have been nothing worse than an outsider, who would willingly have become your friend.”

“Perhaps.” The round, blue eyes darkened, and steadied from their flickering, restless wandering. The next instant, Helen Calhoun felt a sharp, catlike grip upon her arm. “It was instinct,” Kitty Hardy said between her teeth. “Just instinct! Right from the beginning, I felt what I didn't know. That you had robbed me of everything that I needed to make me live—success, and something more than that, though I didn't know till now what it was. I didn't know why I was never satisfied, never content. Now I know. It was my husband's love you took.”

“You heard?” Helen Calhoun's face crimsoned with pity.

“Yes. I was listening. I'm glad. I've been an awful fool!” She sat down suddenly by the table, and knotted her hands together in a childish attempt at self-control. “I'm glad I know why I hate you,” she went on thickly. “I suppose I'm a devil, but I wish you were dead—dead—dead!”

Helen Calhoun stood silent. There would have been something repulsive in that outburst of hatred but for the pathetic irony of it all. The wish was to be fulfilled, but not as she wished it. Death was coming, but not for the woman she hated.

Kitty Hardy looked up. There must have been pity written on her rival's face, for she sprang up like a goaded animal.

“I know what you are thinking,” she said, in a voice of concentrated malice. “You think that I am dying, and that it won't matter. You can afford a festive display of Christian charity, can't you? But I'm going to live long enough to spoil it for you—and for him. Yes, and for him. I'll act my part—I don't care how—and if it ruins him, so much the better. He deserves it. He lied to me. He deceived me—and I loved him so!”

“He tried to make you happy.”

“Yes, as though I were a spoiled child that—that a few sweetmeats—— Oh, my God, how I hate you both!”

“Hush, for pity's sake! There is your husband!”

“I don't care——”

She stopped short. David Hardy was coming toward them. In the pale gray light, he looked an old man, bent and worn with some hopeless struggle. In his hand he held a bunch of flowers.

“I have been looking everywhere for you, Kit,” he said. “These are for you—to commemorate our first great chance together.”

She took the flowers mechanically, without acknowledgment. She looked at him, and from him to Helen Calhoun, and slowly her mouth relaxed. The fire died down out of her face. She seemed to sink together like a little heap of burned-out ash.

“You—you are very good to me, David,” she said, with a strange quiet; “but I have just been telling Miss Calhoun—I don't think I am strong enough to play such a big part. I have asked her to play it for me. You will, won't you? Right to the end?”

There was a double significance in the words which Hardy did not hear. But the two women looked at each other; and in the silence that followed a message was exchanged and a truce called.

Helen Calhoun bowed her head.

“I will do my best,” she said steadily.

“But, Kit——”

She slipped her arm through her husband's, cutting short his amazed exclamation with a flash of the old theatrical coquetry.

“Don't argue, David. It's all settled. I believe, after all, I wasn't made for big parts. The comic servant is more in my line.” Suddenly she broke down. “Oh, David, David, take me home! I am so—so tired!”

He obeyed her; but at the wings she stopped a moment, and looked back at the tall figure standing alone in the middle of the stage. Her smile was piteously triumphant.

 

Those who witnessed the première of David Hardy's great drama wondered why neither the author nor the actress to whom he owed so much appeared to acknowledge the enthusiasm of their audience.

The answer to the various puzzled questions that went the round of the theater was to be found at the back of the manager's box, where another tragedy was being played to a finish. Kitty Hardy lay on the hastily improvised sofa, with her fair, untidy head on her husband's shoulder. She was wonderfully adorned in a new dress from Paris—but she was dying. A broken blood vessel, the doctor said. Probably she would never recover consciousness.

Helen Calhoun, still in her theater make-up, stood on the other side, and fanned her with a tenderness which the sorrow-stricken man could not fathom. He saw the tears on her cheeks, and wondered at the strange depth of a woman's heart.

The ceaseless applause sounded like near thunder, and presently the dying woman's heavy eyelids opened. For the first moment, she stared straight ahead, listening, her lips parted in a breathless happiness.

“How they clap!” she whispered huskily. “It is a great success. I played well, didn't 1?”

She looked from one to the other, and smiled.

And then, for her, the applause passed into silence.