Blue-grass and Broadway
underpainted her own cheeks and laughed as she answered:
"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me, but I also live at the
Y. W. C. A., though I give Mrs. Parkham's as my address for letters and
telephone calls. It's cheap and--and I have done dining-room work there
for a month, waiting--waiting for--for a part in a play."
"Great guns, how that hunch works!" exclaimed the well-known producer,
as he sank into his chair from positive weakness. "You take in this
situation, don't you?" he demanded with a quick recovery.
"I think I do," answered Miss Lindsey. Then she lifted her big black
eyes, in which shone the psychic hunger, though that of the body had
been appeased. "I've got to make good, Mr. Vandeford, and I'll do
anything you want me to. I've got every right--to live at the Y. W. C.
A., and a right to hand food to--to that child in there. You can trust
me."
"I believe I can," Mr. Vandeford answered, after looking at her keenly
for a few seconds with the glance with which he had picked his winners
or failures in the human comedy for many experienced years. "Stop your
dining-room work at the nunnery and see that she has a good time, just
you and she together. I'll send you matinee tickets to shows I want her
to see, and Mr. Farraday and I'll look after the other amusement. I want
her to meet only the people I introduce her to, and the Y. W. C. A. is
the best place to live in New York--for her. Understand?"
"Yes."
"Find out how much money she has."
"I know now; she told me. She's got a ticket home, good until October
first, and a hundred dollars to last until--until the royalties come in
from the play. Those royalties have got to come in, too, or her
grandfather--" Miss Lindsey's voice was positively belligerent as she
began to put the situation up to Mr. Vandeford, whose heart, as that of
a theatrical manager, she felt, must be hard by tradition.
"Yes, I know all about that. You get what money you want from Mr. Meyers
out there, and fool her about what things cost as much as you can--until
the royalties come in. Let me know when things don't run smoothly for
the two of you. Of course, this is worth money to you and--"
"I don't want money for--for--looking after her."
"How much did Mr. Farraday offer you for your part?"
"He doubled it when he saw that I was--was hungry, but I know a hundred
and twenty-five is right and that's all I expect."
"The one-fifty stands. If all goes well I'll see you get your chance on
Broadway this winter. We understand each other now; don't we?"
"Yes."
"Then get the hat quest going. I'm busy."
"Five dollars is her outside limit."
"Can't you juggle?"
"I'll try, but she's--well, you know what a girl like that is."
"Go to it!" With which command Mr. Vandeford led the way into the outer
office. A brief aside put the situation he had just adjusted into the
willing ear of his co-producer, who beamed with satisfaction at the
idea of the joint nesting of these first two theatrical experiences he
had captured at the outset of his quest for adventure in the white
lights. He immediately began counting Miss Lindsey's advance into her
hand, thus giving Mr. Vandeford a word alone with his eminent author,
beside Mr. Adolph Meyers's big window.
"Miss Lindsey tells me that she also lives at the Y. W. C. A.," he said
with a curious paternal glow in his solar plexus that he had never
experienced before.
"Oh, I'm so glad! I know that is foolish of me, but I am a little
frightened. I don't know anybody in New York except you and her
and--I've never been in a big city before, and only in Louisville a few
times with my aunt. I'll enjoy it if she will take me places and bring
me back and forth to rehearsals," and the gray eyes beamed with relief
and anticipation of being led forth from the Y. W. C. A. into the gay
world by a competent guide. "Can we go to some of the _the dansants_ in
the afternoon, and maybe to the Metropolitan and the Aquarium?"
"Yes, all those places and more," assented Mr. Vandeford, with a
suppressed smile at the diversity of amusements his charge had planned
in her sallies from the Y. W. C. A. "You see, it is both the duty and
the pleasure of a producer of a play to see that his author has a good
time while in the city." It was a surprise to Mr. Vandeford to find
himself thus stating the case inversely.
"Oh, but I mean to work hard to help with 'The Purple Slipper,' so I'll
be too tired to bother you much to take me places. And I know how hard
you work, so don't have me on your mind, will you, please, sir?" The
lifted curl of the black lashes and the reverential note in the soft,
slurring, Blue-grass voice almost upset the staid deference with which
Mr. Vandeford was conversing with the author of his new Hawtry play.
"Oh, play producing isn't so hard on the producer and the author, so
we'll have lots of time to frolic," he hastened to assure her, though an
uneasy little pang shot into his heart as he thought of just what befell
the average author at the rehearsals of his or her play, and he took an
additional vow of protection. "Shall I come to take you to dinner and to
a show to-night?"
"Oh, I'd love it," she answered, and again the color came up under the
gray eyes. "It would be wonderful to have you show me Broadway the first
time. I could never forget that."
Then a thought delivered a blow that laid the producer of "The Purple
Slipper" low. The afternoon was half gone, and there were dozens of
wires that he must manipulate since he had had a change of--heart,
concerning "The Purple Slipper," and dinner-time and evening were the
only hours that some of the most important could be found.
"Oh, but I can't ask you to do that," he exclaimed, and for almost the
first time since the day of his graduation he felt color rise up under
his own tanned cheeks. "I have to see the stage director and a lot more
people about some things connected with your play. Still, I can't bear
to have anybody else get that first night on Broadway away from me. I
think it is due me." Being herself entirely sincere, Patricia recognized
the utter sincerity of the distress in the voice of her producer where
any other woman would have been doubtful of the ready excuse coming
immediately after the invitation.
"Then I'll just go to bed early and rest up from the trip, so that I can
go with you whenever you get the time to take me. You are working for us
both about the play, and if you had rather I waited for you, that is
only fair," Miss Adair hastened to assure him with a sincerity equal to
his own.
"You are one good sport," was the reply that he made her straight from
the shoulder, for the thought of a perfectly beautiful girl going to bed
in the Y. W. C. A. and covering up her head and ears from the bright
lights of her first night in old Manhattan just to give a strange and
reverenced man the pleasure of introducing her to the old city made a
profound impression upon him. "To-morrow night we'll wake up things on
Broadway. I'll telephone you in the morning to let you know how the play
is going and to see if there is anything I can do for you. Now you must
all go and let me get busy."
"Yes, this is just about the hour that hats begin to bite well,"
assented Mr. Farraday, as he removed the girls down to his car with no
thought or question as to whether his services would be needed in the
enterprise in which he had embarked with Mr. Vandeford.
"Now for it, Pops!" said Mr. Vandeford as the door closed behind his
co-workers in the production of "The Purple Slipper," whose work at that
moment was to play at a distance from his labor. "I'm going to read that
play, and nothing short of something that will injure its prospects if
neglected by me must disturb me. When I'm done I'll make plans with you.
It will take me several hours, and you stand by every second of the
time. Get me?"
"Yes, Mr. Vandeford, sir," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, and he shut his
door into the outer office just as Mr. Vandeford closed his own with a
bang.
Then for three hours or more, while the sun sank behind the Palisades
and the white lights flashed up from Broadway beneath his window like
bits of futile challenges to the dying light of day, Mr. Godfrey
Vandeford went through the supreme agony of a long life on Broadway, and
was paid in full for every double-cross he had administered to a
confrere. He read "The Purple Slipper" and groaned aloud from page to
page. He began its perusal sitting erect in his chair, and he ended it
hunched over its pages spread on his desk with his head in his hands,
his fingers desperately clutching his shock of gray-sprinkled hair. Then
in a complete collapse he flung himself back in his chair, elevated his
feet to the edge of the desk, and began literally to devour the smoke of
a small black cigar. For half an hour he sat motionless, as was his
habit when fighting all preliminary battles, and his eyes seemed to be
seeing the big old monster city open its thousand gleaming eyes and
change its roar of the day to an incessant purr of a night-stalking
beast, but in reality he was seeing and hearing a month into the future,
and the spectacle thus pre-visioned was the first night of "The Purple
Slipper" on Broadway. Then very suddenly he came back into his conscious
self and went into action. He rang the buzzer for Mr. Adolph Meyers.
"Pops, get Grant Howard on the wire and ask him to come around here as
quick as he can make it. If he talks straight wait an hour for him, if
he's thick-tongued go after him yourself. Get him! Now put me on the
wire with Rooney if you can find him, and make appointments with
Lindenberg for scenery at eleven in the morning. Ask Corbett to send an
artist to talk costumes for a period play at eleven-thirty, and have
Gerald Height here at twelve sharp. Don't forget to engage that
good-looking youngster--Leigh, I think is the name--even if you have to
give him a hundred advance. That's all for the present. Get Rooney for
me." Mr. Vandeford turned to his desk and began making rapid notes on a
pad with a huge, black, press pencil. For five minutes he spread his
thoughts upon the paper in great smudges; then his telephone rang, and
he took up the receiver:
. . . . . .
"Yes, this is Mr. Vandeford speaking. Hello, Billy!"
. . . . . .
"That new Hawtry play is beginning to promise something. I'm delaying it
a week, and I want you to come into it with your sleeves rolled up. We
may make a sure-fire hit of it."
. . . . . .
"Oh, no, I'll keep right on getting 'The Rosie Posie Girl' in shape, and
shunt Hawtry into it as soon as she cinches the public in this play--or
fails."
. . . . . .
"That was just what I was going to hand you--you get four hundred a week
for this show, but you'll have to go in and earn it. It's a departure,
and you may not like it. You'll have to hammer it a lot, but I'm not
signing a single 'Rosie Posie' contract until I see this in shape."
. . . . . .
"I mean it. A stage manager has to take my stuff all hot even if he
thinks some of it is cold. Get me?"
. . . . . .
"That's good. I'll give you the completed manuscript Saturday so you can
pound and set it for Monday next."
. . . . . .
"That's good. By!"
With which short, but sure, wire-pulling Mr. Vandeford opened his
campaign to double-cross his own original plans. He had hardly stopped
fixing Mr. William Rooney when Pops looked in upon him and announced Mr.
Grant Howard, the eminent playwright.
"Hello, Grant," was Mr. Vandeford's short and unenthusiastic greeting to
the small, black-haired person with weak, pink-rimmed, blue eyes, who
sauntered into the sanctum and dropped sadly into a chair with his back
to the light. A cigarette hung from the left corner of his upper lip,