Blue-grass and Broadway
sake," snapped Mr. Vandeford, this time in unjustifiable temper.
"Why, what is--" Miss Adair was asking of Mr. Vandeford in positive
alarm when Valentine stopped before the blazing doorway of the Big Show.
A functionary seven feet tall opened the door of the car and all but
literally extracted them by force, for he was anxious to repeat the
operation on the occupants of the car chugging behind them.
Now, there are many, many fair women born within the state lines of Old
Kentucky who live calm and peaceful lives and die and are buried with no
greater contrast of experience than comes from birth and death, love and
hate, riches and poverty, and they never know the difference; but
occasionally one bursts out of her bonds and flames her beauty over
strange worlds, in foreign embassies, in the courts of St. James or
Petrograd, or in an opera or theater box in New York. When this eruption
occurs many sparks fly. And many sparks from bright eyes were showered
on the author of "The Purple Slipper," who sat calmly unaware in the
left stage-box of the Big Show that August night beside the notorious
Hawtry, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and Mr. Dennis Farraday. And of the
sparks no one was more conscious than both Miss Hawtry and Mr.
Vandeford, while big Dennis was in a blissfully ignorant state of mind
like to that of Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Though he
had been for about forty-eight hours a producer on the rear side of the
footlights, Mr. Farraday still had the attitude of mind possessed by one
of an audience, and he watched the stage rather than the "front." He
thus failed to get the impression created by his guest from Kentucky,
and blissfully left Mr. Vandeford to deal with her sensations derived
from the show. Mr. Vandeford had his hands full.
To Miss Adair the Big Show was a series of mental and moral and artistic
explosions. She sat with delight through the Japanese acrobats and Swiss
quartette of yodelers, and she welcomed pretty, pert little Mazie
Villines with enthusiasm that gradually faded into horror as that artist
flaunted more and more lingerie and "dished the dirt" which the
inebriate playwright, at that moment engaged in "putting pep" into Miss
Adair's own beloved "Purple Slipper," _nee_ "The Renunciation of
Rosalind," had supplied. The "dirt" was received by the audience at
large with a hilarious joy that entirely justified the managers of the
Big Show for keeping Mazie busy "dishing."
However, all things come to an end, and with a last provocative,
revealing kick Mazie was allowed to depart and give way to a pair of
young dancers who promised to display wares more wholesome.
Without knowing why he did it, Mr. Vandeford leaned forward so that his
left ear was within reach of the whisper of Miss Adair's lips as she
turned her head and tilted it like a droopy flower toward his.
"I've only seen Sarah Bernhardt and John Drew and Maude Adams and
Mansfield and Joe Jefferson and Arliss and the Coburns, up in
Louisville," she faltered with her eyes questioning his and wide open
with horror.
"These next ones aren't so bad, and we'll go before any more come on
that--that you won't like," he whispered in return. He had glanced
through the program and seen that the climax would be an exhibition of
jungle courtship by one of America's most notorious women and her
partner, done to extreme negroid melody.
"Thank you," she murmured as she turned to watch the willowy youth and
maid go through some very beautiful movements of the dance that was
entirely unobjectionable. In two minutes she had turned her face,
beaming with pleasure, so that Mr. Vandeford could see that all was well
with her; and ten minutes later she giggled out loud at the repartee of
two black-faced artists.
During the respite that his knowledge of the numbers on the program gave
him, Mr. Vandeford did more of his peculiar brand of thinking, and
reached a diplomatic conclusion. By the intermission, which came just
before the jungle "big number" to give late comers time to gather in for
their salacious feast, he was ready to act.
"Miss Adair and I are going to get a breath of air," he announced.
"But the big number is next, and she might miss it," objected Miss
Hawtry, with solicitude for Miss Adair's pleasure. Mr. Vandeford had
thought past just that objection delivered by Miss Hawtry, and he knew
that in no way must he seem to be shielding the author of "The Purple
Slipper" from the salaciousness that gave Miss Hawtry great joy. If he
went too far in any act of comparative analysis he would bring danger
upon "The Purple Slipper," with whose fate Miss Adair's was one.
"We'll be back in plenty of time," he lied.
"Be sure!" Miss Hawtry commanded, and then turned to devote herself to
Mr. Farraday, who was laying himself out to salve what he thought must
be her pain at the loss of his beloved friend. The Violet had soon
caught his attitude toward her, and was encouraging his chivalry in
every way possible by the most pensive of poses as the generous
deserted. Such a situation is all to a woman's advantage if she knows
how to work it, and Miss Hawtry possessed that knowledge.
"Van ought to have a medical degree for operating young girls' eyes
open, and making them see rose-colored for a while," she said with a
good-humored smile and a soft little sigh, as she raised her Irish eyes
in all their softness to Mr. Farraday's.
To this insinuation, founded on an implied lie as far as the Hawtry was
concerned, Mr. Farraday made no reply, but turned to greet with fitting
applause the great dancer, on whose account one of the American artistic
bright lights had been extinguished forever, and in ten seconds was
inwardly thanking Vandeford for extracting Miss Adair before she had
felt the blighting smirch of the big number. While Mr. Farraday watched
the exhibition before him, Mr. Vandeford was amusing the child of their
joint solicitude by letting her look at the white lights. While waiting
at the curb before the Big Show for the large dignitary in uniform to
summon Valentine, he had directed that worthy to have a message sent in
to Miss Hawtry that they would join her at supper. Then upon the arrival
of his car, he had carefully inserted Miss Adair before he had said to
the puzzled Valentine:
"Drive slowly down around the circle and down Broadway, so that you can
come back just while the theater crowd is on."
Some instinct had led Mr. Vandeford to choose exactly the panacea to
soothe Miss Adair's shock--the lights of Broadway.
"It's like fairy-land," she gasped, as they rolled down past
Forty-seventh Street. "Oh, look at the kitten chasing the spool, all in
electric lights!"
"Wait a minute, and I'll show you an eagle flop his wings," promised Mr.
Vandeford, and he was surprised that he seemed for the first time to
feel the actual glory of the electric signs on his great Broadway, which
is as much of an all-American institution as the shipyards in Brooklyn.
"All the world is on fire, and everybody is going to it," Miss Adair
exclaimed, as Valentine made his return just as the theaters were
pouring their crowds out into the seething maelstrom of the great
scintillating canon. She watched as the big car stood motionless before
a stream of humanity that poured across its front wheels and then
bounded forward as blue-coated arms stemmed the tide on the edges of
both sidewalks for a few brief minutes in which they were allowed to
progress to a street beyond, where they were again halted, wedged in
with other impatient, purring cars.
In a limousine next her Miss Adair saw a boy in a top hat, with white
gloves upon his hands, smother in an eager and unabashed embrace a
white-shouldered girl, whose arms went around his neck regardless of
"mother" assiduously looking the other way. In a car on the other side a
richly garbed gentleman dozed upon his cushions in triumphant inebriety.
Also, while she and Vandeford waited, she saw a guardian spinster shoo
a bevy of school-girls across in front of the cars, and turn in the
middle of the street to reprove a college boy for a laughing word tossed
to the combined bevy, while the blue arms on both sidewalks waved her
into haste so that they might unleash their restrained monster motors.
Everywhere protective men had women's arms fastened within their own and
were shoving through the throng, while other men and women jostled along
by themselves, or in companies of twos and threes, with laughing good
nature. Fakirs were crying many wares, and in and out squirmed newsboys
calling war extras in words that seemed to imply that New York was being
shelled from the sea, but did not make that exact statement.
"It's all the world, and I'm a part of it," Miss Adair again said, and
Mr. Vandeford was again surprised at himself that he was not surprised
to find tears glinting in the sea-gray eyes raised to his.
"_This_ is the Big Show," he said with a little answering thrill in his
own voice, as the enormity of the scene he had witnessed night after
night broke on him for the first time.
"They all live here and sleep here and eat here and work here
and--and--love here," she said softly, and smiled, for again the
limousine with the embracing lovers had paused by the side of
Valentine's car, and the embrace still held.
"No, the sleepers and eaters and workers of New York were in bed long
ago. Everybody you see here in this push has his or her vital wires
connected up at Squeedunck, Illinois, or Zanesville, Indiana or--"
"Or in Adairville, Kentucky," Miss Adair added with a laugh.
"No, you belong--anywhere. Creative people ought to have no--no home
wires," Mr. Vandeford answered, and there was a queer sadness in his
voice that he did not himself understand. "People with messages must
have masses to hand them to. That's why you came, and, I suppose, must
stay."
"Yes," answered Miss Adair, "I want to stay--if you'll let me."
"I can't do otherwise," Mr. Vandeford answered her. Then he turned and
looked her full in her serious eyes. "But if you stay you will have to
accept broad standards, or suffer."
"That Mazie woman?"
"Maybe worse."
She sat silent until, a few moments later, Valentine drew up again at
the curb before the Big Show, which had been out long enough to disperse
most of its crowd, and was now receiving supper guests for the Garden
Grove above.
"I'm going to stay--with you--and 'The Purple Slipper,'" she announced,
as he reached into the car for her and swung her to the pavement.
"Goes!" he answered, with mingled emotions, which he could not have
analyzed.
Miss Adair was as good as her word. She accepted the reveling crowd of
the garden, looked upon the abandon of drinking women and men, with
only a slightly hunted expression in her eyes, and with her slim white
hands applauded Simone when that artist made most audacious slings of
her supple body in its scant clothing. She beamed upon the dancer when,
as Mrs. Trevor, she came, at Mr. Farraday's invitation, to have a glass
of champagne with them, and she quailed only once, when a band of
extremely young girls, clothed in filmy garments, took tiny
search-lights and went merrily hunting among the tables of laughing men
and women after the lights had been put out for the sport. Her horror at
observing Mr. Vandeford, who sat between her and the narrow aisle take
various moneys from his pocket to defend himself from successive
hunters, made her pale, and the moment the lights were flashed on again
she rose to go.
"Wonder what they'll do next," muttered Mr. Farraday, as he helped her
into her wrap. Mr. Vandeford was not looking at his author or speaking.
Once when he had put his hand in his pocket to get out a coin for one
of the teasing girls with her search-light he had felt the Y. W. C. A.