Blue-grass and Broadway
"You see, the sister is really the one to carry the plot. It is on her
that Rosalind leans, and she has to be all there in her quiet way."
"Yes, I see, and it can be made--" At this juncture the eye of Mr.
Adolph Meyer was inserted to a crack of the door and then removed as he
shook his head in puzzled doubt. He had intended to intrude to the
rescue of his co-employer's inexperience, but he decided that the time
was not ripe by one glance at Mr. Farraday's eager face, surmounted by
its rampant, red leonine locks.
"I have pity for Mr. Farraday," Mr. Meyers remarked to himself as he
seated himself at his machine, not knowing that in a very few minutes
the second live wire would arrive in the office and this time he would
get a shock himself.
For a half-hour he wrote on, while the animated voices boomed and purled
and bubbled in the office beyond the crack of the door he had left open
to observe the first lull that might call for relief. Then he got his
shock.
The office door opened timidly, and somebody entered so quietly that she
stood beside Mr. Adolph Meyers before he had lifted his head.
It was the author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind," now "The Purple
Slipper," and she looked every inch of it! Miss Elvira, the genius
guided by "The Feminist Review," had done her best with the blue-silk
suit, and Fifth Avenue could have done no better.
"May I see Mr. Vandeford? I am Miss Patricia Adair," she announced in a
rich and calm Southern voice and manner.
Mr. Adolph Meyers sprang to his feet with the impact of the shock.
"Mr. Vandeford is not in the office, Madam, at present," he managed to
gasp. Then he followed her big, gray eyes as they rested on the crack of
the door through which the boom of Mr. Dennis Farraday's voice mingled
with the excited chime of Miss Lindsey's laughter, and noticed as though
for the first time that it had emblazoned upon it in large, gilt
letters, "Mr. Vandeford. Private."
"It is Mr. Dennis Farraday, the partner of Mr. Vandeford, engaging
actors, Miss, in his absence. Will you walk in?" and in almost the first
panic in which he had ever indulged Mr. Adolph Meyers showed the proud
young author into the sanctum sanctorum from which he had barricaded
many an enraged virago who had threatened his life if he kept her from
an appeal to the manager.
"It is Miss Adair, the author of your play, Mr. Farraday, would speak
with you," he announced across the long room, bowed in a way he had
never done in his life, and shut the door behind Miss Adair.
It is interesting to wonder how it would have affected the end of the
whole matter if Patricia Adair had walked in behind the giggler when Mr.
Godfrey Vandeford, with all his experience with authors, was seated on
the throne instead of poor inexperienced Dennis Farraday, enjoying "The
Purple Slipper" with his newly engaged, supporting lady.
"By jove, Miss Adair, it is little bit of all right that you should come
in and catch Miss Lindsey and me chewing joy-rags over our--your play.
Let me introduce Miss Lindsey, who is to support Miss Hawtry in the part
of Harriet." And bonnie Dennis, the angel, beamed with pure joy at the
good time he was having as a producer. At the very sight and sound of
him poor Patricia, who for half an hour had been wandering up and down
Forty-second Street, looking for the tallest building on it, took both
comfort and delight, and her sea-gray eyes with stars in their depths
returned the beam of his eyes.
"It's so wonderful that you like my play and are going to produce
it--and you to act in it, Miss Lindsey," she said as she seated herself
in the chair Mr. Farraday had drawn up for her. She looked at them both
with respectful awe in her eyes and in her cheeks a flush of color that
came and went as she spoke, in a way that at first puzzled Miss Lindsey
as to its brand and then in turn awed her as she decided it was the real
thing. The blue-silk triumph of Miss Elvira and "The Review" also
puzzled her for a moment, but she put it down to some little Fifth
Avenue shop that only debutantes and authors of plays could afford, and
took it in with delight at its exquisite detail.
"I think it is a dandy play, as Mr. Farraday has been telling it to me.
Crooks and--and cut-ups are about done for," said Miss Lindsey. She gave
a quick glance at Mr. Farraday, to see if he resented the allusion to
Mr. Vandeford's recent failure.
"Right-o!" agreed Mr. Farraday, with a sympathetic smile at her
allusion, which passed over the head of the lady from Adairville,
Kentucky.
Then ensued more than a half-hour of the most enthusiastic discussion of
plays in general, and Miss Adair's in particular. Both Mr. Dennis
Farraday and Miss Mildred Lindsey were impressed with the fact that the
author of "The Renunciation of Rosalind" had learned her business from
the most erudite sources, and they talked Shakespeare and Fielding
until they at last wound themselves up into a complete pause.
Miss Adair broke the strain.
"I'm awfully hungry, and I don't know where to go to get something to
eat," she said, with exactly the same tone of confidence she had used in
asking old Jeff for a cold muffin in between the meals of her eighth
summer.
"By Jove, we are all hungry! You girls come with me," exclaimed Mr.
Dennis Farraday, as he jumped to his feet and looked around for his hat.
"Thank you, but I think I had better go home to--to see about--" Miss
Lindsey was faltering with the embarrassment of those who are both proud
and hungry, when food is offered them socially.
"Nonsense! You are coming over to the Claridge with Miss Adair and me
for a bite. Then you can come back by here and see Dolph.--Dolph, make
out a check for Miss Lindsey's advance. Shall we say one or two hundred,
Miss Lindsey?" Dennis Farraday was in his element when doing the breezy
protective to two girls at once.
"One hundred, please," answered Miss Lindsey, with color mounting to her
cheeks that underpainted that already there. She smiled with amusement
at the surprise that manifested itself for an instant on the round face
of Mr. Meyers that an actress should not "grab" all offered her and then
plead for more. "But I really do feel that I had better not--go to
luncheon, for I am--"
"Please do! I'd rather you would," the eminent author urged, and she
clung to the show girl in a way that showed Dennis Farraday, accustomed
to the women of her world, that vague proprieties were hovering beside
the gates that were opening for Patricia from her old world into her
new.
"You'll have to come, Miss Lindsey, to celebrate, or we shall think you
are not all for the play," Mr. Farraday said with a finality in his
voice that settled the matter.
And the three of them scudded along a few blocks of the sun-steamed
streets into the coolness of the Claridge, also into the heart of a
situation that had been seething for an hour between Mr. Godfrey
Vandeford and Miss Violet Hawtry.
"How wonderful of you, Van dear, to find me such a play at the eleventh
and three-quarters hour!" had been the volley that Violet had fired at
him.
"Glad you like it," he had parried, feeling sure that she was jockeying
with him for position for the clinch.
"Dennis Farraday told me that you were backing my emotional handling
even more than my comedy scenes. Could you for once be playing square
with me and really looking forward to my development in getting
this--this rather remarkable kind of a play for me?"
"I've done my best for you for five years, Violet," he quietly answered
the insult, as he looked across the empty white tables that stretched
away from Violet's favorite and reserved seat in the black and gold
dining-room.
"'Miss Cut-up,' for instance?"
"There were several ways to put that play across. You had your way in
every particular. Mine might have succeeded," was his calm answer.
"The really amusing thing about you is that you don't at all know how
little brains you have," was the polite broadside delivered him as
Violet began to sip the clear coffee from her cup.
"Same to you," was the reply she received. Godfrey spoke in a
good-natured tone of voice. "Now, what did you come to town to talk
about--'The Purple Slipper'?"
"Why did you leave Highcliff like a thief in the night?"
"Did you read the deeds Dolph gave you when he went up to pack my
personal effects?"
"Yes, thanks! I suppose you consider Highcliff the price of your
freedom?"
"And cheap at that."
"Then why not turn me over to Weiner?" Violet asked in a dangerous tone
of voice that made Mr. Vandeford glance around with apprehension to see
who would witness the explosion if it occurred.
"I tried to buy Denny off yesterday, but you fastened 'The Purple
Slipper' firmly in his head, maybe his heart, the other evening, and it
would be like taking candy from a child. Maybe you can--can influence
him to let go--if I give you the chance." There was something coolly
insulting in his voice that told Violet he had surmised her intentions
and the failure of her assault on his big Jonathan.
"Your usual impertinence! I'll get him yet, just to spite you. I'll go
in and play that 'Purple Slipper' to win, and--"
"Again Miss Adair breaks in on enthusiasm for her play." Dennis
Farraday's big voice boomed right at the elbows of the embattled pair.
"Look who's here, Van!"
Mr. Godfrey Vandeford looked up quickly, and as quickly rose to his
feet. And with one glance into slate-gray eyes behind long black
lashes--eyes filled with awed, worshipful gratitude to him--his heart
rose in his breast and all but flitted out upon his sleeve.
"Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford, the producer of your play," good Dennis
flourished. "And Miss Violet Hawtry! In fact, the whole happy family!"
CHAPTER III
Now, by all rules of the game, it was the prerogative of Miss Violet
Hawtry to take charge of a situation in which the star of a play meets
the author; but she missed her cue, and the gutter instinct within her
sat dumb and dumfounded before the lady from Adairville.
"I'm charmed to meet you, Miss Hawtry," Miss Adair assured her, with a
glance of such admiration and friendliness that even Violet's
narrow-gage soul expanded into a variety of graciousness all its own,
and she smiled back into the eyes of the young author with a radiance
that had the semblance of warmth.
"And this is Miss Lindsey, whom we have chosen to support you in our
play, Miss Hawtry," Mr. Dennis Farraday continued, with a glance of
respectful awe at the Hawtry, which matched that given her by the
author a second before and obtained for Miss Lindsey a cordial enough
recognition of the introduction only slightly to frappe her instead of
freezing her entirely. "We are all hungry," he added after the change of
civilities.
"You are all having luncheon with me," Mr. Vandeford found his voice to
say. Ignoring Violet's glance of indignation at this skilful avoidance
of a climax of her scene with him, he had three extra covers laid at the
corner table devoted to the services of Miss Hawtry.
"I warned you that we were hungry, Van," said Mr. Farraday, as he began
to search through the menu for an article of diet safe to pour in
quantities into a girl who had long been empty. "How'd rare steak and
fresh mushrooms do?" he asked, and he looked away from what he was sure
would be in the eyes of Miss Lindsey, and which was there.
"Wonderful!" she murmured.
"Right-o, for you and Miss Lindsey, but what about nightingales' tongues
for my author?" laughed Mr. Vandeford, with an interested note in his
rich voice, which caused Miss Hawtry to look at him sharply and Miss
Adair to repeat the blush to such a degree that Miss Hawtry, as Miss
Lindsey before her, was forced to admit that it was native and not