The Real Adventure
by an exceedingly blond young man to scramble up on the stage and make a
few remarks to the director. He was the musical director, Rose found out
afterward. Galbraith, to judge from his attitude, gave his colleague's
remarks about twenty-five per cent. of his attention, keeping his eye
all the while on the chorus, to see that they got their initial
formation correctly. Rose looked them over, too. The girls weren't, on
an average, extravagantly beautiful, though, with the added charm of
make-up allowed for, there were no doubt many the audiences would
consider so. What struck Rose most emphatically about them, was their
youth and spirit. How long they had been rehearsing this afternoon she
didn't know. But now, when they might have gone slack and silent, they
pranced and giggled instead and showed a disposition to lark about,
which evidently would have carried them a good deal further but for the
restraining presence of the director. They were dressed in pretty much
anything that would allow perfect freedom to their bodies; especially
their arms and legs; bathing suits mostly, or middy-blouses and
bloomers. Rose noted this with satisfaction. Her old university
gymnasium costume would do perfectly. Anything, apparently, would do,
because as her eye adjusted itself to details, she discovered romper
suits, pinafores, chemises, overalls--all equally taken for granted.
There weren't nearly so many chorus men as girls. She couldn't be sure
just how many there were, because they couldn't be singled out. As they
wore no distinctly working costume, merely took off their coats,
waistcoats and collars, they weren't distinguishable from most of the
staff, who, with the exception of the director, garbed themselves
likewise.
Galbraith dismissed the musical director with a nod, struck his hands
together for silence, and scrutinized the now motionless group on the
stage.
"We're one shy," he said. "Who's missing?" And then answered his own
question: "Grant!" He wheeled around and his eyes searched the hall.
Rose became aware for the first time, that a mutter of conversation had
been going on incessantly since she had come in, in one of the recessed
window-seats behind her. Now, when Galbraith's gaze plunged in that
direction, she turned and looked too. A big blonde chorus-girl was in
there with a man, a girl, who, with twenty pounds trained off her, and
that sulky look out of her face, would have been a beauty. She had
roused herself with a sort of defiant deliberation at the sound of the
director's voice, but she still had her back to him and went on talking
to the man.
"Grant!" said John Galbraith again, and this time his voice had a
cutting edge. "Will you take your place on the stage, or shall I suspend
rehearsal until you're ready?"
For answer she turned and began walking slowly across the room toward
the door in the proscenium that led to the stage. She started walking
slowly, but under Galbraith's eye, she quickened her pace,
involuntarily, it seemed, until it was a ludicrous sort of run.
Presently she emerged on the stage, looking rather artificially
unconcerned, and the rehearsal went on again.
But just before he gave the signal to the pianist to go ahead, Galbraith
with a nod summoned a young man from the wings and said something to
him, whereupon, clearly carrying out his orders, he vaulted down from
the stage and came walking toward the doorway where Rose was still
standing. The director's gaze as it flashed about the hall, had
evidently discovered more than the sulky chorus-girl.
The young man wasn't intrinsically formidable--a rather limp,
deprecatory sort, he looked. But, as an emissary from Galbraith, he
quickened Rose's heart-beat a trifle. She smiled though as she made a
small bet with herself that he wouldn't be able to turn her out, even in
his capacity of envoy.
But he didn't come straight to Rose; deflected his course a little
uncertainly, and brought up before a woman who sat in a folding chair a
little farther along the wall.
Rose hadn't observed her particularly before, though she was aware that
one of the "big girls" who had responded promptly to Galbraith's first
call for them, had been talking to her when Rose came in, and she had
assumed her to be somebody connected with the show; at least with an
unchallengeable right to watch its rehearsals. But she had corrected
this impression even before she had heard what John Galbraith's
assistant said to the woman and what she said to him; for she drew
herself defensively erect when she saw him turn toward her, assumed a
look of calculated disdain; tapped a foot inadequately shod for
Chicago's pavements in December, although evidently it had experienced
them--gave, on the whole, as well as she could, an imitation of a
duchess being kept waiting.
But the limp young man didn't seem disconcerted, and inquired in so many
words, what her business was. The duchess said in a harsh high voice
with a good deal of inflection to it, that she wanted to see the
director; a very partic'lar friend of his, she assured the young man,
had begged her to do so. "You'll have to wait till he's through
rehearsing," said the young man, and then he came over to Rose.
The vestiges of the smile the duchess had provoked were still visible
about her mouth when he came up. "May I wait and see Mr. Galbraith after
the rehearsal?" she asked. "If I won't be in the way?"
"Sure," said the young man. "He won't be long now. He's been rehearsing
since two." Then, rather explosively, "Have a chair."
He struck Rose as being a little flustered and uncertain, somehow, and
he now made a tentative beginning of actually bringing a chair for her.
"Oh, don't bother," said Rose, and now she couldn't help smiling
outright. "I'll find one for myself."
But, whenever he had begun rehearsing, it was evident that John
Galbraith didn't mean to stop until he got through, and it was a long
hour that Rose sat there in a little folding chair similar to the one
occupied by the duchess; an hour which, in spite of all her will could
do, took some of the crispness out of her courage. It was all very well
to reflect with pitying amusement on the absurdities of the duchess. But
it was evident the duchess was waiting with a purpose like her own. She
meant to get a job in the chorus. Her rather touching ridiculousness as
a human being wouldn't stand in her way. It was likely that she had had
dozens of jobs in choruses before, knew exactly what would be wanted of
her, and was confident of her ability to deliver it.
As Rose's heart sank lower with the dragging minutes she even took into
account the possibility that the duchess had spoken the truth about John
Galbraith's "partic'lar friend." Just the mention of a name might settle
the whole business. Then her spirits went down another five degrees.
Here she had been assuming all along that there was a job for either of
them to get! But it was quite likely there was not. The chorus looked
complete enough; there was no visible gap in the ranks crying aloud for
a recruit.
When at last, a little after six o'clock, Galbraith said, "Quarter to
eight, everybody," and dismissed them with a nod for a scurry to what
were evidently dressing-rooms at the other side of the ball, the ship of
Rose's hopes had utterly gone to pieces. She had a plank to keep herself
afloat on. It was the determination to stay there until he should tell
her in so many words that he hadn't any use for her and under no
conceivable circumstances ever would have.
The deprecatory young man was talking to him now, about her and the
duchess evidently, for he peered out into the hall to see if they were
still there; then vaulted down from the stage and came toward them.
The duchess got up, and with a good deal of manner, went over to meet
him. Rose felt outmaneuvered here. She should have gone to meet him
herself, but a momentary paralysis kept her in her chair. She didn't
hear what the duchess said. The manner of it was confidential, in marked
protest against the proximity of a handful of other people--the blond
musical director, the thick pianist in his undershirt, a baby-faced man
in round tortoise-shell spectacles, three or four of the chorus people,
each of whom had serious matters to bring before the director's
attention.
But all the confidences, it seemed, were on the side of the duchess.
Because, when John Galbraith answered her, his voice easily filled
the room. "You tell Mr. Pike, if that's his name, that I'm very much
obliged to him, but we haven't any vacancies in the chorus at present.
If you care to, leave your name and address with Mr. Quan, the assistant
stage manager; then if we find we need you, we can let you know."
He said it not unkindly, but he exercised some power of making it
evident that as he finished speaking, the duchess, for him, simply
ceased to exist. Anything she might say or do thereafter, would be so
much effort utterly wasted.
The duchess drew herself up and walked away.
And Rose? Well, the one thing she wanted passionately to do just then,
was to walk away herself out of that squalid horrible room; to soften
her own defeat by evading the final sledge-hammer blow. What he had said
to the duchess licensed her to do so. If there were no vacancies ... But
she clenched her hands, set her teeth, pulled in a long breath, and
somehow, set herself in motion. Not toward the door, but toward where
John Galbraith was standing.
But before she could get over to him, the pianist and the musical
director had got his attention. So she waited quietly beside him for two
of the longest minutes that ever were ticked off by a clock. Then, with
disconcerting suddenness, right in the middle of one of the musical
director's sentences, he looked straight into her face and said: "What
do you want?"
She'd thought him tall, but he wasn't. He was looking on a perfect level
into her eyes.
"I want a job in the chorus," said Rose.
"You heard what I said to that other woman, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Rose, "but ..."
"But you thought you'd let me say it to you again."
"Yes," she said. And, queerly enough, she felt her courage coming back.
She managed the last "yes" very steadily. It had occurred to her that if
he'd wanted merely to get rid of her, he could have done it quicker than
this. He was looking her over now with a coolly appraising eye.
"What professional experience have you had?" he asked.
"I haven't had any."
He almost smiled when she stopped there.
"Any amateur experience?" he inquired.
"Quite a lot," said Rose; "pageants and things, and two or three little
plays."
"Can you dance?"
"Yes," said Rose.
He said he supposed ballroom dancing was what she meant, whereupon she
told him she was a pretty good ballroom dancer, but that it was
gymnastic dancing she had had in mind.
"All right," he said. "See if you can do this. Watch me, and then
imitate me exactly."
In the intensity of her absorption in his questions and her own answers
to them, she had never given a thought to the bystanders. But now as
they fell back to give him room, she swept a glance across their faces.
They all wore smiles of sorts. There was something amusing about
this--something out of the regular routine. A little knot of
chorus-girls halted in the act of going out the wide doors and stood
watching. Was it just a hoax? The suppressed unnatural silence sounded
like it. But at what John Galbraith did, one of the bystanders guffawed
outright.
It wasn't pretty, the dance step he executed--a sort of stiff-legged
skip accompanied by a vulgar hip wriggle and concluding with a
straight-out sidewise kick.
A sick disgust clutched at Rose as she watched--an utter revulsion from