"You"ll always let me do anything I can, won"t you?" he asked as he looked down upon her for a second, then took a considerate departure.
"b.o.o.b!" muttered Hawtry to herself, as she rose and rang for Susette.
There are in this little old world many men like Dennis Farraday; only none of its inhabitants admit their existence.
After the evening of the introduction of its author to Broadway, things spun fast and furiously in the business of producing "The Purple Slipper," and during the whirlwind of the day Miss Adair sat either in her own private office or in the chair beside Mr. Vandeford, and reveled in the excitement, and in the evenings did other revelings. She had her evening with Mr. Height under the spell of Barrie and Maude Adams, and Mr. Vandeford swore under his breath when she reported to him that they had gone to the concert on the roof of the Waldorf for an hour, and had got back to her abiding-place in time not to need the latch-key, which still reposed in his pocket. He knew Gerald Height, and he was puzzled and alarmed at this wary approach.
Mrs. Farraday came to town, and the dinner-party in her staid, old Washington Square home, with himself and Miss Lindsey and Miss Adair as guests, was like a day"s vacation for Mr. Vandeford. Also, he got a complete off-guard picture of Miss Adair as he would see her in Adairville, Kentucky, for she and the beautiful and stately Mrs.
Farraday spoke the same language and had the same forms.
"My dear child, you positively must come up to Westchester for this week-end! Matilda Van Tyne is going to come for the first blooming of the rhododendrons in the West Marsh, and I feel sure that she must have known your mother in some of her visits to Lexington. She must see you and hear all about the play. Now, Dennis, make all the arrangements."
Mrs. Farraday gave her commands as a queen is accustomed to deliver them.
"May I go?" Miss Adair asked of Mr. Vandeford, her shining gray eyes raised to his with deference and confidence as usual.
"You may," answered Mr. Vandeford, aware that Mrs. Farraday"s keen eyes of the world were fixed upon him in a speculative way. "The rehearsals will begin at eleven on Monday, and you can be back in plenty of time."
"And, Miss Lindsey, will you come, too, with Miss Adair?" Mrs. Farraday surprised both her son and Mr. Vandeford by asking the young Westerner with the greatest graciousness. It was evident that the young leading lady had put herself across with the grand dame, and both Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday rejoiced.
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Farraday, but I have made a professional engagement for Sat.u.r.day evening. I am going to do a monologue stunt to fill in at the Colonial," Miss Lindsey answered, with pleasure at the invitation shining in her dark eyes.
"Then Dennis can drive down on Sunday and bring you back in time for tea and to see the sunset on the rhododendrons." Mrs. Farraday further surprised her son and Mr. Vandeford by giving this command the imperiousness with which she was accustomed to issue her much-sought-after invitations.
"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Farraday, with the same sort of eager kindness shining in his eyes as Miss Lindsey had met when he had asked her if beefsteak and mushrooms would be the thing for her starvation. The memory of that day made Miss Lindsey"s eyes dim as she accepted the invitation, though she had had hope of a last minute chance to do a little Sunday "stunt" for Keith somewhere in subway New York. And Miss Lindsey needed the money, for a hundred dollars doesn"t go far in New York even when carried in the pocket of a gown donned in the Y. W. C.
A.; but she needed the rhododendrons and the tea more than she needed the material things that the extra fifty picked up at Keith"s would have purchased.
"Thank you, Mrs. Farraday, it would be--be "great" to come that way,"
Miss Lindsey answered. Both Mr. Vandeford and Mr. Farraday, as well as Miss Adair, were struck with the sudden beauty that illumined Miss Lindsey"s dark face as she smiled and quoted Mr. Farraday in her acceptance of his mother"s invitation.
"Is or is not little Lindsey a beauty, Denny?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as they drove up-town in the Surreness after depositing the girls at their nunnery.
"I was just wondering," answered Mr. Farraday. "I"m mighty glad she made such a hit with the mater."
"And I"m mighty glad I"m going to lose the author of "The Purple Slipper" into the wilds of Westchester and the rhododendrons, while I extract her play from Howard and slash it myself and help Rooney to mutilate it further," said Mr. Vandeford.
"Of course you are going to the mater"s with Miss Lindsey and me for tea, per usual?" asked Mr. Farraday.
"Can"t do it. Got to work on "The Purple Slipper" while you people frolic. Good-night!" With which refusal and taunt Mr. Vandeford left Mr.
Farraday at the door of his apartment-house.
Mr. Farraday looked at his watch as he started away from the curb, found the hour to be eleven o"clock, wabbled the machine first to the right and then to the left, and finally turned down-town, in which direction the Claridge reared its twelve stories of masonry at the corner of Forty-fourth and Sixth.
At about that minute these were the remarks exchanged through the open door that connected two little cell-like rooms at the Y. W. C. A.:
"Aren"t you going to bed right away? I"m so sleepy that I"m brushing my face instead of my hair," Miss Adair called to Miss Lindsey. A desperate and continual desire for sleep is the pest that haunts the rural visitor to New York and Miss Adair"s young health was easily its prey. She did not readily learn to run on nerves.
"You go to bed; but I"ve got to let the hem of my tailored linen down two inches, so it will brush against those rhododendrons as a lady"s should, and sew up the opening in the neck of my chiffon blouse an inch and a half, so I won"t spill any of Mrs. Farraday"s tea down it.
Good-night!" It goes to say that when Greek meets Vandal or the East meets the West, dents occur.
And, as Mrs. Farraday had commanded, the rhododendron party at West Marsh came to pa.s.s, to the vast enjoyment of all present, though Mr.
Vandeford"s absence was a deprivation to the entire company. And that night their friendly hearts would have ached if they had been able to get a vision of his strenuosity. G.o.dfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer, was in full action, and chips from "The Purple Slipper" were flying in all directions.
In his bedroom in the Seventy-third Street apartment, Mr. Vandeford was stripped for the fray--to his silk pajamas--and he lay stretched upon his fumed-oak bed, with both reading-lights turned on full blaze. In his hands was the ma.n.u.script of "The Purple Slipper," which Mazie Villines had literally torn from under the hands of Grant Howard to deliver to Mr. Vandeford on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, just a day later than the time set for its deliverance.
"My check and Grant"s down, or no play," she had said upon entering Mr.
Vandeford"s apartment at about the setting of the Sat.u.r.day sun. "He"s off for a two week"s d.t., and I gotter take care of him. Twelve-fifty is the way to write it."
"Six hundred, and not a cent more without Grant"s signature," answered Mr. Vandeford. Mr. Adolph Meyers, who was listening to the conversation from the hall from which he had ushered Miss Villines into Mr.
Vandeford"s library, set a spring-lock on the entrance door of the apartment, and entered the library un.o.btrusively.
"Twelve-fifty, you old dollar-skinner!" averred the vaudeville star, with a nasty little laugh.
"Don"t try to pull off a hold-up, Mazie. It won"t work. It"s Grant"s money," said Mr. Vandeford, with an icy calmness in his voice. And as she spoke he looked at Mr. Adolph Meyers, who answered the look with perfect comprehension.
"Then you"ll get the ma.n.u.script when h.e.l.l freezes over or your wad loosens," she again laughed, and this time turned toward the door with the square manila portfolio under her arm.
An interested spectator could not have said afterward just how it did happen that in half a second the manila portfolio was in the hands of Mr. Adolph Meyers, who also bore upon his left cheek a long and profusely bleeding scratch.
"Here"s your check, child, and keep a good grip on Grant, so he can"t get started toward East River as he did last time," Mr. Vandeford said as he handed an already prepared check to the enraged girl. She was dumb for a second, no longer.
"I was going to leave it for five hundred, you old white-skinned bluffer with your goose-grease, strong arm," she finally blurted out, and in a twinkling of her bright eyes her good-nature had returned. "Say, that is some play now, and I wish you"d let me play a dance girl at that dinner-party. I"d do it refined." There was a queer little appeal in the mobile young face. "I"d like to doll up like a lady."
"I"ll think that over, Mazie," answered Mr. Vandeford. "A song and dance from you might go all right."
"Gimme a call, will you? I"ll be on the job with my guzzler for a week now. I got to get him past, for he"s some meal-ticket when times is dull." As Mazie disposed of the check in her stocking, a degree of affectionate anxiety for the condition of Mr. Grant Howard showed in her face for the fraction of a second, then disappeared as she looked at Mr.
Adolph Meyers.
"Come on and get my wad from where I"ve put it, if you dare, Dolph," she challenged, then laughed, as the imperturbable Mr. Meyers both ignored and showed her to the door with all courtesy.
And as he lay on his bed reading over the Howard ma.n.u.script of "The Purple Slipper," which had just returned to him after a twenty-four hour overhauling and annotation for action by Mr. William Rooney, the stage director with the top price, Mr. Vandeford said to Mr. Adolph Meyers, who sat at a table beside the bed, taking down and inserting notes into the ma.n.u.script as they sprang from Mr. Vandeford"s brain, almost before they got past his lips:
"No wonder Mazie could see herself in this show, Pops! Grant has pepped it up almost to her standard. Whee-ugh!" With this whistle Mr. Vandeford turned page twenty of the first act and handed it over to Mr. Meyers, who began to devour it with eyes that took in almost the whole page at a glance.
"It is a snap-shot of Miss Hawtry he has made, Mr. Vandeford, sir. Mr.
Howard has never done better."
"Yes, that"s what he intended to do, but I"m going to clean it out a bit. Run an insert of the scene on page five to seven and a half out of Miss Adair"s ma.n.u.script. It is just as good and a little--little more--say, Pops, cut out seven lines on page fourteen from the second down, and take this from me instead." Mr. Vandeford closed his eyes and dictated a bit of dialogue between two of the minor characters of "The Purple Slipper," which cleared up a point Mr. Howard and Mr. Rooney and the original author had all left at loose ends. As he dictated, Mr.
Meyers wrote on the blank page opposite the lines, and made some cabalistic signs for insertion.
Slowly they progressed through the first act, Mr. Vandeford reading from two ma.n.u.scripts and reconciling Mr. Howard"s shaky, pen annotations, Mr.
Rooney"s blue-pencil, action directions, and Miss Adair"s original wanderings from the point with many brilliant returns in quaint dialogue.
"That child has got more brains and uses them less than would seem possible," growled Mr. Vandeford, as he with a few deft lines near the close of the second act got the heroine off the stage and out of an impossible situation in which Miss Adair had involved her.
"It is that her characters talk with interest, but act in awkwardness, Mr. Vandeford, sir. Another good play can be written by Miss Adair,"
Mr. Meyers said as he put in two lines and a cross star sign.
"G.o.d forbid!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Vandeford, in all sincerity. "Here, Pops, get this first act down to those girls waiting in the office. Did you get two for all night, so one could get out the parts? You know Rooney will expect a reading to-morrow before he begins rehearsals."