There was something horrifying in this change. In his morbid and overwrought condition it seemed murderous. At last a new resolution set his lips in a stern line, and when the curtain fell on the last act his mind was made up. "I will write one more play for the sensation-loving fools, for these flabby business men and their capon-stuffed wives. I will mix them a dramatic c.o.c.ktail that will make them sit up. I will create a dazzling role for Helen, one that will win back all her old-time admirers. They shall come like a roaring tide, and she shall recoup herself for every loss--in purse and prestige."
It was this night, when his face was white with suffering, that Helen caught a glimpse of him hanging across the railing of the upper balcony.
He went no more to see her play. In his small, shabby room in a musty house on one of the old side streets he set to work on his new plan. He wrote now without fervor, without elation, plodding along hour after hour, erasing, interlining, destroying, rewriting. He toiled terribly.
He permitted himself no fancy flights. He calculated now. "I must have a young and beautiful d.u.c.h.ess or countess," he mused, bitterly. "Our democratic public loves to see n.o.bility. She must peril her honor for a lover--a wonderful fellow of the middle-cla.s.s, not royal, but near it.
The princess must masquerade in a man"s clothing for some high purpose.
There must be a lord high chamberlain or the like who discovers her on this mission to save her lover, and who uses his discovery to demand her hand in marriage for his son--"
In this cynical mood he worked, sustained only by the memory of "The Glittering Woman" whose power and beauty had once dazzled him. Slowly the new play took shape, and, try as he might, he could not keep out of it a line now and then of real drama--of literature. Each act was designed to end with a clarion call to the pa.s.sions, and he was perfectly certain that the curtain would rise again and again at the close. At every point was glitter and the rush of heroics.
He lived sparely, seeing no one, going out only at night for a walk in the square. To send to his brother or his father for money he would not, not even to write his wonder-working drama. His letters home, while brief, were studiedly confident of tone. The play-acting business and all those connected with it stood very remote from the farming village in which Dr. Donald Dougla.s.s lived, and when he read from his son"s letters references to his dramas his mind took but slight hold upon the words. His replies were brief and to the point. "Go back to your building and leave the play-actors to themselves. They"re a poor, uneasy lot at the best." To him an architect was a man who built houses and barns, with a personal share in the physical labor, a wholesome, manly business. The son understood his father"s prejudices, and they formed a barrier to his approach when in need.
On the morning of the fifteenth day _Alessandra_ went to the type-writer, and the weary playwright lifted his head and took a full, free breath. He was convinced beyond any question that this melodrama would please. It had all the elements which he despised, therefore it must succeed. His desire to see Helen now overpowered him. Worn with his toil and exultant in his freedom, he went out into the street to see what the world was doing.
_Enid"s Choice_ was still running. A slight gain at the end of the first week had enabled Helen to withhold her surrender to mammon. The second week increased the attendance, but the loss on the two plays was now very heavy, and Hugh and Westervelt and all her friends as well urged her to give way to the imperious public; but some deep loyalty to Dougla.s.s, some reason which she was not free to give, made her say, "No, while there is the slightest hope I am going to keep on." To her mother she said: "They are a.s.sociated in my mind with something sweet and fine--a man"s aspiration. They taste good in my mouth after all these years of rancid melodrama."
To herself she said: "If they succeed--if they win the public--my lover will come back. He can then come as a conqueror." And the hope of this, the almost certain happiness and honor which awaited them both led her to devise new methods of letting the great non-theatre-going public know that in George Dougla.s.s"s _Enid_ they might be comforted--that it was, indeed, a dramatic sign of promise. "We will give it a faithful trial here, then go on the road. Life is less strenuous in the smaller towns--they have time to think."
Hugh and Westervelt counselled against any form of advertising that would seem to set the play in a cla.s.s by itself, but Helen, made keen by her suffering, bluntly replied: "You are both wrong, utterly wrong. Our only possible chance of success lies in reaching that vast, sane, thoughtful public which seldom or never goes to the theatre. This public very properly holds a prejudice against the theatrical world, but it will welcome a play which is high and poetic without being dull. This public is so vast it makes the ordinary theatre-going public seem but a handful. We must change all our methods of printing."
These ideas were sourly adopted in the third week, just when a note from Dougla.s.s reached her by the hand of a special messenger. In this letter he said: "I have completed another play. I have been grubbing night and day with incessant struggle to put myself and all my ideals aside--to give the public what it wants--to win your old admirers back, in order that I might see you playing once more to crowded and brilliant houses.
It will succeed because it is diametrically opposed to all I have expressed. It is my sacrifice. Will you accept it? Will you read my play? Shall I send it to you?"
Something went out from this letter which hurt Helen deeply. First of all there was a certain humble aloofness in his att.i.tude which troubled her, but more significant still was his confessed departure from his ideals. Her brave and splendid lover had surrendered to the enemy--for her sake. Her first impulse was to write refusing to accept his sacrifice. But on second thought she craftily wrote: "I do not like to think of you writing to please the public, which I have put aside, but come and bring your play. I cannot believe that you have really written down to a melodramatic audience. What I will do I cannot say till I have seen your piece. Where have you kept yourself? Have you been West? Come and tell me all about it."
To this self-contained note he replied by sending the drama. "No, I cannot come till Hugh and you have read and accepted this play. I want your manager to pa.s.s on _Alessandra_. You know what I mean. You are an idealist like myself. You will condemn this drama, but Westervelt may see in it a chance to restore the glitter to his theatre. Ask them both to read it--without letting them know who wrote it. If they accept it, then I can meet them again on equal terms. I long to see you; but I am in disgrace and infinitely poorer than when I first met you."
Over this letter Helen pondered long. Her first impulse was to send the play back without reading it, but her love suggested another subterfuge.
"I will do his will, and if Hugh and Westervelt find the play acceptable I will share in his triumph. But I will not do the play except as a last resort--for his sake. _Enid_ is more than holding its own. So long as it does I will not permit him to lower his splendid powers."
To Hugh she carelessly said: "Here is another play--a melodrama, to judge from the t.i.tle. Look it over and see if there is anything in it."
As plays were constantly coming in to them, Hugh took this one quite as a matter of routine, with expectation of being bored. He was a little surprised next morning when she asked, "Did you look into that ma.n.u.script?"
He answered: "No. I didn"t get time."
She could hardly conceal her impatience. "I wish you"d go over it this morning. From the t.i.tle it"s one of those middle-age Italian things that costume well."
"Oh, is it?" he exclaimed. "Well, I"ll get right at it." Her interest in it more than the t.i.tle moved him. It was a most hopeful sign of weakening on her part.
He came to lunch full of enthusiasm. "Say, sis, that play is a corker.
There is a part in it that sees the _Baroness_ and goes her one better.
If the last act keeps up we"ve got a prize-winner. Who"s Edwin Baxter, anyhow?"
Helen quietly stirred her tea. "I never heard the name before. A new man in the theatrical world, apparently."
"Well, he"s all right. I"m going over the whole thing again. Have you read it?"
"No, I thought best to let you and Westervelt decide this time. I merely glanced at it."
"Well, it looks like the thing to pull us out of our hole."
That night Westervelt came behind the scenes with shining face. "I hope you will consent to do this new piece; it is a cracker-jack." He grew cautious. "It really is an immensely better piece of work than _The Baroness_, and yet it has elements of popularity. I have read it hastily. I shall study it to-night. If it looks as big to me to-morrow morning as now I will return to the old arrangement with you--if you wish."
"How is the house to-night?" she asked.
His face dropped. "No better than last night." He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, ten or fifteen dollars, maybe. We can play all winter to two hundred dollars a night with this play. I do not understand such audiences. Apparently each man sends just one to take his place. There is no increase."
"Well, report to me to-morrow about _Alessandra_, then I will decide upon the whole matter."
In spite of herself she shared in the glow which shone on the faces of her supports, for the word had been pa.s.sed to the leading members that they were going back to the old drama. "They"ve found a new play--a corking melodrama."
Royleston straightened. "What"s the subject?"
"Middle-age Italian intrigue, so Hugh says--bully costumes--a wonder of a part for Merival."
"Then we are on velvet again," said Royleston.
The influence of the news ran through the action on the stage. The performance took on spirit and gusto. The audience immediately felt the glow of the players" enthusiasm, and warmed to both actress and playwright, and the curtain went down to the most vigorous applause of the entire run. But Westervelt did not perceive this, so engrossed was he in the new ma.n.u.script. Reading was prodigious labor for him--required all his attention.
He was at the hotel early the next morning, impatient to see his star.
As he waited he figured on a little pad. His face was flushed as if with drink. His eyes swam with tears of joy, and when Helen appeared he took her hand in both his fat pads, crying out:
"My dear lady, we have found you a new play. It is to be a big production. It will cost a barrel of money to put it on, but it is a winner. Tell the writer to come on and talk terms."
Helen remained quite cool. "You go too fast, Herr Westervelt. I have not read the piece. I may not like the t.i.tle role."
The manager winced. "You will like it--you must like it. It is a wonderful part. The costuming is magnificent--the scenes superb."
"Is there any text?"
Westervelt did not feel the sarcasm. "Excellent text. It is not Sardou--of course not--but it is of his school, and very well done indeed. The situations are not new, but they are powerfully worked out.
I am anxious to secure it. If not for you, for some one else."
"Very well. I will read the ma.n.u.script. If I like it I will send for the author."
With this show of tepid interest on the part of his star Westervelt had to be content. To Hugh he complained: "The influence of that crazy Dougla.s.s is strong with her yet. I"m afraid she will turn down this part."
Hugh was also alarmed by her indifference, and at frequent intervals during the day asked how she was getting on with the reading.
To this query she each time replied: "Slowly. I"m giving it careful thought."
She was, indeed, struggling with her tempted self. She was more deeply curious to read the ma.n.u.script than any one else could possibly be, and yet she feared to open the envelope which contained it. She did not wish to be in any sense a party to her lover"s surrender. She knew that he must have written falsely and without conviction to have made such a profound impression on Westervelt. The very fact that the theme was Italian, and of the Middle Ages, was a proof of his abandonment of a cardinal principle, for he had often told her how he hated all that sort of thing. "What kind of a national drama would that be which dealt entirely with French or Italian mediaeval heroes?" he had once asked, with vast scorn.
It would win back her former worshippers, she felt sure of that. The theatre would fill again with men whose palates required the highly seasoned, the far-fetched. The critics would rejoice in their victory, and welcome Helen Merival to her rightful place with added fervor. The bill-boards would glow again with magnificent posters of Helen Merival, as _Alessandra_, stooping with wild eyes and streaming hair over her slain paramour on the marble stairway, a dagger in her hand. People would crowd again behind the scenes at the close of the play. The magazines would add their chorus of praise.
And over against this stood the slim, poetic figure of _Enid_, so white of soul, so simple, so elemental of appeal. A whole world lay between the two parts. All that each stood for was diametrically opposed to the other. One was modern as the telephone, true, sound, and revealing. The other false from beginning to end, belonging to a world that never existed, a brilliant, flashing pageant, a struggle of beasts in robes of gold and velvet--a.s.sa.s.sins dancing in jewelled garters. Every scene, every motion was worn with use on the stage, and yet her own romance, her happiness, seemed to depend upon her capitulation as well as his.
"If they accept _Alessandra_ he will come back to me proudly--at least with a sense of victory over his ign.o.ble enemies. If I return it he will know I am right, but will still be left so deeply in my debt that he will never come to see me again." And with this thought she determined upon a course of action which led at least to a meeting and to a reconciliation between the author and the manager, and with the thought of seeing him again her heart grew light.