Clara Morris

“ No apportionment had been made at all, yet with a single blue gleam of an upward glancing eye, a swirl of color in a peachy cheek, Dorothy put out her hand unhesitatingly and claimed her own, thus proving that she knew herself to be the Violet Girl, and Sybil, fluttering her gay fan above her head, said, aside to Galt: "I suppose then, I am a sort of dahlia-girl or a—a—hibiscus-girl?" And he, being merry and light of heart because of that sweet, comprehending blue-eyed glance, caught up the mandolin and sang in answer: "My love is like the red, red rose!" ”

“ If she did, her chance of starring would soar some hundred feet higher than 'Gilderoy's kite.' But oh, poor little girl! your beauty and your genius, like the bloom and perfume of the flower, act as lures to the roving, inconstant seeker of nectar. Your life will be spoiled—if it be not already. Why could Stewart Thrall not leave you alone? You would have made your way slowly, but surely and naturally. But it's no use to speculate now on what might have been. Thrall, who finds it difficult to say 'no' to anyone, could not say it to himself to save his immortal soul from burning fire! ”

“ Actors and certain critics knew that that swallow-like skimming from laughing badinage to biting satire—that fine restraint, that incredible lightness of touch was backed by certainty, that certainty meant knowledge, and that knowledge meant work. Yet, though Thrall told her again and again that she had in herself the same mocking spirit that informed Beatrice, she would have it that he and he alone had made the performance possible to her. And though he denied it, the assertion was like nectar to the vanity of the artist—like balm to the heart of the man who longed to serve her. ”

“ Sybil shot a quick sidelong glance at her sister, hesitated a moment, then stopped, bent her head, and whispered, rapidly: "Lord! dear Lord! who seems always so far off, hear me, I pray! Soften this woman's heart toward me, incline her to help me, not because of any merit, but because of my great need. In your blessed Son's name I ask it. Amen!"
And then she hurried on ahead, while Dorothy, radiant with faith, scrabbled and slipped and laughed quite happily as they came out upon the wide, shady avenue, short of breath but sound of limb and skirt and shoe. ”

“ Old Poll, sidling into view and waddling across the floor in search of mischief, had caused the swift change of expression, and the expression had brought the stage-manager to the front with a bound.
"Great Shakspere!" said Thrall to himself; "what a face for the balcony scene! The sweetness—the positive radiance—the lovely outline of the down-bent face! I've half a mind—I—why, the girl has just shown she has brains, whether her ideas of Desdemona are right or wrong; it proves that she can think for herself! ”

“ But Stewart Thrall loved Sybil with a difference. His life had become a drear, monotonous triviality. He had been sick to death of those brief amours that ring truest to the sound of gold. Love had so long degenerated into a coarse appetite that it had at last [Pg 289] become veritable dead-sea fruit to him. But this little girl had thrilled him into life again, had aroused his ambition, touched his heart to tenderness and respect and love—real love, that made him try to be the man she thought him, that made him shake with fear lest she find him unworthy—as he knew himself to be. ”

“ She believed the taste for forbidden fruit was common to all men. Thrall's conduct in the past had done little to dispel that belief; but she knew now that his love for the beautiful, gifted girl, whose faith he longed to justify by wedding her, was a real—and oh! galling thought—a loyal love! In the past her suspicions had often borne fruit, and she could recall certain gas-lit, laughing trysts, very scant of secrecy, mere counterfeit amours, that he had lived to loathe, and she knew that this was no such caprice. ”

“ It was a dreary job, for surely one can find no more desolate and melancholy place in a great city than a theatre seen by daylight. From the front of the house one receives an impression of loss. The sight of an empty chair is saddening—here are a thousand of them. This dimness and vastness, this gilding and crystal and metal that does not glisten nor glitter. The depressing silence of checked music, of vanished laughter—even an actor shivers at sight of the auditorium of a closed theatre; it is like looking on the face of a dead pleasure. ”

“ I will not divorce you, and so give you to another. I shall remain Mrs. Stewart Thrall, while I live and while I die. I am a good woman, and therefore you cannot be divorced by any law on earth!"
Glancing down at the book, Thrall saw it was Milton's "Paradise Lost," and, flinging it on the table, he cried: "I wonder why Milton didn't make a virtuous woman the keeper of the gate of hell!"
As he left the room he added: "Lettice, against your hard, repellent virtue a generous sinner shines like an angel!" And he went forth to the bitterest hour of his life—his next meeting with Sybil Lawton. ”

“ Oh, let's run down and bring papa back!"
And away they started, but almost immediately the "clipperty-clapperty-clip" of the approaching horse was heard, and they stopped. Dorothy, noting how swiftly the color came and went on her sister's cheek, said, piteously: "I wonder if—oh, I hope she will be nice, dear!"
"Nice?" repeated Sybil, savagely. "Why should she be nice? She is on the top wave of success—we're two little nobodies! Why nice, pray? But my pride is pushed well down in my pocket, Dorrie, and, if need be, I'll grovel for the help she alone can give me!" ”

“ Marriage is honorable! Dorothy may wed, but I—" And then an agonized cry rang through the house: "Dorothy! oh, Dorothy! Little sister! I have lost you! I shall not dare to look into your honest eyes, lest you should see the sin in mine! I may not kiss your lips or touch your cheek, nor ever again pillow your dear head upon my arm the long night through because of the pollution on my life that makes me base, unworthy, and unfit associate for innocence like yours!"
"Be silent!" savagely interrupted Thrall, with death-white face. ”

“ She is not a wife! Our wedded life is a monstrous hypocrisy! We are false to ourselves, false to society, false in word, deed, and thought! And yet she is a good woman, whose legal and technical virtue would certainly have given her the valued right to hurl rocks at the woman taken in adultery. Wife? She? The woman whose companionship dragged me down to a lower level than that at which she found me? Oh, I see in your cloudy, scornful face your contempt for the man who blames a woman, and Lettice Rowland Thrall should not be censured for not giving what she has not to give! ”

“ Peal after peal of laughter from Sybil brought Stivers to the door, pale and with distinctly frightened eyes. "In the name of heaven, what's the matter with you? Stop it! stop it! You're fey—that's what you are! Ill will come of it—now mind!"
"Fey?" repeated Sybil, gurgling still with laughter. "What is fey, Mrs. Stivers? Why, you look quite frightened!"
"You laugh in a room all by yourself! You're fey, and that means you're sort of possessed. It's an evil spirit of mischievous fun that takes hold of you just before a stroke of bad luck comes upon you. ”

“ Sybil, hurried by a message from Leslie Galt, had come flying back from the city to the aid of her injured sister; and, as she dropped upon her knees beside the bed, she cried, breathlessly: "Oh, Dorrie! what an unfortunate, lucky, lucky girl you are!"—a bull that scattered threatening tears and set them both laughing.
As Sybil tossed off her street garments and prepared to make Dorothy more comfortable, she said, heedlessly: "No wonder you believe so in your God, when He never fails to save you from danger. ”

“ No matter what went on, no matter who was speaking, those slowly moving pale-blue eyes with their whity lashes followed her, measuring her height, movements, her very heart-throbs, it seemed to the puzzled, distressed girl. She felt that there was something threatening, inimical, in the very air about her. When the chamber scene began, as she stood on the balcony with Romeo, she was instantly aware of the new rigid clasp of his arm, of the pallor about his mouth, and the sternness that shone in his erstwhile amorous eyes. ”

“ A moment of silence, then Leslie said, slowly: "Mr. Lawton, you have shown me great kindness, and I——"
The old man held up his hand, saying, with quick deprecation: "No! no! Without power, one can show kindness to no man! I like you, my lad! I shall be grateful to you all my life, but I have done you no kindness!"
Leslie moistened his lips as might a nervous girl: "I—you—" he stammered, then went on eagerly—"How well do you like me, sir? Well enough to trust me with—oh, good God!" he cried, "what's the use of beating about the bush? ”

“ The trite endearments necessity forced from his lips were torture to Sybil when she chanced to hear them; and oh, the agony of a woman, who is secretly loved, when she sees the man who is hers—for whom she has paid with her pride and honor and self-respect—held to the side of another woman, by her legitimate rights! Just as maddening pain will sometimes drive a sufferer to press upon the torturing wound, so Sybil would cry to herself: "She is his true wife, and I am a—caprice!" ”

“ Dorothy, in answer to Sybil's look, was trying to find some excuse for leaving the two together, and had just expressed a desire to cross the lawn to look at a very fine hawthorn when they saw a young woman coming up the steps and heard a ring of the doorbell. Claire Morrell's eyes happened to be upon Sybil's at the moment, and the look of despair that settled whitely down upon her face made her think, with a quickening pulse, "That's just the expression of face many a woman must have seen reflected from the clear water a moment before the fatal plunge." ”

“ Dorothy sat down dejectedly on a step of the ladder and pushed her sunny brown hair back from her damp forehead. "Yes—it is dreadful! We must put mamma and papa in the driest room and see what the cellar is like, and perhaps we may find some boy about who will cut away some of those branches and let a little sunlight in on this window that I see mamma has marked for her own. A little shaking and shivering won't matter so much for us, Sybil. We are young and can stand it, but papa is not strong and fever would simply eat him up, poor dear!" ”

“ And Roberts groaned and Manice was so like a spitting cat that poor Jim said wearily one night: "Look out, Thrall! I know the wrong side of woman pretty well, and that bleached friend of yours is going to play you a trick before long—either you or—or—" He could not force himself to speak the name, but looked so piteously at the manager that Thrall nodded, answeringly: "All right, Jim! all right! She can try all the tricks she likes on me! The—the other person's safe enough—they don't come in contact, you know! Why, you're all to pieces, and imagine things!" ”

“ But you, who are rich, successful, secure, cannot be expected to understand the shame, the humiliation, the suffering caused by mere poverty! And yet, it is genteel poverty that is crushing out the lives of all those who are dear to me! That is my trouble, but," she let her arms drop heavily away from the waist they had clasped, "you cannot understand!"
Claire Morrell stood tall in her soft amber gown, looking down into the troubled eyes lifted to her face. A half quizzical, half tender smile was on her lips. "You must not jump so hastily to your conclusions, Miss Lawton," she said. ”

“ Any opportunity is thrown away upon you! And Sybil hated him and opposed me at every turn! Yet with a little more time my finesse would have brought William Henry Bulkley to the point of marrying Dorothy!"
"Damnation!" cried John Lawton, as he sprang to his feet and stood a hard, breathing moment, holding fast to the corner of the dressing-table for support. His pale eyes shone with the phosphorescent glare of the angry cat. His long fingers opened and closed convulsively. For the first time in all her life, Letitia saw danger in him.
"You—are—an—infamous woman!" ”

“ And Thrall, spoiled by the world, looking back along the twenty arid years between them, saw dead passions cast aside like so many outworn gloves; knew the price of every illegitimate whim, and had seen his own danger. Yet instead of flying from it he had trusted to the strange new desire he felt to help, to guard, to advance the interests of another, and now he found himself dominated by a great passion, such a one as none who knew him gave him credit for.
Jim Roberts writhed miserably, crying: "She thinks he loves her! ”

“ Lawton took his hand and pressed it gratefully. "Thank you!" he said, "thank you, for your goodness to my Sybil!"
Roberts flung himself into the old hack, muttering, as he slammed the door: "Hear him! Just hear him!" He burst into a laugh that ended in a groan. "Oh!" he continued, "I wonder if God, in some mighty shuffle of His worlds, has dropped this one out of His hands entirely! For surely nothing higher, nothing wiser than blind fate or a malicious devil can be guiding the affairs of man!" ”

“ Lawton. Inside there was a frank luxury clearly explained to love-sealed eyes by that one elastic word "salary"; though an observant outsider, noting the age-darkened, carved wood, the rare polar-bear robes, and the exquisite bits of bronze, must have thought her a marvellously lucky buyer, or a remarkably well-paid actress. But there were no such observers at hand; perhaps that was why Sybil's vine-dripping, flower-crowded windows seemed to laugh in the face of the grim, shade-drawn propriety of the entire block. ”

“ While Thrall was trying to reassure Sybil and convince her that he had meant no mockery by his laughter, she sat with down-bent face, hiding her mortifying tears. He noted the hair, dark clouding over the straight, black brows, the outward thrust of the sullen, red lip [Pg 138] that made and kept the whole face mutinous, when a quick glint came to the averted eyes, a lift to the brows, a tremor to the lips that suddenly parted, curling like petals into the most delicious smile ever made for man's undoing. ”

“ Question me about notoriety, Miss Lawton, and no man alive can give you more authentic information as to the method of its creation, its staying power, and its value. But I know not fame! If I died to-morrow I'd die like a dog—so far as memory or renown is concerned. Learn early to distinguish between the sound, noise, and rumor of notoriety and the credit, honor, and excellence of fame! ”

“ Then, kissing the hungry tears from her mother's eyes, she added: "Just say to yourself, now and then, 'Eggs! eggs!' and that will keep your courage up—that and the knowledge that you are the only woman alive who can wear a handkerchief about her forehead and yet look pretty."
And Letitia simpered, and sprinkled a little bay-rum on her hair to suggest headache; ate a handful of crackers to take off the sharp edge of her keen appetite, and languidly descended to the distinctly musty parlor. ”

“ The girl shrank. "Don't!" she cried, "don't add to cruelty and cowardice—treachery to her! She is very cruel, but then a good wife who suspects a wrong to her love has a right to be cruel!"
"Oh, you innocent, just soul!" the man cried. "Yes, she is cruel in very deed, since being a wife in name alone these years past she yet clings tenaciously to that empty title. She has not enough womanly pride to free the man who earnestly pleads to be released, whose chill indifference protects her from temptation. ”