The Story of a Play Part 23

"Yes; that is if you think I can do the part."

"Why, of course!"

"And if--if there could be some changes--very slight changes--made in the part of Salome. It needs subduing." G.o.dolphin said this as if he had never suggested anything of the kind before; as if the notion were newly evolved from his experience.

"I will do what I can, Mr. G.o.dolphin," Maxwell promised, while he knitted his brows in perplexity "But I do think that the very strength of Salome gives relief to Haxard--gives him greater importance."

"It _may_ be so, dramatically. But theatrically, it detracts from him.

Haxard must be the central figure in the eye of the audience from first to last."

Maxwell mused for a moment of discouragement. They were always coming back to that; very likely G.o.dolphin was right; but Maxwell did not know just how to subdue the character of Salome so as to make her less interesting. "Do you think that was what gave you bad houses in Chicago--the double interest, or the weakened interest in Haxard?"

"I think so," said G.o.dolphin.

"Were the houses bad--comparatively?"

G.o.dolphin took a little note-book out of his breast-pocket. "Here are my dates. I opened the first night, the tenth of November, with Haxard, but we papered the house thoroughly, and we made a good show to the public and the press. There were four hundred and fifty dollars in it. The next night there were three hundred; the next night, two eighty; Wednesday matinee, less than two hundred. That night we put on 'Virginius,' and played to eight hundred dollars; Thursday night, with the 'Lady of Lyons,' we had eleven hundred; Friday night, we gave the 'Lady' to twelve hundred; Sat.u.r.day afternoon with the same piece, we took in eleven hundred and fifty; Sat.u.r.day night, with 'Ingomar,' we had fifteen hundred dollars in the house, and a hundred people standing."

Maxwell listened with a drooping head; he was bitterly mortified. "But it was too late then," said G.o.dolphin, with a sigh, as he shut his hook.

"Do you mean," demanded Maxwell, "that my piece had crippled you so that--that--"

"I didn't say that, Mr. Maxwell. I never meant to let you see the figures. But you asked me."

"Oh, you're quite right," said Maxwell. He thought how he had blamed the actor, in his impatience with him, for not playing his piece oftener--and called him fool and thought him knave for not doing it all the time, as G.o.dolphin had so lavishly promised to do. He caught at a straw to save himself from sinking with shame. "But the houses, were they so bad everywhere?"

G.o.dolphin checked himself in a movement to take out his note-book again; Maxwell had given him such an imploring glance. "They were pretty poor everywhere. But it's been a bad season with a good many people."

"No, no," cried Maxwell. "You did very well with the other plays, G.o.dolphin. Why do you want to touch the thing again? It's been ruinous to you so far. Give it up! Come! I can't let you have it!"

G.o.dolphin laughed, and all his beautiful white teeth shone. There was a rich, wholesome red in his smoothly shaven cheeks; he was a real pleasure to the eye. "I believe it would go better in New York. I'm not afraid to try it. You mustn't take away my last chance of retrieving the season. Hair of the dog, you know. Have you seen Grayson lately?"

"Yes, I saw him this afternoon. It was he that told me you were in town."

"Ah, yes."

"And G.o.dolphin, I've got it on my conscience, if you do take the play, to tell you that I offered it to Grayson, and he refused it. I think you ought to know that; it's only fair; and for the matter of that, it's been kicking round all the theatres in New York."

"Dear boy!" said G.o.dolphin, caressingly, and with a smile that was like a benediction, "that doesn't make the least difference."

"Well, I wished you to know," said Maxwell, with a great load off his mind.

"Yes, I understand that. Will you drink anything, or smoke anything?

Or--I forgot! I hate all that, too. But you'll join me in a cup of tea downstairs?" They descended to the smoking-room below, and G.o.dolphin ordered the tea, and went on talking with a gay irrelevance till it came. Then he said, as he poured out the two cups of it: "The fact is, Grayson is going in with me, if I do your piece." This was news to Maxwell, and yet he was somehow not surprised at it. "I dare say he told you?"

"No, he didn't give me any hint of it. He simply told me that you were in town, and where you were."

"Ah, that was like Grayson. Queer fish."

"But I'm mighty glad to know it. You can make it go, together, if any power on earth can do it; and if it fails," Maxwell added, "I shall have the satisfaction of ruining some one else this time."

"Well, Grayson has made nearly as bad a mess of it as I have, this season," said G.o.dolphin. "He's got to take off that thing he has going now, and it's a question of what he shall put on. It will be an experiment with Haxard, but I believe it will be a successful experiment. I have every confidence in that play." G.o.dolphin looked up, his lips set convincingly, and with the air of a man who had stood unfalteringly by his opinion from the first. "Now, if you will excuse me, I will tell you what I think ought to be done to it."

"By all means," said Maxwell; "I shall be glad to do anything you wish, or that I can."

G.o.dolphin poured out a cloudy volume of suggestion, with nothing clear in it but the belief that the part of Haxard ought to be fattened. He recurred to all the structural impossibilities that he had ever desired, and there was hardly a point in the piece that he did not want changed.

At the end he said: "But all these things are of no consequence, comparatively speaking. What we need is a woman who can take the part of Salome, and play it with all the feminine charm that you've given it, and yet keep it strictly in the background, or thoroughly subordinated to the interest of Haxard."

For all that G.o.dolphin seemed to have learned from his experience with the play, Maxwell might well have thought they were still talking of it at Magnolia. It was a great relief to his prepossessions in the form of conclusions to have Grayson appear, with the air of looking for some one, and of finding the object of his search in G.o.dolphin. He said he was glad to see Maxwell, too, and they went on talking of the play. From the talk of the other two Maxwell perceived that the purpose of doing his play had already gone far with them; but they still spoke of it as something that would be very good if the interest could be unified in it. Suddenly the manager broke out: "Look here, G.o.dolphin! I have an idea! Why not frankly accept the inevitable! I don't believe Mr. Maxwell can make the play different from what it is, structurally, and I don't believe the character of Salome can be subdued or subordinated. Then why not play Salome as strongly as possible, and trust to her strength to enhance Haxard's effect, instead of weakening it?"

G.o.dolphin smiled towards Maxwell: "That was your idea."

"Yes," said Maxwell, and he kept himself from falling on Grayson's neck for joy.

"It might do," the actor a.s.sented with smiling eagerness and tolerant superiority. "But whom could you get for such a Salome as that?"

"Well, there's only one woman for it," said Grayson.

"Yolande Havisham?"

The name made Maxwell's heart stop. He started forward to say that Mrs.

Harley could not have the part, when the manager said: "And we couldn't get her. Sterne has engaged her to star in his combination. By the way, he was looking for you to-day, Mr. Maxwell."

"I missed him," answered Maxwell, with immense relief. "But I should not have let him have the piece while I had the slightest hope of your taking it."

Neither the manager nor the actor was perhaps greatly moved by his generous preference, though they both politely professed to be so. They went on to canva.s.s the qualities and reputations of all the other actresses attainable, and always came back to Yolande Havisham, who was unattainable; Sterne would never give her up in the world, even if she were willing to give up the chance he was offering her. But she was the one woman who could do Salome.

They decided that they must try to get Miss Pettrell, who had played the part with G.o.dolphin, and who had done it with refinement, if not with any great force. When they had talked to this conclusion, Grayson proposed getting something to eat, and the others refused, but they went into the dining-room with him, where he showed Maxwell the tankards of the members hanging on the walls over their tables--Booth's tankard, Salvini's, Irving's, Jefferson's. He was surprised that Maxwell was not a member of the Players, and said that he must be; it was the only club for him, if he was going to write for the stage. He came out with them and pointed out several artists whose fame Maxwell knew, and half a dozen literary men, among them certain playwrights; they were all smoking, and the place was blue with the fumes of their cigars. The actors were coming in from the theatres for supper, and Maxwell found himself with his friends in a group with a charming old comedian who was telling brief, vivid little stories, and sketching character, with ill.u.s.trations from his delightful art. He was not swagger, like some of the younger men who stood about with their bell-crowned hats on, before they went into supper; and two or three other elderly actors who sat round him and took their turn in the anecdote and mimicry looked, with their smooth-shaven faces, like old-fashioned ministers. G.o.dolphin, who was like a youthful priest, began to tell stories, too; and he told very good ones admirably, but without appearing to feel their quality, though he laughed loudly at them with the rest.

When Maxwell refused every one's wish to have him eat or drink something, and said good-night, Grayson had already gone in to his supper, and G.o.dolphin rose and smiled so fondly upon him that Maxwell felt as if the actor had blessed him. But he was less sure than in the beginning of the evening that the play was again in G.o.dolphin's hands; and he had to confirm himself from his wife's acceptance of the facts in the belief that it was really so.

XXI.

Louise asked Maxwell, as soon as they had established their joint faith, whom G.o.dolphin was going to get to play Salome, and he said that Grayson would like to re-engage Miss Pettrell, though he had a theory that the piece would be strengthened, and the effect of Haxard enhanced, if they could have a more powerful Salome.

"Mr. Ray told me at lunch," said Louise, impartially but with an air of relief, "that in all the love-making she was delightful; but when it came to the tragedy, she wasn't there."

"Grayson seemed to think that if she could be properly rehea.r.s.ed, she could be brought up to it," Maxwell interposed.

"Mr. Ray said she was certainly very refined, and her Salome was always a lady. And that is the essential thing," Louise added, decisively. "I don't at all agree with Mr. Grayson about having Salome played so powerfully. I think Mr. G.o.dolphin is right."

"For Heaven's sake don't tell him so!" said Maxwell. "We have had trouble enough to get him under."

"Indeed, I shall tell him so! I think he ought to know how we feel."