Some weeks slipped by, and early winter was turning the old white house into a very Franz Joseph Land. "Oh!" cried Dorothy one day, "to think of your having to buy all the coal, Sybil! What stupid things the conventions are! I may accept any extravagant outlay of money in flowers or candy or fruit, but the entire family would be under the grand taboo if I received a ton of coal or a barrel of flour."
"Is the flour out, dear?" quickly asked Sybil, laying down her play-book. "Have you been worrying your poor little head? Don't hide things from me, Dorrie! If I have the money, I love to spend it for home. Of course my salary is small, but, dear heaven! what should we have done without it in this old sieve of a building, where fuel simply melts away, and the grate or stove is always calling out for more? Oh, Dorrie, if I could only make a hit in Juliet! Mr. Thrall would surely raise my salary; yes, in spite of the cost of those costumes that fall upon him, poor man! Are they not a wonderful people—Claire Morrell and Stewart Thrall? Think of the kindness of that woman to me, a nobody! And think of such an actor as Thrall—Stewart Thrall—taking the trouble to teach me the business of Juliet, his very self. Oh, I shall be so frightened! Dorrie, Mr. Roberts has been very patient, going over and over the scenes with me; telling me where I am to stand and where the other people will be, and what they will do, but he never has taught me anything about the actual acting of Juliet. And now to think that I am to be coached at God-mother Van Camp's house by Mr. Thrall in person! I only hope and pray he may not light up as he does sometimes when he is acting, for, if he does, I shall forget my own lines in rapturously listening to him. Do you know, Mr. Roberts is sorry that Mr. Thrall ever undertook the management of a theatre?"
"Why?" asked Dorothy, "he is successful—he must make a great deal of money?"
"That is the very thing poor Mr. Roberts bemoans. He says the artist in him has been suffocated by his commercially won money. He says that Mr. Thrall will himself admit that his acting to-day is not as convincingly true and fine as it was five years ago. Because then he was all enthusiasm, and believed in the dignity and beauty of the art of acting, while to-day he regards it as a means to an end—and that end, money. Poor Mr. Roberts, he seems to know so much about the profession, and yet only plays such small parts. It must be very humiliating. His lip curled so contemptuously when he told me he was going to play the Apothecary. Do you know, Dorrie, I have a suspicion about him, poor man! He always, always smells of cloves, and twice yesterday when he pulled out his handkerchief some cloves fell to the floor, and I said: 'I believe you have a corner on cloves, Mr. Roberts.' And, oh, his poor face turned so red, and I added, hurriedly, 'Don't you think the excessive use of cloves may be injurious to the digestion?' 'Possibly,' he answered, satirically, 'and doubtless still more injurious to the reputation.' I saw his trembling hands; I recalled the watery look his eyes sometimes have; his rapid, almost incoherent speech as opposed to his long silences; and, all at once, I suspected him of drinking."
"Sybil!" exclaimed Dorothy in a shocked voice, "and you have been under his care, and may be again, and he——"
"Has acted like some kind and patient old relative or friend of the family; don't let us forget that. Besides, I may be wrong and ungrateful in suspecting such a thing, but—but it would explain why Mr. Thrall, whom he so admires, only trusts him with such poor, small parts."
Sybil had been nursing her right elbow in her left hand while speaking, and now suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, where's the arnica bottle? I can't bear this last bruise—it's the worst one yet!"
"The bottle is on the wash-stand behind the ewer, but I'm afraid it's nearly empty, for Lena fairly baptized me with it that day of the——"
"Circus?" put in Sybil. "Just look, Dorrie." She pushed up her loose sleeve, and her sister gave a cry of pity at sight of a cruel black bruise on that most sensitive spot—the elbow.