He struck his hand angrily on the desk before him: "Miss Morris, when I give an order——"
Up went my head: "Mr. Daly, I have nothing to do with your private affairs; any business order——"
Heaven knows where we would have brought up had not a sudden darkness come into the little room—a woman quickly passed the window. Mr. Daly sprang to his feet, caught my fingers in a frantic squeeze, and pushing me from the door rapidly, said: "Yes—yes—well, do your best with it. I'm very glad Bènot found you last night!" Then turning to the new-comer, who had not been present the day before, he cheerfully exclaimed: "Well, you didn't lose to-day's train, I see! I have a charming comedy part for you—come in!"
She went in, and the storm broke, for as I felt my way through the passage leading to the stage-stairs, I heard its rolling and rumbling, and two dimly-seen men in front of me laughed, while one, pointing over his shoulder, toward the office, sneered, meaningly: "Ethel stock is going down, isn't it?"
And almost I wished I was back in a family theatre.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH
I Rehearse Endlessly—I Grow Sick with Dread—I Meet with Success in Anne Sylvester.
Up-stairs I found a bare stage, as is often the case for a first mere reading of parts, and most of the company sitting on camp-stools, chatting and laughing. Already M. Bènot had announced the change in the cast, and people looked at me in perfect stupefaction: "Good heavens! what a risk he is taking! Who on earth is she, anyway?" and I cleared my throat in mercy to the speaker, who didn't know I stood behind her.
That morning I was introduced to a number of the ladies and gentlemen, but it was a mere baptism of water, not of the spirit. I was not one of them. Understand, no one was openly rude to me, everyone bowed a "good-morning," but, well, you can bow a good-morning over a large iron fence with a fast-locked gate in it. That my dresses of gray linen or of white linen struck them as being funny in September is not to be wondered at, yet they must have known that necessity forced me to wear them, and that their smiles were not always effaced quickly enough to spare me a cruel pang. And my amazement grew day by day at their own extravagance of dress. Some of the ladies wore a different costume each day during the entire rehearsal of the play. How, I wondered, could they do it? Two of them, Miss Kate Claxton and Miss Newton, had husbands to pay their bills, I found, and Miss Linda Dietz—the gentlest, most sweetly-courteous creature imaginable—had parents and a home; but the magnificence of the others remained an unsolvable mystery.
Another thing against me was, I could not act even the least bit at rehearsal. Foreign actors will act in cold blood at a daylight rehearsal, but few Americans can do it. I read my lines with intelligence, but gave no sign of what I intended to do at night. Of course that made Mr. Daly suffer great anxiety, but he said nothing, only looked at me with such troubled, anxious eyes that I felt sorry for him. One gentleman, however, decided that I was—not to put too fine a point upon it—"a lunk-head." He treated me with supercilious condescension, varied occasionally with overbearing tyranny. Just one person in the theatre knew that I was really a good actress, of considerable experience, and that was James Lewis; and from a tricksy spirit of mischief he kept the silence of a graven image, and when Mr. Dan Harkins took me aside to teach me to act, Lewis would retire to a quiet spot and writhe with suppressed laughter.