"Ah," she sighed, "we never like what we do best; that's why I can never be contented in elegant light comedy, but must strain and fret after dramatic, tragic, and pathetic parts—and to think that a young, untrained girl should step out of obscurity and without an effort do what I have failed in all these years!"
I stood aghast. "Why—why, Miss St. Clair!" I exclaimed, "you have applause and applause every night of your life!"
"Oh," she laughed, "you foolish child, it's not the applause I'm thinking of, but something finer, rarer. You have won tears, my dear, a thing I have never done in all my life, and never shall, no, never, I see that now!"
"I wish I had not!" I answered, remorsefully and quite honestly, because I was quite young and unselfish yet, and I loved her, and she understood and leaned over and kissed my cheek, and told me not to bury my talent, but to make good use of it by and by when I was older and free to choose a line of business. "Though," she added, "even here I'll wager it's few comedy parts that will come your way after to-night, young lady." And then I left her.
That same night I heard that a dread disease already abode with her, and slept and waked and went and came with her, and would not be shaken off, but clung ever closer and closer; and, oh! poor Charles Barras! money might have saved her then—money right then might have saved this woman of his love, and God only knows how desperately he struggled, but the money came not. Then, worse still, Sallie was herself the bread-winner, and though Mr. Barras worked hard, doing writing and translating, acting as agent, as nurse, as maid, playing, too, in a two-act comedy, "The Hypochondriac," he still felt the sting of living on his wife's earnings, and she had, too, a mother and an elder sister to support; therefore she worked on and disease worked with her.
Charles Barras said, with bitter sarcasm in his voice: "I-I-I always see m-my wife Sallie with a helpless woman over each shoulder, a-a-and myself on her back, like the 'old man of the sea,' a-a-a pretty heavy burden that for a sick woman to carry, my girl! a-a-and a mighty pleasant picture for a man to have of his wife! A-a-and money—great God, money, right now, might save her—might save her!" He turned suddenly from me and walked on to the pitch-dark stage.
Poor Mr. Barras, I could laugh no more at his heelless boots, his funny half-stammer, and his ancient wig, not even when I recall the memory of that blazing Sunday in a Cincinnati Episcopal church, when, the stately liturgy over, the Reverend Doctor ascended the pulpit and, regardless of the suffering of his sweltering hearers, droned on endlessly, and Mr. Barras leaned forward, and drawing a large palm fan from the next pew's rack, calmly lifted his wig off with one hand while with the other he alternately fanned his ivory bald head and the steaming interior of his wig. The action had an electrical effect. In a moment even the sleepers were alert, awake, a fact which so startled the preacher that he lost his place—hemmed—h-h-med, and ran down, found the place again, started, saw Barras fanning his wig, though paying still most decorous attention to the pulpit, and before they knew it they were all scrambling to their feet at "Might, Majesty, and Power!"—were scrabbling for their pockets at "Let your light so shine," for Mr. Barras had shortened the service with a vengeance; hence the forgiving glances cast upon him as he carefully replaced his wig and sauntered forth.
Several years after that night in Columbus, when I had reached New York and was rehearsing for my first appearance there, I one morning heard hasty, shuffling steps following me, and before I could enter the stage-door, a familiar "Er-er-er Clara, Clara!" stopped me, and I turned to face the wealthy author of the "Black Crook"—Mr. Charles Barras. There he stood in apparently the same heelless cloth gaiters, the same empty-looking black alpaca suit, the clumsy turned-over collar that was an integral part of the shirt and not separate from it, the big black satin handkerchief-tie that he had worn years ago, but the face, how bloodless, shrunken, lined, and sorrowful it looked beneath the adamantine youthfulness of that chestnut wig!
"D-d-don't you know me?" he asked.
"Yes, of course I do," I answered as I took his hand.