Pleadings, agony, despair.
Now his true villainy comes out. A thousand dollars, then, and quick, or you don’t walk down the aisle to the music of no wedding march.
“I haven’t got it.”
“No! Where’s the money you been saving all these years?”
“I haven’t a thousand dollars. I swear it.”
“So!” Seizes her. Drags her across the room. Screams. His hand stifles them.
Unfortunately, in their very desire to help Magnolia, they all exaggerated their villainy, their heroism, their business. Being a trifle uncertain of her lines, Magnolia, too, sought to cover her deficiencies by stressing her emotional scenes. When terror was required her face was distorted with it. Her screams of fright were real screams of mortal fear. Her writhings would have wrung pity from a fiend. Frank bared his teeth, chortled like a maniac. He wound his fingers in her long black hair and rather justified her outcry. In contrast, Schultzy’s nobility and purity stood out as crudely and unmistakably as white against black. Nuances were not for show-boat audiences.
So then, screams, protestations, snarls, ha-ha’s, pleadings, agony, cruelty, anguish.
Something—intuition—or perhaps a sound from the left upper box made Frank, the villain, glance up. There, leaning over the box rail, his face a mask of hatred, his eyes glinting, sat a huge hairy backwoodsman. And in his hand glittered the barrel of a businesslike gun. He was taking careful aim. Drama had come late into the life of this literal mind. He had, in the course of a quick-shooting rough-and-tumble career, often seen the brutal male mishandling beauty in distress. His code was simple. One second more and he would act on it.
Frank’s hand released his struggling victim. Gentleness and love overspread his features, dispelling their villainy. To Magnolia’s staring and open-mouthed amazement he made a gesture of abnegation. “Well, Marge, I ain’t got nothin’ more to say if you and the parson want to get married.” After which astounding utterance he slunk rapidly off, leaving the field to what was perhaps the most abject huddle of heroism that every graced a show-boat stage.