But that is almost exactly what happened to our Rainy Week play on this the fourth night of events just as I was waiting for the curtain to rise on the most carefully staged scene which we had prepared, the scene designated as "The Bungalow on the Rocks."
And the woman who screamed was the May Girl. And the man who came rushing back to try and explain was Rollins. And the May Girl it proved was screaming because she was drowning! And if it hadn't been for the silly little Pom dog that Claude Kennilworth had been silly enough to bring way from New York "for a week's outing at the sea shore" just to please the extraordinarily silly girl who occupied the studio next to his, the May Girl would have drowned! It makes one feel almost afraid to move, somehow, or even not to move, for that matter, afraid to be silly indeed, or even not to be silly, lest it foil or foul in some bungling way the plot of life which the Biggest Dramatist of All had really intended.
It was Ann Woltor who gave the only adequate explanation.
Everybody had at least pretended that night the unalterable intention of going to bed early.
Claude Kennilworth of course having absented himself from the breakfast table didn't know anything about the bungalow discussion. But pique alone at the May Girl's persistent yet totally unexcited rebuff of his patronage had retired him earlier than anyone to the seclusion of his own room. And Rollins's unhappy propensity of always and forever butting into other people's plans had been most efficiently thwarted, as far as we could see, by dragging him upstairs and slamming his nose into a brand new and very profusely illustrated tome on the subject of "The Violet Snail."
By half past ten, Ann Woltor confessed she had found the whole lower part of the house apparently deserted.
For the same reason, best known even yet only to herself, she was still very anxious it appeared to get to the bungalow before any of her house-companions should have forestalled her. The trip, I judged, had not proved unduly hard. By the aid of a pocket flashlight she had made the descent of the cliff without accident, and after a single confusion where a blind trail ended in the water discovered the jagged path that twisted along the ledge to the very door of the bungalow. Once in the bungalow she had dallied only long enough to search out by the aid of the flashlight the particular object or objects which she had come for. Startled by a little sound, the sound of a man humming a little French tune that she hadn't heard for fifteen years, she had grabbed up her treasure, whatever it was, and bolted precipitously for the house, not knowing she had sprung the trap of our concealed phonograph when she opened the door. Even once back in the safe precincts of the house, however, she was further startled and completely upset by running into the May Girl.
The May Girl was on the stairs, it seemed, just coming down. And she didn't look "quite right," Ann Woltor admitted. That is, she looked almost as though she was walking in her sleep, or a bit dazed, a bit bewildered, and certainly, dressed as she was, just a filmy night-gown with her warm blanket wrapper merely lashed across her shoulders by its sleeves, her pretty feet bare, her gauzy hair floating like an aura all around her, it certainly wasn't to be supposed that she was just starting off on a prankish endeavor to solve the bungalow mystery. Even her eyes looked unreal to Ann Woltor. Even her voice, when she spoke, sounded more than a little bit queer.
"I—I thought I heard Allan John whistle" she said. "I—I promised, you know, that if he ever needed me I'd come."
Ann Woltor nearly collapsed. "Nonsense!" she explained. "Allan John is in town! Don't you remember? He telephoned while we were at supper. Mrs. Delville delivered his messages and good-byes to us."