On the desk in my study the bell of the telephone sounded a faint warning, then rang compellingly. It had been ringing thus at five-minute intervals throughout the day, but there was neither impatience nor weariness in the haste with which I responded. I knew what was coming; it was the same thing that had been coming since nine o'clock that morning; and it was a pleasant sort of thing, diverting to an exceedingly anxious mind.
"Hello, hello! Is that you, May? This is your awe-struck friend, George Morgan. Josephine and I want to inquire the condition of your temperature and your pulse."
I laughed.
"Quite normal, thank you," I said.
"Don't believe it." The sympathetic cadence of George Morgan's voice removed all effect of brusqueness from his words. "No playwright was ever normal three hours before the curtain went up on the first night of her play in New York. Now I'll tell you exactly how you feel."
"But I must!" my friend's remorseless voice went on. "I've got to show my insight into the human heart, as you used to say in your convent days. So here goes. You're sinking into a bottomless pit; you're in a blue funk; your feet are cold and your head is hot; you're breathing with difficulty; you're struggling with a desire to take the first train out of town; you're wondering if you can't go to bed and stay there. You think no one suspects these things, for you're wearing a smile that looks as if it had been tacked on; but it's so painful that your father and mother keep their eyes turned away from it. You're—"
"George, for Heaven's sake—"
"Oh, all right; I merely wanted to show insight and express sympathy. Having lived through four 'first nights' myself, I know what they mean. And say, May,"—his gay voice took on a deeper note—"I needn't tell you that Josephine and I will be going through the whole thing with you. We've chosen seats in the fifth row of the orchestra, instead of taking a box, because we both expect to burst into loud sobs of joy during your speech, and we'll feel less exposed down on the floor. And, oh yes, wait a minute; your god-daughter insists on kissing you through the telephone!"
There was an instance's silence; then the breathless little voice of Maria Annunciata Morgan, aged "four 'n a half, mos' five," according to herself, came to my ear.