Dinner began as a silent meal. No one cared to talk. I recalled with a sardonic smile the invitation of a society friend who had bought three boxes for my first night and was giving a large dinner to precede the play. She had expected me to grace that function and to sit in one of her boxes; and she would never understand, I knew, why I refused to do so. Godfrey Morris was coming at half after seven, with much pomp and his new limousine, to take us to the theater. His mother and sister were giving a box-party, but Godfrey was to sit with us in the body of the house. I had frankly refused to have even him join us at dinner. Four pairs of eyes fixed on me with loving sympathy during that repast were, I realized, all I could endure. Even Godfrey's understanding gaze would be the one thing too much—because it was so understanding.
At the table the first few remarks of the family dropped and lay like visible, neglected things before us. Then Grace and Jack entered upon a discussion which they succeeded in making animated, and in which it was not necessary that I should take part. It gave me an opportunity to swallow naturally, to try to control the queer fluttering of my heart and the sense of faintness, almost of nausea, that threatened to overcome me. When I went to my room to put on my evening coat I looked at myself in the long mirror that paneled the door. To my relief, I looked quite natural—pale, beyond question, but I never had much color. Of the iciness and rigidity of my hands and feet, of the panic that shook the very soul of me, no one but myself need know.
I greeted Godfrey with both hands outstretched and a real smile. I had seen him only once before since his return three days ago from Palm Beach, where he had gone for his convalescence after his attack of pneumonia. He had come back for my first night—he had made that very clear—and for a blessed instant my panic vanished in the comfort of his presence, of the sure grasp of his firm hands, the look in his gray eyes. In the next instant it returned with cumulative force. I could bear failure alone if I had to. Others, many others, had borne it before me, and there was always the future in which one could try again. I could bear it before my family, for they would never believe that the fault of failure was mine; or before the eyes of all my friends, for the theater would be full of them. But to bear it in the presence of Godfrey, to have him see me fail—no, that was unthinkable. I had reached the point where I must set my teeth, take my nerves and my imagination in hand, and control them as I had once controlled a team of frantic horses plunging toward a river-bank.
"A good deal like being executed in the public square, isn't it?" asked Godfrey, gently. We were on our way up-town, and now over the whole party a sudden silence fell. The illuminated sign of the big Broadway theater was before us: the name of my play and that of our "star" stared at us in letters of fire that took strange shapes before my eyes. My own name modestly adorned the tablet on each side of the entrance and the bill-boards in the lobby. The latter, when we entered it, was banked with flowers. We were early, but the theater was filling rapidly, and the usual throng of "first-nighters," equally ready for an execution or a triumph, chatted on the sidewalk and thronged the entrance. The house manager, his coat adorned with a white carnation, greeted me as we passed in.
"Good luck, Miss Iverson," he said, cordially. "Lots of telegrams here for you. Wait, I'll get them. Here, Fred, let's have Miss Iverson's telegrams."
He checked the line at the box-office, thrust a hand through the little window, and drew it out with a thick package of the yellow envelopes. Godfrey held out his hand.
"I'll take care of them, if you wish," he said, and as I nodded he dropped them into a pocket of his coat.
In silence we filed down the aisle to our seats. The boxes were already filled; the body of the house filled as we watched it. On every side were faces I knew and loved—Mrs. Morris and Grace with Colonel and Mrs. Cartwell and Mr. and Mrs. Nestor Hurd; the Morgans, with Kittie James and Maudie Joyce, who had come from Chicago for this big night in my life; my friend of the rejected dinner and her brilliantly jeweled guests; a deputation from the Searchlight and my magazine offices, which, it seemed to me, filled half the house. Mollie Merk was there, and Billy Gibson and Mrs. Hoppen. The occasion had the atmosphere of a reception. Every one knew every one else; friends chatted with each other across the aisles and visited from seat to seat. A few came to greet me. The majority mercifully waited, knowing I would wish them to wait. Godfrey, sitting beside me, opened my program and found the evening bill. As he did so I saw that his hand shook. He followed the direction of my eyes, and his brown cheeks flushed.
"I won't deny it," he whispered. "I'm as excited as you are; probably more so."
Our eyes met. For a moment I almost forgot where we were—almost, but not quite. Then Godfrey went on.