After that, ambition revived and worked smoothly, rapidly. In the middle of the second act, however, the play failed—that is to say, the play in which Miss Colgate was appearing on Broadway. (It failed in the middle of Mr. Flanders' second act, lest I appear ambiguous.) The young actress found herself out of employment and without much prospect of getting an engagement at that season of the year—a bad year it was, too, if you will remember what theatrical people had to say about it. Now, she was not obliged to work for a living. She could have gone back to her family in Connecticut. But she was not made of that sort of stuff. She could have gone back home and married the most desirable young or old man in the town. She could have given up the stage and devoted herself to the teaching of music, French or wood-carving, in which pursuits she was far less of an amateur than at play-acting. But she was a valiant, undaunted little warrior. She announced that she was ready to do anything that offered, even chorus-work.
And one evening she told him that she had found a place in the chorus of a "road show." She tried to hide her mortification under a somewhat quivering jauntiness, but Mr. Flanders went rudely to the bottom of the matter. She argued that she could change her name and no one would be the wiser. She would positively refuse to appear in tights. Then came the episode. Mr. Flanders flew into a scornful rage. He said a great many things that he was afterwards ashamed to recall. Among other things, he said he'd be hanged if he'd marry a chorus-girl; as for tights, she wouldn't have any choice in the matter, once the manager set his mind to it. She had not been in love with him long enough to submit to bullying, so she sent him about his business. Moreover, she coldly informed him that their engagement was over and that she never wanted to see his face again.
Inasmuch as it would be quite impossible to remain in the same boarding-house without seeing his face once in a while, she moved out the very next day.
The "road" was not what she had expected, nor was the life of a chorus-girl as simple as it had seemed from her virtuous point of view. Before the first two weeks were over, she deserted the company, disillusioned, mortified. It HAD come to a matter of tights.
She returned to New York and bravely resumed her visits to managerial offices and to the lairs of agents, in quest of an engagement not quite so incompatible with her sense of delicacy and refinement as the one she had just abandoned. But there was nothing to be had. More than once she was tempted to write to Flanders, begging him to forgive her and to forget, if he could, the silly mistake she had made. But love and loneliness were no match for the pride that was a part of her nature. She resolutely put away the temptation to do the perfectly sensible thing, and, woman-like, fortified herself against surrender by running away from danger.
She had heard of the Bingles through a woman playwright who wanted to dramatize the Bingle enterprise. Nothing, said this enthusiastic person, could be more adorable than a play based on the Bingle methods of acquiring a family.
One day, in Central Park, she saw Mr. Bingle and seven of the children. He looked happy but inadequate. A grinning park policeman enlightened her as to the identity of the bewildered little man. A single glance was all that was necessary to convince her that Mr. Bingle was having his hands full.
He had lost all control of the little ruffians. (The park policeman was the first to call them ruffians, so I may be pardoned.) They insisted on playing games that Mr. Bingle couldn't play, and he was beginning to look worried. Time and again he tried to herd them into the big station 'bus in which he had brought them over from Seafood (the Bingle estate), and always with so little success that he was getting hot and tired—and farther away from the conveyance all the time. Still he smiled cheerfully and gave no sign of losing his temper.
They were frolicking in the neighbourhood of the lake at the north end of the park, and Miss Colgate was sitting on one of the benches not far removed from the scene of activity. She began to feel sorry for the little foster-father. He was having a time of it! The first thing he knew, one of the little insurgents would tumble into the lake and—well, she couldn't imagine anything more droll than Mr. Bingle venturing into the water as a rescuer. At last, moved by an impulse that afterwards took its place as the psychic capstone in her career, she arose and resolutely went to his relief. He was panting and perspiring, for the spring day was warm.
"May I help you to gather them up?" she inquired.