Christine Forbes was adequate in her role. She gave her lines with assurance and with fire. She was graceful and poised throughout a difficult emotional scene. There was thunderous applause when the act was over; Nora’s understudy had captured the audience. They called for her again and again and she took her bows with grace and modesty.
Shayne did not applaud. He got up and made his way down the aisle with a grim look on his angular face. He strode through the foyer and outside. He lit a cigarette and went around the west side of the building toward the stage entrance, passing over the wooden flume that carried the water of Clear Creek directly under the village.
He was halted by a closed gate in a high wooden wall bearing the painted sign, NO ADMITTANCE.
Shayne rattled the gate savagely. It was locked from the inside.
From Eureka Street came the sound of shrill laughter and the wail of square-dance music, and from the flume just behind him was the rushing sound of flood waters, just now reaching town from an evening cloudburst high in the mountains.
His eyes were bleak as he stalked back to the front door and regained his seat in time for the next curtain.
He was silent and morose through the rest of the performance while Christine Forbes turned her opportunity into a personal triumph, and when the final curtain came down, he again strode out while the ancient playhouse echoed with applause.
Phyllis clung to his arm and was silent until they were on the sidewalk. Then she spoke sharply:
“I can’t see that Nora Carson was particularly missed tonight. The other girl was marvelous.”
Shayne grunted. “Yeh. That’s one of the things that tastes bad to me. The Forbes girl is so damned good that I’m willing to bet Nora Carson has lost her part altogether. First, her father whom she has just found after ten years, then an important role that she’s rehearsed for weeks — all in the space of three hours.”