"Klein, we sha'n't use this."
"What?" barked the press agent.
"No. It's real. This is no Johnny. Norma is no chorus beauty. Of course, I jumped at the idea, but we'll have to pass it up. I wouldn't lose Norma's genuine affection for me for a million three-sheets, free of charge. No. Lock it up and forget it."
"Well, what do you know about that?"
Mathison returned to his seat, apologizing to every one so courteously and agreeably that even the men forgave him. He was quite calm now. All incertitude was gone; he knew. The Yellow Typhoon was in a house in Fiftieth Street, and Norma Farrington was yonder on the stage, delighting his eyes, thrilling his ears. The wonder of her! God bless her, she had tried to save Bob Hallowell that night! And he would never have known but for that posed photograph!
She did not wear any of the flowers in the second act, nor in the third; but when she came on in the fourth she carried a small bouquet in her corsage. She was Joyousness. It radiated from her into the audience. Faces all over the house were beaming, not with merriment, but with good humor.
There came a little moment when throats became stuffy—one of those flashes of tenderness whose link is generally laughter. When the whole house was watching the comédienne tensely, in absolute silence, Mathison laughed aloud, joyously! Heads swinging resentfully in his direction woke him up. His cheeks flushed.
Doubtless by this time you have formed the impression that Mathison had lost his compass, that he was drifting, that he had forgotten the vital business which had brought him all these thousands of miles. Nothing could be farther from the truth. All these little eddies, currents, whirlpools were at the sides of the stream, that flowed on, impervious, inevitable.
For a man whose soul was in haste he took his time. His movements within the theater and outside in the lobby were leisurely. On the street he made no effort to bore through. But when he reached the corner he was off like a shot toward the dark alley which led to the stage door. This he plunged through recklessly—into the arms of the ancient Cerberus who tended the door.