Mrs. Dazian was obdurate. "It is awful," she said.
The first night approached. Potter was to sail for Europe next day. Frohman had provided him with sumptuous cabin quarters on the New York. After the dress rehearsal, Potter appeared on the Empire stage, where he found Frohman. The latter was worried.
"Paul," said he, "the first three acts are fine; the last is rotten. You must stay and rewrite the last act."
Potter had to postpone his trip. At ten next morning the new act was handed in; the company learned and rehearsed it by three in the afternoon, and that night Frohman and the author stood in the box-office watching the audience file in.
"How's the house, Tommy?" demanded Frohman of Thomas Shea, his house manager.
"Over seventeen hundred dollars already," said Shea.
"You can go to Europe, Paul," said Frohman. "Your last act is all right. We don't want you any more."
The American public agreed with Mrs. Dazian. They thought the play excruciatingly wicked, but they were just as eager to see it on the Fourth of July as they had been six months earlier.
A dozen details combined to make "The Conquerors" a storm-center. First of all it was attacked because of its alleged immorality. In the second place the author was charged with having appropriated some of Sardou's "La Haine." In the third place, this play marked the first stage appearance of Mrs. Clara Bloodgood, wife of "Jack" Bloodgood, one of the best-known men about town in New York. Mr. Bloodgood became desperately ill during rehearsals, and his wife divided her time between watching at his bedside and going to the theater. Of course, the newspapers were filled with the account of the event which was agitating all society, and it added greatly to popular interest in the play.