Roger Naldrett, the writer, sat in his box with a friend, watching the second act of his tragedy. The first act had been received coldly; the cast was nervous, and the house, critical as a first-night audience always is, had begun to fidget. He watched his failure without much emotion. He had lived through his excitement in the days before the production; but the moment interested him, it was so unreal. The play was not like the play which he had watched so often in rehearsal. Unless some speech jarred upon him, as failing to help the action, he found that he could not judge of it in detail. In the manuscript, and in the rehearsals, he had tested it only in detail. Now he saw it as a whole, as something new, as a rough and strong idea, of which he could make nothing. Shut up there in the box, away from the emotions of the house, he felt himself removed from time, the only person in the theatre under no compulsion to attend. He sat far back in the box, so that his friend, John O'Neill, might have a better view of the stage. He was conscious of the blackness of John's head against the stage lights, and of a gleam of gilt on the opposite boxes. Sometimes when, at irregular intervals, he saw some of the cast, on the far left of the stage, he felt disgust at the crudity of the grease paint smeared on their faces.
Sometimes an actor hesitated for his lines, forgot a few words, or improvised others. He drew in his breath sharply, whenever this happened, it was like a false note in music; but he knew that he was the only person there who felt the discord. He found himself admiring the address of these actors; they had nerve; they carried on the play, though their memories were a whirl of old tags all jumbled together. It was when there was a pause in the action, through delay at an entrance, that the harrow drove over his soul; for in the silence, at the end of it, when those who wanted to cough had coughed, there sometimes came a single half-hearted clap, more damning than a hiss. At those times he longed to be on the stage crying out to the actors how much he admired them. He was shut up in his box, under cover, but they were facing the music. They were playing to a cold wall of shirt-fronts, not yet hostile, but puzzled by the new mind, and vexed by it. They might rouse pointed indifference in the shirt-fronts, they might rouse fury, they would certainly win no praise. Roger felt pity for them. He wished that the end would come swiftly, that he might be decently damned and allowed to go.
Towards the middle of the act the leading lady made a pitiful brave effort to save the play. She played with her whole strength, in a way which made his spirit rise up to bless her. Her effort kept the house for a moment. That dim array of heads and shirt-fronts became polite, attentive; a little glimmer of a thrill began to pass from the stalls over the house, as the communicable magic grew stronger. Then the second lady, who, as Roger knew, had been feverish at the dress rehearsal, struggled for a moment with a sore throat which made the performance torture to her. Roger heard her voice break, knowing very well what it meant. He longed to cry out to comfort her; though the only words which came to his heart were: "You poor little devil." Then a man in the gallery shouted to her to "Speak up, please." Half a dozen others took up the cry. They wreaked on the poor woman's misfortune all the venom which they felt against the play. Craning far forward, the author saw the second lady bite her lip with chagrin; but she spoke up like a heroine. After that the spell lost hold. The act dragged on, people coughed and fidgeted; the play seemed to grow in absurd unreality, till Roger wondered why there was no hissing. The actors, who had been hitherto too slow, began to hurry. They rushed through an instant of dramatic interest, which, with a good audience, would have gone solemnly. The climax came with a rush, the act ended, the last speech was spoken. Then, for five, ten, fifteen, twenty fearful seconds the curtain hesitated. The absurd actors stood absurdly waiting for the heavy red cloth to cloak them from the house. Something had jammed, or the flyman had missed his cue. When the curtain fell half the house was sniggering. The half-dozen derisive claps which followed were intended for the flyman.
The author's box happened to be the royal box, with a sitting-room beyond it, furnished principally with chairs and ash-trays. When the lights brightened, Roger walked swiftly into the sitting-room and lighted a cigarette. John O'Neill came stumbling after him.
"It's very good. It's very good," he said with vehemence. "It's all I thought it when you read it. The audience don't know what to make of it. They're puzzled by the new mind. It's the finest thing that's been done here since poor Wentworth's thing." He paused for a second, then looked at Roger with a hard, shrewd, medical look. "I don't quite like the look of your leading lady. She's going to break down."
"They'll never stand the third act," said Roger. "There'll be a row in the third act."
At this moment the door opened. Falempin, the manager of the theatre, a gross and cheerful gentleman, with the relics of a boisterous vinous beauty in his face, entered with a mock bow.
"Naldrett," he said, with a strong French accent, "you are all right. Your play is very fine. Very interesting. I go to lose four thousan' poun' over your play. Eh? Very good. What so? Som' day I go to make forty thousan' poun' out of your play. Eh? It is all in a day's work. The peegs" (he meant his patrons, the audience) "will not stan' your third act. It is too—it is too—" He shook his head over the third act. "Miss Hanlon, pretty little Miss Hanlon, she go into hysterics."
"Could I go round to speak to her?" Roger asked.
"No good," said Falempin. "She cannot see any one. She will not interrupt her illusion."