Before Joan left Marbridge, they had arrived at an understanding which was not less complete and satisfactory in that it was largely implicit.
Without receiving any definite explanation of the circumstances complicating the production of "Mrs. Mixer," Joan carried away with her a tolerably clear notion thereof, both confirming and supplementing the second-hand information of Hattie Morrison.
Mrs. Cardrow owned a heavy interest in the play, Joan had gathered; and there existed, as well, a contract between her and Arlington which would have to be eliminated before it would be possible to go ahead and make the production with another actress in place of the erstwhile star. Some very delicate diplomatic manœuvring was indicated....
Interim, Joan was to be privately drilled by Peter Gloucester for some weeks prior to calling together the full company to rehearse for the September production. Gloucester was just then out of Town, but she would be advised when and where to meet him on his return.
Marbridge was to be absent from New York until the middle of September or longer; but he promised to be back a week or two before the opening performance.
There were other promises exchanged....
With her future thus schemed, the girl was very well content, who had attained by easy stages to one of mental development in which those primary moral distinctions upon which she had been reared were no longer perceptible—or, if perceptible, had diminished to purely negligible stature.
It was not in nature for her to disdain or reject her bargain on moral grounds: she knew, or recognized, none that applied.
For over a year during the most impressionable period of her life, Joan Thursday had breathed the atmosphere of the stage. She had become thoroughly accustomed to recognize without criticism those irregular unions and regular disunions that characterized the lives of her associates. She had observed many an instance where the most steadfast and loyal love existed without bonds of any sort, and as many where it existed in matrimony, and as many again where neither party to a marriage made aught but the barest pretence of fidelity.
She had remarked that material and artistic success seemed to depend upon neither the observance nor the disregard of sexual morality. She knew of husbands and wives against whom scandal uttered no whisper and whose talents were considerable, but who had struggled for years and would struggle until the end without winning substantial recognition. And she knew of the reverse. The one unpardonable sin in her world was the sin of drunkenness, and even it was venial except when it "held the curtain" or prevented its rising altogether.