“‘Finvarra and their land of heart’s desire,’” Polly quoted softly and scornfully to herself. Well, she had been hoping that she was to reach the land of her heart’s desire tonight. Was this not to be the beginning of the stage career for which she had worked and prayed and dreamed?
Out on the street Polly was now walking blindly ahead. She had at last reached her decision, and yet how could she ever arrange to carry it out?
CHAPTER II—“Belinda”
It was twenty-five minutes past eight o’clock and at half-past eight the curtain was to rise on the first performance of A Woman’s Wit, written especially for Margaret Adams. And because of her popularity and that of her leading man, the house had been sold out weeks in advance.
The action of the play was to take place in a small town in Colorado, where a man and his wife were both endeavoring to be elected to the office of Mayor. Polly was to play the part of a clever little shop-girl, whom the heroine had brought into her home, supposedly as a parlor maid. But in reality the girl was to do all that was in her power to assist her mistress in gaining a victory over her husband. She was to watch his movements and to suggest any schemes that she might devise for their success.
In the act which Polly had recently been rehearsing she was engaged in trying to discover a political speech written by the hero, so that the wife might read it beforehand and so answer it in a convincing fashion before the evening meeting of the Woman’s Club. The play was a witty farce, and Belinda was supposedly one of the cleverest and most amusing characters. Yet whether Polly could succeed in making her appear so was still exceedingly doubtful.
With this idea in mind Richard Hunt left his dressing room, hoping to see Polly for a few moments if possible before the play began. Perhaps her fright had passed. For already the man and girl were sufficiently intimate friends for him to understand how swiftly her moods changed.
Polly had apparently left her dressing room, since there was no answer to repeated knockings. She could not have carried out her threat of the morning? Of course such a supposition was an absurdity. And yet the man’s frown relaxed and his smile was one of unconscious relief when a tall, delicate figure in a blue dress came hurrying toward him along the dimly-lighted passage-way. The girl did not seem aware of anything or anybody, so great was her hurry and nervousness. However, this was not unreasonable, for instead of having on her maid’s costume for the performance, she was wearing an evening gown of shimmering silk and in the coiled braids of her black hair a single pink rose.
“You are late, Miss Polly; may I find some one to help you dress?”
Instantly a pair of blue eyes were turned toward him in surprise and reproach. They were probably not such intensely blue eyes as Polly O’Neill’s and they had a far gentler expression, though they were of exactly the same shape. And the girl’s hair was equally black, her figure and carriage almost similar, except that she was less thin. But instead of Polly’s accustomed pallor this girl’s cheeks were as delicately flushed as the rose in her hair. “Could an evening costume so metamorphose a human being?” Richard Hunt wondered in a vaguely puzzled, uncertain fashion.