Blue-grass and Broadway

by Maria Thompson Daviess

"I don't blame her; it was loathsome, and it was about her own grandmother," Miss Lindsey managed to say in a fierce, beautiful voice.

"You don't think, do you, that—" Mr. Farraday was gasping as he held Miss Lindsey still tighter against the racing heart, which was beginning to slow down and pound against hers with a slightly different speed. However, the terror in his voice made Miss Lindsey press him to her with sustaining closeness.

"She's Southern and different, and I don't know what to think," she was saying, and in the absorption of their terror they failed to notice that Miss Hawtry passed them not six feet away in her wicker chair.

And while they clung to each other and enjoyed their fright and anxiety together, Miss Hawtry went into the telephone-booth and got a long-distance connection with Mr. Weiner in New York in an incredibly short time. Their conversation was almost as incredibly short in view of its portentousness, but while it lasted, Mr. Gerald Height and Mr. William Rooney had been added to the group of anxiety under the arbor, and they were all in close conclave, though not in embrace, when Miss Hawtry returned to them, walking with cool determination in every step.

"Mr. Farraday," Miss Hawtry said, with a serenity in her rich voice and manner, "I will have to tell you as Mr. Vandeford's partner in 'The Purple Slipper' that I am entirely dissatisfied with the way the play proves up at dress rehearsal and refuse to open in it. As I am under no contract to him since Saturday night, I am motoring back to New York to-night to begin rehearsals to-morrow in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' for Mr. Weiner. Good-night!" With a stately curtsy to the assembled principals of "The Purple Slipper," very dramatic in execution, the Violet bowed herself away from them forever. Ten minutes after she was on her way back to Manhattan in a big touring-car provided by the hotel management per a telephone order from Mr. Weiner of New York.

"And Van sold 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' for her opening on Broadway in the New Carnival Theater with 'The Purple Slipper,'" Mr. Farraday gasped as he sat down suddenly on one of the benches in the dim little arbor.

"Lord, what a lose, both shows and maybe—maybe Miss Adair, too," Mr. Gerald Height exclaimed, and there were both sympathy and anxiety in his voice.

"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Rooney, as he rolled his fat cigar from the left of his mouth to the right and spat into the vines. "I've made a pretty good play out of 'The Purple Slipper.' It will go all right without her. Actors aren't so much. It's the situation and the stage-managing."

"That's what you think," jeered Mr. Gerald Height, gloomily. "I always had a hunch that I would never play wig and ruffles."

"Can that hunch," commanded Mr. Rooney. "I'm going to put Miss Lindsey in the part and play it refined for a winner. Been understudying Miss Hawtry, haven't you, Miss Lindsey?"