“Can’t she? Remember the time they tried to bury Ethel Barrymore in a maid’s part, when she was a kid? Took the show right away from John Drew!” said the authority.
Finally the curtain was up, and the play was on. Isabelle’s initial appearance was late in the first act, when Cartel was building carefully the foundations of plot for the subsequent superstructure. Isabelle entered with a visitor’s card in the middle of an important speech by Cartel. She had one line. To his intense fury, at sight of her the house burst into applause, and he had to halt his oration until she disappeared.
The play was a domestic drama, with the popular old-fashioned man, wed to the popular-new-fashioned woman who wants to “live her life.” In the first act, the husband’s point of view and character are expounded and contrasted with the woman’s.
In a daring second act, the husband—on the casual invitation of an acquaintance to come along to a supper party in a certain man’s rooms—finds his own wife acting as hostess. After the modern manner he breaks no furniture, makes no scene; but in tense tones, aside, he demands an explanation from her. She promises him an interview at their home, the following day, at five. He refuses to wait; she insists. He leaves. Events follow rapidly. The host has a stroke of apoplexy and dies. A muddle-headed guest summons a police ambulance instead of a hospital one. Police arrive, murder is suspected, every one is arrested. There is a strong finale, with hints of astounding revelations to come—in act three, of course.
The third act opens with a very tense atmosphere. Horton (Cartel), the husband—unaware that his wife is under arrest, suspected of murder—comes to his home, from the club, where he has spent a sleepless night. It is nearly five o’clock, the hour of the interview. Business of excitement, pacing, looking at watch. He rings for Mary, who enters.
“Where is Mrs. Horton, Mary?” he asks.
“Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five o’clock, sir,” answers Mary, who, according to the playwright, then goes out. But Mary did not exit.
“She hasn’t been home all night, sir,” she added suddenly, unexpectedly, “and it may be that she is in some trouble.”
Cartel turned a fierce frown upon her.
“That will do, Mary,” he said, threateningly.