CHAPTER XV
J. ARTHUR BALCOMB RETREATS
The Providence that protects children and drunkards also extends a saving hand to amateur theatricals. Deceivers Ever was presented, with no more delays and slips than usually befall amateur performances, before an audience that tested the capacity of the Athenæum. It was a great occasion for Mrs. Carr, as she had undoubtedly taken the Dramatic Club when its life was ebbing fast and made a living thing of it. She sat in the wings holding the prompt-book and prepared for any fate; and it must be confessed that in her heart she held anything but Christian feelings toward Zelda Dameron.
The change in the cast had excited much comment both in the audience and on the stage. Zelda appeared behind the scenes with divers bottles and a convincing air of invalidism, but she coached Olive cheerfully in their dressing-room.
“I can’t do it; I can’t do it. I’ll kill the show,” declared Olive.
“Don’t be foolish. You are going to make the hit of your life,” said Zelda, assuringly, coughing a little. “Please don’t make me talk. There’s the overture now. One minute—there—now don’t fall over your train. You really look the duchess,”—and Zelda gently impelled her cousin toward the stage. The chorus was on its last note, and Professor Schmidt, very red in the face, caught Olive with his eye, and reached across the fiery arc of the footlights with his bow, to draw her forward.
The programs had been printed with the part of Gretchen assigned to Miss Dameron, and when Olive appeared and was identified with the leading rôle, the applause, that began generously, died away, and there was a flutter of paper as the audience sought to identify the singer.
Olive’s voice was in no sense great, but it was good, and she rose to the occasion in a way that made Zelda happy. Zelda’s green riding-habit became Olive charmingly. She was a very pretty girl and she sang her song to the foresters with the dignity of the great lady she impersonated.
Mrs. Carr sighed with relief over the prompt-book as she saw that the girl was really meeting the requirements. When Olive turned and met Balcomb, after dismissing the chorus to their work in the forest, there was a hearty hand-clapping that drowned their spoken colloquy.
Zelda, as Christine the maid, now entered, after singing off stage, and sought to induce Gretchen to return home. The greeting that had been waiting for Zelda lost nothing by delay. The audience was mystified by the change of parts, but it continued to be pleased as the girls sang their duet. Zelda sang well enough, though Mrs. Carr wondered, as she proceeded, that any one with a throat as sore as Zelda’s had been could sing at all. It was clear to the director that Zelda was holding back. She could easily have drowned Olive, as he knew well enough, but the voice of the little duchess dominated. The professor glared fiercely at Zelda and swung his bow with prodigious force as though to compel her to lift her voice, but she was utterly oblivious, and it was Olive who carried off the honors of the duet.
Balcomb made a decided hit as the hero. When Leighton, in his own capacity as high private, saluted him, he really felt a thrill of admiration for Jack. Pollock, who appeared as another of the deceivers, was unknown to many of the audience, but his singing was adequate for all purposes, and his flirtation with my lady’s maid behind Olive and Balcomb, who were planning an elopement, was amusing and not overacted.