“I believe each girl personifies the spirit of our Allies in the tableau picked out for her,” explained Palmer, who had caught Mrs. Burnham’s question. “Some are most artistic; I was called in to advise about the scenery and saw some of the rehearsals.”
“Hadn’t any idea we had so many Allies,” announced Burnham, glancing over the program. “Here’s Siam and—— Hello, what’s this to be?”
“‘Somewhere in France.’” Hayden laid the program which had slipped out of Mrs. Burnham’s hand, back in her lap.
With lights extinguished the audience sat in expectation. Suddenly before them appeared a faint pink glow which, growing brighter, disclosed a trench outpost overlooking No Man’s Land—the scene of utter desolation and destruction confronting the solitary watchful sentry, crouching gun aslant, was finely done, and Mrs. Burnham winked away a tear as she whispered to Hayden:
“One of our boys——”
“Yes.” Hayden borrowed her opera-glasses. “Why, it’s Maynard!”
“It’s an excellent tableau!” exclaimed Burnham, taken out of himself, and he applauded vigorously. “No mistake about it, Lillian, Maynard makes a magnificent soldier. Strange, as handsome and fascinating as he is, that he has never married!”
Mrs. Burnham nodded absent agreement as her foot kept time to the tune, “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.” Repeated calls for an encore of the tableau brought other views of trench life, so excellently portrayed that Maynard was far over the time set aside for him to be the center of the stage. He was hurrying to the wings, dodging scene shifters, when he almost stumbled over Evelyn standing a woe-begone figure in one corner away from a group of her merry companions who were eagerly or nervously, as the case might be, awaiting their turn to appear in the tableaux.
“Have you seen Marian anywhere?” she asked, and her disappointment was evident at his negative answer. “Where in the world can she be?”
“In one of the dressing rooms perhaps,” suggested Maynard.