Through her repertoire she went, changing like a chameleon from the bland grin and strut of Eddie Foy to the crumpled pleading and out-flung hands of Nazimova in “The Doll’s House.” She plunged into Nora’s final scene with her husband:
[10]
]... “When your terror was over—not for what threatened me, but for yourself ... then it seemed to me—as though nothing had happened. I was your lark again, your doll just as before—whom you would take twice as much care of in future, because she was so weak and fragile. Torwald—in that moment it burst upon me that I had been living here these eight years with a strange man.... Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! I could tear myself to pieces!”
The greater part of the audience had never heard of the Russian actress, knew less of the Scandinavian author. But the sob in the voice of the frail little girl on the stage, the anguish in her face got them by the throat.
There was a spontaneous burst of applause that held for a moment while Betty bowed, glance straying into the misty auditorium, heart fluttering with a gratification it had not known since the Grand Central spilled her into the bewildering maze that is New York.
She swung quickly into ragtime after that, the drawling syncopation and rolling step of a black-face comedian, and as a conclusion gave them Elsie Janis in one of the songs from her latest Broadway success.
They brought her back several times. She threw them a final kiss, disappeared into the wings and whisked up the stairs. Lou was going to see the show to its finish, then call for her. He was sure they could persuade the proprietor of the hotel where she was staying to fix up a little supper of sandwiches and milk.
She slipped out of her white dress and into a dark one, folded the former in layers of tissue paper and laid it in the top trunk tray, stuffing stockings into the corners to keep it in place. She gathered together her make-up, [11] ]packed it into a tin box. To-morrow another pea-green dressing-room, or perhaps, saffron-yellow. The week following, one of chalk-blue. And so on, ad infinitum. Of such her infinite variety!
A knock came at the door. She glanced at the gold watch which had been her grandmother’s. Ten-fifteen. Lou had probably tired of the show.
Pulling on her black velvet tarn, she called gaily—“Come in!”
A mellow voice answered interrogatively, “Miss Parsons?”