“Miss Leroy is sick—going to have an operation.”
“She needed it, if ever a woman did!” Miss Delacourt tossed back over her shoulder as she tied the puppy to the gilded throne.
“She’ll do!” Farson whispered encouragingly.
“She’ll do something,” MacNaughton growled gloomily.
It was not an auspicious outlook for the opening of the People’s Theater.
At eight o’clock that evening, the new playhouse was fairly well filled with what the local press calls a “highbrow audience.” Of these, not a few had come to scoff, for from the beginning the newspapers, led by the Beacon, had taken the People’s Theater as a pet toy with which to play during the silly season. It was variously described as the “Sulfur Extravaganza,” the “Cowboy Show,” or the “Arizona Théâtre Français.”
For ever since that fatal luncheon, the editor of the Beacon had directed the most skillful members of his celebrated stiletto gang in their sneers at Brainard. To the New York newspaper mind it was simply inconceivable that a man with a great fortune could put it to so purely childish a use as running a popular theater. A few friendly souls, however, were scattered up and down the house—those who follow the banner of “new ideas” wherever it may wave; and there were a few of the “people”—a very few—on free tickets.
As the curtains slowly parted, Brainard, sitting alone in the rear of the house, regretted more than ever that they had attempted to open with Lear. There were surely some in the audience whose memories, like his, would carry them back to the godlike fury of the elder Salvini. What could they make of the squat figure, the perspiring muscularity of Dudley Warner?
As the fated king waddled forth and began, Brainard shut his eyes. He opened them suddenly on hearing:
What shall Cordelia do? Love, and be silent.