The barge of dreams was a freight-boat for them.
When Pennock wakened Sheila of mornings it was like dragging her out of the grave. She came up dead; desperately resisting the recall to life. At night she sank into her sleep as into a welcome tomb. She was on her feet almost always. Her hours in the playmill averaged fourteen a day. She grew haggard and petulant. Eldon feared for her health.
Yet the theater was her gymnasium. She was acquiring a post-graduate knowledge of stage practice, supplying her mind as well as her muscles, like a pianist who practises incessantly. If she kept at it too long she would become a mere audience-pounder. If she quit in time the training would be of vast profit.
One stifling afternoon Eldon begged her to take a drive with him between matinée and night, out to “Lotus Land,” a tawdry pleasure-park where one could look at water and eat in an arbor. She begged off because she was too busy.
She had no sooner finished the refusal than he saw her face light up. He saw her run to meet a lank, lugubrious young man. He saw idolatry in the stranger’s eyes and extraordinary graciousness in Sheila’s. He heard Sheila invite the new-comer to buggy-ride with her to “Lotus Land” and take dinner outdoors.
Eldon dashed away in a rage of jealousy. Sheila did not reach the theater that night till after eight o’clock.
She nearly committed the unpardonable sin of holding the curtain. The stage-manager and Eldon were out looking for her when they saw a bouncing buggy drawn by a lean livery horse driven by a lean, liverish man. Up the alley they clattered and Sheila leaped out before the contraption stopped.
She called to the driver: “G’-by! See you after the performance.” She called to the stage-manager: “Don’t say it! Just fine me!” Eldon held the stage door open for her. All she said was: “Whew! Don’t shoot!”
She had no time to make up or change her costume. She walked on as she was.
After the performance Eldon came down in his street clothes to demand an explanation. He saw the same stranger waiting for Sheila, and dared not trust himself to speak to her.