He dawdled about, revolting against his dependency, till Sheila finished her rehearsal. Then she met him and they rode through the moonlit Park. She loved him immensely, but she was so exhausted that she fell asleep in his arm. He kissed the wan little moon of her face as it lay back on his shoulder. He loved her with all his might. He loved her enough to take her home to her hotel and surrender her to herself while he moped away to his own hotel.
The next day it was the same story except that she promised to ask for a respite at the luncheon hour and meet him at a restaurant near the theater. The appointment was for one o’clock. He waited until two-thirty before she appeared. And then she had only time to tell him that Reben had given her a merciless scolding for her escapade of the evening before.
Winfield expressed his desire to punch Reben’s head, and Sheila rejoiced at having a champion, even though (or perhaps because) the champion claimed her more exclusively than Reben did.
Bret had to endure another dismal wait until dinner, and then there was again an evening rehearsal. The time of production was approaching and Batterson was growing demoniac. After the rehearsal Bret from across the street watched all the other members of the company leave the theater. Even Eldon came forth, but not Sheila.
Another hour Bret spent of watchful waiting, and then she appeared with Reben and Prior. They had been having a consultation and a quarrel, and they continued it to the hotel, Sheila not daring to shake them off. Winfield shadowed them along the street, and waited outside till they left the hotel; then he made haste to find Sheila.
She was distraught between the demands of her play and her lover. Revisions had been made and she had a new scene to learn and a new interpretation of the character to achieve before morning. The only crumb of good news was the fact that Reben was to be out of town the next day and she could sneak Winfield in to watch a rehearsal, if he wanted to come.
He wanted to exceedingly. It was one way of borrowing trouble.
He stole in at the front of the house and sat in the empty dark, unobserved, but not unobserving. He had the wretched privilege of watching Eldon make love to Sheila and take her in his arms. A dozen embraces were tried before Batterson could find just the attitude to suit him. And that did not suit Sheila.
Partly because it is almost impossible for a man to show a woman how she would act, and partly because Sheila could almost see Bret’s gaze blazing from the dark like a wolf’s eyes, she was incapable of achieving the effect Batterson wanted.
The stage-manager was reaching his ugly phase, and after leaving Sheila in Eldon’s clasp for ten minutes while he tried her arms in various poses, all of them awkward, he walked to the table where Prior sat and muttered: