But Sheila did not come. None of the company emerged from the stage door. It was long after twelve and nobody had appeared. He did not know that the company had been held after the performance for criticism. Aligned in all its fatigue and after-slump, it waited to be harangued by Reben while the “grips” whisked away the scenery. Reben read the copious notes he had made. He spared no one. Every member in turn was rebuked for something, and he carefully refrained from any words of approval lest the company should become conceited.
Reben believed in lashing his horses to their tasks. Others believe otherwise and succeed as well, but Reben was known as a “slave-driver.” He paid good prices for his slaves and it was a distinction to belong to him; but he worked them hard.
Batterson and Prior had also made notes on the performance and the dismal actors received spankings one after another. Sheila was not overlooked. Rather she was subjected to extra severity because she carried the success or failure on her young shoulders.
As usual, the first performance found the play too long. The first rough cuts were announced and a rehearsal called for the next morning at ten.
It was half past twelve when the forlorn and worn-out players were permitted to slink off to their dressing-rooms.
Sheila knew that her poor Bret must have been posting the alley outside like a caged hyena. She was so tired and dejected that she hardly cared. She sent Pennock out to explain. Pennock could not find him. She did not look long. She did not like him. When at length Sheila was dressed for the street she found Reben waiting for her with the news that he had ordered a little supper in a private room at the hotel, so that she and Batterson, Prior and Eldon and the company-manager and the press agent, Starr Coleman, and the house-manager, might discuss the play while it was fresh in their minds.
Sheila had never sat on one of these inquests before, and she had not foreseen the call to this one. Such conferences are as necessary in the theater as a meeting of generals after a hard day’s battle. Long after the critics have turned in their diatribes or eulogies and gone home to bed, the captains of the drama are comparing notes, quoting what the audience has said, searching out flaws and discussing them, often with more asperity than the roughest critic reveals.
In these anxious night-watches the fate of the new play may be settled, and advance, retreat, or surrender decided upon.
Sheila, thinking of her poor husband, asked Reben to excuse her from the conference.