“If I could only do anything to help you!”
Winfield caught at the proffer. “You can! Let Sheila go home with me.”
Reben gasped. “My boy, my boy! It’s impossible! The matinée begins in half an hour. She should be making up now.”
“Let somebody else play her part.”
“There is no understudy ready. We never select the understudy for the try-out performances. Sheila, you must understand.”
“I do, of course; but poor Bret—he can’t seem to.”
“Oh, all right, I understand,” Winfield sighed with a resignation that terrified Sheila. “What train can I get? Do you know?”
Reben knew the trains. He would get the company-manager to secure the tickets. Bret must go by way of Detroit. He could not leave till after five. He would reach Buffalo early Sunday morning and be home in the late afternoon.
The big fellow’s frame shook with anxiety. So much could happen in twenty-four hours. It would seem a year to his poor mother. He hurried away to send her a telegram. Sheila paused at the stage door, staring after his forlorn figure; then she darted in to her task.
Bret came back shortly and dropped into a chair in Sheila’s dressing-room. His eyes, dulled with grief, watched her as she plastered on her face the various layers of color, spreading the carmine on cheek and ear with savage brilliance, penciling her eyelashes till thick beads of black hung from them, painting her eyelids blue above and below, and smearing her lips with scarlet.