Sheila gave up the line, but with reluctance. But it was some time before Eldon and Vickery regained their illusions concerning her.
And yet it was something more than selfish greed that made her grasp at everything for the betterment of her rôle. It was like a portrait she was painting and she wished for it every enhancement. An architect who plans a cathedral is not blamed for wishing to raze whole acres so that his building may command the scene. The actor’s often berated avarice is no more ignoble, really. And the actor who is indifferent or over-generous is like the careless artist in other fields. He builds neither himself nor his work.
Mrs. Vining fought half a day against the loss of a line that emphasized the meanness of her character. She wanted to be hated. She played hateful rôles with such exquisite art that audiences loved her while they loathed her.
So Sheila spared nothing and nobody to make the part she played the greatest part was ever played. Least of all she spared herself, her strength, her mind, her time. But she battened on work, she was a glutton for punishment. She had her stage-manager begging for a rest, and that is rare achievement.
And all the while she grew stronger, haler, heartier; she grew so beautiful from needing to be beautiful that even Dulcie Ormerod, passing her once more at the mail-box, gasped:
“My Gawd! but that hat is becoming. Tell me quick what’s the address of your milliner.”
That was approbation indeed from Dulcie.
At length the dreadful dress-rehearsal was reached. The usual unheard-of mishaps happened. Everybody was hopeless. The actors parroted the old saying that “a bad dress-rehearsal means a good first performance,” knowing that it proves true about half the time.
The piece was tried first in Plainfield. The local audience was not demonstrative. Eldon tried to comfort himself by saying that the play was too big, too stunning, for them to understand.
The next night they played in Red Bank and were stunned with applause in the first scene and increasing enthusiasm throughout. But that proved nothing, and Jaffer, who was with the company, remembered a famous failure that had been a triumph in Red Bank and a disaster on Broadway.