He sat in their stateroom on the train, his eyes still black with excitement and drank watered brandy. He dreamed of “Captain Salvador’s” first night at the Walling and tremors of applause mounting to the blue vault of that perfected ceiling. He was so tired that he struggled, undressing.
“Mark, you’re thin as a bean! Nothing but some muscles and skin.”
Mark flexed his arms, beamed up at the tall boy’s anxiety and rolled into his berth. The mussed red hair disappeared under a pillow. Gurdy smoked and stared humbly.... This was surely half of an artist, laborious, patient, contriving beauty. The man had this strange perception of the lovely thing. He should do better and better. If his trade was that of the booth, the sale of charming sensualities, he raised it by his passion. He begot fondness. He created. Gurdy tucked the blankets over the blue silk pyjamas and planned a long talk on the purpose of the theatre for the morning, then wondered what that purpose was and put the lecture off. They fled all morning down the land and came to Washington in time for late lunch with Russell at the Shoreham where Mark halted to look at a pretty, dark woman in the suave, grey lounge smelling of flowers, fell behind Gurdy and Russell, found himself suddenly lifting his hat to Cora Boyle. She wore a cloak banded with black fur and a gold hat too young for her paint. Mark smiled, rather sorry for the blown coarseness of her chin, asked how she liked California and heard her flat voice crackle.
“A nightmare! All these girls who were absolutely no one last week in ten thousand dollar cars! No, I’m glad they brought me east. I’m taking three days off to see Cosmo start this. Tells me it plays here the rest of the week, then Philadelphia.—When are you bringing it into New York?”
He shifted a little and said, “Can’t say, Cora. Hard to get a house in New York, right now. This thing I’ve got at the Forty Fifth Street is doin’ big business. Todgers’ll be on the road two weeks, anyhow, before I decide what’ll become of it—”
“What are you opening the Walling with?”
“‘Captain Salvador.’ Opened in Boston last night. Best play I’ve ever touched! Say, remind me to send you seats when it opens the Walling.”
“That’s dear of you.—But couldn’t you get one of the small houses for Cosmo? The Princess or the Punch and Judy? Intimate comedy. Cosmo really does better in a small house. And—” she smiled—“you could take a bigger one after a month or so.”
He had an awed second of wonder. She’d been almost thirty years on the stage and she thought “Todgers Intrudes” a good play! He began to say, “But, do you think this will—” Then two men charged up to shake hands with the actress. Mark scuttled down the stairs toward the grill. If she was quarrelling with Rand her manner didn’t show it. “Cosmo really does better in a small house.” He joined Russell and Gurdy at their table, puzzled and said, “Say, if she’s fighting with Rand it’s funny she’d come down to see him open this flapdoodle.”
“Habit,” Russell shrugged, “They’ve been married twelve years. But are they fighting? I had breakfast with them this morning and she almost crucified herself because his tea wasn’t right.”