Mark jumped to catch the sheaf of yellow roses. Miss Held waved her grey gloves wide and dipped her chin. “Je t’ apporte une gerbe vu que t’es toujours bon enfant, Marc Antoine! And ’ow does Beatriz get along to teach you French?”
“Pretty fair. Haven’t had much time lately. Thought you’d taken your show on the road, Anna?”
“Nex’ week.” Up the staircase some one began to whistle “La Petite Tonkinoise.” The little woman vibrated inside the grey case of her lacy gown and pursed her lips. “Oh, but I am sick of that tune! Make him stop.” The whistler heard and ceased. Miss Held swayed to and fro among the flowers, noting cards. She adopted a huge orchid for her waist and smiled down at it. A dozen grins woke in the collecting crowd. Mark was aware of upholsterers oozing from the theatre. Miss Held hummed from gift to gift, murmuring names—“Le Moyne.... ton institutrice.... Ce bon vieux David.... Nice lilies.” She moved in a succession of swift steps that seemed balanced leaps. One of the florist’s girls sighed a positive sob of envy. The curving body and the embellished eyes kept the crowd still. The soft gloves drooped on the hard lustre of the stirring arms. Mark wondered at her cool, sardonic mastery of attention. She was bored, unwell and her frock was nothing new. She was Anna Held and the people were edging in from the sidewalk to look at her.
“Like to see the house, Anna?”
“Oh, no. I very well know what that would be. All red, and gold fishes on the ceiling, eh? No. I must go away.” She strolled off toward her carriage, chattering sudden French which Mark did not understand. He heard an immense discussion surge up in the vestibule as he shut the coupé door, walked through it into the theatre where two upholsterers were quarrelling over the age of the paragon and where Mark bumped against a man in brown who seemed to inspect the gold dolphins of the vault.
“Clumsy,” said the man, briskly.
“Didn’t see you, sir.”
“I meant the decoration.” The man flicked a hand at the ceiling and the red boxes, “Like Augustin Daly’s first house but much worse. We should have passed that. Gilt. It’s the scortum ante mortum in architecture.” He jammed a cigarette between the straight lips of his flushed face and went on in a rattle of dry syllables. “Some one should write a monograph on gold paint and the theatrical temperament. Plush and passion. Stigmata.... Sous un balcon doré.... Can you give me a match?... Where’s Carlson’s office?” He bustled out of the foyer.
Mark wearily tore Cora Boyle’s card in his tanned fingers and nodded. The stranger was right. This new theatre was stale. The gold sparkled stupidly. The shades of velvet were afflicting. But Carlson liked it. Mark sighed and thought, rather sadly, that his patron’s whole concept of the trade was vulgar and outworn like this gaudy expense. Red velvet, heavy gold, bright lamps—the trappings of his apprenticeship. Old actors told Mark that this was a variant of the first Daly theatre. The stranger was right, then. Mark wondered and went upstairs to the office but the flushed man was gone.
“That feller Huneker was in tryin’ to get me to hire some orchestra leader,” Carlson said.