“Your cue,” said Mr. Fitch and the girl, with a splendid swagger, marched into the lit scene beyond this nervous shadow. Her finery shimmered and directly the women outside the hedge of footlights laughed. The audience tittered at her first line and Mr. Fitch, a hand on his moustache, smiled at Carlson.
“She’s got a voice like a saw,” Carlson snapped and walked down the steps. At the bottom a roar halted him. The audience laughed in a steady bawl. He grunted but the noise came in repeating volleys every time the girl’s shrill speech rose grinding and these bursts had an effect of surging water wonderful to hear, soothing his conceit. But as he listened a spasm took his stomach. Fitch helped him to a cab and the cab delivered Carlson trembling to his valet in 18th Street.
The attack lasted all night and did not wane until twilight of next day when Carlson could drink some drugged milk and roll a cigarette. He bade his valet bring up the morning papers and was not surprised when Fitch preceded the man into the room, walking silently on his trim feet, a flower in his blue coat and his white hands full of scribbled foolscap.
“I’ve been writing two scenes in the library,” he said, in his usual, even whisper, “and I’d like to read them, if you feel well enough.”
“Two scenes?”
“One’s for the first act and one’s for the last. I’d like a full rehearsal in the morning, too.”
Carlson lifted himself and slapped the counterpane. He cried, “Now, Clyde, listen here! That Boyle gal’s got enough. I expect she hit but she’s a sassy little hen. I’m not goin’ to spoil her with—”
“Nom de dieu,” said the playwright, “I didn’t say anything about the Boyle girl. No. These scenes are for young Walling. He can come on with some flowers for Nicoline in the first act and say something. Then he can bring the dogs in at the last, instead of the maid. We might dress him as a gamekeeper in the last act. Green coat, corduroy breeches—”
Carlson screamed, “Cord’roy pants? Who the hell you talkin’ about? Walling? Who’s Walling?”
Mr. Fitch lit a cigar and selected a paper from the bundle the valet held. He bent himself over the back of a cherry velvet chair which turned his suit vile purple in the dusk and began to read genially.... “‘Into the sordid and sensuous atmosphere of this third act there came a second of relief when the messenger brought Nicoline news of her mother’s death. We too rarely see such acting as Mr. Walling’s performance of this petty part. His embarrassed, sympathetic stare at Nicoline, his boyish, unaffected speech—’” The playwright laughed and took another paper, “That’s William Winter. Here’s this idiot. ‘This little episode exactly proves the soundness of Carlson’s method in rehearsing a company. I am told that Mark Walling, the young actor who plays the rôle, has been drilled by Mr. Carlson as carefully as though he were a principal’—I told him that,” Mr. Fitch explained, changing papers. “‘One of the best performances in the long list of forty was that of Mark Walling as’—”