“Say, Dell, whatever became of Jean Caspian?” Floy asked. “We all expected so much of her after the hit she made with Norman. Too bad she didn’t strike New York, where some of the big managers like Littleton could have seen her! Oh, that reminds me—funny thing, too. Say, Dell, you remember Betty, that blonde maid I had? Well, I had a picture of Jean on my dresser, right here, and, well—why, Betty used to tell me about a girl that used to work where she worked. Said it was one of those gown places, where they sew on bindings and things,—sort of a sweat-shop, I s’pose,—and Betty always used to say that girl looked so much like Jean’s picture. Yes, really. She was quite positive of it. Only this girl wasn’t so pretty, she said, and was thinner, and—oh, I don’t know. But, anyway, she said the eyes were perfect of her. Yes, it was queer. Oh, I have no idea where the place was, Dell. Why, let’s see—Betty left me about two months ago.”
After thinking all this over seriously, and not without tears, Dell decided not to mention it to Clara Coolwood. It would only break open the wound that was slowly healing in Clara’s heart.
For Clara was full of excitement now over her new stock engagement as leading lady in Lowell. Her talk was all of hats and gowns, salaries and parts and matinées. She smiled now at every one’s jokes and her whole manner was scented with success.
So, as the weeks lapsed into months, over in Dell’s room the name of Jean Caspian gradually faded into a memory.
IV
THE Herrick theater, Buffalo. A profoundly bored stage-hand was hammering away on a back-drop, regardless of the rehearsing of the orchestra.
Prancing along the footlights, up and down, notes in hand, the stage-manager, intoxicated with his own temporary importance, was grimacing and gesticulating his injunctions to play the music, oh, so much softer! Miss Dover’s great love-scene had been ruined by their confounded fiddling at the matinée this afternoon. Now, where was that character-man? “Motzart”—not “Mozart!”—he was profanely cautioned. Two supers were discharged; no use discussing it, gentlemen; they’d walked on the ladies’ trains just once too often. “Be sure to watch those amber lights now, and for Heaven’s sake keep the entrances clear!”
Sarah Dover opened the stage-door, and with her gracious “good evening” stilled the bustle. Through a sudden, flattering silence she passed to her dressing-room.
Here a slight, serious-looking young woman, with light hair braided into a sedate knot, was spreading a silver-and-chiffon gown over a chair. She looked up.
“Well, Vinnie,” Sarah Dover asked anxiously, as she emerged from her sable coat, “what luck did you have with my pet gown?”