When at last she was satisfied, it was a little after midnight, and Peggy felt exhausted, as if she herself had died with Miriamne.
“I should have done Sabina last,” she said. “Maybe I wouldn’t feel so much as if I had just been murdered after three acts of blank verse!”
“On the other hand,” Mrs. Lane said, “you might not have been so ready for sleep as you are now, and sleep is what you need most, if you’re going to do as well in the morning as you did tonight.”
“That’s right,” added Peggy’s father. “We have just time for eight good hours of rest and a decent breakfast tomorrow before you go to keep your ten-o’clock date with destiny. Let’s go.”
Peggy didn’t argue. She kissed her parents, went to her own adjoining bedroom and, in three minutes, was curled up between the crisp, fresh sheets. Tonight she was too tired to think about the excitement to come. She had barely settled her head on the pillow before she was deep in a dreamless sleep.
IV
Two Auditions
Peggy hadn’t really known what to expect of the New York Dramatic Academy, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this!
The Academy was housed on two floors of an ancient office building only a few blocks away from their hotel. On either side of a tall door that led into a long, dim hallway was an assorted collection of name plates, telling passers-by what to expect inside. One somewhat blackened brass plaque, about a foot square, gave the name of the Academy. Other plaques, some brass, some plastic, some polished and others almost illegible, announced that the building also provided offices for a dentist, studios for two ballet schools and a voice teacher, and the workshop of a noted costume designer. Other trades represented included theatrical agents, song writers, an export-import company, an advertising agency, and a custom bootmaker specializing in ballet footwear.
At the end of the hall, two old elevators wheezed and grunted their way up and down in grillwork shafts. Over the ornate elevator doors were indicators telling on what floors the elevators were. Neither of them worked. But, when one car landed with a sigh of relief and its gates slid open with a creak, Peggy found that the operator was, surprisingly, a young man, quite good-looking and smartly uniformed. He greeted her courteously and took her to the top floor with the air of a man who was giving her a lift in his own chauffeured limousine.
The minute Peggy looked around her, any misgivings she had about the building vanished. The atmosphere was ageless, shabby, and completely theatrical. The elusive smell, both indefinable and familiar, but which was nothing but the smell of backstage, perfumed the hall. Through a closed door to her left, Peggy heard a chorus reciting in unison some lines from a Greek play she could not identify. Directly in front, through an open door in a wall of doors, Peggy saw a tiny theater of perhaps one hundred seats. A few people lounged in the front seats while on the bare stage, under a single floodlight, two young men acted out what sounded like a violent quarrel. To the right, where the long hallway was crossed by another hall, a boy appeared, swinging a fencing foil. He turned the corner out of sight.