CHAPTER I
CAN LOVE BE CONTROLLED BY ADVICE?
Madge Elliston lived alone with her mother in a small house on an unpretentious but socially unimpeachable side street, just off one of the main avenues. Their means, as Madge has already intimated, were modest—"modest," as the young lady sprightly put it, "to the point of prudishness." Joseph Elliston, her father, had been a brilliant and promising young professor when her mother married him, with, as people said, a career before him. If by career they meant affluence, they were wholly right in saying it was all before him. But though the two married on his prospects, they could not fairly have been said to have made an unwise venture. Nothing but death had kept Joseph Elliston from becoming a popular and respected teacher, a foremost authority on economics, the author of standard works on that subject, and the possessor of a comfortable income. But he had died when Madge, his only child, was five years old, leaving his small and sorrowing family barely enough to live on.
The straitened circumstances in which the sad event threw Mrs. Elliston and her daughter were somewhat relieved by the generosity of the only sister of the widow, Eliza Scharndorst, herself a widow and the possessor of a large fortune. She was extremely fond of Madge, who always got on beautifully with her "Aunt Tizzy"—an infantile corruption allowed to survive into maturity—having more in common with her, if the truth must be known, than with her mother. She was a festive soul, much given to entertaining, and she was not long in discovering that the assistance of her niece was a distinct asset in making her home attractive to guests. It is not to be wondered at that Madge's occasional services in the way of decorating a dinner table or brightening up an otherwise stodgy reception would redound to her material benefit as well as to her spiritual welfare. Such good things as trips to Bermuda, occasional new frocks and instruction under the best music masters, came her way so frequently that by the time we next meet her, nearly five years after our last sight of her, Madge was a far better dowered young woman, socially speaking, than the penniless orphaned daughter of a college professor could normally hope to be.
For when we next see her Miss Elliston is—and in no mere figurative sense—holding the center of the stage. A real stage in a real theater, under the full blaze of real footlights, and if no real audience sits on the other side of those footlights, it is no great matter, for a very real audience will sit there soon enough. On Friday night, to be exact, and this is Tuesday. To be even more exact, it is the first formal, dress rehearsal of an amateur performance of "The Beggar's Opera" (immortal work!) organized primarily for charitable purposes by a number of prominent citizens, among them Mrs. Rudolph Scharndorst, and secondarily, if we are to give any weight to the opinion of those present at the rehearsal, for the purpose of giving scope to the talents of Mrs. Rudolph Scharndorst's niece.
For Madge is cast for the part of Polly Peachum, heroine of the piece. And if there was originally the slightest doubt as to the wisdom of such an assignment, it has vanished into thin air before now. For Madge is lovely—! It is not merely a matter of voice; there never was any doubt but that she had the best voice available for the part. What the scattered few in the dark auditorium are busy admiring now is the extraordinary charm, grace, actual beauty, even, of the girl performing before them. The more so because it is all so unattended; no one thought that she would give that effect on the stage. Of a type usually described as "attractive," slight and rather short, with hair sandy rather than golden, and a face distinguished only by a nice pair of blue eyes and a particularly ingratiating smile, Madge could not fairly be expected to turn herself into a vision of commanding beauty and charm with the slight external aids of paint and powder and a position behind a row of strong lights.
The only unimpressed and indifferent person in the theater was the coach. That was quite as it should be, of course; coaches must not exhibit bursts of enthusiasm, like common people. Yet it is perhaps worth mentioning that the coach in question made none of his frequent interruptions during the first few moments of Polly's presence on the stage, but sat silently biting his pencil and frowning in the back row of the theater till after she had finished her second song.
"One moment!" he cried, running down the aisle. "I'm going to change that song." He exchanged a few whispered remarks with the leader of the orchestra, who had charge of the musical side of the production. "All right—never mind now—go on with the act ... No, don't cross there, Mrs. Peachum; stay where you are, and Miss Elliston! what are the last words of the second line of that song?"
"'Mothers obey.'"
"All right—let's have 'em. I didn't get them that time. Go on, please."