They reached New York the first week in July. No sooner had Peter Stock berthed the Saragossa and breathed the big city, than he discovered how dearly he loved Pittsburg.... Paula went alone to the little apartment Top-side o' Park, where Madame Nestor absolved her strong young queen; alone also first to The States, though there was a table set for four over in Staten Island the following day....
Charter and Reifferscheid regarded each other a trifle nervously in the latter's office, before they left for the ferry. Each, however, found in the eyes of the other a sudden grip on finer matters than obvious explanations, so that no adjustment of past affairs was required. To Charter, this moment of meeting with the editor became a singularly bright memory, like certain moments with Father Fontanel. Reifferscheid had put away all the flowerings of romance, and could not know that their imperishable lustre was in his eyes—for the deeper-seeing eyes of the woman. He was big enough to praise her happiness, big enough to burst into singing. It had been a hard moment for her, but he sprang high among the nobilities of her heart, and was sustained.... What if it were just a throat-singing? There was no discordant note. These are the men and the moments to clinch one's faith in the Great Good that Drives the World.
Selma Cross had left the Zoroaster, and, with Stephen Cabot, was happily on the wing, between the city, shores and mountains. The Thing was to open again in September at the Herriot, and the initial venture into the West was over. Had she wished, Paula was not given a chance to do without the old friendship.... The story of taking the Company down into Kentucky from Cincinnati and fulfilling the old promise to Calhoun Knox proved rare listening:
"I won't soon forget that night in Cincinnati, when I parted from Stephen Cabot," she said, falling with the same old readiness into her disclosures. "'Stephen,' I told him, 'I am taking the Company down into Danube to play to-morrow night in my home. I don't want you to go....' I had seen the real man shine out through physical pain many times. It was so now, and he looked the master in the deeper hurt. He's a self-fighter—the champion. He asked me if I meant to stay long, as I took his cool, slim hand. I told him that I hoped not, but if it transpired that I must stay for a while, I should come back to Cincinnati—for one day—to tell him.... I saw he was the stronger. I was all woman that moment, all human, wanting nothing that crowds or art could give. I think my talk became a little flighty, as I watched his face, so brave and so white.
"I knew his heart, knew that his thoughts that moment would have burned to the brute husk, coarser stuff than he was made of.... Here's a Stephen who could smile up from the ground as—as they stoned.... So I left him, standing by the window, in the upper-room of the hotel, watching the moving river-lights down on the Ohio.
"Late the next afternoon I reached Danube, and was driven directly to the theatre—which was new. There was a pang in this. The town seemed just the same; the streets and buildings, the sounds and smells, even the sunset patch at the head of Main Street—all were just as they should be, except the theatre. You see, all the dreams of greatness of that savage, homely girl, had found their source and culmination in the old house of melodrama, parts of which, they told me, now were made over into darkey shanties down by the river. I felt that my success was qualified a little in that it had not come in the life of the old house.
"I joined the Company at the theatre, without seeing any of the Danube folk. The audience was already gathering. Through an eyelet of the curtain, I saw Calhoun Knox enter alone, and take a seat in the centre, five rows from the orchestra. He seemed smaller. The good brown tan was gone. There was a twitch about his mouth that twitched mine. Other faces were the same—even the lips that had spoken my doom so long ago. I had no hate for them now....
"I looked at Calhoun Knox again, looked for the charm of clean simplicity, and kept putting Stephen Cabot out of my heart and brain.... This man before me had fought for me twice, when I had needed a champion.... They pulled me away from the eyelet, and The Thing was on.
"I could feel the town's group-soul that night—responded to its every thought, as if a nerve-system of my own was installed in every mind. They were listening to the woman who had startled New York. I felt their awe. It was not sweet, as I had dreamed the moment would be. After all, these were my people.