CHAPTER I
“BROOK TROUT FOR TWO”
It was twelve o’clock—a hot, sunny noon in the latter part of August. Broadway blazed with the last fiery effort of the passing summer; there was a steady stream of humanity pouring up and down on either side of the clanging cars, and occasionally swirling between them. In spite of the temperature, New York was as fervently busy as usual, especially here on what is affectionately known as the Rialto. For in nearly every theater in the Forties rehearsals had begun, and those actors who were not already employed were frantically hunting jobs. Gone the brief weeks in which they had forgotten calcium and make-up boxes; it was nearly September—time to work.
Chorus girls, half dead from three hours of ceaseless dancing, came hurrying from stage doors, wiping their dripping faces and talking shrilly of new steps, tired legs, and the brutalities of their stage managers. “Principals,” in scarcely less haste, repaired to one of the big restaurants for a cold buffet lunch, wearing the blank, concentrated expression that is born of trying to memorize lines or to estimate the cost of new costumes. Clean-shaven young men, all dressed precisely alike, forgathered on street corners or plunged pallidly into cafés. Shabby little actresses, out of work and wearing their best clothes of last year, scurried anxiously from agent to agent.
A few stars sank wearily into touring cars or limousines and flew homeward for an hour and a half of rest and refreshment before the long, grinding, sweltering afternoon. Stage managers, with scripts sticking out of their pockets and a grim and absent glare in their eyes, strode along, mentally blue-penciling the prompt book and cursing the company. Authors crept miserably away to eat without appetite and wonder if there would be any play at all left by the date of the opening. In short, theatrical Broadway was at one of its most vigorous seasons of activity, and to walk along it was like turning the pages of a dramatic newspaper.
At the side door of one of the big, cool, luxurious hotels extensively patronized by the profession when it has enough money in its pockets, two young women nearly ran into each other, laughed, and exchanged greetings:
“Miss Legaye! How nice to see you again!”
“It has been ages, hasn’t it? Are you lunching here, too, Miss Merivale?”
“I hardly know,” returned the younger and taller girl, adding, with a frank laugh: “I was wondering whether it would be too sinfully extravagant to blow myself to a gilt-edged meal all alone. However, I believe I had about succumbed to temptation; I have a manager to see this afternoon, and I really think I should fortify myself.”
“Lunch with me,” suggested Kitty Legaye. “I hate my own society, and I am all alone.”
“For a wonder!” laughed the other. “Yes, I’d love to, if you’ll let it be Dutch. I’ve been up and down a thousand pairs of stairs this morning, and I’m nearly dead.”
They went together into one of the most comfortable dining rooms in the city. They chose a little table so placed that an electric fan, artificially hidden behind flowering plants, swept it with a very fair imitation of aromatic summer winds.
Miss Legaye, who always knew exactly what she wanted, waved aside the menu proffered by the waiter and rapidly ordered: “Brook trout in aspic for two. I’ll tell you the rest later.”
Then she tossed off her fur neckpiece and turned to the other girl.
“I never asked you if you liked trout!” she exclaimed, in a sweet, rather high voice which her admirers called “larklike.” “Now, that’s so like me! Do you?”
“Very much,” said her companion, smiling. “I don’t often get it, though. You are looking awfully well, Miss Legaye!”
“I am always well,” replied Kitty Legaye.
She was an exceedingly pretty woman, already in her early thirties, but even by daylight she did not look more than twenty-five. On the stage, with the glamour of rouge and footlights to enhance her naturally youthful appearance, she passed easily for a girl in her teens. Very small, very dainty, with the clear, ivory-white skin which keeps its freshness so well, big dark eyes, brown curls, and a very red, tiny, full mouth, she still made an enchanting ingénue and captivated every one who saw her.
To-day she was entirely charming in one of the innocently sophisticated frocks she particularly loved to wear—a creation of black and white, most daring in effect, though demurely simple in cut. Always pale by nature, she was doubly so now from fatigue and heat, yet she still looked young and lovely, and her smile had the irresistible and infectious quality of a child’s.
If at times her eye grew a bit cynical or her pretty mouth a trifle hard, such slips in self-control occurred seldom. As a rule she kept a rigid guard upon herself and her expressions, not only because an obviously ugly mood or reflection made her look older, but because, if permitted to become a habit, it would be perilously and permanently aging.
Kitty Legaye was too truly clever not to know that her one valuable asset, both as an actress and a woman, was her quality—or illusion—of youth. When she lost that, she shrewdly judged, she would lose everything. She was not a sufficiently brilliant actress to continue successfully in character work after her looks had gone. And so far as her personal and private life was concerned she had lived too selfishly to have made a very cozy human place for herself in the world.
Not that she was a disagreeable or an unkind woman; she could even be generous on occasion, and she was almost always pleasant to her associates; but the spirit of calculation which she strove so hard to keep out of her face had left its mark upon her life. She had few close friends, though she liked many persons and many persons liked her. She had long since drifted away from her own people, and she had never been willing to give up her independence for the sake of any man. So, in spite of a great number of admirers and a remarkably handsome salary, her existence seemed just a little barren and chilly sometimes.
We have said that she never had been willing to give up her independence. That had been true all her life until now. To-day she was considering just that proposition. Did she care enough, at last, to marry? Love—she had had no small measure of that all her life, for Kitty was by way of being temperamental; but marriage! That was another and a vastly more serious matter.
She looked almost wistfully across the table at Sibyl Merivale. For a moment she had an unaccountable impulse to confide in her. She wished she knew her well enough. She looked, Kitty thought, like the sort of girl who would understand about this sort of thing—loving enough to get married, and—and all that.
Sybil was as unlike Miss Legaye as she well could be. She was tall, and built strongly though slenderly, like a young Artemis, and her eyes were very clear and starry and blue. Her hair was of that rare and delicious shade known as blonde cendrée, and the silvery, ashen nimbus about her face made her brown eyebrows and lashes effective. Her skin was very fair, and her color came and went sensitively. She was not a beauty; her nose was decidedly retroussé, and her mouth too large. But she was unquestionably sweet and wholesome and attractive, and her lovely forehead and the splendid breadth between her eyes suggested both character and intelligence.
Kitty looked disapprovingly at the dust-colored linen dress she wore; it was far too close to the tint of her hair to be becoming. Blondes, thought Kitty, could wear almost any color on the face of the earth except—just that! However, she felt rather pleased than otherwise that Miss Merivale was not looking her best. When she appeared in public with another woman, she was well satisfied to have the other woman badly dressed. She herself never was.
Both women were honestly and healthily hungry, and talked very little until they were half through the trout. Then they met each other’s eyes and laughed a little.
“Thank goodness you don’t pretend not to have an appetite, like most girls!” said Miss Legaye. “I’m starved, and not a bit ashamed of it! Boned squab, after this, waiter, and romaine salad.”
“If you let me eat so much I shall be dull and stupid,” declared Sybil. “And I want to be extra brilliant to talk to my manager. I simply have to hypnotize him into engaging me!”
“Who is he?”
“Altheimer.”
“Altheimer! You aren’t going into musical comedy, surely?”
Sybil flushed a bit and bent over her plate to hide her discomfort.
“I—I’m going into anything I can get,” she answered in a low voice. Then she smiled and went on more bravely: “I’ve been out of work since March, Miss Legaye. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Oh, dear—how horrid!” Miss Legaye felt sincerely sympathetic—for the moment. “It’s a thousand pities that you have to go into one of the Altheimer shows. You can really act, and there—well, of course, he doesn’t care about whether you can act or not; he’ll take you for your figure.” And she looked the other girl over candidly.