ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE
Although Max Hempel had not openly
sought out Tony Holiday he was entirely aware of her
presence in the city and in the dramatic school.
Whenever she played a rôle in the course of the latter’s
program he had his trusted aides on the spot to watch
her, gauge her progress, report their finding to himself.
Once or twice he had come himself, sat in a dark corner
and kept his eye unblinking from first to last upon
the girl.
In November it had seemed good to
the school to revive The Killarney Rose, a play which
ten years ago had had a phenomenal run and ended as
it began with packed houses. It was past history
now. Even the road companies had lapsed, and
its name was all but forgotten by the fickle public
which must and will have ever new sensations.
Hempel was glad the school had made
this particular selection, doubly glad it had given
Antoinette Holiday the title rôle. The play would
show whether the girl was ready for his purposes as
he had about decided she was. He would send Carol
Clay to see her do the thing. Carol would know.
Who better? It was she who created the original
Rose.
Tony Holiday behind the scene on that
momentous evening, on being informed that Carol Clay the
famous Carol Clay herself the real Rose was
out there in a box, was paralyzed with fear, for the
first time in her life, victim of genuine stage fright.
She was cold. She was hot. She was one tremendous
shake and shiver. She was a very lump of stone.
The orchestra was already playing. In a moment
her call would come and she was going to fail, fail
miserably. And with Carol Clay there to see.
Some flowers and a card were brought
in. The flowers were from Alan of course, great
crimson roses. It was dear of him to send them.
Later she would appreciate it. But just now not
even Alan mattered. She glanced at the card which
had come separately, was not with the flowers.
It was Dick’s. Hastily she read the pencil-written
scrawl. “Am covering the Rose. Will
be close up. See you after the show. Best
o’ luck and love.”
Tony could almost have cried for joy
over the message. Somehow the knowledge of Dick’s
nearness gave her back her self-possession. She
had refused to let Alan come. His presence in
the audience always distracted her, made her nervous.
But Dick was different. It was almost like having
Uncle Phil himself there. She wouldn’t fail
now. She couldn’t. It was for the
honor of the Hill.
A moment later, still clutching Dick’s
comforting card, she ran in on the stage, swinging
her sun-bonnet from its green ribbons with hoydenish
grace, chanting a gay little lilt of an Irish melody.
Her fear had gone even as the dew might have disappeared
at the kiss of the sun upon the Killarney greensward.
Almost at once she discovered Dick
and sang a part of her song straight down at him.
A little later she dared to let her eyes stray to the
box where Carol Clay sat. The actress smiled
and Tony smiled back and then forgot she was Tony,
was henceforth only Rose of Killarney.
It was a winsome, old-timey sort of
play, with an almost Barriesque charm and whimsicality
to it. The witching little Rose laughed and danced
and sang and flirted and wept and loved her way through
it and in the end threw herself in the right lover’s
arms, presumably there to dwell happy forever after.
After the last curtain went down and
she had smiled and bowed and kissed her hand to the
kindly audience over and over Tony fled to the dressing
room where she could still hear the intoxicating, delightful
thunder of applause. It had come. She could
act. She could. Oh! She couldn’t
live and be any happier.
But, after all she could stand a little
more joy without coming to an untimely end, for there
suddenly smiling at her from the threshold was Carol
Clay congratulating her and telling her what a pleasure
to-night’s Rose had been to the Rose of yesterday.
And before Tony could get her breath to do more than
utter a rather shy and gasping word of gratitude,
the actress had invited her to take tea with her on
the next day and she had accepted and Carol Clay was
gone.
It was in a wonderful world of dreams
that Tony Holiday dwelt as she removed a little of
her makeup, gave orders to have all her flowers sent
to a near-by hospital, except Alan’s, which she
gathered up in her arms and drawing her velvet cloak
around her, stepped out into the waiting-room.
But it was a world of rather alarming
realities that she went into. There was Dick
Carson waiting as she had bidden him to wait in the
message she had sent him. And there was Alan
Massey, unbidden and unexpected. And both these
males with whom she had flirted unconscionably for
weeks past were ominously belligerent of manner and
countenance. She would have given anything to
have had a wand to wave the two away, keep them from
spoiling her perfect evening. But it was too late.
The hour of reckoning which comes even to queens was
here.
“Hello, you two,” she
greeted, putting on a brave front for all her sinking
heart. She laid down the roses and gave a hand
impartially to each. “Awfully glad to see
you, Dicky. Alan, I thought I told you not to
come. Were you here all the same?”
“I was. I told you so in
my note. Didn’t you get it? I sent
it in with the roses.” He nodded at the
flowers she had just surrendered.
Dick’s eyes shadowed. Massey
had scored there. He had not thought of flowers.
Indeed there had been no time to get any he had gotten
the assignment so late. There had been quantities
of other flowers, he knew. The usher had carried
up tons of them it seemed to the popular Rose, but
she carried only Alan Massey’s home with her.
“I am sorry, Alan. I didn’t
see it. Maybe it was there; I didn’t half
look at the flowers. Your message did me so much
good, Dicky. I was scared to death because they
had just said Miss Clay was outside. And somehow
when I knew you were there I felt all right again.
I carried your card all through the first act and
I know it was your wishing me the best o’ luck
that brought it.”
She smiled at Dick and it was Alan’s
turn to glower. She had not looked at his roses,
had not cared to look for his message; but she carried
the other man’s card, used it as a talisman.
And she was glad. The other was there, but she
had forbidden himself Alan Massey to
come, had even reproached him for coming.
A group of actors passed through the
reception room, calling gay goodnights and congratulations
to Tony as they went and shooting glances of friendly
curiosity at the two, tall frowning men between whom
the vivacious Rose stood.
“Tony Holiday doesn’t
keep all her lovers on the stage,” laughed the
near-heroine as she was out of hearing. “Did
you ever see two gentlemen that hated each other more
cordially?”
“She is an arrant little flirt,
isn’t she, Micky?” The speaker challenged
the Irish lover of the play who had had the luck to
win the sweet, thorny little Killarney Rose in the
end and to get a real, albeit a play kiss from the
pretty little heroine, who as Tony Holiday as well
as Rose was prone to make mischief in susceptible
male hearts.
“She can have me any minute,
on the stage or off,” answered Micky promptly.
“She’s a winner. Got me going all
right. Most forgot my lines she was so darned
pretty.”
Dick took advantage of the confusion
of the interruption to get in his word.
“Will you come out with me for
a bite somewhere, Tony. I won’t keep you
late, but there are some things I want to talk over
with you.”
Tony hesitated. She had caught
the ominous flash of Alan’s eyes. She was
desperately afraid there would be a scene if she said
yes to Dick now in Alan’s hearing. The
latter strode over to her instantly, and laid his
hand with a proprietorial air on her arm. From
this point of vantage he faced Dick insolently.
“Miss Holiday is going out with
me,” he asserted. “You clear
out.”
The tone and manner even more than
the words were deliberate insult. Dick’s
face went white. His mouth set tight. There
was almost as ugly a look in his eyes as there was
in Alan’s. Tony had never seen him look
like that and was frightened.
“I’ll clear out when Miss
Holiday asks me to and not before,” he said in
a significantly quiet voice. “Don’t
go too far, Mr. Massey. I have taken a good deal
from you. There’s a limit. Tony, I
repeat my question. Will you go out with me to-night?”
Before Tony could speak Alan Massey’s
long right arm shot out in Dick’s direction.
Dick dodged the blow coolly.
“Hold on, Massey,” he
said. “I’m perfectly willing to smash
your head any time it is convenient. Nothing
would afford me greater pleasure in fact. But
you will kindly keep from making trouble here.
You can’t get a woman’s name mixed up
with a cheap brawl such as you are trying to start.
You know, it won’t do.”
Alan Massey’s white face turned
a shade whiter. His arm fell. He turned
back to Tony, real anguish in his fire-shot eyes.
“I beg your pardon, Tony dearest,”
he bent over to say. “Carson is right.
We’ll fight it out elsewhere when you are not
present. May I take you to the taxi? I have
one waiting outside.”
Another group of people passed through
the vestibule, said goodnight and went on out to the
street exit. It made Tony sick to think of what
they would have seen if Dick had lost his self control
as Alan had. She thought she had never liked
Dick as she did that moment, never despised Alan Massey
so utterly. Dick was a man. Alan was a spoiled
child, a weakling, the slave of his passions.
It was no thanks to him that her name was not already
bandied about on people’s lips, the name of a
girl, about whom men came to fist blows like a Bowery
movie scene. She was humiliated all over, enraged
with Alan, enraged with herself for stooping to care
for a man like that. She waited until they were
absolutely alone again and then said what she had to
say. She turned to face Alan directly.
“You may take me nowhere,”
she said. “I don’t want to see you
again as long as I live.”
For an instant Alan stared at her,
dazed, unable to grasp the force of what she was saying,
the significance of her tone. As a matter of fact
the artist in him had leaped to the surface, banished
all other considerations. He had never seen Tony
Holiday really angry before. She was magnificent
with those flashing eyes and scarlet cheeks a
glorious little Fury a Valkyrie. He
would paint her like that. She was stupendous,
the most vividly alive thing he had ever seen, like
flame itself, in her flaming anger. Then it came
over him what she had said.
“But, Tony,” he pleaded, “my belovedest ”
He put out both hands in supplication,
but Tony whirled away from them. She snatched
the great bunch of red roses from the table, ran to
the window, flung up the sash, hurled them out into
the night. Then she turned back to Alan.
“Now go,” she commanded,
pointing with a small, inexorable hand to the door.
Alan Massey went.
Tony dropped in a chair, spent and
trembling, all but in tears. The disagreeable
scene, the piled up complex of emotions coming on top
of the stress and strain of the play were almost too
much for her. She was a quivering bundle of nerves
and misery at the moment.
Dick came to her.
“Forgive me, Tony. I shouldn’t
have forced the issue maybe. But I couldn’t
stand any more from that cad.”
“I am glad you did exactly what
you did do, Dick, and I am more grateful than I can
ever tell you for not letting Alan get you into a fight
here in this place with all these people coming and
going. I would never have gotten over it if anything
like that had happened. It would have been terrible.
I couldn’t ever have looked any of them in the
face again.” She shivered and put her two
hands over her eyes ashamed to the quick at the thought.
Dick sat down on the arm of her chair,
one hand resting gently on the girl’s shoulder.
“Don’t cry, Tony,”
he begged. “I can’t stand it.
You needn’t have worried. There wasn’t
any danger of anything like that happening. I
care too much to let you in for anything of that sort.
So does he for that matter. He saw it in a minute.
He really wouldn’t want to do you any harm anyway,
Tony. Even I know that, and you must know it better
than I.”
Tony put down her hands, looked at
Dick. “I suppose that is true,” she
sighed. “He does love me, Dick.”
“He does, Tony. I wish
he didn’t. And I wish with all my heart
I were sure you didn’t love him.”
Tony sighed again and her eyes fell.
“I wish I were sure, too,”
she faltered.
Dick winced at that. He had no answer. What
was there to say?
“I don’t see why I should
care. I don’t see how I can care after
to-night. He is horrid in lots of ways a
cad just as you called him. I know
Larry would feel just as you do and hate to have him
come near me. Larry and I have almost quarreled
about it now. He thinks Uncle Phil is all wrong
not to forbid my seeing Alan at all. But Uncle
Phil is too wise. He doesn’t want to have
me marry Alan any more than the rest of you do but
he knows if he fights it it would put me on the other
side in a minute and I’d do it, maybe, in spite
of everybody.”
“Tony, you aren’t engaged to him?”
She shook her head.
“Not exactly. I am afraid
I might as well be though. I said I didn’t
ever want to see him again, but I didn’t mean
it. I shall want to see him again by to-morrow.
I always do no matter what he does. I always shall
I am afraid. It is like that with me. I’m
sorry, Dicky. I ought to have told you that before.
I’ve been horrid not to, I know. Take me
home now, please. I’m tired awfully
tired.”
Going home in the cab neither spoke
until just as they were within a few blocks of the
Hostelry when Dick broke the silence.
“I am sorry all this had to
happen to-night,” he said. “Because,
well, I am going away tomorrow.”
“Going away! Dick!
Where?” It was horribly selfish of her, Tony
knew; but it didn’t seem as if she could bear
to have Dick go. It seemed as if the only thing
that was stable in her reeling life would be gone if
he went. If he went she would belong to Alan
more and more. There would be nothing to hold
her back. She was afraid. She clung to Dick.
He alone of the whole city full of human beings was
a symbol of Holiday Hill. With him gone it seemed
to her as if she would be hopelessly adrift on perilous
seas.
“To Mexico Vera Cruz,
I believe,” he answered her question.
“Vera Cruz! Dick, you mustn’t!
It is awful down there now. Everybody says so.”
He smiled a little at that.
“It is because it is more or
less awful that they are sending me,” he said.
“Journalism isn’t much interested in placidity.
A newspaper man has to be where things are happening
fast and plenty. If things are hot down there
so much the better. They will sizzle more in the
copy.”
“Dick! I can’t have
you go. I can’t bear it.” Tony’s
hand crept into his. “Something dreadful
might happen to you,” she wailed.
He pressed her hand, grateful for
her real trouble about him and for her caring.
“Oh no, dear. Nothing dreadful
will happen to me. You mustn’t worry,”
he soothed.
“But I do. I shall.
How can I help it? It is just as if Larry or Ted
were going. It scares me.”
Dick drew away his hand suddenly.
“For heaven’s sake, Tony,
please don’t tell me again that I’m just
like Larry and Ted to you. It is bad enough to
know it without your rubbing it in all the time.
I can’t stand it not to-night.”
“Dick!” Tony was startled,
taken aback by his tone. Dick rarely let himself
go like that.
In a moment he was all contrition.
“Forgive me, Tony. I’m
sorry I said that. I ought to be thankful you
care that much, and I am. It is dear of you and
I do appreciate it.”
“Oh me!” sighed Tony.
“Everything I do or say is wrong. I wish
I did care the other way for you, Dicky dear.
Truly I do. It would be so much nicer and simpler
than caring for Alan,” she added naively.
“Life isn’t fixed nice
and simple, Tony. At least it never has been
for me.”
“Oh, Dick! Everything has
been horribly hard for you always, and I’m making
it harder. I don’t want to, Dicky dear.
You know I don’t. It is just that I can’t
help it.”
“I know, Tony. You mustn’t
bother about me. I’m all right. Will
you tell me just one thing though? If you hadn’t
cared for Massey no I won’t put it
like that. If you had cared for me would my not
having any name have made any difference?”
“Of course it wouldn’t
have made any difference, Dicky. What does a name
matter? You are you and that is what I would care
for do care for. The rest doesn’t
matter. Besides, you are making a name for yourself.”
“I am doing it under your name the
one you gave me.”
“I am proud to have it used
that way. Why wouldn’t I be? It is
honored. You have not only lived up to it as
you promised Uncle Phil. You have made it stand
for something fine. Your stories are splendid.
You are going to be famous and I Why, Dicky,
just think, it will be my name you will take on up
to the stars. Oh, we’re here,” as
the cab jolted to a halt in front of the Hostelry.
The cabby flung open the door.
Tony and Dick stepped out, went up the steps.
In a moment they were alone in the dimly lit hall.
“Tony, would you mind letting
me kiss you just once as you would Larry or Ted if
one of them were going off on a long journey away from
you?”
Dick’s voice was humble, pleading.
It touched Tony deeply, and sent the quick tears welling
up into her eyes as she raised her face to his.
For a moment he held her close, kissed
her on the cheek and then released her.
“Good-by, Tony. Thank you
and God bless you,” he said a little huskily
as he let her go.
“Good-by, Dick.”
And then impulsively Tony put up her lips and kissed
him, the first time he ever remembered a woman’s
lips touching his.
A second later the door closed upon
him, shutting him out in the night. He dismissed
the cab driver and walked blindly off, not knowing
or caring in what direction he went. It was hours
before he let himself into his lodging house.
It seemed as if he could have girdled the earth on
the strength of Tony Holiday’s kiss. The
next morning he was off for Mexico.