Chapter I

The curtain had come down for the ninth and last time. Everyone on the stage was in a hubbub of frenzied congratulation. Frances West, in her make-up of Biddy, the old Irish orange-woman, was being embraced by most of the women in the company, while her hands were warmly shaken by the men. Then she hurried to her dressing-room and pulled out a telegraph form, on which she scribbled: “Miss Imogen Lennox, Central Park School, West 67th Street, New York. Struck it at last. Fond love. Mother.” The call-boy was summoned to take the dispatch. He glanced at it with American informality. “That’s so, Miss West. You’ve struck it sure. Gee, but you got them by the neck!” he elaborated enthusiastically, as he disappeared.

Miss West smiled at the boy’s assurance. Yes, there was no mistaking the first real hit she had ever made. What a struggle it had been, these twenty-five years of touring in third-rate and usually unsuccessful companies. And she had begun so young, when she was barely fourteen. For her, the journey of life had been a literal one. A never-ending succession of one-night stands in small Middle-West towns, each different and each the same, passed in a phantasmagoria before her. Often she had not even known the name of the place where she was staying; it seemed useless to cumber the memory with so transitory a detail. The one, solid permanent object in her kaleidoscopic existence was her daughter. During Imogen’s earlier years, the child had travelled with her mother. What a lovely, laughing, fairy-like little thing she had been, with her blue eyes and her golden curls, the pet of the whole company, the mollifier of the ugliest hotel-keeper! But Miss West had wisely decided that the roving life was unsuitable for a child, and she had sent her daughter to boarding-school. How the memory of that wrench still hurt! Since then she had seen Imogen but seldom, but the thought of her formed a constant background, and a goal. To-night her success and her child were inextricably interwoven. Each enhanced her joy in the other.

A knock came at the door, and Mr. Hobson, the manager, appeared. “Come right in, Mr. Hobson,” Miss West called out. “I ran off to wire to my little girl. Wasn’t it a real lovely house?” She held out both her hands.

The stout little man pressed them genially, and laughed in his characteristically cheery way. “Fine, fine,” he ejaculated. “You’ve knocked ’em this time, Miss West. Wish I’d fixed it up for you to stop on right here in Chicago. I guess ‘Biddy’ would draw for a month good.”

“Oh do arrange it. Mr. Parks is threatening a terrible time of one night stands. If the business keeps up, do let us stop here.” Miss West broke off almost with a sob. She was still vibrating with the evening’s excitement.

“Guess it’s too late to change now. But don’t you worry, Miss West. We’ll have you back here before long.” Mr. Hobson’s tone was soothing. Long experience of leading ladies had taught him “how to handle them,” to use his own phraseology. Not that he had ever considered Miss West as a leading lady before. Giving her the name-part in this new play had been one of his sudden inspirations. “And don’t forget there’s still two years of our contract to run,” he went on more sharply.

The words convinced Frances West of her success as nothing else had done. Lately Mr. Hobson had intimated that if she ever heard of another engagement, he was far too kind and easy-going to stand in her way. “I thought it was all the same to you if we did break the contract,” she replied, not without a touch of malice.

“Nothing of the sort. Why, if it goes on like this, it looks as though we’d have to star you.”

Miss West gave a gasp of joy. A daring idea came to her. She would have to broach it at once, as Mr. Hobson was leaving Chicago that night. “If you can’t keep ‘Biddy’ on here, why don’t you let us try a New York opening right now?” she suggested.

“Well, well!” Mr. Hobson smiled. “I guess we must wait a while to decide about that. Good business here ain’t everything. Chicago’s meat is N’ York’s pisen, don’t you know? A success on tour just makes the N’ York critic get out his tomahawk to show what a superior feller he is. A budding manager like me, Miss West, can’t afford to take such risks.”

“If I had seven companies on the road, I shouldn’t consider myself much of a bud.” Miss West’s laugh was still tremulous. “But you will think about New York, won’t you?” she pleaded. “You know my little girl’s there. She’s leaving school this quarter, and I’m just crazy to have her living with me for a spell.” The mother’s glance went involuntarily to a photograph that stood on the table amid a litter of salves and powder pots.

Mr. Hobson stretched out his hand for it. “Is that the little girl?” he asked with kindly interest. “My, ain’t she a beauty! And not such a little girl, either. How old is she?”

“She’ll be eighteen next fall--though it seems as if I couldn’t believe it. I just think of her still as a toddling mite.” Miss West’s flush of pride penetrated even through her make-up. “Imogen’s ever so much lovelier though than that photo.”

“She’s got a dandy stage appearance. Does she intend to play?” Mr. Hobson’s tone was keen. He was always on the alert for any possible addition to his orrery.

Miss West smiled. “No, Imogen hasn’t got a particle of talent for the stage. She wouldn’t like it, either, and I wouldn’t like it for her. I suppose all mothers want to keep their girls wrapped up in wadding, but Imogen’s so dainty and sweet--like that fairy-tale princess who felt the pea right through a pile of mattresses.”

Mr. Hobson was looking at his watch. “Well, I guess I must be off. Hello, boy, what d’you want?” The call-boy was hovering uncertainly in the doorway with a visiting card in his hand.

“Gentleman wants to see Miss West. Says he’s sorry to trouble you, Miss West, but you sent word you’d see him after the performance.”

Miss West took the card. “Oh yes, I’d forgotten. Bring him right along, please.” She turned to Mr. Hobson. “A man I don’t know from Adam has been pestering me all the day. Sent in word, could he see me this morning and then again this afternoon, and you know we were rehearsing from ten o’clock solid. Said he wasn’t a press man, either. Mr. John P. Vandeleur--ever heard of him?”

Mr. Hobson stopped buttoning his glove. “John P. Vandeleur--why, that’s Vandeleur the copper man. Does it give his address?” He almost snatched the card out of Miss West’s hand. “Fifth Avenue. Yes, that’s him sure.”

“But who is he?” Miss West repeated.

“Never heard of Vandeleur? Why, he’s one of the wealthiest men in the States--not quite on the Carnegie level, but the next thing to it. Copper mines down in Nevada, don’t you know? You must have read of Vandeleur and Son, surely. Certainly the press don’t get hold of him much. He keeps himself too select for that; never the least bit of show nor scandal. None of your freak parties for the Vandeleurs; they don’t hold with advertisement. They’ve just sot there quiet for the last two hundred years, getting richer all the time in a superior sort of way. Haven’t you ever noticed a noo house on Fifth Avenue up near 65th Street--kind of square shape, Renaissance, they call it? Well, that’s Vandeleur’s. I don’t see much to it myself, but a friend of mine, who’s an architect, he’s just crazy about it,--says it’s the gem of Noo York--guess he thinks it’s the pearl and I’m the pig, don’t you know? Anyway, it’s a million dollar house all right.”

“But why should Mr. Vandeleur leave it to come and see me?” Miss West asked in not unnatural bewilderment. “You don’t think he’s building a theatre too, and wants to run ‘Biddy’?”

“Vandeleur! Why, Vandeleur’s dead set against the theatre altogether. He’s a sort of Mayflower Puritan strayed into the wrong century. But there must be something to have brought him. You ain’t, by any chance, got a bit of land where he knows there’s a copper mine and you don’t?”

“Well, that’s curious; I did buy a tiny lot when we were out in California. It’s way up on the hills, and there’s an elegant view from it. I thought if ever I got rich I’d have a little summer home there--they only wanted a hundred dollars anyway. But you don’t suppose----?”

“That’s it, sure,” Mr. Hobson broke in with growing excitement. “That’s how them Vandeleurs have built their entire fortune. They’ve got a nose for copper like a dog after a rat. You just stick it out, Miss West, and your fortune’s made.”

Miss West stared at the manager in amazement. Did fortunes, as well as misfortunes, never come singly? A copper mine and stellar rank in one night! “There he comes,” she said quickly, as they heard steps.

“Well, I’ll quit.” Mr. Hobson went forward, and then turned his head. “Stick it out,” he muttered. The millionaire collided with him in the doorway.

Both men apologized, and Mr. Hobson quickly disappeared. Miss West looked up curiously. Mr. Vandeleur was tall, between forty and fifty as she guessed, and had a stiff air of distinction. She half held out her hand, but, as he did not seem to see it, she drew it back. “I am Miss West,” she said.

“Miss West! Oh--er--yes--of course--I beg your pardon.”

His astonishment had been unmistakable. Miss West could only put it down to the Biddy costume, of which, for the first time, she became uncomfortably conscious. “I haven’t had the chance to get out of this terrible make-up yet,” she explained. “Mr. Hobson has to go back to New York to-night, so we had to have a business talk first.”

“Er, yes, I suppose so. I must apologise for my intrusion at such an hour.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Miss West again glanced at the stranger. His faultlessly-cut Prince Albert, his pince-nez, his smooth hair, greying at the temples, made him rather impressive. But he looked flushed and ill at ease. Was he annoyed by the encounter with Mr. Hobson? To ease the tension she patted a chair invitingly. “Do sit down, Mr. Vandeleur,” she urged.

“Thank you, no, I prefer to stand.” He cleared his throat. “Again I must apologise for troubling you in this manner, but like Mr.--er--the gentleman you mentioned, I, too, have to return to New York on the night train. I wished to speak to you upon a matter in which you will--er--be interested.”

“Yes?” Now for the copper mine, Miss West told herself gleefully. However did they buy mines--by the pound or by the yard?

Mr. Vandeleur seemed to have some difficulty in coming to the point. “I would have chosen a more suitable occasion for my visit,” he elaborated, “had I realized that you would be so engaged all day as to be unable to spare me ten minutes.”

“It was just too bad.” Although Miss West’s tone was apologetic, she was inwardly fuming. Would the man’s politeness never allow him to start? However, it would not do to show impatience. “You see, Mr. Vandeleur, I really couldn’t help it,” she explained. “If the President himself had come, he’d have had to wait. You just don’t know what it’s like the day of a new production. I thought I’d been through some pretty bad sieges, but nothing to touch this. We only got here yesterday, for up to Saturday night we were touring in ‘Uncle Tom’s’--” Miss West broke off suddenly. She had not meant to let out that she had been a “Tommer” for years and was still put back into that evergreen when business was bad. “Anyway, at nine o’clock this very morning all our ‘Biddy’ scenery was still on the road! We were nearly crazy. Mr. Parks puts it down to the transport people, but I guess he’d muddled it somehow himself. He’s just the worst producer I ever struck!”

There was another pause. Her visitor’s frigid uninterest had penetrated even Miss West’s growing excitement. He was looking around uneasily for something on which to lay his silk hat and umbrella. Every place was littered with feminine apparel. “Oh let me take them,” Miss West exclaimed, and pushed a clear space on the dressing-table, quite insensitive to Mr. Vandeleur’s outraged delicacy. His eyes rested for a moment on the photograph, but poor Imogen’s presentment seemed only to increase his disapproval. “I suppose your--er--arduous life does not allow you to spend--er--much time in New York?”

Miss West stared at him. What possible connection could there be between the copper mine and New York? Perhaps, after all, Mr. Hobson was wrong and she was right. It _was_ a repertoire theatre and not a copper mine. “No, I haven’t been to little New York this long while,” she told him, “but I guess I’ll be there more now. What did you think of us this evening? I suppose you were in front?”

“In front? Front of what? Oh, I comprehend. No, I am not a theatre-goer.” Perhaps Mr. Vandeleur felt that his remark was too uncompromising. “I hear it went very well,” he added stiffly.

“That’s so.” Miss West resolved to imitate her companion’s brevity. Again conversation languished. What in the world could the man have come about? A sudden horrid idea struck her, that he might not be quite right in his mind--but no, he looked almost oppressively sane and well-balanced.

Mr. Vandeleur cleared his throat suddenly. “Er--Mrs. Lennox.” His companion almost jumped out of her seat. “I beg your pardon. I thought----”

“Oh, it’s quite correct.” Miss West laughed. “Mrs. Lennox is my real name, but I hear it so seldom it surprised me some. Indeed the only time I do use it is when I’m travelling with my daughter. She says it sounds better.”

“It is about Miss Lennox----”

Again Mr. Vandeleur was interrupted. The actress started to her feet, and was clutching his arm with trembling fingers. “Imogen isn’t ill or--anything?” she faltered. “You haven’t come to tell me?”

“Oh, no, no.” Even Mr. Vandeleur’s glacial deportment was not proof against such evident distress. “Oh, no, I saw Miss Lennox only the day before yesterday, and she was looking very well, extremely well.”

“My, how you scared me! But why--how do you know Imogen?”

“My niece too is at Central Park School. Perhaps you have heard Miss Lennox speak of Grace Sharman?”

“Why, yes, surely. My girl told me she had been to Miss Sharman’s home, and they were real lovely to her. I didn’t hear a great deal about it, for Imogen’s not much at letter-writing. Not that I can complain any. I’m no great hand at it myself. There’s so little time somehow, with eight performances a week and rehearsals and the travelling and all. Do you know, I haven’t set eyes on my little girl for ten months? We’ve been travelling all that time out West. So I just do appreciate your coming in to tell me about her. Have you been long in Chicago?”

“No, I only arrived this morning.”

“Well, now, that was real kind of you. For I presume you had plenty of other things to attend to besides coming to see me! I guess you must have daughters of your own, Mr. Vandeleur?”

“No.”

How uncomfortable the man looked! What could be the matter with him? Did he find the room too hot, Miss West speculated? Was he--no, it was absurd--yet it really seemed--could the great Mr. Vandeleur be blushing?

Miss West was seized with a sudden desire to laugh. Even as a girl, she had not been pretty. She had had no experience of men standing before her silent and suffused. But in this make-up? How could fat, old Biddy, with her padded, print-gowned body and untidy grey wig have inspired a tender emotion? Had Mr. Vandeleur perhaps seen her in another part?--but, then, he never went to the theatre. It was a mystery. Partly to set him at his ease, she begged him to tell her more about her little girl. “Where did you see her? Was it at your niece’s home?” she asked.

“I first met Miss Lennox at the school. They did me the honour of asking me to give an address last Graduation Day. I need hardly say that even among so many charming young ladies, no one could overlook your daughter.”

“Well, now that _is_ lovely of you. But you said you’d seen Imogen again just lately. Did you tell her you were coming to Chicago? Has she sent any message?”

“She sent her best love. Also there was something she wanted me to discuss with you, something that was difficult to write. If you have not seen Miss Lennox for so long perhaps you hardly realize that she is--er--no longer a child. Doubtless, however, considering her--er--exceptional beauty, you will have anticipated the early advent of a suitor.”

Miss West looked bewildered. “Whatever are you talking about?” she asked. “My, I should think the young men had pretty bad taste if Imogen didn’t get suitors. But there must be more to it than that. Are you trying to break it to me that she’s fallen in love with one of them? That’s pretty serious. But why hasn’t she written me about it herself?” A growing resentment came over the mother. It would be bad enough to have the first place in Imogen’s affection occupied by someone else, without the information coming to her through a total stranger. “What has it got to do with you anyway?” she demanded angrily.

Mr. Vandeleur’s blush--if it was a blush--slowly deepened. “There are--er--difficulties that need explanation, and Miss Lennox thought it would be better if I were to make it. The suitor in question moves in rather a--er--different social circle; in fact, I may say his position is--er--considerably higher than you--er----”

“I suppose it’s your son that wants to marry Imogen?” Miss West flared up, cutting short his hesitation. “And instead of having it out with him like a man, you go playing on my little girl’s feelings and then come whining to me. It’s the meanest trick I ever heard of! Oh, you needn’t explain; I know all about it. Last season there was a little girl in the company, just as sweet and lovely as could be, and when a wealthy young fellow got engaged to her, his folks never rested till they broke it off.” Lack of breath here brought a pause; Biddy’s cushioned embonpoint was rather suffocating. The reminder of her semi-comic make-up only increased Miss West’s indignation. Why couldn’t the man have come some other time, when she was the Queen in “Hamlet,” for instance? Anyway, it was a mercy he hadn’t found her as a nigger mammy. With an effort she summoned all her dignity to repair the disrespect due to her tousled grey wig. “You can set your mind at rest, Mr. Vandeleur,” she told him loftily, “Imogen’s not going where she isn’t appreciated. Moreover, it’s just as likely that I wouldn’t consider your son good enough for my daughter, even if she is thinking of accepting him, and I have only your statement for that.”

“You entirely misunderstand me, Mrs. Lennox.” There was now no mistaking Mr. Vandeleur’s flush. Indeed, his anger would probably have taken him out of the room in silence, had his hat been less embarrassingly entangled. “I can assure you that in my opinion your daughter would adorn any position. I have no son. It is I who want to marry Imogen.”

Miss West collapsed. “You! But you are so old--I mean, compared with Imogen,” she faltered.

“If Imogen does not object, it is hardly necessary for anyone else to bring up the question. I may say that the real difficulty, Mrs. Lennox, lies in quite another direction. I refer to the--er--well, in short, your profession. You must see for yourself that this sort of thing would hardly be suitable for the mother of my wife.” A half-contemptuous motion of Mr. Vandeleur’s hand indicated the shabby little dressing-room, the unashamed toilet accessories, and perhaps even Miss West’s own costume. “I need hardly say that I have discussed all this with Imogen, and she completely shares my opinion.”

Miss West sprang to her feet. This was too much. Imogen had discussed her and her work with this stranger--had let him run them both down. The very news of the engagement had come through him. Her own daughter had not thought it worth while to send her a line. “You and Imogen seem to have fixed it up nicely between you,” she cried, passion and pain struggling in her voice. “You’ve decided, no doubt, that I am not good enough for you and your circle. My profession’s too contemptible, but I’d like to know where Imogen would have been without it. What do you suppose has fed and clothed her all these years and paid her school fees? Mighty stiff they were, too, but I’d determined she should have the best. Why, when she was but three weeks old I had to start playing again--it was that or starve. What do you think it is like to travel round on one night stands with a baby at the breast? I guess it’s harder work than you have ever done--though it didn’t seem hard. I was so glad to have her, with her cute, little hands and her soft, little face--something to love when I came back at nights, something to care for, my little baby, my own.”

“I honour and respect you for it all.” Mr. Vandeleur had been making several ineffectual attempts to break in on the harangue. He was genuinely touched by it, although he considered it in part somewhat indelicate. “Why, Mrs. Lennox, you surely do not imagine for one moment that I wish to cut you off from your daughter. I only meant that I want you to allow me, or rather allow her, to put you in a position in which you would no longer need to earn your living in this--er--laborious way. It is because we know how hard you have had to work in the past that Imogen and I are so anxious to make you perfectly happy and comfortable now. Imogen is thinking almost more about the lovely little home she is planning for you, close to ours, than about anything else.”

“Oh, so it’s my work you want to cut me off from?” Miss West’s tone was sullen. This calm appropriation of Imogen was almost unbearable. Even more galling was the attempt to appropriate herself. All her life she had been independent, with the ultra independence of the stage--the only place where earnings are not affected by sex. “Well, I don’t know that giving up my work isn’t as bad as giving up my daughter. I won’t consent to either.”

“Really, Mrs. Lennox, I cannot understand you.” Mr. Vandeleur made a great effort to control himself. “Surely your work cannot be so attractive,” he suggested; “travelling around the country in cheap, little Vaudeville companies, dressed up as a vulgar, old Irish woman!”

“The companies may have been cheap, but my work has been good, and I’ve loved it.” Miss West, too, was trying to regain her self-command. “Besides, you don’t understand. I’ve always hoped for something better, and now it’s come. This was the opening night of ‘Biddy,’ and I made a hit, a real, big hit. There’s not a particle of doubt about it. I feel certain Mr. Hobson will give us a New York opening.” There was almost awe in Miss West’s voice as she mentioned the dramatic Mecca.

“New York! Good heavens, that would be worse than ever.” Instead of being impressed Mr. Vandeleur seemed still further disconcerted. “Can’t you understand that I have a position to keep up? You know who I am, don’t you, Mrs. Lennox--John P. Vandeleur? If you realize this, you surely must grasp that a theatrical connection would be most undesirable for my wife. I hate even to see Imogen’s photograph here. I should have thought that for your daughter’s sake you would have been the first to suggest giving up your--er--stage activities, but you do not seem to have the least consideration for her position or her happiness.”

Miss West was silent. Was she selfish, she was asking herself uneasily. It seemed incredible that she could be selfish towards Imogen. Yet, after all, she had not a cent saved. If, at any time she were ill, what was to become of her daughter? Perhaps she ought to welcome this engagement whatever the conditions. Besides, suppose Imogen had really fallen in love with this man--or even with his position! “If I were playing, it would be under my stage name,” she urged sullenly. “No one need know. What difference would it make to you or to Imogen?”

“My dear Mrs. Lennox, you must realize that such things always leak out. Of course, if you had parted from Imogen absolutely, I do not say that concealment would be impossible, but I do not imagine you are contemplating such a step. It would be a great sorrow for Imogen.”

“But, anyway, if I wanted to give up the stage now, I couldn’t,” Miss West began with a sudden triumph. “I was forgetting my three years’ contract with Mr. Hobson, and there’s two yet to run. He was speaking about it just now.”

Mr. Vandeleur smiled. “But, surely, Mrs. Lennox, all these contracts are a mere question of money. I imagine a few thousand dollars would set you free.”

“It’s one thousand dollars, I think,” Miss West admitted sullenly. The sum had always seemed so prohibitive to her, that she had really forgotten such a possibility. Mr. Hobson’s “stick it out” came back to her. Well, _he_ would have to do the sticking out now; she herself had assumed the rôle of the copper mine. However, to whatever sum Mr. Hobson could run up the fine, it would no doubt be negligible to this terrible man. But how Imogen would enjoy being so rich, she felt suddenly--Imogen who had always craved after pretty things!

Mr. Vandeleur had given an actual laugh. “I don’t think we need let a thousand dollars distress us,” he said pleasantly. He felt he had won! “Well, I must be going; don’t trouble to call anyone; I have my carriage waiting at the stage door. Dear me, it is later than I thought.” He had pulled out his watch and was looking at it uneasily. “I fear I shall miss the train, but doubtless I can overtake it with a special. How fortunate that I told them not to attach my car until I arrived. Good-bye, then, Mrs. Lennox, I will wire Imogen to-night explaining everything. Probably she can get into telephonic communication with you in the morning.”

“But she is in New York,” Mrs. Lennox gasped. In the opening Nineties telephoning a thousand miles was an adventure and an expensive one. But Mr. Vandeleur had gone. Well, she must get into her street suit at once, Mrs. Lennox reflected. It must be terribly late. How was it that the light had not been cut off? Had the omnipotent Mr. Vandeleur arranged for this too? She began vigorously rubbing off old Biddy’s jovial complexion. Suddenly she covered her face with her hands; tears completed the dulling process. “Oh my work, my little girl!” she sobbed.