Harlequin and Columbine | Page 5

gone when I want him! I wonder how many men would bear what I--" But here he interrupted himself unexpectedly. "Go on with the rehearsal! Packer, where were we?"
"Here, sir, right here," brightly responded Packer, ready finger upon the proper spot in the manuscript. "You had just begun, 'Nothing in this world but that one thing can defeat my certain election and nothing but that one thing shall de--"
"That will do," thundered his master. "Are you going to play the part? Get out of the way and let's get on with the act, in heaven's name! Down stage a step, Miss Ellsling. No; I said down. A step, not a mile! There! Now, if you consent to be ready, ladies and gentlemen. Very well. 'Nothing in this world but that one thing can defeat my certain election and noth--'" Again he interrupted himself unexpectedly. In the middle of the word there came a catch in his voice; he broke off, and whirling once more upon the miserable Miss Lyston, he transfixed her with a forefinger and a yell.
"It wasn't a cough! What was that horrible noise you made?"
Miss Lyston, being unable to reply in words, gave him for answer an object-lesson which demonstrated plainly the nature of the horrible noise. She broke into loud, consecutive sobs, while Potter, very little the real cause of them, altered in expression from indignation to the neighborhood of lunacy.
"She's doing this in purpose!" he cried. "What's the matter with her? She's sick! Miss Lyston, you're sick! Packer, get her away--take her away. She's sick! Send her home--send her home in a cab! Packer!"
"Yes, Mr. Potter, I'll arrange it. Don't be disturbed."
The stage-manager was already at the sobbing lady's side, and she leaned upon him gratefully, continuing to produce the symptoms of her illness.
"Put her in a cab at once," said the star, somewhat recovered from his consternation. "You can pay the cabman," he added. "Make her as comfortable as you can; she's really ill. Miss Lyston, you shouldn't have tried to rehearse when you're so ill. Do everything possible for Miss Lyston's comfort, Packer."
He followed the pair as they entered the passageway to the stage door; then, Miss Lyston's demonstrations becoming less audible, he halted abruptly, and his brow grew dark with suspicion. When Packer returned, he beckoned him aside. "Didn't she seem all right as soon as she got out of my sight?"
"No, sir; she seemed pretty badly upset."
"What about?"
"Oh, something entirely outside of rehearsal, sir," Packer answered in haste. "Entirely outside. She wanted to know if I'd heard any gossip about her husband lately. That's it, Mr. Potter."
"You don't think she was shamming just to get off?"
"Oh, not at all. I--"
"Ha! She may have fooled you, Packer, or perhaps--perhaps"--he paused, frowning--"perhaps you were trying to fool me, too. I don't know your private life; you may have reasons to help her de--"
"Mr. Potter!" cried the distressed man. "What could be my object? I don't know Miss Lyston off. I was only telling you the simple truth."
"How do I know?" Potter gave him a piercing look. "People are always trying to take advantage of me."
"But Mr. Potter, I--"
"Don't get it into your head that I am too easy, Packer! You think you've got a luxurious thing of it here, with me, but--" He concluded with an ominous shake of the head in lieu of words, then returned to the centre of the stage. "Are we to be all day getting on with this rehearsal?"
Packer flew to the table and seized the manuscript he had left there. "All ready, sir! 'Nothing in this world but one thing can defeat'--and so on, so on. All ready, sir!"
The star made no reply but to gaze upon him stonily, a stare which produced another dreadful silence. Packer tried to smile, a lamentable sight.
"Something wrong, Mr. Potter?" he finally ventured, desperately.
The answer came in a voice cracking with emotional strain: "I wonder how many men bear what I bear? I wonder how many men would pay a stage-manager the salary I pay, and then do all his work for him!"
"Mr. Potter, if you'll tell me what's the matter," Packer quavered; "if you'll only tell me--"
"The understudy, idiot! Where is the understudy to read Miss Lyston's part? You haven't got one! I knew it! I told you last week to engage an understudy for the women's parts, and you haven't done it. I knew it, I knew it! God help me, I knew it!"
"But I did, sir. I've got her here."
Packer ran to the back of the stage, shouting loudly: "Miss-oh, Miss--I forget-your-name! Understudy! Miss--"
"I'm here!"
It was an odd, slender voice that spoke, just behind Talbot Potter, and he turned to stare at a little figure in black--she had come so quietly out of the shadows of the scenery