The Adventures of Sally | Page 7

Will Wear This Season. You didn't see his waistcoat
just now. He had covered it up. Conscience, I suppose. It was white and
bulgy and gleaming and full up of pearl buttons and everything. I saw
Augustus Bartlett curl up like a burnt feather when he caught sight of it.
Still, time seemed to heal the wound, and everybody relaxed after a bit.
Mr. Faucitt made a speech and I made a speech and cried, and ...oh, it
was all very festive. It only needed you."
"I wish I could have come. I had to go to that dinner, though. Sally..."
Gerald paused, and Sally saw that he was electric with suppressed
excitement. "Sally, the play's going to be put on!"
Sally gave a little gasp. She had lived this moment in anticipation for
weeks. She had always known that sooner or later this would happen.
She had read his plays over and over again, and was convinced that
they were wonderful. Of course, hers was a biased view, but then Elsa
Doland also admired them; and Elsa's opinion was one that carried
weight. Elsa was another of those people who were bound to succeed
suddenly. Even old Mr. Faucitt, who was a stern judge of acting and
rather inclined to consider that nowadays there was no such thing,
believed that she was a girl with a future who would do something big
directly she got her chance.
"Jerry!" She gave his arm a hug. "How simply terrific! Then Goble and
Kohn have changed their minds after all and want it? I knew they
would."
A slight cloud seemed to dim the sunniness of the author's mood.
"No, not that one," he said reluctantly. "No hope there, I'm afraid. I saw
Goble this morning about that, and he said it didn't add up right. The
one that's going to be put on is 'The Primrose Way.' You remember? It's
got a big part for a girl in it."
"Of course! The one Elsa liked so much. Well, that's just as good.
Who's going to do it? I thought you hadn't sent it out again."
"Well, it happens..." Gerald hesitated once more. "It seems that this

man I was dining with to-night--a man named Cracknell..."
"Cracknell? Not the Cracknell?"
"The Cracknell?"
"The one people are always talking about. The man they call the
Millionaire Kid."
"Yes. Why, do you know him?"
"He was at Harvard with Fillmore. I never saw him, but he must be
rather a painful person."
"Oh, he's all right. Not much brains, of course, but--well, he's all right.
And, anyway, he wants to put the play on."
"Well, that's splendid," said Sally: but she could not get the right ring
of enthusiasm into her voice. She had had ideals for Gerald. She had
dreamed of him invading Broadway triumphantly under the banner of
one of the big managers whose name carried a prestige, and there
seemed something unworthy in this association with a man whose chief
claim to eminence lay in the fact that he was credited by metropolitan
gossip with possessing the largest private stock of alcohol in existence.
"I thought you would be pleased," said Gerald.
"Oh, I am," said Sally.
With the buoyant optimism which never deserted her for long, she had
already begun to cast off her momentary depression. After all, did it
matter who financed a play so long as it obtained a production? A
manager was simply a piece of machinery for paying the bills; and if he
had money for that purpose, why demand asceticism and the finer
sensibilities from him? The real thing that mattered was the question of
who was going to play the leading part, that deftly drawn character
which had so excited the admiration of Elsa Doland. She sought
information on this point.

"Who will play Ruth?" she asked. "You must have somebody
wonderful. It needs a tremendously clever woman. Did Mr. Cracknell
say anything about that?"
"Oh, yes, we discussed that, of course."
"Well?"
"Well, it seems..." Again Sally noticed that odd, almost stealthy
embarrassment. Gerald appeared unable to begin a sentence to-night
without feeling his way into it like a man creeping cautiously down a
dark alley. She noticed it the more because it was so different from his
usual direct method. Gerald, as a rule, was not one of those who
apologize for themselves. He was forthright and masterful and inclined
to talk to her from a height. To-night he seemed different.
He broke off, was silent for a moment, and began again with a
question.
"Do you know Mabel Hobson?"
"Mabel Hobson? I've seen her in the 'Follies,' of course."
Sally started. A suspicion had stung her, so monstrous that its absurdity
became manifest the moment it had formed. And yet was it absurd?