The Primadonna | Page 4

all!' retorted the tenor with a sneer of superiority. 'You
need not talk of conditions, for I shall not come to America again!'
'Oh, do stop quarrelling!' laughed Cordova as they reached the door of
her box, for she had heard similar amenities exchanged twenty times
already, and she knew that they meant nothing at all on either side.
'Have you any beer?' inquired Stromboli of the Primadonna, as if
nothing had happened.
'Bring some beer, Bob!' Schreiermeyer called out over his shoulder to
some one in the distance.
'Yes, sir,' answered a rough voice, far off, and with a foreign accent.
The three entered the Primadonna's dressing-room together. It was a
hideous place, as all dressing-rooms are which are never used two days
in succession by the same actress or singer; very different from the
pretty cells in the beehive of the Comédie Française where each
pensioner or shareholder is lodged like a queen bee by herself, for years

at a time.
The walls of Cordova's dressing-room were more or less white-washed
where the plaster had not been damaged. There was a dingy full-length
mirror, a shabby toilet-table; there were a few crazy chairs, the
wretched furniture which is generally to be found in actresses'
dressing-rooms, notwithstanding the marvellous descriptions invented
by romancers. But there was light in abundance and to excess, dazzling,
unshaded, intolerable to any but theatrical eyes. There were at least
twenty strong electric lamps in the miserable place, which illuminated
the coarsely painted faces of the Primadonna and the tenor with
alarming distinctness, and gleamed on Schreiermeyer's smooth fair hair
and beard, and impassive features.
'You'll have two columns and a portrait in every paper to-morrow,' he
observed thoughtfully. 'It's worth while to engage such people. Oh yes,
damn it, I tell you it's worth while!'
The last emphatic sentence was intended for Stromboli, as if he had
contradicted the statement, or were himself not 'worth while.'
'There's beer there already,' said the tenor, seeing a bottle and glass on a
deal table, and making for them at once.
He undid the patent fastening, stood upright with his sturdy stockinged
legs wide apart, threw his head back, opened his huge painted mouth to
the necessary extent, but not to the full, and without touching his lips
poured the beer into the chasm in a gurgling stream, which he
swallowed without the least apparent difficulty. When he had taken
down half the contents of the small bottle he desisted and poured the
rest into the glass, apparently for Cordova's benefit.
'I hope I have left you enough,' he said, as he prepared to go. 'My throat
felt like a rusty gun-barrel.'
'Fright is very bad for the voice,' Schreiermeyer remarked, as the
call-boy handed him another bottle of beer through the open door.

Stromboli took no notice of the direct imputation. He had taken a very
small and fine handkerchief from his sporran and was carefully tucking
it into his collar with some idea of protecting his throat. When this was
done his admiration for his colleague broke out again without the
slightest warning.
'You were superb, magnificent, surpassing!' he cried.
He seized Cordova's chalked hands, pressed them to his own whitened
chin, by sheer force of stage habit, because the red on his lips would
have come off on them, and turned away.
'Surpassing! Magnificent! What a woman!' he roared in tremendous
tones as he strode away through the dim corridor towards the stage and
his own dressing-room on the other side.
Meanwhile Schreiermeyer, who was quite as thirsty as the tenor, drank
what the latter had left in the only glass there was, and set the full bottle
beside the latter on the deal table.
'There is your beer,' he said, calling attention to what he had done.
Cordova nodded carelessly and sat down on one of the crazy chairs
before the toilet-table. Her maid at once came forward and took off her
wig, and her own beautiful brown hair appeared, pressed and matted
close to her head in a rather disorderly coil.
'You must be tired,' said the manager, with more consideration than he
often showed to any one whose next engagement was already signed.
'I'll find out how many were killed in the explosion and then I'll get
hold of the reporters. You'll have two columns and a picture
to-morrow.'
Schreiermeyer rarely took the trouble to say good-morning or
good-night, and Cordova heard the door shut after him as he went out.
'Lock it,' she said to her maid. 'I'm sure that madman is about the
theatre again.'

The maid obeyed with alacrity. She was very tall and dark, and when
she had entered Cordova's service two years ago she had been
positively cadaverous. She herself said that her appearance had been
the result of