The Tin Soldier | Page 6

The lantern which swung low from the arched entrance showed a spot of rosy color--the velvet wrap of a girl whose knot of dark curls shone above the ermine collar. A Spanish comb, encrusted with diamonds, was stuck at right angles to the knot.
Beside the young woman in the rosy wrap walked a young man in a fur coat who topped her by a head. He had gray eyes and a small upturned mustache--Jean uttered an exclamation.
"What's the matter?" her father asked.
"Oh, nothing--" she watched the two ascend the stairs. "I thought for a moment that I knew him."
The great door opened and closed, the rosy wrap and the fur coat were swallowed up.
"Of course it couldn't be," Jean decided as she and her father continued on their wonderful way.
"Couldn't be what, my dear?"
"The same man, Daddy," Jean said, and changed the subject.
CHAPTER II
CINDERELLA
The next time that Jean saw Him was at the theater. She and her father went to worship at the shrine of Maude Adams, and He was there.
It was Jean's yearly treat. There were, of course, other plays. But since her very-small-girlhood, there had been always that red-letter night when "The Little Minister" or "Hop-o'-my-Thumb" or "Peter Pan" had transported her straight from the real world to that whimsical, tender, delightful realm where Barrie reigns.
Peter Pan had been the climax!
Do you believe in fairies?
Of course she did. And so did Miss Emily. And so did her father, except in certain backsliding moments. But Hilda didn't.
Tonight it was "A Kiss for Cinderella"--! The very name had been enough to set Jean's cheeks burning and her eyes shining.
"Do you remember, Daddy, that I was six when I first saw her, and she's as young as ever?"
"Younger." It was at such moments that the Doctor was at his best. The youth in him matched the youth in his daughter. They were boy and girl together.
And now the girl on the stage, whose undying youth made her the interpreter of dreams for those who would never grow up, wove her magic spells of tears and laughter.
It was not until the first satisfying act was over that Jean drew a long breath and looked about her.
The house was packed. The old theater with its painted curtain had nothing modern to recommend it. But to Jean's mind it could not have been improved. She wanted not one thing changed. For years and years she had sat in her favorite seat in the seventh row of the parquet and had loved the golden proscenium arch, the painted goddesses, the red velvet hangings--she had thrilled to the voice and gesture of the artists who had played to please her. There had been "Wang" and "The Wizard of Oz"; "Robin Hood"; the tall comedian of "Casey at the Bat"; the short comedian who had danced to fame on his crooked legs; Mrs. Fiske, most incomparable Becky; Mansfield, Sothern--some of them, alas, already gods of yesterday!
At first there had been matin��es with her mother--"The Little Princess," over whose sorrows she had wept in the harrowing first act, having to be consoled with chocolates and the promise of brighter things as the play progressed.
Now and then she had come with Hilda. But never when she could help it. "I'd rather stay at home," she had told her father.
"But--why--?"
"Because she laughs in the wrong places."
Her father never laughed in the wrong places, and he squeezed her hand in those breathless moments where words would have been desecration, and wiped his eyes frankly when his feelings were stirred.
"There is no one like you, Daddy," she had told him, "to enjoy things." And so it had come about that he had pushed away his work on certain nights and, sitting beside her, had forgotten the sordid and suffering world which he knew so well, and which she knew not at all.
As her eyes swept the house, they rested at last with a rather puzzled look on a stout old gentleman with a wide shirt-front, who sat in the right-hand box. He had white hair and a red face.
Where had she seen him?
There were women in the box, a sparkling company in white and silver, and black and diamonds, and green and gold. There was a big bald-headed man, and quite in the shadow back of them all, a slender youth.
It was when the slender youth leaned forward to speak to the vision in white and silver that Jean stared and stared again.
She knew now where she had seen the old gentleman with the wide shirt front. He was the shabby old gentleman of the Toy Shop! And the youth was the shabby son!
Yet here they were in state and elegance! As if a fairy godmother had waved a wand--!
The curtain went up on a feverish little slavey with her mind set