Wild Wings | Page 8

Doctor Holiday.
"I should mind her accepting," said the other man tranquilly. "As it is, I am duly appreciative of the offer. Thank you."
"What if I told you she had accepted?" the wolf snapped.
Tony saw the swift shadow cloud her uncle's face and hated the manager for hurting him like that.
"I didn't," she protested indignantly. "You know I wouldn't promise anything without talking to you, Uncle Phil. I told him I couldn't go."
"But you wanted to," persisted the wolf, bound to get his fangs in somewhere.
Tony smiled a little wistfully.
"I wanted to most awfully," she confessed, patting her uncle's arm to take the sting out of her admission. "Will you ask me again some day?" she appealed to the manager.
He snorted at that.
"You'll come asking me, young lady, and before long, too. Laura LaRue's daughter isn't going to settle down to being either a butterfly or a blue-stocking. You are going on the stage and you know it. No use, Holiday. You won't be able to hold her back. It's in the blood. You may be able to dam the tide for a time, but not forever."
"I don't intend to dam it," said the doctor gravely. "If, when the time comes, Tony wishes to go on the stage, I shall not try to prevent her. In fact I shall help her in every way in my power."
"Uncle Phil!" Tony's voice had a tiny catch in it. She knew her grandmother would be bitterly opposed to her going on the stage, and had imagined she would have to win even her uncle over by slow degrees to the gratifying of this desire of her heart. It had hurt her even to think of hurting him or going against him in any way--he who was, "father and mother and a'" to her. Dear Uncle Phil! How he always understood and took the big, broad viewpoint!
The manager grunted approval at that. His belligerency waned.
"Congratulate you, sir. That's spoken like a man of sense. Evidently you are able to see over the wall farther than most of the witch-ridden New Englanders I've met. I should like the chance to launch this Rosalind of yours. But don't make it too far off. Youth is the biggest drawing card in the world and--the most transient. You have to get in the game early to get away with it. I'll start her whenever you say--next week--next month--next year. Guarantee to have her ready to understudy a star in three months and perhaps a star herself in six. She might jump into the heavens overnight. Stranger things have happened. What do you say? May I have an option on the young lady?"
"That is rather too big a question to settle off hand at midnight. Tony is barely twenty-two and she has home obligations which will have to be considered. Her grandmother is old and frail and--a New Englander of the old school."
"Too bad," commiserated the manager. "But never mind all that. All I ask is that you won't let her sign up with anybody else without giving me a chance first."
"I think we may safely promise that and thank you. Tony and I both appreciate that you are doing her a good deal of honor for one small school girl, eh Tony?" The doctor smiled down at his flushed, starry-eyed niece. He understood precisely what a big moment it was for her.
"Oh, I should think so!" sighed Tony. "You are awfully kind, Mr. Hempel. It is like a wonderful dream--almost too good to be true."
Both men smiled at that. For youth no dream is quite too extravagant or incredible to be potentially true. No grim specters of failure and disillusionment and frustration dog its bright path. All possibilities are its divine inheritance.
"Mr. Hempel, did you know my mother?" Tony asked suddenly, with a shadow of wistfulness in her dark eyes. There were so few people whom she met that had known her mother. It was as if Laura LaRue had moved in a different orbit from that of her daughter. It always hurt Tony to feel that. But here was one who was of her mother's own world. No wonder her eyes were beseeching as they sought the great manager's.
He bowed gravely.
"I knew her very well. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen--and one of the greatest actresses. Your father was a lucky man, my dear. Few women would have given up for any man what she gave up for him."
"Oh, but--she loved him," explained Laura LaRue's daughter simply.
Again Hempel nodded.
"She did," he admitted grimly. After all these years there was no use admitting that that had been the deepest rub of all, that Laura had loved Ned Holiday and had never, for even the span of a moment, thought of caring for himself.