Wild Wings | Page 9

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. "I repeat, your father was a very lucky man--a
damnably lucky one."
And with that they shook hands and parted.
It was many months before Tony was to see Max Hempel again and
many waters were to run under the bridge before the meeting came to
pass.
Outside in the car, Ted, Dick and the twins waited the arrival of the
heroine of the evening. The three latter greeted her with a burst of

prideful congratulation; the former, being merely a brother, was
distinctly cross at having been kept waiting so long and did not hesitate
to express his sentiments fully out loud. But Doctor Holiday cut short
his nephew's somewhat ungracious speech by a quiet reminder that the
car was here primarily for Tony's use, and the boy subsided, having no
more to say until, having deposited the occupants of the car at their
various destinations, he announced to his uncle with elaborate
carelessness that he would take the car around to the garage.
But he did not turn in at the side street where the garage was. Instead he
shot out Elm Street, "hitting her up" at forty. There had been a reason
for his impatience. Ted Holiday had important private business to
transact ere cock crow.
Tony lay awake a long time that night, dreaming dreams that carried
her far and far into the future, until Rosalind's happy triumph of the
evening almost faded away in the glory of the yet-to-be. It was
characteristic of the girl's stage of development that in all her dreams,
no lovers, much less a possible husband, ever once entered. Tony
Holiday was in love with life and life alone that wonderful June night.
As Hempel had shrewdly perceived she was conscious of having wings
and desirous of flying far and free with them ere she came to pause.
She did remember, in passing however, how she had caught Dick's eyes
once as he sat in the box near the stage, and how his rapt gaze had
thrilled her to intenser playing of her part. And she remembered how
dear he was afterward in the car when he held her roses and told her
softly what a wonderful, wonderful Rosalind she was. But, on the
whole, Dick, like most of the rest of the people with whom she had
held converse since the curtain went down upon Arden, seemed
unimportant and indistinct, like courtiers and foresters, not specifically
named among the _dramatis personae_, just put in to fill out and make
a more effective stage setting.
Dick, too, in his room on Greene Street, was wakeful. He sat by the
window far into the night. His heart was heavy within him. The gulf
between him and Tony had suddenly widened immeasureably. She was
a real actress. He hadn't needed a great manager's verdict to teach him

that. He had seen it with his own eyes, heard it with his own ears, felt it
with his own heart. He had worshiped and adored and been made
unutterably sad and lonely by her dazzling success, glad as he was that
it had come to her. Tony would go on in her shining path. He would
always lag behind in the shadows. They would never come together as
long as they both lived. She had started too far ahead. He could never
overtake her.
If only there were some way of finding out who he was, get some clue
as to his parentage. He only knew that the man they called Jim, who
had kicked and beaten and sworn at him with foul oaths until he could
bear it no longer, was no kin of his, though the other had claimed the
authority to abuse him as he abused his horses and dogs when drink
and ugliness were upon him. If only he could find Jim again after all
these years, perhaps he could manage to get the