Joan Thursday Part 57

"If you should hear of anything, it would be awful' good of you to let me know."

"Depend upon me, I shall."

"Care of The Dramatic Mirror will always get me."

"I shan't forget."

"Well...." She offered him her hand with a splendidly timid smile. "I suppose it's good-bye for good this time."

Matthias accepted her hand, shook it without a tremor, and released it easily.

"I've a notion it is, Joan," he admitted.

She turned toward the door, advanced a pace or two, and paused.

"They say Arlington's going to make a lot of new productions next Fall...."

"Yes?"

"Well, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind putting in a good word for me."

"I would be glad to, but unfortunately I don't know Mr. Arlington."

"But you know Mr. Marbridge, and everybody says he's Arlington's silent partner."

Matthias looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

"I am not sure that is true," he said slowly, "and--well, to tell the truth, Marbridge and I aren't on the best of terms. I'm afraid I couldn't influence him in any way--except, perhaps, to prejudice him."

"Oh!" Joan said blankly....

It came to her, in a flash, that the two men might have quarrelled about her, thanks to the obvious fascination she had exerted over Marbridge, that age-old day at Tanglewood.

"I suppose," she ventured pensively, "I might go to see him--Mr.

Marbridge--myself--?"

"I'm afraid I can't advise you."

This time the accent of finality was unmistakable. Joan bridled with resentment. After all, he'd no real call to be so uppish, simply because she hadn't let him stand between her and her career....

"You don't really think I ought to go and see him, do you?"

"I wish you wouldn't ask me, Joan."

"But I've got no one to advise me.... If you don't think it wise, I wish you'd say so. I thought perhaps it was a chance...."

Matthias shrugged, excessively irritated by her persistence. "I can only say that I wouldn't advise any woman to look to Marbridge for anything honourable," he said reluctantly.

"Oh!" the girl said in a startled tone.

"But--I'm sorry you made me say that. It's none of my affair. Please forget I said it."

"But you make it so hard for me."

"I?" he cried indignantly--"_I_ make it hard for you!"

"Well, I come to you for advice--friendly advice--and you close in my very face the only door I can see to any sort of work. It's--it's pretty hard. I can act, I know I can act! I guess I proved that when I was with Charlie--Mr. Quard--the star of 'The Lie,' you know. I couldn't've stuck as long as I did if I hadn't had talent.... But back here in New York, all that doesn't seem to count. Here I've been going around for two months, and all they offer me is a chorus job with some road company.

But Arlington ... he employs more girls than anybody in the business. I know he'd give me a chance to show what I can do, if I could only get to him. And then you tell me not to try to get to him the only way I know."

Abruptly Joan ceased, breathing heavily after that long and, even to her, unexpected speech. But it had been well delivered: she could feel that. She clenched her hands at her sides in a gesture plagiarized from a soubrette star in one of her infrequent scenes of stage excitement; and stood regarding Matthias with wide, accusing eyes.

His own were blank....

He was trying to account to himself for the fact that this girl seemed to have the knack of making him feel a heartless scoundrel, even when his stand was morally impregnable, even though it were una.s.sailable.

Here was this girl, evidently convinced that he had not dealt squarely with her, believing that he deliberately withheld--out of pique, perhaps--aid in his power to offer her....

He pa.s.sed a hand wearily across his eyes, and turned back toward his work-chair.

"You'd better sit down," he said quietly, "while I think this out."

Without a word the girl returned to the arm-chair and perched herself gingerly upon the edge of it, ready to rise and flee (she seemed) whenever it should pardonably suggest itself to Matthias that the only right and reasonable thing for him to do was to rise up and murder her....

On his part, sitting, he rested elbows upon the litter of ma.n.u.script, and held his head in his hands.

He was sorry now that he had yielded to the temptation to be plain-spoken about Arlington and Marbridge. But she had driven him to it; and she was an empty-headed little thing and ought really to be kept out of _that_ galley. On the other hand, he was afraid that if he allowed himself to be persuaded to help her find a new engagement, she would misunderstand his motives one way or another--most probably the one. He couldn't afford to have her run away with the notion that his affection for her had been merely hibernating. He had not only himself, he had Venetia to think of, now. To her he had dedicated his life, to a dumb, quixotic pa.s.sion. Some day she might need him; some day, it seemed certain, she would need him. She was presently to have a child; and Marbridge was going on from bad to worse; things could not forever endure as they were between those two. And then she would be friendless, a woman with a child fighting for the right to live in solitary decency....

But Joan!... If she were headed that way, toward the Arlington wheel within the wheel of the stage, even at risk of blame and misunderstanding Matthias felt that he ought to do what could be done to set her back upon the right road. It was too bad, really. And it was none of his business. The girl had given herself to the theatre of her own volition, after all. Or had she? Had the right of choice been accorded her? Or was it simply that she had been designed by Nature especially for that business, to which women of her calibre seemed so essential? Was she, after all, simply life-stuff manufactured hastily and carelessly in an old, worn mould, because destined solely to be fed wholesale into the insatiable maw of the stage?

He shook his head in weary doubt, and sighed.

"Probably," he said, fumbling with a pen and avoiding her eyes--"I presume--you'd better come back in a day or two--say Tuesday. That will give me time to look round and see what I can scare up for you. Or perhaps Wednesday would be even better...."

He dropped the pen and rose, his manner inviting her to leave.

"Wednesday?" she repeated, reluctantly getting up again.

"At four, if that's convenient."

"Yes, indeed, it is. And ... thank you so much ... Jack."

"No, no," Matthias expostulated wearily.

"No, I mean it," she insisted. "You're awf'ly sweet not to be--unkind to me."

"Believe me, I could never be that."

"Then--g'dafternoon."