The name of Madame Olga Stephano was conspicuously absent from the columns of the Star next morning, but this fact passed unnoticed by one James Martin, who had moved on to the next town, unwept, unhonored and unsung. Gone was the rakish tilt to his derby hat and vanished like the roses of yesterday were the glad, eager look and the jaunty bearing that usually distinguished him as one upon whom fortune was wont to smile. Gloom was in his heart and a sweet melancholy pervaded his thoughts.
A letter dated before Jimmy’s fatal first meeting with Miss Slosson, awaited him at the theatre. It brought tidings that did not have a tendency to make life more interesting. It was from Jordan, Madame Stephano’s personal manager on tour with the company, and it summoned him back to Cleveland for the opening performance on Monday night.
“There are many matters on which Madame Stephano and myself wish to consult with you,” the letter ran, “among them being the methods of publicity best calculated to further her interests as a star. Our appeal, as you know, is to the intellectual element in the community and you must carefully avoid anything in the nature of cheap or sensational stories or what are vulgarly known as ‘stunts.’ We will go into this at greater length when I see you.”
“I’m in for a spring canning,” Jimmy observed to the manager of the theatre when he had finished reading Jordan’s letter. “I wouldn’t mind that so much if I could have got my exit cue in a blaze of glory, but this thing of being bumped off on top of an awful fall-down like that gets under the little old epidermis.”
Madame Stephano occasionally varied her Ibsen repertoire with performances of plays by other European dramatists. She had chosen a modern Spanish tragedy for her opening in Cleveland, and the first act was under way when a certain forlorn looking figure slouched wearily into the manager’s office and moodily inquired for Mr. Jordan. The company manager, a thoroughly house-broken slave to the temperamental caprices of the star, came forward.
“I’m Martin,” gloomily vouchsafed the visitor.
“You are, eh?” responded the manager, acridly, looking him over with indifferently concealed scorn. “We’ve been waiting for you all day.”
“Who do you mean by ‘we’?” timidly inquired the chastened press agent.
“Why, the madame and myself. We were curious to see what you looked like. You seem fairly intelligent.”
Ordinarily Jimmy would have resented the implied sneer in this remark and would have flared up with an indignant rejoinder, but his spirit seemed crushed to earth never to rise again. The surrounding atmosphere was to him pregnant with impending tragedy. He contented himself with a nervous little laugh.
“I’ve never been accused of it,” he said foolishly.
“Of course, we’ve heard about your ridiculous fiasco last week,” went on Jordan. “You’ve certainly let yourself in for it with the madame. I wonder what you think this attraction is, anyway—a circus side show or a cabaret? I’ll give you credit, though. You had a cast iron nerve to attempt such a thing with her. They say God looks after fools and drunken folks. I hope He’s on your side tonight.”
Jimmy gulped before he made reply.
“Is she—is she a little annoyed?” he stammered.
“Yes, just a little,” laughed the other sarcastically. “Just a wee bit put out. It’s hardly worth mentioning, but if I were you I’d stick around on this side of the footlights until after the show. We’ve got eighteen hundred inside tonight and I wouldn’t like to have to give the money back. Something might happen if you went back stage. I’ll see you later.”
He slipped into an inner office and Jimmy was left alone with his misery. He wandered out into the brilliantly lighted lobby and sauntered into the auditorium for his first view of the great actress. She was on the stage as he entered and he peered at her from behind the plush curtains which hung back of the last row of seats. She was playing a scene of brisk and brittle comedy and she moved about the stage with all the lithe and lissome grace of a beautiful tiger. She was making mordant mockery of another woman in the play, assailing her with wicked rapier thrusts of biting wit and smiling a smile that struck terror into Jimmy’s heart. There was a malicious gleam in her black eyes that fascinated him. They seemed to his over-wrought imagination like the nasty eyes of a serpent he had once seen in a glass case in the zoo. He shuddered with apprehension.
As the curtain fell and the lights went up he caught sight of the figure of E. Cartwright Jenkins coming up the aisle. He effaced himself with surprising suddenness by making for the nearest exit door. It led to a fire-escape and he stood there in the semi-darkness letting the cool night air soothe his fevered brow and trying to collect his befuddled train of thought. This last was impossible. All that he seemed able to comprehend was that he was in for the most disagreeable experience of his fair young life, and that there was no possible escape from it except in flight. He was too good a soldier to run away. That much was certain.
When the lights went out again and the second act began Jimmy resumed his place behind the curtains once more and continued his observations of Madame Stephano. It was in this act that the “big scene” of the play occurred, the scene in which the outraged wife reverted to the primitive passions of her Andalusian peasant ancestors and made things decidedly uncomfortable for her husband and several other characters in the piece. It was full of lines in which, as the old actor said, “one could get one’s teeth into” and it may be stated that the famous Russian-American actress played it for all it was worth and then some. She erupted, exploded, and otherwise comported herself in an extremely violent and disturbing manner. As a final touch she committed aggravated assault and battery on the person of her husband and wound up the festivities by making a general wreck of the drawing room in which the scene was laid. Jimmy watched the early proceedings with growing distrust. When the final nerve-shattering moment arrived and the curtain fell amid a wild uproar from the audience he found himself sagging and he clutched a pillar for support. A clammy perspiration bespangled his brow. He felt decidedly sick and he longed for the comforts of home and the quiet ministrations of some gentle female who would soothe and mother him.
In a daze, he sauntered out into the lobby again. Jordan, who had just come back from back stage, touched him on the arm.
“The madame wishes to see you right after the last act,” he remarked with a sinister smile.
Only that and nothing more. He turned on his heel and disappeared into the office. Jimmy leaned against the wall and eyed with envy the noisy and laughing throng of men who had come o............