Evening Star Newspaper, December 31, 1922, Page 36

Stubborn Stuart Was Manager - in Thought, But Efficient Bertha Won by Strategy. HE; Picard, at twenty- four, deserted the Insur- ance business to go on the stage, his friends in the home office gave him a testimonial dinner at a dollar and a half a plate, and to conclude the dinner they natu. rally required Picard to make a apeech. Picard stood up, flexed his jaw and said exactly what was on his mind. “Fellows,” he said, “T may never be the greatest actor in the world, and I don’t expect to be; but I do ex- pect to make a reputation for myself, and I do expect to get a little power, e®ooner or later, because I'll work. And the first time I'm back on Broad- way I'll have a dinner in memory of this one—and in memory of what the encouragement of you fellows has| meant to me.”” Then he gave them ‘“The Heathen Chinee” to laugh at. and Whittier's “Marguerite” to cry at. and Hamlet's soliloquy to wonder | about; and after he had finished there was nothing more for his friends to do except to leave a little something for the waiters and escort Plcard over to the Grand Central terminal. There, in the train shed, all but one of them prophesied to Picard that he would quickly repeat. on the legitimate stage, his immense success in ama- | he was at least a credit_to his salary. | {More than that, he had acquired a i slight following of local flappers, which : means money in the box office for a |.stock _company, and when he got his | {first letter from a vapld schoolgirl he | { wouldn’t have exchanged places with ' Sir Henry Irving. He spent his spare {time In reading plays and studying, !plays and devouring lbrary’ books | ;about playwriting and the history of | the theater; and if ever he could have | | translated his knowledge into his per- | formances he would have been a greater iman than even the hero of his ambi- | | tions. ! * Tk ok ¥ . 1] ENHAM'S letters were a poultice to | his vanity, but office routine and | who owned a part of the show, came clearly to his ears. They were barely arm'e-length distance from him, con- cealed by an angle of canvas; they thought that Picard was safe upstairs in his dressing room. ! “Stuart's flopping,” sald the woman, ‘without animus. “Oh, he tries hard enough, but when a man can't read his lines and can't act, what's the sense of | paying him $300 a week to be a cigar- store Indian?. Every time he goes on | he slows up the action like an emergency brake.” and the woman spoke again. “Well, 1 think we've found a man, finally, ané I'm going to see that Stuart gets I'm sort of "his notice tomorrow. DECEMBER _ 31, 1922— ASSANDRA The director murmured a response | BY HOLWORTHY HALL hope to God I never set eyes on you | does, that she had married a bo) Sdhesyy e again as long as I liv lin & man's body. * x ok % ! There came to call upon Wi § TUPIDLY, Plcard watched him turn | the boarding house one evening) §1 N s the corner. = Stupidly, Picard|Undersized Jew in remarkably went into’ the apartment house and|Dt clotbing. Picard took kim to She farther end of the red-plush pamor, climbea two floors and rang a bell. The door opened to him and he shut | 204 there they sat and argued back Tt ehind him. and. put. his baek 204 forth for the major portieh’ of ! : * agdinst 1t; and he made his declara- Bertha coulinit vk S0 | that they tion there 1b the hallway, for Mrs.| were talking about, “But | she was hypnotized by what she did 4 \ et Aues o B director released him on the third day. It was now half a year since he had enjoyed an Income, and in the meantime his capital had dwindled almost to the vanishing point. Abruptly he sensed that, as a sweep- ing generality, be wasn’t wanted. He was capable of giving lectures on. dramatio composition and the tech- nique of the modern play, but nobody | wanted *im to fllustrate his educa- tion. One manager told him to his|Carpenter was audible in the llving | face that he wasn't good enough to go room. | hear, and by the facile emphasis of out with a second company_to play | “Bertha” he said, unsteadily, “I'm|the Jew's two hands. He stimulated the citfes; and another told him that {brokg, and I'm tired out, and I'm dis- | Rer Imagination; and presently. wher hé was wasting time when he tried |couraged—but won't you please mar- | Sh® had noted his dramatic repres 138 ot lanonaan enicet irom anyboly |53 Eoellan yavanal | sion, and his virile intensity and th. | who had ‘ever seen him act. Although Bertha had insisted and |UEht in his eager eyes, her curiosity It was known on tho Rialto, of {her mother had insisted that in all|Went far ahead of her imagination. {an Lour. of office gossip had never seemed so ba- | sically uninteresting, and Picard was| presently aware that he was sorry lm"! Benham. He was sorry for every one| who was tethered to a desk or em- | ployed in any profession less fascinat- | common sense they must delay !hel {wedding until Picard was on his! feet again, he overpowered them both | | with his dynamic stubbornness. Ber- {tha had used the word “judgment,” | |but it was the wrong word for any | | Out of long practice she catalogue: him and analyzed him to a fine degree and as soon as he had gone, she de | manded of Picard an explanation, & histo: “Wh said Pleard, “that's a ma: ing than his own. He never remotely | |suspected that Benham's appraisal of him | { was absolutely sound, and that the Lord | had never Intended him to be an nc(or.[ ! When the season was over, he con- | I trived to get himself a place in sum.- | mer stock at Portland Harbor, where thé tourist buys a round-trip trolley ) | ticket and a reserved seat in the or- | | chestra, all for 60 cents; and in the | teur dramatics. | autumn he was re-engaged, at a bet- | The toastmaster of the evening had 'tor price, for the Mohawk valley. If been a man named Benham, a reader ' pe pad been less innocent of the stage, | of serfous books and a shepherd of \o might have been suspigious of all his companions, and Benham and promotion; for it stood to reason that Plcard were known to be Inseparable. | ;o map ‘of Picard's shallow training | At the last minute, when they were' . o equipped to play juvenile leads. ' shaklng hands. Benham suddenly 105t py; he played them, and he worked ! color. {hard and ffalthfully; always studying | “Stuart,” he sald, awkwardly.|gng reading, and struggling to dis- | “we've been pretty good pals: I can't| cover what were the elements of a let you go without telling you one|gqoq play and of a good interpreta- thing. T haven't talked about it be- tion of a part, and the harder he fore, because I knew it wouldn't be|yorieq the easter he found it to lose | any use. You're so stubborn. You'Ve.contact with Benham. Then notice | had this offer, and now you can’t 8e€ | ient up, and the company disbanded, | anything else. You can't see that {and Picard made his first acquaintance | you're throwing away a big business wyp the fact that some theatrical ' career—an absolutely sure thing, t00. contracts have only one side. | because all of us realize that you're, ypg earlfest reaction ‘was of pug- the ablest one of the crowd—for thls | na.¢y; g0 that he rushed to a lawyer, ——this gamble.” \and talked excitedly about enforcing Picard's grip tightened, but his JaW ;s rignte, It took a lawyer half a . was prominent. “You really didn't g,y o persuade him that a suit need to mention it he sald, con- | . ..; 2 bankrupt is a waste of en- | strained. “I've known all along | .rgy; but when Picard finally got the | You just don't believe the Lord e\'el’la“m“ into his head he slowly per- | intended me to be an actor.” | ceived that he could even use the mis- Benham wet his 1ips and nodded.| foriune as a stepplng-stone. His Hig anxiety always to be honest, 6¥en | jarary knowledge of stagecratt was it his honesty happened to RUrtiy.coming profound, his constant study somebody, made him hurt Pleard | p,q given him a certain sense of au- at a time when honesty wasn't in the | y,o50 ang he perceived that least demanded. “You see. YOUTé,n; { sctually be a blessing to him never open to conviction, Stuart.” to hunt for experience in a broader ‘ot by argument—no, I'm not.” ! feld. His friend Be crete piliar. “I m kicked at a con- oy the stage depends for its per- o't help feeling the | papence ot upon the few distin- way 1 do about your acting. BUL gyyicheg artists whose names are’ maybe I'm only selfish. 1 hate 0 (. iren jurge upon the billing. but 10 think what the office :sdgc;!:lza‘s | upon the consistently steady average like when you're gone. An ¢ e e T 1 spoil yof thelr support. Picard was just you and sour you. And I swear 1 h&pe “Fe(iwrong angut the whole | 1 ure, and this ability proved. to have | thing.” ., | @ marketable worth. He went on the ' But 1 know perfectly 1"!“‘.‘3{‘;“";"'.‘;1 road with a triumphant farce, and he want to be an acl:r a:l u; money., A8 admittedly the best {nformed want dlstlnrl!«;rll» an F‘“; : sier, amaand also the poorest actor in the And you coul goz" ‘:)“ staved right | CSt: ~ Subsequeuntly he ‘wis" hired ! aulcker, and surer. if ¥ > to support a repertory queen who' etly inconspicuous as a piece of fur- here with the rest of us.” 0, T couldn't. Nobody could. Fif- <aem years from now vou'll be one of the people who'll look at me, and won- der why nothing interesting, ever hap- pened to you. You're right in one re- spect, though—I want distinction, and power, and money: but I want to ge *em in an Interesting way. Something to do with drama. I'm sOrry you think 1 won't.” x % % x ENHAM lifted his he: Pleard's eyes. “Wel—if you should ever want to come back to us again there'll ulways be a place for vou as long as I'm there. Maybe you'll never want to come. Maybe your stub- bornness 18 just what'll make your for- tune, somehow or other. And if this is what-you really want why, then, 10 matter what my privaté ,opinion is, I'll give up anything' I' the whole world to help you succeed.” “I know you would,” sald Picard. deeply stirred. “And you're the only man in the world Tll ever take any- thing from, if 1 change my mind.” Then his other friends pounced down upon him, and put him aboard the Mohawk Valley speclal; and in the morning he reported to the manager of a second-rate stock company l.l\d‘ went to work. When he left New York he had re- garded his company Wwith tolerant con- tempt; he knew that it was @ cheap | company, but it had offered to give| him an impetus on the long road to glory, and he reminded himself that | because a man determines to go to Paris, he needn’t be ashamed of the necessity of passing through Dover. Within twenty-four hours, however, he had sloughed off the last of his illu- sions, and perceived that even in Dover ‘.—to continue the metaphor—he ap- peared like a clumsy rustic. ‘He had never conceived himself as a genlus, but he had relled upon his energetic ambition and his common sense, and it bruised his self-respect to be con- sidered a blockhead. Some men might have resented the epithet by a dis- play of fists; Pickard resented it by devoting elghteen hours a day toward making it inapplicable. It was only a few months ago that he had starred as “Crichton” in the greatest of all the Comédy Club pro- ductions, and now he was estimated 100 wooden to be allowed to walk on as the messenger in “Mrs. Temple's Telegram.” He shuddered to realize that while he had been a petted ama- teur and the recipient of pralse which hardly stopped short of comparison with Gillette and Drew, he had’ been igmorant of the simplest fundamentais of the profession. He was successively chagrined, dazed, humbled and despond- ent; indeed, except for that paramount stubbornness of his, he would certainly have deserted the stage at the end of the first week and gone limping back to the insurance business. As it was, Ne wrote Benham that it took more ttelligence to be & bad actor than R did to be a good insurance solicitor, and Benham knew that it was futile to argue with him. By the end of the second week of 4 “got |n{ | didn’t expect to be overshadowed by | any of her subjects, and after that he {filled a stock engagement In Van- | couver. His salary had now risen un- : Ttil ft equaled his last salary in the | insurance office, but Picard’s jaw was dramatic information was volumi inous. He had never left off craving | for distinction and command, and he had never forgotten the old platitude | how his craving and his labor and the | ! platitude couldn’t ever seem to coln- cide. As a matter of fact. when he| | had lost his -original uncertainty, which had appealed especially to wo- { men as a native and lovable shyness, | he had lost the only hold that he! | would ever have upon an audlence. | t : LIRS < T ! TOROM Vancbuver he alrbted’ awn | L' the coast to San Francisco, and | | east to Denver for two busy seasons. | {and cast agaln to Chicago, still in | stock, and just as he finished his see- |ond season in Chicago a New York ! manager happpened to see him in a | glove-fitting part, and overappre- | clated him, and brought him back to Broadway at $300 a Week, fo play in a comedy which was destined to run all summer. Picard arrived in the mie- tropolis at 11 In the morning, and at the quarter-hour he had sent in his card to Benham. The formalities of the occasion | amused him, but, at the same time, | they Impressed him. A uniformed | page delivered him over to a pretty gIrl In a snug anteroom, and the girl took his card and disappeared through | a door which gave glimpses of pol | ished mahogany. When she returned | she sald that Mr. Benham was {n con- ference, but would probably be free within twenty minutes. “I haven't seen him for eight years,” said Pleard, “or heard from him for six. What is he now, anyway?" “He's fourth vice president” said the girl, casually. The revelation took Picard’s breath away; he sat down hard, and stared at the lithographed calendars on the wall. He wondered how long ago it was that he had fallen igto the habit of being sorry for Benham. To be sure, Benham must be 'thirty-six, while Picard was only thirty-two, and yet, eight years ago, they had worked side by side on a common footing. Picard's {mmediate grandeur Wwas ggently. shaken by the thought that his friend had acquired. power by staying at home. wt 2 “He must be on the board of. di- rectors, then, tao,” he sald. s The secretary nodded, without look- ing up. 'Yes, he is.”” Picard waa speculating whether a fourth vice president got very much more than three jhundred dollara a week. . “Where does he live now?" “In Greenwich, Connecticyt,” Picard scowled at the calendars, and wished that he had worn a dif- ferent sult. Then suddenly the door swung open, and Benham was on the threshold, and Picarg forgot the silent I dfligent labor Picard found himaelf | years which had gone between them. faintly encouraged, beciuse the director Over the luncheon table. Benham had stopped yelling at him about his|dismissed the past in a dozen sefy- hands snd feet. By the end of the|tences; and outlined the future in & month he had begun. to carry himself | phrase or two. “Yes,” he sald, “I with s mildly deprecating assurance.|suppose some day I'll be pretty near ‘He had & splendid figure arid a pleasant | the top. Next year, unless I fall down face, and a voice which would have won | pretty hard somewhers, I'm likely to Rim chevrons in the Army; he learned [be that particular dog called second % Dandle small and foolproof perts and general manager. Of course, { itk zome facility, and by midéeason |I'm thirty-six, and {'ve been here ever . T since I waseixteen. * * * Butifyou'd g00d enough to make himself as qui- ,stayed with us, Stuart, you'd have]gloat if he wanted to. gone up faster than I have. said 80, I say s0 myself.” “That's nice,” said Ficard absently. “Do ‘you.ever wish I'd persuaded you to sta. “You couldn't have,” sald Picard, and sighed reminiscently. : > Benham laughed. “Xou're stubborn as ever, Stuart. .Tell me, are you satisfled with your success? Have you got all the prestige and so-on you wanted—or do you see it in sight?” “I haven't changed my mind yet, They all ¢ auite as firm as ever, and his fund of |anyway,” sald Picard, but he did change the subject, because he feared that Benham might possibly choase to be honest again. Picard knew very well that his name was far from be- ad and met that knowledge is power; but some- ing a household word, but he wasn't anxious for Benham to tell him so. ‘By - the way, that's a mighty nice girl you've got in your office.” Benham raised his head. “Miss I simply couldnt get along without her. . “She's got the finest business Judg- ment, and the keenest judgment of people—r" . .. “Oh, nonaense!” said Plcard, with & grimace. “I use to be in the insur- nce game myself.. There ien't a ‘woman in the world who's got any business judgment. Some of ‘em may have enpugh personality, or magnetism, or whatever you call it, to get away with _murder, but I don’t call that business judgment.” Benham gave another laugh. “Aren’t | you open to conviction any more than | standara of You use to be?" “Not on main principles. I've seen a goed bit of life since the old days, and I-knows what I knows—and I knows women, That reminds me e * ® are you married yet?” “Not yet,” sald Benham, cautiously. “Prospects?” i “Dim, but favorable. “No one I know, I suppose?” “No one you really know,” Benham gravely. * % %% said EY parted on the best of terms, and Benham agréed to see the show as soon as possible, and Picard mentfoned his desire to redeem his pledge and give a testimonial banquet to those of his friends who still re- mained in the insurance office. He couldn’t refrain from being a wee bit lordly about it but afterward he waa pentirent, because he knew that he hadn't yet done anything to be lordly—or ‘even modest—about. He had been engaged to replace in 2 comedy which had already run for a hundred nights an eminent star who was enitled to a vacation. It was ‘&’ brilltant ~opportunity for Plcard; the' job was temporary, but [he knew that if hé handled it well, 1t meant & season on the road at the head of the second company, and after that the sky for a perspective, He knew that he needed only a single victory on Broadway to put his in- come on a level with Benham’s and his fame on a level infinitely higher. .| Plcard wasn't exactly jealous of Ben- ham, but in view of what had befallen both of them, he was inclined to be a little jealous of himself. ‘He re- jolced that Benham had done 80 extraordinarily well, but he was also disturbed by what Benham had said about Plcard’s own squandered chances in the insurance business. Benham was already an executive, and Picard owned scarcely ‘two thousand dollars in the bank;' but here at last was the crossroad where the trafc regulations allowed 'the worm to turn. - He “told himielf that under no conditions would he ever permit himself to gloat over Benham, but he would dearly love toput him. { [ 4 | woman to use to Plcard. With his|by fhe name of Schoenstein !eloquence and his masculine superi- | Ploew into the office a couple of da |ority me crushed her, magnifying the | 880—wanted us to float a little is | tmport of his bank balance, until she|of stock for him. He owns som~ | weakly agreed with him that his few | 0l leases in Oklahoma. I guess it's hundred dollars were in the nature;all right, but I told him it was too lof a generous endowment. Further- |small to bother with, 8o he's Deen {more, now that he had taken respon- | trying to get me to loan him some | sibilities upon himself, he would ar- | money, o he can go shead with his | range tmmediately to finance the re- | development.” e self in such a position that he could | sorry for him, too. If he wasn't 80 pig-headed he might learn to be a fairly decent actor. The funny part of it is that off the stage he looks like an actor and talks like an actor. Funny, isn't 1t7 He went twice to the office to see Ben- ham, and ‘on both occasions he had to waif, but he pleasantly employed the interval in chatting with Benham's pretty secretary. Later, he expressed| Picard’s hands went clammy and {10 Benham the utter idiocy of claiming | for an Instant his world was blank. |that any girf with a face like that|The voices dwindled off toward the could possess any commercial acumen down-stage entrance; Picard drew a i whatsoever. Incidentally, he added |long, tremulous breath, and began to that she didn’t need it. { “She's an awfully nice girl, though,” sald Picard, with his eyes on vacancy. “I'd like to meet her mother.” “You'd have to,” said Benham, after a pause, and then hé remarked, thought- fully: “If you're eeripus, why, I dare say it could be arranged. You might think; and it was significant that be- fore he thought of the personal con- sequences of his failure he thought af what Miss Carpenter would say about it, and of what Benham, in his more mature diplomacy, might re- frain from saying. Then, when he visualised the goal which had eluded even send ‘em a couple of tickets for | him — the leadership of the second your show. If you sent ‘em through me | company next season and the return 1 guess it would be all right.”” to Broadway as a star In his own Accordingly Picard sent the tickets,|right; the prestige and the salary and iand when he went on for the first time | the influence—when he visualized all | Miss Carpenter and her mother were in | this, Picard wi ghastly white be- front. Benham was also in front, to- | neath his make-up. Automatically he ;Carpen!er? She’s a girl in a hundred. | gether wiil” all the available office | roused himseif at his cue, but he went friends of eight years ago. They ap-jon only to butcher the best scene In plauded him vigorouely—once he even|the play, and when he came off he had to take a szcond bow—and yet after- | was fully as angry as the girl who ward he was vaguely conscious that!|had played opposite him. somewhere he had missed his oppor-| He got his notice, but he didn’t tell tunity. He gave the dinner, and his old | Benham about it. On Sunday he told friends were highly complimentary—all | Miss Carpenter, and was strengthen; but Benham, who was judicially silent— | ed by her sympathy and concern. but Picard’s mind was glued to the| “If I wére in your place—" she morning newspapers, eo that he mada | began, but Picard interrupted her. himseli a fairly indifferent host. “Please ‘don't!” he said, downcast. The &tage director had merely 8ald'to | “I don't want any advice; all J want him, “You did all right;” but the best |is to be near you and feel that I can of the morning notices said that Picard's | talk to you. There's nothing much I performance never arose above the|can do now, anyway. It's off-season. stock company, and when { I'll take a rest until next month, when he remembered that for such & com-)they begin signing up for the fall ment he had slaved and studied through | productions.” the tedium of eight long years, he wish-| It was a comfort to him during this d that he had forgotten his promise |interval to bs able to spend some of to give the dinner. The only consola- | his evenings with the Carpenters. His tion was that he hadn't bragged to Ben- | worries hadn't softened his character, ham. 3 but they had made him very much He was permitted to call on the Car- | more susceptible; so that perhaps his penters; and the privilege carried with | spirit bad never been so restless as it & genuine welcome. He was a gen-|in this period consecrated to Test. tleman and he was a friend of Mr. Ben-| When the calendar was favorable hams, and he talked easily and enter-|he went to the best of the agents, tainingly. They hoped that he wouldand, although the man received him come to see them often; and Picard had | well enough, he grinned spontane- already begun lo.dnle because he could | ously at the suggestion of $800 a come 50 seldom—because Miss Carpen- | week. “I can put you in a Middle- ter was busy in the afternoons, while he [ mass piece for a hundred and seven- nimself was busy in the evenings. But|ty-five, all right,” he sald. “That is— it soon appeared that all three of them | it's open.” were fond of the open country, and dat-{ “A good part?” ing from that discovery Picard was| ‘“The heavy,” said his agent. “It's radiantly conteat. He took them, on|ga shop play. - The heavy’s supposed to those summer Sundays, far up into the | he a bad aptor—I guess you can do it nils of Westchester, where they had|all right,”if you dont make it too picnics, and disregarded all the 10 |realtstic.” g trespass signs, and Picard and Miss| Picard winced, but he signed his Carpenter found it convenient to call{name to a contract, and spent a reek- each other by their first names. ing fortnight in rehearsal at Bryant * % %% ‘| Hall, before the influenza reached out for him and caught him. When ero the happlest Sundaye 12 !no was on his feet onoe moré—and had ever known, but the week days | )\, oy Jate in October—his savings were increasingly clouded by that}, o, p¢ was cut squarely in half and same vague consciousness of something | ;" anitely better. man had taken missed. To be sure, he was drawing his|,, place in the Middlemass produc- salary, and he was getting a respectable |4, gventually, because no higher number of laughs, but he was neverthe- ...y were thrust upon him, he con- less uncomfortable. In the presence of sented to recetve & hundred and ffty his associates he felt curiously like an{, = .,other play, which captivated alien; he feit as though they regarded |g,. .¢0ra on the try-out, but endured him as 8 wet blanket upon thelr OWA | s, precisely six.nights in the metrop- accomplishments. And whils be eul- o)(5 pefore the men from Cane's fered from this introspection, he Wasf..me up to cart away the scenery to not at all desirous of seelng too much |y, georehouse. of his friend Benham. 2 “Sometimes,” he sald moodily to In the second act he had & ten-min- | y.y Carpenter, “T wonder if that ute wait, and usually be ran up to his |,y where I ousht %o go, too—to dressing room for the forbidden cigar-|cgne's” = ette, lighting his match, with perversive ok ok ok humor, upon the warning placard {ssued | JICARD was getting demoralized. by the fire commissioner. One evening, | I He was offered a hundred, and however, just as he reached the iron |scornfully refused it; offered a hun- stairway, the clgarette was suddenly un- | dred and twenty for stock, and re- desirable to him, and he came back | fumed it—changed his mind and want .slowly and lurked behind the leg-drop, | back too late—and knew that it had yawning and waiting. As he -stood | been & double error to go back at all. there the murmuring voices of the stage | He was offered ninety, and smapped director. and of the leading wemam, &t It, Sust for & Stop-g3D; but the > G ' : . o v RT ALLEN- 3/ “BERTHA,” HE SAID. UNSTEADI- LY, “I'M BROKE, AND TIRED OUT AND DISCOURAGED—BUT WON'T YOU PLEASE MARRY ME, ANY- WAY?” course, that Stuart Picard was out of an engagement; and as foon as it was known that this condition was practically chronic, his value sank to a fractional part of his needs The same agent who had put him into the Middlemass production was the man who gave him the ultimate insult. “I could use you—yes,” said the agent, gazing into space. “There's a plece by somebody or other—Lasky's putting it on—there's-a good part in ..} stage—not sponsibilities. As a matter of fact, even though Benham was eliminated !from his list of prospective angels, ! Plcard had an alternative of propo- aitions. If he chose he could go out |in a vaudeville sketch at $80 a week; !but he preferred to go to work in- stead for an old acquaintance, a curb | broker, at 350. | Bertha was contemplative. It |seems to me” she sald, “that after you've invested eight years in one | protesston you ought to think pretty | carefully before you throw away ell {that investment. Of course, I'm not {awfully anxious to have you keep on being an actor, but when you've learned so much about the stage— 1and there's so many different phases |find some place where your knowl- 1edge would help you get ahead. We |ean’t very well be much poorer than { we are now, can we? Then why start in.a business that's £o absolutely new to you? You could get just as much | money In something to do with the necessarily acting—and Ihave a future. You know a lot about {the mechanies of plays; why don't iyou see If you can’'t get a position | that's got something to do with man- aging?” Bertha hesitated. ing about ft, dublously. Picard had been on the verge of a negative deciglon; but at the implied critictsm from his wife, he instine tively held up his head. “Yes, I'd thought about “How much does he want? “Five hundred.” She saw that he was annoyed, bu! she knew that the evening was mo mentous, “On what security, Stuart™ “Note,” he sald brusquely, and he ot up, and began to pace the floor ‘He'll get indorsements. And he'll | glve me a sixteenth interest in th property as a bonus.” When she closed her eves ghe could ‘Were you think Stuart™ she asked i%of 1t—1 should think vou'd want 10 gee the Jew and hear his volce us i |clearly as though he were present | before her, and out of her stern train ing, and her insight, and her nativ ! keenness, she knew what manner of iman he was. She would have risked | her life on her intuitfon. “Suppos. he doesn’t happen to be hor | Stuart? Suppose the well isn't ans |good. Have we five hundred dollar to lose?” | “We've got five hundred.” he & | shortiy.” ' Picard kissed her indulgently. “I'm (DUt DAt of it was mine, Stuarh |mever convinced by argument” he TICATd stopped short | ‘Wow. 1us {sald, “only by experience. I'm quit- e LATing, XOXee. Ae SUoeLcat iting the stage. I've got my reasons. | Your problem is to figure out where {we're going to live.” | ‘Bertha glanced up at him in amize- {ment. “Why — here, ‘aren't we? {Mother and I have aTong ledse, and 1t's a very favorable lease, too, and we've got all our furniture here, and —and everything. I don’t see what ielse there is to d Picard shook his head. ‘That tsn't good judgment. I'm gfraid it wouldn’t worl thing alive, but you don’t know ti first simple thing about this kind o i business. I'm perfectly capable o deciding whether it's a good thing !to do, or not.” | She percetved the crisis, and met {“What 1s-4t you want to be— { philanthropist?” | “Let's not discuss it, please,” saiJ Picard. On the following afternoon he told her that he had loaned money to it for you. Sort of high brow. Modern. | Yeur mother's a corker, gnd I'm awfully the Jew. “I've got security for the Nothing to buy—you could-dress theifondres.her and all_that, pug F-want us,ioan,” he said, “and if the well comex part with what you've got on. But|fs be by ourselves. - And this piate is{through—that's Strictly be-"| really crowded now. A cat could hard- paying me 7 per cent against th. tween you and me, I'd advire you to|ly walk around here and keep fromisavings bank's b. it only pays fifty a week. take it.” $ Picard stood up, shaking. “I've been on the stage for eight years—" “Solid ivory,” sald the agent, with- out a smile. “Want the, part”” “No!" sald Picard, and went out, how can we afford to live anywhere| convulsed with wrath, and utter deg- radation. It was half-past one on Saturday, and all the Rialto swarmed with stage acquaintances. He didn't even business man, Bertha. You're the rest|turity, and the well poured iut see them; indeed, as far as his ob- Jective mind was Involved, he was the only individual on earth. He had stumbling. 1 want my own establish- | ment.” | *“But If you won't let me Keep on | working for a while, Stuart—and that's !the onyy sensible thing to do—why, | else? Now, my plan—" | He kissed her again with imperturb- |able confidence. “What does a little | girl like you know about 1t? I'm the fof 1. Bertha, who in a day had exerclsed {Jurisdiction over more money than velvet. And he's ? If I'd taken vou: | advice, I'a have lost a mighty gov {investment.” ! x ok ok % | PERTHA was wise enough to mak- no further protest, and, more tha; that, she was wise encugh to mak: |no protest when Picard, somewhu: |later, cried out to her: “I told yo !80!" The note was paid before Picard’s lap a hundred dollars o | for four ecststic months. Overni | he added immeasurably to his pois no definite plan of action; no purpose; | Picard would earn in all his life, flushed | ana to his air of conquest. no desires; he was numbed by a freez- ing conviction, not brought to him by any outside argument, but by the force of sheer experience, that the Lord had never intended him to be a great actor. The managers and the agents all concurred. There was no road open to him now, except the road to the small towns; there was mno dramatic future left to him, except a galling existence among the colorless failures of his own kind. And he knew more about the stage, and about | the art and science of it, than any man or woman he had ever met. But he was convinced—convinced—con- vinced! He awoke to find himself loitering ; vividly. “Mr. Benham used to say I was a girl in a hundred, Stuart.” She wanted recognition, and Picard gave her a compliment. “Benham was conservative. I say {you're a girl in two billion—if that's | what the population of the earth is. | But you're not marrying Benham, are !you? © * ¢ No, dear, I do love you, but I'm marrying you because I want |to protect you and take care of you, and I'm golng to do It, too.” * x % % E was the apotheol of affection, 1 and of kindness, but it wounded her to realize that he could so calmly discount her greatest ability. This was “ “I suppose,” said Bertha, refic | tively, “we might be looking for ! apartment now.” | Picard blew a cloud of emoke 1. |ward the ceiling. “I had a funr: | experience today,” he said, with ap | parent frrelevance. “1 went over t | the Lambs for lunch. There was | pretty big man there I used to know |and we got to talking. e wanted | know what I'd been doing, and T = | I'd been resting. He seemed awfuii: | interested In my tallor and all that | sort of thing. Well, the upshot of {it all was that he offered me a part |in a new play of his—at three hun | area.” Bertha was deeply animated. befors Miss Carpenter's apartmenther elementary lesson in the arbitrari- | that wonderful? The right thing a* house; and as he paused, Irresolute, his friend Benham came down the steps. Picard's face went crimson with shame and envy. “Stuart!"’ sald Benham, and took him i by the arm. *“Well?” There leaped to Picard's brain an inspiration. It was too late to satisfy his dreams of power and glory behind the footlights, but it wasn't too late to acknowledge his de- fects, and to remind Benham of his anclent covenant. Benham had sald that Picard would have traveled fast- er than even Benham had done. Well, Benham was in authority; let Ben- ham give him a foothold. “Stuart, do you remember the night you went away? When we gave you a dinner? And you and I had a word together at the train?” asked Ben- ham. - “I—I was just thinking about that.” “I sald I'd give anything I had in the whole world to help you succeed.” *“Yes, you did. And I sald—" . Benham's mouth was drawn. *“Well, I've done it, Stuart.” “Done what?” “Given up—everything.” He was breathing hard, but Picard had no visual perceptions. “I don’t know what you're talking about,” he said, wearily. “Then go upstairs,” said Benham. “Go up and find out. I had a chance —I had the best chance until you came along, Stuart. And now I'm out of it. She's just told me so. She's just told me there’s somebody else. And that means you.” His grasp made Picard flinch. “You don't de- serve her, Stuart. You don't appre- ciste her—you don’t half apprect- ate her—and I do. I always have. That's what hurts the worst. If it only could have been & man who ap- | preciates what she is—what her brain is—what her heart is—what her soul is—what her Judgment is—but you! With your damned. stubborn old-tashioned idess about women!” He tried to control himself, and fail- od. “Go on mpstairs, you lucky fool,” sald Benbam, with &ificulty, “and I iness of the man she had promised to i marry, and it left her breathless and bewlldered. But she was blindly in {love with Picard, and whatever he sald to her had the welght of an imperial mandate. In matters of domestic economy, and of social relations, and of the imma- terial detalls of life he absorbed her views without protest; but when it came to the vital matters upon which ‘was based he held firm to his belief that any woman, even Bertha, and, perhaps, especially Bertha, because he Ikne' her better than he had known jany other woman, was essentially in- capable of any sound decision. Already she knew him more accurately than he had ever known himself, and she could have administered his affairs, and the affairs of twenty others like him, with- out apparent effort and with excep- tional results, but Picard wanted the best executive secretary in New York to be a helpless bride, and she loved him enough to make herself as helpless | and dependent as she possibly could. 8o he left the stage and became cu: tomers’ man In a curb brokerage house. At the.same time he took Bertha, so glorified that when she was alone she still” found ecstasy in repeating her married name over and over to her- self, to a musty, red-plush boarding house in the West Forties. Fortunately, each- of them was sufficlently in love with-the other to endjire, for the sake of their evenings together, the sordid days which their circumstances had preacribed for them. And in the even- ings the circumstances didn’t matter. There was a perlod of readjustment when she learned that Picard didn't 1ike to have her express broad general- ities, especially generalities of trade or| commerce or human policies, even if he happened to agree with them. If she did, he disagreed anyway. Nor did he like to have her criticize, spon- taneously, any of his actions or inten- tions. At first, in spite of her worship of him,-she resented these: Iittle obsti- nate traits, and once or twice she even cried over them, but in the course of time she learned, 28 every clever woman » thelr present and their future welfare | last! Oh, Stuart, I'm So pleased’ When do you start?” Plcard regarded her over his cigar “I've had a queerer offer yet. Cali | fornia. In the pictures. Not acting directing. Of course, I'm flattered but it's & ridiculous thing; no salary at all, or & purely nominal one, for a | year, and then 1f I make good. a sal- ary and & percentage.” She caught her breath. | ridiculous, isn’t 1t?" Picard blinked. “That “1 didn’t mean ‘ridiculous’ exactly—I meant un- usual” “Tha! what I meant, too. Why you don’t know anything at all sbout pictures.” | “I'm not sure I'd say that 1 don't |know anything about pictures. | honey." | *“But you've never been in them | dear. And you don’t know anything about lighting, or photography, or acting . . ©Oh, now, darling; I didn’t mean it to sound like that—", “Don’'t worry,” sald Picard. with a pained smile. “Better critics than you are have said rough things about my acting. But when they come to me and offer me three hundred flat—" ‘Without taking any chances nt an: “Surely. And a guarantee.” “‘And a guarantee’” echoed Ber tha, jubilantly. “And those silly pic ture people—why, all they're trying to do is to get a year's work out of you for nothing.” Picard began to fidget. “I'd hardly say that. It's a rather eweeping statement for an outsider to make.” “Qutsider?” She laughed a little “1 know you don't think a great deal | ot my judgment, but Mr. Benham——" “Oh, hang Mr. Benham!" said Pi- card. “Yes, 1 amannoyed. . And a director doesn’t have to know anything about lighting, or acting. or photography, either. All he's got to know is how to tell a story—-how 1o the contin I'm little (Continued on Beventh