The evening world. Newspaper, June 24, 1922, Page 13

EPL LINE RIEL INDIIIMD UTE gE TFS OT APIBITION AND WORK * SS es CHARACTERS IN THE STORY. AN ENGLISH ACTOR who has a belief that all vice, and Hartney naa badgered the women either ate actresses or think they can act. MRS. MAURICE KENNARD, selected by the actor as one of the “thinking” class. MAURICE KENNARD, her husband, a director, the most respected figure on the American stage. | VIOLET DUNN, who figures in the earlier part of the story as it is recited. HARTNEY, ‘the very pattern of what an actor should not be.” EB was already regarded in England as the most brilliant young actor of the times. Furthermore, he had been a pet of London society; so that when @ very fashionable woman gave a dinner for him in New York, he took it for granted | that, out of deference to himself, his neighbors would be people of consequence. As a matter of fact, the lady on his left proved to be Mrs. Maurice Kennard, whose hus- band was perhaps the greatest and certainly the most respected figure on the American stage. In spite of his colossal egotism, the young Briton would have been atten- tive to her because of the man she had married; but, beyond that she had about her an air of impregnable sin- cerity, a sweetness of character, a subtle ‘hint of girlishmess, which caught his imagination. As|the dinner advanced, he noticed that ‘at intervals she kept glancing across the table at her husband—not in the manner of a sentry, but as though her own pleasute and comfort of mind depended on Kennard’s. He also noted that if Kennard met her eyes, his whole face brightened. Ob- viously, they were very much in love ‘with each other. ‘The Englishman said to her, ‘You were never in the profession yourself, ‘were you, Mrs. Kennard?"" She regarded him with some amuge- ment: ‘How can you tell that?” “Why, he said, “I don't quite know—but I can tell instinctively.” “‘Do you mean I'm not the type?"’ “Oh, it isn’t a question of type! 1 can tell simply by looking at you, and talking to \you, that you’ he hesi- tated—*‘belong to the other class.” She laughed. ‘The other class of what? Of women? And are there only two?" ‘He nodded: “Only two, Actresses— and ‘women who believe they could have been. . . . Oh, you needn't raise your eyebrows! I never met a wo- man who didn’t believe, or hasn't be- lieved, that #he could have made a hit on the stage. Did you?" “Why"'— she hesitated. “Of course you haven't!” he said firmly. ‘Every woman has the same idea, at one time or another. The only difference is, how soon they get over it, or if they ever get over it at all, Now, just between ourselves, Mrs. Kennard, when did you get over Or, in strict “confidenve, have you quite fot over it yet?” ‘At this juncture, he was inter- rupted ‘by his ‘hostess; and Mrs. Maurlee Kennard, glancing across the tabile, ‘hail twenty seconds to think of an answer. OR four successive generations, the house of Kennard had pro- @uced only doctors and gentle- men, and as soon as Maurice could talk, he was told that he was to follow these traditions. On the day that he graduated from college, how- over, he électrified ‘his father by the announcement that medicine was dis- tasteful to himeand that he much pre- ferred to go on the stage. At the outset, his fathtr had spoken hotly of treason to ‘the family ideals, and ufter that he had made the com: mon mistake of fathers in such a crisis and rested his case on personal ridicule. “That may all be," said Maurice, with ‘high dignity; ‘‘but you say I'll be u rotten actor, and I say I'd haye So you'll have been «. rotten doctor. to grant’ But his father would grant nothing. ‘The session closed with an ultimatum. Kennard listened to ft respectfully, shook ‘hands, and on Saturday week was richer by thirty doflars—his sal- ary from a Boston étock company— and poorer by the loss of his inherit- ance. Naturally, in his initial season, he avasn't even # “‘bit" actor; he played the unimportant butler, the unimpor- tant policeman, and the equally unim- type of character known in stage ver- nacular as “‘George Friendweill'’—who stands about and listens while some- body else explains the plot to him. At the end of the season he signed a contract for summer stock in Penn- sylvania, By this time he had earned the right to do occasional ‘‘bits,"" mainly in character comedy. He was playing six evening performances and three matinees a week and rehearsing every morning except Thursday. Even #0, he found spare minutes to read Shakespeare, to analyze Clyde Fitch, and presently, during his third year on the boards, to fall in love. Her name was Violet Dunn, an in- Senuous little girl who-also had ‘‘bits"” and lofty ambitions. An@ from the very first she believed implicitly in Maurice Keanard. She told him,with depths in her eyes, that he would live to be famous; and a fortnight later, when he watched her as Jessica, in “The Merchant of Venice," he prom- ised her that in less than ten years she would see her name, incandescent, on Broadway. In mid-August, Kennaré’s father died leaving half a million dollars to charity and a gold eagle to his only son. Whereupon, the son said to Violet, soberly, “I've got to work twice as hard now as I would if he'd lived. * * * You see, what hurt me most was the way he talked—not about me, but about the stage.” “Tknow," she said. ‘While he was alive you just wanted to prove that he was wrong; but now you've got to prove that you were right.’ He told her that she had hit it ac- curately. “I'll get there yet,"’ he de- Clared. ‘‘And then you won't have to act unless you want to."" “What makes you suppose I won't always want to?” she asked perplex- edly. 4 “Simply because you're a woman first, and an actress afterward. Look at all the stage marriages you can think of and how long’ do they iast— happity, I mean—when both people are stars?” “Let's try to save enough money ¢ be married, anyway,” she suggesto “And after that we'll decide whether we're guing to be stars and bicker, or just second-rate, and polite to each other." HEY were radiantly happy when they learned that, for another season, at least, they could be together—again in stock; but even their happ:- ners couldn't prevent them from he- coming vaguely discouraged, after a few more months of earnest effort, by their failure of advancement. “It isn't your fault," sald Kennard, stoutly. “It's because you've never had a director with brains enough to bring you out.” “And it isn't your fault, either,” she insisted. ‘they xeep on making you do ‘George Friendwell,” when you ought to be doing a straight lead."’ Kennard put his arm around her. “But they car’t hold us back forever. And all this is valuable experience, she said slowly. “Only— sometimes { wish we were getting it In some other company.” Their eyes met, and he knew that she was thinking about Hartney, the actor- manager. Hartney was the very pattern of what an actor ought not to be, and no gentleman really is. He had made himself peculiarly offensive to Violet, and doubly objectionable to Kennard. Added to this, he was the man who had blocked their progress; te do him Justice, it was because he had put them down as waste material, “Yes,"" said Kennard reflectively. “Sooner or later I'm going to have to punch that man in the jaw,” She held tightly to him, stand “I oan it—I can stand anything—as as you're here. Promise me you'll keep your temper, please prom- long Jertant person trom next dovr—theise!"’ g&< pone TRO 1922, HE EVENING WORLD'S COMPLETE NOVELE pnard Left the Stac LX Ols? TIACSY A TAVEZ yy Violet Ke THE EVENING WORDD, SATURDAY, JUNE 24, TE NIL Te | ss ILLUSTRATED BY WILL B. JOHNSTONE’. He promised faithfully to keep tt, ‘but on the very morrow he broke his pledge. ‘They were rehearsing ‘Secret Ser- pair. alternately, until Violet, with tears Im her eyes, had f into the wings to hide her wrat’ chagrin. Kennard ‘was struggling for control of himself when Hartney addressed him with ‘his ‘usual pompous insolence. “Kerinard,"’ he said, ‘you've got to get over.this high-brow attitude of yours. Oh, we all know you're a col- lege man. You've advertised it enough! ‘But you've got to learn to read your lines the way I do, Lose yourself in the part! Forget it's a play, and let yourself go.” Kennard, who had been staring un- certainly after Violet, bit his wp. , “But, Mr. Hartney, if an actor really id forgét Himself, how could he help forgetting the audience too and turn- it? How coula he lot of his speeches other people their ing his back on help blending « and not giving cues? How could he lose himself without losing his audience too?” The hand. ladies and gentlemen, manager raised his “Now then, with your kind permission we'll have a lecture on the art of acting by one of the scintillating lights of the pro- fession. Pray go on, Mr, Kennard, we're all your pupils.” Kennard flushed. “I've heard plenty of actors talk about forgetting them- selves, Mr. Hartney, but I never yet saw one of them forget where the middle of the stage 1s—or the lime- light, either.” Hartney ed at him. “Very smart, very rt indeed, Get on with the scene. Where's your little friend?” It was the tone, more than the words, which brought Kennard to the limit of his endurance. He delib- erately knocked the man down, The actor-manager got up slowly, and pulled himself together. He sur- veyed K d, and spared a cynical @lance for Violet, who had ‘burried back to thélistage. “Both of you dan wash up—for good to-morrow night,’ He eald, © ‘I'll have your places filled by that time." Now, because the gil was In love, and thought only of the ‘s@7mfation which was now inevitable, she accused Kennard of breal his promise to her—and they momepont 9 the course of the quarrel they ‘made various statements which they didn't mean; and before they had a fair chance to forgive each other, they had parted. A week later, Violet ‘was playing ingenue parts in Toronto and Ken- nard was haunting the New York agencies. The news of his beliavior, however, had beaten him to the cit: and !t had arrived fm one-sided form. Three months went by before he could get an engagement, and when at last he put. his pen to a contract, he had committed himself to a solid year on the Pi.zifle Coast. YSTERIOUSLY, even to themselves, their quarrel widened by correspondence; they were still deeply in love, but pride was operating as an emergency brake, Their letters be- came more impersonal, and less and less frequent. It was five years be- fore they saw each other again; in the meantime Kennard, disheartened, and convinced that his father had been wise, had ceased to be an actor. He was a university man, a natural student, and he loved his own profes- sion as well as his futher had loved medicine; but for all his study and practice he seemed predestined to go on playing “George Friendwell,"' und nothing else, Then one of the smaller theatrical firms offe trial as a director; and beco vision and seff-training bh a very good director indeed, In fact, he was sv good that when he was hardly thirty he was hired by one of ever the best producing managers on {roadway. When he was given the script of his first play, the producer explained the cust to him: “Por the lvad we've engage! Her bert Hartney—I heard you two fel lows had some kind of a row once, but I guess you can get right, can’t you?'’ Kennard was thinking back over the along all di 1S COMPL Past five yeare—those years in which Hartney, a well known aotor, with friends on the Rialto, had spread the word that Kennard was unreliable, insubordinate, incompetent. Hartney had prejudiced managers against him. ft was Hartney, more than all other influences combined, who had forced him to say goodby to his great am- bitions, “Oh, yes,’’ he said, “we'll get along all right. Who @i@ you #ay plays op- Posite?* “It's a girl my brother found out on the pitcher and bowl cirewit. He says she’s a holy wonder. Her name is—let's see—Violet Dunn."' When Kennard got her address and went to congratulate her, he found her sweeter even than he had remem- bered her, But she received him as an old friend, rather than as a quon- dam lover. “T told you you'd come to New York," he said. “I told you it was nothing but a question of working un- der the right director, You must have found bir." She nodded. ‘*Yes, I did—I'm sorry you did not have better luck, Mau- rice.” ' “Luck had nothing to do with it.” “Oh, yes, it did, They never gave you a good part. Why, if you'd ever had a part like Hartney's, in this very piece we're going to do''—— He shrugged his shoulders. “How will you get along with Mr, Hartney?"' she asked, quickly. “Life's too short to rake all that up again, * * * I'm hired to put this play on; he's hired to act in It, The point Is, how will you get along with him yourself?" She smited faintly. ‘7+ doesn't take many years to jearn that if you want to get ahead you've got to forget @ good man) things. Of course, if you're “I take it that if you were a star you wouldn't play in the same com- rany with him? ‘ lame me? And then e> you blame me for not throwing away my one chance?" When he went away he was more In love than ever, but he told himself that Violet had forgotten, And, at that same moment Violet's lips wor trembling, and the half decade of sep- aration had telescoped into a single sterday, T the first rehearsal Hartney came forward with the ut- most nonchalance, “Hello, my boy, glad to see you. Great play we've got, isn’t it? A little teamwork and it's sure fire. LOVE AND SELF — SACRIFICE. And I don't suppose I need to tell you—do I—that my whole dramatic experience—and fnoldentally it be~ gan when you were wearing short pants—I put cheerfully at your dis- posal.” The play Was a romantic drama; a serious one im which Violet and Hart- ney carried the bull of the responst- bility, The larger part of Kennard's duty, then, was to interpret the scenes between them, and to create around them an atmosphere of idyllic sentiment. Even before that first rehearsal he had known that his task would put a heavy strain upon him; but It wasn't until he had seen Violet and Hartney together that he realized the full ex- tent of it, and yet these romantic situations were far too real to him— and his duty was to Increase the tempted to stalk Into the office and resign. Yet he had always said that Violet, with the proper direction, would be a star, and now, as her director, he could help 2 ae POP HE age. “HER PERFORMANCE WAS UN- EVEN, MECHANICAL, AND TO CAP THE CLIMAX SHE SHOWED TO THE WORST ADVANTAGE IN THE BEST SCENES.” her toward the triumph. Determinedly he put himself and his own reactions out of the problem; he tried to think of Hartney as nothing more than a flesh and blood puppet; his whole conzclousness was concentrated on Violet's success, It was a staggering blow to him, then, when he perceived that, unless something happened to transform her, she was certain to be coloriess in the part, Her performance was uneven, mechanical, there was no light and shade in it, and to cap the climax, she showed to the worst advantage in the best scene: “*Violet,"" he demanded, “what's the matter? What's holding you back now?"" She shopk her head, ‘I don't know. “Is it playing opposite Hartney?'* “T never even think about him!" “Is it my fault?” “Ob, no." “Well, what on earth is it, then? You can't seem to let yourself go." She smiled fecbly. ‘Wasn't that what you and Hartney had a fight about onc “Nol Hartney was talking about forgetting yourself; I'm talking about remembering yourself, and calling up the right emotions at the right time. You've got the emotions haven't your" She drew a long breath. ‘I don't know." “You did have—five years ago.” ELETTE Will B, Johnstone ’ A STORY IN WHICH A C ON THE STAIRS. tay if ine AT PLAYS A MOST IMPORTA‘ NT PART WORLD IN ADVANCE | suddenty, aa a ety one “Even if I did, they seem to be gone now—don't they?" E read a double meanitig into the question and took a few seconds to compose himself. Presently tie went on in a Slightly lower key, “Gone so far that you can't even play your biggest Scene that would make any reputation overnight. * * * A girl in love, ideatizing the man she’s in love with, making a demigod of hi all at once the whole thing breaks, and she's tneult- ed, broken hearted, hystertoal, distiin- sioned, furious!’ “I Just don’t feel it,” she said. know I'm no good. * * * know why." He moistened hix lips. ‘The devil of it ts that 1% to the man who's paying me.” He heard the quick intake of her breath. “You—you think they—they ought to let me go—and find some- body elne?"* ’ “I don’t want to tumble your dream around your ears like that,” he said huskily. “I'm going to see that you ®0 on for one appearance. I cun’t Promise you more.” And he walked swiftly away from her at the very moment when her spirit was “oming back to her eyes. His employer said to him, “How's the little Dunn girl coming along? 1 hear the ain’t up to the advertising.” ‘She'll do," ‘sald Kennard. “She'll @o us far as the tryout, anywi ‘The company went down to Atlantic City for the tryout; they were to open on Wednesday night, and on Tuesday they had the dress rehearsal. In the wings, Hartney took Kennard by the arm. “Well, my boy, I offered you the benefit of a lifelong experi- ence, and you didn't choose to take {t —but this th going to be & sad per- formance to-morrow night, Sad’s the word, The little girl's miseast.” or 1 don’t got @ rexponaibilfty Jt thing you like—silly, or right in a few days; Just can't—when it's #0 scream if he touched me.” Instantly, Kennard was You're up in it—and ite you can do. Please, If you Tn have hysterics the| minute touches me, It's only for —and maybe td-morrow, After T won't notice him.” to interview the as @ difficult situation to ; but the prodacer was old, wise in the capriciousness of “Sure,” he said. “That's all h If elie feels like that, You cam op to-night and to-morrow. Hartney I sald for you to do #0.” “She'll rise to the occasion,” said ta. Kennard. “Rise? You'd have to blow her up with dynamite.” “ae very much,” sald Kennard iy. He moved away and went out to sit in front and watch the ‘When it was over he was still think- ing Of what Hartney had said. He knew, with positive knowledge, that Violet had it im her to be ming- nificent; he was his brain to imagine what could have dried wp her ability, and what would revive it. And presently, he came to a dead standstill—drew a deep breath, hunted up Violet, and spoke to her in listlessly before the mirror. **Violet,"" he said, “look at mv.’* She obeyed, tardily; but when she with me—once—didn't you?"’ The color surged up in her cheeks. “Well?” “Tt didn't taks you tong to gst over it—did it?” § “How can I help knowing? I loved you. I loved you until T found out you weren't worth it. I didn't forget; I thought at least you had cared for me, ones, and thet was something. Love! Emotion! Bah!" She had risen to her feet; her hands were pressed to her heart; but Ken- nard was blind. ‘‘Emotion!** he said. “Why, that’s why you can’t act! You “Maurice !"" she “Oh, it isn't that T care 1’'m long past that; but out of pity for you—pity, mind you—T've on in this piece. only opportunity you've to-morrow night, producer comes down to see you well, that'll be twice I've lost good jobs on account of you. . . Do you know what you deserve?’ He took a quick step Yorward. and deliberately slapped her face, fury, heaving. “Muurice—you struck me! dared to strike me! You When I—when | was coming back to you—after five years! After five years of waiting for you and wanting you and praying for you. . . And you could talk to me like that-—and——” Her hands fell limply to her sides. “Oh, my God!” she sald brokenty, “And all I've given you—my whole heart—my whole thought—and afl I've dreamed about you—and the pedestal I put you on” She was shaking uncontrollably. “TL want you to go, Maurice. Do you hear me? Geo!" Kennard was holding to the back of a chair, ‘Violet, he said, ‘why don't you play your big scene some- thing like that?" The expression on her face changed for she saw that he was very white and unsteady. She drew back, gasping. “You see,” sald Kennard, ‘‘Hartney said to-night that it would take dyna- mite to rouse you—-and—he was right. Play the scene in that key, Violet, and you'#! be on Broadway the rest of your life. You see—TI did this I'd do anything to help you--be- cause I love you,”’ Fiven on the next afternoon she was still unnerved and supersensitive, and all at once she put ber hand op his wew i i F i i i g § ge Pi a i yy : ! é i i i i i i 88 i i t E 2 i BE a j i gf i Tey il i fi | i lit H | yu be “And give up $500 a week?"), “Your contract calls @ huncred. I'll make @ new one. Five hundred @| i Her eyes were very wide. most a''—— “Almost @ what?” ‘ "7 was gubig iv bay “loupinivon, * t—aln't it?" She shook her head. The producer walked over to the} window, and stood there, gazing down at the street. } “Well,” he said. at length, “Ken~ nard’s got something I never had, anyhow * * * T was wonderin* who the devil would ever have given) up $500—or $5 a week—for me.’ i} The confident “Now—wben did you get over the idea that you could have been ea actress, Mrs, Kennard? Or, as a r of fact, are you quite over Tt She glanced across the table at her husband, who was perhaps the est figure on the American She recalled once more papers had said about years ago. She looked up at Englishman, and laughed softly. “stn,” she said, “you ean‘t that I couldn't have been: an now, can you?” He leaned toward her paternally. “Why, bless your Weart, Chat proves my point, It's born im women to think you could act. , ‘That's what they all suy!” (Copyright. All Rights Print