to agree with him that every profession has its undesirables.
We spent days in climbing narrow stairs to look at dark, closet-like apertures with no ventilation; even the strength-sapping humidity of the streets seemed fresh in comparison. At last, we found something less undesirable than the others. The building was new, and the apartment in the rear gave upon a row of private houses with small yards; there were flowers and a few trees—little oases in a desert of brick and mortar. The janitor told us there were three rooms: the bedroom was an alcove affair, divided from the parlor by pea-green portières; the kitchen beyond was as large as the pantry in our house at home; and the furnishings—! The whole outfit might have been removed from a Seventh Avenue show-window, where they advertise "Complete furnished apartment for $49.99." The near-gold-leaf chairs were so frail that one was afraid to sit upon them. The general atmosphere of the parlor reminded me of the stage-settings one comes across in one-night-stand theatres. However, the vistas of the trees and flowers decided the momentous question. We paid a month's rent, then and there; it made a terrible hole in our last and only fifty-dollar bill, but neither of us worried much about it. For the next week the "show-business" was relegated to the background. We played "house" like two children; we arranged and rearranged the furniture, and Will made a comfortable divan from two packing cases. We went out to market on Ninth Avenue and Will carried the basket on his arm. Then we tried our hand at cooking; Will carried off the honours for coffee—and hard-boiled eggs. I washed and Will dried the dishes—I can see him now, with an apron tied high under his arm, declaiming Shakespeare, and juggling with the landlord's dishes.
Our greatest problem was the lack of bathing facilities. We solved it by bathing in the wash-tubs; to be sure it was a bit hazardous standing on a sloping bottom, in danger of falling out of the kitchen window if one leaned too much to the right, or of toppling over to the floor if veering a bit too much to the left. But it was a bath, and, as Will said, preferable to the communal affair in the boarding house.
The summer passed all too quickly. Those were happy, happy days.... Sometimes the money market was tight—very tight; especially when Will's father was careless about sending Will's allowance. I cried bitterly the first time Will went to a pawn-shop; it seemed so humiliating to have him do it. Will laughed, and said he regarded it as so much experience. Several times a week we donned our best clothes and made the rounds of the theatrical employment agencies. Will had had several offers during the summer, but we wanted a joint engagement; we had promised each other, when we married, that nothing should cause us to be separated. Will and I felt that to the enforced separation of married persons—the husband in one company, the wife in another—was due the great number of divorces in the theatrical profession. Our "star," when apprised of our marriage, had followed his good wishes and congratulations with a heart to heart talk with Will.
"It's all right, my boy," he said, "don't blame you a bit. She's a charming girl, and you're in love with her. If it were any other business but the show-business, I'd say you're a lucky dog, but—I'm going to be frank with you—a man or a woman in the theatrical business has no right to marry. It's all very lovely so long as you're together, but you can't be together. The chances are against it—you may be lucky enough to get a joint engagement one season, but the next season you're off on the road, while she's playing in New York or in another part of the country. And what does this separation lead to in the end? You're a human being; you crave society, companionship; gradually you become weaned away and the inevitable happens. It's propinquity and home ties which make marriage a success; the life of an actor precludes domesticity. The very exigencies of his profession are not only inconsistent with, but hostile to, the institution of marriage."
When Will retailed all this to me, it sounded very big and very dreadful—and also very vague. Any danger from separation seemed in the far, distant future.... We agreed that a man and wife who permitted themselves to become estranged because of temporary separations knew nothing of real love—such love as ours, at any rate.... And now, with the summer going on apace and no joint engagement in sight, the fear assumed a tangible shape, the dread of separation hung over me like a pall. Will tried to reassure me by saying it was still early, and that we would hold out.... I believed what he said with a child-like faith. Indeed, I am not so sure that in these days I did not worship Will with the same idolatry that I offered up to the Virgin Mary.... The whole world had merged into one being—my husband. My love for my husband was the absorbing passion of my life. Never happy in my home—my father had married a second wife—all the pent-up tenderness and passionate love found an outlet in my marriage. I sometimes wondered what had become of my ambition: this, too, had centred upon him. To be sure I meant to succeed as an actress, but I now thought of success only in the light of an assistance to him. It was already settled between us that I should be his leading lady, once he became a star. There should be no separations in our life....
The weeks flew by ... the summer waned. Will became less reassuring—he took on a worried look. I began to awaken of mornings with a sickening, intangible apprehension. After a while I stopped going to the agencies. It seemed so futile. And then, one day, late in the summer, when the theatres along Broadway had begun to remove the signboards from their entrances—it came. I knew something had happened when Will opened the door. Instead of kissing me at once, as was his habit, he passed on to the bedroom without looking at me, saying, "Hello, Girlie." There was always something infinitely tender in the way he said these words, but to-day there was a new note in his voice. It took a long time to put away his hat and cane; then he came out and kissed me.
I was peeling potatoes. He drew up a chair so that our knees met; then he laid a hand on each shoulder and his fingers gripped me. We looked into each other's eyes.... After a while I managed to say, "Well, dear?" ... and when he replied his voice seemed far away. I had the sense of returning consciousness after a blow.... I suppose I was a little dazed....
"Well, dear, I've signed with ——" (he named a boy-Hamlet, well known throughout the middle west), "the salary is good and I'll play the King in Hamlet, Buckingham in Richard, and, if we do the Merchant, I'll be cast for Gratiano.... The best thing about it is the possibility of coming into New York for a run. The star wants to play Hamlet on Broadway, and I've been told he's got good backing.... So, little girl.... it may not be for so long after all...."
Neither of us referred to the subject again that day; neither did we try to make believe at being cheerful. We understood each other's silence ... and respected it. Outside the rain poured. Will stood at the window looking out, but I am sure he did not see the rain....
All these details passed before my mind like moving-pictures. When at last I fell asleep, it was to dream the incongruous, disjointed stuff of which the actor's dreams are made; the sense of being late for a cue, or hearing the cue spoken, to realize that one is but half-dressed, or, again, to rush upon the scene only to find the lines obliterated from one's memory.... When I awoke, I heard Will in the kitchen; there was the smell of boiling coffee. For a moment there was no consciousness of my "douleureuse," then memory swept me like an engulfing wave. I cried aloud; then Will took me in his strong arms and kissed my swollen eyes, oh, so tenderly....
To recall the moments preceding and following Will's departure causes—even at this late day—a tightening around the heart. There were some red roses in a cheap glass vase on the mantle; Will had bought them from a street vendor that morning when he went out for the papers. He had pinned one in my dark hair.... After many false starts, and bidding me, "Cheer up—it won't be for long," he closed the door after him.... It was our first separation.
CHAPTER II
THE red roses had withered; their crisp petals lay scattered over the mantel and about the floor. Stooping to gather them, I was seized with a giddiness; it dawned on me that I had not eaten for—I did not know how long. I went into the kitchen; the table lay as we had left it that morning at breakfast. There was his chair and the morning paper. I didn't cry—I felt only a heaviness, a numbness. Mechanically I set about to put the house in order; I realized that I must get myself in hand if only to please Will. I even managed a laugh at my own stupidity when, after