Kitty contemplated the scene with a mind equally divided between fear and anger. What should she do if he should so speak to her? Like the others, no doubt, smile sheepishly and obey him. But she did not like to believe it. She felt that the independence which she had known from babyhood would assert itself, and that she would talk back to him, even as Hattie Sterling did. She felt scared and discouraged, but every now and then her friend smiled encouragingly upon her across the ranks of moving singers.
Finally, however, her thoughts were broken in upon by hearing Mr. Martin cry: “Oh, quit, quit, and go rest yourselves, you ancient pieces of hickory, and let me forget you for a minute before I go crazy. Where’s that new girl now?”
Kitty rose and went toward him, trembling so that she could hardly walk.
“What can you do?”
“I can sing,” very faintly.
“Well, if that’s the voice you’re going to sing in, there won’t be many that’ll know whether it’s good or bad. Well, let’s hear something. Do you know any of these?”
And he ran over the titles of several songs. She knew some of them, and he selected one. “Try this. Here, Tom, play it for her.”
It was an ordeal for the girl to go through. She had never sung before at anything more formidable than a church concert, where only her immediate acquaintances and townspeople were present. Now to sing before all these strange people, themselves singers, made her feel faint and awkward. But the courage of desperation came to her, and she struck into the song. At the first her voice wavered and threatened to fail her. It must not. She choked back her fright and forced the music from her lips.
When she was done, she was startled to hear Martin burst into a raucous laugh. Such humiliation! She had failed, and instead of telling her, he was bringing her to shame before the whole company. The tears came into her eyes, and she was about giving way when she caught a reassuring nod and smile from Hattie Sterling, and seized on this as a last hope.
“Haw, haw, haw!” laughed Martin, “haw, haw, haw! The little one was scared, see? She was scared, d’ you understand? But did you see the grit she went at it with? Just took the bit in her teeth and got away. Haw, haw, haw! Now, that’s what I like. If all you girls had that spirit, we could do something in two weeks. Try another one, girl.”
Kitty’s heart had suddenly grown light. She sang the second one better because something within her was singing.
“Good!” said Martin, but he immediately returned to his cold manner. “You watch these girls close and see what they do, and tomorrow be prepared to go into line and move as well as sing.”
He immediately turned his attention from her to the chorus, but no slight that he could inflict upon her now could take away the sweet truth that she was engaged and tomorrow would begin work. She wished she could go over and embrace Hattie Sterling. She thought kindly of Joe, and promised herself to give him a present out of her first month’s earnings.
On the first night of the show pretty little Kitty Hamilton was pointed out as a girl who wouldn’t be in the chorus long. The mother, who was soon to be Mrs. Gibson, sat in the balcony, a grieved, pained look on her face. Joe was in a front row with some of the rest of the gang. He took many drinks between the acts, because he was proud.
Mr. Thomas was there. He also was proud, and after the performance he waited for Kitty at the stage door and went forward to meet her as she came out. The look she gave him stopped him, and he let her pass without a word.
“Who’d ’a’ thought,” he mused, “that the kid had that much nerve? Well, if they don’t want to find out things, what do they come to N’Yawk for? It ain’t nobody’s old Sunday-school picnic. Guess I got out easy, anyhow.”
Hattie Sterling took Joe home in a hansom.
“Say,” she said, “if you come this way for me again, it’s all over, see? Your little sister’s a comer, and I’ve got to hustle to keep up with her.”
Joe growled and fell asleep in his chair. One must needs have a strong head or a strong will when one is the brother of a celebrity and would celebrate the distinguished one’s success.
XIII
The Oakleys
A year after the arrest of Berry Hamilton, and at a time when New York had shown to the eyes of his family so many strange new sights, there were few changes to be noted in the condition of affairs at the Oakley place. Maurice Oakley was perhaps a shade more distrustful of his servants, and consequently more testy with them. Mrs. Oakley was the same acquiescent woman, with unbounded faith in her husband’s wisdom and judgment. With complacent minds both went their ways, drank their wine, and said their prayers, and wished that brother Frank’s five years were past. They had letters from him now and then, never very cheerful in tone, but always breathing the deepest love and gratitude to them.
His brother found deep cause for congratulation in the tone of these epistles.
“Frank is getting down to work,” he would cry exultantly. “He is past the first buoyant enthusiasm of youth. Ah, Leslie, when a man begins to be serious, then he begins to be something.” And her only answer would be, “I wonder, Maurice, if Claire Lessing will wait for him?”
The two had frequent questions to answer as to Frank’s
