Jadwin laughed, and leaning over, put his fingers upon Cressler’s breast, as though turning off a switch.
“Now, Miss Dearborn,” he announced, “we’ve shut him off. Charlie means all right, but now and then someone brushes against him and opens that switch.”
Cressler, good-humouredly laughed with the others, but Laura’s smile was perfunctory and her eyes were grave. But there was a diversion. While the others had been talking the rehearsal had proceeded, and now Page beckoned to Laura from the far end of the parlor, calling out:
“Laura—Beatrice, it’s the third act. You are wanted.”
“Oh, I must run,” exclaimed Laura, catching up her playbook. “Poor Monsieur Gerardy—we must be a trial to him.”
She hurried across the room, where the coach was disposing the furniture for the scene, consulting the stage directions in his book:
“Here the kitchen table, here the old-fashioned writing-desk, here the armoire with practicable doors, here the window. Soh! Who is on? Ah, the young lady of the sick nose, Marion. She is discovered—knitting. And then the duchess—later. That’s you Mademoiselle Dearborn. You interrupt—you remember. But then you, ah, you always are right. If they were all like you. Very well, we begin.”
Creditably enough the Gretry girl read her part, Monsieur Gerardy interrupting to indicate the crossings and business. Then at her cue, Laura, who was to play the role of the duchess, entered with the words:
“I beg your pardon, but the door stood open. May I come in?”
Monsieur Gerardy murmured:
“Elle est vraiment superbe.”
Laura to the very life, to every little trick of carriage and manner was the highborn gentlewoman visiting the home of a dependent. Nothing could have been more dignified, more gracious, more gracefully condescending than her poise. She dramatised not only her role, but the whole of her surroundings. The interior of the little cottage seemed to define itself with almost visible distinctness the moment she set foot upon the scene.
Gerardy tiptoed from group to group, whispering:
“Eh? Very fine, our duchess. She would do well professionally.”
But Mrs. Wessels was not altogether convinced. Her eyes following her niece, she said to Corthell:
“It’s Laura’s ‘grand manner.’ My word, I know her in that part. That’s the way she is when she comes down to the parlor of an evening, and Page introduces her to one of her young men.”
“I nearly die,” protested Page, beginning to laugh. “Of course it’s very natural I should want my friends to like my sister. And Laura comes in as though she were walking on eggs, and gets their names wrong, as though it didn’t much matter, and calls them Pinky when their name is Pinckney, and don’t listen to what they say, till I want to sink right through the floor with mortification.”
In haphazard fashion the rehearsal wore to a close. Monsieur Gerardy stormed and fretted and insisted upon repeating certain scenes over and over again. By ten o’clock the actors were quite worn out. A little supper was served, and very soon afterward Laura made a move toward departing. She was wondering who would see her home, Landry, Jadwin, or Sheldon Corthell.
The day had been sunshiny, warm even, but since nine o’clock the weather had changed for the worse, and by now a heavy rain was falling. Mrs. Cressler begged the two sisters and Mrs. Wessels to stay at her house over night, but Laura refused. Jadwin was suggesting to Cressler the appropriateness of having the coupe brought around to take the sisters home, when Corthell came up to Laura.
“I sent for a couple of hansoms long since,” he said. “They are waiting outside now.” And that seemed to settle the question.
For all Jadwin’s perseverance, the artist seemed—for this time at least—to have the better of the situation.
As the goodbyes were being said at the front door Page remarked to Landry:
“You had better go with us as far as the house, so that you can take one of our umbrellas. You can get in with Aunt Wess’ and me. There’s plenty of room. You can’t go home in this storm without an umbrella.”
Landry at first refused, haughtily. He might be too poor to parade a lot of hansom cabs around, but he was too proud, to say the least, to ride in ’em when someone else paid.
Page scolded him roundly. What next? The idea. He was not to be so completely silly. She didn’t propose to have the responsibility of his catching pneumonia just for the sake of a quibble.
“Some people,” she declared, “never seemed to be able to find out that they are grown up.”
“Very well,” he announced, “I’ll go if I can tip the driver a dollar.”
Page compressed her lips.
“The man that can afford dollar tips,” she said, “can afford to hire the cab in the first place.”
“Seventy-five cents, then,” he declared resolutely. “Not a cent less. I should feel humiliated with any less.”
“Will you please take me down to the cab, Landry Court?” she cried. And without further comment Landry obeyed.
“Now, Miss Dearborn, if you are ready,” exclaimed Corthell, as he came up. He held the umbrella over her head, allowing his shoulders to get the drippings.
They cried goodbye again all around, and the artist guided her down the slippery steps. He handed her carefully into the hansom, and following, drew down the glasses.
Laura settled herself comfortably far back in her corner, adjusting her skirts and murmuring:
“Such a wet
