The Cricket Part 46

"Aren't you nervous?" he inquired.

"Oh, no."

"I am. I'm so nervous I could scream!" he exploded. "I hate all this notoriety. They say the house will be packed."

"We always like a full house," she said, serenely.

"Suppose you flunk it!"

"But I won't!"--promptly.

He looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"If you could only be kept in a cage, in the cellar!"

She laughed gaily at that.

"Poor old Wally! Don't fret. You'll be very proud of me some day."

Max floated in.

"I thought I heard laughter."

"You did," Isabelle replied.

"Are you cool enough to laugh?"

"Quite. Wally is the only nervous one. Who is coming to dinner, Max?"

"Eighteen people. Christiansen for one."

"Oh, good!"

"When do you go to the theatre?"

"Seven."

"Come along, Wally, she ought to rest. For all our sakes, Isabelle, keep your head and don't make a fool of yourself."

"Much obliged," said Isabelle. "I take it you are wis.h.i.+ng me luck."

Wally kissed her cheek, and they went out.

"Poor dears," mused Isabelle, "it will be hard for them to accommodate themselves to my importance."

Then she gave herself up to dreams of triumph until it was time to go.

There was excitement in the air at the theatre. Voices were high, and eyes were bright. She was greeted loudly from open doors, as she went to her dressing room. Since the papers had boomed her, her position in the company had changed. Every one was dressed early and little knots of people discussed the big house, the critics, the chances of success for the play. It was a "strong" play, and, so far, the season had offered only trifles. It was too soon to know yet what the public appet.i.te craved.

"You got to change its meat. When it's fed up on crooks, ye got to give it s.e.x; when it turns against that, ye got to try comedy. _My_ opinion is, this is a comedy season," said the gentleman who played the butler--a part even more inconspicuous than Isabelle's. They all inquired the state of her pulse, and marvelled at her calm.

"She'll be a hit, or she'll be rotten," was the butler gentleman's comment.

"She can't do much in that maid's part."

"_Can't_ she? Remember the time they tried to bury Ethel Barrymore in a maid's part, when she was a kid? Took the show right away from John Drew!" said the authority.

Finally the curtain was up, and the play was on. Isabelle's initial appearance was late in the first act, when Cartel was building carefully the foundations of plot for the subsequent superstructure. Isabelle entered with a visitor's card in the middle of an important speech by Cartel. She had one line. To his intense fury, at sight of her the house burst into applause, and he had to halt his oration until she disappeared.

The play was a domestic drama, with the popular old-fas.h.i.+oned man, wed to the popular-new-fas.h.i.+oned woman who wants to "live her life." In the first act, the husband's point of view and character are expounded and contrasted with the woman's.

In a daring second act, the husband--on the casual invitation of an acquaintance to come along to a supper party in a certain man's rooms--finds his own wife acting as hostess. After the modern manner he breaks no furniture, makes no scene; but in tense tones, aside, he demands an explanation from her. She promises him an interview at their home, the following day, at five. He refuses to wait; she insists. He leaves. Events follow rapidly. The host has a stroke of apoplexy and dies. A muddle-headed guest summons a police ambulance instead of a hospital one. Police arrive, murder is suspected, every one is arrested.

There is a strong finale, with hints of astounding revelations to come--in act three, of course.

The third act opens with a very tense atmosphere. Horton (Cartel), the husband--unaware that his wife is under arrest, suspected of murder--comes to his home, from the club, where he has spent a sleepless night. It is nearly five o'clock, the hour of the interview. Business of excitement, pacing, looking at watch. He rings for Mary, who enters.

"Where is Mrs. Horton, Mary?" he asks.

"Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five o'clock, sir," answers Mary, who, according to the playwright, then goes out. But Mary did not exit.

"She hasn't been home all night, sir," she added suddenly, unexpectedly, "and it may be that she is in some trouble."

Cartel turned a fierce frown upon her.

"That will do, Mary," he said, threateningly.

Mary threw herself at his feet.

"Oh, Mr. Horton, don't be hard on her! She may have been misled by this man; but at heart she is a good woman--I could swear it."

Cartel was shaking with fury. He leaned over and grasped the prostrate Mary by the arm, so hard that he nearly cracked her bones. "Ouch!" she cried, "you're hurting me."

The audience slowly grasped the fact that this scene was a surprise to Cartel. It was so still you could have heard a sigh. Mary resisted any attempt to get her on her feet, and this side of carrying her off Cartel was helpless.

"If you'd only make a confidante of me, Mr. Horton, I could be a help to you in your hour of need," she cried pa.s.sionately.

"Get out!" hissed Cartel, _sotto voce_.

"It looks as if she committed that murder, but I have facts to prove that she did not."

The rest of the act was devoted to breaking the news of the murder to Horton. In one fell line this demon had demolished the play. The audience began to t.i.tter, to laugh, to roar! Cartel dragged Isabelle to the door, and literally flung her forth. But at the expression on her face the audience actually shouted with delight, they applauded deafeningly.

Cartel acted quickly. He went up stage, turned his back, and looked out of a prop. window, for what seemed a lifetime, till the hysterics out in front subsided. Finally it was still enough for him to take up the scene again. But at the dramatic entrance of his wife, fresh from a night in jail, they were off again. Cartel glared at them, and in a shamefaced sort of way, they subsided, and the play creaked on, as dead as last year's news.

Mary had a later entrance, which Cartel cut, but it necessitated the mention of her name, whereupon the monster mirth was loosed again.

Finally the curtain descended upon the tragedy. Mrs. Horton went into hysterics, and Mr. Horton, bathed in sweat, went to look for Isabelle.

The company stood about in frightened groups, but he did not see them.

He threw open her door without so much as a knock upon it, and he shouted so you could have heard him in Harlem.