PAGE 8
"The Play’s The Thing"
by
“And you have me,” he interrupted. But she smiled at him and shook her head. “You were real kind about the play,” said she, “but the play’s all over now. I guess you’d better tell your friend that I’ll take the position. I have been getting pretty tired of work in the store and I’d like to try this if he don’t mind.”
“Oh, but you mustn’t go into it like that,” Burgess protested, “just for the want of something better. Acting is an art–a great art–you must be glad and proud.”
“I’ll try it,” she said without enthusiasm. “If you feel that way about it I’ll try it. It can’t be worse than the store. The store is just horrible. Oh! Mr. Burgess you can’t think what it is to be Ophelia in the evening with princes loving you and then to be a cashier in the day-time that any fresh customer thinks he can get gay with. Maybe if I was an actress I could be Ophelia oftener. I’d do anything, Mr. Burgess, to get away from the store.”
Burgess did not answer immediately. Her earnestness had rather overcome her and he waited silently while she walked to the window, surreptitiously pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and conquered the sobs that threatened to choke her. Burgess watched her. The trimness of her figure, the absolute neatness and propriety of her dress, the poise and restraint of her manner. Then she turned and he rose to meet her.
“Mary,” said he, “you never in all the time I’ve known you have failed to do what I asked you. Will you do something for me now?”
“Yes, sir,” she answered simply.
“Then sit down in that chair and take this watch of mine in your hand and don’t say one single, solitary, lonely word for five minutes. No matter what happens: no matter what anyone says or does. Will you promise?”
“Yes, sir,” she answered again.
“Well then,” he began, “I know another man who wants you–this stage idea is not the only way out of the store. Remember you’re not to speak–this other man wants to marry you.”
A scarlet flush sprang to Mary’s face and slowly ebbed away again leaving her deadly pale. She kept her word in letter but hardly in spirit for she looked at him through tear-filled eyes, and shook her head.
“Of course you can’t be expected to take to the idea just at first,” said he, as if she had spoken, “but I want you to think it over. The man is a well-off, gentlemanly sort of chap. Miles too old for you of course–for you’re not twenty and he’s nearly forty–but I think he would make you happy. I know he’d try with all the strength that’s in him.”
Blank incredulity was on Mary’s face. She glanced at the watch and up at him and again she shook her head.
“This man,” Burgess went on, “is a friend of Miss Masters and it was through her that he first heard of the Lady Hyacinths. He was an idler then. A shiftless, worthless loafer, but the Lady Hyacinths made a man of him and he’s gone out and got a job.”
Comprehension overwhelming, overmastering, flashed into Mary’s eyes. But her promise held her silent and in her chair. Again it was as though she had spoken.
“Yes, I see you understand–you probably think of me as an old man past the time of love and yet I love you.”
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
“That’s all I have to offer you, sweetheart. Just love and my life,” and he in turn went to the window and looked out into the gathering dusk.
Mary sat absolutely still. She knew now that she was dreaming. Just so the dream had always run and when the five minutes were past, she rose and went to him: a true Ophelia, her arms all full of hyacinths.
“My honored Lord,” said she. He turned, and the dream held.