'But Doc, if you're disposing of 'em, what about the boys I really like--Douglas Fry and Harry Purvis?'
'Two light-waisted, both of 'em. And too self-satisfied. But there is a lot bigger threat.'
'Eh?'
'What you have to watch out for is your own friendly heart, and it makes you feel responsible to the Steady Old Dogs--the home-town boys--Fletcher and Hatch . . . and me.'
'Oh!'
'Yes. Haven't you sort of noticed that in my methodical aged way, I've been falling in love with you, Bethel?'
'Oh no. Oh, Doc--'
'I know, dear. I know all the lines. I've played 'em in Clyde Fitch and Charles Klein: You just felt that we were good friends. That you could depend on me. Can't it remain like that? . . . And it can, dear. I hope it will. I'm too old and too lazy to go and get lyric on you. I won't write you one single triolet--that's its name, ain't it? I'll always be here--holding the gloves and buying you hot dogs, and sending you home to bed early--and alone. But if you ever should get sick of these galloping young men, you might some day get interested in an old ham that's gone through about all the rough weather there is, and come out pretty cheerful, and even reasonably kind and honest--which is all the flowers I'm ever going to hand myself. Positively! And a fellow pro that would nurse your career and guide you and cue you--and of course the only reason any sensible actress ever gets married is to have somebody cue her.
'And as to what you would do for me--well, it would give me a youth I never really had.'
'How old are you, Doc? Please forgive me--'
'Sure. I'm fifty, last month. And you're twenty-two. I know all the arguments about May versus December--the poor kid sitting at home when she wants to go dancing, because Pop loves his pipe and slippers--though nowadays, seems like it's just the opposite: Pop wants to be out doing the rumba with the cuties, the old fool, and his girl wants to stay home and study her admiralty law. But when a couple are together, in the same art, like acting, or the same profession, then maybe age don't matter as much. You don't get along with Wintergeist just because he's only a year or a couple years older, but because you're playing his page. And that's all on the subject. Have a brandy? . . . No? I think I will, if you don't mind. Say, did you hear old Nooks squawking to-night? The steam pipes in his dressing-room were leaking. . . .'
She looked over at Vera Cross and Douglas Fry, young and credulous. Youth seemed to her not a quality, but an objective thing, not rosy-cheeked, as they said, and robust, but fragile and ardently to be protected and preserved.
And then the young Carl Frazee, of the Evening News, came charging up.
'There you are, Beth--I've been looking in every joint in town for you.'
And then she was young, too; a child escaped from the house on Sunday afternoon when Aunty Bess and Gramma have come visiting, and blessedly invited to a good, wholesome, violent game of cops and robbers.
'Did you give us a good review?' begged Bethel.
'Not ethics to ask, young Juliet. But I don't think you'll kick much, when you see it to-morrow.'
Carl had, instantly, Douglas, Vera, Tudor, Swenson about him, as well as Bethel and Doc Keezer. He effervescently told them that they were all (he included himself, and Tudor, who was thirty-five) young and brave and missionaries of culture. (As Carl shouted, Bethel was very pleased about it, and would have gone on touring in Shakespeare if she had had to walk.) They were more important than all the college presidents and bishops and gross newspaper owners--God what a stinker his boss was!--in the world. And Lord but did it save his (Carl's) life, when a real theatrical troupe came to this jungle, where you were expected to report the speeches of bathtub barons and the Da Vincis of insulated piping.
Yawning, Doc Keezer arose.
'Well, I'll leave you infants to build a chain of theatres. Just let me have a job. Will you see the baby here gets home safe, Carl?'
When Doc was gone, Bethel said defensively, 'He's really sweet. He's my Friar Laurence.'
'Look--look--something I want to ask you--c'm'ere,' yelled Carl, and dragged her out to the vestibule. He was only a little crazy. 'Don't you make any mistake about Doc Keezer!'
'I don't. He's safe as houses.'
'You're telling me! He prob'ly thinks the whole gang of us are a bunch of chicks who want to tell the old hens what a swell place a barnyard is, and he's prob'ly right. He's a professional. He'll put on a good show the night you play Arroyo City in a blizzard, yes, and old Ma Boyle will, too, when your Andy blows higher than a kite, and Mahala won't leave the hotel, and you, my precious, are too scared to speak. My guess, from the way you look at Andy, is that you're in love with him--or will be. But I'll bet that before this tour is over--and it'll last at least two years, no doubt of that--'
'You honestly think so?'
'I know it! You'll play clear out to L.A., and then prob'ly Australia.'
'That would be glorious.'
'Yuh, and before it's over, you'll marry Doc Keezer--I've see him look at you. You two will have an abandoned farm house in Connecticut, you and Doc, and I'll come stay with you, and Doc and I will write a play together--he'll supply all stagecrafts--exits are the damnedest things, in my experience!--and you'll star in it. But what a time I'm going to have keeping myself from taking you away from him, when the play is finished. What a wow the play's going to be--and you too, I mean. Come on, come on, urchin, we can't keep those people waiting all night, you know, and I want to tell Doug about how to stage a Carlo van Loo comedy!'
And by this strident egotism of Youth, it is regretfully to be reported that Bethel was not shocked at all.
When Carl escorted her home--talking--he insisted on peeping into the Pocahontas Room of the Buckingham-Bradley, an affair of black-and-gold tiled walls, and lights that shifted from rose to saffron to green, and the smart young things of Belluca moving smoothly and slowly in what they thought to be a dance. And instantly she saw Iris moving so with Zed; they were cheek to cheek, and Iris's head was tilted back, her eyes closed, her eyelids like little mounds of pale blue silk.
The wordly wise Carl Frazee followed her look, and pontificated, 'And thank God, in marrying you Doc will keep you from ever falling for that guy Wintergeist there, who's too bumptious to live. Modesty is so important, don't you think?'
'Oh yes!' said the young Bethel.
XXV
In the enterprising city of Belluca, the 'morning' papers appeared at ten-thirty the night before, the 'evening' papers at ten in the morning. The company had an informal invitation to be in Andy's suite in the Buckingham at ten on the morning after the opening, to see the reviews by Carl Frazee and Ted Gronitz in the Evening News and Daily Republican, and Tertius Tully had promised to wangle an advance proof from the Morning Herald, which would be of supreme importance (Tertius explained) because it would be by Professor Stanley Thrush, of the English Department of the University of Belluca.