Day by day as the work progressed, and the actors came to know their lines, Thyrsis' excitement grew. The great machine was running, he was getting some sense of the power of it! And new aspects of it were revealed to him; there came the composer who was to do the incidental music, and the orchestra-leader who was to conduct it; there came the costume-designer and the scene-painter, and even the press-agent who was to "boost" the play, and wanted picturesque details about the author's life. Corydon and Thyrsis were invited to go with Mr. Tilford to select a wig, and with Mr. Tapping to see the carpenters who were building the vari-
cms "sets", in a big loft over near the North River. As the two walked home each day after these adventures, it was all they could do to keep from hugging each other on the street.
It was a thing of especial moment to Thyrsis, because it was the first time in his life that his art had received any assistance from the outside world—the first time this world had done anything but scold at him and mock him. Here at last was recognition—here was success! Here were material things submitting themselves to his vision, coming to him humbly to be taught, and to co-operate in the creation of beauty ! So Thyrsis caught sudden glimpses of what his life might have been. He was like a man who had been chained in a black dungeon, and who now gets sight of the green earth and the blue sky, and smells the perfume of the flowers and hears the singing of the birds. With forces such as this at his command, the power of his vision \vould be multiplied tenfold; and he was transported with the delight of the discovery, he and Corydon found their souls once more in this new hope.
So out of these moods there began the burgeoning of new plans in his mind. Even amid the rush of rehearsals, he was dreaming of other things to write; some time before "The Genius" had reached the public, he had finished the writing of "The Utopians" -that fragment of a vision which was perhaps the greatest thing he ever did, and certainly the most characteristic.
§ 8. As usual, the immediate occasion of the writing was trivial enough. It was his "leading lady" who was responsible for it. Miss Lewis had taken a curious fancy to Thyrsis—he was a new type to her, and it pleased her to explore him. "How in the world
did you ever get him to marry you?" she would exclaim to Corydon. "I could as soon imagine a marble statue making love to me!" And she told others about this strange poet, who was obviously almost starving, and yet had refused to let Richard Haberton revise his play for him, and had all but refused to let Robertson Jones, Inc., produce it. Before long she came to Thyrsis to say that one of her friends desired to meet him, and would he come to a supper-party.
Thyrsis heard this with perplexity.
"A supper-party !" he exclaimed. "But I can't!"
"Why not?"
"Why—I have no clothes."
"Nobody expects a poet to have clothes," laughed Miss Lewis. "Come in the garments of your fancy. And besides, Barry's a true Bohemian."
Barry Creston, the giver of this party, was one of the sons of "Dan" Creston, the mine-owner and "railroad-king", who a short while before had been elected senator from a Western state under circumstances of great scandal. "The old man's a hard character, I guess," said Miss Lewis; "but you must not believe all you read in the papers about Barry."
"I never read anything about him," said the other; and so Miss Lewis went on to explain that Griswold, the Wall Street plunger, had got a divorce from his wife after throwing her into Barry's arms ; and that Barry's sister had married an Austrian arch-duke who had maltreated her, and that Barry had kicked him out of a hotel-window in Paris.
This invitation was a cause of much discomfort to Thyrsis. He had not come to the point where he was even curious about the life of the Barry Crestons of the world ; and yet he did not like to hurt Miss Lewis'
feelings. She made it evident to him that she was determined to exhibit her "lion"; and so he said "all right."
The supper party was at the Cafe de Boheme, which was an Aladdin's palace buried underground beneath a building in the "Tenderloin". Fountains splashed in marble basins, and birds sang amid the branches of tropical flowering trees, while on a little stage a man in the costume and character of a Paris apache sang a song of ferocious cynicism. And after him came a Japanese juggler of prodigious swiftness, and then a fat German woman in peasant guise who sang folksongs, and wound up with "O, du lieber Augustin!" After which the company joined in the chorus of "Funi-culi, funicula" and "Gaudeamus igitur" -for the patrons of the "Boheme" were nothing if they were not cosmopolitan.
Cosmopolitan also was the company at Barry Cres-ton's table. On one side of Thyrsis was Miss Lewis, and on the other was Mile. Armand, the dancer who had set New York in a furore. Opposite to her was Scarpi, the famous baritone; and then there was Massey, a sculptor from Paris, and Miss Rita Seton, of the "Red Hussars" Company, and a Miss Raymond, a gorgeous creature with a red flamingo feather in her hat, who had been Massey's model for his sensational figure of "Aurora".
Finally there was Barry Creston himself: a new type, and a disconcerting one. He was not at all the "gilded youth" whom Thyrsis had expected to find; he was a man of about thirty, widely cultured, urbane and gracious in his manner, and quite evidently a man of force. He was altogether free from that crude egotism which Thyrsis had found to be the most prominent
characteristic of the American man of wealth. He spoke in French with Arm and and in Italian with Scarpi and in German with the head-waiter who worshipped before him; and yet one did not feel that there was any ostentation about it—all this was his monde. And although he exhaled an atmosphere of vast wealth, this, too, seemed a matter of course; he assumed that you also were provided with unlimited funds—that all the world, in fact, was in the same fortunate case. Evidently he was well-known at the "Boheme", for the waiters gathered like flies around the honey-pot, and the august head-waiter himself took the order, and beamed his approval at Barry's selections. So presently there flowed in a stream of costly viands, served in outre and fantastic fashion—many of them things not known even by name to Thyrsis. There were costly wines as well, and at the end an ice in the shape of a great basket of fruit, wonderfully carved and colored like life, resting upon a slab of ice, which in turn was set in a silver tray with handles.
Thyrsis was dazed at all this waste, and at the uproar in the place, where dozens of other parties were squandering money in the same blind fashion, and all laughing, chatting, joining in the choruses with the performers on the stage. Now and then he would catch a little of his host's conversation, which was of all the capitals of Europe, and of art-worlds, the very existence of which was unknown to him. And then, on his left hand, there was Mile. Armand, deftly picking off the leaves of an artichoke and dipping them into mayonnaise, and saying in her little bird's voice, "They tell me, Monsieur, that you have du genie. Oh, you should go to Paree to live—it is not here that one appreciates du genie!" And, then while Thyrsis was working out
an explanation of his failure to visit Paris, some one in the cafe caught sight of Scarpi, and there was a general call for him; and according to the genial custom of the "Boheme" he stood up, amid tumultuous applause, and sang one of his own rollicking songs.
So the revelry went forward, while Thyrsis marvelled, and tried to hide his pain. There could be no question of any enjoyment for him—when he knew that the cost of this affair would have paid all his expenses for a winter! Doubtless what Barry Creston spent for his cigars would have saved Thyrsis and his family from misery all their lives; and he wondered if the man would have cared had he known. Barry was one of the princes of the new dispensation; and sometimes princes were compassionate, Thyrsis reflected. Apparently this one was all urbanity and charm, having no thought in life save to play the perfect host to brilliant artists and demi-mondaines, and to skim the cream off the top of civilization.