The Pit

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Black coffee had just been served. It was the occasion of the third
rehearsal for the play which was to be given for the benefit of the
hospital ward for Jadwin's mission children, and Mrs. Cressler had
invited the members of the company for dinner. Just now everyone
awaited the arrival of the "coach," Monsieur Gerardy, who was always
late.

"To my notion," observed Corthell, "the water-color that pretends to
be anything more than a sketch over-steps its intended limits. The
elaborated water-color, I contend, must be judged by the same
standards as an oil painting. And if that is so, why not have the
oil painting at once?"

"And with all that, if you please, not an egg on the place for
breakfast," declared the Gretry girl in her thin voice. She was
constrained, embarrassed. Of all those present she was the only one
to mistake the character of the gathering and appear in formal
costume. But one forgave Isabel Gretry such lapses as these.
Invariably she did the wrong thing; invariably she was out of place
in the matter of inadvertent speech, an awkward accident, the wrong
toilet. For all her nineteen years, she yet remained the hoyden,
young, undeveloped, and clumsy.

"Never an egg, and three thousand hens in the runs," she continued.
"Think of that! The Plymouth Rocks had the pip. And the others, my
lands! I don't know. They just didn't lay."

"Ought to tickle the soles of their feet," declared Landry with
profound gravity.

"Tickle their feet!"

"Best thing in the world for hens that don't lay. It sort of stirs
them up. Oh, every one knows that."

"Fancy now! I'll write to Aunt Alice to-morrow."

Cressler clipped the tip of a fresh cigar, and, turning to Curtis
Jadwin, remarked:

"I understand that Leaycraft alone lost nearly fifteen thousand."

He referred to Jadwin's deal in May wheat, the consummation of which
had been effected the previous week. Squarely in the midst of the
morning session, on the day following the "short" sale of Jadwin's
million of bushels, had exploded the news of the intended action of
the French chamber. Amid a tremendous clamour the price fell. The
Bulls were panic-stricken. Leaycraft the redoubtable was overwhelmed
at the very start. The Porteous trio heroically attempted to
shoulder the wheat, but the load was too much. They as well gave
ground, and, bereft of their support, May wheat, which had opened at
ninety-three and five-eighths to ninety-two and a half, broke with
the very first attack to ninety-two, hung there a moment, then
dropped again to ninety-one and a half, then to ninety-one. Then, in
a prolonged shudder of weakness, sank steadily down by quarters to
ninety, to eighty-nine, and at last--a final collapse--touched
eighty-eight cents. At that figure Jadwin began to cover. There was
danger that the buying of so large a lot might bring about a rally
in the price. But Gretry, a consummate master of Pit tactics, kept
his orders scattered and bought gradually, taking some two or three
days to accumulate the grain. Jadwin's luck--the never-failing
guardian of the golden wings--seemed to have the affair under
immediate supervision, and reports of timely rains in the wheat belt
kept the price inert while the trade was being closed. In the end
the "deal" was brilliantly successful, and Gretry was still
chuckling over the set-back to the Porteous gang. Exactly the amount
of his friend's profits Jadwin did not know. As for himself, he had
received from Gretry a check for fifty thousand dollars, every cent
of which was net profit.

"I'm not going to congratulate you," continued Cressler. "As far as
that's concerned, I would rather you had lost than won--if it would
have kept you out of the Pit for good. You're cocky now. I
know--good Lord, don't I know. I had my share of it. I know how a
man gets drawn into this speculating game."

"Charlie, this wasn't speculating," interrupted Jadwin. "It was a
certainty. It was found money. If I had known a certain piece of
real estate was going to appreciate in value I would have bought it,
wouldn't I?"

"All the worse, if it made it seem easy and sure to you. Do you
know," he added suddenly. "Do you know that Leaycraft has gone to
keep books for a manufacturing concern out in Dubuque?"

Jadwin pulled his mustache. He was looking at Laura Dearborn over
the heads of Landry and the Gretry girl.

"I didn't suppose he'd be getting measured for a private yacht," he
murmured. Then he continued, pulling his mustache vigorously:

"Charlie, upon my word, what a beautiful--what beautiful hair that
girl has!"

Laura was wearing it very high that evening, the shining black coils
transfixed by a strange hand-cut ivory comb that had been her
grandmother's. She was dressed in black taffeta, with a single great
cabbage-rose pinned to her shoulder. She sat very straight in her
chair, one hand upon her slender hip, her head a little to one side,
listening attentively to Corthell.

By this time the household of the former rectory was running
smoothly; everything was in place, the Dearborns were "settled," and
a routine had begun. Her first month in her new surroundings had
been to Laura an unbroken series of little delights. For formal
social distractions she had but little taste. She left those to
Page, who, as soon as Lent was over, promptly became involved in a
bewildering round of teas, "dancing clubs," dinners, and theatre
parties. Mrs. Wessels was her chaperone, and the little middle-aged
lady found the satisfaction of a belated youth in conveying her
pretty niece to the various functions that occupied her time. Each
Friday night saw her in the gallery of a certain smart dancing
school of the south side, where she watched Page dance her way from
the "first waltz" to the last figure of the german. She counted the
couples carefully, and on the way home was always able to say how
the attendance of that particular evening compared with that of the
former occasion, and also to inform Laura how many times Page had
danced with the same young man.

Laura herself was more serious. She had begun a course of reading;
no novels, but solemn works full of allusions to "Man" and
"Destiny," which she underlined and annotated. Twice a week--on
Mondays and Thursdays--she took a French lesson. Corthell managed to
enlist the good services of Mrs. Wessels and escorted her to
numerous piano and 'cello recitals, to lectures, to concerts. He
even succeeded in achieving the consecration of a specified
afternoon once a week, spent in his studio in the Fine Arts'
Building on the Lake Front, where he read to them "Saint Agnes Eve,"
"Sordello," "The Light of Asia"--poems which, with their
inversions, obscurities, and astonishing arabesques of rhetoric,
left Aunt Wess' bewildered, breathless, all but stupefied.

Laura found these readings charming. The studio was beautiful,
lofty, the light dim; the sound of Corthell's voice returned from
the thick hangings of velvet and tapestry in a subdued murmur. The
air was full of the odor of pastilles.

Laura could not fail to be impressed with the artist's tact, his
delicacy. In words he never referred to their conversation in the
foyer of the Auditorium; only by some unexplained subtlety of
attitude he managed to convey to her the distinct impression that he
loved her always. That he was patient, waiting for some indefinite,
unexpressed development.

Landry Court called upon her as often as she would allow. Once he
had prevailed upon her and Page to accompany him to the matinee to
see a comic opera. He had pronounced it "bully," unable to see that
Laura evinced only a mild interest in the performance. On each
propitious occasion he had made love to her extravagantly. He
continually protested his profound respect with a volubility and
earnestness that was quite uncalled for.

But, meanwhile, the situation had speedily become more complicated
by the entrance upon the scene of an unexpected personage. This was
Curtis Jadwin. It was impossible to deny the fact that "J." was in
love with Mrs. Cressler's protegee. The business man had none of
Corthell's talent for significant reticence, none of his tact, and
older than she, a man-of-the-world, accustomed to deal with
situations with unswerving directness, he, unlike Landry Court, was
not in the least afraid of her. From the very first she found
herself upon the defensive. Jadwin was aggressive, assertive, and
his addresses had all the persistence and vehemence of veritable
attack. Landry she could manage with the lifting of a finger,
Corthell disturbed her only upon those rare occasions when he made
love to her. But Jadwin gave her no time to so much as think of
finesse. She was not even allowed to choose her own time and place
for fencing, and to parry his invasion upon those intimate personal
grounds which she pleased herself to keep secluded called upon her
every feminine art of procrastination and strategy.

He contrived to meet her everywhere. He impressed Mrs. Cressler as
auxiliary into his campaign, and a series of rencontres followed one
another with astonishing rapidity. Now it was another opera party,
now a box at McVicker's, now a dinner, or more often a drive through
Lincoln Park behind Jadwin's trotters. He even had the Cresslers and
Laura over to his mission Sunday-school for the Easter festival, an
occasion of which Laura carried away a confused recollection of
enormous canvas mottoes, that looked more like campaign banners than
texts from the Scriptures, sheaves of calla lilies, imitation bells
of tin-foil, revival hymns vociferated with deafening vehemence from
seven hundred distended mouths, and through it all the disagreeable
smell of poverty, the odor of uncleanliness that mingled strangely
with the perfume of the lilies and the aromatic whiffs from the
festoons of evergreen.

Thus the first month of her new life had passed Laura did not
trouble herself to look very far into the future. She was too much
amused with her emancipation from the narrow horizon of her New
England environment. She did not concern herself about consequences.
Things would go on for themselves, and consequences develop without
effort on her part. She never asked herself whether or not she was
in love with any of the three men who strove for her favor. She was
quite sure she was not ready--yet--to be married. There was even
something distasteful in the idea of marriage. She liked Landry
Court immensely; she found the afternoons in Corthell's studio
delightful; she loved the rides in the park behind Jadwin's horses.
She had no desire that any one of these affairs should exclude the
other two. She wished nothing to be consummated. As for love, she
never let slip an occasion to shock Aunt Wess' by declaring:

"I love--nobody. I shall never marry."

Page, prim, with great parades of her ideas of "good form," declared
between her pursed lips that her sister was a flirt. But this was
not so. Laura never manoeuvered with her lovers, nor intrigued to
keep from any one of them knowledge of her companionship with the
other two. So upon such occasions as this, when all three found
themselves face to face, she remained unperturbed.

At last, towards half-past eight, Monsieur Gerardy arrived. All
through the winter amateur plays had been in great favor, and
Gerardy had become, in a sense, a fad. He was in great demand.
Consequently, he gave himself airs. His method was that of severity;
he posed as a task-master, relentless, never pleased, hustling the
amateur actors about without ceremony, scolding and brow-beating. He
was a small, excitable man who wore a frock-coat much too small for
him, a flowing purple cravatte drawn through a finger ring, and
enormous cuffs set off with huge buttons of Mexican onyx. In his
lapel was an inevitable carnation, dried, shrunken, and lamentable.
He was redolent of perfume and spoke of himself as an artist. He
caused it to be understood that in the intervals of "coaching
society plays" he gave his attention to the painting of landscapes.
Corthell feigned to ignore his very existence.

The play-book in his hand, Monsieur Gerardy clicked his heels in the
middle of the floor and punctiliously saluted everyone present,
bowing only from his shoulders, his head dropping forward as if
propelled by successive dislocations of the vertebrae of his neck.

He explained the cause of his delay. His English was without accent,
but at times suddenly entangled itself in curious Gallic
constructions.

"Then I propose we begin at once," he announced. "The second act
to-night, then, if we have time, the third act--from the book. And I
expect the second act to be letter-perfect--let-ter-per-fect. There
is nothing there but that." He held up his hand, as if to refuse to
consider the least dissention. "There is nothing but that--no other
thing."

All but Corthell listened attentively. The artist, however, turning
his back, had continued to talk to Laura without lowering his tone,
and all through Monsieur Gerardy's exhortation his voice had made
itself heard. "Management of light and shade" ... "color scheme" ...
"effects of composition."

Monsieur Gerardy's eye glinted in his direction. He struck his
play-book sharply into the palm of his hand.

"Come, come!" he cried. "No more nonsense. Now we leave the girls
alone and get to work. Here is the scene. Mademoiselle Gretry, if I
derange you!" He cleared a space at the end of the parlor, pulling
the chairs about. "Be attentive now. Here"--he placed a chair at his
right with a flourish, as though planting a banner--"is the porch of
Lord Glendale's country house."

"Ah," murmured Landry, winking solemnly at Page, "the chair is the
porch of the house."

"And here," shouted Monsieur Gerardy, glaring at him and slamming
down another chair, "is a rustic bench and practicable table set for
breakfast."

Page began to giggle behind her play-book. Gerardy, his nostrils
expanded, gave her his back. The older people, who were not to take
part--Jadwin, the Cresslers, and Aunt Wess'--retired to a far
corner, Mrs. Cressler declaring that they would constitute the
audience.

"On stage," vociferated Monsieur Gerardy, perspiring from his
exertions with the furniture. "'Marion enters, timid and hesitating,
L. C.' Come, who's Marion? Mademoiselle Gretry, if you please, and
for the love of God remember your crossings. Sh! sh!" he cried,
waving his arms at the others. "A little silence if you please. Now,
Marion."

Isabel Gretry, holding her play-book at her side, one finger marking
the place, essayed an entrance with the words:

"'Ah, the old home once more. See the clambering roses have--'"

But Monsieur Gerardy, suddenly compressing his lips as if in a
heroic effort to repress his emotion, flung himself into a chair,
turning his back and crossing his legs violently. Miss Gretry
stopped, very much disturbed, gazing perplexedly at the coach's
heaving shoulders.

There was a strained silence, then:

"Isn't--isn't that right?"

As if with the words she had touched a spring, Monsieur Gerardy
bounded to his feet.

"Grand God! Is that left-centre where you have made the entrance? In
fine, I ask you a little--_is_ that left-centre? You have come in by
the rustic bench and practicable table set for breakfast. A fine
sight on the night of the performance that. Marion climbs over the
rustic breakfast and practicable--over the rustic bench and
practicable table, ha, ha, to make the entrance." Still holding the
play-book, he clapped hands with elaborate sarcasm. "Ah, yes, good
business that. That will bring down the house."

Meanwhile the Gretry girl turned again from left-centre.

"'Ah, the old home again. See--'"

"Stop!" thundered Monsieur Gerardy. "Is that what you call timid and
hesitating? Once more, those lines.... No, no. It is not it at all.
More of slowness, more of--Here, watch me."

He made the entrance with laborious exaggeration of effect, dragging
one foot after another, clutching at the palings of an imaginary
fence, while pitching his voice at a feeble falsetto, he quavered:

"'Ah! The old home--ah ... once more. See--' like that," he cried,
straightening up. "Now then. We try that entrance again. Don't come
on too quick after the curtain. Attention. I clap my hands for the
curtain, and count three." He backed away and, tucking the play-book
under his arm, struck his palms together. "Now, one--two--_three._"

But this time Isabel Gretry, in remembering her "business," confused
her stage directions once more.

"'Ah, the old home--'"

"Left-centre," interrupted the coach, in a tone of long-suffering
patience.

She paused bewildered, and believing that she had spoken her lines
too abruptly, began again:

"'See, the clambering--'"

"_Left_-centre."

"'Ah, the old home--'"

Monsieur Gerardy settled himself deliberately in his chair and
resting his head upon one hand closed his eyes. His manner was that
of Galileo under torture declaring "still it moves."

"_Left_-centre."

"Oh--oh, yes. I forgot."

Monsieur Gerardy apostrophized the chandelier with mirthless humour.

"Oh, ha, ha! She forgot."

Still another time Marion tried the entrance, and, as she came on,
Monsieur Gerardy made vigorous signals to Page, exclaiming in a
hoarse whisper:

"Lady Mary, ready. In a minute you come on. Remember the cue."

Meanwhile Marion had continued:

"'See the clambering vines--'"

"Roses."

"'The clambering rose vines--'"

"Roses, pure and simple."

"'See! The clambering roses, pure and--'"

"Mademoiselle Gretry, will you do me the extreme obligation to bound
yourself by the lines of the book?"

"I thought you said--"

"Go on, go on, go on! Is it God-possible to be thus stupid? Lady
Mary, ready."

"'See, the clambering roses have wrapped the old stones in a loving
embrace. The birds build in the same old nests--'"

"Well, well, Lady Mary, where are you? You enter from the porch."

"I'm waiting for my cue," protested Page. "My cue is: 'Are there
none that will remember me.'"

"Say," whispered Landry, coming up behind Page, "it would look bully
if you could come out leading a greyhound."

"Ah, so, Mademoiselle Gretry," cried Monsieur Gerardy, "you left out
the cue." He became painfully polite. "Give the speech once more, if
you please."

"A dog would look bully on the stage," whispered Landry. "And I know
where I could get one."

"Where?"

"A friend of mine. He's got a beauty, blue grey--"

They become suddenly aware of a portentous silence The coach, his
arms folded, was gazing at Page with tightened lips.

"'None who will remember me,'" he burst out at last. "Three times
she gave it."

Page hurried upon the scene with the words:

"'Ah, another glorious morning. The vines are drenched in dew.'"
Then, raising her voice and turning toward the "house," "'Arthur.'"

"'Arthur,'" warned the coach. "That's you. Mr. Corthell. Ready. Well
then, Mademoiselle Gretry, you have something to say there."

"I can't say it," murmured the Gretry girl, her handkerchief to her
face.

"What now? Continue. Your lines are 'I must not be seen here. It
would betray all,' then conceal yourself in the arbor. Continue.
Speak the line. It is the cue of Arthur."

"I can't," mumbled the girl behind her handkerchief.

"Can't? Why, then?"

"I--I have the nose-bleed."

Upon the instant Monsieur Gerardy quite lost his temper. He turned
away, one hand to his head, rolling his eyes as if in mute appeal to
heaven, then, whirling about, shook his play-book at the unfortunate
Marion, crying out furiously:

"Ah, it lacked but that. You ought to understand at last, that when
one rehearses for a play one does not have the nose-bleed. It is not
decent."

Miss Gretry retired precipitately, and Laura came forward to say
that she would read Marion's lines.

"No, no!" cried Monsieur Gerardy. "You--ah, if they were all like
you! You are obliging, but it does not suffice. I am insulted."

The others, astonished, gathered about the "coach." They laboured to
explain. Miss Gretry had intended no slight. In fact she was often
taken that way; she was excited, nervous. But Monsieur Gerardy was
not to be placated. Ah, no! He knew what was due a gentleman. He
closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows to his very hair, murmuring
superbly that he was offended. He had but one phrase in answer to
all their explanations:

"One does not permit one's self to bleed at the nose during
rehearsal."

Laura began to feel a certain resentment. The unfortunate Gretry
girl had gone away in tears. What with the embarrassment of the
wrong gown, the brow-beating, and the nose-bleed, she was not far
from hysterics. She had retired to the dining-room with Mrs.
Cressler and from time to time the sounds of her distress made
themselves heard. Laura believed it quite time to interfere. After
all, who was this Gerardy person, to give himself such airs? Poor
Miss Gretry was to blame for nothing. She fixed the little Frenchman
with a direct glance, and Page, who caught a glimpse of her face,
recognised "the grand manner," and whispered to Landry:

"He'd better look out; he's gone just about as far as Laura will
allow."

"It is not convenient," vociferated the "coach." "It is not
permissible. I am offended."

"Monsieur Gerardy," said Laura, "we will say nothing more about it,
if you please."

There was a silence. Monsieur Gerardy had pretended not to hear. He
breathed loud through his nose, and Page hastened to observe that
anyhow Marion was not on in the next scenes. Then abruptly, and
resuming his normal expression, Monsieur Gerardy said:

"Let us proceed. It advances nothing to lose time. Come. Lady Mary
and Arthur, ready."

The rehearsal continued. Laura, who did not come on during the act,
went back to her chair in the corner of the room.

But the original group had been broken up. Mrs. Cressler was in the
dining-room with the Gretry girl, while Jadwin, Aunt Wess', and
Cressler himself were deep in a discussion of mind-reading and
spiritualism.

As Laura came up, Jadwin detached himself from the others and met
her.

"Poor Miss Gretry!" he observed. "Always the square peg in the round
hole. I've sent out for some smelling salts."

It seemed to Laura that the capitalist was especially well-looking
on this particular evening. He never dressed with the "smartness" of
Sheldon Corthell or Landry Court, but in some way she did not expect
that he should. His clothes were not what she was aware were called
"stylish," but she had had enough experience with her own
tailor-made gowns to know that the material was the very best that
money could buy. The apparent absence of any padding in the broad
shoulders of the frock coat he wore, to her mind, more than
compensated for the "ready-made" scarf, and if the white waistcoat
was not fashionably cut, she knew that _she_ had never been able to
afford a pique skirt of just that particular grade.

"Suppose we go into the reception-room," he observed abruptly.
"Charlie bought a new clock last week that's a marvel. You ought to
see it."

"No," she answered. "I am quite comfortable here, and I want to see
how Page does in this act."

"I am afraid, Miss Dearborn," he continued, as they found their
places, "that you did not have a very good time Sunday afternoon."

He referred to the Easter festival at his mission school. Laura had
left rather early, alleging neuralgia and a dinner engagement.

"Why, yes I did," she replied. "Only, to tell the truth, my head
ached a little." She was ashamed that she did not altogether delight
in her remembrance of Jadwin on that afternoon. He had "addressed"
the school, with earnestness it was true, but in a strain decidedly
conventional. And the picture he made leading the singing, beating
time with the hymn-book, and between the verses declaring that "he
wanted to hear everyone's voice in the next verse," did not appeal
very forcibly to her imagination. She fancied Sheldon Corthell doing
these things, and could not forbear to smile. She had to admit,
despite the protests of conscience, that she did prefer the studio
to the Sunday-school.

"Oh," remarked Jadwin, "I'm sorry to hear you had a headache. I
suppose my little micks" (he invariably spoke of his mission
children thus) "do make more noise than music."

"I found them very interesting."

"No, excuse me, but I'm afraid you didn't. My little micks are not
interesting--to look at nor to listen to. But I, kind of--well, I
don't know," he began pulling his mustache. "It seems to suit me to
get down there and get hold of these people. You know Moody put me
up to it. He was here about five years ago, and I went to one of his
big meetings, and then to all of them. And I met the fellow, too,
and I tell you, Miss Dearborn, he stirred me all up. I didn't "get
religion." No, nothing like that. But I got a notion it was time to
be up and doing, and I figured it out that business principles were
as good in religion as they are--well, in La Salle Street, and that
if the church people--the men I mean--put as much energy, and
shrewdness, and competitive spirit into the saving of souls as they
did into the saving of dollars that we might get somewhere. And so I
took hold of a half dozen broken-down, bankrupt Sunday-school
concerns over here on Archer Avenue that were fighting each other
all the time, and amalgamated them all--a regular trust, just as if
they were iron foundries--and turned the incompetents out and put my
subordinates in, and put the thing on a business basis, and by now,
I'll venture to say, there's not a better organised Sunday-school in
all Chicago, and I'll bet if D. L. Moody were here to-day he'd say,
'Jadwin, well done, thou good and faithful servant.'"

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