The daily Alaskan., 1906-01-13
Counter Currents


 would break up as soon as 1t was over. Harold Gray, leading gentleman, was to take a midnight train to join a new company and Marian Ire lille, was to do likewise, their engagements being in cities a thousand miles apart. Miss Trevllle was playing "heavy woman" interfering with Mir. Gray's love affair with Cynthia King, leading lady. There was a real romance going on, running counter to the fictitious one. Gray had been falling in love with the very wo- man by whose yillainles he had been thwarted In his fictitious love. To make matters worse, Mss King, hero inc, had been telling stories" about Miss Treville.
 The real denoument had come out as the actors in the double drama were going on the stage. This made Gray's role extremely difficult He was oblig- ed to heap anathemas on the head of Miss Treville whom he had just dis covered had been maligned by Miss King. He was obliged to make love to Mss King, who had caused all the mls- chief between him and the woman he really loved. The first opportunity he had to speak his real mind was In the third act when having spoken his lines he retired with Miss King, R. C., amid thunder reverberatlng from sheet iron behind the scenes. His concluding lines were:
 "Falr girl, the blacker this fiend has painted you, the deeper my love for you"
 While both were dazed by flashes of lightning and frightful crashes of thunder, he added loud enough only for her to hear:
 What did you want to put up job on another woman forY'
 q didn't That yarn came from chorus girl"
 At the end of the scene be took the girl In his arms, she wept and nobly forgave her slanderer. While the lights were being turned down to slow music Gray growled:
 Its lucky this is the last night. You've kicked up a muss the company wouldn't get over in a hurry. The next time you try to blacken woman's reputation I'd advise you to take high kicking ballet girl"
 Stop making a guy of yourself or I'll go of the stage and tell the old man I won't finish with you"
 The threat had the desired effect and the kiss that came at the end of the scene was very realistic to the au' dleuce, though the mans lips, being nearer the woman's ear than her mouth, whispered, or, rather said, for what Is said on the stage in an ordina " voice can't be heard by an audience;
 "The only damage you've done you've done yourself"
 The scene which had evoked univer- sal commendation for q hundred and ninety-nine nights fell flat on this the two hundredth, and the curtain went down without the Clapping of single pair of hands. The manager was furi- Ous. Calling the leading actors tOgeth- CT, he declared that he would withhold their salaries If they did not put aside the company quarrel and do their parts properly. His threat served to make things go more easily, but all natural ness had gone out of the performance and could not be forced back. In the next act the hero meets Miss Treville, who Qn the play) had slandered his love. Unfortunately for good rendi- ton he had really learned that it was she who had been slandered. His lines ran:
 Your sex protects you. l will not speak an accusing word to or of a wo- man. In this you are safer than man intrenched. l hold a woman so sacred that l cannot deny her even proper deference." (Bows very low).
 Retiring amid applause, he found op- portunlty to say:
 'sThat cat came pretty near making It hot for you, didn't she? Lucky we got onto her tracks"
 But you believed her"
 His part came on again, and be said grandlloquently:
 "Go! To say that you have my for giveness Is nothing, but when I say you have the forgiveness of the woman you have slGndered 1t but expresses her nobility"
 MT. Gray did not get another op- portunity to converse with Miss Ire vile till near the close. It galled him that he must spend the little remaining time making love to the woman who had caused all the trouble when he wished to offer himself to the woman she had Injured. A few minutes be- fore the curtain fell Miss Treville ap- preached him to fire a parting shot at her stage rival.
 "Go with your simpering, sickly maid"-
 "Refrainl Do not goad me to what shall be sorry for"
 All the characters were now on the stage and Gray took occasion to get near the woman he was supposed to despise. She stood behind a fat wO- man. He whisDered: