Middletown transcript., 1912-12-14

to the theater quite accloehUallS ;
he had been dining with a friend
who was suddenly called away
and passing homeward to his
lodgings on Forty-third street.
he had stopped and found him,
self gazing with passing interest
attne poster representing Miriam
Grey in "The Looking GLASS;
Underneath the picture was pas
ted a slip bearing the Words'
"Opening night"
Langdon looked at the picture
with increasing anger. and dis
dain. He imagined the morrow S
criticisms, out -howings Of eulOgy
upon 20 great heart drama or a
triumph of art" by some new
dramatist-Paul Smith, this au'
thor called himself-who imagln'
ed that he had penetrated lnCo
the arcana of the universe and
shared in every human expert
ence!
Then he bought a ticket ana
went in, in bitter mood, IN order
to sneer. So the curtain went up
and the performance began, and
Langdon. sitting in his seat, pre-
nared to satiate his chagrin and
contempt.
He had devoted five years OF
his life to play writing and every
effort had come back to him with
the barest formality of a reply
So he had abandoned that field
to reap a fair success as a story
writer. But the failure OF his
earlier efforts had embittered
him against those whose strug-
gles had been rewarded.
Yet when Miriam Grey came
on and captivated the attention
of the audience; when the plain
simple story gradually began to
make it's way into the hearts OF
the audience; when sobs pune
tuated the silence. Langdon
found himself gripped, enthrall-
ed by the writer's power, but 1t
was not until the second act was
half over that he half leaped out
of his seat and then subsidized
very white very determined, and
sick with the sudden upwelling
of memory. For this was his
play, and in it he had told the
story of his own tragedy.
It was a common enough story
that of the separation Of two
lovers. 1t had happened to him
three years before when his
fancee, Lillian Walters, and he
had their quarrel. But both were
proud and both young; and so
the little quarrel had become a
big one, and finally he had left
her in anger, to find when he was
ready to ask forgiveness that
she had gone away. He had
found no trace of her since that
day, though he had sought far
and wide. Once she had had
literary aspirations, too; he
had hoped to hear of her in some
of the magazine Offices, but she
had disappeared completely from
the knowledge of all who had
known her.
He watched the development
of the drama, the tragedy that
set forth, word by word, line by
line, an indelible picture that re-
vived each single memory and
scared him to the heart. 1t was
his! 1t was he who had written
this and offered it to a manager
the year before, hoping that in
the final stage reconciliation
Lillian would read his own hopes
and dreams; that she would see
it and remem Der their love and
come back to him. And the play
rejected everywhere, had yet
been held long enough to enable
some manager to make a copy of
it and steal it and have it pro-
duced.
There was no mistaking that.
Skillfully as it had been changed
and rewritten, though every
word had been put through the
crucibIe of the managers mind,
yet the play had emerged the
same. 1t was his play! And he
would have justice.
Suddenly at the height of the
second act, when the most tense
stiffness brooded over the dark
ened theater, Langdon was i'm
PEELED to glance across the aisle.
A woman sat there, watching
him, upon her mouth the faintest
vestige of a smile. But there
might have been tears in her
eyes-in Lillian's eyes.
It was Lillian. He knew her