The Washington herald., 1914-01-18
Copyright. isA.)

sage running sioiiS VIZ SeS ~
the Apollo Theater. The passage was
comparatively long and dark, SO each
man could see the other as a mere
black silhouette at the other end. Never
theless each man knew the other, even
in that inky outline; for they were both
men of striking appearance, and they
hated each other.
The covered passage opened at one
end on one of the steep streets OF the
Adelphi and at the other on a terrace
overlooking the sunset-colored river.
One side of the passage was blank
wall, for the building it supported was
an old unsuccessful theater restaurant,
now shut up. The other side of the
passage contained two doors, one at
each end. Neither was what was COM
monty called the stage door; they were
a sort of special and private stage doors
used by very special performers, and
in this case by the star actor and actress
in the Shakespearean performance of
the day.
The two men in question were GER
tainly two men who evidently knew the
doors and counted on their opening, for
each approached the door at the upper
end with equal GOODNESS and confidence.
Not, however, with equal speed; but the
man who walked fast was the man from
the other end of the tunnel; so they
both arrived before the stage door al
most at the same instant. They saluted
each other with civility, and waited a
moment before one of them, the sharper
walker, who seemed to have the shorter
patience, knocked at the door.
In this and everything else each man
was opposite, and neither could be
called inferior. As private persons both
were handsome, capable, and popular.
As public persons both were in the first
public rank Sir Wilson Seymour was
the kind of man whose Importance is
known to everybody who knows. He
was so unique that nobody could quite
decide whether he was a great aristo-
crat who had taken up art, or great
artist whom the aristocrats had taken
up. But you could not meet him for
five minutes without realizing that you
had really been ruled by him all your
life
His tall, slender figure had slight
stoop, yet it looked the reverse of fee
BILE; his hair was silver gray, but he did
not look old; it was worn longer than
the common, yet he did not look effem-
mate; it was curly, but it did not look
curled. His carefully pointed beard
made him look more manly and mill
tant rather than otherwise, as it does
in those old admirals of Valesquez with
whose dark portraits his house was
hung. His gray gloves were shade
bluer. his silver-knobbed cane a shade
longer. than scores of such gloves and
canes fiapned and hourished about the
theaters and restaurants.
The other man was not so tall. yet
would have struck nobody as being
short, but merely as strong and hand
some. His hair was also curly, but fair
and cropped close to strong, massive
head His military mustachc and the
carriage of his shoulders showed him a
soldier: but he had pair OF those pc
culiar frank and piercing blue eyes that
are more common in sailors. His face
was somewhat square; his jaw was
square. his shoulders were square, even
his jacket was square.
He was also a public man, though
with quite another sort OF success. You
did not have to be in the best society TO
have heard of Capt. Cutler of the siege
of Hongkong and the great march
across China. You could not get away
from hearing of him wherever you
went: his portrait was on every other
postcard: his maps and battles in every
other illustrated paper; songs in his
honor in every other music hall turn or
on every other barrel organ. In thou
sands of English homes he appeared
enormous above England, like Nelson.
Yet he had infinitely less power in Eng
land than Sir Wilson Seymour.
The door was opened to them by an
aged servant or dresser whose
broken-down face and figure and shab-
by black coat and trousers contrasted
uueerly with the glittering interior OF
the great actress dressing-room. 1t
was fitted and filled with looking glasses
at every angle of refraction, so that
they looked like the hundred facets OF
one huge diamond-if one could get in
side a diamond.
They both spoke to the dingy dresser
BY name, calling him Parkinson, and
asking for the lady as Miss Aurora
Rome. Parkinson said she was in the
other room, but he would go and tell
her. A shade crossed the brow of both
visitors. For the other room was the
private room of the great actor with
whom Miss Aurora was performing,