Middletown transcript., 1917-06-30
drove another bargain, principally t.
their own advantage.

| drove another bargain, principally "
their own advantage.
you've certainly got good eye for
costumes, Miss Dane" Goldsmith said,
''and here's a proposition we'd like to
make. A lot of these other things
we've got for the regular chorus don't
look as good as they might. You'll be
able to see changes to make in them
that'll improve them maybe fifty per
cent. Well, you take it on, and We'll
begin paying you your regular salary
now; you understand, twenty-five dol
lars week, beginning today"
Rose accepted the proposition with
a warm flush of gratitude. But, from
the moment her little salary began,
she found herself retained, body and
| soul, exactly as Galbraith himself
was. They'd bought all her ideas, all
her energy, all her time, except a
few scant hours for sleep and a few
snatched minutes for meals.
She gave her employers, up to the
time when the piece opened at the
Globe, at a conservative calculation,
about five times their moneys worth.
Even If she hadn't been in the COM
pany, she'd have found something like
two days work in every twenty-four
hours, just in the wardrobe room.
There wasn't a single costume outside
Roses own twelve that didn't have to
be remodeled more or less.
On top Of all that, the really ter
rible grind of rehearsals began:
property rehearsals, curiously discon-
certing at first; scenery rehearsals
that caused the stage to seem small
and cluttered up, and, last and ghast-
liest, dress rehearsal, which began
at seven o'clock one night and lasted
till four the next morning.
If you had seen them that morning,
utterly tagged out, unsustained by
single CLEAN Of hope, you'd have
said it was impossible that they
should give any sort of perform
ance that night-let alone a good one.
But by eight o'clock, when the over
ture was called, you wouldn't have
known them for the same people.
There was the feeling, on the edge of
this first performance, that they were
now on their own.
The appearance, back on the stage,
of John Galbraith in evening dress,
just as the call of the first act brought
them trooping from their dressing
rooms, intensified this sensation. He
was going to be, tonight, simply one of
the audience.
Rose herself was completely domi-
mated by the new spirit. Her nerves
slack, frayed, numb an hour ago
had sprung miraculOusly into tune.
She not only didn't feel tired. 1t
seemed she never could feel tired
again.
1t wasn't until along in the third
act that the audience became, for her,
anything but a colloid mass-some
thing that you squeezed and thumped
and worked as you did clay, to get it
into a properly plastic condition Of
receptivity, so that the jokes, the
songs, the dances, even the spindling
little shafts Of romance that you shot
out into it, could be felt to dig in and
take hold.
But along in the third act, as she
came down to the footlights with the
rest Of the sextette in their "All
Alone" number, one face detached it.
self suddenly from the pasty gray
surface of those that spread over the
auditorium; became human-individu
al-and intensely familiar; became
the face, Enthusiastically, Of Jimmy Wal
lace!
It is probable that Of all the au-
dience, only two men saw that any
thing had happened, so brief was the
frozen instant while she stood trans
fixed. One of them was John Gal
braith, in the back row, and he let his
breath go out again in relief almost in
the act of catching it. He guessed
well enough what had happened. But
it was all right. She was going on as
if nothing had happened.
The other man was Jimmy Wallace
himself. He released, too, little sigh
of relief when he saw her off in her
stride again after that m0mentary
falter. But he hardly looked at the
stage after that; stared absently at
his program instead, and presently
availed himself Of the dramatic crit
les license and left the theater.
AS for Rose herself, in her conscious
thoughts she didn't recognize the hope
already beating unanimously in her
veins, that he would tell Rodney-that
perhaps even before she got back to
her dismal little room, Rodney, pacing
his, would know.
1t was so irrational a hope-so I'M
expected and so well disguised-that
she mistook it for fear. But fear never
made ones heart glow like that.
That's where all her thoughts were
when John Galbraith halted her on
the way from the dressing room after
the performance was over.
II know you're tired" he said
brusquely. "But l fancied you'd be
tireder in the morning, and have to
leave for New York on the fast train,
So, you see, it was now or never"