The Benson signal., 1918-03-09

for the theater was a good life, broad
ening, stimulating, seasoning. It rest
ed, to begin with, on a foundation of
adequate material comfort which the
unwonted physical privations of the six
months that preceded it made seem
like positive luxury.
For several months after she came to
New York to work for Galbraith she
found him q martinez. She never once
caught that twinkling gleam Of under
standing in his eye which had meant
SO much to her during the rehearsals
of "The Girl Upstairs" His manner
toward her carried out the tone of the
letter she'd got from him in Chi
cago. 1t was stiff, formal, severe. He
seldom praised her work, and never
ungrudgingly. His censure was rare,
too, to be sure, but this obviously was
because Rose almost never gave him
an excuse for it. Working for him in
this mood gave her the uneasy sensa-
tion one experiences when walking
abroad under a sultry, overcast sky,
with mutterings and flashes in it. And
then one night the storm broke.
They had fingered in the theater
after the dismissal Of a rehearsal, to
talk over a change in one of the num-
bers Rose had been working on. 1t re-
fused to come out satisfactorily. Rose
thought she saw way of doing it that
would work better, and she had been
telling him about it. Eagerly, at first.
and with a limpid directness which,
however, became clouded and troubled
when she felt he wasn't paying atten-
ton. 1t was difficulty with him she
had encountered before.
But tonight, after an angry turn
down the aisle and back, he suddenly
cried out: II don't know. I don't
know what you've been talking about.
don't know, and I don't care" And
then, confronting her, their faces not
foot apart, for by now she had got to
her feet, his hands gripped together
and shaking, his teeth clenched, his
eyes glowing there in the half-light of
the auditorium almost like an ami
mails, he demanded: "Can you see
what's the matter with me? Haven't
you seen it yet?"
Of course she saw it now, plainly
enough. She sat down again, man
aging an air of deliberation about it,
and gripped the back of the orchestra
chair in front of her. He remained
standing over her there in the aisle.
When the heightening tension of the
silence that followed this outburst had
grown absolutely uncomfortable, she
spoke. But the only thing she could
find to say was almost ludicrously in
adequate.
mo, I didn't see it until now. I'm
sorry"
"You didn't see it," he echoed. "I
know you didn't. You've never seen
me at all, from the beginning, as any
thing but a machine. But why haven't
you? You're a woman. IF ever saw
a woman in my life, you're one all the
way through. Why couldn't you see
that I was man? 1t isn't because I've
got gray hair, nor because I'm fifty
years old. I don't believe you're like
that. But even back there in Chicago,
the night we walked down the avenue
from that store-or the night we
had supper together after the show
'T suppose ought to have seen," she
said DULY. "Ought to have known that
that was all there was to it. But
didn't
'Well, you see it now," he said saw
agely fairly. and strobe away up the
aisle and then back to her. He sat
down in the seat in front of her and
turned around. 81 want to see your
face" he said. "There's something
I've got to know. Something you've
got to tell me. You said once, back
there in Chicago, that there was only
one person who really mattered to you.
want to know who that person Is.
What he is. Whether he's still the one
person who really matters. If he isn't,
I'll take my chance"
Remembering the scene afterward,
Rose was a little surprised that she'd
been able to answer him as she did,
without hesitation or a stammer, and
with a straight gaze that held his un-
til she had finished.
'The only person in the world" she
said, "who ever has mattered to me, or
ever will matter, is my husband. l
fell in love with him the day met him.
I was in love with him when I left
him. I'm in love with him now. Every
thing I do that's any good is just some
thing he might be proud of if he knew
it. And every failure is just something
I hope I would make him understand
and not despise me for. It's months
since I've seen him, but there isn't a
day, there isn't an hour in a day, when
I don't think about him and-want
him. don't know whether I'll ever see
him again, but if don't, it won't make
any difference with that. That's why l
didn't see what might have seen about
you. 1t wasn't possible for me to see.
I'd never have seen it if you hadn't
told mo in co MANY words like this Do