Blue-grass and Broadway Part 14

"To play about thirty, I should say," answered Mr. Vandeford after a two minutes' calculating.

"Only a month?" gasped Miss Adair, then colored home-made pink in the height of embarra.s.sment.

"Weeks." Mr. Vandeford answered her gasp without looking at her, but taking the vow gallantly, considering that he felt Mazie Villines to be his sole dependence for a winning ma.n.u.script version of "The Purple Slipper."

During this question and answer Mr. Corbett was also calculating.

"About seven thousand if Adelaide makes the Hawtry layout," he finally announced.

"Five hundred advance for the sketches, and a week's option," Mr.

Vandeford offered calmly.

"A thousand advance for models of costumes made up," answered Mr.

Corbett, just as calmly and firmly. "Have to hunt in museum for materials to go by. Takes experts on fabrics."

"I can give you pieces of silk and things that are cut from the costumes of that period." Miss Adair had learned, and she cut her remark into the conference with precision and decision.

"Genuine?" questioned Mr. Corbett.

"Worn by the characters about whom the play is written."

"Then seven hundred and fifty for made-up models, Mr. Vandeford," Mr.

Corbett offered.

"The pieces will be large enough to make the models," Miss Adair said with a curt firmness that was a combination of that used by both Mr.

Vandeford and Mr. Corbett and which both startled and delighted the former.

"Six hundred for models, Corbett," he said with finality and with an inward chuckle.

"Six-fifty, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. Corbett answered with equal finality, and for the first time he stole a glance at the author.

"Goes! When?"

"Two weeks?"

"Goes! Good-morning, Mr. Corbett!"

Mr. Corbett's exit was immediate.

"I'm glad Miss Elvira made me put all the pieces of my dresses in my trunk to patch with in case I tore anything. They saved us four hundred dollars, didn't they?" Miss Adair said to Mr. Vandeford with gratified business ac.u.men s.h.i.+ning in the sea-gray eyes. "I wasn't much in the way, was I?"

"You were a great help, and that was the first time I ever succeeded in jewing Corbett," answered Mr. Vandeford with satisfactory enthusiasm.

Something of relief over the guarding of his author showed in his voice, which second note, however, he sounded too soon as the next ten minutes proved to him. "Now we'll discuss the sets for the production with Lindenberg and then it'll be time for luncheon, and we'll go--"

"Mr. Vandeford, sir, Mr. Height would like to be in next," Mr. Meyers interrupted his chief, just a second too soon, or rather just in time, for if Mr. Vandeford had settled Miss Adair's luncheon plans in that second the fate of "The Purple Slipper" might have been different.

"Show him in, Pops, and have the rest come back at two-thirty," Mr.

Vandeford commanded.

Mr. Gerald Height entered.

For five successive seasons on Broadway, with brief dazzling flights into the provincial towns of Chicago, Boston, Was.h.i.+ngton, and Philadelphia, Mr. Gerald Height had been the reigning beauty, and he well deserved it. He was both slender and broad, with the grace of a faun in young manhood, and with the deviltry of a satyr of more advanced age in his yellow-green eyes, which tilted under high black brows that were arched penciled bows across his forehead. His lips were full and red, but chiseled like a youth's on a Greek frieze and they were mobile and tender and hard by turns. His red-gold hair clung to his head in burnished waves, and this head was set upon his broad, strong shoulders as a flower is set on its parent plant, and his smile was a conquering triumph. He poured it all over Miss Adair as Mr. Vandeford introduced them, and took the chair opposite the producer and the author, with the light from the window fully revealing all of his charms.

"New Hawtry play on, Height, by Miss Adair." Mr. Vandeford began the conversation with his usual directness, and somehow his voice was crisper than usual, for he seemed to get a shock from the radiance of the stage beauty before him that pushed him, with his white-tinged black hair, well forward into middle age.

"Dolph was telling me, and I ran through a synopsis he had on the machine. Powder and furbelows!" As he spoke Mr. Height smiled at Miss Adair with appreciation of herself and got in return a smile of the same degree of appreciation of himself, both smiles not at all lost on the psychologically aging Mr. Vandeford.

"That clause in your contract that lets you out of all costume plays is perfectly good, you know," Mr. Vandeford heard himself saying when he had intended to bl.u.s.ter that same clause aside if the favorite had tried to stand on it, because he well knew that to see Gerald Height in silk stockings and lace ruffles a quarter of a million women might be counted upon to pay two dollars per capita and so a.s.sure at least a fifteen per cent. certainty to the box-office receipts of "The Purple Slipper,"

whose fate had mysteriously come in the last few hours to mean so much to him. "Mr. Meyers has a youngster that we can whip into lead, I think.

Now thank me for letting you out, and run along."

"Oh," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Patricia Adair, and the little exclamation of dismay hit both men at once and made them both sit up straight in their chairs. Also they both looked for a long minute at Miss Adair, and both were aware of the other's scrutiny. Mr. Height broke the tension.

"I might see how buckskins and powdered wig would go," he said, with a tentative glance across the table, which began with Mr. Vandeford and ended with Miss Adair.

"I think you would be perfectly beautiful, and I hope--" Miss Adair paused, and Mr. Height was as competent as either Miss Hawtry or Miss Lindsey had been to judge of the home-made color under the gray eyes.

Also he was as much, perhaps more, affected by it, though in the presence of Mr. Vandeford he was wise enough to dissemble his delight.

"Want me to try, Mr. Vandeford?" he questioned with greater deference than he had ever shown a mere manager in the last five years of his triumphant career.

"Of course, it would be a fifteen-per cent. drag if you are willing,"

answered Mr. Vandeford with managerial delight and manly rage.

"Can I have until to-morrow to decide?" asked Mr. Height. "You see, I haven't read the play or heard the layout," he added to the author of "The Purple Slipper," with deference in his rich voice that had thrilled its millions.

"Could you make it this afternoon if Mr. Meyers goes into it with you?

My other man has a big picture offered him at a good figure," Mr.

Vandeford answered, with both fear and joy at the prospect of pressing the star into retreat.

"Dolph has told me all he knows about it, which is nothing. He hasn't taken out any parts and seems to have lost the ma.n.u.script forever. I hope you kept a copy, Miss Adair." And again the two young things smiled at each other to Mr. Vandeford's devastation.

"Why couldn't I tell Mr. Height about the play while you see the electrician and the other people, Mr. Vandeford?" Miss Adair questioned, her candid gray eyes s.h.i.+ning with such a sincere desire to be useful in the crisis that Mr. Vandeford could not suspect her of any adventurous motive. "We could go over in--into my office and you can call me any minute if you need me."

"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Height. "Then I could let you know right away if I thought I could do the part justice, Mr. Vandeford."

"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, as he motioned them into the inner office, which had been conferred upon the author of "The Purple Slipper," and rang his buzzer for Mr. Meyers.

"Find Mr. Farraday and ask him to come around here immediately if he is anywhere near, or to come at four if he can't get here in ten minutes,"

he commanded. "Heard from Mazie?"

"Mr. Howard is in a good working soak, is her report, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and I have the wire that Mr. Farraday is on his way here," was the double answer Mr. Meyers returned to Mr. Vandeford.

"Good! Give me my letters to sign," Mr. Vandeford answered.

Mr. Meyers brought in a sheaf of letters, and Mr. Vandeford was in the act of setting pen to paper when the door of the inner office opened after a gentle knock and Miss Adair entered, followed by Mr. Height.

Mr. Vandeford looked up quickly and found Miss Adair close beside his chair, looking down upon him with her beautiful reverence and confidence in him entirely unimpaired.

"Mr. Height wants me to go and have luncheon with him and tell him about the play. He's hungry, and so am I. Can you spare me if I'm working while I'm eating? May I go?"