Just Around the Corner Part 40

The Red Widow, with a poinsettia sprawling like a frantic clutch at her heart, and her burnished gold head rising with the grace of a gold flower out of a vase!

Cyrus a.s.sumes a swoon of delight, throws out a cue--"The date-trees are blooming"--the conductor raps his baton twice for their feature duet ent.i.tled, "Oh, Let Me Die on Broadway," and the spot-light focuses.

The house clamors for a fourth encore, but the lights flash on. The pursuing son, in the face of prolonged applause, white trousers, and a straw katy, bursts upon the scene with his features in first position for the denouement.

But the audience clamors on. The son postpones his expression and leans against a jungle to a fourth encore of the tuneful Thanatopsis.

On the final curtain of the hundredth night the company bowed two curtain-calls to the capacity house busily struggling into wraps and up aisles.

The Red Widow, linked between the pickle-magnate and the triumphant son, flanked by s.e.xtets, octets, and regimentals, bowed four times over three sheaths of American beauties and a high-handled basket of carnations.

Then, almost on the drop of the curtain, the immediate roar of sliding wings, which mingled with the exit strains of the orchestra, like a Debussy right-hand theme defying the left, and the rumble of forests, retreating.

Scene-s.h.i.+fters, to whom every encore is a knell, demolished whole kingdoms at a lunge, half a hundred satin slippers flashed up a spiral staircase to chorus dressing-rooms, the Red Widow flung the trail of the gown she had on--so carelessly dragged across the tarpaulin terra firma of Bungel--across one bare arm and darted through the door with a red star painted on the panel.

Her dressing-room, hung in vivid chintz, with a canopied table replacing the make-up shelf, and a pa.s.sing show of signed photographs tacked along the wall, was as fantastic as Gnomes' Cave.

A wildness of chiffon and sleazy silk hung from the wall-hooks, a pair of gauze aeroplane wings hovered across a chair, and, atop a trunk, impertinent as a Pierette, the black pony was removing the gold star from her hair.

"Warm house to-night, Del. I sent Sibbie across to the hotel with your flowers."

"Yeh--best house yet."

"But gee! it's a wonder he wouldn't give away kerosene."

"Rotten stuff."

"It made me so dizzy I nearly flopped like a seal in the pony prance. He must 'a' bought it by the keg."

"I told him it was strong enough to run his new motor-boat. Gawd, ain't I tired! How'd the aeroplane song go, Ysobel?"

"Swell! But leave it to Billy to hog your act every time. I seen him grab a laugh when the propellers was workin'."

"Undo me, Ysobel? Why'd you let Sibbie go? Can't you let me get used to having a maid, hon'?"

"Poor kid, you're dead, ain't you? But you gotta go with him to-night or he'll howl."

Della lowered her beaded lashes over eyes that smarted, and raised her arms like Niobe entreating fate.

"Sure, I gotta go. He's been bragging about this hundredth-night blow-out for a month."

"Quit squirming, Del! Hold still, can't you?"

"Five recalls on 'Let me die,' Ysobel."

"You never went better."

Della slid out of her gown and into a gold-colored kimono embroidered in black flying swans, and creamed off her make-up in long, even strokes.

"Look, he wants me to wear that silver-fox coat and the cloth-of-silver gown. Honest, it's so heavy I nearly fainted in it the other night. Lots he cares!"

"It'll be a swell blow, Del. The hundredth night he gave when Perfecta was starring was town talk. He don't stop at nothin'."

"No, he don't stop at nothin'."

"He gimme a look to-night when I came off from the prance. He'd gimme notice in a minute if he didn't need me. He knows that ballet would fall like a bride's biscuit without me."

"Sure it would! He likes your work, hon'. I never pulled any strings for you, neither. He just seen your try-out and liked it swell."

"Sure he did, but he's that jealous of you! He was dead sore when you brought me down here to dress with you. Gee, you're tired, ain't you, dearie?"

"Dog-tired! That staircase waltz always does me up."

"Lay your head down here a minute. Ain't that just life, though? Here we are kicking just like a year ago in Fallows's 'Neatly Furnished.'"

"I ain't kickin', Ysobel. I wake up every morning pinchin' myself."

"Gawd, if you gotta long face, what ought the rest of us to have? You're the luckiest girl any of us knows. Did you see what the new _Yellow Book_ says about you? 'The t.i.tian-headed Venus de Meelo'--how's that--huh?"

"Just the same, you wouldn't change places with me, Ysobel! Don't wriggle out of answering me! Now, would you?"

"Watch out, you're mussing up your beauty curls. Here, lemme pin that diamond heart on the left shoulder of your dress. Hurry up, honey, Myers will be here any minute, and you know how sore he gets if you keep him waitin'."

"Do I?"

"Say, but that silver's swell on you!"

"Say, Ysobel, wait till they see my little sister. We could do a twin act that would take 'em off their feet. That new 'Heavenly Twin' show that Al read us the first act of, with Cottie and me featured, and you doin' the Columbine--gee--"

"'Sh-h-h-h! There--he--is--knockin'."

"It can't be Hy already. I--I ain't dressed yet, Hy--just a minute! Oh, it's a telegram, Ysobel; take it, like a good girl."

"Say, it ain't another from Third Row Bobbie, is it? You ought to tip him off that he's wastin' his pin-money on you, hon'."

Della ripped the flap, read, and very suddenly sat down on the silver-fox coat. The color drained out of her face, and her breath came irregularly as if her heart had missed a beat.

"Della--Del--darlin'--what's the matter?"

"Oh, Gawd!"

"What, darlin'--what?"

"Read!"

Ysobel peered across the bare shoulder, her slim silk legs tiptoed and her neck arched.

Maw buried yesterday. Money you sent for her birthday paid funeral. Am ready. Wire directions.

COTTIE.