CHAPTER XIX

BURIED ALIVE

FOR Ellen West the première of her first play was an event of minor importance, completely submerged in the flood of misery which swept her soul.

The audience received the piece coldly. Its brilliant dialogue made no headway against their indifference to the theme of social propaganda. The fashionable crowd came to be amused. They resented instruction.

Ellen saw the fatal notice posted at eleven o’clock on the bulletin board announcing the close at the end of the customary two weeks. It was a matter of supreme indifference to her whether it closed or ran ten years.

Rose gripped her arm and stared at the notice.

“What are they going to close it for, auntie?”

“It’s a failure, my dear.”

“Failure,” she gasped.

“A ‘frost,’ the manager kindly told me.”

“Why, they laughed and cheered.”

“Yes, child, we had some personal friends out front who did the best they could for us.”

Rose was the only one of the three who took the failure seriously.

Manning’s spirits rebounded immediately, although he had thought a success assured. He had planned an elaborate supper at the Astor in celebration. In reality, he meant that the two authors should give the supper in honor of their little typewriter girl, whose joy would be tenfold greater than theirs.

“We’ll celebrate anyhow!” he announced cheerfully as he read the bulletin.

“I’d rather not,” Ellen protested.

“Nonsense; come along, the supper’s all ordered.”

Ellen shook her head.

“Please, auntie, I’ve never been to the Astor.”

There was no help for it. She couldn’t refuse Rose’s eager plea.

The throng in the restaurant depressed Ellen’s spirits. Every table was crowded with gay theatre parties. The chatter and laughing was continuous. The music seemed a double mockery. Her heart was lead.

The thing that puzzled and still further alarmed her was the bubbling gaiety with which Manning took the failure. There was something sinister about it. No man could throw months of hard work into the waste basket with a laugh unless he had some secret joy in his heart.

She watched his attitude toward Rose. His face was a mask of friendly conventional propriety. She studied the tones of his voice. In not a single word or accent did he betray the slightest interest beyond that which an author might feel in the disappointment of his typewriter girl over the failure of his work.

The supper was finished and he had lighted a cigar before the announcement came that took her breath.

“You wonder why I’m gay to-night?” he asked Ellen.

“Yes.”

“I’ve something more exciting to think about than our failure. I don’t know the trick of the play anyhow. But I’ve always had a sneaking idea that I could write a novel----”

He paused. Ellen’s heart fairly stopped its beat and Rose’s eyes danced with excitement.

“The whole story flashed on me last night after the rehearsal,” he went on eagerly. “I worked out the plot in two hours, went to bed and slept soundly. I got up this morning with the whole thing a living inspiration. I can see my characters as clearly as if I’d known them a lifetime. I can write it in two months. The die is cast--the Rubicon crossed. I quit the soul-racking grind of a daily newspaper to-morrow.”

“Give up your position?” Ellen gasped.

“Without a sigh. I’ve saved enough to live two years. The worst that could happen would be a failure. I can always make a living on a paper if I have to. But what’s the use of living a slave’s life if you can be free? Why crawl if you can fly? I believe I can fly.”

“I just know it,” Rose broke in enthusiastically.

“You’re very foolish to give up your big job on Brown’s paper until you try your wings,” Ellen observed evenly.

“I tried them last night and they worked. All I need is the chance to concentrate every ounce of my brains on this one job until it’s done. I shall resent the necessity of eating and sleeping. I suppose I’ll have to yield a point there. But on all others, I shall be adamant--no mail, no telephone calls, no visitors, no communication with the world until I find my pathway among the stars!”

Ellen’s eyes flashed with anger. Rose’s face was a curious mixture of elation and disappointment.

“How’ll you get the manuscript to me for the typewriter?” she faltered.

“Send it by a messenger from my secret den.”

“Oh!”

“Yes. I’ll clear out of my apartment to shake the boys. I’ll take a bare room in a good boarding-house, where I can have my meals served alone on my desk and bury myself there for two months. I’ll emerge with the finished book in my hands or I’ll die in the effort.”

Rose clapped her hands and laughed.

“You can do it! I know you can; don’t you believe it, auntie?”

“Such things have been done, my dear,” was the grave answer.

“And you begin to-morrow?” she added.

“To-morrow at ten o’clock. I’ve already found my den and given up my job.”

“Oh, my, isn’t it exciting!” Rose exclaimed.

Ellen felt a hot tear dimming her eyes in spite of her iron will. The subtle cruelty of his scheme of announcing his break with her for two months before Rose, where protest or argument would be impossible, fairly stunned her. To argue before Rose was, of course, out of the question. To argue at all under such circumstances her pride would forbid. On this he had reckoned with absolute certainty.

This sudden sweeping inspiration might be a fact, or it might be the simplest subterfuge through which to break their love relations for two months. If he had waked suddenly to the realization that he had wearied of her and fallen in love with her niece, his inner sense of honor and decency would make a break inevitable. He could have hit on no safer or more delicate scheme.

She could but admire his ingenuity. Yet nothing could still the dull, suffocating ache within. Submission to his voluntary exile was inevitable. She felt herself choking for a moment, recovered herself, and spoke with gentle irony:

“I’m afraid Rose and I will miss you very much.”

“Terribly!” Rose added.

“It’ll be done in a jiffy, and I’ll emerge an author.”

His faith was so strong and so genuine Ellen caught its contagion. He certainly meant it. She knew him too well--knew the processes of his mind too intimately to doubt now that he was in dead earnest.

She reproached herself for her doubts at all. Had he not proven his sincerity by resigning his position and risking all on the venture?

She tried to smile an honest wish for success when she took his hand to say good-night as he handed them into a cab. She still half hoped that he would accompany them home and steal a chance for a word alone. He made no sign and she knew that he wished to avoid it.

“You know that I wish you the greatest success of your life in this mad venture. I shall await your return from the grave.”

“Send me the manuscript as fast as you can,” Rose said. “I’ll be just crazy to read it! And I’ll see it first, won’t I? I’ll let auntie read the nice clean copy.”

“And send it back to me; two copies, won’t you, as fast as it’s done, chapter by chapter?”

His voice was casually business-like. If he were in love with Rose, he was a past master in the control of his emotions.

Ellen pressed his hand with a little grip of parting anguish and sank back to her seat in the shadows in time to prevent his seeing the tears that came in spite of her effort at self-control. She brushed them away before Rose could notice her emotion.