Part 40 (1/2)
”She's a charmer on the stage. I heard father tell her that she made the play, and I'm not sure that he wasn't right.”
”But you saw her off the stage, didn't you?”
”Oh, yes, she asked me to dinner. She didn't look nearly so young, then, and she's not exactly pretty; but, somehow, it didn't seem to matter.
She's got genius--you couldn't be with her ten minutes without finding out that. I never saw any one in my life so much alive. When she's in a room, even if she doesn't speak, you can't keep your eyes off her. She's like a bright flame that you can't stop looking at--not even if there are a lot of prettier women there, too.”
”Is she dark or fair?”
He stopped to think for a moment.
”To save my life I can't remember--but I think she's dark--at least, her eyes are, though her hair may be light. But you never think of her appearance when she's talking. I believe she's the best talker I ever heard--better even than father.”
His enthusiasm had got the better of him, and it was evident that Oliver's success had banished for a time at least the secret hostility which had existed between father and son. That pa.s.sion for material results, which could not be separated from the Treadwell spirit without robbing that spirit of its vitality, had gradually altered the family att.i.tude toward Oliver's profession. Art, like business, must justify itself by its results, and to a commercial age there could be no justifiable results that could not bear translation into figures.
Success was the chief end of man, and success could be measured only in terms of money.
”There's your father's step,” said Virginia, whose face looked drawn and pallid in the dusk. ”Let me light the lamp, darling. He hates to read his paper by anything but lamplight.”
But he had jumped up before she had finished and was hunting for matches in the old place under the clock on the mantelpiece. She was such a little, thin, frail creature that he laughed as she tried to help him.
”So Lucy is going to marry that old rotter, is she?” he asked pleasantly as his father entered. ”Well, father! I was just asking mother why she let Lucy marry that old rotter?”
”But the dear child has set her heart on him, and he is really very nice to us,” replied Virginia hurriedly. Though she was disappointed in Lucy's choice, it seemed dreadful to her to speak of a man who was about to enter the family as a ”rotter.”
”You stop it, Harry, if you have the authority. I haven't,” answered Oliver carelessly. ”Is your neuralgia better, Virginia?”
”It's quite gone, dear. Doctor Powell gave me some aspirin and it cured it.” She smiled gratefully at him, with a touching pleasure in the fact that he had remembered to ask. As she glanced quickly from father to son, eager to see them reconciled, utterly forgetful of herself, something of the anxious cheerfulness of Mrs. Pendleton's spirit appeared to live again in her look. Though her freshness had withered, she was still what is called ”a sweet looking woman,” and her expression of simple goodness lent an appealing charm to her features.
”Are you going back to New York soon, father?” asked Harry, turning politely in Oliver's direction. From his manner, which had lost its boyishness, Virginia knew that he was trying with all his energy to be agreeable, yet that he could not overcome the old feeling of constraint and lack of sympathy.
”Next week. 'The Home' is to be put on in February, and I'm obliged to be there for the rehearsals.”
”Does Miss Oldcastle take the leading part?”
”Yes.”
Crossing the room, Oliver held out his hands to the fire, and then turning, stretched his arms, with a stifled yawn, above his head. The only fault that could be urged against his appearance was that his figure was becoming a trifle square, that he was beginning to look a little too well-fed, a little too comfortable. For the rest, his hair, which had gone quite grey, brought out the glow and richness of his colour and lent a striking emphasis to his dark, s.h.i.+ning eyes.
”Do you think that the new play is as good as 'Pretty f.a.n.n.y'?” asked Virginia.
”Well, they're both rot, you know,” he answered, with a laugh.
”Oh, Oliver, how can you, when all the papers spoke so admiringly of it?”
”Why shouldn't they? It is perfectly innocuous. The kind of thing any father might take his daughter to see. We shan't dispute that, anyhow.”
His flippancy not only hurt, it confused her. It was painful enough to have him speak so slightingly of his success, but worse than this was the feeling it aroused in her that he was defying authority. Even if her innate respect for the printed word had not made her accept as final the judgment of the newspapers, there was still the incontestable fact that so many people had paid to see ”Pretty f.a.n.n.y” that both Oliver and Miss Oldcastle had reaped a small fortune. She glanced in a helpless way at Harry, and he said suddenly: