All this she thought of instantly as she stared at this plump, grey-haired, and faultlessly groomed man whose eyes had suddenly, and for no reason that she knew, filled with tears, and whose mouth now had the pouting, wounded look of a hurt child. And her heart was filled with a nameless and undefinable sense of compassion as she cried warmly, in a protesting voice:
“But, Fritz! You know I never felt like that! You know I never said a thing like that to you! You know I love it when you like anything I do! I’d rather have your opinion ten times over than that of these newspaper fellows! What do they know anyway?” she muttered scornfully.
Mr. Jack, having taken off his glasses and polished them, having blown his nose vigorously and put his glasses on again, now lowered his head, braced his thumb stiffly on his temple and put four plump fingers across his eyes in a comical shielding position, saying rapidly in a muffled, apologetic voice:
“I know! I know! It’s all right! I was only joking,” he said with an embarrassed smile. Then he blew his nose vigorously again, his face lost its expression of wounded feeling, and he began to talk in a completely natural, matter-of-fact tone, as if nothing he had done or said had been at all unusual. “Well,” he said, “how do you feel? Are you pleased with the way things went last night?”
“Oh, I suppose so,” she answered dubiously, feeling all at once the vague discontent that was customary with her when her work was finished and the almost hysterical tension of the last days before a theatrical opening was at an end. Then she continued: “I think it went off pretty well, don’t you? I thought my sets were sort of good—or did you think so?” she asked eagerly. “No,” she went on in the disparaging tone of a child talking to itself, “I guess they were just ordinary. A long way from my best—hah?” she demanded.
“You know what I think,” he said. “I’ve told you. There’s no one who can touch you. The best thing in the show!” he said strongly. “They were by far the best thing in the show—by far! by far!” Then, quietly, he added: “Well, I suppose you’re glad it’s over. That’s the end of it for this season, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said, “except for some costumes that I promised Irene Morgenstein I’d do for one of her ballets. And I’ve got to meet some of the Arlington company for fittings again this morning,” she concluded in a dispirited tone.
“What, again! Weren’t you satisfied with the way they looked last night? What’s the trouble?”
“Oh”—she said with disgust—“what do you think’s the trouble, Fritz? There’s only one trouble! It never changes! It’s always the same! The trouble is that there are so many half-baked fools in the world who’ll never do the thing you tell them to do! That’s the trouble! God!” she said frankly, “I’m too good for it! I never should have given up my painting. It makes me sick sometimes!” she burst out with warm indignation. “Isn’t it a shame that everything I do has to be wasted on those people?”
“What people?”
“Oh, you know,” she muttered, “the kind of people that you get in the theatre. Of course there are some good ones—but God!” she exclaimed, “most of them are such trash! Did you see me in this, and did you read what they said about me in that, and wasn’t I a knockout in the other thing?” she muttered resentfully. “God, Fritz, to listen to the way they talk you’d think the only reason a play ever gets produced is to give them a chance to strut around and show themselves off upon a stage! When it ought to be the most wonderful thing in the world! Oh, the magic you can make, the things you can do with people if you want to! It’s like nothing else on earth!” she cried. “Isn’t it a shame no more is done with it?”
She was silent for a moment; sunk in her own thoughts, then she said wearily:
“Well, I’m glad this job’s at an end. I wish there was something else I could do. If I only knew how to do something else, I’d do it. Really, I would,” she said earnestly. “I’m tired of it. I’m too good for it,” she said simply, and for a moment she stared moodily into space.
Then, frowning in a sombre and perturbed way, she fumbled in a wooden box upon the desk, took from it a cigarette, and lighted it. She got up nervously and began to walk about the room with short steps, frowning intently while she puffed at the cigarette, and holding it in the rather clumsy but charming manner of a woman who rarely smokes.
“I wonder if I’ll get any more shows to do next season,” she muttered half to herself, as if scarcely aware of her husband’s presence. “I wonder if there’ll be anything more for me. No one has spoken to me yet,” she said gloomily.
“Well, if you’re so tired of it, I shouldn’t think you’d care,” he said ironically, and then added: “Why worry about it till the time comes?”
With that he stooped and planted another friendly and perfunctory kiss on her cheek, gave her shoulder a gentle little pat, and turned and left the room.