Joan Thursday: A Novel

"And," Joan drove her argument shrewdly home with unblushing mendacity – "Tom Wilbrow says it's only a question of time before I can get any figure I want to ask, in reason."

Quard's eyes started. "Tom Wilbrow!" he gasped.

"He rehearsed me in 'The Jade God' before Rideout went broke. I guess you heard about that."

The actor nodded moodily. "But I didn't know you was in the cast… Look here: make it – "

"Fifty or nothing."

After another moment of hesitation, Quard gave in with a surly "All right."

At once, to hide his resentment, he attacked with more force than elegance the food before him.

Joan permitted herself a furtive and superior smile. The success of her tactics proved wonderfully exhilarating, even more so than the prospect of receiving fifty dollars a week; she would have accepted fifteen rather than lose the opportunity. She had demonstrated clearly and to her own complete satisfaction her ability to manage men, to bend them to her will…

There was ironic fatality in the accident which checked this tide of gratulate reflection.

From some point in the restaurant behind Joan's back, three men who had finished their lunch rose and filed toward the Broadway entrance. Passing the girl, one of these looked back curiously, paused, turned, and retraced his steps as far as her table. His voice of spirited suavity startled her from a waking dream of power tempered by policy, ambitions achieved through adulation of men…

"Why, Miss Thursday, how do you do?"

Flashing to his face eyes of astonishment, Joan half started from her chair, automatically thrust out a hand of welcome, gasped: "Mr. Marbridge!"

Quard looked up with a scowl. Marbridge ignored him, having in a glance measured the man and relegated him to a negligible status. He had Joan's hand and the knowledge, easily to be inferred from her alarm and hesitation, that she remembered and understood the scene of last Sunday, and was at once flattered and frightened by that memory. His handsome eyes ogled her effectively.

"Please don't rise. I just caught sight of you and couldn't resist stopping to speak. How are you?"

"I" – Joan stammered – "I'm very well, thanks."

"As if one look at you wouldn't have told me you were as healthy as happy – more charming than both! You are – eh – not lonesome?"

His intimate smile, the meaning flicker of his eyes toward Quard, exposed the innuendo.

"Oh, no, I – "

"Venetia was saying only yesterday we ought to look you up. She wants to call on you. Where do you put up in town?"

Almost unwillingly the girl gave her address – knowing in her heart that the truth was not in this man.

"And, I presume, you're ordinarily at home round four in the afternoon?" She nodded instinctively. "I'll not forget to tell Venetia. Two-eighty-nine west Forty-fifth, eh? Right-O! I must trot along. So glad to have run across you. Good afternoon…"

Regaining control of her flustered thoughts, Joan found Quard eyeing her with odd intentness.

"Friend of yours?" he demanded with a sneer and a backward jerk of his head.

"Yes – the husband of a friend of mine," she replied quickly.

The actor digested this information grimly. "Swell friends you've got, all right!" he commented, not without a touch of envy. "Now I begin to understand… What's Marbridge going to do for you?"

"Do for me? Mr. Marbridge? Why, nothing," she answered blankly, in a breath. "I don't know what you mean."

"That's all right then. But take a friendly tip, and give him the office the minute he begins to talk about influencing managers to star you. I've heard about that guy, and he's a rotten proposition – grab it from me. He's Arlington's silent partner – and you know what kind of a rep. Arlington's got."

"No, I don't," Joan challenged him sharply. "What's more, I don't care. Anyway, I don't see what Arlington's reputation's got to do with my being a friend of Marbridge's wife."

"No more do I," grumbled Quard – "not if Marbridge believes you are."

XXIII

Before leaving the restaurant Quard outlined in detail his plans for producing "The Lie" for vaudeville presentation. He named the other two actors, spoke of hiring a negro dresser who would double as the servant, and indicated his intention of engaging a producing director of the first calibre who, he said, thought highly of the play.

Joan was a little overcome. Peter Gloucester was a producer quite worthy to be named in the same breath with Wilbrow.

"Well, he believes in the piece," Quard explained – "the same as me – and he says he'll give us ten afternoon rehearsals for a hundred and fifty. It'll be worth it."

"You must think so," said Joan, a little awed.

"You bet I do. This means a lot to me, anyway; I gotta do something to keep my head above out-of-town stock – or the movies again." Mentioning his recent experience, he shuddered realistically. "But if this piece ain't actor-proof, I'm no judge. Gloucester says so, too. And to have him tune it up into a reg'lar classy act will be worth … something, I tell you!"

His hesitation was due to the fact that Quard was secretly counting on the representations of his agent, Boskerk, who insisted that, properly presented, the sketch would earn at least four hundred and fifty dollars a week, instead of the sum he had named to Joan.

But Joan overlooked this lamely retrieved slip; she was all preoccupied with a glowing sense of gratification growing out of this endorsement of her first surmise, that Quard had only waited on her consent to go ahead. The thought was unctuous flattery to her conceit, inflating it tremendously even in the face of a shrewd suspicion that it was sentiment more than an exaggerated conception of her ability that made Quard reckon her coöperation indispensable. That the man was infatuated with her she was quite convinced; on the other hand, she didn't believe him sufficiently blinded by passion to imperil the success of his venture by giving her the chief part unless he believed she could play it – "actor-proof" or no.

"Lis'n, girlie," Quard pursued after one meditative moment: "could you begin rehearsing tomorrow?"

"Of course I could."

"Because if we don't, we lose three days…"

"How?"

"Well," Quard explained with a sheepish grin, "I guess I ain't any more nutty than the next actor you'll meet on Broadway; but I'd as lief slip my bank-roll to the waiter for a tip as start anything on a Friday. And Sat'day and Sunday's busy days for the Jinx, too. I got too much up to wish anything mean onto this piece!.."

At his suggestion they left the dining-room by the hotel entrance on Forty-fourth Street, and Joan waited in the lobby while Quard telephoned Gloucester.

"It's all right," he announced, beaming as he emerged from the booth – "Pete's ready to commence tomorrow aft'noon. Now I got to hustle and round up the rest of the bunch."

"Where will it be?" asked Joan.

"Don't know yet – I'll 'phone you where in the morning, at the latest…"

Hastening home, Joan plunged at once into the study of her part, with the greater readiness since the occupation was anodynous to an uneasy conscience. Though she was always what is known as a "quick study," this new rôle was a difficult one; by far the longest, and unquestionably the most important, it comprised fully half the total number of "sides" in the manuscript – nearly half as many again as were contained in Quard's part, the next in order of significance. And her application, that first day, was hindered by a perplexing interruption in the early evening, when a box was delivered to her containing a dozen magnificent red roses and nothing else – neither a card nor a line of identification. At first inclining to credit Quard with this extravagance, on second thought she remembered Marbridge, whom she felt instinctively to be quite capable of such overtures. And her mind was largely distracted for the rest of the night by empty guesswork and futile attempts to decide whether or not she ought to run the risk of thanking Quard when next they met.

Eventually she made up her mind to let the sender furnish the clue; and inasmuch as Quard never said anything which the most ready imagination could interpret as a reference to the offering, she came in time to feel tolerably satisfied that the anonymous donor must have been Marbridge.

It was to be long, however, before this surmise could be confirmed; although, on getting home Saturday night, after a hard day's work and a late dinner with Quard, she was informed that a gentleman had called and asked for her during the afternoon, but had left neither word nor card. The same thing happened on Monday, under like circumstances; after which the attempts to see her were discontinued.

And then, Joan noticed that Venetia didn't call…