Page:Black cat 1897 07 v2 n10.pdf/18

16 At the time I was unnecessarily angered at what I termed your desertion. But my feeling for my favorito pupil has outlived anger.

Besides, I know you. I know that long before this your artist nature must have triumphed. It is always so. You may give up the stage; it never gives up you. You may fancy that you have forgotten it; but one day, like Pandora in the old Greek legend, you open the forbidden casket—and, presto! the spirits of your past existence are alive and possess you.

Why do I write this? Because I need you,—you, who alone can understand my ideas. Because I have a new play,—whose leading character you only can create.

In two weeks I begin rehearsals at Chicago. Will you come back to the world that is yours by right of conquest? Will you gain glory for yourself and for the teacher who gave his best energies to your success? If you will—listen. It is a melodramatic request, maybe—but you know we stage people are always romantic, sentimental, if you like; we never do things in the every day fashion. Well—this afternoon at five I shall pass your home. If you consent—be on your piazza wearing the sapphire-blue cloak in which you made our triumph. Then I shall understand, and the rest will be easy.

At five o'clock! The woman's eyes sought the clock in a neighboring steeple, and noted that it lacked twenty minutes of the hour. They sought once more the Queen Anne cottage opposite, then narrowed to include the cedar chests and rows of red chintz piece bags. Finally, they returned to the trunk, where the sapphire-blue cloak still lay undisturbed.

As she looked, a strange desire surged into her heart,—the desire to assume again that enchanted garment, again to walk in fancy the once beloved boards; and then to fold the garment and its memories away forever.

Steadily, though with eyes burning like those of a long abstainer who reaches for the forbidden cup, she rose, and slowly stretching out her hand, drew the soft velvet folds of the cloak about her. But at the touch of it and the scent of it, a feeling irresistible, unbelievable, tingled through her body. Once more she lived the life of the theater; once more she smelt the odor of raw gas mingled with that of powder and grease paint; once more she heard the scraping and creaking of scenery; she felt the hum of the audience, the thrill of the overture,—all that maddening under-rhythm of the world behind the scenes, whose call is to the player as the bugle note to the soldier.

Against that overmastering voice from the past what availed mere steeling of will and clenching of hands? Nothing to the