Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/58

 along the water's edge, smiling in apparent delight.

face to face; I bent to kiss her hand. As once before, it fluttered under my lips, but when I straightened again I saw nothing of distaste or unsteadiness in her expression.

"Gib, how nice that you're here!" she cried. "Do you like the place?"

"I haven't seen very much of it yet," I told her. "I want to see the inside of the theater."

She took her hand away from me and thrust it into the pocket of the old white sweater she wore. "I think that I love it here," she said, with an air of gay confession. "Not all of the hermit stories about me are lies. I could grow truly fat—God save the mark!—on quiet and serenity."

"Varduk pleases you, too?" I suggested.

"He has more understanding than any other theatrical executive in my experience," she responded emphatically. "He fills me with the wish to work. I'm like a starry-eyed beginner again. What would you say if I told you that I was sweeping my own room and making my own bed?"

"I would say that you were the most charming housemaid in the world."

Her laughter was full of delight. "You sound as if you mean it, Gib. It is nice to know you as a friend again."

It seemed to me that she emphasized the word "friend" a trifle, as though to warn me that our relationship would nevermore become closer than that. Changing the subject, I asked her if she had swum in the lake; she had, and found it cold. How about seeing the theater? Together we walked toward the lodge and entered at a side door.

The auditorium was as Jake had described it to me, and I saw that Varduk liked a dark tone. He had stained the paneling, the benches, and the beams a dark brown. Brown, too, was the heavy curtain that hid the stage.

"We'll be there tonight," said Sigrid, nodding stageward. "Varduk has called the first rehearsal for immediately after dinner. We eat together, of course, in a big room upstairs."

"May I sit next to you when we eat?" I asked, and she laughed yet again. She was being as cheerful as I had ever known her to be.

"You sound like the student-hero in a light opera, Gib. I don't know about the seating-arrangement. Last night I was at the head of the table, and Varduk at the foot. Jake and Mr. Davidson were at either side of me."

"I shall certainly arrive before one or the other of them," I vowed solemnly.

Varduk had drifted in as we talked, and he chuckled at my announcement.

"A gallant note, Mr. Connatt, and one that I hope you can capture as pleasantly for the romantic passages of our Ruthven. By the bye, our first rehearsal will take place this evening."

"So Miss Holgar has told me," I nodded. "I have studied the play rather prayerfully since Davidson gave me a copy. I hope I'm not a disappointment in it."

"I am sure that you will not be," he said kindly. "I did not choose disappointing people for my cast."

Davidson entered from the front, to say that Martha Vining had arrived. Varduk moved away, stiff in his walk as I had observed before. Sigrid and I went through the side door and back into the open.

That evening I kept my promise to find a place by Sigrid at the table. Davidson, entering just behind me, looked a trifle chagrined but sat at my other side, with Martha Vining opposite. The dinner was good, with roast mutton, salad and apple