Read Ebook: The Grip of Honor: A Story of Paul Jones and the American Revolution by Brady Cyrus Townsend

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Ebook has 1217 lines and 55828 words, and 25 pages

"Mr. Frohman is not in," he responded with a bland smile.

I was about to enquire when he was expected when I caught the reflection of the office boy in a mirror on the wall. He was winking broadly to the girl at the typewriter; I felt the blood rising to my face, and I fear I made a somewhat confused exit.

Will had many a good laugh over my credulity. I had come all the way from an Indiana town to see Mr. Frohman, and there was about as much chance of being admitted to his presence as the proverbial camel has of slipping through the needle's eye. Needless to say, I never mustered sufficient courage to call on Mr. Frohman again.

To-day, however, I was forearmed. The manager to whom I had been recommended by the agent sent out word that I was to wait. A half hour later I was conducted to his presence. As I entered, he was seated in a revolving chair, one foot resting on a small sliding shelf on his desk, and a large black cigar in the corner of his mouth. He did not rise, but nodded to me and motioned me to the seat opposite. While he read the agent's letter he removed his leg from the table and crossed it over the other. He was a short, heavy man, with a preponderance of abdomen. He had thick, loose lips, and his head was as round and as smooth as a billiard ball; his eyes were black and snappy, and threw out as much fire as the huge diamond he wore on his little finger.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, you look the part all right.... How much experience have you had?"

"One season on the road with Mr. O'Brien's Company, but of course I've played in amateur theatricals for...."

"Voice strong?" he bellowed, tilting himself back in his chair.

"Oh, yes, sir," I responded, using the loud pedal to prove my assertion.

"Don't sound like it."

"Perhaps not now, but--" I hesitated.

"But what?" he queried, smiling indulgently at me.

His smile gave me courage, and I answered truthfully: "Well, I think I'm a little scared just now."

"What kind of a part is it?" I ventured.

"Didn't Tom tell you about it?... It's a pretty part--one of them innocent country maidens that never saw the streets of Cairo--that kind. She falls in love with a villain who takes her to the great city, and then throws her down--hard. The poor girl's afraid to go back to home and mother, and just as she's about to commit suicide a good-natured sucker comes along and marries her. It's sympathetic and appealin'--goes right to the heart. Can't help but make a hit. Dressin' ain't much, and we expect to run all season in New York."

"What's the salary?" meaning to appear business-like.

"Twenty-five in New York, and thirty on the road."

I did not reply, for my mind was making rapid calculations. Twenty-five dollars a week, with the prospect of running all season in New York! Why, I should be able to pay my own expenses and lay aside a little besides.

"That's a good salary," began the manager, taking my silence for dissent. "If you make a hit, I'll raise it five. I tell you what I'll do: I'll give you a letter to the stage manager. They're rehearsing now. The dame we engaged for the part, way last summer, got married on the quiet, and has got to retire for family reasons." He winked at me again, as he took up his pen. I waited uneasily while he wrote. "Here's the letter," he said, moistening the flap of the envelope with his lips. "Now, run along and see Mr. Thompson at the Academy. He's the doctor." He rose by way of dismissal, and indicated a door other than which I had entered. I thanked him and assured him my voice was quite strong.

"You're a pretty little thing," he said as he accompanied me to the door. "Pretty little figure ... what d'ye weigh?"

"I don't know really how much, but I think about one hundred and ten pounds," I answered with some confusion.

"As much as that? Where do you carry it all?" He ran his fat, stubby hands over my shoulders and down about my hips. His smile became a leer. Before I could realize what was happening he had taken me in his arms, and his heavy, wet lips were pressed against my mouth. His hands played over my body, and, though I struggled to cry out and to release myself, I was unable to do either. It seemed as if my senses were deserting me; then, the muffled bell of the telephone sounded, and he released me.

"Damn that bell," he said. Nauseated with disgust and fright, I cowered in the corner; he tried to draw my hands from my face, laughing as he whispered: "Like it, like it, do you?" Then with another oath at the continued call from the telephone, he crossed to his desk. "Run along now," he directed, without a look....

I never knew how I found my way down the stairs to the street. I did not wait for the elevator. I saw that people looked at me as I hurried along the street--whither I did not ask myself. Only when I collided with someone on the stairs did I realize that I had gone straight to the agent's office.

"Hello, little lady!" I recognized Miss Burton's voice. "My, we're in a hurry! For God's sake, child, what's happened to you? What's the matter? You look as if you were going to throw a fit! Here--let's go to a drug store."

After a dose of sal volatile, Miss Burton called a hansom and insisted on taking me home. I did not want her to accompany me. I wanted to be alone. When we were safely in the house I lost all control. She let me have my cry out without asking a question. Then, when I was calmer, I told her what had happened.

"The old blackguard! The old blackguard! I've heard that about him before. Why didn't you hand him one? Why didn't you smack his face?"

"I'll leave that to my husband," I replied with tearful dignity.

Miss Burton contemplated me between violent puffs of her cigarette. Then she shook her head. "Um-um, girlie; no, sir ... you mustn't tell your husband."

"Why not?" It whatever to hide his misery. The impressionable young Irishman had fallen deeply in love with Elizabeth Howard. He had fallen in love a thousand times before, but not in this way; and the heart which had withstood the successful assaults of the brilliant beauties of the gay court of France had literally succumbed at the first sight of this beautiful English girl whom benignant fortune had thrown across his path.

She, and she only, was his fate, then and thereafter. A new and hitherto unknown feeling had been excited in his heart at the sight of her. In that hour in the boat when he lay with his head upon her knee, when he had looked up at her, heaven had opened before his gaze, and to his disordered fancy she had seemed an angel. Each passing moment discovered in her a new charm, and he loved her with the impetuosity of a boy, the doting passion of an old man, and the consecration of a devotee.

With the daring of his race, he had not hesitated to acquaint the girl with his passion, either, though it was stale news to her; there is nothing a woman discovers more quickly and more certainly than the feelings of a man who loves her. That she had laughed at his ardor had not in the least deterred him from persisting in his attentions, which she had not found unwelcome, for he thoroughly understood the value of determined pursuit. She had told him that they were like two ships sailing the great sea, whose paths happened to cross for a moment. They meet, nod to each other, and pass on; the deep swallows them up, and they see each other no more forever.

He had vowed and protested that it would not be so; that England was a little country and Admiral Westbrooke a great man; that she could not be anywhere without attracting the attention of the world,--she could by no means hide her light; that he would withdraw from the American service, which he could honorably do at the expiration of the present cruise, and search the whole island until he found her,--all of which was pleasant for her to hear, of course, though it elicited no more favorable reply. She was attracted to the young man: his handsome person, his cultured mind, his charming manners were such that no one--no woman, that is--could be indifferent to them; but she did not love him, at least not yet.

Elizabeth Howard was a woman to make a man fall desperately in love with her, and many men had done so. She was tall and graceful, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and of noble presence. She was proud, she was wise, she was witty, she was tender, she was contemplative, she was gay, she was sad, she was joyous, in different moods. Days, years even, could not exhaust the charms of her infinite variety, though far down beneath the surface of her nature were the quiet deeps of constancy and devotion,--what plummet could sound them, who should discover them? There was about her that indefinable air of one born for homage and command which speaks of generations to whom have been accorded honor and place unquestioned.

It was not a long row to the land; and as they approached the rugged coast, the young lieutenant eagerly scanned the shore for a landing-place. Steering around a little promontory which hid them from the Ranger, he discovered a stretch of sandy beach under its lee, and the boat was sent in its direction until the keel grated on the soft sand. It was a lonely spot, a little stretch of sand ending inland, and on one side in precipitous rocks over which a wandering pathway straggled unevenly to the heights above. The other end of the beach gave entrance, through a little opening, or pass in the rocks, upon a country road which wandered about inland, losing itself under some trees a mile or so away.

On the rocky promontory back of, and at one end of the beach, there was a small lighthouse; and several miles from the beach in the other direction, at the end of the road probably, was a castle or fort, the flag floating lazily from the staff indicating that it was garrisoned. Springing lightly from the boat, O'Neill stepped recklessly into the water alongside. Miss Howard rose to her feet and looked anxiously about her.

"Allow me," said O'Neill; and then, without waiting for permission, he lifted her gently in his arms and carried her to the shore. "Would that all the earth were water, and that I might carry you forever," he said, as he put her down upon the sand.

"You would not like heaven, then?" she replied, jesting.

"I find my present experience of it delightful, madam; but why do you say that?" he asked anxiously.

"Because there, we are told, there will be no more sea!" she answered with well-simulated gayety.

"'Tis a poor place for a sailor, then," he replied gravely, in no mood for badinage, "and I fear few of them will get there."

Price, who had followed his officer's example with the maid, now stepped up to him for his orders, necessarily interrupting the conversation.

"Price," he said to that intrepid old sailor, "you may go back to the boat and shove off, and keep her under the lee of that little point until I call you. Keep a sharp lookout, too."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the old sailor, turning to fulfil the command.

"Now I suppose the time has come for me to say good-bye to Lieutenant O'Neill," said Elizabeth.

"Oh, not yet, Miss Howard; I cannot leave you here alone until I know that you are safe."

"But your duty, sir?"

"A gentleman's, a sailor's, first duty is always toward a helpless woman, especially if she is--

"His prisoner, you would say, I suppose?" she said, interrupting hastily. That was not at all what he had intended to say, but he let it pass.

"You know who is prisoner, now and forever, Miss Howard."

"If you refer to Lieutenant O'Neill, I will release him now and forever as well, at once, sir," she said archly.

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