“Are there really women who would behave like that?” Gracyn wanted to know. Lanny said, yes, he was quite sure of it; nine-tenths of the ladies who saw the play would at least think that it was their duty to behave like that and would shed genuine tears of sympathy. He said that his stepmother would be one of them; and right away Gracyn wanted to know all about Esther Remson Budd.
Still more important, she had to have information about the manners of an English lady, a being entirely remote from her experience. Lanny was moved to tell her that he had known an English war nurse whose grandfather was an earl, and who was soon to marry the grandson of another. Straightway Rosemary began to be merged with Esther in the dramatic role — a very odd combination. Gracyn, of course, had a nose for romance, and after she had asked a score of questions about Rosemary — where Lanny had met her, and how, and what he had said and what she had said — she asked him pointblank if he and the girl hadn't been lovers, and Lanny didn't think it worth while to deny this. The revelation increased his authority and prestige.
He wouldn't let Gracyn tell Walter Hayden about this aspect of the matter. But the director knew that Lanny had lived abroad and possessed a treasure of knowledge about fashionable life. Together they pumped him and built the production on his advice — costumes, scenery, business, dialect, everything. The young society man of Holborn who took the part of the “juvenile” — that is, the wounded officer who fell in love — became Rick with his wounded leg, plus a few touches of Lanny himself. The French officer who lay in the next bed took on the mannerisms of Marcel Detaze. The comic hospital servant acquired a Provencal accent like Leese, the family cook at Bienvenu. Gracyn Phillipson received the “juvenile's” lovemaking with all the ardor of Rosemary Codwilliger, pronounced Culliver; but instead of being a “free woman” she became the Stern Daughter of the Voice of God of Wordsworth's “Ode to Duty.” That part of her was Esther Remson Budd; and she was so sorrowful, so highminded, so eloquent, that some of the ladies of the college town of Holborn had tears in their eyes even at rehearsals.
So Lanny became a sort of assistant director, and gave an education as well as receiving one. He lived a double life, one lobe of his brain full of stage business, and the other full of munitions contracts and correspondence. He left the office at five, and was in Holborn by six, had supper with Gracyn and sometimes with Hayden, attended the rehearsal, and was back in bed by midnight. He saw the play growing under his hands and it was a fascinating experience, enabling him to understand the girl's hunger for a stage career. He told his father about it, and Robbie was sympathetic and kept his uneasiness to himself. He surely didn't want his son drawn into that disorderly and hysterical kind of life; but he told himself that every youngster has to have his fling and it would be poor tactics trying to force him.
V
The great day in the evening drew near. The frightened amateur players had rehearsed a good part of the previous night; but Lanny hadn't been able to stay for that, he had to leave them to their fate. He invited several of his friends to the show; Robbie promised to bring others, but Esther politely alleged a previous engagement. Rumors had spread concerning the dramatic “find,” and the wealth and fashion of one Connecticut valley was on hand; the Red Cross would have another thousand dollars with which to buy bandages and medicines.
Lanny had thought he knew Gracyn Phillipson by now, but he was astonished by what she did that evening. Every trace of fright and uncertainty was left in the wings like a discarded garment; she came upon the stage a war nurse, exhausted with her labors and aching with pity, yet dignified and conscious of her social position. All the incongruous elements had been assembled into a character — it might not have satisfied an English lady of society, but it met New England ladies' ideas of such a person. They believed in her noble love for the young officer, and when she made her sorrowful renunciation their hearts were wrung.
The actress had shifted her names around, and appeared on the playbill as “Phyllis Gracyn.” The director considered that better suited for the electric signs on Broadway, for which he now felt sure that it was destined. Lanny listened to the excited questions of people about him: “Who is she? Where does she come from? How did they find her?” When the show was over, they crowded behind the scenes to meet and congratulate her. Lanny didn't try to join them; she had told him to go home — all she wanted was to crawl into bed in her lodging-house room and sleep a full twenty-four hours.
When he heard from her again she was in New York. Walter Hayden had advised her to come without delay. She wouldn't have to bother Lanny for money, because she had saved the greater part of her fifty dollars. She would write him as soon as she had something to tell. As he knew, she wasn't much at letter-writing; she was always running into words that she wasn't sure about.
Lanny returned to the armaments business and found it now lacking in glamour. He had satisfied the first rush of curiosity, and had discovered that contracts are complicated and that when you have read too many they become a blur in your mind; at least that was the case with him, though apparently not with his father. Lanny kept thinking about speeches in the play, and the way Gracyn had said them. They had got all mixed up in his mind with Rosemary, Rick, and Marcel; and it made him sad.
He went back to tennis and swimming at the country club. He had become a figure of romance in the eyes of the debutantes and the smart young matrons; he had had an affair with a brilliant young actress and might still be having it. More than one of them gave signs of being willing to “cut her out,” but Lanny was absent-minded. It was August, and the papers reported a heat wave in New York; how was that frail little creature standing it? She was meeting this manager and that, she wrote; hopes were being held out to her; she would have good news soon. But not a word about love! Did she think that the Stern Daughter of the Voice of God might be opening Lanny's mail?
The war kept haunting him. Every time he went home he looked for a cablegram about Marcel; but nothing came. He thought about the monstrous battle line, stretched like a serpent across north eastern France; the mass deeds of heroism, the mass agony and death. The newspapers fed it to you, twice every day; you break fasted on glory and supped on grief:
VI
September, and there came an ecstatic letter from Gracyn. She had a part; a grand part; something tremendous; her future was assured. Unfortunately, she couldn't tell about it; she was pledged to keep it a strict secret. “Oh, Lanny, I am so happy! And so grateful to you. I'd never have made the grade if it hadn't been for you. Forgive me if I don't write more. I have a part to learn. I am going to be a success and you'll be proud of me.”