| Show ftfe m the MIRROR ry Kliza befi cordan c STORY FROM THE START dyon uco eaul playwright but inclined to attends the wedding of his liter barbara to whom ha been left the great devon fortune laurie had been a pay chap but for the last year he ha been the mark through the efforts of barbara lurie who I 1 wealthy refuses to fettle down to work announce hl intention of and adventure CHAPTER II 11 continued laurie grinned aad the grin infuriated bangs he whirled away from it A footstool impeded his progress and he kicked it out of the way with large abandon it was his habit to rush about a room when he was talk ing excitedly re rushed about now and laurie lit a cigarette and watched him at first angrily then with a grow ing tolerance bora 0 memories of decenes in their plays which bangs had thrashed out in much this same man ner the world coald never be wholly uninteresting while rodna pranced about in it cutting the ale alth tures like that here I 1 am snapped rodne ready with my play the best plot ive had yet you won t let me even men alon it to you here s the new season heres epstean Epst eln sitting on our doorman doormat with a check book in each hand wait ing to put on anything we give him you know hes lost a small fortune this fall you know its up to us to give him a play that will pull him out of the hole he s in here s baxon the best director in town marking elmp and holding managers in the hope that you and I 1 will get down to business and here you are the were alii counting an he for breath and adjectives res laurie politely prompted him here I 1 am what about it what am I 1 doing you know d d what you re doing youre loafing I 1 bangs anred the word at him as if it were a shell from a big bertha youe loaning till it makes us all sick to look at you we thought a week or two of it would be enough when you realized the con but its gone on for a month and instead of getting tired youre getting more and more into the loaning habit you abuse time it shrieks in agony good sentence applauded laurie but dont waste it on me put it into ft play bangs seemed not to hear him he was standing by the rooms one aln nw now staring unseeingly out of it here 1 am snapped rodney hla hands deep in hla pockets taking in the knowledge of the failure of hla appeal under the realization of this he tossed a final taunt over his der 1 I can forgive the big blunders a man makes in his life he muttered but I 1 haven t much patience a chap that alea around and shirks at a time like laurie removed the half smoked cigarette from his mouth and not find ing til ath tray within reach carefully out its burning end against the polished op of the dressing case hc had grown rather pale that will be about all bangs he 1 quietly ahat you and epstean baxon aion t seem to remember t oce thing if you don t like ns mighty easy nt take halt icove n part hands still in his pockets stared despondently spon dently at his outstretched legs all it means to you he went on morosely our partnership is one in a thousand its based on friend ship as well as on financial interest it I 1 do say it it represents a comal nation ot brains ability backing ami prospects that canies conies only once in n lifetime it it comes at all yet in one year you re sick of it and tired of work youre ready to throw it all over and to throw over at the aroe time the men whose interests are bound up with yours you re dawdling in cabarets and roadhouses and res tarrants tau rants when you might be doing work bangs voice capitalized the word real work he added fiercely work other fellows would ghe their souls to be able to do he ended on a flat note oddly unlike his usual buoyant tones and sat still as it everything had been said landle lit a fresh cigarette drew in a mouthful of smoke and exhaled it in a series of pretty rings in his brief college experience he had de voted some time to acquiring this art admiringly watching the little rings pass through the big rings be spoke with studied carelessness it was a pretty good scene bangs he said and it showed careful rehearsing but it would be a lot more effective it you had a real situation to base it on As it Is youre making a devil 0 a row about nothing I 1 worked like a horse all last year and you know it now I 1 m resting or loaf ing it yon prefer to call it that and he bit oft the words and fairly threw them at his friend it will save you and and a lot of men tal wear and tear it you will mind your own business and let me alone bangs raised his ayea and dropped hem again you are our business he somberly reminded his partner ave got so I 1 can t work without you he added with a humility new to him you know that and you know ire got the plot its ready great scott its boiling in me 1 I 1 m crazy to get tt out and here ive got to sit around watch ang you kill time while you know and I 1 know that you d be a d n sight happier it you were on the job good lord laurie works the biggest thing there as in life doean doesn t it jeaa anything at all to you not lust now landle spoke with maddening nonchalance then there s something rotten in i you laurie winced but made no answer he hoped bangs would go on talking and thus destroy the echo of his last words with which the silent room seemed filled but nothing came opportunity had passed and he was lost in depressed realization of hs failure laurie strolled back to the mirror his forgotten tie dan glang in his hand well let it go at that he said then think things over and make up your mind what you want to do about the contract all right bangs replied in the same flat notes he had used a moment before and without changing bis position but the two words gave landle a chock n did not believe that either kodney or would contemplate a alon of their existing partnership but an hour ago he would not have be cleved that bangs could say to him the things he had said just now he was beginning to realize that he had tried his partners sorely in the month that had passed since his re turn to town and all for what lie himself had braueht out of the foolish experience nothing cave a tired nervous system a sense of boredom such u he had not known tor a year and especially when he looted at bangs an acute mental discomfort which in I 1 respective persona would probably have diagnosed as the pangs of conscience laurie did not take the brou trou tty to diagnose it he merely resent ei it as a grievance added to the supreme grievance based on the tact that he had not yet even started on the high adventure he had promised himself he was gloomily considering both grievances and tying his tie with his usual care when something in the mirror caught and held his attention lie looked at it at first casually then with growing interest in the glass directly facing him was a wide studio window it was open ing the cold january weather and a comfortable middle aged clump worn in evidently a superior type of caretaker was sitting on the sill polishing an inner pane the scene was as is a mirage and it was like the ml rage in that it was projected from some point which itself remained un seen laurie turned to the one window the dressing room afforded a double french window at his bigit but a lit tie behind him and reaching to the floor through this he could see across a court the opposite elde of his own building but no such window or corn mon place vision as had just come to him in his absorption in the phenomenon he called to bangs who rose slowly andr coming to his side regarded the scene without much inter est its a cross projection from a house diagonally opposite us he said after studying the picture a moment it must be that old red studio building on the southwest comer of the square if we bad a room back of this and looking toward thy west we could eee thereal window As it Is said laurie weve got a reserved seat for an intimate study of any one who lives there I 1 wonder who has that studio bangs had no idea he was grateful to the little episode however tor spreading over the yielding ground beneath his feet the solid strip on which he had crossed back to hla chum he threw an arm across lauries shoulders and looked into ahlai face with something in his expression that reminded young devon of a favorite collie he bad loved and lost in boyhood all right now the look asked just as the dogs look had asked it of the attle chap of ten when something had gone wrong creed of life was held together by a few prim itlie law athe first qt which was jo alty already he was reproaching himself for what he had said and don I 1 auric carefully completed the tying of his tie and turned to him with his gayest smile hurry up and finish dressing he cheerfully suggested and we 11 go opt to breakfast since you insist on waiting round for me like marys little lamb I 1 suppose ive got to teed boti wide grin responded for the first time in many days he bustled about completing his toilet and ten minutes later the two young men started out together with a lightness of spirit which each enjoyed and neither wholly understood both had a healthy horror of sentimental stutt and a gay normal disregard of each others feelings in ordinary intercourse but in the past half hour for the first time in their association they had come close to a serious break and the soul of each had been chilled by a premonitory loneliness as definite as the touch of an icy finger in the quick reaction they experienced now their spirits soared exultantly ahey breakfasted in a fellowship such as they had not known since barbaras marriage the month before if bangs had indulged in any dream of a change of life in laurie how eer following this reconciliation the next few days destroyed the tender shoots of that hope laurie s manner retained its pleasant camaraderie out work and he met as strangers and passed each other by the his days remained what chev had been during the past he weeks he gadded about apparently harmlessly came home at shocking hours and spent most of the bracing january days wrapped in a healthful anat infuriated bangs who wandered in and out of tbell apartment like an unhappy ghost on the rare occasions when he and bodney lunched or dined together baurle waa entirely good humored and when epstean waa with them wholly to any hints thrown out nane too subtly by bis producing partner listen baurle said that disgusted individual almost a month atter the new year had been ushered in the new years here 1 hat 9 a good time or a yoong feua to get busy again on borth while aln t I 1 baurle suppressed a yawn and carefully struck ott with his little finger the ash of an excellent cigarette lie was consuming thirty or forty cigarettes a day and his nerves were beginning to show the effect of this indulgence 1 I believe it J he courteously agreed it has been earnestly recommended om mended to the young as a good time to start something veil voice took on the guttural notes of his temperamental her elbows were on the sill her chin rested inthe hollow of her cupped hands moments don t that mean to your baurle grinned lie had caught the quick look of warning bongs snot at the producer and it amused him not yet he s ild ot till ive bad my adventure T epstean sniffed the greatest adventure in life he scaled dogmatically aiji a lot of money I 1 you got all the other adventures you can handle trying to bold on to it 1 bangs who was developing a new and hitherto unsuspected vein of tact encouraged to enlarge on this congenial theme lie now fully real iced that devon would go his own gait until he wearied of it and that no argument or persuasion could enter his armor clad mind the position of bangs was a difficult one fot while he was accepting and assimilating this unpleasant fact epstean and baxon impatient men by temperament and without much training in self control were getting wholly put of patience and therefore out of hand baxon indeed was for the time entirely out of hand for he had finally started the rehearsals of a new play which he grimly informed bangs would macce the man above look like a canceled postage stamp bangs repeated the comment to his chum the next morning during the late dressing hour which bow gave them almost their opportunity for a few words he had hoped it would make an impression and he listened with pleasure to a sharp exclamation from 1 aarle who chanced to be standing before the door mirror in the dressing room brushing his hair the next instant bangs realized that it was not hla news which had evoked the tribute of that exclamation come here 1 called baurle urgent ly here s something new and by jove isn t she p 1 bangs interrupted his toilet to lounge across the room looking over laertes shoulder his ees found lie cynosure that bield the gaze of hh friend the wide open studio window was again reflected n the mirror but with another occupant this was a girl boung and lovely she appeared in the window like half length photograph in a frame boda showed from above the waist her allows were on the sill her chin rested in the hollows of hei cupped hands her dav hair parted on one side and drawn softly oer the cars in the fashion of the acason waa reddish gold her aea were brown and very thoughtful down dropped they seemed to stare at something on the street below but hie girl s expression was not that of one alio wa looking at an object with interest in bhe seemed lost in a deep and melancholy abstraction baurle a hair brush in each hana stared hard at he picture she charming 1 he cried agian bangs reply repealed a several practical side of Ms nature shell ha a beastly cold in th head if she shut that win dow he grumelli suggested but hl interest too was aroused lie stared nt the girl in the mirror with an at almost equal to baurle s who I 1 this girl in th mirror TO 99 |
