The Song of the Dragon

Front matter

9 dae beg be wee : - s/h ; ¥ { 1+" . . peers 73°)

qty

6 din by be yy

I. It

VII.

THE SONG OF THE DRAGON .

Economic INDEPENDENCE .

\ . THE WHITE GROUSE . Sprrit Dore ae a ee . Sort Craws - te ae le

And the elders took council, lest the fields and villages be destroyed by the dragon, and a maiden was chosen to be delivered up to him.—Old Fatry Tale.

I. The Song of the Dragon —

Life and experience make an actress. It follows that ingénues cannot act—and actresses are no longer ingénues. Being one of the few producers who are aware of the above unescapable fact, William Kemper tapped an upper front tooth with his right forefinger nail—a habit he had when thoughtful or troubled—as he read the script of Beauty and the Beast for the first time.

He had gambled in futures in the matter of Beauty and the Beast. He had paid an advance for the next play by Rupert Dudley after seeing Cherry Blossoms wither and die under the white lights of Broadway in less than two weeks.

The fate of this maiden effort by a young playwright had disturbed Kemper not at all. He had long since discarded orthodoxy in his methods. With him it was not, Why do plays succeed? It was, What makes them fail?

Following this will-o’-the-wisp, he had sat through the last dismal performance of Cherry Blossoms with

I the keenness of a terrier at a rat hole. Two days later he was nourishing the self-esteem of its discouraged author with a substantial check for a play to be delivered on or before December 15, 1917.

And here was the play—a whale of a show, he told himself—better than he had hoped for, far better; but the lead, who must carry three big scenes and hold through ten minutes of gossamer-light comedy, was “‘a fairy creature, half woman and half child.”

“Huh!” said Kemper, and continued his staccato tapping at his front tooth. He had spent a morning telling the boy five hundred things he must not do, but writing a whale of a show about a female person of seventeen summers was not one of them.

The part rang true—that was the trouble. The trail of adolescence was over it all. The pathos of the later scenes sprang from the bewilderment of a young and tender thing as life closed prematurely about her. No chance to fake it with a real trouper of thirty or so who could look twenty-four if the top lights were amber and rose. It must be a chicken! Kemper recalled the season’s crop of ingénues. He thought of their high voices, which had no trace of the timbre which the situation required. He thought of the many things they would do with their hands—paw furniture, pat other characters, drag at coat lapels, twist handkerchiefs, twine and untwine fingers. They would waver in the big moments and wriggle in the quiet ones. No single one of them could sit or stand immovable for ten seconds. They would arch and preen and simper and roll their eyes. They had to act, God help them, or they were lost! |

“They'd murder it!’ was his conclusion as he dismissed them in toto from his mind.

A band began to play. It crashed out the opening notes of a march, or rather the march—the one and only march; the march to which millions were moving from baseball diamond, gridiron, tennis court, to the practice fields of a new game, rough perhaps, but sure to be exciting. | |

Kemper’s finger nail ceased its tapping. His frown disappeared. Curious, he thought, that one went ahead somehow with scripts, rehearsals, tryouts and first nights when that song—that song would presently march them to ships that would bear them away.

The theater was a necessity now, he reflected. The anzsthesia of make-believe was a greater blessing than ever before. It seemed a little cruel to sell war bonds between acts to people who were striving to forget. But it must be done. It gave Kemper a small thrill of pride to remember that it was being done with ardor and skill. The profession was doing its bit, no doubt of that. Why, the song he was listening to had been written by an actor who was a playwright and fellow producer as well! The whole mess, as a matter of fact, was the work of an actor. He happened to be a Kaiser, but that was an accident of birth. Temperamentally he was an actor who had played at king and adored the business of the half-drawn sword. Kemper rather doubted the Machiavellian plotting and planning attributed to this mountebank. He had simply assumed one of his martial attitudes. The war party had seized his arm and completed the gesture. No one had been more surprised than he when his weapon had flashed from the scabbard. ‘The poor fool!’ mused Kemper, and became aware, as the band grew fainter, that some one was knocking on the door.

It proved to be Edgar, office boy extraordinary, last line of defense between William Kemper, producer of plays, and ten thousand earnest souls who were determined to appear in one of them. Although carefully reared in the Catholic faith, Edgar would have informed the Pope himself that his employer was in conference. Now, however, his habitual lofty disdain had given place to a mysterious manner, unprecedented and baffling. Advancing stealthily into the room he paused in a semicrouching attitude and hissed twice. Glancing over his shoulder he crept nearer and hissed again.

‘What are you rehearsing?” asked Kemper. “And why do you do it in here?”

“‘He’s outside,” explained Edgar in a strained whisper. “You'd never know it from lookin’ at him. Mebbe it’s a ham tryin’ to put one over on me. I dunno. Here’s the card.”

The card made clear the mystery of Edgar’s lapse into melodrama.

“James Smith, Secret Service Department,” Kemper read. ‘“‘Ah-ha!’’ said he. “Dirty work at the crossroads! Well, show him in.”

Edgar glided to the door, hissed into the passageway and beckoned with a slight jerk of his head. Kemper was presently shaking hands with a peering, nearsighted little man of about sixty; a white-haired, washed-out, shrinking little man who, although the day was fair, wore aggressively shiny rubbers and carried an umbrella.

Kemper looked him over with a sinking heart. He had always believed, he did not quite know why, that whatever else was wrong at Washington, the Secret Service Department of the United States could not be matched the world around. And yet here was the first agent of that department he had ever encountered, so far as he knew—and what an agent!

Mr. Smith had taken a chair, or rather the extreme edge of a chair, and was now gazing with vague mildness about the office, one hand clutching the middle of his umbrella and the other the rim of his black felt hat.

The curiosity that Kemper had felt as to the nature of his visitor’s business with him had vanished. A sort of rage replaced it. At war with a great and ruthless power, whose one time subjects were scattered by millions over the land, America was face to face with an unprecedented situation. And this was the sort of material she was using for her protection! God help the country! Kemper glared at the unoffending Mr. Smith with a huge inward contempt. His eyes traveled down his visitor’s unimposing figure and centered on the absurd rubber overshoes which incased his hapless feet.

Mr. Smith cleared his throat with an embarrassed cough and began to speak. As he did so Kemper looked up. The voice which had seemed so mild, so deprecating when its owner had introduced himself had become curiously dry, almost hard. As Kemper met the glance of Mr. Smith, now riveted upon him, he received a distinct shock. The eyelids of the agent had unexpectedly narrowed. Between them was a pair of blue-steel bayonets which seemed to pass with no effort whatsoever into the very heart of William Kemper, contemptuous contemplator of overshoes. Mr. Smith’s words were as disconcerting as his glance. “We want to get in touch with Doris Gray. You know her ?” |

It was more a statement than a question, but Kemper nodded.

“Intimately ?”’

Kemper hesitated an instant before it flashed through his mind that a chivalric attempt to protect a woman’s name was in this case both useless and absurd. Again he nodded.

“We have a big piece of work for some woman,” Mr. Smith went on. “We think perhaps Miss Gray can do it. I'll explain the nature of this work and then ask you to give me your opinion of her in connection with it.”

Kemper’s mind was whirling. How the devil did they—whoever “they” were—know of his infatuation for Doris five years before? It had been so skillfully covered by their business relations. He could have sworn no living soul suspected. Since that time tongues had clacked now and then about the lady, but Kemper’s name had never been mentioned with hers. Could she have talked? Impossible, he decided, and gave himself up to the discourse of Mr. Smith.

“As you must know, Mr. Kemper, our hands have been tied to some extent during the period of strict neutrality. We must now do the work of several years ina few months. We're up against a gang who stopped at nothing when we were at peace with them. Now we're at war. You realize the situation?” |

“T do indeed!” said Kemper.

“Good!” said Mr. Smith, and leaned his umbrella carefully against the arm of his chair. Suddenly he clutched it again with an appealing look at Kemper. “You'll remind me if I leave it when I go?”

“Yes, certainly,’ Kemper gravely promised.

“Thanks,” said Mr. Smith. “I’m always leaving it,” he complained, “what with this and that on my mind.”’

He again put aside the umbrella, and resumed instantly his piercing gaze at Kemper and his incisive manner of speaking.

Ten minutes followed in which Kemper found it hard to realize that he was awake, sitting in his office, with the everyday noises of newsboys, taxicabs and street cars beating in from the street below. This was an agent of the United States Government talking, yet what he was saying seemed more like a plot for a moving-picture scenario or a tale by Oppenheim than vital facts as real as the pictures on the walls, the rugs on the floor, the sunshine streaming in through the window.

The gist of Mr. Smith’s remarks was as follows: During the days of pedagogic idealism at Washington, Wilhelmstrasse had gradually perfected an organization for the destruction of American munition factories, railway bridges and steamships at their piers. It was now in good working order and ready to begin wholesale operations.

At the head of this organization was a supposed Englishman, a Bavarian in reality, who dwelt in luxury somewhere east of Fifth Avenue on Manhattan Island. Being a bachelor of unlimited means and obvious good breeding, he had been taken up, first by the women, and later by the men of New York society, who were unaware that his gleaming monocle and agreeable British manners concealed one of the big figures of the German Foreign Office.

This person, Kemper learned, would presently order into action a small army of bomb planters and incendiaries located at well-chosen points in various parts of the country. It seemed best, therefore, that a certain gentleman, externally a subject of an esteemed ally, but with Deutschland Uber Alles in his heart, should be lodged as quickly as possible in Leavenworth Penitentiary. |

“And that,” concluded Mr. Smith, “is why I am here this morning.” |

“But,” said Kemper, “if you know all this about him, why don’t you arrest him at once?”

“Because we want the crowd. They’re scattered from San Francisco to New York. We want his private papers worse than we want him. He’s clever, but the scheme’s too big for any man to carry in his head. He’s been paying out a million dollars a month for the past six months. Well, who got the money? You understand ?”’

“Perfectly,” said Kemper with a heartiness born of a new-found faith in Mr. Smith and a renewed confidence in the department which he served.

“This man has a weakness—the usual one,” the admirable Mr. Smith went on. “A woman might find out where he keeps his papers. He’d never fall for a cheap woman—not enough to tell her secrets at any rate; but a woman of class might throw him off his guard. It’s worth a chance, we think. Now, then, what about Doris Gray? She’s got brains and beauty. We know that—and she’s an actress; but we don’t know two other important things about her, and we can’t find out. No official investigation can get into a woman’s soul, Mr. Kemper; that’s why I’ve come to you.” Mr. Smith leaned slightly forward, his eyelids becoming mere slits. “In your opinion,” he shot at Kemper, “‘does Doris Gray love her country—and has she got guts?”

Pinned on the needle points of Mr. Smith’s eyes, Kemper concentrated in thought. Click, click, click went his finger nail on a tooth.

“TI can answer one of your questions,” he said at last. ‘“I’d bank on Miss Gray’s courage.”

“Ah?! said Mr. Smith.

‘As to the other matter, I think she has the average amount of patriotism.”

“Not enough,” said Mr. Smith succinctly.

Kemper frowned.

“T think the average American woman would die for her country,” he said sharply.

“Perhaps,” conceded Mr. Smith. “But would she go to hell for it?”

“T don’t follow you.”

“The woman who tackles this job,” explained Mr. Smith, “can’t bother with the usual concealments. She'll have no time to cover up. She’s got to forget reputation, family, friends, everything that a woman values, and—come through. Now do you see?”

“Yes,” said Kemper.

“Well, what about Doris Gray?”

“I don’t know,” said Kemper.

“Find out,” said Mr. Smith.

Kemper started as though stung.

“Me ee

“Sure!’”’ said Mr. Smith.

“How?” asked Kemper faintly.

“Put it up to her. She'd shy at an agent of the department—a stranger. Now you're an old friend. See what you can do with her. Well, what d’you say?”

Kemper said nothing. He was concerned with a mental picture of the temperamental and imperious Doris. |

“Think what this means, man!’ urged Mr. Smith.

“I know,” said Kemper, ashamed of his inward struggle. “I'll try, of course. I was just wondering whether to see her here or at her home.” |

“Fine!” said Mr. Smith. “If she accepts we'll see that he meets her through the right people.”

“And if she refuses?’ Kemper suggested.

“In that case think of all the women you know— you're in touch with a lot of ’em in your business. Pick out one or two who might do and feel ’em out. I'll drop around every day. But work fast, Mr. Kemper, work fast.”

Kemper nodded.

“T’ll do my best,” said he.

Mr. Smith rose.

“We'll rely on you, then,” he said simply, and moved toward the door, his gait becoming a weak-kneed shuffle as he neared it.

“One thing more,” said Kemper.

Mr. Smith swung slowly about. His ineffectual expression and manner had returned. He seemed to

II have donned senile timidity as though it were a cloak. And cloak it was, thought Kemper approvingly.

“Would you mind telling me,” he said, “how you connected me with Doris Gray?”

For a moment the peering eyes of Mr. Smith regarded him with half-bewildered vagueness. This gave place to a suggestion of a twinkle.

“You said it with flowers.”’

“How’s thatr” asked the puzzled Kemper.

“Florists’ books,” breathed Mr. Smith. “My, my,” he added meditatively, “how many tales they tell!’

As the door closed and Kemper found himself alone he recalled his order for a dozen roses to be delivered to Miss Gray’s apartment every other day until further notice. How long ago that seemed! He happened to glance at the chair recently occupied by Mr. Smith. The next moment he was dashing after that gentleman with a flopping cotton umbrella in his hand. His pursuit, however, was in vain, owing to a painful occurrence. As he charged full tilt out of the hallway of his private office he encountered the usual crowd of wistful waiters, mostly feminine, who haunt the outer chambers of New York producers.

The reception room was crowded. Ina wild effort to avoid collision with a stately brunette Kemper jabbed the ferrule of the umbrella forcefully against the temple of a less imposing blonde. The result was disastrous. The cursed umbrella not only smote her down but tore a small fur turban from her head. Kemper had a

I2 vision of piled and gleaming gold above a face of agony before her body struck a chair arm and crumpled to the floor. |

Five minutes later a pair of milk-white eyelids quivered, opened; and Kemper, with most of the office force, was gazing down into twin pools the color of distant hills under a setting sun.

“Gosh!” breathed the adamant Edgar, and this was tribute indeed. -

Kemper, tense with anxiety, noted instinctively the unusual distance between her eyes, now that they were open, and her broad low brow. He had to study faces in his business. He had come to realize that this structure of forehead and placing of eye sockets was a hall-mark worth looking for. Possibly it indicated intelligence rather than aptitude for dramatic art; but this he knew—most of the great women of the stage were broad of brow and wide between the eyes.

A reassuring babble began.

“Tt’s all right, dearie. Just lie quiet. The skin ain’t even broke.” |

“Bill you for a song ’n’ dance in another minute, sister.”

“Want a sip of water, pretty?”

The eyes closed, but the color began to flow back into her cheeks. Edgar achieved the heights.

“Some doll!’ he stated.

Kemper found himself able to resume command.

“She’s all right now, I think. She should be quiet for a little while. If you’ll all leave the room, please.”

They obeyed him on tiptoe, but with a shrill clamor that opened her eyes once more.

“What happened? Where am [?”

Kemper noticed that despite its languor nen voice was astonishingly deep for her age.

“You've had an accident,” he explained ali “You're in my office. I’m Kemper.” She nodded in comprehension. “I think it would be a good thing if you rested where you are for a while,” he suggested.

Her shoulders moved as though seeking the full comfort of the soft leather couch on which she lay. She sighed contentedly and again closed her eyes.

Kemper lowered a window shade and seated himself in a chair beside her. Watching her meditatively, he wondered whether or not her features were too perfect. Beauty past a certain point was a pitfall to the inexperienced producer. Struggle, anxiety, selfexamination were needed for development. These were absent from the life of the physically perfect female. It was rare, indeed, when flawless beauty earned an honest place above the chorus. Moving pictures? Lord, yes! Their technic was a soulful look, heavings of the bosom and glycerin tears. It was a far cry from such things to the infinite shadings of voice, the complicated rules of repose and gesture, the mobility of facial expression demanded by the stage.

This child was very lovely, too lovely, perhaps. To think that he had knocked her down with an umbrella!

What was he doing with the thing, anyway? Suddenly he remembered. Going to his desk he picked up the telephone and gave a low-voiced order to the exchange operator.

“Get word to Miss Gray this afternoon without fail,”’ he wound up. “Ring me when you've made the appointment. I should like it to be here if possible.”

He returned to contemplate the victim of his prowess as an umbrella wielder. She was sleeping now quite peacefully. Her color was good by this time—yes, exquisite. Her lips were slightly parted. Suddenly her eyelids fluttered. Her lips lost their fullness. Her hands began to twitch, then closed and unclosed spasmodically.

“Dreaming,” thought Kemper, and grew conscious ef the sound of music as faint in the distance as a dream. He silently repeated the words of the song a band was playing many blocks away.

“Oh, the Yanks are coming—the Yanks are coming: r 3 |

The writhing of her hands increased. She moaned once, muttered, and sat up with a choking cry and a look of terror in her eyes.

“There, there!’ soothed Kemper. “It’s all right, it’s all right !’’

She looked at him doubtfully for a moment, then her glance wandered about the room, came back to Kemper and dropped to the couch on which she now was sitting bolt upright. “TI had a terrible dream,” she explained in a low voice. “Did I scream? I thought I did.”

“Only whimpered,” Kemper told her. ‘Was something after you?”

“After me? He had me!” |

“Was it a lion?” smiled Kemper.

“No, it wasn’t a lion,” she said gravely. “What happened? What sort of an accident did I have?”

“T ran into you, or rather I was running, and—well, I jabbed you with an umbrella.”

“An umbrella? Not really!”

“Yes, really. It’s my favorite weapon.”

“Oh, that’s too absurd!” Laughter brimmed in her eyes and then came pealing from her lips. She suddenly grew sober, her hand going to her temple. “It didn’t feel like an umbrella. I thought the roof had fallen in.”

“I know,” said Kemper contritely. “I was a fool to rush out that way. I hope you'll forgive me.”

Her glance about the room was tinged with satisfaction. She swung her feet to the floor, gave an instinctive tug at her skirt, and sitting on the edge of the couch began to arrange her hair. “I’m glad it happened,” she told Kemper.

“Glad! Why?”

“Because I’m in here instead of”—she nodded at the door. “Does a girl always have to be knocked unconscious before she can see you, Mr. Kemper?”

“Rarely,” said Kemper. “It’s only done now and then. Had you been waiting long?”

“Not very—only two weeks.”

“Two weeks!” said Kemper. “It isn’t possible!’

“Oh, yes, it is! I arrived in New York fifteen days ago. I’ve spent most of the time since trying to see you. First I wrote you a letter asking for an appointment. Somebody wrote back that you were not in the city, but my letter would be called to your attention when you returned. I waited a few days and sent another letter with newspaper clippings about my work in stock. The clippings were returned with a letter saying that you were not casting at present, but my address had been filed. That didn’t sound promising, so I brought my knitting and camped—out there. It seemed to me the last few days that I’d become a white-haired old lady, knitting, always knitting before your door. I thought as the years went by I could invest in a rocking-chair and persuade them to let me bring it and place it in my favorite corner.”

“You don’t mean to say you’ve been here every day for over a week?”

“I do! And there were others; one girl especially, with a haggard face and great doglike eyes and pathetic gloves and hat. I took her to luncheon one day. She apologized for eating so much.”

Kemper got to his feet with a sudden desire to escape her troubled eyes. He took refuge in a few strides about the room. ‘Why didn’t you send in your card?” he demanded, halting.

“How ?”

“Through the boy, of course.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “that horrible boy! How I’d love to wring his neck. ‘In conference,’’’ she mimicked, and Kemper recognized the cold austerity of Edgar in his loftiest mood.

“I suppose you think I’m a brute.”

If he expected mercy he did not get it.

“T’ve suspected it. But perhaps,’’ she added, with more kindness, “you’re only self-centered.”

“Now see here,’’ Kemper burst out, “I’m not self-centered! I’m self-protective. So is every successful producer. You happened to come here when I’m not doing anything new. I’m not casting—won’t be till May—yet you saw the crowd out there. What do you think would happen to my business if I listened to every stage-struck girl in New York? I wouldn't have time for meals. You sit there and accuse me of si

He stopped as it came to him that what he was saying lacked dignity. Why in heaven’s name should he defend himself to this wide-eyed child? It was absurd! His tone became crisply businesslike.

“Can you act?”

“TI think so.”

“You would, of course,” he told her; and added: “They always do.”

Thedéong of the Dragon

“I suppose they do, poor things,’ said she, and got to her feet. She went to the desk and picked up her hat, which had been placed there by some one when she had been carried in. “Good morning, Mr. Kemper, thank you so much.”

“You're not going?”

“Why, yes! You say you’re not casting, and my address is’”—she made a slight grimace—‘“on file.”

She was halfway to the door before he spoke:

“Just a moment!”

She turned and faced him, her chin at a bravely defiant angle but quivering slightly.

“You have wasted a lot of time in this office,” said Kemper more gently, “and I apologize. I’m going to arrange a new system so that such things can’t happen in the future. So, you see, I realize I’ve been to blame. Now you say you can act. Let me tell you about that. Actors and actresses are the blood and sinew of my business. I’ve spent a quarter of a century searching for competent people who, after years of experience, can put plays over for me. The hardest thing I have to do, the thing that has brought most of the gray hairs you see in my head, is to find juveniles and ingénues. Plays and the public demand youth on the stage. I have spent days, weeks, months trying to make some undeveloped youngster give a presentable performance. Why, my dear, if you—with your beauty—could really act you’d make me a fortune in one season and take half the worry out of my liie.”

He paused and regarded her grimly for a moment to let his words sink in. She took advantage of this.

“But how do you know I can’t act unless you try me?”’

“By past experience. By a hundred—a thousand disappointments. But I’m going to try you—don’t worry about that.”

The color leaped to her face.

“You are?”

“Certainly.”

“When ?”

“To-morrow. Here, take this script.’ He reached toward a dozen or more play manuscripts. His fingers happened to close on the second act of Beauty and the Beast. He glanced at the title and handed it to her. “Take any scene you care to, study the young girl’s part and come back at four to-morrow.”

“Oh, thank you!’’ she breathed with shining eyes.

“Don’t thank me. You'll be hating me to-morrow when I tell you ” He hesitated.

“What?”

“‘That you're terrible.”

“You think you'll tell me that?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Quite unexpectedly she pealed forth in a delighted laugh.

“We'll see!” she cried, and almost ran from the room, the second act of Beauty and the Beast clasped to her heart.

“H’m!”’ said Kemper as the door closed behind her.

II

His interview with Doris Gray the following morning was even more trying than he had expected. She had agreed to be at his office by eleven. It was something of a shock to Kemper when she arrived promptly at that hour. His memory of Doris contained many restless waitings for her final rush to him with some flimsy excuse for her delay.

He used to think that she planned to be late deliberately in order to brighten the glory of her arrival by the preceding gloom of her nonappearance. Her first words explained her promptness.

“Four years of silence, and then a summons! My dear, I’m dying of curiosity !”

Kemper felt that the past should be excluded from this meeting for obvious reasons. He attempted to do this at once. ,

“IT have something very serious to talk over with you, Doris. Please sit down.”

A shade of disappointment passed like a shadow across her face, but she sank into the chair he indicated.

“What a tone!’ she said. “It must be business. You couldn’t be so much in earnest about anything else could you?” She let him have the full broadside of a tender glance. “And I’d imagined you raking over the ashes, finding a few embers and rushing to the telephone.”

Her suggestion that his fire had dwindled was more adroit than true. She had been entirely responsible for their separation. She had taken the first step when she left one of his plays for a bigger part under another management. Although he had not asked for it, she had furnished a wildly hysterical explanation, during which he learned that he had been keeping her back.

Later, when she had discovered a gorgeous juvenile in her new play, with such a marvelously sympathetic nature that he understood her without a word being spoken, Kemper had seen the writing on the wall and had quietly taken himself out of her life. Yet there she sat, with luminous melting eyes, speaking of embers. How like a woman—or a cat with a mouse!

“What are you doing now?” he asked.

The question happened to be the timeworn opening of a manager about to offer a part. It deceived her.