Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Felicia was absolutely wrong about why the erratic Graemer had come to
see her. He hadn't the remotest intention of bothering to answer the
oft-reiterated claims of the persistent Miss Modder; he wasn't at all
interested in any unknown Miss Day. The person he had come to see was
Mademoiselle Folly and he had come purely on impulse. His agents had
been able to make no headway with Mademoiselle Folly's agents. It had
aroused his curiosity when he discovered that the actress was living
with all those queer geniuses who were dwelling in the much discussed
Octavia House and he assumed that she was merely one of the proteges
of the mysterious wealthy backers of that unusual enterprise. He
thought it very good business indeed that the clever young woman had
known enough to disappear for a brief time that she might whet her
audiences' appetite while she let her agents lift her prices. It
didn't at all occur to him that she was actually abandoning such a
career as her extraordinary success seemed to foretell. He had in mind
a romantic play in which she should make her bow as a legitimate
actress and he had a flattering mountain-to-Mahomet speech ready with
which to introduce his august self to her. He was debonnaire in his
smart summer clothing. He felt rather Lord Bountifullish. And besides,
he was in a very good humor because he had come directly from a
rehearsal of "The Heart of a Boy." The play was scheduled to open very
shortly and it seemed to him that it was going to be an easy success.
All the way over to Brooklyn he had contemplated bill posters who were
slapping their dripping brushes over great posters--corking posters
Graemer thought them, with their effective color scheme of dull greens
and pale yellows.
Almost any one would have commended those posters. A charming little
figure in the shadows of a wall stood tiptoe with her arms upstretched
and her blonde head shone in the light from a church window above her
as a florid choir boy leaned over the wall to embrace her.
"Felicia, I love you with all my heart and soul!" the choir boy was
declaring in large red letters, which was rather versatile of him
considering that his lips were pressed firmly upon the blonde lady's.
The placard further announced that he was embracing "America's
foremost romantic actress Edwina Ely" and though there was nothing
about their posture that could have offended even the ghost of Anthony
Comstock, it had an almost galvanic effect upon a stalwart man who had
stopped to look upon it.
It was just about the moment that Miss Ely's manager had stepped into
the taxicab that was to bear him to Brooklyn, that the outraged
citizen had paused before a side wall at a theater entrance to gape
sceptically at a paste-glistening sheet. That particular poster was
not yet in place. The fair lady still lacked her feet and a
painstaking artisan was just delicately attaching them to her knees.
He never finished attaching them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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