Part 7 (1/2)
”Why don't you wait until morning?”
”Because I don't want an audience. It is best to practice these stunts without anyone looking.”
”Suppose you fall!”
”That's something movie actresses have to expect. I won't fall far if I do fall.”
”Will you mind if I look on?”
”No, indeed! I can pretend you are the director.”
Everything was as quiet as the grave when Mary bounced out of bed to practice her stunt. I followed, nothing loath to see more of the wonderful night. Some nights are too beautiful to waste in sleeping. It has always seemed such a pity to me that we could not fill up on sleep in disagreeable weather, and then when a glorious moonlight night arrives, be able to draw on that reserve fund of sleep and just sit up all night.
”Isn't it splendid out on the lawn? And only look at the river in the moonlight. I'd certainly like to be out there in a boat this minute with some very nice interesting person to recite poetry to me,” I mused.
”I heard Wink White begging you to take a row with him.”
”Yes, but I see myself doing it.”
”Don't you like him?” asked Mary, sitting in the window ready for the trial descent.
”Of course I like him, but he's such a goose.”
”Shorty thinks he is grand.”
”So he is--grand, gloomy, and peculiar. If he'd only not be so sad and lonesome when he is with me.”
”Of course all of us have noticed how different he is with you, never laughing and joking as he does with us but sighing like a furnace. But here goes! This is no time for a.n.a.lyzing the character of young Doctor Stephen White,--this is a play of action.”
”But, Mary, ought you try to climb down in your nighty? It might get tangled around your feet.”
”Oh, but the movie ladies always have to get out of windows in their nighties. I must practice in costume to get used to it.”
”Barefooted, too?”
”Of course! I need all these toes to hang on by. Next time I am going to have my ch-e-i-ild, but this first time perhaps I had better not try to carry anything.”
”I should think not,--but, Mary, do be careful.”
I was looking down the perpendicular wall and it began to seem to me to be a crazy undertaking. The vines were very thick and would no doubt offer a foot-rest to the daring girl, but suppose she lost her head or the vine pulled loose from the wall!
It is a much easier matter to climb up and get in a window than it is to get out of one and climb down. There is something very scary about projecting one's bare foot into the unknown. Mary, however, was too serious in her desire to perfect herself for her chosen profession to stop and wiggle her toes with indecision. She was out of the window in a moment. I held my breath.
”Oh, G.o.d save her! Oh, G.o.d save her!” I whispered.
”Fireman, save my ch-e-i-ild!” came back in sibilant tones from Mary.
I couldn't help laughing although I was trembling with fright. I almost beat Mary to the ground I leaned so far out of the window. Sometimes the thick ivy hid her from my sight and again she would loom out very white in the moonlight.