Part 49 (1/2)

Miss Haig waited to hear no more, however. She bowed her head in her hands and burst into sobs; and she might well have saved herself the trouble, for to J. Montgomery Fieldstone the tears of an actress on or off were only ”bus. of weeping.” He lit a fresh cigar, and it might have been supposed that he blew the smoke in Miss Haig's direction as a subst.i.tute for smelling salts or aromatic spirits of ammonia. As a matter of fact he just happened to be facing that way.

”Now don't do that, kid,” he said, ”because you know as well as I do that if there was anything I could do for the daughter of Morris Katzberger I'd do it. Him and me worked as cutters together in the old days when I didn't know no more about the show business than Morris does to-day; but I jumped you right from the chorus into the part of Sonia in 'Rudolph,' and you got to rest easy for a while, kid.”

”I g-got notices above the star,” Miss Haig sobbed; ”and you told popper the night after we opened in Atlantic City that you were planning to give me a b-better part next season.”

”Ain't your father got diabetes?” Fieldstone demanded. ”What else would I tell him?”

”But you said to Sidney Rossmore that if I could dance as well as I sang I'd be worth two hundred and fifty a week to you.”

”I said a hundred and fifty,” Fieldstone corrected; ”and, anyhow, kid, you ain't had no experience dancing.”

”Ain't I?” Miss Haig said. She flung down her pocketbook and handkerchief, and jumped from her seat. ”Well, just you watch this!”

For more than ten minutes she postured, leaped, and pranced by turns, while Fieldstone puffed great clouds of smoke to obscure his admiration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She postured, leaped, and pranced by turns]

”How's that?” she panted at last, sinking into a chair.

”Where did you get it?” Fieldstone asked.

”I got it for money--that's where I got it,” Miss Haig replied; ”and I got to get money for it--if not by you, by some other concern.”

Fieldstone shrugged his shoulders with apparent indifference.

”You know your own book, kid,” he said; ”but, you can take it from me, you'll be making the mistake of your life if you quit me.”

”Maybe I will and maybe I won't!” Miss Haig said as she gathered up her handkerchief and pocketbook. ”I ain't going to do nothing in a hurry; but if you want to give me my two weeks' notice now go ahead and do it!”

”Think it over, kid,” Fieldstone said calmly as Miss Haig started for the door. ”Anything can happen in this business. Raymond might drop dead or something.”

Miss Haig slammed the door behind her, but in the moment of doing it Fieldstone caught the unspoken wish in her flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

”So do I!” he said half aloud.

Lyman J. Bienenflug, of the firm of Bienenflug & Krimp, Rooms 6000 to 6020 Algonquin Theatre Building, was a theatrical lawyer in the broadest sense of the term; and it was entirely unnecessary for Mrs.

Ray Fieldstone to preface every new sentence with ”Listen, Mr.

Bienenflug!” because Mr. Bienenflug was listening as a theatrical lawyer ought to listen, with legs crossed and biting on the end of a penholder, while his heavy brows were knotted in a frown of deep consideration, borrowed from Sir J. Forbes Robertson in ”Hamlet,” Act III, Scene 1.

”Listen, Mr. Bienenflug! I considered why should I stand for it any longer?” Mrs. Fieldstone went on. ”He usen't anyhow to come home till two--three o'clock. Now he don't come home at all sometimes. Am I right or wrong?”

”Quite right,” Mr. Bienenflug said. ”You have ample grounds for a limited divorce.”

While retaining or, rather, as a dramatic producer would say, registering the posture of listening, Mr. Bienenflug mentally reviewed all J. Montgomery Fieldstone's successes of the past year, which included the ”Head of the Family,” a drama, and Miss Goldie Raymond in the Viennese knockout of two continents, ”Rudolph, Where Have You Been.” He therefore estimated the alimony at two hundred dollars a week and a two-thousand dollar counsel fee; and he was proceeding logically though subconsciously to a contrasting of the respective motor-car refinement displayed by a ninety-horse-power J.C.B. and the new 1914 model Samsoun--both six cylinders--when Mrs. Fieldstone spoke again.

”Listen, Mr. Bienenflug!” she protested. ”I don't want no divorce. I should get a divorce at my time of life, with four children already!

What for?”

”Not an absolute divorce,” Mr. Bienenflug explained; ”just a separation.”