Revenge! by Robert Barr (popular books of all time .TXT) 📕

/> "You don't really believe I was such a ruffian as I pretended to be?" said Archie at last.

"Why, yes; aren't you?" she asked simply, glancing sideways at him with her most winning smile.

"You surely didn't actually think I was going to throw you over the cliff?"

"Oh, I have often heard or read of it being done. Were you only pretending?"

"That's all. It was really a little matter of revenge. I thought you ought to be punished for the way you had used those other fellows. And Sanderson was such a good hand at billiards. I could just beat him."

"You--you said--you cared for me. Was that pretence too?" asked Bessie, with a catch in her voice.

"No. That was all true, Bessie, and there is where my scheme of vengeance goes lame. You see, my dear girl, I never thought you would look at me; some of the other fellows are ever so much better than I am, and of course I did not imagine I had any chance. I hope you will forgive me, and that you won't insist on having a real revenge by withdrawing what you have said."

"I shall have revenge enough on you, Archie, you poor, deluded young man, all your life. But never say anything about 'the other fellows,' as you call them. There never was any other fellow but you. Perhaps I will show you a little book some day that will explain everything, although I am afraid, if you saw it, you might think worse of me than ever. I think, perhaps, it is my duty to show it to you before it is too late to draw back. Shall I?"

"I absolutely refuse to look at it--now or any other time," said Archie magnanimously, drawing her towards him and kissing her.

And Bessie, with a sigh of relief, wondered why it was that men have so much less curiosity than women. She was sure that if he had hinted at any such secret she would never have rested until she knew what it was.



A DRAMATIC POINT.

In the bad days of Balmeceda, when Chili was rent in twain, and its capital was practically a besieged city, two actors walked together along the chief street of the place towards the one theatre that was then open. They belonged to a French dramatic company that would gladly have left Chili if it could, but, being compelled by stress of war to remain, the company did the next best thing, and gave performances at the principal theatre on such nights as a paying audience came.

A stranger would hardly have suspected, by the look of the streets, that a deadly war was going on, and that the rebels--so called--were almost at the city gates. Although business was ruined, credit dead, and no man's life or liberty safe, the streets were filled with a crowd that seemed bent on enjoyment and making the best of things.

As Jacques Dupre and Carlos Lemoine walked together they conversed earnestly, not of the real war so close to their doors, but of the mimic conflicts of the stage. M. Dupre was the leading man of the company, and he listened with the amused tolerance of an elder man to the energetic vehemence of the younger.

"You are all wrong, Dupre," cried Lemoine, "all wrong. I have studied the subject. Remember, I am saying nothing against your acting in general. You know you have no greater admirer than I am, and that is something to say when the members of a dramatic company are usually at loggerheads through jealousy."

"Speak for yourself, Lemoine. You know I am green with jealousy of you. You are the rising star and I am setting. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, Carl, my boy."

"That's nonsense, Dupre. I wish you would consider this seriously. It is because you are so good on the stage that I can't bear to see you false to your art just to please the gallery. You should be above all that."

"How can a man be above his gallery--the highest spot in the house? Talk sense, Carlos, and then I'll listen."

"Yes, you're flippant, simply because you know you're wrong, and dare not argue this matter soberly. Now she stabs you through the heart----"

"No. False premises entirely. She says something about my wicked heart, and evidently _intends_ to pierce that depraved organ, but a woman never hits what she aims at, and I deny that I'm ever stabbed through the heart. Say in the region or the neighbourhood of the heart, and go on with your talk."

"Very well. She stabs you in a spot so vital that you die in a few minutes. You throw up your hands, you stagger against the mantel-shelf, you tear open your collar and then grope at nothing, you press your hands on your wound and take two reeling steps forward, you call feebly for help and stumble against the sofa, which you fall upon, and, finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where you kick out once or twice, your clinched hand comes with a thud on the boards, and all is over."

"Admirably described, Carlos. Lord! I wish my audience paid such attention to my efforts as you do. Now you claim this is all wrong, do you?"

"All wrong."

"Suppose she stabbed you, what would _you_ do?"

"I would plunge forward on my face--dead."

"Great heavens! What would become of your curtain?"

"Oh, hang the curtain!"

"It's all very well for you to maledict the curtain, Carl, but you must work up to it. Your curtain would come down, and your friends in the gallery wouldn't know what had happened. Now I go through the evolutions you so graphically describe, and the audience gets time to take in the situation. They say, chuckling to themselves, 'that villain's got his dose at last, and serve him right too.' They want to enjoy his struggles, while the heroine stands grimly at the door taking care that he doesn't get away. Then when my fist comes down flop on the stage and they realise that I am indeed done for, the yell of triumph that goes up is something delicious to hear."

"That's just the point, Dupre. I claim the actor has no right to hear applause--that he should not know there is such a thing as an audience. His business is to portray life exactly as it is."

"You can't portray life in a death scene, Carl."

"Dupre, I lose all patience with you, or rather I would did I not know that you are much deeper than you would have us suppose. You apparently won't see that I am very much in earnest about this."

"Of course you are, my boy; and that is one reason why you will become a very great actor. I was ambitious myself once, but as we grow older" --Dupre shrugged his shoulders--"well, we begin to have an eye on box- office receipts. I think you sometimes forget that I am a good deal older than you are."

"You mean I am a fool, and that I may learn wisdom with age. I quite admit you are a better actor than I am; in fact I said so only a moment ago, but----"

"'You wrong me, Brutus; I said an elder soldier, not a better.' But I will take you on your own ground. Have you ever seen a man stabbed or shot through the heart?"

"I never have, but I know mighty well he wouldn't undo his necktie afterwards."

Dupre threw back his head and laughed.

"Who is flippant now?" he asked. "I don't undo my necktie, I merely tear off my collar, which a dying man may surely be permitted to do. But until you have seen a man die from such a stab as I receive every night, I don't understand how you can justly find fault with my rendition of the tragedy. I imagine, you know, that the truth lies between the two extremes. The man done to death would likely not make such a fuss as I make, nor would he depart so quickly as you say he would, without giving the gallery gods a show for their money. But here we are at the theatre, Carlos, and this acrimonious debate is closed-- until we take our next walk together."

In front of the theatre, soldiers were on duty, marching up and down with muskets on their shoulders, to show that the state was mighty and could take charge of a theatre as well as conduct a war. There were many loungers about, which might have indicated to a person who did not know, that there would be a good house when the play began. The two actors met the manager in the throng near the door.

"How are prospects to-night?" asked Dupre.

"Very poor," replied the manager. "Not half a dozen seats have been sold."

"Then it isn't worth while beginning?"

"We must begin," said the manager, lowering his voice, "the President has ordered me not to close the theatre."

"Oh, hang the President!" cried Lemoine impatiently. "Why doesn't he put a stop to the war, and then the theatre would remain open of its own accord."

"He is doing his best to put a stop to the war, only his army does not carry out his orders as implicitly as our manager does," said Dupre, smiling at the other's vehemence.

"Balmeceda is a fool," retorted the younger actor. "If he were out of the way, the war would not last another day. I believe he is playing a losing game, anyhow. It's a pity he hasn't to go to the front himself, and then a stray bullet might find him and put an end to the war, which would save the lives of many better men."

"I say, Lemoine, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," expostulated the manager gently, "especially when there are so many listeners."

"Oh! the larger my audience, the better I like it," rejoined Lemoine. "I have all an actor's vanity in that respect. I say what I think, and I don't care who hears me."

"Yes, but you forget that we are, in a measure, guests of this country, and we should not abuse our hosts, or the man who represents them."

"Ah, does he represent them? It seems to me you beg the whole question; that's just what the war is about. The general opinion is that Balmeceda misrepresents them, and that the country would be glad to be rid of him."

"That may all be," said the manager almost in a whisper, for he was a man evidently inclined towards peace; "but it does not rest with us to say so. We are French, and I think, therefore, it is better not to express an opinion."

"I'm not French," cried Lemoine. "I'm a native Chilian, and I have a right to abuse my own country if I choose to do so."

"All the more reason, then," said the manager, looking timorously over his shoulder--"all the more reason that you should be careful what you say."

"I suppose," said Dupre, by way of putting an end to the discussion, "it is time for us to get our war-paint on. Come along, Lemoine, and lecture me on our common art, and stop talking politics, if the nonsense you utter about Chili and its president is politics."

The two actors entered the theatre; they occupied the same dressing- room, and the volatile Lemoine talked incessantly.

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