But Ophelia was better informed. She knew Miss Masters to be engaged to quite another person.

"Then I know," cried Horatio triumphantly. "He's stuck on Rosie Rosenbaum. It's her brings him."

Ophelia said nothing, and Horatio having experienced an inspiration, set about strengthening it with proof.

"It's Rosie sure enough. Ain't he learned her about every part in the play? Don't he keep takin' her off in corners an' goin' 'Who's there, 'Tis now struck twelve' for about an hour every night? I wouldn't have nothin' to do with a feller that kept company that way, but I s'pose it's the style on Fifth Avenue. You know how I tell you, Ham, in the play that there's lots of things goin' on what you ain't on to. Well it's so. None of you was on to Rosie an' his nibs. You didn't ever guess it did you 'Pheleir?"

"No," admitted Ophelia. "No, I never did."

"Well it's so. You watch 'em. The style in wives is changin'. Actresses is goin' out an' the 'poor but honest workin' goil' is comin' in. One of our salesladies has a book about it. "The Bowery Bride" its name is. All about a shop goil what married a rich fellow and used to come back to the store and take her old friends carriage ridin'. If Rosie Rosenbaum tries it on me, I'll break her face. If she comes round me," cried the Prince's fellow student: "with carriages and a benevolent smile, I'll claw the smile off of her if I have to take the skin with it!"

When Horatio and Hamlet left her, she wandered disconsolate, down to the river. But no willow grows aslant that brook, no flowers were there with which to weave fantastic garlands.

"I've gone crazy all right," said poor Ophelia as she watched the lights of the great bridge, "but I don't drown myself until Scene VII. And I'm goin' up to his house to-morrow night to learn to act crazy. I guess I don't need much learning."

The performance of Hamlet by the Lady Hyacinths is still remembered by those who saw it as the most bewildering entertainment of their theatrical experience. The play had been cut down to its absolute essentials and the players, though drilled and coached in their lines and business, had been left quite free in the matters of interpretation and accent. The result was so unique that the daily press fell upon it with whoops of joy and published portraits of and interviews with the leading characters. People who had thought that only ferries and docks lay south of Twenty-third Street penetrated to the heart of the great East Side and went home again full of an altruism which lasted three days. And on the last night of the "run" of three nights, Jack Burgess brought Albert Marsden to witness it. Other spectators had always emerged dumb or inarticulate from the ordeal but the great actor was not one of them. He was bl.u.s.terous and garrulous and, to Burgess' amazement, not at all amused.

"Who is that girl who played Ophelia? Is she an East Side working girl or one of the mission people?"

"She's a shop-girl," answered Burgess. "There's no good in your asking me to introduce you to her for I won't. That's been one of our rules from the beginning. We don't want the children to be upset and patronized."

"Who taught her to act?"

"Well, I coached them all as you know, but she never seemed to require any special teaching. Pretty good, isn't she?"

"Pretty good! She is a genius--a wonder. This is all rot about my not meeting her. I am going to meet her and train her. I suppose you have noticed that she is a beauty too."

"But she's only a child," Burgess urged. "She's only eighteen. She couldn't stand the life and the work and she couldn't stand the people.

You have no idea what high ideals these girls have, and Mary Conners--that's the girl's name--seems to be exceptional even amongst them."

"Too good for us, eh?" asked the actor.

"Entirely too good," answered Burgess steadily.

"And do you feel justified in deciding her future for her! In condemning her to an obscure life in the slums instead of a successful career on the stage?"

"I do not," answered Burgess, "she must decide that for herself. I'll ask her and let you know."

To this end he sought Miss Masters. "I want you," said he, "to ask Mary Conners to tea with you to-morrow afternoon. It will be Sunday so she can manage. And then I want you to leave us alone. I have something very serious to say to her."

Margaret looked at him and laughed. "Then you were right," said she, "and I was wrong; I had found a wife for you."

"For absolute inane, insensate romanticism," said he, "I recommend you to the recently engaged. You used to have some sense. You were clever enough to refuse me and now you go and forever ruin my opinion of you by making a remark like that."

"It is not romanticism at all," she maintained. "It is the best of common sense. You will never be satisfied with anyone you haven't trained and formed to suit your own ideals. And you will never find such a 'quick study' as Mary."

It was the earliest peep of spring and Burgess stopped on his way to Miss Masters' house and bought a sheaf of white hyacinths and pale maiden hair for the little Lady Hyacinth who was waiting for him.

As soon as he was alone with her he managed to distract her attention from her flowers and to make her listen to Marsden's message. He set the case before her plainly. Without exaggeration and without extenuation.

"And we don't expect you," he ended, "to make up your mind at once. You must consult your relatives and friends."

"I have no relatives," she answered.

"Your friends then."

"I don't think I have many. Some of the girls in the club perhaps. The old book-keeper in the store where I work, perhaps Miss Masters."

"And you have me," he interrupted. But she smiled at him and shook her head. "You were real kind about the play," said she, "but the play's all over now. I guess you'd better tell your friend that I'll take the position. I have been getting pretty tired of work in the store and I'd like to try this if he don't mind."

"Oh, but you mustn't go into it like that," Burgess protested, "just for the want of something better. Acting is an art--a great art--you must be glad and proud."

"I'll try it," she said without enthusiasm. "If you feel that way about it I'll try it. It can't be worse than the store. The store is just horrible. Oh! Mr. Burgess you can't think what it is to be Ophelia in the evening with princes loving you and then to be a cashier in the day-time that any fresh customer thinks he can get gay with. Maybe if I was an actress I could be Ophelia oftener. I'd do anything, Mr. Burgess, to get away from the store."

Burgess did not answer immediately. Her earnestness had rather overcome her and he waited silently while she walked to the window, surrept.i.tiously pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and conquered the sobs that threatened to choke her. Burgess watched her. The trimness of her figure, the absolute neatness and propriety of her dress, the poise and restraint of her manner. Then she turned and he rose to meet her.

"Mary," said he, "you never in all the time I've known you have failed to do what I asked you. Will you do something for me now?"

"Yes, sir," she answered simply.

"Then sit down in that chair and take this watch of mine in your hand and don't say one single, solitary, lonely word for five minutes. No matter what happens: no matter what anyone says or does. Will you promise?"

"Yes, sir," she answered again.

"Well then," he began, "I know another man who wants you--this stage idea is not the only way out of the store. Remember you're not to speak--this other man wants to marry you."

A scarlet flush sprang to Mary's face and slowly ebbed away again leaving her deadly pale. She kept her word in letter but hardly in spirit for she looked at him through tear-filled eyes, and shook her head.

"Of course you can't be expected to take to the idea just at first,"

said he, as if she had spoken, "but I want you to think it over. The man is a well-off, gentlemanly sort of chap. Miles too old for you of course--for you're not twenty and he's nearly forty--but I think he would make you happy. I know he'd try with all the strength that's in him."

Blank incredulity was on Mary's face. She glanced at the watch and up at him and again she shook her head.

"This man," Burgess went on, "is a friend of Miss Masters and it was through her that he first heard of the Lady Hyacinths. He was an idler then. A shiftless, worthless loafer, but the Lady Hyacinths made a man of him and he's gone out and got a job."

Comprehension overwhelming, overmastering, flashed into Mary's eyes. But her promise held her silent and in her chair. Again it was as though she had spoken.

"Yes, I see you understand--you probably think of me as an old man past the time of love and yet I love you."

"Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love."

"That's all I have to offer you, sweetheart. Just love and my life," and he in turn went to the window and looked out into the gathering dusk.

Mary sat absolutely still. She knew now that she was dreaming. Just so the dream had always run and when the five minutes were past, she rose and went to him: a true Ophelia, her arms all full of hyacinths.

"My honored Lord," said she. He turned, and the dream held.