Bonnie May

Somewhere up in the gallery an usher opened a window. Instantly a shaft of sunlight pierced the dark interior of the theatre. It created a mote-filled aerial avenue across a vast space and came to an end in a balcony box.

As if it were part of a general theatrical scheme it served as a search-light and brought into brilliant relief the upper part of a child’s body. There were blue eyes made lustrous by dark lashes; hair the color of goldenrod, which fell forward over one shoulder and formed a kind of radiant vehicle above for the support of a butterfly of blue ribbon. There were delicate red lips, slightly parted.

The child leaned forward in her place and rested her elbows on the box railing. Her chin nestled in a little crotch, formed by her two hands. She would have resembled one of Rubens’s cherubs, if Rubens hadn’t conceived his cherubs on quite such a vulgar plane.

It was so that Baron saw her during a brief interval. Then the window up in the gallery was closed, and darkness reigned in the theatre again. The child disappeared as Marguerite always disappears before Faust has obtained more than a seductive glimpse of her.

Baron wondered who she was. She was so close to him that he could have touched her. He wondered how she could have slipped into the box without his seeing or hearing her. The lights had been on when he took his seat, and at that time he had occupied the box alone. She must have crept in with the cautiousness of a kitten; or perhaps she had come under cover of the noise of applause.

Then he forgot her. All sorts of people were likely to come into a playhouse during a matinée performance, he reflected.

Dawn was merging into day--in the play. The purple of a make-believe sky turned to lavender, and to pink. The long, horizontal streaks of color faded, and in the stronger light now turned on the stage a gypsy woman who seemed to have been sleeping under a hedge came into view--a young creature, who patted back a yawn which distorted her pretty mouth. Other persons of the drama appeared.

Baron succumbed to the hypnotic power of the theatre: to the beguiling illusions of the stage, with its beautiful voices; the relaxed musicians, unobtrusively disinterested; the dark, indistinct rows of alert forms down in the parquet. Despite what he was pleased to believe was a distinguished indifference in his manner, he was passionately fond of plays, amazingly susceptible to their appeal.

The act ended; light flooded the theatre. Baron’s glance again fell upon the intruder who had come to share his box with him. The child really might have been mistaken for an exquisite bit of architectural ornamentation, if she had been placed in a niche in the big proscenium arch. Color and pose and outline all suggested the idea. But now her bearing changed. As she had been absorbed in the meaning of the play, now she became equally interested in the audience, rising in long rows from parquet to gallery. She looked almost aggressively from point to point, with a lack of self-consciousness that was quite remarkable.

People in the audience were noticing her, too; and Baron felt suddenly resentful at being so conspicuously perched before hundreds of eyes, in company with a child he knew nothing about.

She appeared to have scrutinized “the house” to her satisfaction. Then she turned as if she were slightly bored, and gazed with perfect frankness into Baron’s eyes.

“Sold out,” she said, as if she were gratified.

Baron did not clearly grasp the fact that she was referring to “the house.” A question as to her age occurred to him, but this he could not answer. She must be absurdly young--a baby; yet he noted that she had gained command of a glance that was almost maturely searching and complacent. She was not the least bit agitated.

When, presently, she stood up on her chair to obtain a general view of the audience, Baron frowned. She was really a brazen little thing, he reflected, despite her angelic prettiness. And he had a swift fear that she might fall. Looking at her uneasily, he realized now that she was quite tawdrily dressed.

His first impression of her had been one of beauty unmarred. (He had not seen immediately that the blue butterfly which rode jauntily on her crown was soiled.) Now a closer inspection discovered a fantastic little dress which might have been designed for a fancy ball--and it was quite old, and almost shabby. Yet its gay colors, not wholly faded, harmonized with some indefinable quality in the little creature, and the whole garment derived a grace from its wearer which really amounted to a kind of elfish distinction.

She spoke again presently, and now Baron was struck by the quality of her voice. It was rather full for a little girl’s voice--not the affected pipe of the average vain and pretty child. There was an oddly frank, comrade-like quality in it.

“Do you know what I’ve got a notion to do?” she inquired.

Baron withdrew farther within himself. “I couldn’t possibly guess,” he responded. He shook his head faintly, to indicate indifference. She leaned so far over the edge of the box that he feared again for her safety.

“I think you might possibly fall,” he said. “Would you mind sitting down?”

She did as he suggested with a prompt and sweet spirit of obedience. “I’m afraid I was careless,” she said. Then, looking over more guardedly, she added: “I’ve got a notion to drop my programme down on that old duck’s bald head.”

Baron looked down into the parquet. An elderly gentleman, conspicuously bald-headed, sat just beneath them. Something about the shining dome was almost comical. Yet he turned to the child coldly. He marvelled that he had not detected a pert or self-conscious expression of countenance to accompany the words she had spoken. But she was looking into his eyes quite earnestly.

He turned his face away from her for an instant, and then, with an air of having worked out a problem----

“I don’t believe I would,” he said.

“It might frighten him?” she suggested.

“Not that. He might not think it very polite.”

She looked at him studiously a little, her earnest eyes seeming to search his soul. Then she ventured upon a story:

“I got on a street-car with Miss Barry to-day, and we sat down on a seat with a fat woman; and, believe me, the big thing nearly squeezed the gizzard out of me.”

Her eyes grew wide with excitement as she achieved the climax. She waited for his comment.

His eyelids quivered slightly. He decided to pay no more attention to her, despite her prettiness. What language! He stared resolutely at his programme a full minute. But he could not shake off the influence of her steady gaze. “I think you must be exaggerating,” he said finally, with mild irritation.

“Not at all, really.”

“Well, then,” he added impatiently, “I think your language is--is indelicate.”

“Do you, indeed?” She considered this. “Of course that’s a matter of opinion.” She abandoned the subject and seemed to be searching his face for a topic which might be more acceptable. “A good many things have happened to me,” she ventured presently. “I came within an inch of getting caught by the curtain once.”

He had no idea what she meant.

She continued: “It was in a regular tank town somewhere. I never pay any attention to the names of the little towns.” Her tone clearly conveyed the fact that she wished to get away from controversial topics. She waited, plainly puzzled, rather than discouraged, because she received no response. “You know,” she elaborated, “the audiences in the little towns don’t care much whether it’s something legitimate, or a tambourine show with a lot of musty jokes.”

Still Baron’s inclination was to make no response; but really there was such an amazing contrast between her innocent beauty and her gamin-like speech that he could not easily ignore her.

“I’m not sure I know the difference myself,” he confessed.

“Well, you’d rather see ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ than a lot of Honey Boys, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m afraid I’d be in favor of the Honey Boys, whoever they are, unless they are pretty bad.”

She looked incredulous, and then disappointed. For an instant she turned her back on him with resolution. He observed that she squirmed herself into a position of dignified uprightness in her chair.

After a brief interval she turned to him with renewed hope. “Maybe you’re prejudiced against ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’?” she ventured.