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_Lynch._ Sorry to have disturbed you. Good night!

_All._ (_With relief._) Good night.

[_The flabbergasted reporter withdraws, but Marion still keeps her arm about Mrs. Blakemore. When he re-opens the door, as if he had forgotten something, he finds the picture undisturbed. Mrs.

Blakemore thanks Marion for her generosity, and goes out, followed by the others._ "Good night, my friend," the widow remarks, "you'll get all that is coming to you." _Stanton calls back Marion who has also deserted the room._]

_Stanton._ Marion! Marion!

_Marion._ (_Enters._) Has she gone?

_Stanton._ Who?

_Marion._ Puss?

_Stanton._ Oh, she's not my Puss.

_Marion._ Not your Puss, Howard? Then whose Puss is she?

_Stanton._ God knows--maybe. Marion. I've loved you all the time.

I've been a fool, a weak, dazzled fool. I love you. Won't you forgive me and take me back?

_Marion._ Take you back? Why, I've never even given you up. Do you think I could stand for that cat--Puss, I mean--in this house and me off to Reno?

CURTAIN.

FOOTNOTE:

[92] Copyright, 1909, by the Current Literature Publishing Company.

WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT

Will Levington Comfort, "the new style novelist," was born at Kalamazoo, Michigan, January 17, 1878. He was educated in the grammar and high schools of Detroit, and was at Albion College, Albion, Michigan, for a short time. Mr. Comfort was a newspaper reporter in Detroit for a few months, but, in 1898, he did his first real reporting on papers in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky.

During the Spanish-American War he served in the Fifth United States Cavalry; and in 1899 he was war correspondent in the Philippines and China for the "Detroit Journal Newspaper Syndicate;" and in 1904 he was in Russia and Japan during the war for the "Pittsburgh Dispatch Newspaper Syndicate." Thus he followed the war-god almost around the world; and out of his experiences he wrote his anti-war novel, _Routledge Rides Alone_ (Philadelphia, 1909). This proved to be one of the most popular of recent American novels, now in its ninth edition.

It was followed by _She Buildeth Her House_ (Philadelphia, 1911), his quasi-Kentucky novel. In order to get the local color for this book, Mr. Comfort spent some months at Danville, Kentucky, the _Danube_ of the story, and of his stay in the little town, together with his opinion of the Kentucky actress in the book, Selma Cross, he has written: "I always considered Selma Cross the real thing. I had quite a wonderful time doing her, and she came to be most emphatically in Kentucky. It was a night in Danville when some amateur theatricals were put on, that I got the first idea of a big crude woman with a handicap of beauty-lack, but big enough to win against every law. She had to go on the anvil, hard and long. I was interested to watch her in the sharp odor of decadence to which her life carried her. She wabbles, becomes tainted a bit, but rises to shake it all off. I did the Selma Cross part of _She Buildeth Her House_ in the Clemons House, Danville.... I also did a novelette while I was in Kentucky.

The Lippincotts published it under the caption, _Lady Thoroughbred, Kentuckian_." No critic has written nearer the truth of Selma Cross than the author himself: "She was a bit strong medicine for most people." Mr. Comfort has made many horseback trips through Kentucky, and he has "come to feel authoritative and warmly tender in all that concerns the folk and the land." His latest novel, _Fate Knocks at the Door_ (Philadelphia, 1912), is far and away the strongest story he has written. Mr. Comfort has created a style that the critics are calling "new, big, but crude in spots;" and it certainly does isolate him from any other American novelist of today. Whatever may be said for or against his style, this much is certain: he who runs may read it--some other time! His work is seldom clear at first glances. Mr. Comfort devoted the year 1912 to the writing of a new novel, _The Road of Living Men_, which will be issued by his publishers, the Lippincotts, in March, 1913. He has an attractive home and family at Detroit.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Lippincott's Magazine_ (March, 1908); _Lippincott's Magazine_ (March; April; August, 1912).

AN ACTRESS'S HEART[93]

[From _She Buildeth Her House_ (Philadelphia, 1911)]

Selma Cross was sick for a friend, sick from containing herself. On this night of achievement there was something pitiful in the need of her heart.

"New York has turned rather too many pages of life before my eyes, Selma, for me to feel far above any one whose struggles I have not endured."

The other leaned forward eagerly. "I liked you from the first moment, Paula," she said. "You were so rounded--it seemed to me. I'm all streaky, all one-sided. You're bred. I'm cattle.... Some time I'll tell you how it all began. I said I would be the greatest living tragedienne--hurled this at a lot of cat-minds down in Kentucky fifteen years ago. Of course, I shall. It does not mean so much to me as I thought, and it may be a bauble to you, but I wanted it. Its far-away-ness doesn't torture me as it once did, but one pays a ghastly price. Yes, it's a climb, dear. You must have bone and blood and brain--a sort of brain--and you should have a cheer from below; but I didn't. I wonder if there ever was a fight that can match mine? If so, it would not be a good tale for children or grown-ups with delicate nerves. Little women always hated me. I remember one restaurant cashier on Eighth Avenue told me I was too unsightly to be a waitress. I have done kitchen pot-boilers and scrubbed tenement-stairs. Then, because I repeated parts of plays in those horrid halls--they said I was crazy....

Why, I have felt a perfect lust for suicide--felt my breast ache for a cool knife and my hand rise gladly. Once I played a freak part--that was my greater degradation--debased my soul by making my body look worse than it is. I went down to hell for that--and was forgiven. I have been so homesick, Paula, that I could have eaten the dirt in the road of that little Kentucky town.... Yes, I pressed against the steel until something broke--it was the steel, not me. Oh, I could tell you much!"...

She paused but a moment.

"The thing so dreadful to overcome was that I have a body like a great Dane. It would not have hurt a writer, a painter, even a singer, so much, but we of the drama are so dependent upon the shape of our bodies. Then, my face is like a dog or a horse or a cat--all these I have been likened to. Then I was slow to learn repression. This a part of culture, I guess--breeding. Mine is a lineage of Kentucky poor white trash, who knows, but a speck of 'nigger'? I don't care now, only it gave me a temper of seven devils, if it was so. These are some of the things I have contended with. I would go to a manager and he would laugh me along, trying to get rid of me gracefully, thinking that some of his friends were playing a practical joke on him.

Vhruebert thought that at first. Vhruebert calls me _The Thing_ now. I could have done better had I been a cripple; there are parts for a cripple. And you watch, Paula, next January when I burn up things here, they'll say my success is largely due to my figure and face!"

FOOTNOTE:

[93] Copyright, 1911, by J. B. Lippincott Company.

FRANK WALLER ALLEN

Frank Waller Allen, novelist, was born at Milton, Kentucky, September 30, 1878, the son of a clergyman. He spent his boyhood days at Louisville, and, in the fall of 1896, he entered Kentucky (Transylvania) University, Lexington, Kentucky. While in college he was editor of _The Transylvanian_, the University literary magazine; and he also did newspaper work for _The Louisville Times_, and _The Courier-Journal_.

Mr. Allen quit college to become a reporter on the Kansas City _Journal_, later going with the Kansas City _Times_ as book editor. He resigned this position to return to Kentucky University to study theology. He is now pastor of the First Christian (Disciples) church, at Paris, Missouri. Mr. Allen's first stories were published in _Munsey's_, _The Reader_, and other periodicals, but it is upon his books that he has won a wide reputation in Kentucky and the West. The first title was a sketch, _My Ships Aground_ (Chicago, 1900), and his next work was an exquisite tale of love and Nature, entitled _Back to Arcady_ (Boston, 1905), which has sold far into the thousands and is now in its third edition. A more perfect story has not been written by a Kentuckian of Mr. Allen's years. _The Maker of Joys_ (Kansas City, 1907), was so slight that it attracted little attention, yet it is exceedingly well-done; and in his latest book, _The Golden Road_ (New York, 1910), he just failed to do what one or two other writers have recently done so admirably. His Nature-loving tinker falls a bit short, but some excellent writing may be found in this book. Mr. Allen has recently completed another novel, _The Lovers of Skye_, which will be issued by the Bobbs-Merrill Company in the spring of 1913.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Reader Magazine_ (October, 1905); _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913).

A WOMAN ANSWERED

[From _The Maker of Joys_ (Kansas City, Missouri, 1907)]

At this moment the servant lifted the tapestries and announced: "The lady, sir."

This time, before he could stop her, she took his hand and kissed it.

"There was little use in my coming today," she said, "except to thank you."

"Why, I do not quite understand you. What for?" asked the rector in surprise.

"For answering my question."

"Tell me?" he replied.

"You've known me a long time," she answered, "and being Jimmy Duke, it isn't necessary for me to tell you how I've lived. But you and me--once youth is gone, sir, and people are a long time old. I've thought of this a great deal lately, and I've been trying to decide what's right and what's wrong.... Then I read in the papers about you.

About the things you preach and the like, and I knew you could tell me. I knew you'd know whether good people are faking, and which life is best. You see, I'd never thought of it in all my life before until just a little while ago. Just a month or such a matter."

"And now?" asked the Shepherd of St. Mark's.

"I could have left the old life years ago if I had wanted to," she continued, ignoring his question. "There is a man--well, there's several of them--but this a special one, who, for years, has wanted me to marry him. I always liked him better than anybody I knew, but I just couldn't give up the life. He is a plain man in a little village in Missouri, and I thought I'd die if I went. He offered to move to the city and I was afraid for him. You see I just didn't know what was good and what was bad, yet I didn't want this man to become like other men I knew."

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