VI
Neither Lethbridge nor Harrow--lately exceedingly importantundergraduates at Harvard and now twin nobodies in the employment of thegreat Occidental Fidelity and Trust Company--neither of these young men,I say, had any particular business at the New Arts Theater thatafternoon.
For the play was Barnard Haw's _Attitudes_, the performance was privateand intensely intellectual, the admission by invitation only, andbetween the acts there was supposed to be a general _causerie_ among thegifted individuals of the audience.
Why Stanley West, president of the Occidental Trust, should havepresented to his two young kinsmen the tickets inscribed with his ownname was a problem, unless everybody else, including the elevator boys,had politely declined the offer.
"That's probably the case," observed Lethbridge. "Do we go?"
"Art," said Harrow, "will be on the loose among that audience. And ifanybody can speak to anybody there, we'll get spoken to just as if wewere sitting for company, and first we know somebody will ask us whatArt really is."
"I'd like to see a place full of atmosphere," suggested Lethbridge."I've seen almost everything--the Cafe Jaune, and Chinatown, and--youremember that joint at Tangier? But I've never seen atmosphere. I don'tcare how thin it is; I just want to say that I've seen it when the nextgirl throws it all over me." And as Harrow remained timid, he added: "Wewon't have to climb across the footlights and steal a curl from theauthor, because he's already being sheared in England. There's nothingto scare you."
Normally, however, they were intensely afraid of Art except at theirbarbers', and they had heard, in various ways as vague as Broad Streetrumors, something concerning these gatherings of the elect at the NewArts Theater on Saturday afternoons, where unselfish reformers producedplays for Art's sake as a rebuke to managers who declined to producethat sort of play for anybody's sake.
"I'll bet," said Harrow, "that some thrifty genius sent Stanley Westthose tickets in a desperate endeavor to amalgamate the aristocracies ofwealth and intellect!--as though you could shake 'em up as you shake acocktail! As though you'd catch your Uncle Stanley wearing his richestBurgundy flush, sitting in the orchestra and talking _Arr Noovo_ to ayoung thing with cheek-bones who'd pinch him into a cocked hat for acontribution between the acts!"
"Still," said Lethbridge, "even Art requires a wad to pay its license.Isn't West the foxy Freddie! Do you suppose, if we go, they'll sting usfor ten?"
"They'll probably take up a collection for the professor," said Harrowgloomily. "Better come to the club and give the tickets to the janitor."
"Oh, that's putting it all over Art! If anybody with earnest eyes triesto speak to us we can call a policeman."
"Well," said Harrow, "on your promise to keep your mouth shut I'll gowith you. If you open it they'll discover you're an appraiser and I'm abroker, and then they'll think we're wealthy, because there'd be noother reason for our being there, and they'll touch us both for a braceof come-ons, and----"
"Perhaps," interrupted the other, "we'll be fortunate enough to sit nextto a peach! And as it's the proper thing there to talk to your neighbor,the prospect--er--needn't jar you."
There was a silence as they walked up-town, which lasted until theyentered their lodgings. And by that time they had concluded to go.