第83章 Chapter XXIV The Coming of Stephanie Platow(4)

By degrees the "Garrick Players," as they chose to call themselves, developed no little skill and craftsmanship in presenting one form and another of classic and semi-classic play. "Romeo and Juliet," with few properties of any kind, "The Learned Ladies" of Moliere, Sheridan's "The Rivals," and the "Elektra" of Sophocles were all given. Considerable ability of one kind and another was developed, the group including two actresses of subsequent repute on the American stage, one of whom was Stephanie Platow. There were some ten girls and women among the active members, and almost as many men--a variety of characters much too extended to discuss here.

There was a dramatic critic by the name of Gardner Knowles, a young man, very smug and handsome, who was connected with the Chicago Press. Whipping his neatly trousered legs with his bright little cane, he used to appear at the rooms of the players at the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday teas which they inaugurated, and discuss the merits of the venture. Thus the Garrick Players were gradually introduced into the newspapers. Lane Cross, the smooth-faced, pasty-souled artist who had charge, was a rake at heart, a subtle seducer of women, who, however, escaped detection by a smooth, conventional bearing. He was interested in such girls as Georgia Timberlake, Irma Ottley, a rosy, aggressive maiden who essayed comic roles, and Stephanie Platow. These, with another girl, Ethel Tuckerman, very emotional and romantic, who could dance charmingly and sing, made up a group of friends which became very close.

Presently intimacies sprang up, only in this realm, instead of ending in marriage, they merely resulted in sex liberty. Thus Ethel Tuckerman became the mistress of Lane Cross; an illicit attachment grew up between Irma Ottley and a young society idler by the name of Bliss Bridge; and Gardner Knowles, ardently admiring Stephanie Platow literally seized upon her one afternoon in her own home, when he went ostensibly to interview her, and overpersuaded her. She was only reasonably fond of him, not in love; but, being generous, nebulous, passionate, emotional, inexperienced, voiceless, and vainly curious, without any sense of the meums and teums that govern society in such matters, she allowed this rather brutal thing to happen. She was not a coward--was too nebulous and yet forceful to be such. Her parents never knew. And once so launched, another world--that of sex satisfaction--began to dawn on her.

Were these young people evil? Let the social philosopher answer.

One thing is certain: They did not establish homes and raise children. On the contrary, they led a gay, butterfly existence for nearly two years; then came a gift in the lute. Quarrels developed over parts, respective degrees of ability, and leadership.

Ethel Tuckerman fell out with Lane Cross, because she discovered him making love to Irma Ottley. Irma and Bliss Bridge released each other, the latter transferring his affections to Georgia Timberlake. Stephanie Platow, by far the most individual of them all, developed a strange inconsequence as to her deeds. It was when she was drawing near the age of twenty that the affair with Gardner Knowles began. After a time Lane Cross, with his somewhat earnest attempt at artistic interpretation and his superiority in the matter of years--he was forty, and young Knowles only twenty-four --seemed more interesting to Stephanie, and he was quick to respond.

There followed an idle, passionate union with this man, which seemed important, but was not so at all. And then it was that Stephanie began dimly to perceive that it was on and on that the blessings lie, that somewhere there might be some man much more remarkable than either of these; but this was only a dream. She thought of Cowperwood at times; but he seemed to her to be too wrapped up in grim tremendous things, far apart from this romantic world of amateur dramatics in which she was involved.