Читать книгу The Boy Grew Older - Broun Heywood - Страница 8

Peter was surprised the day they went down to get the license to discover that Maria was twenty-three. He was only twenty-six himself. Maria had seemed a child. Nineteen would have been his guess.

"Maybe," she said, "you will not want me because I am so old."

"You could be a hundred," Peter answered.

They were to be married the next day but when he met her at the theatre in the evening she told him that Dolly Vance was ill and that Mr. Casey wanted her to take over four of the sick girl's numbers. "I have to come to the theatre at ten o'clock and rehearse all the day."

"Then we'll get married at nine. I'm not going to take a chance like that. I've read about it in books. The whole house will be cheering you and then you'll ask for waivers on me. I want to get you signed up."

"Pooh, for me they will not cheer. These are the jazz dances. They are not for me. And Peter, oh, Peter, I must sing."

"Can you sing?"

"Yes, my hermit, I am almost so good a singer as a dancer. And I could play the piano if there was any one smart enough to know. You see I bring you the dowry."

A very bored Alderman said that they were man and wife, but there was some excitement when they came out of the City Hall and two newspaper photographers took their pictures. Peter was proud of the fact that both the camera men made a point of treating him as a person of a good deal of importance. "You see," he said, "I'm somebody in my business."

"The paper you work on what is the name?"

"It's called the Bulletin."

"And what is it they pay you?"

"Well, with my share of the syndicate and all that it amounts to about $100 a week."

"One hundred dollars a week! That is funny. My pay it is $50. I have caught a millionaire. Peter, why do they pay you $100 a week?"

"I don't know, Maria——"

"One hundred dollars a week to write about the baseball game! Fifty dollars a week to Maria Algarez. My God, what a country! I do not like that, Peter. Still, it does not matter so much. Maybe I am glad that you are rich. You can buy me a piano and I will show you that I know how to play Chopin. You would like that."

"That'll be fine," said Peter.

"Where was it that you learned so much about this baseball that they pay you $100 for the week?"

"I used to play myself at Harvard. At least I played one year. I pitched against Yale and shut 'em out. The next year I got fired because I couldn't learn French."

"But that is so easy, the French. I do not know what it is to shut Yale out."

"Of course it's easy for you. You lived there, you told me ever since you were five. Any foreigner ought to be able to speak French."

"But I am not. I am now the American, I know that. I am Mrs. Peter Neale."

"Oh," she said, and made a fearful grimace, "that you must never call me. It must be that I am still Maria Algarez. Mrs. Peter Neale I do not know. Maria Algarez she will not die. Oh no, Peter, you understand that?"

"It's all right with me," said Peter. "I'm just going to call you Maria any way."

"And, Peter, I forgot, you have a father and a mother and the relations for me to meet."

"Not a one. I've got an uncle in Salt Lake City. That's a long way off if you don't know. But how about you?"

"Maybe, who can tell. They are no good. I do not care. Perhaps they are dead. Peter, you are all I have in the world. That is why you must buy me the grand piano."

They went straight from the City Hall to the theatre and Peter left her. He was not to see her again until after the performance. Of course he went to the show and sat in the second row. But Maria did not see him when she came on to do the first of her new numbers. Or at any rate she made no sign of recognition. She kept her eyes intently on the conductor's baton. And then she began to sing. Even Peter had an inkling of the fact that here was a lovely voice. If he had not been married to Maria Algarez at nine o'clock that morning he would still have been caught up in the excitement of the theatre. Almost everybody stopped coughing. They honestly cheered and they kept it up. Nine times Maria sang the chorus and five times more she came out to bow. Her fourth song was the last number in the play with the exception of the parade of all the nations and nobody paid any attention to that. They just kept on applauding and shouting. Peter argued with the stage door man.

"I have to see Maria Algarez," he said. "I have to, I tell you. I'm her husband."

"Write your name down on a piece of paper, and I'll take it up and see what she says."

In three or four minutes he returned. "Miss Algarez says you're to come up. It's number twelve. Two flights up at the head of the stairs."

Peter knocked.

"Come in," said Maria. She had thrown the blue and gold costume in a corner, and slipped on a kimono.

"It was marvelous," said Peter; "nobody's ever heard anything like it in a theatre. They're still cheering and applauding for you."

"For all that applause I do not give a damn," answered Maria and snapped her fingers. "As long as you like. That is all."

Peter kissed her. "Maria, I was afraid I'd lost you." He held her at arm's length and the kimono slipped down over one shoulder. "Cover yourself up," said Peter almost sharply. Maria pulled the wrap back and folded it closely around her. Peter had never seen that smile before.

"A husband," she said. "It is different."