II
Though they had all been certain that they longed for the
privilege of attending committee meetings and rehearsals, the
dramatic association as definitely formed consisted only of
Kennicott, Carol, Guy Pollock, Vida Sherwin, Ella Stowbody,
the Harry Haydocks, the Dave Dyers, Raymie Wutherspoon,
Dr. Terry Gould, and four new candidates: flirtatious Rita
Simons, Dr. and Mrs. Harvey Dillon and Myrtle Cass, an uncomely
but intense girl of nineteen. Of these fifteen only seven came
to the first meeting. The rest telephoned their unparalleled
regrets and engagements and illnesses, and announced that
they would be present at all other meetings through eternity.
Carol was made president and director.
She had added the Dillons. Despite Kennicott's apprehension
the dentist and his wife had not been taken up by the
Westlakes but had remained as definitely outside really smart
society as Willis Woodford, who was teller, bookkeeper, and
janitor in Stowbody's bank. Carol had noted Mrs. Dillon
dragging past the house during a bridge of the Jolly Seventeen,
looking in with pathetic lips at the splendor of the accepted.
She impulsively invited the Dillons to the dramatic association
meeting, and when Kennicott was brusque to them she was
unusually cordial, and felt virtuous.
That self-approval balanced her disappointment at the smallness
of the meeting, and her embarrassment during Raymie
Wutherspoon's repetitions of "The stage needs uplifting," and
"I believe that there are great lessons in some plays."
Ella Stowbody, who was a professional, having studied
elocution in Milwaukee, disapproved of Carol's enthusiasm for
recent plays. Miss Stowbody expressed the fundamental principle
of the American drama: the only way to be artistic is to
present Shakespeare. As no one listened to her she sat back
and looked like Lady Macbeth.
